Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #214: Jake Ehlinger’s Whitetail Paradise

Transcript

Wired To Hunt Podcast #214: Jake Ehlinger’s Whitetail Paradise · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
0:06
Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
0:11
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
0:16
Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyon. This episode number two hundred and fourteen.
0:20
Speaker 1: In today, on the show, we're joined by white tail
0:23
Speaker 1: properties land specialists and habitat consultant Jake Ellinger to get
0:28
Speaker 1: an on the ground tour of his very own white
0:31
Speaker 1: tail paradise. All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast.
0:49
Speaker 1: And tan the show, we're talking white tail habitat and
0:53
Speaker 1: management and smart hunting and small properties and all sorts
0:57
Speaker 1: of interesting topics along those lines with Jake e Linger.
1:01
Speaker 1: And Jake is a fellow Michigan hunter, and he's a
1:04
Speaker 1: white tail properties land specialist and a white tail habitat consultant,
1:08
Speaker 1: and a couple of years ago I had Jake on
1:10
Speaker 1: the show to chat with me about habitat management ideas
1:14
Speaker 1: and a lot of his thoughts on managing small properties.
1:17
Speaker 1: It was a great conversation. I actually remember I was
1:19
Speaker 1: recording it in a really hot basement in the middle
1:23
Speaker 1: of July with no a C so I think I was.
1:25
Speaker 1: If I remember this day correctly, I think I was
1:27
Speaker 1: soaked in sweat while talking to him and sitting on
1:29
Speaker 1: a cardboard box. But despite that, the conversation was awesome
1:34
Speaker 1: and I was just left wanting more. There was so
1:36
Speaker 1: much more I wanted to cover with Jake, And in
1:38
Speaker 1: the years since that, Jake actually mentioned me a couple
1:41
Speaker 1: of different times that I was welcome to come actually
1:44
Speaker 1: walk his property, to tour it, to learn about what
1:46
Speaker 1: he's done there, and to actually see all the different
1:48
Speaker 1: projects that he's um that he's completed. So finally, now
1:52
Speaker 1: two years later, that's what we did. Earlier this week,
1:56
Speaker 1: myself and Jake and my buddy further went and we
2:00
Speaker 1: walked jake sixties seven acre Michigan piece of White Tailed Paradise,
2:06
Speaker 1: and then afterwards we sat down to discuss everything we saw. So, Man,
2:10
Speaker 1: I think that I think that you are really going
2:12
Speaker 1: to enjoy today's episode if you heard that first one
2:15
Speaker 1: with Jake. I think what you're gonna find is that
2:17
Speaker 1: we took things to the next level. Today. We we gover,
2:20
Speaker 1: We cover a lot more of the topics that we
2:22
Speaker 1: touched on last time, but we cover them in much
2:25
Speaker 1: greater detail, and then we go into a whole lot
2:27
Speaker 1: of new ideas as well. So that's the game plan
2:31
Speaker 1: for today. If you haven't heard the previous show, I
2:34
Speaker 1: definitely do recommend going back and listening to that. That's
2:36
Speaker 1: episode number one hundred and eleven, and then here today
2:39
Speaker 1: we're going to take things um even further. So looking
2:43
Speaker 1: forward to you guys getting to hear this and getting
2:45
Speaker 1: your feedback. But before we jump into that interview, I
2:48
Speaker 1: do want to take a quick second to thank our
2:50
Speaker 1: partners at White Tailed Properties, and as I think you've
2:53
Speaker 1: come to learn over the past year or so that
2:55
Speaker 1: we've been working with them, the white Tail Properties land
2:57
Speaker 1: specialists are just a tremendous resources when it comes to
3:01
Speaker 1: land and how to buy it or sell it, or
3:03
Speaker 1: hunt it or improve it. And White Tail Properties also
3:07
Speaker 1: shares a lot of that kind of information over on
3:08
Speaker 1: their YouTube channel. In particular, they have this web series
3:11
Speaker 1: called the land Beat and that features a lot of short,
3:14
Speaker 1: helpful videos related to improving your property for wildlife. And
3:18
Speaker 1: since we've got Jake here, a white Tail Properties land
3:20
Speaker 1: specialist himself, on the show, I thought i'd recommend one
3:24
Speaker 1: of those land Beat videos that he has actually featured in.
3:26
Speaker 1: So if you go to the White Tail Properties YouTube channel.
3:29
Speaker 1: You're gonna find one of these videos titled the Perfect
3:31
Speaker 1: Hinge Cut, and then that one, Jake demonstrates exactly how
3:34
Speaker 1: to create hinge cuts and use them to improve white
3:37
Speaker 1: Tail habitat. And actually, in our episode that you're about
3:40
Speaker 1: to hear today, we talk a lot about different things
3:43
Speaker 1: he's created on his property using this hinge cutting technique,
3:47
Speaker 1: but we don't go into too much detail as far
3:49
Speaker 1: as how to actually create hinge cuts, what what that means.
3:52
Speaker 1: So I think this land beat video is actually a
3:54
Speaker 1: perfect supplement to the conversation you're gonna hear in a
3:57
Speaker 1: few minutes, So big thanks again, white Tail Properties and
4:01
Speaker 1: everyone listening highly recommend checking out that video. It's called
4:04
Speaker 1: the Perfect Hinge Cut. Find it on the White Tailed
4:07
Speaker 1: Properties YouTube channel. Now let's get to the show. So
4:14
Speaker 1: we are here with Jake Ealinger, and I'm really full
4:20
Speaker 1: of a lot of jealousy because we just walked Jake's
4:24
Speaker 1: property here in Michigan, and uh, it is such a
4:29
Speaker 1: cool spot. I'm very very jealous and I'm very impressed.
4:35
Speaker 1: So so thank you Jake for for being here with
4:37
Speaker 1: us and for letting us take a tour ground. You're welcome, Mark,
4:40
Speaker 1: And I truly am humbold because to me, I've just
4:44
Speaker 1: tried to turn this property into the best hunting I
4:47
Speaker 1: can have in the state given the realistic expectations that
4:51
Speaker 1: I can have here in Michigan. And uh, I just
4:54
Speaker 1: keep learning every year and trying to add one eye
4:57
Speaker 1: to my knowledge base and make it just that much
4:59
Speaker 1: better here. So I'm happy you were impressed, and I
5:03
Speaker 1: know your jealousy is in a good way. Yeah, because
5:05
Speaker 1: that's just exactly a good way. I'm very just it's
5:09
Speaker 1: so cool getting to see these things that we talked
5:11
Speaker 1: about so much, but seeing them actually on the ground
5:13
Speaker 1: and done in such a well thought through way. It's
5:17
Speaker 1: so neat to see and then also to see the
5:18
Speaker 1: results you've had from it. Um So, so yeah, it's
5:22
Speaker 1: the most friendly jealousy you could ever ask for. That
5:24
Speaker 1: um But when you were on the podcast a couple
5:26
Speaker 1: of years ago, you you talked through a lot a
5:29
Speaker 1: lot of the things that you've done in your property
5:31
Speaker 1: up to that point. We talked through kind of what
5:33
Speaker 1: it was like in the beginning, and what what types
5:35
Speaker 1: of things you did, and kind of how to think
5:37
Speaker 1: through managing and improving a small property. And that was
5:40
Speaker 1: really helpful to me. Even then I found it very interesting.
5:42
Speaker 1: But I think now having seen it and like really
5:46
Speaker 1: dug into it and seeing and how how it's all
5:48
Speaker 1: fleshed out in reality, UM, there's a whole new level
5:52
Speaker 1: of of of appreciation for what you've done now, um,
5:56
Speaker 1: which has been interesting. And so today what I wanted
5:58
Speaker 1: us to do, um, you know me. And further, did
6:04
Speaker 1: you know that's his nickname Jake? We did not know that.
6:07
Speaker 1: So you hear the story so without without going down
6:11
Speaker 1: too much of a random long story short type deal here,
6:16
Speaker 1: but for a long time growing up, his dad would
6:20
Speaker 1: be around for a lot of different things. His dad's
6:22
Speaker 1: name is Frank, and so one day we just thought
6:25
Speaker 1: he looks a loud his dad. He's gonna look like
6:26
Speaker 1: his dad someday. So he's like, he's like a mini Frank.
6:29
Speaker 1: And so he's like, he's like a Frank further and
6:32
Speaker 1: then but Josh never knew we were talking about this,
6:35
Speaker 1: and all my other friends were saying, so I don't
6:37
Speaker 1: start calling further. So for several years we just started
6:40
Speaker 1: calling him further, but we would never explain to him
6:43
Speaker 1: why we called him further. So so for years, he
6:46
Speaker 1: got more and more upset about it and not knowing
6:48
Speaker 1: why we called him that. And now I've just continued
6:51
Speaker 1: it on to our adult lives. So that's him and
6:54
Speaker 1: I get it everywhere I go now and get people
6:56
Speaker 1: address me in emails further. His work emails now are
7:00
Speaker 1: addressed a further but but yes, I wanted to bring
7:06
Speaker 1: further a long though, because you know, I think I
7:08
Speaker 1: think your perspective is gonna be really interesting, Josh, because
7:11
Speaker 1: you haven't done as much habitat stuffs as I've done,
7:15
Speaker 1: not as much as Jake. So I feel like it's
7:17
Speaker 1: I think I've got kind of like the middle of
7:18
Speaker 1: the road perspective. I've done some, but not nearly as
7:20
Speaker 1: much as Jake. Jake's done a ton, and then you're
7:23
Speaker 1: a little bit newer into that side of things. So
7:25
Speaker 1: I think we've got three different perspectives here. And what
7:27
Speaker 1: I'm hoping to do is to I do want in
7:30
Speaker 1: a second for you to help lay the foundation against
7:33
Speaker 1: for people that didn't hear that first episode, just so
7:35
Speaker 1: we kind of know what we're talking about as far
7:37
Speaker 1: as what this place is like, what you had to
7:40
Speaker 1: start with kind of where we're at and then I
7:41
Speaker 1: want to like dive deep into a lot of the
7:44
Speaker 1: details of how you've improved this property, specific things that
7:47
Speaker 1: me and Josh saw today. UM, talk through some of
7:50
Speaker 1: the examples of different bucks that you've killed recently and
7:53
Speaker 1: how things you've done the property helped make all that happen. Um,
7:57
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of like really do tail
8:00
Speaker 1: oriented and action oriented things we can cover today that
8:03
Speaker 1: that having the actual tour helped with. You know, you
8:08
Speaker 1: can watch videos, you can read so much, but there's
8:11
Speaker 1: nothing that beats boots on the ground, is there. It's
8:14
Speaker 1: a huge difference. So unfortunately we can't get all of
8:18
Speaker 1: our listeners on the ground on your property. But um,
8:20
Speaker 1: but hopefully this is the next closest thing they can get.
8:23
Speaker 1: So can you can you just kick it off by
8:25
Speaker 1: taking what we talked about last time in that took
8:29
Speaker 1: almost two hours, and can you give us like a
8:30
Speaker 1: five minute version of that as far as like the
8:34
Speaker 1: short version of how you got to where you are
8:37
Speaker 1: now a little bit with this property. Were started so
8:40
Speaker 1: in my wife and a and I purchased this property
8:44
Speaker 1: sixty seven and three quarters acres. Yet it's strictly because
8:47
Speaker 1: I loved hunting wanted to own some land, tired of
8:50
Speaker 1: knocking on doors dealing with all the challenges with that.
8:54
Speaker 1: And I actually this is where I killed the first
8:55
Speaker 1: white tailed deer in my life, was on this property,
8:58
Speaker 1: just by knocking on doors and having permission and back
9:00
Speaker 1: and when I was in high school. So it's really
9:02
Speaker 1: cool to be able to buy that ground. Um, it
9:06
Speaker 1: was nothing special. It was a mature forest. They had
9:09
Speaker 1: some flooded timber on it. They had about seven acres
9:11
Speaker 1: of tillable so you know, about half of its woods,
9:15
Speaker 1: and twenty acres of swamp slash wetlon, a lot of
9:21
Speaker 1: mallard wood, duck heaven, and then some great opportunity with
9:24
Speaker 1: edges and places for food plots and things like that.
9:28
Speaker 1: So I just took off out of the gate back
9:30
Speaker 1: in those days when you hardly read much about habitat,
9:33
Speaker 1: but you did read a few articles about habitat and
9:36
Speaker 1: tried to basically uh duplicate and emulate what I saw
9:41
Speaker 1: on other properties where I had good deer hunting when
9:44
Speaker 1: I knocked on doors, so I knew I had to
9:46
Speaker 1: have thicker cover, I had to have food sources, I
9:48
Speaker 1: had to have good access, and over the years I
9:51
Speaker 1: started planning trees. I started doing timber harvest, which then
9:55
Speaker 1: moved into hinge cutting and travel corridors and stand locations.
10:00
Speaker 1: And as you saw, I've got warm season grasses, multiple
10:04
Speaker 1: food plots, large destination plots, tiny little micro plots, probably
10:09
Speaker 1: pretty darn good access, as you can tell, really good access.
10:12
Speaker 1: That's probably been my hardest struggle over the years. And
10:16
Speaker 1: then I basically set things up to the food to
10:19
Speaker 1: bed pattern. Okay, we know where the food's at, we
10:21
Speaker 1: know where most of these deer bedding, and try and
10:23
Speaker 1: get that pattern going, and then also set things up
10:27
Speaker 1: for the rut, you know those those magic two weeks
10:29
Speaker 1: three weeks out of the year that the bucks are
10:31
Speaker 1: out seeking does actively working scrapes and through walking on
10:36
Speaker 1: the ground. Today, So I have a lot of scrapes,
10:39
Speaker 1: a lot of them natural scrapes and a lot of
10:40
Speaker 1: mock scrapes that I continually pulled the whims down and
10:43
Speaker 1: put them in the right place, and lots of edge
10:46
Speaker 1: and places for bucks in doors to spend their time.
10:50
Speaker 1: I think one thing I'll just jump on here, something
10:53
Speaker 1: that stood out to me that that didn't that that
10:57
Speaker 1: can't come through lots of times unless you see it
11:00
Speaker 1: to believe it really is just how like we're talking,
11:04
Speaker 1: like one acre of your land feels like five acres
11:08
Speaker 1: of land because it's it's so it's all productive, it's
11:11
Speaker 1: it's all great habitat. You have so many different features
11:14
Speaker 1: packed into small areas, all these different edges, betting transitions.
11:18
Speaker 1: There's nothing, there's very little ground that isn't serving a
11:21
Speaker 1: purpose on your property. So even though it's sixties seven acres,
11:24
Speaker 1: it feels like a very big property. I feel like
11:28
Speaker 1: it must hunt like a much bigger property because of that.
11:31
Speaker 1: In my own eye, I believe that the deer probably
11:34
Speaker 1: as far as edge and utilization, it's like two to
11:38
Speaker 1: three acres of a standard property. There's just a lot
11:41
Speaker 1: of places for them to go. And like you say,
11:44
Speaker 1: it's very every piece of that property is doing something
11:49
Speaker 1: for the deer pretty much. There's other than where I
11:51
Speaker 1: drive my tractor. That's it. Other than that, it's it's
11:56
Speaker 1: it's a deer habitat. And the attention to detail about
11:59
Speaker 1: like every little every little thing, and it's it's remarkable
12:02
Speaker 1: out there, you know. And And when we talked two
12:04
Speaker 1: years ago, um I I talked a lot about how
12:07
Speaker 1: important I've come to realize early successional growth is and
12:12
Speaker 1: you got to see it here. It is it's middle
12:14
Speaker 1: of May, when growth is popping out of the ground.
12:17
Speaker 1: We've just had four inches of rain and there's just
12:20
Speaker 1: a little bit of brows and in those areas and man, yeah,
12:23
Speaker 1: I mean you're you're incredible, jam packed with new growth
12:26
Speaker 1: and great food, great cover. I mean tremendous, tremendous white
12:30
Speaker 1: tail habitat. You see so many properties, so many um
12:33
Speaker 1: areas out here where you just get these wide open
12:35
Speaker 1: woodlands that people think are beautiful, right, beautiful kind of
12:39
Speaker 1: park land environment, but very little value to deer. This
12:43
Speaker 1: is the complete opposite. You can't see ten yards in
12:46
Speaker 1: most areas, but it is jam packed with the kind
12:48
Speaker 1: of stuff that deer want. Is and U So, so
12:52
Speaker 1: as the years went by, and I got good with food, plants,
12:55
Speaker 1: good planning trees with a plan, and it was a plan.
12:58
Speaker 1: I knew I wanted to walk down miss edge when
13:00
Speaker 1: the wind is from this direction. I knew I wanted
13:02
Speaker 1: to access a betting area during a certain time of
13:05
Speaker 1: the year. So I strategically planet trees planted warm season
13:09
Speaker 1: grasses or a combination of hinge cutting and timber stand
13:13
Speaker 1: improvement to create a screen so I could get into
13:16
Speaker 1: stands when deer were bedded sixty seventy yards way, they
13:20
Speaker 1: wouldn't get up and move, and it just seemed like
13:23
Speaker 1: a daunting task that nobody could do. But I've pulled
13:25
Speaker 1: it off enough to know i'd been doing it okay, right,
13:28
Speaker 1: And you saw it. And once you get there, you realize, yeah,
13:32
Speaker 1: Jake can't get in here on November eight and go
13:35
Speaker 1: right past deer that are betted and getting to stand
13:37
Speaker 1: and wait for him to get up and walk by.
13:39
Speaker 1: And I can see how the one thing I would
13:42
Speaker 1: have thought, if I hadn't known about your access right,
13:45
Speaker 1: I would have thought, how the heck do you hunt this?
13:47
Speaker 1: Because there is so much great habitat, so much betting.
