Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 331: Transforming the Back 40 for Whitetails with Jeff Sturgis

Transcript

Ep. 331: Transforming the Back 40 for Whitetails with Jeff Sturgis · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the wire to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. I'm
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode three thirty
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: one Tay. In the show, we're joined by Jeff Sturgis
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: of white Tail Habitat Solutions to get his on the
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: ground reaction and recommendations for improving our back forty property.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast, brought
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: to you by on X. Today. On the show, we've
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: got a couple of things going uh coming up here soon.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: We're gonna have the main event, which is an interview,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: a sit down I did with Jeff Sturgis. Jeff Sturgis,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: as many of you guys know, probably is the founder
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: of white Tail Habitat Solutions. He's the author of a
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of books related to deer hunting and managing
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: properties for deer and deer hunting. Uh. He's a consultant,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: he's a YouTuber. He does a whole lot of stuff
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: related to helping you become a better deer hunter and
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: how to improve your property to do that too. So
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: what I did is I actually brought Jeff down to
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Michigan in late August to go see the Back forty,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: and just because of the timing of it all, we
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: weren't able to include that event in the Back forty show,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: but we record a podcast. We walked the property, took
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: a look at it, and then took some time to
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: develop a really, um a really specific plan for how
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: he would try to renovate things out there. That the
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: changes he would make, the things he'd planned, the ideas
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: he had, even how to hunt it. Everything he possibly
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: thought about the Back forty we covered in this episode.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: So it's very interesting as far as you know how
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: you might be applied these to your own hunts and
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: to your own properties. But then if you follow the
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: whole Back forty story and the TV show and all
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, um, this will give you some
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: really interesting insight into things will be considering for a
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: year two because we weren't really able to implement anything
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: he said the first year because he came in basically
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: the last day before we were gonna shut down the
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: property before hunting season. Um. But it's interesting. There's even
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: some included imagery that we discussed that I'll be posting
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: on Instagram and Facebook. He put together some drawings outlining
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: exactly how he would do things in the property, so
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: make sure you check that on social media. But before
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: we get to the main event with j Sturgers two
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: more things. You can hear some fiddling in the background.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: That's my co host, Dan Johnson. He is here for
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: a pregame show. But before the pregame show, we got
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: a pre pregame show. Dan. Yeah, I didn't tell you
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: about this um and it's not too exciting. It's more
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: like a pre game show pre announcement, which which is
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: basically this and it's it's only relevant for a small
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: liver of people listening. But if you happen to be
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: listening to this on the very first day that this
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: podcast goes out to the world, that is Thursday, January
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: two thousand twenty, if you're listening on that day, I
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: want you to know that if you're listening on that
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: day and you happen to be in Western Michigan, I'm
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: coming to your talent. I'm coming to Grand Rapids tonight
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: January for a book signing and Q and A and
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: meet and Greek kind of deal at Schuler Books. That's
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Grand Rapids, Michigan, January sixteenth at Schuler Books. So that's tonight,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: seven pm. I'm gonna be there. If you're listening to
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: this and you're here, I would love to see you tonight.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I would love to shake your hand, chit chat a
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: little bit um, that'd be awesome. So hoping to see
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: a bunch of you here tonight. I just want to
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: get that out there just in case you're catching this
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: on the day off. So that's my pregame show pre announcement,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Dan Johnson, Is there any chance you might be in
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Michigan on January six Schueler Books on set seven pm. Uh.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: If I show up, it will be with all three
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: of my kids, and that would ruin everything you're trying
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: to accomplish there, or it might make it. I'm just saying, ah, man,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: I wish you could be here, but I'll tell you
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: what I I've got. I don't know. You know how
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: sometimes you get back from a vacation, like a really
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: great beach vacation, and for a few days afterwards, you
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: still have like the halo effect, like there's this nice
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: glow to your skin and you're relaxed, and I don't know,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: just everything feels right in the world. Do you know
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: what I'm talking about. Yeah, I've been there before. Yeah,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: that's how I feel still today because just a few
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: days ago you and I got to share some time together,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: shrinking beers, catching up some I've got the Dan Johnson
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Beach after glow right now, is what I'm trying to
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: tell you. I love that because it's almost lie. It's
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: almost like we fell right into the same routine where
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: I made fun of your goatee and you've made fun
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: of my hand. It was just like, oh, Mark, good
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: to see a nice got buddy, and you're like, hey, Dan,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: can you pick a fork up? You know, if it's
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: ever not like that, then we then we know there's
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: some issues going on, right Absolutely, Yeah it was. And
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: I think that's one of my favorite parts about the
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: A T A Uh is going and getting the opportunity
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: to hang out with people that you only see a
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: handful of times a year. Yeah, exactly the same for
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: me and for those that aren't familiar the A T
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: A Show, And we've talked about it, I think every year.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: But just in case you knew, it's this great big
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: archery trade convention, arch. It's the Archery Trade Association convention,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: but it's also a bow hunting convention, kind of the
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: best largest quote unquote industry get together, um for the
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: hunting world. So that's what was going on last week,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: and the two of us were there. Um, I had
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: a good time. It was a different kind of year
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: for me. I didn't really get to do the whole
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: product thing. I just was running around meeting the meeting,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: talking to people and stuff like that. So I honestly
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: didn't even if somebody asked me about my favorite three
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: new products were or what I thought the most innovative
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: thing was, I don't think I could tell you, um,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: but but it was still a good time. Did you
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: do you have a good show? Yeah? Man, I just
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: did a lot of recording for podcast, all products specific.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: So you think, yes, you got all the product intel. Yeah,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: so I'm trying to think. I know, Day one we
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: did like seven podcast, Day two we did equal. Day
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: three we did a probably five or so maybe four
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: or five episodes or uh segments, And I just launched
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: the first one today, well not today, but on Wednesday
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: of this week or no Monday of this week. So
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: like that's how confused to him. Right, So so if
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: people want to get some actual product info, they should
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: go check out some of the Sportsman's Nation podcast. Then, yeah,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: specifically the Hunting Gear podcast. It's gonna be like, uh,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: for the next hand several months, it's gonna be recaps
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: of the interviews that I did at the A T
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: A show. Nice, can you give me like a cliff
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: notes on your favorite few things? Were there a few
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: things that stood up to you as like the top
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: stories of the show. I mean there's always, you know,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: there's always some buzz around a certain you know, product
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: or or whatever. But I feel like every time I
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: walked by the Tethered booth, there was just a large
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: gathering of people and they brought a ton of guys
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: to work their booth for them. But that was kind
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: of the buzz that, you know, the buzz was you know,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: saddle hunting, you know, you know, it's coming back into popularity,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: and uh, the had their guys had launched a new product.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: And then I'm trying to think of any other buzz specifically,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: there was a couple of climbing sticks. Uh, let's see,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: it's lone Wolf. Custom Gear came out with a couple
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: of new products. Um, you know, every bow manufacturers coming
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: out with a new product, different broadheads from all the
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: broadhead manufacturers, and I mean it's just kind of business
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: as usual, yea, nothing too crazy, you know, nothing too crazy.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: But here's what I will say. I shot a shot
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: a good amount of bows while I was there. And
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: I never ever used to be a fan of Matthew's
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: bows until this year. I was not a fan of
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: like their draw cycle. But this this new bow that
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: they put out, and I kind of I hate to
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: say it because I don't know what it is about.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: You know, like every you hear the term fanboy a lot. Uh,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: you know, it's in reference to people after they meet you,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: they come walking back, Oh my god, I'm fan bowing
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: just nine fingers right, But like Matthews right, it's almost
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: like if you don't shoot their bow, you don't understand
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: like how geeked up some of these people get about
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: the brand and their bows and the hard Yes, yes,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: just like just like really any brand out there. But
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: I shot their bow and for the first time in
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: a long time, I thought they put out one of
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: the top three bows that are out there. So my
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: top three bows this year that I shot were Matthews
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: and and this is in no order. Matthews Elite and
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Prime were the top three bows that I shot. And
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: one thing that I was really impressed with is I
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: also shot a handful of what I say this in quotations,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: but lower tier, you know, not typically the cream of
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: the crop, something at a lower price point. Obsession bow
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: bows and Athens bows are two bows that I shot
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: that performed, in my opinion, very well. I was actually
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: really surprised on how they would how they shot, and
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: especially the lower axle to axles. I was really impressed
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: at those particular two brands. And then I shot a
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: handful of other ones that didn't upset me and didn't
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: necessarily surprise me, you know, so um and then other
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: than that just there. You know, every year, something new
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: comes out or something neat you wish you had, but nothing,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: you know, nothing to groundbreaking, I'll tell you I've had,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: you know. I often get emails from people saying, hey,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: you know, what bows should I buy? Should I save
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: up to buy the top tier one from this brand
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: or that brand? Or can I just get away with
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: one of these entry levels? And especially for new hunters,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: I've always thought, maybe you do not need anything fancy
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: like the entry level bows. Those are still pretty darn
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: good compared to anything that was available ten years ago.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: You know, the technology has become so um advanced across
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: the whole suite of brands and the various levels that
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: it's hard to go wrong. I do think it comes
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: down to personal fit and feel. You want to find
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: the right one for you and make sure it's the
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: right you know, size for you and all that kind
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: of stuff, And then a little bit comes down to
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: just like you talked about earlier, kind of how you
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: feel about the brand and if you trust it and
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: if it kind of aligns with you know, things that
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: you care about. Um. You know, I love my Matthews,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: but there's other people, you know, I couldn't argue with
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: someone who says they love their Prime or they love
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: their whatever. Um, So it does come down to some intangibles.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: But you know, I love my top tier bows, but
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: if someone gave me one of the five, I would
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: probably be killing just as many deer. You know, Yeah, absolutely,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: And I'll tell you what you like you said for
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: someone who's brand new, I would hate to be the
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: guy who you know, hey man, you gotta you gotta
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: get you know, spend that money on a good bow. Well,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: if if you have X amount of dollars to invest
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: into hunting in one year as a startup, you're definitely
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: want to go to one of those lower tier bows too,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: you know. And even some of these some of these
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: major manufacturers have lower tier bows or a second dary brand.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Let's see what is mission right, mission from Matthews? I know, um,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to think bow Tech has the diamond. It's
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: a secondary level. And then you know, like like I said,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Athens and obsession as well. I mean there's several out
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: there as well as going online and finding a used
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: bow from a handful of years ago that someone you know,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: let's say experienced archer has to have the new one
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: every year, so they decided to sell it. Yeah, I
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: think I think the biggest point to get across is
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: that I don't feel like you have to spend a
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: ton of money to get to get started hunting, right absolutely,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: just just you don't need much to just get out
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: there and start experimenting and experiencing this stuff. And and
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: this brings me exactly to the next thing. I want
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: to make sure we talked about Dan, which was this
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: kind of group discussion, little media conversation that was organized. Um,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: they're on one of those days A t A. And
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: it was basically a collection of younger folks within the
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: hunting industry that we're all kind of organized down The
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: A t A and Hunting Public kind of helped host
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: this thing and had a lot of the new media
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: contingent there, so there were digital folks. There was YouTubers
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: and podcasters and writers and all that kind of stuff,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: and that group of people came together to talk about
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: the issues of new hunter recruitment and how we are
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: representing ourselves to the rest of the world. Um, so
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: that was this group discussion. I don't know how many
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: people who think we're there, fifty seventy something like that.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: I read an article that was launched recently and I
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: posted it on my Instagram story, which won't be there.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Maybe I'll post it again, but the e a guy
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: from the A t A wrote it and it's launched
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: on the A t AS website and I think he
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: said there was eighty five people in attendance roughly, so,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: so it's a pretty good group of people. I think
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: to be talking about this kind of stuff. UM, I
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: got some thoughts on the whole thing. But what were
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: your What do you think about this collection of folks
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: talking about this topic? Um, this is nothing new, These
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: topics are not new. But but do you think that
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: we achieved anything in that conversation? I think this is
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: a good starting point. Um. And what what I mean
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: by that is everybody in that room agreed with each other.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: There was a guy from Vortex, Sawyer. He he brought
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: that up. I think he did is the some marketing
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: and social for Vortex. And I think this is a
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: very good starting point on getting a collective group of people,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: getting a collective you know, are sharing our thoughts and
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: opinions on how we feel about how hunting is represented
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: on social media. Um, what specific what the industry and
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: what the community are doing, and how we promote it
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: to people who may not necessarily have a point of
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: view on hunting. They they're not necessarily for it and
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: they're not necessarily against it. But how we promote hunting
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: to those guys and how we should act, you know?
