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How to Keep Your Backcountry Camp Secure

Harden your wilderness camp for a safe and secure hunting season.

How to Keep Your Backcountry Camp Secure
Peace of mind when camping in remote areas doesn’t have to come at great cost. (Shutterstock)

One of the great things about fishing, hunting and camping in the Deschutes National Forest is how accessible it is. For a family from Kansas, it seemed like paradise ... until they were down on the ground with a long-haired, screaming wild man pointing a gun at them.

Visiting Oregon for the first time last November, the family hired a guide to take them on an ATV ride through the forest. According to reports, when the shotgun-wielding transient emerged from the woods, the guide turned his machine around and sped away, but the family was not as quick to vacate the area.

“The man living there [in a forest encampment] came out and pointed a shotgun at the family ... to the mother’s head, the father’s head and a teenaged daughter’s head,” said Kelly Scheufler, a California woman who was also on the ATV tour. “Then he shot the gun off near the young girl’s head. All of us were tourists and really didn’t know this was a dangerous area.”

In fact, the location where the incident occurred was not a dangerous area until recently. It was a place where people took dogs for walks, camped, hiked and hunted—until the Forest Service allowed homeless people from out of the area to set up illegal camps. The truth is, camping is not as safe in our national forests as it used to be. One of the best things campers can do is assess the security risks and set up a perimeter alarm system. And it doesn’t have to be expensive.

SIMPLE YET EFFECTIVE

A perimeter system can be as elaborate as a solar-powered electric fence with a battery backup, or as simple as taut fishing line with empty aluminum-can rattles employed near likely ingress and egress paths.

Most will agree that one of the most irritating sounds in the world is the drag on a push-button spin-cast reel. If you have an old Mickey Mouse rod lying around, don’t throw it away. Use it as a low-cost perimeter alarm.

Run the line around camp or across the ingress path, then secure the reel in the sleeping area with the drag set low. If the perimeter line is tripped by an intruder, the reel will begin to click as the line pays out and will alert everyone in camp.

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When tripped, the Brite-Strike CAPSS unit emits a 135-decibel alarm that’s accompanied by flashing blue lights. (Photo by Gary Lewis)

ALARMS AND LIGHTS

Brite-Strike Technologies manufactures the Camp Alert Perimeter Security System (CAPSS), a 135-decibel alarm with flashing blue LEDs. The CAPSS comes with two rolls of trip wire, two nylon zip ties, 8 inches of adhesive mounting tape and two blue all-purpose adhesive light strips (APALS). Contained in a box the size of a bar of soap, the CAPSS retails for $40 (brite-strike.com).

To put the CAPSS to work, identify the most likely intrusion path and attach the alarm module to a fixed object (tree, boulder, parked car, etc.) with the supplied zip ties or adhesive or duct tape. Attach one end of the monofilament trip line to the audible alarm trigger bead chain. Connect the other end of the line to a fixed object on the other side of the path. When the trip line is snagged, the male post pulls from the unit and the alarm triggers an earsplitting alarm and disorienting flashing blue lights.

A LA CARTE SYSTEM

The third option is to build a more robust system for complete peace of mind. If the logical approaches to a camp can be isolated to one or two paths, place motion-activated lights on nearby trees or posts. Bunker Hill Security’s Motion-Activated LED Security Light ($8.99; harborfreight.com) features six LEDs that turn on automatically upon detected motion and remain on for one minute after the last detected motion. It has a photo sensor so that it will only turn on in the dark. Hang enough to cover all angles.

Bunker Hill’s Wireless Security Alert System ($16.99) utilizes a weather-proof infrared sensor that can be mounted on a tree, a stump or a trailer bumper and sends a signal to a wireless receiver that can be kept in a tent or trailer. The receiver produces a chime when a visitor or a prowler approaches.

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The potential for run-ins with unsavory characters is of increasing concern. (Photo by Gary Lewis)

Bunker Hill also sells a two-pack of vibration alarms ($6.99), which detect shock and sudden impact and produce a piercing, 90-decibel siren. These are great for items like generators, outboard motors and utility trailers that are easily stolen. A small on/off switch allows the item to be used without causing the alarm to sound when there is no threat of theft.

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Next, add a wireless doorbell. Put the speaker 30 feet away from the tent and keep the doorbell button inside the tent or camper. If a prowler trips a light, hit the doorbell to throw the sound behind him.

Motion detection varies from model to model, and in some units the detection is adjustable to compensate for movement of brush and grass. Some models have slower reaction times and are best employed to face down trails rather than to catch movement across a trail.

No area of the country is immune to these risks. Homelessness and illegal drug use are rampant in the Northwest. Illegal immigrants slip across the southern border. All over the country, drug lords use backwoods camps for the manufacture of methamphetamines and growing marijuana. When we set up a hunting camp, our nearest neighbors might be a church youth group or they could be felons on the run. A perimeter security system provides peace of mind when the sun goes down.


  • This article was featured in the September 2024 issue of Game & Fish magazine. Click to subscribe.



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