Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 527: The Kansas 80 Case Study in Land Management with Nate and Thomas Krick

Transcript

Ep. 527: The Kansas 80 Case Study in Land Management with Nate and Thomas Krick · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: modern white tail hunter, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. Today in the show,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I am joined by Nate and Thomas Crick, host of
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Identical Draw, to discuss their experience as young twentysomethings diving
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: head first into white tail land management and their experiences
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: managing their famili's eighty acre farm. All right, welcome back
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: First Light, and we are continuing here with our white
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: tail land management series of sorts that I'm doing here
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: this month. And it's kind of taken a kind of
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: an average Joe spin because last week it was me
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: and Tony sharing our experiences, and this week I got
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: the did to talk to a couple folks who I
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: don't think we would normally be looking to for advice
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: on how to dive into white tail land management. Usually,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: you know, usually the people we talked about these things
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: are consultants. They're experts in the field who have been
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: doing it for forty years. These are guys who owned
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: two thousand acres and killed big bucks every year, YadA, YadA, YadA.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: But what about the rest of us. What about young people?
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: What about folks who don't know everything and who are
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: just trying to figure it out? I think that is
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: an interesting perspective to explore, too, and that's why today
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: I asked Nate and Thomas Crick to join me on
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: the show. These two guys, they are brothers there and
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: their early twenties. They host a show on their YouTube
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: channel called Identical Draw and their die hard deer hunters,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: and a handful of years ago their family decided they
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: were going to buy a family farm somewhere and Naton
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Thomas were going to be in charge of the search
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: for that farm, and they were going to be in
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: charge of managing it, managing it, turning this into something
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: that could be great for their white tail hunting and
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: for the other goals they had as a family for
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: this place and as twenty year olds when this all started,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: I think that probably was a pretty intimidating thing, and
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: I'm interested in that. I'm interested in what it looks
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: like for a young couple of kids to try to
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: figure this kind of stuff out. They can be kind
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: of intimidating figuring out how to plan a white tail management.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: You know, the series of years. What are you gonna
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: do over the next decade, How are you going to
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: plant food plats to timber work burned anything like that.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: That's a lot for me to consider thirty four years old.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: I know a lot of forty five and fifty year
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: olds who probably feel the same way. Let alone, if
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: you were twenty and these guys did it. They dove in,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: they read everything they could, they talked to everyone they could,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: They brought in some people to help point them in
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: the direct direction, and they learned and they learned and
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: they learned, and over the last three years they have
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: been enjoying the fruits of that labor and those learnings.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: And that's what we're going to discuss today. We're gonna
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: find out how Thomas and Nate figure this haul out themselves.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: And in short, I think it's pretty inspiring. You know,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: if you're a young person yourself, if you're twenty or
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: five or thirty, and you've been seeing people on TV
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: doing this land management thing, and maybe your family has property,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: or maybe you have been in a position where maybe
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: you could buy your own little piece. But that seems
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: like a whole lot to consider, and it's pretty intimidating. Well,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: I think this conversation today might just empower you to
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: give it a shot. And if you're in a different
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: position but still have been wanting to dive into this world,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: I think what Nate and Thomas have to share will
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: be very useful to you as well. They share with
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: me a lot about what they've learned on the side
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: of food plot. We discussed a lot about timber management
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: and what you can do with very limited resources to
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: really improve a property the timber management. We talked about
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: fire and what it takes to kind of go down
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: that road and begin trying something like that, and a
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: lot more too. So I enjoyed this one. I think
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: you all will as well. This isn't like, uh yeah,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: this isn't Craig Harper diving in from a university professors
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: standpoint right. This is real people sharing real experiences, and uh,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: you know, I think that's something that's that's pretty cool
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: to dive into. So I will give you two other
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: quick reminders before we get into this one. Number one,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: if you are not already subscribed to the Wired to
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Hunt newsletter, please go do that. Go over to the
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: meat Eater dot com and you'll see options in the
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: menu there to subscribe. That's where we send out our
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: weekly updates on the new content, the new articles, were publishing,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: the new podcast. If you miss any of those new videos,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: I I send a weekly little note I guess with
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: updates from my world or interesting things going on, or
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: suggestions or tips or things I might recommend you guys
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: think about this time of the year. Tony Peterson jumps
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: on there sometimes too, so make sure you're signed up
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: for that. Speaking of videos, I want to remind you
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: all that Tony and I and the team are continuing
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: to pump out weekly how to videos over on the
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: wired Hunt YouTube channel. So go on over to YouTube
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: search for wired to Hunt, hit subscribe. Then we're cranking
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: them out. It's it's a lot of work the team's
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: putting in the hours to get quick, helpful and and
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: I think you know pretty pretty um oh, heck, I
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: don't know useful. I guess maybe it's the simple word,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: looking for useful, quick videos that I think will give
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: you quick tips and suggestions to point you in the
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: right direction, whether it's the off season right now or
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: as we move into this summer and then the fall.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: The information you need to take into the field right away.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: So that's all I got for you today. Guys, appreciate
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: you listening. Let's get to my chat with Nate and
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Thomas Crick. All right, hear I mean now I've got
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Nate and Thomas Krick. Gentlemen, thank you for joining me.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah you better. Yeah, I think you guys are the
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: perfect people to talk to today for the conversation I
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: want to have, um because I don't know how to
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: put this in a way that doesn't sound slightly offensive,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: but but I think you guys are are kinda just
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: rosy eyed knuckleheads just like me. And by that I
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: mean like you've dove into a big, crazy project without
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: a ton of experience, just wanting to learn a lot.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: When I when you think about your Kansas City project
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: in your your dreams to transform a piece of property,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: does what I said does that sound accurate? Yeah? I
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: mean that's like perfect mark because we didn't like have
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: the Grandpa that had a couple of thousand acres, like
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: we just hunted some some public like public land and
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: a little bit of private that we had permission on.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: So yeah, exactly, Yeah, we had I mean zero land
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: managing experience. Before. I mean, yeah, still really knew, definitely
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: feel a lot better where we are now as land
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: managers than we were three years ago. But yeah, well,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: I think that one of the things that at least
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: I felt when I started doing this kind of stuff,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: and I'm guessing a lot of other people out there
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: feel too, is you know, when you hear about most
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: white tail land management or white tail improvement projects or advice,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: you know it's coming from these people who have been
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: doing it for thirty years or forty years, and they've
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: got thousands of acres, or if you watch somebody on TV,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: they've got two thousand acres and they're doing this perfect thing,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: and their their food plots look like perfectly manicured golf grains,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: and they've got twenty seven different box lines across it,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: and they shoot a hundred eight inch bucks four times
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: a year, and and on and on and on, and
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: it seems both so outside of the realm of possibility,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: and it seems intimidating when I hear about the nineteen
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: different fertilizer types and the seven different tractors I need
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: to have, and YadA, YadA, YadA. I think all of
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: that can for some people be paralyzing, and it keeps
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: people from ever wanting to actually dive in and and
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: try it if they just have thirty acres or eighty
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: acres or sixty acres and a four wheeler. Um. And
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: I think your story is one that I think and
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: hopefully we're gonna find out here in a second, I
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: think it kind of flips out in its head. Um.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: So so can you can you just set the stage
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: for me, Like, how did the Kansas A d come about? Like?
