Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 305: The Back 40’s First Pre-Season

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Ep. 305: The Back 40’s First Pre-Season · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:12
  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 number three
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: hundred and five, and today in the show, we're detailing
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: everything you need to know about the on the ground
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: work that has happened at our new back forty farms
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: so far, and the strategy we have to start hunting
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: it in the coming days. All right, Welcome to the
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Wired to Hunt Podcast, brought to you by on x
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: um It's funny Dan. Just as I was reading that,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: um so, I'm here with Dan obviously, and as I
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: was reading that introduction, in my head, I was thinking
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: about a comment I read recently on a post by
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: meat Eater, and I was in some video on the media,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: your Instagram post and someone commented, and I quote, Mark
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Kenyan is as dry as a popcorn fart, not to myself,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: as I was just opening that line, like, am I
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: that dry? It's my voice that boring? I don't think
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: of that bed Dan, Am I No, you're not that bad.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: I mean you're not. Let's be honest, You're not the
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: wettest part out there in the world. No, I'm no shart,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: but uh but oh man, that's a way to start
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: the podcast. What what we're gonna do today, Dan, I've
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: got a handful of things I want to talk about,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: like an announcement, and then I want to be asked
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: with you a little bit about what's going on your
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: hunting world. I want to give a little bit of
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: an update on what's going on with some of my
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: local Michigan stuff. But the main gist of today's show,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: and I'm gonna be leaning on you heavily, Dan Um,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: is to put you in the podcast host seat a
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: little bit as the main interviewer, Um and grill me
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: about the back forty Um. You know, we we mentioned
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: this a little bit last week. You and I were
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: talking about the fact that we we bought this farm,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: and now I am kind of being put in charge
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: of trying to steward this farm in the future and
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: making a great deer hunting property but also by a diverse,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: high quality habitat for all sorts of wildlife. So so
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: that's like this charge that's been put on me, and
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I want to kind of get everyone up to speed
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: though on where we stand today just before opening day
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: of Hunting season, because we did an episode two or
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: three weeks ago UM in which me and Steve talked
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: about like the impetus for this whole idea, like why
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: we got a farm, why we want to do this project.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: And then the second part of that episode was with
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: myself and further and Jake e Linger and we kind
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: of did a tour of the property audio tour talking
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: about Okay, this is what this area looks like, this
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: is what Jake thought about it, this is what this
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: area looks like. This is what Jake thought about it.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: But we still have not actually talked about what has
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: happened on the farm so far, what work have I
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: gotten done so far on the farm? Um, and what's
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: the game plan to start hunting it? Like, there's a
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: whole lot that's happened that we need to kind of
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: explain to set the stage for the rest of the season.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: I think, Um, you know, you need that first chapter
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: of the book before you can really get into a story.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: So that's what I wanted to do today, is is
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: walk through everything that's happened that's led us up to
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: opening day of the very first Hunting season on the
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: back forty and and I'll kind of talk through that.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: But then I'm hoping that you can poke and prod
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: and ask questions and and help me dive deeper into
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: things that you're curious about too. So that's that's my
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: main idea. Are you Are you down for them? So
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: you're telling me that I am going to be like,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: and this is in um quotations hosting an episode of
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: the Wired to Hunt podcast kind of yeah, mostly that now,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, do they know this is happening? Because I
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: feel like some corporate guy was gonna be like, uh,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: not so fast. Hell no, man, I gotta keep this
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: on the d l Okay anyone listening, don't tell Steve
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: that this goofball chair. No, no, no, it'll be It'll
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: be fun. But one other checkbox, we have to hit
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: another kind of announcement thing before we start talking about
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Big Iowa bucks. Um. I realized that last week during
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: our radio episode, I kind of let something slip that
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: I had not talked about in the podcast yet, and
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: I haven't talked with you yet about on air, so
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: we just kind of have to like just make a
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: public explanation of what's going on. I mentioned last week
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: that was recording an audio book. I still haven't mentioned
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: to all of you guys listening the fact that I
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: actually wrote a whole damn book. UM. So, Dan, you've
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: known about this behind the scenes for a while now,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: um and I announced well announced on Instagram. But there's
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: a lot of people listen to this podcast that don't
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: follow me on social media. Ah. So for those of
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: you that don't follow me on social media and then
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: who heard this thing last week, like what what are
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: you talking about? The basic gist is, Yeah, for the
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: last couple of years, I've been alluding to this big
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: writing project, um over and over again, and that was
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: this book. I've been writing a book. It's about the
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: history and present in future of our American public lands. UM.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: And so I examine all the different things that led
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: up to the point that we are in today where
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: we actually have sty millions some acres of public land
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: out here, and then kind of start exploring what's been
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: going on here just recently, what these current events mean
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: for the future of these places. And I dive into
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: all of that through a series of my own stories,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: my own adventures on these places. So I share stories
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: of backcrafting, trips in Montana, fly fishing and wyoming, hiking
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: in Utah, camping and backpacking in northern Michigan, hunting in Alaska,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff like that is in this book.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: The books called That Wild Country an epic journey through
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: the past, present in future of America's public lands, and
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: it is coming out is being published on December one.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: So I'll get a signed copy, right if you really
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: want to sign copy, I absolutely would do that. Um,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: I still feel like that's a weird thing, like to
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: want to sign like people. A couple of people have
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: asked me for that, and I just feel like, really
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: you want me to sign it. I want a little
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: I want a little note in there, Like Dan, You've
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: been such a huge, gigantic, enormous influence in my life
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: and this book would never have been possible without you.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: And you know, just like just something simple like that
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: for sure, Dan Johnson. Every time I've come to a
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: fork in the road, I stopped pause, I think to myself,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: which direction with Dan Johnson take? And I choose the opposite.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Thank you for guiding me through life. Oh that's funny,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: that's a good one. Yeah, thanksy so I'll make sure
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: you describe that in the front of your copy, right,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I just wanted to like put it out
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: there so people weren't confused. The book is available for
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: pre order now. You can find it over on Amazon,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: And once we get to that publication date around December one.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: At first we get December, we'll probably do a full
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: episode talking about the book, talking about the topic. UM.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: I love to talk about the actual process of writing
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: this thing and how it came together and how long
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: it took, and how you actually get a book deal
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: and how you actually do something like this. UM. I
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: never knew about that stuff until I actually lived it, UM,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: and I found it pretty interest stings, So I thought
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: we could we could kind of talk through some of
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: that at some point as well. So unless you vtaeil
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: that idea, dan Um, I was thinking in a month
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: or a month or two, we would talk more about
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: it is what it is, man, It is what it is.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: You sound reluctantly like, Damn, I don't want to talk
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: about this, man. I'll tell you what I've all. I
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: thought about writing writing a book once too. Yeah, and
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: then I figured, like, I'm horrible at spelling, so and
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: I don't like like when you said audio book and
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: then I had to just like have one of those
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: moments where just like thank God for the audio book
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: coming out because I probably wasn't going to read it.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: That's okay, the audiobook will uh theo you'll be it
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: will either be a good thing for your bad thing.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Because I narrated the audio book, so you're used to
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: having to hear me a lot, so you should be
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: comfortable with that at least um, But you also might
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: be really sick of it. So I'm not sure wish
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: that would be for you. But if I ever write
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: a book, I'm probably gonna have a different voice narrate it.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: It's that guy from It's like sixty Minutes or whatever,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: that god what's his name, John something, But he's got
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: that creepy voice, like it was a quiet night in
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: in Iowa, the moon was rising, but little did they
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: know a mass murder was going to happen in a
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: small town. Like is that the book you would write?
