The Worth and Curse of Cellular Trail Cameras
Aug 19th, 2024 by Chris Munchow
Modified Aug 19th, 2024 at 3:28 PM
Grand View Outdoors – By August 19, 2024
Throughout North America, cellular trail cameras have changed how hunters scout and pursue whitetails.
“He’s back,” the text read from my buddy, who was monitoring cellular trail cameras back in Kansas where I recently hunted. I had moved on to Iowa to take advantage of another tag. The image accompanying the text was enticing; the buck was truly a trophy worthy of bowhunting time. I knew Iowa could also produce, but it would have to wait. A short drive would put me back in the universe of a buck suddenly revealing itself in a real-time pattern as the rut unfolded.
Hard to Resist
Without question, cellular trail cameras are captivating because you receive images to your mobile device in real time or near real time depending how you have the download controls set. For those with units set to deliver images instantly, the excitement builds with each notification.
In camps where I hunted with cellular cameras doing the vast amount of monitoring duties, early morning and afternoon review meetings are the norm. Everyone gathers and reviews the images arriving to decide which stands would be the best bet for overall activity or to target a particular buck. For me, I enjoy the morning review the best as everyone grabs a cup of coffee, analyzes images and deduces if a buck stayed in that area, or moved on to its next scheduled event.
Cellular cameras are beneficial because they save you time in retrieving SD cards and then reviewing them onsite, or at home. This task did not seem like a huge hardship, but once you begin reconnoitering sites with the help of a cellular camera, it is doubtful you will ever go back. Eliminating the driving and hiking hassle of card collecting gives you more time to hunt, more time with family, and more time to handle career responsibilities that hamper you in hunting season.
Have you watched the surging and rarely diminishing price of fuel in the past few years? Whether you put that fuel in your full-sized pickup or your side-by-side, receiving images on your smartphone eliminates those retrieval trips. Most of you don’t live on the property you hunt. Some of you might be only 5 minutes away, but others could take 45 minutes or more to reach hunting ground. Fuel prices are real and calculable savings.
Finally, your use of a cellular camera gives the deer a break from you. They need it. Repeated trips to check trail cams in an inconsistent manner can cause deer to change patterns. Some areas may have enough activity whereas deer ignore intrusions, but bet on a mature buck to figure out that those irregular hints of you mean hunting season is underway. Cell cams eliminate most visits, especially if you pair them with solar charging devices.
Not Without Their Issues
Cellular trail cameras sound like the next hunting savior, but they do come with complications. There is that annoying issue of finally finding the perfect big buck hideout only to discover it doesn’t have cellular service. Talk about dropped calls! Deep coulees, canyon bottoms, oak hollers and simply outback areas could leave you reverting to that non-cell trail cam. Fortunately, forward-looking innovators, companies such as Spypoint, Tactacam, Browning and other brands, offer booster antennas. Using a length of cable, you can mount your camera higher in a tree or other structure to give the camera the ability to seek better line-of-sight hookups. Using my treestand safety climbing gear, I have helped mount several of these units to add another bar or two for cell coverage service.
Cellular cameras work overtime, and so do their batteries. If you rely on AA batteries, then you may want to invest in Energizer Bunny stock. Various elements affect how long your batteries will hold out. Setting your image quality for high and using video adds an extra drain, as does the frequency a camera takes and transmits images. Some hunters store the images for a period and then do a scheduled, or requested image dump. How you set your camera for sensitivity also affects how much your camera is at work. Moultrie Mobile has innovated technology to be able to shut down an area of sensitivity, such as a swaying branch, to avoid too many images. Finally, severe heat (over 90 degrees) and frigid temperatures affect how long a unit will stay powered.
Bare minimum settings help preserve battery life, but you want the information so also consider adding lithium batteries, especially for cold weather or even connecting with a solar charging panel for continuous energy when the sun shines. This combination could mean not visiting a cellular unit all deer season.
Cellular trail cam prices have been steadily dropping each year, and most companies offer affordable data plans.
Cost also becomes an issue. Not only do you have the cost of the camera unit, but you also need to partner with a service provider to transmit images back to you. Luckily, camera prices are decreasing and camera companies negotiate cellular rates on your behalf. They honestly land some remarkable deals. Moultrie Mobile offers plans starting at $8.99 per camera per month, and up to $22.99 for four cameras per month, with the option to add more cameras. Regardless, you must pay to play and have your smartphone buzzing with hunting anticipation.
And that brings up a final thought — anxiety. You already know smartphones and screen time create anxiety as everyone attempts to outdo everyone else on social media. Now add the fact you coach yourself to constantly check for new buck images via your cellular trail camera. When a buck doesn’t show or appears when you are in the middle of a work-related team building event, expect anxiety.
Cellular trail cameras continue to change the whitetail hunting world — and the one I mentioned at the beginning of this article worked for me. The buck I left Iowa for finally trotted 18 yards in front of a ground blind where he posed for an album full of cellular images. My Montec flew true and I watched him tumble in a pile below a bushy cedar tree. His next photo was destined for Instagram.