Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #210: Jeff Sturgis’ Strategic Approach To Whitetail Habitat Improvement

Transcript

Wired To Hunt Podcast #210: Jeff Sturgis’ Strategic Approach To Whitetail Habitat Improvement · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyon. This is episode number two hundred
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: and ten, and today we are joined by white Tail
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Habitat consultant and author Jeff Sturgis, and we're diving deep
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: into his strategic, detail oriented perspective on improving white tail
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: habitat for deer and deer hunting. Welcome to the Wired
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Sick of Gear,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: and today on the show we're talking whitetail habitat improvements.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: And joining me to discuss this is Jeff Sturgis. Now,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: hopefully you're already familiar with the Jeff. He's been on
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: the podcast a couple of times. Is back towards the beginning,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: but if you're not familiar. He's the author of three
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: white tail hunting and habitat related books, those being white
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Tail Success by Design, Food Plot Success by Design, and
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Mature Buck Success by Design. He's also the man behind
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: the white Tail Habitat Solutions website and YouTube channel, and
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: a Traveling white Tail Habitat consultant, and of all the
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: people out there talking about food plots and improving habitat
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: and work in the land and stuff like that, Jeff,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: I think, is without a doubt, probably been one of
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: the most influential people on me. And I think that's
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: because he has this very unique and strategic way of
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: thinking about habitat work that really intrigues me. I guess
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: nothing he does is by chance, nothing's random. Everything's done
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: with this larger picture in mind. Everything kind of fits
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: together like an individual piece part of a larger puzzle.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: And that's fascinating me. I love the the amount of
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: care and mindfulness he puts into the work he does
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: on a property. A big part of why white tail
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: hunting is so fascinating and exciting to me is this puzzle.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: It's it's putting all these pieces together, and when you
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: put the habitat part of it into the equation, it
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: just makes things even more interesting. So that is what
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about with Jeff today, the strategic, kind
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: of tactical way to go about thinking and making habitat
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: improvements on your hunting property. I think you're really gonna
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: enjoy it. I really enjoyed this one. But before we
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: get into that, rather than doing our usual pregame show,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: since Dan can't join us, we're not going to do that.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: But I wanted to kind of address a question I
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: got last weekend. UM. I was on another podcast. I
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: was on the Meat Either podcast, and I was asked
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: if I thought baiting and food plots essentially equate to
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: the same thing. And I gave an answer kind of
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: off the cuff, and looking back on that now, I
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: sort of blacked out. I'm not exactly sure what I said,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: but I do know I don't feel I didn't feel
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: good about my final answer. I didn't feel like it
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: really made sense. UM. So I've been thinking about that
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: since then, like how do our bathing and food plots different,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: or like what do I really think? Um? And I
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: wanted to somehow be able to communicate that better. So
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I thought I'd take a stab at sharing with you
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: guys some of my thoughts on this, and I'll say
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: we're off the get go. I'm not saying that one
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: or the other is is good or bad. UM. I
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: personally don't bait. I've chosen not to use bait simply
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: because that doesn't fit into what I'm looking for out
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: of my hunting experience. But I'm not gonna hate on
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: anyone who does bait in an area where it's legal, um,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: and where they've you know, shown there's if there's not
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: going to be any disease concerns or anything. If it's
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: legal and you want to do it, more power to you.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: I have family members who do, and I'm not gonna
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: judge them at all, um, but it's not for me.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: So when I was asked this question, I said, no,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I don't think that food plots and baiting are the
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: same thing. And I think first off, you can just
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: look at the practical differences. So number one, Um, you
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: don't have the same disease concerns with food plots as
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: you do have with baiting. So when baiting, you've got
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: a pile of corn, maybe dumped in a two ft
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: by two ft square area, you get a lot of
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: noses touching yell asks alive in the same area. There
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: are increased risks of transferring disease. That something's been talked
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: about for a long time. It seems to be there's
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: there's pretty widespread consensus that that is something that if
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: there's disease in the area. Congregating deer unnaturally can potentially
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: increase the spread. So that's one kind of practical difference.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Number two, I think this kind of common sense is
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: that you know, food plots can benefit wildlife in a
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: much wider way, in a much longer standing way than
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: bait can. When you have a food plot that you
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: know produces food for seasons long or an entire year,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: that's very different than what a pile of corn can do.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Not only is it a length, but it's also the
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: quality of food. It's also the diversity of species that
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: can benefit from a food plot versus bait. Um. The
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: impact you see from a one acre clover plot are
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: are night and day compared to what you might see
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: from a pile of corn or pilot sugar bates or
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: whatever it is. When you look at how deer and
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: turkeys and rabbits and and pollinators and all these other
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: animals and and critters out there can can enjoy and
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: take advantage of that nutrition and that habitat. So those
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: are a couple of practical differences. They're kind of um
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I think relatively common sense you can see those are difference.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: But I think probably the biggest difference from me isn't
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: so much a practical manners more of um. It's more
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: of like a a deeper philosophical difference. Maybe in the
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: act of planning a food plot or improving habitat um.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: And I think one of those big things that you
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: get when at least that I get. And maybe this
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: is just me, so take it for whatever it's worth.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: But for me, when I am working in the habitat,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: when I am planning a food plot, I get this
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: connection to the land, the connection to the animal that
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: you simply can't get, I think when you just pour
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: something out into the ground. Um. When I'm when I'm
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: working the dirt, I am thinking about the land and
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: the elements and the habitat in a deep, deep way.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: I need to understand soil and water and rain and sun.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: I get pulled into this natural cycle and I become
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: a part of it, similar to why I find hunting
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: so compelling, because you become part of this food cycle,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: you become part of kind of the circle of life.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: I guess that also happens when you start improving and
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: working and understanding habitat too. You're pulled into this this
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: other piece of the puzzle. Um. I mean, just you
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: never learned to appreciate rain so much and and think
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: about whether so much as when you start planning food. Lass.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: That's just one interesting example. But all these things that
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: are going on in the natural world all of a
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: sudden become part of like your daily life in a
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: new profound way that that again connects me, It pulls
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: me into this world. Um. And I find that really compelling.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: You know. Another thing for me is is the difference
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: in work. The sweat equity that has to be put
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: into the effort that has to go into making a
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: habitat improvement changes it for me to UM. I think
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: I've mentioned this example before, but it's something that resonates
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: with me a lot. And you know, there's this mountain
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: in New Hampshires called Mount Washington, and my wife and
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: I on our honeymoon, we decide we're gonna climb to
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: the top of Mount Washington. We're gonna hike all the
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: way to the top. It was I can't remember, four
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: thousand feet of elevation gain or something. It's a serious hike.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: It was like an all day hike. The weather on
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: top of Mount Washington is some of the most uh,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: severe and dangerous in the entire country. Um so it's
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: kind of it was pretty cool little venture we were
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: going on for the day. And I mean we worked
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: our tails off. It was raining and sleeping and climbing
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: up and over bowlders and all this kind of stuff.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Really the kind of stuff that I'm sure my wife
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: was hoping to enjoy on her big post wedding celebration.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: And we get all the way top and me we
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: worked our tails off. We get to the summit and
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: we see a parking lot and we see dozens and
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: dozens and dozens of people getting off of buses and
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: walking around up on top of the mountain. And they
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: were looking out at the scene and they were looking
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: off into the distance. And I realized then that we
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: were experiencing the same thing. We were both on top
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: of this mountain, but we were processing it or seeing
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: it through a completely different filter. Are idea of what
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: was happening. Our experience on top of the mountain was
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: night and day between what my wife and I were
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: feeling and seeing and experiencing versus those who had rode
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: a bus or a train or a car up to
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: the top. Because because I had to do not with
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: actually getting to that, and destination had to do with
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: the journey to get there. The experience was really about
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: that journey getting up on the top of the mountain.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: And I think it's the same thing applies to making
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: habitat improvements or food plots. For me, at least, this
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: is just me. But I feel like when I plant
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: a food plot, yes, part of my goal is to
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: enhance my hunting opportunities. That might lead to me killing
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: a deer. That's the same end goal. Maybe that someone,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: or maybe that if I was using bait, that would
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: probably the same end goal if I was baiting um.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: But that journey is completely different, and for me, that
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: journey is is the most compelling part of it. Again,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: it goes back to what I just talked about, that
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: connection you get to the land when you're working it.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: So that's the second deeper way I think it's different.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: And finally I think it's you know, of course, the
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: way you get to watch the wildlife benefiting from these improvements,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: the way you can engage with it afterwards. It's it's
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: really fulfilling to see animals, wildlife, turkeys, deer, birds, rabbits, groundhogs,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: whatever it might be feeding in a clover plot that
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: you worked on all spring and summer, or coming out
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: of a betting area that you improved, or using some
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: kind of new feature that you put in place that
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: you thought might you know, help this property hold more
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: dear or or transition more dear. And seeing animals actually
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: use it and benefit from that. That's an incredibly um
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know, it's it's a powerful feeling. I still
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: get excited about it and enjoyment out of it. Now,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: many many years since I've started doing this stuff, It's
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: still is like a new novel thing every time I
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: see it. And Elder Leopold wrote in a Sand County
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Almanac something that I think kind of sums us up
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: really really nicely for me. He said this quote, acts
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets, but
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: humbler folk may circumvent this restriction if they know how
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: to plant a pine. For example, one need be neither
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: god nor poet. One need only own a good shovel.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: So acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: he said, But we with a shovel or a tractor
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: or rake a handful of seed. Maybe I saw we
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: can make our own acts of creation. We can enjoy
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: those things ourselves as habitat managers. Um, it's habitat improvers.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: It's it's a unique and a really cool way to
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: engage in the natural world. I personally think, um, and
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: I'm fortunate. I don't own land yet, but I do
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: have a piece of property where I'm allowed to make
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: these improvements. I know not everyone has that situation, but
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: I think it is a pretty cool opportunity if you do.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: I understand why some people that aren't in this kind
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: of world some people see it, they don't get it,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: or they find it um, they find it to be
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: a turn off, like we're farming for wildlife in the
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: view that negatively, or we're trying to manipulate two things
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: too many things, we're not taking advantage of, and we're
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: not understanding the natural movements. But being a part of
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: this system an active creation, getting to, I don't know,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: insert ourselves into this bigger picture of this natural world.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: It's a pretty neat opportunity that I've come to really appreciate.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: And today's discussion, we're gonna hear all about how Jeff
