Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 283: Reviving Our Family Deer Camp

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Ep. 283: Reviving Our Family Deer Camp · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, your home for
0:06
Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
0:12
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wire to Hunt Podcast. I'm
0:18
Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan in this episode number two eighty three,
0:22
Speaker 1: and today in the show, I'm joined by my buddy,
0:24
Speaker 1: Josh Further Hilliard and my father to discuss our hopes,
0:28
Speaker 1: dreams and plans for restoring and reviving our family deer camp.
0:37
Speaker 1: All right, welcome to the wire Hunt Podcast, brought to
0:40
Speaker 1: you by Onyx And as you just heard me say
0:44
Speaker 1: a second ago, I'm going to be joined here in
0:45
Speaker 1: a minute by my dad and my buddy Further to
0:48
Speaker 1: discuss a little bit of the history of our family
0:51
Speaker 1: dear camp from a habitat standpoint, we haven't really done
0:54
Speaker 1: that before, and then talk about how we're trying to
0:56
Speaker 1: build things back up, kind of trying to get back
0:59
Speaker 1: to what it used to be er hopefully even better. Um,
1:02
Speaker 1: and there's a lot to talk about. There a lot
1:03
Speaker 1: different projects we've been working on. We we met with
1:07
Speaker 1: a Forrester here recently, so I want to share all
1:09
Speaker 1: of that. But before that, I do want to let
1:13
Speaker 1: you know that yes, we are taking a break from
1:16
Speaker 1: this series that we kicked off three weeks ago, in
1:19
Speaker 1: which we've been examining different lessons about peak performance from
1:22
Speaker 1: outside the hunting world and then exploring how those routines
1:25
Speaker 1: and practices and ideas can be applied into the hunting world. So, yeah,
1:29
Speaker 1: we're taking a break here today, but don't worry, We're
1:32
Speaker 1: going to be continuing. We're gonna get more episodes like
1:35
Speaker 1: this very soon. I'm in the works trying to get
1:37
Speaker 1: more scheduled out, so keep an eye out for that,
1:39
Speaker 1: because we've been getting a lot of great feedback and
1:42
Speaker 1: I personally have just really been enjoying these topics too.
1:45
Speaker 1: So if you haven't yet listened to episodes two one
1:50
Speaker 1: and two eighty two, I'd highly recommend you go check
1:53
Speaker 1: them out. Just as a refresher into eighty we discussed
1:56
Speaker 1: the power of habits and how habits and how creating
1:59
Speaker 1: good bits can help us gross hunters. In two eighty one,
2:02
Speaker 1: we spoke with Olympic gold medal winning skier David Wise
2:06
Speaker 1: about how his training and different routines that have helped
2:08
Speaker 1: him achieve professional athletics success can also translate to hunting,
2:13
Speaker 1: and in two eighty two, I spoke with author Brad
2:16
Speaker 1: Stahlberg about his research into the science of pe performance
2:19
Speaker 1: and passion and what all of that can mean for
2:22
Speaker 1: pursuits as hunters. And man, I just think I think
2:26
Speaker 1: the ideas covered in these last three episodes they might
2:29
Speaker 1: be some of the very most important that we've ever discussed.
2:32
Speaker 1: You know, how to execute on goals, how to be
2:34
Speaker 1: mentally tough, how to handle high pressure situations, how to
2:38
Speaker 1: keep your passion for hunting from going overboard, how to
2:40
Speaker 1: develop good habits. You know, all this stuff. Probably more
2:43
Speaker 1: than some new trail camera tag or more than some
2:46
Speaker 1: hunting strategy. These things, I think are what will really
2:50
Speaker 1: help you take your hunting to the next level. So
2:52
Speaker 1: go back and listen to those if you haven't now. Secondly,
2:57
Speaker 1: I do want to bring up one more point of
3:00
Speaker 1: along the lines of these past few episodes. That's been
3:02
Speaker 1: just kind of festering on my mind since our our
3:06
Speaker 1: last episode, Just been thinking a little bit. You know,
3:08
Speaker 1: we've been talking so much about, you know, how to
3:11
Speaker 1: be a peak performer, how to do all these things
3:13
Speaker 1: to get better at this, to get better at that,
3:15
Speaker 1: to develop a better life that's gonna help you as
3:17
Speaker 1: a hunter. YadA, YadA YadA, all these ideas, all these
3:20
Speaker 1: practices and ways to take control of your life. Develop
3:23
Speaker 1: mental toughness, develop physical toughness. You know, none of that
3:26
Speaker 1: stuff is easy. And if you're at all like me,
3:30
Speaker 1: you you so badly want to be the best hunter
3:33
Speaker 1: you can be, and you want to see positive results
3:35
Speaker 1: right away, and you want to reach your potential. But
3:38
Speaker 1: it's not easy. It's it's not just gonna come overnight.
3:41
Speaker 1: And I think there's there's this human tendency, or at
3:44
Speaker 1: least I follow THO sometimes that you don't you hear
3:48
Speaker 1: about stuff like this, when you hear about peak performers, Um,
3:51
Speaker 1: it's really easy to to hear and to see these
3:53
Speaker 1: people and think, oh, man, I can never do that.
3:56
Speaker 1: I'm just not good enough. Or maybe you try to
3:59
Speaker 1: do something and doesn't go as well as he thought
4:01
Speaker 1: it was gonna be, or you whatever change you implement,
4:04
Speaker 1: you're not as good as the person you heard in
4:05
Speaker 1: the podcast or the person you see on TV, the
4:08
Speaker 1: person in the magazine. And if that's the case, then
4:10
Speaker 1: you start to feel like a failure since you can't
4:13
Speaker 1: be just as good as this other thing that you
4:14
Speaker 1: put on a pedestal. I think that's human and that happens.
4:19
Speaker 1: But it's just so important to remember that we all
4:22
Speaker 1: have our challenges. Even the TV hunters, even the professional athletes,
4:26
Speaker 1: even the super successful CEOs and the New York Times
4:29
Speaker 1: bestselling authors, they all struggle. And I'm a perfect example
4:35
Speaker 1: that I struggle with all these things. I mean, that's
4:37
Speaker 1: why I'm so fascinated by this stuff, because I know
4:40
Speaker 1: I struggled with it, and I want to get better
4:42
Speaker 1: and I want to keep pushing on that. But I mean,
4:44
Speaker 1: I struggled to keep up on my physical fitness. I
4:47
Speaker 1: struggled to not get lazy and drop off on my
4:49
Speaker 1: archery practice. I struggle with procrastination and getting all the
4:53
Speaker 1: projects I want to accomplish getting done on time. I
4:55
Speaker 1: struggle in high persure situations. I struggled keeping a good
4:58
Speaker 1: mindset and a positive ad atitude. I absolutely struggle with
5:02
Speaker 1: controlling and moderating my passion for hunting. And I think
5:07
Speaker 1: I think that's okay to say that, to to acknowledge it,
5:10
Speaker 1: to just let it, to let it kind of slip
5:12
Speaker 1: off your shoulders. There's a big weight I think that
5:14
Speaker 1: we carry around when we at least to the outside
5:17
Speaker 1: of world and even maybe inside our own heads. We
5:19
Speaker 1: try to try to be perfect, and we try to
5:21
Speaker 1: make it seem like we got it all together. But
5:23
Speaker 1: guess what, I'm not perfect. I'm betting you're not perfect. Um.
5:28
Speaker 1: So I think it's okay to just to say that,
5:30
Speaker 1: to own it, to to just name it, to to
5:32
Speaker 1: freely admit, hey, you know what, I'm not a peak
5:36
Speaker 1: performer in all these ways. Yet I'm not the best
5:38
Speaker 1: hunt in the world. I'm not the best businessman in
5:41
Speaker 1: the world or the best athlete in the world. Um,
5:43
Speaker 1: But that's okay. I can I can take a step
5:46
Speaker 1: in the right direction. So just remember, I mean the
5:49
Speaker 1: next time you've I don't know, the next time your
5:51
Speaker 1: preparation for the season isn't going as well as you
5:54
Speaker 1: promise it was going to. Or maybe you just had
5:56
Speaker 1: another blow up fight with your wife about your hunting plans,
5:58
Speaker 1: or maybe you just blew your best opportunity at a
6:01
Speaker 1: buck all year you just missed. You whift it all
6:04
Speaker 1: the work, and then you whift it. Just remember, it's okay.
6:08
Speaker 1: We all do it. None of us have it all
6:10
Speaker 1: figured out, and that's that's part of it. It's okay.
6:14
Speaker 1: Not to be perfect, take a deep breath, and then
6:17
Speaker 1: move forward again. And I mean, I'm obviously no expert,
6:21
Speaker 1: so I'm just sharing with you some thoughts I have
6:23
Speaker 1: here and how I try to process these things. But
6:25
Speaker 1: I do think that taking that step to just to
6:30
Speaker 1: just I don't know, to just be okay with who
6:33
Speaker 1: you are now and like, hey, that's all right, I
6:35
Speaker 1: can take another step forward though, that is something that
6:38
Speaker 1: helps me. It helps me to grow. Um, I don't
6:40
Speaker 1: think that, at least, I don't think I can have progress,
6:44
Speaker 1: whether it be as a hunter or anywhere else in
6:45
Speaker 1: my life, if I'm constantly living in fear of not
6:48
Speaker 1: being perfect or beating myself up about not being good enough.
6:51
Speaker 1: And I'm telling you I struggle with those things, but um,
6:54
Speaker 1: it's something I'm trying to get better at. And so
6:57
Speaker 1: you know you are good enough, I'm good enough, but
7:00
Speaker 1: we can't get better too. And I think that's why,
7:03
Speaker 1: you know, I'm so excited about these topics because hunting
7:07
Speaker 1: is this this for so many reasons, we love hunting.
7:11
Speaker 1: But I said this before, hunting serves as this canvas
7:17
Speaker 1: or is this Uh, I don't know what the way
7:20
Speaker 1: or describers, but Hunting is this model of how we
7:23
Speaker 1: can take on a mission and try to get better
7:26
Speaker 1: and work towards a challenge. And and that's something I
7:29
Speaker 1: really love about it. It It helps me grow. Not only
7:31
Speaker 1: do I love the actual act of it. I love
7:33
Speaker 1: getting great meat, and I love being outside with my
7:35
Speaker 1: family and friends, but it also is this thing that's
7:38
Speaker 1: kind of like a big piece of grantite that I
7:40
Speaker 1: have to keep on chipping away at, chipping away at,
7:42
Speaker 1: chipping away at and slowly but surely I start seeing
7:45
Speaker 1: that there's something there. There's a statue, there's a there's
7:48
Speaker 1: maybe maybe somebody there's a work of art. But I
7:50
Speaker 1: gotta keep chipping. I gotta keep chipping. And while I
7:53
Speaker 1: know that's a lot of work, it's also something. It's
7:56
Speaker 1: it's it's a process that brings me for film in
8:01
Speaker 1: and uh and I don't know, maybe I'm rambling, Maybe
8:04
Speaker 1: this is all too deep. Maybe you just want to
8:06
Speaker 1: hear about hunting. But if you have found any of
8:08
Speaker 1: the things we talked about the past few weeks, I
8:10
Speaker 1: hope you'll stick around for more. Um I certainly am
8:13
Speaker 1: planning on doing that myself. So without any other rambling,
8:17
Speaker 1: talking in circles. I think we should take a quick
8:20
Speaker 1: break to thank a partner of ours, and then we
8:22
Speaker 1: will head to Deer Camp to chat with my buddy
8:24
Speaker 1: Further and my dad, David Kenyon. Alright, so first I
8:29
Speaker 1: want to thank our friends at Vortex Optics. As I've
8:33
Speaker 1: been mentioning over the last handful of weeks, I've been
8:35
Speaker 1: using a number of the different products over the last year.
8:38
Speaker 1: Now and right about now it's June, I'm gonna be
8:41
Speaker 1: busting out the spotting scope to start doing some of
8:44
Speaker 1: my long distance observation for white tails out in these
8:47
Speaker 1: bean fields. They're just starting to come up. Those are
8:50
Speaker 1: my favorite things to do. Last year, Um, there's a
8:52
Speaker 1: bean field across the road from my house and you
8:55
Speaker 1: see lots of deer out there. And so last year
8:57
Speaker 1: I got the Vortex Viper HD spotting scope. I set
9:00
Speaker 1: it up on my front porch and I got a
9:02
Speaker 1: phone scope for it, so you can attach your phone
9:05
Speaker 1: to the spotting scope and then see through it and
9:08
Speaker 1: record through it. And it was just so much fun
9:10
Speaker 1: to have a spotting scope set out there to be
9:12
Speaker 1: able to see these bucks up close, to get a
9:13
Speaker 1: little bit of cell phone video. Um, just a lot
9:16
Speaker 1: of fun. Not to mention if you've got somewhere you
9:18
Speaker 1: can hunt where you can do this kind of thing
9:20
Speaker 1: scout from a long distance, you can learn a lot too,
9:23
Speaker 1: especially in the summer, at least getting an inventory the
9:25
Speaker 1: bucks available Man High Quality Spotting scope is a great tool.
9:30
Speaker 1: I had great results of the Viper h D, and
9:32
Speaker 1: then I also used the Razor HD on my Mexican
9:35
Speaker 1: Cus deer hunt and really enjoyed using that scope as well.
