Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 1047: Back 40 - Affordable Habitat Projects That Actually Work

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Ep. 1047: Back 40 - Affordable Habitat Projects That Actually Work · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, what is going on?
0:00
Speaker 2: This is Jake Hoefer and welcome back to another episode
0:03
Speaker 2: of Back forty. We have four guests, one question, and
0:06
Speaker 2: this week we're talking about what are the most affordable
0:10
Speaker 2: habitat projects that actually work? So we can come up
0:13
Speaker 2: with a million different things that you could potentially do,
0:16
Speaker 2: but the eighty twenty rule, what is the twenty percent
0:18
Speaker 2: effort that may help you have eighty percent more success?
0:21
Speaker 1: And they have to be affordable.
0:23
Speaker 2: So I hope this helps folks throughout this upcoming season
0:27
Speaker 2: on planning out priority list. A lot of these things
0:30
Speaker 2: are expensive and so we wanted to focus on what
0:32
Speaker 2: is affordable and what is impactful. Once again, we have
0:34
Speaker 2: our cast of four guests for this episode. We have
0:37
Speaker 2: West Elks, Steve Hansen, Jake Ellinger, and Sam bill Horn.
0:41
Speaker 1: Each of them have a little bit.
0:42
Speaker 2: Different habitat terrain, a little different issues they're trying to solve
0:46
Speaker 2: or overcome. And to kick things off, we're going to
0:48
Speaker 2: start with West Elks with Higgins outdoors. He consults on
0:52
Speaker 2: a lot of farms every single year and here we go.
1:00
Speaker 2: All right, Wes, welcome back to Back forty. We have
1:05
Speaker 2: another burning question for you, and you know I feel
1:09
Speaker 2: like when it comes to managing a property, it gets
1:12
Speaker 2: really expensive, really fast. There's all these things that you
1:15
Speaker 2: can do, and we talked, we previously talked about what
1:17
Speaker 2: you avoid it all costs, but now you know, let's
1:20
Speaker 2: say someone has a fixed budget. You know, they've they've
1:23
Speaker 2: stretched to get whatever hands on a piece of property,
1:26
Speaker 2: whether it's a lease, they knocked on doors and you know,
1:28
Speaker 2: have exclusive permission, or they bought a farm. And ultimately,
1:33
Speaker 2: in your opinion, what are some of the most affordable
1:36
Speaker 2: projects that actually make the biggest impact, Because I mean,
1:40
Speaker 2: I could rattle off some cheap projects, but I don't
1:42
Speaker 2: know how much they will really make a true impact.
1:44
Speaker 2: So with your own experience, what you've observed from even
1:48
Speaker 2: clients that farms you've been on and like, man, that
1:50
Speaker 2: was a very affordable project, and you know, they have
1:52
Speaker 2: the opportunity to show you the success that they've had.
1:54
Speaker 1: Tied to that. So what is cheap and what works?
1:58
Speaker 1: Is the simplest way to say.
1:59
Speaker 3: This, Yeah, cheap is relative, but I can tell you
2:03
Speaker 3: what's effective, And I would say encouraging and discouraging deer
2:10
Speaker 3: traffic is something that ninety nine percent of hunters are
2:16
Speaker 3: not doing but makes an incredible difference in their deer hunting.
2:23
Speaker 3: And I talk with so many hunters that I would
2:26
Speaker 3: consider conservative hunters, and they're sticking to the edge that
2:31
Speaker 3: they're blowing their wind into areas of lesser deer likelihood.
2:35
Speaker 3: But when it comes to November, they are banging their
2:39
Speaker 3: head against the tree because they're seeing deer, they're seeing
2:43
Speaker 3: the bucks that they want to but they're eighty ninety
2:47
Speaker 3: one hundred plus yards out and encouraging and discouraging deer traffic.
2:53
Speaker 3: To me, is the number one thing that a deer
2:56
Speaker 3: hunter can do to improve the huntability of the properties
3:00
Speaker 3: that they're on. And it doesn't have to be expensive.
3:06
Speaker 3: It takes a lot of work, it takes a lot
3:08
Speaker 3: of sweat equity. But champions are made in the off season.
3:13
Speaker 3: I don't care what sports you follow. If you watch NFL,
3:16
Speaker 3: NBA March Madness, they didn't win that championship the week
3:21
Speaker 3: that they showed up. It came through a year or
3:26
Speaker 3: even a life of committing to their process. And champions
3:30
Speaker 3: are made in the off season. And if you're showing
3:33
Speaker 3: up to November hoping to kill a big buck each year,
3:36
Speaker 3: but haven't put in the off season efforts to make
3:40
Speaker 3: that possibility or reality.
3:43
Speaker 4: Like I said, it's a recipe for frustration.
3:47
Speaker 3: And what I mean by encouraging and discouraging deer traffic
3:52
Speaker 3: is encouraging deer traffic to me, is making the path
3:58
Speaker 3: of least resistance by any and all means possible for
4:03
Speaker 3: the deer, selecting a stand location based on access and wind,
4:09
Speaker 3: and then doing everything that I can to make a
4:12
Speaker 3: deer walk within twenty five yard.
4:15
Speaker 4: I like them close.
4:16
Speaker 3: I don't want them at forty I want them at
4:18
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five yards. And so I will encourage deer
4:22
Speaker 3: traffic or I want it. And that might be using
4:27
Speaker 3: a chainsaw and cutting a trail and then coming back
4:30
Speaker 3: through with a backpack sprayer full of round up in
4:34
Speaker 3: a residual.
4:35
Speaker 4: That might be.
4:36
Speaker 3: Creating a creek crossing, getting in there with the skids
4:39
Speaker 3: deer and excavator, grading the banks, maybe bringing in some
4:44
Speaker 3: rock and making that creek crossing a shallower crossing. You
4:49
Speaker 3: can do a lot of things to encourage deer traffic.
4:52
Speaker 3: Put in a big culvert across the ravine, create a
4:56
Speaker 3: land bridge. Those are all opportunities of making the path
5:00
Speaker 3: of least resistance. But what I find is even I
5:04
Speaker 3: would argue even more effective is discouraging deer traffic. And
5:11
Speaker 3: discouraging deer traffic is the exact opposite of what I
5:15
Speaker 3: just talked about. Is I want to create the path
5:18
Speaker 3: of least resistance for the deer, but I also want
5:21
Speaker 3: to create the path of most resistance for the deer,
5:25
Speaker 3: and that means building brush blockades.
5:30
Speaker 4: To me, what a brush blockade.
5:31
Speaker 3: Is is Donald Trump and I are on the same
5:35
Speaker 3: page when it comes to walls, and I like good
5:39
Speaker 3: strong walls. And what I will do with a timber
5:42
Speaker 3: project or along a edge is cut some low value trees,
5:49
Speaker 3: push them together with a skid steer and a grapple,
5:53
Speaker 3: and then hinge cut into it. And I don't I'm
5:56
Speaker 3: not talking about a brush pile that's knee high. I'm
5:58
Speaker 3: talking about a rush wall of a brush blockade, and
6:04
Speaker 3: that funnels a lot of deer traffic. So brush blockades
6:10
Speaker 3: lining up round bails. A lot of people think round
6:14
Speaker 3: bails are expensive. One thing that I've done is my
6:20
Speaker 3: warm season grasses. So I've got switch grass and giant
6:22
Speaker 3: miscanthus fields across my property that I want to burn
6:26
Speaker 3: every three or four years, and There's a kid that
6:29
Speaker 3: lives down the road from my house, and he's got
6:31
Speaker 3: a round bailer, and the week prior to the burn,
6:36
Speaker 3: I will come in and have him cut and round
6:39
Speaker 3: bail my switch grass and giant miscanthus to where it's
6:44
Speaker 3: eight ten inches stubble swear can still carry a fire.
