Speaker 1: Hey, what is going on?
Speaker 2: This is Jake Hoefer and welcome back to another episode
Speaker 2: of Back forty. We have four guests, one question, and
Speaker 2: this week we're talking about what are the most affordable
Speaker 2: habitat projects that actually work? So we can come up
Speaker 2: with a million different things that you could potentially do,
Speaker 2: but the eighty twenty rule, what is the twenty percent
Speaker 2: effort that may help you have eighty percent more success?
Speaker 1: And they have to be affordable.
Speaker 2: So I hope this helps folks throughout this upcoming season
Speaker 2: on planning out priority list. A lot of these things
Speaker 2: are expensive and so we wanted to focus on what
Speaker 2: is affordable and what is impactful. Once again, we have
Speaker 2: our cast of four guests for this episode. We have
Speaker 2: West Elks, Steve Hansen, Jake Ellinger, and Sam bill Horn.
Speaker 1: Each of them have a little bit.
Speaker 2: Different habitat terrain, a little different issues they're trying to solve
Speaker 2: or overcome. And to kick things off, we're going to
Speaker 2: start with West Elks with Higgins outdoors. He consults on
Speaker 2: a lot of farms every single year and here we go.
Speaker 2: All right, Wes, welcome back to Back forty. We have
Speaker 2: another burning question for you, and you know I feel
Speaker 2: like when it comes to managing a property, it gets
Speaker 2: really expensive, really fast. There's all these things that you
Speaker 2: can do, and we talked, we previously talked about what
Speaker 2: you avoid it all costs, but now you know, let's
Speaker 2: say someone has a fixed budget. You know, they've they've
Speaker 2: stretched to get whatever hands on a piece of property,
Speaker 2: whether it's a lease, they knocked on doors and you know,
Speaker 2: have exclusive permission, or they bought a farm. And ultimately,
Speaker 2: in your opinion, what are some of the most affordable
Speaker 2: projects that actually make the biggest impact, Because I mean,
Speaker 2: I could rattle off some cheap projects, but I don't
Speaker 2: know how much they will really make a true impact.
Speaker 2: So with your own experience, what you've observed from even
Speaker 2: clients that farms you've been on and like, man, that
Speaker 2: was a very affordable project, and you know, they have
Speaker 2: the opportunity to show you the success that they've had.
Speaker 1: Tied to that. So what is cheap and what works?
Speaker 1: Is the simplest way to say.
Speaker 3: This, Yeah, cheap is relative, but I can tell you
Speaker 3: what's effective, And I would say encouraging and discouraging deer
Speaker 3: traffic is something that ninety nine percent of hunters are
Speaker 3: not doing but makes an incredible difference in their deer hunting.
Speaker 3: And I talk with so many hunters that I would
Speaker 3: consider conservative hunters, and they're sticking to the edge that
Speaker 3: they're blowing their wind into areas of lesser deer likelihood.
Speaker 3: But when it comes to November, they are banging their
Speaker 3: head against the tree because they're seeing deer, they're seeing
Speaker 3: the bucks that they want to but they're eighty ninety
Speaker 3: one hundred plus yards out and encouraging and discouraging deer traffic.
Speaker 3: To me, is the number one thing that a deer
Speaker 3: hunter can do to improve the huntability of the properties
Speaker 3: that they're on. And it doesn't have to be expensive.
Speaker 3: It takes a lot of work, it takes a lot
Speaker 3: of sweat equity. But champions are made in the off season.
Speaker 3: I don't care what sports you follow. If you watch NFL,
Speaker 3: NBA March Madness, they didn't win that championship the week
Speaker 3: that they showed up. It came through a year or
Speaker 3: even a life of committing to their process. And champions
Speaker 3: are made in the off season. And if you're showing
Speaker 3: up to November hoping to kill a big buck each year,
Speaker 3: but haven't put in the off season efforts to make
Speaker 3: that possibility or reality.
Speaker 4: Like I said, it's a recipe for frustration.
Speaker 3: And what I mean by encouraging and discouraging deer traffic
Speaker 3: is encouraging deer traffic to me, is making the path
Speaker 3: of least resistance by any and all means possible for
Speaker 3: the deer, selecting a stand location based on access and wind,
Speaker 3: and then doing everything that I can to make a
Speaker 3: deer walk within twenty five yard.
Speaker 4: I like them close.
