Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 038: Maverick County, Texas. Steven Rinella talks with ranch manager and hog trapper Ben Binnion, along with Chris Gill and Janis Putelis from the MeatEater crew

Transcript

Ep. 038: Maverick County, Texas. Steven Rinella talks with ranch manager and hog trapper Ben Binnion, along with Chris Gill and Janis Putelis from the MeatEater crew · The MeatEater Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: This is a me eater podcast coming at you shirtless,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: severely bog bitten and in my case, underwear. Listen, don't
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: eat podcast. You can't predict anything you want to talk
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: about bug bitten. I've referred, of course, when I say
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: you want to talk about referring to our brand, you
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: know we haven't addressed the brand speakiny new intro. Anyone
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: careous about that music in the brand speakinty new intro.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: That's by a band. And you can see some good
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: hosting right now, because I'm gonna I'm gonna build, I'm
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: gonna make this work a minute. That that's that that
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: piece of music within that intro, and the tree has
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: fallen down here, tree falling. And and there's an intro song.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: That's a band called Sheerwater. That's that song is from
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: an album jet Playing and Oxbow. I'm friends with that musician.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: He's very undecided about hunting. I've taken him fishing, and um,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: he enjoyed being out there, but he said, I just
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: don't view fishing things the way you do. But he's
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: a he's a wonderful musician. And the reason here, here's
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: where the good hosting comes in because for a long time.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: That musician was based out of Austin. And we're in
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Texas right now. See how seemless that was. We're in
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Maverick County. Which is is it fair to say that
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: this is like, this is ground zero, this is like
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: the bass, this is the heart and soul of like
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: the whole Texas white Tail big Buck world. Is not
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: fair to say, yes, yeah, for a giant, for a
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: giant white Tails. That was the voice of Ben Benyon,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Benyon Benion. So it's the same sound as your first name. Yeah,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: it sounds like he stutter a little bit, Ben Benyon. Yeah,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: does the voice of Ben Benyon. We're gonna get to
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: him a minute. Also, here's uh Chris Gil Chris Um.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Chris already warned us he doesn't have much to say.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: He's just sitting in and listening. Um and Joannice tell
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: us at this point the show. I normally plug Jannice's
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: teacher company, but I'm not anymore because he won't make
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: me my perch flies. Oh, I asked your honest, He's
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: gonna get him one another. I asked you honest, probably
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: about eighteen months eighteen months ago, and give a shot
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: show to make me a couple of perch flies. I'm
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: talking about flies used for yellow perch um. You take
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: a little bit of you take a hook, take a
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: little bit of bucktail, you take a little bit of thread.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: I'd make it myself, but I gave my damn what's
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: the bobbing bobbing? Yeah, I gave my bob into a
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: buddy mine. And and uh, because I used to tie
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: a couple of flies now, and then I just got
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: enough things i'd like to do, and that got low
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: on the list of things I like to do, and
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: I just gave it all away. And then as yanned
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: to make me someone, he won't make them for me.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Can you explain to people why you won't make them
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: over eighteen months? There's no real reason. All my my
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: five times ships packed away. It must be pretty packed away.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: But like when you asked me to reload its to MAMMO,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: usually get to that pretty quickly because that bench is
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: operational right now. But the the tie in bench is
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: not man it's under a half inch of dust. That
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: dust is heavy, really. Also, John's in the process of
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: buying himself a new home. Yeah, maybe I'll set up
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: a bench when I get there. So Ben I can't
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: even get There's so many things I want to ask
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: you about, or have you talked about that you've already
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: told me about that I I can't think of where
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: to start. Give me a little give me the bend,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: the bend bending bio. Uh well, uh I stow them
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: and you're up. Okay, I'm not doing a good job, Ben,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Is that? What? What are? What do you call what
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: you do? Land manager? I consider myself a wildlife biologist,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: all right, bends a wildlife biology that's a good way
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: of putting it. Bends a wildlife biologist working in the
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: private sector, and you run the wildlife program on a
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: large ranch, large property in South Texas. Correct, Okay, Now
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: get into the whole where you came from, what, what
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: kind of education you sought out, and what your what
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: your dictate is? Your you know your mandate? Not dictate?
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: There reminds me an old joke, what your mandate is? Yeah?
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Uh well, I started out kind of whenever I was
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: when I was younger. My uh well, my parents split
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: up in my uh my stepdad, my mom remarried, and
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: my stepdad ran a took care of a piece of
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: property not too far from here. No, it was. It was,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: but it was right on the border in Maverick County.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Some of the big Bucks straight over into that county.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Pretty much. Yeah, it was one of the it was.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: It was top top five counties for big Bucks. And
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: uh he took care of that place for I guess
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: my pretty much, Mike, from about ten years old on
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: and uh and I saw what was going on there
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: and I wanted to do it, and I was trying
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: to figure out how to go about it. And uh
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: so so basically what idea is is after high school,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: I went to college to uh pursue a degree in
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: range and wildlife science at Texas A and M Kingsville,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: which at the time was the number one UH college
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: in the nation for wildlife program and uh and it's
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: part of that system. But uh, like Texas A and
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: M College station, which is the what you see the
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Aggies on TV. Uh, this is a what do you
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: call it, a like a branch of that satellite campus.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Satellite campus. Yeah, we had our own football team in
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: our own mascot and uh. But and we were way
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: or we were much higher on the on the as
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: far as ranked in a wildlife program than the main
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: campus because of the UH is mainly because of the
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: experience experience level that you could get wild in class
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: um firsthand experience, firsthand, and and every every day we
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: were every class, every every junior senior level class you know, plant, plant,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: I D and those kind of classes were in the field,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: and our exams were in the field. Our exams were verbal. Uh,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: I mean walking through walking through brush, cactus, everything that
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: we've been walking through, uh this week. But so I
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: went there and uh while I was working on the
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: ranch and my stepdad took care of and I was
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: kind of, I guess you could say, just more of
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: a ranch hand than anything. Just did odds and ends,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: fixing fences and everything. But I developed a passion for
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: for deer. Uh. I always love to hunt, and uh
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: but I really really wanted to figure out, you know,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: what made dear big and why were they big in
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: this area? And so and kind of we're southwest Texas,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: I guess you can say. And uh, so I started
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: kind of paying attention to everything while I was in
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: college and getting a degree. And were each each new
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: boat white tail deer in college yeah or yes? And no,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: it was more uh they were they were giving us
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: the tools to to learn, and they didn't. They didn't
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: focus on anyone species. They didn't focus on quail or
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: white tails. They kind of they did a little, you know,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: they touched on it. But everything that they taught us
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: you can apply to any species. And then, uh and
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: so what I did is I just I took all that,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: all the everything I learned, and applied it to white
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: tails while we were going through the courses through college.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: And uh so whenever I graduated, I graduated in a
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: two thousand and eight. I graduated high school and O
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: four college two thousand and eight in spring, and uh
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: it actually the owner of the property uh offered me
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: a job and uh which was kind of the place
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: you grew up on, the place I grew up on,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: which is kind of the end all plan was my
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: stepdad was gonna retire and I was gonna take over
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: his his position. Well, I graduated in May. In in
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: April of two thousand and eight, my stepdad had an
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: accident and he, uh he fell out of a deer stand.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: He fell fourteen feet to the ground on a rocky hill.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Uh So it's a hard, hard hill and he he
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: uh broke both of his risk compound fractures, broke almost
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: all of his ribs. UH lacerated a kidney, lungs filled
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: up with fluid, created an induced trauma heart attack. The
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: air life came to San Antonio. He was an ICU
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: for thirty days. This this happened on April fourteen. I
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: graduated May tenth, So I didn't walk the stage on
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: graduation because I didn't have any family that would be
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: there to watch me because they're all at the hospital
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: with him in in the ICU. So uh so what
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: I was doing while I was that last month in college,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: as I was coming back to the ranch because I
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: knew every we had seven employees. I kept the ranch
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: running while he was in the hospital and just the
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: back of your the ranch. This is a cattle operation. Cattle.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: It was a It's a cattle operation with a side
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: note of hunting um and the heavy emphasis on wildlife, right,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: a heavy emphasis on wildlife. The family and the family