13:50
Speaker 1: I mean, you could there could be deer almost anywhere
13:52
Speaker 1: in some cases if you didn't really understand it. And um,
13:55
Speaker 1: but I can see that you have. You know, you've
13:58
Speaker 1: got well thought out routes. Certain times you can hunt it,
14:00
Speaker 1: certain times you can't hunt it. Um, And you'll probably
14:04
Speaker 1: agree maybe this will help for the listener. Um. My
14:06
Speaker 1: habitat works in level of preference, so during the seeking phase,
14:12
Speaker 1: it's all about where are those doughs betted? Where those
14:15
Speaker 1: bucks utilizing areas of security? So those are the more
14:19
Speaker 1: difficult places for me to get to, but the most
14:22
Speaker 1: rewarding from a hunting standpoint when it comes to food
14:25
Speaker 1: in early season a dough harvest or late season, those
14:29
Speaker 1: food plots are easier to access for that exact reason.
14:33
Speaker 1: Get in there, not really make an impact to the
14:35
Speaker 1: betting areas, slip out after dark, not really bother the deer.
14:40
Speaker 1: And so it's all working pretty clearly. It took a
14:42
Speaker 1: long time. You know, it's not like any of this
14:43
Speaker 1: happens overnight, but it's just been a heck of a
14:47
Speaker 1: learning curve. So how many years have you been working
14:49
Speaker 1: on this property? Um? Since? Yeah, that's a's a long
14:54
Speaker 1: haul and real serious the last twenty plus years, has
14:58
Speaker 1: there been any one thing that you could point to
15:01
Speaker 1: that was like a light switch moment, Like once I
15:03
Speaker 1: started doing X, I noticed like a totally new level
15:08
Speaker 1: of success. Is there anything you can point to the
15:10
Speaker 1: biggest Ah? Yeah, and and it's this is a two
15:14
Speaker 1: stage when I started realizing how many trees you had
15:17
Speaker 1: to remove out of the canopy to get early successional
15:20
Speaker 1: growth to carry brows from the winner to hold more deer,
15:24
Speaker 1: more bucks, more doughs through a season. That was a
15:28
Speaker 1: big Aha moment because I don't think you saw the areas.
15:32
Speaker 1: There's not many trees standing, yes, so so so can
15:34
Speaker 1: you describe how how many trees you gotta take out?
15:36
Speaker 1: Are we talking? We're talking of the standing trees go
15:43
Speaker 1: down in particular bedding areas. Now that's not the entire woods,
15:46
Speaker 1: you know, these are you saw him from three quarter
15:48
Speaker 1: to two acre areas. Then the second Aha moment was
15:53
Speaker 1: I was able to get the brows and get deer
15:55
Speaker 1: to utilize those areas. But I found that there was
15:58
Speaker 1: a bit of a it would fill to a certain
16:01
Speaker 1: point I wouldn't hold any more dear. So six eight
16:06
Speaker 1: years this chigo, I started cutting openings inside of these
16:10
Speaker 1: hinge cuttings because I really started observing dough groups, learning
16:13
Speaker 1: more about dog groups really from observation and stands. Looking
16:17
Speaker 1: into these betting areas and anywhere there was an opening,
16:20
Speaker 1: these dough groups would bed, you know, with the oldest,
16:23
Speaker 1: smartest matriarch does, laying directly with the wind in their favor,
16:27
Speaker 1: and then all the younger deer looking at them and
16:30
Speaker 1: watching them taking their cues, so, you know, and and
16:33
Speaker 1: just again you just learn more, you read more. You know,
16:36
Speaker 1: I've been a member of q d m A for
16:38
Speaker 1: twenty years now, and so there's just a lot of
16:41
Speaker 1: information that always points to that direction that the does
16:45
Speaker 1: the dough is really the queen of the forest from
16:48
Speaker 1: day one. How do you manage bucks? Manage your old does? Right?
16:52
Speaker 1: So I have found that these openings, and you guys
16:54
Speaker 1: got to see these openings probably got me more mature
16:58
Speaker 1: bucks per square acre than anything I've ever done. Can
17:02
Speaker 1: you can you describe what you mean by that? So
17:06
Speaker 1: a describe like your how why you're hinge cutting, and
17:09
Speaker 1: then what are these additional openings you're creating to do that?
17:12
Speaker 1: So I'm I'm notching and dropping really large trees first,
17:15
Speaker 1: and these are and these can be trees of all
17:18
Speaker 1: kinds of species. They can be oaks, hickories, maples, variety
17:21
Speaker 1: of everything. And I'm trying to get the canopy opened up.
17:25
Speaker 1: And then I'm hinging all the smaller trees and that
17:29
Speaker 1: twelve to sixteen inch in diameter and less, and I'm
17:32
Speaker 1: hinging them high to go over the top of these
17:34
Speaker 1: larger trees again to let in a lot of sunlight
17:38
Speaker 1: to grow lots of early succession. But through that process,
17:41
Speaker 1: the deer have to feel free to move around, and
17:44
Speaker 1: so I'm cutting a network of trail systems with opening
17:48
Speaker 1: say the size of this room. We're in a twenty
17:49
Speaker 1: by twenty room. There's a lot of openings inside of
17:52
Speaker 1: the hinge cuts there, twenty by thirty with maybe three
17:56
Speaker 1: or four different three foot wide openings allowing year to
18:00
Speaker 1: come in from the right, from the left, and the
18:01
Speaker 1: north and the south, so they can mingle inside. So
18:05
Speaker 1: when they're laying down, there's a lot of fringe cover
18:08
Speaker 1: to their right and to their left, but right around
18:11
Speaker 1: them with the dose there is not much cover other
18:14
Speaker 1: than the early succession in the end. And to top
18:18
Speaker 1: it off, I now go into those areas in late
18:21
Speaker 1: July and early August and spray the vegetation with a
18:25
Speaker 1: non selective verbicide and oversee it with a sixty chickory clover.
18:32
Speaker 1: You saw those areas. I'm providing a lot of green
18:35
Speaker 1: in addition to all the oaks and maples and hickories
18:39
Speaker 1: that are coming up anyways, so that during that time
18:43
Speaker 1: of the year that I'm really trying to hunt that
18:45
Speaker 1: buck I now have an abundant food source in a
18:48
Speaker 1: bedding area. I found that really interesting. I've never I've
18:52
Speaker 1: never seen that done before. Did. It seems like, based
18:56
Speaker 1: on what I'm seeing, you're able to eliminate enough competition
19:00
Speaker 1: to get some food in there, especially a palatable food,
19:04
Speaker 1: but you're still maintaining plenty of successional growth on the edges. All.
19:07
Speaker 1: You still have lots of great cover, right. So if
19:11
Speaker 1: you were to try and do that in an area
19:13
Speaker 1: with high deer density, or maybe just one little small
19:16
Speaker 1: half acre hinge cut timbers stand improvement area, you probably
19:20
Speaker 1: would not have much success because you have to overwhelm
19:23
Speaker 1: the deer with more growth than they can keep up
19:25
Speaker 1: with you. You did not see of my bedding covers, so,
19:32
Speaker 1: but what you saw is realized that every place that's
19:35
Speaker 1: hey across the water peninsula, here's another one where it's
19:37
Speaker 1: just like this. So there is so much growth coming
19:40
Speaker 1: up right now at this rapid time. The deer can't
19:43
Speaker 1: keep up with it. So that allows that clover and
19:46
Speaker 1: chickery to germinate and grow in there, and they really
19:49
Speaker 1: could care less because there's so much food everywhere. So
19:52
Speaker 1: fast forward to the first week of November, we've had
19:55
Speaker 1: two or three hard frost. A lot of people call
19:58
Speaker 1: it brown down things that turn brown. Uh, leaves are
20:02
Speaker 1: falling off. Now there's all this abundant green in their
20:05
Speaker 1: betting area. They haven't paid a whole lot of attention
20:06
Speaker 1: to it's they're they're aware of it, but now it's
20:09
Speaker 1: primo because it's green and it's right, and it's where
20:12
Speaker 1: they want to because they're getting tired of being pushed
20:14
Speaker 1: by the bucks. They're seeking cover and so you know,
20:17
Speaker 1: it took a lot of years to put that whole
20:19
Speaker 1: picture together, but it works really good for me, and
20:22
Speaker 1: it is very strategic. I mean I I focused the
20:26
Speaker 1: best food and the best betting covers that I can
20:29
Speaker 1: actively access for hunting during the right Yes, yes, we're
20:34
Speaker 1: calling this like you're sweetened bedding areas. So so you're
20:37
Speaker 1: you're you've got let's say you've got ten betting AARs.
20:40
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how many you actually might have if
20:41
Speaker 1: you separate them out, but if there's ten betting areas,
20:43
Speaker 1: it seemed like the two or three that were the
20:47
Speaker 1: closest to where you could hunt would be the ones
20:49
Speaker 1: you would sweetens. Is there any other thought that's going
20:52
Speaker 1: into that that's really you know, not only and you
20:54
Speaker 1: can see the detail work goes in there too. It's
20:57
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time providing areas for deer to
21:00
Speaker 1: move to to be easily go right, left, move in
21:05
Speaker 1: all directions. Security, there's lots of food. And you also
21:10
Speaker 1: saw all the scrapes, the mock scrapes that I put
21:12
Speaker 1: in around those areas to keep those bucks really busy.
21:15
Speaker 1: So do those two things increase as you get your
21:19
Speaker 1: higher priorities? So are there increased detail as far as
21:22
Speaker 1: the trails cut through the betting areas and the openings cut.
21:24
Speaker 1: You have more of those in your sweetened higher priority
21:27
Speaker 1: betting areas versus the farther ones. Although I always have
21:30
Speaker 1: trails because those deer do not want to get blocked in,
21:32
Speaker 1: you know, because there's coyotes, there's other things besides people,
21:35
Speaker 1: and there's competing deer that they're trying to get away from.
21:38
Speaker 1: But I just get a lot more, a lot more
21:42
Speaker 1: strategic in those deer movement openings because as you saw,
21:46
Speaker 1: I like them within bow range of my trees dance. Yeah, yeah,
21:50
Speaker 1: you get some good looking setups there. You saw that job. Yeah,
21:55
Speaker 1: when you're making your your trails or your opening is
21:58
Speaker 1: in there? Are you giving any is there any um
22:02
Speaker 1: rhyme to the reason or reason to the rhyme or
22:05
Speaker 1: however that saying goes um as far as where you're
22:08
Speaker 1: making the trails heading to, like do you want to
22:09
Speaker 1: make sure that there's trails heading in the direction you
22:11
Speaker 1: want the deer to go? Or do you just kind
22:13
Speaker 1: of cut wherever the natural openings are easiest to make
22:15
Speaker 1: and you don't need to think through too much when
22:18
Speaker 1: it comes to that. I think, I think those dead
22:20
Speaker 1: are going to travel wherever you give them room to travel,
22:23
Speaker 1: because once you're tipping down trees, you're changing their entire world,
22:26
Speaker 1: unless you just be a park effect. That last place
22:29
Speaker 1: we went into the spot I killed Brutus this year,
22:32
Speaker 1: two years ago. You can see a hundred and fifty
22:33
Speaker 1: yards right through that. And when I was done after
22:37
Speaker 1: four to five hours, it was a mess. I mean
22:40
Speaker 1: it was just a disaster zone. And then I strategically
22:44
Speaker 1: go in there for a weekend after weekend with a
22:46
Speaker 1: chainsaw and start cutting openings, and you know, heavy snow
22:49
Speaker 1: and ice storms and things happen, and things settle and
22:52
Speaker 1: trees move, and eventually you figure out. Okay, the deer
22:55
Speaker 1: really like this area. So I'm gonna really define this one.
22:58
Speaker 1: And you know, you know, from hunting it a year
23:00
Speaker 1: ago from an observation stand, I saw places those were
23:04
Speaker 1: trying to move and you could tell they got blocked off.
23:06
Speaker 1: They went into an area they wanted to go to
23:08
Speaker 1: the east, they couldn't. So I go in there and
23:10
Speaker 1: I cut a whole form. And you saw the paths
23:12
Speaker 1: how they use them. Now there's yeah, they really have
23:17
Speaker 1: the real use them. What what stood out to you,
23:21
Speaker 1: Josh on this top because we're looking you know, we
23:24
Speaker 1: started basically the way our kind of property to our stars.
23:27
Speaker 1: As we walked through the kind of front of Jake's property,
23:30
Speaker 1: went through a food plot that's along the edge of
23:33
Speaker 1: the warm season grass. You had a bunch of blue
23:34
Speaker 1: stem and switch grass, right and then we entered the
23:37
Speaker 1: timber and right inside that timber, right away we got
23:40
Speaker 1: to some of these hinge cut betting years, maybe within
23:44
Speaker 1: forty yards of the edge of that food right. Um,
23:47
Speaker 1: and then the beginning of hinge cuts and these significant
23:50
Speaker 1: betting area regions. Um, what were you thinking when you're
23:54
Speaker 1: we're looking all at Josh, it's cool to see how
23:58
Speaker 1: much difference you can make just a little time behind
24:00
Speaker 1: a chainsaw. I mean, that's all. I mean, that's all
24:03
Speaker 1: you're really using, right, it's a chainsaw, I mean, and
24:05
Speaker 1: that's all so much of a difference in that area.
24:08
Speaker 1: And how much canopy you open by just a little
24:11
Speaker 1: bit of time behind a chainsaw. Um, that's something that
24:14
Speaker 1: a lot of people can do. It is the deer
24:18
Speaker 1: manager's best friend is that chainsaw. And doesn't cost a
24:21
Speaker 1: lot of money. It doesn't cost me a lot of money.
24:23
Speaker 1: Understand the safety of it. But um, otherwise, you don't
24:27
Speaker 1: need a tractor, you don't need big money. You don't
24:29
Speaker 1: need you know, you don't need a bobcat, a big,
24:31
Speaker 1: huge front end loader. You can do it all with
24:33
Speaker 1: a small chainsaw on just some time, you know, some
24:36
Speaker 1: sweat equity. So and the other thing that was really cool, um,
24:40
Speaker 1: that I had never thought about was how you were
24:42
Speaker 1: cutting those saplings maybe three or four or five feet
24:45
Speaker 1: up and you're getting those sprouts right at deer level.
24:49
Speaker 1: De level. We'll talk about that, just kind of cutting
24:50
Speaker 1: them down. So when I'm in near hinge cutting and
24:54
Speaker 1: whether you're doing a timber stand improvement and hinge cut
24:56
Speaker 1: you're gonna have succession. And these are true, these three
25:00
Speaker 1: quarters to an inch and a half in diameter, and
25:03
Speaker 1: they're gonna be in there, and you're not hinge cutting those.
25:05
Speaker 1: You're working around those. And now so now you've created opening.
25:08
Speaker 1: They're there, So I try to cut them about armpit high.
25:11
Speaker 1: I'd say right about that, you know, armpit Hi, I
25:14
Speaker 1: just cut them off, start cutting them at the ground,
25:16
Speaker 1: and they're gonna sucker. They're gonna send up new shoots,
25:19
Speaker 1: new suckers, and that right that is at exactly at
25:22
Speaker 1: the deer's level. So it's just kind of you know,
25:25
Speaker 1: it's like, why not put the ice cream right on
25:28
Speaker 1: a plate? You know? Yeah, I think what you I mean,
25:31
Speaker 1: we've mentioned numerous different examples of how you just sweeten
25:34
Speaker 1: the pot on these betting areas. You've got the the
25:37
Speaker 1: the open canopy, then you've got the openings, and you've
25:40
Speaker 1: got the corridors. Then you've got the overseated food. Now
25:43
Speaker 1: you've got these saplings new sprouts. I mean, it seems
25:46
Speaker 1: like you're really providing primo primo habitat in the spots
25:51
Speaker 1: you really really want them. So it seems that you
25:53
Speaker 1: can really focus where it's most likely that the majority
25:56
Speaker 1: of deer or the deer that you want to be
25:58
Speaker 1: there will be. Yeah, that truly is it? You know?
26:02
Speaker 1: Throughout spacing one of the things I was curious about,
26:05
Speaker 1: and I think based on what I saw, well, I
26:07
Speaker 1: guess all you just answer, but do you try to
26:09
Speaker 1: space betting areas in a certain way or do you
26:12
Speaker 1: want them to be a connected stretch of betting that
26:15
Speaker 1: never ends? And all that. It's kind of topography property specific.
26:21
Speaker 1: So the first place we walked into was actually where
26:23
Speaker 1: I started thirty years ago hinge cutting, and there's a big,
26:27
Speaker 1: a natural peninsula there. We eventually got to that peninsula
26:30
Speaker 1: which had natural dear bedding to start with, even though
26:32
Speaker 1: it was pretty poor habitat. So I decided to take
26:35
Speaker 1: that entire peninsula and work towards the food plots and
26:39
Speaker 1: create a lot of room for deer to bed There's
26:43
Speaker 1: I don't know how many deer could bet in there.
26:45
Speaker 1: It's a big area. It's probably four and a half
26:49
Speaker 1: five acres of hinge cutting at this point. And you
26:52
Speaker 1: and you did see had a very major east west
26:55
Speaker 1: travel corridor. I went right down through the middle of it,
26:57
Speaker 1: and then all these spurs of trails that go right
27:00
Speaker 1: or left off of that, deer could enter an exit
27:02
Speaker 1: different hinge cut areas. So my thought there was I
27:07
Speaker 1: wanted to load a whole bunch of doughs in there
27:09
Speaker 1: and provide one major travel corridor bucks could cruise through.
27:15
Speaker 1: And you saw I had a stand down on the
27:17
Speaker 1: east end of it, and I've got to stand on
27:19
Speaker 1: the west end of it, depending on wind and other conditions.
27:23
Speaker 1: I now have stands I can pretty easily get into
27:25
Speaker 1: in the rut, and if the wind conditions right, it's
27:28
Speaker 1: the right time of the year, I should have one
27:30
Speaker 1: of my shooters come by. That's the goal, yea, And
27:34
Speaker 1: most of the time works that way. So I'm pretty
27:38
Speaker 1: happy with that. I can see why you'd be happy.
