Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the white Tail Woods, presented by first Light, creating proven
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First
Speaker 1: Light Go Farther, stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
Speaker 2: the show, I'm joined by Jared Mills, and we are
Speaker 2: talking through his trail camera strategy and routines from A
Speaker 2: to Z summer to fall, everything from where he places
Speaker 2: them to the settings he uses, the goals he has,
Speaker 2: and the strategies he considers when using those photos to
Speaker 2: become a better deer hunt. All right, welcome back to
Speaker 2: the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Moultrie.
Speaker 2: Today we are continuing our trailcam series and my guest
Speaker 2: is Jared Mills. He's a longtime friend of the show.
Speaker 2: He's been on the podcast several times before. You've seen
Speaker 2: him on Midwest Whitetail and on his own YouTube channels.
Speaker 2: He is an entrepreneur. He is a deer hunting fanatic
Speaker 2: and an Iowa resident who has just got his program dialed.
Speaker 2: He takes whitetail hunting as serious as anybody, and trail
Speaker 2: cameras especially, So he has been diving deep into this
Speaker 2: stuff for I don't know, probably close to two decades,
Speaker 2: and today what I want to talk to him about
Speaker 2: is the nitty gritty details of how he thinks about
Speaker 2: trail cameras, how he uses them, and what.
Speaker 3: That looks like through the entirety of the season.
Speaker 2: So what's he thinking about and doing right now in
Speaker 2: the summer, what are his goals, how all those changed?
Speaker 2: You know, where is he put in summer cameras, what
Speaker 2: kind of information can he actually get from summer cameras,
Speaker 2: and how does he use that stuff? And then we
Speaker 2: move into the hunting season itself, where he's putting in
Speaker 2: season cameras, how he thinks about moving them, when he
Speaker 2: thinks about moving them, how he's changed his perspective on
Speaker 2: patterning deer with cameras, and much more when it comes
Speaker 2: to the specific details, settings, tactics, decision making around it,
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff. This is truly a deep
Speaker 2: dive master class on using trail cameras in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: six to become a better deer hunter. So I'm going
Speaker 2: to leave it at that. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation
Speaker 2: and I hope you did too. And one quick plug
Speaker 2: before we get to the chat with Jared here, want
Speaker 2: to let you know that Meat Eater's auction House of
Speaker 2: Oddities is open right now and it's running till July
Speaker 2: twenty second, twenty twenty six. The auction house is our
Speaker 2: in house fundraising campaign for our Public Land Initiative, which
Speaker 2: is the program that we use to help fund public
Speaker 2: access you know, acquisitions across the nation. So this is
Speaker 2: what allowed us to do that big campaign around Tuckertown
Speaker 2: that led to two hundred acres of public land, you know,
Speaker 2: being put under contract to be made public forever.
Speaker 3: That's what the pl I does. That's what this.
Speaker 2: Auction house is helping make possible. So if you're interested,
Speaker 2: you can go to the auction house where you will
Speaker 2: see all sorts of different outdoor gear mementos, uh you know,
Speaker 2: everything from bows and rifles from meat Ator crew to
Speaker 2: the truck that Steve Ranella's dad used as a hunting
Speaker 2: and fishing rig and that Steve used after his dad passed.
Speaker 3: We had that old truck, Steve.
Speaker 2: We call it Steve's Dad's shitty old truck full of
Speaker 2: badass hunting gear because This thing is gonna come with
Speaker 2: a bunch.
Speaker 3: Of outdoor gear, gift cards, a.
Speaker 2: Bunch of swags, some optics from sigsur, really good stuff,
Speaker 2: and I will be delivering it to the winner of
Speaker 2: that auction. So you can find all that much more
Speaker 2: at the meat eater dot com slash auction that's running
Speaker 2: through July twenty second, twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3: And now back to the show. All Right with me
Speaker 3: on the line is several time returning guests. Jared Mills.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 4: Thanks man, I appreciate you having me back. It's uh,
Speaker 4: it's exciting good to catch up.
Speaker 2: It's always good to catch up. It's always good to
Speaker 2: uh to touch base on what you've been up to.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: And the one thing that I don't like about every
Speaker 2: time we chat on the podcast is it reminds me
Speaker 2: to go back and scroll through like all of your
Speaker 2: social media, and I do have to get very jealous
Speaker 2: every time I'm reminded of just how many good dear
Speaker 2: you're seeing and putting your tags on.
Speaker 3: It's uh, it's funny.
Speaker 2: As the years go on, we're inundated, right with so
Speaker 2: many of those things, you kind of lose track of
Speaker 2: how everybody's seasons have went. Uh so when you've got
Speaker 2: an excuse to go check it back out again, it's
Speaker 2: it's a good reminder that you are you are living
Speaker 2: the dream, my friend, You're doing well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's no doubt I've been super fortune and that's ultimately,
Speaker 4: like you know, I have a lot of these conversations
Speaker 4: about that, and like you know, there may be an
Speaker 4: aspect that I take granted a little bit just because
Speaker 4: it's a natural like where this is all this is
Speaker 4: what I know. I'm born and raised in Iowa. I
Speaker 4: know Iowa hunting mature year. I was fortunate to like
Speaker 4: start to target mature year at a young age, and
Speaker 4: so like you know, there's this aspect where I'm living
Speaker 4: in my own world. You don't really realize, you know,
Speaker 4: that outside perspective like you're talking about, but it's there's
Speaker 4: just every time it happens, it you know, it comes
Speaker 4: together on a big deer, Like you know, I may
Speaker 4: take the entire big picture, the fact that I have
Speaker 4: deer like this to hunt for granted, but every time
Speaker 4: it happens, I am still as blown away as anybody
Speaker 4: else that it all came together. There's just you know
Speaker 4: when when people are watching the videos and stuff like,
Speaker 4: it comes across easy, it comes across as nothing to it,
Speaker 4: just another another day in the office type of thing.
Speaker 4: But like living in it, for me, it's unreal how
Speaker 4: many factors have to come together to make this work?
Speaker 4: And uh, you know, every time it happens, I'm blown away,
Speaker 4: like how ask how did that happen? Every single time,
Speaker 4: even though it's happened you know a number of times now.
Speaker 4: So so yeah, it's fun, but that's it's a lot.
Speaker 3: It's so funny you say that. I still feel the
Speaker 3: same way.
Speaker 2: It seems like every time I kill a buck, I
Speaker 2: think to myself, I can't believe that just happened, No
Speaker 2: way that just happened. It always seems so impossible. The
Speaker 2: next buck, You're always like, oh, I'm never gonna get
Speaker 2: one again. It's never gonna it's never gonna come, never,
Speaker 2: never gonna get this deer. And then it does, and Nick,
Speaker 2: you said, you're shocked. So I guess that's why we
Speaker 2: love it so much, because sometimes it seems so impossible,
Speaker 2: so challenging, and then every once in a while, magic
Speaker 2: happens and the stars aligne and it comes together that's right.
Speaker 4: And you hope it never gets old.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So I think this sets the stage well for the
Speaker 2: main thing I did want to talk to you about,
Speaker 2: which was what seems to be a pretty significant part
Speaker 2: of how you have this success year in and year out.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've been seeing you do it. Folks have
Speaker 2: been seeing you do it for years and years and
Speaker 2: years now, and as I've watched your deer hunting trajectory
Speaker 2: since I don't know, I probably what was the first
Speaker 2: year you were on Midwest Whitetail.
Speaker 3: Do you remember?
Speaker 4: Twenty ten?
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, so I was watching back then, so that's
Speaker 2: when I probably would have started following your story. You know,
Speaker 2: I've seen how you use trail cameras change and evolve
Speaker 2: over time. I've seen how you take that information and
Speaker 2: apply it to your hunts change and evolve over time.
Speaker 2: And that has been true for all of us, right,
Speaker 2: for some of us, we started deer hunting before trail
Speaker 2: cameras were a thing, And then even for those people though,
Speaker 2: who came into hunting in the trailcam era, it has
Speaker 2: changed so much over the last five, ten, fifteen years.
Speaker 2: What I wanted to do with you is kind of
Speaker 2: cover your trail camera regimen today kind of from A
Speaker 2: to Z everything you're doing from the off season into
Speaker 2: the season, everything from you know, your goals and your
Speaker 2: setups and then how you use that information kind of
Speaker 2: everything from here to there, and a little bit of
Speaker 2: how that maybe has evolved over time, because I think,
Speaker 2: you know, to my point, for some of us, it
Speaker 2: has not just been one static thing that we've done
Speaker 2: the same way for twenty years. So right with that money,
Speaker 2: I want to start here. I want to get your
Speaker 2: thoughts on this statement, kind of a truer false statement,
Speaker 2: summer trail camera intel is overrated? True or false?
Speaker 3: What do you think about that?
Speaker 4: All? Right? True? So a couple of reasons come to mind. One,
Speaker 4: you know, I think there I should preface this, preface
Speaker 4: it with this, like I do think there are stuff
Speaker 4: that you can take and apply from the summer to
Speaker 4: the fall, but so often things change so much from
Speaker 4: the summer to fall. I would venture to guess that
Speaker 4: ninety percent of the deer that I ultimately end up
Speaker 4: hunting I don't get picked a single picture of in
Speaker 4: the summer, not a single picture, And the ones that
Speaker 4: I do, it's maybe half a dozen pictures are less
Speaker 4: in the summer compared to fall, and I think it's
Speaker 4: you know, it's a combination of a couple of things.