Speaker 3: I don't want them at forty I want them at
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five yards. And so I will encourage deer
Speaker 3: traffic or I want it. And that might be using
Speaker 3: a chainsaw and cutting a trail and then coming back
Speaker 3: through with a backpack sprayer full of round up in
Speaker 3: a residual.
Speaker 4: That might be.
Speaker 3: Creating a creek crossing, getting in there with the skids
Speaker 3: deer and excavator, grading the banks, maybe bringing in some
Speaker 3: rock and making that creek crossing a shallower crossing. You
Speaker 3: can do a lot of things to encourage deer traffic.
Speaker 3: Put in a big culvert across the ravine, create a
Speaker 3: land bridge. Those are all opportunities of making the path
Speaker 3: of least resistance. But what I find is even I
Speaker 3: would argue even more effective is discouraging deer traffic. And
Speaker 3: discouraging deer traffic is the exact opposite of what I
Speaker 3: just talked about. Is I want to create the path
Speaker 3: of least resistance for the deer, but I also want
Speaker 3: to create the path of most resistance for the deer,
Speaker 3: and that means building brush blockades.
Speaker 4: To me, what a brush blockade.
Speaker 3: Is is Donald Trump and I are on the same
Speaker 3: page when it comes to walls, and I like good
Speaker 3: strong walls. And what I will do with a timber
Speaker 3: project or along a edge is cut some low value trees,
Speaker 3: push them together with a skid steer and a grapple,
Speaker 3: and then hinge cut into it. And I don't I'm
Speaker 3: not talking about a brush pile that's knee high. I'm
Speaker 3: talking about a rush wall of a brush blockade, and
Speaker 3: that funnels a lot of deer traffic. So brush blockades
Speaker 3: lining up round bails. A lot of people think round
Speaker 3: bails are expensive. One thing that I've done is my
Speaker 3: warm season grasses. So I've got switch grass and giant
Speaker 3: miscanthus fields across my property that I want to burn
Speaker 3: every three or four years, and There's a kid that
Speaker 3: lives down the road from my house, and he's got
Speaker 3: a round bailer, and the week prior to the burn,
Speaker 3: I will come in and have him cut and round
Speaker 3: bail my switch grass and giant miscanthus to where it's
Speaker 3: eight ten inches stubble swear can still carry a fire.
Speaker 3: But last time we did that here on my seventeen
Speaker 3: acre switchgrass giant miscanthus patch, that gave me one hundred
Speaker 3: and twenty three five foot round bails. So one hundred
Speaker 3: and twenty three three times five, that's a significant distance
Speaker 3: of discouraging deer traffic. You line up one hundred and
Speaker 3: twenty three round bails, you're gonna have a deer trail
Speaker 3: on either side. That's the reality of it. Other opportunities
Speaker 3: would be on a property a couple of years ago,
Speaker 3: I dug a. You can call it a pond, you
Speaker 3: can call it a water hole, you can call it
Speaker 3: a trench, whatever you want to call it. I got
Speaker 3: in there with an excavator and one hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: yards long, dug a call it a waterhole. And so
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty yards on the edge of a
Speaker 3: food plot, this water hole that is about four foot
Speaker 3: deep and probably ten to twelve foot wide. A lot
Speaker 3: of traffic going around the two ends of that water hole.
Speaker 3: I think of another guy.
Speaker 2: How long, real quick, how long? How long do you
Speaker 2: think those round bils will last? The one season grass?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Good questions last some time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've got a buddy that did it sixteen years ago.
Speaker 3: And with those five foot round bails, they've the wind
Speaker 3: and the weather has significantly brought those round bails down
Speaker 3: to probably maybe not half their height, but significantly smaller.
Speaker 3: They've absolutely degraded, but there's been little trees that grow
Speaker 3: up in them, and yeah, there's some places where they can.
Speaker 4: Get through, but you can go through there and put.
Speaker 3: A small cattle panel or something like that, and they're
Speaker 3: the vast majority of traffic is still going around the
Speaker 3: end of that.
Speaker 4: So, and it depends on the quality of the bail
Speaker 4: that you're using.
Speaker 3: I mean, you want to use a good binding material
Speaker 3: in the hay that you're using is I think switch
Speaker 3: grass and giant miscanthus is. It's a lot it's going
Speaker 3: to take longer for it to break down than a
Speaker 3: low quality hay.
