I know there is a trail camera section - but this gets more traffic. We just bought a new place. We currently use cell cams (Spypoint and Browning Strike Force) but the plans add up fast. We were looking at the Cuddeback due to the ability to have multiple cameras under one plan and over all it's cheaper. I've been researching though and all the lists I am seeing doesn't even have Cuddeback in the top 5. Anyone have any opinions on the cameras? Is there a cheaper deal to run multiple cameras through someone else? We usually run 4-6. Thanks
In for this ^^^ ......never used a 'cell' cam yet .. been thinking about getting just one, two at most, dont want to drop a lot of cash either just to try 'em out, same for a 'plan'... Ive been running cams for a while (they were huge, ran on D batteries and used 35mm film back then) .. I have two reg. cams out now, one Browning and one of the baby Moultrie Micro 42's ... it will be on state lands so concealment and a cable is a must, small in stature and it will be set about 12 ft up and use Verizon ...no vids, just pics .... waaaay to many choices ....
You can buy the insider package through SPYPOINT and save money. My luck with them has been hit or miss and I have switched over to all tactacams, as far as saving money there isn’t much of an option with them but their quality and reliability is second to none. I only run cell cams 3 months outa the year so I just bite the bullet on the 10 I use.
I run 2 spypoints with unlimited pictures from summer through season in areas of the timber we don't want to mess with, we then run a bunch of normal non cell cameras at easier access points of the property. I haven't had any issues with spypoints for the last 3 years. The camera isn't maybe as nice of quality but they were like $75 each when I bought them. The cameras you were talking about, you have to buy a $150 thing to group them all together, so you're spending $150 per camera plus $150 for the central thing. If you bought a $100 spypoint or other brand you'd have 5 months of unlimited pictures in price difference plus another 15 months of unlimited pictures for not buying the central unit.
I own a couple of spypoints but I never understood what that insider club was all about. Could you explain it to an old man?!? Sent from my SM-N975U1 using Tapatalk
It’s 99$ a year and you get 250 free photos on every camera instead of the 100 pics. You also get 20% off transmission plans.
I have 3 spypoints and 4 tactcams all seem to work good tactcams have a better resolution. Using the in Kansas all with solar panels. Helps us pattern the deer from Louisiana.
I've been very, very pleased with my Tactacams. Only run them on the cell plan 3 or so months out of the year so it helps with cost.
Nope one 99$ for the year for unlimited cams at the 250 free pics, I haven’t done it but that’s my understanding.
The outa state scouting is clutch with the cells I do that with Ohio and used to in KS until they made them not legal to use.
In general I’m trying to go away from relying on the cell cameras too much. They just don’t tell the whole picture unless you run a ton of them and I find myself choosing to hunt or not hunt based off of them instead of reading sign and actually scouting. That’s just me. So that in mind I have gone a little bit cheaper and used the Tactacams. Overall I’ve been happy. If I get just 1 bar on my phone they will still send pictures. They don’t send all of the pics so I always like to bring an SD card with me when I hunt near one. Put lithium’s in them and unless you have it on a corn pile or mineral, they will last a really long time. I like to take a single stick and hang them up high and point them down. I’ve had way too many pics of a buck looking right at the camera and then never again. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Easy to fall into the trail cam trap. I just hunt as much as I can when the time and weather is right and use the cams to monitor places I don’t want to go into again like near bedding, deep timber or distant locations. It’s easy to hunt or not hunt based off intel but I think as much as cams can be an asset it can be a deterrent. Some of my best places to hunt I don’t run cams and just go hunt it’s fun and I typically see a pile of deer. I will admit tho I love getting pics of good deer.
I'll be the odd man out here and say I've been thrilled with both my Stealth Cam cell cameras and, surprisingly, my Wildgame cell cameras. I've run a couple of WGI cameras over the past two seasons, and they've been pretty much bulletproof. I feel like those cameras are really sleepers in the cell camera game. The plans are pretty inexpensive, the battery life on the cameras is good, trigger speed and quality are on par with the rest, and I really don't have any complaints about them. On the Stealth Cam side, the new Deceptor has been rock solid so far this summer. Trigger speed and the distance it's picking up animals is impressive for sure. And I haven't had any issues to speak of with the new Command Pro app. As for cost, you can pre-pay for a full year for $72, which gets you 1,200 photos/month. If you set it to 1 or 2 pictures per triggering with a decent delay in between photos so you don't get 200 pics of the same doe and fawn standing around doing nothing, it's a pretty good deal. Battery life is so-so, but not great. So I started running external lead-acid battery packs on most of my cameras. With the cost of lithium batteries these days it's way cheaper in a couple of months. I set my cameras out in late July and won't touch them until the season ends.
Thanks for the insight all. We usually leave cameras up year round. The SpyPoints in the off months aren't bad because you get 100 free pictures. However, they're so hit or miss and I'm not impressed with the cameras. Have they gotten better the last two years? Main reason why we use cell cameras is time. This new property is a working farm - so it'll be harder to get proper time to scout and such. The cameras also will help us determine what kind deer control we need (right now I've had 12 doe in just one picture....ugh), too.
I had to get different antenna for my spypoints, I got amazon special ones on like a 20/30 ft cable, I have those up in the tree the camera is mounted to and I've had no issues in 2 years. The very first spypoint I had, I had issues with needing to pull it all the time for firmware updates but since then I've been pretty happy. I have the cheapest version and the camera is, well the cheapest version
I like Tactacam. Put a solar panel on them and never have to worry about batteries and they take pretty good pics.