Speaker 4: The areas I hunt are just better fall habitat, Like
Speaker 4: you know, that thicker cover. It just seems to me
Speaker 4: the bigger, more mature bucks especially don't like that type
Speaker 4: of cover in the summer. And they're simply not in
Speaker 4: the areas where I'm running cameras or can run cameras,
Speaker 4: right and two, Like, I think they just don't move
Speaker 4: and travel as great a distances in the summer, which
Speaker 4: if you're not on the X, you're not going to
Speaker 4: get pictures of them if your camera's not on the X.
Speaker 4: So I think those two things play a big part
Speaker 4: of it. What I love to watch a deer grow
Speaker 4: as Antler's the entire thing, and you know, get the
Speaker 4: big double picks, of course, but I would rather have
Speaker 4: it this way where I don't get them in the summer,
Speaker 4: but get them in the fall when that can actually
Speaker 4: help them. So yeah, I don't take a whole lot
Speaker 4: of stock other than the fact I will say this,
Speaker 4: if I do start getting a buck in the summer
Speaker 4: or get him early, I do feel like my chances
Speaker 4: slightly increase of a higher number of encounters in the fall,
Speaker 4: Like he's going to be on me more often in
Speaker 4: the fall if I can keep him, if he's close
Speaker 4: during the summertime. It just seems still last few bucks
Speaker 4: that's happened on has kind of played out that way.
Speaker 4: And sometimes it's a year by year like it's it's
Speaker 4: the same book. But you know, one summer I get
Speaker 4: nothing of him, just fall pictures encounters, and then you know,
Speaker 4: maybe he turns five or five years old or something
Speaker 4: and he maybe strengths his core range I'm not real sure,
Speaker 4: or relocates the summer range for whatever reason, but it's
Speaker 4: has tended to lead towards more sightings and encounters in
Speaker 4: the fall when I do see them in the summer.
Speaker 2: Have you ever you know, knowing that the deer that
Speaker 2: you typically get in the summer disappear. Have you ever
Speaker 2: gotten a buck on camera in the summer and tried
Speaker 2: to change that? So gotten a buck and you're like, oh, man,
Speaker 2: this buck is so special that I need to either
Speaker 2: find him when he find where he's moving to in
Speaker 2: the fall so I can keep hunting him. So you
Speaker 2: go into some kind of trying to find new permission
Speaker 2: try to find him in the fault or number two,
Speaker 2: have you ever saw a deer and thought, Okay, I
Speaker 2: need to change my habitat plan or something to try
Speaker 2: to keep this deer here, even though I know he'll
Speaker 2: probably leave. I got to pull some kind of monkey
Speaker 2: out of my back pocket here. Have either of those
Speaker 2: two things happened?
Speaker 4: Not really On the first one, I've never never went
Speaker 4: and found a deer and then got permission to kill him.
Speaker 4: Like I've always only hunted deer on properties I already
Speaker 4: have permission to hunt, or the property I own, or
Speaker 4: whatever may be the case. I've never went backwards where
Speaker 4: you find the deer and knock on doors. So not
Speaker 4: necessarily the first part, but the second part, for sure.
Speaker 4: It's the reason I continue to run cameras the entire year.
Speaker 4: You know, I don't just because I don't get pictures
Speaker 4: of very many of them, typically in the summer, doesn't
Speaker 4: mean I'm not trying, right, So, because the reason is this,
Speaker 4: I've had this happen a couple of times. One. You know,
Speaker 4: sometimes you get a picture of a deer, just even
Speaker 4: just one picture in late June or early July, just
Speaker 4: enough to know which deer it is, and maybe you
Speaker 4: thought he was dead, or maybe you hadn't seen him
Speaker 4: an over you know, a full season that changes the game,
Speaker 4: or maybe it's a deer that you didn't expect to
Speaker 4: make a big jump, but he did make a big jump.
Speaker 4: The earlier you get that intel, the further ahead you
Speaker 4: put yourself in the game of that. So, whether that's
Speaker 4: planning a specific food plot for him, whether that's some
Speaker 4: extra scouting time, whether that's getting permission like you mentioned
Speaker 4: on nearby properties just to maximize your your huntable area.
Speaker 4: Just the earlier in the year that that happens, you're
Speaker 4: you're you're giving yourself a pretty significant advantage compared to
Speaker 4: wait and getting that picture in September, and at that time,
Speaker 4: it's kind of like you're you're you're going to have
Speaker 4: to just go with what you know at that time.
Speaker 4: So that's that's the reason I continue to run them,
Speaker 4: But I do try to do things on the properties
Speaker 4: that I have the ability to just add more options
Speaker 4: for them to want to spend more time on the property,
Speaker 4: whether that's better summer time food sources, you know, like
Speaker 4: your your high forge, high protein type stuff or clover
Speaker 4: chickory plots, you know, if I can give them a
Speaker 4: couple more reasons to even just pop in on occasion
Speaker 4: just to kind of let me know they're alive, or
Speaker 4: you know, I've seen it where I have changed or
Speaker 4: it just seemed like I had no food, the deer
Speaker 4: weren't there in the summer, and I added good summer
Speaker 4: food and I've had a couple of bucks kind of
Speaker 4: core up. So yeah, I definitely try to do that
Speaker 4: because I do think you create an advantage for yourself.
Speaker 2: So it seems like major goal is just establishing presence,
Speaker 2: like who's here, who's hopefully going to stay, who maybe
Speaker 2: isn't gonna stay, but but basically confirming dead or alive,
Speaker 2: and who's gonna be around hopefully.
Speaker 3: Do you ever.
Speaker 2: Learn something more than that from summer cameras? Have you
Speaker 2: ever found a behavioral pattern or a trend or anything
Speaker 2: else you know that has helped you during hunts, Because
Speaker 2: I feel like a lot of people, especially when I
Speaker 2: was younger, when I was just getting into this, I
Speaker 2: would have these summer pictures and I'd see all this
Speaker 2: bucks coming in and out of this swamp, and he's
Speaker 2: feeding in this bean field, and when I was twenty one,
Speaker 2: I thought, oh man, that's gonna be where I'm gonna
Speaker 2: kill him, And then I realized that doesn't hold up
Speaker 2: for all the reasons you already stated. But is there
Speaker 2: anything that does that? Is there anything you can learn
Speaker 2: from a summer photo or series of photos that can
Speaker 2: in some other way help with hunting other than what
Speaker 2: you mentioned already.
Speaker 4: Yeah, one thing comes to mind. I think it's I
Speaker 4: think it's very small in general what you can learn
Speaker 4: from summertime, but a couple of things. I guess one
Speaker 4: would be I enjoy seeing how they interact with other bucks,
Speaker 4: especially I think you can learn a lot about the
Speaker 4: behavior and maturity and kind of social hierarchy of a buck,
Speaker 4: especially in the summer when they are hanging out with
Speaker 4: other bucks. So I think that that would be one.
Speaker 4: And then two, I can think of a couple of
Speaker 4: examples of bucks that you know, we think about summertime
Speaker 4: being this time of bachelor groups, and it's very common
Speaker 4: to see that. But I've had a couple of bucks where,
Speaker 4: even during the summer they were loaners, I never saw
Speaker 4: them with other bucks, and that usually held true into
Speaker 4: the fall too, where you know, you would think you
Speaker 4: have a pretty good betting area and like this would
Speaker 4: be a good spot for a buck to core up.
Speaker 4: And this loaner type of personality. Buck just doesn't just
Speaker 4: you know, he's by himself in the summer, buy himself
Speaker 4: off all and basically until late season when the deer
Speaker 4: become a little more concentrated. But it just seemed like
Speaker 4: he had the loner personality. So I'd say those are
Speaker 4: the two things that at least in my experience, I've
Speaker 4: seen that I could learn from summertime encounters.
Speaker 2: Okay, so summertime cameras, when do you like to put
Speaker 2: them out? And what's you know, after doing this for
Speaker 2: so many years, what is your go to absolute best
Speaker 2: type of location to set them up? And how do
Speaker 2: you dial in that setup for a summer setup.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so the timing at least by the beginning of June.
Speaker 4: You know, obviously there's a few months there where you're
Speaker 4: likely not going to recognize a deer anyways, you know,
Speaker 4: if you're trying to get intel unless there's some type
Speaker 4: of markings are very distinct characteristics. But at least by
Speaker 4: the beginning of June, when they're starting to pack on
Speaker 4: some some of that growth. I like to have them
Speaker 4: out by then a couple of different locations. But and this,
Speaker 4: this one's tough because you know, you want to think
Speaker 4: about summertime food soores where the deer is spending time.