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: You want to write about mass murder and like a serial,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: But that's the voice that I want to narrate mine.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: I'm just more interested in I'm just more interested in
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: where your mind left to like the first example for
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: a story, that is what came out. It's it's intriguing
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: to me. It's because that's all this guy does is
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: narrate murder mystery shows. Fair enough. I will keep that
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: in mind for your audiobook in the future if I
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: if I've got any connections and I know that guy,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: I'll send them your way. Perfect. Perfect. So uh, that's
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: the basic housekeeping stuff I want to get out of
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: the way. Just let y'all know about that book. But Dan,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: before we get to the back forty stuff, you told
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: me that you have done some deer hunting stuff, which
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: is exciting to me because the past few I don't
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: know handful of episodes has been elk elk elk um.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: So you finally turned your attention back to white Tails.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: What is going on? I'll tell you what I got.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: I got to get out this weekend and I went
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: back to my hometown for my twentieth high school reunion,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: which was crazy. You to see a lot of old friends,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: but then you have some really awkward conversations with people
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: that you didn't even hang out with in high school.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: And yeah, so I did that. But before I went
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: to that, I got the opportunity to go out and
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: do my my trail camera switch that I typically do
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: at the beginning of the of the month. But I
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: kind of broke my own my own rule, which was
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: don't go out into the timber in September at all,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: especially this late. So but I had to do it
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: because I just I didn't get the opportunity to go
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: do it, and I wasn't gonna be able to get
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to do it until after I got done
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: with my mule deer hunt, which probably would have been
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: man closer to the seven, like the seventeenth of October
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: would have been the next time that I would have
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: been able to get to that farm. So I took
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: down some trail cameras off the mineral sites. I put
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: them in some pinch points, some travel corridors, down wind
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: into some bedding areas. A couple of these cameras I
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: probably won't even touch until the season's over. They're just
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: kind of there for data collection. And then, um, the
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: crappy part was it had rained a lot in Iowa,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: and so I had to park my truck in one
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: spot and walk the entire farm with a backpack and
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: tree stands, on my back to go and you know,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: to channge SD cards, put up new cameras, you know,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: and it just typically would would have taken me probably
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: three or four hours, took me like six plus hours.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: And uh it just it just sucked. But I got
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: the trail cameras out. Dude, I want to hear your
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: opinion on this. Have you ever set up a tree
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: stand and as you're setting it up, you just get
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: these like, I don't know, like these visions or like this,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: this really good feeling about what's going to happen when
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: you're sitting in it in the fall. That's your intuition
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: to kill the kill set And uh yeah, dude, I
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: set this the stand up. It was down not not downwind,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: It's not gonna be necessarily, but it flanks this really thick,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: nasty betting area that leads up um a, this the
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: river bottom right, So it's like the deer come up
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: and they chill in this betting area, but it's right
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: next to a pinch point. So what I'm envisioning is
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: on this south wind deer cruising, you know, just cruising
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: back and forth, back and forth all day long. And
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: although I hate setting in a stand all day long.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: I my true camera pictures from the previous year in
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: that same pinch point are showing a lot of mid
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: morning activity with mature bucks. And one of those bucks
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: in this area is that Spencer new Hearthbuck that I
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: talked about. So he's got he's got potential to show up.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: I got a couple other deer in the area that
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: have potential to show up, and um man, it's uh,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: I'm getting excited. That tree stand just kind of got
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: me really setting it up and sitting in it and
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: where it was that and what I needed to do
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: and how I was going to access it is just
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: like this could be This could be a slam dunk
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: if the deer cooperate, you know what I mean. So,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: so why did you hang it now? Though? I feel
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: like this summer you were talking about how most all
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: of your sets you were just gonna do running gun
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: in season. What made you decide to get this one
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: up preseason? Right? So the own because I wanted to
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: be a morning hunt, Like the first time I go
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: in there on this is going to be a morning
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: rut hunt. I'm not gonna hunt this stand until November.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: And I wanted to make sure that I got it in,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: and I did not want to take any chances setting
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: up in the dark, right, I just want to be
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: able to walk to the tree, climb up, sit down,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: be quiet, And so I felt I needed to get
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: that stand in. Now every place else that I hunt,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: I feel like I can get in there way a
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: lot less of impact walking into it. They stand I
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: have to walk ways to, and it's kind of a
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: a bigger impact on the surrounding area when I'm when
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: I'm walking in. So it's one of those high risk,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: high reward type access routes. But at the same time,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: I really think that if I play my cards right
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: and wait for and when I say November, I'm saying
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: probably not until the second week when a lot of
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: the big dogs are on their feet. Um, the other
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: group of guys are typically off the farm by then,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: and I can kind of just chill in one spot.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: So you speaking of impact, like making an impact on
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: the farm, you you walked all over the place putting
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: up cameras, hanging tree stands and stuff on September or whatever. Um, right,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: I know you alluded to the fact you would never
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: do this, but are you not hunting still? For a
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: long ways. Though. When you say you're not going to
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: come back to be a worker cameras to October sevent
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: that means you're not gonna hunt until October seventeenth as well.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: So you're gonna give me three or four more weeks still, Yeah,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: so I'm I probably won't. I probably, I say it's
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: probably probably won't hunt that main part of the farm
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: until mid to late October, mostly mostly late October, because
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: I really want to focus my early season on I'll
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: still be at the farm, and I might still be
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: able to check some of those trail cameras. But I
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: have another piece of this farm which is mostly egg
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: and you've heard me in the past talk about these
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: buffer strips that are so uh. I got uh. I
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: got a trail camera in a spot there that I checked,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: and there's some decent deer still in that area right now.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: So I want to focus. I want to I want
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: to try to see what these egg fields are producing
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: and what they're holding early season. If I make it
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: in a couple of times before I start jumping into
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: the timber, because I think that the deer right now
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: are or you know, there's they have a wider range
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: right now, while the egg is in, while the corns
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: in the beans are in, and they can just chill
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: in these buffer strips, they don't necessarily have to leave. Uh.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: And then when those crops are out, they push them out.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Then is when everything jumps into more of the cover.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: And that's when I'll probably jump into the cover as well.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: So it's not like there's any big rush to get
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: into the timber, because I still think these deer are
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: not using the timber as much there and and my
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: cameras are showing, you know, a lot of stuff still nocturnal. Okay,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: you you you told us in the past about this
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: buck that you're considering centering your whole hunting season on. Gnarlie. Charlie,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: any update on him, Nope. Um, the last trail camera
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: picture I have of him is to let's see August
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: twenty something so, which is the same thing he did
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: last year. Disappeared right I got Um. The next trail
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: camera picture that I had of him was in the
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: middle of the night late October on a different part
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: of the farm. And then the next trail camera picture
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: that I got after that was like November twelve, So
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: he's shifted and he did the exact same thing last year,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: So I'm not necessarily worried about it. It's just he's
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: he's made the move, along with a couple other bucks
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: that somewhere around you know this this late August early
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: early November, um or excuse me, early September time frame.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: There's that shift that that I've talked about, and it's
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: pretty standard and it and it used to get me worried. I'm, oh,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: my god, where did these deer go e H D
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: got him or whatever. But I'm not too worried about
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: it because a lot of the deer showback up. The
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: closer to November. It gets Okay, well, I will be
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: patiently waiting to get the next picture of him. Yeah,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: So now here's the here's the issue. Though I can't
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: say for a fact that he hasn't uh, he hasn't
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: shown up, because I had a trail camera spot a
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: trail camera in a spot that he has been all summer.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: But and just like this happens once a year. There's
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: a little piece of grass in the corner that blew
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: in the wind, and it took like seventeen thousand pictures
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: and it just it took pictures every minute, like just
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: boom boom, boom, boom boom, and my battery and my
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: trail camera wore out and it died. And just because
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: it took so many pictures such a long time. Uh,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: and I don't know what that what that camera held.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: I still have to go through every one of those
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: pictures and check it out because you know that they're
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: still deer in the background and some of them. But
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: it's just you never know. So I still have to
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: dig through about fifteen thousand pictures. Uh. And it's I
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: don't know. So now here's the kick. Here's the three
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: days to to look at pictures, right right right right.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: So here's the kicker. Though, I have a four year
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: old who's showing up consistently, and I mean really, you
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: talking about your son, oh, I four year old who
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: very direction. I got a four year old on another
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: part of the farm who's showing up very close to daylight.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: I mean really close, like the sun is still not
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: down in the trail camera pictures. And so he's like
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: showing up right at last light. And he's been doing
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: this very consistently, right next to um uh, this easy
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: access route on the farm. But it's not I mean,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: he is a shooter, but he's not the shooter, you
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: know what I mean. So I'm kind of conflicted because
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: I know that if I go into this spot, there's
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: a chance I have an encounter with him and on
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: the on the right wind, But I don't know if
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: I necessarily want to go after him yet. Yeah, you
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: know you know what I mean, Like like that empany
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: night dilemma I had in North Dkota right right. So
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: we'll see, man, I mean, he's a he's a big
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: body deer. He's four, he's four year old. He's got
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: one really good side and then it looks like he's
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: got this gigantic fork on the other side with browd
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: times with junk all over it, like he was wounded
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: the previous year. Um, but he's a real good deer.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: He's mature, he's got I mean decent, a decent rack
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: on him, and uh, I don't know. We'll see, we'll
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: see what happens. Did you know the test you gotta
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: screen it by If when you see him walking in
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: he makes you go h, then you shoot the Dan
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Johnson tests. I've been telling you about this for years.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Dan Johnson tests. Yeah, that's that's typically how it works out.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: That's typically how it works out. O. Man. It's funny
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: you bring that situation up though, because I kind of
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: have a similar situation here in Michigan. Um, I don't
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: think I've given you the latest update on what's going
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: on on the other Michigan property that hunt a lot,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: the main spot spot where you know holy Field was
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: and where I killed Frank all that. Um, I've got
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: knock on wood. You know, things can change really quick.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: But I've got one of the best groups of deer
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: I've had on that farm yet since I've been hunting it. Um.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: There are three really nice bucks that are still on
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: the farm, hardhorned um. So one of them is a
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: buck that I saw a ton last year. UM. And
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: he was a two year old. Though he was a
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: two year old, just a nice eight pointer and he
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: kind of looked to me like a small version of
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: holy Field. So when I first got the very first
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: picture of him last year, I was like, oh, man,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: is that holy Field back? But he like regressed. Um,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't. It was this other buck and he
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: ended up just kind of following me around everywhere I
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: was last year. He would show up, watched him a bunch.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: He got injured in late October. I watched him all
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: through November, really gimped up, worried he wasn't gonna make it,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: so I kind of was referring to him as a
