Trail Camera Adventures with John Nicholson Part 3

Trail cameras can be addictive for the photos, but the real payoff is what those clips reveal about animal behavior and repeatable movement patterns. We’re joined again by John Nicholson from Trail Camera Adventures to get practical about turning trail cams into a true scouting system, especially for hunters who feel like they’re “doing everything right” but still can’t make the data translate into daylight encounters. If you’ve ever pulled a card, seen a mature buck once, and then watched him vanish, we dig into why that happens and how to respond without burning the spot. 

We get specific on gear and setup: what makes a camera “good” depends on your application, from high-resolution footage for editing to reliable detection for hunting intel. John shares why certain tiny micro mini cameras have been consistent letdowns, why default settings are a beginner’s best friend, and how SD card choices can either streamline your season or create constant frustration. We also talk video vs photo mode and why video captures the small details that change decisions, like approach routes, body language, and what other animals are trailing behind. 

Blacktail hunting is a major focus, including how sensitive mature blacktail bucks can be to flash, LEDs, and subtle camera cues, and why blackout or no-glow trail cameras matter. From there we connect trail camera strategy to core-area discipline: home range realities, perimeter hunting, rut “racetrack” loops, and how wind and thermals can influence the direction a buck chooses. We close with unforgettable trail cam stories, from buck fights to bobcats to bears, plus a cougar moment that reshaped how we think about predator behavior. 

If you enjoy this kind of deep-dive scouting talk, subscribe, share the episode with a hunting buddy, and leave a review so more blacktail hunters can find the show. What trail camera question do you want us to tackle next?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:09

Welcome back to the Blacktail Coach Podcast. I'm Aaron.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

And I'm Dave.

SPEAKER_03 0:13

All right, week three of Trail Camera Adventures with John Nicholson. That's his YouTube channel, but it's a great title for these episodes. Week three out of week 26. And yes, John, I believe you could you could probably do a podcast of just you do a YouTube channel of just trail cameras, but there's just so much content.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

And oh there is.

SPEAKER_03 1:10

And Dave, who has been messing around with trail cameras as long as you have. Me, I'm still the newbie, so of course I'm learning stuff, but yeah, for Dave to be learning stuff.

Trail Cameras As Data Collection

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Yeah, and some of the stuff that I just concided to the fact what's just user error. I'm just doing something wrong, and I can live with it. I can I can get this and stuff. And the thing is, it's funny because I just we did a one-day in-person seminar, seven hours last Saturday. I've got seven hours to explain to these guys my system and how I do it and everything, and we get to trail cameras, and I think they're the most underutilized, one of the most underutilized tools out there, in the sense that buck is telling you exactly how to hunt him every time he steps in front of that trail camera. And you've said it off air from the way they come in to the way they leave, what time, what's the barometric pressure, wind direction, what the temperature, moon phase, and all of that is covered in these trail cameras. And guys are getting them, and and they're buying the trail camera initially for the entertainment factor, and they are, they're extremely entertaining.

SPEAKER_03 2:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

But as far as a hunting tool, they're priceless because again, that buck is telling you how to hunt him or that bear or that elk. But you're not guys aren't utilizing that. They're not looking at the trail camera as a tool, they're looking at it at it as as entertainment, and it has a little bit of value to it as far as helping me out there. I know what animal is coming in, I know how big he is, right? The caliber of animal. They're just not utilizing everything that's given to him. Aaron calls it data collection, data collection, and then reading the data. And that's exactly what it is.

SPEAKER_03 2:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

And they've come a long way.

Picking Cameras For Your Use

SPEAKER_03 2:55

And that's with talking about data collection, and that's how we want to. Yes, they're inner. It's really cool when you get pictures of all these animals. And I've gotten so many different animals on picture, but being able to read that as data and to adjust what you're doing in your hunt is really interesting. Just with oh, okay. He's actually moving from left to right, not right to left. He could so that's his favorite trail, and he's coming in at this time, and it's not quite daylight, so I might need to leapfrog and go down the trail another 40-50 yards. And all this that we've talked about and done, but yeah, it's using the trail cams as a tool. And I know we actually even touched on that, and we will do what we call it leapfrogging, and we'll just leapfrog with our cameras down the trail until we get them to the point where we can get that buck on daylight, daylighting at a certain point. So let's start off for beginners or guys who are just getting into cameras. Are there any companies, brands of cameras that they should avoid?