6:47
Speaker 3: But last time we did that here on my seventeen
6:50
Speaker 3: acre switchgrass giant miscanthus patch, that gave me one hundred
6:54
Speaker 3: and twenty three five foot round bails. So one hundred
6:59
Speaker 3: and twenty three three times five, that's a significant distance
7:03
Speaker 3: of discouraging deer traffic. You line up one hundred and
7:07
Speaker 3: twenty three round bails, you're gonna have a deer trail
7:09
Speaker 3: on either side. That's the reality of it. Other opportunities
7:15
Speaker 3: would be on a property a couple of years ago,
7:19
Speaker 3: I dug a. You can call it a pond, you
7:22
Speaker 3: can call it a water hole, you can call it
7:23
Speaker 3: a trench, whatever you want to call it. I got
7:26
Speaker 3: in there with an excavator and one hundred and fifty
7:29
Speaker 3: yards long, dug a call it a waterhole. And so
7:34
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty yards on the edge of a
7:36
Speaker 3: food plot, this water hole that is about four foot
7:42
Speaker 3: deep and probably ten to twelve foot wide. A lot
7:46
Speaker 3: of traffic going around the two ends of that water hole.
7:50
Speaker 3: I think of another guy.
7:52
Speaker 2: How long, real quick, how long? How long do you
7:54
Speaker 2: think those round bils will last? The one season grass?
7:57
Speaker 4: Yeah?
7:58
Speaker 1: Good questions last some time.
7:59
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've got a buddy that did it sixteen years ago.
8:02
Speaker 3: And with those five foot round bails, they've the wind
8:08
Speaker 3: and the weather has significantly brought those round bails down
8:11
Speaker 3: to probably maybe not half their height, but significantly smaller.
8:16
Speaker 3: They've absolutely degraded, but there's been little trees that grow
8:20
Speaker 3: up in them, and yeah, there's some places where they can.
8:23
Speaker 4: Get through, but you can go through there and put.
8:26
Speaker 3: A small cattle panel or something like that, and they're
8:30
Speaker 3: the vast majority of traffic is still going around the
8:33
Speaker 3: end of that.
8:34
Speaker 4: So, and it depends on the quality of the bail
8:37
Speaker 4: that you're using.
8:38
Speaker 3: I mean, you want to use a good binding material
8:43
Speaker 3: in the hay that you're using is I think switch
8:46
Speaker 3: grass and giant miscanthus is. It's a lot it's going
8:50
Speaker 3: to take longer for it to break down than a
8:52
Speaker 3: low quality hay.
8:54
Speaker 1: So but yeah, for.
8:57
Speaker 3: Seeing all my Buddi's property, that's sixteen years letter it's
9:00
Speaker 3: still effective. That's long enough for me to be like, yeah,
9:03
Speaker 3: that's fourth of my time.
9:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty fascinating.
9:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's a creative and affordable way to cover
9:11
Speaker 2: a lot of distance versus because I was waiting for
9:15
Speaker 2: you to say fence, I was like, well, fence isn't
9:16
Speaker 2: super cheap, but it does last for a super long time.
9:18
Speaker 3: Well, fences is not cheap. But you can go to
9:23
Speaker 3: Rural King and they sell cattle panels. Hog panels are
9:27
Speaker 3: a foot shorter. Cattle panels are a foot taller, and
9:31
Speaker 3: they come in sixteen foot sections and they're normally about
9:36
Speaker 3: twenty five bucks a pop if you buy ten cattle panels.
9:39
Speaker 3: So you're looking at two hundred and fifty dollars and
9:42
Speaker 3: you line up ten cattle panels, I mean, if you
9:46
Speaker 3: can make the two hundred and fifty dollars investment and like,
9:50
Speaker 3: it's amazing what you can do with ten cattle panels.
9:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's you said they're sixteen foot long
9:57
Speaker 2: yep to one hundred and sixty feet es. Yeah, I
10:00
Speaker 2: mean that is actually that adds up relatively affordable. Yeah,
10:03
Speaker 2: to cover that much distance and super easy to install
10:06
Speaker 2: as well. It is you were gonna bring up someone
10:09
Speaker 2: else for an example, and then and then we'll wrap
10:11
Speaker 2: it up here.
10:12
Speaker 4: Just a client that comes to mind.
10:14
Speaker 3: Whenever somebody asked me about encouraging discouraging traffic is always
10:21
Speaker 3: brings a smile to my face. As he owned a
10:23
Speaker 3: junk yard, so there was school buses and RVs and
10:27
Speaker 3: old trucks and cars around, and I pitched this idea
10:30
Speaker 3: of things that we could do on his property to
10:33
Speaker 3: make it better. And I had these green lines where
10:36
Speaker 3: I wanted to encourage deer traffic, and I had these
10:39
Speaker 3: red lines where I wanted to discourage deer traffic.
10:43
Speaker 4: And he goes, well, how about a school bus there?
10:46
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, absolutely so.
10:50
Speaker 5: I mean.
10:52
Speaker 3: Some people make excuses and some people find solutions. That's
10:55
Speaker 3: Don Higgins quote, one of my favorites. And if you
11:00
Speaker 3: can find do what it takes to manipulate dear traffic
11:04
Speaker 3: past those most conservative locations, you're gonna have a lot
11:07
Speaker 3: more success.
11:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I love it.
11:10
Speaker 2: Where where can people follow along with what you have
11:13
Speaker 2: going on? Because I think these are all really great
11:16
Speaker 2: piece of advice, and I feel like someone could have
11:18
Speaker 2: a general idea and maybe they have a follow up
11:20
Speaker 2: question for you, because everyone's situation is a little bit different.
11:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, I suggest listen to the Chasing Giants podcast with
11:26
Speaker 3: Don Higgins and Terry Peer. Or you can follow me
11:28
Speaker 3: on social media on Facebook or Instagram which is just
11:33
Speaker 3: Wesley Delks, or you can reach out to me via
11:35
Speaker 3: email which is Wes Wes at real World, Wildlifeproducts dot com.
11:43
Speaker 3: And I'd love to talk with you there. Awesome, Thank
11:47
Speaker 3: you so much, Thanks Jake. All right, there we have
11:49
Speaker 3: it with West Delks. Next up we have Steve Hanson
11:52
Speaker 3: and Iowa. He helps a lot of different people from
11:56
Speaker 3: his real estate career of helping those types of clients
11:58
Speaker 3: and also tackles a lot of projects on his own.
12:00
Speaker 3: So without further ado, let's go ahead and get into
12:02
Speaker 3: it with Steve Hanson. All right, Steve, welcome to back
12:05
Speaker 3: forty back to run you through another scenario that I
12:09
Speaker 3: think everyone has fallen into us some point, whether they're
12:12
Speaker 3: just getting started or as life evolves. You know, budgets
12:17
Speaker 3: have to get allocated differently, and in your opinion, of
12:21
Speaker 3: all the different projects that can be done on a farm,
12:23
Speaker 3: obviously there's huge overhauls that are often you know, pretty expensive,
12:28
Speaker 3: what are or what is potentially one of the most
12:32
Speaker 3: affordable habitat projects that actually makes the best ROI. So,
12:37
Speaker 3: I mean we could rattle off a lot of you know,
12:39
Speaker 3: cheap projects that maybe might not move the needle a ton.
12:42
Speaker 3: But as a rule of thumb, for someone that has
12:45
Speaker 3: a limited budget, limited equipment, what gets you excited if
12:49
Speaker 3: if I called JEP and said, haste, if I have
12:51
Speaker 3: a limited budget, I need to improve my farm, and
12:55
Speaker 3: I'll let you paint the rest of the picture, because
12:56
Speaker 3: I know every farm is different.
