By Terry Houin
We truly are in the glory days of technology assistance for our hunting endeavors. Like most of you, I’m busier than ever with work, travel, and nonsense that seems to keep me out of the woods. This is where I’m a fan of tools like trail cameras, especially the cell cams that send pictures and video directly to my phone, offering a welcomed distraction from work.
This year, I switched it up as my old cameras are showing some age, and I upgraded to the Stealth Cam family of trail cameras as they have the new Revolver Pro 360 Degree camera that captures movement within a 100-foot range in any direction. I’m placing my Revolvers in a couple key areas the deer meander through but don’t stick to a reliable trail. I’ll also throw one in the middle of a hidden food plot to inventory the bucks and overall field use.
The Flashback is the next step in my management scheme. This line of cameras has a white xenon flash which produces color pictures at night. I seem to have trouble judging buck size and age with the IR flash, so hopefully this will negate that problem. As of now, the deer haven’t shown any signs of being spooked by the flash either, though that might change later in the season with more pressure.The final model to round out my camera arsenal is the Deceptor Max for high resolution pictures and videos in my traditional trail and scrape setups.
Camera strategy varies between hunters; mine is simple: These cameras are not for targeting a specific buck but are for conducting inventories of what’s around and for generating images that help me take a better-educated guess at the age class of bucks. My hunting spots consist of the typical Midwestern farm ground topography of small woodlots surrounded by large agricultural fields, and a few spots with slightly larger blocks of timber. For the heavily timbered areas, I typically place only one camera on a main trail or fence crossing that historically has the most traffic.
We also have a small property with several small food plots which is where the Revolvers will be put to use. Once I find a mature buck, I may move another camera to help locate his core area before hunting him. As the season progresses, the cameras transition to monitoring devices for rut activity—all while keeping tabs on the big guys.
For those not familiar with the Stealth Cam line, all of the cameras listed feature dual network sims to connect to the strongest cell signal, so even in remote areas, you won’t miss a buck. Detection ranges are 80 to 100 feet, all have a 40MP camera for high-quality imagery, and a stupid fast trigger and reaction time to ensure you don’t miss any deer.
What might be my downfall is the Command Pro App—the software that allows you to monitor and manage your cameras and account. This thing has a ton of features but is incredibly intuitive to operate. I’m absolutely getting sidetracked and forgetting to go to work. Along with the picture and video data management, it includes mapping software, weather data, lunar tracking, remote camera access and control, along with a host of other things that will melt my brain trying to figure out.
Pros: Dual cell networks; hi-res pictures and video; remote use; 360-degree coverage
Cons: Serious FOMO with all the big buck pictures coming to my phone
