Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire How to detect trail cameras?

Hey guys,

I’m thinking a local jack wagon has trail cams on our family property...any way to detect them with say an infrared camera or thermal imaging camera?

Walk out there and take a leak, look up at the camera.

Maybe, maybe not. They're very low power consumption devices and I would not expect much of a heat signature. I'd suggest a few well hidden cams of your own, well concealed and located where you suspect ingress and egress.

If you have a thermal, give it a try. I could be wrong.

thermal first thing in the morning right after sunrise

I have a game tracker it will detect a heat difference of one degree a hundred yards or more and locates game with it that has run after being shot and is in a thicket... I can also find squirrels hiding in trees (live un shot ones) if you have one try it.. you have to practice a lot to be able to understand it...

And just the opposite, if the morning thing produces nothing try the peak heat of the day.
The plastic and battery pack may get much warmer that the surrounding plants and trees with the sun beating down on it.....

If it uses IR, you may be able to detect it with electronics at night. If I remember correctly, you can see it with a night-shot video camera.

Just go to bait piles and look up

If it is really dark and I'm looking at my cameras, I can see the illuminator when it fires.

Correct!

Digital night vision will pic up the flash...

I was watching the game camera take this boars' photo as I was hunting. You can see the bright flash from the game camera as I was recording.

Had my IR illuminator turned down pretty low to save batteries, and the contrast when the game camera takes an IR flash photo is pretty clear. You can also kind of judge distance and direction to the camera by watching the flash.

I can see the IR flash of game cams from a long ways with my night vision (PVS-14). The tree tops light up like lighting in the clouds, pretty easy to find them that way.

Just out of curiosity, if you haven’t found any, what tipped you off or made you even suspect it?

Is there something preventing the use of the technology god granted – legs and eyes?

Kind of what I was thinking.

I found three on our place, just walking around. It’s a ritual in September; go look for ginseng, find a trail cam...

One, I found at a boogered up fence crossing, with hair all stuck in the barbed wire

One at a mudhole, another a big 4-way deer trail intersection near big stand of white oaks.



If the OP’s trespasser has half a sense about animal movement patterns, those cans would be there. Aside from the “doh! Homer Simpson” places like mineral licks, bait piles, water holes, worn down creek crossings.

Is this a serious question?