Who Knew There Was A Learning Curve?
Tim Martinez
I woke up around 5:30am Saturday morning to get everything ready to hike out to my game camera that I had sitting out in the field for 7 days. The excitement mounted. I was wondering what kind of pictures I would get. Would I capture a bird flying by, a mongoose coming into the bait to investigate? Or perhaps a wild pig that has found the feed? Or even a hiker that has strayed away from the trail? I had all of these things running through my head as I headed out to the hunting grounds. I was also thinking, did someone take the camera? How would the wind and rain affect the camera? Did I have the camera in a good position? Did I secure the camera properly to the tree? These, along with many other questions cluttered my skull as I pulled up to the trail head.
The plan for the morning was to hike out to the location, bringing more pig lure and another SD card. I would replace the SD card, add more lure to the hole and leave it for another week. Once I hiked back to my truck and drove home, I could view the images (if any) on my computer.
So I set off on my hike, hustling every chance I had. I seemed to reach the camera's location faster than normal. It must have been the excitement and wonder that motivated me to push harder. On the hike in, I usually take a water break near the stream that runs through the area. I noticed that it was dry. Only a few smaller puddles remained every couple hundred yards or so. This reminded me that it has been relatively dry lately, at least for Hawaii standards. I didn't think much more of it until I reached the spot I had buried the lure. I noticed that it hadn't been disturbed. I looked around for any sign of fresh tracks, and nothing. I am now wondering, did I miss read this location? I start walking over to the camera trap and see FULL on the screen. I look towards the bottom of the screen and see that it has 7,209 images captured. Now I'm thinking that maybe it has captured a pig. Not one coming into the lure, but maybe a few just heading down towards, the now dry, stream bed. I was puzzled. I decided to set the lure on top of the dirt this time. Only covering it with leaves to disguise its location. I replaced the SD card and headed back to the truck.
Once I reached the house, my intrigue had the best of me. I rushed in and loaded up the SD card. Then patiently clicked through 7,209 images of wind, leaves and rain. You can only imagine my disappointment. I had left the camera in the jungle for 7 days and managed to capture a total number of ZERO pictures of a living animal. Who knew there was a learning curve to capturing an animal on a game camera? But there is.
I plan on keeping the camera trap at the current location for a month. While replacing the lure every 7 days, along with retrieving the SD card. We will see if I can lure the pigs into my camera trap. If after a month I am still not getting any results, I plan on trudging deeper into the jungle and finding another location. Wish me luck. I'm going to need it.