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Or we were talking about this earlier. For the most part, if you would ask me that 10, 15 years ago, I would have had a list longer than ones that you should get. But today, the only cameras that are constantly letting me down are these little tiny compacts that only use three to four batteries and they're called micro minis or something like that. And I'm okay, I've tried buying those three times online and I've had absolutely no success with them. So that's just my personal experience in time. Guess what? Those are gonna be better too. But I would say overall, for the rest of them, all the brand names that are out there make good cameras.

SPEAKER_03 4:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

But once again, we brought this up on the last episode. What's your application? Okay, and I'm gonna talk about my application for just a second. My application is for eventually for YouTube, the greatest video I ever saw, this animal, whatever it is. And so I have to have something that's extremely high resolution, looks really good, and I need to be able to. I crazy editing when you watch. If you haven't been in on my channel before, the editing that I have, I get comments all the time. You're not really using trail cameras because you're going all over the place and you're zooming in and you're zooming out and you're doing all no. I am that's a trail camera in my editing program. Yeah, does all that can zoom in on stuff, and almost nobody else on YouTube does that yet. Five years from now, maybe everybody will be doing it because I've had great success with it. But for me and my application, the highest resolution and clarity of whatever I'm getting is best because I now I just got that buck in the far right hand corner way back. So now I have to zoom in and create something that looks really good. And so I'm the very best ones that I use for that my application are the Brownings, without a doubt. And what happens with them that I don't see happening on my other ones, even though I have just I've got a lot of there's gotta be 20 different brands that I use, but what I see happening with them is when I zoom in, I have the very clearest and I have the best color when I'm editing. Okay, so the browning, the brownings for me, they've done something in their sourcing that just makes things super crisp, and the color is unreal. With others, you'll see things wash out, okay? Okay, but yeah, who cares if that's not if you're not doing it for Eddie, who cares?

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Yeah, so that what that's what I was gonna ask is as far as John, you said the mini the mini, the mini uh the ones that were the micro minis that all the micro minis. Okay, so you said that you didn't have success with them. What is your what is your your definition of success versus complete failure?

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Meaning they my experience is they've gone into a night mode, so even during the day, everything's red because they use that filter. Uh several of them did that, and then just absolute failure. They don't pick up things, even like in my chicken coops when I'm testing them, and the chickens are walking back before they go back. Wait a minute. So those little micro minis, for lack of better terms, I don't know what they call them, but they only do three or four batteries, unlike the masses that will do eight batteries.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

They're very small and they're also inexpensive. So is this like immediate failure or are you getting any time out of them?

SPEAKER_01 8:02

I only had one that was even acceptable, and I think I bought eight. Oh wow, yeah, at different times. So, and but I haven't gone back to using any of those little ones for it's been three years now. They might not even be available, probably a huge return rate on that. But I just move on and get something that does work.

SPEAKER_03 8:24

So I'm I threw it into Amazon. Yeah, well, that's where I got them. Mini Trail Cam, four-pack for$140.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Four of them for$140. Okay, so that tells you something.

SPEAKER_03 8:36

$22 to$30 usually is what they're costing. Yeah. Wasports, WO Sports, is it looks like a common brand name. Yeah. So those look like I I'm seeing those on there. So just avoid those. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Yeah. I'd be interested in seeing what the reviews are. Which one because you said it's been three years, right? It's been three years, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:57

So which ones are, would you say, is there any particular brand, and it might be all of them now that are more user-friendly, or are there ones that are pretty complex that probably you should not buy those as your first camera?

SPEAKER_01 9:13

The default function is your friend.

SPEAKER_03 9:16

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

It really is. It really is. So almost all the other compact, normal size, they take eight AA batteries, are all going to be pretty darn good. They really are. And they will, when you get into it and go to program your first one. If you have a friend that has a trail camera, just buddy up with them, get them an iced tea and say, hey, help me do this first one, and then you'll find out it's really pretty easy. The challenging parts in setting up your camera are how, first of all, if you're as old as me, you got to get the glasses that you can see the little tiny that's the truth. That's everybody at the table here, Rita.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

All in the gutter.

Setup Tips And SD Card Problems

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Does that say on or off? Does that say mode? So you're gonna know what mode is, and you got to switch up and down, and then you get somebody, somebody like me that I love these things. I love scrolling through them. I'll show you how to scroll. You got to get into sub menus to do the really cool stuff that you want to do.