27:41
Speaker 1: I mean, there were so many examples. While walking around
27:43
Speaker 1: we're just you're just thinking in your head, Wow, this
27:46
Speaker 1: lays out just perfect for this given wind direction of
27:49
Speaker 1: that time of year. Oh yeah, I could see exactly
27:51
Speaker 1: they'd be coming right there here. Probably one thing I
27:55
Speaker 1: mean we might want to talk a little bit is
27:56
Speaker 1: how that all tied into the location of those destinations
27:59
Speaker 1: food plots. Yeah, let's talk about that. So I have
28:02
Speaker 1: destination food plots to the south of these benning areas
28:06
Speaker 1: and to the west of those betting areas. So can
28:08
Speaker 1: we can? We can? We? Let's try to paint a
28:10
Speaker 1: picture real quick, would you say? Let's imagine like a
28:14
Speaker 1: rectangle that will say is your cover, and then on
28:18
Speaker 1: the south border of that rectangle is a destination food play.
28:23
Speaker 1: Right on the west angle or west side of that
28:25
Speaker 1: rectangle rectangle is another and then the whole rectangle then
28:29
Speaker 1: is hinge cuts and these corridors and all that stuff. Okay,
28:32
Speaker 1: so now continue that makes that makes good sense. So
28:35
Speaker 1: the way the reason I set that up is a
28:38
Speaker 1: lot of people focus on what they call predominant wind,
28:42
Speaker 1: and so in this part of southern Michigan, most people
28:44
Speaker 1: are gonna talk south or southwest. Well, that's under mild conditions.
28:48
Speaker 1: That's not when I get good buck movement. Yeah, they move.
28:53
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say they don't. There's some great deer
28:55
Speaker 1: killed during those conditions. But I am really cold front
28:58
Speaker 1: post cold front hunter. So you're talking about a northwest wind,
29:02
Speaker 1: and a lot of times in the fall, I don't
29:04
Speaker 1: know why, but a lot of times in the fall
29:06
Speaker 1: we start getting southeast and easterly winds, So I'm trying
29:10
Speaker 1: to move those deer, and most dear like to move
29:12
Speaker 1: no nose into some angle cross wind. So if the
29:17
Speaker 1: wind is from the south, and say it is mild weather,
29:20
Speaker 1: then they're going to move out of that rectangle of
29:23
Speaker 1: cover to the bottom of the page, heading to those
29:26
Speaker 1: food plots. So I'm going to strategically get myself in
29:29
Speaker 1: between there, and that's the rut. If the wind is
29:32
Speaker 1: from the west or the northwest, then they're gonna start
29:36
Speaker 1: going to the left hand side of that trying or rectangle,
29:40
Speaker 1: and the same thing. I'm just trying to put myself
29:42
Speaker 1: along the edges of those betting areas to ambush one
29:46
Speaker 1: of those cruising bucks. That's my goal. If I'm trying
29:49
Speaker 1: to kill dose in the early season, I'm a lot
29:52
Speaker 1: closer to the food, but I'm still utilizing that same
29:55
Speaker 1: movement pattern. Now, we were talking about something. We were
29:58
Speaker 1: walking around looking at all these betting areas, and we're
30:00
Speaker 1: talking about how you must just be able to pack
30:02
Speaker 1: so many doughs into these bedding a. I mean, there's
30:04
Speaker 1: so much great habitat, so many deer could be in there,
30:07
Speaker 1: and you've got plenty of food. But then we start
30:09
Speaker 1: talking about is there a risk to having too many
30:12
Speaker 1: doughs like some some people we talked to talk about
30:14
Speaker 1: the risk of having a dough factory. You said you
30:17
Speaker 1: added some different perspectives on that. You know, I lose
30:22
Speaker 1: my dear once my food is all consumed. So the
30:25
Speaker 1: first thing they're gonna do when they eat everything that
30:28
Speaker 1: is in my destination food plots is they're gonna go
30:30
Speaker 1: to woody browse because that's very important food, especially at
30:33
Speaker 1: that stress time of the year. So you can see
30:35
Speaker 1: I'm really well covered with woody brows. But they do
30:38
Speaker 1: like large destination from plots to go to. So throughout
30:41
Speaker 1: the summer, I have a local hurt, probably thirty some
30:45
Speaker 1: deer utilizing this property. At this time of the year,
30:48
Speaker 1: we get the rut and later and they heard doubles,
30:52
Speaker 1: sometimes triples because a gun season and pressure. But they
30:56
Speaker 1: do disperse and get out of here come late February,
31:00
Speaker 1: middle of March when the food pretty much goes away.
31:02
Speaker 1: So it seems like right about antler drop all the
31:04
Speaker 1: bucks leaves bummer for um. But you know, anybody who hunts,
31:12
Speaker 1: especially let's add the Michigan element. Okay, Michigan is a
31:16
Speaker 1: tough state for the length of season, lots of different reasons,
31:19
Speaker 1: so mature bucks are not near as common as they are,
31:22
Speaker 1: say Illinois, Iowa, those those states, Missouri. So I like
31:28
Speaker 1: having a lot of doughs, and I like knowing where
31:30
Speaker 1: those doughs are betted because that one shooter or two
31:34
Speaker 1: shooter bucks I'm getting on camera becomes a lot more
31:37
Speaker 1: predictable because his whole focus is about getting a date.
31:41
Speaker 1: So for me, it works to my advantage and success. Um.
31:46
Speaker 1: I hope that answered that question. No, it did. Um,
31:49
Speaker 1: you were you were telling us a few stories while
31:51
Speaker 1: we're out there of bucks that you've recently killed that
31:55
Speaker 1: I think we're doing just where you're talking about there.
31:57
Speaker 1: Would you say that Brutus was an example of that?
32:00
Speaker 1: He was a perfect example of it. So that was
32:02
Speaker 1: his past year. Could you tell us about that hunt
32:04
Speaker 1: that deer, and then what aspects of your habitat work
32:10
Speaker 1: and the property made that all come together? Now? Okay, Um,
32:15
Speaker 1: this deer had a very typical rack. He didn't have
32:18
Speaker 1: any any special markings. But I started paying attention to
32:22
Speaker 1: him when he was a three and a half year
32:23
Speaker 1: old and at that point, so that would have been
32:26
Speaker 1: in twenties sixteen and at ten I had finally got
32:30
Speaker 1: to that point where if they're not four and a half,
32:31
Speaker 1: I'm not killing him. And he just had really cool,
32:34
Speaker 1: you know, low one thirties type rack. He actually was
32:36
Speaker 1: a nine point in in sixteen and uh So through
32:42
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, through summer and spring, I started getting pictures.
32:46
Speaker 1: Actually saw him turkey hunting and he had big cans
32:49
Speaker 1: on his head and he just had a body and
32:50
Speaker 1: I should show you the picture of his body, but
32:52
Speaker 1: he looked like he was on steroids. He really did.
32:54
Speaker 1: So I nicknamed him Brutus and started getting velvet pictures
32:58
Speaker 1: of him, and so, uh I knew that this deer
33:02
Speaker 1: was spending quite a bit of time here and in
33:04
Speaker 1: the summer it's so random. Yeah, they're gonna be in
33:06
Speaker 1: in particular food plots quite often, but as far as
33:10
Speaker 1: how he's getting to, you know, from one point to
33:13
Speaker 1: the others, it really is random, especially on this property.
33:17
Speaker 1: So I I had this great bedding area that you
33:21
Speaker 1: had been in, and it just had all has all
33:23
Speaker 1: the all the food, it has all the openings for dose.
33:26
Speaker 1: It's capable of holding probably to thirty dos in a
33:30
Speaker 1: two acre area. And I had cut a what I
33:34
Speaker 1: call a barrier hinge cut about sixty yards long to
33:38
Speaker 1: the west of that betting area. It stopped about forty
33:41
Speaker 1: yards from that bedding area. At the very end of
33:43
Speaker 1: that barrier was a triple oak tree that I hung
33:46
Speaker 1: a stand in. And when you say barrier hinge cut,
33:50
Speaker 1: it's cut very low to the ground, so low that
33:52
Speaker 1: deer cannot bed in it. And it's more of like
33:54
Speaker 1: a fence. Imagine a bunch of trees cut all parallel
33:57
Speaker 1: to each other, laying across the each other, so that
34:00
Speaker 1: deer cannot physically go through it. Don't want to write,
34:04
Speaker 1: being the lazy deer they are, they normally go around it.
34:06
Speaker 1: So I left this gap about a thirty five to
34:09
Speaker 1: forty yard gap from the end of that hinge cutting
34:12
Speaker 1: to that really good dough betting area. And there's also
34:16
Speaker 1: a bunch of scrape limbs that I have all tied
34:18
Speaker 1: in very close there. And my whole goal about hunting
34:22
Speaker 1: that area was waiting for the perfect time of the
34:24
Speaker 1: year because now I'm talking about a four and a
34:26
Speaker 1: half year old Michigan buck, which is really extremely tough
34:30
Speaker 1: animal to hunt. So I run, I run a couple
34:34
Speaker 1: of game cameras in strategic scrapes that I can drive
34:37
Speaker 1: an electric cart to and pull the card out of
34:40
Speaker 1: and get out and get data and not leave any
34:42
Speaker 1: sent on scrapes I would never hunt over. And I
34:45
Speaker 1: started getting data on that deer all through the month
34:48
Speaker 1: of October, but it was all nighttime data. And as
34:52
Speaker 1: we got more and more into November, I started getting
34:55
Speaker 1: he was now twenty minutes till daylight or ten minutes
34:59
Speaker 1: after dark. And the Saturday before November eight, I pulled
35:03
Speaker 1: the cards and I had two days of him in daylight.
35:06
Speaker 1: So I said, cool, Brutus is moving during daylight. I
35:09
Speaker 1: started to move around, and so I was. I waited
35:12
Speaker 1: for a northwest wind day after cold front high pressure day.
35:16
Speaker 1: So I look at the ten day forecast on weather
35:19
Speaker 1: Underground and I see that the upcoming Wednesday, I have
35:23
Speaker 1: just that a twenty degree temperature drop, high pressure, northwest wind.
35:28
Speaker 1: It happens to be November eight. There isn't a better day.
35:31
Speaker 1: It's funny. November seven is when I got my my
35:36
Speaker 1: my one opportunity to holy Field see it, and I didn't.
35:40
Speaker 1: I was look at my phone and I was, but
35:43
Speaker 1: you had an opportunity was there, So it would have
35:45
Speaker 1: been that day of the cold front I think was hitting,
35:46
Speaker 1: and you were on the day after that. No. No,
35:49
Speaker 1: And what I'll do is a lot of people talk
35:52
Speaker 1: about cold fronts, and cold fronts are great as they approach,
35:55
Speaker 1: and you're gonna get a lot of your younger deer
35:57
Speaker 1: and had it gonna be your doughs and bucks and
36:00
Speaker 1: one and a half and two and a half year
36:01
Speaker 1: old bucks. But when you start getting three and a
36:02
Speaker 1: half and older, and especially in a high pressure state
36:05
Speaker 1: like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, I think those older bucks just
36:09
Speaker 1: weighed out the nasty weather, the gusty. Usually there's rain, snow,
36:13
Speaker 1: a little bit of everything mixed in with it, and
36:16
Speaker 1: they like that following day and getting up and covering ground.
36:20
Speaker 1: Their precipitation is over, so they're gonna open up and
36:22
Speaker 1: refreshen all of their scrapes too. So I knew the
36:27
Speaker 1: date and the conditions were right. There was one thing
36:30
Speaker 1: that I was looking for, and as I so, I
36:33
Speaker 1: go to US prime times for moon position. It was
36:37
Speaker 1: about four or five days after the full moon. I
36:39
Speaker 1: really don't care about the phase it was in, but
36:42
Speaker 1: on that day there was a moon miner, which means
36:45
Speaker 1: the moon was going to set at about eleven thirty
36:48
Speaker 1: that day. And I actually told my wife the night before,
36:51
Speaker 1: I said I'm getting up early. I'm gonna go kill brutus.
36:53
Speaker 1: And I said I'm gonna hunt til two o'clock because
36:55
Speaker 1: I said, we've got a moon miner right around noon.
36:59
Speaker 1: And the coolest thing was I you saw the stand.
37:01
Speaker 1: I headed into that stand, got into that stand in
37:05
Speaker 1: right ten minutes after daylight. I had one year and
37:07
Speaker 1: a half old buck behind a young dough acting a
37:11
Speaker 1: bit bucky, but not he He was not chasing, he
37:14
Speaker 1: was just followinger. And you know, they moved out, and
37:19
Speaker 1: just like I expected, there was zero deer movement. I
37:21
Speaker 1: saw some turkeys and some squirrels, and I think I
37:24
Speaker 1: saw one coyote come through, but there was very little
37:26
Speaker 1: deer movement. A couple of dolls here and there off
37:29
Speaker 1: in the edge stand up the hinge cut that I
37:31
Speaker 1: was watching. And as it got closer to that time,
37:34
Speaker 1: and I was very aware of the time that it
37:36
Speaker 1: was gonna be it was. I remember looking because I
37:37
Speaker 1: always have a watch on my backpack just to keep track.
37:40
Speaker 1: It was twenty minutes to eleven, and here comes a buck.
37:44
Speaker 1: And then right after that, boy, here's two doughs, and
37:46
Speaker 1: here's some funds. Here's another buck. And for twenty minutes,
37:49
Speaker 1: the only word I can use as pandemonium. Out in
37:52
Speaker 1: that stand, I had fifty deer, seven antler bucks, three bucks,
37:57
Speaker 1: three and a half in older moving around in front
37:59
Speaker 1: of me. Just give me a show. In my lifetime,
38:01
Speaker 1: there was You saw all those scrapes where there were
38:04
Speaker 1: bucks hitting scrapes, There were bucks rubbing. There was a
38:07
Speaker 1: buck in that hinge cut, snort, wheezing. Uh my, my
38:11
Speaker 1: real cool ten point, I call Mr Perfect. He was
38:14
Speaker 1: out there. And the coolest thing was as I got
38:17
Speaker 1: closer to eleven and I was not watching the clock,
38:19
Speaker 1: then I watched. I had a couple three of the
38:22
Speaker 1: bucks off to my be to my more, a little
38:25
Speaker 1: bit south and little east, and I noticed them all
38:28
Speaker 1: turned their heads and looked to the west. At that
38:30
Speaker 1: my moment, I heard something coming. I turned my head.
38:33
Speaker 1: Here comes Brutus and he and like all mature bucks,
38:36
Speaker 1: he's not fooling around, he's not walking slow. It's it's
38:39
Speaker 1: not a it's not a trot, but it's just short
38:42
Speaker 1: of a trot. You've seen that how they come through
38:43
Speaker 1: the woods at that time of the year. And I
38:45
Speaker 1: had just enough time to get my bow and he
38:49
Speaker 1: was in the shooting lane and I grunted and he stopped,
38:52
Speaker 1: and I made a perfect double long shot and in
38:54
Speaker 1: fifteen seconds he was on the ground dead. So what
38:56
Speaker 1: do you think he was doing? Like? Why was he
38:58
Speaker 1: coming from where he was coming and heading headed? So
39:00
Speaker 1: I had a pretty good idea where he was betting,
39:02
Speaker 1: and I showed you guys later hinge cut, so about
39:05
Speaker 1: a hundred yards and there is a hinge cut on
39:07
Speaker 1: a hill that bucks typically use. So my goal when
39:10
Speaker 1: I went in there that morning was if he's where
39:12
Speaker 1: I think he is, he'll be in that hinge cut,
39:14
Speaker 1: he'll wait until just before that moon miner and he'll
39:17
Speaker 1: start cruising for doze. So he was trying to get
39:22
Speaker 1: south of that betting area with a northwest wind. He's
39:25
Speaker 1: trying to get on the down wind side of that
39:26
Speaker 1: betting area to cross any trail and smell any doze
39:30
Speaker 1: that are an estress, And that really is his goal.
39:33
Speaker 1: And I just cut him off just before he got
39:34
Speaker 1: in there. Yeah, perfect perfect placement. Then with that, with
39:38
Speaker 1: that that barrier hinge cut to it narrows down the
39:41
Speaker 1: area that he might go through, the perfect spot between
39:44
Speaker 1: the betting areas. I mean, it was a beautiful, beautiful setup.
39:47
Speaker 1: It's a really good set. And and and that was
39:49
Speaker 1: two years in the making. I had to relocate that
39:51
Speaker 1: stay in a couple of times, but that was my
39:53
Speaker 1: first time in this year. So there's a handful of
39:56
Speaker 1: things within that I'd like pick a part of more.
39:58
Speaker 1: But you talked about the moon miner, and interestingly, a
40:01
Speaker 1: few months before this hunt, I actually called you to
40:03
Speaker 1: to get some insight for an art Claus writing and
40:06
Speaker 1: you talked about this your perspective on the moon. Because
40:08
Speaker 1: there's so many different theories about the moon. Some studies
40:11
Speaker 1: show that there's nothing to the moon. Some people swear
40:14
Speaker 1: by the moon, some people swear by moon positions, some
40:17
Speaker 1: people swear the moon phase. Some people swear by what
40:20
Speaker 1: color of the moon is and what the stars are
40:22
Speaker 1: lined up. But what what's your take on the moon? Um,
40:26
Speaker 1: because you mentioned the moon minor, can you kind of
40:28
Speaker 1: elaborate in general? What matters? How do you look at it?
40:30
Speaker 1: So for me, just so that everybody can understand, it's
40:34
Speaker 1: it's a position of the moon, and there's the moon
40:37
Speaker 1: is closest to the Earth and farthest from the Earth
40:39
Speaker 1: at two times during the day. And so when the
40:42
Speaker 1: moon is directly overhead or directly under underneath, that's called
40:46
Speaker 1: a major that's and that's closest to the Earth typically.
