Episode 280 - Trail Cams, Big Cats, and Camo Drops | Special Guest Joe Miles

Published: 2025-07-06
Episode page
Duration: 66 min

In this episode

africa

• Joe worked in Africa for seven years right out of school, which gave him strong hunting connections there. 14:42

asio-camo

• Joe said the new ground-predator inspired pattern came from realizing predators like mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, and wolves offered a different camo concept than tree predators. 32:20
• Joe said the new camo is a universal pattern wearable in any environment, whether tree stand hunting, spot-and-stalk, or western hunts. 33:45
• Joe said ASIO’s purchase order for the year was split about 60% original Raptor pattern and 40% new pattern to test demand. 33:55
• Terry said the Sherpa is his favorite ASIO pattern, while Don prefers the mid-weight. 34:35
• Terry asked Joe why, from a business perspective, ASIO was launching a new camo pattern after building the market’s top-selling one. 30:28

asio-gear

• Joe said most new ASIO products will be in stock by the end of July, with preorders shipping in time for hunting season. 35:52
• Joe announced new non-insulated rubber boots in both colors, made to feel almost like wearing a tennis shoe. 37:10
• Joe announced a new puffy vest coming to the ASIO lineup. 37:45
• Joe recounted that Terry, one of ASIO’s first puffy jacket owners, didn’t realize the jacket was reversible with black on the inside until Joe pointed it out at a trade show. 38:40 (light moment)

attention-to-detail

• Joe said the nineteen-day leopard hunt reminded him of the attention-to-detail wisdom Don, Bobby, and other veteran hunters have always preached. 19:12

banter

• Don joked that online critics upset he wears ASIO Camo and appears with Joe will simply find something new to complain about. 29:45 (light moment)
• Terry jokingly asked Joe if he had ever shot anything with a blow gun. 47:40

chasing-giants-tv

• Terry said they released spring food plot videos this week on Chasing Giants TV. 7:38

dealer-event

• Terry noted the podcast had a live dealer event in Arthur, Illinois last week that contributed to scheduling conflicts for this episode. 0:57

deer-repellent

• Leslie Horst asked what deer repellent brands Don and Terry recommend, since deer started eating her flowers near the house. 46:10

food-plot

• Don warned against planting brassica products like Deadly Dozen two years in a row, saying that is the main rotation mistake to avoid. 55:27
• Don said deer were absolutely hammering the Soil Charge product Terry had planted, even though he wasn’t sure if it was planted in spring. 55:20
• Joe said Dixie Dozen has had a ton of success in South Carolina, and he has spread the product to hunting buddies there. 56:11
• Joe said the landowner of the plantation he hunts insists on Dixie Dozen being planted every year because turkeys hammer it during spring turkey season. 56:58
• Brock from Minooka asked for crop rotation recommendations using clover, Harvest Salad, and Deadly Dozen for smaller food plots. 54:13
• Terry asked Joe what his biggest property prep is, besides scouting, ahead of the August swamp season in South Carolina. 55:42

habitat-work

• Terry said Don recently posted a picture of a five-foot diameter pipe being installed for another crossing on his property. 9:14

hunting-philosophy

• Joe said everyone’s hunting method is just ‘a way,’ not the only way, and anyone claiming their method works everywhere is being shortsighted. 28:20

hunting-regions

• Don said every hunting region is unique and doubted he could be equally successful traveling and hunting everywhere the way Joe does. 29:06

hunting-stories

• Terry asked Don and Joe to share the scariest moment of their hunting careers. 40:34

hunting-story

• Don recalled a fenced Illinois farm section of cattle pasture and ag fields that reliably held a giant buck every rut because a small group of does stayed there undisturbed. 52:29

hunting-strategy

• Don said his approach differs from Bobby Worthington’s because Bobby hunts the mountains of East Tennessee while Don hunts Central Illinois farm country. 25:05
• Bobby Worthington told Don that in the mountains hunters have to reach the rut funnel regardless of access, since his whole season is built around funnels and the rut. 25:41

leopard-behavior

• Joe said a big mature male leopard will kill at least a cow a month. 13:27

leopard-conservation

• Joe explained outfitters offered to pay Zimbabwean ranchers to stop killing problem leopards in exchange for bringing in international trophy hunters. 13:49

