"Buyer's Remorse"
I did something recently that I never thought I’d do. A couple of weeks ago, I bought one of those infrared, digital trail cameras. I’m not sure what initially prompted it, but I became increasingly infatuated with the idea over a period of weeks leading up to my purchase, to the point that I could think of little else until I finally broke down and bought it.
I suppose I was seduced by the idea of capturing brilliant photos of three year old gobblers in full strut, their chests ablaze with the midmorning sun radiating iridescent off their plumage. Admittedly, I fantasized also about spying that elusive six-and-a-half year old, 140-class buck that no one else has ever laid eyes on.
As distinctly untechnological and analog as I am, acquiring an infrared, digital anything is very unlike me. Just ask the CFO, who rolls her eyes every time I launch into my spiel at social occasions about how there was nothing wrong with the rotary telephone, and how offices sound sad and impersonal without the constant drone of typewriters hanging in the air above the cubicles.
The week that elapsed between my purchase of the trail camera and my actually strapping it to a tree was consumed by my obsessing over where to put the bloody thing. I never realized just how difficult it would be to decide where to hang a camera. But obsess I did. I pored over maps of the property and scoured my memory for places I had seen scrapes and rubs in the past. I inventoried all the places I’d never set foot, thinking they would make ideal locations.
Before long, I’d gotten that same feeling I get when I try to order off the menu in Chinese restaurants: too many choices to feel good about any of them, which is why I perpetually resort to the buffet.
Finally, like most other major decisions in my life, I decided to wing it and hope for the best.
So, last weekend my young son and I went to the camp to hang my digital scouting camera. We loaded the golf cart – I’m sorry, the all-purpose, all-electric hunt utility vehicle – and struck out for that perfect location I was sure would yield award-winning photos of trophy bucks.
First we went to a food plot where we’ve seen not only deer but lots of feral hogs. I spent the bumpy ride explaining how we’d hang the camera on the perimeter of the plot and capture images of the game that frequent the field. But when we got there, I recalled that the instruction manual (please don’t tell the CFO that I actually read one) indicated that the camera had a range of forty feet. I decided the field was too large to cover with one camera, and so we headed south to a firebreak where he and I had seen a monster rub last year.
Once we relocated the rub along the firebreak, I convinced myself that not enough sunlight penetrated the midstory to produce optiumum photos. We were soon off again, this time heading north to another area of the property.
“Here, Daddy?”
“Nope. Too much vegetation in front of these trees.”
“Here?”
“Mmmm, I don’t think deer will come into this cutover this time of year.”
“Uuuugggghhh!”
After another half-hour of tire-kicking, I led us off a hardwood trail down toward an old, blown out beaver pond. I’d seen rubs and scrapes there before, and I know deer browse on the acorns that drop in the area. Plus, they use the beaver pond to cross from one hardwood ridge to another.
“This is the spot, Buddy.”
“Finally.”
I traipsed around that low spot for ten solid minutes trying to single out the ideal tree from which to hang the camera. I ultimately chose a pine tree situated about fifty feet from the edge of the drain, right where the ridge starts to slope up toward the trail. I was pretty sure this is where the deer cross and walk along the face of the ridge.
I pulled the strap tight and secured the camera about four feet up the base of the tree. I opened the front hatch, powered up the camera, selected my desired settings and reshut the hatch. Moments later, a red light on the front assured me the camera was sensing my presence. I stepped away and led my son up the ridge.
Moments later we were back down the ridge within range of the camera, looking around for better trees. Now I was questioning whether I’d put the camera in a spot that got too much light. And what are the chances of a deer walking precisely through the thirty foot area in front of the camera? Why didn’t I pick a spot with a wider vantage point, like a food plot?
Buyer’s remorse is loosely defined as the feeling of regret or uncertainty after a purchase or commitment. I was ate up with it after walking away and leaving the camera on that tree. Of all the countless choices I had in the woods, I wasn’t at all sure I’d made a good one.
It was not unlike the feeling that inevitably washes over me after I get situated in my deer stand (“Of all the places I could have signed out to hunt, what made me think this was the spot? I’m not going to see anything here. I’d better get down and move while it’s still early.”).
I don’t know whether I’ll have captured any game on my new camera when I go back and pull the memory card in a few weeks. But I will most assuredly have captured dozens of images of an obsessive first-timer and his frustrated little boy.