9:38
Speaker 1: So definitely think those are options worth checking out, and
9:41
Speaker 1: you can learn more at Vortex Optics dot com. All right,
9:45
Speaker 1: we are here at deer camp. It's May, very late
9:51
Speaker 1: in May, last day, man, I think, And um, I'm
9:55
Speaker 1: here with my dad and for and we got up
10:01
Speaker 1: here last night and we're here today to meet with
10:04
Speaker 1: a Forrester. The goal being too better understand a little
10:10
Speaker 1: bit about what we might be able to do from
10:11
Speaker 1: a forrestry standpoint. And we're getting this more detail later,
10:14
Speaker 1: but basically to learn a little bit about what our
10:16
Speaker 1: options are out here with logging and doing some different
10:21
Speaker 1: habitat things related to timber. So that's why we're here,
10:25
Speaker 1: and because that's kind of like the topic of conversation
10:28
Speaker 1: for us natural this weekend. I thought it would make
10:30
Speaker 1: sense to maybe take a look at what we have,
10:35
Speaker 1: kind of what it used to be like up here
10:37
Speaker 1: at Deer Campbell or the last thirty years from habitat standpoint,
10:40
Speaker 1: talk about what's changed, what happened, and then what we've
10:43
Speaker 1: been trying to do the last handful of years to
10:45
Speaker 1: improve things, and then maybe a little bit about some
10:48
Speaker 1: of our ideas and dreams for the future. So, Dad,
10:52
Speaker 1: are you up for talking about that further? Yep, sounds good.
10:58
Speaker 1: So where I'm sitting right now, I'm sitting in his
11:01
Speaker 1: leather chair in the corner of the cabin right. I
11:03
Speaker 1: got the wood burning stove to my right. Usually whenever
11:05
Speaker 1: we record a podcast up here, this is where we're
11:07
Speaker 1: sitting by the fire. That crackle and pop of the fire.
11:11
Speaker 1: So many great memories about sitting in here, But usually
11:13
Speaker 1: it wasn't me that used to sit in this chair
11:15
Speaker 1: I'm in for many years as my grandpa, and then
11:18
Speaker 1: before that it was his buddy Jerry. And Jerry always
11:21
Speaker 1: used to sit here in this in this chair and
11:23
Speaker 1: krim if I'm wrong, Dad, but as I remember it,
11:25
Speaker 1: he would sit here in this chair and you can
11:26
Speaker 1: see out the one kind of big window in the
11:28
Speaker 1: cabin that looks out to the east, and that used
11:32
Speaker 1: to be a big, wide open field, and that field
11:35
Speaker 1: used to have deer moving across it relatively often. And
11:39
Speaker 1: they would always joke that they'd have the guns sitting
11:41
Speaker 1: next to the cabin right and then one of these
11:43
Speaker 1: years maybe they'd be able to grab the guns, step
11:45
Speaker 1: out and actually get a deer just outside the cabin.
11:48
Speaker 1: Did that ever happen? Then? Never, Well that's not true. Yeah,
11:52
Speaker 1: it actually did happen one time where Jerry saw a
11:54
Speaker 1: deer and moving across a big buck, snuck out of
11:57
Speaker 1: the cabin grab the rifle. Unfortunately, by the time we
12:01
Speaker 1: got around the side of the cabin, the deer moved
12:03
Speaker 1: beyond the point where you could get a shot. But yeah,
12:06
Speaker 1: that was the That was a big joke. There were
12:09
Speaker 1: there were times that we thought that, you know, if
12:10
Speaker 1: it was a big enough deer, we just shoot right
12:12
Speaker 1: through the sprain of the window. We can repair that.
12:17
Speaker 1: Um So, so I bring that up because what used
12:21
Speaker 1: to be this big white open field where we see
12:23
Speaker 1: all sorts of deer now now it is a thick,
12:28
Speaker 1: young forest. You can't see more than I mean thirty
12:33
Speaker 1: or forty yards into it. Now, if you were standing
12:35
Speaker 1: on the edge of our yard looking into there, I mean, yeah,
12:38
Speaker 1: you can see a little bit, but it's it's thick.
12:40
Speaker 1: You can't see nearly as far as it used It
12:42
Speaker 1: used to be able to see hundreds of yards across
12:43
Speaker 1: this thing. Now it's all new pine shoots and maple shoots,
12:49
Speaker 1: trees and stuff and all overgrown. It's changed drastically just
12:53
Speaker 1: in the time I've been coming up here. Yeah, the
12:55
Speaker 1: last like five years has changed. And so that's kind
12:57
Speaker 1: of the story of what's happened here. There's been a
12:59
Speaker 1: lot of habitat change over the last thirty years since
13:02
Speaker 1: we bought this place. Um so, Dad, can you describe
13:08
Speaker 1: what our forty acres is like in the surrounding area?
13:11
Speaker 1: Maybe a little bit? Um when we first you guys
13:14
Speaker 1: first started coming up here back in the I guess
13:16
Speaker 1: late eighties. Yeah, so when we came up here in
13:19
Speaker 1: the late eighties, early nineties, that sort of thing, you know,
13:22
Speaker 1: the the property still had a lot of timber on it.
13:26
Speaker 1: We had a big pine stand at the cabin is
13:30
Speaker 1: kind of embedded in maybe five acres, maybe a little
13:33
Speaker 1: bit more than that that was planted back in the
13:36
Speaker 1: fifties and uh so that had matured to some point. Um,
13:40
Speaker 1: but even you know, twenty thirty years ago. Uh, you know,
13:43
Speaker 1: that was a big timber stand that you could look
13:46
Speaker 1: through out to the east, as you described Mark, you
13:49
Speaker 1: could look almost entirely across what was at that time
13:52
Speaker 1: virtually an open field all the way maybe to yards
13:56
Speaker 1: to a stream, and you'd see the deer walk along
14:00
Speaker 1: the edge of the stream. In particular, we had a
14:02
Speaker 1: number of birch and other trees that you see there,
14:05
Speaker 1: but again pretty wide open. To the south, just on
14:09
Speaker 1: the other side of that big pine stand that I
14:11
Speaker 1: mentioned was another open field and um and at that
14:15
Speaker 1: time again we had some small, very small um uh
14:20
Speaker 1: pines and others that were coming up, but for the
14:22
Speaker 1: most part it was completely open. And again three yards
14:27
Speaker 1: across that was another line of timber where I got
14:30
Speaker 1: a little bit lower level. And again the stream as
14:32
Speaker 1: it wound around to the south side of our property.
14:35
Speaker 1: On the other side of the stream, which is also
14:38
Speaker 1: our property, was another open field and uh a lot
14:42
Speaker 1: of browsing, a lot of you know, a few trees
14:44
Speaker 1: that were scattered in that open field, but you know,
14:46
Speaker 1: gp my dad had a number of blinds set up
14:49
Speaker 1: in that area, and um, you know, during hunting season
14:52
Speaker 1: he would that's typically where he would hunt because there
14:55
Speaker 1: would be four or five six deer at the time
14:57
Speaker 1: just wandering through that that field close to dark, and
15:02
Speaker 1: he brought home a number of deer um from that stand. So, um,
15:07
Speaker 1: you know, to the west of our property has always
15:10
Speaker 1: been that you know, part of that pine stand that
15:12
Speaker 1: I talked about before gets um quite low, very swampy,
15:16
Speaker 1: and then as the river or the stream continues to
15:19
Speaker 1: wind around to the west again, you'd run into the
15:22
Speaker 1: stream at some point to the north estate land and
15:25
Speaker 1: that's mostly timber. And but you know, it has changed
15:29
Speaker 1: a dramatic amount over the years. Yeah, and I think
15:32
Speaker 1: it's should we pointed out that those couple of fields
15:35
Speaker 1: he described were the only openings for long ways unless
15:42
Speaker 1: you kept going east along the road. There's there's a few,
15:45
Speaker 1: but otherwise if you head west, north or south, it
15:47
Speaker 1: is all pure timber or swamp. Right, so there's lots
15:51
Speaker 1: of cedars and hemlocks, and then you get into the
15:54
Speaker 1: really wet stuff. It's like tag alders and cattails, whole
15:57
Speaker 1: sorts of stuff, but cover. I mean, it's just cover timber,
16:01
Speaker 1: cover thick. And now you I guess if you go
16:08
Speaker 1: farther uh west, you'd eventually get to places where there's
16:12
Speaker 1: been some logging on some of this public land. Um.
16:15
Speaker 1: But that was all going on, you know, thirty years ago,
16:19
Speaker 1: several decades ago. Now, over the last twenty five years
16:22
Speaker 1: or so, we've seen each of those fields you described
16:25
Speaker 1: has completely overgrown, and the fields on the neighboring properties
16:28
Speaker 1: have mostly all overgrown. So now we have other than
16:32
Speaker 1: there's one neighbor that has to grass field, everything else
16:35
Speaker 1: is all cover in timber. There aren't any fields anymore.
16:40
Speaker 1: There's no real early successional habitat. There's no real fields
16:46
Speaker 1: or great food source in that way. So right now,
16:48
Speaker 1: the deer other than some things we've been trying to
16:51
Speaker 1: add to the mix, um, you know, nipping and feeding here,
16:54
Speaker 1: and they're browsing on on just little bits of scattered
16:58
Speaker 1: native vegetations that go along, right. Um, So how have
17:03
Speaker 1: you seen the deer activity in sightings and stuff changed
17:06
Speaker 1: over that twenty five year period? As though as those
17:09
Speaker 1: fields have grown up, as our habitats change around here,
17:12
Speaker 1: is all matured, right, Yeah? What did you see what's
17:14
Speaker 1: what's the I mean, I know the answer, but described
17:16
Speaker 1: to us what we've seen. Well, certainly we've seen a
17:18
Speaker 1: pretty dramatic change and both the deer population and their
17:21
Speaker 1: movement throughout the property. Thirty years ago when we first
17:23
Speaker 1: you know, purchased the property and started hunting here and
17:27
Speaker 1: in set our stands up because of the number of
17:29
Speaker 1: fourage areas and and fields and areas where there was
17:33
Speaker 1: a lot of browsing for the deer. Um, we had
17:35
Speaker 1: a lot of deer in this area and uh um,
17:38
Speaker 1: there was a destination for the deer to come and
17:40
Speaker 1: stay and move through this area. And the size of
17:43
Speaker 1: the deer and the number of deery was much much
17:46
Speaker 1: was much greater. And then about fifteen twenty years ago
17:50
Speaker 1: that started to change. And some of that I think
17:53
Speaker 1: is correlated to what you just described. Mark. You know,
17:55
Speaker 1: the habitat has changed significantly, um and over the course
17:59
Speaker 1: of you know, the last ten years, in particular the
18:02
Speaker 1: frequency and the number of deer, especially big you know,
18:05
Speaker 1: mature deer there there. You know, all of that area
18:08
Speaker 1: you talked about. We have eight thousand acres of of
18:11
Speaker 1: land that we're adjacent to. That's a deep swamp, deep forest.
18:15
Speaker 1: You know, there's certainly plenty of cover, plenty of places
18:18
Speaker 1: for the you know, big mature bucks and dough to
18:20
Speaker 1: to live, but there's really no reason for them to
18:23
Speaker 1: move through our property. And uh so, I think that's
18:26
Speaker 1: one of the primary ways that things have changed up
18:28
Speaker 1: until recently when we started doing some of the work
18:30
Speaker 1: that we've done around the property. Yeah. I don't think.
18:34
Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys remember, but I feel
18:36
Speaker 1: like in the past couple of podcasts we've done up here,
18:38
Speaker 1: I don't think we've ever dove deep into what we've
18:41
Speaker 1: been trying to do. Have we No, I don't think
18:43
Speaker 1: much at all. I don't think so yeah so so yeah,
18:45
Speaker 1: I mean, like you just said, we've seen like our
18:49
Speaker 1: deer hunting, and we've we've thought about this, the sightings,
18:52
Speaker 1: the actual success the bucks on the poll have gone
18:54
Speaker 1: down dramatically over the last twenty years. I mean, I
18:56
Speaker 1: feel like the heyday was like the late nineties, mid
19:00
Speaker 1: to late nineties was like the hey day. So as
19:02
Speaker 1: soon as I started coming up here consistently, it wasn't
19:05
Speaker 1: dramatically downhill. Yeah, I mean, we would. It was not
19:07
Speaker 1: uncommon for us to have three nice big bucks on
19:10
Speaker 1: the pole that was not in common. Yeah, I always
19:13
Speaker 1: talk about that. I think it was ven was the
19:16
Speaker 1: year I remember so well when we had two big,
19:18
Speaker 1: really big seven point in the really big eight pointer
19:21
Speaker 1: you were ten years old? No, well, I guess yes,
19:23
Speaker 1: you're right year old. Um, se right, ye, let's see
19:27
Speaker 1: what you were born in. I'm trying to look at
19:30
Speaker 1: the wall here it says ninety five actually, so maybe
19:35
Speaker 1: I'm wrong, so it was nine if you're listeners. We
19:37
Speaker 1: have one entire wall of our cabin that's full of
19:41
Speaker 1: uh antlers from you know, over the course of the
19:44
Speaker 1: last twenty thirty years, and I think we did talk
19:46
Speaker 1: about that in our podcast over the h our hunting trip. Unfortunately,
19:51
Speaker 1: we had a break in maybe twenty five years ago
19:54
Speaker 1: where a large number of the biggest racks were stolen,
19:57
Speaker 1: but the entire walls covered with antlers. Unfortunately, the vast
20:01
Speaker 1: majority of those were taken twenty years ago. Yeah. So
20:07
Speaker 1: when we last killed like a nice buck up here
20:09
Speaker 1: in a somewhat mature buck three year older. So that's
20:13
Speaker 1: a long time ago. Um. Since then, it's been like
20:16
Speaker 1: a steady decline. Now, I don't know, probably when I
20:20
Speaker 1: was in college. Maybe I think I started trying to
20:24
Speaker 1: encourage the family, like, maybe we should do some habit atwork,
20:27
Speaker 1: maybe we can try to do some things to fix
20:28
Speaker 1: stuff up. So I have to interject something here. So
20:31
Speaker 1: my dad GP, as we referred to him, Um so
20:35
Speaker 1: he's uh, he loves Ken Rovan, the in our camp,
20:40
Speaker 1: he loves the area. Um and but he he was
20:44
Speaker 1: not a real big fan of some of the things
20:47
Speaker 1: that Mark was talking about. When Mark started, uh you know,
20:49
Speaker 1: talking about making some food plots or or clearing some
20:52
Speaker 1: of the land. Uh, you know, Grandpa was extremely reluctant, right,
20:57
Speaker 1: and so Mark would try to find creative way sticks still,
21:00
Speaker 1: you know, not upset Grandpa to to start, you know,
21:03
Speaker 1: planting his food pot. One of those was we had
21:05
Speaker 1: an a t V and we had some a TV
21:06
Speaker 1: trails through some of the area. You know, Mark would say, hey,
21:09
Speaker 1: can we can we can we plant on the in
21:10
Speaker 1: the a TV tracks and between the tracks and you
21:13
Speaker 1: know that won't hurt anything Grandpa and Grandpa sort of conceded,
21:18
Speaker 1: but you know, uh, yeah, you've been working at that
21:20
Speaker 1: for a long time. Yeah. So so, yeah, GP was
21:24
Speaker 1: very reluctant to do stuff like that. He was really
21:26
Speaker 1: big on planting trees. He didn't not like the idea
21:30
Speaker 1: of for moving trees. That's the reason we have two
21:32
Speaker 1: big forces, which is why you kept which is why
21:34
Speaker 1: our fields are gone and they're now all It was
21:36
Speaker 1: interesting today we heard a little bit about how some
21:38
Speaker 1: of the trees they crap a plant and now are
21:39
Speaker 1: like big trees. Um, maybe not the best trees to
21:42
Speaker 1: have planted, but at the time, I mean, it was
21:44
Speaker 1: really well intentioned and he was up here just trying
21:47
Speaker 1: to be a steward of the land and I was
21:48
Speaker 1: that was a big fan of blue spruces. So we
21:50
Speaker 1: have blue spruces everywhere. And one of the things we
21:52
Speaker 1: heard from the forest or today is they aren't native
21:55
Speaker 1: to Michigan and they really aren't the best tree for it. Yeah,
21:58
Speaker 1: you know, but it is. It is kind of wild
22:01
Speaker 1: if you if you look out there, how big those
22:03
Speaker 1: trees are now. And you can look on on our door.
