Ep. 21: Trail Camera Obsession: Strategies, Setups, and Iowa’s Proposed Ban

On this episode of Keota Outdoors, Luke sits down in the mancave to talk about one of his biggest hunting obsessions—trail cameras. 

Luke has been running trail cameras since he was a young boy and still loves the anticipation of letting a camera soak in the woods for weeks at a time. Whether it's a mature buck, a surprise visitor, or a target deer showing up for the first time, you never know what might walk in front of the lens. 

Luke breaks down his trail camera strategy throughout the year, including summer setups on trails, food plots, and mineral sites before transitioning to scrapes, mock scrapes, and key travel corridors by October. He also discusses how he combines traditional SD card cameras with cellular trail cameras to gather information and hunt more effectively. 

The conversation then shifts to one of the hottest topics in the hunting world right now: Iowa's proposed trail camera restrictions. The proposal would prohibit all trail cameras—both SD card and cellular models—on Iowa public land, and the Iowa DNR is even considering additional restrictions on cellular cameras used on private land. 

If you're interested in trail camera brands, camera placement strategies, deer hunting tactics, or the future of trail camera regulations, this is an episode you won't want to miss. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everybody, welcome back to Kyoto Outdoors. Today we're going to talk about trail cameras. So growing up being a bow hunter, a rifle hunter, turkey hunter, I love trail cameras. I can't remember the oldest trail cameras, right? But I remember being a little kid and being excited about putting out these old Moultrie cameras that took big uh what D batteries, I think what they are, the big round ones. And I loved it. I loved checking them. Couldn't wait to go out with dad, ride the foiler out, you know, pull the card, take it back to the house, put it in the old junk laptop we had, and look at trail camera pictures and save them. And we used to print them when we'd have a buck we liked, you know, and so like that obsession for me started really early. And it's grown quite a bit, of course. And I think a lot of serious deer hunters have the same obsession with trail cameras, and especially now with cell cameras and whatnot. So first off, I want to talk about like some big news or fairly big news in the cell camera world and in the Midwest as far as deer hunting goes, and that's with Iowa. So according to uh radioio.com, they state that the a guy from Iowa DNR, his name's Chris Esminger. Or Esminger, I don't know. Anyway, Iowa DNR says that modern devices that can transmit signals are already banned on public lands. And I think that's a stretch. I don't know that that's entirely true. I think that law is open to interpretation, and I'll read that in a moment. But he says I cannot use a phone or anything else, a camera that is actively communicating to me while hunting. And so that cell cameras are not legal currently anywhere, private or public land, while actively hunting. So the law actually reads you cannot use one or two-way mobile radio transmitter, including cell phones and cellular cameras capable of sending images or video while actively hunting to communicate the location or direction of game or fur-bearing animals or to coordinate the movement of other hunters? So I think you could have cell cameras on your property, but you're not supposed to check them while you're hunting. Like I don't I don't know. Like there's some room for interpretation there. It seems kind of complicated. It's not real cut and dry. Yeah, it's can't do it while actively hunting. So does that mean if you just don't check your app while you're hunting, you're good to go, you know? So that's kind of strange. But anyway, they've always been illegal on public lands. So in Iowa. Cell cameras, that is, not regular cameras. But um Iowa's currently looking at making some regulation changes uh that are extremely significant. So these have been proposed but not implemented yet. So it's up for discussion, and there's a possibility of this happening. So they're wanting to ban all trail cameras left overnight on public land, which would include the old style leave a card in it, leave it out for a week. Um, they would completely ban those on public land. And potentially they're looking at restricting cell camera use during hunting season on both public and private. So, like I said, I think you already couldn't use cell cameras on public. I could be wrong there, but they're looking at restricting it during hunting season, so on private land. So I'm not sure how what that looks like. Does that mean you just can't use them during hunting season and you could only use cell cameras leading up to you know opening day of bow season, which I believe is October 1st in Iowa? That's strange to me. Um