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: does this with a very strategic point of view that
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: I think is really interesting too if you're approaching this
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: from a hunting perspective. So that is it from my
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: rant today. I don't know if I answer the question
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: any better. I'm sure you guys have some opinions on
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: that too. I'd love to hear it. And I guess
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: now I will stop my rambling. We're in a pause.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: We're going to hear from our white Tail Property segment
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: right now, and then we will get Jeff Sturgis on
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: the line this week with white Tail Properties. We are
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: joined by Tom James, a land specialist out of Central Indiana,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: and Tom is going to be telling us about what
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: the very first habitat improvements should be for a land manager.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Good question, Um. Some of the first key things the fundamentals,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: if you want to think about, is when you think
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: in terms of what a deer requires, the food security,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: covering water and the q d m A has a
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: great analogy of the thinking about the lowest hole on
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: the bucket that you need to plug out to keep
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: the water from leaking out. So what could be missing
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: on your property that the surrounding land may have, and
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: so you want to do a quick assessment. Maybe it's food,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: may be it's water maybe if you can maybe it's cover.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: If you can look through your woods and see two
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: hundred yards, then you've got an issue with with too
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: much shade, not enough sunlight creating new potential brows and
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: cover for your deer. So maybe it's a timber, a
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: timber either stand improvement or a harvest or a combination
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: of two that's gonna allow some more new growth to
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: come in and picking up your property. Maybe it's as
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: simple as you're not leaving an area alone as a sanctuary.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: If you're trapesing all over forty acres and pushing deer
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: off every time you go, then that's that's obviously an issue.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: So maybe just an adjustment in the way that you
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: move around and hunt the property and approach things. Uh.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: If food is your lacking ingredient or your lowest hole
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: in the bucket, then even in timber, it takes some work,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: but you can certainly clear out some openings and plant food.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Um and I would suggest considering both perennial food and
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: annual food stuff that you can leave in like clover
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: and chicory as a perennial coming back every year. And
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: do some fall planted cereal rains and brassicas for the
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: fall time. So you've got a year round program going on,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: and typically it's not an issue in the Midwest. But
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: if if water is of lacking ingredient, then maybe you
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: can create a water hole or even some of the
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: new systems like the banks water watering tanks that you
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: can set up that are mobile and fill up and
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: provide water sources for your deer so that they don't
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: have to leave the property to water. Again, that's fairly rare,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: but that could be a consideration. If you'd like to
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: learn more and to see the properties that Tom currently
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: has listed for sale, visit whitetail properties dot com. Backslash James,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: that's j A. M. E. S all right with me.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Now back on the show for the third time is
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Jeff Sturgis. Thanks for being here, Jeff, Oh, it's great
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: to be with you. Marcus Is, this is great. I
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: love love chatting with you, and I hope we have
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: a good good talk today. I definitely, I definitely think
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: we will. And I was just thinking back the very
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: first time you were on the show was all the
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: way back in the spring of two thousand fourteen, so
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: four years ago, um, and that that's kind of crazy.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. And in that one we talked about food plots,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: and then we talked once more. I think two years
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: ago we kind of talked about hunting and a lot
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: of your different ideas revolving around actually taking action during
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: the hunting season. But today what I wanted us to
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: focus on was kind of habitat improvements three five, Like
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: the entire spectrum of things that we can do on
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: a habitat, because I know from reading all of your
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: books and your many articles and watching all of your
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: YouTube videos and all the things that you're doing these days, um,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: you have a lot of thoughts and philosophies and ideas
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: and actual tactics on how to take a property and
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: turn it into a a white tail paradise. I mean
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: you you kind of have ideas that go across the
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: whole spectrum, impacting everything from food to betting too transitions
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: to how dear use a property to how you as
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: a hunter can use the property. And I've alway is
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: thought that of all the people out there talking about,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: you know, manipulating or working on dear related habitat, your
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: way of thinking about things has always made the most
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: sense to me, and it's like intrigued me the most
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: because of how strategic you are with everything. Um. So
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: this is just a long roundabout way of saying, I
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: love the stuff you talk about, Jeff, and I'm glad
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: that you're here to talk about it with us. Well,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that market I know it's something. Um. I actually,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: as you can tell probably from the writings, videos, books, whatever,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: I have an extreme passion for it and and you know,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: and that's where all this started, was taking that love
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: of hunting and working on habitat and then kind of
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: just falling into a career opportunity and being able to
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: put those ideas from all the hunting experience um into
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: into the habitat and then helping people, whether it's writing,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: creating the videos, are actually going to clients visit. So
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: UM yeah, it's it's I really love to hear when
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: people appreciate it, and um keeping fired up and I
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: if you can't tell, I love doing it. So I
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: feel very very blessed to be able to do what
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: I do. So, so, what is it about the habitat
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: side of things that's so compelling for you? Especially maybe
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: for someone listening who likes to hunt, but they haven't
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: yet tried making changes to the places that they hunt
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: um or manage. What is it for you that's that
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: kind of gotten you by the heart strings? Well, I think, um,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: it's it's the entire picture of the white tail world.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: And and and honestly, I'm pretty boring because I don't um,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: I don't elk hunt. I do very little bird hunting,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: on grouse hunting, things like that, scroll hunting growing up.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: But I just I love white tails and and it
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: all revolves back to hunting in the hunting days and
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: growing up as a kid and trying to have it
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: had we had to figure it out ourselves. We came
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: from a non hunting family and so diving into it
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: and always want to improve our hunt. And then I
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: think it was line I met ed Spinezzola, I was
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: introduced to the qt M a might even and from
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: there just really begin to realize and I start planning
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: food plats. So going back a little ways, it really
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: wasn't a lot of information out there, But again going
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: back to want to improve the hunt, found there were
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: great ways to improve the herd and use habitat to
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: improve the herd on small parcels and uh, and really
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: it was the love of hunting, and that translated into
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: kind of year round for shooting, passion um of all
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: things whitetail, and that certainly includes the habitat. You know
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: that even translates to public lands. Um, whether you're improving
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: the habitat on private land, are trying to recognize those
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: habitat features on public land? Um, it really revolves around
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: white tails trying to figure out the daily lights and
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: and having a passion for that. Yeah. I have really
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: enjoyed how you relate a lot of the stuff back
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: to how you can identify it in a setting public land.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: To that that I thought was pretty unn interesting. Um,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: because there's a lot of things, like you talk about,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: we're trying to create things. If you have a property
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: where you can manage and and make habitat changes yourself,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: you can create these features. But if you don't have
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: that ability at least understanding what types of features are
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: the deer, what kind of features do relate to? If
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: you know how to at least identify those that are
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: already created, you can go out and find those on
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: public land or pieces you already have permission on right,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: right right, and and to me, the concepts that you
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: manage habitat are heard with um and and even hunting.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Really there they can go between private land, public land,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: and then big parcels and small parcels and uh and
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: really you just have to understand that balance of how
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: to accurately apply that concept. And that's why there's no
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: cookie cutter design. There's no cookie cutter bedding area, travel corridor,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: food plots. You know that you really have to match
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: them to the specific habitat. And and then when I
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: find you do that and you hit that rate un
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: match for property to habitat improvement, then when you use
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: some of the concepts, um that in the really concepts
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: that you know, there's not a lot of concepts out there.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: We can just read a book and say this is.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: You know, I have things that you know, phrased depth
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: to cover, parallel and habitat features, perpendicular access, and they're
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: personal efficiency and there's all these different concepts, but they're
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: really just things that I recognize out in the deer world,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: whether I'm scouting client parcels or in public land or
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: my own hunting pursuits. Try to name it, see it
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: over and over again. I think I've worked on seven
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: parcels in twenty states now and and so I get
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: to see these concepts played out from northern Michigan to Virginia,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: down in Mississippi, Oklahoma, Kansas, wherever it might be, and
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: try to understand why deer doing something here? How does
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: that relate to what they're doing over there? Um, maybe
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: just a difference of balance of size or parcel or
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: a number of deer. And then uh really actually try
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: to apply that to every person you go to. Yeah, yeah,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: that that breadth of experience you have makes I think
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: your perspective especially helpful. Um inst Like you said, you've
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: worked on so many different people's properties and given them
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: new ideas and consulted with them. When you walk a
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: new property, what what what are you looking for? How
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: do you decide what should be done? Can you walk
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: us through your mindset when you when you step foot
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: on that new piece. Yeah, it's it's kind of interesting
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: because you know, a lot of people want to just
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: jump right on the property right away. But I found
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: over the years that it's really important to sit down
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: and have a discussion in the morning so that um,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: I can start to get to know them, for one thing,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: their goals or resources, because that's a complexity in itself
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: right there. And I guess it boils down to I
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: love the puzzle, whether it's the puzzle of the habitat
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: and the hunting and how everything fits together, but also
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: the people that you work with. It's that they're part
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: of the puzzle because everyone has different resources, goals, UM,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: and they come from different background as an experienced level.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: So that's what we're doing first thing, so that when
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: we hit the property, UM already have a good idea
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: of the deer numbers in the area, the hunting pressure
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: in the area, and you can kind of figure that
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: out regionally a little bit. UM. You have an idea
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: of what deer going to relate to UM as far
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: as what they like to bed in. For example, do
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: they like real tight, constricted space like in northern Ohio
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: or they want to are they used to a lot
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: of space with low deer numbers and a lot of cover,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: say in northern Minnesota or even a Big Woods of
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Kentucky or Big Woods is Pennsylvania. And so when we
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: hit the hit the woods, really have a little bit
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: of a mindset of what you're going to relate to.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: And what I'm really looking for is, you know, you're
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: starting to everything boils back down to food. Food is
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: what defines daily movement for deer. And and so I'm
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: looking if they're on board for food plots, are expanding
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: their food plot programs, and we're really starting at food first.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: And if it makes sense of the food plots here,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: meaning that we can plant food there, we can get
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: around it. We don't have to spook the deer that
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: are that are feeding on that plot. Then how does
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: that relate to a betting area, travel through that betting area?
