Securing your Game Camera

-By Randy Cooper

The people I know who have trail cameras set out usually don’t say much, but if they are like me, the thought of someone stealing these expensive cameras has crossed their minds. I have two high-end cameras from Moultrie looking at my deer feeder from different angles. One is an infrared camera and one is the flash type. The other day, I pulled the cameras, like I do every week, to see what I had captured.

As I ran through the pictures and video footage, I came across a 30-second video with two boys on it. They had cut through my property to get to a street that ends near my house. As they passed through, one boy saw the feeder, walked up to it and tapped on it a couple of times. He then saw the program box on the side of it and waved his hand in front of it a couple of times as if trying to get the feeder to go off and dispense corn. When it didn’t do anything, he walked off and joined his friend.

Harmless enough right? Wrong!!! First, these kids were trespassing. Second, they were messing with my feeder. And third, if they had seen the two cameras that took their picture, they may have helped themselves. Right now, with everything getting more expensive, I can’t afford to replace a camera that someone decides to steal. The fact that their pictures were taken alone is a testament to the value and usefulness of these cameras as a surveillance tool.

After seeing the footage, I posted signs along the backside of my property close enough together for even the most nearsighted person to see. I hope they get the message.

I have permission to hunt a property that has some huge bucks on it and is very inaccessible. I even have a rough time getting there because the terrain is tough. Through post-season scouting I found three trails that run parallel to each other and about 20 yards apart along a hillside. They are all worn to the ground from so much use. Using a screw-in Moultrie Camera Tree Mount for my trail camera, I mounted the most expensive camera I have on a poplar and left. I went back a week later, swapped out the SD card and came home. I almost had a stroke when I looked at the daytime footage.

First, I saw a black Lab that hit the very trail that I was covering right in front of the camera. He started backtracking deer right on it until he went out of sight. The very next footage on the camera shocked me. Right there, in those deep, hard to reach woods where no one goes but me, deer and turkeys, was a girl about twenty years old. She walked across the trail in front of my camera from left to right WITHIN 5 FEET OF THE CAMERA!!!! I don’t know if she was following someone or looking for the dog I had seen on the other footage. The point is, where I least suspected someone to be, there they were.

I immediately ordered three of the game camera security boxes made by Moultrie. I went back and thankfully my camera was still there. Obviously, the girl didn’t find it. I pulled the camera, put it in the box and secured it with the padlock that comes with it. This box is meant to keep honest people honest. Like most things including bank vaults, if someone wants to get into the box bad enough, they will return with tools and get in it. My hope is that if someone were to find one of my cameras in the security box they won’t have anything with them to remove it and they will leave it alone. I love my Moultrie trail cameras and use them daily. I want to protect them and keep them from being stolen. There are a lot of dirt bags out there that are just plain sorry and mean. They don’t care about anything; much less what belongs to someone else and they will take anything that’s not nailed down. I’ve had enough tree stands and screw-in steps stolen to stock a sporting goods store. I take great care in selecting my stand sights and the places I set up my cameras because of that. I’ll be even more careful now that I know that no place is void of people anymore. If I even think there might be a chance of someone finding one of my cameras, I’ll put it in one of the security boxes.

You will also do well by using pruning shears to cut limbs with foliage on them and CAMOUFLAGE YOUR CAMERA. I use cable ties to attach the branches around the camera where it can’t be readily seen.

If you have trail cameras, do yourself a big favor and get some of the Moultrie security boxes to house them in. It could make the difference between keeping your camera or someone stealing it. I’ll be protecting my assets from now on. You should too.