12:59
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, it's a toss up between two for
13:01
Speaker 6: me right now. The two I'm thinking of is fertilizing
13:05
Speaker 6: the native vegetation that's there, whether that's prairie grass and stuff.
13:09
Speaker 6: But the one I'm gonna think I'm gonna go with
13:12
Speaker 6: is burning. I think burning is by far the most
13:16
Speaker 6: cost effective do it yourself landowner type, you know, reasonable
13:23
Speaker 6: landowner do it yourself project that simply you could do
13:27
Speaker 6: with you know, a backpack water sprayer, a leaf blower,
13:31
Speaker 6: you know some and you know, maybe a mower or
13:34
Speaker 6: something like that to create even a lawnmower to create
13:36
Speaker 6: some fire breaks depending on and it works both equally
13:39
Speaker 6: as well in the timber as it does in the CRP.
13:42
Speaker 6: And I think you'll note or any native grasslands and
13:45
Speaker 6: you'll notice big benefits with both. So the reason I
13:49
Speaker 6: chose that one is because not only is that one
13:52
Speaker 6: going to provide way better forage in the areas that
13:54
Speaker 6: you burn, it's actually ecologically better for everything it takes
13:59
Speaker 6: care of invasive, it rejuvenates the forest, you know, it
14:02
Speaker 6: helps with It helps on so many levels in addition
14:06
Speaker 6: to the hunting. Where fertilizing native vegetation that was more
14:09
Speaker 6: of a that would help your hunting, you know what
14:12
Speaker 6: I mean. That was almost like creating micro food plots
14:14
Speaker 6: and little areas like that. But I think I think
14:18
Speaker 6: overall burning is probably the one that people that is
14:22
Speaker 6: lowest cost. And by saying low cost, it's only low
14:25
Speaker 6: cost if you're able to do it yourself. You start
14:27
Speaker 6: having a higher burning done that gets pretty expensive and
14:30
Speaker 6: pretty cumbersome. So a lot of states offer burn training
14:36
Speaker 6: seminars and then some states, I know Missouri does they
14:41
Speaker 6: sort of have a cooperative where you can burn and
14:44
Speaker 6: you're expected to show up on X amount of work
14:47
Speaker 6: days and in return the collective or the group will
14:51
Speaker 6: show up and burn yours. So yeah, so you would.
14:54
Speaker 6: And then they have they have like trailers, small trailers
14:58
Speaker 6: with all the equipment. I don't know if you pay
15:00
Speaker 6: a fee to join this thing, I know there may
15:03
Speaker 6: be something. I don't think it's expensive, but that's a
15:05
Speaker 6: great way, especially for a landowner that has quite a
15:08
Speaker 6: few acres, you know, where they're they and they don't
15:11
Speaker 6: have anybodies that they could trust, or a local fire
15:14
Speaker 6: department or something like that. Obviously there's there's some safety
15:16
Speaker 6: concerns to doing it, but it of all the native
15:20
Speaker 6: vegetation everything in our part of the you know, of
15:23
Speaker 6: the Midwest, it benefits from fire done correctly. So that's
15:27
Speaker 6: that's going to be one the one that I'll go with.
15:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's in terms of high impact, low
15:33
Speaker 2: cost that it doesn't get, you know, much more affordable
15:35
Speaker 2: than a drip torch and a little gas and a
15:37
Speaker 2: little diesel and the leak lower like a lot of
15:39
Speaker 2: equipment you likely already have. And then also too to
15:43
Speaker 2: your point, like local volunteer fire departments, maybe we'll if
15:46
Speaker 2: you can work with them and have a training day.
15:48
Speaker 1: Depending on a terrain and and do you think this is.
15:54
Speaker 2: A question do you think that people are too intimidated
15:59
Speaker 2: by And I know that is like it's a fine
16:03
Speaker 2: line because you know, I think a lot of people
16:05
Speaker 2: are maybe overconcerned. And then I don't want to downplay
16:08
Speaker 2: it either by phrasing it that way, but I want
16:10
Speaker 2: to get your opinion.
16:12
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think I think a lot of people are
16:14
Speaker 6: intimidated by it, and somewhat rightly so, because done incorrectly,
16:17
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, the results could literally be catastrophic.
16:21
Speaker 6: But it's also very easy to manage.
16:26
Speaker 7: You know.
16:26
Speaker 6: The biggest mistakes that I see people make, and it's
16:30
Speaker 6: is simply a timing issue. You know. They they you know,
16:33
Speaker 6: two months out, they plan, Oh, we're going to burn
16:35
Speaker 6: March tenth. I've got these buddies coming, I got these
16:38
Speaker 6: guys coming. Well, they get up the morning of March
16:40
Speaker 6: tenth and it's a northwest wind blowing about twenty five
16:43
Speaker 6: miles an hour, humidity down around twenty five percent. They
16:47
Speaker 6: have no business burning, but they've set the stage to
16:50
Speaker 6: do it, so they go ahead with their burn and
16:53
Speaker 6: it inevitably gets away. So that's you know, that that
16:57
Speaker 6: would be that would be what I would avoid try
17:00
Speaker 6: trying to get trying to be flexible on the days
17:04
Speaker 6: because on the right day, with light wind and moderate
17:07
Speaker 6: humidity and burning, what's a backburn meaning burning against the
17:12
Speaker 6: direction of the prevailing wind. It's very safe and very controlled.
17:17
Speaker 2: Have you have you ever done like a like a
17:21
Speaker 2: fall burn or a late summer burn or anything like that.
17:23
Speaker 2: I know, I think doctor Craig Harper has some data saying,
17:26
Speaker 2: you know, like I think it. Don't quote me, and
17:28
Speaker 2: so I haven't researched this heavily at all, but in essence,
17:32
Speaker 2: I think at sometime of an August burn, actually, if
17:36
Speaker 2: the timing is right with the rain, it actually produces
17:39
Speaker 2: some like very very extreme high quality forage if you
17:42
Speaker 2: get the rain in that August time frame. Have you
17:44
Speaker 2: ever experimented with that.
17:45
Speaker 6: You know, I've not done an August burn. I have
17:49
Speaker 6: done quite a few fall burns. Usually we do them later.
17:53
Speaker 6: We're doing them in like you know, there's still a
17:55
Speaker 6: dormant season burn. They're going to be after a heavy
17:57
Speaker 6: frost freeze like late November. I know, we burned a
17:59
Speaker 6: hundre at Acres at the end of November last year
18:02
Speaker 6: and it went really, really well. I'm glad we did it,
18:05
Speaker 6: and I've got we've got three that we didn't at
18:08
Speaker 6: least three that we didn't get done this spring that
18:10
Speaker 6: now will get pushed back. The other advantage is you're
18:16
Speaker 6: you're by doing a fall burn, you're gonna benefit the
18:19
Speaker 6: forbes in your mix. You're gonna it's gonna help them.
18:23
Speaker 6: Basically a spring burn, a spring burn helps the grasses,
18:27
Speaker 6: hurts the forbes. A fall burn suppresses the grasses helps,
18:31
Speaker 6: you know. So it's it's kind of what your intentions are.
18:34
Speaker 1: So well, no, I think that that.
18:37
Speaker 2: Do you have any bad fire stories real quick of
18:40
Speaker 2: what not to do for someone's Like, okay, all right, Steve,
18:43
Speaker 2: you said this is the you know, highest impact. I
18:45
Speaker 2: feel semi confident. Uh, maybe do you have like whatever
18:50
Speaker 2: you do, don't do this. You mentioned the right conditions
18:52
Speaker 2: is key, but beyond.
18:54
Speaker 6: That, this one would play into the right condition. So
18:56
Speaker 6: I have a good real estate client and and we
19:01
Speaker 6: helped him add to his already big farm. Bought a
19:04
Speaker 6: five hundred and fifty acre track and he said, hey,
19:07
Speaker 6: would you guys help us help me burn that? So
19:10
Speaker 6: I said sure. And he's got all his own farm
19:12
Speaker 6: equipment and everything, so he went and did his fire breaks.
