Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 277: Managing Hunting Ground in a Heavily Pressured State

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Ep. 277: Managing Hunting Ground in a Heavily Pressured State · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, your home for
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  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. I'm
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  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyon in this episode number two hundred
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  Speaker 1: and seventy seven, and today in the show, we're joined
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  Speaker 1: by Scott Manifold of Dreary Outdoors to discuss the story
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  Speaker 1: of his Michigan hunting property, how habitat management hunting differs
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  Speaker 1: between his farms in Michigan and Iowa, and detailed ideas
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  Speaker 1: for improving food plots, hunting access, and much much more.
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  Speaker 1: All Right, Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought
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  Speaker 1: to you by on X and Todan. The show my
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  Speaker 1: guest is Scott Manifold. He is originally a Michigan native
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  Speaker 1: who has hunted and owned farms in Michigan and Iowa
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  Speaker 1: and Missouri, and he's been all over the place across
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  Speaker 1: the Midwest in the country hunt. And he's also a
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  Speaker 1: longtime friend of Tom Ware who together the two of
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  Speaker 1: them filmed for Our Bodies over at Drewy Outdoors. And
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  Speaker 1: I somewhat recently discovered Scott uh and that he actually
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  Speaker 1: lives not too far away from where I am in
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  Speaker 1: southern Michigan. So recently he invited me to tour his
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  Speaker 1: property take a look at what he's got going on.
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  Speaker 1: So this past week, the two of us headed out
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  Speaker 1: and walked his Michigan property. We explored all of the
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  Speaker 1: different tweaks and changes and improvements that he made to
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  Speaker 1: this farm over the years, and it kind of dovee
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  Speaker 1: into how he's improved this little chunka dirt for deer
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  Speaker 1: and other wildlife here in Michigan, and and that's just
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  Speaker 1: cool to see. I I always geek out when I'm
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  Speaker 1: getting to see firsthand how someone else goes about these
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  Speaker 1: types of projects, because I've got all sorts of ideas,
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  Speaker 1: and we listened to so many different people here on
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  Speaker 1: the podcast about how they are actually trying to improve
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  Speaker 1: where they hunt for deer and for a wildlife. It's
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  Speaker 1: it's something that's endlessly fascinating to me. But when I
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  Speaker 1: actually get to go out there and see it myself,
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  Speaker 1: it takes it up to a whole another level. And
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  Speaker 1: so I think it's really cool to be able to
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  Speaker 1: help a conversation just after that talking about things that
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  Speaker 1: both of us actually saw and hopefully we're able to
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  Speaker 1: communicate that to you in a way that makes it
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  Speaker 1: more helpful and interesting as well. So that's the game
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  Speaker 1: plan for today. I think, um the property kind of
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  Speaker 1: content is very interesting. I also found that Scott has
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  Speaker 1: an attention to detail with everything that he does, whether
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  Speaker 1: it be just hunting or managing and improving a property,
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  Speaker 1: that was really interesting to see and to hear about.
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  Speaker 1: He also has a lot of ideas around dear behavior
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  Speaker 1: movement that I think could be helpful to anyone, regardless
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  Speaker 1: of if you own and manage a property, or if
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  Speaker 1: you lease property, or if you're hunting public or by permission.
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  Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of things in here that
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  Speaker 1: can be applicable to to any and all of you.
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  Speaker 1: So in short, this was a really fun day in
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  Speaker 1: the field and a fun conversation that I'm excited to
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  Speaker 1: share with you. So I think we should just get
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  Speaker 1: right to it, all right. I am sitting now in
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  Speaker 1: southern Michigan in the basement of a home, and I
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  Speaker 1: see over my left shoulder, I see like a hundred
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  Speaker 1: and eighties something in deer and a hundred nineties something
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  Speaker 1: inch deer and more one forties to one fifties, and
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  Speaker 1: I can probably count, and I see several elk and
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  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of mule deer and a pronghorn. Um.
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  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm surrounded by royalty as far as
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  Speaker 1: as far as white tails right now, and sitting next
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  Speaker 1: to me is Scott Manifold. Um. Scott first up, thanks
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  Speaker 1: for for today, Thanks for taking the time to chat
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  Speaker 1: with me and for showing me around your place, because
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  Speaker 1: what we did and I'm I'm rambling here before I
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  Speaker 1: even let you talk, um, but Scott was so kind
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  Speaker 1: as to take me out and walked me around his
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  Speaker 1: Michigan hunting property. It really really cool place, show me
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  Speaker 1: all all of what he's been up to, the projects
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  Speaker 1: he has in the works, and what he's done in
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  Speaker 1: the past. And uh, it's been a lot of fun. Scott.
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  Speaker 1: So thank you and welcome to the show. Oh, thank you,
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  Speaker 1: and it's great to have you. It's always going to
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  Speaker 1: have another set of is. Everybody sees things a little differently,
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  Speaker 1: so I appreciate your input. Yeah, and it's it's as
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  Speaker 1: we were talking about out there, I just geek out
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  Speaker 1: so much seeing how, just like you said, each different
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  Speaker 1: person's mind goes about scheming out of property figuring it
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  Speaker 1: all out. As we were walking, you're kind of talking
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  Speaker 1: about that's the fun part when you get a farm,
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  Speaker 1: is this scheming. It's like figuring out how you're gonna
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  Speaker 1: do it, and where the deer going to move and
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  Speaker 1: how this change could influence this movement and all that
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  Speaker 1: kind of stuff. And I can see that we are
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  Speaker 1: like minded in our excitement or all that. Well for
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  Speaker 1: us whitetail nuts. I mean, that's that's all part of it.
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  Speaker 1: And yes, it is fun to figure it all out.
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  Speaker 1: And sometimes you're right, sometimes you're wrong, but it is.
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  Speaker 1: It's a fun, fun journey. So that it's that journey's
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  Speaker 1: that process. Yeah. So so Scott, I know of you
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  Speaker 1: and knew you because of my relationships with the guys
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  Speaker 1: over Drewy Outdoors. Um, and you are doing a lot
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  Speaker 1: of stuff with them these days now too. Could you
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  Speaker 1: give us like a real quick cliff notes on, uh,
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  Speaker 1: you know what you're doing now? How I get to
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  Speaker 1: this point? Sure? Sure? Well, Um, you know I grew
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  Speaker 1: up hunting Michigan and farms around here and chasing the
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  Speaker 1: white tails, and as I got older and maybe a
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  Speaker 1: little more successful in life, I always dreamed of hunting Illinois. Well,
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  Speaker 1: Pike County. That was the place, right, and you uh,
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  Speaker 1: you see on TV people killing hundred sixty seventy inches
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  Speaker 1: in Pike County. That Pike County. So I thought to myself,
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  Speaker 1: someday I'd like to go there. And uh, leading up
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  Speaker 1: to that, I had been clipping out articles in the back,
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  Speaker 1: snippets in the back of the magazines that outfitters in
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  Speaker 1: Pike County. Right. So the day came, you know, I
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  Speaker 1: finally felt like I could actually go on this dream
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  Speaker 1: hunt of mine of Pike County. So I delve into
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  Speaker 1: my folder full of these little cutout ads and I
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  Speaker 1: started thumbing through them all and I gravitate towards one
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  Speaker 1: um and it was Bucks Beware and it was small,
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  Speaker 1: you know, kind of innocuous, and I thought maybe this
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  Speaker 1: would be kind of houn I could afford. It doesn't
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  Speaker 1: look too overbearing. And so I call the guy, you know,
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  Speaker 1: and he answers the phone and oh man, he he
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  Speaker 1: didn't have any spots left for that year or whatever,
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  Speaker 1: and but he's like, go on my website, get on
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  Speaker 1: the mailing list, and maybe something will turn up. Well,
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  Speaker 1: turns out this guy that I was talking to was
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  Speaker 1: Tom ware and for those of you the follow jury
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  Speaker 1: know he's he's quite the land manager and what a
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  Speaker 1: deer hunter as well. And uh, what he did was
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  Speaker 1: eventually email me within the months saying, Hey, I've acquired
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  Speaker 1: a new Missouri property. Are you interested in going out there.
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  Speaker 1: I can't promise you that it's set up real good yet,
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  Speaker 1: we've just got it. You'll be the first one to
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  Speaker 1: hunt it. And uh, I said yes. So that kind
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  Speaker 1: of got the ball rolling. I didn't actually meet Tom
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  Speaker 1: when I went to Missouri. He sent somebody out to
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  Speaker 1: get me organized in that. But after the hunt, I,
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  Speaker 1: you know, sincerely thank him because it was it was
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  Speaker 1: a great hunt, a great little cabin back in the woods. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: I spent a week there and I had my crack.
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  Speaker 1: I missed it one sixty bo. Yeah. And so just
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  Speaker 1: I think the fact that I contacted him to say,
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  Speaker 1: you know, I didn't kill anything, but I am extremely
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  Speaker 1: happy with the way this turned out. And then I
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  Speaker 1: had a very good time, thank you, you know. And
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  Speaker 1: and then it wasn't long he said, you know, would
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  Speaker 1: you be interested in shed hunting that property with us
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  Speaker 1: in the spring. So I got a chance to meet
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  Speaker 1: him and in subsequent fall, I did get to go
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  Speaker 1: hunt Pike County, and while I did not kill anything there,
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  Speaker 1: it was great to hang out with Tom and you know,
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  Speaker 1: all his guides, and uh it just became a relationship
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  Speaker 1: that Tom and I developed, and a lot of shed
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  Speaker 1: hunting and then uh going to Iowa to help set
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  Speaker 1: up his farm that he had, you know, had there,
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  Speaker 1: and uh that was the sort of thing I really enjoyed,
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  Speaker 1: was building the food plots and then figuring out where
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  Speaker 1: they should go, what we should put in it. I
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  Speaker 1: mean right down to figuring out what kind of fertilizers are,
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  Speaker 1: how much lime needs to go in there. And so
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  Speaker 1: we you know, became close friends over bonded over that,
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  Speaker 1: as you can imagine, and uh eventually, uh it led
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  Speaker 1: to a going hunting on his Iowa farm. He invited
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  Speaker 1: me out just to hunt with him in Iowa and
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  Speaker 1: uh so you know that continued for years. I even
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  Speaker 1: took my children out in the shed hunts and we
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  Speaker 1: always worked every August out there, and uh, you know
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  Speaker 1: I started harvesting some deer and they were on camera
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  Speaker 1: because I was a friend of his. And then uh,
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  Speaker 1: you know a few years ago, um, you know, Mark
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  Speaker 1: just kind of came to us and said, you know,
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  Speaker 1: Scott should uh should be on the team. He's a
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  Speaker 1: great contributor, and uh, you know, I like what's going
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  Speaker 1: on here. You guys are making a good team. And
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  Speaker 1: so our team blossomed with three man team. But it's
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  Speaker 1: a kind of a dream come true for you know,
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  Speaker 1: the guy growing up and uh never having a whole
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  Speaker 1: lot of uh what I want to say, opportunity like that.