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: gimpy throughout the season. Um. But by the end of
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: the year he was moving fine again. Blah blah blah.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Now he's back. He is a ten pointer wide, very
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: very white antlers, like they shine in the woods. You
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: can just see them. Pop Um really nice looking buck,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: like a hundred and thirty class type deer, which is
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: great in Michigan. And Um he's a three year old though.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: And then there's another buck and he looks like he's
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: a big nine. He actually is a ten, but it's
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: one g four is really short, so I's been kind
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: of referring to him as the Big nine. And he
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: also might be a deer I saw last year. I'm
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: still not a certain if it's the same deer, but
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: I think it might be Um. And he again like
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: a hundred and thirty class type buck, really tall, kind
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: um just a cool, solid looking buck. And he's been
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: showing up a lot recently. Um Like I've seen him
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: multiple times when watching from the road. Um. Just last
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: night he was out walking through a food plot that
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: I could be hunting on Opening night if I wanted. Um.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: But the issue is both of those deer both are
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: like hundred thirty type class ten pointers. Um, they're both
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: three year olds. And in almost all of my past
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: years out here, that would be like a no brainer
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: shooter for me. Um. That would be if I killed
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: either one of those two deer, that would be my
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: you know, second best buck on this property. Um. But
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: because the three year olds, I just have kind of
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: had my mindset this year on really really wanting to
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: be a four year old or older. UM. And I
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: just can't convince myself that either of these deer or four.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: One of one of them, Gimpy, I'm sure he's three.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: The other one I'm still unsure of. Um. I need
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: to see him in person sometimes and that I looked
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: at him, like, God, he looks like he maybe could be.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: But but if I'm being honest with my stuff, I
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: still think he's probably three. Um, but they're both great bucks. Like,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: I don't know anyone in Michigan who would probably pass
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: on him. It would be very I mean, I'm sure
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: there are some people who do, but not many people
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: would pass these bucks. Um, so it's gonna kind of
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: pain me to see these deer and be like, oh
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: my goodness, I can't believe I'm not gonna take a
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: crack of one. But um, but I'm gonna try to
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: stick to my guns and hold out for a four
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: year old. And there's one four year old out here
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: who's that buck Trand that we've talked about, um passed
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: on him last year is a three year old. He's back.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: He's a really really super cool, tight and tall eight pointer,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: just a big frame on him. Um. So I've been
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: I've seen him twice in the summer, and then I've
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: got a handful of pictures of him. He lives in
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: the typically in one corner of the farm that you
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: can't really see really well right now because they're standing
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: corn on that side. But I do have some pictures,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: so I think he's around still. Last picture I got
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: of him was on the fourteenth of September. So if
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: he's alive still, if he made it through the youth season, um,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: he will be the deer I'm hunting and uh here
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: in a couple of days. I don't think I'm gonna
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: go out for him opening night. I think I'm just
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: gonna do like a long distance observation set because it's
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: gonna be like eighty five here. But a cold front
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: hits the next day, so I think I'm gonna observe
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: on opening night, and then the next two nights it
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: drops like twenty thirty degrees and high pressure. Looks awesome,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: So I think I'm gonna take a stab for him early.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Um with that front. So that's awesome. Man's awesome, He's cool.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: You mentioned you mentioned three year old. I my tricky
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: amber picks have showed me this year that the next batch,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: like this year's three year olds, are some really good
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: three year old. I got like this, this three year old,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: and you could tell his body not mature. He is
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: like a one sixty class ten right now, and he is.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: He looks amazing. He just like this, like the perfect ten.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: And uh, he's one of those deer that if you're
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: having a long rut, you don't want to see him
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: show up because you could get a little trigger happy
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: with him. But um, I got a really good stable
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: of three year olds this year, so I'm excited to see,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: like I'm already thinking about next season just a little bit. Yeah,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: that's awesome. I can't imagine seeing a hundred and sixty
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: class buck come running through the woods and then realize
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: that it's not a mature deer, Like I just can't
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: fathom what that's like, right, And you know, like I said, man,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: I'm not trying to you know, brag or what anything about.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: It's just like, this is the part of the state
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: that I live in, right, I'm just lucky. Enjoya dude,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: nothing wrong with that. Soak it up. Speaking of big
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: deer and awesome bucks and all that, um, we should
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: talk about the opposite of that, which is no good bucks,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: which is the back forty um and all seriousness. I
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: do want to like get everybody up to speed on
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: where things stand on that property and how I'm gonna
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: try to hunt it and what we're doing on it, um,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: what we've seen so far, etcetera, etcetera, because I will
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: be starting to hunt that farm very soon here too.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Um So what do you know? Did you know? Basically
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: we bought a farm and I want to start at
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: the beginning even before like this, because I am in
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: the process. Not it's it's the very beginning process of
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: looking for a piece to potentially buy. Now, it's not
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: gonna be forty. It is gonna be there fifty or acres.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: It's fifteen acres. I need to approach a farmer about it, right, uh,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: And I want to talk to them. I've already talked
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: with a banker a little bit to see what I
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: can get, how much down payment I need, all this stuff.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: So the first question to you about this back forty is,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: I know that it's not just you, it's uh, it's
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: like a business thing as well. But what what's the
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: story of actually getting this property, approaching whoever you approached,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: and actually purchasing it. So I will give you like
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: a really quick cliff Notes version on that because we
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: actually I actually record a full episode on that problem,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: on that whole process with UM, with Sean Kelly, who
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: was the agent who helped me make the purchase. So
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: so I will give everybody a very very very deep
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: dive into that. But I figure we're gonna hold onto
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: that episode until after hunting season because I think the
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: ind of most Peole this time of year, they want
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: to talk about hunting or getting ready for hunting. UM
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: talking really deep on buying land probably makes more sense
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: for the next year. But at a very high level, UM, basically, right,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: we we as a team decide, Okay, this is something
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: we want to do, this is how much money we
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: have to work with, and this is the general region
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: we are looking. And then I had a set of
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: criteria that were important to me, from like making this
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: be a place that could be good for hunting, but
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: then also with the other goals we have, like we
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: want to be able to have a property that would
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: serve as it's kind of a canvas to to paint
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: the picture of what private land conservation and small property
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: ownership is like. So I wanted to find something that
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: was representative of a wide swath of what anyone out
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: there could have. So all of that is to say
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: that I began first just searching online for small hunting properties.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: I was looking at like thirty acres to sixty acres
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: in that ballpark, um, and all within like basic driving
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: distance of you know where I'm at, trying to make
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: it a reasonable drive for me to get back and
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: forth in that property. So I was looking in central Michigan,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: southern Michigan, looked in northern Ohio, looked in northern Indiana.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: UM looked at east and west side of the state.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: UM and in short, wanted a property that I had
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: a few things in Michigan. If you're trying to have
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: a property that could hold a mature bucker, two, I
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: think one of the very most important things is having
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: like a sanctuary type of cover available. So either one
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: of two things, you get to have habitat that provides
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: sanctuary still like a big swamp, or you need a
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: property nearby that serves as a sanctuary, like a reserve
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: that doesn't allow hunting, or boy scout camp that doesn't
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: allow hunting or something like that. UM. So, even when
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: I'm looking for properties to get permission on, I usually
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: look for for things like a big swamp. In this case,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: I was trying to find regions that had that type
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: of habitat. So I was looking for swampy ground. I
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: was looking for ground that had lots of good, thick,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: nasty bedding cover. Again, anything that a buck might be
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: able to hold up into and survive a couple of
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: guns seasons. UM wanted that diversity of habitats, so I
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: was trying to find something that wasn't just a big
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: block of timber that wasn't just a huge field. Um.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: I wanted a little bit of everything. Um. I wanted
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: to find something that was in a good neighborhood. So
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: if we ever hoped to see mature deer in Michigan,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: you usually need to have some neighbors that are on
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: board the same type of thing too. Um. So you know,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: all the different properties I looked at, I was constantly
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: trying to find out about the neighbors. I was going online.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: I was looking at onyx and getting property owners names
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: and then googling their names and trying to find out
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: stuff about them, trying to see if they posted anything
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: about deer, see if they are on Michigan buck Pole,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: see if they had um been in a newspaper article whatever. Like,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: there was a property I found where I did this
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: and there was a local newspaper article about them, and
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: they shot two really nice bucks on opening day. Uh
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: so that was like a great big green lead. Okay, great,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: these people are on board, and that they were talking
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: all about how they like to pass on young bucks
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: and so on and so forth. So I did that
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: kind of research throughout. Um. You know, I wanted to
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: find the kind of place where you could also have
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to do a lot of different types of projects.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: So this goes back to diversity. But you know, I
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: wanted something where we'd be able to do some food.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: We want to be able to plant food plots. We
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: want we will work with fields. We want to learn
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: about early successional habitat. But I also want something that
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: maybe we could do some timber stuff, maybe we could
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: do some wetlands stuff. So again that's the whole diversity deal. Um.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: And then also just thought about how it would hunt
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: as well, So trying to find properties that you could
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: access to hunt, trying to find properties that weren't like
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: all road frontage, because I don't want to forty acre
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: property but two sides of it are along a big
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: highway and there's people all over the place. UM. So
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: first I looked online for these kinds of things, and
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: I took it. Took me months of looking. Um. I
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: think I've visited fourteen or fifteen different properties in person. UM.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: So I'd go out there. I walked the whole place,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: studying the mass beforehand, walk them in person. Sometimes I
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: do that by myself, sometimes I do it with an agent.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: UM scoured the internet talked to a bunch of people
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: on the phone and ended up being like a frustrating process.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Actually like did not go as well as I thought
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: it would go. It was much harder than I expected.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: Had a couple of properties sold out from underneath me
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: where I thought we were going to be able to
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: put in an offer, and then the last minute was
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: snatched up. So and I know I've told the story before,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: I think in the announcement podcast, but I was actually
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: driving to go see a different farm, and on my
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: way to go see that farm, which was what I'd
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: seen online, I passed by a sign at a different
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: property and I stopped and looked at on the phone,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: and it's just like, wow, that farm looks good. And
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: that ended up being the back Ford it that we
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: ended up purchasing um And once we once I found
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: the farm, I thought it looked good. And then I
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: decided to call up Sean Kelly, who was a agent
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: for White Tailed Properties and he helped us as a
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: buyer's agent. So he came and helped us facilitate like
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: all the logistics of actually you know, clearing all the
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: legal stuff, making sure there were any weird red flags
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: about the property. Things that we wouldn't have known, um
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: having not having this experience in the past, and he
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: kind of just handheld us through the whole through the
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: whole purchase, which which helped a lot. UM. So the
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: really quick snapshot version of it is is that that's
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: what it took to get the place. It was harder
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: than I expected, it took longer than I expected, UM,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: but but it came in. We got a really fair