19:16
Speaker 6: He had a big disc, so I thought, oh, that
19:18
Speaker 6: he disked these fire breaks. Mistake number one, did not
19:22
Speaker 6: check them, assumed the fire breaks in his mind were
19:27
Speaker 6: done well. When you go in a heavy grass with
19:30
Speaker 6: a disk, the first pass or two would actually make
19:33
Speaker 6: it worse because it condenses that grass and fuel low
19:36
Speaker 6: to the ground, which will allow the fire to travel faster.
19:40
Speaker 6: So we get there. You know, we're always busy, so
19:42
Speaker 6: we're in a hurry. We assume he had his fire breaks,
19:46
Speaker 6: and we lit it. It's windier than it should be anyways,
19:50
Speaker 6: but it's a bit. He has a big farm. One
19:52
Speaker 6: side of this was a river, so that part of it.
19:55
Speaker 6: I was somewhat comfortable with what if it got away
19:57
Speaker 6: because it was limited to his land, the side we
20:01
Speaker 6: were burning and the river. So we light. It instantly
20:06
Speaker 6: crosses the fire breaks. I have a friend that was
20:09
Speaker 6: lighting for me, and I was usually one person lights
20:12
Speaker 6: and one person goes behind and stops it at the
20:14
Speaker 6: fire break from burning into your brakes. I can't even
20:17
Speaker 6: catch him or get him on the phone to tell
20:19
Speaker 6: him to stop burning. Right, So the first the fire's
20:24
Speaker 6: out of control instantly. The first little, you know, and
20:29
Speaker 6: it was. It was later in the burn season, so
20:31
Speaker 6: there's a lot of smoke. First time we get a
20:33
Speaker 6: good wind and the smoke blows away, you know, blows
20:36
Speaker 6: out a different direction. I go, there's a truck parked
20:39
Speaker 6: out there in the burn, and so I call the
20:43
Speaker 6: landowner and I said, there's a truck out there. He's like, no,
20:47
Speaker 6: there's not, and I said, yeah, there is. I can
20:50
Speaker 6: see it through the smoke. He goes, oh, no, that's
20:53
Speaker 6: a five hundred gallon fuel tank. We had it down
20:55
Speaker 6: there for the dozer, so left in the middle of
21:01
Speaker 6: the burn. Never told us again my mistake for not
21:04
Speaker 6: investigating what we were doing, just that yeah, that one
21:10
Speaker 6: was a near miss, so we instantly didn't even worry
21:12
Speaker 6: about fighting the fire. All we did was worry about
21:15
Speaker 6: protecting that fuel tank. So then we just had to
21:18
Speaker 6: let it burn to wherever it went and chase it down,
21:20
Speaker 6: and it ended up getting on a neighbor, not really
21:23
Speaker 6: doing any damage, but I felt bad that one of
21:26
Speaker 6: their neighbors were obviously hunters. And I literally called the
21:30
Speaker 6: guy because it burned right under some of his stands,
21:32
Speaker 6: and I said, hey, don't climb into those stands. It
21:35
Speaker 6: could have burned the straps, you know what I mean.
21:38
Speaker 6: I said, any damage we did, we'll certainly cover for you.
21:43
Speaker 6: Another funny story is again helping a friend another friend
21:47
Speaker 6: slash real estate client. He's burning at his pace. He
21:51
Speaker 6: had good fire breaks and is very very knowledgeable guy.
21:54
Speaker 6: But we burned some switchcrests that was every bit of
21:58
Speaker 6: eight feet tall, and there was three of us doing it,
22:01
Speaker 6: and we were burning hundreds of acres on his place
22:04
Speaker 6: that day. We got it so hot that, uh, I
22:09
Speaker 6: think it was I'm trying to think of the brand
22:11
Speaker 6: of the shooting house it was. It was a grizzly
22:13
Speaker 6: like one of those Roada molded plastic. It got so
22:17
Speaker 6: hot it just started to blow a big bubble in
22:20
Speaker 6: the plastic. And his wife came up and she was
22:24
Speaker 6: just screaming at me, you know, and I'm like, I'm like,
22:27
Speaker 6: it's him, it's not me. She's like, well, I'm done
22:29
Speaker 6: with him. He's I'm like. She was super mad, and
22:33
Speaker 6: he was laughing about it, so I didn't, you know,
22:35
Speaker 6: I'm like, yeah, that sucks. We ruined your blind, But
22:38
Speaker 6: I said, you should you know, you should have mowed
22:40
Speaker 6: around your blind instead of burning. You know, he had
22:42
Speaker 6: a perfect setup, like super tall switchgrass as a screen
22:46
Speaker 6: to access is hut. You know that should have been
22:48
Speaker 6: mode flat to the ground, so it wasn't a flash
22:51
Speaker 6: type fuel source. But yeah, I do have more stories, unfortunately,
22:54
Speaker 6: but those two.
22:58
Speaker 2: Do a horror story of burning before burning season next year.
23:02
Speaker 2: But the reason I asked that is because there's a
23:05
Speaker 2: couple of lessons in that it's obviously high fuel loads
23:08
Speaker 2: around the blinds and stuff. Take the time to do that,
23:10
Speaker 2: and also just the preparation, you know, makes it go
23:13
Speaker 2: smooth and not stressful, because if it gets out of hand,
23:15
Speaker 2: it gets really stressful really fast and.
23:17
Speaker 6: Can be Yep, we started doing the we started we
23:22
Speaker 6: started doing burns for another company that did habitat work
23:25
Speaker 6: and they lost their insurance because they had one getaway
23:30
Speaker 6: and they literally put it out as it was burning
23:32
Speaker 6: the siding on these people's house.
23:34
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
23:35
Speaker 6: Yes, and yeah, so and so their insurance dropped them.
23:39
Speaker 6: They do have their insurance back now they're doing their
23:42
Speaker 6: own again. But it's uh, yeah, I think they got
23:44
Speaker 6: that was pretty pretty scary, you know, and it's something
23:48
Speaker 6: you have to respect, you know, you want to you
23:51
Speaker 6: want enough fear to keep you honest a little bit,
23:56
Speaker 6: you know what I mean. But you don't need to
23:57
Speaker 6: be just panic afraid of it. And if someone's never
24:01
Speaker 6: done it, I think if you can find a group
24:04
Speaker 6: like that or volunteer and just be involved in one burn,
24:07
Speaker 6: that would go you know, world's worlds of it would
24:11
Speaker 6: make if I'd never done it would and after seeing
24:13
Speaker 6: the process, you'd be a lot more comfortable with it.
24:16
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, Steve, where can people fall along with your adventures?
24:20
Speaker 6: You know? Probably the best place is just on Instagram.
24:23
Speaker 6: It's just my name, Steve Hanson, the third and yeah,
24:26
Speaker 6: we put what we're doing on there. Good bet or
24:28
Speaker 6: otherwise awesome?
24:29
Speaker 1: Thank you?
24:36
Speaker 2: All right, Moving right along, we have Jake Ellinger with
24:38
Speaker 2: Habitat Solutions three sixty out of Michigan. He was on
24:42
Speaker 2: the Wired to Hunt show here not too long ago
24:44
Speaker 2: talking about his fifty years of experience, and let's see
24:47
Speaker 2: what Jake has to say regarding this question.
24:50
Speaker 1: All right, Jake, welcome back.
