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Written by: The DIY Hunter

Category: Outdoor

Published: 15 September 2014

Hits: 3930

A week before the opener and I was hiking back in to scout and check my trail cameras. On this trip in I was taking my new Vortex Razor HD 11-33x50 spotting scope out for the first time. It's a really good piece of glass that is nice and compact for my pack hunting and scouting trips.

I didn't see too many deer on this scouting trip.

After checking the cameras I found quite a few really young bucks but nothing even close to tempting me. I also noticed that the number of deer on camera greatly decreased a little into September. This is a little concerning.

I decided to move one of my cameras to another location a mile further in and near what appeared to be an elk wallow. We'll see what it gets next time in.

I bumped a nice two-point in one of the canyons I hiked through. He paused just long enough for me to snap a photo.

I'm thinking I probably will be hunting further in just because I don't have any good bucks on camera in the canyon I was hoping the cameras would find a good buck in.

We'll see what's on the cameras the next time in when I'm back to hunt with my new Thompson Center Encore Pro Hunter.

Here's some of the trail camera footage of the small bucks I found in the high country.

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Written by: The DIY Hunter

Category: Outdoor

Published: 29 June 2014

Hits: 3769

Shortly after checking and moving my trail cameras around in May the transmission fell out in my right knee. This knee has a long track record of issues dating back over twenty years to that fateful day I jumped that XR500 and the bike came down on top of me. My knee was now in a vicious cycle of locking up and swelling. It would lock up in a bent state going down stairs preventing me from straightening my leg.

I went to Dr. Harrison and got a cortisone shot which helped but my knee still wouldn't stop locking up. It was time for another surgery. So in the end of May I had my seventh knee surgery to date. Most of what Dr. Harrison did in this surgery was grind out large bone spurs of arthritis that had grown throughout my knee. One spur was in the center area and was pinching up against the ACL. I suspect this was the spur that kept locking up the motion of my knee.

My knee is so much smoother since the surgery. Thank you for keeping me out on the mountain Dr. Harrison!

I wanted to give my knee a little time to heal before I went back up the mountain to check my cameras. So the cameras hadn't been checked in a good five weeks.

This time out I went with my dad. It was nice to spend time with him on the mountain and show him my favorite locations to find elk and where the bears have been etc. It brought back fond memories of my youth spending time with him camping, hunting, hiking, exploring, and looking for birds in the mountains.

At each camera location we would skim through the videos captured from the trail camera on my phone. At one camera we realized that we had bumped a young bull out when we were in the bottom of one canyon it snuck out the top going on the trail right past one of my cameras. You can see this elk (last elk on video) on the Velvet Antlered Elk video on this page. At another camera the last critter to go past the camera before us was a black bear. Dad made the comment that I needed to walk first incase we ran into the bear. Thanks dad. We didn't run into any bears but we did find where bears had been raiding ant beds.

At the location where I found the bears the most the previous year, we found that they had returned. One camera had been busted from the tree, a power chord to a external battery pack had been chewed through, and another camera had been turned upside down. Dang bears!

The camera that had been turned upside down had the external battery pack plugged into it. Using this external power source exposed the camera to allow moisture to get into the camera. This is fine if the camera is right side up but with the camera upside down the camera ended up getting completely full of water. Even the SD card was completely covered in water. I figured the SD card and camera were finished... however, after I brought them home, cleaned them up and dried them out the SD card worked and had the videos still intact. And to my complete surprise the Recon Force XR (BTC-2XR) camera still works. Yeah! I suspect Browning will add a seal to the power chord in the future to prevent water from entering the camera in this manner.

This year I placed a new Browning Strike Force trail camera in the same location that I had a Spec Ops trail camera the year before. The Spec Ops is a Black Flash camera while the Strike Force is a standard IR camera. I quickly noticed a huge difference in the quality of my night videos with the Strike Force. The spring that this camera is watching is around 15 to 25 yards away. The Strike Force easily illuminates the area and with the Spec Ops it was pushing it to see the critters very well at times.

From how I understand it, this is a issue with the imaging sensors being able to see the standard IR light spectrum better than the Black Flash light spectrum. There are benefits to both systems. In the areas I use trail cameras I prefer the standard IR flash and right now my favorite trail camera is this really small Strike Force (BTC-5) trail camera. I like that some animals notice the faint red dots on the camera and look at the camera. I don't find that the critters are afraid or avoid the cameras. The only negative could be that they come up and rub on or pull on the camera damaging it however, I haven't had any cameras get damaged from critters at night. Bears during the day, yes. Watch the video to see a comparison of black flash vs standard IR flash at night from the same location.

After reviewing the footage of the bears I believe the camera attacks were the work of two bears. I believe the same two bears that Dallen and I watched during his elk hunt last fall.