Cellular trail cams

thebuckhunter

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Eastern Ontario
Thinking of getting a cel trail cam soon. I'm not new to trail cams but the cel/wifi ones, yes. What experiences have you had with them? Good or bad as well as the brand and model used. I don't care if they're Chineesium or not (Wish/Amazon or Alibaba). Looking for a max budget of $250 for the cam. What plans do you find useful as well.
Thanks in advance,

-J
 
I’ve had spypoint cell cams (link evos and link darks) for the last 5 years or so....I would not recommend them. When my current Spypoint cams die I will be looking elsewhere. But if your max budget is $250 you will most likely be looking at spypoint and knowing that I hope you are located very close to where you plan to place the cameras. And I would suggest buying them a few months before whatever season you hope to use them for - often takes a while to get the kinks worked out and you don’t want to be doing that the week before the season opens.
 
I’m using a ridgetec once I got more familiar with the settings and how it operates it’s been great has lots settings and adjustments. No issues yet.
 
I have a cheaper Moultrie. The first 4 days it took literally thousands of pics. Never missed a thing, but drained a set of batteries in a week. Changed the batteries and after that it started missing a lot. I would watch deer feeding right in front of it for an hour and it wouldn't take a single pic of them. Then the next deer that walked by or fed there it would take a pic of. Fooled with the settings and such with no improvement. I meant to contact them about it but never did. That being said, it did capture the buck I was after and it was a very useful tool despite the shortcomings. I'll be running it again next year for sure.

Just be aware that they can be depressing lol. Like when you're at work and the buck you've been after for 3 years is standing right in front of it.
 
My wife bought me a Spypoint LINK-MICRO-S-LTE last Christmas. I have it set out on one of our wolf sites and it functioned flawlessly from January - May in severe cold conditions. The solar panel seems to keep it charged enough even in -30+C temperatures. It didnt have good reviews on Cabelas. Then it stopped. Completely. Came home from camp, updatesd software and still wouldnt work.

Called customer service and shipped me a new one. Had a few hiccups with their customer service trying to get the second one set up, largely due to the first person I was dealing with. When I called back an hour later and got someone else, it was set up in 5 minutes. It has been working since August with no issues. The pictures you get to the cell phone or computer are not the greatest quality, but when you download them off the camera they are much better images.

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They do get addictive, they go on sale regularly at Cabelas for $179. She also bought me an extendable antennae but I have not had to use it. Ordered one of their units that you can use with other cameras as they were on Boxing week sale for $39 - again not great reviews but I will give it a try. I ended up buying the unlimited package for photos as if you get a windy day, you can chew through your photo allotment very quickly.

Had one on end of a long driveway. Stolen last week

That sucks - I bought the camera case to go with mine but havent used it yet. If I am using them for security purposes. I usually set them at least 15 feet up n a tree angled downward to where I want the camera to cover. Have lost one over the years - pissed me off greatly.
 
I like em if used as intended. Spypoint link and the spy point micro. Spypoint is the only company that offers you 100pics/month for free. No subscription. I use mine in places where I would have a 45min drive and half hour walk in to pull SD card. Or in areas sensitive to human intrusion bedding area etc… get them in, in September and let them work. Watch for daylight activity then hunt.
I don’t care to use them for real-time Info to zero in on a specific animals.
 
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