24:53
Speaker 2: I feel and I don't want to project to anyone,
24:55
Speaker 2: but I feel like everyone's watching their pennies a little
24:57
Speaker 2: bit closer, and unfortunately, oftentimes habitat projects can carry some
25:03
Speaker 2: carry some substantial cost when you start adding up everything
25:06
Speaker 2: that you can do on our property. And so I
25:08
Speaker 2: want to refine this to some of the most affordable
25:12
Speaker 2: projects that make the biggest impact, because obviously you can
25:15
Speaker 2: do a lot of projects that aren't very expensive, but
25:18
Speaker 2: how much do they move the needle? So I want
25:20
Speaker 2: to focus on the cheapest, highest impact projects that anyone
25:25
Speaker 2: can do.
25:27
Speaker 5: That's a good question because boy, you know, you go
25:30
Speaker 5: back forty five years ago and I was that guy.
25:33
Speaker 5: I had limited resources, okay, And.
25:37
Speaker 1: So everyone starts that way.
25:38
Speaker 5: I feel, yeah, oh, I think you're right, Jake. For me,
25:44
Speaker 5: it was simple timber stand improvements I could do with
25:49
Speaker 5: you know, a half a dozen tanks of gas and
25:51
Speaker 5: a cort of oil buy oil for my chainsaw, okay,
25:54
Speaker 5: And what I could do in two days and a
25:57
Speaker 5: weekend with a chainsaw makes a huge impact of long
26:03
Speaker 5: term you know, everything from betting to security to screening,
26:06
Speaker 5: whatever I'm trying to accomplish. And that would be for
26:09
Speaker 5: anybody that's got you know, some existing timber growth of
26:13
Speaker 5: you know, some age class, you know, something that's ten
26:16
Speaker 5: to twelve feet and taller. There's always things you can do.
26:19
Speaker 5: You know, you can create side cover. You can create
26:23
Speaker 5: natural deer movement trails. You can create barriers because hey,
26:26
Speaker 5: the deer always coming out on this corner. I want
26:28
Speaker 5: to stop them from you know, there's and then you
26:31
Speaker 5: know very detailed timber stand work, you know, creating large
26:35
Speaker 5: betting areas and you know transition zones and that sort
26:39
Speaker 5: of stuff. So that's one that pretty big impact for
26:45
Speaker 5: a small amount of cost.
26:47
Speaker 1: What's another one or two?
26:48
Speaker 2: Because I know when I when I developed this question,
26:51
Speaker 2: I knew TSI was going to be probably the ringing
26:53
Speaker 2: answer for for everyone because it is affordable and it
26:55
Speaker 2: is impactful, especially if you have a game plan and
26:58
Speaker 2: know what you're doing. What are some other things that
27:02
Speaker 2: maybe on your own property or consultations to where it's like, man,
27:08
Speaker 2: this might cost you one hundred bucks, fifty bucks, twenty
27:10
Speaker 2: bucks just your time.
27:11
Speaker 1: What are some other things that people can do.
27:13
Speaker 5: I've got one that I've used for decades and now
27:16
Speaker 5: it's very popular and a lot of people are doing
27:20
Speaker 5: it different ways, different methods, but mock scrapes. I've got
27:27
Speaker 5: one location right now that I've had, you know, I
27:31
Speaker 5: actually I have a camera there and I call it
27:33
Speaker 5: the Pines Turnaround because it was a place I had
27:35
Speaker 5: pines planted and do to die off and other things.
27:39
Speaker 5: I made this little area where I could back my
27:40
Speaker 5: pick up in there and turn around. Okay, so it's
27:43
Speaker 5: right between some nestled and some pines. So thirty years
27:46
Speaker 5: ago I started mock scrapes there and to this day
27:51
Speaker 5: it's where I can get pictures of every good antlered
27:55
Speaker 5: buck in this section. I can get him right there,
27:59
Speaker 5: and they're always there, you know. And what's that take?
28:02
Speaker 5: You know, literally it takes ten minutes of my time
28:06
Speaker 5: and seventy five cents worth of paara cord or wire
28:11
Speaker 5: and that's all it takes. And I just you know,
28:13
Speaker 5: I cut I cut new vines every late August and
28:16
Speaker 5: put new vines in and reuse the wire that's been there.
28:19
Speaker 5: So it's it's hard to calculate what my expense is,
28:23
Speaker 5: you know, just my time, and I do that multiple locations,
28:28
Speaker 5: but boy, it can have some long term effect and
28:31
Speaker 5: how the doves communicate to the bucks and the bucks
28:33
Speaker 5: communicate to one another, and you know, over over time
28:37
Speaker 5: and hierarchy, it becomes the place that everybody uses their
28:42
Speaker 5: nose to figure out, you know, what everybody else is
28:45
Speaker 5: doing in the deer herd, and.
28:47
Speaker 2: So you're a vine guy because to your point, there's
28:50
Speaker 2: a lot of different ways people use use mock scrapes
28:53
Speaker 2: and everyone, you know. I do think it's one of
28:55
Speaker 2: those things where there's a lot of different ways that
28:57
Speaker 2: you can do it and have success. But you're in
28:58
Speaker 2: Michigan and so you're you're cutting this a vine that
29:01
Speaker 2: you find, you know, sometime in the summer.
29:04
Speaker 1: Or like, what's it?
29:05
Speaker 2: It's a simple process, but I want you to walk
29:07
Speaker 2: through how how you do that?
29:09
Speaker 1: Do you cut it?
29:10
Speaker 2: Then you have a stockpile of vines behind your house?
29:12
Speaker 2: Or is it you go cut a fresh one? What's
29:14
Speaker 2: your strategy?
29:15
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a good question. And number one, we have
29:17
Speaker 5: a lot of wild grape. Okay, it's just everywhere birds,
29:21
Speaker 5: you know, eat the fruit and the seeds are. Anywhere
29:24
Speaker 5: there's a brush pile or a fence row, there's wild grape.
29:27
Speaker 5: And in the woods they're climbing up all the trees,
29:29
Speaker 5: the oaks, the cherries. So there's a lot of them,
29:32
Speaker 5: and some are real big. There's as big as my wrist,
29:35
Speaker 5: and the other ones are the size of my thumb
29:36
Speaker 5: or my forefinger, you know, And that's the size I
29:39
Speaker 5: look for. Okay, But what I do. I cut them
29:42
Speaker 5: the day I'm going to hang them. I want them
29:44
Speaker 5: fresh and dripping water the day I replace them, because
29:48
Speaker 5: they do dry out over season. And that's what happens.
29:51
Speaker 5: The ones that I put up last year, say right
29:54
Speaker 5: around Labor Day weekend, that's how long they've been there.
29:57
Speaker 5: And some of those vines have been broken off this
29:59
Speaker 5: winter while the bucks still had antlers, because they were
30:01
Speaker 5: still in there banging their heads on them and you know,
30:04
Speaker 5: leaving scent, and so because they're dry, they snap them
30:08
Speaker 5: off and break them off. Okay. So so my process is literally,
30:12
Speaker 5: you know, I know where I want to put it.
30:14
Speaker 5: I've got wire or parachute cord with me and a
30:18
Speaker 5: pair of clippers. I know where the where to look
30:21
Speaker 5: for the living vines. Okay, So I just literally go
30:24
Speaker 5: up there with my I've got a side by side
30:27
Speaker 5: and it's electric, and you know, cut it and I
30:30
Speaker 5: cut way more than I need. If I only need
30:32
Speaker 5: five feet of vine, I might cut fifteen feet. Kind
30:34
Speaker 5: of roll it up and put it in the back
30:36
Speaker 5: and it's going to be you know, thumb sized, like
30:39
Speaker 5: I said, four finger and size and it's just what
30:41
Speaker 5: I found on my farm, what they like. I've tried
30:44
Speaker 5: the bigger ones, I've tried little smaller ones. This is
30:47
Speaker 5: the size they like. And if I can find one
30:49
Speaker 5: that's got a y on it, you know it splits,
30:52
Speaker 5: that's like the ideal because I'll trim about a foot
30:55
Speaker 5: of those splits off and that will be the end
30:58
Speaker 5: that they work on. So it gives them two licking
31:00
Speaker 5: branches to put their you know, their mouth on and
31:04
Speaker 5: chew on and rub into their preorbital glands and that
31:07
Speaker 5: type of thing. And but anyways, when I get to
31:09
Speaker 5: where I want to put it, I've either a brand
31:13
Speaker 5: new vine, I see a tree limb. Most of the
31:16
Speaker 5: time I use an existing tree limb, and you know,
31:20
Speaker 5: cut the vine way longer than I need it and
31:22
Speaker 5: wire it up and make sure it's hanging down somewhere
31:26
Speaker 5: between about chest and belly button height off of the ground.