22:05
Speaker 1: We have this door full of pictures and there's a
22:07
Speaker 1: picture of GP planting those trees, you know, in that
22:10
Speaker 1: field is wide open. He's playing these little tiny seedlings,
22:13
Speaker 1: little saplings ten inches tall or something. And that was
22:17
Speaker 1: I'm like that was in the nineties, So in twenty
22:21
Speaker 1: some years, twenty five years, thirty years, I mean he
22:24
Speaker 1: grew a forest almost which well we buy to three
22:27
Speaker 1: trees at a time. Believe me, I was out there
22:29
Speaker 1: shoveling and planning, you know, for hours. He even brought
22:32
Speaker 1: Grahama out there. Yeah. So, so I feel a little
22:37
Speaker 1: bit bad that I'm now trying to undo his work.
22:41
Speaker 1: But I think I hope he knows that our intentions
22:43
Speaker 1: are are good because because yeah, so, as you mentioned,
22:47
Speaker 1: he was a little reluctant about some of these things,
22:49
Speaker 1: and I understand, um, but uh, you're right. I tried
22:55
Speaker 1: to plant the food plot along the a TV trail.
22:58
Speaker 1: I got approval, I started raid to try to kill
23:01
Speaker 1: some of the ferns to plant, and I think before
23:03
Speaker 1: I was able to plant that, he came back. He
23:04
Speaker 1: was like, no, I don't want you to do it. Um.
23:07
Speaker 1: So so that was all right, you know, I, um,
23:10
Speaker 1: that was fine. But I also know that something Grandpa
23:13
Speaker 1: always cared a lot about, and something he always wanted
23:15
Speaker 1: was for you know, for the wildlife to flourship here
23:18
Speaker 1: for us, and for his family and friends to come
23:21
Speaker 1: up here and enjoy it and spend time here, and
23:24
Speaker 1: so I think what we saw over the last twenty
23:26
Speaker 1: five years was a slow decline in how much people
23:29
Speaker 1: want to come up here because people we weren't seeing
23:31
Speaker 1: deer anymore. So different members of our camp slowly stopped
23:34
Speaker 1: coming up. Um, we stopped coming up as much because
23:38
Speaker 1: you've got limited time, limited time to hunt. If you're
23:41
Speaker 1: gonna come up and spend a couple of days a hunt,
23:43
Speaker 1: and you're like, well, I could go somewhere down south
23:45
Speaker 1: and I could see two dozen deer and I've got
23:47
Speaker 1: a great chance of shooting something. Or I could go
23:49
Speaker 1: up to the cabin and I won't see a deer
23:51
Speaker 1: at all. Um, you know, it becomes harder to justify
23:54
Speaker 1: that from like a hunting standpoint at least. So eventually
23:58
Speaker 1: we started saying, hey, we got try to turn this
24:02
Speaker 1: ship around. We need to try to revive this or
24:05
Speaker 1: restore what was once a really really uh robust place
24:12
Speaker 1: as far as the amount of animal life you would see,
24:14
Speaker 1: and now we just weren't seeing it. So maybe six
24:18
Speaker 1: seven years ago, how long ago do you think it
24:21
Speaker 1: was that that we actually started making changes? Six years Yeah, Yeah,
24:24
Speaker 1: I don't think it was that long ago. I think
24:26
Speaker 1: it was more like maybe five five years ago and
24:28
Speaker 1: we started cutting the first food pot. Yeah, so five
24:31
Speaker 1: or six years ago. And um and and again I
24:36
Speaker 1: bramped the fact that I think Grandpa would be okay
24:39
Speaker 1: with that because at that point, you know, he wasn't around.
24:43
Speaker 1: But we I think the things we have done have
24:46
Speaker 1: been with um like his his legacy hangs over this
24:49
Speaker 1: place so much, right because this was his place that
24:53
Speaker 1: he built, not literally built the cabin, but built what
24:57
Speaker 1: this place means. And and UM, I think we've tried
25:01
Speaker 1: to make changes in the spirit of what he would
25:06
Speaker 1: have wanted. Well. In fact, that very first food plot
25:09
Speaker 1: that we did was exactly that same field that Grandpa
25:12
Speaker 1: used to sit in, um, you know, late nights during
25:15
Speaker 1: deer season and shot many of his deer. So and
25:18
Speaker 1: that it turned into a young forest. So we essentially
25:21
Speaker 1: restored that to uh, to a food plot, to you know,
25:24
Speaker 1: to a grazing in a browsing area. So I agree
25:26
Speaker 1: with you, Mark, all right, I want to take another
25:30
Speaker 1: quick break to thank our partners at First Light for
25:32
Speaker 1: their support of this podcast, and I want to let
25:35
Speaker 1: you know about a product of theirs I've been testing
25:38
Speaker 1: just over the past I don't know half yearor so,
25:40
Speaker 1: which is their new sawbuck brush pant. This is a
25:44
Speaker 1: it's kind of like a hybrid pant. Half of the
25:46
Speaker 1: pant is like a light, stretchy, really comfortable, breathable fabric
25:51
Speaker 1: that comes from it's very similar to the corrigate guide
25:53
Speaker 1: pant um. And the other half though, is what's interesting
25:58
Speaker 1: is it's like a really heavy double night a long
26:00
Speaker 1: type panel like canvas pant that you would see for
26:03
Speaker 1: maybe bird hunting or working through the brush. Well, this
26:06
Speaker 1: pant has those panels in the front. And what I
26:09
Speaker 1: wasn't sure about what with the soft stretchy stuff on
26:12
Speaker 1: the back get ripped up in thorns and brush, or
26:14
Speaker 1: could the pant handle you know, shed hunting or working
26:17
Speaker 1: out in the summer scouting and doing things like that.
26:19
Speaker 1: And I was pleasantly surprised to find I used all
26:22
Speaker 1: this past spring shed hunting and now I'm using it
26:25
Speaker 1: on these scouting trips in the summer and different habit
26:27
Speaker 1: at work and stuff. The holding up really well. They're
26:30
Speaker 1: very comfortable but tough. So thinking the saw about brush
26:33
Speaker 1: pant is gonna be a great all around white tail
26:36
Speaker 1: offseason project pant. I'd highly recommend checking that one out
26:39
Speaker 1: and you can learn about it at first light dot com. Yeah,
26:44
Speaker 1: so so let's talk about what we've done so far.
26:46
Speaker 1: Because we decided we want to try to do something,
26:48
Speaker 1: are we we looked at what's available, like where are
26:51
Speaker 1: the what are the weak spots. The way I kind
26:53
Speaker 1: of started this processes is what do we have a
26:54
Speaker 1: lot of what don't we have? Where are we missing things?
26:57
Speaker 1: And as we just discussed, what we used to have
27:00
Speaker 1: was a lot of openings, a lot of edge, a
27:02
Speaker 1: lot of food. We do not have that anymore. And
27:05
Speaker 1: now we have almost a monoculture, not a monoculture because
27:08
Speaker 1: it's a lot of different things, but we have just
27:10
Speaker 1: cover everywhere almost on on the property as of like
27:13
Speaker 1: five six years ago. So the first idea was, Okay,
27:16
Speaker 1: we need to try to make some openings that we
27:18
Speaker 1: could hopefully plant food plots. And so the first year
27:20
Speaker 1: we just went out there, the first spot we were located.
27:23
Speaker 1: We tried to pick a couple of places that had
27:26
Speaker 1: relatively smaller number of trees you'd have to remove to
27:31
Speaker 1: get some kind of clearing, and relatively younger trees it
27:34
Speaker 1: would be easily cut out right. And that happened to
27:37
Speaker 1: be in that old field that used to be GPS
27:39
Speaker 1: spot where he killed that great big seven pointer that
27:42
Speaker 1: I just looked at on the wall in um So.
27:46
Speaker 1: I remember the first year, all we managed to do
27:50
Speaker 1: was cut and opening, Like we went out with the
27:52
Speaker 1: chainsaws and spent a couple of days, handful of days cutting,
27:56
Speaker 1: and that was hard work. You nearly had a heart
27:57
Speaker 1: to couples. I just remember seeing you all red and
28:02
Speaker 1: sweating and jeese. I don't know how do need to
28:06
Speaker 1: sit down? Do you have any water? Glad I missed
28:10
Speaker 1: out on that. Josh has conveniently missed all of our
28:14
Speaker 1: work projects on the food not so far, um but
28:18
Speaker 1: we're trying to change that now. I got you up
28:20
Speaker 1: here today. Um So first year was just getting that open.
28:25
Speaker 1: But you know that in itself is like a powerful thing,
28:28
Speaker 1: because not only do we have a lack of openings
28:30
Speaker 1: for food, but we also have a lack of openings
28:33
Speaker 1: just as sight lines like you can't hardly see more
28:35
Speaker 1: than forty yards anywhere in our property. So half of
28:39
Speaker 1: our problem, maybe not half, but a little bit of
28:41
Speaker 1: our problem that we don't see any deers simply that
28:43
Speaker 1: you just can't see him because it visually black. Yeah,
28:45
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not sure many people can appreciate just
28:48
Speaker 1: how thick our woods and our our swamps are here.
28:51
Speaker 1: I mean, it really is the case that, um, you know,
28:54
Speaker 1: you you almost don't want to bring a rifle because frankly,
28:56
Speaker 1: they're they're wasted just a slingshot. Well, and to that point,
29:01
Speaker 1: I went on, this would have been two years ago now,
29:04
Speaker 1: I went on and walk back into the swamp and
29:06
Speaker 1: and saw that old GPS old stand back here, little
29:10
Speaker 1: Knox blind. I mean, you couldn't see more than ten
29:13
Speaker 1: or fifteen yards, so just so thick back there and everything. Yeah,
29:16
Speaker 1: you couldn't see anything. And I never knew anything different
29:19
Speaker 1: like that growing up. I just thought that was the norm. Um.
29:23
Speaker 1: I mean, it makes things challenging. So having some sight
29:28
Speaker 1: lines is certainly a nice thing too. And lots of
29:30
Speaker 1: times growing up that would be what would determine where
29:33
Speaker 1: I would hunt when I'm walking around. Back in the day,
29:35
Speaker 1: it wasn't like for any type of reason that I
29:37
Speaker 1: thought dear be traveling was like, hey, just find a
29:39
Speaker 1: place where you can see a little bit and that'd
29:41
Speaker 1: be where you sit. Um. So now the idea has
29:44
Speaker 1: been let's create a few places like that. So that
29:46
Speaker 1: first year would just cut and it probably wouldn't. We
29:48
Speaker 1: weren't able to open up more than I don't know,
29:50
Speaker 1: a quarter acre, but we got a quarter acer opened,
29:52
Speaker 1: just chain song stuff down low, pulled all the tree
29:55
Speaker 1: tops out, and there's a lot to clear out, like
29:57
Speaker 1: a ton of small trees all bunched in these fields. Now,
30:00
Speaker 1: So that was the first year, and um, we got
30:04
Speaker 1: it open. We didn't get to plant anything, but at
30:05
Speaker 1: least got something open and that was progress. And I
30:10
Speaker 1: can't remember if we started trying to put lime down
30:12
Speaker 1: or up, but I think we took soil tests that
30:14
Speaker 1: first year, and I think we did, and I did
30:15
Speaker 1: think we because you know, our that soil was so acidic.
30:18
Speaker 1: Soil tests came back that I think we did, as
30:20
Speaker 1: I recall, was fIF pounds or line that we brought
30:23
Speaker 1: in that first year. And um, the other thing we
30:26
Speaker 1: did not do because we didn't have the right equipment,
30:28
Speaker 1: as we couldn't de stump right, we couldn't pull the
30:30
Speaker 1: stumps of most of those trees we cut, so we
30:32
Speaker 1: caught him down. We cleared what we could because it
30:35
Speaker 1: was full of you know, uh underbrush, and and everything else.
