Trail cams on public land: how is that ok?

mtmiller said:
He just has to stick it out 24/7.
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Thats true,

I dont big game hunt much public around me just because it attracts all the crazies. I use cell cams on private i bow hunt mainly convenient factor and monetary. I have a handful of traditional ones that i use as backups. And with the price of gas, it's nice to not have to drive out there to see 2,000 pictures of grass or a branch moving in the wind lol I have never based when or where i would be hunting based on what showed up on camera. If i got the time and a tag, I'll be there.

As technology advances there will always be debates over different equipment if it should be used or not.
 
Beignet said:
I used to call and pester people to come get their crap out of one spot I hunted in NY. There you’re legally supposed to attach a phone number to tree-stands and blinds.

Pretty sure one couple’s tree stand & ground blind combo is still rotting in the woods all these years later.
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1667933380964.png1667933390572.png1667933402549.png1667933413998.png
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Popup that got blown throw the woods...

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game cart someone left out there all season
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The regs vary wildly by location, including cell enabled cams vs reg cameras. Same as whether you can set up affixed treestands, blinds, how long, when, what kind, etc…

Fair chase is always brought up in these discussions, whether regarding cell enabled cams, or drones, or apps that share locations game was cited.
I think this nuance is good, based on local circumstances. I personally don’t use any of that stuff, nor do I use hounds on deer, or bait, or many other things that are considered traditional in some areas. I generally trust local agencies understand things better than I. Though I don’t get some things that really don’t impact fair chase…like why some states outlaw nocks that light up.
 
COEngineer said:
I do not understand the comparisons of trail cameras to other technology like telescopic sights and google maps. You can use those things and they don't affect my time in the woods. If I see a trail cam on every tree I walk past - that affects me and my time in the woods. If I see you in the woods glassing or staring at your cell phone, that's fine, I'll be glad to say hi and move on to another spot. If I see your trail cam on a tree, I have to wonder, Are you coming to check on it soon? Is this 'your spot'? Am I being recorded? I don't want to have those thoughts, I want to hunt.

We can discuss limitations and ethics of all different kinds of technology, it's not an all-or-none topic.
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Yeah but the original argument was "cell cams aren't fair chase" not "cell cams ruin my outdoors experience". It's not an ethical dilemma that you don't enjoy your hunt as much when you see trail cams up.
 
I don't have a problem with cell cameras or other cameras and I think the fair chase argument has been fading in strength since the advent of smokeless powder and telescopic sights.

Pro Tip: if you find a cell camera on public land, then open it, scan the qr code to link your phone to it and have the picture sent to you instead. All youre out is the monthly LTE fee until the rightful owner rescans the qr code in person.
 
It is definitely difficult to justify banning something off of purely a fair chase argument as it's completely subjective as to what is fair chase. Is a traditional bowhunter using a cell cam giving an animal a better chance to survive than gun hunter without a cell cam? However, if an emerging technology is increasing hunter success rate (both overall success and success of harvesting the largest animals in the unit) it is definitely fair to consider whether that technology should be allowed, especially when demand for tags is seemingly at an all time high.

If we all hunted in a vacuum then everyone could choose their own hunting technology but because there are a limited amount of animals to be killed, especially on public land, there needs to limitations on technology unless we want the number of tags given out to be equal to number of animals biologists want killed. With the way point creep is going, I'm amazed more hunters are not willing to give up certain technologies in exchange for more hunting opportunity. I'd have to imagine proposals like 3 shell limits for migratory bird hunting would be met with significant resistance from the hunting community if it were being proposed today.
 
DouglasR said:
So Friday night I was drinking some beers with my ex best friend and one of his new friends from his new wife who’s this relatively nice, but traditionally chubby, out of shape, has an apparent knee injury from high school football that keeps him from exercising whitetail hunter.
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The opening scene from a Coen Bros pitcher show filmed on a leftover Fargo set. . .
 
DouglasR said:
If you have 10 cameras and 17 stands on 350 acres doesn’t that mean you pretty much have the whole place under surveillance?
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You would think yet the monster buck has yet to be on a camera and I've seen him twice on foot. I'll catch up my live hunt soon!
 