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  Speaker 1: You know, hard work, dedication to the dream and it
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  Speaker 1: gets there as you know, you know, sometimes you get
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  Speaker 1: what you put out and put in, which yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: And I think for any Michigan hunter to to to
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  Speaker 1: go from what we all know is can be challenging.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes here at home it could be great too, but
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  Speaker 1: it can be channeling UM to a different kind of
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  Speaker 1: great in i or Illinois and Missouri. I'm sure it's
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  Speaker 1: just been a different experience out there. It is, uh
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  Speaker 1: and I have had great success in Michigan, don't you know,
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  Speaker 1: not knocking Michigan, but there is a lot more hunters,
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  Speaker 1: there's a lot more pressure. So when you go to
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  Speaker 1: Iowa or Missouri or even southern Illinois, it's a it's
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  Speaker 1: a different world and the biggest thing that I noticed
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: right off the bat that has blown me away. And
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  Speaker 1: I still tell people the biggest difference is how much
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  Speaker 1: time you can spend watching deer b deer. Here, the
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  Speaker 1: deer's primary focus is survival, you know, because there's someone
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  Speaker 1: just walked down the other property line. You know they did,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: and the wind has wafted through the woods. So they're
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: on edge all the time. Here. But when I started
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: hunting Iowa deer just did what dear did they come out?
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  Speaker 1: They'd spar they decked normal, There was no they didn't
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: ext spookie. It was just so different. Rattling word, grunting word,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: you know, and here good luck. Yeah. I just don't
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  Speaker 1: rely on those tactics because they've been used too much
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: and the deer are two on edge and but out
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  Speaker 1: there they really work and it's just really lack of pressure.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, a lot more daylight movement out there. For
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: you know, you want to get a four year old
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  Speaker 1: on its feet. In Michigan, who that can be? That
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  Speaker 1: can be a challenge. There's a lot of them go nocturnal.
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  Speaker 1: I've got one that I've pursued in Michigan now for
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  Speaker 1: a few seasons, and uh, you know, I get pictures
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  Speaker 1: every year and I've only ever laid eyes on him
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  Speaker 1: once and it was right at dark Yep. That deer
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  Speaker 1: has been on the farm for he's well, he's I
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: think eight this coming here. Yeah, so he's ancient and
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  Speaker 1: he's always just been a really big eight point. But
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  Speaker 1: the age is that is another reason I like to
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  Speaker 1: go after him. He's mature, and boy is he tough
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  Speaker 1: to beat. In in that book, I would say if
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  Speaker 1: he were living in Iowa would be a lot easier
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  Speaker 1: to kill because he's probably going to come out to
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: the food during daylight from the lack of pressure. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So a whole different set of challenges, it really is.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: And then I can attest this some of the same
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: things you said to like growing up hunting in Michigan
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: and only knowing this, I had no idea what it
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: was like until you know, eight nine years ago or
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: whatever it was. Ten years ago I started traveling to
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: some of these other states, and yeah, when you go
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: to Iowa, Ohio or Illinois, Um, not only are you
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  Speaker 1: seeing you know, older deer more often, you're seeing more
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  Speaker 1: daily activity, You're seeing them act more normal. One of
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  Speaker 1: the really cool things I noticed was the vocalizations you hear,
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  Speaker 1: Like I never heard a buck roar or snort, wheeze
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  Speaker 1: or anything, never once in twenties some years that ever
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  Speaker 1: hurt some of that. And then I go to Iowa
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  Speaker 1: and I'm seeing a buck lip curling and snort, wheezing
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  Speaker 1: and grunting all sorts of crazy stuff, and and getting
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: to see, like you said, serious bucks fighting, and it's
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: just you know, whether or not you have goals of
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: of killing an old buck or a big buck or
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: whatever it might be, traveling to some of these other
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: states can just be a lot of fun simply because
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: of the like the wildlife experience is just different, like
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: getting to see it, like you said, of getting to
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: see these dear do dear things, Um, just doesn't happen
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: as much in super high pressure states. No, that's that's
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: very true. I mean in Michigan you heard grunting really
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Uh usually there's the guy on the other that's that's
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: like grunting on his toe, That's right. Yeah, Or was
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: a year and a half ohold buck harassing the dome maybe,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: but but out there that's the vocalizations are super common.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: And you do here and see all that, and uh,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: and it is during daylight. So it's a it's a
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: I hate to say it's more fun, but it's it's just, uh,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: it's different. Then a topography is different out there. The
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: pieces of land tend to be larger. Um. You know,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of ten acre are forty acre pieces
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: around here, uh in Michigan, and so coming up with
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: a bigger piece of ground can be difficult. And when
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: you break black up a black being like a six
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: d acre a square mile whatever, a lot of times
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: there's on it where and if you get in some
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: of these other states, you know, the blocks are more
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: like two square miles, three square miles and there might
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: only be four homes on the whole thing. So just
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: a lot less, a lot less people, and a lot
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: more a lot less pressure. Now, all that said, despite
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: these challenges that we just mentioned here in Michigan, Um,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: you just show me that you've still been able to
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: have a lot of success here in our home state
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: despite all of those challenges. Um. And it seems like
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: a lot of that has been kind of near where
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: we are right now, on some of this property we
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: just walked. UM. And that's that's kind of the I
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: do want to talk about once some of the things
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: you guys have been doing out in Iowa and Illinois Missouri. Um.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: But I'm just selfishly particularly curious about Michigan too, since
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: I spent so much of my time here and you know,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: starting to look into the possibility of of possibly trying
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: to find a little place that we can start fixing
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: up and and see what we can do with it. Um.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: So I'm just really fascinating the story of how you
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: started that here. Um. How did the how did it
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: start for you buying your first hunting property and farm,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: and what does that look like the beginning? Well, probably
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: nearly twenty five years ago now, but we my friend
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: and I knew about this property and it had you know,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: you saw a lot of deer here and that was
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: that was a big thing. If you were seeing a
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: lot of deer, that's pretty special here in Michigan. Thirty
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: years ago and through simple asking permission to hunt, Uh,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: she offered to sell the property to him. And we
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: you know, we were young then and him was a stretch,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: but we did it, and uh he elected to try
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: and farm it ourselves. It was fifty seven acres, but
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: it butted up to an eight four acre woods, so
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: the deer naturally filtered into those corn fields, bean fields
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: wherever we had in there here. And I did that
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: a few years and you know, it worked well. We did.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: We did harvest some deer, and at the end of
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: the day, I think I had offered these CRP programs
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: and we decided that, wow, well for the money that
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: can come in on this, and and the fact that
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: we get to plant trees and brush and all that
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: into here, uh, I think flowering dogwoods, all kinds of
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: stuff were it was worth it to us to do that.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Because the end goal for us was deer hunting or
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: pheasant hunting. It really wasn't to be farmers. So we
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: simply took the fifty seven acres and said, okay, got
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: a clean slate here. Because there's nothing here, what can
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: we do? And in the program we were enrolling in,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: we were gonna need to plant some pine trees along
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: with some switch grass and maybe I think golden rod
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: and some other shrubs and stuff that they expected us
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: to put in, and they were going to help pay
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: for that. So it was kind of a no brainer
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: when it came down to it to do that. And
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: so we watched this cornfield basically morph in to cover
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: over the last a couple of decades. But every year
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: it got better and better the pine trees, you know,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: and from two ft to three ft to four foot,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: and the weeds were better in the briers, and it
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: just got thicker and thicker, and we saw more and
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: more deer in it, and uh, we did. We did
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: leave out nine acres to two four and a half
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: acre field so that we could always have some grain
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: to offer, you know, the deer, and another couple of
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: acres for food plots out of fifty seven. But the
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: rest of it was really put into pine trees and
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: bedding area. And you know, if you don't have a
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: long term vision, you know you're never gonna get there.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: And what you know, what I've always said is if
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: you have an idea that's going to take five years,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: you might as well go for it, because at the
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: end of the day, five years go and buy you
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: either way. You know five you know how five time goes.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: So at the end of five years, you can either
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: have what you were dreaming about having or you can
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: still be stuck in that rud of Oh it takes
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: so long to do that so you know, sometimes it's
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: just a matter of kicking yourself in the button just
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: getting started on it. And it took a lot of
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: work to get this rolling, but now it's you know,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: it takes care of itself and sit to seven aches
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: pretty well, well we gotta do is maintaining food plots. Yeah,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: I feel like this is something that I know, um,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: having looked at properties myself and talk to buddies who
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: have looked to properties and stuff, lots of times they'll
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: find like a big crop field or a property that's
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: a series of small fields or something and just see
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: how there's not a bunch of big timber on it,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: there's not a lot of cover on it. Not what
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: I'm looking for. Um, But it seems like that's kind
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: of what you guys had and you transformed it into
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: something more. Um. Absolutely long did it take to to
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: to make that change a positive? One? After year one,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: after year two did you start to see positive things? And? Um,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: how long of a roadmap does someone have if they're
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: trying to convert oldfield to dear habitat? I would say
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: my favorite years actually after starting it was probably years
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: five through ten when the pine trees were at that
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: four ft to twelve feet level and there was a
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: lot of weeds in between them. Uh, those are some
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: of the better years. But having said that, it was
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: an instant improvement in that we were able to put
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: in some green plots to intermixed with it. And even
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: if it's just weeds or briars that are surrounding that
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: food flat like ours was the first couple of years. Um,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: it still givesn't that sense of security that they'll come
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: out into that. And prior to that we had just
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: had you know, like I say, corn or beans, which
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: work than not knocking them. But when you through in
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: the green plots too, it really was a bonus and
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: they were drawn to it. The other thing we did
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: was we actually added a little water and it was
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: kind of a simple move at first seemed maybe a
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: little silly, but uh we took just a kiddy waiting
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: pool and yeah, submerged it and and kept that full
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: of water best we could. But you would be amazed,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: since we don't have a lot of water right here,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: how fast they would drink that down. And during the
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: rut we would literally have to fill that every five
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: days or so, take the tank back and fill it. Yeah,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: and and you know, trail cameras come along. We get
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: pictures the deer standing in it bucks during the rut.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: And granted, you know they weren't like we weren't being
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: over run with shooters or anything. But the point is,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: um it kind of added to the smortgage port. Now
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: they've got some green, they got some water. Uh. Now
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: they're not traveling an extra three yards to get a drink.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: They're gonna take that easiest drink that they can, even
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: if it is of an old kiddie pool. And they laughed,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: but they really did use it quite well. And you know,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: now we've maybe moved down a little bit from there
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: to make some better water sources, but that's all started.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: That's cool. Another thing I saw that you did out
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: there in that old field area is you've kind of
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: broken it into smaller sections with with screens um or
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: something on those lines. Can you describe kind of what
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: you guys did there. Yeah, well, we we left to
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: four acre pieces for farming purposes, just to have grain
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: out there. But the one that is particular back there
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: by um our say our favorite blind. Uh, you get
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of time in the blind, so you think
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of thoughts, and one of
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: the thoughts that occurred to me one day was what
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: if this four and a half acre field and I
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: have what if straight out from the blind I was
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: to put in a hedgerow, build my own, you know, everybody,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: And the thought being that we have why these deers
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: step out of the woods at the time and step
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: into our field and the food's right there, you know,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: and they don't necessarily have to go very far to eat,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: and or if it's a run, they could see the
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: whole field, so they knew, you know, if there was
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: a dough there or what was going on in the
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: whole field. So I don't whim, you know. I actually
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: went out and bought a tree spade when I went
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: on the back of the tractor, you know, and started transplanting.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: We remember, we planned. So I had a lot of
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: pine trees and and a lot of autumnble had come up,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: and a lot of honeysuckle to come up, and I
