Outdoor - The DIY Hunter

Details: Written by The DIY Hunter; Category: Outdoor; Published: 26 May 2017; Hits: 3151

So I've been playing with the new Defender 850 trail cameras lately. I thought I would share some of the things I have found that might help you get the most out of your Browning trail camera.

The option to connect to these cameras via an app on your phone or tablet is pretty geeky cool. I like this function most for going through the setting and using the live preview to point the camera in the perfect direction. Here's how the app connecting process works.

With the power on turned on the camera, you then open the Browning Defender app on your phone. The trail camera is always using low power Bluetooth so when you turn on the Defender App it will either automatically connect via Bluetooth or you will have to select the Bluetooth camera name and then press the connect button.

Once you have this Bluetooth connection established you then can click the "BLU <> WIFI" button to switch the camera into wifi mode. At this point be a little patient as it may take a few seconds for your phone to see the trail camera in your available wifi's to connect to. Once the wifi shows up select to connect to it and then hit the back button on your Android phone (not sure what the iPhone people do). Now you will have a wifi connection to the phone and can use the Live View, Playback and Settings options. Pretty simple.

In the video below you can see how the live preview works. This is nice to point the camera where you want it, walk past it and see how critters would frame up in the view and adjust the camera position as needed.

While this camera has some cool features the battery life (taking video) with the expensive CR123A batteries it uses just doesn't compare to my favorite Recon Force Advantage Browning trail cameras.

Details: Written by The DIY Hunter; Category: Outdoor; Published: 08 August 2016; Hits: 3862

A photo posted by Brady Smith (@diyhntr) on
Jul 20, 2016 at 6:47am PDT

Trail cameras are the best! I love capturing the activity of the critters on the mountain. Especially in full HD video with my Browning Recon Force trail cameras. As you can see in the videos on this page I have captured some pretty fun stuff so far this year.

After seeing the 7x8 bull on my trail cam last year I have been hopeful some other "larger" bulls would be on my cameras this summer. So far I have only been getting two spikes and a variety of two year old bulls. I usually get a couple three year old bulls but none so far this year. Well if I did have a large bull on camera do you think I would be showing anyone until after I knew he was dead? ;)

For years I have been slowing digging out a marshy spring area trying to make it into a small pond for the critters to play in. I regularly pack in a shovel to dig from the safety of the solid ground around the muddy, marshy spring. In July I packed in waders for the first time so that I could really get into the mud and water and dig it out. I spent 3 hours in the nasty mud digging it out. I should have brought gloves as my right hand received a nasty blister. What a workout. I still would like to dig it out some more on one side but it will have to wait for another trip.

I have also been hauling in 50 pound mineral and salt blocks to help encourage the critters to hang around to get their picture taken.

On this page are some of my favorite trail cam action from this summer. At the bottom of this page is a YouTube playlist with most of the video action I have posted.

The elk and moose have really been enjoying the new pond. Seeing the spike I call Thumper (a small spike with a notch in his right ear) splashing around in the pond is so awesome. Excited to see more of this in the future.

To stay up-to-date with my trail cam and blog action follow me on Instagram.

I have gone through many alkaline batteries in trail cams from using them in video mode. To help save on batteries I made some homemade DIY 12V NiMh Rechargeable Trail Camera Battery Pack but found that the bears and elk liked to rip them off the trees and chew the cords in half. This year I have been just using rechargeable batteries inside the trail cameras and they work fairly well. Because they don't start out at 12v with only eight batteries in them I like to replace the batteries every trip up the mountain to maintain enough power to run the cameras. The only downside I have found to using the NiMH rechargeable batteries in the camera is that the night video doesn't have quite as good of distance for critters that are further away from the camera.

With fully charged Ni-MH rechargeable batteries the screen on my Browning trail cams will show around 53-60%.

A video posted by Brady Smith (@diyhntr) on
Aug 9, 2016 at 7:04pm PDT

You had your turn in the splash pond. Go on, get outta here. It's my turn now. #moose #elk #outdoors #outdoorlife #trailcameras #trailcam #trailcamera #browning #browningtrailcameras #browningcams @browningtrailcams @utahdwr #trailcams #utahwildlife #wildlife #getoutdoors #getoutside #huntutah #utahhunting #hunting

A video posted by Brady Smith (@diyhntr) on
Aug 11, 2016 at 4:11pm PDT

Details: Written by The DIY Hunter; Category: Outdoor; Published: 10 December 2015; Hits: 3715

Here are some of the bucks I have seen during the rut this year. I'll make the high res version 1920x1080 so they will work as computer desktop wallpapers.

I haven't been able to get out and find mule deer to take photos of as much as I would like. It's been a busy fall for me. As I write this I am cooped up recovering from three surgeries from the week before. Let me just say that you don't want to find out that you have a gallstone a couple of hours after having a double hernia surgery... not good, not good.

I will continue to add photos to this post as I take them this fall and winter.