We take our gear seriously at F&S, whether it be for hunting, fishing, or camping. Our selections are based on many factors, like quality, price, and purpose—just to name a few. But sometimes there’s more to a fishing jacket or hunting knife than what you see.
Through my years of covering the best outdoor gear, I’ve discovered some really cool brands with some really cool stories doing some really cool things. In our new “Behind the Brand” interview series, we are telling those stories through the words of the founders themselves.
If you've ever used a cellular trail camera, you have Dan Moultrie to thank for that. While the brand we know and love as Moultrie started out with deer feeders, it was their trail camera—and more specifically their cellular trail camera—that really changed the game. In fact, Moultrie was the first to pioneer wireless trail cam technology.
We had the honor of chatting with Mr. Moultrie himself in an exclusive interview. The Georgia native and longtime hunter shared his story, from the days of sketching ideas on a napkin to bear hunting in Alaska to what's next for the brand (hint: it's some pretty high-tech stuff!).
Field & Stream: How did you get started in the outdoor industry?
Dan Moultrie: I grew up in a farming family that was country oriented. My dad was a WWII veteran and he grew up in a rural environment and my mom was from a farming family in South Georgia. So hunting was always part of us growing up and boy, it bit me like nobody's business. When I started hunting, I really liked it.
I went to Auburn University and all through school I was hunting as much as I could and studying as little as I could. I was just doing whatever it took to make good grades and get out. I graduated with a business degree from Auburn and immediately knew I wanted to do something in the outdoors. At the time, there was only one feeder company in the whole United States and they had real high end feeders.
And I thought, you know what, let's make an affordable product for somebody. My brother was a designer and had a business that designed electronic stuff, so I asked him for help. He sketched out the schematic on a napkin and said, buy 10 of these and we'll start making some stuff and refining it. And we did.
Before I even got those first 10 complete, I was telling a few of my hunting buddies about it and they said we'll take those. That was when I thought there might be something to this. And 10 went to 50, 50 went to 100, 100 went to 500, and 500 went to 1,000. The sales were just incredible. Finally I broke off and went full time with it.
What do you think made you so successful?
We're entering our 50th year and every year since the start, we've never had a year that wasn't bigger than the previous year. I think that's a testament to having some old-fashioned ways and treating customers right and doing what you're supposed to do because if you don't, that'll catch up with you. We've always tried to run the business like that. We built it up from the feeder side and got into a sundry of accessories and products.
What year did you first come out with the cellular trail camera?
It wasn't long after we first started in 1979. We were the very first in cellular trail cameras. We pioneered the whole inception. When we developed the cameras, they were unheard of. Nobody knew about them. We just sent the idea into orbit and it turbo charged the business. The trail cameras have been an incredible asset to hunters and to our company, and being able to pioneer that and achieve the top position in that with our new Edge series is just so cool. I could never imagine years ago with those very first cameras that we'd eventually have them report to your cell phone and give you all the data you want with the artificial intelligence we now have. It's just unbelievable.
How did you come up with the idea and prototype for the first cellular trail camera?
We were entertaining customers bear hunting in Canada. Back then, the only thing people had was a timer and some string. When the bear broke the string, it shut the clock off, so you'd know what time and where the bear was feeding.
All the customers that came up wanted to get a bear. Some people would want a black one, some people would want a brown one, some people would want a red one. The color mattered a lot to them. So I thought, it sure would be nice to have a way to determine what color that bear was. There were a lot of little tricks everybody was using, like putting fish hooks on the barrel to snag a little bit of hair. There were a lot of ways to do it but nothing good.
So I "Rube Goldberg-ed" the camera together. I went and got a 35-millimeter film camera and a rat trap. I took the spring down to where it didn't throw so hard and hooked that to the string to the bear bait. Then I attached that to the camera in a way that you would get one picture when it was tripped.
But then you had to develop the whole roll of film for one picture. The biggest decision you had was whether to use one-hour processing or one-day processing. The one-hour cost more money but of course, we would do that. To see that very first picture was just as neat as could be. Nobody was doing that and we used it for years. Finally one of my buddies in the industry, Ray Murski of Strike King, told me I had to develop it. So we started down that path.
What makes a Moultrie trail camera unique?