Speaker 4: And we always as hunters think high activity areas, right,
Speaker 4: like what we know as high activity areas, whether that's
Speaker 4: food source, trail pitch whatever. I've gotten the most summertime
Speaker 4: pictures of at least bigger deer in the most random locations,
Speaker 4: Like it could be a little island of trees out
Speaker 4: in the middle of nowhere, protected by big tall canary
Speaker 4: grass all around, and and like you're not gonna get
Speaker 4: very many pictures because there's a lot of times in
Speaker 4: those areas there's nothing to like dictate the movement or
Speaker 4: or or funnel down the movement, you know, so some
Speaker 4: I would say, more often than not, those those areas
Speaker 4: tend to be a bust. But with that being said,
Speaker 4: that's where I get the pictures of the of the
Speaker 4: best bucks in the summer, just a spot where they
Speaker 4: can be out away from everything, high level cover. That's
Speaker 4: the other thing too, Like it just seems like I
Speaker 4: don't get anything in the thickest spots. You know, they
Speaker 4: want the high canopy, you know, shade or tall grass
Speaker 4: kind of protecting them. I think they try to. It
Speaker 4: almost seems like obviously it's hard to say this, but
Speaker 4: it seems like they find areas to kind of tuck
Speaker 4: away from bugs, to like kind of bury themselves in
Speaker 4: grass almost. But yeah, very very random places. Where is
Speaker 4: where I've picked up the most mature bucks, but for
Speaker 4: a number of like a higher number of images and
Speaker 4: occasionally getting that that goodyear. I like to be near
Speaker 4: soybean fields this time of year. I really like if
Speaker 4: you can find a spot where corn and soybeans intersect
Speaker 4: or along that edge is another good spot. You got
Speaker 4: to think, like this time of yere the forage and
Speaker 4: the vegetation is so tall and deer as we know
Speaker 4: from from fall trail camp placement. Like they they like
Speaker 4: to take the path of leash resistance. So if you
Speaker 4: can find little things like that, like like I said,
Speaker 4: the edge of a corn and beanfield there's a little
Speaker 4: bit of gap there, or like even like sprayer tracks
Speaker 4: that you know where an agricultural sprayer left a soybean
Speaker 4: field and it leaves that kind of big bigger gap
Speaker 4: between soybeans. If that enters into the woods, like that's
Speaker 4: a really good spot where the deer going to come
Speaker 4: in and kind of take that easier path rather than
Speaker 4: just walking through you know, waste chest high beans. So yeah,
Speaker 4: little stuff like that. It kind of varies by property,
Speaker 4: but those are some of my favorite spots as we
Speaker 4: as we sit right now in mid.
Speaker 2: July, the kind of off the beaten path random spots.
Speaker 2: Have you just found a handful of those kinds of
Speaker 2: locations by chance over the years or do you seek
Speaker 2: that out? And like, no, on any in any given year,
Speaker 2: you're gonna throw some flyers out there, You're gonna put
Speaker 2: some cameras in really weird places that you have no
Speaker 2: idea what's out there.
Speaker 3: But you do that on purpose just to try to
Speaker 3: find that kind of thing.
Speaker 4: I do it now on purpose, but I initially learned
Speaker 4: it from jumping deer. Like if I'm out on a
Speaker 4: property doing work or traveling through a property to to
Speaker 4: do something, like I think about the areas that I've
Speaker 4: jumped the bucks out of their bed in the middle
Speaker 4: of the day, and it's just like, man, what is
Speaker 4: he doing way out there? You know? Like you know,
Speaker 4: one that comes to mind. I have the one property
Speaker 4: that I least I won lease and there's just there's
Speaker 4: probably seven trees in this island surrounded by marsh and
Speaker 4: canary grass. I mean nothing for probably a radius of
Speaker 4: two hundred and fifty yards, not another tree, but this
Speaker 4: little high it sat up just a little bit. That's
Speaker 4: why there are trees growing there, and the buck just
Speaker 4: bedded right in the middle of that. Actually, I think
Speaker 4: there was probably a couple of them. But that's that's
Speaker 4: the kind of example of a location where just over
Speaker 4: the years I jumped up enough bucks in those scene
Speaker 4: kind of random, but if you start to think about
Speaker 4: it makes a little bit of a little bit of sense.
Speaker 4: But that's why I started targeting those locations. And like
Speaker 4: I said, like it's I still have more unsuccessful cameras
Speaker 4: than I do successful in that one just because they're
Speaker 4: there's a there's it's hard to cover all those there.
Speaker 4: There's so many spots like that that could potentially have
Speaker 4: a buck. And then not to mention you potentially could
Speaker 4: mess it up by going into that island one time.
Speaker 4: He's like, oh that's it, you know. Yeah, So yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean I still more unsuccessful than successful. But again
Speaker 4: that's where I get them as those really random off
Speaker 4: the beaten path spots away. You know, what you think
Speaker 4: about where to find a deer in the fall, it's
Speaker 4: almost opposite of that. It's like where you would not
Speaker 4: expect to see him in the.
Speaker 2: Fall in a location like that, Do you use any
Speaker 2: attractant or scent or mock scrape or anything to try to,
Speaker 2: you know, capture that photo in this slightly random place
Speaker 2: that might be different than your usual.
Speaker 4: Not in those spots, I'll you know, sometimes try to
Speaker 4: put out some mineral or something in the vicinity, you know,
Speaker 4: maybe a couple hundred yards away. But and I'm never
Speaker 4: really big on hiding cameras from deer, like hanging them
Speaker 4: high in the tree. But those are some of the
Speaker 4: exceptions where I will, like, if it looks like I mean, like,
Speaker 4: you know, a spot the size of my office, basically,
Speaker 4: if I'm like, gosh it, there's something betting right here,
Speaker 4: like it very consistently be like, I will be a
Speaker 4: lot more careful in that situation when hanging a camera,
Speaker 4: and you know, I won't try to mess it up
Speaker 4: because it seems like part of the reason that they're
Speaker 4: in spots like that, is that there's not a whole
Speaker 4: bunch of other activity, like deer activity. So if I
Speaker 4: put bait or mineral or something like that, that completely
Speaker 4: changes that spot, and I think that's that buck's not
Speaker 4: going to bed there anymore. So, Yeah, I don't do
Speaker 4: much to sweeten those spots up. You know, maybe put
Speaker 4: something close but not right there where I'm trying to
Speaker 4: get a picture of him.
Speaker 2: And then is that different though for your typical summer
Speaker 2: locations with the higher dear density type spots.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I'll try to you know, occasional I'll use mineral,
Speaker 4: but I also start my mock straps pretty early in
Speaker 4: the year as well. So those two things I'll try
Speaker 4: to sweeten the spot up with. And more let's just
Speaker 4: try to get the deer to stop for a better picture,
Speaker 4: is kind of my end goal with that. It's not
Speaker 4: necessarily drawing from a long ways away into that spot.
Speaker 4: It's more just to you know, if they have three
Speaker 4: trails coming out, you know, within twenty five yards, try
Speaker 4: to get them to come out that one trail.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So what's the Jared Mills secret to success mock
Speaker 2: scrape plan?
Speaker 4: Start them early? Like I said, I just with starting
Speaker 4: them early. I think it gives you the advantage of
Speaker 4: picking where the main hub activity scrapes are going to be.
Speaker 4: So like if you do that before the deer start
Speaker 4: naturally getting a lot more aggressive, you know they'll work
Speaker 4: them all year, but before they start getting more aggressive,
Speaker 4: like in late August early September, if you can get
Speaker 4: those those locations established first, those tend to be and
Speaker 4: they have to still be in the right spot, but
Speaker 4: those tend to be higher activity than if you're waiting
Speaker 4: and competing with the deer opening them up. So that's
Speaker 4: a big reason I try to create those hub locations
Speaker 4: that are advantageous to me, either in either from a
Speaker 4: hunting perspective or just a camera perspective. Like we're talking,
Speaker 4: and then I always try to with camera locations, especially
Speaker 4: in the fall, but get as many factors playing into
Speaker 4: that location as possible. So not just a scrape, I
Speaker 4: want a scrape, an intersection of trails, maybe a food
Speaker 4: source you know, close by in the background. Like how
Speaker 4: many things can you fit into one camera frame? Is
Speaker 4: kind of the way I look at it. It's it's
Speaker 4: you're just always up in your chances. I mean, you're
Speaker 4: giving you more more reasons for a year to cross
Speaker 4: it for that trail camera. So that's your thing. And
Speaker 4: then mock scrapes, I truly believe these are the best
Speaker 4: inventory tool. You know, a lot of people will use
Speaker 4: a corn pile for quick inventory or or something else,
Speaker 4: but to me, you with the mock scrape. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 4: technically a mock scrape isn't quote unquote natural, but it's
Speaker 4: you know, close enough to something completely natural, so you're
Speaker 4: not changing the movement pattern necessary like you would with
Speaker 4: a corn pile, especially in like non baiting states like
Speaker 4: here in Iowa. If you're in a baiting state and
Speaker 4: you're going to be hunting that pattern anyway, then that's
Speaker 4: a different story. But for me, I'd rather put something
Speaker 4: out that tells me more and teaches me more with
Speaker 4: natural movement than something that I did to dictate that movement,
Speaker 4: like a like a bait pile. Yeah, so that's the
Speaker 4: biggest thing is just you know, using mox scrapes for inventory.
Speaker 2: But also Intel, I remember seeing you mention somewhere maybe
Speaker 2: one of your past videos, talking about the fact that
Speaker 2: you in the past sometimes and many other people still
Speaker 2: today when they're setting up through mox scrapes or picking
Speaker 2: a mock scrape location, they're getting their licking branches started too.