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: I know that this is a property that your your
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: family bought and you guys have kind of taken the
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: lead on it. But how did this this whole idea
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: come together? Yeah? So basically, I mean we've been avid
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: into the outdoors, um for forever, it seems, um, And
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: so I don't know for us it which just like
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: this like general like accumulating want to like have our
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: own ground because like we have we have a lot
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: of generous friends that would let us hunt. But man,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: in the back of our minds for so long, we're like, man,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: wouldn't it be sweet to have just even the smallest
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: little chunk of ground that we could manage ourselves, like
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: actually like have some food sources and do all this stuff,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: and so kind of we sat down with the parents
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: because obviously, um what we were teenagers basically at the
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: time we were trying to figure this all out. We're like,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: obviously we have like ten bucks to our name. So
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: luckily we have amazing parents that also wanted property just
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: for like the family's sake and just like kind of
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: a family legacy that you can start and have for
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: generations and stuff like that. Um. And so we kind
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: of combine our efforts and um man I had Luckily,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: I was friends with a few different land agents in uh, Nebraska, Iowa,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: and Kansas, and I kind of, I mean, I went
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: to look at a lot of properties and I I
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: kind of told him. I was like, Hey, this is
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: what the family is looking for. It needs to be
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: like less than this far away from the house. So
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: we wanted it to not be a super long drive
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: away from our home home. And then we wanted to
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: have a certain structure for um, not only just like family,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Like we'd like to have like a build side, like
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: we uh could build a shed so we could have
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: families stay down here sometimes. Um. And then also we
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: wanted to have a hunting side and so I told
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: those guys like, hey, if you see this perfect property
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: of things we want line up, you better I better
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: be the first one you text. And so it's show enough.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: It should be noted that I mean that we were
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: looking pretty aggressively, like at at properties for two years, uh,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: leading up to when we purchased a d So we
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: kind of I mean, it wasn't just like a right
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: away thing that we found this. So you always have
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: people reaching out asking like how how we decided to
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: buy a property, because one it's a huge financial investment,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: but then secondly, it's just like you wanted to be
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: the perfect thing if you're gonna put the money down.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: So we always just had a kind of a scale
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: one to five what's most important, And then every time
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: we'd roll up to a property, you wet, um, we
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: kind of go through that list and it kind of
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: made it easy for us to decide. So and the
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: white tail side of me like we grew up in
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: a breast pretty good white tail hunting, um, but like
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: not to fin mind a Braska friends, but it's not
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: on the level of like an Iowa in Kansas, um.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: And so I was looking in Iowa and Kansas because
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: we live We lived down south, like south southeastern Nebraska,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: so like Iowa Kansas. We're getting to both those states
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: like within an hour. So I was like, the white
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: tail side of me is like, Okay, I'm definitely gonna
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: be looking at Iowa Kansas a little more than Nebraska, um,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: just because I know they managed or stay a little
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: different and they grew getting big white tails. Um. So
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: sure enough. One of my buddies from the Land real
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Estate company text me is, actually we're at the Archer
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Trade Association trade show between nineteen and he's like, I've
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: got a property. You want to see this? And he's
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: like it's gonna go like on the market market like
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: next week, and like everything's gonna be shown, like they
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: have a bunch of big buck trail camps and stuff.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Was like, so if you want like stab at, that's
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: seeing I get down to your fast and so we, uh,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: that's what we did. We were there early that next week,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: and I mean we saw the property, loved it, parents
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: loved it, um, and we shot, we shot low and
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: we got it. So that's that's basically. It was freaking perfect.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: So what were those you mentioned. You've got a bunch
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: of different criteria that you were looking at, and you
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: were kind of like a one to five scale of
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: what's most important everything like that when you were looking
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: for this perfect property that would both achieve your white
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: tail goals but also the family goals. What were those
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: perfect things you were looking to check the boxes on. Yeah,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: so it was there kind of like two lists or
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: like what the parents wanted to see and then what
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: means they wanted to see, and then we kind of
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: men in the middle. But um, ideally we wanted water
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: on it, some sort of water, whether it be a
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: pond or or a creek. And we've got a creek
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: on ours basically running all the way north to south
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: that most years is has water in it u flowing
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: and the whole whole time. So um that we checked
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: the box there. Um distance from home right at two hours, Um,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: we didn't want to go close to three uh. Two
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: hour drive to us is much more dooble than at
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: in an hour, so it worked for our for our distance,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: um size wise, UM, I wasn't going to break the bank. UM,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: So I don't know me what else doing. We wanted
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: definitely just diversity on it. Um. So we noticed on
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: this piece we had. It was mainly like at least
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: sixty five seventy acres of the eighty acres that we
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: own is like all timber, um. We love that. Um.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: And then there was also like some um just grassy
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: fields and stuff like that that we were picturing. Okay,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: easily food pots, but also just good um, just good
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: grassy mixture up there on top. And so those are
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: kind of the things. We wanted to be able to
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: access it pretty easily. And one of the sides has
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: a road that we can that runs right along the
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: side of it, so um, we didn't have to worry
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: about not being able to get in there certain times
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: of the year there being like really rainy or something
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: like that. But I wanted to the parents really wanted
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: to build location kind of like I already mentioned for
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: like a shed or a cabinet at some point. Um.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: And so yeah, those are kind of the checkbox. And
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: this one just this one just met It was in
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: the price range and also just a size like I mean,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: I think that's one thing that Thomas and I really
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: tried to stress through our channels is like small properties
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: can be deadly. You don't need anything crazy. So this
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: ad acres fit that perfectly as well. It certainly seems
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: like it from the you know, from watching the videos
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: and everything that now you mentioned there's there's a stream,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: there's this road access, there's timber, there's grass. When you
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: stepped foot on the property for the first time after
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: you guys had you know, it became your family's property,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: and you stepped foot and you realized, wow, this is
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: this is ours? What did that? Can you remember what
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: that first day felt like? Are those first moments stepping
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: foot out there, walking across it was? It was it overwhelming?
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Was it just exciting? Uh? What was going through your
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: guys heads? Yeah, it was like where do we start?
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Like we uh, since identical draw was the thing back then,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: we we filmed it so you can actually watch like
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: our first time walking it as landowners on our YouTube
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: channel and it's we like, I go back and watch
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: that episode because sometimes you get just so in the
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: mix of trying to kill a white tail and you
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: just gotta uh get that feeling of what I felt
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: like the first time you're on it. But um, yeah,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: it was it was a really snowy day. Actually the
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: first day it was gosh, it was like sixtight six
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: eight inches down, I think, um, so it was just
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: like where do we start and like, let's just see
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: what this place has, because we did a walk through
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: before we put an offer on and we just it
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: was quick, like I know, maybe thirty minutes to an
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: hour walk through, and um, I think it's just excitement
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: of what we were gonna what we're gonna find. Yeah,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I mean right off the bat you could uh just
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: see the deer travel was like really thick. So that
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: was exciting. Um. Our Ad is definitely a big turkey hunter.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: He hasn't he hasn't dabbled as much into there, but
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: I remember seeing some turkey tracks. I remember him being
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: really excited about that. But I do think the overwhelming
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: thing was like, man, what are we going to turn
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: this into? Like it felt like we had like a
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: just a clean slate, like you have almost eighty acres
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: of just pure timber that you can just open up
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: where you want to open up, leaf thick where you
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: want to leaf thick, and um, I don't know, it
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: just seemed like a mixture of like really daunting and
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: super exciting that I mean, this ground that we're walking on.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: His arts like that I mean, it was a really surreal,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: crazy feeling. I can imagine I've I've I've had sort
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: of like that, Like when we when I got to
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: be a part of the back forty with Mediator and
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: I got to essentially steward and head up that project.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: I was there for all those types of things, and
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: I put in helped put in the offer, and I
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: got to be on the property and all that kind
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: of stuff. So I was the pseudo owner of the
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: farm for two years, and I felt a kind of
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: similar things like that, but but knowing that there was
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: gonna be this heartbreak some number of years down the
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: road when I'd have to walk away. So you guys
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: got to get to keep enjoying it. So I'm jealous
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: about that one, um. But I do know one of
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: the very first things I had to be thinking about
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: during that was right off the gate, you know, before
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: I even started making plans or thinking about plans. I
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: remember sitting down and thinking through, Okay, before I can
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: know where I'm going, or before I can do anything,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: I need to know where I'm trying to go. I
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: need to know what the goals are going to be
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: for this property. Explicitly is it just to kill the
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: biggest buck ever? Is it to kill a lot of deer?
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Is it to have deer and turkeys and squirrels? Is
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: it to do this and that and this and that
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: and have all these different people and all these different things.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of different questions I was working through
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: when trying to figure out what we should do with
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: that place. So what was that process like for you guys?
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: How did you guys go about figuring out what the
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: goals were? Was that simple? Was that like a debate
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: between you and the family? What did that look like?
