Trail Camera Setup Guide | Trail Camera Tips and Tactics

Trail cameras have quickly and undoubtedly become one of the most essential tools available to hunters, period. There is no question to whether or not a hunter should employ trail camera across his/her hunting property. The significance is common sense, but the knowledge of how to set up a trail camera properly is not as well known. Without the knowledge, a hunter cannot fully extract all of the valuable information a trail camera can give, essentially wasting the money, technology, and more importantly time…These trail camera tips and tactics should set you straight.

How to Set Up a Trail Camera

Are you asking “how do I set up a trail camera?” read and watch below for a detailed how to.

Trail Camera Tips For Deer Season | The Buck Advisors

(Video) – As deer season becomes closer and is beginning in many states, you might have started employing trail cameras on your property. If that is the case then chances are you have asked how to set up a trail camera before. Here is a step by step guide on how to set up a trail camera and some other trail camera tips

When setting up a trail camera, you have to consider many factors including trail camera location, if the trail camera will be attached to a tree or stake, the distance to the target area, clear field of view, aiming the camera in the right direction, keeping the trail camera scent free, and ensuring you select the right settings when setting it up. These trail camera tips and set up steps can be hard to remember when you are in the field so take notice now, and even create your own checklist to run through each time you set up cameras.

Step 1: Trail Camera Purpose and Purchasing

Figuring out what information you want to capture with your trail cameras is the first step in this trail camera guide, and the first step when discussing how to set up a trail camera. Are you trying to retrieve intel on the following: a food plot, scouting for turkeys, scouting for deer, over a mineral site, trail camera survey, mock scrape, trail, bait site, deer feeder or another simply for capturing photos of other wildlife? Generally, any and/or all of these should be researched further in depth for specific tactics and trail camera tips, but more vitally what camera to look into that has the requirements and can capture that specific info.

For example trying to capture wildlife or deer utilization on a food plot might require a time-lapse or field scan feature, a trail might require a fast trigger speed, and a mineral site might require a video mode or multiple photo burst mode. Purchasing an overall great trail camera that has all of these features included, is a multifaceted bang-for-your-buck…literally. A trail camera with all of the following allows you to use it every part of the year in all different scenarios.

12 Megapixel
2 – 8 Photo Bursts
1280 x 720 HD With Sound or VGA (32 FPS) with Sound Video
.6 Second Trigger Speed
Invisible Flash with 36 HE LEDs
Simple to Program
Backlit LCD Screen to easily navigate through settings any time of day

PRODUCT SPECS

SIZE: 4.75″ H x 4.25″ W x 2.5″ D; SCREEN: Backlit LCD Screen; FLASH RANGE: 70’+; LEDS: 36; IMAGE QUALITY: 12 Megapixel; TRIGGER DELAY: 10 Options: 2.5 Sec. – 60 Min; TIME-LAPSE PERIOD: 1, 2, 3, or 4 Hours After Sunrise & Before Dusk, All Day or Custom Start/End Time; TIME-LAPSE FREQUENCY: 10 Options: 5 Sec. – 60 Min; IMAGE DATA: Camera ID, Date, Time, Temp, & Moon Phase; VIDEO: 6 Options: 5 Sec. – 2 Min Length; MOUNTING OPTIONS: Adjustable Strap with Buckle; Alternate: 1/4″ – 20; THEFT DETERRENCE: Cable Lock and Padlock Ready; BATTERY TYPE: 6 AA or 12V DC Alternate Power Option; COLOR: Non-Reflective Bark Pattern; MATERIAL: Molded ABS; Waterproof Housing; MEMORY: Requires Secure Digital Card, Up to 32GB; PRODUCT WARRANTY: 1 Year; OPERATING TEMP: -10 Degrees F to 140 Degrees F; DETECTION RANGE: 70′; FIELD OF VIEW: 3 Zone + 50 Degree Detection Angle; BURST INTERVAL: 2 Seconds or 0.6 Seconds; BATTERY LIFE: Up to 10,000 Images

Again, this is the first step, selecting a camera, and outlining exactly what intel you want to gather. After knowing these basics you can dive into actually setting up a trail camera in the field. The next step after determining what you want to use the trail camera for is selecting the trail camera location in order to capture that exact data.