I think that would upset a lot of people. Uh I myself love running cell cameras, it's it's a hobby in itself. Like, and I'm not even gonna say it gives me that much of an advantage. Like I've it it's not helped me a ton by any means, but like I'm addicted to waking up in the middle of the night and checking my trail cameras to see if uh any bucks have showed up, you know. Like there's just always that it's the same urgency, the same anticipation I had as a kid checking the old style cameras that you had to put out and wait a couple of weeks, you know. Uh it's it's just like that, but it's literally in my hand. Whenever I want, I can check it and see. It's unhealthy and addicting, but I love it. So yeah, I was proposing that. Uh, like I said, that would upset a lot of people, I think, and and could really change the game. I mean, you can't say that cell cameras don't give hunters uh an advantage in certain ways. Uh there's I mean, certainly, you know, if you catch a deer going into a bedding area and that changes your decision on where you're gonna set up that eat for that evening hunt, like that that's a major advantage. Uh so I'm not arguing that. Uh what that could do is make deer even bigger in Iowa. I mean, even more deer could go unnoticed or unseen, especially on public land. If they're talking zero trail cameras on public land, like there's without a doubt gonna be an increase in age class and I guess antler size with that, you know, on Iowa public land. It's just like me personally, if I don't have pictures of a big buck on a property, I'm not even hunting there. Like, I'll be somewhere else where I do have pictures of one. And not everybody has that same mindset, but you know, if half the people do and people just aren't out in the woods hunting because they're not getting pictures of deer, uh, that could really change some things. So I wanted to go over to some other like interesting trail camera regulations across the Midwest just to compare, and even some other states as well. So in Minnesota, this is interesting. You can use cell cameras on public land, but any cam left for more than 14 days is considered abandoned. Uh so I guess if I put a trail camera out and it'd been there for 14 days, that means anybody could just go steal it. You know, that's weird. That rule needs adjusted. And they talk like there has been um some discussion of changing that regulation and making that a little more clear and just make more sense for everybody, right? Um in Illinois, there are no restrictions on trail camera placement on state-owned or state-managed lands. Now, there are quite a few states that do ban or have strict limitations on cell cameras. So uh start off Missouri, my home state, all trail cameras are strictly prohibited on Missouri Department Conservation Managed Properties. So that includes like conservation areas or public hunting areas, of course, state parks would be included in that too. Uh some other states. Arizona, and I think I remember this was like a big to-do when this came out, but Arizona banned the use of all trail cameras year-round on public lands for scouting or taking wild game. And I remember that talk, um, like I think it, you know, referring to like Elkurds and Mule Deer, they were talking about water holes. Like outfitters or guides would have like 10 cameras on one water hole, and just the pressure that that was putting on the animals was just unnecessary. And I think I think that's why they uh made those changes there. So some other states, Nevada, they prohibit use of all trail cameras for any hunting purposes with strict blackout windows around sensitive seasons. Idaho prohibits the use of cellular and transmitting trail cameras on public lands, especially targeting deer and elk. Utah, they ban cellular cameras to guide or aid in a hunt during big game seasons, so it seems like they're banned during those big game seasons. Montana also uh prohibits the use of cellular cameras that transmit real-time data to help locate or take game during the hunting season. Uh Kansas, this was a recent one, I think, in the last couple of years, maybe 2024. They banned the use of all trail cameras on state-managed public lands and waters year-round. So no public land trail cameras in Kansas. Uh New Hampshire, this is an interesting one. They allow cell cameras, but prohibit the same-day pursuit of game based on the intel received. That'd be really hard to prove. Like, I get it. They're just trying to take the edge away from hunters a little bit, but I don't know how you're gonna prove that. Uh Alaska completely bans the use of cellular trail cameras to aid in the hunting of big game during the hunting season. Colorado bans all cell cameras and transmitting cameras on all public hunting areas, including state trust lands. Delaware also prohibits all trail cameras on state managed land. So there's a lot of different rules. Um, some case some states