30:39
Speaker 1: UM put down the line and at least started the
30:42
Speaker 1: process of changing the soil acidity. Yeah, so to this
30:45
Speaker 1: point we've did We did everything with nothing but chainsaws
30:48
Speaker 1: and then just bringing in bags line, no tractors, no
30:51
Speaker 1: equipment at all. UM. So the first year I just
30:54
Speaker 1: put a bunch of line out because you said super acidic.
30:57
Speaker 1: We knew that was gonna be a challenge. Like in
30:59
Speaker 1: a lot of areas, even where there are some sunlight
31:02
Speaker 1: coming in, mostly all that grows is bracken ferns. There's
31:05
Speaker 1: not a whole lot of other really positive stuff growing
31:07
Speaker 1: in many places. So I knew that would be a
31:10
Speaker 1: challenge to getting some kind of food plot growing would
31:12
Speaker 1: be improving the soil. So that led us to the
31:15
Speaker 1: second year. That second year we added lime again and
31:20
Speaker 1: we tried to widen the open by a little bit,
31:22
Speaker 1: not a lot, but we try to expand a little bit.
31:24
Speaker 1: And then tried planting for the first time. And if
31:28
Speaker 1: I remember correctly, we brought in a four wheeler with
31:32
Speaker 1: my little groundhog disc on it and trying to disc
31:34
Speaker 1: around the stumps and stuff. So the first year we
31:37
Speaker 1: dissed around stumps. So I think I think we came in,
31:41
Speaker 1: sprayed once in the early spring, came back in the
31:44
Speaker 1: late summer. There's lots of ferns grown. Again, spray those
31:47
Speaker 1: ferns again. Then ran around with the disc behind the
31:51
Speaker 1: four wheeler to break stuff off up a little bit,
31:54
Speaker 1: and planted some oats and and then fertilized lime, cetera.
32:00
Speaker 1: But you know a little bit of color to that.
32:02
Speaker 1: I mean that that soil was so dense because of
32:04
Speaker 1: all the roots systems and all of the you know,
32:07
Speaker 1: the mat that had been created. I remember we had
32:09
Speaker 1: a really hard time disking that. That was a big
32:12
Speaker 1: challenge that first year. And it's like it's really just
32:16
Speaker 1: not great soil either, lots of pine needles. I remember
32:19
Speaker 1: talking to you after you guys did that that weekend.
32:23
Speaker 1: It's like, how did it get? Like the classic frustrated Mark?
32:29
Speaker 1: Is thatther thing? Classic? I hear that from you a lot,
32:33
Speaker 1: so so Mark. That second year I don't recall. Was
32:36
Speaker 1: that the year that we expanded the food plot over
32:38
Speaker 1: to the second side of the barbell. No, so this
32:42
Speaker 1: was just the this is the first day or the
32:44
Speaker 1: first year we actually had something planted. Was just food
32:47
Speaker 1: plot one at that point, and so just food plot.
32:50
Speaker 1: One was oats and we can't. We came back in
32:52
Speaker 1: September October, like holy smoke, something actually took. We planned
32:56
Speaker 1: the oats and the oats came in and it was
32:57
Speaker 1: actually really nice. We were really excited about that. But
33:00
Speaker 1: that was it was very excited. We had like a
33:02
Speaker 1: decently you know, there was it was patchy, but we
33:05
Speaker 1: had something that was growing that deer would eat. For
33:07
Speaker 1: the first time ever, we planted something that deer would eat,
33:10
Speaker 1: and we had trail cameras running and lo and behold
33:13
Speaker 1: they were deer coming to it. And we for the
33:16
Speaker 1: first time ever got him ature buck on trail camera too.
33:19
Speaker 1: So how how exciting was that when we checked those
33:22
Speaker 1: cameras dead and you I remember this because we must
33:26
Speaker 1: have checked those cameras for the first time during a
33:29
Speaker 1: gun season, because on the same day we came in.
33:33
Speaker 1: I go to hunt the food plot for the first time.
33:35
Speaker 1: And I think we've told the story again, but I'll
33:37
Speaker 1: briefly mention it again just for those who haven't heard it.
33:40
Speaker 1: We come in opening day, I go to hunt the
33:43
Speaker 1: food plot for the first time. It's very exciting. I go,
33:45
Speaker 1: I get set up. I brought in I didn't have
33:47
Speaker 1: a tree stand set up, so I was bringing like
33:49
Speaker 1: a mobile mobile. No, I brought in my climber, so
33:52
Speaker 1: I shim me up the tree. And you, meanwhile, are
33:55
Speaker 1: going to your old trusty location. You have this box
33:58
Speaker 1: blind that's about twenty yards away from the cabin. The
34:06
Speaker 1: whole staple gun experience. Yeah, this is the staple gun story.
34:09
Speaker 1: But for those that don't know, it's really great. Um
34:12
Speaker 1: so it's about maybe a hundred fifty yards in the
34:15
Speaker 1: cabin or hundred yards in the cabin, something like that.
34:18
Speaker 1: And and yeah, so you went out there, got to
34:21
Speaker 1: the ground. Do you want to tell the story or
34:23
Speaker 1: because I like to embellish it, you know, so well,
34:26
Speaker 1: so so real Quickly you walk out to the blind
34:28
Speaker 1: hundred yards away, You get into it, you rummaging around,
34:32
Speaker 1: you get settled in, and you notice that a little
34:34
Speaker 1: bit of the carpeting on the blind, because that's how
34:36
Speaker 1: we do our blinds up here with what is the
34:39
Speaker 1: indoor capet, and so that was flapping around. You didn't
34:45
Speaker 1: like that, so you walked back to the cabin. You
34:47
Speaker 1: got a staple gun. You walked back to the blind.
34:49
Speaker 1: You start stapling carpeting to the side of your blind um,
34:53
Speaker 1: and lo and behold a deer arrives. Now I am
34:57
Speaker 1: just getting to the top of my tree. I'm just
34:59
Speaker 1: getting settled, and I'm pulling up my firearm. Um, and
35:03
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, it's like three thirty or four
35:05
Speaker 1: in the afternoon, and but womb a gun goes off
35:09
Speaker 1: like real close to me. About crap my pants, and
35:12
Speaker 1: I thought, there's no way that's anybody. But my dad
35:15
Speaker 1: was right here. My dad just accidentally shot himself. Like,
35:19
Speaker 1: you know, I am really offended. You know the first
35:21
Speaker 1: thing that you thought. You didn't think that your dad
35:23
Speaker 1: shot a deer. You assumed the shots. Yeah, absolutely, that's
35:26
Speaker 1: what I thought. Well, that might go to that might
35:29
Speaker 1: speak to the fact that we haven't been seeing Yeah,
35:31
Speaker 1: I mean that's it was exactly that. So we had like,
35:35
Speaker 1: I mean, you haven't shot one up here in a
35:36
Speaker 1: very long time. No one shot one up here in
35:38
Speaker 1: a very long time. And so yes, a buck. Actually
35:41
Speaker 1: miraculous that came back. You shot the buck. It was awesome.
35:44
Speaker 1: But um, that led to the first time over the
35:46
Speaker 1: food plot being a very short one because I showed
35:48
Speaker 1: me down the tree after five minutes and came over here. Um,
35:51
Speaker 1: But what was cool as we came back into the cabin,
35:54
Speaker 1: checked the cameras and not only did you kill the
35:56
Speaker 1: buck that night, but there were two different mature bucks
35:58
Speaker 1: on trail camera for the first time ever. Yeah, that
36:00
Speaker 1: one in particular. Mark described that, well there was and
36:04
Speaker 1: there might actually been three mature bucks. Not take it back,
36:06
Speaker 1: because there was. We got a picture of a buck
36:08
Speaker 1: in the summer, a velvet buck that was really wide,
36:11
Speaker 1: really big. Impressive because the only time we saw him,
36:14
Speaker 1: But that was cool. And then there was a buck
36:16
Speaker 1: that came by several times in October and into November
36:20
Speaker 1: they had a drop time. And then there was another
36:23
Speaker 1: nice big buddy day pointer two. All that first year
36:27
Speaker 1: with the food plot and we actually seen and never
36:30
Speaker 1: before we were seeing mature bucks at this and that
36:32
Speaker 1: there hadn't been a buck of the caliber of these
36:34
Speaker 1: three deer at least I've ever been seen since. And
36:39
Speaker 1: now we get a little quarter acre third acre food
36:42
Speaker 1: plot in and we're getting pictures of these deer in
36:45
Speaker 1: that food plot. So that was like, I remember you
36:46
Speaker 1: and we were in here like hi Fi, and where
36:49
Speaker 1: we go, Like how cool is this? Like we put
36:52
Speaker 1: in all this work almost having a heart attack. That
36:56
Speaker 1: was a really big step, Like it was a small
36:58
Speaker 1: thing we did, but right away sell results and and
37:02
Speaker 1: I don't know, that was like a really exciting inflection
37:05
Speaker 1: point and like, hey, we can do something here. We
37:08
Speaker 1: can like Kendrovan can come back, we can change like
37:11
Speaker 1: the narrative because for a long time, the narrative is
37:13
Speaker 1: always kind of negative. And it wasn't just like we're
37:16
Speaker 1: feeling negative. We also had our wives. I was going
37:18
Speaker 1: to say, the negative narrative came from our wives. Particularly,
37:21
Speaker 1: you don't want to go hunting there. There's no dear.
37:23
Speaker 1: They can't tell you how many times I've why are
37:26
Speaker 1: you even going out there? What are you even doing?
37:28
Speaker 1: Why are you going? I'm like, guys, come on, this
37:30
Speaker 1: place means so much to us. You don't you don't
37:31
Speaker 1: get it. So yeah, constantly dealing with that um. But
37:37
Speaker 1: so that was year one we got that planet solved results.
37:42
Speaker 1: Year three was I think the year where we expanded
37:46
Speaker 1: it into the barbell shape, right, do you want to
37:48
Speaker 1: describe that? Yeah, So food plot one, as we call it,
37:52
Speaker 1: is the first food plot that we created. And that's maybe,
37:54
Speaker 1: as Mark said, probably a quardreaker. So there was kind
37:57
Speaker 1: of a natural connector from that to the second food
38:01
Speaker 1: plot that we identified, which was a little bit further east. Um,
38:05
Speaker 1: it was a wetter area, not as big as space
38:08
Speaker 1: where we could easily cut out maybe a little less
38:10
Speaker 1: than a quarter raker. But but but you know, a
38:13
Speaker 1: nice potential area we could do. And we assume that
38:16
Speaker 1: we could also leverage that connecting component to turn into
38:20
Speaker 1: a you know, an additional portion of that uh, that
38:22
Speaker 1: food plot. So um, it was a little bit easier
38:27
Speaker 1: um to take out the small brush and that sort
38:29
Speaker 1: of thing, but there were some pretty good sized stumps
38:31
Speaker 1: that he had to be taken out. Um. Our neighbor
38:34
Speaker 1: as a tractor, he came in and did some initial
38:36
Speaker 1: clearing for us. Uh that that helped, but left a
38:40
Speaker 1: really big mess because he really didn't pull out the
38:42
Speaker 1: trunks of a lot of the roots. So I had
38:45
Speaker 1: a friend who's a landscaper. Um. He agreed to come
38:48
Speaker 1: up with his bigger tractor, a koboda and you know,
38:51
Speaker 1: big enough to be able to pull things out. And
38:53
Speaker 1: he spent a day not only taking care of food
38:56
Speaker 1: plot two, but also coming back to food plot one
38:59
Speaker 1: and helping us remove all those trunks and the big
39:01
Speaker 1: roots and so on and so forth. So there was
39:03
Speaker 1: a pretty significant improvement to both food plots and that
39:06
Speaker 1: that connector in between. So I don't know how much
39:09
Speaker 1: how much food plot area we have between the two,
39:11
Speaker 1: maybe a half an acre or maybe a little bit
39:13
Speaker 1: more if you include the connector, but but there was
39:15
Speaker 1: a nice dense space between both of them. Both of
39:19
Speaker 1: them kind of sit um are adjacent to the stream
39:22
Speaker 1: and there's a nice timber that deer moved through and
39:26
Speaker 1: across the stream to both foot plots. And then we
39:28
Speaker 1: have a um ten acres eight acres of hemlock on
39:32
Speaker 1: the south side of both of those food plots. That
39:35
Speaker 1: is a significant yarding space that the deer like. Yeah,
39:38
Speaker 1: and that was that was improved the size of it
39:43
Speaker 1: um and the probably the biggest thing was getting rid
39:45
Speaker 1: of the stumps though really helped and just leveled outlets
39:48
Speaker 1: made the area much easier to work with. And we
39:51
Speaker 1: again planet oats and some buckwheat. I think that year
39:54
Speaker 1: and again saw deer movement pretty consistently in and out
39:57
Speaker 1: of there. Um. I remember hunting over it, and no,
40:03
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna remember exactly here, but I do remember
40:06
Speaker 1: for the first year I hunted it. After you killed
40:08
Speaker 1: your deer, I went back and I saw a decent
40:11
Speaker 1: buck that ran through really quickly. And so every year
40:14
Speaker 1: now since I've hunted it, maybe not this past year,
40:17
Speaker 1: but I've seen bucks in or around it, and I
40:20
Speaker 1: had only seen like two bucks or three bucks in
40:23
Speaker 1: all of my years hunting here ever, from you know,
40:26
Speaker 1: from the time I remember probably up through two thousand whenever,
40:31
Speaker 1: this was two twelve. So are you including the three
40:35
Speaker 1: deer that we saw over in the north when you
40:38
Speaker 1: when you were like nine years old and you told
40:40
Speaker 1: me that you wanted the guns so you can shoot them. Yeah,
40:43
Speaker 1: I remember that that was one buck. That was one
40:45
Speaker 1: buck that you couldn't see, but I could see it,
40:47
Speaker 1: and I wanted the gun. So that's one buck. I
40:49
Speaker 1: remember another buck I saw when I was old enough
40:51
Speaker 1: to hunt by myself. I was hunting maybe just a
40:53
Speaker 1: couple hundred yards from that spot, and I had a
40:56
Speaker 1: buck run through, So I was buck number two. And
40:58
Speaker 1: then the third buck I ever saw was in two
41:00
Speaker 1: thousand seven when I killed that eight point or seven
41:03
Speaker 1: point or whatever that was up here. So those are
41:05
Speaker 1: the three bucks I had ever seen at our deer
41:08
Speaker 1: camp from nine to two thousand and seven, and then
41:11
Speaker 1: we had our food plots that we put in here.