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: And I think and before we can even I don't know,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: I feel like we have we have to refine ourselves
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: before we go out and try to try to refine
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: ourselves and get an accurate written message put together before
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: we can go and preach it. If that makes sense, Yeah,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: and I think I guess I should. We should preface
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: this with an explanation of the issue that brought us
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: all together, which was that hunter numbers continued to decline.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: So we are part of community that is losing membership
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: every year, and the demographic data out there indicates that
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: that's probably going to continue to happen as you know,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: a big chunk of the hunting audience kind of ages out.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: The baby boomers are, you know, getting past prime hunting years,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: and there are fewer young people getting into it because
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: of you know, changes and where people live and the
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: activities that people are into. A lot more time spent indoors,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: a lot less time spent outdoors. All of that does
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: not bode well for the future of hunting. So that's why,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: you know, for years and years and years this has
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: been talked about, and I think I think what I
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: took from our conversation was, or what I hope comes
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: from it, is a sense of the passing of the
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: torch because there have been these kinds of panel discussions
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: and you know, group conversations like like this set up
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: at a t A and various other conventions for for decades.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Probably right the R three issue UM that being recruitment, retention,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: and reactivation. That's basically just addressing this issue UM that's
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: been talked about over and over and over again for decades.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: The issue is that we haven't found a solution yet
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: and we haven't stemmed the bleeding. And so what I
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: think the very best thing from this whole deal was
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: wasn't that some new epiphany came about. It wasn't that
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: we had some brand new spanking idea, but it was
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: I think probably the first time that that group of
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: people came together to discuss it. So a lot of
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: people between the ages of eighteen and eighteen thirty five whatever, UM.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: I think this new generation of communicators has got to
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: realize that the responsibility for future of hunting now rests
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: in our hands. And that is and that's not just
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: us that being like communicators, but also all the hunters
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: out within that demographic too. So it starts with you
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: and me and the hunting public and all these different
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: people that you know, we're we're really fortunate to have
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: a little bit of a platform. So we need to
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: lead by example. That's the first and foremost things. So
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: for all those people in that group there at the
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: A t A, my hope was that we could realize that, hey,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: it's on us now. We need to lead by example
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: and lead the charge. And then for everybody listening to
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: this right now, it's also in you because we this.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: You know, whether you're forty five or twenty or fifteen
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: or whatever. Um, you know, the future of hunting is
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: in our hands. How we represent ourselves, how we open
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: this community to others, what we do today, and what
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: we do tomorrow and next year and the year after that,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: that's going to determine what people are doing years from now.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: So that was probably the biggest thing for me, was
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: just getting this group of people to realize like, hey,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: this isn't this isn't the job of you know, the
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: guys that own outdoor life or feeling stream anymore. This
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: is a job for the kids posting YouTube videos. Yeah,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: and just with everybody who's listening right now, you know,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: look for a calling, look for someone like Mark my Stelf.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: You know, a whole bunch of other quote unquote influencers
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: and uh, content providers to ask for your help. I
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: mean basically in order to change this culture and get
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: people to you know, more people excited about hunting and
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: get people who maybe have hunt back into it that
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: retention side and recruitment. Uh, we're looking to start an
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: army and we're going to need everybody's help. So you know,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: it's one of those things where we're gonna we're gonna
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: be asking you guys for some favors. To know for
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: sure it is. This is something that requires the entire
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: as many folks with the non community to step up
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: and and be leaders as possible. And you know, you
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: and we have had a lot of conversations on these
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: topics over the years. Um. Shoot, I can remember, I
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: don't know, maybe this is four five years ago you
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: and I came back from a t A and had
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: a whole like rant episode talking about the things we
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: didn't like at a t A, some of the culture issues. Um,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: that's something that you know, I know that comes up
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: around this discussion too. Uh. If we were to list
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: like as I'm thinking about this, we're not going to
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: go into a full deep dive on these things. But
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: a few of the considerations or a few of the
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: factors I think that will influence the future of hunting
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: that pop out to me right now if I'm just
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: like throwing some topics for future consideration. One is simply
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: how we represent ourselves to the general public, especially online.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: So right there's the issue of the pictures we post,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: the videos we post, the comments we leave, and how
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: first impressions on that stuff, especially from non hunters, you know,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: are very quick, and if we post something that you
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: know negatively reflects on us, then that can have a
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: really quick and negative and long lasting impact. So number one,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: thinking about everything you post and what a non hunter
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: might think about that, That's something that I'm always thinking
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: is at least an important filter to consider. Um. So
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: there's a whole thing of of what we share online
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: and how we talk about what we do, whether it's
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: a TV show or an article or a social media post.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: And then that's kind of part one of the conversation.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: And then part two of the conversation is then how
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: do we actively engage those people that do have an interest?
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: So how do we get the new hunters out there?
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: How do we get people that are interested in getting
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: closer to their food, getting those people physically in the woods,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: learning that to hunt. So that's the whole other side
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: of the conversation. Um of any of those things. Is
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: there anything that you wanna pick on right now or
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: talk in any specifics about or you there is this,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: you know, something we're to continue to dive into as
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: we go. Yeah, obviously we could say here and talk
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: about it all day. But I think a third part
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: of all of this is conservation and and I think
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: this all kind of ties in to the decline because
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: as hunters decline, so does money coming in, which the
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: money coming in goes to support a lot of these
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: conservation organizations and conservation efforts. So just as equal, I
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: think conservation and how we give back to the conservation efforts,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: whether it's time or money, is is going to be
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: a big part of this. Very true, And it feeds
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: right back into the beginning too, because we'd like to say,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: right the hunting community has this saying hunting is conservation, right, Um,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: well you gotta walk the walk. You can't just talk
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: to talk. And I think sometimes there's this tendency to
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: think that we can claim to be conservationists just by default.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: If you hunt, you're buying a hunting license. And and
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: it's true that money does go towards conservation work. Excuse me,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: but I'm going to tell you that's not enough, right.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: We need to do more than just pay for our licenses. UM. So, yes,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: this is We've talked about it for years. We're gonna
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: continue to talk about these things. So keep an eye
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: out for more from Dan, for more for me, um
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: and hopefully other folks within the hunting community, because this
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: is one of those generational challenges that we all need
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: to take seriously. And I'm glad it was something we
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: discussed to a t A. And I gotta tell you all,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: for all of you guys listening, Uh, this is something
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: that we're passionate about. Not We're not just gonna sit
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: here and talk about it. We are so passionate about it.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Dan Johnson in particular, that he had he kind of
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: kind of blacked out in the middle of this thing,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: like like, I'm I'm kind of talking about some stuff,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: and you know, Aaron Warburton is talking about some stuff,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: and Zack Faron Bad was talking about some stuff and
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: various other people and then Dan Johnson gets up to
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: say stuff, and he gets like two words into his
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: first spiel and then you guys know him, you love
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: him for it. That passion and that love and that
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: motion came pouring out of Dan and before he knew it,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: he was half crying, half swearing, not just actual being
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: angry at the same time. It was a full blown
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Dan Johnson. I don't I don't want to call him
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: meltdown because it was beautiful. I loved it. But it
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: was a passionate outburst of full blown nine fingers right there.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: And uh, I think it's it showed people about how
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: much this stuff matters. And I thought that was really good.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: And it just just imagined this mark And I say this,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: you've talked to me about it before, and I want
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: to I want everybody to listen to this. What would
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: happen if in ten years you could not hunt, or
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: your children could not hunt, or your grandchildren were not
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: allowed to hunt. I want you to think about that
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: and think of what hunting has given you over the years,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: all that enjoyment and all that that there's there's there's
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: something about nature that like for me, it's it's literally
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: saved me. And imagine if you could no longer do that,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: think about that, and then make sure that doesn't happen. Yes,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: what are you What are you willing to sacrifice for
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: this fight? That right there is I think a good
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: place for us to leave and something that we're gonna
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: continue to return to this year and next year and
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: they after that, and as long as people listen to
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: you and me, Dan, I think that's gonna be something
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: that's gonna be top of our mind. So I will
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: go down with this ship, all right, right there with it.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: But so with that, I think we'll wrap up our
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: pregame show unless you've got anything finally want to mention. Otherwise,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna move on to the next phase of the show.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: If you are, let's move on. All right. Well, thank
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: you Dan for the good times we had this past
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: weekend a t A. And it was good to see
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: you Mark. It was really good to see you, man.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: It was fun. We need to do it more often.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: If we didn't have all these damn kids, we can
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: maybe we can maybe get out of here and do
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: some more things that are funny. That's a fact, man.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's take a quick break and then
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: we're gonna get right back here. With Jeff Sturgis. Alright,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: so before we're going to further, want to share an
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: announcement and then a message from one of our partners. First,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: the announcement Meati Eator's next live tour is kicking off
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: this spring. We're gonna be hitting three, no not three,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: eleven different cities that include spots like San Francisco, Detroit, Minneapolis, Chicago,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: a couple of spots in Pennsylvania, somewhere around Boston, a
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: couple of spots in California. I think exciting stuff. It
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: is going to be a different kind of show too.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: You'll definitely want to tune in for this one in
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: person because you can't tune into it on the podcast.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: They're not going to record this as a podcast. It's
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: gonna be shipped out to the media or audience. Only
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: those in person there we'll get to experience it. It's
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: gonna be Steve Yanni Kale, and then at each different
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: city there will be some other guests, including myself there
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: in Detroit, So make sure to pick up your tickets.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: You can start buying them exclusively January when you go
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: to the meat Eater website to use the promo code
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: mugs that's m u g s. You'll get those tickets
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: several days earlier than anybody else otherwise. The rest of
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: the tickets go on sale Friday, January. There's also gonna
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: be some v I P ticket options as well for
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: a meet and greet, book signing, all that kind of
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: cool stuff, So check that out. All of it you'll
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: be able to find over at the meat eater dot com.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: It's Hunter awake. I can't tell if your eyes you're
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: gonna throw a crushing news for the reflective lenses. But
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: what I'm trying to say is welcome to the Wired
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Hunt podcast, brought to you by on X. And we
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: are sitting out here on the edge of the back
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: forty property right by the road, sitting on the tailgate
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: of the canam and some camp chairs next to my truck,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: and I am here with my camera crew extraordinaires Jordan
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: and Hunter. Hello, how's it going good? And our special
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: special guest back on the show for maybe the third
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: or fourth time, I think fourth fourth time, Jeff Sturgis,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: White Tail, Habitat Solutions. Pleasure to be here. Yeah, just
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate always always it is always a lot
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: of fun to get to chat with you. And usually
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: though it's about like abstract ideas like let's talk about
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: whether and deer, or let's talk about high quality habit at.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: But it's always generic stuff. It's like hypothetically, if you
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: have this, try this, if you have that, try this. Today, though,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: we're gonna talk in specifics. You just joined us for
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: a walk around this new property we picked up this year,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: the back Ford you and we want to get your
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: perspective on what you think about it, how we can
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: improve it, what a what based off what we have
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: so far? What are the next steps all of that?
