EP 352: The Most Effective Trail Camera Strategies with Chris Dunkin of Stealth Cam

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Hey everybody, Jason Carter, Josh Pollock, John Peterson, of course Logan's here as well. Adam will be joining us here shortly. Anyway, just an awesome time of year. We've got the Utah draw results that have just come out. A lot going on. People are calling in like crazy. We've got a lot of clients that have drawn tags. It just kind of renews your faith in the draw system. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Because I'm sick and tired of the states giving me the finger quote, you know. I'm kind of sick of that. So, anyway, pretty fun. Well, the results came out a couple times. Yeah, good point, Josh. Yeah, they came out a couple times. It was fun. Why did they do that? It was fun, except for you kind of got half of them before they shut it down, and then you got to look at them again.

Why did they shut it down? Like, it's just kind of... So, really, technically, let's call it, you know, behind the scenes, you can go in and look at your letters, and you got this letter issued to you for your results and whatnot. Everybody's like, oh, kind of a backdoor method to get my results early. And then they shut it down. Why would they do such a thing? Come on. I don't know. I just think it's funny. I think they're fun haters. Yeah, I think so, too. I think so, too. They kind of want to be the one to give the gift, but yet, you can't beat a Utah to his draw results. I don't care what they say. Well, they want to be the one to like, no, we want, you saw him accidentally, we want to tell you when you can look at them.

Yeah, that's what I think. Yeah, it's like when you unwrap a Christmas present just a little early, you get a corner of it, and you're like, oh, yes, I can see what that is. But yeah, they hate it. So yeah, it was, and like I said, you're not gonna, there's a Utah and his draw results, you are not gonna stand in the way. You're not. No. He's gonna figure out how to reprogram the entire website, whatever. Yeah. And DWR is gonna wake up to a system that's not theirs. I laugh, I laugh, because most states, they're like, oh, the results will be out on X, you know, and that's when it is, and that's all it is. You can't do anything else to it, whatever. You can't do anything about it. But Utah and Utahns for a week straight, after the board meeting, they start trying to figure out how to open the back door somehow to look at them.

According to Utah D.W.R., we're ruining it, you know what I mean, instead of just... So, pretty awesome, pretty fun. Anyway, then they come back out, what, probably 12 hours later or so, toward the latter half of yesterday. Yeah, and it's funny, too. It takes, I mean, 20 hours to do emails. I don't know why... No, I'm still missing like three or four in my family. So, I don't know. And Utah takes two or three days to do emails. Did you check your junk mail? Junk mail. This ain't my first rodeo, trust me. What else, what else, some hidden, who knows, promotionals? Is it hidden in your promotionals? He's a Utahan. Everything comes on your phone. He knows. He's from Utah. I'm pretty sure you know how it works. Yeah. Anyway, kind of fun, a lot going on, a lot of draws happening, a lot of people calling in with successful tags. If you drew, we want to hear from you, give us a holler for sure.

So, with that, all the draw results and whatnot, we're getting ready to set a bunch of cameras. You guys got it? Oh, yeah. It's real now. Getting closer. Yeah. I wouldn't say I'm ready, but it is May 14th to 15th. Adam always says, whoa, pump the brakes. Like, you're going to wear yourself out by June 1st. Well, and you burn a bunch of batteries and all that to see bucks with 8-inch shanks. And I like the 8-inch shanks. Okay. And double eye guards or triple eye guards. Yeah, it's all good. Maybe a dropper coming off a lead. Yeah, but then you lose a few cameras to, you know, people. To Memorial Day and 14 other holidays that are coming up. And for what? Just to get the cameras out. The shank. Elk are a little different. They mature and grow way faster than deer do.

Again, I don't want to proclaim something because I've done that once, but I may have seen a spike last night with unbelievable antler growth. Spike elk. Okay, now this was also, Adam, keep in mind, this would have been in a bar ditch where the grass is green in January. He was in belly-deep grass already. Okay, what does a well-developed spike on May 14th look like? Tell me what that looked like. He was 14 inches. I'm not even kidding you. And I knew I wouldn't get believed that I wanted to turn around and target this particular spike. It might be, but I just had to use some evasive maneuvers to get around a semi-truck in an inoperable time. Really? In a four-cylinder that you're trying to get 44 miles to the gallon out of? Yes, so that had to be strategic. He was in neutral, and he had gas to pass the diesel and realized he was in neutral. I tell you, it was strategic.

There's never been a car placed in neutral at higher speeds than that car. Yeah, it was strategic. If you need to pass the diesel, you realize, oh crap, I'm in neutral. Yes, and I got it, and I couldn't get it back, so I couldn't turn around to go get the pictures, but I knew I should have, and now I wish I did. Because he was with another spike that didn't even have any growth at all, but he was out, and that's all he's going to be, he was a spike. He was a yearling flat-out spike with spikes that long already. Well, that sounds to me like an early-born calf that you don't want to kill. Like, he's got, that's a 400 in the making. Yes, he was built. Huh, Jason? I mean, May 14th, 14-inch spike, I mean, sounds hard to believe. Ten years from now, we're going to be smashing that bull. Some bulls don't grow 14 inches until September.