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: And most importantly, once you have those definitions in place
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: of deer movement, then how does that relate to hunter access?
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: And so I'm going around the property and I'm basically
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: looking at all the habitat types. You for example, might
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: have a forty acre tag alter swamp. We don't need
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: to have a grid pattern and cross through that tag
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: alter swamp and look at everything. But I need to
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: really see how the edges of that tag Alter swamp
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: relate to the edge of that hardwoods, which relates to
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: that clear cut that they just put in, which relates
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: to a food plot. And where all those positions on
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: the property and how they can be used to basically
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: move during deer during the daylight hours, to define their use.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: And then once that definition is made, then we can
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: define how people hunt. And it's not just you know,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: it's a great stand location because it's a cruising funnel.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: It's this is a good stand location because it's reasonable
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: to expect that this would be on the down winds
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: out of a buck betting area. Something you could use
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: in the morning. There's an intermediate stand where you can
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: use for cruising for bucks that are going to food
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: in the afternoon or coming from food in the morning. Um,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: this is a stand location closer to food that you
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: can use in the evening. Might be able to target
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: does easily at a spot like that and successfully without
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: infringing that buck betting. And so it's you're putting this
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: all these pieces together, and then that gives you an
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: assemblage of stand locations that you can actually say, this
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: is a reasonable to think this is a morning stand,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: as an afternoon stand, us, evening stand us and all
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: days stand. So as we put these pieces together out
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: of the property that day, I'm putting that together in
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: my head and then we get back at the end
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: of the night and draw out that plan and use
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: the aerial photo and a fine point stylus and then
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: draw out that plan, discuss all those stand locations, happitent features,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: water holes, mooscrapes, whatever might have been that fit for
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: them and their personality that resources everything, and then and
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: then go over those questions at the end of the night.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: So we're really trying to put the pieces together, um
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: and tailoring it, uh too, on a very personal level
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: to that that individual client. Yeah. So so now what
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: if I'm just a regular guy or girl out there
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: on my own, on my property, how how would you
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: recommend someone You know, I've got thoughts on this, but
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: how would you recommend someone determine what's needed? You know,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: how do I figure out where my week spots are
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: in my property if I if I don't have someone
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: like you who can go out there with some experience
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: and tell me, um, what are the things I should
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: be looking for or how do I know where to start?
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Kind of if I'm trying to figure out what's the
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: how do I take in the big picture of my
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: property and figure out where to go where Step one
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: and two, Yeah, that's uh, that's a really good question
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: mark because you know, part of it is I feel
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: there are no secrets, and I think I have close
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: to six d articles on my site and we talked
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: about this and then YouTube videos and books. So when
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: I I keep notes out on the client properties, I
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: have about I don't know a hundred and fifty potential
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: articles or videos, you know, topic. I'm always finding new information.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: But really what it boils down to is, yet we
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: can have all those concepts I try to discuss until
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: I can't discuss them anymore. I really try to give
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: as much information out there, but it boils down to
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: on a parcel, you can have too much food and
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: you can have too much cover. There's a great balance
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: of both. And once you have that balance, you're trying
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: to make the property as attractive and in the movement
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: of deer defined as much as possible in the person
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: so that you can still get on and off the
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: parcel without spooking the deer within that parcel. So really,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: first you're looking at that balance. Um. You know, you could,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: for example, clear cut your property create a lot of
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: brows um, but brows in itself doesn't define daily movement
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: unless it's in the wilderness area where there's really not
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: that that becomes or maybe on public land down the
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Ohioway I hunted, or up in the upm Michigan where
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: that clear cut becomes corn field in the area, and
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: so that defines that daily movement. And so I'm looking
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: at how can you define daily movement which with a
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: food plot, iful plant it with the neighbors agg field,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: but the egg fields are poor because they're always rotating. Um.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: They could be plowed under, they could be picked one
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: year not the other could be beans when you're corn
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: the next. So really I'm looking at if you have
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: a lot of great cover, we need to complement that
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: with food. And then I was on a property yesterday
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: for example, they had forty acres of food plots on
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: acres um and they really I'd like to them to
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: cut that down to probably twenty five acres of food,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: provide more screening and cover a auldmost food sources, and
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: actually work on the quality of the cover that they have.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: They had a lot of cover, but it needs to
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: be a higher level of quality cover, and then that
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: will help define where do your betting on a daily
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: basis and know whether they're feeding. So really you're looking
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: at that balance of food and cover and making sure
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: that you're not improving so much. Because you can imagine,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: just did a new video today, just shot at where
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: talked about daytime properties and nighttime properties. There's a lot
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: of nighttime properties, and some of the biggest nighttime properties,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: meaning that's where the deer go after dark, which is
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: what you don't want to have, are some of the
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: most improved. Because imagine you attract all the deer in
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: the neighborhood because you have great native grass plantings, you
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: have really high quality food plots that you've completed to
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: a team, you've perfected. You have water holes, maybe even
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: mocked scrapes, travel corridors, acorns, orchard whatever you might have.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: You have a lot of attractions in your personal but
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: you don't manage that level of attraction. And so because
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: you don't manage it, um you're you constantly set yourself
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: up for spooking deer. All the deer you've invited in
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: the neighborhood from a mile away, then you go in
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: and spook them in your Your property quickly becomes nocturnal.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: So you're really trying to not only assess that bounce
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: of cover and food, But how can you position that
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: and define that movement on daily basis you can actually
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: hold those deer and keep from spooking them every time
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: you go out hunt, because ultimately the lowest hole in
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: the bucket is hunting pressure. How much hunting pressure you
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: apply on your property, and there's no amount of quality
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: habitat that can overcome that. In fact, a lot of times,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: the higher the quality habitat, the more risk you have
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: of not being able to manage that attraction on your
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: personal and creating that nocturnal herd. Can you elaborate on
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: what's causing that nocturnal herd? Because you talked about spooking deer,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: but can you I've heard you talk in the past
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: about the attract repel conundrum. Um, can you can you
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about that specifically? So? I
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: think what you're getting at is that you're saying you've
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: made all these great improvements, like a food plot or something,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: but you haven't been strategic about where it is or
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: what your access is, and then you're walking past or
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: doing something like that. Can you can you elaborate or
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: expand on that? Sure? Sure, there's um. And there's a
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: lot to elaborate on that because um, for example, it's
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: not just the amount of food, it could be the
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: position of food. Uh And and obviously if you have
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: a giant food plot behind a cabin and every time
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: you go out in the morning, every time you come
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: back in the evening, you're spooking deer, then you're educating deer.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Um and and so food plot is a part of that.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: You know, is that food plot on your on your
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: access trail going in and out of the land. And
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: because of that attraction of the food, which which a
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: food plot really uh per square inch is probably the
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: highest level of attraction that you can have on your property.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: You know, some of the dry parcels. I'm sitting here
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: looking at four foot bluffs around my house in the
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: valley where I'm at and um and up there a
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: little water hole that's yell and think can be a
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: huge level of attraction. But a food plot is where
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: they come, they stay, and pretty easy to spook them off.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: So um, if your food plots are setting yourself up
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: for uh spook and deer, then then they can really
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: be doing a lot more harm than good. But that
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: can be said for native grass plannings, betting areas UM.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: And and then another thing is if you're creating betting
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: areas and food source UM, that that set yourself up
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: to actually spook deer that are on the way to
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: and from those areas. UM, then you can hurt yourself.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Or you're creating random movements, meaning that you have cover
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: on the inside, you're bringing them deer to food on
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: the outside, and then you're quickly sending those deer right
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: through over to your neighbors. UM. Your neighbor could have
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: a stand on the fence line that's actually spooking dear
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: on your property too because you have that food plot
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: on the edge. UM. And then andally in other things
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: you have, you know, the food can really the attractions
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: where they're located, piecing those attractions together, pushing deer into
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: or out of your line of movement. You're you're hunting access.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: And then at the same time, the food plots that
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: are poorly located to infringe on your depth of cover.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: And and what I mean by that is you can
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: have a forty acre personal and you're putting a five
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: acre food plot in the middle, and you can't go
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty five yards in any direction before
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: you're off your border, so you have to access your landing,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: you have to house box and does on your parcel
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: if you want to try to hold them all in
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: that dred fifty five yards of depth and you just
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: run out of room where you can cut that parcel
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: in half, create twenty acres running lengthlies is still four
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: hundred and forty yards deep. Put that five acre parcel
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: of food plot or five acre food plot right in
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: the front of the parcel, and if you do the math,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: you still have over three yards of depth of cover
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: behind that food plot where you can expect to house
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: uh dose box and then you can actually create an
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: assemblage of stands where you have backside of betting for
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: bucks and then does evening stands up closer to the food.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: And because the food plot is positioned towards the front
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: of a parcel and you're you're maximizing your depth, that
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: twenty acres can be easier to manage your on and
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: actually manage your hunt. And that that larger forty acres
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: with the food poorly positioned in the middle, can you
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: elaborate with a lot of stuff, but depth depth of
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: cover can you elaborate on on what you mean by
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: that and why that's important? Sure? Yeah, I see one
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: thing that I firmly believe in is that as a
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: buck ages um, he really likes a more remote setting
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: for his daytime betting. And and I even find that
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: as a box said, and I've been able to observe
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: box around here at least up through eight years old.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: And what's incredible is about some of these older box
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: is that their home range during the daylight hours seems
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: to really shrink. And I'm just going by a camera
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: observation where we had an eight year old buck that
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: over the five years we had pictures of them, several
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: hundred pictures. We had all but three or four of
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: those pictures out of one camera location. And now the
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: neighbors around us only saw that deer around that area
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: and it ended up being shot two hundred yards from there.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Um and so very defined. I look at as a
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: as an older bock, as a grumpy old man, you know,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: the older he gets. And now I'm not saying my