Step 2: Trail Camera Location

Defining what you want to achieve with your game camera will tell you where to put it, it’s really that simple. Trail camera location is step and trail camera tip number two in this trail camera guide, and after the initial cam requirements, is the next most important consideration.

Food Plot Location: Either on a tree or a stake at a key entrance/exit point into or out of the food plot or high above the food plot for a time-lapse view.

Trail Location: At a 45 degree angle from the trail. Perpendicular or straight on from the trail can either not capture the deer or wildlife walking, and directly behind or in front of can result in spooked game or a picture that may have features like antlers covered up.

Bait/Mineral/Water/Feed Location: The best trail camera location for a mineral, bait, water, or feeding site is position roughly 10 yards, close enough to see detail but distant enough to see everything utilizing the site.

Step 3: Trail Camera Installment

Each trail camera location that you end up installing a trail camera on will come with its own characteristics and limitations. A perfect tree will not always be available, rather it seems most of the trees you encounter are entirely too small or too large in diameter. When hanging and installing trail cameras, remember that you are not always limited to a tree or a fence post, and if you are, there are other tools other than a strap that can connect it to a tree.

Muddy has trail camera accessories that make it very easy to put a trail camera literally anywhere that you need. These trail camera accessories include trail camera stakes and trail camera mounts for either ground mounting or mounting on any sized tree or post. Both the Adjustable Trail Camera Support and the Dual Camera Ground Mount are important considerations when you are installing your trail camera.

Step 4: Trail Camera Field of View (FOV)

What is in the field of view for the trail camera? This is nearly as important as the consideration of how far the camera can detect and take pictures. As far as trail camera tips go, this one is often forgotten or goes unnoticed. What is in the FOV can determine a lot about the quality of intel you get. A branch, bush, tree, feeder, or another object in the FOV and frame can either set off the camera multiple times in the wind or block the image entirely. Objects can also interrupt the trail camera being able to detect wildlife, as well as catch the flash during the night.

Step 5: Trail Camera Night Photo Distance

Flash range distance during night events for trail camera should be considered when purchasing and determining the best steps in how to set up a trail camera. Step 5 in this trail camera guide is here for good reason. Often times night flash range and the ability to accurately judge what is in the photos/video during night events is often forgotten and ends in frustration of missed opportunities. A lot of wildlife, including deer, move during night-time hours, this is common knowledge, so be sure to include it when you are setting up your trail cameras.

The trail camera settings for the flash will include the sensitivity settings, high sensitivity should be used for open expansive areas such as food plots, bait, mineral, mock scrapes, watering holes, and feeding sites. Low sensitivity should be used on areas in thick areas and on trails.

Step 6: Trail Camera Direction

The sun can have a profound effect on the information you receive from your trail cameras. This is not discussing night vs. day activity or the events, rather the blinding effect the sun can have on the images themselves. Facing the camera East and West will result in white images or images that are unclear due to the sun. South is acceptable, but when setting up trail cameras always try and aim the camera north.

Step 7: Trail Camera Scent

This is especially true for deer, or just for keeping your trail camera safe from critters! Most people, when it comes to setting out trail cameras don’t think of, or simply do not care enough to worry about scent control and trail cameras. This is a big mistake. Number 7 on this trail camera guide is trail camera scent and it can be critical. Trail cameras set out for deer is one obvious reason to take consideration of the scent you leave behind.

Human scent is a form of human pressure, and too much around a trail camera station could leave that site useless for a duration that is critical for collecting information. On another front, attractive scent can attract unwanted attention and/or damage to your camera. Putting out feed, a bait, or minerals for deer or other wildlife, and not paying attention to the scent and potential attraction that is on your hands before touching the trail camera can leave your camera smelling like food. Raccoons and bears both can be fairly hard on cameras when investigating them due to the scent and attraction of food or bait. This also gives more of a reason for ants to invade your camera.

Step 8: Trail Camera Memory Cards

Trail camera memory cards are a significant consideration when learning how to set up a trail camera. Not having enough memory, and keeping the cameras out for an extended period of time could render the camera useless over time. Another consideration is also formatting the memory card to the trail camera. With today’s trail camera like the Pro Cam 12 or Pro Cam 10 offering higher and higher resolution video and ever increasing high-quality photos, the need for more space is evident.