It was an August 14th spike, I'm telling you. I was impressed. Wow. And in Utah, we like our spikes. This is what we're regressed to talk about. Relegated, whatever the word is. All right, and it kind of gets me excited. Does it? Yeah. Well, I mean, John Grove, you're drinking the Pollock Kool-Aid. John, you can buy that tag over the counter in July. I know that. Yeah, I'm going to. We've already talked about it. And most people don't scout for spikes, but some do. Some do. That's cool. That's cool. Here in Utah, we do. Okay, so, alright. So, as we're getting ready to set up cameras, of course, we can use cellulars here in Utah. You can use cellulars in many states, and regular cams here in Utah through July, basically. And so, this is...

That's the hard part, though, with some of these cameras, some that I've had over the years that I didn't think I was going to put out, but now I'm going to have to again this year. But it takes you a day to put out three cameras in some of these spots. It does. And so, you're like, gosh, if I could go get them out now, then that frees up a day later. I don't like those spots. Three in a day? No, I'm out. No. I want 30 a day. 30 is a stretch though, but I mean, if you can put up 15, you've done something. 20 is a crushing day. Okay. 30 hammer down on the Pioneer or town or whatever you drive. Yeah, but 30 is one of those where you do end up, some places, you end up putting two or three on the same water, whether it's a pond or it runs for too far. You can't capture it all at one spot.

That's what I thought. You might get to 30 doing that. Yeah, yeah. But Josh, of course, Josh hikes further than the rest of us. He's out there. I hike slower than the rest of you is the thing. So, three times it takes all day. Yes. There's lots of ups and lots of downs, and I don't navigate either of those well. Well, I think we should call Stelchem. Let's call Chris Duncan there at GSM Outdoors and just talk to him about the products and what's going on and see what they have to offer. Of course, all these companies are coming out with new models on somewhat of a regular basis, and it's kind of on our minds being May, and we'll give him a call and see what he's got to say.

This is Chris. Hey Chris, John Peterson and the Epic Outdoors crew here. Got you on the podcast. Hey, how's it going, guys? Doing good. How you doing, Chris? Good. Good. We're just sitting here teeing it up, talking about it's mid-May, and Josh is talking about bull growth he sees driving to work today, and we're talking about getting cameras out. So, call to you is timely today. Find out what's new and whatnot in the Stealth Cam world. It'll be deer season before we know it. Yeah, we're looking forward to it here. But here, like we were talking about, Utah, we have seasons, Trail Camp seasons. We're going to be putting out a lot of cameras through and running them through the end of July. So, anyway, just got to, you know, you got to have a lot of coverage, run a lot of cameras here,

and just kind of want to talk about new products and things that you guys have developed to help people like us make the most of our tags. Yeah, for sure. So, you guys are, you guys said you're in Utah? Yeah. And then you, so you can only, you said you can only run cameras until the end of July? Is that what it is? Yeah, here in Nevada both. Yeah, we live near the border, but our two states have to be pulled down before August 1st. Yep. Okay. Yeah, that's interesting. I've been seeing, you know, some of these states making changes to the trail camera regulations, and I, here in the Midwest, you know, we haven't really seen a lot of that yet. We've seen some on public land, but yeah, I know that some of those western states have gotten pretty strict with it. Yeah, a couple have flat out banned them, but yeah, we're able to use them, and so we do. And it's also... Oh, good.

It almost increases the need to have a big camera fleet, because you have a window of time. You've got to really try to capture what you feel is within a unit or area that you intend to hunt, You can't have a permit to hunt or draw on a tag to hunt or whatever, and then you've got to pull them down. So, it's kind of, blitz it hard, or you don't even do it at all, right, Jason? I mean, you've got to cover it harder than you maybe would when you can keep them and just hit your best spots throughout the whole year and continue through the hunts. Now, you've got to, you almost got to double down. Well, there's some people, yeah, we double down. There's some people that are like, oh, not enough time to do anything. It's just not true. There's enough time, and it helps you a ton, but you've got to do what we're talking about,

is run more of them and just run them hard, and then put them away, right? And you get a ton of knowledge off of that. And so, anyway, I don't know, maybe direct us on what you think you guys have developed that would be super interesting to us cellular-wise or regular cams or whatever. For sure. Yeah, so on the cell cam side, we've made some pretty big We've had some gains over the years just with technology and the quality of the cameras. So, that's pretty exciting stuff. And honestly, one of the things that part of my job is running our beta testing program. And we have a handful, we've got like 20 guys across the country that assist with that, non-bias individuals that aren't employed here at GSM, Just guys that we know are hardcore trail camera users. So, that beta testing process starts

typically like on a camera that we would release in 2025. You know, we're testing that camera a year in advance. And because there's a lot of work that goes into it, and you think, you know, it's just, it's never perfect, right, when you bring a new camera out that you're starting to try and test and run. And there's always things you got to do to make them as, you know, close to perfect as It's possible for your release into the public. And anyways, long story short, we're at a point, I think, going into this year with the new products that I'm more confident and I'm more excited than I've ever been in years past. And not that I wasn't before, but I'm just so confident in this lineup that I can't wait for the consumers to be able to start purchasing these cameras, which by the time your podcast airs, even if it aired later this week,

Some of those cameras are already in retailers, and then we're going to have them online here at the end of the month, at the end of May, on our website, and also in more retailers. But probably the camera I'm most excited about would be that Revolver Pro 2.0. And that camera was the first 360-degree cell camera that we brought to market, which was last year, the 1.0 version. And, you know, that kind of set shockwaves through the whole hunting industry, just because it showed you what you were missing. And for guys like you, like you said, and honestly, all of us, like you want to maximize that camera's time in the field. You want to maximize, obviously, what it's taken photos of. And that camera, it won't miss anything.