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: dad is a grumpy old man. He's eight years old.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: He's one of the kind of kind of men that
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: I know in my life Um. He's an awesome person,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: but I do know as he's gotten older, he really
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: enjoys as alone time. He was able to sit with
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: my son Jake the last week UM in the house
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: and spend time with Jake and it was just the
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: two of them and everyone else is out of the house.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: And my dad loved his time on the couch right
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: here just looking out at the hills, his quiet time.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: And he really um seems to be want to be
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: left alone for the most part. He loves to be
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: social with the family and everything, but he really loves
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: to be left alone. He loves his Crossford puzzle time
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: as nap time. And I look at a mature bucks
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: that way. So if you have a parcel that you
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: don't have a lot of depth on, meaning that a
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: big food source is the highest amount of stress to
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: a to a deer. Um as far as there'll only
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: go into a lot of times the last hour of
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: daylight hour and a half, that mature box only showing
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: up at at right at dark, there's a lot of
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: stress in and out of that food thought. With those
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: and fawns hunters gravitate towards that food, so it creates
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: a pretty stressful situation, and it seems like the more
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: stress you have at that food source, so larger the
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: food source, the more deer you have, then those box
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: just pushed further and further into the resources recesses of
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: the property. Now I also see like if you're down
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: to northern Ohio and you don't have a lot of
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: cover southern Michigan, northern Indiana, southern Wisconsin, northern Illinois, then
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: you can compact that movement where a buck doesn't have
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: to go a half mile away to find a remote
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: spot because a lot of times he doesn't have that
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: amount of cover available, So he might go three yards
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: off that food source at the most um and then
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: you go to transition into mixed agg you know, cover
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: and food, and you might find that buck goes back
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: yards and that's an acceptable distance from that remote from
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: that you know, high traffic food source. We're in the
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: upm Michigan. I've shot mature box that were three cores
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: a mile two mile back off of bait piles that
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: are in the hardware, and guys are getting their pictures,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: the pictures of that buck at ten o'clock midnight, two
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: in the morning, and then I'm shooting at ten thirty
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: in the morning, three cores a mile away, back in
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: his honey hoole, back in his betting area, so that
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: that depth of cover required up in that big wilderness
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: land where dear use a lot of spaces actually close
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: for three coarters a mile. So if you're looking at
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: a small parcel that's forty acres and you're putting food
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: in the middle, and then you're allowing dose to bet
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: around that food, which is they can tolerate a lot
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: more stress than the herd heard mentality of those dos
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: than a mature box, then you really run out of
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: room for mature buck to potentially bet on the edge
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: of your property or within your property boundaries. And even
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: if you have a hundred acres or two acres, if
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: you're fragmenting that person with a lot of food and
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: a lot of different food plots, even though you have
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: a large parcel, you're creating such a stressful environment with
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: the amount of food on that parcel and the amount
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: of traffic in and out of that food by both
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: dose fons and hunters, then you really infringe on the
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: depth that you need to actually have a mature box.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: And so that's one of the things that I I
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: take a good hard look at, and that's also what
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: I look at on public land. You know, I like,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: if i'm if I have a perching spot, I'm looking
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: at working at a hunt an hour in forty five
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: minutes in and get in the middle of the cover
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: where there might be a mature box that um has
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: been pushed through or is preferred to bet in um
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: away from the high traffic hunting locations. So you're looking
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: at a pretty large depth of cover that you need
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: on publicly and versus private, and then trying to manage
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: the locations of your food sources on private land so
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: they're not infringing on your depth, your potential depth as
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: as much as possible. So what's what's like? And I
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: realized this is there's no cookie cutter there's no perfect
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: cookie cutter answer to this, because it's all dependent on
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: your situation. But but if you had to give me
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: like a cookie cutter answer as best as possible, what's
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: like the ideal way to position a set of improvements
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: so that you get these things you talked about so
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: you get that great depth of cover. But you you know,
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: I'm also thinking about you talked about having food plots
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: too close to the edge of the property then sending
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: the deer to the neighbor, Like, what's the You had
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: to give a generic best way to position these things.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: If you had like your perfect scenario, maybe what would
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: that look like. Well, a lot of times food works
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: really well near borders UM and borders meaning borders that
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: your neighbors don't have the cover on that will potentially
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: households deer during the day, So food plots close enough
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: to the border that you can still get around it
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: without spoken deer and your position in that food For example, UM,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: I've had clients that had some great food plots up
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: near a school or near a factory, near subdivision, UM,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: near an open egg field, where you're bringing deer out
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: of your cover and from fifty yards from your property
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: border so that they can hit that food source as
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: an afternoon food source that that um, you know, hour
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: before daylight food source, and then after dark they slip
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: out to the egg field, which is a safe location.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: The opposite of that would be as if you put
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: a food horse on your neighbors on your border right
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: next to your neighbor that houses the best cover in
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: the area. Then you're potentially putting deer back on your
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: neighbor's property that relate to your food source, and you're
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: giving the neighbor of the daylight movement and the opportunity
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: to actually harvest the deer that are focusing on your
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: food plot. Um you know, after darker, at darker, just
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: before dark. Betting areas work really well next to um
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: high quality or high high pressure on your neighbors. And
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: so a lot of times, let's say your property was
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: along longer road, there's agg field to the south, you
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: had open woods, and then your neighbors have woods to
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: the north of view. The worst spot to put a
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: food plot would be at the back of your property
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: on the north side, right next to your neighbor's woods.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: The best spot to put that food to be closer
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: to the road, so that you're actually holding deer on
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: your own land, letting them travel across the depth of
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: your land and then hit that food um, and then
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: potentially go to the agg fields out to the side.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: You don't want to ever create a situation where you're
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: forcing gear across the road, but um, you know, maybe
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: your cabins are You're putting that food plot a safe
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: distance behind your cabin so that you can actually get
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: in and out of the cabin, get onto your property,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: and not spook those deer out in that food plot.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: But the food plot represents more of a dead end
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: of movement mean, meaning that they come out of the cover,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: come across your land, hit that food, and then go
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: wherever after dark. Interesting. So through all this, and you've
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: mentioned this several times while even explaining some of these scenarios,
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: but you talk about defined movement UM and I and
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: I mentioned this early on, but part of what I'm
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: so fascinated about when it comes to how you approach
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: this is how you have everything kind of working together.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: It's a it's a systemized approach. Some guys just put
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: a food plot where wherever they can put a food plot,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: and then they put some bedding or they try to
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: improve some bedding where it looks good and they're like,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: all right, cool. They put as much food as they
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: can get in there. But but it seems like you're
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: always thinking very very strategically about how these things interact
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: with each other, how each provement interacts with the others,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: and so then you create what you call defined movement.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Can you tell us more about a what you mean
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: by that and be how you know expand on how
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: you create that, How these different positions and things you've
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: talked about, how they create that defined movement? Well defined
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: movement is the daily movement of a deer herd. And
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: it's pretty cool because dose move more straight line. They
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: basically during the daylight hours, they move from betting in
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: the afternoon to their afternoon food source, hopefully about an
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: hour before dark. Hopefully it's on your land, and then
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: they move off from there, so they move that straight
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: little window and and really it's a small movement. Um.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: I love to use food sources to position um those
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: doughs first because you can get them to bed fifty
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: sevent yards off that food pot if you have just
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: adequate cover, and then you can you're basically by using food,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: you're positioning does and you're telling the door heard, I
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: want you to bed within a hundred yards of this
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: food source. And then that's freeing up the rest of
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: your cover on your property for potential buck bedding at
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: some point somewhere. So once you have that food, once
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: you have a dough bedding, then you can figure out
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: where the buck betting is um. It's important that your
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: food sources aren't open right into the cover, meaning that
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: if you have open hardwoods for two yards surrounding your
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: food source, then that potential bedding is going to push
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: two hundred yards back to whatever cover starts wherever changes
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: and then again buck betting is gonna behind that, so
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: you're starting that first doll lay or a long ways
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: away from food. So what I'm trying to do is
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: have a compact movement of daily defined movement where we
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: have a reasonable expectation that box are bedded over there somewhere,
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: and it might even be on the edge of your neighbors.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: But you're trying to define that after new movement, so
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: that bucks are there, dolls are closer to the food,
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: and they're all moving towards that food source in the afternoon,
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: and then after dark they go wherever. And so that's
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: that definition of movement. You're using bedding, area, positioning, and
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: food to define that daily movement. And then along that
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: definition movement, if it's hill country out here, then I'm
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: using benches and saddles and the topography of the land
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: where deer moving already, and then you can enhance that
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: with travel cord or cuttings. You can enhance it with
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: betting areas where they should be in betting area, cuttings
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: that are appropriately matched for that size of the parcel,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: and then um you're using water holes and even mocked
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: scrapes to further define that movement. So the more you
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: can define that movement, now you can go on it
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: and not the other way around. You know, the old
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: school thinking is this is a great open field, let's
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: put us if this is the best soilers, put a
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: food pot there. This is a great place for betting
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: area because it's nice and all. This is a good
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: spot for a pond because it's a low area. But
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: you have to match those habitat improvements to each other.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: So it's not like you're just gonna send deer on
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: and a carousel on your property all the time. It's
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: this year trying to create the movement. So that and
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: that's why you like using multiple food sources or long
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: food sources, food sources where dear can be hidden around owners,
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: because then you can tap into multiple betting areas and
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: multiple movements, small compact movements on even a small parcel,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: so that you can actually fit more deer into that
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: movement more dear into that definition of movement, and then
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: that gives you a wide variety of stand locations. So
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: by by creating strategically located improvements, be that betting areas,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: or food sources or a few of those other things
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: you mentioned, you can get dear to more consistently travel