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: literally built a hedge row straight out from the blind
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: that divided that field and half. Now as you seeing
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: that today, it looks pretty thick and pretty big. It
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: wasn't always again long term vision, it didn't have a
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: whole lot of effect on the deer first, but as
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: the years went on, Uh, it worked to the desired effect.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: They step out into the field, they checked that field now,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: and then they wonder what's on the other side of
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the hedge road They can't see, so then naturally they're
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: gonna walk across and have a look sie on the
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: other side of that. So it was just a simple thing.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: It didn't take much crop out of a much field
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: out of production, and it gave us a chance to
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: bring the deer out further to investigate and maybe a
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: chance to harvest him at that point. But just one
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: of the little features that we added over the years. Now,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: not all of them work like you hope. You know,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: you try some things and you've gotta be willing to
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: change when it doesn't work. But overall, the experimentation part
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: of it is some of the funnest stuff. Uh. I
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: don't know if you recall how long ago that the
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: tree coy came out. Okay, yeah, I think it was
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Steve Bartila wrote an article. I I've seen his name
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: right there. Yeah, yeah, he wrote an article and in
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: uh he had placed a tree, dug a hole, put
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: a tree in the field, right, and uh it it
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: seemed like a great idea. He said, it worked, well,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: why not? Right? So you know by now this is
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: uh I'm hunting with Tom now and it's an Iowan
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: but as an experiment on one of the Michigan food plots.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Before I go telling everybody this great idea that Steve had,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna try it, right, So I put this tree
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: quay on the field and yuh put a camera on
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: it and pretty soon getting all these pictures and I said, Tom,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: this works in bottom line. So he's like, okay, we
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: gotta we gotta do this and some of the Iowa plots.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: So we tried it on one plot that year for starters.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Phenomenal scraped up shredd and remember where I went out
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: that you're doing there, want to do all the time
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: kind of sort of thing, and uh, phenomenal success with
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: the the you know, the reconics over that tree koi
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: and scraped up tour up. Bottom line is now, that
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: is a tool in our arsenal that's used every single
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: food plot. Yeah, you know, fifteen yards twenty yards on
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: in front of the blind, we're putting a tree koi
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: and if you watch much of the Dury stuff, you'll
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: notice that a lot of bucks are killed coming into that.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: That tree koi so very effective tool and just you know,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: simple idea, but again experimenting, and that was one of
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: the things that I felt worked really well. Yeah, it's
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: definitely something I've I've added to my repertoire too, and
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: I haven't killed one coming into something like that yet,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: but it certainly has helped me get a lot of
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: good trail camera pictures in those areas. Um, and I'm
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: sure it's you know, one of these days will work
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: out for a shot. So it makes a whole lot
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: of sense. Pretty cool. Well, we learned a very hard
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: lesson this year over a tree KOI didn't Yeah, it
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: wasn't actually me hunting. Tom was hunting with Brandon and
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: in Illinois, and uh the tree koi is a particularly
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: beautiful one that you loved it. But it had a
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: it had a lower limb that came off at about oh,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know, foot high maybe and angled upward right.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: And uh, usually you know, the if a deer comes in,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: they'll work their way around it or be near it
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: and you'll get your chance. But this particular deer. Uh
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: was over, Yeah, and he came in. It was it
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: was like it was scripted. He came into this tree
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: coy and for minutes he's shredding it. And for Brandon,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: I mean he's at full draw and and then he
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: has to let down, then he has to draw again.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: But uh, the whole time this limb that was left
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: on there, it was right smacked across the vitals. And
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know about you. I probably could have aimed
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: at the limb and I'd have got the deer just
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: how I wanted. But sure enough, if you aim to
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: miss it, you probably hit uh. But the bottom line
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: is he didn't feel like it was a clean opportunity.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: And at the deer exited stage left walks straight away
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: from him after two minutes that you had to have
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: a boon? Who gross boon and buck that close? But
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: tried at the tree KOI for bringing him in and
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: given two minutes of time to harvesting him. And if
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: that limbs not there, it's it's a buck. They won't
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: even hear the string go off. His head was in
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: the limbs raking him and it was made for great,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: great video, exciting stuff. Just a little tree KOI story there. Yeah, yeah,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: that's uh, that's pretty awesome that that kind of situation
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: would arise because of that. Now, what about the reverse situation?
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: So have there been any things maybe on this the
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: first City seven in particular, maybe if you can think
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: of any in which you tried something and found it
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: didn't work and had rewrite the script on some project
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: you tried out here, some change you made to the
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: habitat Um, was it anything like that pop up on
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: the first chunk or no? Yeah? Actually there. Uh. One
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: of the things that it may be regrettable is and
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: it actually that this occurred, um when I was still
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: trying to farm it. Uh well, first five years we
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: owned and I farmed it, so uh to make the
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: farming life a little better, I removed a fence row.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: And you know, I look back on that and think,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: would you do that for it? Because you know eventually
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: it was going to evolve into the way tail habitat
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: it is. I would love to have that fence row back.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: And it was, you know, because it was a mature
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: fence row. And at the end of the day, I
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: wasn't in it for the corn and the beans. I
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: was in it for the nearer turkey, pheasants and squirrels
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: whatever would live in a nice thick fence rol like that.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: So so yeah, that is one thing I wished I
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: had had not have pulled that out. Um, I'm sure, yeah,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: I'm sure. As you've now expanded your um your projects
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: to to include other other farms and stuff, I'm sure
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: there's all sorts of other things you've learned over the years,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: and maybe we'll get into some of those. Um. But
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: but one other piece on the on the fifty seven,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: on the first chunk, Um, what about the hunting on
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: that because I think a lot of times one of
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: the questions people have, especially somewhere like Michigan, but anywhere
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: really is can you take a small property like that
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: forty acres or sixty acres or something smaller on that
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: and really notice a change and actually see better hunting
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: and better recreation or whatever it is. Um, did you
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: see real change that improved your hunting and the time
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: you had out there in those early years when it
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: was just turning from a corn field and to this
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: new wildlife paradise. Did that did it come to fruition
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: for you? Yeah? The U from the beginning until no
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: even it's so much better. If you're into deer hunting,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: it's a must. Just wow, I would say ten years in.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: By then, um, we were seeing so many deer uh
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: and and a lot of the reasons. Of course, now
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: we're in Michigan, so deer hunting pressure is so heavy,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: and by us taking this fifty seven acres and just
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: making it this twisted up mess of pine trees and
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Russian hall of and just an entire mess, it attracted
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: as a safe haven so many deer. I remember taking
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: uh uh people hunting and seeing one deer in one night.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Now we were by yeah, so we were into the
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: taking those at that time too, because the numbers were
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: so high. But they weren't when it was just a cornfield.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: It wasn't like that. Once we thickened it up and
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: gave them this safe haven, they could go to hunted
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: the wind, and we were strategic and didn't push them
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: out of there like so many you know, people do
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: by walking in the wrong times they're walking through or
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: deer driving whatever it is. Those deer ended up on us.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: So we were seeing tons of deer. I can't so
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: many year and a half bucks. You can't account him not.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: It is still very hard to get him to three
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: or four or five years old Michigan. But the your
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: numbers were way up. I took my cousin one night
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: and he said, I just, Scott, I just want some
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: some dough meat. And I said, I'll tell you what.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: I'll take you back there on one condition. You don't
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: shoot a deer until we've seen forty yeah. Yeah. And
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: he's like, well, I did want some meat. And I
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: said you'll have your meat, you know, so, and and
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: it happened just like that, I mean, and we got
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: to the deer's anything like, okay, go ahead. But remember
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: now this is muzzle over season usually. But by then, um,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: many of the deer have been pushed so hard that
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: they were really coming to us for for sanctuary. And
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: the four acre woods next to us, which we'll get into.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: UM that also harbord a great many of them. And
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: you know it, if you can give him some sanctuary
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: and a high pressure situation, your odds go way up.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: And every now and then, you know, a big one
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: slips up and you get that one forty, but you
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: just increase your odds. The downside is with that many doughs,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: you know, and you and if you do a late
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: season dough hunt on that, while it may be fun,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: you don't really know how many of the doughs that
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: you're taking are actually yours because they get pushed in
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: from all over the place. Yeah, that's one of the
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: things I've always struggled with on on one of the
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: main spots of hunting Michigan is that it's usually the
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: spot I've got the best chance that like a decent
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: buck in Michigan. It's the spot where I think I
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: can kill mature buck. But I'm always like on pins
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: and needles every little thing I do on that farm,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: I know if it make like one mistake, I'll probably
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: never shot him because a lot of the best covers
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: on neighbors properties. So I'm just hoping for him to
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: you know, just be I'll have like one or two
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: chances during the year, and if I screwed up at all,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: I'm just not gonna have those. So I'm very, very
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: very particular about what I'm gonna go in and what
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna hunt. So that's all to say that I've
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: always been paranoid to go in there and try to
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: shoot does earlier because if I shoot a dough and
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: it runs into that one main betting area and have
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: to go walking through there that that might completely eliminate
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: any chance of seeing that mature buck and daylight again.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: So because of that, I always end up waiting until
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: December to shoot does. And to your point, sometimes in wonder, well,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: I'm seeing tons of does now, but now, yeah, there's
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: just a lot deer in general. But um, but yes,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: I'm always pushing it back late. I'm always rushing, rushing
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: at the end, trying to trying to fill enough dough tags. Um.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: And then to your point, you might be looking at
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: a large number of doughs that come from all over
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: the place, not necessarily representative of the home core range doughs.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: You might not even take one of your local dosts
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: happy when you have numbers like that rolling in. I
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: mean to me, uh, you know, you're hunting, maybe an
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: agricultural feel, hoping that the deer to come from the
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: cover and give you an opportunity to get to you
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: in in daylight. So and another reason for taking a
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: piece of fishes of an acre piece and making it
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: into what it is is the person who holds the
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: cover holds most of the cards, because that's where nine
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: of the daylight movements can take places and cover. So
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: if you're just hunting getting into cultural field, it's a
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: lot harder on you. And and and for me, we
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: had a choice because it was ours. We could either
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: have the corn or we could have the cover. So
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: we elected to do a little bit of both. I mean,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: we went from fifties acres of food down to UH nine,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: but all that cover put some of the some of
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: the cards in our hands, so we were getting a
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: whole lot more daylight walkers. Yeah, and something you said
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: we were walking resonated with me, and that was that
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: when you do have that cover, when you do have
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: the ability to uh house more deer during daylight on
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: your ground, you all of a sudden have a good
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: disproportionate impact on the future of the deer herd of
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: the entire area, because if more bucks are staying in
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: your chunk during daylight and you're choosing not to shoot
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: the young bucks, then these deer that maybe otherwise would
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: have been spread all over and shot by other people.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Maybe you now have a larger number of bucks than
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: usual hang out during daylight and your property during the
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: fall or during gun season that otherwise would have been shot,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: and you are maybe you know, even though you might
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: only fifty seven acres, if you make it the fifty
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: seven acres that from November, all these bucks want to
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: be in because they know it's not nearly as as
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: everybody out where else, all of a sudden, you could
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: have a really significant impact on what bucks make it
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: through for a whole large area. Maybe, um it past
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: sounds you kind of had that impact, right, Yes, you do.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: To your point, most people get excited about opening Day.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, if Michigan get someone will go from a
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: state holiday to a national holiday for the fift November,
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: they would. And personally, I'm not a big fan of
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: that date because it happens during the rut and I
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: wish that would change. But to your point, I would