Speaker 1: So but yeah, for.
Speaker 3: Seeing all my Buddi's property, that's sixteen years letter it's
Speaker 3: still effective. That's long enough for me to be like, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's fourth of my time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty fascinating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's a creative and affordable way to cover
Speaker 2: a lot of distance versus because I was waiting for
Speaker 2: you to say fence, I was like, well, fence isn't
Speaker 2: super cheap, but it does last for a super long time.
Speaker 3: Well, fences is not cheap. But you can go to
Speaker 3: Rural King and they sell cattle panels. Hog panels are
Speaker 3: a foot shorter. Cattle panels are a foot taller, and
Speaker 3: they come in sixteen foot sections and they're normally about
Speaker 3: twenty five bucks a pop if you buy ten cattle panels.
Speaker 3: So you're looking at two hundred and fifty dollars and
Speaker 3: you line up ten cattle panels, I mean, if you
Speaker 3: can make the two hundred and fifty dollars investment and like,
Speaker 3: it's amazing what you can do with ten cattle panels.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's you said they're sixteen foot long
Speaker 2: yep to one hundred and sixty feet es. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean that is actually that adds up relatively affordable. Yeah,
Speaker 2: to cover that much distance and super easy to install
Speaker 2: as well. It is you were gonna bring up someone
Speaker 2: else for an example, and then and then we'll wrap
Speaker 2: it up here.
Speaker 4: Just a client that comes to mind.
Speaker 3: Whenever somebody asked me about encouraging discouraging traffic is always
Speaker 3: brings a smile to my face. As he owned a
Speaker 3: junk yard, so there was school buses and RVs and
Speaker 3: old trucks and cars around, and I pitched this idea
Speaker 3: of things that we could do on his property to
Speaker 3: make it better. And I had these green lines where
Speaker 3: I wanted to encourage deer traffic, and I had these
Speaker 3: red lines where I wanted to discourage deer traffic.
Speaker 4: And he goes, well, how about a school bus there?
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 5: I mean.
Speaker 3: Some people make excuses and some people find solutions. That's
Speaker 3: Don Higgins quote, one of my favorites. And if you
Speaker 3: can find do what it takes to manipulate dear traffic
Speaker 3: past those most conservative locations, you're gonna have a lot
Speaker 3: more success.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I love it.
Speaker 2: Where where can people follow along with what you have
Speaker 2: going on? Because I think these are all really great
Speaker 2: piece of advice, and I feel like someone could have
Speaker 2: a general idea and maybe they have a follow up
Speaker 2: question for you, because everyone's situation is a little bit different.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I suggest listen to the Chasing Giants podcast with
Speaker 3: Don Higgins and Terry Peer. Or you can follow me
Speaker 3: on social media on Facebook or Instagram which is just
Speaker 3: Wesley Delks, or you can reach out to me via
Speaker 3: email which is Wes Wes at real World, Wildlifeproducts dot com.
Speaker 3: And I'd love to talk with you there. Awesome, Thank
Speaker 3: you so much, Thanks Jake. All right, there we have
Speaker 3: it with West Delks. Next up we have Steve Hanson
Speaker 3: and Iowa. He helps a lot of different people from
Speaker 3: his real estate career of helping those types of clients
Speaker 3: and also tackles a lot of projects on his own.
Speaker 3: So without further ado, let's go ahead and get into
Speaker 3: it with Steve Hanson. All right, Steve, welcome to back
Speaker 3: forty back to run you through another scenario that I
Speaker 3: think everyone has fallen into us some point, whether they're
Speaker 3: just getting started or as life evolves. You know, budgets
Speaker 3: have to get allocated differently, and in your opinion, of
Speaker 3: all the different projects that can be done on a farm,
Speaker 3: obviously there's huge overhauls that are often you know, pretty expensive,
Speaker 3: what are or what is potentially one of the most
Speaker 3: affordable habitat projects that actually makes the best ROI. So,
Speaker 3: I mean we could rattle off a lot of you know,
Speaker 3: cheap projects that maybe might not move the needle a ton.
Speaker 3: But as a rule of thumb, for someone that has
Speaker 3: a limited budget, limited equipment, what gets you excited if
Speaker 3: if I called JEP and said, haste, if I have
Speaker 3: a limited budget, I need to improve my farm, and
Speaker 3: I'll let you paint the rest of the picture, because
Speaker 3: I know every farm is different.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, it's a toss up between two for
Speaker 6: me right now. The two I'm thinking of is fertilizing
Speaker 6: the native vegetation that's there, whether that's prairie grass and stuff.