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: was the main people that hunted it. We did. We
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: It was not a commercial operation. It wasn't fenced. It
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: was it was just a fun place for the family
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: and friends and guests and UH and some business associates
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: at the owner and Uh. So basically what I was
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: kind of thrown head first when my stepdad was in
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: the hospital. I was. I graduated and took the job
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: and took over his position. So I I was never
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: I never, I never was. I was started from the
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: ground level one of our I was in college. As
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: soon as I graduated, I started. I went straight to
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: the top because I was forced into it more than anything.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: And uh, and I raged a few things on the
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: wildlife side, and we were we were that ranch that
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: or that property was was under pretty intense management for
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: I don't know, fifteen years maybe eighteen years before before
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: I took over, and we had we had really nice
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: white tails and and the white tails were you know,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: they were there was big, big antler deer everywhere, and uh,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: but I I never really intended to make them bigger.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: I was just trying to kind of fill in. And uh.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: That was about the time that trail cameras started getting
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: real popular as far as infrared and uh, you know
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: started started getting uh, I guess user friendly and and
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: cheap enough, and so I started running trail cameras and
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: we started we started noticing what deer would do from uh,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: from a year to year as far as antler development, UM,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: you know movement, uh, rutting habits. Uh. You know, Forge
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: had it's betting, betting areas, everything, everything you could you
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: could figure out what the trail cams and so you
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: feel that that really uh do you feel that really
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: rewrote people's understandings. I think I think that trail cameras
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: that you know, probably the best thing that's happened to
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: hunting and to managing wildlife in my opinion, uh, in
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: in my lifetime. You know, a biologist in New York
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: just put out a book about the significance of what
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: they call camera trap to the field. He published sort
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: of what he thinks of as I think the three
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: or six hundred like very influential trail cam images of
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: camera trap images and talked about the implications that tool
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: had for understanding distribution and range of wildlife, travel patterns
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: of wildlife. UM. I wanted to continue that about is
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: that this thing a few years ago in North Carolina
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: and it was a deer like a wildlife expo. A
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: guy there was telling me the story about someone. Have
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: you talked about this on the podcast The Kentucky Tennessee Bucks.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Everything about this you've told me about it. I don't
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: know if we've mentioned on the podcast. All Right, So
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Kentucky and Tennessee have different season structures hunting season structures,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: and they obviously share pretty long border. So a guy
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: comes forth with some big buck that he claims they
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: have shot in one or the other. Let's just for
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: arguing for for discussion. Say let's say he comes forth
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: his big bucks as well, I shot at in Kentucky. Okay,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: it was probably vice versa, because I think Tennessee has
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: the liberal So comes forward and says, I shot this
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: big giant buck of Tennessee. It winds up being like
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: some state record for the year buck. He gets a
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: bunch of publicity. The buck tours around at a couple
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: these shows I'm talking about, these these wild effexpos. Eventually
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: a guy from Kentucky sees the big famous Tennessee buck
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: and says, I know that buck. I'll show you a
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: trail camp picture that buck hundreds of miles away from
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: where this man claims that he shot it, and the
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: buck had such a distinctive rack they successfully prosecuted the
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: man and seized the head. Yeah, because of this, because
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: of this guy's trail camp pictures of where that buck
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: was on, what day it was there, and he had
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: just shot it oddyseason and Jamaica legal came back across
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: the border. There's trail camp story for you. Yeah. Yeah,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: they used that one, Chris, You like that one, Chris
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: still not. Yeah, the wardens here he used a similar
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: deal where they like if if if a dear interest
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: comes about and uh, shot by a hunter and uh
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: it's poached. You know, the landowner can knows it's missing,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: and it shows up somewhere, he sees a picture of
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: it somewhere and he says that, you know, that deer
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: came off of my property and he's surrounded by several
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: other private property, like he didn't travel a hundred miles
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: that day or whatever, right, and they prosecuted several people. Now, uh,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: from this exact same situation. It's probably it wasn't, you know,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: not nothing that high profile. But but yeah, the same deal.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: So yeah, so those guy's got a book coming out
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: about just how much that changed our understanding of you know,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: all different kinds of wild life. Yeah. Yeah, I saw
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: some I saw some trail cam images that came out
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: of Afghanistan one time where they it was some really
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: rare sheet. You can see it going through a pass.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: And the next images are a couple of dudes with
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: uh with the you know, the Afghanistan and they were
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: also familiar with now the hats that you know from
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: the Afghan War. You see people wearing in long robes
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: and a couple of klisha coughs going through pass right
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: behind it, going chase it after. Yeah, sony out there,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: you are also your manage in that place, and you
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: start using trail camps. Yeah, we started using trail cams,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: and I started noticing, uh, noticing changes changes in antler
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: development that from year to year that uh, we're bizarre
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: to meet because these these jumps are these uh increases
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: in uh in antler size on deer that we thought
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: we we would recognize from year to year, from season
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: to season because their home ranges. Uh and tell me
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: if I'm getting off pointed point, but uh, the home
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: ranges are you know, on our mature bucks are about
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: four to eight thousand acres and uh so you always
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: on a piece of property you have, what do you
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: guys figure put that into square mile be like ten
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: to twelve I think tender twelve square miles at six
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: forties of square miles. Uh So, you know, a buck's
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: home ranges tended to tended to have square miles, and
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: of course you have tons of overlap. And uh our
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: our density was about a deer per acres a deer so,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: and we had a one to one buck do ratio,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: so we had a buck per fifty acres. Uh So,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: square miles that would be uh with ten bucks per
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: square mile, so totally maybe square mile, yeah, fifteen fifteen
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: bucks first square mile maybe, um, you know, all different
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: age classes. But anyway, what I started noticing is these
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: bucks that we thought we knew well, let me let
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: me back up. We were shooting, we were harvesting. The
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: family was harvesting trophy bucks every year that we're exceptional.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: But sometimes we did not know what that deer had been.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: He just showed up and uh so, and we we
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: harvest them and we look at their teeth based off
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: of the all the studies that have been done on
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: age by tooth wear and replacement, which you know, some
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: people say it's it's you know, it's the only thing
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: we have to go off of, uh it is we
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: have there is by the teeth it's not very accurate,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: but it's the only thing we have, uh, but that
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: the teeth would be sharp, so they in indicating that
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: they were a young, young buck. So what I started
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: doing is I started documenting these deer with the trail
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: cameras and uh to uh find out why you know,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: we're shooting these deer that looked old, but they had
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: sharp teeth and we've never seen him before. Because let
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: me just feel in a little bit, what you're suggesting
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: is you guys felt that you could look at the
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: deer's antlers and it immediately recognized him again the next year,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: because he'd just be a little bit bigger version, right,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: But then all of a sudden, here's the deer who like,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: where'd he come from? Because I didn't see a slightly
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: smaller version of him last year. That's exactly correct. That's
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: exactly correct. So, uh, what what I was I started
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: documenting deer based off of their locations and their home
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: ranges and would save pictures from a year to year
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: to see, uh see which ones look similar. And I
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: started noticing that there was there was bucks making huge,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: huge jumps, and uh, I mean they would go from
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty inch deer to a hundred and
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: sixty or a hundred and seventy inch deer in one
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: one growing season. And usually that was, uh, you know
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: what we were guessing to be a three or four
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: year old dear to a four or five year old dear.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: That that age group was usually the big jumps. So
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: we started doing is documenting those deer as far as
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: based off a trail cams and uh, I started doing that,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: and we started letting deer go no matter how big
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: they were. They'd be a hundred and seventy inch deer
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: that we would typically shoot. We said, well we'll we'll
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: let him go and see what happens because of his age.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Because of his age, we wanted to see. We were
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out how when was the peak? You know,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: that's what everybody in White till Into Street tries to
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: figure out, is, uh, what's the what's what's the peak age?