Speaker 3: High, I think, is what you said. Can you explain
Speaker 3: why that is?
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure. So it kind of goes back to
Speaker 4: establishing it early. But also like even if you're establishing
Speaker 4: it in September, let's say that's still before all the
Speaker 4: leaves fall off the trees, and so you know by
Speaker 4: the time you hang it, even in mid September, if
Speaker 4: you hang it there and you and the leaves start
Speaker 4: to fall off late October, that's a ton of weight
Speaker 4: on the branches that's lifting up. And so if you
Speaker 4: start that the bottom of the mock scrape, whether you're
Speaker 4: using a vine or rope of a limb, whatever it is,
Speaker 4: if that's hanging down at you know, a deer's nose height,
Speaker 4: which is ultimately you want what you want that's going
Speaker 4: to be over your head. Depending on the type of tree,
Speaker 4: of course, So like if you're if you're hanging on evergreen,
Speaker 4: you don't have to necessarily worry about this, but the
Speaker 4: tree that has a lot of leaves that's going to
Speaker 4: lose those branches just it's amazing how much they can
Speaker 4: rise up as as that leaf cover starts to fall off.
Speaker 4: So I try to go kind of a rule thumb
Speaker 4: of hanging it like below waist level when I'm doing
Speaker 4: it early, and that way, when it does rise up,
Speaker 4: it's still going to be about chess level.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you're you're setting that lower than typical licking branch.
Speaker 2: Anything unique that you do when you're kicking out the
Speaker 2: dirt underneath? Do you apply any scent in that scrape
Speaker 2: in the summer when you're first starting it, and any
Speaker 2: other little tiny things you're doing that that fail out
Speaker 2: your plan?
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure. I think a couple of things to
Speaker 4: me make a really effective box scrape. In addition to
Speaker 4: the height thing, I think you need to have something vertical.
Speaker 4: Sometimes guys will you know, there will be a branch
Speaker 4: going out horizontally at the right hype and they'll just
Speaker 4: they'll just use that. There's something about that straight up
Speaker 4: and down vertical aspect that attracts your way more. I
Speaker 4: don't know what it is, but it just seems like,
Speaker 4: and you see your break off that kind of vertical aspect. Yeah,
Speaker 4: they create it. So yeah, I always make sure I
Speaker 4: have something hanging straight down awful horizonal branch, then hanging
Speaker 4: straight down scent wise when it's early in the season
Speaker 4: like this time of year. All the way through basically
Speaker 4: mid October, I'm using pretty non intrusive, non estris non
Speaker 4: rut type sense, so your preorbital gland type sense or
Speaker 4: just like a general dear heard curiosity type of scent
Speaker 4: I'm using usually using those two in combination. And then
Speaker 4: as we get to mid October, I'll start introducing some
Speaker 4: of the more Early October, I'll start introducing some dominant
Speaker 4: buck stuff, and then mid October as well, I'll start
Speaker 4: introducing some extras type stuff. And I've had really good
Speaker 4: luck because the dominant buck stuff, to me is you're
Speaker 4: timing it perfect when with the siveness on the rise
Speaker 4: of these of these bucks. And so I've even seen
Speaker 4: it where it just seems like you increase the frequencies
Speaker 4: going to the scrape because he's trying to like kind
Speaker 4: of overpower that dominance that you're putting down or that
Speaker 4: scent that you're putting down. And then uh, you know
Speaker 4: a little bit later, you're trying to take advantage of
Speaker 4: that same mature book trying to find that first Pettra Stoll.
Speaker 2: Okay, the cameras themselves that you're placing over these mock scrapes,
Speaker 2: how are you actually you mentioned you're not trying to
Speaker 2: hide the cameras usually. What about your settings? What about
Speaker 2: you know any of those like little nitty gritty specifics
Speaker 2: when it comes to you know, the specific goals you
Speaker 2: have in the summer, how do you like to set
Speaker 2: them up so you're not running out of a battery
Speaker 2: but you're getting the intel you want.
Speaker 4: Yeah, as much as possible, I'm running on video mode.
Speaker 4: It's just it's obvious you hit so many more frames
Speaker 4: to work with and to learn from. I can't tell
Speaker 4: you like I love going postseason pulling the cards from
Speaker 4: those because I don't like within a cell camp or something,
Speaker 4: you don't always see the full video, you know, if
Speaker 4: you request it or whatever. I love going postseason pulling
Speaker 4: the card and going through every single video, and it's
Speaker 4: amazing how much you miss, you know, maybe as a
Speaker 4: dough that triggered the camera but it's behind her, or
Speaker 4: maybe something in the background you can really see very
Speaker 4: well on a small thumbnail. So I love video mode
Speaker 4: for education purposes basically, and it kind of goes back
Speaker 4: to what we were talking about earlier, is I feel
Speaker 4: like you can learn so much more about a Buck's
Speaker 4: personality on a video compared to a single image, So
Speaker 4: as much as I can, and with you know, solar
Speaker 4: panels and stuff getting better, I usually don't have to
Speaker 4: worry about the battery life even when it's taken ten
Speaker 4: to fifteen second videos every time. So that's the primary
Speaker 4: video or primary camera setting that that matters to me
Speaker 4: the most. Now, if it's a crazy high activity area
Speaker 4: and you know it's a camera I don't ever want
Speaker 4: to go to and I can't get an SD card
Speaker 4: big enough in there for video, I will over on images.
Speaker 4: But I do when I do that, I do feel
Speaker 4: like I'm missing a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And at what point do you feel like your
Speaker 2: trail camera strategy shifts from that summer kind of learning
Speaker 2: mode to hunt mode and getting some you know, some
Speaker 2: different questions answered? What's that timeframe when you switch in
Speaker 2: your own head? And then is there a specific date
Speaker 2: in the calendar when you start moving things to a
Speaker 2: different location.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say mine is less of a hard
Speaker 4: shift as opposed it's more of like an evolution. I
Speaker 4: would say at the end of July, you know, as
Speaker 4: we're approaching this timeframe is when I'm I'm going to
Speaker 4: start doing a lot more mock scrapes, start to get
Speaker 4: them using that. But I'm I'm not going to necessarily
Speaker 4: have cameras deep into the timber like on you know,
Speaker 4: trails or pinches or funnels or anything like that. I'm
Speaker 4: still kind of staying in the easy, easier accessible places
Speaker 4: for me to get cameras into. I would say mid
Speaker 4: September ish, give or take, is probably when I start
Speaker 4: to deploy more cameras deeper into the areas I hunt.
Speaker 4: And that's kind of like, you know, there's a couple
Speaker 4: of reasons. It seems like the deer don't spend time
Speaker 4: in those areas as much until then. But to those
Speaker 4: are the cameras I don't want to go back to
Speaker 4: the rest of the season, and so if I get
Speaker 4: them out too early, you kind of risk whatever SD
Speaker 4: car pulling out, battery, he's dying, whatever it is. Those
Speaker 4: are the ones I just want to set and not
Speaker 4: have to go back to them, So I usually wait
Speaker 4: too closer to mid September on those.
Speaker 2: And do you have you know, a set I don't
Speaker 2: know however many places it is. But do you have
Speaker 2: set camera locations that man every year around mid September
Speaker 2: or whatever, They all right, we're gonna move our cameras
Speaker 2: to my hunt, you know, season locations, and you make
Speaker 2: that move and then you're done and they're just there
Speaker 2: for the whole season. Or are you more of the
Speaker 2: constantly changing, rethinking cameras are being moved and that strategy
Speaker 2: is evolving throughout the entire season.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say there's a few that are just
Speaker 4: kind of no brainer spots, but I would lean more
Speaker 4: towards me just trying new things all the time. You know,
Speaker 4: It's not like sometimes because I'm trying to dial it in,
Speaker 4: like maybe after my postseason review, go through all the
Speaker 4: images that start to kind of make connections and you know,
Speaker 4: be like, okay, I should probably adjust this. It just
Speaker 4: seemed like he wasn't quite getting there early enough. You know,
Speaker 4: if I of that deeper, maybe I'll get him closer
Speaker 4: to daylight or you know, there's stuff like that that
Speaker 4: all sometimes apply. But to me, like it's just this
Speaker 4: constant learning game, you know, running cameras in general, it's
Speaker 4: a constant learning game, and it's fun and so like
Speaker 4: you know, you learn a lot about your property, you
Speaker 4: learn a lot about your deer, and like for me
Speaker 4: to continue that, I like try and do spots, new locations.
Speaker 4: It doesn't have to be a lot. Sometimes it's a
Speaker 4: move of twenty five yards, you know, but it's it's
Speaker 4: something different, and it's amazing how different those locations can be. Like,
Speaker 4: like think about this as an example, like how many
Speaker 4: times have you gone on a hunt, had incredible hunt,
Speaker 4: saw a ton of deer and hardly got any pictures
Speaker 4: that night of so you know of that time. That
Speaker 4: happens all the time, and so sometimes it's just it's
Speaker 4: not because the deer just avoiding every camera. It's just
Speaker 4: sometimes like hey, you just you're just off twenty five
Speaker 4: yard off where they all came, you know, stuff like that.