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: And then where'd you end up? Like what was the
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: what was the goal list once you guys came to
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: some kind of agreement if if you did, yeah, so
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: those I mean definitely right off the bat, we uh,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: we did think about management things. But it's also like, man,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: the parents like really wanted like a ship or something
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: down here because it's like, you know, we come down here,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: there's nowhere like if you work on it, there's nowhere
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: to shower, Like, there's nowhere to just like like chill out,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: to canna eat or anything. So it's like, okay, that
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: was that was definitely a high goal. But that was
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: like kind of out of me and Tom's rown back then,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: because again we were just poor kids back then. UM.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: So it's like, okay, parents, you can work on putting
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: maybe a shed up on the property somewhere. Um. And
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: there were a lot of discussions about where we're gonna
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: put the shed, um and when we're gonna there's a
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: tricky situation mark because they're they're funding the project, but
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: at the same time we're trying to convince them on
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: when to do it, like during the summertime, uh not
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: during the fall. Actually ended up happening like in the
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: smack dab of October were which which didn't actually have
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: a huge effect, but it was definitely like one of
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: those like I'm just gonna we're gonna have to let
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: you do this one day because you did buy it,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: so we're just gonna There were a couple of sits,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: like mid October, late October. You could just hear like
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: the construction guys music blairing like a couple hud yards
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: and when you're like, okay, like this might have an effect,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: probably have an effect. We'll see I don't really have
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: a choice here, but um, I don't know. So that
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: was definitely something we discussed a lot um management side
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: of things. We really like had no idea where to start.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: So I think one of our best um ideas we
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: had was that first spring we had the property, we
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: had a few people from q d M A now
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: NDA come down and walk the property with us, Matt
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Ross being one of them, and he is just a
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: wealth of knowledge and we walked the whole eight with him,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: and man like, I think that really lit our management
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: fire for like our management goals, um, just because she's
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: like a wealth of knowledge. He knew every tree we're seeing,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: he knew like good dear food, he knew the structure
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: we wanted on that property. So like that's when our
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: management goals really kicked in. But other goals, I mean,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: obviously we're just like hunting was like number one, Like
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: let's kill a giant white tailed big Kansas white tail
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: down here. Um, we didn't really have like we didn't
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: need to be like, Okay, this next season we need
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: to kill like a hundred and eight inch year. We're
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: just like let's just um trying to hunt this as
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: well as possible and just like be really really patient
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: with it. Um. But yeah, the goals were definitely some
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: of those things that shed and this different management stuff.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: But it's still like working propers, like our our goals
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: are kind of changing throughout, but also like we're achieving
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: some goals and then like a year later down the road,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: we realized that, Okay, that's not really goal we want
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: to attain. We're going to switch it up a little bit. So, yeah,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: some of them were reaching, some of them we don't.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: So what about that planning process you mentioned how Matt
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: you know, came out walked it with you, helped you
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: kind of get a better sense of what you had
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: and what you could have. But but walk me through
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: you know what that plan, you know how that plan
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: came together and how that's evolved. Yeah, he I would say,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: he just really opened up our eyes. All all we
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: had like really known, um was was what we had
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: like washed on outdoor TV. Like how are these like
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: food plot everywhere that there's any uh crack in the
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: timber anywhere that you can fit a plot with any sunlight? Um,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: that's like what we had thought before Um Matt introduced
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: us to t S I all these different things. UM,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: but he all like one of the biggest things he
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: mentioned to us was uh, kind of separating the eight
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: into different management units and going about it that way,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: which was I would say the most helpful thing he
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: told us the whole time. So we broke eighty acres
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: into six different management units. Um, and then we would
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: decide what we were going to do in eacht unit,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: whether we're going to completely leave it alone, or food
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: plot here, some t s I work here, maybe a
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: prescribed fire um. So that kind of helped us really
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: just slow down and look at it a big picture. Yeah,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: and I would say, a, UM, one of one of
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the things the first thing he was like, he was like,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: the first thing I do, guys, is make roads on
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: the property. Make a road around the entire perimeter, make
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: roads throughout. And when he told me that the first time,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: I was like, mhm, Like I don't completely agree with
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: that being the first thing that you should do. But
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: now three years later, I'm like, one, Like, if you're
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: a new landowner, put roads on that property so you
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: can get around. Um, why is that so important? Because
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: I bet you there's a lot of people skeptical just
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: like you were. Yeah. So one, fire breaks. If you're
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: going to prescribe fire, roads are perfect fire breaks. Yeah,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: and if I mean that was like one of the
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: biggest things that um he he and so many other
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: landmakers we talked to stents have just like prescribed fire
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: is just like one of the if you ask any
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: land managers, it's in the top three things that you
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: want to do with the property. So, um, it makes
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: sense just to have that that road. Yeah. So that
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: and then just being able to access different pieces is what.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Or you shoot a deer back there and don't have
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: to drag it out a half mile, or if you're
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: carrying a twenty pound chainsaw and fuel and water and
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: chaps and all that stuff during a hot day or something.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, just getting around places has been like we
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: didn't have like really decent roads until this last year
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: and it has made like a night and day difference
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: just with like being able to finish things faster. And
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: then also like with our eighty, it's so thick, the
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: structure so thick that deer use them as highways. Like
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: if you cut something, if you cut a path through
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: the eight, the structure is so thick around here that
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: it becomes a highway. Like I walked some roads this
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: this offseason that we cut and I had I hadn't
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: been there since like probably last spring, and I mean
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: scrapes all over it, rubs running up and down because
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: deer can get there now and they couldn't get there before.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean it just made our our work
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: go way faster. So these management units that Matt recommended,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: you guys use, uh, why why does that matter? Why
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: is that something that you guys actually found relief valuable?
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: And then can you kind of describe to me what
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: those management units look like in your specific example. Yeah,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: so we we really broke up the management units. Um uh,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: all because of Matt, because like we'd be just walking
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: and he would just like stop and be like, all right,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: we're in a brand new management unit, just because he
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: could tell timber change, structure, change of the forest floor.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Um but what they look like are either basically differentiate
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: them because uh, there would be really good um like
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: like oaks and really good timber, and then you'd go
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: over one ridge and then it'd be crappy, crappy bowl
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: on the maybe honey locust hedge. So he'd differentiated how
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: we're going to handle the differences there and what we
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: want to utilize, what we want to get rid of
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: so um we always just we we went, we came
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: on the eight thinking like okay, it's just all timber,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: that's it was just all one unit to us. But
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: him studying this is completely different. This needs to be
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: managed completely different. Um was huge. Yeah. So, like we
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: had again we had six different units, like Unit one,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: I remember Unit one and two. They were in like
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: our southeast corner, which has been like traditionally like we
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: have like the some of the most son back there.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: And then also like it's like a cedar just like
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: really good like betting area, and so we kind of
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: like designated those, okay, is like we're not gonna like
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: really hunt those and we're not really gonna, um like
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: go in there very often. That's kind of be the
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: sanctuary kind of. And those things have actually changed because
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: we killed two bucks in December and the unit one
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: this last year. But like basically like it gave us
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: like really specific jobs we needed to do, so we
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: could go through every single management unit and then have
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: tasks we wanted to do in each one of those.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: So like management Unit three on our property was on
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: the west side of the ground and it was all
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: like food plots so it's like, okay, there's zero timber
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: cutting here, but like in April May, you're gonna need
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: to figure out some food plots and maybe you wanted
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: the fall plot. Yeah, it wasn't food plot when we bottom,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: it's all just pasture ground. The owner previously just ran
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: cattle through it. Also, no food there. We we just
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: got the soil tested in UM. That was an easy
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: management unit's up again for people who might UM own
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: smaller tracts for just find property. We have no farming equipment.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: We just talked to a local farmer and he'll come over.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: We pay him hourly, cover all expenses for stuff, and
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: he comes over and he puts in beans, corn um, Egyptian,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: we stuff like that. UM then comes back and sprays
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: it and checks. So that's been super easy. So yeah,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: that was like Management Unit three were UM and then
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Management Unit six was in our northeast corner and that
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: was like, okay, this is like supermature walnut oak. He's like, okay,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: you don't really like this would be a really good
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: UM hunting unit because like you have like a really
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: interesting creek system right here that the deer would probably use.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: But like you're like you should get a like a
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: forester in here to harvest some of this timber. So
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: it just gave us a really good way to break
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: up the unit into smaller sections and just have really
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: really sent goals instead of like looking at a whole lady,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: be like, wow, I just so much. What should we
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: where should we even start? Just like, Okay, let's start
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: a unit one today and then next week we can
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: maybe work on food plus unit three stuff like that.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: So yeah, that seems I can make it a lot
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: less intimidating. Hum. That makes that makes a lot of sense.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: So then back to developing this plan. So other than
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Matt being there on the ground with you and showing
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: you stuff, what were the what were the most useful
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: resources or people or books or I don't know, what
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: were the other things that you were utilizing in those
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: early months when you were trying to figure out what
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: the heck do I do with all this ground and
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: all this everything? What were the most helpful things to
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: get started? It came it was nice Mark, because you
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: were on your first year at the back forty two,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: So I'd be watching those YouTube videos like what's what's
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Mark dealing with? And he's trying to start this more
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: and and then I felt better about what we were
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: doing on the e D and we started far more.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: We got issues too, but it's just like I don't
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: know that the new things we are are big time mentors,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: I would say in the outdoor industry or the Harlem
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Bill hunter guys um so Sean and Mike, they've been
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: a huge resource and obviously they give us tips on
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: some timber things and also just prescribed fire opened up
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: our eyes a big time on there um. But um
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: landing Legacy guys have been pretty huge with land managing
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: over the past few years as well. I would say
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: that was more in the last few years we've really
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: hooked onto some of their their thoughts and ideas and
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: the way they managed properties. The early on, it was
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: a lot of reading and then having that farmer helped
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: us really is. He helped us with the first prescribed fire.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: He helped us um understand where a good food plot
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: start um starting point would be for our bigger plots.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: And then we that first year we did also have
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: um gosh, just one clover plot. Um. He helped us
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: get in there, till it up a little bit, and
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: we we decided that first year that we were going
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: to do minimal change because we wanted to see really
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: how the deer used the property property naturally. And I
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: think we did. I think that was a good decision
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: because um we did. Uh. We did end up having
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: like a really really good hunt um early October, and
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: we haven't killed an early season buck since. Um. But
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: we just kind of laid off of it, and besides
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: doing maybe some little cutting here and there during the
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: during the summer and putting in food plots, we just said, Okay,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna see what this eight does Natchurally, yeah, Matt.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Having Matt down to the property definitely like lift the
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: fire on us though, to like learn the timber and
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: the plants there. Um. And one of the most helpful
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: things I had on my phone was actually like a
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: plant identification app. And I'm like, hey, if you don't
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: want to play for pay for the subscription, that's up
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: to you. But the few bucks a month has paid
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: off huge for me. Um. So I'm just like, I'm
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: a freaking plant tree nerd now and basically just take
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: picks of everything I don't know and then when I
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: get service, I can download those and see what they are,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: and then I literally will google different resources and try
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: to find out if they're good or bad to be here.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: So it's been it's been a lot of that, just
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: like own research and just doing some digging. But there
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: have been like a few different books, Like you can
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: get different books of like trees, like the Eastern and
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: half United States, things like that. But like finding it
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: and like equating it to white tails and food sources
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: is tough, like finding what trees and plants are really
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: solid for for white tails and different um, I mean
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: any type of animal that's using the property and stuff
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: like that. So um really, I mean just having those
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: few individuals that helped us out and we'd we'd send Matt.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: We still send mat text every once in a while
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: be like is this good? Should we get rid of it? Is?