SPEAKER_03 10:18

And I don't put my SD cards without bringing my readers with me. Yeah, it just not happening.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Well, let's talk about that just a second because you lose saying all right, and you can't see them. So I stopped buying the micro SD cards.

SPEAKER_03 10:32

I can never get those to work, the micro SD in any of my cameras. Okay, they won't read them.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

I they won't read them, yeah. I don't know what that's about. That shouldn't be a problem.

SPEAKER_03 10:43

I've got a couple micro SDs, but it won't even in the adapter, it'll act like there's not a card in there.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Oh, that's does that card need to be formatted?

SPEAKER_03 10:52

Yeah, but it won't even format, it won't and it might be because in a$25 camera. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Oh, and all those little mini ones are that I was telling about to stay away from, those are all the little micro okay. So here's the real reason why guys our age, thank you for including me on your age, because you guys look a lot younger than I feel today. You drop that S that micro SD card, and I'm every time I pull one out, and I probably got 30 of them that are still the every I'm scared to death to drop that thing. I'm taking my gloves off. I got tweezers. I carried around for a year a metal detector, so when I did drop it and I could find it in the leaf litter, I swear to God, I lose them, and I have lost them out there. They drop them out and I can't find them. I found one a year later, one time under a camera, and there was all sorts of bears and stuff on it. Like, man, this is still good.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

That's funny. But I remember I was hunting Clooney uh-huh late season, a buck I'd call Clooney, and uh man, he was coming in, and I was just excited, and it was a camera, it wasn't a cellular, it was the old style. Yeah, so I pulled the SD card and I put a new one in there, and I climbed up into my stand, and I had the little iPhone reader, so I could plug it in there, and I was getting all excited, and it was cold and it snowed the day before and everything, and it melted, but it was just nice and really damp and cold out there, and man, I started shaking and got no sooner got up in my tree stand, got everything set, sat down, pulled the card out of my pocket, and instantly dropped it from the tree stand down into the ferns. Yeah, and I thought I could go down there and dig for 45 minutes to an hour trying to find it, or I could just hunt and see if, you know, by the grace of God I can find it on when I leave here tonight. And praise God, I found it take me, it didn't take me five minutes, but that's because I waited till it was dark and I was sitting there with a flashlight. Had I climbed down at that time, it had taken me an hour, maybe two hours to find because it's just how it goes during hunting light. I can't find it, but as soon as it gets dark, it just oh, there it is.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

I have tweezers in my pack just for pulling those things in and out. Yeah, you know, yeah. And I told you about the metal detector.

SPEAKER_03 13:08

I always I've just found that because mine are the where it kind of spring loads, so you push on it, but I cup my hand underneath so that if it falls into my hand, hopefully, and I've yet now it's going to happen, but I've yet to actually drop it where I couldn't find it pretty quick. But I yeah, I'm dreading that day. You're due, yeah. You're due.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

I pulled one off of Wyatt's lip. Okay, I'm cupping. Pull it, you just reminded me of a story. I'm cupping it so when it comes out, I don't lose it. I'm cupping and I'm and it comes out, it goes in my hand. And I guess Wyatt, my big 140-pound bloodhound, thought I had a treat in there, and he just jams his nose in there and he comes out, and the big old slobber face, he comes out, and I got it.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

He just got his mouth open.

Blacktail Bucks And Camera Spook

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Oh, yeah. So that's following him around with the sandwich, baggie. I'm not buying those micros anymore, it's just me.

SPEAKER_03 14:04

Yeah. So let's talk because you you keep bringing up blacktail with your camera. So let's talk about black tail because I think that's what everybody wants to know about. So you said something about the white light and all of that. Go ahead. Let's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

So when you go back 15 years ago and we were developing some of these cameras when they were toaster size, if you will, a lot of them were firing nighttime with white light. Okay. There is nothing that scares, in my opinion, that scares off a mature black tail buck than a white light flashing. Nothing.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