Speaker 4: So that's part of the reason I like to always
Speaker 4: just try new things. It's just kind of a fun process.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how would you describe your goals for in season
Speaker 2: cameras these days? Because I don't know about you, but
Speaker 2: my goals have changed. I used to think they would
Speaker 2: do one set of things for me back fifteen years ago,
Speaker 2: and now I've kind of realized they actually sometimes hurt
Speaker 2: me in certain ways more than they help. And so
Speaker 2: my the way I use them has changed.
Speaker 3: Is that true? It all for you?
Speaker 2: And if so, like, what is that goal now that
Speaker 2: they realistically achieved for you?
Speaker 4: Yeah, one, I would say more and more as I go.
Speaker 4: My trail cameras are utilized less for the strategy of
Speaker 4: actually killing the deer. Yeah, you know, it's for me,
Speaker 4: it's inventory, like knowing he's at least alive and around.
Speaker 4: And two, to be honest, like entertainment, like you know,
Speaker 4: you know, like just getting pictures of deer in general,
Speaker 4: maybe not just your target, but but like just the
Speaker 4: behavior you can learn and just reading deer's body, body
Speaker 4: language and how they interact and you know, whether they're
Speaker 4: on alert or not, like all these types of things.
Speaker 4: You just it's just fun to sit back and watch
Speaker 4: and see what's what's going on in these properties. So
Speaker 4: I would say like those two things, you know there
Speaker 4: there is a little bit of strategy from the standpoint
Speaker 4: of like, you know, figure out the area that a
Speaker 4: certain buck is using based on the cameracy showing up
Speaker 4: on but it is is that's kind of been My
Speaker 4: biggest change is where I used to try to just
Speaker 4: dial in that pattern to be able to know exactly
Speaker 4: where I can go kill that deer. To now it's like,
Speaker 4: you know, these it's just the cameras are a tool,
Speaker 4: Like I'm using my experience and my knowledge and all
Speaker 4: that type of stuff to actually kill.
Speaker 3: This So why why is that? Why? Why are they not.
Speaker 2: The end all be all of your strategy like they
Speaker 2: used to be, or like you tried to make them be.
Speaker 4: I think I've just learned how often, you know, you
Speaker 4: can get burned by a trail camra image and over
Speaker 4: emphasizing what it's telling you rather than almost taking a
Speaker 4: step back and thinking about the why behind that picture,
Speaker 4: not just the fact that you got the picture there,
Speaker 4: but why why did you get that picture at that
Speaker 4: location at that time? You know what's he doing? You
Speaker 4: know what's he going to do when he left your camera?
Speaker 4: I think that's a part of it. I think another
Speaker 4: part is what we just talked about that like, you know,
Speaker 4: they're so so much more that's going on than what
Speaker 4: was captured in that single frame, and so like it's
Speaker 4: hard to do, but like I just feel like the
Speaker 4: advancement of trail cameras like there's always kind of been
Speaker 4: there's like this kind of ebb and flow or positive
Speaker 4: negative to it, right, Like they've they've you know, certainly
Speaker 4: limited intrusion, right, so that's a positive, like we don't
Speaker 4: go in and check them as much. But two like
Speaker 4: it's it's the negative is it's given us too much
Speaker 4: almost false information. Yeah, Like I just feel like that's
Speaker 4: kind of the the balancing factor there is, like you know,
Speaker 4: we we think because we got that picture two hours ago,
Speaker 4: like that's like the information to go go on and
Speaker 4: I've just seen way too many times where that's not
Speaker 4: the case. But like there's like the examples of that
Speaker 4: with with tril Can technology because like even you know,
Speaker 4: I think you could probably agree, like back in the day,
Speaker 4: we would use cameras. You may sometimes the data was
Speaker 4: two weeks old or whatever it may be, but we're
Speaker 4: using cameras to find good spots to hunt almost any buck.
Speaker 4: Like gosh, this is this is a money spot. This
Speaker 4: is there and need to be in, Like there's just
Speaker 4: a lot of bucks going through here, and now it's
Speaker 4: like we're doing it for one buck, you know. Just
Speaker 4: it's like that, Yes, cell cameras kill more deer but
Speaker 4: cell cameras also save more dear because you're not just
Speaker 4: shooting the perst thing, you're waiting for that one that
Speaker 4: you've been getting on camera. So there's there's a lot
Speaker 4: of kind of give and takes there with with how
Speaker 4: that trail cam technology is as evolved. But yeah, strategy wise,
Speaker 4: I think it boils down to inventory and just overall
Speaker 4: education entertainment from like a just a deer learning standpoint.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like it's almost like an epidemic of
Speaker 2: chasing trail cam photos for a lot of folks. And
Speaker 2: I have been guilty of myself, right just like you said,
Speaker 2: I get I got the photo of him here yesterday,
Speaker 2: so I should I should be there, And then I
Speaker 2: got the picture of this morning or whatever, I gotta
Speaker 2: go there.
Speaker 3: And then you're.
Speaker 2: Constantly kind of chasing your tail cause you're chasing where
Speaker 2: they were twenty four hours ago or twelve hours ago
Speaker 2: or whatever your update rate is. So you gave me
Speaker 2: some you gave some high level kind of alternatives there,
Speaker 2: But like, what's the specific antidote to that if there's
Speaker 2: an if there's an epidemic of chasing you know, instant
Speaker 2: camera photos, can you kind of paint the picture for
Speaker 2: me of what the opposite of that actually looks like
Speaker 2: in real life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, just try to try to figure out how to
Speaker 4: be specific. But like it starts with taking a back
Speaker 4: and taking a step back and asking why, like I mentioned,
Speaker 4: like it's because it's you're right, Like it's so easy.
Speaker 4: Like I have these conversations with buddies all the time
Speaker 4: during the season, like do not chase that? SKay, do
Speaker 4: not do it? And like so at the same time,
Speaker 4: it's like, yeah, what else, what else am I going
Speaker 4: to do? It's my best life, you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: And I don't know what the other answer is, because
Speaker 4: it's very dependent on what you know about the property
Speaker 4: in that book and how he moves. But the more
Speaker 4: so here's another example of like how it's how the
Speaker 4: game has changed. Like you hear people all the time
Speaker 4: say cell cameras are a substitute for woodsmanship, right, like
Speaker 4: people complain about that. Yep, you don't. It doesn't have
Speaker 4: to be that way. You can be intentional about making
Speaker 4: it a making you a better woodsman by not chasing
Speaker 4: that cell cam. Hey you got some intel, Yeah you
Speaker 4: got a little advantage, a little head start, but use
Speaker 4: your woodsmanship to figure out the rest. Don't chase the
Speaker 4: cell cam pick, use your woodsmanship, what you know about
Speaker 4: you know everything about the time of the year, how
Speaker 4: bucks like to move, what they're doing right now. Use
Speaker 4: that information to decide where you're gonna hunt. Make that
Speaker 4: trail cam picture or video a small a smaller part
Speaker 4: of it than the way you're currently doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so what about how you are you know,
Speaker 2: specifically setting things up in season to get the type
Speaker 2: of information that allows you to do that. You mentioned
Speaker 2: video being such a huge part of your summer game.
Speaker 2: I think that is true for in season two, right,
Speaker 2: still doing video anything else unique with with your mock
Speaker 2: scrape setups or locations or anything else once we're in
Speaker 2: season to get that actually useful information.
Speaker 4: Not necessarily anything different there. The mock scrapes are still
Speaker 4: a huge part. I would say ninety five percent or
Speaker 4: more of my cameras are on on mock scrapes throughout
Speaker 4: the entire fall. Even if I'm on the edge of
Speaker 4: a food plot, I'm still put a mock scrape in
Speaker 4: front of that camera or in the background of the camera,
Speaker 4: whatever it may be. So nothing changing there. Still love
Speaker 4: running video mode because you know even more so you
Speaker 4: get to continue to learn that dear's personality, just how
Speaker 4: how his body language is, how he interacts with another
Speaker 4: bucket that scrape, you can a lot of times tell
Speaker 4: how aggressive they are things like that, which then can
Speaker 4: play into your hunting strategy. Like you know, more aggressive
Speaker 4: deer is going to be more likely to respond to
Speaker 4: calling in the right situation. So so things like that. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean, like I said, like, it's I just need
Speaker 4: to know that he's there and killable, and that's like
Speaker 4: that's the biggest piece of information. I don't need to
Speaker 4: know his every move. I don't need to know exactly
Speaker 4: where it is. I will say this, I will change
Speaker 4: it a little bit. I'm not I'm not someone that's
Speaker 4: afraid to be aggressive with trail camera moves if I
Speaker 4: need to so. And what I mean by that, like
Speaker 4: it maybe you start getting a few pictures of a buck,
Speaker 4: but it's you know, not in daylight, you need to
Speaker 4: move the camera to try to get closer to where
Speaker 4: he's betting. Or you know the other thing too, Deer
Speaker 4: very individual and so like sometimes you'll have cameras that
Speaker 4: are were good spots for a buckie or chasing last year.
