I’m looking forward to the full return of the foliage.  Spring is definitely in full swing right now.  The trees were all budding weeks ago, and the undergrowth is really starting to take shape.  It is at this time of the year that you can almost notice a daily transformation of the woods.

I love this time of year, because the deer seem to reach a new comfort zone.  They feel more protected in wooded areas with lots of foliage to conceal their presence.  Much more comfortable than when the woods was wide open and you could see long distances.  These more relaxed deer tend to linger longer, and I always end up with a lot more pictures of deer and other game animals.

On the downside, most bucks have dropped their racks.  You may still see an occasional buck that is slow to drop, but the excitement factor of hoping to see the big rack is gone.  I start awaiting the first signs of antler growth, and look forward to watching the development of those racks into what hopefully becomes that shooter buck.

So this is a great time of the year to get your mineral blocks out to help that antler growth.

Another new game camera from Stealth Cam will be hitting the market on May 9, 2009. The Sniper Pro, model STC-1850, will come with an affordable $169.00 suggested retail price. This stylish, camouflaged game camera comes with the Jim Shockey endorsement. So what can we expect?

This scouting camera has graduated to 8.0 megapixels with a flash range that reaches out to 50 feet. You will get VGA qulity video clips, as well as the option to shoot images in 8 MP, 3 MP, or 1.3 MP resolutions.

This is a standard flash camera, no infared. It will still have the trademarked BurstMode, which will shoot anywhere from 1 to 9 images upon each activation of the PIR. You have the option of setting a delay timeout of anywhere from 1 to 59 minutes inbetween each activation.

The internal memory will only be 32 MB, but a memory expansion slot is available which will accept up to 2 GB SDRAM cards. On the pictures, you will get the Date, Time, Moon Phase, and Temperature stamping on the images. This camera will also accept the 12 volt external power supply, for long life in the field. It runs off of six C cell batteries. The USB cable and mounting strap are included.

Stealth Cam has 5 new camera models coming out in 2009. This is one of the two 8 MP cameras that they will send to market. I look forward to testing this model.