Speaker 6: But the one I'm gonna think I'm gonna go with
Speaker 6: is burning. I think burning is by far the most
Speaker 6: cost effective do it yourself landowner type, you know, reasonable
Speaker 6: landowner do it yourself project that simply you could do
Speaker 6: with you know, a backpack water sprayer, a leaf blower,
Speaker 6: you know some and you know, maybe a mower or
Speaker 6: something like that to create even a lawnmower to create
Speaker 6: some fire breaks depending on and it works both equally
Speaker 6: as well in the timber as it does in the CRP.
Speaker 6: And I think you'll note or any native grasslands and
Speaker 6: you'll notice big benefits with both. So the reason I
Speaker 6: chose that one is because not only is that one
Speaker 6: going to provide way better forage in the areas that
Speaker 6: you burn, it's actually ecologically better for everything it takes
Speaker 6: care of invasive, it rejuvenates the forest, you know, it
Speaker 6: helps with It helps on so many levels in addition
Speaker 6: to the hunting. Where fertilizing native vegetation that was more
Speaker 6: of a that would help your hunting, you know what
Speaker 6: I mean. That was almost like creating micro food plots
Speaker 6: and little areas like that. But I think I think
Speaker 6: overall burning is probably the one that people that is
Speaker 6: lowest cost. And by saying low cost, it's only low
Speaker 6: cost if you're able to do it yourself. You start
Speaker 6: having a higher burning done that gets pretty expensive and
Speaker 6: pretty cumbersome. So a lot of states offer burn training
Speaker 6: seminars and then some states, I know Missouri does they
Speaker 6: sort of have a cooperative where you can burn and
Speaker 6: you're expected to show up on X amount of work
Speaker 6: days and in return the collective or the group will
Speaker 6: show up and burn yours. So yeah, so you would.
Speaker 6: And then they have they have like trailers, small trailers
Speaker 6: with all the equipment. I don't know if you pay
Speaker 6: a fee to join this thing, I know there may
Speaker 6: be something. I don't think it's expensive, but that's a
Speaker 6: great way, especially for a landowner that has quite a
Speaker 6: few acres, you know, where they're they and they don't
Speaker 6: have anybodies that they could trust, or a local fire
Speaker 6: department or something like that. Obviously there's there's some safety
Speaker 6: concerns to doing it, but it of all the native
Speaker 6: vegetation everything in our part of the you know, of
Speaker 6: the Midwest, it benefits from fire done correctly. So that's
Speaker 6: that's going to be one the one that I'll go with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's in terms of high impact, low
Speaker 2: cost that it doesn't get, you know, much more affordable
Speaker 2: than a drip torch and a little gas and a
Speaker 2: little diesel and the leak lower like a lot of
Speaker 2: equipment you likely already have. And then also too to
Speaker 2: your point, like local volunteer fire departments, maybe we'll if
Speaker 2: you can work with them and have a training day.
Speaker 1: Depending on a terrain and and do you think this is.
Speaker 2: A question do you think that people are too intimidated
Speaker 2: by And I know that is like it's a fine
Speaker 2: line because you know, I think a lot of people
Speaker 2: are maybe overconcerned. And then I don't want to downplay
Speaker 2: it either by phrasing it that way, but I want
Speaker 2: to get your opinion.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think I think a lot of people are
Speaker 6: intimidated by it, and somewhat rightly so, because done incorrectly,
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, the results could literally be catastrophic.
Speaker 6: But it's also very easy to manage.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 6: The biggest mistakes that I see people make, and it's
Speaker 6: is simply a timing issue. You know. They they you know,
Speaker 6: two months out, they plan, Oh, we're going to burn
Speaker 6: March tenth. I've got these buddies coming, I got these
Speaker 6: guys coming. Well, they get up the morning of March
Speaker 6: tenth and it's a northwest wind blowing about twenty five
Speaker 6: miles an hour, humidity down around twenty five percent. They
Speaker 6: have no business burning, but they've set the stage to
Speaker 6: do it, so they go ahead with their burn and
Speaker 6: it inevitably gets away. So that's you know, that that
Speaker 6: would be that would be what I would avoid try
Speaker 6: trying to get trying to be flexible on the days
Speaker 6: because on the right day, with light wind and moderate
Speaker 6: humidity and burning, what's a backburn meaning burning against the
Speaker 6: direction of the prevailing wind. It's very safe and very controlled.