There's no more deer that could skirt behind it or walk behind it type deal. I mean, if you've got it in 360 and you have every zone active, it doesn't matter where that deer goes. It's going to get a photo. Even at a 100 and, I mean, up to 130 feet away, it could detect a deer walking by. Wow. That's awesome. Yeah, some of the changes we made with that, guys, was that housing last year, you know, had kind of a bigger open lens that ran the whole way around it. Well, what we did this year was we upgraded the housing to show just, it just has six smaller lenses now, or six smaller ports, and then that lens on the inside, whenever a zone's detected, it moves to that port. But that cuts down on the movement that can be seen, and then also, each one of those ports has an eave over the top of it.

So, it's going to cut down on the amount of condensation that can sit on that lens. So, they work incredible. Wow. Yeah, it seems like Josh, you used the revolver, and of course, Logan used it a bit. Yep. But anyway, this is quite an upgrade. Yeah, those would be really good features, I feel like for sure, because I did definitely see that, some of those issues with it. Yeah, and I think the biggest thing, you know, like, at the time, that bigger open lens that wrapped around, we really didn't, I guess, through testing, we really weren't seeing as much condensation sticking to the outside. But then when we got into certain times a year, that's when it would happen worse than others, you know, those summer mornings where the dew point was low and go high and vice versa. So, that's when we'd see that happen more. Once it got into the season, it wasn't quite as bad.

If it rained, sometimes, you know, without the eaves over the top, the water would sit on that lens more. So, we knew we had to upgrade it. We knew we had to make it better, and that's what we did. It wasn't that it was bad before. We just knew, just like anything, just, you know, you start somewhere, and you just keep improving it. So, tell us a few more features of this particular camera as far as, you know, the service providers and things like that. Just a few of the very basics on it. Absolutely. So, it comes with pre-installed SIM cards that will work with AT&T or Verizon. Essentially, what that's going to do is it's going to allow the user to pretty much use this thing anywhere that's got cell service.

And what that camera is going to do is once you turn it on, it'll search for whatever network's stronger between those two. It's going to connect to that network. So, that just makes it easier for the user. A few other features that's new for this year, the cameras and the StealthCam lineup, a lot of the cameras in that lineup are going to internal memory cards. Sorry, internal memory. The reason for that is through all the calls that we have received over the years to customer service, don't quote me, but it was somewhere above 70% of the calls were actually the root of the issue was a corrupted SD card. So, the SD card would get corrupted, and then it would cause an issue with the camera. And going to internal memory now is going to alleviate a lot of that. And also, it's going to save you money, because you don't have to worry about going and buying an SD card.

If you still want to take the photos out of it, it's simple. You just plug a USB-C into the camera. It'll download right to your... You can look at them on your phone, you can save them to your phone, you can put them on a laptop, whatever you want to do. They've got 32 gigabyte internal memory, so it's still going to last a long time. And like I always tell everybody, there's a feature on these cameras through the Command Pro app that I would recommend to everyone as far as using, and that's the DVR mode. And what DVR mode will do is it's never going to allow your SD card to fill up. That card will do once it gets full. It will start overriding the oldest data on it. So, the oldest image or video on it, it will override it with the newest, and you can just keep that camera rolling.

So, the other thing is, it's kind of nice. Somebody can't just take your SD card. We have theft out here on Public Land. So, you know, it's one thing to take a card. They'd have to take the whole camera, but then also, you know, you're probably a little bit nervous taking a cellular cam, It's like, yeah, because it's taking your picture and video while you're doing it. And you can't sneak up on those 360 cameras either. You can't see it and be like, oh, I'm going to go behind it and open it. It's taking photos of you no matter where you're at. And sending them. Yeah, that was the best thing last year. I had guys. They didn't do anything with my camera, but I guess I'm the same. Sometimes I'll see a camera and be like, oh, geez, you know, and look at it or whatever. But I had guys kind of sneak up on it and tried to cover

their faces or things like that. Or when a guy put a camera above mine and tried to cover He was over his face with like a branch, and then was putting one above and stuff. I had pictures of him from the side as he was walking up. I could tell who he was. Did you have some guys? We had a contest. We talked about this last year. We said that you couldn't sneak up on those cameras to steal them without getting your picture taken. And if anybody did, bring us the camera. We put out a bounty on one of my trail cameras, and nobody was able to do it. Somebody did find it, but didn't sneak up on it. Kind of a fun game. Let's do it again, Logan. No. With yours. I volunteered somebody else for that game. Alright, so let's see, we cut you off, you're gonna go back into a few other, you know, options that this camera has, I think.