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Should we keep it around? Things like that. So it's
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: just a little by little, Um that's that's the biggest thing,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: because it I mean coming to uh in eighty acres
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: or however big property somebody owns, I mean, there's gonna
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: be hundreds of different things that you probably don't know
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: on on the plant and tree side of things. So
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: just pick off a few every single time, figure out
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: if they're helping gear not helping gear, and then deal
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: with them as you wish baby steps. I think that's
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: that's definitely something I learned to. You know, I don't
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: know if you guys have seen this book, but Dr
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Craig Harper has a great book UM about food plots
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: and early successional plants and grasses. And within that one,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: he's got a bunch of species UM I D pages.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: I guess where it breaks down. Okay, this is what
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: this plant looks like, and then a whole bunch of
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: different nutritional information and how preferred it is by deer
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: and wildlife and other stuff. That was a good one
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: for me with the back forty UM. I used one
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: of those apps too. I can't remember the name of it.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: I think it's I Naturalist is the one I've used UM,
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: and that was pretty good. UM. But I want to
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: I want to go back to something you mentioned a
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: second ago, because it sounds like something I wish I
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: could find at a I don't know, Cabela's or Bess
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: pro shops, or I don't know, on the Mediator's store.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: You mentioned that you have got a farmer who helps
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: playing your food plots and tells you what to plan.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: How can I get me one of those that would
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: be very helpful? In all seriousness, how how did you
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: go about, you know, developing a relationship with this person
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: enough so that he would help you out? Because that
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: is a huge thing I think for a lot of
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: people that most probably aren't you know, able to either
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: find somebody like that or have the confidence to ask
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: for that kind of help. How did that come about
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: for you? Guys? What's really worked well for us Mark
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: is is actually getting these contacts through land agents in
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: the area because they're talking to so many different farmers
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: and they most of the time that's that's how we
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: got our farmer. He's helping us um most of the time.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: They're pretty integrated to the area and they know who's
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: going to be willing to help you out or um
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: work some hourly rate out for you. So I would
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: say land agents number one are farmer Kevin. He's I mean,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: he's awesome. He He also shows us things, which is
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: like he has he has patients for us two year
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: olds to like actually like dive into learning the equipment
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: and why he's spraying this or why like how deep
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: he's planned seeds, which is like a huge I mean
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: huge help. But he's also just an avid white tail hunter.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: I asked him, I'm pretty sure his last year is like,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: how like, did you hunt as much of the season? Oh?
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: I hunted every day. I was like, every day? Are
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: you serious? Every day? And he's like, he's like a
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: die hard. I think he does a lot of like
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: traditional bow hanging. He literally hunted every day of the season.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, that's that's awesome. Like he he also
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: I mean if you hunt every day of the season,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, even if you hunt half the days in
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: the season, you're gonna really know white chill as well.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: And so like he's coming at it with like a
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: really white till my mind frame two. But yeah, we
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: just got lucky with the land agent that helped us
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: out with the property just knew him in the area UM,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: and so it was just like asking around. I think
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: even just knocking on some doors on our neighbors were
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: really fortunate. Even if we did have our buddy Kevin,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: I'm sure there's some neighbors in the area that we've
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: created relationships with UM that would totally help us out
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: that was one thing that we kind of haven't talked about.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Like the second time we came down here, Tom Snyd
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: went around to every school neighbor on the eight and
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: knocked on doors and shook their hands and we're the
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: new guys in town. It's nice to meet you. Um,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: that's kind of what we're about, and stuff like that.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: And just like having those relationships, getting some phone numbers
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: here and there has i mean paid dividends. But yeah,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: I would just man reach out to anybody in the
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: area because you'll they're out there. There's more there's more
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: of them out there that can also lead to um
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: different things down the road. Maybe they want to bail
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: some like uh crp on your ground or anything like that.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Um or or if you want to like have some
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: cows roam around. Um. There's all different avenues that can
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: lead in that relationship. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's hard to
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: their state just how important that is. I mean, there's
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: it's just a hard not to understand how important that
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: is because there's not only everything you describe, but also
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: just like all the weird things that can happen when
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: you hunt next to other people and you know, deer
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: crossing property lines or other people showing up, or just
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: a million things that if you have a relationship, it
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: makes so much easier to deal with. Um. The other day,
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: we had a prescribed fire and it was at night,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: and I got text from like every single neighboring area.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Like we we try to text a lot of the
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: people that like the smoke would be going on too
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: or something, just let him know. I was like, Man,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: if someday the eight starts lying on the fire, we're
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: gonna have that taken care of because the neighbors are
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: watching out for us. Yeah, And it was that was
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: that night. Yea. So it's a great thing to have. Uh.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit more about the food
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: because I mean, if there's if there's anything that deer
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: hunting land managers like to geek out about its food plots.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: All right, Um, how how did that start for you?
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: I know you had somebody there who had some experience
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: who was able to help direct you guys and do
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: a bunch of that. Um, but what do those first
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: food plots look like? What did you guys choose? How
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: did you plan you know, the shapes, the size, all
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. And then how has that changed
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: over the last two and at three years Yeah, again
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: it's like what did we see, Uh, what do we
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: see the HP guys filming their bucks overs? Like, hey,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: we gotta do beans. We gotta do do what we
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: see on the outdoor channel. So we did beans right away,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: and um we told Matt Ross that. We were like
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: we're just gonna do We're gonna do beans in this
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: big field. And he's like why, Like why would you
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: do why would you do I was almost like taken back.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: We were like at breakfast drinking coffee and I just
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: said like nonchaline, like, We're gonna do a bean food plot.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: He's like like, why would you do beans? Like like
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: you're if you're going to manage just for for for deer,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: like do something like a little extra maybe, um, something
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: that's that we won't find on every other property around
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: that your neighbors have. But um, he wasn't like against it.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: He was just like he just was asking the question. Um.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: And we did end up doing beans um there, but
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: we we definitely um kind of changed it up with
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: our clover plot and braska game. We did. Uh yeah,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: we did beans. All I don't know was it maybe
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: three acre Our biggest plot is a three acre plot,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: three to four acres, and we did beans um both
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: our first dand second year and then switched it up
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: this year. But yeah, that first year we did all
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: beans and then clover um in one small spot. And
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: those beans that we did, we did stripped some Braska
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: mixed in there, so you kind of had strips. It
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: was kind of like you have ten feet of beans.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: But we had beans all through this summer, and then
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: the fall, Kevin, our farmer, came through and like put
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: a few, um a kind of late season um food
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: plot stuff, so we had like peas in their winter pieas,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: and we had we had there's a Braska mix in there,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: um kind of stripped out in there. So that was it.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, it was basically we kind of just took
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: like easy approach, like Okay, we don't really need to
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: remove any timber, let's just do a big old food
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: plow right here. Just I mean, I don't I mean,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: whether you can find beans on our property or other properties,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: like it's it's still a food source there right next
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: to really good betting. So we just kind of went
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: at that and what makes it um extra good for
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: the deer on our ground is that we just we
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: don't we obviously don't cut it. We just leave it
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: standing all all through uh the fall, through the winter.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: So they definitely like hammered that December and January. Yeah.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: And then Clover, we only had one clover plot that
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: first year, and it was we had to do a
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: lot of timber removal to find this clover plot. But
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: it was kind of the we kind of went after
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: with it being really easy to access um and then
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: there's some really good um travel corridors through there UM
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: and so that that kind of led us to it.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Wasn't like we weren't I don't know if we made
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: like the most knowledgeable decision. It's like it paid off
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: because it's still a really good spot. But we were
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: just kind of like, Okay, we need to remove quite
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: a few trees, but it already looks like it's a
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: really good travel route UM and be easy to get too.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: So that was kind of our our basis of Clover.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: And then we just know Clover is just an easy
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: one to do. UM. We just had that first year,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: we had our farmer just till up that area, so
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: we made a road back there and he tiled it
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: up so we could just frost seed clover and it's
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: been it's been a money plot for us the last
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: few years. We haven't like shot a buck like in
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: the clover, but we've we've shot mine this November like
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: right next to it, and then it's just been it's
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: been like dough Central. So like obviously if you have
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: something that's like dough Central in the October November, then
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: you start getting those bucks through there um. And so
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: that's that's basically that was our first year and kind of,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: like Tom said earlier, that first year, we kind of
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: just wanted to leave hands off, don't do anything like
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: crazy on the management side, and just kind of see
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: how the deer naturally used the property. So you throw
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff at the wall. That year what
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: stuck the best? I mean you mentioned that clover turned
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: out great, but what what were the big lessons learned?