Speaker 4: But those camera locations maybe they start out there, but
Speaker 4: they're not doing you that much good for how this
Speaker 4: particular buck us is the property the following year. So
Speaker 4: if the cameras aren't producing like I think they should,
Speaker 4: I'm not afraid to go in and move them. And
Speaker 4: sometimes I'll wait for a rainy day or make sure
Speaker 4: I have the right wind to go into that spot
Speaker 4: or whatever. Like I'm not completely careless during the middle
Speaker 4: of the fall, but I also don't stay out forever
Speaker 4: because a lot of times, you know this, like your
Speaker 4: windows of opportunity are so small that you know if
Speaker 4: you don't, if you just sit back and kind of
Speaker 4: let it play out, you might be too late by
Speaker 4: the time you get to the information you want. So
Speaker 4: I'm not afraid to be aggressive and actually move camera locations,
Speaker 4: even if it's the middle of November.
Speaker 2: Any other tricks other than the rain or good wind
Speaker 2: direction to you know, be able to make those moves
Speaker 2: while keeping the impact low. I mean I used to
Speaker 2: be I'm slightly less so now, and maybe it's just
Speaker 2: because I'm old and I have kids, but I used
Speaker 2: to be my scent control when moving trail cameras, when
Speaker 2: touching trail cameras and anything.
Speaker 3: It was so dial.
Speaker 2: I was always wearing gloves, I was always spraying it down,
Speaker 2: I was always ocd. I'm still like that to a degree,
Speaker 2: but not quite as much. Do you do you worry
Speaker 2: about that kind of stuff? Do you worry about anything
Speaker 2: else when it comes to you know, are you rolling
Speaker 2: in there on a knee.
Speaker 3: Bike or on a quad or a truck or how
Speaker 3: do you do all those things?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think you've got a couple of different options,
Speaker 4: And to be honest, like it kind of depends on
Speaker 4: the situation of which buck I'm hunting and how close
Speaker 4: I think he is to that spot, you know, if
Speaker 4: it's if it's a location that's a little bit on
Speaker 4: the outskirts, I don't get was worried about it, But
Speaker 4: if I feel like I'm walking into his bedroom, he
Speaker 4: could be in fifty yards. Like, of course, I'm going
Speaker 4: to do every little thing. I'm gonna treat like a hunt,
Speaker 4: So I'm gonna, you know, wear rubber boots, spray down,
Speaker 4: try not to rub any vegetation, all that type of stuff.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I think your options are doing it, like
Speaker 4: try to leave no intrusion or a lot of intrusion
Speaker 4: at the other end of the spectrum with a tractor
Speaker 4: or ud via truck, et cetera. Like, I don't think
Speaker 4: there's anything between. I think you try to leave no
Speaker 4: presence or make your presence very known, one of those two.
Speaker 2: Yeah, have you ever gone so far on that front?
Speaker 2: So there have been times where I thought about that
Speaker 2: exact same thing, but I didn't have a truck or anything,
Speaker 2: and so I thought, should I, even though I have
Speaker 2: to I have to go on my foot, should I
Speaker 2: lean really hard into that and like talk on my
Speaker 2: phone or have a chainsaw with me and like rev
Speaker 2: the chainsaw or something like that. I've considered doing that
Speaker 2: to try to, you know, be the obnoxious, loud person
Speaker 2: that's in the woods that deer do get used to
Speaker 2: in a lot of places. Have you ever thought about
Speaker 2: going so far as doing that.
Speaker 4: I think I think that's the second best option, if
Speaker 4: you don't think you can get in completely undetected. I
Speaker 4: still think completely undetected is the best option. But if
Speaker 4: you're like, gosh, there's just such a slim chance that
Speaker 4: he's at least gonna win me if not hear me
Speaker 4: and see me too. If that's the case and you
Speaker 4: have to get in there, then I could see being creative.
Speaker 4: The other thing you could do is, you know, if
Speaker 4: you're trying to not let your presence be known in
Speaker 4: that very tight spot, you could potentially do something like
Speaker 4: a wind bump where you circle around the other side
Speaker 4: and you know, make him think the danger was that way,
Speaker 4: get him out of there, and then you know, kind
Speaker 4: of move in and then that's that's pretty situation and
Speaker 4: spot dependent obviously, but that's another thing you can potentially
Speaker 4: think about if you if you didn't want to go
Speaker 4: in completely intrusive.
Speaker 2: You mentioned that sometimes you'll move those cameras around if
Speaker 2: you're not getting him in daylight left or daylight yet,
Speaker 2: which brought to mind another one of the things you
Speaker 2: know that I've thought about throughout the season that I
Speaker 2: know a lot of people do, is lots of times
Speaker 2: they will use their cell cams to give them like
Speaker 2: the green light to say, oh, yeah, now it's time
Speaker 2: to go. So even if we're not saying, well, I
Speaker 2: need to go here, there's also like the when question,
Speaker 2: and some people will say, okay, if he's not moving
Speaker 2: in daylight yet, I need to be waiting and waiting
Speaker 2: and waiting, and then.
Speaker 3: Once he daylights, you'll hear this a lot.
Speaker 2: Right, Oh, he daylighted, now it's time to get after him.
Speaker 3: How do you feel about that?
Speaker 2: Do you think it's a good idea to use cameras
Speaker 2: to tell you when he's starting to move in daylight
Speaker 2: and then you start getting aggressive or do you think
Speaker 2: that maybe we're being you know, too passive and missing
Speaker 2: a lot of the picture mentioned earlier.
Speaker 4: So there are some situations where I do that, for sure,
Speaker 4: But the what it's been for me in my experience,
Speaker 4: just because I don't have giant properties like where you
Speaker 4: can't necessarily get closer where he's been because he's not
Speaker 4: betting on you, like you run out of room, like
Speaker 4: if you if you're trying to keep moving cameras deeper, deeper, deeper,
Speaker 4: or further further, further to try to get closer to
Speaker 4: the direction he's coming from and get him in daylight
Speaker 4: like almost always going to run out of room, like
Speaker 4: he just not on me. He's coming on me, you know,
Speaker 4: later in the evening. And so when I've used a
Speaker 4: camera to your point of like saying okay, now now
Speaker 4: he is it seems like it's been like a shift
Speaker 4: in him just betting closer or betting on me, not
Speaker 4: the fact that he's getting up earlier from his bed,
Speaker 4: like it just seems like dear it's almost like not
Speaker 4: one hundred of course, but usually they're moving in daylight somewhere,
Speaker 4: you know, maybe it's within one hundred yards of their bed,
Speaker 4: but they're moving in daylight. And so that's what I
Speaker 4: mean by trying to find and get closer to that location.
Speaker 4: Otherwise it's just waiting until he relocates closer to you.
Speaker 4: That's been my experience, not necessarily like oh, you know,
Speaker 4: now he's getting up from his bed earlier, which that happens,
Speaker 4: but typically that's not the pattern doesn't just change like that,
Speaker 4: At least in my experience. It's it's he's finding reasons
Speaker 4: maybe you have the better food source, maybe you have
Speaker 4: the better like kind of dough congregation area, and it's
Speaker 4: getting closer to that time of year where he wants
Speaker 4: to be in there earlier, and he kind of relocates closer.
Speaker 4: That's that's probably the more common scenario for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, you know, we've talked a lot about how
Speaker 2: our dependence on cameras today, you know, for strategy has
Speaker 2: maybe declined in some ways at least like real time strategy.
Speaker 2: What about year over year, right, like looking at what
Speaker 2: these deer have done last year and the year before,
Speaker 2: when you've had, you know, a buck that's stuck.
Speaker 3: Around, how is that changing for you?
Speaker 2: And how are you keeping track of those these days
Speaker 2: and making sense like analyzing that stuff?
Speaker 3: Do you have a system for that still?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I mean it's I do spend a lot of
Speaker 4: time postseason, and sometimes I'll do it twice. Like sometimes
Speaker 4: I'll do it, you know, post pretty quick postseason, we're
Speaker 4: still fresh on my mind. I want to get everything
Speaker 4: kind of cleaned up, organized, you know, the pictures tagged
Speaker 4: or whatever, and then I'll visit again, kind of this
Speaker 4: time of year when we start to get excited and
Speaker 4: like think about okay, how you know, making game plans
Speaker 4: for certain bucks or whatever, you know, kind of revisit
Speaker 4: I kind of refresh, rejog my memory as to oh, yeah, man,
Speaker 4: I forgot that first week of October. You spent a
Speaker 4: lot of time in this area. I wonder if I
Speaker 4: should do something different this year. So I'll kind of
Speaker 4: revisit that and then just go through historical images, because
Speaker 4: certainly a combination of sightings, encounters, and trail cam data
Speaker 4: has shown to me that, like there's a lot of
Speaker 4: historical patterns or annual patterns that you can establish. It's
Speaker 4: not every buck. It kind of points back to the
Speaker 4: individuality of these deer, but certain bucks, you know you
Speaker 4: can count on. I don't know how many examples I
Speaker 4: can tell you of bucks that show up for the
Speaker 4: first time within a couple of days of each other
Speaker 4: every year. So that that type of stuff I'd definitely
Speaker 4: like to pay attention to when I get the chance.