40:50
Speaker 1: And then when it's on the horizon the moon is
40:52
Speaker 1: either rising or setting, it's also fairly close to the Earth.
40:55
Speaker 1: So it's believed to be a gravitational poll. There may
40:58
Speaker 1: be more to it than that. Only time I pay
41:02
Speaker 1: attention to it is when it's at eleven eleven thirty,
41:05
Speaker 1: when it's a non peak movement period. You know, deer
41:09
Speaker 1: a precuspual animals, they moved that first hour and a
41:12
Speaker 1: half a daylight, that last hour and a half a daylight.
41:14
Speaker 1: So if you have a peak moon position during that time,
41:19
Speaker 1: it's not gonna make a big difference anyway, but it's
41:22
Speaker 1: really going to make a big difference in an odd
41:24
Speaker 1: time of the day when deer normally aren't moving. Imagine
41:27
Speaker 1: how many hunters went out on November eight there was
41:30
Speaker 1: zero deer moving. They they sat till ten ten thirty
41:34
Speaker 1: and said, well, heck with that, I'm going back getting
41:36
Speaker 1: some coffee and it was just getting good. And so
41:42
Speaker 1: it's not the end all, but but when you have
41:45
Speaker 1: all the other factors, I've done it enough to see
41:47
Speaker 1: it work, so so yes, And this is something we
41:50
Speaker 1: ask a lot of people and I'm always endlessly fascinated
41:53
Speaker 1: by it. But how would you rank than all these
41:55
Speaker 1: different factors that might increase or decreased dear movement? Because
41:58
Speaker 1: you talked about timing and being really or so you
42:00
Speaker 1: mentioned that, you mentioned a bunch, but can you just
42:02
Speaker 1: kind of prioritize them for time of year? First ten
42:06
Speaker 1: days in November definitely a huge factor. Okay, because where
42:10
Speaker 1: we're at in this part of Michigan that is pretty
42:13
Speaker 1: much the seeking phase and the pre rut. So that's
42:16
Speaker 1: so that's number one timing, And then I'm gonna go
42:18
Speaker 1: with weather conditions. It was post cold front, a gusty
42:23
Speaker 1: five to eight mile an hour northwest wind, and it
42:26
Speaker 1: was also high pressure. Uh, I'm not the only guy
42:29
Speaker 1: that talks about high pressure. A lot of guys focus
42:31
Speaker 1: on high pressure. I think I think high pressure gets
42:34
Speaker 1: a lot of deer up and moving. They don't they
42:36
Speaker 1: don't know why, but it gets moving. So I'd rank
42:40
Speaker 1: that I'd rank those three conditions first and then the
42:43
Speaker 1: fourth one being moon position. So we talked about how
42:47
Speaker 1: you sweeten your betting areas. Would you look at the moon?
42:50
Speaker 1: Is that kind of sweetener to these other things that
42:52
Speaker 1: you want all these other factors, and that's gonna tell you, yeah,
42:54
Speaker 1: it's gonna be good. Then if also this moon factor
42:57
Speaker 1: lines up and it tells me that you might want
42:59
Speaker 1: to pay a little extra attention to this point of
43:01
Speaker 1: the day, that kind of just gives you a little
43:03
Speaker 1: bit more reason to be yeah, rather than going back
43:07
Speaker 1: to get coffee at ten, stay till afternoon, right through
43:10
Speaker 1: that moon fade factor position in that phase and just
43:14
Speaker 1: see what it gets you. Because you know, I think
43:17
Speaker 1: if you did that ten years in a row, always
43:19
Speaker 1: played that, you'd probably find that six of those years
43:22
Speaker 1: it was good. Some years everything's right. So I mean,
43:26
Speaker 1: you can have the sweetened betting the right day, the
43:29
Speaker 1: right time of the year, the right weather conditions. You
43:31
Speaker 1: just don't see that shooter. There's a lot of things
43:33
Speaker 1: that happened we don't know about. He goes left right.
43:36
Speaker 1: He got in a fight with a buck the night before,
43:38
Speaker 1: and he's licking his wounds somewhere you don't know what's
43:40
Speaker 1: going on, But all things being equal, I think we
43:43
Speaker 1: stand a better chance. You know how hard it is market.
43:47
Speaker 1: It seems like we have to line everything up, don't we,
43:50
Speaker 1: you know? And if I can add one thing, I've
43:53
Speaker 1: learned in the last ten years to be very disciplined
43:57
Speaker 1: and just stayed to hack out of my good areas
43:59
Speaker 1: until it's right. Yeah, I think that contributes huge. Okay,
44:03
Speaker 1: a fresh sad. No one will tell you any differently,
44:06
Speaker 1: first time in fresh stand is the best opportunity you'll
44:08
Speaker 1: ever have to kill a mature buck. So so on
44:11
Speaker 1: that point, we talked about it a lot out there
44:13
Speaker 1: when we were walking. Before you killed Brutus. How many
44:16
Speaker 1: times had you been in hunting that season? So I
44:20
Speaker 1: know you were looking for just that perfect for as
44:22
Speaker 1: far as a rut, that was my third rut hunt
44:26
Speaker 1: of the whole property, of the whole property, and I
44:28
Speaker 1: did the first time on that stand, first time in
44:31
Speaker 1: that stand. I hunted um just November three. I hunted
44:35
Speaker 1: with a decoy, had a very successful hunt, could have
44:38
Speaker 1: killed a really neat dear, but he was just too young.
44:41
Speaker 1: But everything was perfect and that happened to be a
44:44
Speaker 1: cold front as well. It was an evening hunt. It's
44:47
Speaker 1: easy to get in, just had fun, got the greatest
44:49
Speaker 1: video and it learned so much about that dear, and
44:52
Speaker 1: then uh, November seven, I told you about my real
44:56
Speaker 1: hard to get to stand on the opposite side of
44:58
Speaker 1: the water when a there and hunted until afternoon and
45:01
Speaker 1: never had a shooter. It was kind of debt. But
45:03
Speaker 1: the moon position was not good interest and there could
45:07
Speaker 1: have been other factors there too, but it was not
45:10
Speaker 1: post cold front. The cold front rolled in on the
45:13
Speaker 1: evening of November seven, and it was so it was
45:16
Speaker 1: the morning of November eight was post cold front. That
45:18
Speaker 1: could have something to do with the two, but that
45:20
Speaker 1: was three separate hunts. It was the right time of
45:23
Speaker 1: the year. And then finally I'll pulled together and that
45:26
Speaker 1: was a great day because I I had probably ten
45:29
Speaker 1: minutes before I passed him. I passed a hundred and
45:31
Speaker 1: twenty point. It's a hard pass in Michigan. I got
45:34
Speaker 1: good video at him and he's easy eighteen inside. Wow. Nice,
45:39
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a great one this year. Yeah. Based
45:42
Speaker 1: on what I'm hearing, it sounds like you've got some
45:44
Speaker 1: very promising things look forward. To this year. But I'm
45:46
Speaker 1: hoping between that deer and then the Mr Perfect you
45:49
Speaker 1: were talking about. So you know, it's like with everything,
45:53
Speaker 1: I don't care what you do in life. The harder
45:55
Speaker 1: you work, the luckier you get. Okay, So I do
45:59
Speaker 1: work hard on my habitat. I worked. I worked very
46:01
Speaker 1: hard in the habitat, getting the trail systems right, getting
46:04
Speaker 1: my stands in the right location. And then one thing
46:09
Speaker 1: we haven't touched on, but I know we talked about
46:12
Speaker 1: this two years ago and it's a said ways Perfect.
46:15
Speaker 1: I work really hard on my set control. Yeah. Yeah,
46:17
Speaker 1: so let's talk a little bit about that too. I
46:19
Speaker 1: know we talked a little bit, but give us a
46:21
Speaker 1: refresher on that, because again, all we've talked about how
46:24
Speaker 1: important timing is, and timing is important because you're trying
46:28
Speaker 1: to minimize your pressure on deer until the right times,
46:30
Speaker 1: and by being really smart about set control, you're also
46:34
Speaker 1: minimizing that pressure. So most people think, oh, yeah, I'm
46:37
Speaker 1: good at sect control. I take a shower and I
46:39
Speaker 1: buy this, I buy the spray and I spray myself
46:41
Speaker 1: and I wear a carbon suit. So I'm pretty good
46:44
Speaker 1: at my set control. And for most people, that is
46:46
Speaker 1: pretty good, But I go much farther than that. I
46:48
Speaker 1: use zero light to cover my body. I've walked you through.
46:51
Speaker 1: I mean the moment I get out of my shower,
46:54
Speaker 1: I dry with a towel that is not in the
46:56
Speaker 1: family laundry. It gets it gets washed in a separate wash.
47:00
Speaker 1: Every layer I wear gets covered with zeol powder. All
47:06
Speaker 1: of my clothing is exposed in an ozone room, exposed
47:10
Speaker 1: to ozone and as I layer up in the bottoms
47:13
Speaker 1: of my boots are in carbon activated toates, constantly washed.
47:17
Speaker 1: And I think that's probably the biggest key is the
47:20
Speaker 1: bottom of your boots, the bottom and the edges of
47:22
Speaker 1: your boots. So these boots that I wear hunting never
47:25
Speaker 1: get in a truck, never go to a restaurant, a
47:27
Speaker 1: gas station, They never touch pavement. They only sit in
47:31
Speaker 1: a tote where they go hunting. They get washed after
47:33
Speaker 1: every hunt, completely retreated, dried, covered in zeo light. Um,
47:39
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a bit of I leave white tracks going
47:42
Speaker 1: across my y when I walk out of my walkout
47:44
Speaker 1: base from it. I mean, you can see it in
47:46
Speaker 1: the grass, and that's the zeal light stuck on the
47:48
Speaker 1: bottom of my boots. But I think it. It gets
47:50
Speaker 1: me in because you saw where I hunt, deer are
47:53
Speaker 1: going to cross my path. There's no way it can't happen.
47:57
Speaker 1: So a lot of these dose young bucks, middle age
48:00
Speaker 1: bucks cross it and they just have no clue. I
48:02
Speaker 1: was there, and that's all I want to do with
48:04
Speaker 1: I can't if they're downwind to me, they're gonna smell me.
48:08
Speaker 1: But I honestly believe they think I'm a hundred yards
48:11
Speaker 1: away and I'm not twenty yards. That's all I want,
48:14
Speaker 1: and that that can sometimes make and I think too.
48:19
Speaker 1: To segue a little bit as the why it's so important,
48:23
Speaker 1: along with how often we hunt as great a property
48:27
Speaker 1: as it is, is how many pictures are getting of
48:29
Speaker 1: Holy Field. If we go in and hunt and we
48:31
Speaker 1: aren't successful, and we go again and we're not successful,
48:35
Speaker 1: and we go again and we're not successful. At night
48:38
Speaker 1: when we're sleeping, every deer in that area is learning
48:42
Speaker 1: about whoever's hunting that deer, So it's an accumulated effect.
48:47
Speaker 1: The harder we hunt them, the harder they are to kill.
48:52
Speaker 1: I'm convinced, okay, And I killed the five and a
48:56
Speaker 1: half year old buck in a very similar situation trying
48:58
Speaker 1: to get downwind of a big dough betting area first
49:02
Speaker 1: time in that was right. He super cool. Here, this
49:05
Speaker 1: is right here, right here. You know, he never was
49:07
Speaker 1: gonna grow much, but he was the toughest critter he
49:10
Speaker 1: ever saw. Walk us through that scenario than too, because
49:13
Speaker 1: I feel like I always find that these specific examples
49:16
Speaker 1: are the most helpful for me, like hearing exactly why
49:19
Speaker 1: you did what you did, how it worked, what happened.
49:21
Speaker 1: The coolest thing was right he was all the history
49:24
Speaker 1: I had this year from from the time he was
49:26
Speaker 1: a year and a half old. He was fighting. Every
49:29
Speaker 1: time I saw him, he was fighting, and he was
49:31
Speaker 1: always breaking all of his antlers off, even as a
49:33
Speaker 1: year and a half yet one antler and he was
49:35
Speaker 1: a four point and he all he had with one
49:37
Speaker 1: time on it, you know, and he he was out
49:39
Speaker 1: there all puffed up, just just fighting everybody. And I
49:42
Speaker 1: just thought he was, you know, just an angry little
49:44
Speaker 1: year to half. When he got when he got to
49:46
Speaker 1: be two and a half, and that's this two and
49:48
Speaker 1: a half shed right there, threw five. He grew five
49:51
Speaker 1: on the right and he just had a fork with
49:54
Speaker 1: some little stickers on his left. And I wasn't sure
49:57
Speaker 1: what was wrong with him, but I just thought he
49:59
Speaker 1: was a be cool dear. But it was the same thing.
50:01
Speaker 1: If I got any pictures he was fighting, I did
50:04
Speaker 1: because he was two and a half. I saw him
50:06
Speaker 1: a couple of times, got some video, got some pictures.
50:09
Speaker 1: So let him get the three and a half. And
50:11
Speaker 1: at that point, I've done enough research with other dear
50:14
Speaker 1: biologists and I talked to actually talked to Kep Adams
50:17
Speaker 1: and uh Matt Ross about this dear, and they said, yeah,
50:22
Speaker 1: it's probably a pedical injury and that that type of thing,
50:25
Speaker 1: and so I was willing to see what would happen,
50:29
Speaker 1: so I let him go to four and a half.
50:30
Speaker 1: I passed him once at at three and a half
50:32
Speaker 1: with a with a muzzleloader because I had killed that
50:34
Speaker 1: ten point the year before, which was a really good
50:36
Speaker 1: afternoon hunt. So I've I've gotten pretty good at killing
50:40
Speaker 1: nice mature dear on this farm. So I passed righty
50:44
Speaker 1: because I had already killed a pretty decent ten point.
50:47
Speaker 1: So now he moves into four and a half, and
50:49
Speaker 1: as a four and a half year old, you would
50:52
Speaker 1: never get a picture of this deer in velvet with
50:54
Speaker 1: another bug. If you got a picture of him. He
50:56
Speaker 1: was always alone and the only time you saw him
50:58
Speaker 1: with another deer it was during the seeking and chasing phase.
51:02
Speaker 1: He was fighting. So he was a pretty cool deer.
51:05
Speaker 1: And so I wrote an article after I killed him
51:07
Speaker 1: in the Quality White Tales called Righty the Fighter, just
51:09
Speaker 1: because of who he was, and he fought a lot.
51:13
Speaker 1: But I got enough data on that deer by the
51:15
Speaker 1: time he was four and a half to basically focus
51:20
Speaker 1: on an area he was spending time and make sure
51:24
Speaker 1: I hunt that during that four or five days. I
51:27
Speaker 1: got daylight pictures of him the year before, so that's
51:30
Speaker 1: what I did. I looked back on the calendar, reviewed
51:33
Speaker 1: the photos, saw the days. Those days were November eleventh
51:38
Speaker 1: through November fifte of the prior year, so we had
51:42
Speaker 1: November twelfth of sixteen. We had post cold front, high pressure,
51:47
Speaker 1: moon major at eight thirty that morning, northwest wind, so
51:53
Speaker 1: he saw the stand I got into because I got
51:56
Speaker 1: more pictures of him in that area than anywhere. I thought,
51:59
Speaker 1: he's probably cruising through here trying to get into that
52:01
Speaker 1: corridor and get down wind of those doughs. So that
52:04
Speaker 1: was a morning hunt. That was the first deer through
52:08
Speaker 1: that morning. I shot him at twenty after eight. Can
52:13
Speaker 1: you describe how that stand layout was in relation to
52:15
Speaker 1: the habitat, because this is a different spot than the
52:17
Speaker 1: bird spot. I think you called this the refrigerators, called
52:19
Speaker 1: the refrigerators because there's an old refrigerator about forty yards
52:23
Speaker 1: away from there that's been there since I was just
52:25
Speaker 1: a teenager. So the previous owner of this property used
52:28
Speaker 1: that part of the property as a dump. That's what
52:30
Speaker 1: I called the refrigerator. But what it is is a
52:32
Speaker 1: it's a highland understand, twenty two ft to this uh
52:36
Speaker 1: to either I think we're we're the feet are I
52:38
Speaker 1: think it's twenty four Where I'm city and I'm in
52:40
Speaker 1: a double white oak right on the edge of the water,
52:44
Speaker 1: and there's a major deer corridor travel zone just to
52:49
Speaker 1: the south of me about fifteen yards and I'm right
52:52
Speaker 1: up tight to the water, and I'm on the west
52:55
Speaker 1: end of all this hinge cutting area. If people can
52:58
Speaker 1: see this, So I utilize water as a pinch, and
53:02
Speaker 1: I'm I'm uptight against that water trying to catch a
53:05
Speaker 1: buck going up and down that cord or either going
53:09
Speaker 1: from the west to the east or the east of
53:11
Speaker 1: the west. Because you never quite know the tail wind
53:13
Speaker 1: that deer was tail winding that day, and his goal
53:16
Speaker 1: was to get down wind of that betting area. He
53:18
Speaker 1: was heading into that dough betting area searching for doughs,
53:21
Speaker 1: and I just happened to be there, and again it
53:23
Speaker 1: was first time in It was gosh, maybe maybe ten
53:28
Speaker 1: yards was the shot. It was very close and the
53:30
Speaker 1: same thing. He didn't go forty yards and it was great.
53:33
Speaker 1: You talked about how you used trail camera data from
53:36
Speaker 1: the year before, and when we were out walking around,
53:39
Speaker 1: you showed us a handful of spots where you usually
53:41
Speaker 1: get good pictures during the year, and you had some
53:43
Speaker 1: cameras out right now monitoring some summer activity and stuff.