41:14
Speaker 1: I don't know what it was, two thirteen or something
41:17
Speaker 1: would have been the first year, and then I started
41:19
Speaker 1: seeing a buck or two, multiple bucks every year after
41:21
Speaker 1: that point. So again, really positive results on the trail camera.
41:26
Speaker 1: That year we saw I think it was one mature
41:28
Speaker 1: buck that we had a camera that year, but still cool.
41:32
Speaker 1: It was nine point, I think Um, and I think Josh,
41:36
Speaker 1: there was one day where I was sitting there and
41:38
Speaker 1: saw this eight point run through and I think you
41:40
Speaker 1: saw him about a couple hundred yards away too, right,
41:44
Speaker 1: because you you've hunted often times I'll be hunting close
41:46
Speaker 1: to the food plot. There's this big chunk of timber
41:49
Speaker 1: that Dad described, and you've been hunting recently a lot
41:51
Speaker 1: over on that side, a lot of deer kind of
41:53
Speaker 1: transitioning through their towards the plots. It seems like, all right,
41:55
Speaker 1: I try to pick them off before they get to you.
41:57
Speaker 1: I've noticed that. Yeah, you know what. Just another comment
42:02
Speaker 1: real quickly one is uh, Um, not only were seeing
42:05
Speaker 1: deer in the food plots, but we're seeing many other animals.
42:08
Speaker 1: So we're we're seeing a lot of bear. Remember those
42:11
Speaker 1: first few years in particular, we almost saw more bear,
42:13
Speaker 1: and we saw deer that camera, yeah, I camera, but
42:17
Speaker 1: we're also seeing coyote. We saw, we've seen some bobcat,
42:20
Speaker 1: We've seen a lot of turkeys. I mean, it's just
42:23
Speaker 1: changed the habitat, I think, not just for Dare, but
42:26
Speaker 1: for our entire the entire ecosystem. Yeah, and it's it's
42:30
Speaker 1: probably less than half acre. I mean it's it's not
42:33
Speaker 1: a big thing. It's a small space, and just that
42:36
Speaker 1: little bit made a big difference. And another thing to
42:39
Speaker 1: point out is that we we mentioned the beginning how
42:42
Speaker 1: acidic the soil was, so every year we've been adding
42:45
Speaker 1: lime and it's been getting better and better, to the
42:48
Speaker 1: point than last year or all that year, we we
42:51
Speaker 1: again planted things that we thought would handle that city.
42:54
Speaker 1: So we're trying to plant things that could handle it
42:57
Speaker 1: in tough conditions, so as oats, it was buck eat
43:01
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Then, Um, I guess it would take
43:05
Speaker 1: us to them last year then, because I think that
43:07
Speaker 1: last year was the third year stuff being planted, and
43:12
Speaker 1: we came in again and I think we tried to
43:14
Speaker 1: do a little bit more cutting. Like every year we
43:16
Speaker 1: do a little more cutting expand it's a little bit,
43:18
Speaker 1: not much, but just a little bit to get more
43:20
Speaker 1: sunlight in. Um aligned it again, fertilized it again, and
43:26
Speaker 1: in the August came back in disked it planted. And
43:31
Speaker 1: this year I thought, hey, we try a blend of things,
43:34
Speaker 1: see what might come in. So I planted oates again.
43:37
Speaker 1: But there was also some brassicas mixed in there, and
43:40
Speaker 1: there was also some clover mixed in there. So for
43:42
Speaker 1: the first time ever, we were going to see could
43:43
Speaker 1: brassicas and clover make it in miss Assidic soil? And
43:49
Speaker 1: plots came in pretty down good again last year, right,
43:51
Speaker 1: I mean I think it looked pretty good. Um. I
43:55
Speaker 1: don't remember if I saw a buck while hunting, um,
43:59
Speaker 1: but you a good one. Yeah, that's not that good one.
44:01
Speaker 1: I'm I'm sure he was coming from the food plot, right,
44:03
Speaker 1: It wasn't too far away from there. So even though
44:06
Speaker 1: when we might not actually be seeing deer on it,
44:08
Speaker 1: I do think that it's it's it's like a it's
44:11
Speaker 1: one of those focal points. It's pulling deer and through
44:14
Speaker 1: the property. Yeah, how they're using the property for sure? Yeah,
44:17
Speaker 1: And we got some didn't have any like big, big
44:20
Speaker 1: mature shooters on camera last year, but a lot of
44:22
Speaker 1: deer still consistently using at a minimum, there's at least
44:25
Speaker 1: one dough family group that is consistently there all the
44:27
Speaker 1: time in that area. And I think that's just, uh,
44:31
Speaker 1: that's helped us tremendously during the rut because now there's
44:34
Speaker 1: a reason that bucks are going to consistently pass through
44:36
Speaker 1: our property now because there's something to keep these doughs
44:38
Speaker 1: there versus you know, probably in a lot of these
44:41
Speaker 1: deers range a very large territory because there's no great
44:45
Speaker 1: concentration of food anywhere, so they just kind of nip
44:47
Speaker 1: and pick their way across huge swath of country. Here,
44:51
Speaker 1: we're able to focus things a little bit more so
44:53
Speaker 1: again we only have like a half acre maybe a food. Yeah.
44:56
Speaker 1: Last year though came in pretty nice and we have
44:58
Speaker 1: a little bit more diverse blended stuff. We had some
45:00
Speaker 1: braskas that came up, we had a lot of oats
45:02
Speaker 1: that came up, UM, a little bit of buckwheet that
45:05
Speaker 1: came up. UM. At that point, it was mostly what
45:07
Speaker 1: you're seeing and um, lots of bears coming on camera.
45:11
Speaker 1: And then, like I talked about last year on the podcast,
45:14
Speaker 1: I had that night where um, I had a black
45:17
Speaker 1: bear come right underneath my stand for the first time,
45:19
Speaker 1: which is pretty cool. Um, So that was quite a
45:21
Speaker 1: hun say, Mark, One thing I want to mention is
45:24
Speaker 1: we actually have a third food plot two but it's
45:26
Speaker 1: really close to the cabin. That's maybe another eighth of
45:29
Speaker 1: an acre, maybe a little bit bigger than that. Um.
45:31
Speaker 1: But we we've done well there in terms of the
45:34
Speaker 1: food that that's come up there as well. And I
45:36
Speaker 1: don't know if you think that's really changed or helped
45:39
Speaker 1: at all in and you know, keeping the deer in
45:41
Speaker 1: the area. But but you know, we have three total. Yeah,
45:44
Speaker 1: I always kind of look at that. It's it's pretty
45:46
Speaker 1: negligible what it is right now. It's it's kind of
45:48
Speaker 1: a little patch, but it's something. Um And yeah, I
45:52
Speaker 1: mean that is another thing that just added to this
45:54
Speaker 1: sum total of food that we have, gives us a
45:57
Speaker 1: little bit more so. So yeah, that's that's what we've
46:02
Speaker 1: done to this point. All right. We we have created
46:05
Speaker 1: little food plot openings. We've talked about a number of
46:09
Speaker 1: different things, but something really encouraging that we just saw
46:13
Speaker 1: we got here today. We started talking about things we
46:16
Speaker 1: want to do with a little bit from the forestry standpoint.
46:19
Speaker 1: So this is the first time I've been back to
46:21
Speaker 1: the cabin since last winter, and we went over to
46:24
Speaker 1: the food plot area, and I was kind of expecting,
46:26
Speaker 1: all right, we're gonna have to do what we do
46:27
Speaker 1: every year, which is replant. You know, we got annuals
46:30
Speaker 1: and replanting every summer. Before you say that, the first
46:32
Speaker 1: thing we have to do is get rid of the ferns.
46:34
Speaker 1: So usually we have to spray and spray a couple
46:37
Speaker 1: of times because they grow. So I mean usually they're
46:39
Speaker 1: just they are everywhere. They're carpet of ferns. Get a
46:42
Speaker 1: bunch of ferns, and so we get out there and
46:44
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, well it's green. And I get closer
46:49
Speaker 1: and it's clover, and it is a lot of clover.
46:52
Speaker 1: And so as part of our mix last year there
46:54
Speaker 1: was some clover in there. I kind of really didn't
46:57
Speaker 1: have high hope. I wasn't even thinking that we would
46:59
Speaker 1: get it to them back. Not much at all that
47:01
Speaker 1: I could see came up last fall. Um, but holy smokes,
47:05
Speaker 1: it came in beautifully this spring. So we basically have
47:10
Speaker 1: a perennial clover plot going on right now that just
47:14
Speaker 1: needs to be maintained. We don't need to replant a
47:16
Speaker 1: whole new food plot this summer, which is really nice.
47:20
Speaker 1: Like I'm shocked it's it looked really good, look really good.
47:25
Speaker 1: So that right there is like that's the product of
47:29
Speaker 1: what we've been doing to try to improve the soil.
47:31
Speaker 1: There was never never would you have that growing and
47:34
Speaker 1: that stuff before him, So that is that is really encouraging.
47:38
Speaker 1: So we've had a nice lush food source all spring
47:41
Speaker 1: now for the deer here, and we just pulled trail
47:43
Speaker 1: camera cards and saw that the deer have been using
47:44
Speaker 1: it a bunch. They've been enjoying that all spring now, um,
47:47
Speaker 1: and now it's the continue through the summer. So all
47:49
Speaker 1: we need to do is manage it. So I think
47:51
Speaker 1: we need to mow it one time here in the summer,
47:54
Speaker 1: and then when we get closer to the end of summer,
47:57
Speaker 1: I think we'll do a one time pass with a
48:00
Speaker 1: grass selective herbicide. It's just there are some grasses growing
48:03
Speaker 1: it and someplace is really thick, so just knock back
48:06
Speaker 1: the grass once and then we're just gonna nurture that
48:09
Speaker 1: clover so fertilize it um, maybe do a top seating
48:13
Speaker 1: so go over hopefully can come up here once before
48:15
Speaker 1: rain and broadcast some more clover, maybe some other annuals
48:19
Speaker 1: to just fill in the gaps. We'll I'll run some
48:21
Speaker 1: oats or cereal rye or something, maybe some Braska seeds
48:25
Speaker 1: that will easily take just by broadcasting on top of
48:28
Speaker 1: everything with a rain coming the next day, and that'll
48:31
Speaker 1: fill the gaps. And we'll have this great food plot
48:34
Speaker 1: of mostly printing the clover and then some of these
48:35
Speaker 1: other annuals filling in the gaps. And then next year
48:39
Speaker 1: we'll get the clover will be back and it will
48:40
Speaker 1: probably even thicker and more less patchy. Um, And then
48:44
Speaker 1: we'll just continue nurturing that. And that's I mean, that
48:46
Speaker 1: makes things a lot easier for us. Plus, clover is
48:50
Speaker 1: one of the best possible options you can have out
48:52
Speaker 1: there because it's gonna attract deer and feed deer with
48:54
Speaker 1: a high protein really attractive um, really attractive for from
49:01
Speaker 1: like March or April right through the winter. You know,
49:04
Speaker 1: I mean, they're gonna it won't be quite as attractive
49:07
Speaker 1: in December it's super duper cool, but lots of times
49:09
Speaker 1: I still still see them hitting it right through. Um,
49:13
Speaker 1: So that is just like I'm blown away. I was
49:17
Speaker 1: not expecting that. I think we're all pretty excited to
49:19
Speaker 1: see it. We were. So that's the food plot game.
49:22
Speaker 1: But the thing is is that it's really hard to
49:25
Speaker 1: carve in food plots. And even though we're seeing some
49:27
Speaker 1: nice results with our little half acre food, it's still
49:30
Speaker 1: relatively minimal and there's still like only you know, one
49:33
Speaker 1: or two people can be hunting around that it is
49:36
Speaker 1: making a difference, but it's there's so much more. I
49:38
Speaker 1: feel like we could be doing and we could really
49:41
Speaker 1: turn things around if we could create some more opening,
49:43
Speaker 1: some more diversity in the habitat, some more edge, some
49:46
Speaker 1: more food to just draw more deer into the area.
49:48
Speaker 1: Because right now there's a very scattered herd, but there
49:52
Speaker 1: are deer. But if we create a more concentrate, high
49:55
Speaker 1: quality food source, it would just be that much better.
50:00
Speaker 1: So I've started, like we started talking I think it
50:02
Speaker 1: was last year, maybe Dad, that we started talking about this,
50:05
Speaker 1: the idea of like, hey, maybe we can get some
50:07
Speaker 1: of this timber cut out and plant some bigger food plots.
50:10
Speaker 1: Maybe in the center of some of this timber, maybe
50:12
Speaker 1: we can pull out some timber, um cut some stuff,
50:15
Speaker 1: create more openings, create more food plots, things along those lines,
50:18
Speaker 1: and spread them out so we can hunt over a
50:21
Speaker 1: larger area, so we can pull the ear from wider area,
50:24
Speaker 1: so there's more things going on. Um. But the question
50:27
Speaker 1: was like how do we do that? How, Like we
50:29
Speaker 1: don't really have the means to go and clear an
50:31
Speaker 1: acre or two acres of like big mature timber or
50:35
Speaker 1: the time. Um. So we started wondering, like, maybe could
50:38
Speaker 1: we find someone that would come in here? Could we
50:41
Speaker 1: could we do it in such a way that a
50:42
Speaker 1: logging company would come in and you know, maybe it
50:44
Speaker 1: would be cost neutral. We would get the trees taken
50:46
Speaker 1: out the way we wanted them to and then they
50:48
Speaker 1: get the lumber and maybe that'd be even exchange. Or
50:53
Speaker 1: maybe we can find a way that's not too crazy expensive. UM.