They you might get them once, there'll be a big surprise look on his face, and you will never get them again. Okay. That's the white light. Now we got away from that. Almost nobody has that anymore. But more than half of my cameras, when they activate, they might have some kind of sound that we can't hear, which is a lot of sounds from me, and some kind of light on LED or something. And you'll see the black tails notice that better than any other. And cats are really good. Cougars are good at seeing the light too, but they're don't notice that more than anything. Now, if you get like with Browning, they call them their blackouts, and it's got a filtered lens that goes over like your car, you put you put lens cut, what do you call that? Tinting. Yeah, it tints that. That's really good. They don't notice it, they don't notice it. So if you're doing trail cameras specifically for black-tailed deer, get the blackout type. You don't want any lights whatsoever. And because there's a saving grace to this, if you get one picture of that buck, you can be assured he might not ever step in front of that camera, but he hasn't again, but he hasn't left. He has not left. He's gonna be there, he's gonna be within 20 to 40 acres. That's the thing about black tail bucks that are so great. When you finally find that guy, you're not gonna blow him out, he's gonna be there somewhere. So every time you go in with your camera to pull your camera, every time you go, you need to think to yourself that buck is either looking at me or just over that ridge or within 20 acres, no more than 40 acres. He lives there, yeah. He is not going anywhere. So that's the exciting thing about trail cameras and blacktail. Now you have to continue to get pictures of him closer to where his daytime bedding hiding spot is.

SPEAKER_03 16:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

So that's where the real hunting comes in with for blacktail bucks with trail cameras. You just gotta get that one picture and you know he's there. And then if that's the last one you get, okay, he figured you out, but he still lives there. He lives there.

SPEAKER_03 17:06

Have you noticed, and this is something I figured out my first year of hunting. Well, I figured out the second year that Dave taught me about that Blacktail will go to certain areas of their range at a certain time of year, and they will never step foot in that spot for the rest of the year. And I have a particular bucket I mentioned him a bunch of times, I named him two times because he came in two times, ten days apart, the first year I was hunting, and then the following year he came in, then he came in multiple times, but the same time period, same 10, 12 days in October and late October, and Dave was talking, he's in, he's it was pre-rut and searching phase. So he's looking for those, and that's the particular area he's looking for him at that time of year. And I've had cameras in that spot for almost year round from early Jan, I would say late February through early January. Maybe only six, eight weeks of not having cameras there. And literally the only time I will see this buck is ten days. Now, are you have you noticed that with yours that they will and not only bucks but elk or anything like that, they have a pattern to when they come by?

Home Range Truth And Hunting Edges

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Oh, yeah, everything has a pattern, and the biggest patterns are like the toms, the lions. Okay. As you go down, the smaller from there would be the bobcats. Uh okay. And we don't have white tail in this area. Whitetail is a pretty good size pattern. I lived in Indiana for a while, okay. And then elk elkers like every three days, every five days. That's arguable, but that's a pretty big range. And it's really good that they do that. It gives everything that they're browsing on a chance to grow back. And black tail, let's segment the blacktail from the does to the bucks, okay? And does with one-year-old's bucks too. They're in a tight area most of the year, including during the rut. This is my opinion, it's arguable, including during the rut, and I'm gonna say 20 acres, that's pretty tight, okay. I'm gonna say the bucks will always be almost always all year long, including to the rut, within 40 acres. That's my rule of thumb. If every time I go in, I tell myself, John, and it's and it's a buck that I'm targeting, you be very careful because that buck is looking at you. That buck is within 40 acres, no matter what. I'm a whole lot better in the woods with my trail cameras and everything. And now I take every single video. See, this is why it's so important, especially for black tail. You need to get out of picture mode and get on video because you're gonna see things that you didn't know. Yeah, how they're leaving, how they're coming in, how another one came in. Yeah, maybe there's some smaller ones. You know, those smaller bucks that are hanging with the dominant buck that you want, they're betting in the same area that you so you get a better picture of where they're daytime betting. Now, what happens during the rut? There's certain time periods, and Dave gets into this better than anybody I've ever seen. I've listened to him like a poyallop. That's a little different because there's a few days that they're going crazy, but they're still within that racetrack. They are within that racetrack. You can be anywhere in that racetrack, but where you want to be is where they are most of the time. And so you have all year long to figure out where that is, and then when you finally figure it out and you're getting the most pictures, and it's gonna be a night, okay? Most of because they are mostly nocturnal, and then all of a sudden the route during the daytime or during the rut as it and pre-rut is more daytime stuff, and so you want to hunt that my opinion, you want to hunt that perimeter. You don't you can't get in there without disturbing him. He's a king of the woods, so you want to you want to hunt that perimeter and be ready for him.

