It’s really no secret that game cameras have revolutionized hunting. And their value to savvy hunters is indisputable. When you can’t be at your favorite hunting spot, your game cams certainly can, with the ability to capture crisp images and video, at all hours of the day and night, of passing game animals you might never have realized were in the area. And when you consider that these little high-tech boxes give off no scent or game-alerting movement, their advantages become difficult to express. Game changers? Absolutely.
Dedicated game cam users know all this, of course, including Matt Sprouse of Team HuntStand. Sprouse makes use of several game cameras year-round, on property located in the Minneapolis suburbs. Just a proverbial stone’s throw from the towering, big-city Minneapolis skyline and its population of some 3.5 million people, Sprouse’s hunting spot is rife with both deer and turkeys (like the beard-dragging tom above), filmed in May. A few days later, Sprouse was able to close the deal there on his first bow-bagged turkey, while hunkering in his Primos Double Bull Blind and shooting his trusty Elite Synergy compound.
This fall, Sprouse is also poised to hunt the property for its outsized whitetails, and his battery of game cams has already turned up a few shooters-to-be, including the prime, promising specimen above, captured in early June. On that camera check, still another camera turned up some footage (seen at the top of this feature) of a surprise resident: A suburban black bear, nosing around the edges of what will hopefully—come September—transform into a buck-attracting food plot. The bear is no monster, but it’s the first captured by the property’s game cams, and is a testament to the diversity of wildlife able to thrive within the shadows of big cities.
Sprouse is hopeful this will be “his year” to bow-bag a monster suburban buck, after recent seasons have seen him log some extensive travel time, as the lead videographer for Team HuntStand. The recent growth and expansion of Team HuntStand will now allow Sprouse to spend a bit more time in the field with weapon in hand, and he’ll now have more opportunities at bucks like the specimen above, captured on the property last September, or maybe one of the bachelor group (up top) filmed last September. Stay tuned for more Team HuntStand game cam and hunting updates, from suburban Minneapolis later this summer and fall.
[READ NOW: HOW TO USE GAME CAMS TO PATTERN EARLY SEASON WHITETAILS]
For those of you with your game cam arsenals still in storage, the time for dedicated whitetailers to begin hanging them is quickly approaching. July 1 is usually a good date to begin surveillance of your hunting grounds, a date that allows for plenty of antler development, and with plenty still to come. Of course, Team HuntStand wouldn’t blame you if the aforementioned footage and images don’t get you out there and hanging a bit earlier. If you do, remember to use the free HuntStand app to mark all of your game cam locations with an easy-to-identify trail camera icon so you can instantly see their locations as you zoom out on the app’s detailed Satellite View map. The app also offers you the ability to give each of your cameras a distinctive name and log important notes such as when you lasted checked its memory card.
Who’s ready to hang some game cameras? Grab your smartphone, fire up your HuntStand Hunting app and get to it!