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: When do they peek out? And uh, and we think
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: in Texas down here, we think it's we think it's
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: a little older than everywhere else. But we're different, and uh,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: white tails are really site specific animals. I mean it
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: it changes twenty miles, changes completely as far as dear
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: to dear. Uh So, anyway, what uh but what is
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: the age? Um? Well, what we found or what what
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: my personal research and what other research institutes are are finding.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: It depends on the ranch, it depends on the property,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: it depends on the location, and it depends on the deer.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: They're all individual. But in my opinion, our dear in
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Maverick County and that county was, uh, we're we're maximizing
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: their antler potential at seven and eight years old, not
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: five and six like previously thought. Uh in those and
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: all of that was just to estimation before at five
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: and six, and some of those dear people were estimating
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: them and they're actually younger. Uh So at the trail cams,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: we can get a better idea of their age based
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: off of he's not in you know, Okay, if we
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: have three years of pictures and he wasn't two years
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: old in the first picture, he's at least five or six,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Does that make sense? And uh So that's kind of
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: what we went off of, and we started letting these
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: deer grow to be seven and eight years old and
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: nine years old before we harvest them. And we can
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: see these dear we're we're feeding and they're coming out
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: every day and they're not not every day, but I'm
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: seeing them in the trail cams every day and they're
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: they're really they're still hard to hunt their nocturnal um
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: even though we're feeding. And uh so I just started,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: we started, uh letting these deer grow to to a
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: lot older age class than anybody else was. And we
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: started noticing that, Hey, we just stepped up our game.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: You know. We went from killing a a couple of
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: ones sixty class year and a one seventy here and there,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: to killing one eighties every year with an occasional two
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: hundred in uh three or four year period and then
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: it's no year six. We were killing multiple one nineties
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: with a with a two hundred almost every year and
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: uh and this was solely due from knowing the individual
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: deer through trail camera and uh and that that you
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: can't you can't always tell antler's year to year. But
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: what we were doing is is we knew where the
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: deer was his home range. He did the same thing
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: each year. You know, in October he'd be here, in
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: November he'd be here. Then the next year, a deer
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: that looked similar to him, but bigger would do the
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: same thing, so we assumed it was the same deer.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: We weren't always right or right, I say we. It
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: was me more than anything. I wasn't always right on that,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: but most part we were. And we stepped up our
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: game big time as far as uh growing, growing big deer.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: And uh so I us about years seven. Uh these
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: these current landowners that were on this property we're at
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: now in Maverick County, approached me through a mutual friend
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: and uh, I asked, I. I guess I met him
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: a year six, and they approached me to try to
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: find a a They just purchased this this property, and
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: they approached me to find a a ranch foreman and
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: wildlife bolog just to run this property for him. And
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: they wanted nothing else other than to grow giant white tails.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: That's all they wanted to do, or let them grow
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: no cattle, no cattle and uh so, and they all
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: they asked me, is that would you be willing to
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: leave your current position? I said no, I grew up
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: here and I'm happy and I don't want to do it.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Well that went on, and I looked for a couple
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: of people for him, but I could never find anybody
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: that I thought I could recommend and put my name on.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: About a year later, they made me an offer to
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: come over here that I couldn't turn down. So U
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: so I aim and UH started applying the same basic
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: knowledge that I was doing there with the trail cameras
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: and the inventory of the of the deer here and UH.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: And it's a it's a five to six year deal
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: before you can really start seeing consistent results on growing
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: growing these big white tails. But your job, like you're
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: a salary a salary individual, and your job to take
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: a sizeable chunkle land here and in the end goal
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: that you're pursuing is to increase the number and size
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: of big giant white tail box exactly yea. Before on
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: the old property I had, I was doing that almost
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: as a side note because we had cattle and in
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: a little bit of agriculture crop and uh and the
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: hunting was a side note. And now you know, and
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: that's the part that I enjoyed the most. That's the
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: part that I developed a passion for it. And now
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: you just strictly wildlife, just strictly wildlife, and UH, and
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: we do we don't do. I mean that's what we're
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: what we're after is improving the wildlife. Let me ask
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: some base real basic stuff. What are and Yanni jump
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: in and whenever you need to. This place is not
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: a fence place? Correct? Are there fence places here? Like?
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Why are some places in Texas? Wus he about like
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: defence properties? What do you gain and lose? Like? Why
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: did you why did you men not? Did you you
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: still getting that? Why did you not come in and
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: be like, first thing we're gonna do, boys, is build
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: a big damn fence. Yeah, because that's uh, defenses in
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Texas are Man, it's a it's a touchy subject, just hard.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: You don't even need to weigh in. Just tell me
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: like the thinking right, well, the main the main thinking
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: in uh, the reason fences were were originally you know,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: set up for deer in Texas. And the year you
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: told us earlier in what year did you say they
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: became popular? I think the first one, first official one
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: was in the late sixties was when the first one
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: that was made with railroad ties and some sheep and
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: goat net fence and what kind of acreage? Uh? That one?
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: That one was eight thousand acres and so big we're
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: talking about. No, they started out as large properties, and
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: what they started out as is to keep their neighbors
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: from killing their deer or for harvesting their dear premature
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: because they're like, we're running a management program practiced in
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: some restraint, and then inevitably the big box that we're
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: producing by providing good habitat and all that are getting
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: shot by some holes around the next property. It's done
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: what he's done his whole life, and if there's nothing
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: wrong with it, he's just hunting um, but he's not
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: as intense. That's the way the fences started out, and
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: that was a great, great tool, but it was the
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: motivation that was a motivation. So what what happened was is,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: in my opinion is uh, it's people just got greedy
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: and they started you know, fencing smaller properties in and
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: figuring out that they could have a quick fix. It's
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: just like, you know, that's just people. They want to
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: get it. As far as growing trophy white tails, they could.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: They started they started realizing that you could take a
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: take a you know, that's the the pen industry or
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: the raising farming wildlife really started up. And then I
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: guess about the nineties, which is it took from the
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: first ivents in the sixties. There was almost nobody doing
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: it for that, you know, almost thirty years. It was.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: That was that first place a private facility. Was it
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: like a hunt, like a like a outfit outfitting. It
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: was a private research it was it was a private
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: it was a private property in the university did it
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: as a research project to start and found out that
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: it worked, and that's when they started publishing their research
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: and that's kind of just escalated from there and uh so,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: uh so, basically people just started they started fencing in
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: smaller and smaller properties, and all of a sudden, the
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: pen developed kind of almost accidentally, just fencing off small
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: pieces of property and seeing what they could they could
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: concentrate growing these you know, Frankenstein type deer, and that's
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: what it's evolved in. And that's what people see on
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: TV on the on the pen and stuff, with all
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: these freakishly big deer that are they can barely hold
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: up their head. Um. But in my opinion, I don't.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's kind of where it started and
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: where we are now, and it puts a bad taste
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: in people's mouth for for the fences. Um, so it's
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: not is not having offense. Like you've worked at two
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: places that are not fenced. Are they not fenced for
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: aesthetic reasons? Are they not fenced for long term? They're
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: they're not fan Well the other one is it is?
