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No real monster bulls on the cameras. This is one of the better sized bulls that have been caught on the trail cameras.
Any bull is a shooter in my book. I love elk meat and when it comes to archery elk hunting anything I can get I will take. This would be a really nice bull for me.
A little extra bruising after my seventh knee surgery. All the grinding on the bone caused a lot of bleeding this time around.
Here's an illusive Browning Creeper I watched while out checking the trail cameras. Not a common bird to see and difficult to get it to hold still to take it's picture.
Bear attacked Recon Force XR (BTC-2XR) trail camera and a battery pack. Camera upside down and power cable chewed through.
Selfie of Dad and I out checking my trail cameras.
Shortly after checking and moving my trail cameras around in May the transmission fell out in my right knee. This knee has a long track record of issues dating back over twenty years to that fateful day I jumped that XR500 and the bike came down on top of me. My knee was now in a vicious cycle of locking up and swelling. It would lock up in a bent state going down stairs preventing me from straightening my leg.
I went to Dr. Harrison and got a cortisone shot which helped but my knee still wouldn't stop locking up. It was time for another surgery. So in the end of May I had my seventh knee surgery to date. Most of what Dr. Harrison did in this surgery was grind out large bone spurs of arthritis that had grown throughout my knee. One spur was in the center area and was pinching up against the ACL. I suspect this was the spur that kept locking up the motion of my knee.
My knee is so much smoother since the surgery. Thank you for keeping me out on the mountain Dr. Harrison!
I wanted to give my knee a little time to heal before I went back up the mountain to check my cameras. So the cameras hadn't been checked in a good five weeks.
This time out I went with my dad. It was nice to spend time with him on the mountain and show him my favorite locations to find elk and where the bears have been etc. It brought back fond memories of my youth spending time with him camping, hunting, hiking, exploring, and looking for birds in the mountains.
At each camera location we would skim through the videos captured from the trail camera on my phone. At one camera we realized that we had bumped a young bull out when we were in the bottom of one canyon it snuck out the top going on the trail right past one of my cameras. You can see this elk (last elk on video) on the Velvet Antlered Elk video on this page. At another camera the last critter to go past the camera before us was a black bear. Dad made the comment that I needed to walk first incase we ran into the bear. Thanks dad. We didn't run into any bears but we did find where bears had been raiding ant beds.
At the location where I found the bears the most the previous year, we found that they had returned. One camera had been busted from the tree, a power chord to a external battery pack had been chewed through, and another camera had been turned upside down. Dang bears!
The camera that had been turned upside down had the external battery pack plugged into it. Using this external power source exposed the camera to allow moisture to get into the camera. This is fine if the camera is right side up but with the camera upside down the camera ended up getting completely full of water. Even the SD card was completely covered in water. I figured the SD card and camera were finished... however, after I brought them home, cleaned them up and dried them out the SD card worked and had the videos still intact. And to my complete surprise the Recon Force XR (BTC-2XR) camera still works. Yeah! I suspect Browning will add a seal to the power chord in the future to prevent water from entering the camera in this manner.
This year I placed a new Browning Strike Force trail camera in the same location that I had a Spec Ops trail camera the year before. The Spec Ops is a Black Flash camera while the Strike Force is a standard IR camera. I quickly noticed a huge difference in the quality of my night videos with the Strike Force. The spring that this camera is watching is around 15 to 25 yards away. The Strike Force easily illuminates the area and with the Spec Ops it was pushing it to see the critters very well at times.
From how I understand it, this is a issue with the imaging sensors being able to see the standard IR light spectrum better than the Black Flash light spectrum. There are benefits to both systems. In the areas I use trail cameras I prefer the standard IR flash and right now my favorite trail camera is this really small Strike Force (BTC-5) trail camera. I like that some animals notice the faint red dots on the camera and look at the camera. I don't find that the critters are afraid or avoid the cameras. The only negative could be that they come up and rub on or pull on the camera damaging it however, I haven't had any cameras get damaged from critters at night. Bears during the day, yes. Watch the video to see a comparison of black flash vs standard IR flash at night from the same location.
After reviewing the footage of the bears I believe the camera attacks were the work of two bears. I believe the same two bears that Dallen and I watched during his elk hunt last fall.
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Here's a bull elk about ready to start growing his antlers. This was taken with a Recon Force XR (BTC-2XR) trail camera. Click on the image to download the full size original JPG this trail camera captured.
Browning Recon Force XR (BTC-2XR) trail camera.
Here's a cow and a yearling bull starting to grow his first antlers. This was taken with a Recon Force XR (BTC-2XR) trail camera. Click on the image to download the full size original JPG this trail camera captured.
On this clump of small trees I strapped on a Recon Force XR (BTC-2XR) trail camera, a Recon Force (BTC-2) trail camera, and a battery pack. To get the cameras pointed in the right direction I use Browning Tree Mounts.
This location saw a lot of activity last year so I wanted to double up the cameras in hopes of catching more of the action there. One camera just can't cover this spring well enough.