Yeah, so they've got the internal memory, they've got internal GPS now, so if they move, you're gonna be able to, you know, you set that camera up, it's gonna show up in the Command Pro app. When you click on the maps, it'll show up as to where it's at. Somebody's garage. There you go. That's the one you need. Absolutely. Do they all have, do all the new ones have that? Not every new camera. Some of the opening price point cameras don't, but the Deceptor Max, that's a brand new camera. The Spectre 4K, that's a new camera. And then that Revolver Pro, those will have the GPS. Wow. So, what else we got here? So, oh, also, those three cameras I just mentioned, a lot of people don't know this, but most cameras are going to come with a single processor. So, when that camera, depending on your settings, your upload settings, let's say you have it on instant,

that camera is going to take a picture, and then after it takes a picture or whatever your photo The first thing we saw was that the video burst is, it'll start the upload process. And as it's uploading, you know, that can take anywhere from 15 seconds to, let's say, two minutes to get to the app based on the quality of service in the area. And while it's doing that upload, there could be animals walking by if it's a single processor camera that it's not taking photos of, or it's not going to upload those photos. So, what we've done with those three models this year is we put dual processors in them. So, one's going to be responsible for taking the photos, and then one is going to be responsible for uploading those photos. So, essentially, what that means is now when that camera takes a photo, it starts doing the upload, and it can still take photos of game walking in front of it,

which actually happens a lot more than people realize. So, that's a huge added bonus to the cameras this year as well. That's awesome. You think five years ago they had everything you could have in a camera? Well, I would just... And they did. There was pictures showing up on my phone. How much better can I get? And how can you add on to that? And you guys have done it. That's a lot. That's true. I remember back in the day when you had to add a cell camera to the app, like we had to do it with our phone. QR codes. And then we had to type in all the... Oh, yeah, but for the QR codes, it took like 20 minutes to add a camera, and the first camera he added took like 45 minutes. So, the process has just gotten so easy. If there's a guy out there that's listening to this that's never ran a cell camera,

now would be the time to jump into that, just because it is such an easier process now to get started with it. The data plans are way more affordable than they've been. The cameras themselves are more affordable than they've ever been. And it's like Christmas every morning, you know, you wake up and you can look at your photos, and it's a great time. But the technology up to this point, you know, blows my mind, and it'll be interesting to see where it leads to. One thing I didn't bring up that's probably one of the coolest features of these new cameras, and also the Revolver Pro from last year and the Deceptor Max from last year, so the 2024 models, We are giving users the ability to use a new feature called Live View. For $5, the first 60 minutes is free. So, the first 60 minutes per camera, you get to use for free for Live

View. If you want to do Live View after that, it's $5 for another 60 minutes. So, yeah, you can literally write. And what's really neat about that Revolver Pro and the Revolver Pro 2.0 is when you do live view, you can click on live, it starts recording right to your device, or through the app, you're watching it. You can click record, and then it'll save it to your phone. You can press on photo, make it take photos. You'll see the different zones, one through six. You could be in zone one, and let's say that mule deer, whatever you're watching, It starts angling off to the right. He's going to zone two. You can click on two and follow him to two. If you go into live view and you're not seeing anything, you can just sit there and click one through six to four to two, whatever you want to do, and that lens will move to whatever zone you want.

Jeez. That's kind of neat from a standpoint of really getting the most out of your scouting. You guys talked about, you know, there's something to be said about maximizing your time and your efforts, especially with you guys. You've got limited time. You've got to figure out as much intel as you can by the end of July. Well, you know, there's some places where you could put that camera, and that whatever the game is, may not be within the detection range of the camera, But you can go to live view, and next thing you know, it's like you're right there by that camera watching what's going on. And it could be out in the distance, but it's still giving you that intel. This is almost...my mind was going on this. These are amazing features, but it's like... Remember like when you have somebody come to your front porch on your doorbell ring?

The next step is you see a guy...if you had a state that you didn't...you could leave him up during the hunts. And you see a guy walk in front of your revolver and gets in your ground blind over there at your water. You just get on there and say, Talk through your camera. Step away from the blind. Get out of my blind now. That's worth that. Is that coming? It needs to happen. Yeah, maybe. We have people that like to sit and other people blind them. You can cow call through your thing. Whirr! Whirr! Call a bull into your camera. And now you'll be able to watch it happen. Yeah, you can talk to them.

The live video would be neat, but it'd be like, it'd be getting the... Josh would be making cow calls, he'd be cow calling through it and probably have a bull come in. Yeah, exactly. I mean, geez. Well, hey, we've developed... My mind was just going that way. Hey, you guys, you know, maybe... This is for the gen three. Epic version. Maybe we can profit share on this idea. I mean, it's definitely gonna happen. Logan, he'd be over there calling through that thing. I would. Yeah, I called in four bulls this morning. Really? From your desk? Yes, I did. From my bed. I'm ripening this pond. I'm going to sit there tonight. So, tell us about, maybe Josh, you can dive in on this, but what's it like to, like, just people would be, the only thing I can see is people worried about, you know, the price.