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: It is. I guess you could say it's not completely fenced.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: It is partially fenced on one side. But that's Uh.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: That one was we we got along with with our
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: neighbors and they practiced the same management plans that we are,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: management practices that we did. Uh. This place is uh,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: the owners of this property are super anti uh penn dear,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: super anti high fence. Um. They like Boone and Crockett
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: club and they they really want to be able to
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: enter dear that we harvest here in the in the
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: Boone and Crockett system, which means natural reproduction, which natural reproduction,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: no human contact, no direct human contact. Uh. And that's
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: that's pretty much. Uh, that's that's the whole reason. In
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Maverick County, I forgot what what magazine did this stuff
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: did the deal, but they rated the top fifty counties
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: in the nation for for white tailed entries since two
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: thousand four. I can't remember if it was it was
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: one of the you know, more common long term magazines,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: but it was. They rated the top fifty counties in
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: the nation for for boot and Crockett white tailed entries
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: since two thousand four. Maverick County was number one typical
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: and number two non typical entries. Uh. And I believe
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: that was it was the only it was the only
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Texas county in the top ten. Uh. It might have
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: been the only Texas It might I think it might
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: have been the only Texas county in the top fifty. Uh,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: but we were. That's why, that's why they chose to
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: buy a piece of property in Maverick County and uh.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: And they came to me and they said, can we
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: grow big deer without offense? And I said absolutely. All
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: you have to do is let them grow and uh.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: But you have to get a property big enough where
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: your neighbors are gonna be shooting every single one. So
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: if you're on a smaller, smaller property, the deer during
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: the rut that you're gonna go across the fence, and
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: in anybody in the right mind, deer that looks old,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: mature and has a big rag, they're gonna blast it
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: and uh but yeah, they're not gonna care if it's like,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: did you know if you let it go two more years,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: they're not probably I canna see it anyway, right right,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: they're not. They don't. Yeah, they're there for that weekend
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: or that day to hunt and they see a big
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: deer and they're gonna shoot it. It's it's a completely
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: different dynamic than than most most uh but most people
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: can consider hunting. It's uh, we're not we're not faring
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: and farming them, but we're watching them grow. I guess,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: um it's similar to some guys that have uh good
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: mule there in Elk Country out west, that name their
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: bulls so that way they can keep up with locating
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: them the following year. Um, you know, just you know,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: on public ground even it's real similar to that. We're
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: just doing it in the private sector. So how many
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: how many bucks are you keeping an eye on? Um?
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: I think I have on my inventory list right now,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: I might have three or four hundred. I guess do
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: you have photo documentation of how much time do you
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: spend besides the trail cameras? How much time do you
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: spend out why observing in photograph and deer, just to
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: get to know who's all out there. Uh see October
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: October one through February. Um, I'm in the in the field,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: uh at least six days a week most of the time,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: seven days a week for you know, morning and evening
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: to two or three hours in the morning to three
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: hours in the evening almost every day in a stand
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: observing deer in a stand observing dear with the with
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: the camera, I use a big lands out of the
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: stand to uh supplement the trail cameras. Um. And I'm
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: on and about thirty five to forty trail cameras from
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: August fifteenth to February or March, and uh pictures roughly
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: a week. And uh that's uh, that's my Monday Tuesday.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: So and that's just to try to get to know
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: who's here. I'm just getting to know. That's all I'm doing.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: And within that, how often do you how often does
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: the deer pop up? It depends on his personality. How
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: often does the deer pop up that you had no
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: idea was here even though you're doing all that time looking?
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: How much mystery is left the around the perimeters when
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: we get influx from the neighbors during December, during the rut,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: there is uh I'll run into a new deer probably,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: you know. Whenever I say new dear, everything that I'm
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: noticing is usually three years old and older because I
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: can't it's hard to distinguish the ones twos and three
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: year old year to year. But once they once they
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: hit three and four, they're easier to distinguish year to hear,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: and you're not distinguishing them off the antlers. Well, it's helpful,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: but other things tell me, like because you explain to
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: me some of the things you're actually looking for, which
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: allow you to tell it one dear from the other. Yeah. So,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: so explaining the posture of the photographs too, because that's interesting, yeah,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: um so. So my my field photos with my camera
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: from the stand, I try to get the I try
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: to get the bucks broadside looking looking in my direction
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: with their ears perked in their hawks offset And I
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: do that because you can tell age based off the hawks.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: You can't tell an exact age, but it helps you
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: narrow down the age. And then the broadside, of course
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: lets you look at all the different traits such as
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: the chest, the brisket. You know the the uh swaying
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: belly or flat belly or flat back or swaying back. Um.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: But what I do age she is all for age
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: purposes only. But usually if I've been watching them, I'm
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: not worried about aging them on those pictures. I'm worried
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: about and identifier what I call an identifier and uh,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: what I what I consider an identify or something like
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: a split here, like a you know, I'm talking like
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: a quarter inch nick on the tip of the right here,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: or you know, on the bottom side of the year
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: there's you know, a quarter of the way up there's
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: a there's a black spot. And they'll carry these characteristics
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: year to year. And uh, or a dark forehead or
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: or a double throat patch double white throat patch, or
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: a bobtail um or any kind of distinguishing scar or
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: you know, there's a there's a ton of them when
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: you start, when you start really studying and looking, there's
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: there's a ton of different characteristics that you can look
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: at that are not associated with antlers. Because antlers changed
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: so much, you never know you can usually recognize them
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: a year to year once they get older. But but
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: the ear splits and the tails and stuff like that,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: that little stuff that you can pick up on and
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: uh and I can't remember at all. That's why we're
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: documented it with We're we documented with the or the
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: infield photos from the stand and that's why I try
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: to get them in that that posture, that position two. Uh.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: That way, I may not know that deer this year
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: because I didn't notice something, but I take a picture
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: of a deer in that same area next year it
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: looks kind of similar, and I put the two two together.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Then the third year, I take another picture of that
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: same deer in that same deal. So then I create
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: a catalog of inventory of deer from a year to year,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: and it helps me understand their age better and uh,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: and I can let them. We can therefore decide if
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: we want to harvest them or not. And uh and
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: it and some people that you're making that decision, I'm
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: making that decision. Yeah, And uh. Some people think that's
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: you know, that's a little bit uh too far into it,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: I guess, or thinking too much about it. And it's
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: taken some of the hunting part of way. But my
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: boss is don't know that I know that, dear, or
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: they know I know that dear, But they don't know that, dear.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: They haven't never they've never seen him before. Uh so
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: it's still hunting to the right people. Um and uh
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: but there's several several of these bucks that I'm getting
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: pictures of. I'll I'll have thirty to thirty five hunts
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: looking for him and never see him. Meaning you'll you'll
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: identify a buck and you'll be like, if you're gonna
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: get him, this is the year to do it right.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: But he's not going to uphill from here right and
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: then nor and he never turns up right right well
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: even to the point where what I what I'm what
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: I meant by that was where my statement was, if
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: I have a deer on trail camera, does drue cameras
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: just they just give me something to go look at
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: more than anything. You can tell a lot, but you
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: can't tell everything. So what I'll do is I'll use
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: the choke cameras to find a find a deer of interest,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: you know, say he's a one d O. I yeah, yeah,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: And uh so I'll find a one fifty class whatever
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: something or other that I have I don't know. I'll
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: go sit on that deer with my big lens to
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: find an identifier, you know, to find a split here
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: because you can't always notice those little uh spot on
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: the ears, uh uh different characteristic on the body. You
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: can't always notice those in troick camps the first time
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: you see one, So you have to see him in person,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: and then I get a What I'll do is I'll
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: get him, get a picture of them broadside printed out
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: in an eight by ten, put it in the folder,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: and then next year, uh do the same thing. Then
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: I can put those pictures right next to each other
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: and see who's who. Uh. But but usually when we
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: do green light a buck a trophy trophy buck to shoot.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: We shot one two years ago. That was I think
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: it took him thirty or thirty five sits before he
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: killed him because what what was happening. It's nocturnal. They're
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: just nocturnal and will not show up in the daylight.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Even with all the feed in the world that you
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: want to put out, they get. Uh. We're we we
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: practice uh. We we do a lot of selective harvest
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: for population control. And what we're trying to do is
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: is we reduce the stress by reducing the population and
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: uh creating more feed. But that, and you know that's
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: one of the things I want to ask you about
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: when we back up minute, don't ask about an other thing,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: you guys like couple bad dates, you have anything. Nothing,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: It's all coming out nothing your your little brain. Nothing
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: is going like, Oh I wish I knew a little
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: more about that. It's all coming out. You're asking the
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: good questions, man, at least like You'll have something on
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: the tip of your tongue and then I'll say it
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: well or ill or you just keep talking and then