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: I guess from that first year of trying those different things. Man.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: I I would say obviously like the food horses were huge,
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: like we but are but would almost say like not
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: as not as big as we thought they were going
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: to be, And we're just starting to get there because
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: bucks like nobody none of the deer knew that like
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: associated the property with food because it had never really
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: been there besides what was naturally there with the brows.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: But um, they just we would not have like crazy
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: nights where the bean plots were just absolutely full like
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: that just never happened. And we're just starting to get
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: there because now it's been gosh, this will be our
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: fourth spring that the fonds will have been born. So um,
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: if you're a four year old deer, then you've known
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: the eighty how we've how we've managed it. So we're
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: starting to starting to get that that age class up
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: from our ownership. But yeah, I would say honestly, the
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: our second hunt ever on the eighty, Thomas shot a
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: hundred fifty buck coming after the beans on October three,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: and I think that kind of ruined us for a
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: little bit. Yeah, Like I think it was like, oh
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: my go gosh, yeah, this is this is this is
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: what we're talking about, like Kansas, Like I'm like so
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: pumped about this, and I mean, don't get me wrong,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: it was like the best hunt ever. I mean there's
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: a massive could for anyone. Like I think we shot
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: him on a Wednesday or I think Wednesday and I
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: think the Tuesday before was like ninety degrees and that
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: day it was like forty, so like pulled front to
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: the nines. You had a rainstorm that night, so like
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: everything was like leading up to it. Um, And yeah,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: I mean that evening a freaking the biggest buck. I
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: mean Thomas had shot at that point, walked out in
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: ten yards right to a scrape tree. We put up
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: that evening and shot like hard shot and was like, man, like,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: this is it. This is all we have to do.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: And I think it like made us trust in like
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: the food plot hunting too much. Um, definitely for the
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: rest of that year, and then the next year was
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: like we definitely had to like figure things out, kind
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: of reset our minds, like, Okay, that did happen, but like,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: don't think it did because that's still like there are
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of things that came up to that moment
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: um that we're also going in our favorite besides just
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: sitting in a tree on a bean edge and early tour.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: So it was that was definitely a good thing, but
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: I think we also did put too much emphasis on
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: the field. But um, those things definitely stuck. And then
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: the I think one of the biggest things that stuck
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: was just seeing how um the deer were using it.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: Having a full year of trail camp picks all over
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: the property that we could analyze and all that stuff. Yeah,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: I would say, Um, getting back to our goals, like
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: what you asked earlier, Mark, we we did buy a
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: little I would say, it's little, but it's just a
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: like a twenty six inch mower that we basically um
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: walked behind. And um having that and creating paths um
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: was a huge, huge piece and they kind of already
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: talked on it, like when we created a path, it
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: became a highway. So figuring that out, Um, we had
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: never really seen that happened before on anything else we've hunted,
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: so UM, having that that little um walk behind more
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: was was huge. Yeah, I mean to kind of paint
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: the picture, like, so most of our eighty is like
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: a hunt like crown closure, which means like it's basically
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: all shaded. So then um, it's all shade and then
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: like up to like up to your waist. Basically you've
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: got buck brush, you have multi flour rows, mazoovery gooseberry,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: are there raspberry? So like I mean walking through anywhere,
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: most of those things have thorns that are getting you,
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: grabbing you, um, and like it's not trudging basically. So
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: as soon as you mow like a path with like
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: two inches of grass at the bottom, now, like that's
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: why it becomes a highway because obviously do you want
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: to use least resistance and stuff. UM. So we really
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: realized that that was huge and we kind of hunted
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: according to that. So did you end up changing how
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: and where you mowed to get deer where you wanted them?
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: Or did you just recognize, Okay, the paths that we're
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: using where they are dy are start being used and
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: then that changed where you hunted? Like s what I'm
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: trying to say, did you change where you mode or
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: did you change where you hunted because of that observation.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: We did a little bit of both. It kind of
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: dependent in the area. We definitely mode certain areas after
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: that first season to be able to UM because we
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: knew we could hunt them easily and we knew they'd
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: get used UM. But that also we did we did
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: move some of our hunting spots to UM places that
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: we already had mode that we realized we're just getting
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: trampled on basically and also we did um, some of
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: those mode areas we would we realized like, man, okay,
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: this is getting like a ton of traffic. Um, let's
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: move it a little bit more and add another clover plot.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: So like right now in two we have three clover
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: plot for four clover plots now, um, so you can
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: kind of see how that's expanded. Um, And that a
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: lot of that came through mowing certain areas and kind
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: of seeing where the deer wanted to go now that
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: we had opened some areas up. Yes, so tell me
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: more about that. So you know, on the food plot side,
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: year one, you had the big food plot up front,
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: you did some different things. Um. I'm sure over the
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: years you've you've you've adjusted, you've tweaked, some things didn't
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: work out, some things did. Where do things stand now
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: with how you look at food and how you're putting
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: in those food plots? Because I mean, even though you
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: have a guy who's helping you put in these plots,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: you still have to pay him for his hourly works.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you're trying to get more efficient and more
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: cost effective with all of that. So where has has
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: your several year long lesson taking you to now? What's
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: it gonna look like here? In Yeah, so one of
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: the first things Matt Ross Tolis was just because there's
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: open canopy here does not mean that you should put
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: a food plot here. And that kind of led us
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: to um like deciding to not do a lot of
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: work that first year. But yeah, from from first year
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: to this management season, UM, we just we did put
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: a couple of plots in where UM, we tested the
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: soil and we thought it would be the best. Um,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: where did we find like those soil maps? With that
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: trying to think about where we found those soil maps
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: that UM Matt like Ross printed off a ton of
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: things and gave it to us. UM I should ask him, um,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: but we got basically a map of what soil would
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: be good. So we went off of those for the
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: future years and UM, I guess just getting off what
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: they said seeing about seeing where those dense travel areas were,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: we would start with doing timber work in those spots,
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: and then then that was probably more. Year two is
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: is let's let's work the timber around this area and
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: maybe gets more sunlight and then see how they use it.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: And then year three was okay, let's burn this area
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: now since there's been more sunlight UM and it's able
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: to actually run fire through it. And then UM, this
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: year has kind of turned into a great let's let's
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: plan it with something, whether that's um, some warm season
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: grasses we have or clover mix. Yeah, we're wanting to
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: get into the more like natural just uh, let's just
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: make the food sources that are naturally in the in
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: the seed bank. Let's like just try to build those up.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: So that's why we're doing so much timber cutting, because UM,
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: you have food plots are great, but we really want
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: like the whole ady to just be a food source
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: for these deer. UM. But I guess like one thing
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: that's really transformer plots is not um just not being
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: boxed in and also just like trying to get as
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: many resources as possible. UM. We have one of our
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: best plots. It's like basically smack middle of our ground. UM,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: really close like surrounded by good betting, but also like
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: only a hundred yards yards from our big bean in
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: corn plot that we rotate. UM. And Sean Lucto from
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: Harland bow Hunter, we had him down to walk last
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: year and he was like, Man, this area right here,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: it's already a little open, but this would be like
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: primo for a nice transition pot of clover before they
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: got out there. Um, so we've taken just these ideas
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: from other land managers that they've really liked it and clover. Man,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: it's just so easy, Like that's I think why we
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: just we we go to clover because um, obviously you
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: could just frost see that, try to get some open
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: soil on there, which we usually mow and then spray
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: to try to kill that grass. Um yeah, if you're
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: if you're able to spray it early, burn it and
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: then frosted, I mean you can really cut out the farmer. Yeah.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: And then basically are our most recent plot that we
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: actually are just making this year. We have haven't hunted
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: it just like in the works right now. Um, we
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: were just it was it's in our southeast corner where
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: we uh we shot two bucks right in this area.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: Actually we've shot three over the last three years within
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: fifty yards of where we are making this plot. Because
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: we're just like, man, they do so many different trails
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: in this area. Let's just have like a tiny I mean,
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: is it an eighth of an anchor? Maybe back there
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: we're just like we just have a little clover right
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: here just to stop them, like just get them to
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: pause when they're coming through here, just have like a
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: little destination before they go and chase the dough or
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: go and bed down or something like that. So it's
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: just been kind of learning where they want to be
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: in adding that, so you talked about how much timber
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: factored into things than year two and in these years since.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: That's another one of those deals that I think probably
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: is maybe underutilized by new land managers because it seems
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: a little bit harder or a little bit more intimidating.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: What was that like for you guys early on? Was
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: that like, hey, let's just jump right into it, or
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: were you a little bit like I don't know exactly
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: what we're doing here? You were you were pretty ancy,
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: almost too anty. Like looking back at it, I would
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: have been like if I could go back in time
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: and telling myself, like, you need to slow down and
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: you need to go learn a bunch of things before
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: you get into this, because um, it's definitely like definitely