Right now, everything now is so app-driven, and we've got the best app on the market. We've also got the best customer support and the best new product ideas. Take the deal we did two years ago. It used to be that when you set up a camera, you had to know which cell network you were on, whether it was Verizon or AT&T. Now, our cameras figure that out for you and automatically connect to the strongest signal.
Then there's our batteries. A couple of years ago, we came out with a rechargeable lithium battery pack that was a game-changer. At the time, we were running about 75 cameras on our hunting place and I would go to Sam's Club and buy every AA battery they had in the big cases because we were just rolling through them. Especially during cold weather, which just kills them. With the lithium battery packs, I'm still getting pictures from cameras that have been out since last season, and the batteries aren't even low yet. It's unbelievable how well they're doing.
And what's cool with the batteries and the app together is that the app will notify you when your battery is getting low. It gives you a couple of days warning so you have time to go out and change it without missing any deer walking by.
Do you have a favorite Moultrie trail camera?
The Edge series—especially the newest Moultrie Edge Pro cellular trail camera—is beyond. It's what I use, and what has really set us apart. I cannot believe the features on this thing, features that none of the competition has. I've got all new the Edge Pro cams out and I'm still running old ones. I'm even running some models that are not on the market yet and they are just unbelievable.
How often do you release new cameras?
Every year we have a new release. The camera industry has almost gotten like clothing in that if you don't release something new, you go stale.
Do you have any tips for someone on how to get the most out of their trail camera?
Everybody knows how good a trail cam is for monitoring game, but don't be locked in to using it solely for that. I use it for security, too—I put a camera on every gate on our property.
We're also in a really rural place at the end of the power line. If we were traveling, I wouldn't know when the power is on or off during a storm because nobody behind us would call the report. Do we need to get the freezers? Do we need to have the generator hooked up?
So I took one of the new cameras and put on the power meter. With the Edge 2 Pro, you can hit a button and it will take a picture of what it's looking at. So if a bad storm is going on and we're out of town, all I do is hit that button to get a picture of the meter and I can see if the power is off.
What's next for Moultrie in 2024?
With everything being AI and app-based, we just introduced a new feeder called the Feed Hub. It's basically a feeder monitor that works with any feeder (not just Moultrie ones). The problem with feeders is they aren't always reliable. Let's say your hunting place is a few hours away and you've got all your friends together and you're going to go hunt for the weekend. Imagine you get down there and find out your feeder hadn't fed. Boy, that's a horrible disappointment I had in those early days.
So this new feed hub not only tells you when it fed and how long it fed, but it'll even tell you if the motor jams, which is a common issue. It will send you a message that says, hey, we think there's a clog in the wheel and we can run it backwards to clear it for you. So just like the camera, anything—except for changing the battery or filling the feeder, of course—can be done on the app.
Every morning you can have it send you a text that says the feeder fed XYZ pounds at XYZ time, and then you go to your camera to see what came and ate it. You're assuring the equipment is working for you even when you're not there.
What do you love most about hunting or the outdoors in general?
I was fortunate to grow up at time when hunting was a lifestyle growing up. Then it became a happenstance, where people went if they had a chance. Now it's become a lifestyle again. You've got states with six- and seven-month seasons and then you roll into a spring turkey season. And then all these folks are being stewards of the land and they're holding and growing the game and picking up sheds. That has been the neatest part. I love seeing these people able to grow the sport to make it better for the game.
Do you have a favorite hunt?
I've got two. First, I love the brown bear hunting up in Alaska. Something about that is just so neat. Those bears just meander. There's no rhyme or reason to them. It's such a cool sport.
But one of my all-time favorite hunts started with my dear friend Mike. We had the Kennedy Ranch lease in South Texas, which is a big part of history where the Captain King and Captain Kennedy settled that whole South Texas region and both ranches were well over a million acres combined. We leased one of the pastures and we hunted there for 35 or 40 years.
But then Mike was diagnosed with cancer. Before he passed away, he said, "Make sure my son kills good deer with his bow starting out to fire him up about bowhunting." So we took him out and he practiced and he got good and he got to the right age and the right size and we went and he killed the most beautiful deer. Being able to fulfill that promise to Mike was really special.
