Capturing the Moment of Truth on Trail Camera
How to successfully set-up your trail camera to capture the kill shot during your next hunt.
By: Cole Mountain Seitzinger
Trail cameras pictures and videos go around social media year after year showing an outstanding moment where a hunter captures his or her kill by video or picture on their trail camera. These make for some of the best pictures or videos out there today. In some instances these opportunities might happen by pure luck, but if you have been running cameras long enough you know that this can also be done by design. These pictures and videos are a blast to share and look at so why not give it a try. It could be something fun to try for turkey season, or doing some doe management during your next season.
Turkey Season
With spring turkey season just around the corner there is no better time to setup a camera to capture that special moment. If you are setting up decoys it will make this even easier to accomplish. All you need is a Stic-n-Pic camera mount. If you don’t have one already you can get away with placing the camera on the ground but the Stic-n-Pic mounts are super convenient and not that expensive. As you set-up the decoys all you need to do is set-up the camera so the decoys are in the frame. To increase your odds you can use multiple trail cameras and it is best to set-up your camera on straight video mode making the video run time as long as you can. Picture mode will likely only capture before and after pictures, the chances of catching the kill shot are very slim although it has happened. So for those reasons make sure you have the cameras set to video and set on the best quality setting available. Most importantly have some fun with this, set the camera up so that the hunter can be seen in the video as well. Turkeys unlike deer pay very little attention to foreign objects that just appear in the timber or fields. This makes it much easier to setup a camera and get the turkey in close enough for the video and the kill shot. With deer you will have to be more cautious and plan ahead or they will be on edge the second they see a new camera setup.
Deer Season
Let’s jump forward to deer season. This is going to be more difficult for hunters that do not have the luxury of private property and big food sources to hunt over. But it is not impossible. It just requires a little luck and more work to be done. Food sources are the best spots to start, they are going to be the obvious spot for a trail camera to capture a kill while you are hunting over them. You have to be patient enough to allow the deer to step in front of the trail camera before pulling the trigger or letting an arrow fly, which is going to be easier said than done. Before any of that goes down, you are going to want to make sure the deer are comfortable with the camera being there or if you aren’t able to do that make sure the camera is hidden well so it does not spook them before the opportunity presents itself. To simply catch a kill on camera you can set the camera up overlooking the entire field. It could be tough with a lot of deer out in the field you will not know when the camera is actually recording but if the setup is right there is a good chance you could make it happen. If you are hunting in the woods you will have to rely on funnels and scrapes to give you the best shot at successfully capturing the kill. Scrapes are one of the best spots for a camera during hunting season, if you are hunting over a scrape put a camera on it and set it on video because you never know when you get the chance of a lifetime at a buck of a lifetime. The last thing you want to be saying is “I knew I should have put a camera there.” Nothing will be guaranteed so remember it is fun and if you set-it up just right you might be lucky enough to succeed in capturing the moment of truth on camera. When you do succeed be sure to share the pictures or videos with us on social media @ Exodus Outdoor Gear - Facebook.
Want to see more articles like this? Join our insider team to receive more Exodus content.