Come to think of it, those will probably be the ones most worth keeping anyway.
(c) Roger Guilian 2010
I suppose I was seduced by the idea of capturing brilliant photos of three year old gobblers in full strut, their chests ablaze with the midmorning sun radiating iridescent off their plumage. Admittedly, I fantasized also about spying that elusive six-and-a-half year old, 140-class buck that no one else has ever laid eyes on.
As distinctly untechnological and analog as I am, acquiring an infrared, digital anything is very unlike me. Just ask the CFO, who rolls her eyes every time I launch into my spiel at social occasions about how there was nothing wrong with the rotary telephone, and how offices sound sad and impersonal without the constant drone of typewriters hanging in the air above the cubicles.
The week that elapsed between my purchase of the trail camera and my actually strapping it to a tree was consumed by my obsessing over where to put the bloody thing. I never realized just how difficult it would be to decide where to hang a camera. But obsess I did. I pored over maps of the property and scoured my memory for places I had seen scrapes and rubs in the past. I inventoried all the places I’d never set foot, thinking they would make ideal locations.
Before long, I’d gotten that same feeling I get when I try to order off the menu in Chinese restaurants: too many choices to feel good about any of them, which is why I perpetually resort to the buffet.
Finally, like most other major decisions in my life, I decided to wing it and hope for the best.
So, last weekend my young son and I went to the camp to hang my digital scouting camera. We loaded the golf cart – I’m sorry, the all-purpose, all-electric hunt utility vehicle – and struck out for that perfect location I was sure would yield award-winning photos of trophy bucks.
First we went to a food plot where we’ve seen not only deer but lots of feral hogs. I spent the bumpy ride explaining how we’d hang the camera on the perimeter of the plot and capture images of the game that frequent the field. But when we got there, I recalled that the instruction manual (please don’t tell the CFO that I actually read one) indicated that the camera had a range of forty feet. I decided the field was too large to cover with one camera, and so we headed south to a firebreak where he and I had seen a monster rub last year.
Once we relocated the rub along the firebreak, I convinced myself that not enough sunlight penetrated the midstory to produce optiumum photos. We were soon off again, this time heading north to another area of the property.
“Here, Daddy?”
“Nope. Too much vegetation in front of these trees.”
“Here?”
“Mmmm, I don’t think deer will come into this cutover this time of year.”
“Uuuugggghhh!”
After another half-hour of tire-kicking, I led us off a hardwood trail down toward an old, blown out beaver pond. I’d seen rubs and scrapes there before, and I know deer browse on the acorns that drop in the area. Plus, they use the beaver pond to cross from one hardwood ridge to another.
“This is the spot, Buddy.”
“Finally.”
I traipsed around that low spot for ten solid minutes trying to single out the ideal tree from which to hang the camera. I ultimately chose a pine tree situated about fifty feet from the edge of the drain, right where the ridge starts to slope up toward the trail. I was pretty sure this is where the deer cross and walk along the face of the ridge.
I pulled the strap tight and secured the camera about four feet up the base of the tree. I opened the front hatch, powered up the camera, selected my desired settings and reshut the hatch. Moments later, a red light on the front assured me the camera was sensing my presence. I stepped away and led my son up the ridge.
Moments later we were back down the ridge within range of the camera, looking around for better trees. Now I was questioning whether I’d put the camera in a spot that got too much light. And what are the chances of a deer walking precisely through the thirty foot area in front of the camera? Why didn’t I pick a spot with a wider vantage point, like a food plot?
Buyer’s remorse is loosely defined as the feeling of regret or uncertainty after a purchase or commitment. I was ate up with it after walking away and leaving the camera on that tree. Of all the countless choices I had in the woods, I wasn’t at all sure I’d made a good one.
It was not unlike the feeling that inevitably washes over me after I get situated in my deer stand (“Of all the places I could have signed out to hunt, what made me think this was the spot? I’m not going to see anything here. I’d better get down and move while it’s still early.”).
I don’t know whether I’ll have captured any game on my new camera when I go back and pull the memory card in a few weeks. But I will most assuredly have captured dozens of images of an obsessive first-timer and his frustrated little boy.
Come to think of it, those will probably be the ones most worth keeping anyway.
(c) Roger Guilian 2010
posted by Days Afield Host | 3:15 PM