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: And so we took this walk about and I'll let
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: you in a second here describe a little more detailed
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: me what we just did. Um. But then you also
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: put together a visual of your recommendations, which I just
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: want everybody to know. Over the next however long we
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: sit here and talk, we're gonna be reference referencing some
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: pictures that Jeff has drawn up that help us diagram
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: his different ideas of how to adjust things, what the
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: property looks like now, and what we could tweak. And
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: so I'm going to post these pictures up on the
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Wired Hunt Instagram account and the Wired hunt face page
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: maybe up on the website page for this on the
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: Mediator dot com too. So if you can check out
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: those pictures first, that's gonna help you visualize all this.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: We're gonna try to describe it as best as as
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: we possibly can. So if you can't see the pictures,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: you're not you're not s o l. But the photos
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: I do think will help you see this come to
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: life a little bit better. And you're gonna have to
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: excuse the vehicles driving by. This is podcasting in the
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: mobile studio, so there will be big rigs. There's gonna
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: be like a really loud motorcycle that comes by every
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: day really fast. We've heard him a lot. There's Lonnie
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: the neighbor who's got crazy things burning and all sorts
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: of projects going on in his yard. You just never
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: know what're gonna get here, Hunter, he's just living the
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: American dream over there. Yes. Yeah, the other day, Jordan's
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: had a camera step to do a time lapse, and
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden we see a bunch of black
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: smoke going right up in the air above him and
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: me and Hunter like, oh, did Jordan blow up the
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: trail Hawk, which is your guys a vehicle so happily
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: named the Jeep trail Hawk. Yeah. I was trying to
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: get out of there, and then I realized that I
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: didn't have the keys. Hunter had him on him a
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: couple of fields away, So I just had to sit
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: there and take that nice smell and fumes, get the
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: black smoke mess up the time laps. No, dude, good
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: might avand it to it probably would be cool. That
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: sounds cool. I'm not quite sure what's going on over there,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: but I'm intrigue. So let's get to the basic idea
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: of what we're trying to hear, Jeff, I guess at
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: a super high level, we don't need to spend a
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: ton of time on this, but we just did basically
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: what you do with the typical client, right, yes, and
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: can you give us like the thirty second overview of
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: what it is that you just helped us, dude up
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: to this point. So most of the time we sit
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: down and what we did today. Get to know the
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: property by the air, get to know your resources, your
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: plans for the property goals, and then I can start
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: to develop a framework based on the neighbors and neighbors food,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: what you're planning to do what your timber is, what
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: your current habitat, start to really develop a plan in
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: my head that might be the way there. While at breakfast,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: we move on to the property. We spend two, three,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: four or five six hours depending on the size of
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: the property and um. And then while we're out there,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: we're talking about we would do this here that there.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: It all starts with food, the foundation of food. And
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: then I'm going back and I'm putting down on a
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: diagram on a picture. I'm drawing on the fine point stylus,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: what's actually going on on the property. What we talked about,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: stand locations, betting areas, travel corridors, food plots, switch grass,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: hinge cutting, whatever, timber, stand improvement, UM, whatever it might be.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: And then we're going back and discussing that we're at
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: that point right now. So I spend an hour drawing
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: this diagram up, which is what I do with my
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: clients that day. I feel like if they're not gonna
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: be there for the drawing and we can't talk about it,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: then we actually turn clients away. So if someone just
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: wants me to show up, look at the property, draw
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: diagram and send it. We don't do that because I
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: find there's a lack of engagement. I want them to
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: buy in, because I find that if they buy in,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: their successful and it's a far greater experience. Otherwise they're
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: just throwing money at me, and and I want this
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: to work for them. And so if they do it,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: it works, and we need that level of engagement. And
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: that's kind of where we're at right now. I have
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: broke this down into several pictures, come as far as
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: from beginning to end. Yeah, so let's first do this,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: well you do you tell me how you think you
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: would typically go through this, but we could we go
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: one of two ways. We could either verbally walk through
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: the property, so I could say, hey, we're at the
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: field one or some of your thoughts on that, and
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: we could walk through the property kind of like we
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: physically did sure, Or you could start me off with
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: your diagrams and talk to us the way you would
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: talk about with a client. How about we just go
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: through that quick and then we'll go through what do
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: we have five pictures or six? One, two, three, four,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: five pictures? So how about we go through each one
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: and we just see if there's any questions, and we
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: go the second one. We're not gonna end detail go
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: over everyone too much. Should just you know. That way
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: we can kind of establish your framework and then we
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: can get to the meat. Once we get to that
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: last picture. That so good. That sounds good. So just
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: as a refresher for anyone who's jumping in, I'm just
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: gonna quickly describe the property again, just in case people
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: haven't seen the picture. The property kind of looks like Oklahoma.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: You've got the panhandle on the left side and then
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: drops off to the right. You can also think of
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: as a pot. You can hold the panhandle. That's the
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: far west, and the pot gets big to the east.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: Running right to the middle of that pot is our swamp.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: That's kind of a gorge shape ish, so it's thin
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: up at the top to handle your gourd. It gets
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: a little bit bulbous down towards the bottom. There's these
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: old fields on either side of the swamp. You've got
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: fields one, two, and three broken up by fence rows
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: on the west side of the gordon, and you've got
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: fields four or five and six on the east side
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: of the gourd. And imagine these are kind of stocked
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: stacked on top of each other like blocks that at
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: a high level is what the property looks like. Now, Jeff,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: we're looking at image number one. Walk me through, Walk
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: me through what that one is. Image number one is
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: when I'm looking at the property. We need to establish
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: the security of the property, how you can get on
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: and off the property without spooking deer. And of course
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: every property is so unique. This one is nice because
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: it fits the mold where you can travel around the outside.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: There's no constrictions or waterways, you can't make it through.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: You don't have a cabin in the middle, and we
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: don't have a road going through the middle. So it's
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: typical core area in the middle. The first picture, I'm
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: drawing yellow in there, and you can see that's starting
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: that there's four yellow spots, uh fields one and two.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: I haven't drawn that in yet, but I wanted to
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: use this just to show. I'm drawing that in a
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: switch grass, and that could be a base form of
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: cover for you, something you can establish in one to
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: two years very effectively on the soil. And then we
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: go from there with the progression what we add next.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: But that switch grass is a huge base for you,
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: and you're gonna have a lot of switch grass planting
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: around here. You talked about when we're out there, the
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: idea of doing pockets of it. Yes, can you just
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: cry what I'm seeing here? Are you? Are you recommending
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: full switch grass in these yellowed out areas or you
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: saying the pocketed well, um, the switch grass, Yeah, we'll
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: get there, but um not. I I'm recommending switch grass
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: next to your access and then diverse switch grass in
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: locations where you want bedding, and we'll talk about that
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: coming up here. Perfect. Moving on to the next image,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: You've got the yellowed out fields and then you have
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: some green lines going throughout and then yellow lines going
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: across the swamp to connect it. Yes, okay, what does
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: all this means? So you have the switch grass in
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: the first thing I look at on every property, and
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: once we know that we can hide food in these locations,
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: you can put that there and you're not going to
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: spook the deer going on and off the property. Then
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: we're establishing where that food should go. That food is
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: going to establish the daily movement of the deer. Your
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: feet five times in the twenty four period. We want
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: your food to represent that third feeding of the day,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: which they're feeding feeding one and two, say mid morning
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: early afternoon, that would be in their bedding areas with brows.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: And then that food plot define daily afternoon movement that
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: establishes the entire hunt. That's gonna be the third feeding
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: of the day about an hour before dark. And that's
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: what that green food plot represents on your property. So
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: not only is that supplying a very important third feeding
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: of the day to the deer that's like our dinner time,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: it's also establishing exactly how you want the deer to
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: move on the property within your borders, parallel to your borders.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: In this case and most any case, you're not trying
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: to position the food to bring deer on and off
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: your property. You're trying to position food so that when
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: they come out of cover, they hit the food, turn
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: left or right, and they relate to that food in
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: a parallel fashion to your borders. So it maintains that
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: they stay on your property for as long as proper
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: possible during the daylight, and then after dark they released
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: your neighbors. So these food plot designs are very different
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: than what i'd say ninety of the food plots and
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: food plot recommendations you see out there. Lots of times. Yes,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: you see big open fields or squares or rectangles or circled. Basically,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: we've got big lines here from you. Can you help
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: us understand why you recommend that kind of shape and
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: design a little bit? You know, it's interesting. I love
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: one of my chapters my food plot book was um
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: thin as in or something like that, but it talked
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: about thin food plots and on the the property that
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: own that's only acres and the true properties that I
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: they hunt lease. They're forty and fifty two all those
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: food plots are. They're still matched to the lay of
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: the land. But I cannot put lines on them because
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: it's so steep that I can't put those long, thin
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: lines and I'd like to because they're running over a thick,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: you know, steep edge. Um, I'm putting them on the
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: only flat areas in the terrain. I like long food
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: food lines and food and lines move mint and you
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: can connect that with small plots too. But for one
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: like especially in your case, for your property, let's say
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: that it varies by sixty ft in elevation over a
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: pretty wide area, Well, you can tuck these food pots
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: with each one of these green lines. Like when we
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: were out in the field. We talked about how they
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: would slip through those valleys that are there so that
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: when they're gonna feel secure in there. Um, we're also
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: ribboning those food plots through the valleys. You can't see
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: them from the outside when the access. That also helps
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: you capture moisture. You have a pretty light sandy soil
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: out there, so you're there's a lot of reasons to
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: put those in a long linear fashion. But most of all, again,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: those deer come out of your core area in the
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: middle of your property you're trying to protect. They hit
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: that food and they turn left or right, and then
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: that leads them to stand locations, which we'll talk about
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: in a little bit. But it also maximizes the time
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: that they're on your property because instead of just going
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: through a circle that's overrun with a bunch of deer
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: and they just pass off right over to your neighbors.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: You know, they come out from the west to go
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: to the east to the big blob of food, they
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: pass through it, go over to your neighbors to the east.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: Now they hit that food and they turn left or right,
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: and the beauty of the hills that you have in
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: a lot of situations even if you're carving out these
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: long food plots and cover and foot grass, is that
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of corners in inside corners, outside corners,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: and so you don't go more than fifty to seventy
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: five yards and any of those food plots that might
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: measure five thousand feet in total length UM without finding
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: a spot that you can hide around the corner. So
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: you talk about people putting lines of switch grass through
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: their food plots and big open food plots. Of reason
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: they're doing that is they're trying to separate deer here
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: by naturally the land flow the land that naturally separates
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: deer when they're feeding, So you can have more deer
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: hit the food while they're feeding and uh and in
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: space them out around your property makes your property more efficient.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: And then again the whole purpose you're holding the deer
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: on the daylight during the daylight, you know, running parallel
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: to your borders, and then that's pushing them towards stand
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: locations either past or from food plots that are going
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: to bedding areas in the morning or um evening food
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: source destinations in between cruising areas and um. And so
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: it's really serving to set up in in safe feeding too.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: So when they're in these narrow plots, and I'm talking
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: in your property, typically you don't want to go over
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: a hundred hundred feet wide unless you're really big, sprawling
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: over a lot of you know, three quarter mile food plots. Um.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: But in your case, fifty six wide is perfect. So
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: when those food plots hit a fence role, you might
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: constrict it down to ten ft wide. Haven't passed through
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: an area that explodes out into food plant On the
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: other side, you have a stand location there, and when
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: you're getting that fifty six width, then great bowshot. Even
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: if it's on the back side of the food plot.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: Even if if a buck doesn't come into that food plot,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: he's still in that range we talked out when they
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: do cross fence rolls or adding mock scrapes. Um. I've
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: drawn in a couple of water holes here in dry
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: areas that we'll look at at the end. But the
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: food plot sets that foundation of entire movement on your land.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: And the more you define how they hit that food
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: every single afternoon and how they move on your land,
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: you know, obviously narrow is better than white as far
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: as on they move then that allows you to define
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: how you hunt. So a lot of people kind of
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: doing reverse, Well, I want to hunt this spot or
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: that spot. They throw some food plot or habitat improvements
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: out there, but nothing matches, and so we're trying to
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: specifically define how this your do you're exactly move on
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: your land so that you can define how you haunt
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: and access to land without spooking them. And probably having
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: this kind of linear shaped your food plots makes it
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: much easier to get it and out without spooking because
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: you're never going to have one spot that has twenty
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: deer sitting in it. They're constantly moving, right, So if
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: you spread those deer out enough to say, just to
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: pick a number thirty deer bucks those and fonds on
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: your property in the evening because they like to space
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: out and they like space between them, then you know
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: box might be looking for does. But those dole family
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: groups are going to spread all the way around your property,
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: so the odds that they're right in front of your
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: stand location within bow shot when you get to that
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: stand location are extremely low. And then you're using the
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: lay of the land to get into those stand stand
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: locations anyways, and you're losing using in those fence roads.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: You could have a nice trailer goes right down the
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: middle or right down the side that has a tunnel
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: between the switchgrass and the edge, and you can get
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: right in and out of those food pots without without
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: spooken deer or the stand locations. Yeah, so, so walk
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: me through the access plan a little bit more unless
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: you think I'm jumping the gun there. But your ideas
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: on access were pretty similar to what I was thinking
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: for the access in here. Um. But but the whole
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: crux of this property for me has been how do
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: I get in and out without spooking deer? How do
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: I food in these fields and still not spook them?
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: So because of that, I got pretty conservative with how
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: I designed and and cutting the current food plus kept
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: pretty small and tight just because I want more space
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: and and less opportunity for them to visually see me
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: from a plot. Uh, you recommend adjusting that a little bit,
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: but access being something that would be important to perspective
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: on that. Well, and it's really really along your lines.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: I'm very conservative and going in um. For example, if
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: you're spooking to your out of a food plot, get
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: rid of the food plot, shrink it, move it, move
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: the stand, move the access. It can't happen ever. Um.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: Now not to say it never happens, but you're never
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: setting yourself up for that happen for that to happen. UM.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: So similar access, you know that to what you're looking at.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: The difference is is I'm looking at a page right
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: now that has all the brown dots in it in
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: the middle of a giraffe looking hide, yeah, or an
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: ugly butterfly or something. Um. But anyways, that those are
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: those diversity pockets. And we'll talk about that in a second,
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: but that's where I expect those deer to bed and
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: then that interior swamp. So by defining where those dear bed,
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: you see that there's a lot of solid yellow around
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: the outside of that whole twisted butterfly. And that is
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: what I find. If you're accessing behind eight to ten
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: pounds per acre of cave and rock switch grass and
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: it's thirty you know, some of those areas might even
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: be six ft wide because of the lay of the land.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: But if it's six seven ft even down to forty
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: inches to four ft I at the end of the
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: first growing season, which would be the end of two
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: thousand twenty. Then you can get in and out of
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: the land without spoken deer. That what's nice about the
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: switch grass is that it's like a sponge, So thinking
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: of it as cutting down sound site and scent. So
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: even if scent is going into it a little bit,
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: it will help filter it out like a sponge. When
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: I talk about switch grass, it is really important for
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: your listeners to hear is that switch grass to me
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: is the only grass, at least in the northern portions
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: of the country most of the big white tail states
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: UH four white tails, because it stands up all winter long.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: And so if it's stand up, if you have big
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: boost and little boostem Indian grass have been too beautiful
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: fields where they're ten twelve ft high ure in the summer,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: in their two ft high or a foot high during November, December, January, February, March.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: So not only can you not hide white tails or
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: hide your access or keep from projecting your access across
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: the hundred yard field because it's all laid down, but
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: then you can't attract pheasants and rabbits. And so what
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: I found I've worked extensively with clients around the country
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: and when they start adding switch grass switchgrass lines, and
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: you don't want to solid thirty acres, and that's what
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about, a little bit or a solid even
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: ten ten acres or five unless it's blocking your access.