SPEAKER_03 21:21

It's interesting. So you've actually just confirmed Dave's teaching. That is what we teach in the class. Oh, okay. And they've actually, because Dave brings up the study that Washington did, and for the average blacktail is 51 acres.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Just over 51 acres. Oh, really? And then they lay it close. And then your dominant bucks, your mature bucks, let's just say your mature bucks, spend over 90% of their lives in 30% of that 51 acres. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

So if you think about everything that's out there that we can hunt or we can take videos of or that we're interested in, blacktail bucks, mature bucks, are the tightest to staying in their living room than anything out there.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

Right, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

And once you understand that and believe it. Now that we're hunting them for pictures or videos or for food, we can do a better job of getting in there and getting more intel on them.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

You have to understand they are tight, they are there. So you don't go in there, you don't go in there making a racket with your dogs and your neighbors and everything else. This you save that for other areas. Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

But you're right. You're hunting the edges of it. And the problem that a lot of guys have is that they they have that drive in them, and I commend them for the drive, but they want to walk through that core area. And there's nothing that pushes a big mature buck out of an area and cause him to relocate and establish another range somewhere else, than to go through his bedroom. So it's the understanding that, and the way I tell the guys at the seminars and then the classes and everything is that you can have a hunt that's one and done. So if you want to go through that bedroom, that's your one hunt on that buck, because you're going to push him out and he's going to relocate. So if you don't get it done, if it doesn't happen on that one hunt, that's the only hunt you have on that buck. But if you hunt the edges of that bedroom and you do it in such a way that he doesn't know he's being hunted, you're going to have multiple hunts on that buck. You're going to be able, if you don't get him this season, he'll be there next season. And the season after. And the season. And a lot of these big bucks, they die of old age because nobody's people haven't figured out how to hunt that thick stuff other than trying to drive through it. You know what I mean? So it it's interesting in hearing your how you visually have picked this up and this concept that you've come up with as far as deducing their range and everything. That just tells me you've spent a lot of time out in the woods.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

I'm all about animal behavior. I'm going to add one other pearl of wisdom, if you will, for guys that are hunting these things. I have experienced that in the rut or just the nighttime activity, these bucks are much like a racetrack. They'll do their track and they'll always start and go in the same direction. So keep that in mind. That is 100% true. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

They're not just wandering around like a purpose and a and a they're on a mission. Yes. And they do that same routine trying to, and that's why. So with two times. And I was telling him he's in the seeking phase of the rut. He's already established that none of the does in his immediate core area are going into any kind of standing estrus. They may be in an estrus cycle, but they're not close to that standing estrisk, that three-day window. So he moves out, but he moves out, and like you said, he runs the same track or the same routine every night until he finds a dough and standing estrus. And when he finds one, he usually finds multiple. And so that's why he spends more time.

SPEAKER_03 25:11

And at that point, so the set I'm going to hunt, and I mentioned this dear a million times, Anakin. So next year he's my target buck. Okay. So there's an upper core area, bedding area, right next to a swamp, and it's up above the swamp, and then skitter road, and then it drops off into a drainage. And which has which is another core area because it's got that, it's real thick, lots of undergrowth, Jack fur, John fur, all of that. And I've had cameras on because they have to walk around that swamp and they're stopped by the skitter road on one end, and they're stopped by that drainage on the other. So they're doing a circle. And sure enough, I've got them coming out in the morning, usually closer to the where I'm parking. And when they go back in the afternoon, a lot of times they're walking back right at the tail end of daylight. They're walking back up to the bedding area on the other side, closer to the drainage area. But the wind is determining that track that they're running. And so and it's typically in the morning, it's to their advantage to walk on one side, and then in the afternoon the wind is blowing into the other side. So it kind of shifts directions, the thermals and everything. But yeah, it's I figured that out. And yeah, they are running that track.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

There's a theme that I keep coming back to. More cameras. You need more cameras. And you wonder, my wife wonders, why do you need so many cameras?

SPEAKER_00 26:44

Why do you need so many shoes?