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: I'll think about something else, and then more it keeps
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: drifting away. I started to think that sound's wrong with
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: you guys. No, man, I'm just fascinated learning about white Tail. Um, okay,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna jump you around a little bit. I can't
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: remember I interrupt you before you got into something I
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: wanted to ask you about. What were you just gonna
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: get into. I don't know. I'm not the one paying
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: attention about bringing the population. Oh yeah, about the importance
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: and not having too many deer. Right. But as a kid,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: and Yanny can back me up on this, as a
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: kid growing up in white Tail Country in Michigan, and
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: I was like our big game in our only big
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: game animals, white tails. It was like you aged dear
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: at least in your head, you age dear by what
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: their antlers looked like. So everyone knew that a spiker
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: fork was a year and a half old if he
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: was a Michigan six or Michigan eight so or Western three.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Let's just make a deal with you, guys, use Eastern
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: count Yeah five on one side five near a studies
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: the ten point right counts. We started calling the Michigan
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: six because everybody in the damn country is differently accountable
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: only speaking Eastern. So a six or an eight was
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: two yeah, right, And that was like just accepted wisdom.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: The other piece of accepted wisdom was a spike wasn't
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: going to become big because he's already small. Yeah, now
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: speak to that stuff, the like what what can you
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: actually tell with age by looking at the antlers on
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: the deer? Uh? That's that's a tough one, because I mean,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: I've seen, I've seen antlers are I guess in a
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: way they're they're an indication of age bait. If you
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: look at the if you look at mass mass and
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: uh and uh. Just but as far as a number
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: of points and spread. None of that seems to matter
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: on age. It's because you were just showing me an
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: eight point it was a year and a half old. Yeah, yeah,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: we had We had an eleven point this year that
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: was a year and a half old. I had. I
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: had a six pointer with a drop time. It was
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: a year and a half old this year. So his
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: first rack, first track, he had a drop time. And
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: then we have we have, you know, seven and eight
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: year old deer that have eight points barely do you
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: ever get do you ever get a dear older than
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: than one who's a forky? Yeah? Yeah, I shot one.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: I shot one a few years ago. That was he
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: was a two bye two four point uh and uh
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: he was. He was five and a half by his toothwear,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: which he could have been older. So he's never just
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: yeah he was a heavy two points. Oh he was
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: a big too. He looked at him, knew he was.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah he was. He was. He was probably eighteen
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: inches wide inside with with like eight or nine inch
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: g twos. But that's all he had. Yeah, he had
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: nothing else. He was just too big forks like it
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: look like a mule mule here. Yeah, Now I'm gonna
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: do something else. I'm gonna distracting another way, just to
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: throw this out, just just want to throw this out.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: Tell me the number of wild pigs that you have
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: handled in by trapping and whatnot. How many wild pigs
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: have you handled here in South Texas As this morning,
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: four thousand, seven ninety five wild pigs have passed through
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: your hands since I started counting. Tell me how how
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: old areen you weld it up your first pig trap? Alight? So, dear, um,
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: that's just a old teaser for later. So dear now
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: you're saying, and you told you're talking about this too,
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: that too many like if you have too many deer
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: running around, they're not gonna get as big. It Uh, okay,
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: get into that a little bit, okay, It it all
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: uh yeah that the it's all boils down to population
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: dynamics as far as uh you know, mother Nature's way
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: is is grow, grow, grow, grow, and then have a
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: big die off and then grow grow, grow and once
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: it once it surpasses carrying capacity, once the land surpasses
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: the carrying capacity, yeah, it has a die off, and
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: it it's uh to basically have these big spikes on
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: the graph up and down up and don't some species
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: just hit carrying capacity and then level off. Um, I'm
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: sure they do. The ones that I'm studying, don't, or
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: that I'm dealing with, um, quail and deer for instance. Um,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: they hit carrying capacity and they keep reproduce, and then
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden there's you know, too many less
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: and less food, more competition, and they start getting the
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: first species people look at when they're kind of talking
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: about that that phenomenon is people like to look at
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: snowshoe hairs. Yeah. Yeah, it's where it's so cyclical that
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: it falls into line. It's seven years. I mean it's
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: like dialed in right, and then you look at They
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: did this study where they looked at snowshoe hair patterns
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: and they went back through all the Hudson Bay Company
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: records on links, how many hides, links, hides We're getting
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: handled and it was offset but links who their primary
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: pray species and snowshoe rabbits. They looked at Hudson Bay
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: Company links hide receipts and realize that links high links
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: seemed to bounce along in a seven year span off
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: set from the snowshoe hair seven year span. Yeah, like
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: just respond under that direct response. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: But and see white tails, white tails do it. It's
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: more gradual. And now that now that people there's there's
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: such a high profile animal and game animal that people
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: are never gonna let them die off. But they will
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: let him overpopulate. And the first thing, the first thing
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: that they but they won't ever let them reach that
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: that uh point where they just they start dying off.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: But what happens is is is people get greedy and
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: they want to let as many survive as possible, thinking
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: that even even the biggest possible, thinking that someone's gonna
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: turn off who's real big deer they think they think
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: that giant deer and anomenaly anomaly and uh and and
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: they're not there. They're a low percentage. They're not they
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: I mean they're there's there's a certain percentage of white
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: tails that are gonna be big. And it's a it's
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: just a straight up bell curve and the middle range
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: down here is about a hundred and thirty and uh so, so,
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: uh well, we do or what I do to lower
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: the population. We we we call animals to lower the
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: population to uh reduce stress. And white tails in my
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: opinion are completely stress oriented. Rather, it's food, water, bedding cover.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: Everything is stress related. So if you have too many,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: it may not look like the habitat is suffering, but
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: they're competing directly with food and uh, same thing with
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: bedding cover. And uh so the first thing to go
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: on a white tails when it when it's trying to
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: survive is antler growth. It's a luxury. It's yeah, pure
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: pure luxury luxury. And uh so what uh and we
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: we do feed here, so that's that's uh, we're trying
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: to certain people in Texas feed to off set they
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: think they can offset that stress level of competition in uh.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: In natural habitat, we feed as a supplement to help
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: them out through drought conditions. So you don't have those
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: spikes in the in the in the graph like we
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: were talking about. And we try to level it out
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: as much as we can too, because that reduces the
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: stress anything any the I guess, the the spike up
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: or the spike down or all creating stress on the
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: on individual animals. So cooling is the practice of going
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: out and uh killing deer. Yeah, both the reduced numbers
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: and to make some kind of selection about who's gonna
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: be on the property and who's not right? Correct? Correct,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: and just so explain this because Texas runs wild, it's
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: so differently in this place in the US. The state
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: will come out to a big chunk of ground in
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: Texas and make an assessment about how many deer you
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: guys are supposed to kill because the state's trying to
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: encourage you to not let them get overrun. The state
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: is worried about habitat. They don't want they want the
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: habitat to be healthy. They don't care about or they
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: do they do care about, uh, the animals. But there
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: they realize that if you have great habitat, you're gonna
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: have healthy animals. And that's their number one folks. So
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: their number one focus is that you're not gonna allow
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: your habitat to become degraded, to have long term degradation
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: in the name of short term bunch of deer running
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: around or cattle or cattle. But in those but in
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: those are on private land. See this it's mostly privately land.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: And that's all uh the state. Those are recommendations by
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: the state. The state's not forcing you, you know, uh
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: in but the people that are want to be good
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: land stewards and want to grow better deer and have
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: better long term wildlife programs and cattle grazing programs. Requests
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: the state's assistants to come out and tell them what
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: they should or shouldn't do. And they'll come out and say,
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: like just using it doesn't have to be specific to
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: this place. But they'll come out to a property like this,
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: they'll come out and say, you boys would be wise
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: to kill four deer this year. Here are your tags.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: Here are your certificates for those four deer. Yeah, and uh,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: they they based that on several different Uh. They do
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: browse surveys, so they look at the whatever the deer eating,
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: and if if the plants, if the plants look stressed out,
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: then they'll then they'll, uh, I guess uh give you
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: more more tags or less tags versus based off of
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: what they notice on the plants. Um. They do surveys,
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: population surveys to see what that particular piece of ground is,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: is uh capable of handling? And the best way to
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: count dear here is helicopter, right, helicopter here. You can
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: use spotlights too, but it's too thick here, so we
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: use predominantly what I do is I try to use
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: a helicopter survey in tandem with the cameras, and I
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: try to get an individual buck count on the cameras
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: and then get your buck Do ray show from the
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: helicopter and your faone survival from your helicopter. So you
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: take your individual buck count from the from the camera
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: and apply that to the buck Do ray show, and
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: then you get your number of dose and then you
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: foll your phone crop to that and get your total number.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: A dear, and when they come out and give you
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: there's three hundred, like a decent number for a big
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: chunkle land. Three hundred? Are you raising your hand? Holy
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: can put as a wolf up? Woke up and has
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: a thought. I have a question too? After thank god,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: you want to interrupt men with like a dumb question.