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: But when you have those small pockets of diversity and edge,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: and you have herbaceous growth, woody growth, woody stem regeneration
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: within the pockets of the switch grass, meaning you're you're
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: playing the sweatgrass thick and then you're leaving open pockets
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: with no grass, then you attract wildlife. And and so
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: I hear back a lot from a client set. Say,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: for example, they had some type of pheasant mix that
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: they planted for years, and they'd have to replant peasants
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: every spring because that cover lays down all winter long
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: and it's useless. And so you add that switchgrass, you
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: create diversity pockets. Now you have edge, Now you have pheasants,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: now you have rabbits, and you actually have sustainable wildlife
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: cover the last the entire winter stands up to the snow.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: So tell me this. One of the unique things with
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: what we're trying to do here is that in addition
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: to also improving this for deer and deer hunting and
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: all that stuff. We also are trying to do some
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: things to be accounting for other species outside of the
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: norm too, so pollinators and birds and small mammals like
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: you talk to, rabbits and upland burds like pheasants and
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: everything like that. So from some of the people we've
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: talked to who are focusing more on those species, one
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: of the things they've recommended for these old fields is
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: some of that type of pollinator planting, like the pheasants forever,
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: would have those grass native grass as wildflowers fores mixes
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: like that would be really great for all these other
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: things and for part of the year provide cover for
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: pheasants and deer and stuff. But then, like you said,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: a lot of it lays down. Do you think that
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: we can find do you think there could be like
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: a middle ground where we would use would plant some
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: of that, but then do solid strips of the switch
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: grass along edges and then do the circles throughout to
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: make the blocks of switch throughout. But then the insides
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: and kind of everything else be this mixture of different
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: kind of basis cover. Like you said, so you'd want
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: about swift grass and the problem is with a lot
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: of the plantings for other wildlife species. Is there coming
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: in and they're planting with a tractor over a ten
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: acre field and they're just laying it down. They're not
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: putting any more steps to it than that. This is
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: like taking that and putting it on steroids. So those
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: pockets of herbaceous growth, you can plant pheasant mixes in them.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: I prefer natural. So the problem with a lot of
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: any pheasant mix out there is that the cover is
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: down during October, November, December and you have nothing and
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: so not only do not have cover, you don't have food.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: So allow those mixes. You have a percentage of food
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: and they're in forbes and forages and flowers, but then
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: that's all gone during the most lean times in the
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: year when the animals needed the most soul. At the
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: same time, though, that upland mix, whether you're planting the
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: pheasants the pheasant mixes in some of those pockets, and
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: you're leaving some of those pockets to early successional growth
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: the forms of woody stem and regeneration tree shrubs. I
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: think you can actually have an incredible combination with the
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: next step of work, where you establish that switch grass
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: and all that yellow, and then you're establishing those diversity
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: pockets within that switch grass. Now you've taken it to
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: a step that no one plants around to or as
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: far as you're coming in with machine or they're doing
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: large operations, because they're not going to take the time
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: to go out there and establish these pockets. And so
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: they're putting in a blend. And that blend is good
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: for brows, good for covered during the summer, but then
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: it's almost all gone during the winter, and so you
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: want to establish the best of both worlds, so you're
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: you need to separate that. So you're putting on switch
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: grass for high cover, and then you're putting those pockets
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: in the form of hidden within that switchgrass. You can
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: have those pollinators, you can have clover of offa flowers. Grasses.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: I'm not a big fan of various grasses because, for example,
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: they'll put in a CRP mix and gon have big
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: boost and we bloos and Indian grass switchgrass. But if
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: switchgrass is only pound and a half breacre and it's
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: only a small percentage of that planting, then it's all
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: laid down in November December. So people say, well, yeah,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: that's diversity. But just more grass is not diversity. Some
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: more grass. So the thing you're talking about with pollinators
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: and shrubs, freees, soft maple, red maple seeds, box elder seeds, um, clover, alfalfa,
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: And you can see a lot of the areas you
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: moat around here, there's clover and alfalfa coming into it,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: and that's what's in that base. So there's a lot
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: of really good stuff that can come in that switch grass.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: And so then you have that blend where you don't
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: have the cover lane down. That switch grass is so important.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: You create that edge that is so critical. And right
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: now you have such a diverse parcel. And we talked
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: about earlier. Just real quick, you look at the outside
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: of your border and then you look at the inside
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: edge changes doesn't matter if it's food plot, egg fields,
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: swampland hardwoods, cuttings, hinge, cut edge. He looked at all
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: those edges. Your edge on the inside should be five
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: to ten times more than your total edge on the outside. Now,
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: when you create pockets like this in switch grass, I
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: mean you're gonna be twenty times or you're outside the
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: flip side of that. Just for understanding is if you
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: have a hundred sixty are hardwood, it's all even aged.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: You don't have any edge other than the outside edge,
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: and that's a very very poor wildlife. Might be really
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: good timber and timber value, but what I find is
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: high timber value is the opposite of high wildlife value.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: So you're creating those edge with those pockets, and if
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: you do that, you should have the most pheasant, most
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: rabbits um, the most diversity in the area, which attracts
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: all kinds of birds. So much there there's been a
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: lot of yeah, there's been a lot of research to
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: this back that up like edge equals great wildlife habitat
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: anymore edge you can have the war diversity, diversity and
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: edge is like silky It seems like for everything. Were
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: some of your best white til areas out west and
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: then on public land it's probably not some giant big field.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: It's yeah, I know you've gone through some water, and
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: so water and lowland um creates edge and diversity, and
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: then you go up into the uplands, you're creating all
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: these different and around here in Michigan, let's face it,
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, you have a pretty hilly property for southern Michigan.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: And there's areas where extremely flat you can go two
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: ft in Michigan and that's a ridge in some some areas. So,
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: but even then the type of trees that grow down
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: in the ash swamp down below and tag alder and
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: then you go up two feet and all of a
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: sudden you're in a hard maple and soft maple and
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: maybe a white pine or two different Jordan's uh hunter
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: hunter digging around on Snapchat or something over there? What
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: what year old? I know? Oh man, the things he's
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: been doing over the last ten days or so, just
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: scars hunter things. Uh, do you guys have any questions?
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: Like you're hearing all this? Yeah, I mean so like
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: with I was just I was intrigued today while you're
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: walking around just picking it apart. Because this is a
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: piece of property that Mark just picked up a few
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: months ago, hasn't been farmed in two growing growing season.
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: What would like a typical timeline be, Like if you
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: were to come in and just kind of flip this
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: to how you want it to be for hunting. Obviously
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: we've kind of got a late start on it this year,
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: but like, where would you set your expectations? You know,
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: for like this hunting season compared to next hunting season,
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: just as far as you know what's growing and like
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: kind of where what you expect as far as like
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: the number of deer and quality kind of because obviously
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: the deer are going to find the food if there's
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: food here. But is this something with it being kind
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: of like the first season, are you just kind of
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: like hopeful that you know, some of this stuff will
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: kind of get working and you can kind of tweak
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: your plan or do you kind of know ahead of time,
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: like in five years, you know, all this stuff will
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: kind of fall into place, so you know when it's
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: all relative depending on the area, how many deer, the
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: age structure. That's what the cameras will tell you. Especially
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: over the food. UM, if you keep that unpressured food,
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: that's golden, So that'll tell you exactly what you have
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: in the area. Mix scrapes off to the side, good
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: camera locations, and I mark camera locations in black here
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: on the final picture of little black dots and you'll
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: see on their they're on the entrance exit. UM. But
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: that's proposed for next year, so I have a lot
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: of clients, UM December January. If I were already starting.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: I have clients through April next year, not that every
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: month is full, but I'm you know, I have an
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: appreciable amount. I know where I'm at um in through May,
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: even with flying trips, and so people want me December
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: January from March April because they can get a start
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: on it for the entire season. And so we'll we'll
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: take a property that as long as the people are engaged,
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: you know, going back to the questions and and being
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: there um for this type of wrap up. But if
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: they were willing to do the work, then typically take
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: a property that someone might have worked on five eight years.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: And the cycle I see is the first year they
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: bought it was the best. They start putting food plots
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: on habitat improvements in by year three they're starting to
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: create a nocturnal herd because they haven't managed the level
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: of attraction of those habitat improvements. So now they're creating
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: a situation where they're attracting every year in the neighborhood
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: they come on the property, they bookem off and then
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: by year five or six, not only are they not
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: seeing the box that they were that were nocturnal in
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: year three, now they're not even on the land because
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: they just avoid the properties. You find those four or
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: five six year old bucks really come off on the
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: flip side. I'll go to property like that that's been
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: you know, their their experience of diminishing return each year,
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: and it has to do with hunting pressure, alignment of
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: habitat improvements. So you change the alignment. You make sure
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: that their access is such like we're gonna do here,
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: so that you're not spoken deer. And so now they
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: get on and off the property that was spoken deer.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: Any food plots they have, you shrink, eliminate, move. If
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: they're setting themselves up for spoken deer, you make sure
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: they're not hunting on those foodpots over and over again
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: and spoken in the year you're trying to never spoken deer.
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: So all property that they've been working on eight years
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: and they've had that diminishing return, they put thousands of
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: dollars into improvements, and just in one summer it completely
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: flips it back around where they had their best hunting
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: in the first year. The deer can change in one year.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: They what they're reacting to his hunting pressure. And I
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: don't believe from year to year now they might a
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: big box line that they can see and they can
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: you know, I like boxes to pass a hundred yard test.
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: If you can't see it from a hundred yards or
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: more than, it's pass the test. If you can see
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: it from three d yards away, it doesn't pass the task. Um.
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: But so you're hiding your your access, you're hiding your hunting,
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: and boy, it's amazing what can happen. So then what
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: you're doing is, yeah, you might have to grow a
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: buck herd, meaning that even on sixty acres you're taken
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: um thirty seven or forty seven acres you're putting in
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: that core area, you might be able to hide a
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: two year old or three year old or a couple
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: that just rotate around enough that they spend a higher
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: percentage on your property. So and then for that they
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: have a higher percentage that they're going to live and
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: make it to the next year. So the more box
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: you have, you end up getting. I would say you're
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: still here six seven years away from the potential of
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: the buck herd, but as far as the hunting potential
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: and aligning everything up the way you want, you know,
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: this year, you know there's food plots and locations that
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't you know, I wouldn't recommend for next year,
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: but they have to be hidden now so we don't
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: have that switch grass. But once you have forty inch
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: high switch grass next year, then next year, that foundation
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: a movement is set and the potential of bucks that
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: are already here to me you can target. And so
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: I never look at it like let's wait six years
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: and hunt. I look at it like if a three
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: year old is the best deer on the property, a
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: couple of them, then go for it. And for that
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: you probably have five or six two year olds around.
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: You'll advance even more of those in the next age
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: class the next year, and pretty soon within a couple
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: of years you're targeting four year olds and then the
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: occasional five year old it's yere, and that's probably what
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: you're potential is here, and that would be by year three.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: And then your full true potential of really passing on
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: a couple of four year olds to get that nice
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: five year old six year old that might be around
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: is is within reaching that year four or five, six.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: So but you established a foundation and you change everything around,
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: you make the deer her daylight on your land. You
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: can do that in one summer. I really, I've seen
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: that over and over and over again, and it doesn't
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: take it. And if you consider that access, hidden access,
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: hidden food sources, and developing that quarter in the middle,
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: if you take care of those things, then you'll have
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: that that daylight heard if they're if you don't have
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: the food to support the cover, then why you're gonna
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: have a daylight, you know, daylight movement, they'll food focus
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: somewhere else. And so that food is really important, important
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: and private land, and that that establishes that foundation. Back
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: to UM, back to the fields. I'm still stuck on
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: that a little bit, just as it was the execution
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: of it. What would be UM the actual order of operations?