have no regulations. I think Nebraska just doesn't have any literature on uh trail camera regulations. But it's interesting uh that each state takes kind of a different uh stance on those rules, and I get it, but it's hard when you've started with it, just like Iowa, like you can use cell cameras, and all these hunters are using cell cameras, but they're looking at banning them on private land. Like people have a lot of money invested in cell cameras, like it's a huge part of their strategy, and it's just gonna upset a lot of people, I imagine. But talking about trail cameras, so as this is coming out, it is late June, and my goal is always to get all my trail cameras out by the 4th of July. Just seems like a good time to do it as a busy person, as a working guy. Seems like you always have a day or two off around the 4th of July, and just a good time, you know, get up early in the morning, it might be cool on an early July morning and get all your trail cameras put out. And I do things probably different than other people and maybe the same as other people. I personally don't like to pay for the cellular services for months on end, like it's kind of costly. Um, I've been running 10 cell cameras, and that just adds up pretty quick, right? And so what I do is I've got a pile of old cameras, old trusty, regular SD card cameras, right? I start with those and I try to get all of them out. I check them to make sure they're all working, because some of them are I know I've got a couple that when you turn them on, they say 2014. Like when you put new batteries in them, they say 2014. I don't know when I bought them, it wasn't 2014, but those cameras were manufactured in 2014. And they are Multri M550s, I'm sure. And I love them. They most of them still work great. I've had a few quit me, but I mean they've they're 12 years old right now. So um some other cameras I run that just seem to be real trusty. I've got some wild game innovations. And I know when those were purchased, I got a few of them for like a birthday present, probably back in high school or something. They're just dependable. Um, they're still working. They take pictures. I don't have any problems with them. They just work. They're cheaper camera. I'm not gonna say they take the best quality picture, but like that, I'm not after quality. Like, I'm not trying to sell artwork here. Like, I just want intel, right? I want intel of what deer are around, especially this year, what deer are growing. Um and maybe learn something and put a little more effort into a certain piece of property, whether that be food plots or more cameras or work on deer stands based on a big deer that's grow living there. Uh I've got a couple brownings as well. I've got some other style Moultries. Those Moultri M550s were so good to me. I've bought a few more over the years, like super cheap Moultri cameras, and I can't say I like those as much. Uh I've just had some issues with them. They're not quite as reliable. Um, one certain model like doesn't point straight out. Like you set it up how you think it should be, and it's pointed like two feet higher than it appears. So I don't really like that. But um, yeah, those old Moltree M550s are great. Wild game innovations have been really good. I actually bought a two-pack like real cheap a year or two ago, some wild game innovations, and they've been running well. So I haven't had any issues out of those. Something I do also, just tips for people. I've got two trail camera cards designated to each trail camera. So two SD cards for one camera. I keep them in a case, they're all labeled with the number of the camera, and I've got a number written on the camera itself. What I found was if I just use random cards, I don't know if the cards weren't formatted correctly, if they get changed when you put them in one camera and go to the next. That's a little over my head. I don't know how it works, but I was having issues with I'd stick a camera in a certain or a card in a certain camera and just no pictures. Like the camera is on, it just wouldn't take any pictures. But that card may work in another camera. So rather than just mixing them all up and having no consistency there, I you know, bit the bullet. I have two cards for each camera, and they're all labeled, and that way that trail camera only ever sees one of two cards. And that's helped me with uh just making sure the cameras work, you know, because there's nothing worse than you know having a highly anticipated camera, putting it on a scrape or a water hole, and saying, I'm gonna let this soak for three or four weeks, you know, and you come back and there's zero pictures because it malfunctioned. Like there's nothing worse than that. I hate it. Uh so right now, like I said, it's the end of June, and historically, what I used to do was I would focus on mineral sites. So, like, you know, late spring and through the summer, it seemed like deer