31:30
Speaker 5: And I've just found that when you know, vines are flexible.
31:34
Speaker 5: So when you're using say, you know, you go back
31:36
Speaker 5: twenty years ago, thirty years ago, when I was more
31:39
Speaker 5: using licking branches that I was pulling down from existing
31:43
Speaker 5: living trees. Those worked really really good, and they use
31:46
Speaker 5: it for the same reason, but I found the vines
31:49
Speaker 5: they spend more time in. They wind up those vines
31:52
Speaker 5: under their neck and across their antlers, and the pictures
31:56
Speaker 5: I've gotten over the years almost hilarious to see what
31:59
Speaker 5: some of these two in three year olds end up
32:01
Speaker 5: with that vine all tangled up in their antlers, and
32:04
Speaker 5: it kind of mesmerizes them, I think in a way.
32:06
Speaker 5: You know, they mess with them. They spent a lot
32:08
Speaker 5: of time. But it's real, you know, it's real easy,
32:11
Speaker 5: and I'm not gonna say there's any right or wrong way,
32:14
Speaker 5: but it needs to be in a fairly level location
32:16
Speaker 5: where deer can see it as they approach it, sent
32:20
Speaker 5: check it as they approach it. And it works really
32:23
Speaker 5: good in cover edges. The food plots works real good too.
32:27
Speaker 5: Maybe you've got a main trail where they're coming from
32:30
Speaker 5: a transition zone or a bedding area where they enter
32:33
Speaker 5: the food plot. Well, maybe you're lucky enough to have,
32:36
Speaker 5: you know, a cherry tree or an oak tree or
32:38
Speaker 5: a hickory tree growing right there, and you can tie
32:41
Speaker 5: that vine and have that vine right there hanging out
32:44
Speaker 5: maybe in the first foot or two of that food plot.
32:48
Speaker 5: So the moment they leave cover, there is something they
32:50
Speaker 5: can communicate with. And you know, I've probably I'm guessing
32:55
Speaker 5: I got forty fifty of them that I set up
32:57
Speaker 5: on this farm every year. That's a ton.
33:01
Speaker 1: That's a lot.
33:03
Speaker 2: But because everyone was gonna ask you, I was just
33:06
Speaker 2: gonna ask you where about where, Like what's one of
33:09
Speaker 2: the key locations to put it? But it sounds like
33:12
Speaker 2: for you it's everywhere.
33:15
Speaker 5: Yeah, I have some great rut stands, you know, when
33:18
Speaker 5: I've traded you know, travel corridors and things like that
33:21
Speaker 5: through TSI work and I've got you know, on my
33:25
Speaker 5: right fifteen yards away and on my left fifteen yards away,
33:29
Speaker 5: I've got vines. And during the rut it's just a
33:32
Speaker 5: blast to watch all these deer, you know, running through
33:34
Speaker 5: the woods. Pretty good clip and they stop worked at
33:36
Speaker 5: mine for fifteen seconds. Go again, you know they got theercent.
33:41
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, well that's uh, well, I think that's a great,
33:45
Speaker 2: great impactful project. That's that anyone can do really anywhere,
33:49
Speaker 2: no matter where they're at, and put a camera on
33:52
Speaker 2: there and observe it. Let me ask you this question,
33:54
Speaker 2: with that many different mox scrapes that you have on
33:57
Speaker 2: your farm, do you see them?
34:00
Speaker 1: I mean when you like, for example, when you had
34:01
Speaker 1: the one of fifteen yards.
34:02
Speaker 2: To your right and to your left, would they hit
34:04
Speaker 2: both of them or would they just pick one that
34:06
Speaker 2: was closest or like, what what have you seen from
34:09
Speaker 2: a behavioral s No.
34:11
Speaker 5: That's that's true. I'm glad you asked it, because it
34:14
Speaker 5: seems like the younger bucks will spend the time and
34:17
Speaker 5: hit both of them. But when you start getting into
34:19
Speaker 5: that three four year old mature deer, that's pretty you know,
34:23
Speaker 5: he's got one he singles out and he'll he'll go
34:27
Speaker 5: hit that one, or he'll just come in and just
34:30
Speaker 5: kind of sent check. He'll be three to five yards
34:33
Speaker 5: from it, kind of put his nose down near the
34:35
Speaker 5: scrape underneath it, and just kind of slow down a
34:37
Speaker 5: little bit, see what's going on, never even stop. But
34:39
Speaker 5: the other one he won't even pay any attention to.
34:42
Speaker 5: So yeah, I think you know, individually, they've got their
34:44
Speaker 5: own preferences.
34:46
Speaker 2: Okay, well out, Jake, where can people fall along with
34:50
Speaker 2: what you have going on? If they want to watch
34:52
Speaker 2: some of your content that you produced over the years.
34:55
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, the best is my YouTube channel I
34:57
Speaker 5: habitat Solutions three six dy l and I'm also on
35:02
Speaker 5: Facebook under my name Jake Millinger and then also have
35:04
Speaker 5: a test Solutions three p.
35:06
Speaker 6: Sixty.
35:07
Speaker 2: All right, to wrap this up, we have Sam bill
35:08
Speaker 2: Horn with Whitetail Partners out of Wisconsin.
35:11
Speaker 1: Let's see what he has to say about this.
35:13
Speaker 2: All right, Sam, welcome back to then have another episode
35:16
Speaker 2: of Back forty. Last time we talked about the mistakes
35:20
Speaker 2: to avoid it all cost and now we're diving into
35:24
Speaker 2: affordable projects that make a true difference and impact. I
35:30
Speaker 2: understand so many properties different every you know, every hole
35:34
Speaker 2: in the bucket for each property is a little bit
35:35
Speaker 2: different that needs to get patched up. But the purpose
35:38
Speaker 2: of this question and thought process is simply, I have
35:42
Speaker 2: a limited budget, Thank goodness, I have a place to
35:45
Speaker 2: do some of these projects.
35:47
Speaker 1: What can I do that isn't going to break the bank?
35:49
Speaker 2: And I'm also going to see a reward for my
35:51
Speaker 2: work because I feel when that loop is not tied together,
35:55
Speaker 2: it's tied to frustration. So we're going to try to
35:57
Speaker 2: save some folks some frustration.
36:00
Speaker 1: Yeah.
36:00
Speaker 7: Well, thanks for having me again, Jake, and this will
36:02
Speaker 7: be a great balance to the last clip that we
36:05
Speaker 7: did in terms of talking about the other end of
36:07
Speaker 7: the spectrum.
36:08
Speaker 1: In our first meeting.
36:09
Speaker 7: We talked about the bigger picture and trying to you know,
36:13
Speaker 7: have budget and tackle those larger items and the enjoyment
36:17
Speaker 7: that comes from it. But at the other hand, there's
36:19
Speaker 7: a ton of things we can do to help make
36:23
Speaker 7: meaningful impact to our properties.
36:25
Speaker 1: And I'll go you on that.