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: So would you come in and you would drill in
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: your switch grass and then after or do we go
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: to go in and drill in our pollinator mix first
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: and then come in and drill switch grass over top
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: of it in the circles we want? Like, how do
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: we actually do that? I find the best way to
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: do it is you can do it either way. Either
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: go in right now in the fall, and you the
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: best ways you can go in there and disk up
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: those pollinators, pollinators. I call them diversity pockets because they
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: might have pollinators. They might you know, it's um natural
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: as best. But um, you can disk those in first
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: or which I'd probably recommend the pockets like that. Um,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: you can disk those anytime. September is a great time
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: if you have time. At mid September, the deer aren't
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: going to spook away from your The bucks shouldn't be
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: here anyway. So to go in there and turn a
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: lot of those pockets to dirt and soil and get
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: it down to soll. Now when you go in the
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: following year tomorrow, next spring, then you can spray those
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: areas and you know, make sure the weeds are down. Um,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: you can spray pre emergent on the switch grass areas
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: of simosine and then you can go back in. And
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: so what you're doing is you're defining a difference. You know,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: you're killing these pockets or killing the pockets and tilling
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: the switchgrass. I wouldn't advise that because then you're exposing
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: yourself more. You want to leave some of this weed
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: growth through on the outside that at least establish a
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: little bit of protection this year. UM. But so I
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: would go in and disc up those areas of pockets,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: and then next year you have a definite difference of
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: habitat going into the spring from the dish areas from
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: this year and the area you're gonna spray for switchgrass
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: next year. So then you're you're establishing there's just going
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: out there. I mean, be like a drunken sailor. It
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: doesn't really matter the shapes, there's no You don't want circles,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: you don't want squares. I mean, just um, I I'm
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: I can't stand um. So if you want something straight
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: on your property, you might put straight rows of pines
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: and spruce on the outside for access. Straight means no wildlife,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: and so whether shrubs, conifers, any kind of plant thing,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: you don't want straight lines, food plots, um. These diversity pockets,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: just trying to match them to the lay of the land. Um.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: If there's a steep face, leave it alone. If there's
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: a pocket in the bottom, you know, make a shape
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: in it that matches that elevation. Maybe go up on
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: a knull go twenty ft away, go twenty yards. It
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: really doesn't matter. It's the point is you're trying to
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: diversify that entire field. So yeah, it might look kind
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: of cool when someone flies over and look like a cheatah,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: you know, years from now, but you're making it grow
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: like an upland mix. Now, we went to that area
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: on your property where you had the um. There's a
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: really good mix of big blue stem, red ceedar, autamala,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: there's a big oak in there. So there's a lot
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: of diversity in that area, and you see the deer
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: relating to that, and you want to kind of put
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: that diversity inside those pockets. Not necessarily autumnal of not
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: necessarily a red seedar, not necessarily oaks, not necessarily a
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: big blue stem. It's all the above and whatever you
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: can get to grow in there and fill it in
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: the one thing that really you know, grass doesn't really
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: help you too much other than it's pretty. Let's not
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: cover food less a switchgrass. The switch grass isn't food either,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: So what about the ah the switch grass along the edge,
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: slid switch grass along the access edge? Right? And that
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: how wide of a strip of solid stuff do we
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: need for it to be effectives as your block as
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: your screen. So I would establish the betting pockets that
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: are in brown. I would establish your food plot lines
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: and then everything else to the outside would be just
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: pure switch crastion. And you want that because that's going
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: to completely insulate your movements around the property and the
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: value of that and being able to get in and
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: out around well planet food plots and diversity blend on
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: the inside diversity pockets is incredible around here because you're
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: looking at in the the other picture that has white
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: lines with the arrows kind of pointing out. Yeah, so
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: that the current cover that can hold deer is that
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: middle section the swamp what'd you guys call it the
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: the gored chips. So you see the arrows and white line.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: Once you established those betting areas and those food sources,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: that's that new area where should be able to hold deer,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: and that solid yellow around it is what gives you
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: the ability to hold deer in those areas because you
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: can get in and out without ever spoken deer. Ye.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: So if you look, I mean, you're I would say,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: out of your land if you include that um you're
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: now looking at instead of what the land you're now
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: bumping that up to the land is all deer cover
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: all the time. And let's face it, even going into
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: some of that solid switch outside the food plots outside
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: the betting areas, you're gonna have some deer use, but
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: by the time you get to the outside access, there's
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: no food in that switch grass, which is why you
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: want solid And so now you're making it so the
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: further you get to the hunter access, so less likely
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: there are to be deer bedded in and around that
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: hunter axis. And because you're making long, straight line access
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: routes that you don't like, they don't like roads, they
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: don't like straight two tracks, they usually move across them quickly.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: That's kind of the idea of what you want on
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: that outside whether you're grinding it out through the swamp
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: with a rotary cutter on a bobcat down on the
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: bottom or or on the south side, or you're just
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: grinding it out along the top of the switchgrass, just
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: long straight roads. That's another reason there shouldn't mean deer
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: bedding along that access. There might be deer bedded halfway
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: or you know, a quarter of the way to that access,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: and that expands that bedding and effective core area in
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: your land. But by the time you get to your
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: hunter access, it really shouldn't be a lot of deer.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: So we've got what now looks like, you say, kind
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: of a funky butterfly shape almost with a swamp right
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: in the middle, and then a ragged butterfly wing extending
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: off to the left and the right of the swamp.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: That's our new expanded core area that will have cover
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: bedding and then these food plots on the outside edges
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: of it. Right What's what's the next thing you're thinking
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: about when you're designing this. So once we have the
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: food sources established, and then once we establish where we're
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: gonna actually bed deer and hold deer, in fact, those
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: betting pockets, the further we can extend dear to the
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: east or west within those pockets and right up next
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: to that food those are gonna be the Doe family groups.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: They can take a lot less stress pressure. So you're
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: taking Doe family group movement that's along the edge of
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: the swamp right now, on either side east or west
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: or in the center. You're expanding those well out into
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: the grass around the edge, and that frees up your
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: entire swamp and the edge for box. I'm going through there,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: and I'm looking in that brown here in the middle
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: of the swamp, and I'm saying you know that swamp.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: We walked down into it. There's all kinds of growth
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: in there. There's good low brush cover. The only thing
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: I could say that when proven there you have rush
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: in there, whether it's willow, tag alder, automolive, whatever it
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: might be. There's a cherry in their chope jerry, so
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: whatever it might be in there. There's areas where deer
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: are not using because there's so many stems that can't
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: actually even get in there. And so those are the
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: areas that and this is the last ten percent because
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: your swamps probably already h six or seven out of ten.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: So this is when you have time, like during the
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: winter or next winter. Then you could go in there
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: and you'll find some high spots in the middle of
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: a lot of that growth because they're all centering around
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: a lot of the highest spots and the wettest spots
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: are not growing. Just go in there and clean them
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: out with the chainsaw and make it so deer can
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: actually get into those pockets a cover that are twenty
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: ft diameter circles right now that can't be utilized by deer,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: so they're betting around the edge. And I'll take that
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: highest spot in the middle, clean it out and those
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: deer will really appreciate it. Give him a few three
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: or four easy in and outs. And I'm just so
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about. You go to a twenty ft diameter
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: circle of brush and you spend ten fifteen minutes on
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: it with one other person, help them clear brush and
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: move on to the next one. This is me spend
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: hours on open it up. Yeah, And and you have
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: so much low brush in there and cover you do
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: not need to go in there and hinge cut anything.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: You know, any of your trees are there, just leave them.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: There's not a lot. I mean, what's the percentage of
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: standing vertical trees in their timber? It might only be
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: And what is there is pretty small. Yeah, yeah, it's
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: a lot of garbage. Now, box seller, any box seller
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: in there, I would hinge. They hinge really well, they're
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: they're already leaning in one way, so it's a safe hand.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: You put a back cut on it, but waist high.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: It hits the ground and then it grows a roll
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: of box seller and then you can actually the deal
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: will feed all the way along that line. So any
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: box seller, UM not a bad idea to cut that down.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: I also the offense rolls that are an oranger. Yeah,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: so we didn't talked about that hole on one second.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: Sorry for those who are switching, we're switching through pictures now.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: There's a photo here that has numbered red dots. Those
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: are stands that will get to eventually. But just referencing
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: these of fence or as you should see the giraffe
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: looking color yellow and brown. You've got the green lines.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: Now you're gonna see black. Brown was at core area
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: in the middle. We're talking about just opening up pockets.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: That's a low priority because you know that those fields
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: right now during the hunting season there's zero out of
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: ten for cover and holding ability. We're trying to make
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: those in eight or nine or ten out of ten.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: That brown's probably already a six or seven out of ten,
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: So it's a very low priority. Yeah, very low priority.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: Bought box selld um the only thing. You have a
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: lot more cover than there's food value in there. But
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: you have more cover than food and that's why i'd
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: be a six or seven. So if you have box
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: seller in the edge and they're just tipping them over
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: and letting them regenerate, that would that would give a
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: good supply of fall and winter food. So now we've
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: got this big brushy fence for I was like split
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: up these fields across the farm. And they're pretty nice.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: They've got I mean, they're relatively thick. They provide a
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: visual barrier for part of the year. There's a lot
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: of cherries, there's some oaks and some parts of them. Um,
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: there's even some good box selder. There's some box elder.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: So so what we're gonna tell us about the fencers.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: What I like about those fence rolls, Um, they're they're
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: traveling east and west. And those fence rolls would end
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: up being that are marked in orange right smack dab
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: in the middle of your bedding areas and early successional
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: growth pockets, pollinator pockets, switch grass bedding areas. I find
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: that dear love to bed and islands of trees and cover,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: and those are right adjacent to stand locations. So to me,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: a very good opportunity to look for any box seller
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: or junk cherry, junk timber. You have some beautiful timber
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: in there. There's some really good oak cherry. So I
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: would look at the junk timber and if it's hingeable
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: size waist high below waist high cutting and six inch
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: and six inches in diameter, unless then I would look
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: for opportunity to hinge cut that into your established switchgrass
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: to provide sunlight into those areas to regenerate. Also expand
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: the fence rolls into more the wood lots, and and
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: and you're making those cuttings so the trees fell perpendicular
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: to the fence rows so that you're not blocking off
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: deer from going in and out of the fence. Right,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: you're gonna say the opposite. I thought you're gonna try
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: to block off the whole fence rows so they have
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: to pass through with your stand locations. But you're saying
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: the opposite, Dude, open it up so it feels more
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: porous to then they get it out. But here's the
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: here's the kicker. You can have a trail that goes
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: right through the center of all that and ends at
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: your stand location, so that's the t Then you block
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: it off between your stand location and the te and
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: and so you're utilizing those pockets. Great spot for a
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: buck to slip through, come hit a water hole in
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: the one fence roll or being right in front of
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: the stand locations, and then turn left to right and
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: go out in the food plots, and then you have
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: mocked scrapes there. So you're giving him the opportunity to
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: come through in a bunch of browlers and cover. You're
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: expanding those little wood lots overgrowing fence rows. You're giving
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: that tunnel through the middle that he can easily walk through.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: You don't want any overhead constructions, things that are going
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: to fall in. There's generation happening on both sides along
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: with food. And then he comes to that t he
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: can turn left or right, go to mocks grape, go
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: to food source. He doesn't even have to enter the
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: food plot. And if you notice the line I have
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: around the betting pockets on the outside corners of the green,
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: that's that line that I'd like to him to be
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: able to go right around the outside of the betting
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: pockets and diversity pockets and come right back into your
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: food plot. And now you've given him a line that
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: he can actually scent check, because he'd rather go to
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: the outside and downward edge of all that cover and
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: creation that you're that you're installing in the form of
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: those betting pockets, pollinary pockets and hidden in the swoot
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: grass now you're giving him a betting or cruising line
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: that you could just moll make it three or four
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: ft wide, and he'll follow that, and now he can
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: scent check everything on the inside. He's on the downward edge.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: You're on that same downward edge, but you're blowing your scent.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: You know, if you look at stand number five right there,
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: you would still have over a hundred degrees that you
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: could blow your your scent and really not get into
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: that line of movement. So you're looking at there, you
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: could get a west northwest wind, west southwest wind and
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: anything west, more edge and more lines for him to
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: and again nothing is extending awful land, which you talked
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: about earlier to deer going to filter off the land,
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: but you want to make it a slow filter. So
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: if you're putting everything parallel to your borders, all your
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: improvements are somewhat parallel to your borders. They come out
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: of the land, they turn left or right. You're monopolizing
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: the time that they're on your land during the daylight,
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: and then they slowly filter off to your neighbors after dark.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: That's the same in the morning when they come onto
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: your property. They're not just running right back into the
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: bedding cover. They're slowly filtering. They're feeding on the food
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: plots a little bit. They're slowly filter on your land.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: So when you come to stands ten, nine, eight, even
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: seven or three, it might be instead of a hurt
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: of deer coming back into that bedding area right at daybreak,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: you're shooting a nice box, mature box because it's the
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: back end of the movement, meaning those doors are out
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: in the field somewhere and bedded down. You're shoot him
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: in two hours after later, an hour and a half after.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: Do it the slow filter. I like that you're creating
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: the depth of cover, which is a do you guys
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: understand that hunter Jordan's upped the cover with that hunter
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: got his sunglasses on. I think he's got his poker
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: glasses on, so we can't tell if he's sleeping or not.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: He is moving every once in a a while. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: my feet are moving, soun. But give us the rundown
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: of what that concept is just a little bit. More specifically,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: the depth of cover is from a food source to
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: a screening line, two doze bedded behind that screening line
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: to finally buck bedding. There's a certain amount of depth
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: that you need to have depending on the region. For example,
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: up north um up in Michigan, northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, and
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: upstate New York, there's areas where box will move from
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: betting defeating through quarters three cords of a mile a day.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: That's a depth require round tier and mixed agg. In
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: southern Michigan, they probably lived their lives in a two
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: to three hundred yard window um from the beginning of
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: the season to the end of the season outside of
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: the rot and even then there's still tucked back in
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: their bedding areas. So in the case where we have
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: those white lines where there's that gourd shape marsh, there
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: might not be a hundred and fifty yards of depth
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: where you are currently living. And within that hundred fifty
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: yards depth with the food out in the field somewhere
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: there's no cover in the fields right now, then you
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: have to house do family groups, immature box and older
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: box within that hundred fifty yards on average. And depending
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: on if there's food on the east or the west side,
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: now you're you're confining that down where those doors want
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: to bed next to the food on the east or
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: the west that's right up on the edge of that,
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: you're you're providing a probably a yard wide window or
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: fifty yard or whatever it might be in the window
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: in the middle for a box. By expanding that out
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: with those white lines and taking in that portion the
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: property you could be six hundred yards wide. Go from
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: a hundred fifty to six hundred yards wide. Now you
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: have that depth because when you go back in that
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: middle portion, it's three hundred yards back, two hundred yards back,
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: and you have a pretty big window in there where
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: you have dos up in the fields or on the edge,
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: and then you're taking that entire gordon area over that
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: should be largely from mature box on a daily basis,
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: just real quick, you put five acres in the middle
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: of a forty acre parcel four hundred forty yards by
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: four hundred forty yards, stick a five acre field in
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: the middle. That means that from the edge of that
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: food plot to the edge of the land there's only
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: about a hundred and fifty five yards of depth all
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: the way around there. So on a forty acre parcel,
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: if you're six five acres in the middle, you're left
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: with hundred fifty five yards of depth relating to four
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: hundred and forty yards, so very poor depth to cover ratio.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: Take twenty acres. Put that five acres on the south
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: end of a rectangle of twenty acres. Now you have
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: three hundred thirty yards of depth going from the north
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: side of that food plot all the way to the
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: north side of the lane. And that twenty parcel, if
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: I was looking at parcels to buy, would be far
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: far more valuable than that forty if I couldn't change
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: food plot location, because in that twenty I could get
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: three thirty yards of depth that would be two twenty
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: yards wide, and I can establish doozen fons, young bucks,
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: and then older box back up in the three d
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: yards away. That cover ratio three yards to four forty
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: is a really good cover ratio. And if you look
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: at this land mark, I think across the top it's
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: probably a half mile wide. So if you're looking at
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: in some of those areas, I think you're gonna have
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: corner to corner, side to side, you're gonna have six
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: to seven yards of depth within their food plot on
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: the outside. And so a very very effective depth ratio.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: If you look at eight yards wide the widest and
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: you're getting six to seven hundred yards in places, that's
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: a very effective depth um depth and cover of depth ratio.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: And so when you just to reiterate or to break
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: it down a little bit simpler, the biggest thing the
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: depth of cover allows you to do if we're focusing
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: on our hunting goals, is that if we have a
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: greater depth of cover, it opens up the possibility for
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: there to be more buck betting, more spots for mature
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: bucks to hang out, because you're allowing there to be
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: that space on the back end. They need that back
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: because right the mature bucks typically in a bed further
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: away from the food than the doughs. So if everything
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: is crammed in a hundred yards, all those doughs are
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: right there, then the bucks that have to be directly
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: behind that and there's not a whole lot of space.