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: You guys got such good questions. I want to be like, hey,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: what is this mean? You know what? Chris being so
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: polite right now, I'll tell you what the deal is.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: There's so much talking that goes on that it's hard
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: to even slip in the conversation. And I'll break in
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: right now. Okay, you start talking, say something, hey, hey,
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: uh so here's what I'm wondering, just like it's just
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: like as simple as that. Tell me about how when
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: you do a helicopter survey kind of like give me
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: the breakdown of how that happens, like the main steps
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: like skip the you know, before I got in, I
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: took a pee. But once you get in there, you
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: take off deer, start flushing and what are you actually
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: looking for and what are you recording? Right down? Well,
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: the way I do it, so everybody does it different,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: but the way I do it, uh is what you
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: What you do is you you you separate the property
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: and do like a grid or transax line transax and
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: those could be depending on visibility, if the vegetation is
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: high or the vegetation is low. That depends on that
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: makes uh decides what your transax are gonna be. You know,
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: rather they're gonna be a hundred yards apart where you're
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: running down, you know, running down, turning around, coming back,
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: running down, turning back, uh, or if they're gonna be
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: four hundred yards apart, and based off of the density
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: of the brush or density of vegetation and what you
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: can see, that's how you estimate how much how much
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: of the property you can cover with the helicopter. How
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: much you're survey, say, in this sort of thick gass country,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: what is the transsept It's usually about two hundred yards
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: because you can see two hundred yards. You can usually
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: see a hundred yards out both sides, so you'll move over.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: How many how many feet? How you flying? I don't
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: it's it varies depending on the vegetation. But it's not,
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: it's not. I guess it'd be probably fifty. You're just skimmings. No,
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: it's it's like airplane. No, the skids are touching the
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: tops of the trees. Sometimes it's it's pretty low. And
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: depending on the wind too. If it's real windy, we'll
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: get hired just so we don't crash. Uh uh. But
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: so what we'll do is we'll try we'll fly these
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: transac and I guess they'd be four hundred yard transax
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: if you can see a hundred yards either way. Uh
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: is what it would boil down to. And uh So
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: what you're looking for is when a deer flushes, you
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: usually can't see them if they stand still, but so
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: you usually want to get them to flush. So you
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: don't want to fly on a windy day or a
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: hot day where they're gonna be betted or not. Here
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: you you want to fly on a calm, cool day.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: Usually cloudy works, so that way they're moving as soon
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: as they hear you. And what we'll do is we'll
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: count uh bucks does and fawns. It's pretty much what
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: you're counting. And you can tell the difference between the
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: dose and the fawns pretty well. We usually fly in October,
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: so the fallons are pretty pretty small. And then the
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: bucks break into subcategories, and I break them into young bucks,
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: middle aged bucks, and old bucks and then uh And
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: like I said, that gives you your sex ratio and
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: your ratio of young versus middle aged versus old bucks,
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: and then it also gives you your fallon survival for
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: that summer. And you take those ratios and apply them
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: to your individual buck count from your cameras and through
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: all that. The state will take those numbers and say,
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: and they accept your numbers. They well, they accept mine.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: They don't accept everybody. Sometimes they have to have a
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: you know, a state employee in the helicopter with you.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: But if you're trained in it, you can get to
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: point whe they'll accept your numbers. Yeah, if you're trained
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: in it, and and they trust you and they know
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: you're you're not going to screw up, then they'll take
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: your numbers. And I've been doing it for ten or
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: twelve or almost fourteen years, I guess now, But what's
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: your level of accuracy? Like do you plus and minus? Like? No,
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: you're not. Well. See with the with the helicopter ratios,
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: you're not You're not trying to get a number, You're
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: just trying to get the ratio. So so within then
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: with the individual buck counts, so say you have you know,
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: one to one ratio and you see three hundred bucks
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: on the on the trail camera, so you have three
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: hundred dolls on a wonder one ratio, So you have
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: six hundred deer. But then you have a fifty fond
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: survival and what fifty fons reproval means you have three
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: hundred dolls, you have a hundred and fifty fonts. That's
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: so in that situation, you have seven hundred and fifty
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: total deer on the property. And uh, and you can't
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: really a lot of people do the helicopter survey, you know,
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: and that's how many deer they think they have. But
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: what you just mentioned. Your level of accuracy is changes
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: from property to property, depending on who's flying, depending on
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: whether it's there's too many variables too, that it gives
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: you a good idea and better than nothing exactly exactly.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: What was the other question, because that question was prompted
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: by something that was spoken after you expressed interest in
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: asking the question. Was it was yeah, yeah, yeah, um
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: you all up speed? Okay, Now, these tags, there's a
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: penalty if you go over. There's no penalty for going under.
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: They frown upon going under. So when they come out
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: and say, son, we're thinking that you need to do
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: some deer shooting out here, they're not happy if you
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: just don't do any deer shooting. No, I mean they
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: if you're if you're if you go through the process
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: of getting the permits, and it's a long process, so
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: you can you can just will never bring any of
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: this up and never get any permits and and do
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: whatever you wanted to the to what your your license allows,
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: which is which is your over to counter what right.
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: And the way people get around that is they just
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: bring in more gas, you know, more guests to shoot,
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: so then they can overshoot deer that way. So this
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: is the thing you kind of a thing you've been
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: rolling in in a plan you can rolling. Yeah, it's
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: a it's a long term, several years system just to
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: get started in the program. And when they give you
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: the tags, it doesn't matter who's pulling the trigger. Uh. Okay.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: There's three levels of these permits. Uh. And I believe
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: the first level. Uh, I don't. I don't remember. I
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: havn't been in the first and second level in in
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: ten years, so I don't remember. But the in in
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: Scott would know if we get him on here later.
