To whoever stole the Sd card out of the trail camera just know that you have broken a 4 year old kids heart! Picked up a new lease this year (buddies land) and quickly hung a camera an let it sit for a couple weeks. Took my 4 year old boy that was so excited, we talked about it everyday what we would see on the camera. Make the trek back to where we hung it and lone behold the sd card is gone. The land is all fields an woods no public land in site. Only houses are across the street from the properties. From what I understand one of the guys that owns some land hunts but supposedly is the nicest guy an wont pass property lines. I’m thinking it has to be someone across the street. Any idea on what laws in Ohio to deal with trespassing?
I've had that happen a couple of times. And like you, I think it's a person who lives across the street from the property. I think they did it because the camera got their pic and they didn't want anybody to know they were trespassing. After the second time I bought a security box and there hasn't been any problem since. Blessings..........Pastorjim
Either they saw you go in and come out and figured you put a camera out and want to discourage you (or see what you got pics of) but more likely as PastorJim said they were trespassing and realized they got their picture took and felt they had to take it to avoid getting in trouble. Definitely not an introduction to the real world that you want a 4 yr old to be getting. Especially associated to his early involvement in hunting activities. Time to hang the cameras higher or put a cam watching a cam. Good luck working through it.
Never place blame unless sure. My guess is you forgot to put a card in the cam. Been there, done that.
Security box will assist with preventing theft. Use a couple climbing sticks to place it high enough in the tree that someone would need help to access it. And put out another cheaper camera down low on a different tree, either as a decoy or to monitor better. Walmart sells Tasco for $30, they work perfectly fine and well worth the $30 bucks.
I’ve had them stolen before a few times. I’m thinking guy said whoops better take the SD out bc I'm not supposed to be here. My little boy was so sad about not being able to review the photos. What can you do with trespassers I’d caught in the act? Whether that be stealing equipment and or hunting the property?
I was in a hunt club for a while and knew a couple of guys that would take a card out, look at the pics on their reader, and put it back. They wanted to know if “their buck” was in their zone! People sure can take the fun away from it in my opinion. I hate your 4 year old gets to learn the ugly side of the sport so early.... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
That sucks, my 5 year old looks forward to looking at my game cam pics a lot too. In areas I'm worried about theft I use my Primos stealth cam since the locking cable loops are on the front of the cam and prevent it from being opened while the cable is tight. This of course might encourage them to vandalize the camera if they really don't want a pic of themselves to be seen. They will probably do it again, so I'd try to put in another camera up high that will catch them getting into the other one. If you get pics of someone messing with the other camera and don't know who they are, put the pics on social media...my bet is they will make contact with you in short order once they see pics on social media showing the world that they are a thief.
Could be worse. I had my camera and sd card stolen a week ago off my lease. I understand your frustration, but at least they left the camera for you man. I'm going to be hanging my cameras a little higher now.
There is a thread on another forum called "Trespassing pics" that is over a hundred pages. Several comments on there of different folks saying social media catches more thieves than the local law. In some cases the local law knows who the thieves are, but in most cases they don't. So they post the pics on FB or something like it and say that usually the thieves themselves contact them within a couple weeks to try to give them their cam back so the pics will be taken down. If not the thieves themselves, then someone else recognizes them and you get a name for local law to follow up with. All of them get the pics of the thieves in action with either a bait camera and well hidden up high camera OR one of the new cameras that emails pics as soon as it takes them.