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: You might one two year old buck a three year
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: old buck and they're like, I'm not no other bucks
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: go on to take up shop there. And at the
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: same time, if and that's where it gets in the
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: complexity not to open another can of worms, but if
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: you well, when you when you add a lot of
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: summer food and you create a lot of high stem count,
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: thick cover on your land, including the diversity pocket switchgrass.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: Now you create the perfect fawning conditions because you have
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: high quality summer food and high quality fall winter food.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: The dos just crave for their summer funding grounds. So
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: you can actually create an excessive amount of dose on
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: your land to call the dough factory to where you
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: can imagine if you don't have a lot of depth
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: and does and fawns take a lot more pressure than
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: the mature box, you can easily And this is what
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: I see in that progression of property. We have diminishing
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: return as all of a sudden, five years later their
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: properties overrun eighty acres and they have forty dos and
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: fawns on it, and they have ten acres of food
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: and a lot of good cover, but no box because
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: there's so much stress. And then and then they've those
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: doughs have taken up that entire depth of cover you know,
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: on the land, so there's really no room, literally no
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: room left for mature box. And in those properties, you
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: have average hunting during the rout and outside the rut
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: unless you have a bunch of standing food in December.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: You have really poor hunting the rest of the time
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: because those box are staying off your land, their non
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: core box, they don't come into the middle of night
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: or the rut, and you get a ten day window
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: to hunt and outside of that, a good property to
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: me when you have effective depth, when you have balanced
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: sex ratios, and you have those mature box that are
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: coming on your land in mid September two October, then
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: that's the type of property you should be a hunt
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: from opening day to the end of the hunting season
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: and have a realistic chance at a mature buck that
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: you're targeting on the land and by chipping away at
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: them preserving that core area, then to me, you have
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: a very high likelihood that you will shoot him at
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: some point during the season because you're maintaining a property
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: that allows him to stay on the land and invites
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: him to the land to stay. And then it all
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: goes back to that depth. And you know, of course,
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: if you're pressuring your food plots, that's not going to happen.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: If you're pushing your betting areas, it's not going to happen.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: But when you're putting it all together, it goes back
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: to Jordan's question about um, you know this really doesn't
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: take that long because most areas of the white tail habitat,
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: anywhere they roam, the habitat provements are over pressure. There's
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: two many doughs. It's it's hard to manage. And so
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: we've worked on these fence rows. We've opened them up.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: We already have our diversity pocket. Since that we have
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: our food plot creating our butterfly shape and its great
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: depth of cover of protected area all throughout the inside. UM.
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: I also see you put in a couple of recommended
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: water holes. Yes, I want to talk about that a
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: little bit. Why why water holes? Why they're water holes
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: are incredible, especially during the road. Everyone thinks about water
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: during the summertime, but during the summertime there's so much herbaceous,
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: so much green growth, soybeans, alfalfa, that deer the moisture
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: requirements that they need are met by what they eat.
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: So a lot of times we'll see you like we'll
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: have a camera on a water hole and this is
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: going back fifteen years where we'd get eight hundred pictures,
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: have been sitting for six weeks and it's one of
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: those lantern desile. Remember the lantern batteries that used to
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: use for the first digital cameras and m pretty cool
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: because we you know, we graduated from thirty six exposure
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: film and now all of a sudden we can get
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: several hunter pictures. So we came back and there's foss
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: to go through. It was an awesome thing and it
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: took a while to go through, and we'd find that
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: from August September even early October that the majority of
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: those pictures on the water hole we're in the evening,
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: let's say seven out of eight hundred and and then
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: very few pictures in the morning coming back, and it
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: was because those dear bedded dry all day and they'll
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: hit that water on the way to their afternoon green
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: food source, so they're thirsty all day. There's really if
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: there's if these deer are bedded dry, they're not gonna
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: go out of their way a hundred yards, go down
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: to water, get it, and then go back to their
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: food source in the evening. What's really interesting is we
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: put a camera and we've had cameras and water holes
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: for many years, is that they had the bucks will
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: hit him here and there, They hit him in the evening.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: But where the action really heats up is the end
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: of October at the bucks will tell you when the
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: pre rod starts, because all of a sudden, you're getting
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: pictures at nine o'clock in the morning, eleven o'clock, one
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: o'clock in the afternoon, because they're moving and so they're thirsty,
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: and that's where the water holes come in, so you're
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: you're using water rules in mock scrapes, I recommend a
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: mock scrape at every stand location. I love the mock
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: vine scrapes. I love the vertical scrapes over the horizontal scrapes.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: I've been using them for years. Um but that combo
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: of water hole, mock scrape or mock scrape itself really
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: defines a lot of movement in front of those stand locations.
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: And I'm not trying to push any scent company. I
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: don't use any scent. In fact, I urinate on the
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: scrapes myself, and and that's the start them in July.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: But we find the bucks in the deer all dear
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: will hit them all year long. When you have those
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: established vertical scrapes in the right in the middle of
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: the trail. I like the vertical hanging about waist high
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: because then the does grapevine or something grape vine, if
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: that's native and natural to the land. Um up north,
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: you might look at trees that deer commonly rub and
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: they prefer to rub. And so jack pine up north,
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: awesome jack pine branch three cores of an inch to
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: an inch five ft long, and you want that weight
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: so that you can rub the preorbital glands you want
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: it for. Fawns does in all box, so all the
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: years that go by keep accumulating their scent on that branch. Um.
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: Beach trees, beach tree branches, beach tree rubs are very common.
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: Poplar or aspen rubbed all the time. The only thing
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: about popular aspen, it's cheaper. Wood doesn't last as long.
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: I like a vine because it's flexible last for long.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: The jackpinal lasts for a really long time. Um. Oh, hemlock,
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: hemlock in some areas. It's out in New York recently,
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: there's some really good hemlock stands out there, some really
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: good rubs in them. And so we took a hemlock
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: branch and put it down over a mock scrape that
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: we made um when I was out there. So hemlock
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: is another well rubbed tree. So if it's well rubbed.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: Then it's one. It's a oak, you know, white oak,
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: really good. UM. So there's a lot of if you're
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: noticing that they're rubbing, you could use like sumac for example,
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: but max an early season rubbing tree or bush whatever
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: it's classified is but that um breaks apart and dries
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: out quickly. So if you're thinking oak, hemlock, jack, pine,
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: and then vines they last the longest. Vine. We have
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: one right now. I shot a buck and if you
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: look at I think it's like mocks scrape results. If
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: you look that up on Google, UM, it shows we
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: talked about putting the mock scrape in two thousand fourteen.
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: UM later that gun season, I have a picture of
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: a nice buck taking a nose dive right in front
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: of the camera, right at the mock scrape, and you
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: can see me my little orange dot up in the
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: right hand corner. And then um, but that that scrape
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: is still there today. The branch has lowered like ten
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: ten ft. It's a big box seller. UM. But that
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: that would that be it's I can't even think right
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: now the fifth or sixth year that that mock scrape
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: is in use. It's cut in half. The deer cut
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: in half. They were stay ending two years ago. Now
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: the vines right in their face. We need I need
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: to position on a different branch. But it's just been
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: there so long, I can't stand moving it. Um And
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: you were saying too, and it's something that I just
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: thought I out haven't put any thought too. But they'll
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: like those vines. They'll hit them, like way earlier than
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: you think, every every month of the year, and so
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: we go out. We started typically in July with a
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: rake or a stick or a boot, and we just
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: rough it up and you'll find they'll start hitting it immediately.
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: New scrapes we put out in July. Um, I have
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: I have a mock scrape playlist on my YouTube channel.
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: There's probably sixteen I think it's sixteen uh um scrape
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: videos and even some recent as we put a new
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: early July. I was hoping you met there's a series
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: of songs you like to listen to. Yeah, that's what
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: I was thinking. But yeah, I know it's uh that
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: that playlist if you look on there, even the recent ones.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: We have mature box hitting new scrapes with in three
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: to four days of of of really making it, putting
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: it out and uh and creating that scrape. So always
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: including the water hole to narrow down buck women at
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: a stand location. And by the time you're making a
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: thin pastor that we talked about through the fence room,
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: you're adding a mox scrape. You're adding a water hole
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: if it's dry. If you're a bedded dry and they're
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: on the way to food, then the water holes appropriate.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: If there's water on the way to food or water
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: in their bedding area already, then a mock scrape is
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: you know, typically useless unless the water hole, yeah, water
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: holes are is typically useless, useless just because they already
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: have that water at either one. And that's why I
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: don't like adding water to food plots or I don't
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: like adding scrapes to food pots because it's already an attraction,
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: and so you're losing the attraction of the water hole
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: or a mock scrape that you could be adding right
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: directly at a stand location. Put your water holes in
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: sight or scrapes are essentially right. I mean they're at
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: bow bowshot like, yeah, within bow range, yes, but the
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: food plot is right there. It's not like keeping them
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: far away from Yeah, so I'll see a food plot,
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: and so that's where the thin lines are different because
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: you're putting it on food. But it's bowshot. But I
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: go to a lot where there's a two acre field
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: and they have a scrape tree over to the side,
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: and every time they go in and out of that stand,
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: they spooked deer regardless of others. You know, they just
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: too too large for them to be hunting without spooking. Dear,
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: how big a water hole are you talking? Are you
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: talking just like a little puddle or a pond or
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: I really like, uh, we go back. I just look
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: at a picture of my son Jake. He had to
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: be five years old, and he's sitting over a twenty
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: seven and a half gallon tank that we have dug
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: down in the ground in the waters funneled into that area,
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: and we found the twenty seven and a half gallon tank,
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: plastic tank, you know, five gallon drum cut in half.
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: It's just not enough. We'd put a camera on a
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: dry in ten days, and then the deer when the
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: when the use drives up, then they established a pattern
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: somewhere else, and so you can't hold a pattern, and
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: then it takes an other week or two to get
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: their pattern back. So we're playing this roller coaster. Um
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: so we found that right around a hundred gallons. For example,
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: ten gallon tank from TSC costs about seventy five bucks
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: and putting that in it's thirty inches deep three ft
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: by four ft. It's a lot of digging, but that's
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: about the amount. Like this year, our water holes m
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: and dried up, and we've just had so much rain.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: I haven't filled the water holes since I think it
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: was two thousand seventeen or two thousand sixteen was the
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: last time I filled water holes because you've had so
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: much rain. And so that is that good balance where, yeah,
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: if you do have to fill them, fill them up
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: in in mid October before the heat of the season,
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: drive out there with a pickup, you know, come right
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: into that spot and uh, those water holes are extremely effective.
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: And just going in there and and filling them up
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: and leaving in October and leaving the machine running whatever
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: used to take it out is a great practice and
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: then you're done. You don't need to add water in
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: November during the rout. You know, that's the only might
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: be the one time you add water to it, if
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: it's for whatever reason. Very dry soo's water holes. Um.