How do I, is there, what are the plans like if I want to put 20 of these on a plan? You know what I mean? Yeah. So, he could speak to them more, but just as the practical notion of it, the way you look at it, you kind of think, oh, man, you get one of these cameras, I took these cameras and then 20 bucks a month or whatever. They're pro-rated, so every camera you add to it, it decreases the cost of the camera if you do unlimited. I do unlimited because we do have a short season here. Unlimited pictures and downloads. Yes, yeah. Not unlimited cameras. Yes, yes, unlimited pictures and stuff. But you know, I look at it to where my cameras are, some of them, or that kind of thing, and you look and I say, well, if I only am $20 a month for that camera, it would cost me $40 in gas to go check that camera. Right.

I do it, say, twice a month or something. So, I'm like, I'm here, I'm into it, $80 a month just to go check the camera physically and have to take a couple hours to hike into it and then all that kind of stuff. So, to me, to be able to pay $20 to have that thing send me pictures twice a day, every day, to the three months that it's up, I feel like it actually saves money if you're in a spot where you have cellular service. Right. So, I've kind of switched to most of my cameras over a lot of these cell cams for those reasons. Yeah, and so you're looking at like, let's see if you get into, let's say it's 10 or more cameras, you're talking eight, is it like $8 a month per camera? Is that what it is? For unlimited. For unlimited, right? For the unlimited plan.

Yeah, so it's tiered where the first camera is 20 for unlimited, the second camera is 15, and I'll have it directly in front of me, but like three through, camera three through seven would be 11, And then, camera eight and beyond is $8. And that's for monthly unlimited. So, the guys that aren't going to run them year-round, monthly might be the way to go, where you can use it for X amount of time. The more cameras you run, obviously, the cheaper the price. But then, you can suspend them at any time in a matter of seconds on the app. So, if you get to a point where you're like, okay, well, I'm done running it for the year. It's the end of July. I can't run them on the public land anymore or the private land where I'm hunting. I'm gonna go ahead, I'm gonna suspend those cameras. You can do that with the click of a button.

Yeah, so there's no minimum or anything like that. Or if you have camera A, just isn't a good camera, it's not a good location, you don't have time to get it, you can suspend that camera from your phone. Just leave it sitting there, whatever, it's just chilling out on a tree. It's not costing you anything. Correct. And, you know, he talked about some of the cost. The things to think about with this is, he nailed one of them, is your time is valuable. And, obviously, driving to and from those cameras for you guys and a lot of the western hunters, you know, it's not like me here in the Midwest where I can pretty much drive my side-by-side right to these cameras. I don't have to go walk in a long ways. And even that takes time. So, for a lot of you western hunters, you're hiking way back in there. You could have a whole day of checking cameras. So, you account for all of that.

And then the real cost savings come in when guys start investing in external batteries and solar panels, because the cost of AA's nowadays are through the roof. Yeah. And the cost of the solar has really came down, as far as solar panels that'll connect right to the camera. And what that'll allow you to do is, literally, you can run that camera without any AA's if you want, as long as it's in an area that's gonna get A decent amount of sunlight. I've got them here in Iowa. I've got them underneath the canopy. So, it's getting intermittent light all day. I mean, there's times where it's shaded out the whole way, and there's an hour or two where it's getting some sun. But that solar will just keep on rocking and rolling. And then there's a handful of different options and different price points on these solar panels.

So, you got a cost savings there too. If you're thinking long term, and you're going to be running cameras for, you know, year after year, the amount that you're going to spend on AA batteries in the next 10 years, that solar panel is going to pay for itself tenfold by then. Yeah, it's true. I believe that. That's what I like about them too. And you don't have to go back. Yes. And to change batteries. I mean, just the savings, the gas like you talked about, you add that into it. If you got them solid, they're not movable. You don't have a bear. Lick them and mud them all up. I mean, there's real-world problems sometimes. Yeah, that's the thing. It is a little bit tricky, like with those solar panels. You have to get them up out of the way, because elk, I don't know why, they just love to come and mess with your cameras.

They're licking them and stuff, and they'll rub antler on them and all that kind of thing. So, you got to get... So, generally, when I use a cell cam, I try to put a solar panel on every single one of mine. That way, I'm not restricted to anything as far as it goes. I can adjust that camera to however it wants, if it wants to transmit multiple times a day, or if I want to slow it down, or speed it up, or whatever, if I want to do video, any of those kind of things I want to change with the camera, I can do it because I know I have the battery that's there to do it. And I put that camera up once, and I essentially walk away from it for two months. And I can still get pictures from it twice a day, whatever. And then I never have to go back until July 31st to pick it up. But yeah, if you have a problem or something, you can.

And let's say, I haven't ran into many instances with the solar panel going out, but then you do have the battery inside the camera that if, say, the solar panel were to die for some reason, if it were to get knocked off or didn't have some good sun or whatever, the internal battery of the camera would kind of kick in. A couple weeks or whatever. So, it works awesome, and just a couple things for me that I've used, you know, those solar panels come on like a, I don't know, almost 10-foot long cable. And so, I'll actually take another stick, and I'll lag that solar panel to the top of the long stick, and then I'll reach that stick up as far as I can reach, as far as the cord will go. And then I put a lag in the bottom of that stick to the tree, so that the solar panels clear, you know, 12 feet up in the air, out of the way of the elk, so the camera's the only thing down.