50:57
Speaker 1: So I ran that past you dead, and you and
50:59
Speaker 1: and you know your brother, you guys are on board
51:01
Speaker 1: with that, right. It seems like a good idea. UM.
51:04
Speaker 1: And so the next step was I'm trying to find
51:06
Speaker 1: like how do you find someone to do that? Who
51:08
Speaker 1: do you talk to? And I'm right to talk to you, Josh.
51:10
Speaker 1: You see, if you haven't known anyone through your que
51:12
Speaker 1: you make connections as far as like, we want a
51:14
Speaker 1: forrester to come in because basically the first step from
51:17
Speaker 1: I understood, is getting get a consulting forrester or a
51:19
Speaker 1: state forester to come out and figure out what's what
51:22
Speaker 1: do you have, what's available, what might be marketable, and
51:26
Speaker 1: you know, if there's something there, then they can connect
51:28
Speaker 1: you with a either another forrester who can sign and
51:32
Speaker 1: set up contracts or connect you directly to a logging
51:35
Speaker 1: company to then do those things. So over the last
51:39
Speaker 1: handful months, I've been calling a bunch of different foresters
51:41
Speaker 1: trying to find someone that could do this. Had two
51:44
Speaker 1: other people I talked to but just couldn't end up
51:46
Speaker 1: getting them out here. What ended up being a little
51:48
Speaker 1: bit of a challenge was that we have a small
51:51
Speaker 1: it's a small property. It's a small amount of area
51:53
Speaker 1: where you can actually take timber out of its right
51:55
Speaker 1: forty acres of which at least half of that is
51:58
Speaker 1: wet ground without any really decent timber in there at all, sticks,
52:02
Speaker 1: nasty alders and stuff. Um. So finally he was able
52:06
Speaker 1: to get in touch with the State Forrester, who this
52:10
Speaker 1: is their job to come out and do these things.
52:11
Speaker 1: They do it for free, like so we didn't have
52:14
Speaker 1: to pay a consulting fear anything. But their job is
52:16
Speaker 1: to come out and connect to you with you know,
52:19
Speaker 1: other forresters or logging companies that might be able to
52:21
Speaker 1: do the job that you have. So that's why we
52:24
Speaker 1: came here today. We came here to meet that forrester
52:27
Speaker 1: and he was going to walk the property with us
52:28
Speaker 1: and tell us what we saw or tell us what
52:31
Speaker 1: was going on here and what might be possible. Um,
52:34
Speaker 1: I don't do either one. You guys want to walk
52:35
Speaker 1: what did you think that? Walk me through what you
52:38
Speaker 1: experienced and what your thoughts were. Well, so we walk
52:41
Speaker 1: the property. Um, Josh was the was a forester that
52:44
Speaker 1: we worked with, a very very knowledgeable, very impressed And
52:49
Speaker 1: it wasn't Josh Hilliard. There's a different guy named Josh.
52:53
Speaker 1: So we'll say there's a further further came along to
52:57
Speaker 1: reserve and then the other Josh was for us to
53:00
Speaker 1: the cha. Yeah, so Josh kind of level set uh
53:05
Speaker 1: and and he walked us through. We walked him through
53:09
Speaker 1: every segment of the property, different types of training, the
53:12
Speaker 1: high ground, the low ground, north, south, etcetera. And we
53:15
Speaker 1: described both, you know, what our goals were, and as
53:19
Speaker 1: we did that, you know, he provided a lot of
53:21
Speaker 1: good information, gave us some perspective. I would say. One
53:24
Speaker 1: of the things that struck me um and and I
53:26
Speaker 1: guess this is no surprise. His perspective was really about habitat, right.
53:31
Speaker 1: It was habitat protection and in um um encouraging and
53:36
Speaker 1: providing uh, you know, opportunities to increase native forage, um
53:42
Speaker 1: remove and and discourage non native forage. Uh, you know,
53:46
Speaker 1: improve the habitat for all wildlife, not just dear And
53:50
Speaker 1: that was really fascinating, I thought, um and he was.
53:52
Speaker 1: I thought he was outstanding. So I think the information
53:54
Speaker 1: we've we've gathered from him was very good. And he's
53:57
Speaker 1: going to create a technical report that looks like it's
53:59
Speaker 1: gonna be very detailed by by different components of our property.
54:03
Speaker 1: And um, you know, I mean, I think we we
54:06
Speaker 1: didn't hear everything we were hoping we're gonna hear. But
54:09
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure that wasn't surprising also, so um
54:12
Speaker 1: but it was very good. And we're gonna pause for
54:15
Speaker 1: one last break to think our partners at Morton Buildings
54:19
Speaker 1: for their support of this podcast, and more Than is
54:22
Speaker 1: the builder of wood framed steel side of buildings. You've
54:26
Speaker 1: probably seen them all over the place. If you ever
54:28
Speaker 1: drive through the country, you might see, Oh gosh, folks
54:31
Speaker 1: are using these types of Morton buildings for hunting camps.
54:34
Speaker 1: They're using them even for homes. They're using them for
54:36
Speaker 1: storage facilities for guys. You're using for tractors, a t
54:40
Speaker 1: V S, side by sides, food plot equipment. UM, you
54:44
Speaker 1: can use them as a skinning shack, of butchering shed,
54:47
Speaker 1: just a place to hang out after hunting. Gosh, there's
54:51
Speaker 1: a lot of options you can do with those. As
54:53
Speaker 1: I've mentioned in the past, I've always imagined having one
54:56
Speaker 1: of these pol barn houses. It's it's still a dream.
54:58
Speaker 1: And with a hundred ten years building experience, Moren has
55:01
Speaker 1: become one of the most renowned names in the industry.
55:05
Speaker 1: Their custom buildings include things such as their exclusive energy
55:08
Speaker 1: Performer installation package, which is going to lead to improved
55:11
Speaker 1: heating and cooling and nearly zero maintenance high rib steel.
55:15
Speaker 1: If you'd like to learn more about Morton buildings, you
55:18
Speaker 1: can visit Morton buildings dot com. So so I want
55:22
Speaker 1: to get more detail, UM, so we took him across
55:26
Speaker 1: the property to observe each different cover type is what
55:29
Speaker 1: he wanted to see. So we came with a map
55:32
Speaker 1: that showed the different soil types and the property. So
55:34
Speaker 1: you knew there was two upland areas and then there
55:36
Speaker 1: was a lot of lowland. So you want to go
55:38
Speaker 1: to these different upland areas where there was most likely
55:41
Speaker 1: to be manageable forest. And then he wanted to see
55:44
Speaker 1: different cover types. So, for example, there was one section
55:48
Speaker 1: that large stretch of pines you talked about the beginning,
55:50
Speaker 1: We have this big block of planted white pines UM.
55:54
Speaker 1: So he wanted to observe that. Take a look at that.
55:57
Speaker 1: He saw it. He said, hey, this is planted way
55:58
Speaker 1: too thick. There's we need to thin this out for sure. Um.
56:03
Speaker 1: That'd be good for wildlife, be good for habitat, and
56:05
Speaker 1: for future value of ever selling any of these trees
56:08
Speaker 1: um as well. So he said, you know, he didn't
56:12
Speaker 1: he didn't mention too many very detailed management prescriptions, but
56:16
Speaker 1: he did say this is a place you'd want to
56:17
Speaker 1: thin it and you would basically take out all the
56:21
Speaker 1: subordinate trees, leave all like the prime healthy trees and
56:26
Speaker 1: then that would open up the canopy, get more sunlight
56:28
Speaker 1: down to the bottom, which would allow some regrowth, because
56:31
Speaker 1: right now there's no white pine regrowth, no white pines regrown,
56:36
Speaker 1: because there's nothing coming through. The only thing that's grown
56:38
Speaker 1: and very sparsely. There's a couple of maples that have grown.
56:41
Speaker 1: And he pointed out that that is like the native
56:43
Speaker 1: thing that will be coming back, Like if you lose
56:45
Speaker 1: your pines and your hemlocks and your cedars, which right now,
56:49
Speaker 1: basically nowhere do we have regrowing cedars in the lowlands
56:52
Speaker 1: or in that pine except for in the old field. Um.
56:56
Speaker 1: If when those eventually die out, what you're just gonna
56:58
Speaker 1: give a bunch of maples coming back poland protecular, right yea. Um,
57:03
Speaker 1: So the first thing we saw that that stand and Um.
57:07
Speaker 1: Then we moved to some of the old fields that
57:10
Speaker 1: are now overgrown with cherries and maples and those norways
57:15
Speaker 1: and the blue spruces and stuff that gp planted over
57:17
Speaker 1: the years. Um, some white pines, cherry trees, um, stuff
57:22
Speaker 1: like that. And so we observed that cover type and
57:25
Speaker 1: took a bunch of notes and as we go, he's
57:27
Speaker 1: got this map, that soil map. I talked about, and
57:29
Speaker 1: he's writing all these notes in there about each different
57:32
Speaker 1: set of cover we're seeing. He observed different layers, so
57:35
Speaker 1: we observe what the canopy layer was, So what does
57:38
Speaker 1: it look like a high he observed and wrote notes
57:41
Speaker 1: what the mid canopy looked like, So you're young trees
57:44
Speaker 1: that are growing midded canopy kind of part way up there.
57:47
Speaker 1: And then what's growing at the ground level, So what
57:50
Speaker 1: kind of forbes and bushes and things might be growing.
57:53
Speaker 1: And a pretty consistent thing other than the fields, is
57:56
Speaker 1: that we don't have a mid canopy or a ground cover.
58:00
Speaker 1: It's all high canopy stuff. And then you can just
58:03
Speaker 1: see right through all the pines. You can see right
58:05
Speaker 1: through all the hemlocks. You just had these couple of
58:08
Speaker 1: old fields that now provide some of that stuff. And
58:10
Speaker 1: then you've got the whole lowlands where there's all these
58:12
Speaker 1: alders and cedars, and then that's thick, but it's just
58:15
Speaker 1: really wet, thick, swampy stuff. Um. So yeah, he said, hey,
58:20
Speaker 1: we're gonna want to thin this this pine stand in
58:23
Speaker 1: the old fields. He said, well, you can pick and
58:25
Speaker 1: choose some of these different things here. You want to um,
58:28
Speaker 1: pull out some of these maples. You can selective the
58:30
Speaker 1: cuts and maples and thin it out and make some openings,
58:33
Speaker 1: and there will also be the most excuse me, those
58:36
Speaker 1: would also be the most natural places to try to
58:38
Speaker 1: reopen up to put food plots in. Again, of course too.
58:42
Speaker 1: Um So we talked about that, and then I think
58:45
Speaker 1: the area though that like at least where I you know,
58:51
Speaker 1: one of the ideas I had. We have this like
58:53
Speaker 1: seven to ten acre block of mostly hemlocks, some cedars,
58:59
Speaker 1: just all mostly conifer trees, very mature and very dense, yes,
59:03
Speaker 1: big dens. And so I've always known that that is
59:07
Speaker 1: great yarding. It's great winter cover, like that's always been
59:10
Speaker 1: this place where you know, like deer going there during
59:12
Speaker 1: the winter, but the rest of the year it's pretty
59:14
Speaker 1: much a dear desert. You can see across the whole thing.
59:17
Speaker 1: You know, there's no ground cover at all, even though
59:19
Speaker 1: it's seven or eight acres worth of of you know,
59:22
Speaker 1: uh stand, I mean you can see you right through
59:26
Speaker 1: a place hundred you see hundreds yards across. There's no
59:29
Speaker 1: deer level cover, there's no deer level food. It's about
59:32
Speaker 1: ten acres, so it's about a core of our entire property,
59:36
Speaker 1: and half of our property swamps, so we really only
59:38
Speaker 1: have half the property you can do anything with. So
59:40
Speaker 1: we've got twenty acres of of of opportunity area. Of
59:44
Speaker 1: that twenty acres, five acres of it is the cabin
59:47
Speaker 1: and the yard and the surrounding stuff. So now we're
59:49
Speaker 1: talking we've got like fifteen acres of mandul stuff, ten
59:52
Speaker 1: acres of which is this dear desert of of old trees.
59:56
Speaker 1: So my idea coming into us was like, hey, there's
59:59
Speaker 1: an opportunity where we could create some kind of opening
1:00:02
Speaker 1: in there to make that whole side of property, but
1:00:05
Speaker 1: better by putting a food source over there. Um. The
1:00:09
Speaker 1: forester disagreed with me on that because he was of
1:00:13
Speaker 1: and and and I still might veto him, I don't
1:00:18
Speaker 1: really want to do it. I really want to do it.
1:00:21
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll maybe we'll find some other options. I want
1:00:23
Speaker 1: to do some more research. But his rationale is that
1:00:26
Speaker 1: the value of that ten acres as yarding covers, as
1:00:29
Speaker 1: winter Habitatfort Deer so high and so important that breaking
1:00:33
Speaker 1: it up at all would be it would be too
1:00:36
Speaker 1: much of a negative. And so his recommendation was to
1:00:38
Speaker 1: try to work on implementing food around the edges of it,
1:00:41
Speaker 1: outside of it. Um, we have very limited opportunities to
1:00:45
Speaker 1: do that, so and you've already kind of done something.
1:00:49
Speaker 1: We've done some of it. We can definitely expand that.
1:00:51
Speaker 1: And maybe the right way to do it isn't to
1:00:53
Speaker 1: put a one acre food plot in the middle of
1:00:55
Speaker 1: it over two acre opening in the middle of it.