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: a route that you know about. And then once you
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: know that route and once deer doing what you have
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: manipulated the habitat to allow them to do, that allows
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: you to a make sure you're hunting more consistently in
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: the right place, and B I think you would agree
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: with this. It also allows you to better access and
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: exit your property because you know where deer should be
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: at any given time, which results in less educated deer.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: Right is that is that kind of why having this deflopment? Yeah? Yeah,
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: you you define it a lot easier than I did. Mark.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: It's a lot shorter and more concise. But but yeah,
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: that's that's it in a nutshell. It's really and the
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: thing about box are a little bit different, is um.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: I have a video coming out soon when I talk
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: about those traveling in straight lines and box traveling a
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: loopers meaning a buck will travel from the same betting
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: area every day, but depending on the wind and maybe
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: even his mood, he might come in from a completely
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: different directions. So it's almost like a football. You know,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: one one way comes in on the lower side of
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: the ridge and it it It has this big arc
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: that loops into the food plot on this way there
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: in this direction or food source, and then depending on
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: his mood or wind direction or another buccan area a
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: doo he wants to chase, he loops the other way.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: It's almost completes a football pattern of movement where you
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: have the same starting and stopping point, but he loops
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: around regardless. So if you're making those habitat improvements, worry beds,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: worry travels, the attractions along that travel route and in
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: the form of the same mox scrapes or water holes,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: maybe in a mineral station if legal in the summertime,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: you're really reinforcing that movement, making that movement more attractive
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: and more defined. And then at the same time, what
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: I find is a stand locations along those movements. There's
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: some stand locations, and I can get away with hunting
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: every few days, even in a high pressure area, because
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: I'm rarely given the deer an opportunity to see me
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: or get into my wind cone or hear me when
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: I get in and out. Because they're defined movements make
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: my hunting approach highly defined. Okay, so let's let's let's
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: go to the first part of this defined movement, which
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: is where they spend most of their day, that being
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: a betting area. Um, can you can you tell me
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: a little bit about how you go about, you know,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: choosing the area when you kind of already have I guess,
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: but if there's anything else when it comes to choosing
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: where to make those betting air improvements. But then more importantly,
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: what are the some of the things you recommend doing
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: to improve or create betting areas? Um? Yeah, talking about that? Yeah, that,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: And I really like that question because, um, if you
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: look online, there's a lot of information out there about
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: creating buckbeds, for example, and in what I find is
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: it's a little bit of reverse situation where um, once
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: you have high quality afternoon food source of high quality
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: food plot. And what I like about food plots versus
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: an egg field is, for example, you can have a
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: one acre food plot and if that's gonna last enough
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: in your season, and you have a diverse enough planting
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: in there, then you can highly define movement to a
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: one acre spot on the map and as opposed to
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: a forty acre or a d acre egg field. It's
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: very precise and and you know obviously compared to a
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: uh fifty acre clear cut. And so by having that
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: food plot very small area. At the same time, when
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: you improve and let's say you screen that food plot,
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: so when you're standing in that food plot, you can't
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: see into the woods very far. It doesn't take a
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: great distance before those will feel comfortable bedding close to
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: that food source, especially if you never spook them out
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: of that side of the plot. It might be the
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: open timber on one side, grassy field whatever, and the
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: other side you have you have betting areas. So really
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: you're using that food to define dough betting opportunity. And
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: then what's left over is that buck betting opportunity. So
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: that might be up on that upper knoll if you're
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: starting from bottom going up. If your food sources are
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: up top, then those doors are going to bed just
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: over the over the edge, over the military crests around
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: in that area in a bench, and then you're gonna
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: have those box betting down low. So really the food
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: of the position of the food will dictate if box
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: are betting high or low, and where those doors are betting.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: And then so you have those that logical chain where
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: you have food, food sets up dough betting, and then
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: do betting sets up buck betting opportunity. Doesn't make sense
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: that as long as you have adequate betting, the dough
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: betting is actually more important than the buck betting, because
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: if you can hold those doughs, like for example, go
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: into a Buffalo County property in Wisconsin, you know, famed
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: Big Trophy County area, and you have these finger agg
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: fields down below with these hardwood ridges, and the deer
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: might not be bettered until there's three d yards up
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: on top of that ridge because it's all open, wide, wide,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: open mature timber all the way down to the food source.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: By creating cuttings along the food source, going up to
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: that first bench a hundred yards up, maybe that second
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: bench that's two yards up, you can pull those does
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: that are bedded on top right down to the food
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: the food plot or ad field edge, and then that
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: second bench you get hard How are you how is
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: more does or even young bucks. By time you get
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: back up to the top, now you actually have room
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: for mature bucks. So it all starts with creating that
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: betting near the food and then positioning from there. So
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: as far as positioning and and betting opportunity, I hope
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: that makes sense. And and then yeah, and then when
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: you dive into um how to create betting, really it
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: depends on your property. For example, I like a lot
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: of a little tight constricted betting areas where you really
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: want side cover. Side covers very important. If um you
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: know about whether it's thirty of the lands I go
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: to or thirty five, it's appropriate to hinge cut on
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: us on a you know a small percentage of parcels
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: hinge cutting. I really like to create hinge cuts that
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: are about waste time because then you're putting cover and
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: brows and potential food right at deer level. A lot
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: of these hinge cuts that are had high for one
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: more dangerous to cut. But too, you're putting that cover
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: above the deer, and you're putting the food well above
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: the deer so that they can't utilize the cover or
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: the food if they're looking side to side. So I
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: like hinge cuts and I like cuttings where deer can
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: actually maze and pocket throughout those cuttings, and if they
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: can only see five ten yards in front of their face,
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: that's great. And low cover areas like northern Ohio, you
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: know the areas I've talked about, southern Michigan, southern Wisconsin,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: northern Illinois, northern Indiana where you have um a lack
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: of cover in some areas and you have a lot
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: of deer that you're trying to fit in one spot.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: But if you take that same betting area where they
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: can only see five ten yard in front of the face,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: and you put that up in a big wood setting
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: up north, or even a big wood setting over in Pennsylvania,
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: down in Kentucky, southern Indiana, wherever it might be, where
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: we have a lot of space and maybe fewer deer,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: then those gear what I find is they completely avoid
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: that area because it's too tightly constricted. And you can
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: kind of imagine if you have deer that are up
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: in the wilderness area up in northern Minnesota and uh
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: up in Michigan, for example, and they have there's a
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: lot of coyotes, but there's a lot of wolves, and
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: there's even cougars in some of those areas. Those deer
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: do not want to be in a tightly confined area,
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: and they're just really even for example, switch grass field,
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: if they're bed in the switchgrass field up in the
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: up in Michigan, a wolf can go on the down
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: wind side of that and pinpoint every gear that's in
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: there and easily take on whatever they want. I think
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: deer realize that. And so up there you're looking at
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: a deer used to see in forty fifty yards. They
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: might be had a little knoll, they might have cuttings
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: around them, but they're not right up against them. They
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: can base the escape in any direction. And so you're
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: trying to match the size of the bedding area, and
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: that how tightly constricted that betting area is, how far
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: a deer can see, how many different ways they can escape,
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: and how many different directions, And you're matching that to
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: the number of deer in the amount of cover you have.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: As a number of gear decrease and the amount of
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: cover goes up, then you're making your bedding ears a
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: lot larger, so deer can freely move around them. They
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: still have browls in the ground, they still have side cover,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: but they can flee in any direction, and they want
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: to be able to see in their beds yards. And
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: as the amount of cover shrinks, as the amount of
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: deer goes go up, then as populations increase, then you
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: can fit a lot of deer. You can compartmentalize so
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: that you can actually literally fit deer, fit a buck
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: into a small bed that he might it might be okay,
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: he might tolerate that you can only see five ten ft.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: So know, like, just like there's no cookie cutter plan
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: for a parcel, there's no cookie cutter design or plan
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: for a betting area. And so I get a little
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: nervous when I see some of the stuff online where
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: you know, uh, someone's talking about this is the best
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: way to make a betting area or this is the
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: best way, because really with that balance of size, um,
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of different ways to make a betting area.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: And then again it goes back to landowner resources um
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: their familiar area with a chainsaw, and you know, again,
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: let alone the complexity of the number of deer and
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: the amount of cover. Some of the betting areas that
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: like just general wood woods maintenance, it might be that
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: you have and overall attraction for the woods and trying
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: to increase the cary capacity. Might be that someone would
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: go in and every thirty forty yards are knocking down
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: a giant red maple on their land, and the low
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: land setting in Michigan, for example, they're putting that log
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: and top on the ground. But the decrease in the
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: canopy overall by about thirty so you get more regeneration.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: And so you can take a ten fifteen acre area
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: that you really want to hold deer generally, and and
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: and put a lot of structure on the ground and
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: a lot of regeneration browls here turning that betting area
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: that was a one or two out of ten into
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: a five or six out of ten. And then if
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: it's tightly constricted area there's not a lot of cover,
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: then you can really work on half acre one acre
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: pocket cuttings that are a little bit more like a
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: clear cut or deer and mazing pocket room. So you
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: can say that generally in my woods, this is going
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: to hold more deer. Maybe you're creating a timber cutting
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: in the select cut harvest of your timber if you
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: have good timber value. But in these little one two
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: acre pockets out of this forty acres, you might make
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: five or six. I'm designating that there's a possibility for
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: mature box to bet here, to define movement from this
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: betting area through this um you know, mid range level
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: of quality betting area to a food source and then
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: you give them a travel corridor and they and they
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: follow it. So really a betting areas, no, no cookie
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: cutter betting areas depends on the property. And I really
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: we try to talk about that in the videos that
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: I create, in the in the articles, but that that
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: does create a lot of reading for somebody and a
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: lot of viewing. And but I do try to break
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: that down because again it goes back to same concepts
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: of gear management UM that I feel work on any parcel.