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: price on the property. UM. It's sixty four acres. UH.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: It's got a nice diversity, it's in a good neighborhood.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: There's several different people around it that managed for for
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: deer and wildlife and their serious hunters. It's got great
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: sanctuary cover with a swamp um and there's a little
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: bit of everything. There's old fields, there's timber, there's ridge
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: and lots of topography. There's a big swamp UM. So
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: it has all the building blocks I think to make
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: it a really cool place. UM. And that's where we started.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: We we we closed on it in I think it
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: was the very end of April, beginning of May. We
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: were able to get on the farm for the first time.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: That's awesome. That's awesome, all right. So now you have
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: it right, Like what I mean, you get a you
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: get a piece of property. It is now quote unquote
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: yours right. You're you're the decision maker on it. As
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: far as what you're going to try to do, did
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: you before you even started that, did you have to
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: have like a little sit down brainstorming session about goals
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: and what were some realistic expectations of this farm in
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: year one? And then did you say, okay, well I
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: need a five year goal, ten year goal whatever. There
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: definitely were those types of internal conversations. Yes, um, Admittedly
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: I did not go and set five or ten year
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: old ten year goals, but definitely had ideas of Okay,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: what can we achieve in year one? What can we
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: achieve in year two? What would be where we things
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: to be going from there? Um? But there was a
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: lot of unique um logistical challenges with actually getting things done.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: So for me, right personally, I had a goal of
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: you know, all, I've got a new small property. I
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: would love to turn this into a great deer hunting property,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: and I would love to have the opportunity to kill
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: mature buck off it every year and then for it
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: to you know, be able to be hunted in proper
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: balance with the habitat for dose, that would be like
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: my personal goals, that's what I'd like to do, as
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: We'll turn this thing into a spot that would produce
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: a couple of mature bucks every year that you could
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: hunt them. Um. But then we also were trying to
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: do some different things in the farm too, So could
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: we also manage this place not just to be great
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: for deer, but also to be um, you know, providing
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: for the whole suite of species that might be out there.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: So thinking about things like pollinators, thinking about things like
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: songbirds and small mammals, native planet life, UM. A lot
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: more than I've ever delved in deep too as well.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: So really in the early stages, it was like I
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: know how to how to hunt deer, I know how
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: to make a farm pretty darn good for deer. How
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: do I do these other things? And then how do
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: I combine the two? That was like my big challenge
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: on the front end, and so I had a lot
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: of learning to do. So I read a lot of books,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: started talking to a lot of people, and started bringing
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: in a handful of experts to provide their opinions on
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: the property. But we had a couple of things that
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: held that up even further, which were the fact that
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: we wanted to document everything, so we needed a camera
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: crew to film any real work that I did in
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: the farm or any time I brought a guest out
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: on the farm, because we're trying to document this for
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: the show, for the back forty show, um, And that
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: just ended up taking a lot longer set up than
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: I realized. So even though we picked up the farm
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: in May, we didn't actually get to start until August.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: So for months the farm was just sitting there and
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: I couldn't do anything. Like I went out there a
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: couple of times. I put a couple of cameras out.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: I tried one small project that I just decided, you know,
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: I have to get this thing done. I don't care
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: about the filming it. Um. Otherwise, though, we had like
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: three wasted months, so like absolutely pained me. We had
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: this place for three months and didn't do anything so
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: our off season. We could have achieved so much more
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: in the off season this year, but just because it's
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: difficult to line up everything it takes to do a
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: project like this film, a project like this documented, you know,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: do everything we're doing with it. Um, I just couldn't.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: So early on, all I could do is I went
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: turkey hunting a couple of days and saw a bunch
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: of turkeys. Didn't not killing one, but there's turkeys out
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: there that's exciting. No other roost in ready to kill one.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: Next year, UM, I did that. I brought out a
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: uh local representative for the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Are
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: you familiar with the NRCS. I think it's it might
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: be something different Iowa, but they have it. Yeah. Yeah,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: So it's actually a national things through the U. S
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: d A. So basically, these are the folks that are
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: spread out across the country to help with agricultural producers,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: connecting them with various programs like the c RP program
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: also stuff like that. So basically I connected with the
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: guy who was in my region and he came and
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: walk the property with us, talk to me about what
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: he was seeing, and then shared with us what opportunities
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: there might be to participate in the government program. So
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: basically there's there's a bunch of different programs that the
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: government puts on UM that will incentivize private landowners to
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: do good things for their land. UM, what are also
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: good for the soil that are also good for wildlife
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: UM that could be good for future farming efforts UM.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: And so they want people to do that, so they
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: will either help pay for parts of the work or
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: sometimes pay your rental payment to actually use your land
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: for that. So you're probably familiar in a lot of
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: people are probably familiar with CRP UM. Basically, the government
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: will pay you a certain amount of money per acre
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: of land that you enroll in the CRP program, and
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: then what you are bound to do is manage it
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: to the plan that you agreed with the government to do.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: So many cases is planting a blend of native grasses
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: and pollinator mixes UM. And you have to mow it
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: every year, spray it every year, do different things like that.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: But it's able to put the put the ground back
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: into some kind of early successional habitat or something different
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: than just crops over and over and over again to
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: help rebuild that soil. UM. So there's a bunch of
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: different variations on CRP programs or something called EQUIP. There's
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: something called w r e P I think it was,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: which is a Wetland Reserve program UM. So we're looking
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: to like figure out is there a way that we
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: can get involved in one of these programs so that
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: will actually be paid to do good stuff for deer
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: and wildlife, or they'll at least help pay for some
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: of the seed, or help pay for the fertilizer, help
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: pay for the herbicide or something like that. Um. The
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: issue with all that is that most of these programs
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: require a long term contract and require a long term plan. So,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: like with CRP, if you want to involve enrolling that
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: you have to do it for a minimum ten years,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: I believe, and you have to agree to a plan
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: on the front end. So the plan would say, Okay,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna plant grasses in this ten acre chunk, I'm
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: gonna plant grasses and small shrubs or something in this
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: twenty acres. I'm gonna do this in this ten and
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: then you might be stuck with that. So if I
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: were to make changes that might not be in agreeance
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: with the plan, then I could be pulled from the
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: CRP program. They might not pay me. Um, you know,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: I could get in trouble. So it ended up being
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: the case that because we want to experiment and change
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: things a lot and try new things all the time, UH,
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: just it wasn't gonna work, and the fact that you know,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: at some point here we're going to give the place away.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: We didn't necessarily want to put it into a ten
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: year contract, give it away and then you know, someone
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: else being stuck in that contract. So for now we're
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: not participating in those kinds of programs. But it was
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: good to learn about it, to see what's available out there,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: and I do think it's it's a good thing that
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: folks you know about. If you want to improve your
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: property for deer and hunting and wildlife, you're definitely talked
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: to your n RCS folks, because there are programs where
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: they will help you do it. Um. And in a
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: lot of cases, this stuff can cost some money, so
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: why not get the government's helped to do that. And
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: it's a good thing for the larger surroundings. It's a
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: good thing for you, it's a good thing for your deer,
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: it's a good thing for your hunting. So I was
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: glad that we at least explore that. Yeah. Um, so
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: when you first got access to the farm, right before
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: you started talking to these quote unquote experts, you know,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: you know, hey, pollinators and soil, what did you know, know,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: just from walking the farm and looking at it, what
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: did you think that the farm needed right off the
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: bat without any specialists help. Good question. So it's it's
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: kind of simple, um to make this place a great
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: deer hunting farm. If I all you care about what's
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: great deer? It just needs two things. It has great
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: cover in the center of the property, has got this
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: great swamp. It's got great topography. It has that, so
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: it basically needed us. It needed to be a spot
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: to be left alone. So it needed a spot where
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: you know, these bucks aren't gonna be spooked all the time.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: And then it needed food. We had no food on
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: it right now. So I knew that if I kept
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: this area, if I kept bucks feeling safe in here,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: and if I planted a bunch of great food, and
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: then one of the thing, you can make this into
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: a great farm. The one of the thing was that
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: right now there's these six old fields and the property.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: You have to be able to get in and out
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: of the farm without spooking deer to be able to
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: hunt it. Well. Currently, excuse me. Once the leaves come
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: down in the weedy fields open up, you're kind of
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: left out to hang in some spots around these fields.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: Even if you're trying to walk the outside edges of
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: the property, if you have food planted in the middle
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: of these fields, you're gonna be feeding them in need
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: the evening, or feeding them in the early morning in
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: your or spook them coming in and out. So the
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: trick with this whole property was getting enough food in
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: here to make deer use it and to have deer
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: coming in and out and become patentable. But somehow do
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: that in such a way that you're not spooking deer
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: every time you try to hunt them. That was like
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: the one big trick to the place. Kind of like
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, they're overgrown fields, so like every layer as
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: of right now, most of these fields are four to
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: six ft tall and weeds and very thick, and so
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: a deer could walk through it and they would never
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: see anyone or anything. But I think once it gets
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: cold so here in the next few weeks, the next month,
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: a lot of leaf cover is gonna die. It's gonna
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: come down, and now we're gonna be left with stocks
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: and so then it will be much more open. Now
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of rolling hills on the property, so
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: the terrain itself will shield you, and so in a
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: lot of areas, you can move around the outer edge
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: of the farm and be quite shielded from much of
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: the rest of the property. Just by the case you
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: can move around hills. But still if you if you
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: tried to plant too great, big five acre food plots
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: in the middle of those fields, there's just gonna be
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: way too much visibility. So from the pure deer hunting perspective,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: I knew I had to do two things. I had
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: to get food in the ground, but I had to
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: get it placed in such a way that deer one
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: get be getting spooped out of it. So I needed
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: to be able to move around the farm around those
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: food plots in those fields farther enough away from the
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: deer would be, or have the deer move across the
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: property in such a way that I would know that
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: at certain times a day, I could move to the
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: east and get past where they shouldn't be deer, or
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: go to the south and there wouldn't be deer at
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: that point. Um Or what I could do is I
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: could plant screening cover around these food plots or around
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: certain parts of the property to create you know, walls
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: of vegetation, and you've heard me talk about that in
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: the past, right, Um. I've used that on the Michigan Farm,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: the other Michigan spot. I hunt a lot where I
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: can plant, you know, like this wall of sorghum that
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: just blocks vision, and so I try to do that.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: That's the one small project, and we talked about it