I picked up a couple newer 2014 models of trail cameras this year. I put them out on the mountain back in April when I was out hunting for shed antlers with my boys. For weeks now I have been wondering what might be passing by the cameras. With it being so early in the year I knew that there probably weren't a ton of critters in that high area on the mountain however I was hoping to possibly catch a glimpse of a black bear.
This time up the mountain I brought all my trail cameras that I pulled from the river bottom where I had them out all winter and early spring. I moved all the cameras around this trip out.
I placed cameras in my favorite spots from last year and with the additional new cameras I am experimenting with some other locations to see how active they are and what might pass in those locations.
One thing I am doing a little different this year is I am purchasing 32 Gig SDHC memory cards. I primarily like to set the cameras on video mode and last year there were a few times that in less than two weeks I would have full cards using 16 and 8 gig cards. Not wanting to miss any of the action I am working on getting the largest capacity SD cards.
Well after reviewing the images and video I didn't get anything super exciting but there are a few critters starting to move into the area. There's a few coyotes, lots of mule deer and elk in the area. Antlers are just starting to grow and no sign of bears, fawns and calf elk yet. Next trip out I should start seeing some fawns and calves I would believe.
It was pretty funny to watch a couple doe mule deer detect my scent on the camera from the day before when I put the camera out. You can check out some of that footage below.
Some bull elk pass by my Strike Force trail camera. The one bull stops and turns to look back. It is pretty cool to see the moisture of his breath in the air.
A coyote happens to look over and notice the red cluster of IR lights illuminated on the camera. The light they make is invisible but if you are looking directly at the camera you can see a faint red IR LED light dots. I prefer this spectrum of IR lighting over the Black Flash spectrum as it has greater illumination distance and I like that some animals take notice and are curious and investigate the little red LEDs.
The Black Flash cameras like my Spec Ops (BTC-3) trail camera work great they just don't have the flash distance of my trail cameras with the light red LEDs showing when they flash.
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KB and Dallen looking for shed elk antlers.
Mountain Bluebird watching us from the oak brush.
KB packing some spike elk antlers in his backpack.
The crew of us boys with our five spike elk antlers. Landen was a little down for the photo. He wanted to find a big antler. Me too, me too.
My three boys and I decided to go hunt for shed elk antlers over Easter break. I was off for Good Friday and so I took the boys out to see what we could find.
I knew a very general area of where the elk would be this time of year and we set out to scour the area. The elk would have been shedding their antlers over the past several weeks with the smaller bulls probably just losing their antlers.
The area we were hunting in has lots of thick oak brush. We spent a couple hours weaving around and around looking for antlers. We were finding a great deal of fresh elk tracks so they had to of dropped their antlers somewhere near by.
After a couple hours we found a nice brown elk spike in a meadowy area. After finding this one we really scoured that area very carefully and ended up finding five spike antlers within about 200 yards of each other. Two of the spikes were brown and three were whiteys from years past.
So we have a pretty good idea of where we can find spikes in future years to come but where were the bachelor groups of bulls hanging out when they dropped their antlers? I figured they would be lower because they would have dropped their antlers sooner than the spikes. We spent another couple hours working our way down the mountain hoping to find some nice branched antlers but we couldn't find any.
I had brought a couple of Browning's newest trail cameras with me in my Alps Pathfinder pack. The boys were a little tired so I let them play together building a fort while I hiked up a draw to set out the trail cameras.
I was excited to get a couple of new Recon Force XR, BTC-2XR trail cameras and a Strike Force, BTC-5 trail camera. I have loved the cool videos and images I have been getting with my 2013 models of Browning BTC-1, 2, and 3 trail cameras and I'm excited to try out Browning's new 2014 models this year.
The Strike Force BTC-5 trail camera is really small and is packed with awesome features. I can't wait to see what it captures. It's a little early in the year but I would love to catch some bears or young calf elk and whatever else I can on the cameras.
As luck would have it, as I was out setting out the trail cameras I stumbled onto a small five point elk antler. How funny! I didn't think I was in an area that they would have shed their antlers. The boys weren't amused that somehow I found the "big" antler while I told them to have fun here while I go off to setup trail cameras.
Browning Recon Force XR next to the smaller Strike Force trail camera.
The bottom and back view of a Browning Recon Force XR next to the smaller Strike Force trail camera. I like the heavier duty strap loops on the back of the Strike Force.
This Recon Force XR trail camera looks much the same as the original Recon Force. One noticeable change are the back-lit buttons when in update mode. Most of the changes come in the form of better images, video, IR lighting and sensors.
I hiked up a draw to put out some trail camera while the boys were playing and building a fort. Oops, the boys aren't going to be happy about me finding a five point antler.
I setup a Browning Strike Force trail camera with a Browning Trail Camera Power Pack watching one of my favorite locations from last year. I am curious to see how well the batteries last with this camera and with the power pack setup.
Here's a closer view of the Browning Trail Camera Power Pack.
This shows the Browning Recon Force XR next to the smaller Strike Force trail camera with the doors open.
Here's a sample image taken from the Strike Force trail camera. It was a dull cloudy day and as you can see the snow is still on the ground from winter. Within a couple weeks things should really start to green up.
Here's a link to the original high resolution jpg image the Strike Force trail camera took which is a 10 MegaPixel image with a 2.8 MB file size.
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