Todd Starkey stood in front of dozens of different trail cameras at Cabela's in Wheeling, W.Va., and eyed the most expensive one.

Although he already owns a "deer cam," this model, at $599, would enable him to retrieve field images with his cell phone. While fun, it also would eliminate weekly trips from his Buckhannon, W.Va., home to his Ohio hunting grounds to check the flash card.

"I start setting up my camera in August and it's a five-hour drive," Starkey said. "This would cut down a lot on my time and gas."

Starkey's trail-camera education was part of Cabela's Deer Classic seminar series, covering a variety of hunting-related topics and scheduled near rifle deer seasons in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.

Costly cellular cameras and those with video capability are cutting edge, but reliable scouting devices are available for well under $200, according to David Shipman, one of several experts leading the informal seminars.

"If you can operate a standard digital camera," he said, "you can operate a trail cam."

All trail cameras are motion-activated, but some operate with incandescent flash, while others use newer, infrared technology.

"When you're tracking game at night, flash will give you better visuals as well as color photos," said Shipman. 'If you're concerned about the stealth factor, infrared has much less chance of spooking an animal because there's no flash, but the images are black and white."

In either case, trigger speed is key, he said.

"One-fifteenth to 1 1/2 seconds is the average, but I'd suggest not going any slower than 1 second. You might pay a little more, but, in the end, it's worth it."

Megapixels are critical, too.

"If you go below 2 megapixels, you'll get too grainy of a picture," said Shipman. "Four or five is ideal."

Most trail cams can photograph about 50 feet but have a limited radial view. They operate on C-batteries, and flash cameras drain energy faster. Twelve-volt battery kits and solar-powered panels can be purchased separately. So, too, can security cases that cut down on theft.

Bob Ryhal of Hubbard, Ohio, has never spent more than $120 on a trail camera because he's had them stolen at his camp, he said.

"You'd be amazed at the quality of the pictures, even with the less expensive cameras. They tell us where the deer are and the flash doesn't seem to bother them because we've gotten three or four pictures of the same animal."

And while the ideal is to set up a camera at least a month ahead of hunting season, even two or three days of photos can help with patterning deer, Shipman said.

"Cameras stamp images with the date, the time, the phase of the moon, and the temperature in some cases, so you'll see when deer are coming out to feed or moving through."

While trail cameras are the high-tech end of hunting, they aren't the hunter's only ally. Scents -- those that cover and those that attract -- can provide a distinct advantage, too.

The market for scents has come a long way since the days when about all hunters could to stifle their own scent was to wash their clothes in baking soda. Hunters today can spend hundreds of dollars on odor-blocking, carbon-filtration clothing, but some experts think sprays are as effective.

"It's so hard to fool a deer," said Remington pro staffer and TV personality Haley Heath of Macon, Ga., during a recent appearance at Cabela's. "And no one should break their budget to hunt."

"I wash my hunting clothes and spray them the night before, then spray them again before I head into the woods. I don't use scent-killing lotions, chewing gum, shampoo or special clothes. I just spray. And it works, because I've come within 2 yards of a monster buck and he hasn't even noticed me."

To attract deer during the main rut, she drags a wick dipped in the scent of a doe in estrus behind her as she walks to her stand. She also hangs doe-in-estrus scent wicks around her stand. Haley performs another drag with dominant buck scent, and then ties a buck-scented wick to a decoy.

Robert Kirkbride of Zanesville, Ohio, has experimented with scents over the years and uses just two products.

"I spray myself down with the scent-killer, and I use the doe estrus, not the dominant buck stuff," he said. "I don't buy a lot of products because I'm not going to spend all that money."

Veteran hunter Charles Rogers of Washington, Pa., switched from earth-scented odor block to a neutral one. "It made a big difference," he said. "I like it much better."

But no commercial product can completely fool a deer. "Nothing can eliminate your scent completely," said Mossy Oak pro staffer Dave Muscia of Bridgeville. "The best you hope for is to confuse a deer into thinking you're 40 yards away rather than 10."

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