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, the application of balance can
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: be drastically different from different from one person to another. Yeah. Now, now,
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: from what I gather from you know, hearing a lot
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: of things you've talked about and from you just said there,
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: it seems like there definitely is something to the location
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: of betting areas that might define where doze bed versus
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: where bucks bed. But I think correct me if I'm
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: wrong here. But I think I've also heard you say
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: that you don't put much stock into the idea of
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: like creating a single specific buckbed and saying this is
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: gonna be where buck's going to bed because I pulled
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: this tree down and I cleared out this space, and
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: you know, people try to do that. Is that Is
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: that right? Yes? Definitely? So what what I like to
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: do is and it's almost like, um, you know, I'm
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: not a betting man. I don't play poker much. You know,
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: a little bit deer Camp dabbled, and I'm not very
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: good at it. I I'll play when there's nickels and
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: dimes involved, let's put it that way, and there's nothing
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: else to do. But I do feel that you play
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: poker in the Deerwoods a lot, and you're making decisions
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: based on balance and level of risk versus reward, and
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: one of those comes into the form of creating buck
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: betting and betting opportunities. So, for example, using food sources
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: to define where dough betting is now doe betting opportunities
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: the same as buck betting opportunity. Just because you make
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: a larger room or a smaller room doesn't dictate that
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: there's gonna be more doughs or less does or more
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: box in that location. Um, it's just gonna betting opportunities.
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: So you're you're housing those doughs next to that food source.
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: And then you're saying, I want box to bet up
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: on that knoll or bench instead of going up there
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: and hinging all my efforts and all my bets on
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: a betting area that's twenty twenty feet and I'm making
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: this canopy tie down thing, and I'm gonna I'm gonna
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: hope that a box beds in that exact spot. I'd
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: prefer to take a quarter acre a half acre there, um,
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: knockdown appreciable amount of timber, make sure that deer can
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: freely move throughout the inside of it. There's very few
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: dead ends, meaning that a deer turns right, there's a
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: twenty yard corridor and at the dead ends and he's
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: he's a sitting duck for a predator that's going through there.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: So I'm making sure I take out the dead ends.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: It's more like amazing pocket. If you took your your
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: kids too, they could maze through there and have a
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: good time and um and enjoy it. Um. You know,
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: never ending trail through there they can escape in any direction.
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: I'd rather say that I'm pretty sure that the buck's
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: gonna bet up there, and he's gonna be half acre
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: to hal to one acre, maybe even a quarter acre
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: in that area sometime, and I'm gonna probably take about
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: one tanket chainsaw gas, which will run about an hour
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: and fifteen minutes hour and twenty minutes to cut time.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna cut that timber down um in the safest
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: way it'll fall, mindful that I don't want to make
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: a big mass with a big, you know, top that's
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: going to fall in the middle of everything. And then
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go through, back through and clean it. Put
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: about a half tank of gas. So I'm gonna use
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: one tank of gas one and a half tank of
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: gas through the chainsaw in each one of those locations.
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: And and then I'm gonna use travel corridors, maybe even
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: have a stand location or two in the back set
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: of that betting for different winds, maybe even different access points,
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: different departure routes from that betting area. And so instead
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: of hinging all my efforts just on that one small
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: betting area, I much prefer to take a quarter acre
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: to one acre betting area and be sure that he's
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: going to be in there as opposed to hoping he's
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: going to be in there, that I hit the right
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: mark with that with that bock betting. Yeah, that makes
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of sense. Now, what about a situation where
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: where in that instance where you talked about not having
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of cover, Let's say my property has poor cover,
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: maybe a lot not a lot of timber, a lot
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: of open fields. But I know I need to improve
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: betting or create new betting areas. How would you say
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: I try to create a betting area from an open field?
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: Could I use something like switch for gas or something
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, that's ah, that's that's one of them.
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: That's an area I'm really passionate about. And it's a
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: lot of fun because, um, early successional growth is a
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: great buzzword, you know, early successional growth. Just take an
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: old field, let it go. Well, I have an old
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: field and if you look on some of my videos
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: and some of the drone shots and some of the
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: work we do on on the main property, we shoot
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: a lot of videos on that field has been foul
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: since the fifties and it's probably covered with about five
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: per of deer cover. Deer cover meaning that there's no
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: structure in there that will actually hold deer throughout the
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: hunting season. Once saw the foliage comes down, you know,
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: I'd say November, December, October UM for that three months.
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: And so even though that's been there for sixty seven
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: years and hasn't been agged, it's been allowed to return
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: to early successional growth. It hasn't taken place. Now if
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: you go to better soils or other areas, maybe areas
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: that are as a steep they can they can fill
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: in and uh ten to fifteen years UM, which would
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: be on the early side. The beauty of switch grass.
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: Switch grass is a grass. To me, it's only white
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: tail grass that I really like the plant because it's
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: the one grass that can withstand snows, heavy winds and
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: last in through January February and a lot of times
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: through March or April before you get spring green up.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: So that's it's a type of cover species that you
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: can quickly convert an old field to it. And so
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: let's say you have an agg gland, you know, some
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: agg land that you want to convert. You can frost
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: seed switch grass from September through February media in early March,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: get the seed on the soil, and then you can
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: use chemicals to make sure that that seed, that switch
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: grass is established. So let's say just for quick you know,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: quick thought. Here, you take ten acres of idle agg land.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: As long as you're soil exposed, you can throw the
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: switch grass at about eight to ten pounds an acre,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: which is a high rate. You want very thick cover.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: What you're doing is you're putting that switch grass around
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: the outside, around much of the ten acre space in there,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: but you're only putting out about five acres of switch
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: grass in total. The pockets in between the switch grass
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: you allow to revert to early successional growth and you
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: kill out the grass in those areas so that you
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: actually have broad leaves come in. Broad leaves in the
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: former golden rod, ragweed, woody brush, woody brows, shrubs, trees,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: maybe throw some box old seeds in there, some maple
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: seeds that grow quickly. All come in the form of food.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: Grass equals no food when it comes to even switch grass.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: So what you're doing is using the switch grass that
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: in most areas will grow anywhere from forty inches to
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: five ft in the first year and by the second
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: year six seven ft high. You're using that as the
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: betting structure, and then you're allowing for those early successional
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: pockets on the inside to actually create brows that's actually
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: hidden by the switch grass. The difference of the field
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: like that compared to early successional growth is you can
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: white tails can use that. By the end of the
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: second summer and going into the second hunting season, you
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: have sufficient cover, lots of cover, and then you have brows.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if it's only a foot higher two
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: ft or three ft high within that switch grass that
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: you can actually house deer hold deer or in that
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: same field could take anywhere from ten to twelve fifteen
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: years on the early side, as much as twenty thirty
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: years to cover in and fill in appreciably enough to
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: actually hold deer, just allowing to go and and have
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: early successional growth. That is the same concept to let's
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: say you have ten acres a red seedar. Instead of
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: just getting rid of all the red ceedar and trying
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: to replant something different, just pocket out of that red
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: seater on the inside, kill out the red seater that's
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: coming and kill out the grass, allow it to revert
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: to broad leafs early successional broad leaf growth. Now you're
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: using the red seedar as your base base form of
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: structure and cover just like the switch grass, just like
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: you can do with pines, you can do with spruce.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: Might even have shrubs that that you can do that
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: in and and so you're using that base form of
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: structure in the form of the switch grass or the
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: red seedar, creating those pockets in the inside. And it's
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: the same concept either way. So yeah, that kind of
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: stuff is really intriguing to me because I feel like
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: when you a lot of people look at a big
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: white open field or something as like dead, no good
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: land for wildlife. But if you look at it in
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: the way you're talking about, it's almost like a blank
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: canvas and you can paint whatever picture you're awesome, Like,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. Yeah, kind of limiting for a tree stands.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, kind of imagine if you
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: have ten acre field, you're looking at a wreck tangle
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: north to south. Um, let's say you have an open
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: egg field to the south. You're going north into that
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: switch grass field. You're putting a large food plot in
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: the salt east corner in the southwest corner, and you're
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: hiding it within that switch grass. That switch grass is
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: six seven ft tall along the side. Let's say it's
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: fifty ft into your property. And then you're creating lines
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: that come down to that those food plots and go
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: between those food plots. You're just basically carving out with
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: a brush hawk through the switch grass up to the
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: woods to the north. Might even put some food along
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: the way. You might put some mock scrape on some
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: posts along the way. You might put a water hole
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: if it's dry along the way. You can actually put
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: pop up blinds like some of the redneck gilly blinds
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: or some of the soft sided blinds. You could just
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: um pile in with switchgrass and uh and hide that
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: blind in and you could actually come into the back
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: of the switch grass, go into a blind look out
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: a couple holes through the switch grass, watched gears are
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: passing by to go to big food. You can sit
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: on that big food source with the right winds northwest
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: wind or northeast wind on those lower food plots, making
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: sure where the deer entering and exiting the egg field,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: and then you could actually hunt those in the evening
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: with a gun with a bow um hunt deers on
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: the way in and out, and then those lines of
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: movement that you carve out to the switch grass that
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: connect to your woods up top to the north. Then
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: where those cuttings in the switch grass and those trails
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: at your brush hog, where they meet the woodlines. Great
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: places for stands, great places for mock scrapes, for water
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: holes if needed, and in senior mean you might actually
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: go past those food sources in the switchgrass. Two yards
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: set up in the morning, wait for deer to come
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: off the egg through your food, through the switch grass cuttings,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: and you start to assemble um that entire line of movement.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: And the switch grass can be just a huge, just