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: learning curb and like man, timber cutting can like not
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: just scary, but like timber cutting can like put you
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: in a bad way if you're not if you're not
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: being safe about it just because you're dealing with um
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: big heavy trees some of them have if you're if
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: you're cutting a honeymocus like we have down here, they
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: have three storms and so like just being like overly safe,
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: I think, Um, it was definitely something I would tell
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: my my previous self. But like we just we were
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: Auntie his heck to just like start cutting different things.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: And we we really knew what timber we wanted to
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: get rid of. We wanted to get rid of hedge
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: locus um. We wanted to get rid of small wallnuts
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: that weren't going to be any good for the timber market.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: And then we really wanted to open up our oaks um.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: We wanted to kind of we had different like tree
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: species we wanted to hinge cut. We wanted to hinge
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: cut some elms and things like that, and then some
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: trees we just wanted to kill off. We wanted to
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: kill off hickories um. And so we kind of just
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: went through, we went to those management units and we're like,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: what do we need to get rid of here? And
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: then we would just start getting rid of it and
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: where we want to have more sunlight, and basically the
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: whole lady could have more sunlight still to this day,
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: it could have more sunlight basically everywhere. But we just
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: kind of picked certain days and we would, UM, we
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: would girdle cut the entire tree down or hinge cut
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: depending on what which trio was or where it was, UM,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: and then we'd we'd spray it and just knock out
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: some of those species. But I would almost say you
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: can do more help to wildlife management with the chainsaw
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: than you can with with a food plot, just because
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: it does so much for other animals and species as well, um,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: all the birds and the property. Um. And then you've
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: got to talk. You can think about all the all
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: the food sources that are now getting sunlight. UM. One
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: thing that said to us that really stuff was like
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: right now and year one, we have all shade loving species.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: What you want is some loving species. And that like
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: really man, that that triggers something to us. We were like, okay,
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: we need way more sund to hit the force floor. Um.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: Even just this UM this shed shed hunting season, we
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: we dropped a ton of timber this offseason again and
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: in one of our timber cutting spots. I was doing
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: some shed hunting around and sure enough I found the
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: shed to the biggest buck we know that made it
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: through literally in a pile of chainsaw dust that we
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: had cut like a few ge people. So he's hanging
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: out in this new servants and it's, uh, it's a
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: good betting area. But also he has this new food
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: source right now in Kansas, Like it's a little earlier
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: for things to be butting up, but it's it's starting.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: The green up is about to happen. So you and
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: that deer is probably betting in that area with the
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: new cover or eating on some of those brows that
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: that had been a hundred feet up in the air
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: before this. And I mean that was just like a
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: eye opening finger right there. So yeah, those are some
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: of the biggest um cutting things we've done. You mentioned
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: several different types of timberwork. Though there's taking down full trees,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: it was hinge cutting, there was girdling. How did you
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: guys go about you know, how are you choosing where
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: to use each one of those different tools or when
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: or how big of an area, like, how did you
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: go about making those decisions? Yeah, it really just depends
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: on the true. So if the tree leaves, which is
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: what the deer. Okay, so deer really tree leads orderly
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: like a fruit, so like an a corner or something
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: like that. Um. And so basically it went off that
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: decision knowing like, okay, um, some of these leaves the
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: deer will eat and some of them they don't really
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: care for. So that was that was a big thing. UM.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: And other other trees like a hedge tree, you basically,
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: I mean at least the hedge trees on our ground.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: You can't really cut the whole tree down. It's kind
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: of they're so like big and just entangled and massive
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: that in the heart in the woods so hard that
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: it's basically like, okay, we need to um these puppies
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: to try to kill them, which girdling is like just
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: killing the outer can be in layer and then we'll
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: spray it um, which will kill the tree. But you
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: don't have to cut it down because once you cut
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: the tree down, man, you can just cover it up
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: a tone of ground and then you have a ton
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: more work to do. So we're like, let's kill some
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: of these trees without covering up the entire having a
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: huge footprint on the ground, and then other trees say like, um,
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: we know like elms, dear love to tell you ton elm.
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: So we just hinge cut those things in certain areas
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: that we want deer to like have food source. So
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: it hinge cut, which basically like we're we're hinge cutting
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: on these small trees and we can basically cut the
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: tree through and then push them over with our hands.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: So it's like a I don't know, a six inch
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: diameter tree or less, and so that will that will
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: create a food source, and we know, what do you
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: like that food source? And then I don't know. Um,
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: so other ones cedars we just would get rid of
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: because we don't want them to be too thick. Um,
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: I kind of wanted to just that that like a
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: dispersed area. I would say, um, gosh, if it was
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: a big like a tree like eighteen inches in diameter,
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: a bigger, we're almost always just girdling it because um
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: one that like just starts the dyeing process with that tree.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: And uh, those some of those first trees that we girdle. Um,
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: we've been starting to cut down and there's so much
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: easier to manage. And um, if like we found out
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: really quickly. If we dropped a big tree, um, we
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: weren't getting very much done in the day. So girdling
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: is just the easy quick way. It doesn't um kill
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: all the shade, but it does the pretty dang good
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: job for really, I don't know, two minutes, uh two
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: minute cut around the tree. Yeah, and uh we're actually
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: on our property this uh the next two days because
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: we're we're just uh dropping a ton of timber in
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: little betting pockets that we want. Now. Now that we
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: have our kind of our food plots established on the property,
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: we're just gonna cut them basically where the wind would
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: be good for us hunting and then also for accessing
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that. So it's just getting the sunlight
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: there and then opening up those areas. Um. And then
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: you just kind of have to learn with species you
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: have in the property, which one you should keep around,
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: which ones you should hear it of. Um. This last year,
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: we've actually cut down a few oaks because in our
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: oak area they're just two cluttered so they're not really
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: producing them many acorns. So it's kind of like, Okay,
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: I have to cut some some oaks down in order
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: to really have healthy oaks. So it's been just a
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: learning curve on which ones we want to keep round
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that. What's the biggest um lesson you've
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: learned on the timber side of things four years in now? Um,
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: is there anything that you would like to go back
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: and tell, you know, twenty nineteen Natan Thomas about that
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: might have made things happen faster or better? Has anything
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: come to mind? Yeah? Right away, I would say, what's
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: really only begin to hit Like in starting year four, Um,
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: we would cut down like a handful of trees in
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: a in a unit and be like, man, we did
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: so much work. In reality, I wish my self would
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: have known to like make it make this whatever like
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: one like one eighth acre area, like cut it all,
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: cut like cut most of the most to all the
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: trees in that area, because that's when you're actually gonna
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: see noticeable changes. We'd see like we dropped a couple
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: of trees or girl a couple here. And while yeah,
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: sure I was starting to get to a better unit, UM,
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: we didn't really find out till the last last year
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: that um, it took quite a bit of really opening
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: up an area to get that sun really to the
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: forest floor because as the sun is like rotating throughout
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: the day. Um, it's really only in that if you
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: don't cut a ton in the area, it's really only
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: on that the little sun spot for a little a
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: little bit of time. So um, cutting cutting more than less,
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: I would say, and then just patients. Still to this day,
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: we have to amount ourselves that there is a tone
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: of timber, like you could you could cut timber every
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: single day and like still have a ton of timber
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: out here. So just being patient and also just just
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: absorbing it um and just making it um, just making
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: it a thing that you look forward to instead of
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: just like a job or task that you're trying to
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: trying to get done with, because it can drive you
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: crazy when you cut for ten hours a day and
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: then you just do walk out and be like, man,
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: there's so much more that needs to be changed. Um.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it's just it's just gonna be a long
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: term thing. I mean, this property still won't be exactly
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: what we want in ten years. But that's just it's
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a constant progression. Basically, there's there's certain
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: like there's certain areas in the property room like man,
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: like we have we have areas of hedge that are
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: completely unpassable. Like it's like, man, how are we ever
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: gonna make change in that area? But just a little
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: by little tree by tree, um, And that's yeah, that's
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: that's a basic thing we've learned. So food plots first,
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: cutting tree second. Third. I know you mentioned that fire
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: was the next big step you guys took. How did
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: you learn to safely use fire? Like? What was that
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: process like? And then what have those prescribed burns been
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: like to actually manage and be a part of. Yeah,
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: So again, our farmer buddy Kevin that first year, he
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: was like, you want to do a fire, And we're like,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: want to do a fire? So he brought the drip
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: torches and we kind of talked to some lines and
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: stuff like that where we wanted to fire, to go
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: in direction, humidity, all that stuff. Um Man, that's a
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: That's another thing. If I'd go back in time, I
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: would definitely do things different. I would how would have
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: way more hands on deck because no matter how protected
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: your fire is, no matter how good your lines are,
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: like being like new with fires, so it's going to
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: scare the hell out of you, like watching your beloved
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: ground just like just go to ten foot flames on
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: certain areas. IS's just like, wow, Okay, I hope that stops.