Speaker 4: It's not very often I get the chance to hunt
Speaker 4: the deer multiple years. Like you know, if I'm targeting
Speaker 4: the biggest, most mature buck that I can find, that
Speaker 4: deer's being targeted by a lot of people, and they
Speaker 4: just don't make it through that very often, and so like,
Speaker 4: it's it is pretty rare that I get a chance
Speaker 4: to target a deer for multiple years. You know of two,
Speaker 4: especially three, and you can take some from them being
Speaker 4: a younger age class deer. But to me, the most
Speaker 4: applicable data that you can use is when you're actually
Speaker 4: targeting a deer to kill him. So if if you're
Speaker 4: waiting till five to kill him, and you don't kill
Speaker 4: him at five, and so you get a chance to
Speaker 4: hunt him at six, that's the most applicable data. To me,
Speaker 4: that's way way more applicable than a four and a
Speaker 4: half year old that you don't hunt because he's not
Speaker 4: old enough, and then you go to hunt at five.
Speaker 4: That four year old intel to me doesn't translate as
Speaker 4: well compared to it's I think it's behavioral for the deer.
Speaker 4: You know, five five year old, that's more like a
Speaker 4: six year old than a four does a five. But
Speaker 4: it's also like you specifically, right, Like, if you're targeting
Speaker 4: a deer, you're thinking about every single condition, every single
Speaker 4: factor you're going in, you're hunting, You're learning from your hunts,
Speaker 4: not just show came to you, learning from your sightings,
Speaker 4: your mistakes, whatever it may be. There's just a lot
Speaker 4: more to pull from and apply it the next year
Speaker 4: compared to a deer you don't even go in and hunt.
Speaker 4: So that's the data that I that I think about
Speaker 4: and pay more attention to is if I get the
Speaker 4: chance to hunt a deer and actually intentionally target a
Speaker 4: deer for multiple years. I feel like there's a lot
Speaker 4: of data that can take the following year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's wrap it up here by kind of leaning
Speaker 2: into this idea of history a little bit and looking
Speaker 2: backwards kind of three final rapid fire type thoughts here.
Speaker 2: If you were to look back over the last you know,
Speaker 2: twenty years, fifteen twenty years, what is the biggest trail
Speaker 2: camera mistake you've made? What's been like the most harmful
Speaker 2: thing you've done with cameras or the habit or the
Speaker 2: idea you had that you know, messed up your hunts
Speaker 2: the most, or mitigated the benefits that you could have
Speaker 2: been enjoying the most. What's that biggest mistake when it
Speaker 2: comes to cameras And maybe we've talked about it, but
Speaker 2: I'd love to kind of tie a bow on that thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say, you know, fifteen years ago, that
Speaker 4: mistake was probably different than five years ago. Like it's
Speaker 4: all touch on both of them quick but yeah, but
Speaker 4: with you know, more recently, it's it was the chasing
Speaker 4: pictures aspect that that has to be the big mistake
Speaker 4: that probably ninety percent of guys have made recently. Right
Speaker 4: back in the day, I would say the biggest thing
Speaker 4: is not treating cameras as a powerful inventory tool. And
Speaker 4: what I mean by that more specifically is, you know,
Speaker 4: I have the set properties that I can hunt, and
Speaker 4: they're pretty spread out. You know a lot of mission properties.
Speaker 4: I own it one property and I lease a property,
Speaker 4: but they're all spread out and which you know to
Speaker 4: me for me, like I think, if you want to
Speaker 4: find and target a big deer every year, you have
Speaker 4: to cast a wide net. And that's where these trail
Speaker 4: cameras play the biggest part. Like I'm not I'm not
Speaker 4: going out and finding deer that are on other properties
Speaker 4: and get permission to hunt. So I am just casting
Speaker 4: as wide of a net with trail cameras on the
Speaker 4: properties I can hunt to find the deer that I
Speaker 4: want to target that fall. And a lot of times
Speaker 4: that comes up comes with you know, finding backup option
Speaker 4: number two, backup option number three, because I mean, these
Speaker 4: deer get killed all the time and you have to
Speaker 4: kind of pivot and go to something else. So I
Speaker 4: think fifteen to twenty years ago, I was using drail cameras,
Speaker 4: like you know, this is how I kill a deer.
Speaker 4: As I'm as you know, I get this field information
Speaker 4: from the field like I'm there, Like I can go
Speaker 4: hunt those spots when I get a picture of them,
Speaker 4: or you know, it at least tells me the deer
Speaker 4: likes to use this trail or this is great, whereas
Speaker 4: now it's just I just need to know they're there,
Speaker 4: and that's that's that's how I can build my strategy.
Speaker 4: It's just give me the inventory and let me build
Speaker 4: my strategy from there.
Speaker 2: Quick, fillo up on that these days? What's your camera
Speaker 2: density that you think you need to get that accurate inventory.
Speaker 2: I know it's different on based on every property, but
Speaker 2: but if you had to give me an average per
Speaker 2: one hundred acres or something like that, what do you
Speaker 2: think you'd be at these days?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll tell you, like what I'm at, I don't
Speaker 4: think it's enough. If you're again, if you're just wanning,
Speaker 4: you know, if you're trying to build an actual strategy,
Speaker 4: it's not enough. Like I don't I don't think I
Speaker 4: could afford enough cameras to actually give me that detail
Speaker 4: of information. But on one hundred acres, I would say
Speaker 4: I'm running somewhere in the ballpark of Yeah, it definitely depends,
Speaker 4: But I would say in the ballpark at ten cameras
Speaker 4: on a hundred acre phon. Yeah, I feel like that
Speaker 4: gives me good enough that I'm at least going to
Speaker 4: get a picture of a buck that's there within, you know,
Speaker 4: three to five days somewhere on there enough to tell
Speaker 4: me that he's on and around the property.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, So back to the kind of looking
Speaker 2: backwards set of questions last fifteen to twenty years. What's
Speaker 2: the single most beneficial change you've made of all the
Speaker 2: things we've talked about, or maybe things we haven't talked
Speaker 2: about yet. What's been that like flip that you switched
Speaker 2: that all of a sudden changed the game for you
Speaker 2: in a positive way. Is there anything that stands out?
Speaker 4: I'd say on a micro level, it's just getting really
Speaker 4: good at dialing in a camera location, Like I talked
Speaker 4: about getting as many factors into one frame as possible. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I think that has made my trail camera is so
Speaker 4: much more effective. Like I honestly think gets tripled or
Speaker 4: quadrupled the amount of quality photos that I've gotten is
Speaker 4: dialing that in. And then maybe on a broader level,
Speaker 4: I would say being intentional kind of like we talked about,
Speaker 4: but just being intentional about how I use how I
Speaker 4: use the cameras and thinking deeper about the reason behind
Speaker 4: a trail cam encounter or trail cam picture video, thinking
Speaker 4: deeper as to why that might be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that why question.
Speaker 2: That's I think that's one of the most powerful words
Speaker 2: in all the deer hunting if you just ask this
Speaker 2: question all the time, like when you get a camera photo,
Speaker 2: when you have an encounter, when you muff a shot,
Speaker 2: you know, anything, like always ask why. And that seems
Speaker 2: to be like a cheat code to getting better at
Speaker 2: all this stuff, right.
Speaker 4: For sure, And like I think we have to be
Speaker 4: more conscious of that going forward, because look, like you
Speaker 4: know where the whole reason we're having this conversation is
Speaker 4: because technology is changing. But I think we're right, we're
Speaker 4: at the beginning. We're at like the toddler stages. Like
Speaker 4: think about what's in the very near future with AI
Speaker 4: and animal recognition and predictive behavior models, and you know,
Speaker 4: it's going to be crazy what troe cam data and
Speaker 4: apps are going to tell you. And so I think
Speaker 4: just in general, as outdoorsmen and lovers of this entire process,
Speaker 4: you're gonna have to get to a point where you
Speaker 4: almost have to kind of you have to draw your
Speaker 4: online of course, but you you have to be more
Speaker 4: intentional about that wide question to keep the fun in it,
Speaker 4: because there's gonna be some super impressive technology that's going
Speaker 4: to give you all the answers if you want them,
Speaker 4: which is good and scary at the same time. And
Speaker 4: you know, I can potentially see it robbing some of
Speaker 4: the fun of you know, having conversations like this, because
Speaker 4: this is like part of the addiction for us is
Speaker 4: trying to figure it out and not having it all
Speaker 4: figured out. So as troil cameras and the software associated
Speaker 4: with them changes in the very near future, you know,
Speaker 4: I think we continue if we keep asking ourselves why
Speaker 4: rather than just accepting all the data that's given to us.
Speaker 4: You know, I think we're going to be able to
Speaker 4: keep this thing fun and keep the woodsmanship and the
Speaker 4: hunting side of it the way that we love it.
Speaker 3: Man, that's such a great point.