Speaker 2: Have you have you ever done like a like a
Speaker 2: fall burn or a late summer burn or anything like that.
Speaker 2: I know, I think doctor Craig Harper has some data saying,
Speaker 2: you know, like I think it. Don't quote me, and
Speaker 2: so I haven't researched this heavily at all, but in essence,
Speaker 2: I think at sometime of an August burn, actually, if
Speaker 2: the timing is right with the rain, it actually produces
Speaker 2: some like very very extreme high quality forage if you
Speaker 2: get the rain in that August time frame. Have you
Speaker 2: ever experimented with that.
Speaker 6: You know, I've not done an August burn. I have
Speaker 6: done quite a few fall burns. Usually we do them later.
Speaker 6: We're doing them in like you know, there's still a
Speaker 6: dormant season burn. They're going to be after a heavy
Speaker 6: frost freeze like late November. I know, we burned a
Speaker 6: hundre at Acres at the end of November last year
Speaker 6: and it went really, really well. I'm glad we did it,
Speaker 6: and I've got we've got three that we didn't at
Speaker 6: least three that we didn't get done this spring that
Speaker 6: now will get pushed back. The other advantage is you're
Speaker 6: you're by doing a fall burn, you're gonna benefit the
Speaker 6: forbes in your mix. You're gonna it's gonna help them.
Speaker 6: Basically a spring burn, a spring burn helps the grasses,
Speaker 6: hurts the forbes. A fall burn suppresses the grasses helps,
Speaker 6: you know. So it's it's kind of what your intentions are.
Speaker 1: So well, no, I think that that.
Speaker 2: Do you have any bad fire stories real quick of
Speaker 2: what not to do for someone's Like, okay, all right, Steve,
Speaker 2: you said this is the you know, highest impact. I
Speaker 2: feel semi confident. Uh, maybe do you have like whatever
Speaker 2: you do, don't do this. You mentioned the right conditions
Speaker 2: is key, but beyond.
Speaker 6: That, this one would play into the right condition. So
Speaker 6: I have a good real estate client and and we
Speaker 6: helped him add to his already big farm. Bought a
Speaker 6: five hundred and fifty acre track and he said, hey,
Speaker 6: would you guys help us help me burn that? So
Speaker 6: I said sure. And he's got all his own farm
Speaker 6: equipment and everything, so he went and did his fire breaks.
Speaker 6: He had a big disc, so I thought, oh, that
Speaker 6: he disked these fire breaks. Mistake number one, did not
Speaker 6: check them, assumed the fire breaks in his mind were
Speaker 6: done well. When you go in a heavy grass with
Speaker 6: a disk, the first pass or two would actually make
Speaker 6: it worse because it condenses that grass and fuel low
Speaker 6: to the ground, which will allow the fire to travel faster.
Speaker 6: So we get there. You know, we're always busy, so
Speaker 6: we're in a hurry. We assume he had his fire breaks,
Speaker 6: and we lit it. It's windier than it should be anyways,
Speaker 6: but it's a bit. He has a big farm. One
Speaker 6: side of this was a river, so that part of it.
Speaker 6: I was somewhat comfortable with what if it got away
Speaker 6: because it was limited to his land, the side we
Speaker 6: were burning and the river. So we light. It instantly
Speaker 6: crosses the fire breaks. I have a friend that was
Speaker 6: lighting for me, and I was usually one person lights
Speaker 6: and one person goes behind and stops it at the
Speaker 6: fire break from burning into your brakes. I can't even
Speaker 6: catch him or get him on the phone to tell
Speaker 6: him to stop burning. Right, So the first the fire's
Speaker 6: out of control instantly. The first little, you know, and
Speaker 6: it was. It was later in the burn season, so
Speaker 6: there's a lot of smoke. First time we get a
Speaker 6: good wind and the smoke blows away, you know, blows
Speaker 6: out a different direction. I go, there's a truck parked
Speaker 6: out there in the burn, and so I call the
Speaker 6: landowner and I said, there's a truck out there. He's like, no,
Speaker 6: there's not, and I said, yeah, there is. I can
Speaker 6: see it through the smoke. He goes, oh, no, that's
Speaker 6: a five hundred gallon fuel tank. We had it down
Speaker 6: there for the dozer, so left in the middle of
Speaker 6: the burn. Never told us again my mistake for not
Speaker 6: investigating what we were doing, just that yeah, that one
Speaker 6: was a near miss, so we instantly didn't even worry
Speaker 6: about fighting the fire. All we did was worry about
Speaker 6: protecting that fuel tank. So then we just had to
Speaker 6: let it burn to wherever it went and chase it down,
Speaker 6: and it ended up getting on a neighbor, not really
Speaker 6: doing any damage, but I felt bad that one of
Speaker 6: their neighbors were obviously hunters. And I literally called the
Speaker 6: guy because it burned right under some of his stands,
Speaker 6: and I said, hey, don't climb into those stands. It
Speaker 6: could have burned the straps, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: I said, any damage we did, we'll certainly cover for you.