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: this summer. Tried to plant that earlier this summer and
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: it was just a complete failure. I tried to do
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: it no till because we're trying to instill this whole
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: no tail approach to how we plant, which is better
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: for the soil and in the water and everything. Um,
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: but it did not work this spring. Um what I
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: tried to do. So so basically what we have now
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: is our screens didn't come in well at all. I
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: tried to replant in early August, which is really really
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: really late, but I tried. Anyways, we got some stuff
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: to grow, but it's not really all at tall. So
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: I just do not know what we're gonna be dealing
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: with as far as visibility, Like, are we how much
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: can I hunt this place without spooking the heck out
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: of all these deer because it's not as broken up
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: as I'd wanted yet, and we don't have enough good
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: cover that stands into the winter. Um. So when we
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: get to next year, A big thing we'll be doing
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: next year is trying to convert these old fields from
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: just negative from just weedy invasive pieces two more native
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: grasses to some taller growing species that will stand up
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: straight through the cold weather, so that maybe some switch grass,
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: maybe some some different native cool season or warm season grasses,
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: some different wildflowers, probably will plant some screens, maybe plant
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: some trees or shrubs. Um. But trying to break up
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: these wide open fields into much more diverse and thick
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: cover UM, that will be the that will be the
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: next step. But I just couldn't you know, pushing all
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: of our work into the last month of the summer
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: resulted in us just not being able to tackle anything
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: of that large scale unfortunately. So you mentioned, you know,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: you haven't really thought about a ten of your plan.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: So is that going to affect what kind of trees
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: you're potentially going to be planning? Right, Let's say like oaks.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: You know, a tree that takes a long time to
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: produce food. So I know there's different versions of oaks
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: that you know, some some produce acorns earlier as opposed
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: to a twenty five year stand. Yeah. Yeah, um, I
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: think that we will try to still be making decisions
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: with the long term and view, even if we're not
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: going to be the ones benefiting from it. I still think,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: you know, you always here, when's the best time to
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: plant tree? You know, yesterday or today? Um, even if
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to benefit from a great big oak
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: dropping acorns, you know, we're still trying to set the
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: foundation for this place to be really special, whether it's
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: five years from an hour or fifty years from now.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: I'd like to say that we're doing things that will
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: be good for for any timeline. So so yeah, I
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: think next year I will definitely be looking at short
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: term mass producers, so some quick growing you know, apple
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: trees or things like that, or where I've even looked
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: at getting some that are already pretty well grown. You
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: can move in some big ones and get them, you know,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: get a big hole dug and transplanted with equipment. Um,
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: maybe they'll the opportunity to try a couple of a
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: couple of things like that, but yes, we'll mostly have
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: to be planting mass trees or whatever kind tree, knowing
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: that it will be years and years and years and
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: years before it'll produce food or any really significant wildlife value. Um.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: But we're just gonna balance that with projects that do
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: have immediate impact. So we'll be doing some things that
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: will be long place, that will be for the future folks,
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: and there'll be some things that are immediate place, like
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: simply planning a food plot. That's something that's gonna help
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: us today. So we had to do some stuff like that. UM.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: So it's kind of that balancing act, trying to fare
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: out what's going to be good in the long term,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: what's gonna help us now. So I know that. UM.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: You know when when people get into a scenario like
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: you guys, and they start doing this, this habitat work.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: You know, some habitat work overlaps for different species, Like
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: if I plant, if I plan in a CRP field,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: then it's gonna be good for the deer, but it's
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: also going to potentially be good for you know, some
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: other upland birds, pollinators, whatever. Did you guys sit down
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: and have a conversation Like, I'm a deer hunter, so
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: the habitat is going to be deer first and turkey second,
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: and you know pheasants third or whatever, or because you know,
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: if you have a priority of species, it may it
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: may help you determine what habitat project that you want
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: to do. And let's say, if you plant trees, it
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: may not be good. And this is all hypothetical, of course,
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: if you plant if you plant trees, it may not
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: be good for the pheasant population, or if you plant
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: more crp uh, it may still remain wide open. Right,
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: we have not set an absolute prioritized list of species
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: um but we have kind of set the high level goal. Now,
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: again we haven't fegared out how to quantify this, but
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: we want to manage for biodiversity and native wildlife and
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: plant life while also putting a priority on deer hunting.
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: So so can we bring those two things together. So
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: I'm always thinking about deer hunting, which is the main
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: type of hunting. Right, We'll turkey hunt, we'll do some
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: small game hunting, but the main thing is gonna be deer.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: So everything always passes through that filter because that requires
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: the most strategy around it, putting things in specific places,
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: organizing them in a certain way, putting this in the front,
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: and this in the back or things like that that
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: will matter from a deer perspective. But like you said,
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: we can then also think about, okay, what are the
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: types of habitat that all these other species need. And
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: then you can think about, okay, where how can we
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: get those types of habitat in places that it helps
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: the deer hunting while also still managing these all all
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: the presence of all these other species. So, for example,
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: there is the goal of doing something on this farm
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: to promote pollinator life. Right they need flowers, they need
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: high quality food sources, and and pollinators are struggling across
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: the nation right now. There's a lot of issues of insects, bees, butterflies,
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: um populations plummeting. So I knew we wanted to go
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: into this and think about ways we can help pollinators
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: on this property now. At the same time, when I
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: look at the farm from a deer hunting perspective, right now,
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: I can see there's two big old fields that are
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: in the front of the property, closest to the road.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: I call this spot the panhandle. You can't get in
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: or out of the farm without walking through the two fields.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: This is narrow strip of land that approaches the road
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: that's the only access points, the only only road furnish,
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: so I know I have to come in and out
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: every single time I hunt the property. Because of that,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: it would be really hard to plant any kind of
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: deer food up in those fields, like a big food
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: plot or something without spooking deer all the time because
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: you'd always be walking within like fifty yards of them.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: So this was a big flashing light to me, like, hey,
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: here's ten acres that you can't do much from a
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: strategic deer hunting perspective, but it's an open field. This
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: is a perfect spot you could do a pollinator focus
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: area that won't damage your hunting, but it will provide
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: great habitat for all sorts of creatures, especially pollinators and birds.
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: And it's in the place that if it's both goals,
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: So like, that's a great example of how I'm trying
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: to do these two things and pass them through the
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: lens of the filter of hunting. Um There'll be other
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: spots on the farm where it is a great spot
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: for a hunting focus, for a deer focus. So instead
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: of having a whole field with nothing but pollinator blends
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: and wild grasses, I will put in a focused food
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: source like a food plot. Um. There's another challenging situation
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: where there's one corner of the farm where there's really
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: interesting ridge system. In this ridge system, there's a bunch
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: of grasses, cedars, autumule of trees, oak trees. It is
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: a dynamite hunting spot. Like it's a perfect transitionary. Coming
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: out of the swamp, you get into this kind of scattered,
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: patchy cover. It's just tore up with old rubs and scrapes,
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: like I'm gonna kill buck there. I think, if I'm
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: gonna if I'm gonna kill a buck on this farm,
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: that's probably the best spot, the most likely spot it
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: could happen. But at the same time, we brought in
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: an ecologist, um, a state biologist here in Michigan, and
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: he looked at that area and he saw that it
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: was a native It was actually a remnant prairie ecosystem
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: from hundreds and hundreds of years ago. He said, there's
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: species here that don't exist anywhere else in the county.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: And he was he was floored. He was so excited.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: He said, this was this is what it used to
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: be like all over the place. But everyone came in
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: and Gray's did or tilted under or burned it or
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: paved over it. And there's there's no spots like this
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: left anywhere. This is such a special thing. And he said,
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: you've got to manage it to restore this native prairie ecosystem.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: To do that, he said, you gotta rip out the cedars,
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: you gotta rip out the autumn off, you gotta rip
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: out the trees, you gotta burn it all. And I'm thinking,
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: oh my god, I would You would completely destroy what
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: is our best deer hunting habitat in the farm if
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: we did that. So that's the kind of dilemma I'm
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: faced with, which is how do I manage these two
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: different sets of goals? And I don't think we're ever
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: gonna I think what I'm learning is that we're never
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: going to hit any one of these things perfectly in
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: this situation because I'm not focused tent just on deer.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: This isn't gonna be perfect for deer and deer hunting.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: And I'm not going to manage this place one thousand
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: percent just for native wildlife or native plant life in
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: prairie ecosystems. So this isn't gonna be perfect in that situation,
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: I'm going to try to do a little for both
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: in a way that can benefit both in some way.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: So we still haven't decided how exactly we're going to
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: manage this specific example, but I think there's a way
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: I can do some things to benefit that praier ecosystem
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: while still preserving the hunting quality there. And I think
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: that's the same type of example on the sea in
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: multiple different regions of this property as we go through it,
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: um and and and how it's going to play out
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: in each one, I don't know yet, but but that
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: is the type of mental gymnastics I'm working through right now.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: Right and so we brought, you know, to just to
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: kind of expand off that We've brought in a number
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: of different people, and we're going to continue bringing a
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: number of different people who can give us these different
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: perspectives on it. So we brought in a few people
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: that look at a farm like very much from a
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: deer hunting perspective. So Jake Linger is like a white
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: tail habitat consultant. We brought in Jeff Sturgis, who's obviously
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: a white tail habitat consultant. Um. Then we brought in
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: this guy named dan Z who's a state ecologist, and
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: we brought in um Like I mentioned Marcus who was
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: from the NRCS, and we brought in uh Bench Lanker
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: who is an apiarist and so he's looking at the
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: habitat from a b perspective. We brought in a burder
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: this guy, and Pat Hogan who looks at the place
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: from what the birds need. UM. This offseason, when we
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: have more time, we're gonna bring in a lot more
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: people with diverse perspectives. And so when you get all
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: these different ideas from all these different people that look
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: at the same six or four acres through very different lenses,
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: you know they're gonna put on a very different set
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: of glasses and look at this place and tell me something.
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: And and then I just have to kind of try
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: to take a little bit from each person and see
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: if we can make something that all together is um
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: cohesive but still in the end be able to hunt
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: it well too. Yeah, you know, talking about secondary species
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: like white tails, I mean setting aside white tails in Turkey, right,
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: those are like the two main hunted species like in
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: the eastern part of the United States. But have you
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: put any thought into a secondary species like what not
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: necessarily maybe just hunting, but what you would like to
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: see running around on that farm. I mean, what we'd
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: like to see is just about every mammal species that
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: lives in south central or central Michigan UM being present
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: on that farm. That would be a really cool thing.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: So if you could have all the main wildlife this
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: should be in this area of Michigan present, that would
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: be a win. Um. We of course can't have all
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: bird life, but it would be really cool to see
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: some upland wildlife again. So pheasants are are kind of
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: clinging on and little patches here and there in central Michigan.