are hitting the mineral hard. Um, we used to keep salt licks on every farm, and I've got lots of cool trail camera video of big velvet bucks coming to those, standing in front of them for 20 minutes. Uh just great intel off of salt licks. And of course, there's a lot of does that hit them too, and there'd be fawns that hit them too in the summer, and that's fun to see. But now in northern Missouri, in CWD counties, we are no longer allowed to put mineral out, which stinks. Um the rule was you're supposed to go dig out like any mineral you had, which you know you try to do, but minerals there and in the ground. So some of those spots are still being used. Um, otherwise, as far as where to put your cameras this time of year, like trails going into bean fields or food plots, or even just trails going into bedding areas, wherever, you know, you can find the sign, you can find a deer trail. Um on beans is really good. You know, the beans right now are anywhere from six inches to a foot tall. So like that's perfect to get some pictures. I sometimes will take a steak, get it out in the beans a little bit, raise the camera up, get a little better angle. Because it's hard to catch a whole bean field, right? You just kind of got to hope that a deer walks by. And I you'd be surprised at how many deer do just are all over the field. Like just one camera randomly in this bean field, you'll get a lot of pictures. It's a little early for scrapes. Um, like I said, minerals, trails, whatever, this time of year. And when we were running mineral sites, like as soon as turkey season was over, I was getting that mineral out because that seems to be when they start hitting it. It's about the end of turkey season. So I'll keep my cameras in those locations all the way up until probably late September. So from in Missouri, we have a September 15th opener. From anytime from September 15th to October 1st, I want to be making all my mock scrapes, and I want to be transitioning all of my cameras to either scrapes or trails or food plots, whatever. Um it seems like that first week ish, definitely the second week of October, deer are hitting scrapes, bucks particularly. I don't care about getting pictures of does. I want pictures of bucks. And so I I often like put a lot of time in making a great scrape. Uh I typically will cut a shingle oak limb off. Shingle oak keeps their leaves on, they're kind of an oval-shaped, pointy leaf leaf. Um I will cut a limb, take it with me, and I will use a piece of paracord or a zip tie and tie it to an existing limb. That way I can get the height set right. Um, I can make sure I put it in a good spot to put a trail camera on the scrape. I typically either pee in it myself or add some uh buck pee out of a jar, you know. Um I think it just adds a little scent, doesn't hurt anything. And I always work the ground up real good. Try to get the leaves, the leaves raked back, any grass raked back, um, take like a leaf rake with you or a brush rake, um, even a hatchet to just scrape up the ground, make it look like something there. And it seems like it works. Like I rarely make a mock scrape that doesn't get a lot of action. Like um, I think if you just put the time into it, make sure it's the right height, make sure your camera setup's great, it'll pay off. Um, and when I go to those scrapes, that's typically when I implement my cell cameras. So, like I said, we have a September 15th opener here in Missouri. Um if I've got a farm that let's say it's got a shooter on it, or a deer that I consider a shooter or something I'd want to target, I will probably have my cell cameras out somewhere around the beginning of September just to have up-to-date eyes on that deer. Uh other than that, like I said, sometime before October 1st, I want to get all my cameras transitioned to scrapes, and I will have all my cell cameras out by October 1st. I run Tacticam's, so shout out Tacticam. They've been really great, they've been good to work with. Um, I'm actually a pro staff member on the Tacticam team, which doesn't mean a whole lot, um, but it does just keep me a little more involved. So I'm running 10 Tacticams. I personally made battery boxes for mine. Um, I'm sure there's YouTube videos out there to do it. Um, but putting 12 AA batteries in a cell camera gets expensive and they don't last all season. So especially if you use the good like Duracell, whatever batteries, like I mean, you're talking like $20 in batteries just to put it in the camera once. So I built these, uh, it's a little ammo box with a larger battery in it. I bought a cord. I mean, you can you can find info on this stuff and how to do it. And I come, I have about 32 bucks in each one. My thought process was it's gonna last a little bit longer than the double A's, and all you gotta do is recharge it and reuse it. Um and I won't have to keep doing that $20 investment every time it needs batteries. I have tried the