leopard-hunt

• Joe killed the leopard on night 19 of a twenty-one day hunt after sleeping in a blind. 15:53
• Joe described a mistake where they hung a bait too low, allowing a hyena to rip it from the tree and haul it off. 16:31
• Joe said a mistakenly low-hung trail camera caused the leopard to sense it and flee before they could hunt him there. 16:56
• Joe said his hot seven-millimeter wildcat round with heavy hydrostatic shock dropped the leopard instantly on the shot. 18:58

leopard-hunting

• Don said he personally knows very few people who’ve shot a leopard, naming Joe Miles and Chris Yates as two of them. 1:59
• Terry relayed a newspaper report Joe posted showing leopards actually killing full-grown cattle, not just calves, in the area he hunted. 11:54
• Joe said hunting the leopard was so similar to hunting a mature whitetail in attention to detail that one mistake could blow the entire hunt. 14:52
• Terry asked Joe whether he knew Chris Yates shot his leopard within a couple days of when Joe shot his. 2:07

lion-encounter

• Terry relayed that Chris Yates had a scary encounter the previous year in Africa where a lion turned and charged instead of running away, requiring someone to shoot it as it closed in. 44:31

lockdown-hunting

• Charlie Green asked whether to hunt a low-deer-density 20-acre cattle pasture during lockdown, hoping a big buck tending a doe might show up. 49:19

mature-buck-strategy

• Don said many hunters succeed on three-year-old bucks but find it hard to change habits enough to consistently take five- and six-year-old bucks. 20:23
• Don said hunters who consistently kill big deer succeed through attention to detail, not access to special ranches, since they hunt the same pressured neighborhoods as others. 20:53

mikes-mighty-micro

• Terry asked Joe if he had tried Mike’s Mighty Micro yet on his wife’s flowers or backyard veggies. 47:50

mineral-site

• Joe said a new mineral site he never had mineral on before was torn up like a backhoe had dug it out. 57:31

mount-rushmore-deer-hunters

• Don said that on a recent podcast with Jake, he named Bobby Worthington as one of only two picks for his Mount Rushmore of deer hunters. 26:21
• Don named Lee Mitchell as his second Mount Rushmore pick, guaranteeing he is the best public-land deer hunter despite being low-key. 27:06

orchard

• Terry said he and Don met with Jay Gingerich and Andy the apple breeder last week. 5:18
• Jay and Andy created a Chasing Giants pre-engineered wildlife orchard package sold in quarter-acre increments. 5:49
• Terry said having Jay and Andy pre-select engineered tree packets per quarter acre will be a big tool for people overwhelmed by fruit tree choices. 6:46
• Don said the orchard packages will include micronutrients for planting and plastic guards to keep rabbits and mice from eating the bark off trees in winter. 7:04

podcast-appearances

• Don said he has another podcast appearance next week with a traditional hunter from the East Coast. 1:45
• Joe said he recently appeared on the East Meets West podcast hosted by Bo Martonic, calling it a really good experience. 3:08
• Terry asked where else listeners could find Joe’s content beyond Chasing Giants and Mission Whitetail. 2:42

podcast-content

• Don had Jake Hofer film content at his house for most of a day, resulting in a roughly hour-long interview video. 1:27

shipshewana-show

• Terry announced the Shipshewana Show will be bigger and better than anything the podcast has done before. 3:30
• Terry said the Shipshewana Show is scheduled for February, believed to be the third weekend of the month. 3:46
• Terry announced a baking contest will happen at the Shipshewana Show. 4:14
• Terry said Don will judge the pie category at the baking contest while he and Joe split bakery and pastries. 4:26

stand-placement

• Joe said the key to killing a specific buck on the Tracks property was finding the tightest spot on the creek crossing that allowed both a north and south wind option. 51:04

trail-cameras

• Terry noted that July 4th weekend marks the start of trail camera deployment for hunters. 7:32
• Joe planned to spend all of next Saturday and Sunday deploying the rest of his cameras in the swamp to locate a target buck. 8:32
• Don said July is his favorite month, when he starts putting cameras out around July 1 to gather early intel on deer. 9:38
• Terry asked Joe what he had going on so far with his trail cameras. 8:00

trophy-room

• Bobby Worthington said most hunters have a trophy room with one good deer and many three-year-olds, while very few have a room full of mature deer. 21:53

velvet-season

• Terry said it is officially velvet season. 7:49

whitetail-hunting

• Terry said Joe has adapted his hunting approach across more regions than most, from Mexico to Canada to the South Carolina swamps. 22:35
• Joe argued that big whitetails in different environments remain some of the hardest hunting in the world. 23:34
• Joe said no outfitter he knows of can guarantee a five-year-old whitetail buck no matter how much money is paid. 24:31

