I brought along two home made digital trail cameras this year. What a great source of entertainment and education. The ability to scout areas while I was in another location became a fantastic means to make tough decisions on where to concentrate my hunting each day.

These digital cameras are an ideal tool to verify activity and quality of game in the areas we considered hunting. Some locations we discarded right away due to lack of potential and others we hammered hard because we knew the game was in the area.

Some may think this is an unfair advantage. I expect the usual line of BS from those folks. On the other hand this is a real hunting area with tough conditions and hunters who have come a long way to hunt for good trophies. It's nice to be able to know from the scouting photos that game we want is at least within the area we have chosen to hunt. 10 day hunts have about 20 hunting periods, of which the 10 evenings are the primary peak times. Make a poor choice a couple evenings and you start having a bit of pressure to find game the reamining days. The scouting cameras really help to confirm whatthe quality is and what is active in each area. The time and date stamp is also a nice feature.

This year there was record rainfall. The bush was lush and green even in the middle of winter. Hunting was as difficult as I have ever seen it this year. There were countless waterholes making the game spread over huge tracts of bush. There was fewer animals per area then in a more normal season. With the cameras I was able to make some very well thought out decisions on where to hunt each day.

Here are a few photos, I have 288 saved in the two cameras memory.

impala sparing


some kudu


cape buffalo which have not been seen in this area for th last four years!




A nice bull Rhino



What a lucky photo this was to capture!


A very nice bull


big female warthog


ostrich coming by for a drink


Giraffe coming to drink in the middle of the night

I have way too many photos to post of every kind of African Animal you can imagine, monkeys, badgers, hyena, lynx, porcupine, dozens of different birds etc. The scouting cameras are a wealth of great information. They will certainly have a lot of importance in my future hunting and scouting in my African hunting camps.

Fantastic photos - could you tell us more about the digital cameras you used, modifications etc. In Oz we have to buy trail cams from the US and this makes warranty etc a bit of a problems.

mike

Jim,

Are you back home already? I thought your last day in country was 27th June! Was going to come up to Landelani 23/24 to visit. My landy has been in the shop with a busted gearbox, which is why I could not come before.

Cheers

pete

Awesome Jim! Those pics rock.

Cheers,
Canuck

Nice pics. Were they all at Landelani?

Great photos. How did you make the trail cameras?

What a great thing for a leopard bait.

JJ or whomever has an opinion,
Would you recommend an infrared (no visible flash) for a leopard bait site or would the flash on less expensive models not be a problem?

Less expensive models will take pictures out to 60 feet at night but use a flash.

The most expensive uses infrared but only takes pictures out to 40 feet. I would presume this model would not scare the leopard.

If it is not too much problem , olease post some more of these photos.I need a fix to help me make it through the next two months till I head that way.

Those are great pics! I use game cameras a lot here at home and discussed the concept with my PH in TZ last year as we were wondering about the maturity of a lion that was hitting a bait. No doubt a game camera would be a great way to save time and let you focus attention in a more efficient way. My PH had never used one before, but was open to it if a hunter brought one along. I may take one on my next trip.

JJ,

Great stuff!!! That is why I am taking a cuddiebak to the Selous...

Mike
31 days till the Selous

Stunning! Thanks for posting.