The size of the memory card you need largely depends on the trail camera settings you choose to set, and/or how often you check the camera. A trail camera set on video mode, with a 10-30 second delay over a bait site, will burn through memory quite fast, while a 3-photo-burst at 5 min intervals on the same site takes much longer to fill the same amount of memory. When deciding on how big a memory card you might need, consider what settings you will have the camera on, how long you plan on not checking and clearing the card, and the potential frequency of events the trail camera might encounter. Overall a good trail camera tip to remember is an 8GB memory card is a safe bet for most trail camera applications. In some situations like the Pro Cam 10 Bundle’s case, a memory card Is thrown in with the purchase of the camera.

Step 9: Trail Camera Batteries

While some of the very first models of trail camera ran off of huge D batteries, most trail cameras now run off of AAs. These have more options, are more readily found, and are quite easy to set up with rechargeable batteries. These might be the best options, especially when running several trail cameras.

Cold weather has quite an effect on technology so always be sure to check your trail cameras battery life during the fall and winter months. Both Muddy Trail Cameras, the Pro-Cam 12 and the Pro-Cam 10 have operating ranges between -10 and 140 degrees.

Step 10: Trail Camera Settings

With everything else optimized the most crucial step is putting the trail camera on the right settings, this is where most hunters mess up. Overall the trail camera settings are largely based upon what intel you wish to receive. However, certain scenarios and situations require specific settings in order to work. Trail camera tips for the settings aspect cannot simply be a broad overstatement, but instead require careful consideration and planning. Generally, use common sense…write down your goals, and think out which settings will give you that.

We recognize the lack of information on trail camera settings based upon each scenario you encounter in the woods. Look out on the GoMuddy blog page for ann article specifically about trail camera settings based upon each situation.

Step 11: Trail Camera Security

The last step and trail camera tip is simple…it’s trail camera security. Lock it up or lose it. Unfortunately, there are trespassers and given an opportunity to steal a camera, some will take it. Running a cable lock through your trail camera can easily deter this from happening.

Other Trail Camera Tips

While going through the trail camera guide and steps on hot to set up a trail camera, we mentioned several different tactics such as setting up trail cameras for turkeys, trail camera surveys, minerals for deer, and scouting velvet whitetails in the summer. The links below will take you to those blogs!

Trail Camera Survey

Minerals For Deer

Turkeys and Trail Cameras

Muddy Trail Cameras | Remote Scouting for Spring Turkey Hunting

Wouldn’t it be ideal to have some way of spying on the secret habits of the turkey you intend to hunt, especially when you’re not there to influence his behavior? If you could find out exactly where a dominant tom goes to feed or rest, how much easier would setting up a blind in the right location be? You’re in luck and you probably already own this valuable piece of technology. Trail cameras are often under-utilized for turkeys for some reason. We associate them with spying out big bucks every fall, but usually the cameras don’t make their way back out into the woods until sometime in the summer. This is a critical mistake.

Let’s face it; you probably can’t spend every day in the woods or on the farm actually looking at wildlife. You certainly can’t do it throughout the night time hours. And would you want to sit absolutely still outside when it’s raining or snowing in the spring? Probably not. But a trail camera can accomplish all these things for you. Without trail cameras, you’re missing out on hundreds and even thousands of valuable observation hours that you can then use to pattern a mature gobbler to hunt. Most spring turkey hunting isn’t very mobile. While you can “run and gun” a little, the best strategy is to usually wait in a ground blind and let the turkeys come to your decoys and seductive calls. Because of that, the position of your ground blind is really important. Let’s look at some of the details that go into spying on the birds with your trail cameras.

Best Locations for Turkey Trail Cameras

Think about where you would ideally want to set your ground blind up. Does it make sense that a turkey would wander in front of it? It should or why would you sit there? But a little ground truthing is always a good idea. To be absolutely sure, mount a trail camera to a tree or post to see what kind of action it gets throughout the day. If you have a large field and could use more “eyes” on it, use a dual camera ground mount, which you can set anywhere you want. While you can do this on private property with little fear, take care on public lands to secure your game camera or it could become a victim to thievery.