Rut Racetracks And Wind Direction

SPEAKER_03 26:46

And that is so right now, there's one camera because I didn't get my three and a half-year-old pick of Anakin. And it's up there, and I ran drags and did my sense right it was after Christmas. And it's literally, there are two trails that he could go on to get out of that upper bedding area. So I'm sure I've got a picture. I just I have yet to because that camera's been, I would say, soaking for now two and a half months. So I need to run back up there. That was the plan this weekend, run back up there. But let's wrap up with some stories. Craziest things that you've seen that you've caught on cameras. Mine, mine, I caught, and these were the bears that I the only two bears I've ever named. I caught them making baby bears on my camera. And I named I actually named them after my parents. It was Bob and Mary.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 27:39

But that was the funniest thing. But I've caught like cougar, bobcat, coyote, rabbit, all kinds of birds, deer, elk, yeah, lit everything I've had on camera and stuff. But what's we'll go to Dave because I think yours might take a little bit of a craziest thing that you've caught on camera.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

I would say as far as crazy, I'm gonna call it crazy good. I had a a five by seven and a five by five fighting on camera. And it was on my wife's set, and uh they were there for three, they came in three times that season.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

These are elk?

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Deer. Yeah, bucks. Yeah, and the five by seven was just a gorgeous butt, but they were just going at it, and uh yeah, showed up the next night, and one of them had lost one tyne, and the other one had broke off the tips of two others. It was just it was there was obviously a hot dough in the area, and one of them had it locked down and the other one wanted it, and everything, but yeah, just some great and it was like the whole thing just took place right in front of the camera. Perfectly. Yeah, I just I couldn't have put it there any better. For me, that would be the best. And then I always like uh I always like getting pictures of bobcats.

SPEAKER_03 28:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

I and I don't like getting pictures of cougars because that usually means that the deer activity is gonna plummet. Cougars and bears, and bears typically because they're either gonna chew on the camera or if I've got minerals or anything like that, they're gonna just start going in there and messing everything up. But yeah, uh, I always enjoy getting pictures of bobcats. You're you mentioned it earlier, but you're right. They're always they're never just relaxed walking, they always seem to be sneaking through the ferns.

SPEAKER_03 29:28

Mine I thought was the bobcat I saw, I thought was a coyote because it was one of those dusk picks, so it was the the black and white, and he was sitting facing away, and it just looked like a coyote, but then I started looking, and his head was down, but then when I looked closer, I noticed the tail was the little bobtail, and I'm like, oh, that was really cool. The cougar, the one time, which was great, it was middle of the day, but I had a doe and two fawns walk through. An hour or two later, the cougar walked through, and the next time I saw the doe walking back, which might have been a couple days later, it was a doe and one fawn. So he was tracking them, got a meal out of it, but fortunately only got one.

Wild Trail Cam Stories And Wrap Up

SPEAKER_01 30:12

Okay, you got to tell us what's you could pick an animal, and I got one for everyone, but you I really do obsessed. But since you just ended up and cougars fascinate me, and every single I'll tell you something else that fascinates me is the baby deer every year when the little spotted deer, and it seems like in my neck of the woods and where I run all my lines, every doe is getting two or three little ones, not one, two or three. That's awesome. Yeah, I know, but it's also I have come to realize in my older age that we're feeding the forest with those deers because by two or three months down the road, there's only one or none. And that's a little sad, but that's part of it that we humans don't realize is they gotta eat. The cougars gotta eat, the cats got the bobcat's gotta eat, and then there's some mortality that happens. So this was an amazing thing that I only discovered last year. There there was this mama with her two little spotted fawns that I'd been watching in this area. And then the next time I went, I saw her coming across the video left to right, and she's and then hop off in distress. And then a few minutes later, she comes back the other way and she's stomping. Oh, oh, oh, and then she comes on the other side of the trail and does the same thing. And I'm like, oh, where's the little ones? It looks like something's after her. And then she disappears for a while, and all of a sudden she comes into the view and then goes off at the strangest angle through the woods, through the sal owl, at no deer would ever go that way unless they're in distress. And I hear her bawling and making noise. And at this time, I'm like, she has either got her little ones hiding or she's trying to distract. And I figured it was a cat at that point, but I hadn't seen one. Six minutes later, this female cat comes in and is looks like one of my bloodhounds sniffing the ground, gets to the point where that doe went up through the sal at the strangest angle, and scent trailed that deer up through the now. I have, you know, I I've seen cat tracks in my tracks in the mud and in the snow at times after I'm coming back. But we think of these lions as very visual ambush predators, and they are. I don't think of like my bloodhounds and they can track stuff down, but that's exactly what this thing was doing. It was tracking down this dough by scent, even though it and that that was alarming to me that they can do that. So that's a prize. I've got so many of them. We could do a whole nother.