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: generally not even get too excited about the gun season
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: until about the eighteenth and nineteen and the now by
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: now you've had several day night cycles and several people
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: just getting out the woods like a million hunters, you know,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: And so by the time we got to the we
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: had a lot more deer on the property, and my
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: odds of taking went way up. So you know, two
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: point yeah, they get pushed in on it and having
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: to cover and pays dividends and you can hold bucks
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: that you wouldn't normally hold. Now, who do you know
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: that would say to you, well, Mark, I don't care
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: for the opening day. I prefer to wait till the
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: twenty from my opening day. Not many people, but I'll
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: tell you who it is. It's it's always with us
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: with cover. So you know, for for me, if I
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: can give him a place to feel safe and go
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: to bed, I'm not doing something right. And then next relief,
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: I can give him something to eat prior to going
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: out to the big agricultural fields. Better yet. Yeah, So,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: so you were able to do that to a degree
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: on yourn, but then recently you were able to take
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: it to a whole another level. You've you've alluded to this.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: Can you talk about how how you came to to
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: own that? Well, I mean it always had been next
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: to us here on the fifty seven, but um, basically
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: you know the fellows that and his wife they passed
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: away and the family offered to sell it to me,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: and at that point, you know the idea of of
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: having that tied into this original fifty seven was very
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: appealing to me. I had a at the time, I
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: had a a Missouri farm. I was fond of it,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: but to me it was worth the trade. So I,
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: you know, was sold out of that property and and
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: into this one. And it has really made it so
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: I can take it to the next level. Uh. This
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: it wasn't an overly hunted property, which is part of
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: the reason something we asked me to around to begin with.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: But how often do you get a chance at a
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: clean slate with eighty four acres September. I mean, there
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: was barely any paths in this to walk on or
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: right a four whela and there with anything really in there.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: Quite a few tree stands, but um, I've always found that,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: you know that that can be difficult if you have
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: a tree stand out in the middle of a hardwoods.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: I mean your winds going somewhere, so at best, you know,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: it was kind of difficult the way they did hunt
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: it when they did, in my opinion. But now tying
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: that back into the fifty seven, I've got that nine
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: acres of grain out there in another couple of acres
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: of food plot, and then this eighty four acres of
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: solid timber. It it was it was an opportunity. I
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: mean I walked it with you know, with some people
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: and just picking the brain here one of them that
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: can see things. And I come back to the you know,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: land management. Uh, it's it's the clean slate thing is
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: so exciting for me. Yeah, I am looking forward to
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: seeing how this turns out in five years. And I
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: and I have great feelings about it because you know,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: I've been around and doing this long enough. I know
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: it's gonna work, work really well. But you know, day
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: one walking into this new timber and gone m And
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: the thing is it was not a mature timber. It
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: wasn't like the kind of woods that you turned into
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: a city park. So while that has a certain field
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: to certain people, uh, it doesn't so much to the deer.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: And in this woods was um new by wood standards,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: I think probably seventy years ago. It was past year,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: you know, and with some fence roads in it. And
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: so it's been let go a very long time and
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: it has grown mature enough to have been logged a
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: couple of times. But overall you saw it, it's just
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: loaded up with trees that are sixteen inches or less. Yeah,
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: so a lot of light gets through and that gives
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: you a lot of undergrowth, and so so walk me
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: through what those I don't know if you did this
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: in a matter of weeks or day or months, but
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: when you first took possession of it, and now you're
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: starting that process you just described. I have a blank
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: slate acre rectangle of solid timber, relatively young, pretty thick,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: and then I know that there's food to my one side.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: That's on the fifty seven. You own to walk me
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: through how you looked at it, what you were thinking,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: how you start planning. Okay, these are the first things
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: I need to do. How did you walk through that plant?
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: What did the plan look like? Well, the plan originated
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: twenty years ago. I've been sitting next to this works
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: for a very long time just dreaming about it. Well,
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: you spend time at the tree stand, you get time
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: to think that. Boy, if I had that property, this
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: is what I would do. But one of the first
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: foremost and obvious things that I had always said to myself, like,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: you know there's a power line running through this. Uh,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: you know it's up towards the front, and why why
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: not if the power company is gonna keep it clear anyway?
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: Why why not put that all in clover of the
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: deer something to to eat. So without even walking the property,
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: you know, I was able to identify something right off
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: the bat that I would do different. And uh then
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: once I sat down and you know, really thought, hey,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna own this, What what am I gonna do
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: to this property? It really comes down to one word access.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: How am I going to access and not blow the
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: deer out? You know? How are we going to keep
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: it very much a sanctuary yet make it honorable at
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: the same time. So one of the first missions was
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: to create, uh, some roads around the perimeter towards the
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: outside edges of woods. You know, you've got to give
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: something to get something. So some trees are gonna fall
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: over and and you you know you're gonna have to
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: drive in there, You're gonna have to walk around it.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: You can't hunt property without going into it. But being
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: attached to the fifty seven and being attached to the
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: road instantly, you know, I had access from three sides
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: and that was key out there. So the first thing,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, the first thing we did. I did was
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: get a bulldozer and and navigate some trails along the edges.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: You know, wide enough to get a tractor down through
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: and and start the process. But um, the process of
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: deciding where to put food, you know, a little bit
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: more involved. So what I tried to do is identify
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: what the deer, how the deer moved naturally anyway, So
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: in other words, I knew that out the back side
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: of the woods, uh, that there was a big water source.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: It was forty acres away, But it really was about
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: doing things around back there. So my thought was, Okay,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: if I can get to that backside, maybe get a
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: little food source In the back of this was maybe
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: I can give them a little something to eat before
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: they head out in the dark to go over and
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: get a drink from that lake. The one thing they're
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: gonna need is water, period. They've got a drink, so somewhere,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, I knew they were getting water, and this
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: particular property had little to none on it, So that
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: was a major consideration for me. What way are they
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: already wanting to go, and how can I intercept them,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: you know, without much of an invasion along the way,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: And and that that worked well. And on the other
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: side of the property, I know that they were going
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: out to a cornfield or a bean field, and from
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: years of just monitoring deer activity from the road even
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: I had could see where these deer tended to exit
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: the property, you know, and we can go in the
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: corn field. So you've got so you've got deer moving
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: from the core of the eighty four betting area and
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: stank there. Some are heading out towards this corn field,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: Some are heading out towards this lake or water source.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Some are probably heading out towards the fifty seven and
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: the food up there. Would you say there's the three
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: main directions stuff emanates out of No, I would say
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: there's four out the other direction too. Yeah, yeah, they're
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: they're actually do exit on the roadside very heavily because
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: there's some some massive agricultural fields over there, and you know,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: so you've probably hit some along the way, but you're
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: not afraid across the road. And so I this this woods,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, it looks great from satellite, it really does,
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: because it's it's big, and it's in the surrounded by
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: food essentially, and so they're kind of migrate out of
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: it in this case four directions, and of course, you know,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: the road being one of my access points, you know,
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: it's not in base of at all, hardly to you know,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: pop in fifty sixty yards off the road and it's
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: set up a good spot to hunt. And then then
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: the sides were a little more challenging, you know, to
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: to access, and some of them can only be accessed
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: when the wind is just right. But being that I
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: had the fifty seven acres with other road frontage and
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: been able to access the back quite easily too, so uh,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: good access, that's really what it comes down to. And
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: then when I decided where approximately within this to put
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: the first food plot, I simply looked for something that
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: could be farmed, somewhat flat maybe, and not too many
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: humongous trees. So so when I found this little valley
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: that I thought could be farmed and would be right
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: in the migration path to the water, it was I'm
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: gonna say, se sassafras soft maple trees that I didn't
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: mind losing, So you know, that just played into it
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: all the better, you know. And then I knew that,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: you know, to the north of it and to the
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: south of it through walking, the bedding was phenomenal, so uh,
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: you know, I was able to find a little spot
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: to tuck this in that I don't feel tore up
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: too much cover and it didn't destroy too many good trees.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: And that's where we put it. That was the first
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: food plot in And it's secluded from all sides to right,
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: but but close enough on one edge that you can
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: walk the perimeter and then walk in I don't know,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: forty fifty yards or something that's into it right precisely. Yeah, yeah,
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: that's that's the philosophy. I mean, if you if you
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: go in with the wind in your favor, then that
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: forty yard trip from the outside end isn't so bad. Um. So,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: so how did you go about carving that in? Did
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: you have any thoughts on how you shaped it any
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: other things when it came to preparing it, um that
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: you were thinking about? Um? Walking through the details of
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: that first food plot, Well, this was this was some
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: thick and nasty you know, because stuff because of the
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: sas frustrees and the vines. There's a lot of vines
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: in here. And so you know, I walked it. I
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: used you know, the on X app and I did
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: some walking and I said, well, that's about three cores
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: of an acre, and and I saw the shape that
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: I had walked in and the shape was dictated somewhat
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: by the you know, the topography, and also by where
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: I just want to say, I'm not taking those big
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: trees out or whatever it is. So that that was
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: a phase one of so UM identified a shape it
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: I thought could be hontrible and accessible and where I
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: would put the blind all prior to the dos are
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: going in. So then we fired up the dos and
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: my son and I and we dozed dozed this plot
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: in and and last year was the first year hunting it,
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: and it proved successful. My son got a nice buck
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: there and my great nephew killed his first buck in there.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: It was great, but uh, you know, I think you
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: need to be ready to evolve when when you're doing
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: this stuff. So you know, it worked, but not quite
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: to the degree I wanted it to. There was there
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: was a fair amount of deer that were bypassing us
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: just because they were headed to the water. You know,
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: water first, they must be better all day. However, it
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: worked out they were kind of skirting the plot and
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: then obviously the trail cameras would show us that they
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: were there after dark. So this year I went ahead
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: and modified it a little bit. I uh, increased the
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: one end of it to kind of get out into
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: that little travel corridor. So, um, it's a little out
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: of bowl range, but certainly easily within gun range. I
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: don't think there's a spot over about eight yards there
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: period in the whole plot. But the other thing I
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: did was when we took out those trees this year,
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: was brought the stumps that remained in the brush and
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: I placed them in a spot right across from the
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: blind building out from the structure was already there. What
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: I ended up creating was a U shape. Okay, so
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: any deer traveling this food plat from one end to
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: the other was going to come past at the bottom
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: of the U. And you know that's the blind was
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: at the very bottom edge of the U. And then
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: the bottleneck I created was kind of in the bottom
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: of the saddle of the U if you're following me there. Yeah.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: So basically now for archery season, I think that any
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: deer that passes through that plot, uh from east to west,
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: even eating or not eating, it's gonna have to pass
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: by that thirty five yard point and hopefully it's a
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: it's a a good buck and he's interested in the trick.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: Oi and he comes to twenty yards. But the bottom
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: line is, you know, there was a little bit of
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: evolving that took place this spring on that back plot
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: one with shape and two was kind of pinching them
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: in so we could get the archery shots that we wanted.