Speaker 6: Another funny story is again helping a friend another friend
Speaker 6: slash real estate client. He's burning at his pace. He
Speaker 6: had good fire breaks and is very very knowledgeable guy.
Speaker 6: But we burned some switchcrests that was every bit of
Speaker 6: eight feet tall, and there was three of us doing it,
Speaker 6: and we were burning hundreds of acres on his place
Speaker 6: that day. We got it so hot that, uh, I
Speaker 6: think it was I'm trying to think of the brand
Speaker 6: of the shooting house it was. It was a grizzly
Speaker 6: like one of those Roada molded plastic. It got so
Speaker 6: hot it just started to blow a big bubble in
Speaker 6: the plastic. And his wife came up and she was
Speaker 6: just screaming at me, you know, and I'm like, I'm like,
Speaker 6: it's him, it's not me. She's like, well, I'm done
Speaker 6: with him. He's I'm like. She was super mad, and
Speaker 6: he was laughing about it, so I didn't, you know,
Speaker 6: I'm like, yeah, that sucks. We ruined your blind, But
Speaker 6: I said, you should you know, you should have mowed
Speaker 6: around your blind instead of burning. You know, he had
Speaker 6: a perfect setup, like super tall switchgrass as a screen
Speaker 6: to access is hut. You know that should have been
Speaker 6: mode flat to the ground, so it wasn't a flash
Speaker 6: type fuel source. But yeah, I do have more stories, unfortunately,
Speaker 6: but those two.
Speaker 2: Do a horror story of burning before burning season next year.
Speaker 2: But the reason I asked that is because there's a
Speaker 2: couple of lessons in that it's obviously high fuel loads
Speaker 2: around the blinds and stuff. Take the time to do that,
Speaker 2: and also just the preparation, you know, makes it go
Speaker 2: smooth and not stressful, because if it gets out of hand,
Speaker 2: it gets really stressful really fast and.
Speaker 6: Can be Yep, we started doing the we started we
Speaker 6: started doing burns for another company that did habitat work
Speaker 6: and they lost their insurance because they had one getaway
Speaker 6: and they literally put it out as it was burning
Speaker 6: the siding on these people's house.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 6: Yes, and yeah, so and so their insurance dropped them.
Speaker 6: They do have their insurance back now they're doing their
Speaker 6: own again. But it's uh, yeah, I think they got
Speaker 6: that was pretty pretty scary, you know, and it's something
Speaker 6: you have to respect, you know, you want to you
Speaker 6: want enough fear to keep you honest a little bit,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean. But you don't need to
Speaker 6: be just panic afraid of it. And if someone's never
Speaker 6: done it, I think if you can find a group
Speaker 6: like that or volunteer and just be involved in one burn,
Speaker 6: that would go you know, world's worlds of it would
Speaker 6: make if I'd never done it would and after seeing
Speaker 6: the process, you'd be a lot more comfortable with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, Steve, where can people fall along with your adventures?
Speaker 6: You know? Probably the best place is just on Instagram.
Speaker 6: It's just my name, Steve Hanson, the third and yeah,
Speaker 6: we put what we're doing on there. Good bet or
Speaker 6: otherwise awesome?
Speaker 1: Thank you?
Speaker 2: All right, Moving right along, we have Jake Ellinger with
Speaker 2: Habitat Solutions three sixty out of Michigan. He was on
Speaker 2: the Wired to Hunt show here not too long ago
Speaker 2: talking about his fifty years of experience, and let's see
Speaker 2: what Jake has to say regarding this question.