MTGomer said:
That said, I am a little jaded about trail cameras because when it was debated in Arizona it was a bunch of obese, loudmouth, side-by-side road hunting boomers sitting in front of their AC calling people that get up at 2:30 in the morning, to put 6 or 7 miles on the boots to get back to the truck before 8 AM while the temperatures were only 106, lazy.
Those guys aren’t not getting deer because others are running trail cameras, they’re not getting deer because deer don’t like Polaris Rangers and bud light.
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What kind of beer do you drink with the wings up at the casino?
Hot wings and an ice cold domestic go hand and hand for me.
 
Very few places I have hunted have cell reception so I’m not so sure what value they would be on a lot of public land. I imagine most are used by people who have land close to home, otherwise an “alert” about an animal isnt going to really an alert. More like it saves one the need to go in and get the SD card to see what it picked up. I guess that helps in one regard, you won’t leave your scent so much. I guess if I still had family farmland to hunt I could see their value.

I had annSD card one years ago we used in the backyard to capture a bear that was visiting my SIL’s home, the sensors don’t cover that big of an area. Her backyard was maybe 1/2 an acre and the bear or anything for that matter would really have to come within maybe 10-20 ft in front of it to trigger it. Never got shots of anything though they had all kinds if visitors, just in other parts of the yard. Probably shoulda pointed it at her neighbors trashcan.
 
DouglasR said:
So Friday night I was drinking some beers with my ex best friend and one of his new friends from his new wife who’s this relatively nice, but traditionally chubby, out of shape, has an apparent knee injury from high school football that keeps him from exercising whitetail hunter.
Definitely better and more dedicated to hunting than me.

Anyways, we start talking about hunting and he pulls out his phone
“Dude look at what woke me up last night”
He proceeds to show me pics of a toad slammer of a double drop tine public buck he’s been getting instant cellular photos of sent to his cellphone via cellular trail camera.

And it’s just like... wtf?
Like why can you just leave those out there.
How is that fair chase?
You can collect unlimited data without ever being afield.
And if I want to smoke a j and get an hj out there, I don’t want Dylan having instant photos of that without even being there.
Or me taking a dump.
If you see it live through a spotting scope that’s one thing.

But with 3 cellular cameras it’s like you’re doing all day sits in 3 different spots everyday.
How is that not cheating?

Just wondering if anyone else has similar or opposing viewpoints on the matter?
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Douglas we need to talk, guys don't have ex-best friends, thats gay. We're either friends or we ain't. 😅
 
wllm said:
View attachment 249035View attachment 249036
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...

I've taken to cutting them down and, where I can, dragging them out to the parking lot for someone to pick up - probably just goes right back out there. These stands are illegal after February on public, and yet they sit there for years, many of them strangling some beautiful white oaks among others.
Cell cams are far down my list of technology issues in hunting that need to be done away with. Can we start with bows that have pullies and triggers and optics (and I don't mean in the gun season)...
 
Jwill said:
This summer I put up a cellular trail cam on some public lands near my house. Less than 24hrs later a bear chewed the antenna off of it, had to just tip my hat to him...
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That’s VA for you haha. We use cheap disconnect boxes from lowes.
 
Another discussion on ethics, IBTL, wait, I am changing batteries in my Kestrel 4500 to see if that is the problem in completing BT connection to my phone Ballistics App to make that ELR shot.

The technology ethics duscussion is like old Miller Lite commercials: Tastes Great, no Less Filling!

I happen to agree leaving stands on public land is no different since you are "claiming" this is "my spot" you can't hunt here. A steel treestand is technology that allows someone to leave it on tree. Irrelevant its killing tree.

I find shooting lanes on public land that were cut with chainsaw.

ATV's, SXS paths on public land where motorized is prohibited.

Want to have fun with cell cams? Find really good deadhead, flash head just into camera so only rack is in view.

Ethics, slippery slope that everyone has their OWN hot button. No win discussion for anybody.
 
np307 said:
Yeah but the original argument was "cell cams aren't fair chase" not "cell cams ruin my outdoors experience". It's not an ethical dilemma that you don't enjoy your hunt as much when you see trail cams up.
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From the OP:
"And if I want to smoke a j and get an hj out there, I don’t want Dylan having instant photos of that without even being there.
Or me taking a dump."

This part of his argument was a little tongue-in-cheek, but is definitely part of the ethical dilemma. I'm not ok with cameras watching me everywhere I go. When I'm in Walmart, I accept that as part of civilization, but why should I have to deal with it 5 miles into a wilderness area (yes, I have had that happen).
 
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