36:27
Speaker 7: I talk big picture, I'll go to some details here,
36:29
Speaker 7: especially for those guys out there trying to work hard
36:32
Speaker 7: to use their labor and their muscle to improve their property,
36:37
Speaker 7: and God bless them for doing it. That's some real work,
36:40
Speaker 7: but real enjoyment too. So a few things. My mind
36:43
Speaker 7: always goes to the timber. I look at it and say,
36:46
Speaker 7: we give a lot of press. The industry talks a
36:49
Speaker 7: ton about food plots. There's all kinds of products and
36:52
Speaker 7: equipment and all these things.
36:54
Speaker 1: For food plots. If you scroll through your social media feed,
36:57
Speaker 1: what do you see.
36:57
Speaker 7: It's food plot pictures and this and that all summer long.
37:01
Speaker 7: And you know it's that that's a marketable thing. It
37:05
Speaker 7: sells people want to buy and buy their equipment and
37:07
Speaker 7: their food plot seed and enjoy doing those plots.
37:11
Speaker 1: And that's all good.
37:12
Speaker 7: However, I think if you're trying to kill bigger bucks
37:17
Speaker 7: and have those opportunities on them, those opportunities nine times
37:21
Speaker 7: out of ten are going to be in your cover
37:24
Speaker 7: and specifically, I'll say, in your timber.
37:26
Speaker 1: Now with that, what can a guy do?
37:29
Speaker 7: So I am constantly preaching on client properties, and I
37:33
Speaker 7: still make the joke that I can probably count on
37:35
Speaker 7: one hand, even though I've been on hundreds of properties
37:38
Speaker 7: now that I there's only a few people that I said,
37:42
Speaker 7: you know, you're probably done cutting.
37:43
Speaker 1: Now you've cut enough.
37:45
Speaker 7: That I think we're good for a bit and we
37:49
Speaker 7: can just go into seeing how this rebounds and develops.
37:53
Speaker 7: So let's let's talk about what that cutting means. I
37:56
Speaker 7: say it generically and people to hear it. But there's
37:59
Speaker 7: another number of things you can do. First of all,
38:01
Speaker 7: if you've got a big, mature timber, maybe there's some
38:03
Speaker 7: value there. You can get a harvest don you can
38:06
Speaker 7: get some logs out, you can make a buck, you
38:09
Speaker 7: can get some money back from that investment that you're having.
38:12
Speaker 7: That's all well and good, and there's a place for
38:14
Speaker 7: that in the habitat planning that we do. Oftentimes we'll
38:17
Speaker 7: make a recommendation for that beyond that or next. I
38:21
Speaker 7: would say this is kind of in the order of
38:23
Speaker 7: operations too, is looking at larger timber TSI so maybe
38:28
Speaker 7: it's bringing down some of those bigger trees. Maybe they
38:31
Speaker 7: are not this saleable timber that we're going to be after.
38:36
Speaker 7: We just need to get them down for a number
38:38
Speaker 7: of reasons. We can go on too, all the TSI stuff.
38:40
Speaker 7: We could probably talk for an hour on that, but
38:43
Speaker 7: getting bigger trees on the ground, opening up that canopy,
38:46
Speaker 7: and now we're starting to get into some of the
38:48
Speaker 7: keys of habitat development and quality deer cover, getting sunlight down,
38:55
Speaker 7: increasing that forage, and also ground structure. I don't think
39:00
Speaker 7: ground structure gets talked about enough. You know, the real
39:03
Speaker 7: side cover of man. When you go out there and
39:06
Speaker 7: you knock down let's just take a five acre area,
39:09
Speaker 7: you go down and you go in there and you
39:11
Speaker 7: knock down fifteen or twenty big trees. You have changed
39:14
Speaker 7: the landscape on the ground and it doesn't take a
39:16
Speaker 7: lot of work. I know it's important to mention safety
39:19
Speaker 7: and doing things that you're comfortable with. You know, if
39:22
Speaker 7: you're new to this, working your way up to larger
39:25
Speaker 7: trees and understanding some of those things, but you know,
39:29
Speaker 7: getting those bigger trees down and then start to get
39:31
Speaker 7: into the finer work of okay, smaller trees. Now we're
39:34
Speaker 7: still with TSI mindset, looking for our future quality trees
39:39
Speaker 7: that we want to have either for forage or for
39:42
Speaker 7: timber value, and then all those things that we want
39:45
Speaker 7: to keep in balance, but increasing that cover, increasing that forage.
39:48
Speaker 7: Sometimes Now we're talking about utilizing other things like kingecuts
39:52
Speaker 7: and getting into bedding areas. So targeting specific areas to
39:57
Speaker 7: put trees down for habitat could be the developing cover
40:03
Speaker 7: for betting, could just be staging areas. And then again
40:07
Speaker 7: strategically starting to think towards deer movement. Now we're getting
40:10
Speaker 7: into corridors, trying to manipulate that movement across the landscape.
40:15
Speaker 7: If you have a wide open timber that has you know,
40:19
Speaker 7: it's very mature and very open. Number one deer don't
40:22
Speaker 7: want to be there in general, especially big bucks. But
40:24
Speaker 7: they can move freely. They can go wherever they want.
40:27
Speaker 7: There's very few trails that have been developed unless the
40:30
Speaker 7: topography is dictating it, and you don't have really this
40:35
Speaker 7: what I would call organized deer activity. If you do
40:38
Speaker 7: that and you start developing corridors and restricting the paths
40:43
Speaker 7: that they can go on. You're going to allow your
40:46
Speaker 7: self opportunities then to insert where you can hunt. And
40:50
Speaker 7: that's where all of this comes together and the planning
40:53
Speaker 7: and thought process to develop a property. But again getting
40:57
Speaker 7: back to your question is what can a guy do?
40:59
Speaker 7: All stuff is about really labor. It's simple hard work.
41:05
Speaker 1: Saw change the oil and gas, Yeah, you got it.
41:09
Speaker 7: So it's this is like getting out there and you'll
41:11
Speaker 7: learn so much about your timber as you start to
41:14
Speaker 7: have you know, you'll you'll get to know every tree
41:15
Speaker 7: by name in a way that you know your landscape,
41:19
Speaker 7: you know the details of it. And if you do
41:21
Speaker 7: this over the course of a few seasons, you'll see
41:24
Speaker 7: how deer using it. One of the things that taught
41:26
Speaker 7: me the most about habitat and how deer using the
41:29
Speaker 7: timber is being in it in all seasons, manipulating it,
41:33
Speaker 7: dropping trees and really seeing how deer react to what
41:37
Speaker 7: I'm doing. And you know, getting back to the core
41:40
Speaker 7: here is what can a guy do is put that
41:43
Speaker 7: labor in in the timber and make sure you're developing
41:47
Speaker 7: your quality entry points and hunting locations along the way
41:52
Speaker 7: to intercept those deer. In those locations that between your
41:55
Speaker 7: timber cutting, your access points, and the topograph fea the
42:00
Speaker 7: landscape that you're going to have really effective places to hunt.
42:04
Speaker 2: And I think another cheap and free thing would be
42:08
Speaker 2: find someone that knows more about this than you too.
42:11
Speaker 2: If you're brand new to this and this sounds very overwhelming,
42:14
Speaker 2: just hey, can I walk your timber with you sometime
42:16
Speaker 2: and and take the time to You're right, when you
42:19
Speaker 2: really start looking at timber, you remember almost every tree
42:22
Speaker 2: when you And you know, that's a really interesting thought
42:25
Speaker 2: and exercise because it's like oftentimes we just you know,
42:28
Speaker 2: at least me personally, you walk through it, and if
42:30
Speaker 2: you're not paying attention, it's like, oh yeah, there's a
42:32
Speaker 2: hackbread there, there's a locust there, and you can almost
42:34
Speaker 2: remember all these different things. And that's all free and
42:38
Speaker 2: and and and the knowledge is very powerful for sure.