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: Now there's some machine dug water holes, you know, diameter
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: circle getting a bobcat in. Um. I've used pond liners
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: and um they turn out very messy tarps. Now, if
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: you dig them under the ground of foot then and
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: then you put a foot of soil, you dig your
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: pond a foot deeper, put the liner down, put a
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: foot of soil over it, tamp it down and pack
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: it down. Then that that can work. But a lot
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: of times that liner starts coming up, water gets under it,
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: heaves it up, causes holes, rips. So we we've had
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: a big mess before I've taken out. We actually used
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: pool liner and and took that out. It didn't leak,
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: it was just that the edges came up, the deer
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: push it over, and all of a sudden we just
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: have a big muddy mess with fabric sticking out and
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: we're on the least land and just look up bad,
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: look like crap. So so we remove that. But yeah,
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: so the tanks are a good really good quick and
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: you can put those tanks within the same visual frame
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: as the mocks grape. That's a good question, definitely. So
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: typically it's either mock scrape in the foreground or the
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: water hole and the other ones behind it. And we
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: have both ways. And it's pretty cool because you'll see
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: we run fifty video So by the time they go
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: into a scrape, you'll see them start to head a
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: lot of times to the water hole, but they're coming
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: from one or the other. A lot of times they
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: hit both. The cool thing about both those all I
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: mean we're talking at two minutes stop in they're off,
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: So you're not putting deer in front of your stand
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: location for a half hour. That keeps you from getting
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: in and out of stand trouble. They're just moving. Now,
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: what about what do you say to this? There's one
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: school of thought who says, don't put your trail cameras
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: right next to your tree stand locations because those cameras
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: might spook butture bucks. Yeah, absolutely wrong. What's your argument there? Um,
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: they just don't spook deer. So the problem is is
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: the and and we've done this week, so I've spook
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: spook proof video set up. Sweet, I run ratios where um,
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: like last year, thirteen out of sixteen cameras we didn't
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: even have a deer look at and and so when
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: cameras are spooking deer at tree stands. Um. For one,
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: I'll say I would invite all my neighbors if you're listening,
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: don't use trail cameras. Don't put them at your stands.
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: So it's yeah, yeah, it's uh so very very easy
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: to make sure that cameras are not spoken deer. Um.
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: For one, you put them six ft high or higher
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: high and angled down. Definitely, we've been using that for
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: many years. Um. Also a tree wider than the camera.
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: Also the profile of the camera hidden with brush on
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: either side or another trunk also blackout, so the red
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: eyes are horrible. The red in for it, they'll they'll
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: spoke dear all the time. If it's six just putting
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: it six ft in the air probably eliminates all spooks.
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: And then you're putting them at the tree stand specifically
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: so you don't spook dear. The reason for that is
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: you only change your cards when you go hunt that stand,
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: or when you walk by from hunting another stand and
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: you go in grab that. So in that case, you know,
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: on these fence roles, for example, you put a camera
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: in front of your stand, you put a camera that
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: you don't access from the front where the deer are,
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: your access from back where your stands at, and then
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: you might have some brush in front of it. You're
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: looking over a bush, whatever it might be. So you're
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: just coming in from the side or behind it, and
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: you're changing the card and getting out of there, and
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: so you're not even placing yourself in position where you're
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: gonna spoke dear. So I look at it like I
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: did a troill cam ratio video for spooking, and that
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: was a year and a half ago, and we looked
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: at I stated that if deer looking at your cameras
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: five times out of a hundred pictures or videos or more,
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: there's a problem. I look at it now that it
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: should be one or less two one two at most.
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: And like I said, we had thirteen or sixteen cameras
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: on three properties. We had thirteen out of sixteen where
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: the deer did not look at those. With thousands of
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: videos and picture the entire season, you can tell they
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: look through it sometimes, but they're not giving it that
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: stare and looking back and forth. And so definitely it
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: is a unfair advantage. If you're using the mant your
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: tree stands and but you can't put it on a
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: you know, uh, a stick and just put it out
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: in an open food plot. Those mature box will pick
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: those out no different than a um box line. I
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: believe Mark put one on a stick food plot. I
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: do have them on sticks of food, but they worked
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: for me, Like like like, I've had success with that a
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: lot and have not seen the ratio of danger. But
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: I certainly can't say that they couldn't get spoof sometimes
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: from them, and they're in spots where we're like I
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: really like using yeah, like I really like using a
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: mock scrape tree in a food plot to get those
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: are some of my very best locations on my farms
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: to get pictures of mature bucks. And whether that be
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: actual daylight usage or just like inventor, like if I
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: know these deer coming through the area after dark and
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: then it's getting daylight and then he starts the case
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: time to start moving out there. And so I've always
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: looked at these mocks scrape trees. For me, they act
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: as like structure, like bass or attracted to structure in
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: the field. So I've used that really successfully on some
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: of my Michigan spots. But you can't there's no trees
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: to hang Cameron. So I've ran these stick and pick
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: type things off the edges and gotten away with it.
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: But you just because they're focused on that that scrape tree,
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: I think, and as long as you don't have your
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: camera right in view of where they're coming up to,
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen trouble with that. Now. One of the
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: things too with those like a scrape tree. So if
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: you have these long, thin food plots, they're defining where
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: deer come in and out of your cover. So that's
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: where I put a scrape tree, and then I'd put
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: a camera on that scrape tree looking down the entire
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: food plot, and then i'd have there's I'm thinking about
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: my properties right now, there's only one or two cameras
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: where I can't shoot the camera with a bowstand front
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: with a bow, so they're always at bow stands. And
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: so even in case like that, I put the scrape
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: tree at the end of the food plot. That's where
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: you're defining. You want them going in and out of cover,
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: and then you have a stand location there they hunt
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: evening stand you know, evening hunting with when they're coming
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: out and then I'm hunting fifty yards back or seventy
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: five yards back for more of a morning position where
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: I'm waiting the deer for the deer to come into me.
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: But that scrape tree is helping to serve to set
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: up that movement that you're trying to define in and
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: out of the cover. Even if it's on the edge
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: and a long, thin food plot like that is perfect
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: because then if you do have that camera, you can
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: look right down the edge or right down the food plot.
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: And uh, and I'm talking purely like when we have
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: deer that spook by cameras, it seems like almost every
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: dough that comes through the area gets used to them,
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: even if it bothers them initially. Mature bucks are a
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: completely different story. And most people out there, they'll remember
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: a time where they got one mature buck picture of
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: a certain boker two and then that was it. And
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: I look at it, like a lot of times I
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: see that online, you know, look at this box. It's
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: on Instagram and they'll show a little video and the
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: buck comes in and looks at the camera and you think, man,
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: I wonder how many times are gonna get a picture
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: of that particular buck again? And that's it. Yeah, So
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: speaking of all these camera locations at tree stand locations
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: you showed on here some of the spots you would
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: want to put tree stands yourself. I want to talk
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: through some of these or you know what the basic
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: things where you were looking at for several of these.
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: UM to kind of wrap up three six here, sure, yeah,
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: I look at um when you look at stand locations
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: five and six, UM, and you could extend that a
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: little bit to seven, but definitely five and six and
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: then one, thirteen and twelve those are all out to
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: the extreme east or west. Those are all also very
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: important evening stands. They're all on food. They're ones that
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: you can get into, in and out very quickly. You're
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: hoping box especially during the route, will follow those feeding
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: lines or box in general just come out and follow
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: left and right and go buy a stand location. UM,
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: you have water holes or cameras and they'll they'll tell
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: you what's going on. So those are your extreme stands
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: that are all evening stand related. When you get into
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: stand two, eleven, seven and four, those are all kind
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: of intermediate stands where you could say, because you have
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: food that stretched out over hundreds of yards, there's a
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: really good chance like opening day of both season. Here
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: in Michigan on October one, you could have a box
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: that's even on your neighbors at daybreak, comes in, follows
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: the food goes right back was covering. He's going right
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: by a stand location, And so those are during the
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: rock same thing. You might have a buck that actually
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: cruises all the way around and then comes back in.
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: So to me, those are the kind of stands that
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: even you're in the rut um, could pass off for
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: fairly decent morning and evening stands. Now, maybe not necessarily
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: in the pre rot because they're either back in their
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: cover or they're moving in the morning. They're active in
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: the morning and evening. Um, you might sit in that
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: same stand, but when in so really good intermediate kind
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: of both both in you extend that to two, so
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: to eleven four seven. Now, when you get into eight, nine,
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: ten and three, those are pure cover related. Now not
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: to say that your cameras might be telling you that, um,
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: there's a possibility that there's a buck really moving around
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: in there during the daylight during the rot um, but
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: you're establishing those stand locations as pure morning stands. You
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: want to get back into ten nine eight, and it
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: might be that you think there's a giant buck you're
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: after that's in twelve and thirteen one two, you know
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: somewhere out in there, and you really want to get
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: into ten or nine wait for him to come in. Well,
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: you might go all the way around the property on
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: the north side, down the east side, and then back
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: to the west. And let's face it, you know it
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: sounds like a lot, but what are we talking a
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: fifteen minute walk? So you get into nine or ten
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: and you wait for him to come back to you
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: in the morning, and and you've gone on the outside
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: of where you think he's at, and so you have
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: fresh you're looking towards twelve thirteen one two. You haven't
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: spooked anything. And so for those who maybe aren't looking
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: at the image here each those three different categories that
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: stands went from farther to the outer edges, and that
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: was your your easy access evening locations where the outer edges.
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: And then we took one step closer to the swamp
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: those of those intermediate stands, and then now you're rut
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: bedding cover related stands with those inside the swamp or
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: just inside the edge type stands. And we're so if
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: you were saying, like, if you put like a episode
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: and you throw a dot right in the middle of
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: the swamp, that's like the the center of cover, the deepest,
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: darkest tangle of the swamp, and then you're just on
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: the edge of that slow range from that. Yeah, and
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: then you're also like I recommended a forestry maltron, a
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: bobcat something like that, and that can create that travel corridor.
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: For those that don't know what that is, that's basically
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: just like a supertool that car paths. Yeah, if you
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: look at um, it's almost like a giant curling iron
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: with carbine teeth. That's um three ft in diameter two
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: and a half foot in diameter, goes on the front
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: of a bobcat. It spins, choose up the ground, a
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: chew up too, sometimes a twelve inch maple and drag
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: it down, shred it up even as the ground as
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: it goes. And you could use one of those. I
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: have a lot of clients that use them or have
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: an operator come out for the day and they can
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: make travel corridors for deer extending through that swamp that
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: allow them to walk on a flat, um, treeless, shrubless
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: area and you're defining where your stand locations are. First,
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: I think that Bobcat it's gonna get stuck in that swamp. No,
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: I don't think so. Where it is right now, Yeah,
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: probably August or winter, And I like august um this
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: time of the year right now because it's dry. It's
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: the driest it's gonna be during the summer, obviously, not
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: in April May project. So it man be a really
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: good episode if Mark was stuck in this here. Those
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: things there, they're tracked and they go through some pretty
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: bad area. But I wouldn't take it in that black
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: mock back there. I wouldn't take it with standing water.
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: But they'll they'll go through a lot, especially because you're
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: using that vegetation layer and they're driving on top of it,
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: and the trees are knocking down, so that's turning into
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: the top of the soil um And obviously you wouldn't
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: you would not want to use round up or any
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: kind of herbicides down there. You're you're hitting wetland grass
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: and and um growth anyways. But once you kill that,
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: you're losing the ability for the vegetation to take up
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: the moisture. So you just create a beaver be very true.
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: But that sets up those stand locations back there, does
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: we If you look at this and you look at
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: all the ideas you're suggesting and all the planting you
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: you could, and mean, we're talking thirty five acres of
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: switch grass and a three to five acres of food
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: plots and multiple uh water holes and eight mock scrapes
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: and thirteen tree stands, and anyone listening to this is like,
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: holy smokes. Even I'm like, holy smoke. I feel like
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: we've done so much stuff out here already, and I
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: feel like that was holy smoked. There's so much to do,
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: and this is obviously working towards like an ideal situation.
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: When you are looking at like this is like your
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: ideal scenario, you look, you put this together like this
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: would be a perfect situation. Now, if a guy comes
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: here and says, hey, I have got limited time and
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: money and energy. If I were to do one phase
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: of this, or or if if tell me my first
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: step this year, and then every year, I'm gonna do
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: one small phase of this, and it's gonna take you
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: ten years to get there, but every year I can
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: do a little bit. The first thing for the first
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: one or two things to get started down this path.
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: What's the most important first or second step? And I
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: would say that's you know, went to ninety clients this year.
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: I would say that's clients. They can't do everything all
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: in one year, and it's a realistic so some pay
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: to have it done and there's a few that do
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: it um every year. They just put it all together quickly.
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: I want to ask you one question the switch grass.
