Advance and be Ostracized

Now that I’m a game camera guy, I’m trying to improve my game camera game.

I started calling game cameras “trail cameras” because I saw other people using that term on the web, and then I found out “game camera” was right after all. Maybe smelly hippies are promoting “trail camera” because it has less of the scent of hunting, masculinity, whiteness, capitalism, and normal sexual orientation. I am not sure.

I went to Amazon and bought a cheap camera, and I got results with it. Then I found out I could have gotten considerably better video with a name brand. I feel like I need to upgrade already.

Here are some things you need to think about when you buy a game camera. They eat batteries, and batteries are not free, so look for one with good battery life. This varies so much, it may literally be worth it to pay three times as much for an efficient camera. Also, the illuminated area in infrared night shots may be small, so get a camera that gives you a whole frame to look at. Finally, ignore the 1080P claims and the megapixel claims. My camera has 1080P and a billion pixels, and it’s still grainy.

I’ll post some photos captured from video. I assume still photos would be much better.

This is a coon by my fence. This is not the whole frame. Only about half of the frame is illuminated.

This is a coyote by my fence. Pretty neat.

This is a fox that jumped on the fence. I didn’t know foxes were this coordinated. He jumped to the top of the fence with no problems, and then he stood there with no wobbling at all.

It looks like the big winners in the reasonably priced camera war are the Brownings. They make a couple of cameras called the Black Ops Pro and the Strike Force Pro, at around $150. They have great battery life. I put 8 new AA batteries in my camera, used it a couple of times, and then lost a night of video because the batteries were dead. The Brownings will go months on a set of batteries. I think you can see why I would be willing to pay more.

I don’t understand why game cameras don’t use wifi the way action cameras do. It would make checking them much easier. You can get full-blown cellular game cameras, but they cost a lot, and you have to have a good cell signal.

All of last night’s creature visits are lost because the camera’s batteries died. I found some old frozen pork in the fridge, so I put new batteries in the camera, put the pork by my fence, and turned the camera on. We’ll see what I get tonight. Whatever it is, it probably won’t be a herd of nocturnal Chassidic Jews.

I bought a portable blind. It’s an Ameristep Caretaker. What this really is, is a small tent made for hunting. It has openings you can shoot out of. It has room for two Adirondack chairs (you can see where I’m heading) and a cooler.

Cooler, scoped rifle, chairs, Christian music on the old Worktunes hearing protectors…I’ll have it made in the shade.

I told the cashier at the store it was too bad the blind didn’t work on people. She started telling me how great it was and how much she enjoyed hers. You have to love this town. Where else would a female cashier have her own blind?

Even if it doesn’t help me kill animals, I can set it up in my upstairs hideaway and have a cool fort, like the ones I made from couch cushions when I was a kid. There will be a secret password, and of course, no icky girls will be allowed, even if they threaten to tell on me. My sweet blind is a cooty-free zone.

You’re not cool enough to join my club, so don’t ask.

I still don’t have my hunting knife, and this strikes me as a good time to excoriate the Post Office. I ordered a knife and paid $15 for 2-day shipping. The Post Office had my phone number, and they were sending automatic texts, telling me about the status of the knife. This afternoon, they sent me a text saying they tried to deliver it and gave up because no one was here to sign for it. They didn’t say, “Help us get in.” They said, “We already left.”

Okay. You have my phone number. You’re at my gate. You have the intelligence to send me a text saying there’s a problem, but you’re too stupid to call me and ask me to come out and sign?

I think you see why I was upset.

They want me to drive 30 miles to pick it up. Nice. I called to see if they could relax the idiotic signature requirement. I couldn’t get through, so I told the computer to call me back. An extremely ghetto lady called and made it clear that she could do nothing at all for me and didn’t care at all whether I ever got the knife.

This is why the guy who founded FedEx is a billionaire. It also explains why postal employees have to wear bulletproof vests.

I don’t know if I’ll ever receive the knife, and I feel sure the $15 will never be refunded.

I had to deal with my dad’s medical chores today, so I didn’t get to shoot or do anything fun. Maybe tomorrow.

Goodbye. I will be in my fort, having a secret meeting. God help any animals that walk through the room.