What about like for the cellular reception? Don't they have those? Yeah, I've got some antennas, external antennas. I do the exact same thing. I'll put an antenna and a solar panel on that stick and hold it clear up in the tree and screw it to the tree so it's clear up out of the way. And the only thing that's down there is the camera. And that's kind of what I've used over the years. I've had good luck with stuff, not messing with it. You guys still making out those external antennas and whatnot? Yeah, so we do sell those. And believe it or not, you'd be shocked. I know you guys are hanging The services. Yeah. It's amazing, but I know you guys are talking about hanging them up higher in the trees to keep them out of the way of elk and whatnot, but just plugging that thing in, if you're in an area where wildlife won't mess with it, just plugging it in and keeping it right

next to that camera, even though it obviously has the longer extension to get it up higher, typically for most people is going to work. Yeah. And I've noticed these cameras get with that external antenna, too, when you plug that in and having that external antenna, it's kind of like the old flip phones when you have You have to extend the antenna, you have to pull it up to get it to work. I feel like these have better cell reception than your cell phone. I can be the cell camera, I'll be like, oh, my cell phone, I don't know if I'm gonna get it or not, but the camera I turn it on, it shows good service. Well, it has an external antenna already, instead of just a smooth box trying to get service. Yep. Yep. Correct. Yeah. Wow.

Do you want to cover any other cameras? Today, we're talking about cellulars a lot, and I knew we were, because there's a lot of technology and things have come a long ways. But anything else you want to talk about comes to mind? I would say a few other new cell cameras. I'll hit on them really quick. I know I briefly mentioned them, but if a guy wants to have the best quality video, if he's a guy that's like, hey, I love getting photos or videos of the wildlife, the Spectre 4K, that's a brand new camera in our lineup, and it's absolutely incredible. It's not a 360 cam, so it's going to be your normal camera as far as zones, and it's going to take a photo or video of what walks in front of it. But the video quality and the audio quality on that camera is absolutely insane. So, that camera is one to look into if you're one of those guys.

It's got a true black flash, just like the Deceptor Max, where there's going to be no infrared that's visible to the animal. It's a true black flash, not a low-glow IR. So, it's going to be invisible to people as well, obviously. Those are two of the other new cameras for the year that I would check out if you guys are interested. Awesome. Awesome. How do we know on your website, like, Logan, you've been flipping through this stuff like crazy, but just how do you know what's the new cameras? I mean, there's some of the older features. I guess, is there just a new for 2025 page? Yeah, and if that's not up yet, it will be any day. You'll be able to go to the website, see all of what's new. And like I said, those cameras will all be in stock sometime in the next, any day now to within four weeks, just depending on the model. Yeah.

And sometimes, you know, we might get X amount that roll in, and they sell pretty quick, and it's out of stock again fairly quick. So, but over the course of the next four weeks, those cameras will all be rolling in, and guys will have an opportunity to check them out. Then, obviously, through the entire summer and fall, we try to make sure we have enough to have inventory for guys that are wanting to buy them. And then, obviously, we're in most retailers all across the country as well. Yeah, awesome. Question on that live view. So, it's the first 60 minutes is free. Can you turn that off and on, or is it just once you start, you get 60 minutes? Yeah, so you can turn it off and on. And then, when you're in your account, whichever camera you're using, the live view on, you can go into your settings, And then it'll show you how many minutes you've used. Once you get towards the end of those

minutes, it'll prompt you, and then if you want to, you can purchase more minutes if you'd like. Okay, so yeah, that's really cool. So, it's not...you could do five minutes here and there, and your 60 minutes could actually last you, you know, more than just, you know, a one-time shot. That's cool. It could, and there's gonna be times where you turn it on, and there's nothing going on, and turn it off within 20-30 seconds. There's gonna be times where I've had it happen through testing, you know? Like, I had a huge-ass deer that I'd been hunting, and I didn't even know he was there. Like, I just randomly turned on Live View, and he's standing there at, like, 15 yards from that camera. So, I watched that deer for quite a while. It was really neat. Reload my account. Reload my account. Give me another $60. Oh, yeah, exactly. There's another $5. I've got some feeders out here.

Oh, I need to clock out. Yeah, for sure. This is legit. I think this summer is going to be fun because in Iowa, you can supplemental feed. So, I've got feeders rolling, and there's bachelor groups that'll hit those feeders. And I thought it would be really cool on my back patio to be sitting there, hit live view, grilling out, start, you know, hopefully there's a big buck in front of it. And then I just thought it'd be really cool to, like, stream that to my TV on the patio and just watch. While you're grilling steaks. It's going to be an addicting, yeah, exactly. It's going to be an addicting feature. Oh, jeez. All while you're clocked in working from home. There you go. Exactly. That's awesome.