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: key component to making sure the deer on your your
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: food plots. In the afternoon hours, you're hidden, you can
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: hunt them to and from and at the food source
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: because of the switch grass. Then you're just sending them
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: out after dark into the agg fields and you start
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: to develop that entire line of movement, line of daily
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: movement for the deer where you can capitalize on, you know,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: backside betting areas way to the north and for box
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: and then closer to the wood's edge for intermediate areas,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: and then finally to the food to the south and
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: the switch grass for evening sets. Yeah, I can, I
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: can see it all in my head. I don't know
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: if that makes sense to you. I hope that translates
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: it to people that I hate not being able to
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: draw a picture. But um, but yeah, that's that's how
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: that switch grass can be such a golden opportunity to
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: really define movement, hide food, hide betting. Can you can
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: you create a huge amount of opportunity. Can you talk
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: more about the hiding aspect that you can use switch
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: grass or other things for. You know, you talk a
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: lot about screening in a lot of your articles and
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: videos and stuff. Can you elaborate more on what you
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: mean by screening cover, how you can use it? Um,
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: Why it's important? Sure, screen cover is so critical because basically,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: what you're trying to do on your property, especially on
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: small property, and half my clients have sixty acres or less.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: My average clients about a hundred acres that have a
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: you know, quite a few large ones in there that
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: bring up the average, And so it's really critical that
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: when you move in on and off your property, you're
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: not spoken deer and you're not You're not allowing the
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: year to see you. And so if you're laying is flat.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: For example, you can have thirty ft of switch grass
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: along the edge of a food plot, and if you're
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: walking and being quiet and you're using the whim on
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: the outside of that switch grass, then you could walk
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: right by a food plot and half thirty deer out
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: there and they don't they not know that you're walking by,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: especially with some thick cover like switch grass. I've had
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: clients that have actually used a berm. I have one
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: client that went a quarter mile down the road, a
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: quarter mile up the other road, and then a quarter
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: mile over, so he's three quarters of a mile berm
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: to hide basically a fourty acre field on the inside
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: that he converted to cover and food plot. So he
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: walks into a blind. It literally parks on the road,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: has a padlock on the back of his blind, can't
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: even see the entire field until he opens the blind door,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: gets in the blind, looks out the window, and so
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: he can watch those deer every single day and they
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: never know that he's ever watching them. It's basically like
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: walking up to a window and looking outside looking inside. Um,
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: you're you're looking into their world without them ever knowing
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: you're doing that. And that's why switch grass is great.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: Egyptian weed is something that's a short term um solution.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: It's it grows, it's an annual one year switch grasses
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: can be maintained for decades. I love spruce, white spruce,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: and sandy soils, highest a soils, Norway spruce. Where you
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: have a lot of sun and you have qualities soils,
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: you can use quit growing pines for an interim screen
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: of five to ten years, twelve years and then let
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: those spruce take over. So there's a lot of ways
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: that you can establish those screening walls. Access is one thing,
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: getting on and off your property, getting close to hunting situations,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: but then screening is really important around food sources because
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: screening sets up that first line of security to deer
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: to where they now feel comfortable betting thirty yards, especially
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: as doll family groups thirty yards into the cover from
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: a food plot, So you want that screening there in
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: the form it could be hinge cutting, so you're putting
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: low hinge cutting through there with several trails getting in
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: and out for the deer, they don't feel too confined.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: Um could be switched grass, could be Egyptian week, could
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: be spruce. But you're bringing that first layer of cover
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: right against the food plot edge where you want the
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: deer to start betting into that side of the woods.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: And then that's in that case where you're using screening
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: on an open wood lot to actually pull deer. They
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: might not feel comfortable betting until they're two hundred yards in,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: but because of that screening, now they feel really comfortable
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: betting right behind that screening wall. That might be that
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: that the edge of the woods faces the northwest where
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: you get extreme winds, extreme cold winds, and now that
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: you have thirty switch grass there, they can get behind
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: that switch grass and they're completely out of the wind.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: They're completely sheltered, and they're not exposed to anything that's
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: going on in that food plot. So screening around food
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: plot also forces box that are back in the timber.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: They can't just cruise by a d fifty yards and
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: the heart would look out in the food and say
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: there's nothing there. They actually have to come out in
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: the food. Now, look around in that food plot, see
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: if there's any doors out there. You know, if there's
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: a buck out there, they want to chase past or
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: if they're mature buck, Um, they actually have to go
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: into the food plot and out draws them out of
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: the woods. But really on that screening, that first screen
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: layer sets up the betting opportunity going into your woods,
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: which helps compact the movement and might help put that
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: mature buck on your properties instead of off your property borders. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: I love the screating ideas. I've started incorporating this into
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: some of my spots that I hunt, and uh if
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: seen a seen a huge help there too. Um. Taking
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: a step back a little bit, we we talked about betting,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: We talked about, you know, some of the different things
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: when it comes to positioning things, but something we kind
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: of glossed over is like that transition that travel from
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: betting towards the food. Um. And I know you've talked
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: about creating either transition areas or like buck corridors or
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: travel corridors. Can you talk talk to us about that
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: how you can actually direct that movement by creating what
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: you call like these bow hunting buck corridors. Sure, yeah,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: what what I like? And again going back to you know,
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: first off, I really don't like using any kind of
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: canopy across this because, um, if the canopy falls into
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: a corridor and you're making a hinge cut across the
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: top or tying something, then it then it blocks off
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: the whole corridor. But what you're trying to do is
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: define the timber, use the number, use the habitat that
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: you have, and make sure that deer can travel from
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: point A to point B and that they have a
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: much higher probability of going on this travel quarter than
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: outside of it. So I'll give you some examples. Um,
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: let's use big hardwoods, big open mature hardwoods. If it's
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: a northern setting where deer and not used to being confined,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: I might define that line that I want them to
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: travel from point A to point B. I'm gonna curve
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: it a little bit, not not necessarily nine degree turns,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: but you just have a gently sloping curve that goes
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: through there so that deer can't see more than thirty
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: forty yards down the quarter. You don't want them to.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: You want the deer to think this is an access
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: road or an a TV trail. Um, you want them
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: to think this their their trail all the time, just
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: a dear trail. And I might define that with ribbon
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: going through the woods from point A to point but
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: let's say it's two hundred yards long. Then I'm gonna
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: go into that big open hardwoods, and I might find
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: advantageous trees that are leaning away in perpendicular to that
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: line of movement and cut them in you where from
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: ten to fifty ft away from that line of movement
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: on either side of the line of movement. What you're
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: trying to do is put structure on the ground, not
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: cutting all the trees down. So it's a big clear
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: cutting mass, and the deer feel confined because again that
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: you're thinking, this is a northern setting, not a lot
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: of deer. They're used to a lot of space. So
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: I'm making a pretty subtle cut on either side perpendicular
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: to the movement, so that trees are falling away from
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: that deer trail. And what I'm doing is I'm lowering
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: the canopy, reducing the amount of canopy, which increases stem
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: counant amoudel of brows that's in that cutting area, with
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: with really that deer trail being centered at within that
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: cutting trail or cutting area, and then you're also putting
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: structure on the ground in the form of logs and tops,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: So now the deer have more of a subtle cut
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: down area, almost like some high winds came through. But
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: then they have this chiseled out deer trail right through
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: the middle of it that's surrounded by high quality brows, regeneration,
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: and those tops and debris, so that after a couple
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: of years it kind of is all together. Now they
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: can travel within that cover. If they're on the outside
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: of that, cutting their back into the open timber, so
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: they might as well travel right on the inside, and
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: they have brows on either left or right all the
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: way through their travel area. Because it's a straight line movement,
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: you limit the amount of deer that are actually bedded
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: with on that within that travel quarridor because it's just
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: basically a straight travel route, there's a lot of high
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: traffic on there. And you can kind of imagine if
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: this was fifty yards off and paralleling your your property border,
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: you could walk along your border and walk into that
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: cutting area, get into a stand location, look down into
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: that deer trail. It's now enveloped and brush and briers
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: and regeneration, tops and logs. Get a twenty five yard
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: shot with a bow. Basically until you're halfway up that tree,
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: the deer can't see even climbing in. So for one
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: establishes a really good wall of protection along your property borders,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: but to allows you to hunt and get in close. Now,
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: if you had Egyptian not gical wheet, but switch grass
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: brush briers, pretty easy to go in there. If it's
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: a large area up north, you might want to use
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: your brush hog. If you're northern Ohio, there's not not
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: a lot of covery dr brush trimmers are great. I've
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: had a lot of client cheese those in southern Michigan
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: northern Ohio in those those limited cover areas, because you
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: can create this two to three ft deer trail right
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: through anywhere you want a deer to travel through thick cover,
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: and they'll travel through it. Um. Now, if you're looking
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: at say a medium age maple m poplar, you're cutting
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: that timber down. Let's say it's a high deer density
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: area where there's not a lot of cover. Then you
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: can afford to hinge cut trees away from that travel
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: corridor right up to that age. You might be that
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: you're defining a line that's only two to three feet wide.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: And then you're hinge cutting trees that might be within
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: two or three ft on either side of that line,
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: so that there's hinge cuts that you're still making all
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: these travel cordas poorous, meaning that deer don't feel like
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: they're confined like a travel like a cattle shoot. They
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: can turn the left or right and get out. Um.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: But in that case where you have very limited cover
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: and you have a lot of deer they're used to
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: being confined. You can push that hinge cut right up
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: next to your actual deer trail and bring gear down