Some good location options you should target include field edges, forest openings, spring clover food plots, natural pinch points, well-used trails or logging roads, or along ditches and creeks. These areas should naturally gather some turkey traffic since they’ll use open areas for feeding and strutting, and they’ll use trails for getting from a roost to a feeding area and back again. Ideally, you should have a camera on each field or opening on the property so you can see which one draws the most turkeys, especially gobblers. Once you pull your trail camera memory cards, you can then hand pick the best-looking location to hunt after reviewing the trail camera pictures.

The Art of Good Pictures

Speaking of pictures, anyone can slap a trail cam up in a tree and get some pictures. But without some forethought, they can be poor quality or even unusable to a hunter. Sub-par pictures won’t tell us the kind of details we’re interested in finding out when the sun creates a massive blind spot or you have to weed through 2,000 pictures of waving branches before finding 1 actual turkey picture. What makes a good picture, whether it’s on trail cameras or a regular camera? Ideally it should be clear, crisp, and in full color. Blurry, black and white photos that would puzzle Sherlock Holmes won’t do you any good.

So what can you do to ensure your camera takes the best pictures? The first is to know your camera by studying the manual that came with it. While you can capture pictures on any game trail camera, there are certain settings that can drastically improve the quality if you just know how to do it. For example, you can set a camera to photograph the field at set intervals (e.g., every ten minutes) or you can allow it to take pictures only when there’s movement. You can take burst photos to catch fast-moving animals, or you could try videos for a little more detail. The Pro-Cam 12 by Muddy offers all of these features, with amazing 12-megapixel daytime pictures and 1280 x 720 HD videos with sound. If there’s a gobbler in your area, you’ll be watching and listening to him working his hens in no time.

Muddy Trail Cameras | Pro Cam 10 & Pro Cam 12

(Video) – by VantagePoint Outdoors, In this video we take a quick look at the new trail camera lineup from Muddy for 2016 including the Pro Cam 10 and the Pro Cam 12. For more information on these trail cameras and other products from Muddy, join them online at www.gomuddy.com.

As far as placement, there are a few things you can do to really improve the pictures on your trail cameras. First, position your camera so that it faces in a northerly direction (i.e., NW, N, or NE). That will eliminate the sun from creating glare and decreasing the quality of your pictures. Alternatively, find a naturally shady location (e.g. within a pine stand adjacent to a food plot) so that you can face the camera any direction without fear of the sun. You want your trail camera to blend in, but you don’t want it too covered up. Remove any branches of brushy growth from in front or the side of the camera so that you won’t false trigger it repeatedly when the wind blows.

Piecing the Puzzle Together

Once your trail cams are mounted, it’s time to let them do their work. Waiting is admittedly the hardest part because it’s just so tempting to go check after a few days. You might go nuts waiting if the trail cameras are only 200 yards from the house, but it will be much more bearable if your turkey hunting property is a couple hours away. Regardless of location, try to wait at least one week before you venture back out. It really helps to have several cameras to cover the property during that week so you can conduct a rough population estimate. If you notice groups of turkeys at each site within a few minutes of each other, you know they are different turkeys.

How do you make a good choice on where to hunt a spring gobbler, and more specifically, how do you use the information gathered by your game cameras? First, understand that where there are hens, there should be gobblers. If you have a group of hens consistently in a spring clover plot, you should definitely be seeing gobblers or at least a few jakes. They’ll often use these open areas as strut zones, so target a different area if you’re not seeing them on your trail cameras. You can also use the time of day to indicate what the turkeys are doing. For example, if you notice lots of early morning pictures, that site is probably pretty close to a roost tree. If it’s during the middle of the day and you see feeding activity, you’re probably in a solid feeding area. Use the time stamp on the pictures to see when the birds show up, which will tell you how early you need to be set up and ready to hunt. These key details can help you pick a location and get hunting some long beards.

Most people don’t think to use trail cameras for turkeys, so you’ll have a much better chance at harvesting a mature gobbler than any of your friends. If bagging one for yourself isn’t enough motivation, beating your friend should do it.

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Trail Camera Tips and Tactics For Deer Season