53:46
Speaker 1: Can you just walk us through your trail camera up
53:48
Speaker 1: um strategy basically how you managed to do that without
53:52
Speaker 1: screwing things up, because I think most of us who's
53:57
Speaker 1: ever gotten trail cameras and had a good deer to
54:00
Speaker 1: ace have probably broken all the right laws that we
54:04
Speaker 1: know we shouldn't do, and that as we check them
54:06
Speaker 1: too often, we don't pay attention to our scent like
54:09
Speaker 1: we think we should. We're still getting pictures of deer,
54:12
Speaker 1: so it can't be bothering them, right, And if you
54:14
Speaker 1: want to learn a lot about your deer, just put
54:16
Speaker 1: your camera on video mode and see how they react
54:20
Speaker 1: once they see that camera. Teaching awful. I don't know
54:22
Speaker 1: if you've ever done that or not. You know, I
54:24
Speaker 1: never use the video mode of mind. I really shouldn't,
54:26
Speaker 1: and you will find mature bucks doing things you cannot
54:29
Speaker 1: believe along with those. Yeah. So, but what I do
54:34
Speaker 1: is I have two scrapes that are easy to get
54:36
Speaker 1: to that I haven't I do not hunt around, but
54:39
Speaker 1: I can drive my cart right to it, and so
54:42
Speaker 1: I use those scrapes to monitor because I've found over
54:45
Speaker 1: the years these two scrapes, ones over on the east
54:47
Speaker 1: end of the property. The old one is right in
54:49
Speaker 1: the core of my habitat a little food plot. If
54:52
Speaker 1: I can monitor mature buck movement on those scrapes, because
54:55
Speaker 1: that's all I'm concerned about. You know, some people just
54:58
Speaker 1: want to get pictures of deer or that doesn't matter
55:00
Speaker 1: to me during the rut, and I'm not gonna have
55:02
Speaker 1: one game camera anywhere where I'm hunting. And the reason is,
55:07
Speaker 1: you know, I don't care if it's a cell cam.
55:09
Speaker 1: I don't care how you get the data into your
55:11
Speaker 1: phone or in your computer. If it's made out of
55:14
Speaker 1: plastic and has batteries in it, the you're gonna smell it.
55:18
Speaker 1: We gotta give them that kind of credit, right, Yeah.
55:21
Speaker 1: And I just think now that cameras have been used
55:23
Speaker 1: for pretty much twenty years, probably a lot of deer
55:28
Speaker 1: that snow that a box on the tree is not
55:31
Speaker 1: good news. Yeah. Yeah, I'm really starting to believe that.
55:34
Speaker 1: You know, just like when tree stands first were legal
55:36
Speaker 1: in Michigan, it was easy, and now everything looks up. Yes,
55:41
Speaker 1: I think there's accumulation going on there. So you're going
55:45
Speaker 1: in there on the cart, grabbing those cards without spooking anything,
55:48
Speaker 1: getting out of there, and trying to do it at noon.
55:52
Speaker 1: I do it on noon on Saturdays. I mean, you
55:54
Speaker 1: picked the day, but for me, that's a day i'm
55:55
Speaker 1: home usually in the fall. My thought process is, I'm
56:00
Speaker 1: monitoring those cards all through the month of October. Number one,
56:05
Speaker 1: I want to make sure Brutus or Righty or whoever
56:07
Speaker 1: I've got is actively using the farm and hitting scrapes,
56:10
Speaker 1: and he's here, so I know he's here. Now I'm
56:13
Speaker 1: seeing when he's here, and you literally see him go
56:16
Speaker 1: from two am, four am to five thirty, six thirty.
56:20
Speaker 1: Now he's there at seven am and it's daylight, So
56:23
Speaker 1: now he's moving during daylight. So once I get that information,
56:27
Speaker 1: then I'm waiting for all those other factors. Then I hunt.
56:30
Speaker 1: So what happens if you get a daylight picture or
56:34
Speaker 1: series of daily pictures outside of that prime time? So
56:37
Speaker 1: let's say you get up for whatever reason October fifteenth,
56:40
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, Brutus is walking in daylight in
56:43
Speaker 1: that area. Do you throw all the other things on
56:45
Speaker 1: the table and say, I gotta hunt tomorrow or do
56:46
Speaker 1: you think it's an anomaly. It's not gonna happen again.
56:49
Speaker 1: For myself, everything is set up for that prime time,
56:52
Speaker 1: so I won't want I may hunt a non rut area.
56:55
Speaker 1: Say I know for sure he just went to or
56:59
Speaker 1: came from a food plot edge with your man. He's
57:01
Speaker 1: up moving, it's crazy. You shouldn't be moving. I'm gonna
57:04
Speaker 1: hunt that tomorrow night because you might kill him. I
57:07
Speaker 1: mean you really could. Yeah, it does happen, so you're
57:10
Speaker 1: just not You're not gonna go into your very But
57:11
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna go into my best spots until it's
57:13
Speaker 1: the right time. Of the year, just where we're some
57:17
Speaker 1: of the other things you were thinking about when you
57:18
Speaker 1: were walking out there, questions you had. I just want
57:20
Speaker 1: to back up real quick talking about the refrigerator stand.
57:23
Speaker 1: Can you explain the wires that you had Uh strung
57:27
Speaker 1: up there across it's it's an area. Whether it's as
57:32
Speaker 1: much as I have early succession, this is an area
57:34
Speaker 1: that I don't have bedding going on. So I have
57:37
Speaker 1: some larger mature trees as you saw, so I didn't
57:40
Speaker 1: have any small trees to create licking branches. So I
57:42
Speaker 1: ran too straight, just just plain wire, I guess, dispense
57:47
Speaker 1: wire between two trees about five yards apart, probably starting
57:51
Speaker 1: in about six ft to seven ft, and then I
57:54
Speaker 1: used plastic electrical zip ties and tied four or five
57:58
Speaker 1: limbs and trimmed them all so they would be about
58:00
Speaker 1: shoulder high. And you can see it was about twenty
58:03
Speaker 1: five yards out in front of my stand, and it
58:06
Speaker 1: was right over a deer corridor, and so all the
58:08
Speaker 1: bucks coming and going stop right there and use that
58:11
Speaker 1: licking branch. So it's a great place to shoot. You
58:15
Speaker 1: have many many, I mean so many scrapes on your property,
58:20
Speaker 1: and we I think it was maybe further to ask
58:22
Speaker 1: you what what percentage of those scrapes were man made
58:26
Speaker 1: versus natural made? Um? Number one, how many scrapes do
58:30
Speaker 1: you think are out there? And number two? Can you
58:32
Speaker 1: talk through all the different things you do as far
58:34
Speaker 1: as how you create or manipulate scrapes, licking branches, all
58:37
Speaker 1: that stuff? And why? Uh? First question, how many scrapes
58:42
Speaker 1: out there did I manipulate? Probably? Okay, Uh, what's the
58:48
Speaker 1: easiest way to do it? You've got a uh, You've
58:52
Speaker 1: got a three inch diameter cherry right on a trail,
58:55
Speaker 1: and it's got four or five limbs on it. But
58:56
Speaker 1: the limbs start three ft from the ground and they
58:59
Speaker 1: end up, you know, ten ft. You can take a
59:02
Speaker 1: piece of parachute corrid or wire and pull that limb
59:04
Speaker 1: down to the base of the tree to get that
59:07
Speaker 1: limb about shoulder high, and I trim it with with
59:11
Speaker 1: clippers so that it's right there chewed off just like
59:14
Speaker 1: anything you see they do naturally. And then I take
59:17
Speaker 1: a rake. Can I rake about a three ft area
59:19
Speaker 1: underneath it? If there's grass and vegetation, I actually take
59:22
Speaker 1: the time and use round up and kill everything. Come
59:25
Speaker 1: back A couple of weeks later rake it all up
59:28
Speaker 1: and I never use any cent or anything. I just
59:30
Speaker 1: go right down one and as soon as one deer
59:32
Speaker 1: uses it, they all use it. So, um, there's a
59:36
Speaker 1: lot of different ways you can do it. I talked
59:39
Speaker 1: about the wire pulling down a limb is the easiest. Um.
59:43
Speaker 1: I think lots of scrapes in areas where bucks are
59:47
Speaker 1: transitioning and where their food is and where their bedding
59:50
Speaker 1: is keeps them busy. And especially as we get closer
59:54
Speaker 1: and closer to the rut, I believe there's a lot
59:56
Speaker 1: more communication and competition amongst bucks then we give them credit.
1:00:02
Speaker 1: I mean there's something magical going on with this scrape.
1:00:05
Speaker 1: I mean a buck dispenses cent on it and another
1:00:08
Speaker 1: buck doesn't. Pretty soon you get does on it, and
1:00:11
Speaker 1: all the good dear biologists will tell you that the
1:00:13
Speaker 1: does are priming that esterrus back and forth. There's that
1:00:17
Speaker 1: there's a chemical communication going on. So I think the
1:00:20
Speaker 1: more of that I have within bow range of my stand,
1:00:24
Speaker 1: the better chance I have of getting a shot of
1:00:26
Speaker 1: that shooter. Do is there any does that apply to
1:00:32
Speaker 1: field edges versus back in the cover or is it?
1:00:35
Speaker 1: What kind of thoughts do you have around the location.
1:00:37
Speaker 1: Field edge scrapes are pretty much I mean all of
1:00:40
Speaker 1: us have probably watched the buck work of field edge scrape.
1:00:43
Speaker 1: It's kind of random, uh, no real predictability to it.
1:00:47
Speaker 1: If if he's there, he's going to use it most
1:00:50
Speaker 1: of the time. Especially say your egg fields farmers got
1:00:53
Speaker 1: a forty acre bean field and you walk down at
1:00:55
Speaker 1: one fence row and you see six big old scrapes
1:00:57
Speaker 1: and they're nice ones and probably ninety center that uses
1:01:00
Speaker 1: after dark just because it's a field edge and it's
1:01:03
Speaker 1: it's open, and they don't like to be in the open.
1:01:06
Speaker 1: But those in the cover, especially that transition and you
1:01:09
Speaker 1: saw a number of those transition scrapes where I'm going
1:01:12
Speaker 1: from really good hinging to a fairly somewhat open hardwoods
1:01:17
Speaker 1: right back into really thick cover again where I have
1:01:19
Speaker 1: these micro food plots. So those bucks feel real comfortable
1:01:22
Speaker 1: coming in and staging, moving around. They're not in the
1:01:26
Speaker 1: open by any degree, and so they're gonna work those
1:01:28
Speaker 1: scrapes and do their thing and communicate with their buddies
1:01:32
Speaker 1: and go rub some big popple and cherry trees and
1:01:35
Speaker 1: show off them. So it seems like a lot, but
1:01:42
Speaker 1: I mean, that's where habitat really comes in. If you
1:01:44
Speaker 1: don't have early succession to get the trees that you
1:01:47
Speaker 1: can ultimately have mock scrapes growing okay naturally and get
1:01:51
Speaker 1: the cover they feel safe standing in during daylight. That's
1:01:55
Speaker 1: what we're trying to do. We're trying to kill these
1:01:56
Speaker 1: deer when it's daylight and they're just nerve of us
1:02:00
Speaker 1: creatures that prefer nighttime. Yeah, so you've hunted a big
1:02:04
Speaker 1: mature deer in Michigan. They don't show themselves very often,
1:02:09
Speaker 1: are less than I wish they were. We all wish
1:02:12
Speaker 1: you know. Um, you know, I think one of the
1:02:14
Speaker 1: things with scrapes. A lot of beginner hunters and I
1:02:16
Speaker 1: was the same way. At first, you thought, oh, if
1:02:18
Speaker 1: there's a scrape, I should That's why I hay my
1:02:20
Speaker 1: tree stand. It was like this visual sign that said, hey,
1:02:22
Speaker 1: there was a buck here that seemed like a great
1:02:23
Speaker 1: place to hang your stand. It seems like, as I'm
1:02:26
Speaker 1: looking at the way you're approaching things, you're hanging your
1:02:29
Speaker 1: stands place in places based off of habitat features and
1:02:32
Speaker 1: how deer will utilize those, and then you're making sure
1:02:35
Speaker 1: there are scrapes near that best spot so as to
1:02:39
Speaker 1: either slow them down once they pass through or maybe
1:02:42
Speaker 1: encourage a little bit of extra movement in the area
1:02:44
Speaker 1: around the activity. You said, Yep, that's a good way
1:02:47
Speaker 1: of saying it. Because I build the features first, That's
1:02:50
Speaker 1: the most important thing. Can I get into it, not
1:02:53
Speaker 1: be seen, not be heard, hopefully you know, successfully get there?
1:02:59
Speaker 1: Is that? Now? Is there enough reason to keep deer
1:03:02
Speaker 1: constantly moving? You know? Is your betting area? Is there's
1:03:04
Speaker 1: your food? Are there all these other reason? No scrapes
1:03:06
Speaker 1: are just the extra element. I've got some scrapes in there.
1:03:09
Speaker 1: If young bucks are in there working no scrapes, and
1:03:12
Speaker 1: then an older maturity are comes in there, he's got
1:03:14
Speaker 1: to come in there and dispense his scent too, because
1:03:18
Speaker 1: you know, he's he's a big man in charge, and
1:03:20
Speaker 1: he's got to show off, and and they're gonna duck
1:03:23
Speaker 1: right out of there pretty quick. Anyways. And I think
1:03:25
Speaker 1: this is a good thing to even think about. Even
1:03:26
Speaker 1: if you aren't in an area that you can manipulate habitat,
1:03:30
Speaker 1: even if you can't create these features, find those features
1:03:33
Speaker 1: and then then create some mock scrapes or something to
1:03:36
Speaker 1: sweeten the pot a little bit. But again I would
1:03:38
Speaker 1: at least the way I typically look at it. Unless
1:03:41
Speaker 1: you find one of these areas where there's almost like
1:03:44
Speaker 1: what you've created, where you're back and cover, where all
1:03:46
Speaker 1: the features are right, and then you see this natural
1:03:49
Speaker 1: cluster of scrapes all over, then that's that. Then that's
1:03:51
Speaker 1: your blinking red light that we've got all these things
1:03:53
Speaker 1: coming together. Sometimes you walk onto a property and it's
1:03:57
Speaker 1: just there, you know. Sometimes it's just everything's right. It's
1:04:01
Speaker 1: naturally thick topographies, right, there's a cluster of scrapes, there's
1:04:05
Speaker 1: good food. All guy's gotta do is go in there
1:04:07
Speaker 1: and hang. Yeah, but most of the time we don't.
1:04:13
Speaker 1: You talked about you mentioned access that we've talked about
1:04:16
Speaker 1: access a decent bit. But as we walk through your property,
1:04:20
Speaker 1: we saw a lot of different ways that you implement
1:04:22
Speaker 1: smart access routes or exit routes from your stands to
1:04:25
Speaker 1: make sure that you can utilize as properly. This jam
1:04:28
Speaker 1: packed with great deer habitat, but you're still able to
1:04:30
Speaker 1: hunt it in a way, but it doesn't overpressure those deer.
1:04:33
Speaker 1: Can you talk about the different ways you've gone about
1:04:35
Speaker 1: improving or thinking through access from I can't Um, we
1:04:39
Speaker 1: didn't stop and talk, but you saw a lot of
1:04:41
Speaker 1: my natural spruce tree lines, so I grew. I planted
1:04:44
Speaker 1: a lot of Norway spruce thirty years ago in a
1:04:48
Speaker 1: line so I could walk right along beside them in
1:04:51
Speaker 1: a mode path quietly to get me to an area
1:04:55
Speaker 1: I wanted to hunt. Now, normally those stop before I
1:04:57
Speaker 1: get to that stand, and then from that point on
1:05:00
Speaker 1: I'm hinging or growing a lower cover. And I'm very
1:05:05
Speaker 1: disciplined about mowing that path to my stand, spraying it
1:05:09
Speaker 1: with round up in late August, just prior to when
1:05:13
Speaker 1: they go hard antler, so that when it does come
1:05:16
Speaker 1: the right day to hunt, that I have pretty quiet,
1:05:20
Speaker 1: easy access. And I've been guilty of going out at
1:05:23
Speaker 1: eleven o'clock at night, two nights before I plan to
1:05:27
Speaker 1: hunt a stand with a leaf blower and blowing that
1:05:29
Speaker 1: path clean before leaf blowers. I did it with a
1:05:33
Speaker 1: hand rake, And that's there's a lot of guys that
1:05:36
Speaker 1: used to read about this twenty years ago. I always
1:05:40
Speaker 1: wonder about this because because the leaf drop takes place
1:05:43
Speaker 1: right during our prime time, and sometimes we're going into
1:05:47
Speaker 1: areas where there's going to be dear and it's tough
1:05:49
Speaker 1: so I always I'm faced this dilema too. I was like,
1:05:52
Speaker 1: what's worse? Is it the sound when I walk in?
1:05:55
Speaker 1: You know? And so in a situation like that during
1:05:57
Speaker 1: the run, I would try to go in super duper early.
1:05:59
Speaker 1: And sure, I'm not going through an area where there's
1:06:01
Speaker 1: gonna be deer feeding or something and maybe in you know,
1:06:04
Speaker 1: two hours for daylight or something, but in making noise
1:06:06
Speaker 1: walking in there. So what's worse walking in there and
1:06:08
Speaker 1: making noise or going like you said, in the middle
1:06:11
Speaker 1: of the night or a rainy day or something like
1:06:13
Speaker 1: that and making that, you know, raking and everything. I
1:06:17
Speaker 1: don't know. But then you're leaving, You're leaving footprints center
1:06:19
Speaker 1: all these different things. When you're doing that, it's like
1:06:22
Speaker 1: balancing act. That's very balancing act. And so I I
1:06:26
Speaker 1: typically prior to the leaf blower, and it was a rake.
1:06:30
Speaker 1: It was always in the rain. I would literally go
1:06:32
Speaker 1: out in the rain. Now I was wearing clothing, was
1:06:35
Speaker 1: a scent control that I could be, you know, rake
1:06:37
Speaker 1: in the rain. And actually it's good because the leaves
1:06:40
Speaker 1: are wet. Instead of I'm just scattering, they just kind
1:06:42
Speaker 1: of go off to the side, and so it works
1:06:44
Speaker 1: real good, and you can just make yourself a nice
1:06:46
Speaker 1: little ten twelve inch wide path and you get right.