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: I also saw that you and you just mentioned one
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: example of it, but you definitely when you're when you're
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: pushing all these timber plots, I've seen that you're taking
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: the debris from it, whether it be stumps and root
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: balls or some leftover tops or whatever, and it seems
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: like you're using those strategically to um to help manage
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: where movement might be. Can you talk a little bit
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: about how you think about that too, And it definitely
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: does make a difference. Well A, it can make him
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: feel a little bit more secure, be it can give
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: you this screen that allows you to get to the
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: plot undetected but knocking and not knocking the trees down
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: and stacking up the root balls, and that helped us
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: with the bottlenecking of the deer. But uh, it also
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: made it so that I could carve holes through there.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: It spots maybe twenty yards from the blind so if
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: they you know, wanted to travel across the plot. I
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: know that good chance if they exit, they're going to
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: take the easiest path. Not saying they can't get out
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: of there, but I am saying that if you give
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: a deer an easier place to walk a lot of
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: times you'll take it. And if that happens to be
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: yards off the blind where you can get a shot
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: or power to you. So yeah, we definitely used the
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: brush strategically, and all the logs and that have been
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: removed for fireworks or otherwise, and why not. You have it,
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: and you gotta put it somewhere. So I prefer to
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: have it a lot of times at my back so
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: that when I look um out across the plot as
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: much as possible, I can see deer filtering through the timber,
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: because that's what I enjoy. You know, you see a
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: set of legs moving through and Europe with the binoculars
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: instantly and you're just hoping, hoping, is it a good one?
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: What is it? What? Something's coming through the brush. I
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: can see it. So I try not to screen myself
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: too much, but but I will play stumps in some
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: rus should order to push it to your closer to
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: me as I passed you the food plot. Yeah, yeah,
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: I could definitely see that you put a lot of
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: thought into each one of these little aspects of the plots. Um,
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: it didn't seem like there was much done by accident.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: And I feel that's a really consistent thing I see
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: with all the different people I talked to, those those
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: best hunters, Um, they always um our detail, worrant, and
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: they're they're not cutting, you know, not making shortcuts. They're
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: they're thinking through the long run. Um. While all these
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: things might mean how each little piece could stack on
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: top of each other and give you that best possible chance.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: Another thing that uh, we did was trying to incorporate
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: some of our own water, you know. So so that's
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: actually last year was the first year for that. And
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: I set up a nice blind over a water hole
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: that I created, uh, simply by dozing a depression into
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: an area and then lining that with a big tarp,
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: and then after that we put all a foot of
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: dirt back on it to protect it because you know,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: from the deer's hoofs and uh, and then I've had
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: to fill it since I don't have water flowing on
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: the place, I I have you know, an old water
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: tank that maybe holds three warter gowns, and several trips later,
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: I had it. I had it filled up in a
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: blindset overright now. In this particular case, the very first one.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: I liked it not to have any food sources around
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: it because I thought, you know, that would be what
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: an all day ruts that this could be. I was
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: just picturing this in my mind. You know, we're just
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: off some of the bedding and the thickets, and in
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: these they are thirsty. They've been running, chasing dose on
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: the move all the time. How fun it could be
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: to sit in this timber location throughout a day set
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: and watch deer filter into this water through the woods
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: and not have it be a great, big, wide open
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: space of of green. So again I'm experimenting behind you.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: But what I saw last year made for some of
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: the most fun Michigan hunting that I've had in a
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: long time. That you know, even once they got cold,
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: the deer were coming in and punching their feet through
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: the ice right along the edge just to get drinks.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: And it was steady flow. Now this first year, um,
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: you know, by the oldest deer I saw do that
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: was two and a half. So not that we drew
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: in a lot of big bucks right off the bat
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: with that new water hole, but it drew the deer
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: and and and my belief all these year and a
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: halfs that came in steadily will someday be three and
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: a half one and a half year old deer. They're
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: accustomed to drinking there, and I'm hoping that will work.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: And the turkeys loved it just as much. Squirrels, raccoons,
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: everything drinks out of this thing is pretty neat. Yeah,
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: the deer would punch holes in the ice and then
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: the deer the turkey would come and drink out of
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: all those of prints. Yeah, it was fun. Um. Another
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: thing you mentioned me when it came to water is
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: the fact that you you've found that this definitely worked.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: And then there's a temptation though maybe like, oh, if
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: I found a water hole works, if one water hole works,
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: I bet you two and three and four or five
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: and six and seven and fifteen water holes of work better, right,
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: And they would, But you said no, I actually want
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: to be careful with how many, um can you describe? Ye?
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: And I saw you you've got two other water sources
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: that you're working on but you wanted to keep it
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: um a relatively low number. Can you Can you talk
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: about why, well that the theory is anyway that, uh,
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: if you have a lot of water holes, it's gonna
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: be a little harder to have one be called a
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: destination water hole, you know what I mean. So if
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: I throw a water hole in every food plat and
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: in every corner of the woods, I'm sure it's very
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: good for the deer and the critters, but I think
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: that it, you know, spreads out your opportunities for harvesting
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: those same animals. So while I want to have one
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: on each side, maybe that creates a stop point for
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: the deer to come and get a drink. I don't
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: want so many that I have no clue where to hunt.
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: So right now I'm looking at it like I'm going
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: to have a three water holes at the end of this,
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: and I'll have a particular deer I'm after who tends
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: to spend more time on the reconics over on this
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: side of the farm, or he's exiting into the grain
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: fields on that side of the farm. I'll know that
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: the water hole I want to pursue him over is
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: this one one he's exiting near. So you know, one
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: thing I've learned that even with just eighty four acres,
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: and I realized that's not a whole lot. Uh, I
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: will find that my cameras do not turn up the
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: same buck on every camera. The bottom line is there's cameras.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: I never saw bucks from the other end of the
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: eighty four acres on that. That's kind of amazing to me.
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: Yet it's true, and you would see constantly the same
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: deer on the same cameras, occasionally capturing him on the
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: others too, But there may be two or three cameras
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: and you never saw that deer. It is because it's
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: not that much l in. It really isn't. But when
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: you picture a deer's home range, you don't know if
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: you're in the middle of it or if you're on
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: an edge of it. So when I get, you know,
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: pictures of a buck just on one or two cameras
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: all the way to one side of the farm, I'm
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: I'm just making the assumption that I'm just on the
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: edge of his core area. Now, I'm not gonna say
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: you'll never wander. You know, after the first brought's over,
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: he could be anywhere. It's true, but they do have
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: a core area and I think they it's actually quite
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: discoverable even on a small pieces like four acres. Yeah,
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: what is your trail camera strategy on on these pieces here?
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: We didn't really talk about that, But how do they
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: work into your hunting? Do you? I know, you know,
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: folks of Mark Drey are really big into getting a
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: lot of photos, but mostly by using last year's photos.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: Are you planning your hunts this year? Because he's looking
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: a lot like annual patterns and trends like that. Um,
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: are you are you doing that kind of thing? Are
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: you just trying to see what kinds of deer are
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: out here? Or are you using amorous to actively choose
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: where to hunt right now? And you're getting pictures yesterday
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: and you're hunting here the next day because of it?
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: Where do you fall on that spectrum? Well? Inventory, for sure.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: I'm always taking inventory, and yes I do keep on
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: all the pictures from previous seasons because one thing that uh,
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: I've discovered, it's a if a deer tends to hit
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: a particular area a particular time of the year, he'll
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: be consistent with that the next year. Good chance if
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: he's still around that two year old now is a
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: three year old is likely to be hitting that same
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: food plot in December, which just tells you something about
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: his character and and there's a good chance it will
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: be the same the following year. Uh So there's the
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: inventory side of things is just maybe well back when
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: you could use mineral, you know, you get your mineral
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: out there and and you just kind of take a
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: general inventory throughout your area of what bucks made it through,
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: and then as season season approaches, you know, I'm moving
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: off of that. I'm getting on green uh or in
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: this case, maybe a water hole as well. But I'm
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: getting it to the food plots, especially you know in
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: the clover and that, and trying to see what what
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: they're hitting particular food plots at that point. But by
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: the time October gets midway through, I'm changing that tactic
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: as well, because dear the bucks in general, uh, you know,
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: I was not thinking of their bellies quite as much now,
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: So I'm moving the cameras off to get them on scrapes.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: At that point. By mid October, I've got them pretty
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: well all on scrapes and maybe just one per food
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: plot as a general monitor, and you know, maybe even
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: I have that, you know, on a on a food
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: plot timer, and it's taking a picture every five minutes
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: during the you know, the morning hours, in the in
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: the evening hours like they do now. So UM a
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: couple of different tactics, but the scrape has become my
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: primary focus after mid October. When you put them on
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: the scrapes, how far how close to the scrape do
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: you do you sit your cameras. Some people talk and
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: say that they're worried about spooking deer, so they don't
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: want to have the camera right on the same tree
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: that the scrape might be on UM or they'll try
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: to put a high angle down. I've been kind of
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: conflicted on this. I've ran scrape. I've ran cameras right
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: in a tree that's ten yards away or five yards
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: away from the scrape, and it seems fine. And I've
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: had other times where there will be one buck and
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: I get one picture of them, I never get it again.
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: I wonder, has that because I had that camera, there
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: should be putting these high and farther away. I don't
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: know what the answer is. Where are you on? UM?
