I see a lot of you are showing trail cam footage of Coyotes, fox and bobcat. I have tried numerous trail cams but they detect them and seem to be quite skiddish upon leaving and never seem to work the set, especially the coyotes.

For those of you that manage to get good footage of a set being worked or a catch can you tell me if you also see avoidance on some coyotes, fox and bobcat?

I have a Bigfoot camera currently with the blackout lighting but they still avoid it.

Thanks in advance!

Lose the camera...

Problem solved

I use Bushnell HD cams a lot of yotes don’t like them but other times not so much, my thought is they can hear a noise on calm days maybe but that’s my guess I’m sure someone will tell me I’m wrong. LOL I’ve had cats spook also but that’s rare with them compared to the yotes.

A lot of my Bushnell pics of yotes are often the front half or the back half I have no idea on the impact of the 2 newer cams I just put out. I use that to my advantage in keeping yotes out of my cat set cubbies. I do get the occasional yote that ignores the cams or tries to work a cubby they stand back and paw at the end near the barrel I’m surprised I’ve not connected with a yote in a cubby yet.

Spooked but did not flee like some.


This one must of caught the red glow.

I tried about 6 different cameras before I found s model that worked decent on coyotes
There's the flash then there's the noise from the filter arm moving into place for the night pics and videos.
The other thing I learned in my search for a good camera is that the detection on alot of cameras isn't as good as we would like to think. But most of the time we don't know what we are missing.

I wanted cameras mostly for testing lure and bait formulations but they are such a pain to use for multiple reasons i rarely use them. Now for cats that don't dig for a lure or bait I'd probably need them to see the animals reaction
I'm guessing when it comes to coyotes cameras are probably causing more problems than they are fixing based off my experience. If a camera has critters coming up to it and getting point blank face pics then there's something the animals are detecting and yotes don't tolerate it very well


Another I'll add is a coyote passing by on a trail heading somewhere is at a different level of alertness than one working a set so just because u get some coyote pics on your camera setup for deer it doesn't mean it will work good on coyotes working sets

I go for a quality pics so I’m closer with the camera then most folks would be that just want to see what’s there, me I know what’s there I want a better photo. That cat pic that spooked that cat was probably my bad for being to close to the trail and in the bend of the road did not help. If you want less issues and you don’t care about the quality find a further distance that works for your camera.

I prefer using cams I’ll take the occasional spooked critter compared to getting a few quality photos. Just like taking any photos it takes a lot of bad photos to get a useable one it’s just the way photography rolls. When I replaced my old PC I had this one build mainly to hold game cam photos and videos with 2tb of storage I’m told that’s a lot.

At the end of cat season (Feb 15th) I’ll put in my bigger SD cards and new batteries then leave them on the private property trails, creeks and roads until spring Turkey season starts then I’ll pick them up. The work begins then going through the thousands of photos. Many worthless ones of a snow covered branch bobbing up and down or a spring weed blowing in the breeze.

This camera is about 8’ away.

Not your three targets you asked about but i wanted to see what the otters were up to. As soon as I watched the videos i pulled the cameras. They new they were there and were super skittish about the whole scene

Check out this fox when he sees the camera in a tree branch overhead. lol

What are you using to make him rub that stick like that?

No avoidance with my Spartans, but it’s just pics only.

The Brownings I used to use, not for trapping, had videos of coyotes that seemed naturally curious about the red glow from the camera, but some it really freaked out.

Gland lure.

The tall stick vs the short stick (2nd vid) might be note worthy.

I erased a great photo by accident of a blur of a coyote spinning around it looked like a ballerina pivoting on one back leg to go back the way it came, again too close to the trail it was hilarious.

I run cams 24\7 365 . I have noticed with coyotes that resident coyotes are not as alarmed as newcomers are .Seems the residents get used to the cams and after a few times in front of them they seem to ignore them BUT move that cam to a different area and even the resident coyotes freak out . Fox here don't seem to mind the cams at all same with Bobcats .

I’m pretty sure I can hear the video mode on my Bushnell cams when it going. I don’t have any on video mode now because it limits what can post on video. I’m not a tech guy I hate it.

Black flash is a must vs red flash. I’ve have countless videos of coyotes, fox, deer and bear using a couple of RidgeTec black flash cams. In fact I don’t recall ever spooking one A red flash in video mode will catch the attention of any animal due to the prolonged illumination. I keep approximately 20 cameras armed throughout the year. My fleet is slowly being upgraded to black flash technology. The trouble is many trail cams don’t have a good invisible flash. The pics are blurred and the illumination isn’t very bright. Im partial to RidgeTec cameras because they work better than every other brand I’ve owned. And I’ve owned almost all of them.

at the right distance I get all the animals, to close spooks them to far misses them.