1:06:50
Speaker 1: And then when I use the leaf blower, but it
1:06:52
Speaker 1: still is under generally those conditions. It's a lot of
1:06:55
Speaker 1: times we get that cold front and I'm waiting for
1:06:57
Speaker 1: a day or two after that major cold front for
1:06:59
Speaker 1: the high pressure to come up. So again, I'm in
1:07:02
Speaker 1: good sent free boots and nets sort of thing, but
1:07:05
Speaker 1: I'm using the leaf blower. This is the right time
1:07:08
Speaker 1: of the year. At that time of the year, those
1:07:10
Speaker 1: deer and not in those betting years. I can get
1:07:13
Speaker 1: in there at eleven o'clock at night and pretty much
1:07:16
Speaker 1: never run into a deer. I'm gonna run into them
1:07:17
Speaker 1: going by the food plots, It's where I'm gonna run
1:07:19
Speaker 1: into him. Do you think that utilizing a leafblower, which
1:07:25
Speaker 1: sounds like a big machine makes them less scared? If that,
1:07:29
Speaker 1: even if you did bump deer, because it sounds some
1:07:31
Speaker 1: kind of machinery or something that they hear you coming
1:07:34
Speaker 1: way before you get there, and then they hear you
1:07:36
Speaker 1: with the senters, I think, yeah, I think you're not
1:07:39
Speaker 1: surprising them. The worst is the guy sneaking in just
1:07:42
Speaker 1: like they're not as spooked by a truck farmers, tractor
1:07:46
Speaker 1: drivers the field or something. But I wonder if that's
1:07:48
Speaker 1: what's going on there too. It's interesting. So you know,
1:07:52
Speaker 1: I I use uh cave and rock switch grass my
1:07:56
Speaker 1: warm season plantings as a screen, like I can utilize
1:08:00
Speaker 1: to that, and you saw where I can use that
1:08:02
Speaker 1: to my favor getting into certain places, hinge cutting low
1:08:05
Speaker 1: as a screen, growing conifers in a line, and then
1:08:10
Speaker 1: a Mscanthus grass as well. So there's and there's also sorghum.
1:08:14
Speaker 1: There's a lot of different things we can do with
1:08:17
Speaker 1: a little bit of time to have a really good
1:08:19
Speaker 1: screen by this fall if we just plan for it
1:08:21
Speaker 1: right now. Can you talk about Mscantus crass because I
1:08:24
Speaker 1: don't think I've had anyone in the show who's talked
1:08:26
Speaker 1: about using that before. Okay, so, so Mscanthus grass is
1:08:28
Speaker 1: a perennial almost a reed grass. It's an ornamental grass,
1:08:32
Speaker 1: but that particular grass is a sterile. It does not
1:08:36
Speaker 1: it's not invasive. Even though it has a flower top,
1:08:40
Speaker 1: it doesn't spread by seed. It has rhizones, which is
1:08:43
Speaker 1: kind of like a long bulb. So you plant those
1:08:46
Speaker 1: about two inches deep and in two to three years,
1:08:50
Speaker 1: you're getting up with a cluster of fifteen to thirty
1:08:54
Speaker 1: pretty much not quite as big as your thumb, but
1:08:57
Speaker 1: about at the base and ten to twelve feet tall,
1:08:59
Speaker 1: with a flower head on it and in a few leaves,
1:09:02
Speaker 1: and if and if you plant them on like twelve
1:09:05
Speaker 1: to eighteen inch centers and do two rows of them,
1:09:08
Speaker 1: you literally will have a wall deer can't see through,
1:09:11
Speaker 1: and neither can you. So if you plan ahead for anything,
1:09:15
Speaker 1: and especially some open hill country I've been in a
1:09:18
Speaker 1: lot of my clients have planted and have a great
1:09:20
Speaker 1: luck with it. And there's a Hillsdale County farm I
1:09:23
Speaker 1: was on just a couple of weeks ago, and when
1:09:25
Speaker 1: I was there five years ago, I mentioned that I'd
1:09:28
Speaker 1: recommend do that. He got ahold of somebody got planted,
1:09:31
Speaker 1: and it's just changed his access because he's got a
1:09:34
Speaker 1: cabin on a hill and a lot of open ground
1:09:37
Speaker 1: and it's stuffs twelve feet tall, and he can walk
1:09:39
Speaker 1: right by a food plot and he's got a hinge
1:09:41
Speaker 1: cutting twenty yards in the woods. He's on the other
1:09:44
Speaker 1: side of the grass. He can get by that hinge cutting.
1:09:47
Speaker 1: And it's not like the deer don't know you're there.
1:09:49
Speaker 1: They just think it's like pheasant hunting, you know how
1:09:52
Speaker 1: we you walk and then you jump a bird, you know,
1:09:54
Speaker 1: when you were standing there talking and then all of
1:09:56
Speaker 1: a sudden, or you jump a deer when you're right
1:09:58
Speaker 1: in the grasses, because they just felt you were to
1:10:00
Speaker 1: bump into them. So I think screening is really beneficial
1:10:04
Speaker 1: in getting by dear when you have more dear on
1:10:06
Speaker 1: your property, especially when you start doing a kind of
1:10:09
Speaker 1: habitat work that I've done. Has that gained popularity over
1:10:12
Speaker 1: recent years, It seems like everybody. A lot of people
1:10:15
Speaker 1: have been talking about like the last year or two,
1:10:17
Speaker 1: and there's a couple of companies here in Michigan that
1:10:19
Speaker 1: slid and provide it, okay, And I know they're very busy.
1:10:23
Speaker 1: And you know when that many years ago, not many
1:10:26
Speaker 1: guys would order two hundred or three hundred rhizones. What
1:10:28
Speaker 1: are you gonna do with that? It's habitat And now
1:10:30
Speaker 1: I think that's just all they hear. And I mean,
1:10:32
Speaker 1: I'm sure they've got other clients. Yeah, speaking of access,
1:10:39
Speaker 1: you pointed out a handful spots on the property where
1:10:42
Speaker 1: you specifically didn't make any habitat improvements. And you left
1:10:45
Speaker 1: it kind of wide open. And I've heard this referred to,
1:10:48
Speaker 1: and I've kind of referred to as like a dear desert.
1:10:51
Speaker 1: It's like having a portion of your property that's not attractive.
1:10:54
Speaker 1: Can you talk about why that's important, how how that
1:10:58
Speaker 1: factors into what you're doing. Because you saw the places
1:11:01
Speaker 1: where I've killed writing, where I killed brutus, and that's
1:11:04
Speaker 1: everything's right edges early succession, So I expect Dear to
1:11:09
Speaker 1: be betting there and utilizing them during all whether you know,
1:11:12
Speaker 1: during non rut periods and through rout period in the
1:11:15
Speaker 1: late season. These are these are the best five star
1:11:18
Speaker 1: hotels I've been able to build for him. If I
1:11:21
Speaker 1: have an area that I've done nothing and it's a
1:11:23
Speaker 1: deer desert and there's very little, if any early successional growth,
1:11:28
Speaker 1: and it's a wide open woods, do you er do
1:11:30
Speaker 1: not really want to spend time there? And why would
1:11:32
Speaker 1: they if they've got such a great place a hundred
1:11:35
Speaker 1: yards away to spend time. So I use those open
1:11:39
Speaker 1: woods is as access to move through. Say you want
1:11:43
Speaker 1: to get into somewhere half an hour or an hour
1:11:45
Speaker 1: before daylight, I can walk through there and pretty much
1:11:48
Speaker 1: not I'm not going to run into a bedded deer. Yeah,
1:11:51
Speaker 1: so allows me in, and it's also future places for
1:11:54
Speaker 1: me to work. When that great betting area I showed
1:11:57
Speaker 1: you where I killed brutus. Over time, that's gonna degrade,
1:12:02
Speaker 1: trees are gonna get big, they're gonna start maturing. So
1:12:05
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna shift over and do another spot and
1:12:08
Speaker 1: duplicate it, and the deer will move over, and then
1:12:11
Speaker 1: three or four years later I'll go back and refine
1:12:13
Speaker 1: that other one. Then i'll have you saw that corridor
1:12:16
Speaker 1: going down the edge. Then I'll maintain that center corridor,
1:12:19
Speaker 1: and then I'll just have two really cool places. So
1:12:23
Speaker 1: there's always a plan and what I'm trying to do. Yeah, yeah,
1:12:26
Speaker 1: I mean it's very Everything is thought through, and I
1:12:30
Speaker 1: think that for there's a lot of different people to
1:12:32
Speaker 1: talk about habitat work. There's a lot of people that
1:12:35
Speaker 1: try doing different things with their habitat It's all cool,
1:12:37
Speaker 1: it's all fun, and it can all make a difference.
1:12:39
Speaker 1: But what I'm always most fascinated by, and what I'm
1:12:41
Speaker 1: always most impressed by, are those that can really have
1:12:44
Speaker 1: this very strategic view of it. You don't do anything
1:12:49
Speaker 1: by accident. Nothing's being put here just because it's easiest
1:12:52
Speaker 1: to put it there. Um. I think if you're going
1:12:55
Speaker 1: to make improvements that benefit your deer herd, but you're
1:12:58
Speaker 1: also a deer hunter, you might as well put them
1:13:01
Speaker 1: in and strategically place them and create them in a
1:13:04
Speaker 1: way that's gonna help your hunting best um, And that's
1:13:07
Speaker 1: definitely happening on this property. Um, First, what do you got?
1:13:14
Speaker 1: Can can we talk a second? You know, we talked
1:13:17
Speaker 1: a little bit about out there about how um, you
1:13:20
Speaker 1: tend to get more deer into your property at certain
1:13:23
Speaker 1: times of the year, just based on the habitat that's around.
1:13:25
Speaker 1: Can you maybe talk a little bit about you know,
1:13:27
Speaker 1: we're just talking about the deer deserts, maybe a little
1:13:29
Speaker 1: about how that how you have used the properties around
1:13:33
Speaker 1: you too, UM, help stack the stack the deck in
1:13:37
Speaker 1: your favor during those times and utilize what they're doing
1:13:42
Speaker 1: to benefit you, if that makes a right. I think
1:13:45
Speaker 1: I know where you're where you're going with this, because
1:13:48
Speaker 1: I do have neighbors other properties that people are not
1:13:52
Speaker 1: doing anything other than some roal crops, whether beans or corn.
1:13:56
Speaker 1: But around here it seems like it's more beans. It's
1:13:58
Speaker 1: seldom as their corn growing around here, it's it's beans, wheat, uh,
1:14:01
Speaker 1: that type of thing. But when you have everything, and
1:14:06
Speaker 1: I talked about the magic triangle. You've heard me two
1:14:08
Speaker 1: years ago. I told you about that, and that is
1:14:09
Speaker 1: abundant food, water, and cover, all closely associated to each other.
1:14:14
Speaker 1: So that really stands out here now that you've had
1:14:17
Speaker 1: a chance to walk it. And of course we had
1:14:18
Speaker 1: a little more water than normal because all this rain
1:14:20
Speaker 1: we've had. But everything they need is right there. So
1:14:25
Speaker 1: you take the uh, not the best properties, but they're
1:14:28
Speaker 1: holding some deer and they've got some egg fields. And
1:14:30
Speaker 1: then there's a few bow hunters that hunt that property.
1:14:33
Speaker 1: Now gun season starts, so now you know not only
1:14:36
Speaker 1: the landowner but his cousin and his nephews and their
1:14:39
Speaker 1: three friends. And hey, they're they're gun hunters, they're not
1:14:42
Speaker 1: bow hunters. So they drive their trucks and they slammed
1:14:45
Speaker 1: their doors and they hunt the same stand. You know,
1:14:47
Speaker 1: I'm going to my stand, right, you know everybody knows
1:14:49
Speaker 1: about that. They go to my stand, and I think
1:14:52
Speaker 1: what happens is the pressure builds um there isn't the
1:14:55
Speaker 1: quality of cover, so these deer see people entering and
1:15:00
Speaker 1: exiting wood lots more than they were seeing them. So
1:15:05
Speaker 1: the deer that are aware of this property and the
1:15:07
Speaker 1: food sources just move in to get away from it.
1:15:10
Speaker 1: And so now they're coming in, there's and there's lots
1:15:12
Speaker 1: of room, and it's not uncommon by Thanksgiving for me,
1:15:16
Speaker 1: they have three times a deer here and Thanksgiving as
1:15:18
Speaker 1: there is right now, it's pretty typical by December when
1:15:23
Speaker 1: we get into muzzleloader season and later the large food
1:15:28
Speaker 1: platinum back that's all secluded. I've seen forty fifty deer
1:15:31
Speaker 1: in there in one night. So so are not that
1:15:34
Speaker 1: many deer here right now? They're just not hearing, but
1:15:37
Speaker 1: they're there. And then so, so how do you change
1:15:40
Speaker 1: your um maybe access or approach when you have that
1:15:45
Speaker 1: many more deer on your place, because you're gonna be
1:15:49
Speaker 1: more likely to bump him as you get into how
1:15:51
Speaker 1: do you change so once we get through that, say
1:15:54
Speaker 1: November eighteenth were the third day of gun season. I
1:15:57
Speaker 1: don't gun hunt that much. I do a little bit. Um.
1:16:00
Speaker 1: I try to monitor, especially if I've got a mature deer,
1:16:03
Speaker 1: make sure he's around, see what he's up to. If
1:16:05
Speaker 1: he's still on my list and fits my criteria, I
1:16:09
Speaker 1: might think about taking him. But other than that, so
1:16:13
Speaker 1: as these deers start piling in, I have to be
1:16:15
Speaker 1: a lot more careful, really careful. So typically once we've
1:16:20
Speaker 1: gotten to November, I've just about quit. I mean, I
1:16:25
Speaker 1: will not hunt any mornings from that point on. I'm
1:16:27
Speaker 1: done hunting mornings because I've got a lot more deer,
1:16:30
Speaker 1: and they're distributed, and not only the betting areas, but
1:16:33
Speaker 1: they're hitting the food sources harder. We're starting to get
1:16:35
Speaker 1: colder weather, we're getting some snow on the ground by
1:16:38
Speaker 1: first week of December usually, So now I've got doze
1:16:42
Speaker 1: thirty forty yards from those food plots. So at that
1:16:45
Speaker 1: point it's strictly an afternoon hunt under ideal conditions, which
1:16:49
Speaker 1: is you again a northwest wind. And I pretty much
1:16:53
Speaker 1: focus all of my late season hunting on afternoons in
1:16:57
Speaker 1: a northwest wind and on the food. And it's all
1:17:01
Speaker 1: about food, and I had really good luck with mature
1:17:04
Speaker 1: deer coming in on that food. We talked a good
1:17:09
Speaker 1: bit about your food plot strategy last time, but I
1:17:12
Speaker 1: think we shouldn't completely ignore it this time. Could you
1:17:15
Speaker 1: walk us through how your food plot set up looks
1:17:20
Speaker 1: right now, and it probably is a little different than
1:17:23
Speaker 1: it was back then too, So can you walk us
1:17:24
Speaker 1: through how much food you have, how it's placed, what
1:17:27
Speaker 1: you do. I put in a total of about seven
1:17:31
Speaker 1: and a half to eight acres of destination food, uh,
1:17:37
Speaker 1: warm season, round up ready soybeans. UM. I will rotate
1:17:43
Speaker 1: occasionally into chickeny and clover perenial, and then a lot
1:17:47
Speaker 1: of small, little, tiny, little no till or just micro
1:17:52
Speaker 1: food plots. And some of those were underwater. I did
1:17:54
Speaker 1: show you the one, the one small one. I really
1:17:58
Speaker 1: like round up ready soy It's just because it's a
1:18:01
Speaker 1: lot of food right out of the gate, and you know,
1:18:05
Speaker 1: two weeks old, they're four inches tall, and it's food
1:18:08
Speaker 1: for deer and and they can take a lot of
1:18:10
Speaker 1: browse pressure. And it allows me the opportunity to come
1:18:13
Speaker 1: back later in a season and overset it with a
1:18:16
Speaker 1: variety of different cool season annuals. And you're doing that
1:18:19
Speaker 1: one m hmm mid August, depending on a season, you know. Really,
1:18:26
Speaker 1: I mean, look at last year, we had the worst
1:18:27
Speaker 1: drought we've seen in years in this part of Michigan.
1:18:30
Speaker 1: From August all the way through October. We just got
1:18:33
Speaker 1: hardly any rain. So I'm really watching the weather, whenever
1:18:36
Speaker 1: the weather is. I've also got a few food plots
1:18:39
Speaker 1: that I till and disc and really make nice that
1:18:42
Speaker 1: I specifically plant the groundhall gratish has purple top turnips.
1:18:47
Speaker 1: That's not an oversea and I'm really doing a super
1:18:49
Speaker 1: good job for that's that's for late winter feeding. And
1:18:53
Speaker 1: you know, crimson clover is part of that mix. Crimson
1:18:57
Speaker 1: clover is very high in sugar during the seeking phase
1:19:00
Speaker 1: of the rut. And also use a winter wheat and
1:19:03
Speaker 1: winter rye. So it's it's a I'm a big believer
1:19:06
Speaker 1: in diversity and food. So it's not all one. But
1:19:10
Speaker 1: probably because in around seven eight acres of round up
1:19:13
Speaker 1: ready soybeans that are overseated and then a lot of
1:19:16
Speaker 1: small micro plots in the cover. And you saw some
1:19:19
Speaker 1: of my small You saw the one I referred to
1:19:21
Speaker 1: as the buck plot, totally surrounded with connifer trees. A
1:19:25
Speaker 1: lot of action there. Uh doesn't grow a lot of food,
1:19:28
Speaker 1: but it keeps a lot of activity there. Those are
1:19:31
Speaker 1: in it, a lot of bucks in and out of there. Yeah,
1:19:34
Speaker 1: one thing I noticed with with any one of your
1:19:36
Speaker 1: food plots, all of your food, it feels safe for
1:19:41
Speaker 1: a deer it's it's all secluded. There's nothing like out
1:19:44
Speaker 1: in the wide open, where deer really feels exposed. I
1:19:46
Speaker 1: think almost any one of those areas you can almost
1:19:51
Speaker 1: shoot a bow across some of those spot almost all
1:19:53
Speaker 1: of them, um, so they're always relatively tight. I mean
1:19:56
Speaker 1: your main destination food sources if we're imagining that rectangle
1:19:59
Speaker 1: of cover end and that's not exactly what it looks like.
