Eric Davis
Mayhood's Sporting Goods
CHENANGO COUNTY – With the advance of technology in the hunting industry, there are plenty of things to look at and say, ‘Wow, this is nothing like we used to have.’
Compound bows are one such hunting item. The ability to introduce let-off so that the shooter is not holding the entire draw weight when at full draw made it so hunters can hold their bows longer, allowing them to make better shots on game animals.
Compound bows also shoot extremely fast while being very compact, something useful for tree stand hunting.
Another hunting item that commonly is discussed is the trail camera. Before trail cameras, hunters would have to try to sneak out in the field to see what paths game were taking or what deer were using what fields to feed. This consumed a lot of a hunter’s free-time and could result in the hunter spooking animals during the summer.
Once trail cameras were introduced, the world of game scouting was changed greatly. A hunter can go put a camera out and not come back for a week or more to check on it, and the camera takes pictures (or videos) of anything that walks by and triggers the camera’s sensor. The hunter just swaps out the memory card for a ‘clean’ one with no pictures and back home they go.
Once home, put the memory card into their computer or a card viewer and they can keep track of what animals are going through that area, and at what time they are coming through.
This allows the hunter to plan when to hunt certain locations. If the deer come out of their bedding area to head to a food source in the afternoon/evening and are using trail A on your property but are using trail B to return to the bedding area in the morning. This kind of knowledge lets you make the best use of the time you have to go hunting.
As easy as it seems to use a trail camera, there are a few things that you may want to think about when deciding not only what camera to buy but how to get the maximum results out of it.
Trail cameras come in three set-ups based on how they take pictures when it is dark out. They are differentiated by the color of the lightbulbs that are used to illuminate the area when taking pictures.
White light is pretty uncommon now but were the first cameras used. Because they flash just like a regular camera you use at to take family pictures, animals can see this light and be spooked by it.