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: But uh, the level three anybody can shoot is many deers.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: So if you get a hundred tags, one person could
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: shoot deer legally and they could they could use all
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: the tags, or you could have a hundred different people
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: shoot one deer. Uh, it makes no difference. And on
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: the let on the highest level, so someone hunting on
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: that property, he's ever a hunting license. They have to
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: have a hunting license, yes, And there's a stack of tags,
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: and when a deer is killing that property, one of
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: those tags goes out of that deer. One of the
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: state issued permit, it's goes on that dear one of
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: your license your tag off of your over the counter
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: license does not go on that dear if your property
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: is enrolled in that permit system. So when you go
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: buy a tag and it comes with five dear tags,
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: but you're only hunting on your property and you have
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: state issued tags in your property, you never touch your tags. Correct.
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: I have not used a a white tail tag off
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: of my license in six or seven years, because you're
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: just doing I'm only hunting here or or on properties
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: that that have the same permitting, same permitting system. Okay, No,
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: earlier you were talking about that a buck. You're telling
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: me that when a doe has twin fawns, eight percent
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: of the time those twin fawns have different fathers. The
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: last study that I read, uh, was was in in
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: this southwest Texas. This information is somewhat specific to this area. Yeah,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: that's what that. Yeah, it's it's everything sites specific with
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: white tails. They changed so much from area to area.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: And uh, but yeah, they because we have such tight
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: sex ratios one to one most of the time, or
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: even even higher bucks than does. Yeah, and I'll point
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: out that they're born one to one, Yeah, right, right,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: A little heavier on the bucks, a little heavy on
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: the bucks. So when you're sitting like when when I
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: was growing up, you'd be sitting in there in the
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: woods and you see about ninety dolls for every bucky
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: saw right in in Michigan, because that was like I
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: moved away from Michigan, but I was born. You know,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: I'm forty two years old. So I started hunting when
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: I was eleven twelve years old. And back then people
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: don't want to shoot dolls. Everybody shot every buck they saw,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: right and you'd sit up there and be like, I
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: remember sitting there one time in the cornfield, and I
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: remember it was like a late season hunt, so rifle
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: season ended. I was hunting in the December season with
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: my boat, and I remember counting nineties some white tailed
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: dolls without a buck hotly cah. Yeah. I wonder if
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: that was it was that. I wonder if that was
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: a good indication of this X ratio or was it
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: a indication of hunting pressure for the bucks. I don't know,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: but my feeling was growing up, and it was a
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: long time ago, and I didn't have it. It wasn't
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: taking a scientific approach to it. My feeling was back
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: then in those days that the that the ratios were
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: as ridiculous. They they got to be as ridiculous as
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: like you'd here thrown around, you'd have twenty dollars for
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: every part. Yeah, there's there's places in Texas like that
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: that are neglected or not uh not neglected, but not
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: not managed and only they only shoot the bucks. Same
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: same deal like you're talking about that that happened right
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: now today. But yeah, so it's interesting in that they're
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: born one to one. But of course one thing to
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: excuse it is, I'm sure the dolls gotta have a
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: much longer life expectancy. Yeah, is that true? Um in
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: in unmanaged places, I would believe so, yes, and managed
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: places I don't. I don't think so. Yeah. So let's
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: just say all people died right now, Okay, humans cease
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: to exist, and we jump into the future one years.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: Based on your understanding, white tails, would white tails exist
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: then at a one to one ratio? And it just
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: I guess it depends on their location, but I kind
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: of I would believe, Yes, you believe they'd find a
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: way towards that. I believe, especially in this area, they
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: gravitate to one one. So the twin fawn thing that
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: the dough is is uh getting bread by a bunch
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: of different bucks. I watched the dough on a with
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: a with a red train. One time I had seven bucks,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: seven bucks with one dough. It was hot and she
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: they she was in a field. I watched six of
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: those bucks readers, a couple of them multiple times. Weren't
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: you tell me all? But the big one the only
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: one that never bred? Or was the big one while
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: you watched? Well, yeah, wow, because he was so paranoid
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: about trying to beat all the other ones off. Hey,
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: chase one yards the other way, and another one to
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: run in and breeder, mounter breeder, and then he'd turned
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: around and see that one breeder turned around and chase
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: him off, and then another one to come in from
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: the other side. There was there was a couple of
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: those bucks that bred her multiple times, and he never
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: bred her. It's the time frame that that's even like
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: biologically possible to be bred by two different bucks. Is
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: it like the same day or yeah? I think their
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: astresses is uh eight or something like that. So she
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: she forms two embryos, and just because she's in there
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: being so trashy, wind's up carrying in her the children
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: of two different bucks. Right. It works with dogs if
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: you can breed. Uh, if you breed three male dogs
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: to the same female, they can have, you know, puppies
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: from all three. Is it? Like? Here's the another thing
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: we say when we were kids. A buck bread a
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: big buck. Once he got to be the big man,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: Like the biggest buck around heat breed ten to twenty dopes.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: That's possible, it doesn't happen on what I notice here
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: with a one one ratio, I think every buck is
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: pretty well equal from my from my observations yearling bucks
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: in this area, in this area of Texas and this,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: I mean this is a small, minute little spot, but uh,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: in my observations, yearling bucks breed as much as older bucks.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: All age classes are pretty well consistent depending on the individual.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: Depending on the individual you get. It's just like people.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: You get the real horny ones and you get the
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: ones that are just laid back and all they do
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: is want to eat. Yeah, it's the same deal with deer.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: And uh, I mean some bucks may not breed any
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: any dose their whole life for one or to just
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: they just tapping to stop and squat in front of him.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: What's that valarious guist theory. I think we were talking
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: to you founder effect. Huh. I was gonna bring up
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: the founder effect earlier. Is that the one where the
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: buck takes himself out of the breedings. Uh problem was
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: that vale Geist? I think so? I never really believed
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: that theory. Yeah, is that something he put forward? I
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: gotta google it, do it because I'll tell another vale
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: guyst thing. I think it was Vlarious Guys who there's
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: a there's a very famous uh mammalogist in Calgary at
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: the university there. He's still living and there met him
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: named Vlarious Geist and and he has he's like a
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: big ideas guy about animals, and and he wrote about it.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: They might even have come up coined the term the
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: founder effect. Basically about the um when animals come into
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: a new area, when they discover new range or having
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: arrange expansion from something like retreating glaze. Sure's at the
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: end of the ice age whatever. The um the tendency
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: towards gigantism that happens with animals moving into a new
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: piece of habitat. And we see it with introductions, wildlife introductions, explosions, right,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: giant specimens, a whole bunch of them and then you
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: have like a collapse and then you kind of find
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: a norm. But that was about guyst thing. Yeah, it's
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: gonna dig it up. Yeah, I heard this theory like
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: the box It just yeah, I don't even need to
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: look the damn thing up. It was this idea that
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: I think you were talking about your honest that a
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: book will be like, hey, man, I got an idea.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna pull myself out of the genetic pool and
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: go off and hide out for several years and get
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: real big and bad, and then I'm gonna come down
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: and pour the coals to every dough I can find.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna come out of like hiding like I'm the
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: Hollywood movie and pour the coals to every dole that
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: I could find. Yeah, I was gonna ask you if
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: you've ever seen that, if you had seen box Set
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: for like four or five years, has been just real mellow,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: weren't very aggressive, and because of that, you know, I
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: had put on weight and gotten big, and then all
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: of a sudden one year they just turned it on
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: and kind of started kicking. But it's like a version
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: of the old like hey, let's run down and breed
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: one of those cows and the old ones, like let's
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: walk down and breed them all. It's kind of like
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: an extreme version of that. Yeah, yeah, I haven't I
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: haven't noticed that here. Um it seems you haven't noticed
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: a big buck hiding somewhere for many years and then
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden coming out and just it's sealaging