1:20:02
Speaker 1: But then you've got that destination food on the west
1:20:04
Speaker 1: side of the rectangle and destination on the south side
1:20:06
Speaker 1: of the rectangle. I mean those are those are thin
1:20:08
Speaker 1: long food sources um yep. And then you yards across
1:20:14
Speaker 1: most of them, and then you even broke it up
1:20:16
Speaker 1: with a piece of cover in the middle of them too.
1:20:18
Speaker 1: Can you talk about what you did there on those yep?
1:20:21
Speaker 1: I I utilize sorghum to do two things. Reduced the
1:20:25
Speaker 1: site distance of the deer, so deer on one side
1:20:28
Speaker 1: can't see to the other side of the field, and
1:20:30
Speaker 1: vice versa. Because if a buck walks out from a
1:20:33
Speaker 1: secure area and looks into a large food plot that
1:20:37
Speaker 1: he can see two hundred yards, don't see any doughs,
1:20:40
Speaker 1: don't need to go there. Well, if you can't see
1:20:42
Speaker 1: any of use their eyes a lot. That's why dcoin
1:20:44
Speaker 1: works so well at that time. So I I run
1:20:48
Speaker 1: a finger of sorghum which will be about eight ten
1:20:50
Speaker 1: ft tall, probably ten yards wide, and that blocks their
1:20:54
Speaker 1: vision when I leave a small gap at the end
1:20:57
Speaker 1: of that sorgum, and that's where I have my ground blind.
1:21:00
Speaker 1: And so if those deer need to walk around and
1:21:03
Speaker 1: look to the other end, or deer from that opposite
1:21:06
Speaker 1: end decided to move up more closer to that hinge
1:21:08
Speaker 1: cutting and see what's going on, they've got to walk
1:21:10
Speaker 1: through that gap, and that gap really works good. So compartmentalization,
1:21:15
Speaker 1: if you can think, even though I have a four
1:21:19
Speaker 1: foot long food plot, there's a few places you can
1:21:23
Speaker 1: see more in about sixties seventy yards in it because
1:21:25
Speaker 1: of the either justpography or what I plan to break
1:21:28
Speaker 1: it up, and I use a lot of sorghum to
1:21:30
Speaker 1: break it up. Yeah, I've I've used some of that
1:21:33
Speaker 1: kind of idea on some of my food plots as
1:21:36
Speaker 1: well to it to a lesser degree. But even in that,
1:21:38
Speaker 1: you know, in a smaller situation, you can see how
1:21:41
Speaker 1: you can get a lot more deer activity in a
1:21:43
Speaker 1: small area when you when you break it up like that,
1:21:45
Speaker 1: because I think it reduces the stress level two on
1:21:47
Speaker 1: deers when I don't feel like they're a strounomous either deer.
1:21:51
Speaker 1: And it's the safety thing too, Like you know a
1:21:54
Speaker 1: handful of clients that contact, you know, just new into
1:21:57
Speaker 1: food plotting. So the first thing they do is they've
1:21:59
Speaker 1: got a little corner of a large cornfield and the
1:22:02
Speaker 1: farmers not planting that anymore. So they've got this little
1:22:05
Speaker 1: half acre and regardless of what they're planning, and they
1:22:08
Speaker 1: find out right away that even though there's three sides
1:22:11
Speaker 1: of cover, it's wide open. Farmers came in there last
1:22:14
Speaker 1: week cut the corn. Now the deer that walk into
1:22:17
Speaker 1: that little tiny food plot can see for two hundred yards.
1:22:20
Speaker 1: Everything's changed. You are in there anymore. Where if you'd
1:22:22
Speaker 1: put a wall of sorghum in there and and that
1:22:26
Speaker 1: kind of gives a colosseum effect, deer walk out. They
1:22:29
Speaker 1: can't see out towards that corn. Now they're moving green daylight,
1:22:32
Speaker 1: you know, like you say, they feel protected, secure, and
1:22:35
Speaker 1: it's it just makes so much sense. You've gotta think
1:22:38
Speaker 1: like a deer, you know, he wants to be he
1:22:40
Speaker 1: or she wants to be one jump from security no
1:22:43
Speaker 1: matter where they're at. Do you think, do you think
1:22:49
Speaker 1: since the last time we chatted about this stuff that
1:22:52
Speaker 1: has your has your mind changed, has the way you
1:22:55
Speaker 1: view your habitat work changed? Have you made any significant
1:22:59
Speaker 1: changes actually on the ground in the last two years.
1:23:02
Speaker 1: Hasn't been any evolution in the way you think they
1:23:04
Speaker 1: were executing these things. I'm I'm constantly evolving in I
1:23:12
Speaker 1: think this network of trails and openings, and how I
1:23:14
Speaker 1: treat those networks of trails and openings is constantly moving.
1:23:19
Speaker 1: I'm I'm putting more food in those trails, overseated clover
1:23:22
Speaker 1: and chickery, and then I'm coming back and feeding that
1:23:27
Speaker 1: with the best fertilizer I can feed it, because I
1:23:30
Speaker 1: want those dear to be so programmed into going up
1:23:34
Speaker 1: and down this corridor system and utilizing this area of betting,
1:23:39
Speaker 1: which means it's going to be one of the first
1:23:40
Speaker 1: one or two places that mature bucks gonna look. So
1:23:44
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to get there, and I think the uh,
1:23:48
Speaker 1: the adequate number of scrapes and cover versus scrapes near
1:23:52
Speaker 1: stands where you're hunting. Okay, you'll see anywhere my stands
1:23:56
Speaker 1: are located. I got a lot of scrapes because and
1:23:59
Speaker 1: it's not like I'm over the top of a scrape,
1:24:01
Speaker 1: but there's multiple scrapes, and you know, fifty yards away,
1:24:04
Speaker 1: they're always around that stand. But I do have a
1:24:07
Speaker 1: few scrapes and every one of the areas that the
1:24:09
Speaker 1: bucks are betting and searching, because it is a communication method,
1:24:13
Speaker 1: and you want him going in there and working on that,
1:24:16
Speaker 1: communicating with the doughs and the other bucks. It's a
1:24:23
Speaker 1: it's really interesting seeing that out there. That was something
1:24:25
Speaker 1: that I that stood up to me too. I was
1:24:27
Speaker 1: I was interested in how that kind of plays out
1:24:31
Speaker 1: during your hunts too. And it sounds like from some
1:24:33
Speaker 1: of the stories you're told that they're definitely utilizing those
1:24:36
Speaker 1: and there's there's we talked about this when we're out there.
1:24:39
Speaker 1: The risk or one risk that people bring up when
1:24:43
Speaker 1: it comes to like making all these mocks scrapes, that
1:24:45
Speaker 1: there could be the concern of if you have so
1:24:47
Speaker 1: many mock scrapes and if your if your thought processes,
1:24:50
Speaker 1: that having all these mocks scrapes will cause these deer
1:24:52
Speaker 1: to slow down their movement because they're gonna hit more
1:24:54
Speaker 1: and more of these that it could keep deer from
1:24:56
Speaker 1: getting to wherever you might be during daylight. But it
1:24:59
Speaker 1: seems like you're making sure that most all of your
1:25:02
Speaker 1: hunting locations are within the cover. Again, it's I think
1:25:05
Speaker 1: that term preference. Okay, think about where you can get
1:25:09
Speaker 1: to hunt, and it should be it should be accessible
1:25:14
Speaker 1: to some of your better sweetened areas, and that's where
1:25:17
Speaker 1: you want to have the preference of scraping and rubbing
1:25:19
Speaker 1: going on. You know, And a number of years ago
1:25:23
Speaker 1: I kind of turned a socialization area because there is
1:25:25
Speaker 1: there's a lot going on. You know, some buck scrape,
1:25:28
Speaker 1: some rub some just walk through and sent check it. Okay,
1:25:31
Speaker 1: maybe you're more mature bucks especially they may not walk
1:25:34
Speaker 1: up to that scrape, but their ten yards down wind,
1:25:36
Speaker 1: twenty yards down wind, just keeping track of who was there.
1:25:40
Speaker 1: They're so in tune with things that we don't get, Okay,
1:25:43
Speaker 1: they just are. It's always it's always just you can
1:25:49
Speaker 1: think you've got it all figured out, and then they
1:25:52
Speaker 1: there humble me beyond belief. They really do you know,
1:25:56
Speaker 1: the moment you think you got it and and why
1:25:59
Speaker 1: they disappear one year, two years. Some are homeboys, some rome. Uh,
1:26:05
Speaker 1: there's been some incredible articles written by Q D M
1:26:09
Speaker 1: A with the coloring and tracking when they called buck
1:26:13
Speaker 1: excursions and Doe excursions really interesting stuff. Some deer never
1:26:18
Speaker 1: leave a fairly small home range summer all over the place. Uh.
1:26:23
Speaker 1: Anybody who owns I don't care if you own twenty
1:26:25
Speaker 1: acres or two hundred. If you're into it and you're
1:26:29
Speaker 1: a camera guy, you're gonna identify that one that covers
1:26:32
Speaker 1: a lot of ground and that one that hardly leaves.
1:26:35
Speaker 1: Unique personalities makes it fun. You're speaking of unique personalities. Further,
1:26:43
Speaker 1: do you have any do you have any other questions here?
1:26:49
Speaker 1: I don't know about questions that I just gotta be
1:26:52
Speaker 1: incredibly rewarding to go out there and do all that
1:26:55
Speaker 1: work and then see it come to fruition how you
1:26:58
Speaker 1: would would have hoped it to. You know, you're just
1:27:01
Speaker 1: thinking about the one uh hinge cut area in the
1:27:03
Speaker 1: back where like there's never this trailer here before, and
1:27:06
Speaker 1: then you hinge cut all this area and right on
1:27:09
Speaker 1: that edge there's just a highway going through there. Now.
1:27:11
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just gotta be so cool to see
1:27:13
Speaker 1: the plan come together. You know, it's it's an overused term. Uh.
1:27:17
Speaker 1: Started out in the food plot industry, it's used a
1:27:19
Speaker 1: lot by habitant guys. Now you know, build it and
1:27:21
Speaker 1: they will come. And there is nothing more fun than
1:27:25
Speaker 1: killing a deer in a spot where you cut those trees,
1:27:28
Speaker 1: create a debt trail. Went in there duringree august weather
1:27:32
Speaker 1: with a walk behind brush ogg, sweated your tail off.
1:27:35
Speaker 1: Did all this work, you know, and then you go
1:27:37
Speaker 1: you know everything's right. You wait for the right condition,
1:27:40
Speaker 1: the deer shows up, you make the shot, you know,
1:27:43
Speaker 1: and between the three of us, we all know it's
1:27:45
Speaker 1: not easy. That is, when those conditions meet, we're tested.
1:27:50
Speaker 1: And if something can go wrong, Man if I missed
1:27:53
Speaker 1: some deer very close range, and I bet you have
1:27:57
Speaker 1: to unfortunately. But when all those things do work, it's
1:28:01
Speaker 1: very rewarding. Mean, I just love doing it, and I
1:28:03
Speaker 1: love helping clients. You know, I work with a lot
1:28:05
Speaker 1: of different clients and they see my passion when I
1:28:08
Speaker 1: walk a property that has so much potential and then
1:28:12
Speaker 1: they've just scraped the surface enough to know that it
1:28:14
Speaker 1: can work and to lay out a plan for him
1:28:16
Speaker 1: and say, you know, I know you probably won't do
1:28:19
Speaker 1: fifty of this, but if you can do fifty of
1:28:21
Speaker 1: this where you'll be five years from now. You have
1:28:24
Speaker 1: no idea what you'll be hunting five years from now
1:28:27
Speaker 1: if you can just follow this plan. Yeah, you know
1:28:30
Speaker 1: what it was was really cool something I noticed when
1:28:32
Speaker 1: we were walking around. And I'm sure you've walked around
1:28:35
Speaker 1: this property weeks and weeks and weeks of your life.
1:28:39
Speaker 1: I mean, like so much time you've spent on this
1:28:41
Speaker 1: property looking at these same things. But we're out there
1:28:45
Speaker 1: and you are just cheesing a huge smile on your face,
1:28:48
Speaker 1: so excited and looking at it us, Like how cool
1:28:51
Speaker 1: is this? Like your enthusiasm, your excitement, like your joy
1:28:54
Speaker 1: that you get out of this is so cool. I really,
1:28:57
Speaker 1: I really wish all of the everybody that's hearing this
1:29:01
Speaker 1: would understand what is in their control and how great
1:29:05
Speaker 1: hunting they could have if they just decided to get
1:29:08
Speaker 1: out there and do it. So for those people who
1:29:12
Speaker 1: because because you just mentioned like you do a lot
1:29:14
Speaker 1: of consulting, you go you walk propers with people, there's
1:29:17
Speaker 1: so many people I think, who hear all this kind
1:29:19
Speaker 1: of stuff and they think it's it's above my pay grade,
1:29:23
Speaker 1: that sounds too complicated, or I can't afford to have
1:29:25
Speaker 1: someone come in or whatever, like, how do you how
1:29:28
Speaker 1: do you um begin this process? So, if I'm my name,
1:29:32
Speaker 1: I've got a new property, let's say, how do we
1:29:35
Speaker 1: begin that analysis of like where do we start? What
1:29:38
Speaker 1: are the things you think about? So I'll just tell
1:29:40
Speaker 1: you know, Uh, I get an email or I get
1:29:43
Speaker 1: a phone call, and hey, I'm I'm I'm so and so,
1:29:47
Speaker 1: and I've got forty five acres and it's in Hillsdale County, Okay.
1:29:52
Speaker 1: And it's so right away, how long have you owned it? Okay?
1:29:55
Speaker 1: Because I really like people that have got at least
1:29:58
Speaker 1: one or two years of hunting experience, because they know
1:30:00
Speaker 1: a little bit about the deer movement, a little bit
1:30:02
Speaker 1: about what's going on with the neighbors. Not that there's
1:30:04
Speaker 1: anything wrong with a brand new landowner calling and wanting
1:30:07
Speaker 1: to get right going, but it helps. So how long
1:30:10
Speaker 1: have you owned it? How much is tillable, how much
1:30:12
Speaker 1: is wetland, how much is woods? And start getting that
1:30:16
Speaker 1: dialogue and then well what's the address. While we're on
1:30:18
Speaker 1: the phone, I'm on my computer looking it up on
1:30:20
Speaker 1: Google Earth, and usually five minutes in the phone conversation,
1:30:23
Speaker 1: I'm looking at his property now. So now I'm saying, oh, yeah,
1:30:26
Speaker 1: I noticed that big ridge on the northwest corner right there.
1:30:29
Speaker 1: That's a pretty neat little pinch point. And sometimes they
1:30:31
Speaker 1: know about it and sometimes they don't. So we start
1:30:34
Speaker 1: a good dialogue. I want to see the I want
1:30:36
Speaker 1: to look at the property, understand where it's at. Maybe
1:30:39
Speaker 1: I know something about that area, maybe there's a neighborhood
1:30:42
Speaker 1: co op in the area. Maybe I've scored some really
1:30:45
Speaker 1: cool deer. I'm also a scorer for commemorative bucks in Michigan,
1:30:48
Speaker 1: so I get to see some pretty neat deer that
1:30:50
Speaker 1: comes through the area. And ultimately, you know, he says, well,
1:30:53
Speaker 1: you know the reason I've contacted you. I want some help.
1:30:56
Speaker 1: So we go over the pricing structure. You know, so
1:30:58
Speaker 1: I have I've tried really hard to keep it affordable,
1:31:01
Speaker 1: so I have a minimum half day rate in a
1:31:04
Speaker 1: full day rate, because you know, business is business, and
1:31:07
Speaker 1: you're gonna it's gonna sink so much money into my time,
1:31:10
Speaker 1: whether I spent an hour or four hours. So we
1:31:13
Speaker 1: go over the numbers and how that's charged and what
1:31:15
Speaker 1: they're gonna get. And the one thing I try to
1:31:18
Speaker 1: give all my clients is knowledge because I throw so much.