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: I think you're right, it can affect them, and and
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: I've had the red light cameras, and I definitely feel
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: that that does have an effect on them. I mean
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: they do turn and look at it, so uh and
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: you may not see that here again or I've even
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: seen them in the third and fourth picture of them
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: running away, so I know it affects them. But so
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: what I tried to do is go, you know, all
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: with cameras that don't have that, certainly not a regular
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: flash anymore like they used to, but even gotten away
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: from the red just to improve my odds there. But
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: in question to where do you put it, um, I
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: consider access usually you know, that's I'm putting it on
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: a side of the tree that allows me the least
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: invasive footwork from a standpoint of getting to and from it.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: And honestly, I like scrapes that occur on old old
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: lane ways. Uh. The reason being, you can take an
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: electric vehicle or you know, maybe a golf curtain slip
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: back in there and never put your foot track down
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: at all and roll right up to the camera with
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: your gloves on and flip it open and change your card. Uh.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: The other the other thing that I've started doing for
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: the food plats sake is I'm mounting the cameras right
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: on the blinds, and that way, when I go to
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: my blind to hunt, I can pull the card. So
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: I use that type quite a bit. Two plus. Uh,
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: you know, I'd like to put the tree coise out so, um,
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: there's usually a tree twenty yards in front of the blind,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: so that gives me a natural spot. But whether they're
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: just up there scent marking the tree or rubbing it
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: or putting a scrape on the ground, A dozen bucks
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: alike are attracted to those, and you do get quite
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: a lot of pictures that way. UM. So back to
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: your food plots. You're you're talking about, you know, having
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: cameras over these food plots, monitoring what's there. Um in
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: these kind of satellite food plots like you you described
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: one of those that you're you're carving into the timber,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: and there's two others like that on this piece that
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: you carved in. UM. You described to me kind of
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: seems like a relatively consistent food plot plan for each
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: one of those. Um, can you walk through what that
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: is why you chose to plant these several different varieties? Sure? Uh,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: you know, a basic philosophy of mine is with with
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: your food sources um aside from grain, and we're just
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: talking about typical food plots of you know, turn up
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: some radishes and clover and the like. I like to
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: see a balance of fifty six in the clover overall.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: And the reason is, uh, it's it's habit forming. Clover
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: is works all year unless they completely annihilate it. They're
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: gonna paw to it down to it in the snow.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, they're gonna go for it. And and that's
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: not different in raddishes all the time. But raddishes are
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: not there all year or turnips. Clover is. So it's
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: it's awesome for the turkey hunting as well. Uh. But
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: bottom line is a clover is fairly easy to grow,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: fairly easy to maintain, and it's a it's a year
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: round attract And so to me, habit forming is good.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: If you're gonna hang onto a property for more than
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: three years, you've got an opportunity here to form habits
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: with those year and a half bucks there on your property.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: And there's usually a lot of them in Michigan. Yeah,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: and a few of them are going to make it through.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: And if you can form some good habits coming to
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: the clover or whatever. That's a great thing. Now get
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: fast forward. You're thinking about season in end of July.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: Of course I'm I'm burning down you know what's not clover,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: and I'm turning it up and getting it propping the soil,
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: getting my lime on there. Usually actually that's more towards spring,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: but getting the fertilizer put in and worked into the soil.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: And then for uh, you know, planting strategy. A lot
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: of times we'll put the clover. Uh, I like the
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: non typical clover real well, and I'll put that around
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: the outside edges of the food plot. And part of
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: the reason is, you know, clover is pretty shade tolerant
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: compared to other plants. It tolerates that well. And and
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: the roots of the trees get out in there some
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: and and well, you know, drain nutrients away from other plants.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: Clover will survive that, and and we'll keep on where
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: other types of plants won't. So a lot of times
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: there'll be an outside ring of clover. But then when
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: it comes to the food is so self out in
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: the center. I like to um, stay agger seasonally, stagger
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: what's planted there. You can't run radishes or turn ups
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: year after year in the same spot. So I may
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: take a food plot and draw a line from my
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: blind across the food plot. Left side, I might plant uh,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: you know, tall tine tubers or some sort of uh
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: winter bulbs, sugar beets, last bite maximum for the brassica, okay,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: And then on the other half, maybe is a resting year,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: Maybe I plant some chicory um along some oats. Now,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: a lot of people plant rye and where are we
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: and everybody's got there there's favorite thing. But you know,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: for me, generally, I find that it's pretty easy to
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: get a good standard oats, and if you can mix
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: that in with something else, you know, more power to you.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: But what it does is it really gives that land
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: some time to rest because if you plant uh, and
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: we've discovered this, you know, year over year, if you
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: plant maximum in the same spot, it becomes less and
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: less productive in the in the funguses and the insects
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: that survived that in the soil tend to be there
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: waiting for it next year. And it just seems like
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: a snowball. So you know, we're trying to trying to
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: alternate them just so that doesn't happen so much. It's
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: tough when you've only got you know, one acre to
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: work with, but you know, we all you can do
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: is do your best and and that's a small effort
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: right there to split them up. Yeah. No, Now you
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: talked about the clover, you've got the clover ring and
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: then also on one of those food pleats, I think
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: it was the first one, you talked about how you
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: were going to leave a larger section of that and
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: clover as well, and we were we were, um, I
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: was asking about how you maintained it because one of
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: the things I've been dealing with lately is just trying
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: to maintain a small clover plot that I've been working
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: on a piece of property that I can hunt, um,
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: and you know, just dealing with the weeds, dealing with
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: different things, trying to make sure, um, make sure you're
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: timing all the different maintenance things right. That's what I
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: always have questions, like when shouldy mowing, or when should
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: be springer when she would be It's just there's there's
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: a little bit to it. And you said that you
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: have kind of system for managing your your clover. Can
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: you walk us through what your system is? Yeah, I
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: mean kind of what we discovered a little bit by
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: accident actually years and years ago, was that I went
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: to burn down a clover plot. And you say that,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: you mean spray round up, but that, yeah, true, I
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: am not fire right, Yeah, so we're bringing it down
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: with a chemical burness is what it is. See, and uh,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: you know, I think I may have gotten a little
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: bit light on the roundup or whatever. And and uh
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: go back in a couple of weeks to get ready
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: planet and what in the world the clover that's in
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: it has survived and it's starting to spring back, and
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: I'm like, what the heck is going on here? So, uh,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: long story, shortly occurred to me that, well, if clover
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: could actually survive a heavy dose of round up, what
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: happens if I spray my clover with a light dose
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: a round up? You know, will it still be effective
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: enough on the other weeds in that And again, not
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: being afraid to experiment, it turned out to be quite
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: affordable option to spray it that way, And uh, I
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: ended up mixing about three quarters of an ounce to
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: the gallon you know of of round up in the water,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: So that's a fairly light dose. But yeah, heavy enough
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: it killed the weeds. So the clover would be stunted
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: generally uh it yellow, and then it would wait for
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: the rain. So I'm doing this since say the end
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: of August, right and uh, you know, for a couple
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: of weeks or they say that it's best to spray
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: and go on vacation. It honestly is because I had
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: done it in the past, and I went back and
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: you know, ten days and went this time, I've really
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: done it. You're not have anything to hunt over here.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: But but yet a month goes by and you've had
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: some good rains and suddenly the only thing that's green
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: in that plot is clover. And not only that, without
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: in competition, it just blows up. So I've ended up
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: with some very very good food plots of clover with
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: that method. And by the time that October rolls around,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: it's had a solid six weeks of growing and it's
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: it's lush, works really well. Now throughout the course of
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: the spring and summer, I'll mow it a couple of times,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: you know, uh, just to keep the weeds in check
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: that are trying to come up through the clover. But
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: at the end of the day, usually long about end
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: of August, mid August, I'm gonna go ahead and hit
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: it with a dose of round up, and I kind
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: of I try to look and see when there's some
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: rain in the future. I want them round up to
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: be effective enough to knock out the weeds. But you know,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: I don't want the clover suffering indefinitely on drought conditions
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: with that round up on it. So you know, if
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: it's going to rain in the next seven eight days,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm happy. And that's I try to shoot for
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: those times. Um, and when when's the right time to mow?
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: You said you most several times. What are you waiting
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: for to say, Okay, now it's time to just wait
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: till it starts seating out? Or are you waiting till
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: the weeds reached a certain height? When do you choose
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: to go in there and do that. Well, yeah, I
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: would say, you know, wait forward, seat out. But here's
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: here's the thing. I mean. In June, uh, when you
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: think you're due for that first mowing, I've discovered that
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: it's just not worth it. We hit fawns, so we
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: stopped that practice. You know at the time that I
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: felt like we should probably get on it because you know,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: the summer grasses are now starting up through the clover um,
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: so you feel like, man, I should maybe get out
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: there and get that mode before them get going. The
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: downside was, you know, you hit a faun or two
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: and it kind of discourages you from doing that. So
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: so my first mowing of the year, generally it is
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: a little later than I would have liked, and the
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: grass is a little bit taller than I would have wanted,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: but at least the funds are on their feet and
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: it's not an issue. And then a lot of times,
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: you know more one more time, say, you know, towards
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: the all right at the end of July, and then
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: the weeds in the in the clover has a couple
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: of few weeks to recover and by the time I
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: actually do the round up application to knock out the weeds.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: But the other part of that equation is we to
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: maintain a good clover plot if you wanted the last
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: five years, you gotta feed it. You know, they make
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: their own nitrogen, so that's not necessary. But but we
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: fertilize it like like any others. We treated as a
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: drop because it is and we can Tom and I
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: have stretched some of these clover plots out to five
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: and seven years in good shape. You know, eventually you
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: you there's no doubt you need to start over. But um,
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: so what we'll do is we'll knock it out of
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: the rotation, you know, remove it from clover now. And
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: this is not the ring style. This would be if
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: we had a whole plot of clovers what I'm really
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: referring to now. But so after five years, let's say
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: we go ahead and and uh do a hard chemical
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: burn on it with some more aggressive chemicals, and then
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: go ahead and turn turn it under and we'll run
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: a year of brassicas on it. I mean, the clovers
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: just pumped it full of nitrogen, and you know, the
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: turnips and the radishes are nitrogen hogs. So that first
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: year out of Clover they tend to do really really good.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: And uh, if we were going right back into clover
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: the very next year along with those reddishes, we see
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: clover again and those Seaton links will take root. And
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: you know, after our year of brassica is the next
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: spring it comes up quite strong, and generally speaking, we
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: will do some frost seating in March just to bolster
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: the weaker spots in the clover, and you know it's
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: it's not terribly expensive way to do something, so you
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: generally would do that too. So speaking of food sources,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: another you've got all sorts of you have several strategically
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: placed food plots, which we've talked about, um three of
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: these being tucked on the edges of sort of on
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: the edges of your big of your big timber um,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: but then scattered throughout the big timber. I saw you
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: have a bunch of different apple trees throughout, and you've
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: been doing some things to try to begin, um putting
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: those apple trees in a better position by doing some
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: girdling or some other things like that. Can you talk
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: about what you're doing, why you're doing that? Was my
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: my thought that you know, this was an old farmstead
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: many years ago and at apple trees on it. Of course,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: people grew their own food more back then, but and
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: then when the pasture got let go, I think the
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: birds and the animals did a good job of spreading
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: apple seeds. So throughout this timber we've got a lot
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: of apple trees. The issue really being is they're starting
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: to be become shaded out killed by the more mature
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: hardwoods that have taken so many years to get it going.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: And uh so you know, uh, it's such an advantage
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: to have a good apple tree that it's worth to
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: me girdling some of the trees that are shading them
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: out to give them a look at the sun. They're
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: just not tall enough and vines were trimming some vines
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: away anything that's you know, trying to kill the apple
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: tree off. And if we can stretch some more years
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: out of that and get some apples on the ground
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: all throughout the woods. Now, I know that's a scattered
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: food source, but who wouldn't want a bunch of apple
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: trees growing in their in their woods? So it does
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: it does work. They eat them, Uh they they love
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: to make scrapes under them. It's just a good low
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: of a tree. But if you don't protect them by
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: you know, something, they'll be gone. I can't tell you
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: how many dead apple trees are are in this woods,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: and that's the whole reason they've been shaded out. So yeah,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: where you know, some of my cherry trees are having
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: to get girdle to provide some light into the apple trees.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: But you can't have it all. So keep explaining what
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: you mean by girdling, how exactly you're doing that. Yeah, well,
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: basically taking the chainsaw and cutting a ring around the
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: tree a couple inches deep, because that's where the nutrients
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: move up through the trees, on the outsides of the
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: at the tree, just underneath the bark. So like severing
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: that lifeline to the tree, you know, the tree will
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: die off. I don't necessarily want it laying on the ground.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: This wood is thick enough as it is, and in
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: a in a thick woods, it's also very tough to
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: topple a tree. Uh, when it's amongst other trees. It
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: just stands there and leaning up against another tree. But
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: so I found that, you know, girdling is probably the
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: effective tool to just kill that that particular tree. Uh. No,
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: I have to do it a lot. But if I
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: can protect a small group of apple trees and you
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: don't get him a few more years out of life,
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: out of my will, it's it's it's worth that to me. Now,
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: it's nice to have, like you're saying, it's nice to
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: have those those little additional food sources scattered through Well,
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: I've I've walked a lot of timber. You know from Iowa,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: Missouri to Illinois to here, and uh, I can tell
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: you this is the first time I've really seen this
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: many apple trees in a woods. It's it's rare. It's
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: that rare. So yeah, I'm gonna do what I can
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: to protect them. It's very cool between apple trees and
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: the rolling topography in there, and uh, the already tremendous
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: bedding cover. Um, it sets up really nice. Now tell
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: me this, though, you have this farm here in Michigan hunt,
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: and then you also have some farms you hunt and
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: have in in Iowa, and you've had a Missouri farm
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: and things like that. What do you have to do
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: here on the Michigan farm or what have you been
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: thinking about in the Michigan farm as far as your
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: habit at work or plan or process. What have you
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: done if anything that's different here than on those farms
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: because of the specific challenges we have here. Is there
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: anything that comes to mind you you have to be
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: more careful about certain things or do you have to
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: put a little bit more thoughts into certain things or
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: be more wary. I don't know if anything to jump
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: in mind. Yeah, I think it might at least a
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: surprise me. Maybe it'll surprise on other people. But uh,
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: you know, access is key. We've we've talked about that,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: uh a lot, and I think it may be even
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: more key in Iowa. Now we've said, don do what
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: de're do in Iowa, right, And they're more at home
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: and they do and more free to make their vocalizations
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: and do this stuff during daylight. So naturally you would think,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: you know that maybe Michigan is one you better be
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: more careful with. But the truth of the matter is, um,
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: if a person walks down defense line in Iowa, it's
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: a lot less common place, it can be a lot
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: more alarming to the deer. I think. So access actually
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: becomes more important out there, uh whereas here while I
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: you know, would never really want my son to blow
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: through the timber, believe me. But at the end of
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: the day, dear smell humans in southern Lower Michigan on
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: a daily basis. So I mean, it's not like I
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: want my jet stream blowing right at the deer they're
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: coming to me. They won't come, But if they catch
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: a passing whiff, it could just be the lady walking
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: or dog down the road. You know, it could be
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: just the farmer out checking the fences for the cattle,
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: So they have to contend with people all the time.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: And if they always always, you know, ran every time
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: they got a little whiff, they would never have a
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: place to live. So while, you know, I think they'll
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: avoid you for sure, and you can't have your son
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: blowing it deer they're approaching you, they won't do it.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: I think that if your wind does drift across him
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: as well, it's not steady at me, you may get
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: away with that, say a little bit better in Michigan.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: I know it sounds kind of counterintuitive, but they're so
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: inundated or indeed with human scent that occasional whiff I
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: think is just a little more commonplaces. Um, it would
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: be maybe the equivalent of hunting suburb bucks sometimes. Yeah,
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: you know, and I wish that this you know, farm
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: maybe was in a different part of the county where
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: there wasn't so so much human traffic around. But it's
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: just hard to come up with that piece in southern
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: Lower Michigan. There's too many people and too many small
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: pieces aground. Yeah, yeah, there certainly is a lot of that. Now,
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: what's next, Like, what's the next big thing you want
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: to do out here that you haven't started yet. Is
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: there still like a bucket list big project you really
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: wish you could be able to put into action out here,
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: um or or where you see. Where's it going? Well? Uh,
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: you know, it all takes time. So you know, in
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: my my grand vision, so to speak, one of the
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: things I would like to do is take a two
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: agger piece it's kind of in the middle and put
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: a food plot. Now that sounds a little again counter intuitive, Uh,
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: but I've I've navigated it through the ups and downs
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: of it, and I think that I can hunt that occasionally.