42:42
Speaker 2: Where is where are some some good resources for someone
42:45
Speaker 2: to either like just some ideas for someone to track
42:50
Speaker 2: down someone that knows, you know, their their general uh
42:54
Speaker 2: timber composition and get a quick crash course.
42:57
Speaker 1: To to springboard everything.
42:59
Speaker 7: The resource I would tell people there's a number of
43:02
Speaker 7: written resources. You can go out there and you know,
43:04
Speaker 7: buy some basic books on Amazon especially that are relevant
43:07
Speaker 7: to your area. You can get you just simply tree identification,
43:11
Speaker 7: start understanding what you have. But then what I like
43:14
Speaker 7: to say is, you know, we talk on shows like
43:17
Speaker 7: this a lot about deer stuff, and you know, a
43:19
Speaker 7: guy like myself with Whitetail Partners, we're going to go
43:21
Speaker 7: and give you recommendations on your your habitat and what
43:25
Speaker 7: to do for the deer. But talking with your state
43:28
Speaker 7: and private foresters in the area, especially if you think
43:31
Speaker 7: there might be a timber harvest at hand, or you know,
43:34
Speaker 7: maybe there's a government program that you want to take
43:37
Speaker 7: advantage of for your situation. Getting all of the background
43:42
Speaker 7: on that. When you invite those people out to your property,
43:45
Speaker 7: you're going to learn a ton, not just about the
43:47
Speaker 7: deer aspect with a guy like me, but understanding the
43:52
Speaker 7: future potential for timber sale, maybe invasive species. You're going
43:57
Speaker 7: to get into all these things of you know, the
43:59
Speaker 7: health of your timber, and I think in doing so,
44:02
Speaker 7: you're gonna you're gonna quickly educate yourself and have a
44:05
Speaker 7: much better idea. I think it's pretty reckless and uh
44:09
Speaker 7: dangerous for you to go out there and just start
44:11
Speaker 7: cutting trees not knowing is you know what it is,
44:14
Speaker 7: where it is, what season is it? Should I even
44:16
Speaker 7: be cutting this tree at this time of year? And
44:19
Speaker 7: a number of other things and pitfalls that people can
44:21
Speaker 7: get into. So learn by you know, reading and hiring
44:25
Speaker 7: some of those professionals and I should I say higher
44:27
Speaker 7: but a lot of those government and private forcers, they're
44:30
Speaker 7: going to come to your ground for free as.
44:32
Speaker 1: A part of their service that they do.
44:34
Speaker 7: So reach out to them because walking timber with different
44:37
Speaker 7: professionals is going.
44:38
Speaker 1: To help you a lot.
44:39
Speaker 2: It's one of my favorite things to do, this walk
44:41
Speaker 2: walk timber with different timber experts because yeah, right every
44:45
Speaker 2: single time to some degree.
44:47
Speaker 1: So well, No, I think that's great.
44:48
Speaker 2: I think that's a that's a good punch list for
44:50
Speaker 2: people to start and no matter where you're at and
44:53
Speaker 2: based off that information for today, there's likely room for
44:57
Speaker 2: improvement no matter who you are. So is it you know,
45:01
Speaker 2: with this it, with it being May right now, is
45:03
Speaker 2: there much that people could implement right now for the
45:07
Speaker 2: next two months?
45:08
Speaker 7: Yeah, So, you know, again talking about timber and all that,
45:12
Speaker 7: what I do say, is much of your timber cutting
45:14
Speaker 7: is done before green up, so that windows closed now
45:18
Speaker 7: for just about everybody, and you know, the big impact
45:22
Speaker 7: the heavier cuts, the the you know stuff we started
45:27
Speaker 7: with in our conversation on the logging and all that
45:29
Speaker 7: that is going to wait till next season. However, some
45:32
Speaker 7: of the things you can be doing is more of
45:34
Speaker 7: these what I would call micro improvements of making sure
45:37
Speaker 7: that that entry point on a corridor, that entry point
45:40
Speaker 7: to the hunting location. Maybe you got a mock scrape
45:42
Speaker 7: set up or something like that, making sure that that's
45:45
Speaker 7: dialed in. So if you're gonna you're gonna fall a
45:47
Speaker 7: few trees right adjacent to the stand, you're gonna maybe
45:50
Speaker 7: work on some hingecuts to funnel deer into the location
45:55
Speaker 7: that you're looking to have that opportunity that can happen
45:58
Speaker 7: right up until hunting season. You want to be mindful
46:00
Speaker 7: of tree species and disease and some of these things
46:03
Speaker 7: that you want to be cautious of, but at the
46:05
Speaker 7: same point in time, most of these smaller trees that
46:07
Speaker 7: you're working with, I would say that you're going to
46:10
Speaker 7: be in good shape to go out there and make
46:12
Speaker 7: sure that those hunting setups are good. I'm done cutt
46:15
Speaker 7: in heavy timber for the year, but we're going to
46:17
Speaker 7: be getting into smaller stuff all throughout the summer here
46:20
Speaker 7: as we're developing properties.
46:22
Speaker 2: It is now a good time to potentially track down
46:24
Speaker 2: a consulting forester with it likely less logging jobs going
46:28
Speaker 2: on too across the country.
46:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great point to make.
46:32
Speaker 7: During that winter season, those guys are running like crazy
46:35
Speaker 7: trying to manage timber sales and getting their work done.
46:38
Speaker 7: They have a you know, they can do logging at
46:41
Speaker 7: different times of the years depending on what the project is,
46:43
Speaker 7: but you know, most of that work happens throughout the winter,
46:46
Speaker 7: So you're going to find that those guys are generally
46:49
Speaker 7: a little more relaxed and available, and they should always
46:52
Speaker 7: be interested in helping you out because that's just what
46:55
Speaker 7: they do.
46:56
Speaker 2: I like it, Sam, Where can people track you down
46:59
Speaker 2: if they havecific questions and you're part of the Neck
47:03
Speaker 2: of the Woods or anywhere else.
47:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, thanks, Jake.
47:05
Speaker 7: Just to plug here for whitetail Partners, find us at
47:08
Speaker 7: whitetail partners dot com or just google white Tail Partners.
47:11
Speaker 7: You'll find us on the top of that search page.
47:14
Speaker 7: And we have ten consultants across the country willing to
47:18
Speaker 7: help you and insert whatever we can in terms of planning,
47:22
Speaker 7: land management and all the things to get you going.
47:24
Speaker 1: On your property. Awesome. Thank you so much. Sam, appreciate it. Jake.
47:28
Speaker 1: Thanks all right, there, you guys have it.
47:29
Speaker 2: I hope you guys enjoyed this episode of Back forty
47:33
Speaker 2: handful of really good projects here that can help you,
47:35
Speaker 2: that are affordable. Some of them might even put a
47:37
Speaker 2: little money in your pocket. And these are just four ideas.
47:40
Speaker 2: And I think right now is a great time of
47:42
Speaker 2: a year to think on the past year. What can
47:44
Speaker 2: I do now? What can I do in June? What
47:46
Speaker 2: can I do in July, August or September leading up
47:48
Speaker 2: to the season to have the most potential success. It's
47:51
Speaker 2: easy to push things off. It's easy to say, you know,
47:54
Speaker 2: it'll be okay. But remember last year, think of where
47:57
Speaker 2: you were at in October and November saying this has
47:59
Speaker 2: to get done, this has to get done. Make sure
48:01
Speaker 2: to carve out the time if you can and get
48:03
Speaker 2: some basic projects done that's going to help you this
48:06
Speaker 2: upcoming fall.
48:06
Speaker 1: And you're going to thank yourself. We will see you
48:08
Speaker 1: next time. See ya