My product testing. Oh, it's addicting. Product testing. I tell you, when you have this set up, I usually set mine to come in at, like, say, 9 o'clock in the morning and 9 o'clock at night, so I can catch kind of some of that peak movement of morning and evening stuff, and then it'll send me everything that occurs during that time. And I'm sitting there like, okay, 9 o'clock's coming. He's coming. It's bad. Josh is like a tweaker. He's like a tweaker waiting for a fix. Yeah, I probably should clock out for the first. I think I'm gonna go ahead and go to live view. It's 8.53. 15 minutes of every 9 o'clock. An extra $5, and you can wait 7 minutes. Yeah, that's worth it. Yeah. All right. Yeah, what about, I did see on these new cameras, you have this MAX battery, the lithium rechargeable battery.

Maybe talk a little bit about those, too. We were talking about AA's, and what's maybe some of the functions of those, or what have you got there? Yeah, so with our FieldMax sign-up of accessories, they're solar panels, they're our external lithiums. That are just, you know, square boxes that will plug into the camera externally. And then we have internal lithiums. So, essentially, you know, if a guy wanted to, he could buy those. I would recommend buying two of the external lithium packs. And then, obviously, those are rechargeable. So, once you buy them, you've got, you know, your two-pack of lithium batteries or internal batteries. And you could just go to the camera, swap them in and out. Another thing that's kind of neat about those is you can daisy chain some of these FieldMax accessories to each other.

So, let's say you've got a solar panel, and you've got an external battery, you can daisy chain them together and then to the camera. You could also daisy chain multiple solar panels together and then to the camera as well, or multiple external batteries together just to get double the battery life if a guy wanted to. So, there's a lot of options for users when it comes to those external power sources. I can see those being handy too. You get later in the year in the states where you can run cameras in the daylight. I mean, it's dark at 5 at night. Your solar capturing period of the day is so much shorter later in the year than it is in the summertime. And so, needing battery with solar, things like that would really help. Especially when you, by then you know your sweet spots. This camera cannot go dead, or I'm toast. I need to know what's coming here, not miss that.

Okay, alright. This has been great. It's been informative. We sure appreciate it. I appreciate it. All the new products are exciting and whatnot. We'll be watching the website as some of these products roll out. I think some of them already have. So, anyway, it's been awesome. Yeah. Sounds great, guys. I appreciate it. You have a great day. Okay, you too. You too. Thanks. Thank you. Bye. Well, that was awesome to have Chris on the line, kind of go over some of the new things and the upgrades.

We've got several cameras. I mean, we talked heavy about cellular cameras today. You know, that's where a lot of the big technology is going is with the cellular camera stuff. But we still, there's still a significant amount of cameras that StealthCam has, and that we have here in general as well, that aren't cellular cameras. Because, face it, here in the West, there's just places you can't put a cellular camera. Yeah, there's no service. Yeah, most of these cameras I have up are on the top of a ridge somewhere or something like that, you know, but I really actually would need it in a wallow in the bottom. And I can't put a cell camera down there, and so I'm going to have to use other options, which that's what we have.

So, if you're looking for trail cameras, we usually do, what we do here is we do a big order. You know, draw results are coming out right now, so guys are going to be knowing. And I would not wait. If you think you're going to use cameras or you know you're going to use cameras, please give us a call now because we will run out. We, that's how we do it, you know, with some of the restrictions and stuff that we have now. We know with the states that are close to us that we generally get guys' cameras to. We get a big bunch of them because we know that guys are going to be needing them now, and then they're going to have to pull them down. So, they need them right away. We order a big order. We don't have a lot that just linger throughout the year. So, my suggestion would be as soon as you draw that tag or you know you're going to need cameras, jump online or give us a call and order them.

We do have the Deceptor Max No-Glow. It is one of our cell cameras. As he said, it's AT&T or Verizon. So, they work great. And they're, you know, we talked a little bit about 4K cameras and such, and we used to use those DS4K cameras. And, you know, like this Deceptor Max, it's a 40-megapixel camera with over a 1080p video. It's pushing 4K. So, it's, you almost can't tell the difference. Quality is awesome. They're pretty amazing. So, like, it's an amazing camera as far as the quality, and you get the cellular out of it. So, they're pretty awesome cameras. Then, if you're looking for a camera that's kind of a little bit of a workhorse camera that has great quality, but yet also is not cellular, we have the G-Max Vision, the G-Max 32 Vision.

And that's a great camera. The kind of cool thing about that camera, it actually has a little LCD screen on it. So, when you go to check your pictures and stuff, you actually, you know, it's got an SD card you can put in and out. But if you want to, just real quick, if you're, say you're sitting a blind every day or something, and you checked the night before you left, but you want to see what came overnight or something, you can hurry and just jump on it real quick, run over to your camera, flip through it without having to swap cards and do all this kind of stuff. You can look real quick, because generally, there's probably not going to be 2,000 pictures to go through or whatever. The other thing is, it's awesome when you're setting them up to be able to kind of see. You point it in the right direction, and a lot of times, it's not quite in the right direction.