1:00:58
Speaker 1: Maybe it's maybe we just choose to do that on
1:01:00
Speaker 1: one of the edges so that you still keep this
1:01:01
Speaker 1: connected big block. You just take an acre out of
1:01:04
Speaker 1: one side. Maybe that's the way we can still do this. UM.
1:01:07
Speaker 1: But basically that was you know, kind of put the
1:01:11
Speaker 1: kaibosh on my big idea there and said that, yes,
1:01:14
Speaker 1: there is some marketable timber in there though, so like
1:01:16
Speaker 1: we could probably get something out. But he kind of said,
1:01:20
Speaker 1: like his thoughts were that we maybe shouldn't do it. It
1:01:25
Speaker 1: It would be hard to get equipment back in there
1:01:27
Speaker 1: because of the nature of the ground. It's kind of low.
1:01:29
Speaker 1: There's these big like potholes and like rises and knobs,
1:01:33
Speaker 1: and I don't know how to describe that habitat, but um,
1:01:37
Speaker 1: but that was, you know, that was the one like
1:01:39
Speaker 1: that was kind of what I thought was gonna have
1:01:41
Speaker 1: a big opportunity area. UM. And some of his concern too,
1:01:44
Speaker 1: is that once we would get rid of that, we'd
1:01:48
Speaker 1: have a hard time regenerating that down the road if
1:01:50
Speaker 1: we wanted to, UM, because stuff was getting browsed so heavy,
1:01:55
Speaker 1: like we we'd need to write plant something and protect it,
1:02:00
Speaker 1: tree tubes or things like that. Yeah. Underneath and his
1:02:03
Speaker 1: his thing too is like if we wanted to keep that,
1:02:06
Speaker 1: even the yard itself, that that ten acres, there's no
1:02:10
Speaker 1: regrowth at all, as you said, So if we don't
1:02:12
Speaker 1: do anything, that is going to die out and be
1:02:15
Speaker 1: replaced by something else someday. So if we wanted this
1:02:18
Speaker 1: to still be a great yarding area fifty years from
1:02:21
Speaker 1: our hundred years from now, we would need to go
1:02:24
Speaker 1: in there, take out just a couple of things here,
1:02:27
Speaker 1: take out the maples where there are maples, to open
1:02:29
Speaker 1: up some sunlight and plant hemlocks or things like that
1:02:33
Speaker 1: that hopefully fifty years from our hundred years from now
1:02:35
Speaker 1: would refill UM. So maybe that's gonna be what we do.
1:02:39
Speaker 1: Maybe what we do is we're gonna go in there.
1:02:41
Speaker 1: We take a handful of little trees out here, and
1:02:43
Speaker 1: they're just enough to start regrowing some yard type stuff
1:02:47
Speaker 1: again from the ground up, and then we're gonna put
1:02:49
Speaker 1: food on the edges maybe, Um, I'm not sure exactly how.
1:02:52
Speaker 1: I think our biggest challenge still in our biggest The
1:02:55
Speaker 1: biggest reason why we haven't been able to make bigger
1:02:57
Speaker 1: food plots is that it's so timber, so thick, and
1:03:01
Speaker 1: we don't have equipment. So all we have his chainsaws.
1:03:04
Speaker 1: None of us are really good with him. Dad nearly
1:03:06
Speaker 1: had a heart attack two years in a row. I
1:03:08
Speaker 1: think the second year you had the same thing. Um,
1:03:11
Speaker 1: So we need to figure out a way two more
1:03:14
Speaker 1: efficiently both the time and money get openings made. You've
1:03:19
Speaker 1: got to look on your face, what are you thinking.
1:03:22
Speaker 1: I was just thinking. The way we fixed that is
1:03:24
Speaker 1: way for your your respective two boys to grow up.
1:03:27
Speaker 1: And then we got slave labor to do other cuttings.
1:03:29
Speaker 1: We got a little weight on that, though I'd like
1:03:32
Speaker 1: to make some progress before that. Um. But yeah, so
1:03:35
Speaker 1: that's where we're at right now. We need to figure
1:03:37
Speaker 1: out a way to open up these old fields some more,
1:03:39
Speaker 1: because I think we're making progress there, but it definitely
1:03:41
Speaker 1: could be much more and maybe we can get like
1:03:45
Speaker 1: basically the end The net net of our conversation in
1:03:48
Speaker 1: the forest today was like, you know, here's your your
1:03:50
Speaker 1: biggest challenge is that you have a very small amount
1:03:53
Speaker 1: of marketable timber here that someone's gonna come in and
1:03:56
Speaker 1: work with. So you gotta thin these pines. You're gonna
1:03:58
Speaker 1: take some red maples and handful of things out of here.
1:04:01
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll take out a little bit of the edge
1:04:03
Speaker 1: of the hemlocks or something that's a relatively small amount
1:04:06
Speaker 1: of timber that the company is gonna want to come
1:04:08
Speaker 1: in and do. So maybe we can get someone to
1:04:11
Speaker 1: do that, but we're probably low on their list of priorities. Um,
1:04:16
Speaker 1: so that's where we're at. We're gonna wait and see.
1:04:18
Speaker 1: We're gonna get connected with a couple of people and
1:04:20
Speaker 1: see if someone will take that job and how long
1:04:23
Speaker 1: that will take. I think the interim, I don't know
1:04:27
Speaker 1: what are your guys thoughts in the interim. I think
1:04:30
Speaker 1: because of what we experienced with the existing food plots,
1:04:33
Speaker 1: I mean, we ought to go back and look at
1:04:35
Speaker 1: how we expand those food plots further. You know, one
1:04:37
Speaker 1: of the things we didn't say is that those two
1:04:40
Speaker 1: food plots are almost adjacent to that big hemlock stand
1:04:46
Speaker 1: so if we could move them even closer. Now you
1:04:49
Speaker 1: have an area where you have really heavy duty yarding
1:04:53
Speaker 1: in the winter, and you've got this hopefully much significantly
1:04:56
Speaker 1: improved UM feeding area. You know, to some extent, we're
1:05:01
Speaker 1: gonna have to see what comes back from the forest
1:05:03
Speaker 1: or we're gonna have to look and see if we
1:05:04
Speaker 1: can find, you know, a partner that would help us
1:05:06
Speaker 1: do this. UM. But if we can't, I think that's
1:05:09
Speaker 1: our option. Yeah. I think there's some spots too that
1:05:12
Speaker 1: he pointed out where if we just got rid of
1:05:15
Speaker 1: some saplings and some smaller trees there there was some
1:05:18
Speaker 1: good natural brows coming up in certain spots. UM. If
1:05:22
Speaker 1: we could make that better, more open area, for get
1:05:25
Speaker 1: more sunlight to that, UM, that could potentially help us
1:05:28
Speaker 1: out and kind of create another edge. Then from we
1:05:31
Speaker 1: got the food plots and then to some natural vegetation
1:05:35
Speaker 1: that they'll they'd want to browse, and then to the
1:05:37
Speaker 1: the hemlocks. He kind of had that layered edge that
1:05:40
Speaker 1: could help and that wouldn't be a ton of there's
1:05:43
Speaker 1: nothing huge and there's a lot of just small saplings.
1:05:45
Speaker 1: I think a lot of red maple in there. Again. UM,
1:05:48
Speaker 1: that could be something. There's a couple of different spots
1:05:50
Speaker 1: that he pointed out that we could potentially do that. Um, yeah,
1:05:54
Speaker 1: I think you're absolutely right. I think it's just gotta
1:05:56
Speaker 1: go in there with a chains or or what would
1:05:58
Speaker 1: be nice. Especially on the other side creek, we're food
1:06:01
Speaker 1: plot one and two are which essentially one connected plot,
1:06:04
Speaker 1: but like a barbell um. I was thinking it might
1:06:08
Speaker 1: be worth renting a dozer and an operator to come
1:06:12
Speaker 1: in here, because you just push all that stuff out stuff,
1:06:14
Speaker 1: and it gets through the stumps, it gets everything, and
1:06:16
Speaker 1: a lot of the treason there could be easily taking
1:06:18
Speaker 1: care of the dozer much more quickly than us with
1:06:21
Speaker 1: a chainsaw. And then you're stuck with stumps, dragon tops
1:06:25
Speaker 1: and yeah, and so high. You know, chipping a lot
1:06:29
Speaker 1: of money. Will throw in five bucks or whatever it
1:06:31
Speaker 1: is for the day to get someone to come out
1:06:33
Speaker 1: here and just say, hey, here's he could push out
1:06:36
Speaker 1: another acre acre and a half probably of of ground
1:06:40
Speaker 1: there on those food plots. And then so between that
1:06:43
Speaker 1: and then taking chainsaws and doing some selective patches here
1:06:46
Speaker 1: and there in some other spots, all of a sudden
1:06:48
Speaker 1: we could create another two acres or more openings and
1:06:51
Speaker 1: food um, and that's pretty good progress. You could we
1:06:54
Speaker 1: could more than we could more than double what we've
1:06:57
Speaker 1: got going on now, probably with some stuff like that
1:07:00
Speaker 1: afternoon to work for someone with a dozer. And I
1:07:03
Speaker 1: really like the idea that you had markup, you know,
1:07:05
Speaker 1: being able to take out a protected area within those
1:07:08
Speaker 1: hemlocks that was adjacent to the hemlocks themselves and the
1:07:12
Speaker 1: swamp on the other side, and it was closed to
1:07:14
Speaker 1: the other food plots. To me, that made a lot
1:07:16
Speaker 1: of sense. But given what we heard, given you know,
1:07:19
Speaker 1: our our goals and objectives, I think what you just
1:07:21
Speaker 1: described probably makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I think
1:07:25
Speaker 1: for now at least, I still really wish we could
1:07:27
Speaker 1: find a way to get something on the other side
1:07:29
Speaker 1: of the property, because right now, having all like the
1:07:31
Speaker 1: good it's better than nothing. I'd rather have more where
1:07:34
Speaker 1: it is. But I'd also rather have stuff spread around too,
1:07:38
Speaker 1: so that that gives us a wider area of influence
1:07:41
Speaker 1: of which will be attracting deer and moving deer through
1:07:43
Speaker 1: different parts of the property, just so that you know,
1:07:46
Speaker 1: all of us have a better chance to seem more
1:07:48
Speaker 1: deer to um. Like, I'd love to have food source
1:07:52
Speaker 1: closer to closer to your spot, dad's a better chance
1:07:55
Speaker 1: to deer through there um and we can spread ourselves
1:07:58
Speaker 1: out and have deer path seen through a larger area.
1:08:00
Speaker 1: Now by having even one really good food source, it
1:08:03
Speaker 1: pulls deer from all over, so it is helping. Let
1:08:06
Speaker 1: it be nice to have multiple spots like that, you know.
1:08:08
Speaker 1: So we talked about food plot three, which is a
1:08:11
Speaker 1: small food plot close to the cabin. It's not a
1:08:13
Speaker 1: place where you really want to hunt, but it is
1:08:15
Speaker 1: something that would pull deer through the area. What do
1:08:18
Speaker 1: you think of expanding that? So the issue is that
1:08:21
Speaker 1: and why I really have not, you know, put too
1:08:23
Speaker 1: much time or energy into is that I don't think
1:08:25
Speaker 1: we want We don't want to have a great, big
1:08:27
Speaker 1: food plot there because already our biggest challenge, other than
1:08:32
Speaker 1: creating food, our biggest challenge is not spooking deer. And
1:08:37
Speaker 1: if you already we have certain people with we have
1:08:42
Speaker 1: a challenge with everybody getting on board with low pressure
1:08:46
Speaker 1: hunting tactics. And so if we go waltzing around all
1:08:50
Speaker 1: over the place and spooking deer, that reduces our chances
1:08:53
Speaker 1: of being able to see them during daylight. That's what
1:08:55
Speaker 1: big challenge. But what I'm here you're saying is we're
1:08:56
Speaker 1: going to bring deer closer to the camp where they're
1:08:58
Speaker 1: going to get spooked, effectively drive all the deer around exactly.
1:09:02
Speaker 1: And I don't want you don't want to do this
1:09:04
Speaker 1: like attract and repel thing, Like if you attract a
1:09:07
Speaker 1: bunch of deer to a place where they're naturally going
1:09:09
Speaker 1: to come into contact with with us and people, that's
1:09:12
Speaker 1: gonna make things worse. As soon as we walk out
1:09:14
Speaker 1: the door to get ready to go right hunt, you know,
1:09:18
Speaker 1: in the morning, they're going to be right there. Those
1:09:21
Speaker 1: other food plots are already pretty close. Yeah they're close.
1:09:24
Speaker 1: They're they separated by a visual barrier the creek and
1:09:28
Speaker 1: timber and stuff, but yes, like there within ears distance
1:09:30
Speaker 1: you can hear um. So that's always been a challenge
1:09:33
Speaker 1: we have simply because of how big the property, how
1:09:35
Speaker 1: small the property is, where our fields are in locations,
1:09:38
Speaker 1: like that's something we're working with already. I'm you know,
1:09:41
Speaker 1: having a little patch of stuff there has been like something,
1:09:43
Speaker 1: but I don't think it's been such an attractant that
1:09:46
Speaker 1: like we're pulling a bunch of deer and spooking them.