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: It'd be cool to see them show up again. UM.
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's possible, but I do know
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: in this general region there are some restoration efforts underway,
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: so that's something to consider. Um, we're trying to get
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: a baseline idea of of what the mammal and bird
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: life is right now. So I can't remember what the numbers,
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: but something like ten or eleven different mammal species I've
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: either seen in person or got pictures of, and then
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: we've tracked twenties six different bird species so far. So
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: we're gonna track that and and see what that trajectory
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: is over the coming you know, months and years. Um.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: So I've got those lists going to try to just
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: see what the trend is. UM. That's really cool that
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: you're you're documenting this on a on a very detailed scale,
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: like how many you said, twenty six different bird species? Yeah,
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: the first day we went out with documented twenty two.
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: That was the beginning of August, and since then of
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: have spotted four others specs. Okay, so you're you're sitting
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: there and you're calculating, so basically, how how are you
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: going to see if your habitat is working, if there's
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: more of the current species, or if there's additional species.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: I think that show up. I think it should be
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: a little bit of both. But again I don't really
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: know how to fully quantify that. I can quantify how
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: many new species, right, I can tell you that, you know,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: in early August two thousand nineteen, we spotted twenty two
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: bird species on this day. We could show up next
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: year on the same day in August and we could
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: see how many you know, how many different species per day?
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: Do you see? That might be a way to quantify it,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: and so do like a survey handful of times a
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: year and see how that trends. UM. Seeing the overall
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: number of different species trending up would probably indicative of UM,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: indicative of a positive direction. But how you can I
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: don't know how to quantify the actual overall number or
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: density of this kind of wildlife, you know, like I
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: don't know how I can go out on this farm
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: and tell you that we have more birds than we
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: had a year ago in general, other than by those
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: couple of things I said, or the same thing with bugs. UM,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: it's gonna have to be a little bit subjective. It's
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: gonna have to be a little bit you know. We've
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: tried to document very well what this place looks and
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: feels like at the beginning, and then hopefully we can
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: come back towards the end of the project and get
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: an idea of how it looks and feels and what
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: you see and what you experience out there, and hopefully
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: it feels and looks and UM plays out very differently,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: and that would be hopefully in the observations of wildlife
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: and the documentation of bird life, in the diversity of
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: plant life species in certain places and the adherence to
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: what certain types of ecosystems should be like. So in
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: our wetland, you know, in a perfect world, hopefully we're
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: able to remove some of the invasive species that are
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: in there. And if we're able to do that, that
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: would increase the amount of standing water that's left in
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: this area, which maybe would lead to more ducks maybe
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: using the area, or different things like that. So hopefully
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: each one of these little zones will be able to
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: see a positive direction to so that native prairie area,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: hopefully we'll be able to see that be have even
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: more diversity of of remnant prairie species. UM In some
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: of these big old open fields, hopefully we'll go from
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: just having like two species of plants in a square
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: meter to ten species of plants in a square meter. UM.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: Those types of smaller scale goals or or observations, I
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: think we'll probably start telling us that we're moving in
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: the right direction. Okay, So with all that said, the
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: habitat are great, right, You're still a deer hunter at heart.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: Are you going to try to let the let nature
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: do most of the work and feeding the white tails
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: or how have you guys made the decision um too
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: on this st acres. How much be designated to your
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: to your standard food plot. Yeah, so we definitely decided
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: that additional food is necessary. Um. These old fields are
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: mostly invasive Mayor's tail, which is a junk weed. It
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: provides almost no wildlife cover, almost no wildlife nutrition. Um,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: it's just kind of junk and deer aren't going to
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: feed on it very much from what I understand. So
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: we definitely wanted to have some supplemental food that would
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: a help deer from a health perspective. But then absolutely
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: not a shame to say it at all, like it's
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: going to help us a big way in a hunting way,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: Like we need something that's going to move deer across
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: the farm or to stay and hang out on our farm. Um,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: when they otherwise would not if we had nothing in there. Right,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: if we didn't, we'd have some cover. They would pass
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: through for sure, but they'd be in and out and
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: off to the neighbors very quickly. Um. And then a
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: mature buck might never walk around in daylight in these
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: spots if he's just gonna hang out in the in
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: the cover. If there was one and then a dark
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: head off to a neighbor in Cornfield or something. So
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: I definitely want to get some food in this year.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: That was like the one project we had time to do. Basically,
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: what the timeline looked like is an early August. In
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: the first two weeks of August, we were able to
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: get a camera cra out and we're able to document
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: some of these tours. So we had the burder, we
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: had the bi guy, we had a couple of colleges,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: we had the consultants come out with Steve come out,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: and so we got like the tours of the farm
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: as it was. That got done the first two weeks
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: and then we basically had like seven eight nine days
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: after that to try to get some work done. That's
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: not allow of time to get any kind of real
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: work done, um, but we were able to get some
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: food plots planted and we were able to get it
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: set up to hunt decent for the first season. That's
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: kind of all we were able to get done in
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: that short amount of time. So yes, we planted probably
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: an acre and a half two acres of food spread
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: out across these six old fields in a strategic way
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: that would hopefully keep the you're in the center of
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: the farm um moving across the farm in a way
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: that there'd be deer movement that we could see and hunt,
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: but leaving gaps in certain spots that would allow us
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: to get in and out to hunt them without spooking
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: the deer. So that was kind of the whole gist
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: with the food plots. How do we place them in
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: these spots to do that? So they're narrow food plots,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: They're they're long and narrow food plots, and they're tucked
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: into like the low hills and valleys and bowls in
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: the terrain so that they're mostly visually hidden. UM. And
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: they kind of extend out of the swampy cover and
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: across these hills down the low spots on both sides
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: of the swamp. So there's like a there's kind of
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: it's almost like a road. There's like a winding road
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: that goes along the east side of the swamp, and
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: there's a winding road that goes on the west side
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: of the swamp. Hopefully, depending on what the wind directions
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: on any given day, you could hunt either side of
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: the swamp. This is assuming it's not the rotten you're
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: not going into the thick stuff. Yeah, Um, you could
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: hunt on one side of the swamp or the other
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: and be safe from a win perspective, and still see
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: deer moving out utilizing those food plots for some portion
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: of daylight, and then after dark hopefully they would move
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: off to the neighbors farms where there's some egg. UM.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: That's the high level idea. UM had a hell of
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: a time trying to get the food plots in just
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: you know, I think I alluded to We talked about
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: some of this stuff this summer, but even once it
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: got to the to the actual work on these plots
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: here at the end of August, had some all sorts
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: of equipment issues. Could not get We got a mower
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: because we had to mow trails and had to mow
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: these weeds down because there's some serious weed growth. UM.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: I had a hecko time trying to get the stupid
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: mower to work. But we finally got that going. But
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: that was like a whole day wasted just on the mower. UM.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: Then I had to try to figure out how to
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: use a no till drill, which I mean, you know me,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: I struggle with equipment of any kind. I have no
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: farming experience otherwise other than just like these little dinky
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: food plots have been able to do here and there, um,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: and then this was like a serious piece of equipment.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: So that took a long time to get figured out,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: but but it did eventually get it figured out. So
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: we were able to plant that with a no till drill.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: So that's cool because that's going to provide a lot
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: of soil benefits that we're excited about for next year. Yeah. Um,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: But where we stand at the end of you know,
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: that like ten day period, is we we got, like
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: I said, like maybe an acre and have two acres
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: of food. It's a it's a blend of oats and
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: annual clovers and wheat and cereal rye and a bunch
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: of different brassicas. So we're gonna have some early season attraction,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: We're hopefully gonna have some late season attraction, and we're
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: gonna have some species that will come back up next
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: spring and smother out any weed competition. So what I'll
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: be able to do at the end of next spring
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: is coming. I'm just gonna have food plots to have
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: green growth in them already and either crimp it, which
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: will kill what's there, which is basically roll over it.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: With like a a big barrel of sorts and then
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: it kind of pushes down the growth and they can
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: come back in and drill in a new crop in
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: the summer and hopefully not need to use herbicide, which
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: is the goal. Um. So that's the food plus situation.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: And then the rest of that week or whatever it was,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: we were prepping trees, trimming, shooting lanes, hanging trail cameras,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: making mocks, grapes, uh, cutting trails, putting up ground blinds,
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. Um And that that is
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: essentially all we're able to get accomplished for that first season.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: Got you. So I hear that you've been busy, right,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: You've you've you have this project in mind. So what
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: I what I think is, Okay, how much is this
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: going to cost? Right? Do you have a budget that
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: you're allotted to make this as realistic as possible or
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: is it kind of anything goes type scenario? Uh, you know,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: we we sort of have a budget, but basically the
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: budget is operate as if you were on a budget
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: of your own. To me, so I'm trying to do
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: this basically what I would do if this was not
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: a company project, If this is just me. So, for example,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: we're borrowing all of our equipment other than we bought
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: a mower. Otherwise, we're borrowing a UTV. We're borrowing a drill,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: which anyone can borrow drill, by the way, you can
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: rent these things for most of your local NRCS offices.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: You can borrow a drill. You can rent a tractor,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: um from a lot of places. So we're borrowing the equipment. Um.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: We have paid for fertilizer and spray. UM. But I
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: mean otherwise we're not using any big fancy equipment. We
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: don't have a big, huge tractor. We don't have big
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: huge implements other than like I said, the borrow drill. Um.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: We bought two tree stands and three ground blinds. You
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: know that's a few hundred bucks there total. UM. I
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: prepped all the rest of the trees for saddle hunting,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: so that costs nothing. UM. I bought tree pegs to
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: get up in the tree. Um. You know, I've got
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: the cameras that would normally be running up there. UM.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: You know, it's it's very it's very low key. It's
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: basically just what I usually do on the properties. I'm
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: usually hunting So while I haven't documented exactly what that costs,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: I mean it is is very much, very minimalist to
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: this point. Now, next year, when we start trying to
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: do some more things, when we start trying to plant
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: native grasses again, and when we start trying to you know,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: implement some of these different by trees, you know, that's
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: gonna that's gonna cost some money to buy trees. Um,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: It's gonna maybe it's gonna cost money to buy seed. Um.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: We might be able to find a cost share program
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: still with the government, and there's some other options we're
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: still looking into it. So the main thing is that
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to find ways to make it as budget
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: friendly as possible that that make this something that's within
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: the reach of your normal, average, everyday person. If if
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: I could do it on my own, minormal a world
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: without this being a company project, then it fits the
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: bill for this project. And that's the that's like the
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: filter I've tried to pass every decision through. Gotcha, Okay,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: So now what I mean you guys, have you're done
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: with the habitat projects for this year? Hunting season is here,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: and have you talked about number one who is going
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: to hunt this property, and have you guys had that
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: discussion about what is a shooter and how many does
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: you plan on taking? Yeah, so this is where things
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: become even more of like a uh, I don't know,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: interesting things become interesting, um because if I if this
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: was just like my place, I would have a very
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: specific way. I would be doing things in a very
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: specific way. I'd be hunting things in a very specific
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: um idea on who would hunt it. So, for example,
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: we would have gotten on with other projects at the
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: end of August, and I would have left this property
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: untouched until October one, Right, we always like to leave
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: it off off you know, off grid for at least
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: thirty days before hunting season. And then I'd be like
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: really really really careful about every time I go in
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: there during the hunting season and be just me. I
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: would hunt just a couple of times here and there
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: when the conditions are just right. Um, I'd be you know,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: just trying to kill mature buck and then a couple
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: of dolls, depending on what the dope population is like.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: But we are doing all sorts of different things with
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: this property because we're trying to not only manage it
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: for different wildlife but also use it for different wildlife
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: and for different people too. So for example, on September,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: right smack dab in the middle of my usual hands
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: off period, opening day of squirrel hunting season came in
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: and Steve and Janice showed up and hunted the property
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: right in the middle of September, two weeks before opening day,
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: walked all over the place, and so you can imagine
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: like how paranoid and freak out that would make me.
