Trail cam: To cell or not

[Sandy Swede]

Howdy,
Newbie here on Rokslide. Have searched several threads on trail cams and have not gained a good feel for why folks opt for the cell phone version vs the standard SD card only version (other than time/distance). How far from the property were you when you made the decision that it was too darn far to keep going back to view captured photos on the device? Other decision factors beside time/distance?

 

[Tylerr]

heres a good example of why i like the cell camera from just this past week.

i put up a camera at an old log landing at the end of a road blocked by fallen trees, some 3-4ft around. the deer were using the road heavily past the blockage i assume because there had been no traffic for a long time. Saturday my camera was up and by wednesday night i had seen 4 bucks on this one camera. Today at noon i got a forest service truck on the camera. they came in and cleared the road. Now i know that camera needs to be moved this weekend, instead of in a month or however long it would be before i checked an sd card.

its nice to know whats going on in semi real time.

 

[Sandy Swede]

Great point, Tylerr. Thanks.

 

[WIhunter991]

I hunt a small swamp a lot. I switched over to cell cams so that I don’t disturb / stink up the area going in for cards.

 

[boperleb]

I feel it's a distance thing. We live on the property we hunt, 480 acres of Oak in central MN and I went through the same decision making process. We opted for SD card cameras and purchased more cameras with the money we saved. I understand the desire to limit your exposure near the cameras but we also gain valuable insight into the remainder of he property when we visit cameras weekly. We are careful to time our visits to dew free, low wind conditions in the middle of the day to limit scent exposure. If you have a long distance to travel to your hunting land cell camera's may be the perfect fit, as Wlhunter991 stated, hunting swamps and wetlands also lend themselves to cell cameras.
I have close friends who have seem to have become addicted to the cell camera game pictures. You can't have a reasonable conversation with them in the mornings till they review the 200 pics they received the night before!
I did, in a weak moment, purchase a cell camera at TSC when they were on sale this winter, it's still in the box and I'm trying to ignore it's presence....
I completely understand the desire to limit your presence in the woods but that should be tempered with walking the land, observing and learning the property you hunt between seasons.