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: a pretty tight corner or a pretty tight deer trail
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: where you can't see him, they can't see out, And
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: and again it offers a great spot for stand locations,
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: and you can highly define movement because there's more cover
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: and more brows all the way through that deer trail.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: You just have to consider the balance of the number
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: of deer and the amount of cover in the area,
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: and what they're really actually used to when they're traveling
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: through their habitat, and how they relate to habitat. Are
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: they being too confined or not confined enough? Yeah, you said.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: It all comes back down to this defined movement idea. UM.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: And I know one other tool you use is water.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: Can you talk about how water fits into all this
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: for you? Yeah, you know, it's pretty cool because we
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: started using water tanks, oh, fifteen years ago, and we're
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: using a half gallon drums, cutting them and a half lengthwise,
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: and of course you get about twenty seven gallons left,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: and we found if the deer used them, um, and
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: it was it was warm mouth. They were done with
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: them in a week and we weren't back up, you know,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: down to the property or where we hunted for a
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: month and they ran dry deer. You lose that us,
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: that pattern of use that the deer daily visiting the
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: water holes and experience, and then they don't come back
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: because they're not used to that water, you know, they're
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: used to be that water being gone now, so we
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: started migrating to sixty gallon tanks and now ten gallon
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: tanks seems to be a good balance between. For example,
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: last year, I didn't have to fill my water holes
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: at that hundred gallon size just because we had so
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: much rain. And so what water holes are great for.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: And when we first started realizing this is the previous
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: landowners had created mineral pits and so they actually held
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: water and we loved it. We actually tried to line them,
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: we tried to fill them, um they'd always seep out.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: But what we found was was really cool. In October
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: September November is when we came up in the early season.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: You know, Wisconsin opens the third Saturday in September. We
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: could see pictures I can remember in one poll, a
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: camera poll over about a six or seven week period,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: and about seven those pictures were in the evening as
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: deer we're heading to the water hole and made us thinking,
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: why are they not hitting that in the in the
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: morning hours? Do you think about it? At night? They
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: feed on green vegetation, They feed on high quality food.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: They has a high moisture content, very digestible, and that
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: supplies their water for them on a daily basis. They
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: don't even need to take a drink, so all night
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: they're they're feeding on this great vegetation, their food plots.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: They didn't really need to hit that water in the morning.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: We found most of the time, if the if the
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: deer hitting in the morning is it's that's exactly when
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: the rot starting. So all of a sudden October twenty three,
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: we're getting buck pictures at ten in the morning. In
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: the evening, though, think about these deer they're back in
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: brows areas. You want high quality brows in their area,
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: meaning woody shrub tips, hardwood regeneration briers, maybe even smake horns.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: All that stuff is hard for them digest, to digest,
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: there's a high wood count to it, and and even
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: corn is hard to digest form in late November when
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: it's a low moisture content. So if they're feeding that
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: on that all all day, they feed five times in
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: the twenty four hour period. One type of category is
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: their daytime brows. That's what they feed on the different
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: things I've talked about. That afternoon food source is the
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: most critical, and that's that you can supply in the
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: form of food plots in private land. And then at night.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: It's great when there's agg land around because you just
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: send the deer out into the agg for them to
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: feed twice during the night. But think about those deer
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: back in their bedding areas feeding on brows all day.
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: It's dry, hard to digest. The first thing they want
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: to do is hit water on the way to food.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: So I love to position water near bedding areas, also
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: keeping in mind of where box are going to cruise
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: during the middle of the day, middle of the morning,
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: and then making sure those water holes or a quick
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: stop on a defined travel corridor or defined bench system
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: point saddle where you know deer are coming from that
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: bedding area. They're gonna hit this water hole and then
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: they're hitting that food source a hundred yards away or
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: a hundred fifty or even fifty yards away, where you
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: can hunt that location over and over again. It's a
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: quick stop for the deer, but you're not spooking the
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: deer out of the bedding or the food source that
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: they're traveling to. So as long as a deer doesn't
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: have to go backwards from his betting area, like let's
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: say you have a bedding area that the neighbor might
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: have a water source a hundred yards away the opposite
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: direction of the food Even if it's a great water source,
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: you can expect them to ignore it and hit your
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: water source on the way to food. If that food
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: source that you have is where they want to they
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: want to feed every afternoon, you just add that water
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: they're going to go out of the way. A hundred
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: yards to get to the neighbor's water. So even if
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: it's a swamp that's a hundred yards behind their bedding area,
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: as long as it's dry between their bedding area and
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: the food source, then a water source can be appropriate. Well, Jeff,
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: I have about seventy two more questions I'd love to
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: ask you, but I know that we're gonna have to
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: do this another time. There's so much good stuff here
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: to cover. And what I want to tell everyone listening
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: is that I'm gonna give you homework because we haven't
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: even talked about food really at all yet. So I'm
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: gonna say, go go back and listen to Wired Hunt
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: podcast number eleven. That was the first episode Jeff was
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: on the podcast, and then that one we we focus
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: primarily on food plots and food, So go listen to
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: that after this one and um and then hopefully Jeff,
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: we can get you on to talk a little bit more.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: But I guess if there's one, is there any final
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: quick thing that you think we should definitely mentioned related
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: to habitat that we haven't touched on yet before we
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: let you go? Anything else you want to make sure
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: leave us with no I you know, what I can
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: leave you with is really I like where you touched
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: on that. Obviously, I love connecting habitat improvements, making sure
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: that you highly define that movement and that you you
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: really moved your safely around within your borders, that you
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: know in a location that you're not setting yourself up
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: to be to spook here, that you can actually hunt
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: this line movement. It all boils back to trying to
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: really hunt like a predator. You know what's great about
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: private land as we can say, you know, I want
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: the deer to bed there, I want them to feed here,
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: and you can set up that movement because if you're
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: hunting your land like a predator, you're leaving a very
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: little footprint behind when you hunt, Your not allowing the
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: deer to see you, smell you're here. You then you
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: can set those deer up as the season progresses, because
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: in most locations, um deer spooked more and more as
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: the season progresses. So if yours is that one property
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: where you're setting the daily daylight table for them and
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: you maintain that consistent consistency throughout the entire hunting season,
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: you hunt like a predator. You match your habitat improvements
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: to hunting a mature buck to where you actually you're
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: hunting the lowest hole in the bucket. You're removing your
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: hunting pressure, you're being ultra quiet, ultra secure, making sure
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: they can't see you, smile you. Then you really can
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: have an exceptional opportunity on on private land, even on
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: you know, my persons that I that I hunt out
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: here are forty acres, so you don't need a lot
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: of space. Then you can take those same concepts and
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: if you want to do a lot of boot work
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: out on public lands, you can go find those same
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: definitions of travel and those same concepts apply to public
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: land as well, so privately and great opportunity to shrink
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: it down, hunt like a predator. Place your food plots,
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: your habitat improvements, you're betting areas as as you can
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: actually be able to hunt them. Give you that opportunity
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: to hunt them like a predator. And uh, pretty cool
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: stuff you can do on private land, even on a
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: small parcel. Yeah, yeah, very cool stuff. Where can folks
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: find your information elsewhere or if they want to go
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: somewhere on and get your stuff, where's that at? Well,
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: they can visit White Till habitat Solutions dot com. Um,
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: if they put in my name, they can find that
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: pretty easily. If they forget the name of the business
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: and the website. UM. I also have a Facebook pages
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: under a white tabitat solutions dot com. UM. I sell
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: my books on Amazon or the website. And then also UM,
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: I have a YouTube channel that I think I still have.
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: We just shot four more today and we have about
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: eight in the loop that I'll put out over the
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: next week. We can have, but I think there's roughly
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: one fifty on there right now, and um, you know,
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: and then on the website I usually right, I think
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: last year about a hundred and fifty five articles, and UM,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: we put out about ninety videos a year. Will probably
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: do so. YouTube channel wait to habitat Solutions, website White
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: to habitat Solutions Facebook and then Instagram under white to
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: habitat Solutions too. There you go. Awesome stuff, Jeff. Always
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: enjoy having you on here and thank you so much. Yeah,
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: pleasure to be on here. And I can't believe that
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: first one was episode leven, thinking back, what episode is this? Mark?
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: That's that's amazing. UM, I'm really happy for you and
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: that's a success story in itself, so pretty cool and
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: and really honored to be back. Hey, thanks Jeff, I
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: appreciate let's talk against him. And that's going to be
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: it for us today. I hope you enjoyed this one.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: And like I just mentioned, we only cover probably about
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: half of what I wanted to. Um, still a lot
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: of great stuff, but so so much more that we
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: could touch on, So hopefully we'll get Jeff on again.
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: And really in our conversation today were we were mostly
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: just focused on kind of the strategic ways to think
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: about positioning improvements on your property or creating improvements on
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: the property that will help you as a deer hunter. UM.
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: But there's so much more to discuss on this front,
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: just related to improving the the overall health of the
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: animals and white tail her on your property through improvements
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: as well. So that's something we're definitely going to cover
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: in the future. There will be more habitat related episodes
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: to come here in the next couple of weeks, so
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: keep an eye out for that. And um Man, we
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: appreciate you joining us really quickly here. I do want
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: to thank our partners who helped make this possible, so
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: big thank you. Too, Sitka Gear, YETI Cooler's, Matthew's Archery,
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: Maven Optics, the white Tail Institute of North America, Trophy
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: Ridge and hunter ra Maps, and finally, as I just mentioned,
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: big thanks to each one of you for being here
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: for your attention and your time and you know your
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: open mind to learning about these new ideas alongside of us.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: It's a blast. I'm glad you're here with us, and
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: until next time, stay wired to Hunt,