SPEAKER_03 33:14

We got time for we've got time for another one.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

Okay, name an animal.

SPEAKER_03 33:18

Since it's our favorite, how about a bobcat?

SPEAKER_01 33:20

A bobcat. Okay. I had this little tiny bobcat that was this is my favorite bobcat one that's no bigger than the house cat around. And when they're little like that, they have all the color and the spots, and they're just beautiful. And this little bobcat walks right up to the camera and sits down on video and looks at the camera and just looking at me. And if you listen really, really good, you can hear it's like it's talking to me on TV. I'm like, that is so and it's it's behavior like that. I just I dig that.

SPEAKER_03 33:54

We had Bobcat Kitten last year in the backyard last summer, yeah. Yeah, and it was funny. He was about the size of a house cat, but you could tell watching him run through the yard, he was a kitten, but he was the size of a house cat, but just the way kittens run, yeah, and everything like that. But I had Cub walk through, it was a sow and uh juvenile, I don't know what the proper term is, but it was two sows. And but a cub and some of the best pictures, and he hung out on my set. This was back we could still bait, and I that's when I'd put down a big and j block, and bears loved candy for them. He hung out and kind of gnawing on that block and stuff, but for the longest time, I must have had 40-50 pictures of just him standing on his hind legs looking around.

SPEAKER_01 34:44

Bears are so cool, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:46

That was a really cool one because he was actually the more I talk, it's like the more funny stories because I had a bear look like he had the zoomies, yeah, like a dog.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

I want to tell a bear story. You got me going on bears.

SPEAKER_03 34:59

So chasing off raccoons on the set because back when we could make yeah, chasing them off. So tell us your bear story.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

Many years ago, I got this mama that comes out with her two little puffballs, and then going across the screen. Oh, that's cute. We got a mama, and this is when we didn't have nearly as many bears in this area, and there was a lot of bears, and then the next year I got them again with mama, and I was like, that's so cool. That's two years in a row. I feel like I should name them. And and you could tell it was the same ones, and now they're bigger. Third year. I get the two together without the mom. And I'm like, oh my god, and one's a little bit bigger, and you could tell on the head, and if you can judge bears, one's a male and one's a female. So this is year number one, two, three. Number three, I got them together, just roaming around, looking around over their shoulder, scared, but they're hanging out, watching out for each other. And I've got a Disney thing going on in my mind with these guys. The next year they're separate, but I know these bears individually, and I start seeing them and watching the videos. This is why it's important for guys to get out of picture mode and get into video mode and start watching animal behavior. And so I'm watching the male. So he's four and he's pretty good size, okay? And he's in front of this water hole again, and he's sitting there and he's just forlorn sitting there, and he's looking out over the water, and all of a sudden he perks up and he looks over his shoulder and he gets all excited like this. And the female, his sister, comes in. They had been like separated, and it's all of a sudden I have a camera placed in the perfect position to see a sibling reunion, and they start wrestling. And I have a half an hour of these two wrestling in front of the camera and dust going up, and it's like oh, it's there's a whole long content video on that on them wrestling and doing stuff, and they're throwing, they're doing arm drags. Okay, I'm a wrestler lifetime, right? They're doing arm drags, they're throwing each other over their shoulders, and the male is way more powerful than the female, and it's just it's playtime, it's like my big dog's wrestling that's a half hour of it. That would be amazing. Yeah, so if you like watching big bears play, and anybody walking up and seeing that for the first time would say those are two mature bears, but they're only four years old and they're brother and sister, and they're they were wrestling. Isn't that cool?

SPEAKER_03 37:40

That's awesome. Yeah, okay. I'm gonna have to go with video mode now. Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_00 37:46

Yeah, I think it's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 37:47

I got plenty of battery, plenty of SD cards. I think we're gonna wrap up the episode there. Again, thank you, John, for joining us. Trail camera adventures on YouTube. Go check it out, subscribe, lots of great content on there, and you'll learn even more about cameras. If you have any questions or some ideas, I think we just kind of scratch the surface. Where you want John to come back, shoot us an email, blacktailcoach at gmail.com. I'm trying to remember the email address here. Send us an email or leave a comment below. Just give us some more ideas, some more questions we could ask that we because I'm sure we missed something that would be helpful. But if you could go on, subscribe, follow, heart, share, do all those things that your platform asks, check out our affiliate links below, and we will talk to you next week.