rechargeable batteries for Tacticam, but it's okay, it's not much different than the uh double A's, and those rechargeable batteries are like 50 bucks a piece. Solar panels would be the way to go if you wanted to leave your cameras out a long time and not touch them. Like obviously, that works great, but again, there's some added cost there. The problem I've found with my homemade battery packs, there's been a couple that have gone bad on me. And just from what I know about batteries, and I think it drained them too low. So low I can't get them charged back up. Uh, on a lot of things like a power drill or whatever, uh, there's a thing called a low voltage cutoff. And that's when the battery gets so low, it just stops. Like it shuts the battery off, or it actually shuts the device off and says, You're not using any more battery because you're gonna damage the battery itself. And this homemade system I have doesn't have a low voltage cutoff, which is Probably causing the battery to poop out on me. But that's okay. It's a learning process, right? I'm trying to think of other important things about trail cameras. Like keep all your trail camera pictures. Like if you like history, if you like going back and looking at deer, it's important to keep pictures of bucks. Especially, so just for instance, I've got a buck on my home farm. I've called him Bowie for years. This year he's six and a half years old, and I've got some velvet pictures that I'm pretty sure it's him. He's gone way downhill. Looks awful. He's probably not gonna, he's probably gonna be like a 100-inch seven-pointer or something. Like terrible. But going back to when he's a year and a half old, I'm certain I can tell that that's him. He was a little, let's see, he was a little six-pointer, no brow tines, and had G2s on both sides. But he was narrow and kind of set real high off his head, and his beams just curled kind of funny. And whatever, five and a half years ago, I saved that picture and thought, you know what? That's like recognizable. That deer at two and a half, you could probably correlate back to this one and a half year old picture. And sure enough, I did. And now I have six and a half, well, five and a half years of history with this deer. Like he's not, he's never, he's never broke 120. I've got three sheds off of him. He's just not a big deer. Obviously, he's mature. Um his body's actually kind of funky. That's one reason I know I've got velvet pictures of him. His hips are kind of narrow and just look odd just looking at him. But I have so much history of this deer, like I know him really well, and that's cool to have. Now, if it were a 160-inch deer, like this would be spectacular, right? Uh and I actually did try to stick him with my bow late one season. I had a bow tag and I was actually out trying to kill a turkey. Um, had some turkeys kind of showing up regularly, and so I went out one morning, it was in the snow, and this guy walked by. He was four and a half at the time. And I felt like he wasn't gonna get any bigger, like he just wasn't impressive at four and a half, and he was actually limping, like on a front leg, he was limping. And I thought, you know what? I'm gonna shoot this deer. Like I didn't intend to do this, but now's the chance. And unfortunately, I hit a limb or something. I don't know where my arrow went. It was 40 yards, kind of threw some brush. Probably forced it, probably shouldn't have, but uh he went unscathed, right? And last year at five and a half, he wasn't around near as much. Um, I had a buddy, I was trying to get on him, and we couldn't get it done. And looks to me like he's showing back up this year at six and a half years old. But my point is just keep those pictures of those deer. Like I have a SD card reader, I stick it in my phone, look at all my pictures on there. And obviously, cell cameras come through the app. I save them to my camera roll. The camera roll is full of pictures. Um, I've got a buddy who's extremely serious about deer hunting and tracking specific deer and targeting specific deer. He has albums in his camera roll that are titled for specific deer. So, like I said, Bowie, he would have every Bowie picture saved to that album, which is genius. Like, it's just a little more organization than I feel like I have the capacity for, but it it certainly works. I mean, I have a really good memory of like when I got a picture of this certain deer. So, like, I mean, just for example, I'll get a picture of a buck and be like, wait a second, I had pictures of that deer last year, and I'll scroll back, be like, yep, here he was on this date, and the next time he showed up was on this date. Like, I have a good memory of that, so I kind of use that to my advantage. But there's lots of ways to be organized, but I just think it's important to track deer. Um, especially like an older deer, they're gonna not to a T, but they may kind of recreate their steps