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: the women. I'll say, what I've noticed is when they're
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: horny at one their horny their whole life, when all
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: they want to do is eat and they don't really
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: look at the girls. They're like that their whole life.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: You know. As far as bud like folks fighting and
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: breaking times, there's bucks that never break even a tip
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: for eight or nine years of their life. Then there's
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: other bucks that are have every time on their head
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: broken by November. He's just gonna fight, He's just that's
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: guys like that exactly. It's they're just like people and
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: they're so individual that that's what makes it fun, and
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: that's what makes it hard, and that's what also makes
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: it so so interesting to me, because nobody's ever right,
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: and nobody's ever wrong. Your your your theories and everything
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: that you do. You know, it has an application somewhere,
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: so you're not h you're not shooting all the giant bucks.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: Now you don't shoot the two bucks, and you know
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: you get paid to do it. You can probably paid
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: to do all kinds of stuff. What do you get
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: out of it? Uh? It's I mean, it's it's a passion.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: It's just something that I've developed over the years, and
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: now it's more of an addiction. It started out as
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: a ash and now it's more of an addiction. I
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: couldn't turn my back to it now if I wanted to.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: And just watching, just just watching. Uhh. We talked about
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: this word earlier. Watching like a system. Yeah, just just
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: a wildlife system, right, just learning as much as I
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: possibly can about you know, that animal. How much do
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: you feel that you're manipulating it to the point where
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: you're you're farming, dear, And how much do you feel
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: you're just making room for things, You're making room to
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: allow things that would happen happen. I feel I feel
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: very strongly that as far as I feel like we're
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: trying to let things occur that would naturally occur and
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: maybe putting them on a fast track without with an
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: indirect approach, meaning in really like again, in this scenario,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: this hypothetic scenario where all humans die, you would all
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: humans are dead. You would see that some dear we're
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: growing to nine years old and dying of old age,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: which is not happening in Mosquito County, Michigan, where I
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: grew up. Even kind of is there hunting? Yeah, so
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: if there wasn't people, No, there is no old buck.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: We about ship our pants when you're in My dad
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: shot a buck. They're looking back. It must have been
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: a two and a half ye old buck. It was
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: a giant. Yeah, he even got in the newspaper. Yeah. No, uh, man,
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know that they all revert back. It's it
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: goes back to those spikes in the in the populations.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: What I'm trying to do is avoid the spikes. If if, if,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: if people disappeared in a hundred years from now, it
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: would be the it would be the up and down population. Yes,
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: and uh there would be years or points in that
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: process or that system of ups and downs that would
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: be mirror to what we're trying to do here, But
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: it wouldn't be consistent. You know what. You know what
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: I'm saying. You know it would be up and down,
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: but while it was going up, it would be what
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: we're trying to hit here, um, And that's all we're
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: trying to do, is we're just trying to slow that down.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: How will you like right now, if you had to
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: sit right now and say, in my career, UM, I
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: would measure success by what what would it be? Not
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: on means that your career because you're you're young, like
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: in and what would be the ideal thing that you
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: would see happen? Not a property you were managing, like
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: what would be a ten year goal? Uh uh uh, well,
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: like a tenure. I don't know. I don't know if
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: I could fathom what I really want to happen. But
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: you don't know what it would look like. No, there's
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: that's that's I don't have any idea what it would
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: look because see the situation you're in. Remember earlier you
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: mentioning that um and you were putting us as a
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: life goal. But you were just saying, like a thing
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: that would happen perhaps is that ever you'd get it
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: to be where you had a handful two three, four
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: truly like outstanding white tails come off your property. But
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: one would point out you could do that right now
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: by going online and buying like you know, big thunder
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: fox semen, do you know what I mean, and putting
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: them in a pen and giving him a bunch of stuff. Right. So,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: it's like, you want to get there, but you want
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: to get there in a in a route that is
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: acceptable to you, or a route that's interesting to you,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: and not through a route that's not interesting to you.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: Like I want to have a million dollars, I can
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: make it crooked, I'm not saying me, but so he'd
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: be like, I want a million dollars. I want to
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: make it through running like a great company that treats
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: his employees really well and has like stable growth patterns
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: and and and a good environ mental record. Or I
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: want to make a million dollars, don't care I have
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: to kill you to do it, right. That's exactly I mean,
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: exactly exactly right. My my problem is is as far
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: as seeing into the future, my goals would be, Yeah,
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: to have a couple of gigantic white tail bucks at
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: a harvestable age each year. Uh, However, nobody's doing what
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: what we're trying to do here, or has done what
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: we're trying to do here to the intensity that we're
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: doing it, so you can't really predict what's going to happen. Uh,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: you follow this recipe X well, right nobody. Yeah, and
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: and it's so different, you know, from side to side.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: And that's why that's why that question is difficult for
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: me to answer, um, because I don't really know something
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: might happen that we don't see, because this is never
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: you know, nobody's nobody's done this. It's not like you know,
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: like you said, you follow a recipe and this is
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: what you're gonna end up with. Nobody knows what's gonna happen.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: Mother nature is that awesome way I was saying, screw you,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: you know, and throwing a wrench into things when you
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: try to start messing with her. And uh, and that's
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: another fun part for me. Yeah. You mentioned earlier like
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: an unintended consequences when we're talking about quail, and you
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: were saying, you can think you're helping out quail by
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: putting out quail feeders, but what you might be doing
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: is helping out Bobcats and Kyle. It's by giving them
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: a great place to kill quail exactly. And that's exactly right.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: That's exactly right, like intuitively be like, oh yeah, put
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: the food on, dude, you have tons of quail. That's how.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: That's how. There's a lot of things that got screwed
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: up in in the US that are started out as
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: good intentions and the byproducts were you know, completely disastrous. Yeah,
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: speaking of unintended consequences. You know, that's what's cool about
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: this place is that it's all you guys are trying
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: to do all like native flora and while we you know,
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: you come down here and you've gotten the whole high
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: fenced thing in your head and you're thinking about exotics
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: and there's gonna be zebras running around this, that and
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: the other. Like, let's like list off the cool stuff
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: that we've seen this week. The four spieces of snakes. Yeah,
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: a horny toad, Uh, what is Texas Texas tortis, a
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: greener which is three hundred jack rabbits, five hund cotton
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: tail rabbits, unbelievable Mexican whisp black billy whistling ducks, unbelievable
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: varieties of birds. Yeah, I haven't seen this one kudu
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: roll through yet. My. That's kind of why I want
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: to have this discussion is because my impression, like the
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: first time I ever came down here two like the
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: famous Texas white Tail Country was when I came down
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: with Ben O'Brien to come down here and just look
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: at Quail. I remember walking around being like, this is
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: just not what I imagined. You know it is, uh,
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: Hue is vast expanses of I don't want to say pristine.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: The hand of man has felt like we, for instance,
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: talked about the implications of fire suppression right we were
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: you and I were having been and I have been
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: bending here. We were discussing like, wow, would you what
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: would you have paid to rod a horse or here
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: two years ago? And he feels that it would have
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: been more mixed grasslands from from making mosaics of burned
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: areas and unburned areas, and and the animal the wild,
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: it was a little different. Uh, buffalo or bison ranged
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: down in this area, which suggests more open country and
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: a little profound down here, which is suggests more open country.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: So it's the hand of man has felt, you know,
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: through that same way interrupting systems, fire systems and things. However,
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: vast expanses of what by a relative standard of what
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: goes on in the US would be undisturbed environment, privately owned,
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: but vast expanses of undisturbed landscape while they've habitat, and
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: a pretty stunning array of of of native wildlife. You know. Yeah,
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: it's some tremendous wildlife viewing here an unusual thing. We
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: saw a snake. I had never heard of the blue
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: what's you call the blue indigo? So souped up bringing rattlesnake.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: It's been interesting