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: But the but the bigger thing that I'm trying to
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: accomplish with that is if I can get a spot
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: that's two and a half acres to to and a
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: half acres, I believe that I can you know, raise
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: soybeans on that. And uh, I know, because of the
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: deer numbers that it's gonna require an electric fence, you know,
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: and I'm gonna have to once a week go out
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: and change a battery on that or and make sure
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: it's not knocked down. But I believe that I can
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: grow a couple of acres of soybeans out of that
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: and and then release those beans once November hit, or
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: if I even want to wait till gun season, I
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: could but release those beans, meaning take down the fence.
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: And now I've suddenly got this big food source that
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: should be able to feed the deer four a couple
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: of months, maybe three. You know, it just depends on
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: how many deer come in and eat there. But the
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: idea behind that was really one of Uh, if I
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: can feed the deer and give him something to drink,
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: maybe a few of them are gonna be all lived
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: to be four years old because they didn't step out
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: in front of a slug you know acrost defense. And
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: and at the end of the day, if it works,
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: I think everybody would benefit, even even the surrounding ground
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: are going to see more in bigger box out of
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: the deal because I've protected so many year and a half.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: Now will it work, like a tellgient before, it's all
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: an experiment. I mean, I know a lot of things
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: will work, and I do a lot of those things,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: but this definitely falls under the experimental part of it.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: And at the end of the day, if it fails,
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: you know, and I don't like how it worked, it
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: was too impossible to keep the deer out of it. Uh,
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: And I don't want a food plot in the middle
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: of the woods. Mother nature will take care of that
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: in about two years. And all I got to do
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: is stop and and believe me, the the honeysuckle that's
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: around and and all the prickers and blackberries and raspberries,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: everything's gonna thicken it up. The weeds are coming, you know,
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: and then the small trees. So it's there. The risk
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: is well worth it to me to see if this
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: will work. And I'm kind of excited. It's just something
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: I've never been able to do. Take a take a
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: solid chunk of timber and put a put a big
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: grain plot in the middle of it. So uh, it's
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: gonna take some time, though. I mean, that's a that's
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of trees, a lot of firewood, you know,
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: and I gotta I will say, there's probably a few
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: logs in that area, so I've got a logger coming
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: out to look at those. And it's uh, it's forward looking,
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: but I enjoy it. I really like doing this sort
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: of thing. You made a good point out there earlier
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: today in that um we're talking to there's all there's
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: this thing I'm working on the same working on this thing.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: You know, there's there's so many of these apple trees
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: I can only get to a handfully or whatever. Um.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: And then you made the point that you wouldn't want
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: to try to go and do all this all at once. Um.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: It's it's kind of a good thing to say, well,
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: I've got this thing I can do next year, and
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: I'll stretch this out over several years, because because to
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: your point, it's the it's the process, it's the journey,
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: like managing a piece of ground for wildlife and hunting
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: and deer and all these things. Um, it doesn't I
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: would say, it shouldn't be just about like be able
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: to shoot one giant bucket. It should be a really fun,
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: year round process. It should be a great way for
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: you to interact with this place and get to know
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: this place, and yet hopefully it leads to some great hunting. Um.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: But you know, you said you want to enjoy it.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: And if you're stressing out because you have to cut
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: down fifty different trees, or you have to be out
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: there every single day, or or you're so stressed about
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: not getting all these things done on your list that
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: you don't enjoy it anymore, then what's the point? Exactly right?
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: And the bottom line is, from the time I got
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: the first food plot done, the place had improved and
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: was better hunting than it was before. So if I
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: need to, you know, work on my Iowa farm and
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: tinker and put a food plot in their water hole
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: out there or Missouri, whatever the case may be, uh,
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: so be it. And it doesn't all have to happen
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: at once. So you know, uh, I like to see
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: things get done. Uh, But I also realized that there's
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: gonna be a sense of loss that occurs once I've
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: got all the big stuff done. You know, that'll always
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: be little things. But once I get past that, I
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: feel like I feel like some will be missing, all right.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: So so really my goal was just to you know,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: add one food plot a year, one water hole until
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: I get where I'm going, and and then sit back
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: and reap the rewards. But again, I'll I'll miss that
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: part of it, and trust me. So anyway, yeah, I'm
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: going to get a few years of enjoyment out of
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: changing this piece around, or at least maybe I'll find
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: another piece too. I would like to keep my eyes
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: open for something but it is. It's pretty difficult Michigan
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: find a clean slate like this one, I'd say. So.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: Something that I liked a lot um was that while
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: we were looking at one of your food plots, you
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: talked about the fact that, um, a lot of what
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: you're trying to to do now is not just set
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: yourself up for success personally, trying to find opportunities in
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: ways to use something like this to help other people
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: experience these things that we've come to love hunting in
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: the outdoors, um, and how that's become part of of
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: of your goals kind of maybe with this place and
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: with what you're doing, can you can you just elaborate
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: a little a little bit on and why that's something
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: that matters to you now and how you're trying to
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: try to do that. M hmm, yeah for sure. Well, uh,
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: you know, I I have killed a few boon and
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: crack a deer now and then it's very exciting and
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: I love it. I'm all in trust me. But and
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: if you've ever sat behind a nine year old shooting
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: his first buck, you know that's something too. And you
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: know it doesn't go home and hang on your wall
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: or anything. But the memories that you make doing something
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: like that are incredible. So for me, it's been I
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: don't want to say giving back, but you know, a
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: piece of ground like this does give you an opportunity
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: to share that experience with others, and and particularly in Michigan,
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: if it's you know, there's there's a lot of deer here.
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: Uh And if you have the right place, the right setup,
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: you can see a lot of deer. And I think
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: that's a great way to get young people involved. You know,
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: they've grown up now with a phone in their hands
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: or some sort of electronic device that you know, it
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: stimulates them constantly. So to take a deer hunting, like
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: when I started in the seventies, take a kid deer
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: hunting a boy, you had to be all in because
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: you might hunt all day and I see a deer.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: But you know, with this, you know a piece of ground,
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: the fifty seven, and now you know the additional ground
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: it's with it. If I take somebody out, they're going
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: to see some deer and they're gonna they're gonna have
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: a good time seeing them. And what you've probably done
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: there has created a lifelong deer hunter because you know,
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: once it's in under your skin. You know, it's hard
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: to get rid of that bud. Yeah, but you do
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: have to enjoy it and and get something out of it,
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: not be too cold. I've I've taken to using blinds
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: now almost exclusively. For one, they contain your scent a
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: lot better. But you know, you can uh move about
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: in them a little freer, which is good. As you
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: get older, you're a little more fidgety. You don't sit
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: quite as still as you want to. But it's kind
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: of like with the young guys, the nine year olds,
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: eight year old to go out with you, or even younger.
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure with the right blind you take
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: a two or three year old out. My kids have
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: been hunting with me for a very long time out
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: of a blind, and uh, the windows are high enough
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: that they could play with their toys on the floor
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: and get away with it. But at least when the
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: deer came out and I could point them out, and
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: then they were all excited, you know. So I'm doing
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: a little bit of that. We're trying to get some
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: youth out. And I've got a couple of people in
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: mind this fall that a never killed a deer or
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: never killed a buck, and I'm hoping to get them
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: out and get them their first deer and I'll get
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: as much out of as they will. And then, um,
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm I'm hoping maybe to use that liberty
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: hunt to get a disabled veteran out someone again that
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: may not have that you know, easy place to go
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: see some deer. Uh. And you know these new blinds
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: are very easy to get into and out of and
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: situated in. So I'm hoping to do something like that
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, And um, my son's girlfriend never been
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: deer hunting, and she went with us last fall and
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: she's like, Wow, this is really cool because you know,
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: the deer and the turkeys and squirrels, it's it's a
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: zoo out there. So you know there's another person right
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: there that she's now going to go get her hunter
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: safety this summer, and and she wants to go hunting.