Speaker 2: I even see that happening just in daily life, right
Speaker 2: with the fact that we can we have any question,
Speaker 2: we might have, any challenge we might have. Now you
Speaker 2: just punch it into Google or chat, GPT or whatever,
Speaker 2: and you don't even have to search and read other
Speaker 2: people's articles. It just gives you an answer, and it
Speaker 2: kind of takes away the need for any critical thinking
Speaker 2: or any problem solving or if you want to write
Speaker 2: somebody in an email or whatever, people could just it
Speaker 2: could write it for you. You don't have to sit
Speaker 2: down and think about it yourself and clarify your own
Speaker 2: thinking for yourself anymore. Right, And so you're right, that's
Speaker 2: that's happening now with these predictive algorithms with as you mentioned,
Speaker 2: all the things coming down the line with trail cameras,
Speaker 2: And you make a good point. I think there's two things. One,
Speaker 2: it's how do you integrate that into your way of
Speaker 2: doing things in a way that feels right and that
Speaker 2: you know is effective. But then also what's the experience
Speaker 2: you want? And we don't have to accept all this
Speaker 2: stuff just because it's available, right, We can choose what
Speaker 2: experience we want, what that line is for us as individuals,
Speaker 2: And I think you're right we got to be intentional
Speaker 2: about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, I think key word you said experience like
Speaker 4: hunt for yourself, hunt for the experience you want, and
Speaker 4: if you always let that drive you, no matter what
Speaker 4: it is, if it's a technology of recovering deer. If
Speaker 4: it's a technology tri camp, technology of whatever it may be,
Speaker 4: you know, draw your own line, because you know, we're
Speaker 4: we're already past the point of where you know, regulations
Speaker 4: and stuff like that are going to keep up with
Speaker 4: the tech. It's already surpassed. Like you were already at
Speaker 4: the point where regulations aren't going to cover that for you,
Speaker 4: and you kind of have to make those decisions for
Speaker 4: yourself based on that experience you want.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, last thing here. If I were to,
Speaker 2: you know, sit down and have a beer with a
Speaker 2: couple of your best dear hunting buddies and ask them, Hey,
Speaker 2: what is the weirdest thing that Jared does when it
Speaker 2: comes to trail camps. What's the strangest, most bizarre thing
Speaker 2: that he's always done or has occasionally done.
Speaker 3: What would they tell me?
Speaker 4: Gosh, I have some weird quirk. I can tell you
Speaker 4: probably what I get the hardest time about from a
Speaker 4: hunting perspective, But trail cam stuff is tough.
Speaker 3: I do want to hear the hunting perspective side now,
Speaker 3: Not to tease it.
Speaker 4: I would say, you know, maybe this isn't weird, but
Speaker 4: on the TROPHYMP side, like I I keep way more
Speaker 4: data than the average person. Yeah, I have hard drives
Speaker 4: and hard drives of so many photos, and a lot
Speaker 4: of times I don't even go delete all the dough
Speaker 4: photos and small bum I just I don't know. Sometimes
Speaker 4: I like fast airwin like flipping through like a like
Speaker 4: a collage of photos, and you know you can kind
Speaker 4: of see like, man, it's just a high activity in general,
Speaker 4: or man, this is like a dough hotspot or whatever
Speaker 4: it is, like this, this is there's some cool deer
Speaker 4: behavior here, So you know that. I guess that could
Speaker 4: be one that's a little bit different than what most guys.
Speaker 4: I'm always surprised at how many pictures other guys delete,
Speaker 4: just because that's that's just not me, you know. And
Speaker 4: maybe it's to an organization fall of mine. I'm not sure.
Speaker 4: But I do keep a lot of historical images, even
Speaker 4: from ten to fifteen years ago. So that's one. On
Speaker 4: the hunting side, like it's just the spots that I
Speaker 4: choose to hunt. It's similar to the trail camp stuff
Speaker 4: in regards to you, like I'm not afraid to move around,
Speaker 4: try new locations just for the fun of it. Same
Speaker 4: thing on the hunting side, Like I'll go sit two
Speaker 4: feet off the ground in a tiny little cedar tree
Speaker 4: just for the experience. Sometimes it's off the wall thing
Speaker 4: that works. Sometimes it's you know, not by choice, but
Speaker 4: by default that's all. That's my only option to get close,
Speaker 4: you know, within recurve range or bow range or whatever
Speaker 4: it is to a buck. But it's funny, like I've
Speaker 4: got so many guys that I'll be out on a
Speaker 4: property and they'll be like, oh, there's a Jared millstree
Speaker 4: or there's a dead millstery there, you know, like it's
Speaker 4: just kind of this thing that always a running joke
Speaker 4: of the types of setups kind of wild, off wall
Speaker 4: crazy type of setups that I that I try. So yeah,
Speaker 4: I would say that's that's become something that I've known
Speaker 4: for a monst my friend group man.
Speaker 2: But what that's such an unlock I think to be
Speaker 2: able to realize that you don't need to do the stereotypical,
Speaker 2: like picture perfect setup to have success, right And I
Speaker 2: used to feel the same way, you know, fifteen years
Speaker 2: ago I thought, oh I need to be twenty four
Speaker 2: feet up in this perfect tree, in this perfect location
Speaker 2: that the rule book says has to be like A
Speaker 2: B and C. And then you know, as we both
Speaker 2: found out, sometimes those spots just aren't in the right place,
Speaker 2: or sometimes you have to be in some crazy thing
Speaker 2: and that stuff actually can work if you are willing
Speaker 2: to give it a shot and if you have the
Speaker 2: confidence to try it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, lights go ahead.
Speaker 2: I'm just going to say, like, I remember that some
Speaker 2: big brush pile you hit in one year and killed
Speaker 2: the giant buck out because of a situation like that, Right,
Speaker 2: I've had a bunch of these deals where I realized
Speaker 2: there was no way to get to where I need
Speaker 2: to be unless I just laid on the ground or
Speaker 2: hidden this they stood in a standing cornfield, or do
Speaker 2: some crazy off the wall thing. And what's the worst
Speaker 2: that happens? It doesn't work out, and then you just
Speaker 2: try something else, right.
Speaker 4: And you're sorry it can work, and like sometimes it's
Speaker 4: what it takes, but it does. I will say this
Speaker 4: that highlights the importance of the other stuff we talk about,
Speaker 4: like your access, your stealthiness of being in the tree,
Speaker 4: knowing when you can move and not move. Because those
Speaker 4: those off the wall spots, especially when they're on the
Speaker 4: ground or closer to the ground burn out quicker in
Speaker 4: my experience, like you don't get away with as much
Speaker 4: one your more eye level, you're closer with the deer,
Speaker 4: you're in a spot where the wind maybe doesn't flow freely,
Speaker 4: like if you're twenty five feet up in the air
Speaker 4: and your winds blowing carrying a long ways away really quickly,
Speaker 4: as opposed to tucked underneath a little cedar tree and
Speaker 4: your sense just kind of in there swirling. Like I've
Speaker 4: found that I can't hunt those spots very often, Like
Speaker 4: can sec of times I should say. Yeah, So it's
Speaker 4: like you've got to get in, you've got to get out,
Speaker 4: and you've got to know what you're doing when you're
Speaker 4: in the tree because it's a lot harder spot to
Speaker 4: get away with, but it can work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sometimes you got to take a flyer, both in
Speaker 2: your hunts and with those camera locations like you mentioned.
Speaker 2: So right, it's a good thing to remember. Well, before
Speaker 2: let's go Jared real quick, what's the latest on your projects,
Speaker 2: on your videos or anything else new that folks should
Speaker 2: know about and where can they find that stuff?
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure, I'm just finally starting to ramp up
Speaker 4: content now. Been very busy spring with the land projects,
Speaker 4: I do a lot of work for other land managers,
Speaker 4: obviously my own projects. I recently launched a food plot
Speaker 4: seat company called Pisis, so that took up a lot
Speaker 4: of a lot of the spring, getting that off the ground,
Speaker 4: building the website, all that type of stuff. So if
Speaker 4: guys have food plot questions or want recommendations like that's
Speaker 4: kind of my biggest goal with VISIS is to really
Speaker 4: help guys understand what they're doing. Like, food plotting in
Speaker 4: general is overwhelming, even for guys that do it all
Speaker 4: the time, super overwhelming for guys that haven't gotten into
Speaker 4: it or just have a very little experience. There's so
Speaker 4: many different ways to do it that you don't know
Speaker 4: where to start. So my biggest goal of VISIS is
Speaker 4: to just help guys in general be more successful because
Speaker 4: it's a super rewarding process once you get into it.
Speaker 4: So been busy with that. Also have the day Walk brand,
Speaker 4: which is my brand for mock scrape since things like that,
Speaker 4: so guys can reach out to me on either of
Speaker 4: those platforms or obviously my personal platforms. YouTube is the
Speaker 4: best place to follow kind of a long form storytelling hunting.
Speaker 3: Side awesome and what are the u r ls for
Speaker 3: pisis and day Walk.
Speaker 4: Yeah, growthsis dot com is the food plot website, Daywalkdeer
Speaker 4: dot Com is the scent website. And then it's just
Speaker 4: my name Jared Mills on the on the other platforms.
Speaker 2: Awesome well as always, appreciate you taking time for the chat.
Speaker 2: It's got me, uh, it's got me fired up to
Speaker 2: get out there and readjust a couple of camera locations
Speaker 2: and love it. Can't wait for the season to get here,
Speaker 2: So thank you Jerry for that.
Speaker 4: Awesome man. Appreciate you having me.
Speaker 2: And that is going to do it for us here today.
Speaker 2: Appreciate you joining me on this episode. I hope you
Speaker 2: have enjoyed this summer tral camera mini series. We will
Speaker 2: now be moving into a new phase of the year
Speaker 2: as we are right on the doorstep of hunting season,
Speaker 2: which is pretty darn exciting. So thanks for being here
Speaker 2: and until next time, stay wired to Hunt.