Winter 2008

May 6, 2020 Southern Shore ATV Rip - Camera Prank (28 Photos)

Last fall we were thoroughly prepared for our moose hunting season completing a lot of pre-season scouting and even setting out a couple game cameras. We shared car pooling duties all season, so I was dropping off Mark & Matthew French one evening when the latter left my tail gate down. This cost me a pair of Dunlop Rubber Boots since they fell out and I only managed to find one retracing my route many times.

At the end of moose hunting Mark and I took our cameras down for the winter but Stroh & Matthew forgot to take theirs. I was after the boys all winter to make a trip down for a day and retrieve the cameras to no avail.

Fast forward to today. Amid Covid-19 social distancing restrictions and some spare time due to a dramatic decrease in work, I loaded up Project Foreman and headed two hours down the Southern Shore. I planned to retrieve the forgotten cameras and enjoy a nice day Spring ATV riding and exploring the backcountry.

Of course I could have let the boys know I was heading down, but it was mid-week and quickly escalated into a minor retaliation prank for having to buy new boots!

First up was retrieving Stroh's camera. Now to be fair Stroh did me no wrong so I saved him a two hour drive all the way down to retrieve his camera. It was still in great shape and batteries appeared to still be working!

With Stroh's unit secured it was on to Matthew's which was a short ATV ride away.

Needless to say I was astonished to find that the camera was still working and taking pictures as it captured these shots of me riding in to retrieve it! This camera with four ordinary AA batteries has been in place and working since September 2019!

My ever evolving retaliation plan was to eventually get together with the boys and head down the Shore to "retrieve" the cameras. My plan was to let Matthew walk all the way in the country and spend awhile looking for his camera to no avail, then later that day reveal that I already had it.

What actually ended up happening was even better!

Exactly one month later to the day we get a group chat message from Matthew who travelled down the shore, hiked into the country and found his camera gone. He figured it was stolen for sure and was utterly disappointed. He also didn't let anyone else know he was going down that day and also didn't try to retrieve Stroh's camera! LoL

Of course I didn't fill him in right away and the poor bugger made a stolen camera post on the NL Game Camera Facebook group too. I started dropping some subtle hints into our group chat as well as some of the pics from earlier in this article and he finally got the hint.

In the end it wasn't a huge retaliation prank, likewise loosing my boots also wasn't a huge deal, but it sure was fun!

I spent the rest of my day further down the Southern Shore enjoying an awesome ATV ride before heading back to town.

The big question is, what was on the cameras? Unfortunately Stroh's camera although still powered up and working stopped taking and/or saving pictures back in November. The camera says the memory card is full although the card is actually 80% free so he'll have to work on that.

Matthew's camera despite the cold and harshness of winter continued taking pictures all winter most of them false (no animal activity). There were just under 4000 (not a typo) in total! I figure wind moving the tree it was attached to played havoc with the motion sensor settings but it did capture some moose and an epic time-lapse of the winter! The only issue was that the cold reset the time/date stamp a few times however the camera otherwise worked flawlessly.

This is a neat time-lapse I put together from photos off Matt's camera which took false photos all winter long. Also be sure to check out my Fall 2019 to Spring 2020 Trail Cam Pics article for more Moose action!

Cheers, MIKE