Hide Your Game Trail Cams From Deer (and Thieves)

When it comes to trail cameras, most of us take the easy route. We find an obvious spot, hang the camera at a convenient height, and rock on. But that’s the really the best way to go about it, and I’ve seen plenty of indications that deer — especially mature bucks — often get spooked by trail cameras.

You know what I mean. You get one pic of a nice buck and he’s staring right at the camera, then you never see him again.

Well, Jeff Sturgis of Whitetail Habitat Solutions has some suggestions to help out with that, in a video titled, “4 Easy Ways To Hide Trail Cams.”

As usual, Jeff rambles quite a bit before he gets to the point, so skip to the 2-minute mark if you’re not interested in a brief history of game camera technology. That’s when he finally gets started on the topic at hand by addressing the height of the camera.

Hang ’em High

Jeff hangs his cameras 6 to 7 feet off the ground. Even if you’re NOT using blackout cameras with “invisible” IR flash, hanging them high can often prevent critters from spotting them, simply because it’s higher than they typically look.

Tree Size: Bigger is Better

Hang your cameras on the biggest trees you can, to prevent them from being easily spotted. This helps prevent the critters from seeing the shape of the camera “protruding” from the tree trunk. Which leads us to:

Profile

Another way to prevent the profile of the camera from bothering mature deer is to set up the camera right next to another tree trunk or some other natural object that prevents the camera being “skylined.”

No Red Bulbs!

We’ve been told for years that deer can easily see infrared light, and even you and I can see the red lights when an IR flash goes off on a game cam. Jeff says he’s seen deer stare at the red lights even with the camera mounted 14 feet off the ground! And I have definitely seen many a critter eyeballing my cameras when they flash. So get the blackout type.

He finishes that up by the five-minute mark in an 8-minute video. What’s next? A speech telling us how important it is to hide the cameras — from deer as well as humans.

It’s good advice, and I think I’m going to change my ways with trail cams. Will you?

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.