Last Sunday morning as I was getting on my stand, I heard the sound of something bodyslamming my rolling PVC feeder and throwing some serious dirt. I buried some pecans near the feeder and thought a hog might be digging them up. I quickly got out my nightvision monocular but couldn't see anything. The feeder was GONE I found it later about 20 yards from where it was anchored. My brother in law made this feeder and used wire instead of a cable clamp to hold a loop around the anchor. I've fixed the problem but it still took something pretty strong to break it. I couldn't find anything but hog tracks around and some looked pretty big. Another thing I was looking for was bear tracks. Someone in the ajoining hunting club claimed to see one. If that's what it was, I was on the ground less than 40 yards from him. Not a pleasant thought.

Also, can anyone suggest a good (but cheap) night vision scope?

I'd bet it was a hog; as I'm sure you know they can cause a lot of damage, especially when they're looking for food!

I don't have any experience with night vision scopes, but have read good things about these and they're not too expensive.

http://swfa.com/Laser-Genetics...signator-P41090.aspx

Bushnell sells a game/trail camera available at Walmart that takes decent nite-time (infra-red)photos. About $150.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Bush...0944&ci_sku=12442187

FWIW, I've had poor results with Moultrie Cameras.

quote:

Originally posted by Zoboomafoo_dude:
I'd bet it was a hog; as I'm sure you know they can cause a lot of damage, especially when they're looking for food!

I don't have any experience with night vision scopes, but have read good things about these and they're not too expensive.

http://swfa.com/Laser-Genetics...signator-P41090.aspx

I was just looking at one of those. Not bad. You can mount it like a laser sight or mount it on top of your scope. I wasn't planning on putting a scope on my rifle, but getting one of those lights would mean I'm gonna have to do a lot of shooting and testing to see which I like best.

SGraves, thanks for the input on the camera. The camera comes first. I got to see what's making those tracks.

On the camera--spend another $50 and get a Cuddeback Capture model. I have 2 that have been running 3 yrs and 2 yrs without a glitch. Can't speak about battery life, but mine seem to go about 6-8 weeks on a set of 4 d-cells with the picture interval set at 1 minute. That means about 1000+ pictures based on my hogs.

And, on the tie-down for the feeder--big chain, heavy cable. And, even heavy cable can be "untwisted" by the hogs and broken.

I recently got the Cuddeback Capture IR to see what things go 'bump in the night' .The only daylight thing was a woodchuck.Night brought deer, racoons.I was hoping for a bear as I know they and other creatures are around .Night time is a different world !

I love my game cameras, but I can't make a brand recommendation anymore.

Over the years one of the things I look forward to most when going to my lease is viewing the photos on my game cams.

My game cams are starting to wear out as I have pretty much use them year round for 6 or 7 years now.

First game cam I bought was a leaf river. I had nothing but problems with it.

I've two moultrie game cams that are older but what I've really enjoyed is that I can hook up a six volt rechargeable battery and add a solar charger. I set up to take shots 1 minute apart. I can come back a month later and have close to 2,000 pix and still have battery.
That will not be the case with 4 or 6 "C" or "D" cell batteries.
Here are some pix I've captured in the past.
GWB

Call me crazy, but I got on the stand around 2am this morning. 2 hours later this one came along.

I was watching him with my night vision monocular and he was paying a lot of attention to the camera. It's a Bushnell from walmart and for some reason it flashed for the first picture. And yes I have the time set right for the flash and infra-red. This picture was taken one minute later. Guess it had a brain fart or something.

Anyway, had another hog pass by my stand but this hog ran off and scared the other away. Also found out that I'm hunting on the wrong property. The piece of land I'm suppose to be on is about 200 yrds wide and about a mile long. But this tract is located in about 9000 acres of hunting club and edges of property are not marked well. But not to worry, I've got a new spot picked out that's gonna be even better.