Deer activity

• the nomad (history) 8:13
• unnamed buck (history) 8:40
• unnamed buck (trail-camera) 10:17
• the one eighty (harvest) 50:23
• unnamed buck (trail-camera) 57:36

Listener questions

Question: Terry asked Joe whether he knew Chris Yates shot his leopard within a couple days of when Joe shot his. 2:07 — asked by Terry

• Answer: Joe said Chris Yates messaged him on Facebook that he was also hunting there around the same time. 2:13

Question: Terry asked where else listeners could find Joe’s content beyond Chasing Giants and Mission Whitetail. 2:42 — asked by Terry

• Answer: Joe said he most recently appeared on the Truths for the Stand podcast hosted by Clint Campbell. 2:49

Question: Terry asked Joe what he had going on so far with his trail cameras. 8:00 — asked by Terry

• Answer: Joe said his bow season opens August 15, which is when trail camera focus fully kicks in. 8:03

Question: Terry asked Joe why, from a business perspective, ASIO was launching a new camo pattern after building the market’s top-selling one. 30:28 — asked by Terry

• Answer: Joe clarified he isn’t replacing the Raptor pattern, but adding a second, universal pattern alongside it. 30:46

Question: Terry asked Don and Joe to share the scariest moment of their hunting careers. 40:34 — asked by Terry

• Answer: Don described spine-shooting a coyote from his stand, which drew in a pack of coyotes that swarmed the wounded one. 41:08
• Answer: Joe described a wounded elephant bull charging him in Africa, forcing a close-range shot at about eight steps. 42:53

Question: Leslie Horst asked what deer repellent brands Don and Terry recommend, since deer started eating her flowers near the house. 46:10 — asked by Leslie Horst

• Answer: Don said he’s tested nearly every deer repellent brand for years but hasn’t found one that works well, especially after rain, with most lasting only about a week. 46:48

Question: Terry jokingly asked Joe if he had ever shot anything with a blow gun. 47:40 — asked by Terry

• Answer: Joe joked that his brother was the only thing he’s ever shot with a blow gun. 47:47

Question: Terry asked Joe if he had tried Mike’s Mighty Micro yet on his wife’s flowers or backyard veggies. 47:50 — asked by Terry

• Answer: Joe said he doesn’t have a garden, so he hasn’t gotten any Mike’s Mighty Micro yet. 47:59
• Answer: Joe added that he does have a few flower beds. 48:07

Question: Charlie Green asked whether to hunt a low-deer-density 20-acre cattle pasture during lockdown, hoping a big buck tending a doe might show up. 49:19 — asked by Charlie Green

• Answer: Don said he would definitely hunt that low-pressure ground during lockdown, since most hunts would show no deer but any sighting is likely to be a giant. 50:04

Question: Brock from Minooka asked for crop rotation recommendations using clover, Harvest Salad, and Deadly Dozen for smaller food plots. 54:13 — asked by Brock

• Answer: Don recommended rotating a clover and chicory blend with either Deadly Dozen or Harvest Salad. 54:40
• Answer: Don added that the key thing to avoid is planting brassica-based products two years in a row. 55:27

Question: Terry asked Joe what his biggest property prep is, besides scouting, ahead of the August swamp season in South Carolina. 55:42 — asked by Terry

• Answer: Joe said planting Dixie Dozen has been very successful for him and his hunting buddies in South Carolina. 56:11

Joe recounted killing a leopard on night 19 of a twenty-one day hunt after several near misses, including a hyena stealing a low-hung bait and a low camera spooking the cat before a heavy-shock seven-millimeter wildcat round finally dropped it instantly. He tied the hunt’s demand for attention to detail to lessons preached by Don, Bobby, and other veteran deer hunters, and Don and Bobby Worthington were named among Don’s picks for a personal hunting-legend list, alongside Lee Mitchell as a top public-land hunter. Don contrasted his Central Illinois farm approach with Bobby’s mountain rut-funnel style, while Joe argued no single method works everywhere. Other topics included ASIO’s new universal ground-predator camo pattern and upcoming boots and a puffy vest, food plot rotation advice against repeating brassicas like Deadly Dozen, Dixie Dozen’s success in South Carolina, and listener questions on deer repellents, hunting a low-density pasture during lockdown, and camera and orchard-package updates from the Chasing Giants team.

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