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: Um things like that. But it's basically just like being
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: overly safe. Um, that's that's the biggest thing. The nice thing.
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: Like what we talked about. On the west side of
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: our property, it's all road, big gravel road, so I'm like, okay,
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: it's not going there. And then through our property we
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: have to creek, so I was like, okay, it's not
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: going there. You basically got to worry about it. It's
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: like going out to the neighbors in the north and south.
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: So usually try to burn with like an east or
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: west wind and then have some really good burn lines
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that. But just being overly safe to
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: where like you can be confident like, Okay, even if
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: the winds for gusts in twenty miles and the humanity
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: was ten percent, it's going nowhere. That's like, that's like
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: being just being overly safe. But I would say, um,
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: one of the biggest things that I it took me
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: forever to my head around, was like, how the heck
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: with all this shade, how are we going to get
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: any fire through our timber which it was always like
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: good to burn the like brom and and hot the
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: warm grasses. But really to make change in our eight
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: we wanted to get the end timber burns. And only
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: like this year do we really like wrap our hand
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: head around, like what do we really need to see
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: in the weather front moving forward to get a good
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: productive burn, And um, we finally got I don't know,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: we probably burnt eights ten acres in the timber this year,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: which we like maybe done like a a quarter of
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: that in the past, and just it really just comes
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: down to having higher high enough wind speed and low
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: enough humidity to to do that burn. Some some some
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: of those days are um are like quote unquote like
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: risky days to burn, um because of the low humidity.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: But if you have really really good fire fire breaks, um,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: it's some of the only days you can burn if
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: you're in a really really shaded area. And and girdling
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: and dropping trees has only only helped the fuel source
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: on the e d So Fells. The first time landowner,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: I'd be I'd be making sure that there's more sun
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: eating the ground if I plan on doing a burn
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: in year two. And um, just knowing being with people
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: that know what they're doing and what's to look out
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: for on the weather. I think we're talking to the
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: land leg sea guys and they're like, man, if you
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: have a hard time like finding people that will help
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: you out to burn, just go to the local fire
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: department and see if you can find some guys that
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: would volunteer, like a few hours of their time. Because
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you're volunteering at a firefighter, they're like, okay,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: you either like you either maybe board some days or
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: you're like your your pyro, like you want to burn stuff.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: So he's like, go go to the local fire departments
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: and I bet you can find a handful of guys
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: that would help you know, know what they're doing with fire,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: and then also just be able to be more hands
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: on deck. Um. But yeah, every fire, we have UM
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: burn lines around the entire circumference of what we are burning,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: and then we have um tons of water. We got
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: a bunch of like high power leaf blowers that will
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: put up fire, we have drift torches, UM and a
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: ton of guys trying to help us out. So that's
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: the I think. I think the biggest mistake you can
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: make with fire is like rushing into it in a day. Um,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: like not having your fire breaks all all in the clear, um,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: all all set. That's like the biggest thing that would
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: have warned about, Like just have everything ready to go,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: whether you're doing that in January and then you burn
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: it in in February or March. Um, definitely have everything set.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: Don't ever like just light a fire thinking it's hopefully
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: gonna gonna be a good situation. Yeah, And the feedback
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: from that has also been amazing, Like the turkeys on
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: the fire, just they love that stuff. Um. And just
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: so the different plants and stuff that have come out
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: of that has been really interesting to see. Um. The
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: same day I found the shed angler this offseason, um
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: from the biggest buck we have hanging around by a
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: bunch of stuff, by a bunch of timber that we
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: we felt in the property. We did was the day
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: after we did a prescribe burn, And when I was
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: walking to go get the u TV, I bumped like
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: fifteen turkeys off off of the burn that we did
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: the day before. So I'm like, man, this stuff has
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: like sometimes it feels like this management is such a
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: slow process. But within like those like few hours I
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: found a shed by a bunch of timber we dropped,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: and I've just found ten or fifteen turkeys off of
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: a fresh burn we did the day before. And like, man,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: when you make change and you just stirred the property,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: you are going to see the changes for sure. So
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think you kind of just answered it.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: But would you say that even though this prescribed fire,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: those projects, I mean, as you're describing them, it's it's
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: a good amount of work. It takes special care and preparation.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: It's kind of a lot for the average person to
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: try to do. Is it worth all that headache? Yeah?
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: I mean the hunting on our little track of eighty
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: acres has has only gotten better. And like it's just
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: in like we have been managing through our brains. We
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: always say that everybody, we managed the property way more
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: than we hunted, like way more. Um, and it has
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: just been I mean, our church population in our area
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: has like boomed, and then you can't like just say
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: it's our eighty acres, but like it has to have
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: been helping. I mean when we were here our first frame,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: you couldn't hear gal And I mean we've I mean
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: last year we called in a group of eight toms
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: to our ground. And so it's like, Okay, how much
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: can it change? How much can our eight change in
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: the in the grand scheme of things and stuff. But
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: it's like, man, you gotta you just have to think
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: as a land manager that like every little thing you're
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: doing is making a difference. Um, I mean this last
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: year in our in our timber, and we're also learning
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: to hunt it better, but just with the management stuff,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, we had a series of hunts. Yeah, I
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: mean we saw at least at three and half real
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: bucker better like six seven, eight hunts in a row,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: and that that just that just shows you, man, like, Okay,
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: we have eighty acres, but we are seeing good deer
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: every single hunt. So they want to be here like that.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: So that's just like I mean, like and even like
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: turkeys being in the in the burn the next day,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: like they know changes happening and they want to be
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: there and they're gonna be there. So man, if even
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: if you own ten twenty acres, implement as much as
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: you can of this stuff because they will in our
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: in our view, in our opinion, it's making fast, fast difference.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: What's the most satisfying part of this kind of work,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: this project in general. Is it just the better deer hunting?