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: So I went with them, and I was cringing and struggling,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: but it was what it was. So we scirrel hunted
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: at two weeks four opening day, which I've never ever
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: done to one of my dear hunting properties in the past.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: So that's the kind of thing that we're doing. Um.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: And then there's also a bunch of different people that
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: are gonna be coming out and hunting it. So um,
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: we're still finalizing exactly who and when, but bringing out
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: a somewhat new hunter in early October who's gonna come
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: out that comes from like a research and ecology background,
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: Who's gonna come out for a few days and hunt it. Um.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: Later in October, we have another person coming out and
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: hunting it with me early November, another person is going
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: to hunt it for a few days with me, and
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: then mid November, my dad's gonna come for a couple
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: of days, which would be really cool. Um. And then
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: later in the year in December, going to bring in
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: a couple more people, another new hunter, um. And I
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: think Ryan Callahan for media will be out there. So
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: so I will tell you, like being completely honest, I
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: am stressed about how this place is going to hunt
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: because that just seems like way too many people, way
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: too much activity on a small property in Michigan, um right.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: I mean I talk all the time about how I
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: try to hunt the small properties I have access to,
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: and like how so so so carefully I have to
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: do things on it to even have a chance to
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: see a mature buck. And you know I, you know I,
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: It's it's not just me. It's not just me in
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: this farm. There's other folks, those other goals, there's other
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: things going on. So my task is to try to
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: try to learn from that, to try to still give
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: us as best of a chance as possible to still
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: maybe see a mature buck here and there, um, and
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: to to document what happens, the good and the bad,
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: I guess. Um, So yeah, man, I don't know what's
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: going to happen. I I will tell you, like I'm
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: stressed about it. I I know that one of the
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: goals here, at least one of my personal goals. And
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: internal like we talked like, yeah, we want to have
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: great deer hunting. That has to be an important thing
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: out here. And great deer hunting means having all age
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: classes having mature bucks. Um. I've repeatedly stressed how challenging
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: that's going to be, especially with all these other things
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: going on, and um, and I just have to fight
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: that battle and keep on trying to find a way
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: that we balance those things. So so that's gonna be.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: That's gonna be. Like the store of this whole project though,
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: was like, how can I figure out a way to
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: to still have good hunting out here while we were
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: doing all these other things while these different folks come
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: out and check it out and give their perspectives. And UM,
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: I love the idea of like using this property as
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: you know, sharing those proper people right being able to
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: take out new hunters. I think that's awesome. But it's
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: it's you know, it's give and take. Everything's given take.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: So I don't know what's gonna happen, like I do.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: I just it's very unknown. And here's the other thing.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: Like I told you last week, I think it was
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: I did have cameras out there in the summer. Did
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: not get any mature bucks on camera during the summer.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: I've had cameras running in the fall, you know, all
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: three September I checked cameras on when me and Steve
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: and Janice went out there for the squirrel hunt. Still
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: not looking good. I did get one mature buck on camera.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: He showed up the night before the squirrel season, so
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: he's probably yeah, he's probably gone now because the very
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: next day after he showed up, we walked all other
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: place and he got to remember it's not just me,
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: Steve and Janice. It's also then like all these cameramen too.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: So every time you go out there with all these
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: different hunters, it's it's double that because you've got these cameraman.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: Um so Godlee stressing me right out. But but it's great,
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: but it's stressful. So one mature Bucks showed up on September.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: One set of pictures of him. He looks really big body,
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: it's like a really big looking body deer, but not
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: a whole lot going on. From an antler perspective, looked
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: like maybe like a wide short time eight pointer or
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: six pointer or something, but it was like a very
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: distant picture. Um, and that's it. So I do believe
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: though that right we're in there so much in August,
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: like we just blew everything out, like and every person
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: that came through, right, they want to come see the swamp,
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: they want to see this We honestly the ridge system,
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: so just trekking all over the best stuff. So it's
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: just a disaster from like a pressure on deer perspective.
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: So I was not expecting any mature buck to stick
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: around through all that kind of crap. But I do
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: hope that, as with every little bit of me, I'm
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: gonna try to keep all of our activity as safely
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: located as possible so as to not disturb the deer
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: too much. So I'm gonna try to keep all the
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: early season stuff, you know, on the edge of the property.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna try not to disturb this place. I'm not
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: going to go into it unnecessarily ever, as much as
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: I can control it. Um. So I do think by
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: the time October rolls around and we get into the
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: pre rut. There just has to be a mature buck
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: to pass that through here. The surrounding area is too good. Um.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: There's two neighbors that I know that have seen and
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: hunted and hold out for big old deer. There's another
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: new neighbor who I've chatted with who is interested in
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: passing on young deer and excited to finally have an
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: opportunity to do that. So they want better deer hunting,
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: so they're on board. There's another landowner across the road
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: who was like, really really really picky about what this
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: guy shoots like it sounds like he's really hardcore. So
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: there's too many people on board, and there's too good
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: of like sanctuary cover. There's a bunch of swamp um.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: There just has to be some old, big deer around there. Um.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: So I still have faith that once we get in
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: the least to that rut time period, we'll get something
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: good cruising through. I think the goal will be then
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: to hopefully abill take advantage of that pre rut rut
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: time period, and then the rest of the season is
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: probably gonna be learning the farm, figuring out what our
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: dough population is like, and what do we need to
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: do from a management perspective there. UM originally was assuming
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: there'd be a ton of deer out here and that
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: we'd have to kill a lot of doughs. But after
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: seeing trail camera pictures as Netra sitting out and scouting
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: a couple of nights, I'm not seeing as many deer
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: as I expected. Um, So maybe I was wrong. I'm
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: going to kind of judge that throughout the hunting season,
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: we're gonna observe and um plan our doe harvest a
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: little bit later. Um, and then I think next year,
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: hopefully do a lot of our work earlier in the
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: year so that once we get to August September, we
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: can let the place calm down next year and it'll
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: be a better situation. But I have very I have
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: a lot of questions. I'm nervous about it. Um. I
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: don't know how we're going to manage all these different
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: people and goals and things. But I suppose that's going
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: to be what makes this thing interesting, right, And I
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: think the cool thing about this is it's it's bringing
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: back the joy of hunting because it's not necessarily so
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: much about big bucks right now, right, I mean, do
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: you do you feel that because you mentioned you you
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: were a little nervous and stressed. But at the same time,
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: I just feel we're able to do what we love
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: now and just enjoy nature absolutely, And I think like
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: I enjoy and I love seeing mature bucks. So that
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: is definitely something that I want out there, and most
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: deer hunters want, like we get a kick out of
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: scene those. You get a different hunting experience when there's
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: mature bucks on the landscape, So that's definitely something we want. Um.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, this is helping me enjoy
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: different parts, so that's one part of it. But now,
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: like I'm going out there and I'm noticing different birds,
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: Like I've never paid attention to what the song birds
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: were out there. Now I'm like, oh, that's a catbird,
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: that's a indigo bunting, that's a such and such finch um,
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: And that's been interesting. I'm recognizing bird calls. So the
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: first time in my life, I actually know what trees are.
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: I was not good at this. I did not know
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: how to identify trees or weeds and different plants. Um.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: I'm learning that stuff now. So that's adding a whole
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: new color to my experience out that. That's fun. Um.