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: She wants to start shooting. And Paul so even know
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: that that our sport is struggling to maintain its numbers
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: and there's a lot of people that oppose it, so um,
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: it behooves us to introduce people to the hunting. And
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: so those of us that have a good piece to
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: share and I should do it. Yeah, I think that's
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: a great I think that's a great point because it
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: definitely is I mean, of course, with this goes out saying,
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: but to be able to be in a position to
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: buy a piece of property, obviously in almost all cases,
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: takes a whole lot of work in time and effort
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: to to be able to be in a position to
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: do that. But it also is is a is a
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: privilege to be in that position too, and there are
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: some people that maybe won't have that privilege. So I
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: think it's really cool that you're taking that, um, that
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: blessing of yours and helping others that maybe don't have
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: that same opportunity. I think that's it's a great example
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: for a lot of us to look at. Um another
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: great privileges of yours that you're out getting to hunt
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: in Iowa two spend most of my time, actually spend
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: spend a lot of time there. Um. You know, is
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: there just is there anything going on out there when
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: it comes to the managing of a property or hunter habitat? Um?
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: Is there anything out there that that is just other
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: than you talked about access is a little bit different.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: But are there any other projects you guys are working
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: out there on those farms. Um Or is there anything
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: that Tom is doing out there that is just really
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: different than what we've been talking about. M hm, I
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: don't know. Well, we're talking about four acre wood. We're
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: kind of in the detember, and that's something that we
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: don't find ourselves doing out there. We're able to pick
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: up field edges and turn those into food plots and
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: draw them out of the thicker spots. So, um, technically
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: it can be a little bit different out there, and
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: that you don't hardly ever have to go in the timber.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: If we are in the timber, it's because it's the
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: rut and it's on and so outside of the rut,
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: we're pretty well hunting the food, so you know. Um,
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: so that's a little different. If a person in Michigan
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: has a piece of woods to hunt, he's gotta walk
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: through a period. I mean, there's just no way to
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: necessarily get around it otherwise. But it seems like out
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: there we have a little bit better. It just seems roomier.
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: You know, the pieces of ground are so much larger
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: in general out there. If if someone has two or
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: three hundred acre field here, it's pretty well. Fence rows
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: are ripped out and it's just big old cornfield, you know.
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: And those fields do exist out there, and even even bigger.
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: But the tracks of land in general are so much
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: bigger that uh, they take in a lot more um cover.
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: You might be only four of you hunting a few
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: hundred acres instead of four of you hunting forty acres.
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: You know. Uh, in that difference in Missouri and Iowa. Uh,
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: ellen Wis would probably another state that included that. What
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: makes those states different than Michigan. And I don't know,
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: maybe you've never thought of this, but uh, in those states,
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: you don't have a swamp. It doesn't exist. In those states.
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: Water moves period. If it falls down, it moves until
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: it gets into a stream and then a river and
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: off it goes. There are no swamps, just just and
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: and so we have that to our benefit here because
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: it does give a deer a great spot tide um.
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: And so that makes us a little bit unique, is
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: all the lowland and wetland that that we have here.
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: But the other thing is most of that rolling ground
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: in in say Iowa Missouri um was once upon a
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: time cattle ranch. I mean they farmed for cattle, so
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: all the rolling ground tended to be turned into grassy
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: fields for them. Well, in keeping with that, they put
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: reservoirs everywhere. So literally, if a rain drop falls out there,
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: it's pretty much gonna go somewhere. So they created a lot,
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of reservoirs, water holes for the for the cattle. So, uh,
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: they're really all over So we don't use water holes
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: quite as much out there, you know, as as we
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: do here. Just seems like there's a lot of them
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: and we're not well I'm not gonna say not. We
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: do hunt over them, but it just doesn't seem to
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: be quite as big a factor as a nice, big
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: green food plot is, let's put it that way. But here, Um,
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: you know, if a deer has to go three or
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: four yards for water, he's likely to get shot at.
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: So if you can put a water hole inside your timber,
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: you've got a different it's a game changer. Uh. Something
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: I've always liked to say, and this this is there's
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: probably no factual basis to this. I'd just like to
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: say it because I'm for Michigan. But I always like
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: to say that if you can kill a mature deer
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: in Michigan, you could do it anywhere. This is what
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: I've always thought, like, this is one the same thing.
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: You could say the same thing if you could kill
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: mature about in New York or Pennsylvania or maybe George
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: or one of these other high pressure states. I'm not
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: sure what you know how it all ranks, but it's
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: always been my thoughts. If you're kill in here, you
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: can get done anywhere. So you can kill mature deer
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: in Michigan, and you've been able to kill mature deer
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: in Iowa. Now, I'm sure he won't listen to this,
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: so don't worry about what he's gonna think about you
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: saying this. But if you took Tom Ware from Iowa
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: and through him in Michigan, could he kill mature deer here? Uh?
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: Tom is good. Yeah, yeah, he's he's gonna find the
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: most mature deer. Willie stay in Michigan. No, No, he's
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: gonna he's gonna yeah yeah, No, Um, he'll be in
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: back now he's not gonna be here probably with me
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: this fall. No. Uh yeah. But to your point, Um,
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of truth in what you say. If
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: if you're a good hunter in Michigan, I'm sorry, You're
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: gonna be very good in the Western states as well.
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: Strategy is very a little bit. But um so, what
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: you have to know in Michigan to be able to
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: kill a good buck, it's simply translated out west means
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: you will kill a good buck because it is easier
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: in those states, a lot less pressure. So I mean,
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: and you know, I don't know if the same is
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: always true. I think that you know, well, there's plenty
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: of uh, you know, old school farmers that just wait
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: till the shotgun season and they go out and they
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: sit in the same spot they always sitting for whatever reason,
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: they always kill one there. Well, I don't feel that
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: you could take those people and drop them in Michigan.
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: It wouldn't work. You know, it's been a little bit
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: too easy for him, and that there's not that many
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: hunters out there. And you know, they've probably seen the
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: deer coming out to the food plat for a month
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: or two, an hour or just that spot's just always
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: worked over there by the oak tree. And it's probably true.
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: Um but yeah, turn about if I think Michigan hunters,
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: if they're good here, are going to be good there.
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: And they're gonna have more fun, probably because they're gonna
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: see some some serious buck fights and they're gonna hear
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: some snart leases and yeah, they're gonna they're gonna be excited.
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: I know. Uh, the minute I started hunt out there
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: over a decade ago, that was it for me. I
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: had to be there. Yeah, it's it's hard to argue
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: it's it's a whole lot of fun. I love hunting
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: in Michigan. I love hunting these other states. It's just
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: different kind of experience. But when you go somewhere like
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: you know, Iowa, oor Ohio or another Western state, it
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: is something special. Man. I would encourage anyone to give
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: it a shot. And you don't need to own land
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: to do it. You can certainly hunt public plan and
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: have really cool experience. You can get permission still and
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: have really cool experience. Um. But that's That's been one
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: of my favorite things over the course of the last
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: ten years that I started really traveling, is just having
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: a diversity of hunting experiences, getting to hunt in different trains,
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: different being around different cultures of deer hunters, being able
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: to see all sorts of different scenarios from what's present
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: in Michigan, to what's in Ohio to what's in Montana,
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: to Iowa to Illinois to Pennsylvania. It's all different. It's
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: all pretty cool its own um. And I'm kind of
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: left with the fought that a deer is a deer
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: in Michigan or Iowa. But in Michigan they're just more solf,
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: just more self a deer. Everything's cranked up. It's a
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: deer on edge, for sure. And I've spent my share
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: of time on public ground in in states you know, Colorado, Nebraska,
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: you name it, in New Mexico, and I have killed
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: some game out there, and you're right it is. Now
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: we're talking about maybe different species in white tail, but uh,
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: a deer a meal, they're still a deer. But yet
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: it's a whole different hunt. I mean, you're in the
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: sage brush and oak brush and it's exciting to experience that.
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: And I would encourage people to do it because it's
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: not that expensive. A lot of those states are over
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: the counter. And if you think you can't go out
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: in public land and see something, you're wrong, and they're there. Yeah,
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: you might not always get a giant, but I'll tell you,
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: when you do something, it's out if your comfort zone
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: and you go out to these public plans, success doesn't
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: have to be measured in injas, because just managing to
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: harvest one can be a small victory, and in a
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: fun change of pace one even just going out there
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: and surviving it at all would be a victory in
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: many cases for some people. So yeah, I think this
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: is I think that's great. What I what I enjoy
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: about what I'm able to do is I gets talk
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: to people from all different walks of life within the
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: hunting world, and gets talked to some people that just
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: hunt public land and they just get out there and
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: they they're finding great deer and they're having a really
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: great time, and they get they get a wide breadth
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: of different experience because they're hunting all these different places
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: all this time. And then you get to talk to
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: someone who owns a farm maybe like you do, and
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: you get to have a great experience, and you get
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: to manage deer and hunt deer and kill some great deer,
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: and you get to have like a really deep experience
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: with a single place. And I think there's there's something
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: cool and unique about all that. And I think all
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: of these add to this great, big pot luck of
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: of what it is to be a hunter, um. And
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: I'm really glad that all of us are in that
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: big pot together and that we can kind of learn
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: from all of our different experiences. And so I've enjoyed
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: hearing about your experience, how you're doing things here in Michigan,
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: how you've been able to do some things out in
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: these other states and bring it back and and it
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: kind of makes a match, um. And it's encouraging exciting
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: to see someone doing what you're doing here in a
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: state that's not always easy, but you're still having a
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: lot of great success and having a lot of fun.
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: And uh, I just thoroughly enjoyed our chat and getting
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: to see it here in person. So so thank you
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: for Scott. I appreciate you coming out and I'd like
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: to pick your brain too when we're out there, you know,
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: another set of eyes. Hey, thank you for that. I'm
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: always always going to be down for that. If people
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: want to see some of your hunts in the future,
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: is there anywhere you can direct them, Well, Drew has
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: put a lot of them out on YouTube with their
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: d d t V. There's a lot of out there
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: you can actually search Scott Manifold, and I know I've
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: done it to see what's out there, but yeah, there's
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: actually actually quite a few of them out there. And
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: currently I'm Tom and I are along with Mike Clementon
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: are partners on Bowl Madness on the Outdoor Channel. Yeah,
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: and then we do some stuff on Pursuit Channel for
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: Natural Born Killers. That would be pretty much anything we've
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: done with a gun gets put on that program. So yeah,
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: there's some places out there, and if you especially if
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: you have cable or this DV, you can get in
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: there some of those channels and check it out. Excellent. Well,
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: I'll definitely check them out, check out the YouTube videos here.
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm always on. And I know you've had
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: some some some great bucks that are out there. So
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: we'll watch for us on deer Cast this fall. That
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: that is a phenomenal app I use it religiously and
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: I'm not just saying that. It works superbly. And it
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: also gives us a chance to, you know, right after
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: our harvests post to kill out there for for everybody
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: to see what's happening. And I mean it's it's about
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: as close to live as you can get on something
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: like that, and just a great format that is a
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: fun way to do it. So all right, well, thank
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: you Scott and hopefully we'll be seeing some big old
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: bucks on Deercast for me come fall. Thanks and that
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: will be a rap today, So thank you all for
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: tuning in. Best of luck on your upcoming turkey hunts
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: or habita have projects or whatever it is you might
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: be doing out in the woods and fields these days.
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: Until next time, stay wired Ton