Setting up trail cameras sounds simple enough, but after 48 years of hunting and over a decade running cellular cameras, I've learned there's a lot more to it than strapping a camera to the nearest tree and hoping for the best. The gear has gotten better, the deer have gotten smarter, and the way I approach a property has evolved a lot over the years. Here's how I do it today.
Prepping Before You Go
Before I go out to hang trail cameras, I always think about the property using aerial or topography apps. I might drop pins using OnX Hunt, and if I hunted the property the year before, I try to make notes about what I saw, where I should have been, and what I would do differently during the previous hunting season.
When I Decide to Go
I always like to go afield in September if I'm adding to my arsenal of trail camera sets. If I'm not putting a trail camera and solar panel on a feed pen to watch a deer feeder, I typically try to find a spot with a lot of good sign in the area. I might look for old rubs along a trail, game trails, bedding areas, food sources, natural funnels, and man-made funnels.
If I do decide to put it in a feed pen, it's much easier because you're obviously just capturing whatever's coming in and out of the feeder. The feeder is the draw.
That being said, I highly recommend always mounting your camera facing south to north to minimize sun glare, shadows, and heat waves rising from the ground — all of which can set off your camera and give you false triggers and wasted photos. If you're using a solar panel, make sure it's facing south or southwest and angled upward. I also always make sure my cable plugs are on the bottom so water can't run inside the connection.
Trail Camera Mounts Play an Important Role
Trail camera mounts play an important role in gathering intel from your property. Private property offers all the options. Leases do as well if you get it approved with the landowner. Public land is a different story — some states don't allow cameras at all, and some don't allow screws in trees, so you may be limited in those cases.
All trail cameras come with a strap. I've hunted for 48 years and straps have been around since the beginning of trail cameras. Straps work fine on the perfect tree or a straight post — for a while — and they're cheap to replace. The pitfalls are that straps eventually rot, animals chew through them, and if you're not on a perfect tree, your camera ends up pointing the wrong way and out of level, causing you to miss shots or get photos that are hard to make out. Straps also have a way of failing when you're two hours from the property — and usually during the rut. Maybe that's just my bad luck.
I do carry straps with me and use them on rare occasions. In fact, I carry four or five different ways to mount cameras and solar panels in my trail camera tool bag. It's always best to have options for those odd or peculiar setups — plus you become everyone's favorite buddy when they need to raid your stash.
I've attached trail cameras and solar panels to farm implements, windmills, stock tanks, feeder legs, feeders, high up in trees, and on tree roots barely out of the ground looking down into ravines. A strap just doesn't cut it in all those cases.
What Tools Do I Carry Into the Field?
My first tool is always a T-Post Mount. It's so easy and convenient to use. I've placed them on 8-foot and even 10-foot posts in areas with no trees, or in cases where the trees would have blocked full sun from hitting my solar panel. They're just handy.
I always drive the post just to the point where the spade barely disappears under the soil. Before I leave the truck, I'll attach my cameras and solar panels to the mounts and zip tie the cables down to the plate. I always have four to six mounts ready to go, so I simply slide it on, tighten the thumbscrew, turn the camera on, and walk away. I can set a camera and solar panel on a new T-post in less than five minutes. And if I judged the area wrong, they're very easy to wiggle out and move.
I'll admit I'm a bit ADD, but I love the round plate that lets me tightly wind that overly long solar panel cable — the one that comes with every solar panel these days — into a coil and drop it right over the T-post for a clean and neat install.
Next in the trail camera bag is the Tri-Claw Mount. It'll clamp to just about anything up to 2 inches in diameter. This is the mount I grab for all those oddball setups where I know things might get a little challenging. It has two arms for either two cameras or a trail camera and solar panel combo. I've used it on trees, windmills, stock tanks, tree roots, and more. It's all aluminum and steel and allows for almost infinite positioning.
Last but certainly not least is the Tree Biter Pro. No plastic — 100% aluminum and stainless steel construction. It has a super sharp, fast-starting stainless screw with a 3mm hex head so you can use your power drill to attach or remove it from trees quickly. It allows for almost infinite positioning, high or low in a tree or wooden post. This is the mount I reach for when I want to stay incognito on a property, whether I'm trying to catch fur, feathers, or people on my trail camera.
Wrapping This Up
Something worth mentioning — I know there are studies currently being done on whether trail cameras put off a signal that wildlife can sense. I'm looking forward to hearing what they find, but in the meantime, my experience tells me that mature bucks, once they spot your camera, will often disappear and start circumventing your camera traps entirely.
That's where mounting high really comes in handy. If you're hunting a mature buck, mounting your camera ten to twelve feet up in a tree can lessen the risk of that big old buck spotting or sensing it in his home territory.
Think about it this way — you can probably navigate the hallway and living room of your house in the dark, maybe even with your eyes closed. Deer are the same way. The property you're hunting is their home base. It's where they sleep, eat, breed, and raise families. Anything out of the ordinary is going to put a big mature buck on high alert. I'm not talking about 140 to 170-inch deer — I'm talking about really big, mature bucks that will go nocturnal on you in a heartbeat if they sense any pressure at all.
T-post mounts are great — they work really well and are particularly great inside feed pens or fenced food plots, although I use them everywhere. A Tri-Claw or tree mount used high up in a tree offers real advantages when hunting pressured deer, which is exactly why I carry three to four different mounts with me every time I go out into the field.
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