1:09:48
Speaker 1: I think if we try to really expand that you
1:09:50
Speaker 1: would have that risk. So anything that we were to
1:09:52
Speaker 1: try to plant on this side of the creek, so
1:09:55
Speaker 1: within this like ten acres around the cabin, if we
1:09:58
Speaker 1: do it, we need be really careful about thinking about
1:10:02
Speaker 1: ways to block it from the cabin and making sure
1:10:04
Speaker 1: we're not spooking deer. They're all time. So I always
1:10:07
Speaker 1: thought like, for example, on the far west side of
1:10:10
Speaker 1: the pines here, you can maybe try to if we
1:10:12
Speaker 1: could remove some of those pines enough to open up
1:10:15
Speaker 1: like a quarter acre or something like that, that could
1:10:17
Speaker 1: be a cool spot to put a little food plot
1:10:19
Speaker 1: because it'd be huntable for you. But we would have
1:10:22
Speaker 1: to have some kind of visual barrier to block it
1:10:24
Speaker 1: from here from the cabin. So you could do that
1:10:27
Speaker 1: maybe by cutting down a bunch of trees and leaving
1:10:30
Speaker 1: all the tree tops like form wall of tree tops
1:10:32
Speaker 1: that visually block it. Stuff like that. Um So I
1:10:36
Speaker 1: think there's some creative solutions, but there's gotta be enough distance,
1:10:39
Speaker 1: and there's gotta be some waste to block it, and
1:10:41
Speaker 1: and then we have to be thoughtful about how we
1:10:43
Speaker 1: approach it, because again, you don't want a food plot
1:10:46
Speaker 1: that we have to walk by every time you're leaving
1:10:48
Speaker 1: or coming by whatever, I'm just spooking all the deer.
1:10:51
Speaker 1: And that's I think like that continues to be our
1:10:52
Speaker 1: biggest challenges. I think deer very quickly catch onto when
1:10:56
Speaker 1: we're here, and so the best hunts, I was it
1:11:00
Speaker 1: the first day you're here, and then it usually goes
1:11:02
Speaker 1: down subsequently, unless you've got like you know, in the
1:11:05
Speaker 1: rut and stuff. They'll be deer coming from long distances
1:11:07
Speaker 1: and they'll pass through not realizing it. But your core dear,
1:11:10
Speaker 1: your local deer herd is going to move in daylight
1:11:13
Speaker 1: close to the cabin less and less as we make
1:11:15
Speaker 1: a ruckus and stuff. So that's why i'd be nice
1:11:18
Speaker 1: to have habitat improvements further away from the cabin that
1:11:21
Speaker 1: we can be hunting and taking advantage of that aren't
1:11:24
Speaker 1: as impacted by our presence. So one thing we've you
1:11:28
Speaker 1: and I have talked about Mark a little bit is
1:11:30
Speaker 1: in the interim things that we could do is it
1:11:32
Speaker 1: is so thick back here, you know, take a chainsaw
1:11:36
Speaker 1: and go into some of these thick areas and just
1:11:38
Speaker 1: kind of carve out some trails shooting basically well or
1:11:42
Speaker 1: or deer trails to where you're kind of influencing. You
1:11:46
Speaker 1: know where they're going to be traveling. You can kind
1:11:48
Speaker 1: of dictate where you want them to go with how
1:11:50
Speaker 1: thick it is. If you clear some openings, they're they're
1:11:54
Speaker 1: likely to use those um dear creatures of least they
1:11:58
Speaker 1: want the path at least for this resistance. So it's
1:12:02
Speaker 1: true you can find some ways to influence. You might
1:12:05
Speaker 1: attract dear, but you can find ways to funnel deer.
1:12:08
Speaker 1: But again, it's like any way to concentrate deer activity
1:12:11
Speaker 1: in some small ways helpful here. Well. And you know,
1:12:14
Speaker 1: the other thing we really haven't talked about much, which
1:12:16
Speaker 1: is kind of what you're alluding to, Josh, is are
1:12:18
Speaker 1: the things we can do to our property that would
1:12:20
Speaker 1: enhance the movement of deer on the adjacent state property
1:12:24
Speaker 1: that we could hunt. Uh, yeah, I don't know about that.
1:12:29
Speaker 1: I think the biggest thing is like, we can't influence
1:12:32
Speaker 1: the public land, of course, so the only things we
1:12:34
Speaker 1: can do here is like make this as as attractive
1:12:37
Speaker 1: of a thing as we possibly can. But then you
1:12:39
Speaker 1: could hunt the public land surrounding us as deer passed
1:12:42
Speaker 1: through the public land to our spots absolutely, But it's
1:12:46
Speaker 1: just a matter of in a perfect world, we'd have
1:12:48
Speaker 1: more attractant of some kinds of food, because that's the
1:12:52
Speaker 1: thing that's not everywhere else. So if we could have
1:12:55
Speaker 1: multiple food sources on our property, on different sides of
1:12:57
Speaker 1: our property, that would pull deer from all sides of
1:13:00
Speaker 1: the public surrounding us, then you have the opportunity to
1:13:02
Speaker 1: hunt that public and catch them passing through, hunt all
1:13:05
Speaker 1: sides of our property and catch them passing through heading
1:13:08
Speaker 1: to these core regions on our farm that do have food. UM.
1:13:12
Speaker 1: And so that's what we're doing on a very small scale. Now.
1:13:15
Speaker 1: We just need to get some more openings made to
1:13:18
Speaker 1: increase that. I think that's the big thing, the big challenge.
1:13:22
Speaker 1: And we're making progress though a little by little, making progress. Yeah,
1:13:25
Speaker 1: we are. It's significant and that is that is encouraging. Yeah,
1:13:29
Speaker 1: it's exciting. It's great to see. You know. When we
1:13:31
Speaker 1: looked at the trail camp pictures today, I was really
1:13:33
Speaker 1: excited to see what we saw. We saw a number
1:13:36
Speaker 1: of um. There was that one deer mark that you
1:13:38
Speaker 1: saw maybe it was in March, hadn't to um and
1:13:41
Speaker 1: didn't have a set of antlers because he had out
1:13:43
Speaker 1: to drop them. But it was a big bodied, mature deer.
1:13:45
Speaker 1: There was no question that was a buck um and
1:13:48
Speaker 1: a big buck. So I mean, I think we're we're
1:13:50
Speaker 1: making progress. So uh So, my my dream is, like
1:13:56
Speaker 1: we talked about this yesterday, my big goal this is
1:13:58
Speaker 1: by the time ever son is old enough to like
1:14:01
Speaker 1: shoot a deer, that this would be to a point
1:14:04
Speaker 1: where he could really realistically have an opportunity to come
1:14:07
Speaker 1: up here be a deer camp and there was like
1:14:09
Speaker 1: a great chance that he could shoot a deer, like
1:14:11
Speaker 1: he'd be excited to go out for opening a day
1:14:13
Speaker 1: because yeah, like last year we had two bucks on
1:14:15
Speaker 1: the pole and the year before that Dad's shot in
1:14:17
Speaker 1: the year before that, Grampa showing My hope is to
1:14:20
Speaker 1: have it back back to what it was like in
1:14:22
Speaker 1: the early nineties when I first came up. You know,
1:14:24
Speaker 1: there's a picture we talked about this last November in
1:14:27
Speaker 1: our podcast. There's a picture um with two deer, at
1:14:30
Speaker 1: least two deer on the buck pole behind the cabin,
1:14:34
Speaker 1: and a little mark in his orange standing underneath them,
1:14:39
Speaker 1: looking up at the deer with his face and awe
1:14:44
Speaker 1: of what it would be like to shoot those deer.
1:14:46
Speaker 1: That's I think what you're talking about. I'd like that today,
1:14:50
Speaker 1: and then I guess we gotta make sure it's around
1:14:52
Speaker 1: for Josh's a little one too, right, what are we
1:14:54
Speaker 1: going to call your little one? If you're you know, Frankfurter. Yeah, right,
1:14:59
Speaker 1: there's a baby further further junior or something Murder Junior
1:15:04
Speaker 1: and Oscar Meyer. I think my wife's gonna have a
1:15:06
Speaker 1: problem with that. But yeah, I don't know, that's that's
1:15:12
Speaker 1: my dream. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I mean that's
1:15:14
Speaker 1: the same thing. I mean, I've I don't think we
1:15:17
Speaker 1: said any but I do have one on the way,
1:15:18
Speaker 1: a little boy in the way, So I mean that's
1:15:20
Speaker 1: that would be awesome to have a spot up here
1:15:23
Speaker 1: that you know, I haven't been coming for very long,
1:15:25
Speaker 1: maybe six seven years, but it's been a really special
1:15:28
Speaker 1: place for me to come and to have him have
1:15:30
Speaker 1: an opportunity to come up here and talk about what
1:15:33
Speaker 1: you were saying with Everett, to have those same sort
1:15:35
Speaker 1: of experiences with him would be awesome. Yeah, from what
1:15:38
Speaker 1: about you did, well, I'm just thinking, as we're talking
1:15:40
Speaker 1: about this, how excited I am to be able to
1:15:43
Speaker 1: experience that all over again and uh. You know, you
1:15:47
Speaker 1: know what, probably the worst thing that could happen to
1:15:50
Speaker 1: Ken Rovan would be for us not to have the
1:15:52
Speaker 1: next generation love to hunt and love to come up
1:15:55
Speaker 1: here and love to experience the things that we're experiencing.
1:15:58
Speaker 1: And I think what you guys are doing and what
1:16:00
Speaker 1: you're talking about, and then I know the way you're gonna,
1:16:03
Speaker 1: you know, introduce your kids to um uh, to the
1:16:06
Speaker 1: place and to the woods and to the area around us,
1:16:09
Speaker 1: they'll have the same love. Because you know, quite honestly,
1:16:11
Speaker 1: I'm a little worried about, you know, what's gonna happen
1:16:14
Speaker 1: twenty thirty years. Who's gonna who's gonna take care of
1:16:16
Speaker 1: the place, Who's gonna want to come up here? You know,
1:16:19
Speaker 1: especially as the number of people that are hunting and
1:16:22
Speaker 1: fishing continues to decline, at least in Michigan. You know, um, um,
1:16:26
Speaker 1: this is important to me. I know it's important to you.
1:16:29
Speaker 1: And I'm just so thrilled to hear that you you
1:16:31
Speaker 1: plan on, you know, having your kids here and and
1:16:34
Speaker 1: and making it their own. So hopefully before I die, um,
1:16:37
Speaker 1: I have the opportunity to see your kids get a
1:16:40
Speaker 1: couple of you know, monstrous bucks and be able to
1:16:42
Speaker 1: celebrate that with you guys. That'd be pretty cool, a
1:16:45
Speaker 1: lot of fun. You know. Well, I think I'll try
1:16:50
Speaker 1: to be conserved here. I'm pretty modest. I'm quite a
1:16:53
Speaker 1: realist when it comes to a lot of things. So
1:16:55
Speaker 1: my guests that ever will shoot his first monstrous buck
1:16:58
Speaker 1: within four years as well, I think I think that
1:17:01
Speaker 1: will pride anyway, he'll put his first of wall hanger
1:17:03
Speaker 1: on their legs. Yeah, we're talking about that yesterday. I
1:17:06
Speaker 1: remember when you were four years older, I guess that'd
1:17:09
Speaker 1: be five years old, and I brought you out to
1:17:11
Speaker 1: the blind out here about to yards north of where
1:17:15
Speaker 1: we're sitting right now, and that blind that Grandpa had
1:17:18
Speaker 1: built for us, which was a nice box blind, and
1:17:22
Speaker 1: Mark marks like five years old, and he's down on
1:17:24
Speaker 1: the bottom of the blind playing with toys and doing
1:17:27
Speaker 1: his thing, and here I'm up there trying to looking
1:17:29
Speaker 1: for a deer. Right. Every once in a while, Mark's
1:17:32
Speaker 1: head would pop up and say, just hear Derry got dead?
1:17:34
Speaker 1: Where's the deer head? Yeah, let's let's be real about this.
1:17:38
Speaker 1: We know that I was playing on the floor and
1:17:39
Speaker 1: you were sleeping. It did change pretty quickly. I will
1:17:48
Speaker 1: admit that. Yeah, I think I became really trying annoyingly
1:17:53
Speaker 1: bossy in the woods at an early age. Well, I
1:17:57
Speaker 1: had a pretty right page six seven, eight years old.
1:17:59
Speaker 1: We were sitting in the same place for sitting now
1:18:01
Speaker 1: when you'd be reading the Outdoor Life and the you know,
1:18:04
Speaker 1: the various magazines telling us everything about deer and you
1:18:07
Speaker 1: know their habitats and their patterns and habits and everything else.
1:18:11
Speaker 1: You should have seen this whole career coming death and
1:18:15
Speaker 1: the Boston nous is stuck with hasn't changed with it all. Right, time,
1:18:20
Speaker 1: it's time for you stop talking, Josh, and I think
1:18:22
Speaker 1: that that will end the podcast. Thanks guys, Let's come
1:18:25
Speaker 1: back and do this one again this fall, hopefully over bigger,
1:18:29
Speaker 1: better habitat improvements. And maybe I was just saying yesterday,
1:18:34
Speaker 1: I think this is the your dad, that you're gonna
1:18:35
Speaker 1: kill an eight pointer up here excited. So maybe we
1:18:38
Speaker 1: should record a podcast right after that. That Ben alright,
1:18:41
Speaker 1: that's a plan, and that we'll do it for today.
1:18:45
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed these stories
1:18:47
Speaker 1: and a little bit of insight into what we've got
1:18:49
Speaker 1: going on up with our deer camp. Hopefully have a
1:18:52
Speaker 1: lot more stories to share in the coming months and
1:18:54
Speaker 1: years as we continue to progress down this road of
1:18:58
Speaker 1: trying to rebuild this really special place for us, and um,
1:19:01
Speaker 1: I'm sure we'll learn some things along the way that
1:19:03
Speaker 1: I'll be sharing, So make sure you're staying tuned on
1:19:05
Speaker 1: the wired don Instagram account. That's where I'm sharing a
1:19:07
Speaker 1: lot of these stories, a lot of quick videos and
1:19:10
Speaker 1: stuff there as well as our Facebook page. And UM,
1:19:13
Speaker 1: I think with that, I'll let you go. Thanks for
1:19:15
Speaker 1: joining in, thanks for being a part of this community,
1:19:17
Speaker 1: and until next time, stay wired to Hunt.