Yes, and that's what I need to do better with that. Like, I'm kind of impatient when it gets to that part. I don't know why, but I just, like, want to get it set up, and that's about one of the last things I try to think about it. But, yeah, when you get it set up, and there's nothing worse than when you have a camera set it up, and then I've had it with some of these cellular cameras, and then the first picture sends me, I'm like, oh, that's way too high or way too low or whatever. I don't know. I need to be aware of that. Yeah, so that's definitely a big plus with that one. And it takes, you know, it's a 32 megapixel camera with 1080p on video, 80-foot range. Like, it's a great workhorse camera that's got really good quality to it, too.

And then if you're looking for just a camera that, well, we call them a coverage camera, I guess. It's just a camera that I generally, when I go to set up cameras, I'll actually throw a couple of these in my pack that are just ready to go. Because without a doubt, I'm hiking into a wallow or something. I'm like, oh, this will be a great setup. And then on my way out, I come past like a seep or something that's actually getting pounded. You're like, holy cow, there's stuff drinking here every day. They're not walking down to the wallow or up to the wallow or whatever. They're hitting this little seep right here, and it's a beaten trail. And so, you know, I've already, say, put out my nice camera or whatever on the wallow, thinking that's where I'm going to get the best stuff. And then I run to this thing and end up moving that camera to the spot.

So, to have an extra camera with you, they weigh hardly anything, and you can throw them up and have them there just to get some pictures for you before you come back in. But that would be a QS20. It's a no-glow camera. Kind of a cool thing about it, it actually comes in a combo pack with a 16-gig SD card and batteries for it. Yeah, it's like ready to go. Yeah, it's ready to go. You open the package. I also like to use those as kind of the catch who's messing with my camera. Yeah, there you go. The bait cam. Yeah, so I'll have one hidden there to just catch who's coming in, and if my camera's messed with, you know, I can get pictures of whoever's messing with it, too. Yeah, for sure. So, those are the cameras we have. We do have some large boxes as well, some bear boxes. You know, that's something that a lot of guys deal with, either with theft or bears or just elk, things like that.

They do, you know, stick a camera to a tree and make them really sturdy. So, we do have some of those. Not all cameras fit in them, but we do have some that will. So, make sure if you're wanting some of those, it's definitely an unneeded accessory in some of these units and stuff where you're going to be putting them. As well as we do have some signal booster antennas, like I said, just to kind of get it up and out of the way. It's pretty crazy. Sometimes I'll be down. And if you could just get a little better angle to hit something, a better line of sight towards the top of the ridge or something, they actually do work, and we have those too. So, that'll help with cell cams.

Yeah, and I think those bear boxes, I mean, a lot of people are like, well, someone's gonna mess with the camera, they're gonna mess with the camera. It's true, but I've had where it just is a little extra pain in the butt to mess with the camera that's in a box. And, you know, one hunt a couple years ago on New Mexico, I went out and I put up 10 cameras, and the outfitter was like, I didn't run any cameras, mine all have gotten stolen, you know. I didn't have one that got stolen. You know, they would lag to the tree, in a bare box, you know, and there were plenty of other cameras that were just, you know, had the seatbelt tied around them or whatever, you know, and that's it.

So, it's well worth the expense, I think, you know, and then, yeah, if someone's gonna be a jerk and mess with your camera, they're gonna mess with your camera, but that's why you need a second camera in the, you know, hidden in the tree to catch those people. Yes, for sure. So, yeah, we've got all that stuff in stock. If you're needing any of those cameras, like I said, just don't wait. You'll regret it. And give us a call, or go online and you can get those ordered. We can get them coming your way. We've got those that I talked about all in stock and ready to go. Yeah, and since we order, you know, big orders in bulk, it allows us to do some special stuff for our members and special pricing and deals. So, yeah, call in and we can work with you. Well, good. Maybe Trump's deal with Ukraine, and we get the precious metals down. Maybe some of these things will be even cheaper.

I think they make these with tritium and all the weird... Hey, when these lithium batteries, I'm sure Ukraine and deals and whatnot, that'd be one great positive thing right there. Cheap metal. Yeah, good components. Raw periodic elements off the table, right? The periodic table. You know what I mean. The raw elements. There's the raw elements on the periodic table, many of which reside in Ukraine and nowhere else. I don't know. I don't know. That's what they tell me. All right, well, good luck in the draws, everybody. We want to know if you drew a tag. We can help you find an outfitter, help you find information through the member draw program and whatnot. So, anyway, if you're going self-guided, that's fine. Give us a holler. If you want to go guided, give us a holler. We want to hear from you. Wishing you the best. We've got applications coming due on a regular basis.

We also have tags coming out on a regular basis, so it's kind of an exciting time. Here at Epic Outdoors. Let's face it, if your goal is to kill big stuff, you need to draw quality tags. Quality tags are typically hard to draw. To increase your odds of drawing good tags, you need to apply in multiple states. That's where an Epic Outdoors membership can help. For only $150 a year, you get access to our consultants, our online tools, and to Epic-approved outfitters and members-only optics discounts. With unlimited access to our team of consultants and access to the Epic Outdoors magazines, applying in multiple states is easy. No more worrying if you're applying for the best areas, no more applying for a unit where there has been a die-off, and no more

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