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: I've never in my life paid attention to squirrels while
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: driving around. Um And just the other day, I was driving,
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: like two nights ago, I was driving in a spotted
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: a squirrel in the yard and I jumped. So there's
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: a squirrel. Never in my entire life, but I care
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: about a squirrel. And now I'm paying attention to that
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: kind of thing. So so yeah, like looking at this
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: place from like a much more diverse point of view
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: has been interesting. It's forcing me to learn about new
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: things and that is fun. Um. And so because I'm
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: a dear nut because and you know it, because I
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: had just obsessed over these things and get really excited
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: about trying to find a mature buck. That is still
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: something I'm gonna try to do out here. That is
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: still something I'm gonna stress over, and that's still something
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: that you know we're gonna be working through and figuring out.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, I know I can step
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: back and excuse me, got a get a little bit
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: of air my stoffach there. Um. I know that I
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: will be able to take joy out of sharing this
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: place others too, So, like, I'm very excited to take
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: my dad out for hunt out here. That's gonna be
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: really a special experience. A couple of these other new
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: Hunters that we're gonna take out that is gonna be
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: a really cool thing that I'll be able to get
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: a lot of joy, of joy out of sharing this
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: place with them, seeing their perspectives and experiences from it. Um.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: So yeah, there's gonna be a lot of different things
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: from this whole experience that will be that will be fun,
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: that will be also challenging. And I think like that's
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: the whole moral to the story for me, is everything
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: about this project is going to be both fun and stressful,
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: both you know, obvious and very complicated. Uh, It's it's
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: always gonna be these dueling parts of the project. That's
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: the whole thing I think. And if I can somehow
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: figure out a way is is kind of the steward,
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: the main person in charge of this place. If I
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: can figure out a way to balance all these different goals,
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: all these different challenges, all these different ways of looking
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: at it. If I can figure out some way to
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: balance it enough that we move everything in a generally
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: positive direction, that's good. That's a great outcome, I would say,
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: And um, you know, we'll find out step one of
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: that becomes reality here in a couple of days when
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: I go out for the first deer hunt. UM, got
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of questions. What's going to be the impact
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: of the squirrel hunt? I would have thought if we
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: didn't squirrel hunt it, and if we left it untouched
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: from like August until October one, October five or whatever,
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: it ends up being the first hunt out there. If
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: we left it untouched for that long and came in
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: on on that first hunt, eventually be you know, a
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: lot of activity. I bet you there'd be a good
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: chance the nice buckets step out. But now after going
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: in there two weeks ago and hunting the crap out
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: of it, I don't know so well. The thing about
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: it is you may learn that what what kind of
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: pressure actually impacts a farm because let's say there's no
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: deer on it now, but next week they could It
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: could just rebound, you know, like h throwing a rock
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: in a water? Do you get all the ripples right?
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: Over time those ripples disappear, and you know there's there's
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: gonna well you'll see how how long what affect what
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: pressure affects your farm for how long, which in many
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: cases on other places I hunt, I've never been willing
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: to risk major pressure and so I've never had to
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: really see what that looks like. So this is a
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: you know, it's another opportunity to to learn and um
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: and that that is always fun for me. So that's
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: where we stand with the back forward you. I mean,
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: there's a lot to do. We there's there's so much,
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: so many like high like we've got a lot of
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: hot like pie in the sky aspirations for it that
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: we just we just didn't have time to get going
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: on much stuff, like I said, So a lot of
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: the in depth habit at work is going to have
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: to happen next year. But this year is all just learning.
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: We did a little tiny bit of work. Now we're
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: gonna try to learn what this place is like during
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: the hunting season and the next year it's gonna be
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: getting to work. So that is where we're at, and uh,
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: we'll see what are you? What are you? What are
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: your what are your predictions? Dan? If you were to
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: guess right now based off of the whole outline I
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: just shared with you the situation as it stands right now. Um,
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: first and foremost, do you think that someone of all
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: these different people I mentioned who might be hunting the farm,
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: do you think that somebody will kill a buck, a buck,
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: any kind of buck. Oh yeah, I think I think
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: a buck will show up and someone will kill it. Um.
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: Not sure what that's gonna be, you know, just question. Yeah,
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: I feel somebody's gonna somebody's because Mark Kenyon has a
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: different you know, let's say, Ah, you're taking a new
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: hunter out. I don't think you're gonna tell him no,
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: you can't shoot that. No, right, so if a two
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: year old walks out, they smoke a two year old, right,
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. And and yeah that in that whole
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: we were that's a whole other things, like the idea
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: that I'd like to try to have this place managed
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: and in a something similar to a quality deer management
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: type situation. At the same time though, Um, part of
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: that does mean, like you just describe examples where you
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: want to have new hunters come on and have a
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: great experience. So yeah, like there's gonna be some young
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: bucks killed. So I think something we'll learn now this
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: too is can you get away with a young buck?
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: Getting killed here and there and still protect most of
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: the yearlings and two year olds and get some mature
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: bucks in a couple of years. Um, that'll be interesting
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: to see. But yes, and then your neighbors, right are
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: you telling are you going to have a conversation with
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: your neighbors about Hey, we uh you know, like we're
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: going to really try to manage this, not only for
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: a good ecosystem, right, but at the same time, we're
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: going to manage for mature We're gonna try to manage
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: for mature buck and then have new hunters come in
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: and kill whatever they want, right. Yeah, I mean it's
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: a it's a funky little balancing act we're gonna try
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: to pull off mostly protect mature bucks, but also provide
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: a positive experience for some other folks that don't have
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: those same goals. Um, yeah, I don't know. Now, Well,
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: kill the lucky spoon? Is the lucky spoon still on
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: your butt from last year? That's what I want to know.
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: I have a feeling that it is not okay. Um,
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: so much of my season is just set up for
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: a lack of success as I start looking at it.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: I was just telling my wife this last night. I
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: would not be surprised if I don't even kill a
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: single buck this year. Um because right my North Dakota
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: hunt was a good chance that didn't pan out, and
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: so much of my hunting on the back forty now
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: is I'm kind of gonna be like a guide. There's
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: so many different people now that we're taking out and
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: it's fine, Like I'm not complaining about it. I'm excited
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: about these opportunities to show people and to share this
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: this place of these people. But it's gonna be really
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: hard for me to have a high quality hunt when
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: i'm you know, trying to figure out where to put
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: this other person or where will this person feel comfortable.
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: This person has to hunt of ground blind and they
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: need someone sitting with them. Um. So I'm not only
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: sixty four acres, yeah, of which you know, some of
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: it's next to house, some of it's up by the road,
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: um you know, so only so much of it really
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: could produce a kill. Um So I think it's a
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: low chance that I'll get a shot at mature buck
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: on that farm. There'll be like a couple of handful
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: of days that I'll probably get to do it on
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: my own. Do it the way I want to do
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: it and have a chance. I'll have to get lucky. Um.
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: Then I'll have my main Michigan spots that I'll still
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: get some hunts on, but not as many hunts because
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: I'll be split in time with the back forty um.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: And then my main out of state hunt trip is
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: like a wilderness boundary waters hunt where we'll be lucky
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: to see any deer, so I'm definitely not gonna shoot
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: him a ture buck up there. I'm gonna shoot anything
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: I see this legal um. And then I've got a
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: public land hunt in December, like a muzzloader hunt, which
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: which I got a chance to choose something on that one.
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: But that's a public land um hunt somewhere I've never
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: been before and know nothing about yet. So the lucky
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: the lucky clover, lucky spoon in a butt I don't
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: think is going to pan out this year as far
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: as bucks in the ground, probably just because of like
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: the cards that I've that I've put in my own hand. Um.
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: But I think there'll be a lot of cool experiences,
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: which which is a good thing too. Right. Well, that's uh,
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: You're you've been put into a unique position. Mr Kenyan. Yes, yes,
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: I have. So I'm gonna share the story that we
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: go along and we'll see what happens. Are you willing
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: to follow along and critique me and encourage me as needed? Oh? Yeah, absolutely,
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: And if you I'll tell you what I was thinking
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: about this. Um, we'll see what my rut produces. And
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: if my rut is another short one like what I
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: had this year, you know, like a four day hunt,
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: I I may come up and do a late season
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: hunt with you somewhere. I'm not making any promises because
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: it's all based off of how mad my wife is. Right,
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: so I've already drained part of her patient's tank with
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: my elk hunt. You know, I leave this upcoming Friday
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: for my South Dakota hunt, So that's gonna be drained,
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: and then the rest of the tank is typically drained
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: dry by the time I'm done with uh, you know,
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: with the rut hunts and uh you know, it fills
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: a little back up. Then we got some trade shows
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: that I gotta go down to, so it takes almost
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: all summer to fill the tank back up. But if
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: it's if I still have something in the tank, maybe
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: I should come up to uh do a late season
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: hunt and shoot a doll. I was gonna say, I
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: can't promise you any big bucks, but I can promise you.
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: I can promise you camaraderie and good food and a
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: good time. Cool. All right, buddy, I like the idea.
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: Keep me posted, and uh, I think we should wrap
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: this one up and give you some time to prep
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: for that meal there hunt. Huh yeah, I need it,
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: all right, man, Thanks, and that's gonna do it for
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: this episode. Hopefully you enjoyed this one. I will just
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: remind you where you can find all this back forty
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: stuff we're talking about. If you go to the Meat
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: Eater YouTube channel, that's where you're gonna see our new videos,
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: the videos series itself, as well as a series of
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: different how to videos that come out on the off
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: weeks in between. You're also going to find out how
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: to Kill a Buck YouTube series on their well as well,
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: where Spencer, myself and Tony Peterson breakdown each different part
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: of the hunting season and how we try to tackle
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: a hunt for for mature buck at that time of year,
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: looking at actual maps and discussing where we would hunt
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: and how we would do it. You can find all
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: of that in the YouTube channel. You can also go
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: to the mediator dot com and go to the back
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: forty page there and you can see maps of the property.
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: You can see some additional details of descriptions of each
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: different zone of the property. You'll see how the articles
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: were writing about it, more of the videos, and then
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: any of these podcasts that are relevant to And finally,
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: if you're not already following me on Instagram, you gotta
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: go do that. That is where I'm sharing all like
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: the live up to date things that are going on
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: Instagram stories. I'm gonna be posting throughout the hunting season,
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: my first hunts in the back forty. It will all
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: be shared right there first, so check it out. My
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: handle is for addictively Wired to Hunt. Check it out.
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: The best of luck on your hunts. If your season
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: opens on the first, um, well, if it opens on
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: the first, you've already started hunting, so hopefully that went
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: well for you. Good luck this upcoming weekend and the
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: rest of the hunting season, and until we chat next time,
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: stay Wired to Hunt.