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: How many fields do you have? How many acres of
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: fields you have? So I don't know the exact acres,
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: but I think it's something like acres. So I would
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: look at you have about fifteen acres of switchgrass because
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: you have the diversity pockets. Then you have all the
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: food pots, maybe twelve um. So that being in said,
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: when you just take the outside solid switch grass acres,
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: you probably have six seven eight acres of switchgrass, and
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: that would be that outside heavy yellow. That to me
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: is more important than even the inside pollinating years and areas,
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: because that establishes the protection of the of your property
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: or access you can. Actually, that's why I started drawing
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: in the switch grass first, because let's say you make
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: all that those improvements in the middle including food plots,
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: and then you don't screen them on the outside with
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: an effective screen, then you can't get on and off
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: your property. Now you just made your property worst. You
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: turn it into a nocturnal property. So if you start
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: with that switch grass on the outside, now you've established
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: those walls of protection on your property that allow those
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: deer to be on the inside of your property. Even
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: if the habitatal us you know, you just just a something.
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: Might use an easy analogies five acres uh five acre
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: wood lot. It's all hardwood. So let's say there's varying
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: ages in there, and you go in and someone makes
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: thirty quote buck bets, you know, betting areas on the inside.
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: And but you can look into that five acres across
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: a half mile field that's been plowed and there's no
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: security on the outside of that five acre, and you
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: can look right into the middle of those betting areas.
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: It's not a betting are now'll do no work on
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: the inside, but just effectively screen off the outside, whether
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: it's switch grass, conifers, hinge cutting a dirt berm, which
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: I've had clients to. Now that five acres is a
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: betting areas because a betting area because you've established the
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: walls of protection. Now a few deer can bet in
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: there and you can walk right up to that screen
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: five ft away and and they're on the inside. They're protected.
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: That's why it's a betting are because they're protected. Two
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: acre swheels sway in the middle of with soft maple
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: out on a hundred sixty acre field. You cut the
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: outside edge of that and lay it down and create regeneration.
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: Let's say it was box seller do the same thing.
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: The deer they're in that two acre pocket are now
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: protected and you can't see and they can't see out.
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 1: Make that all a trampoline on the inside with betting
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: canopy or something which I don't I don't advocate anyways,
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: the deer that are bedded in there now can see
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: you approaching from a half mile away, quarter mile away.
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: So that's where that yellow switch grass comes in around
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: the outside. The switch grass like to establish pretty easy
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: with the tools you have. You're gonna be a d
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: dollars hundred ten dollars with chemicals per acre to establish that.
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: But then you're gonna get a good solid ten ten
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: years without even burning it. So it's this is something
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: that you know, compared to food plot cost pretty reasonable.
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: No fertilizer needed, no lime needed, so you're just getting it.
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: You're important thing. No markets. You have to control the weeds.
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: So now the inside area, those brown pockets. Let's say
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: you want to do that in year two. Well, you're
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: establishing the switchgrass the outside. You can go up. You
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: can just do this and layers and stops, and then
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: if you have the yellow now or the switch grass now,
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: you can establish the food plat lines. And the food
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: plat lines are just a matter of killing and drilling,
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: so you can establish that really easy to Now you
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: have the whole framework of the property designed to put
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: the cameras out. I'm sure you get enough cameras to
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: cover these areas and these movements, and then let the
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: cameras tell you where to put the you know, put
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: from you know, you have to climb up a tree
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: and and hang from a branch somewhere. Thinking of the yellow,
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: we'll refer to switch grass continually as yellow for the
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: rest of the year. Um in year one, we're lucky
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: to get like four ft of growth, right, So we
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 1: talked about maybe in the year one we should use
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: a supplemental annual screen to Yes, you're gonna find that
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: um of solid growth around here in that first year
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: is going to be enough to hide you ninety percent
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: of the area. Now, those food plots you put out there,
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: let's say they're an average of sixty wide. Take fifteen
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: ft of that ten ft twenty ft of it. And
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: because you're not gonna have so many deer next year
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: when you first established was food plots, you're starting to
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: build that herd, invite him on the property. Then you
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: could take ten ft whatever you can afford of the
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: screening mix and put that on the outside edge, facing
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: your access on that long, lengthy movement of the food.
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: And then the next year after that switch grass the
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: second year growth of six seven ft high, then you
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: can take that out and convert it back to food
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: pot space to food pot space, so you're keeping the
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: same framework everything, everything is the same. To screen the
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: food yes, yea, and then take it back for food
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 1: on the following year because you're gonna need more food
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: plot perfect Jordan or Hunter, any final questions. We've kind
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: of covered each layer of Jeff's plan here. I like
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: it a lot, it's really interesting stuff. But what else,
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: anything else, you guys need clarification on no I think
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: I got. I mean, I'm a complete rookie when it
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: comes to anything that has to do with this stuff.
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: It's all so new to me, even though I've been
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: hunting deer for as many years as I have. But
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: I'm just constantly shocked at the amount of layers that
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: you can add to a property like this. It just
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: kind of seems like you could just go as long
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: as you know, there's just so many different things, even
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: on you know, sixty four acres here, that you can
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: do to really maximize what you can you know, be
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: able to achieve. True, it's kind of I know, it's
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: a lot of work. Um, a lot of the work
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: can be completed quickly. The thing is, you know, look
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: at it like you're establishing a foundation of a house.
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: And you're standing you're establishing that framework of the home
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: the people in the homer in the kitchen here, dining here,
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: living room here, here's your bedrooms, and you're you know,
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: a well laid and well thought out plan and is
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: created by an architect. And make sure that you're not
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: driving into the garage and then going through a bedroom
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 1: in a bathroom to get to the kitchen. Um everything's
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: laid out in complementary of each other, and you have
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: the walls of protection. That's what you start with on
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: the outside, which is a switch grass or the yellow
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: and and so you know, once you have this set,
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: it seems like the work would be endless, but then
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: it's just maintenance. You're you're making sure the switchgrass is thick.
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: If you need to burn it, you burn it. The
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: food plots are in the same location. You tweak a
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: stand location because when you're sitting there all season and
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: you wish it was an that tree twenty yards away.
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: But other than that, you might change camera locations, you
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 1: might move a box scrape, you repair mox scrapes. But
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: other than that, it'sis maintenance more so once you have
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: the foundation set that that's where I encourage clients to
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: work as fast as possible because once they have it complete,
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: then it's just kind of sit back in these chairs
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: were sitting in right now. Once you break it down
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: like that, it's a lot less overwhelming for a guy
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 1: like me to look at a piece of property. And
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: you know, as long as you have those basic foundations
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 1: down and you think about it like that, then it's
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: you can kind of breathe a little bit easier. It's
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: kind of like you know, as a contractor, you would
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: you wouldn't ever have your second bathroom through a bedroom
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: or your only bathroom to go through a bedroom to
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: get to that bathroom, or you don't have someone walk
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: all the way through the basement, go up some stairs
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: and go all the way back to the front of
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: the house with groceries after you drive it, after a
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: drive built and garage at the bottom. There's just certain
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: things that you don't do. The certain things like that's
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: where the perpendicular access to the stands, making the improvements
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: parallel to your borders, establishing that depth to cover those
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: are all really important principles that you have to follow
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: and designing the property, and if they don't fit into
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: that mold, then something else needs to be done. Because
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: it all goes back to you're establishing this land in
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 1: a core area. Houses, your food plots are just as
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: much sanctuary as your betting areas. But you're establishing that
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: those areas that is forty acres thirty acres, that's going
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: to be the largest area in this in this region,
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: in this area of Michigan that probably has high quality
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: food plots, high quality betting areas, deer movement that's not
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: pressured by hunting pressure consistently every hunting season. You're really
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 1: trying to take the pressure out of the hunt hunter.
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think I've learned more in the last
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: week than I ever wanted to about deer. I'm sitting
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: good on knowledge here to come around by the end
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: of this year. I think we will turn him. That's
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: my help. He doesn't have a choice, no, he hunts
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: rock corries at this time in his life. Sorry. Well,
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: on that note, jeff Man, we can't thank you enough
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: for taking the time to do this. I mean, it's
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 1: really been fun to get to see a place like
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: this through your eyes. And you know, over the course
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: of the last few weeks we've been able to chat
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: with all these different people, and everyone has all these
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: different ideas, and they all come to it from a
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: different background, from a different perspective, and it's been really interesting.
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: And yours is always one that I've um enjoyed and
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: respected so much over the year, so to get it
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: specifically on a project like this is it's just great.
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: So well, I I appreciate the opportunity, and you always
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 1: have to think with this and everything you do, it
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: all has to relate back to because we're all hunters,
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: it has to relate back to how you would hunt
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: mature box on the property. So if you're making improvements,
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: if you're putting those improvements in areas that do not
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: allow you to hunt the property as a predator and
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: get in and out with a high level of mature
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: buck hunting potential, then you're setting yourself up for failure.
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: Sol I come from that, that hunting background, and and really, um,
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: you that has to be applied. I mean you've you've
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: shot some nice box. Um you found it on public
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: land too and done really well. And so you think
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: about how you would hunt on public land. There's a
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: lot of private land I go to. I'd rather hunt
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: public land because it's such a mess that it's not
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: gonna allow mature buck to move around during the daylight
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: and feel safe on that property. So all has to
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: go back to that. And I think if you think
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: of that in every situation, what would have mature buck do? This?
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 1: Will this exposed mature box? Then that really answers a
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: lot of your questions. It's going to be very interesting.
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 1: It's such a weird property for me and like just
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: a having like so much wide open space to work
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: with and be actually being able to work with stuff.
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: I'm so used to just being stuck with what I've
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: got and then adapt to that that it's been like
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: a bizarre Then We've had a lot of other outside
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 1: factors like influencing what we can do what we can
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: do it, but it's been like a weird, exciting but
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: weird opportunity to finally have like the to finally have
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: the paintbrush and the blank sheet. Um, probably it was
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: overwhelming this year. I was like, well I can do this,
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: and then I kind of like threw the paint at
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 1: all the possibilities. But yeah, it's a very cool thing.
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: So with all the habitat, you know, again, going back,
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 1: the lowest hole in the bucket is how the land
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 1: is hunted. You can take great property, do nothing to it,
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: and have a really good chunk to hunt because you
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: hunt it well and you're using the lay of the land. Yeah,
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 1: and you have to take that um into consideration. That
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: really is the lowest hole in the bucket. You can
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: never overcome poor hunting. Habitats with any amount of habitat work.
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: And I think that's what a lot of people do.
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: You want. I want better hunting. So I'm gonna throw
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: all this these dollars in the habitat improvement, and in
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: the end they're far worse off because they haven't. They've
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: ignored that gaping hole of how the properties hunted and
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: how they move about the land without spooken deer. And
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 1: so that's what you know, I'd like you to do this.
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 1: Put this in playing, like I said, starting with that switchgrass,
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 1: because that that begins to protect their property. Yeah, definitely
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: like that. So folks want to learn more from you.
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 1: You've got a jil and resources out there where. Just
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 1: then folks to get more from Jeff Sturgis, you know,
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: really um to places mostly. I mean I do filter
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: things out through social media. Um. You know, I'm an
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: Instagram have a big Facebook page, but my YouTube channel
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: wait till I have to have solutions dot com. Um.
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 1: You know, I I tried to have a lot of
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: conversation with people in there, tried to. Most videos get
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: about a hundred comments. I try to answer them all,
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: and but I probably don't answer. I still try, though,
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: and then my website, and so the website I'll get
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: back to. I have over six d white tail articles
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: on my website. I have about three videos sixty videos
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 1: something like that on YouTube. On YouTube, I have a
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: lot of playlists covering almost every category of everything we've
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 1: talked about, even daylight, movement of box and trail cameras, UM,
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: switch grass, betting areas, whatever it might be. UM. So
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: even if you just sat interested in one portion, you
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: can go to a playlist and I'll have ten to
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: thirty five videos, depending on which playlist it is. But
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: between those two, UM, you know, I you know that'll
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: cover most areas. So I really appreciate it. You know,
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 1: I honored to have you come out. I know we've
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: talked a lot in the past and senior property up
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: north with your father, and you know you've you wrote
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 1: the forward for my food plot book. I think that
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: was two four, So that's going back a little way.
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: I'm getting old. I don't think you are. I'm feeling
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: but yeah, no, I I appreciate it, and this has
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 1: been fun. I love your property. Um. There's a lot
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: of good properties out there that have great diversity, and
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 1: that's you have edge diversity, low Land Highland, a lot
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 1: of fields that you can carve out and make instant
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: uh wildlife attractions. And it's not all about the white tales.
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: I want you to tell me that after you put
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: some sweachgrass in lines, you're hearing roosters out here and
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: seen a lot of rabbits on the field, to be
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: very excited birds and everything else. I'm very excited to
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 1: see this continue to evolve over the next couple of years.
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 1: So Jeff, thank you. Everyone. Make sure to check out
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: his YouTube channel on the website. Lots and lots of
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 1: good stuff. The books are all incredibly helpful. I've a
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: lot of the things I've learned over the years. I've
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 1: definitely learned from Jeff and uh, maybe in a year
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: to come back out and let us know how we're doing. Yeah,
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 1: that sounds great, Mark, I really appreciate it. And that
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 1: is all for us today. Thank you for tuning in,
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 1: and like I mentioned at the top, if you want
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 1: to see the imagery that we discussed in this podcast
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 1: with Jeff, make sure check out the Wired Hunt Facebook
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 1: or Instagram. Otherwise. Appreciate you. Thanks for listening. I hope
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 1: you're getting after some postseason projects already and until next time,
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: Stay wired to h