no news is good news...
went to the barn and rustled up a couple of covert wireless cameras, one reg'lar ol' camera with led's and a plotwatcher.
put the plotwatcher on an area that we are going to plant. it will be our largest food plot. just want to see if anything is crossing/passing through. looking for animals here
.
went to the "problem area" and walked the bushhogged trail for a few yards - was looking for the perfect tree to place a covert camera. couldn't get a "feel" for the right place
so i crossed the food plot and found another area with a suitable tree. got it setup (takes me awhile to do this with the external antenna) and camoflaged everything in.
was uneasy about this area (hunting area in general, not just the foodplot) and didn't want the covert to go missing without backup evidence, so i decided to setup the regular camera to watch the covert
. pete had placed a barrier to the aforementioned trail and at the last minute i decided to focus the camera on the trail instead of the covert camera. also placed this camera in video mode instead of still picture mode.
setup the remaining covert camera in an area not too far from our gate. just wanted to see if anyone might be slipping in on us from the road.
the results...
covert in "problem area" was set to alert both of us. due to work/sleep requirements, pete had to place his notifications on do not disturb the first day. i let mine go for a couple of days and then i did the same. seems the wind kicked up just enough to blow a very small cluster of leaves into the camera's motion detection zone. never got a picture of any human trespassing
but did get some pictures of coyotes running together, coyotes running single, a nice buck sauntering through and a few does moseying around. the sd card reached capacity (i did not have it set to re-write) and stopped sending pictures this past weekend. pete and i went up a couple of days ago to retrieve the old card and install new batteries. it had 3200+ pictures on it.
the regular led camera had mostly wind videos but also had a couple of nice videos of some hunting dogs running through. no collars on them so who knows who the owner is. also had a video of a doe that did not like the barrier blocking the trail. we surmised by her actions in the video that she was a frequent user of the trail. maybe the good neighbor keeps her fed at his place too
.
i had tenny shooz on and since pete had disced the foodplots, i felt it better to let the plotwatcher stay for another week (don't like dirt in my shooz and this pertiklar plot has fluffy git-in-everything dirt
).
covert nearest the gate sent some pictures caused by the wind too. i took care of that problem with some pruning shears. got a couple pictures of what we thought was a hawk getting his grub on. also got some doe pictures. so far, no bucks or coyotes or roaming hounds have crossed this area - at least not in camera view
.
i know that where there's a will, there's a way. we didn't see any footprints - there were some before but pete said they were made just after the last rain (he's an indian tracker don't ya know
?). if someone does keep trespassing, it's just a matter of time before i catch him/her
.
have a couple or three more cameras to place and we'll see how things pan out. i hope that the good neighbor was awakened when pete took the big tractor up there to disc this past weekend. maybe if he sees us working up there on a reg'lar basis, he'll stay clear. not sure what the elderly fellow's schedule was (the man that had the lease prior) - for all we know, he may not have hunted back there and the good neighbor was picking up the slack.
anything exciting/new happens, i'll keep you posted
.
