Cellular Trail Cams: A Guide on How to Use Them for Hunting Success

Cellular trail cams offer a hassle-free and unobtrusive method of surveying a hunting area for animal behaviors and establishing a comprehensive understanding of their movements throughout the year. With cellular trail cams, you can instantly view video and photo footage on your phone, providing you with immediate access to crucial hunting information.

Here's an introduction to trail cams, including insights from one of our experienced HuntWise Field Team hunters, Travis Hawkins.

What Are Cellular Trail Cams?

Cellular trail cams, sometimes called wireless trail cams, are cellular cameras that send live feeds of videos and photos of animal wildlife to your phone. An inbuilt motion detector device triggers the images and videos. 

Like cell phones, cellular trail cams transmit images using radio waves. To use your cellular camera, you'll have to register and connect it to a network via a SIM card. Cellular trail cams work on a monthly or annual fee for the network plan. 

How Do They Differ From a Traditional Cam?

When choosing between a traditional and a cellular camera, it's important to consider your imaging requirements, budget, and device accessibility. Here are some key distinctions between the two types of cameras to help you make an informed decision. 

Traditional Cams

Traditional trail cameras save images on an SD card that must be physically retrieved to see what the camera captured. This means your insights into animal movements will be delayed as you assess historical data.

For lesser-tech-savvy hunters or those who enjoy the old-school approach of walking to the cams, the traditional cam is the way to go. However, these trips to the cam can risk spooking animals and disrupting the natural environment. 

Regarding costs, traditional cams are generally considered a more affordable option as they don't require cellular connectivity. One primary consideration is battery life, and functionality must similarly be assessed, as you will have to manually check for enough charge occasionally.

If your cam runs out of battery, you won't know until you walk to the device, meaning you can miss out on essential data. 

Cellular Cams

With the addition of technology comes further considerations, including setting up a cellular plan, data packages, solar power, and connectivity within the area. The trade-off is that you are accessing immediate information to help you plan your hunt in real-time. 

Cellular cams are considered a more costly option because you pay for a data plan. However, you're saving on time costs, as there's no need to head off to check your insights; updates are sent straight to your device. 

The Benefits Off-Season Scouting

One of the leading benefits of using trail cams is the opportunity to gain valuable insights into animal movements all year round, which means you can extrapolate and plan your next hunt with stunning accuracy. 

Every image provides valuable data on your target species' behavior, movement, eating habits, patterns, and range. Additionally, off-season scouting is a fantastic way to maintain contact with the hunting sport, exercise, and discover locations some other hunters may need help bypassing or writing off as inaccessible or uncountable. 

Hunter Insights Into Placing Trail Cams

We asked one of our HuntWise Field Team experts to share his insights into how hunters can best use cellular trail cams to hunt better. Travis Hawkins shares his experience:

First, ask yourself: Are you a trophy hunter, meat hunter, or both? Cell cameras, trail cams, and HuntWise can help you fill your tags regardless of your hunter type. 

Trophy Hunting and Trail Cameras

Veteran trophy hunters know that you need to invest a lot of time in the woods.  Personally, I love to utilize the HuntWise application for scouting; it saves me from blundering through the woods until I stumble upon what I'm seeking.

If a property has that ideal topography, I will drop pins on those points of interest. You'll want to get in there and physically scout it out now. The idea is to locate the big buck sign and, hopefully, his primary bed. When that sign or area is found, it's time to place a cell cam.

If it's preseason, place a non-cellular camera and leave it alone until a few weeks before your season opens. Once checked, if a mature buck persists on the camera, replace that trail cam with a cell cam. 

Take the previous pictures of him and try to decipher a pattern.  Is he using that bed in a specific wind direction? Are there thermal pockets/hubs, moon phase, food source, water source, good transitional cover, barometric pressures, and temperature?  It could be one of those reasons listed, some or all. 

The Waiting Game

Once you establish a pattern, it becomes a waiting game. When those known attributes align with his movement pattern, it's time to slip in there and hopefully get that opportunity.

If you are new to this, I suggest placing a normal camera on a food source. If a mature buck shows up, odds are it'll be a nighttime photo.

If he continually shows up from the same general direction, then pull up the HuntWise app and start scouting.

Look for any of the possibilities listed above. Mature bucks love to bed on leeward ridges, high spots, or heavily covered areas. Look for points of interest you can access on that property and drop some pins.

If you still aren't sure, your best bet is to get in there and scout. Look for trails, tracks, scrapes, rubs, and buck signs in general. Follow it, and eventually, you might just find that buck bed.

Hunting for Meat

For meat hunting, nothing beats a good ole trail camera. Set one up on a food source and leave it alone for at least a week. If possible, go in midday and investigate those pictures. 

Which direction are the deer coming from, what time, and how often?  If they are generally approaching from the east, a western wind could potentially ruin a hunt. Wait for that ideal wind direction; once the odds are in your favor, go in for a sit.

If you are a trophy and meat hunter, both tips above could lead to a successful season. I found great success in the past by utilizing a vintage film trail camera in my garage that still functions to this day. It was my very first trail camera given to me by my grandfather. 

The HuntWise Advantage

Today, I take advantage of cell cams and HuntWise. Cell cams give me that picture on demand so I can stop to write down everything about the weather in that location at that exact time.

HuntWise is also second to none when it comes to scouting. Its number of features, including an assortment of pins, map layers, weather prediction, HuntCast, measuring distances, and more, is game-changing.

HuntWise helps me to pattern the game. Pins dropped from previous years are useful the following year 90% of the time. That's all owed to the animal's pattern.

I'm primarily a river hunter; those big steep ridges and river bottoms are where I call home. With HuntWise, I can find access points to put my kayak/canoe in and measure the distance of the river to my desired hunting spot. Utilizing a water source will cut down on scent dispersement and noise reduction. 

The main thing to always remember is that slow and steady wins the race. Not every sit is a good sit. Play it smart, be patient, and you might just harvest that buck of a lifetime and fill your freezer.

Travis, thanks for your insights!

Optimize Cellular Trail Cam Placement With HuntWise

Trail cameras, whether digital or traditional, are only effective when placed in the right areas. As Travis shared, using the HuntWise mapping features, you can target and mark food, water, and high-density travel corridors for optimal trail cam footage. 

Remember that the off-season is a great time to be more experimental in your trail cam positioning. HuntWise allows you to view, assess, and contact private landowners to seek permission to hunt (and scout) their areas, so get out there and give it a go. 

If you're ready to enhance your trail cam use and, ultimately, your hunt, make sure you have the HuntWise app! Download it now and explore every feature before the season starts. The first week is on us!