Picture Thief

Just a recommendation. If in a club, have a rule to put your name and number on your cameras. That might clear up some confusion.

thumper523 said:

I went down Saturday and checked my cameras. I was missing 4 days worth when I know I should have had pictures. Someone has been bush hogging all the main roads and even did half of my food plot. Could this good Samaritan not want their pic taken? Also, my buddy found more cameras around his area. We think it may be a local member who's hunting hogs at night and trying to get the big one. We got several 300 lb boars around between us. Club President has no idea either.

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A situation such as this could be very easy to catch this person within 1-2 weeks with no problem. As others have stated, just plan your strategy and position multiple cameras that are located much higher up on trees above your already existing cameras that are being tampered with. On my property, I have several cameras that are located much higher for this reason and even if these cameras were down at eye level, they would not be seen by 90 % of anybody else roaming your woods.

During the past 6 1/2 years, I have accumulated several WGI model cameras that failed for one reason or another past the warranty period and I have these "Dummy Cameras" positioned along my property line, especially down along the creek area over the years. Some of these actually have a functioning camera overlooking it as well.

Several of my cameras have a camo type pattern that will blend in perfectly on a pine or oak tree at eye level and others won't even see it from 20-30 feet away if they look directly toward it either. You will be the only person that knows the correct location of your "Spy Cameras". I do know the locations of every one of them and I also have an aerial map that shows the location area of each camera posted on this enlarged map. If something happened to me, my Daughter and Son-in-law could also find all of my cameras that way. I do have so many cameras on my property that if most anything OR anybody trespasses on it, I will have photos of them in the process. One thing that I do on every one of my cameras when I take them out of the box as I install the first set of new batteries and program them is to put a small piece of black electrical tape over the little red-light sensor window that comes on when the cameras picks up motion or heat through the sensing device on each camera. Just make sure that you cover the CORRECT LITTLE WINDOW. This way, even at night, my cameras will not let somebody see this little red light so they can come around behind it and steal it as such. I also test each camera in the dark at home before I install it in the woods to see at what range the sensor will pick you up and the split-second reddish glow that activates the camera and will only last about one tenth of a second. Trust me, if you are not trying your best to look right at this camera and waiting for this glow, you WILL NOT SEE IT !!!!! I also have some cameras that are a totally Blackout design and you will never see any kind of lash either.....just a great photo of whatever the culprit might be.

If I lived much closer to the OP in this case, I would be glad to loan you 3 cameras and help set them up properly and you would have some results fairly soon that way. I loaned 3 cameras back about 4-5 months ago to a friend to use as surveillance of his business after his Father died and people were trying to steal things. I set up these cameras because some of his stealing relatives had tried to steal equipment within a few days after his Father died. My friend actually owned the property all by himself and had all of the documents to prove it. I made sure that during a meeting with the ex-wife's lawyer, all of these money hungry relatives got a chance to look at a large folder of the trailcam photos that were taken of wildlife etc during the past couple of years too and I made sure to show them lots of great photos were taken at night too. It has worked great so far, because you can't pay one of those relatives to visit that business location. I figured that I would loan them to him for 6 months and then go back over and we would remove them.

I will also say this too. If I caught another person messing with my cameras, it would NOT be a good day for them. Simple fact is this. I don't mess with your belongings and you better not mess with mine. My Father was a very religious man BUT he didn't put up with anything such as what you have described. He always had a saying about it and he meant every word of it too. He said if anybody tried to "HOO-DOO" him in any way, he would be like the original guy on candid camera, Mr. Allen Funt, back many years ago that said........"Some Day, Some Way, Some Where, Some Time.....When You Least Expect It," I will get your sorry behind one way or another for doing me that way!!!!!

There is no doubt in my mind that my Father is sitting up in heaven today probably laughing as I type this too. I know that several times while I was growing up, he had some "come to Jesus meetings" with certain people. I also know that he never had any future problems with any of these people either.

All any of you have to do is read my signature line on every post that I have ever made here and you will see that I am 100 percent just like my Father. If you do me wrong, then you better be looking over both shoulders in the future because your day is coming one way or another.

rosewood said:

I am not familiar with that software, but the software I used was free for recovering pictures, but you had to pay for the feature to recover video or any other file types. So, yes it is possible with the correct software.

If you did a full format, I think you have lost them, if you did a quick format, I think you can still recover.

Rosewood

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Thanks Rosewood, I fear the worst, I was really hoping to see the tree that fell during a storm directly infont of my cam but there has already been pics over ther videos... oh well.