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: Is it? Is it the better wildlife sightings? Is it
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: just the act of doing it? I mean, what is
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: it about this that's been the most rewarding for it? Well,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: that's a tough question. I mean, I mean definitely, Uh,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: deer hunting has been a huge thing. Um. Like there's
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: there's a few deer um that we've killed in the
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: last I would say the last two years. The first
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: year was basically just dumblok. I feel like, um, just
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: being on a good property. Where do you want to
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: be nashurally eight um in killing deer. For the last
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: two years we have killed deer because of how we
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: manage UM. The what was when we had Spencer new
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: hearth obviously to the ground and he he shot an
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: awesome buck in our late um late season still standing
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: beans um. And that's why something as land mamager just
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: like leave food out there. Um. And he came out
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: of an area that we had dropped a bunch of
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: timber and we knew like that was really good betting
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: and so that's like, okay, they're gonna bed there. You
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: have late season food source. I mean I see that
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: as like, Okay, yeah, Spencer's rifle killed that deer, But
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: that's management in the offseason that killed that deer. Um.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: And then you also look at like this last December,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: we Thomas killed a buck December eighteen, and then our
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: brother in law Tony killed him on the twenty nine.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: And so we killed two late season December bucks in
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: the timber. They weren't on the food plot um, and
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: were in the standing crops. They were in the timber
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: where we had drop trees, created sunlight, really warm betting
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: for a cold December day, and food sources that the
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: deer wanted to eat. Um. And so man like those
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: deer like, that's that's the land management is killing those deer.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: So like like that has been probably some of the
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: most rewarding stuff. I don't know, Tom, you have any Yeah, no,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: I I would say it's when December thirty one, because
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: that's that's the last day year in Kansas to shoot buck.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: When it flips over to January one, it's it's really
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: honestly not a depressing day. Um. Towards those last days
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: of December, you're almost like looking forward to management season
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: because um, you're just like the tens and the stress
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: from the season is just all lifted and now it's
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: the pressure that we all put on ourselves. But it's like, oh,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: now I can go walk around the eighty. This is
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: gonna be fun. Like I've done this like ten times
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: since owning it in three years because we're is always
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: so so careful about it. But gosh, just the just
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: the cycle, I would say, the cycle of deer hunting
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: and what it brings um each each different season, whether
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: it's management, shed season, UM, scouting season, velvet season, UM,
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: the fall. It's just it's this, It's this cycle that
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: you just love. What do you not like? Well, like,
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: what when you when you look at what all the
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: different things that this kind of project entails, what are
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: the parts that suck? What are the parts that make
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: you think, gosh, some days I wish it took a
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: golfing or something else. I don't know. Is there anything
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: that stands out there is um and that is still
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know. When you when you get the text
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: that you're definitely the two underninch bucket shot by the neighbor,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: that that's never good. But no, like that's like that
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: was the most frustrating thing. The first two years we
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: had like massive um Kansas buck in this place and
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: we couldn't like we're still figuring out our hunting strategies here,
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: and we I mean we left slip through our fingers.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: Looking back on that, it's like, Okay, give us that
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: deer this year, because that deer is done for just
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: because we've learned how to hunt it better. But no, like,
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: in all seriousness, even that's great. I mean that's Nebraska
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: boys that didn't want any property were like, oh man,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: chasing deer that are way bigger than we ever thought
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: we'd see. It is just amazing. But we honestly, every
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: day down here is like a drink of true whether
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: I'm going into the stand on November one or I'm
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: ripping the saw January feverory time frame. Um man, it's
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: just every single day is great. I don't care hard
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: to work like we work ourselves way too our most days.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: You don't need launch words out there just hammering away.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: Um And so it's just like I don't know whether
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: you're just sweating like crazy in the summer and putting
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've we've had some seriously long and tough
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: days out here. But it's just the whether you're driving
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: home after it or you're just hanging out of the
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: property and just likes, howd you put in a full
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: day of work. It's just rewarding every single day, no
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: matter what you're doing. So, I don't know if there's
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: a I don't know if it's a bad I can't
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: I can't think of anything. Yeah, So you're driving down
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: the road and you come around the corner, come over
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: a bridge you dropped down towards a nice creek, and
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: you see two guys standing off the side of the road,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: their trucks parked off there. They've got Camo boots on.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: Maybe they're pulling an STUV or not SUV, a u
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: TV off the trailer. And you pull off the side
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: next to him and start chatting with him, and they
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: tell you, hey, you know, we just bought this forty
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: acres here. It's been a dream. We finally were able
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: to afford it. We went on it together. Whatever it is,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: we're gonna try to make this thing into a great
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: place to hunt. You've got a minute, you have one
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: minute before you need to hit the road again and
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: get back to your family's What would be the very
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: most important thing you could leave with those two guys
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: if you had just that minute to share with them
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: the most distilled bit of wisdom you've gained over the
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: last four years. What would you tell him, Okay, this
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: is Nate. First, I'll give him my manute. You talkic.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: You can get yours in after this. Okay. First of all,
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: location is huge. I was I was going to Iowa
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: and I was going to Kansas because I wanted to
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: find a property where i'd kill a big baby. Isn't Yes,
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: they're there, So I'm like, I'd shake their hands to
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: the congrats guys, like, Okay, it's a good area because
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: in our first year, we're like, we had a buck,
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: and then our next year we had a two hundred
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: and fifteen two interchange buck that we were chasing. So
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, we picked we picked the right area.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: So my guys, great job, you picked the right area. Secondly,
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: I'd be like, Okay, Um, I don't know how much
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: work do you want to put in here, but if
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: you want to like really manage this wealth of properties,
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: I'd go to your local dealer and I'd buy um
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: a couple of nice chainsaws. I'd buy a more and
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: then I'd start knocking on doors and introducing yourself to
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: the neighbors. Just get to know the area, get to
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: know the farmers in the area, and have fun. Guys.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: All right, that's a good minute. Oh man, I think
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: I would uh might would be might would be much
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: uh much less complex than they. I would just look
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: him in the eye and tell him to to enjoy
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: every like, every single minute of it, because sometimes I
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: guess it could be a downside of being in the
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: hunting industry, But there are sometimes when I'm just like, like,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: we just went down to the eight and that was
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: that was the work trip. That wasn't a fun hunting trip.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: We need to we need to slow down, and we
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: need to enjoy this property for the really the reason
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: we purchased it, which is being, um spending time on it,
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: being around the wildlife, but ultimately being around our family
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: and um, I think just not not taking the management
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: and everything that you have professionally going on too seriously
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: when you're on your ground, just just enjoy for for
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: what it is and and bring the people down there
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: that you want to have a fun time with. So
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: months months simple and not even really deer hunting and related.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I love it. So what's next? What do
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: you guys see as the the things you're most excited
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: to work on next or that you think are going
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: to make the biggest difference in the coming year. Two?
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: What's really getting you excited to see? What's gonna happen? Man?
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: We uh, I don't know, Like like obviously we've done
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: all of like we've done insane amount of timber work
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: this year, so like, okay, that's gonna be better hopefully
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: just more do you want to be here? But as
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: far as like I'll just go on, like the hunting
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: side of things, Um, we're just kind of waiting for
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: like that really uh next big deer to chase. That's
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: kind of been like our anti thing this last year. Um,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: it was like kind of a weird hunting year for
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: us on the eight at least, like I was kind
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: of saying all years prior, like we had a lot
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: of big deer to chase at least one or two
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: biggest again and the natural cycle of a big deer
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: coming through. We just had one of those like off
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: years last year, which is three and a half year
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: olds just everywhere just gosh, hate to ten different ones
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: just um hundred and twenty hundred and fifty three and
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: a half ruld maybe a four and a half yoruld
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: in there, um and like and I mean it was
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: amazing because we're seeing like those deer every single time.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: But like now we're kind of licking our lips just
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: waiting for like another um big stud to give us
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: an opportunity to hunt it, just because we have kind
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: of figured out the hunting and the managing side of
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: things well enough where like we feel like we might
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: have a shot at it. Of course, it's a big,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: smart deer and they'll price, they'll get the best of us.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: But um, yeah, we're kind of this way at least
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: I'm waiting for like that next big one to show
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: up to be able to put these things the use again. Um.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: But yeah, we also thought it would be a kind
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: of a fun idea. We haven't we haven't finalized this yet,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: but we thought would be fun if one of us
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: hunted public the whole fall and one of us hunted
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: the eighty Um we have public, I mean a couple
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: of different parcels within five mile radios, so we were
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: thinking to be kind of fun to split up the fall.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: One of us is hunting the public, one of us
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: is hunting the ore a seeing you can tell you
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: out first if if having private land is really that
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: big of a advantage or not so so, if the
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: public land guy kills a better deer than the private
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: land guy, what's the reward he gets? Does he get to, like,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know, you got you got drag all of
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: the deer for the next five years or something. Yeah,
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: maybe he's gonna be a cameraman for a while. I
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: don't know. That's yeah, that's awesome. Well, where can where
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: can folks go to see this? I know you guys
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: have been documenting what you've done so far. Can you
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: fill everyone in on on where they can find these
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: videos that you have done so far and how they
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: can stay up to date. Yeah, so you can watch
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of our Kans eight Lanes Serry stuff on
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: our YouTube channel, which was just identical draw you can
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: wash the shoot that buck over the beans, Spencer's hunt,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: and then we also filmed like our whole conversation with
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: mat Ross where you can see us breaking down all
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: the different management units there. So um, you can basically
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: see everything we've talked about on that YouTube channel, and
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: and Stiff for another public land haunts that we've done,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: and gosh, Nebraska's Outdakota to the Western States. Um, we
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: try to put out just a lot of knowledgeable stuff
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: as well, just like if you are wanting to learn
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: how to cut certain things or whatnot. Hopefully we put
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: out information that is useful to people learning how to
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: whether it's a girdle cut, hinch cut, how we make
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: little betting pockets, why we put food plots in certain areas,
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: how we're accessing. So we we really try to break
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: down our eight as much as possible on the hunting
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: and the managing side on all our social channels. So yeah, awesome. Well,
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you guys sharing this experience. It's it's pretty
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: fun to hear about, you know, what a couple of
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: young guys can do with some sweat, some stick, tuativeness
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: and uh and a good attitude. So I can't wait
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: to see what happens next on the Kansas City. Yeah,
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: it's more appreciate. Thank you. All right, that's it for today.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning in. Get out there if you
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: own land and get your hands dirty, get to work.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: If Nayton Thomas can do it, you can too. And
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: if you do not own land, but it's something you
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: thought about, or if your family is thinking about going
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: down this road, I hope you'll pass along this episode,
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: share it, let other people be inspired by and remember
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: that it is possible. So without all out of the way,
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: thank you and until next time, stay wired, don't