year after year. You know, if like during the rut, during the week of October 7th, the next five days, you could say, Yeah, last year I had a lot of pictures of him these five days. Well, if you're trying to target him this coming year, I would want to be there those five days. Um, it's a good chance he's gonna roll through there. And I've had some had some deer do that. That just, yep, he did this similar thing last year, you know. So it's just good intel to have if you can if you can be that organized and remember those dates and keep track of specific deer, uh, it it could pay off in a big way, that's for sure. But yeah, I would just uh encourage people run some trail cameras, man. Get kids involved with trail cameras too. Like I just I know there's kids out there that would love it just the way I did. Like the anticipation and the waiting of going to check that camera, see what's on there. And you know, they don't even care if it's a little buck, like that they just enjoy seeing what's there. We actually got some pictures the other day of some coyote puffs, and I think that's the first time I've ever had pictures of coyote puffs. They're whatever, probably eight or ten inches tall, three of them. It's pretty neat. And you never know. We get bobcats, turkeys, coyotes. Obviously, there's a coyote that we know about, it's got a bob tail. He was on there the other day. Just really cool to see what's happening out there. And uh cell cameras, like I said, make that so much better. I I certainly hope that Missouri doesn't move to ban all cell cameras, like Iowa's considering. Um I see where they're coming from. Like technology is making deer hunting easier or further from what it used to be, you could say. Uh, there's a lot of conversations around drones as well. Like some states got ahead of it and just said, nope, no drones. Some states said only for the recovery of animals, you know. Some said, you know, you can only hunt, you can't hunt right after you fly a drone for so many hours, whatever. Like either way, technology is pushing the sport of hunting further and further from what it traditionally has been. And we either are gonna let it happen or they're gonna stop it. And it's really probably not up to us, unfortunately. But you know, you could look back and say the same thing about a compound bow or a crossbow. Like, whatever hundred years ago we had sticks and strings, and that was hunting, or not even that long ago, right? And then suddenly they come out with compound bows. Well, everybody wants one, and they're the latest, greatest thing, and they give you such an advantage. No one was like, well, this is unfair to the animals, right? But somewhere that there's that threshold of you know what, this is too much advantage for people to have on deer or whatever game species that may be. Um, like I said, I love cell cameras. I hope they don't do away with them. Uh, it's just a I honestly look at it as a whole separate hobby from hunting. Like, I might, I've said this and I I mean it. I get more enjoyment out of running my cell cameras than I do hunting. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather go kill a big buck, without a doubt. But I get daily enjoyment from my cell cameras. I may not be able to hunt for a week. So I'm not getting any enjoyment out of not hunting, right? But I get daily enjoyment out of checking my cell cameras. I wake up in the morning and check them, check them before I go to bed, check them in the middle of the day, check them in the middle of the night if I wake up. Um, and I can say that I changed, like I've woken up, checked a camera, and been like, oh, I'm going to this stand because I got a picture of this buck on this property, you know. So I don't know. Uh I'd be interested to know what you all think about cell cameras. Are cell cameras giving people too much of an advantage, or are they just another piece of technology that us humans get to use and that gets to help us? What do you think? Um comment below, let me know. If you're still listening, uh I appreciate it. If you think about it, uh Kyoto Outdoors on TikTok, probably most active on TikTok. We've got Instagram, Facebook, go follow the Facebook page as well, and YouTube. Subscribe, make sure you subscribe, make sure you like all my videos. That certainly helps a lot. Comments, shares, likes, whatever it may be, I certainly help it. I'm going up or I'm creeping up on a year of doing this, and I can't say I've made a lot of progress, uh, but I've certainly had fun. Like I've met some people doing this and become friends with them, and it's just brought me closer to people that love the same thing, that love the outdoors, love hunting, love fishing, whatever it may be. Uh so I'm thankful for that, and I'm gonna keep doing it just for that reason, even. Uh, I just look forward to meeting people that have the same loves that I do. So thanks for listening, and we'll