The trap

Ok so yesterday, Saturday the 12th, I got the camera trap I talked about earlier. I was not home so I did not start working with it until today. I opened this huge box, to find the camera trap about 8 inches long along with its case, the box was a 3 feet cube. Anyways I had to get a few batteries for to work, 8 double A's, and apparently this will hold the charge for about half a year. I programed the trap to the settings I wanted which was surprisingly really simple but that is the last of the simple things for the rest of the day.

After that I then started on mounting the trap, this was a pain in the ass. My first round with the little bugger began with a chord thing they sent along with the camera trap. It came with these clips, the fork looking one and the receing, the simple back pack clips that allow you to tighten and loosen grip of the rope. Well they did not sent these attached to the chord so you had to do it yourself, this sounds very easy but it took about 20 minutes for me to put on the two clip things the right way just to realize that I put one on backwards. Some cursing took place when I realized this. Time for a break, had some coffee and lunch and relaxed for a bit.

About an hour later round 2, this time putting on the clip was a whole lot easier so that was nice, but then I tried to attach it to a pole. The pole was about 2 inches thick and the diameter of the ropes tension was about 3 inches. This means that I could get the camera trap around the pole and have it stick for 10 seconds then it would fall, just enough time for me to think that I had got it tight enough for it to stay. After abut 30 minutes of me fiddling with the thing I was back into a terrible mood and left it again.

Round 3, this round I got rid of the whole clip idea thing as it was just pissing me off. So now time for real innovation and abstract ideas that where bound to fail. My First and only idea that I actually tried to do, take a skewer for a shish-kabob insert it through these holes on each end then cut the skewer and fold it into a ring on each side which would allow me to hang the trap. How it actually went down, I found the skewer put it through and then cut it, all simple, then it came time to bend the thing into a ring, this was a bit more difficult but was done. Now it came time for the hanging, of course it had to fail here after spending 20 minutes getting it all setup, so I find some rope and I hung it up. What happened was since the traps case is about 5 pounds it would constantly spin since the skewer was smaller in diameter than the hole. End of round three, this was really pissing me off, I had no idea it would be this difficult to just mantle the trap.

Round 4 I finally gave up with rope and was ready to screw this thing on and be done with it. First problem finding an old 2 by 4, I knew we had some, I just did not know where so I looked around for a bit and could not find any then I asked my dad if he knew were any where he did. This might sound like a good thing but the problem was they were up at my cabin that we built about half a mile in my woods. So I got all my stuff on walked up to the cabin and got the 2 by 4. Second dilemma with the screwing, finding a screw that would fit the hole. This was incredibly aggravating I went through many different boxes and jars full of screws to find one that would fit on this hole. I finally got one and knowing my luck stripped it. Back to finding a screw. I finally got one and got it screwed on. Thank god. Now it was time for setting up the trap in order for it to be at an angle, this is what it said to do in the manual. Back to the first rope I was talking about with the clips. So I redo the clips and get it all setup finally things are going my way. The trap is stable, not moving and perfect it is now 5 I started working on this at about 11:30. I then walk to my stream get the trap all setup make sure it takes some pictures. I then added some bait and it looks pretty good as of the time I left. So now I am leaving it out over night and hopefully something interesting will trip the trap and make it worth all this effort of setting it up.