Trail cams being outlawed, thoughts?

[35WhelenAI]

Lol... about the "used toilet paper in the camera lens trick" ... maybe there is enough momentum to start a trail cam poop paper movement. As the saying goes, if there aren't pictures, it didn't happen. Let's see who wants to post pictures of s*it paper getting stuck in their camera lens.

 

[Trap]

I didn’t read all the posts but some responses I definitely agree with. I don’t care if they outlaw cameras or not but if they do it should only be on public. There is a lot of in season use for trail camd on private outside of hunting like monitoring trespassing. I use trail cameras and have a few cell cams. I have one bear bait site that has service and I used it spring before last year and it saved tons of time and money. Just the gas money alone of not needing to checki the bait every few days paid for the camera. It felt like cheating and seemed a little too easy. That said if I run the bait with service I will probably use it again this spring. Hypocrite lol. Way less big deer and bull elk survive just because people know they exist. This wasn’t true before cameras as you could just guess the size of the buck or bull by reading sign or actually seeing the animals. Often hunters would shoot first nice animal now they know everything and can hold out for nicest buck etc around. Trail cameras have taken away a lot of the woodsmanship skills we used to need. I remember some early bear baits we softened the dirt, put down flour for tracks and put stuff around the bait to catch a little hair. We had no idea what was coming in or when and would find the color from hair caught and judge size from the tracks. Strings across the trail to guess the time. Now I can literally get an immediate text picture of the bear. I feel like trail cameras give you the biggest advantage on whitetail where you can pattern them. Often times I still just go deer and elk hunting without any trail cameras or trail camera info as I enjoy reading the sign and being hopefully pleasantly surprised. I will still use cameras if they are legal but enjoy just hunting “ blind “ too. Trail cameras do take away the need for a lot of basic hunting and outdoors knowledge like really understanding sign and basic animal behavior. It will be interesting to see where everything goes with all the technology advancements

 

[JiminAZ]

I didn't wade through 12 pages of comment but here's where I stand.

I agree with the notion that here in AZ, water sources concentrate game and create a real game camera problem. Before cams we just went to the source, looked at tracks, and drew sensible conclusions. In the midwest or east it's different. Water isn't so scarce.

With the cell cams/hiring folks to run the cam trapline, there are guide services that have every animal in the unit patterned. I'm not OK with that.

I was hoping for a seasonal ban, instead we ended up with a total ban which seems a step too far to me.

But honestly, I'm OK with having to scout and going old school across the board. Makes it possible for me to compete with the guide services and also lets the really big boys have a chance at staying in the gene pool. To my mind the notion that "hard work pays off" is better than "if you have enough $$ you can pattern the entire danged unit"