1:31:23
Speaker 1: I mean, you saw what I did with you. Imagine
1:31:25
Speaker 1: that was your property and I was walking and we
1:31:27
Speaker 1: were still out there, and I'm showing you where they're
1:31:29
Speaker 1: bedding in, whether how they're feeding here, and they're not
1:31:31
Speaker 1: feeding here in the great stand location you could have
1:31:34
Speaker 1: here if you did X, Y, and Z. So I
1:31:36
Speaker 1: leave a c D full of thirty years of little
1:31:39
Speaker 1: three and four and five page how two articles with
1:31:42
Speaker 1: all kinds of photographs, and here's what you do and
1:31:44
Speaker 1: here's how you do it. Some our hand sketches, some
1:31:47
Speaker 1: are screenshot videos, a variety of different types of information,
1:31:51
Speaker 1: plan identification, early successional growth, how you hinge cut? Video
1:31:56
Speaker 1: links to how you do a barrier cut versus a
1:31:59
Speaker 1: bed in cut, lots of data and at the end
1:32:02
Speaker 1: of that day, I've seen the property. We usually flag
1:32:06
Speaker 1: stand locations, betting areas, potential food plot locations. I write
1:32:10
Speaker 1: him a list. Here's what you're gonna focus on for
1:32:12
Speaker 1: the next three years. I'm gonna take us satellite photo
1:32:15
Speaker 1: with me and I'm gonna draw on that. So here
1:32:17
Speaker 1: you know, here's your rut stand, here's your food plot,
1:32:20
Speaker 1: Here's where your betting areas are. This is the dear
1:32:22
Speaker 1: corridor you're gonna work on and I give that person
1:32:25
Speaker 1: enough work, keep them just crazy busy for three or
1:32:27
Speaker 1: four years. That's how the process, right yea, yeah, be
1:32:34
Speaker 1: gone for some weekends, honey, and uh you know. And
1:32:37
Speaker 1: so there, I'm always accessible. People can email me, text me,
1:32:41
Speaker 1: call me, um, you know. If I'm busy with clients, yeah,
1:32:44
Speaker 1: I respect the client's time, but I will follow up, call,
1:32:47
Speaker 1: send an email. And so I I talked to a
1:32:49
Speaker 1: lot of people at this time of year. Yeah, it's
1:32:52
Speaker 1: gonna be a lot of fun. I get a kick
1:32:54
Speaker 1: out of just doing it on my own, my own
1:32:56
Speaker 1: chunk of dirt, but I can see how much fun
1:32:58
Speaker 1: it is to help other people too. It's just very fulfilling.
1:33:02
Speaker 1: And what's really cool is that, you know, you meet
1:33:04
Speaker 1: the people that you can tell when you leave they
1:33:06
Speaker 1: get it, they're into it, they're committed, they understand, they
1:33:11
Speaker 1: know about scent control, they understand wind and conditions, they
1:33:15
Speaker 1: know they're in a tough hunting state, they know about
1:33:17
Speaker 1: their neighbors. But they get it and they start implementing
1:33:20
Speaker 1: that and usually two to three years. In that two
1:33:23
Speaker 1: or three years, I'll get photographs and emails of the
1:33:27
Speaker 1: best dear they ever saw the best dear maybe the
1:33:29
Speaker 1: daughter killed son, maybe he killed whoever it is. They
1:33:33
Speaker 1: finally got there, you know, And then the best part
1:33:36
Speaker 1: is what happens four and five years later, because they
1:33:40
Speaker 1: now become very consistent dear harvesters of whether it's the
1:33:44
Speaker 1: dose they want to kill to maintain their population, to
1:33:48
Speaker 1: the mature buck that they had targeted, that one of
1:33:50
Speaker 1: them was lucky enough to get a crack at. And
1:33:52
Speaker 1: then the pictures of their hinge cuts and the screening that,
1:33:55
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just so neat. So yeah, I really
1:33:59
Speaker 1: do enjoy it, very fulfilling. Okay, for a new person
1:34:05
Speaker 1: to habit at work, what would be the two if
1:34:07
Speaker 1: you had if you if we had like two people
1:34:09
Speaker 1: in front of us, one was brand new to this
1:34:11
Speaker 1: kind of stuff and one had been doing habitat work
1:34:13
Speaker 1: for a long long time, and you wanted to leave
1:34:16
Speaker 1: each of them with two like final insights. I really
1:34:18
Speaker 1: want every new person to have it at work to
1:34:21
Speaker 1: make sure to understand these two things or not make
1:34:24
Speaker 1: these two mistakes however you want to do it. And
1:34:26
Speaker 1: then for the guy who's been doing it a long time,
1:34:29
Speaker 1: what would those two most impactful things you can leave
1:34:32
Speaker 1: them with be for the newby and the long time.
1:34:36
Speaker 1: For the newbie, how important his soil quality is to
1:34:41
Speaker 1: everything that grows in net property, early successional growth and
1:34:45
Speaker 1: food plot success. Newbies typically start out with food plots,
1:34:49
Speaker 1: and so it's really tough to grow something in sand.
1:34:52
Speaker 1: Pretty easy to grow things and loam and that type
1:34:55
Speaker 1: of stuff. Clay is the other side of saying, you know,
1:34:57
Speaker 1: it's it's studdy and stays wet but dries out and
1:35:02
Speaker 1: you know it turns into rock and all that sort
1:35:04
Speaker 1: of stuff. So the more you know how important soil
1:35:09
Speaker 1: quality is, the more successful you'll be from from a
1:35:12
Speaker 1: newbie because he's it's going to take him a while
1:35:14
Speaker 1: to do a timber harvest or or whatever he's doing
1:35:18
Speaker 1: ultimately in and up hinge cutting, but his growth is
1:35:21
Speaker 1: dependent on that soil. For the experienced guy, he to
1:35:27
Speaker 1: any experienced person, sunlight is everything. Shaded woods is are
1:35:34
Speaker 1: great for squirrels and woodpeckers and raccoons, but don't do
1:35:39
Speaker 1: a lot for your dear habitat. It took me a
1:35:41
Speaker 1: long time to understand what cut was, and that's not
1:35:46
Speaker 1: every place, but in strategic locations it can mean everything.
1:35:50
Speaker 1: An edge one give me one more for each. Now
1:35:56
Speaker 1: I want to get my what I bared for you.
1:35:59
Speaker 1: So one more new be tip, one more expert tip.
1:36:01
Speaker 1: This is good stuff. One more newbie tip. Don't be
1:36:05
Speaker 1: afraid to make your entry and exit clean and quiet. Okay,
1:36:12
Speaker 1: we're gonna have a few places to hunt, so get
1:36:15
Speaker 1: in and get out clean and quiet. For the experienced guy,
1:36:21
Speaker 1: think cover, focus on cover before sometimes. Yeah, to your point,
1:36:27
Speaker 1: food plots often not the sexy thing that everyone wants
1:36:29
Speaker 1: to talk about everyone gets excited about, but cover can
1:36:33
Speaker 1: really and again, food plots a vital part of my
1:36:36
Speaker 1: management strategy. But if I something happened and a similar
1:36:41
Speaker 1: to last year terrible drought, no rain didn't grow near
1:36:44
Speaker 1: the food. I really focused on what I could do
1:36:46
Speaker 1: and cover and it made up for it. Still kill. Yeah, Well,
1:36:52
Speaker 1: you just have such an incredible amount of food even
1:36:55
Speaker 1: in the cover, right, I mean, you would probably be
1:36:58
Speaker 1: okay without I have a picture that I show everybody.
1:37:02
Speaker 1: I put a really neat camouflage binder together with the
1:37:05
Speaker 1: CD and I print about forty or fifty sheets off
1:37:08
Speaker 1: which are kind of focus. Okay, here's what So I
1:37:13
Speaker 1: show a picture of a property in Hillsdale County and
1:37:17
Speaker 1: it is a Park Effect Woods and you can see
1:37:19
Speaker 1: all the way through it. On the other side of it,
1:37:21
Speaker 1: you can see there's an open field. And then I've
1:37:23
Speaker 1: got a close up of his soybean field and his
1:37:25
Speaker 1: soybeans are about three inches tall and nipped right off
1:37:27
Speaker 1: like you went in there with a weed eater. Then
1:37:29
Speaker 1: I also then I show you a picture of my
1:37:31
Speaker 1: hinge cutting what it looks like when it's growing. And
1:37:35
Speaker 1: so the thing is if you if the deer in
1:37:37
Speaker 1: the what they think are cover, which is at Park
1:37:39
Speaker 1: Effect Woods, and there's absolutely no food, then the food
1:37:42
Speaker 1: you're growing, the deer are going to destroy. Now imagine
1:37:45
Speaker 1: being able to grow the cover and the succession that
1:37:48
Speaker 1: I do. Now my food plots are gonna be twice
1:37:51
Speaker 1: as successful because there's less pressure on them. Great point,
1:37:54
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of people miss that. I mean,
1:37:59
Speaker 1: it's all can acted you know, it really is. It's
1:38:01
Speaker 1: very connected. Yeah, you can't do great on one without
1:38:04
Speaker 1: the other. So it's uh, you know, it's all. It's all.
1:38:09
Speaker 1: It's a big circle. It's really where you're ending up.
1:38:11
Speaker 1: You know, you start one place, you end up right
1:38:13
Speaker 1: back again. Yeah, that makes it pretty fun. Any final thoughts, Josh,
1:38:17
Speaker 1: do you want to wrap up with I just want
1:38:20
Speaker 1: to say thank you for having us out. I enjoyed
1:38:23
Speaker 1: having it, really appreciate it. And you know we had
1:38:25
Speaker 1: a chance to meet at DAS dear Steward two last year,
1:38:29
Speaker 1: and so it's been just about a year that I've
1:38:31
Speaker 1: had to and again I want to say congratulation on
1:38:35
Speaker 1: being the Region three director. Thank you, thank you awesome.
1:38:39
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. I appreciate the help you've provided. You know,
1:38:42
Speaker 1: throughout that time you've been a really great So further,
1:38:47
Speaker 1: do you want to take advantage of this opportunity to
1:38:50
Speaker 1: plug anything for q d M A or I know
1:38:52
Speaker 1: you've been trying to get some branches up and running
1:38:54
Speaker 1: where people haven't been stepping up for leadership positions yet.
1:38:57
Speaker 1: Do you want to throw that out there to see
1:38:59
Speaker 1: if there's any one interest did? Yeah? Yeah, I mean
1:39:01
Speaker 1: there's definitely areas, um so so my region. I think
1:39:04
Speaker 1: we've talked about this before, but Michigan, Indiana and Western Ohio.
1:39:09
Speaker 1: Um So, if there's anybody in those areas that want
1:39:12
Speaker 1: to get involved, um in a branch that's already existing,
1:39:16
Speaker 1: or if maybe there's not a branch that is in
1:39:18
Speaker 1: that area. You know, please feel free to reach out. UM,
1:39:21
Speaker 1: we can get you some information. UM. We've got some
1:39:25
Speaker 1: some stuff in the works with with some of these
1:39:27
Speaker 1: branches that have been inactive UM in Michigan. I've got
1:39:31
Speaker 1: a meeting next week with some guys about maybe the
1:39:34
Speaker 1: Southeast Michigan branch and get that one UM back up
1:39:36
Speaker 1: and running. So stay tuned. Hopefully there's some more stuff
1:39:39
Speaker 1: and UM coming up in the near future that you
1:39:42
Speaker 1: know will be UH in this area, and UM I'm
1:39:45
Speaker 1: looking forward to it. I was at this UH this
1:39:48
Speaker 1: event last night, the storytelling event for b h A,
1:39:51
Speaker 1: and there's a handful of people there who had been
1:39:53
Speaker 1: listeners who had said that they're relatively new deer hunters
1:39:57
Speaker 1: and they were interested in trying to get tapped in
1:39:59
Speaker 1: the community. Like so they went to that event and
1:40:01
Speaker 1: that was cool. UM, but I pointed them to us,
1:40:03
Speaker 1: and you gotta talk to Firtz because he can really
1:40:05
Speaker 1: get you involved with the UH. The QTI May branches,
1:40:09
Speaker 1: which are such a great local way to connect with
1:40:11
Speaker 1: other deer hunters. Learned so much, I mean, the the
1:40:15
Speaker 1: network of hunters just here in southern Michigan that you know,
1:40:18
Speaker 1: Jake and many of your friends are involved down here.
1:40:20
Speaker 1: I mean, and we're kind of starting to get into
1:40:22
Speaker 1: that time of year where we're doing some more educational
1:40:25
Speaker 1: theme stuff, so keep an eye out for that. I
1:40:27
Speaker 1: know you and I are doing. Yeah, we're doing event
1:40:30
Speaker 1: um in the Grand Rapids area with the West Central
1:40:33
Speaker 1: Branch June seven. You should. Yeah. So we're gonna do
1:40:40
Speaker 1: like a kind of a meet and great social hour,
1:40:43
Speaker 1: kind of white tail Q and A. And Mark is
1:40:46
Speaker 1: going to be the kind of featured guests there and
1:40:49
Speaker 1: if anybody underwhelming guest list, but we had to, we
1:40:52
Speaker 1: had to settle for somebody. But yeah, if anybody has
1:40:55
Speaker 1: any questions that they'd like to ask Mark, you know,
1:40:57
Speaker 1: send them to me and we'll get um, we'll get
1:41:00
Speaker 1: him in line for that night and come on out.
1:41:02
Speaker 1: It's at the Rockford Sportsman's Club. Um believe we're starting
1:41:05
Speaker 1: at six o'clock. That's uh, just in a couple of
1:41:07
Speaker 1: weeks here in June seven, Rockford Sportsman's Club in Grand Rapids,
1:41:14
Speaker 1: six o'clock, six to nine. Does it cost anything free
1:41:18
Speaker 1: or they'll be beer free beer and some snacks And
1:41:22
Speaker 1: I'm sold, Yeah, it should be. It should be a
1:41:24
Speaker 1: good time. And you know, there's some some other educational
1:41:27
Speaker 1: events going on habitat days coming up with with different branches. UM.
1:41:31
Speaker 1: You can find all that information on dams website on
1:41:33
Speaker 1: the calendar. UM go go through there and check out
1:41:37
Speaker 1: the different events that the branches are hosting and UM,
1:41:40
Speaker 1: a lot of good stuff coming up this summer. Awesome,
1:41:42
Speaker 1: sounds good, Great, Jake, is there anything that we haven't
1:41:47
Speaker 1: touched on yet that is like glaringly, like screaming in
1:41:49
Speaker 1: the back of your mind, like we can't end this
1:41:52
Speaker 1: podcast without talking about X. Where do you feel like
1:41:54
Speaker 1: we We've we covered some really good territory, all the
1:42:00
Speaker 1: listeners gaining a little more if there's listeners that listen
1:42:03
Speaker 1: two years ago and for the new ones might seem overwhelming,
1:42:06
Speaker 1: but it's just like everything, it's a step at a time. Yeah. Yeah, So,
1:42:10
Speaker 1: is there anything that you want to talk about or
1:42:12
Speaker 1: if people want to learn more from you or get
1:42:13
Speaker 1: ahold of you have a website, UH have a tet
1:42:16
Speaker 1: solutions three six dot com, great place to there's some videos,
1:42:20
Speaker 1: free videos you can sign up for. UH. There's a
1:42:23
Speaker 1: lot of different pieces of information on different pages. UM.
1:42:26
Speaker 1: There's a contact page, if you want to send me
1:42:28
Speaker 1: an email and reach out to me. Great place to
1:42:31
Speaker 1: learn and and get more information about what I do
1:42:34
Speaker 1: in the services I provide. Awesome. Well, like Josh said,
1:42:37
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Jake. We appreciate you taking so
1:42:40
Speaker 1: much time to walk us around and show us your place.
1:42:42
Speaker 1: Really interesting, very impressive, and then uh, chatting with us
1:42:46
Speaker 1: here today really good times. I'm very happy to have
1:42:50
Speaker 1: you guys part of it today as well well. And
1:42:51
Speaker 1: I'm going to go home now and just look at
1:42:53
Speaker 1: properties and how can I figure this out to buy
1:42:57
Speaker 1: one of these places. Josh is gonna putting it on
1:43:00
Speaker 1: down payments soon now after this. This is uh, it
1:43:03
Speaker 1: always has definitely got me excited to this. Always seems
1:43:05
Speaker 1: that I've been lucky enough to get to go on
1:43:06
Speaker 1: some cool property tours, and whenever I get done with them,
1:43:10
Speaker 1: right home to the computer and I'm just looking looking,
1:43:12
Speaker 1: looking so and you know what you're saying, they're not
1:43:16
Speaker 1: making anymore. It's hard to It doesn't seem like a
1:43:20
Speaker 1: bad investment. It seems like lands always going to be
1:43:23
Speaker 1: a good thing to get into. You know, we did
1:43:25
Speaker 1: it thirty eight years ago and at the time, you know,
1:43:29
Speaker 1: older people that we knew in the family thought we
1:43:32
Speaker 1: were crazy, but my gosh, it was the best best
1:43:35
Speaker 1: decision I ever made. Yeah, I can see I can
1:43:38
Speaker 1: see why. Pretty awesome place, all right, Thanks guys, And
1:43:43
Speaker 1: that is a rap Just a couple of quick things
1:43:45
Speaker 1: before we go. Like me and Josh talked about, got
1:43:48
Speaker 1: that June seventh event in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Would love
1:43:51
Speaker 1: to see you. There's more details about that over on Facebook.
1:43:56
Speaker 1: Just shared a post for it. Speaking of Facebook, I
1:43:59
Speaker 1: want to give a quick plug for the Wired Hunt
1:44:01
Speaker 1: social media channels too. I post a whole lot of
1:44:03
Speaker 1: stuff on there, So if you want to keep up
1:44:05
Speaker 1: to date on the latest news with what I've got
1:44:07
Speaker 1: going on, different hunts, different trips, make sure you're following
1:44:11
Speaker 1: the wire Hunt on Facebook page, the wired Hunt Instagram account,
1:44:14
Speaker 1: and the YouTube channel. I've been mentioned this for a while,
1:44:16
Speaker 1: but you gotta get over and subscribe to the YouTube
1:44:19
Speaker 1: channel because more and more of my time is going
1:44:21
Speaker 1: to be spent on that really gonna be prioritizing at
1:44:24
Speaker 1: this fall, so make sure you're checking out those videos.
1:44:28
Speaker 1: Some exciting stuff coming up soon on that front. And uh, finally,
1:44:32
Speaker 1: big thanks to our partners who helped make this all
1:44:34
Speaker 1: happen so big. Thank you to Yetie Cooler's, Matthew's Archery,
1:44:36
Speaker 1: Maven Optics, the white Tail Properties and hunter ra maps,
1:44:41
Speaker 1: and of course thank you to everyone for listening. Thanks
1:44:43
Speaker 1: for your attention and your time. I appreciate it, and
1:44:47
Speaker 1: until next time, stay wired to hunt