Speaker 1: All right, Jake, welcome back.
Speaker 2: I feel and I don't want to project to anyone,
Speaker 2: but I feel like everyone's watching their pennies a little
Speaker 2: bit closer, and unfortunately, oftentimes habitat projects can carry some
Speaker 2: carry some substantial cost when you start adding up everything
Speaker 2: that you can do on our property. And so I
Speaker 2: want to refine this to some of the most affordable
Speaker 2: projects that make the biggest impact, because obviously you can
Speaker 2: do a lot of projects that aren't very expensive, but
Speaker 2: how much do they move the needle? So I want
Speaker 2: to focus on the cheapest, highest impact projects that anyone
Speaker 2: can do.
Speaker 5: That's a good question because boy, you know, you go
Speaker 5: back forty five years ago and I was that guy.
Speaker 5: I had limited resources, okay, And.
Speaker 1: So everyone starts that way.
Speaker 5: I feel, yeah, oh, I think you're right, Jake. For me,
Speaker 5: it was simple timber stand improvements I could do with
Speaker 5: you know, a half a dozen tanks of gas and
Speaker 5: a cort of oil buy oil for my chainsaw, okay,
Speaker 5: And what I could do in two days and a
Speaker 5: weekend with a chainsaw makes a huge impact of long
Speaker 5: term you know, everything from betting to security to screening,
Speaker 5: whatever I'm trying to accomplish. And that would be for
Speaker 5: anybody that's got you know, some existing timber growth of
Speaker 5: you know, some age class, you know, something that's ten
Speaker 5: to twelve feet and taller. There's always things you can do.
Speaker 5: You know, you can create side cover. You can create
Speaker 5: natural deer movement trails. You can create barriers because hey,
Speaker 5: the deer always coming out on this corner. I want
Speaker 5: to stop them from you know, there's and then you
Speaker 5: know very detailed timber stand work, you know, creating large
Speaker 5: betting areas and you know transition zones and that sort
Speaker 5: of stuff. So that's one that pretty big impact for
Speaker 5: a small amount of cost.
Speaker 1: What's another one or two?
Speaker 2: Because I know when I when I developed this question,
Speaker 2: I knew TSI was going to be probably the ringing
Speaker 2: answer for for everyone because it is affordable and it
Speaker 2: is impactful, especially if you have a game plan and
Speaker 2: know what you're doing. What are some other things that
Speaker 2: maybe on your own property or consultations to where it's like, man,
Speaker 2: this might cost you one hundred bucks, fifty bucks, twenty
Speaker 2: bucks just your time.
Speaker 1: What are some other things that people can do.
Speaker 5: I've got one that I've used for decades and now
Speaker 5: it's very popular and a lot of people are doing
Speaker 5: it different ways, different methods, but mock scrapes. I've got
Speaker 5: one location right now that I've had, you know, I
Speaker 5: actually I have a camera there and I call it
Speaker 5: the Pines Turnaround because it was a place I had
Speaker 5: pines planted and do to die off and other things.
Speaker 5: I made this little area where I could back my
Speaker 5: pick up in there and turn around. Okay, so it's
Speaker 5: right between some nestled and some pines. So thirty years
Speaker 5: ago I started mock scrapes there and to this day
Speaker 5: it's where I can get pictures of every good antlered
Speaker 5: buck in this section. I can get him right there,
Speaker 5: and they're always there, you know. And what's that take?
Speaker 5: You know, literally it takes ten minutes of my time
Speaker 5: and seventy five cents worth of paara cord or wire
Speaker 5: and that's all it takes. And I just you know,
Speaker 5: I cut I cut new vines every late August and
Speaker 5: put new vines in and reuse the wire that's been there.
Speaker 5: So it's it's hard to calculate what my expense is,
Speaker 5: you know, just my time, and I do that multiple locations,
Speaker 5: but boy, it can have some long term effect and
Speaker 5: how the doves communicate to the bucks and the bucks
Speaker 5: communicate to one another, and you know, over over time
Speaker 5: and hierarchy, it becomes the place that everybody uses their
Speaker 5: nose to figure out, you know, what everybody else is
Speaker 5: doing in the deer herd, and.
Speaker 2: So you're a vine guy because to your point, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of different ways people use use mock scrapes
Speaker 2: and everyone, you know. I do think it's one of
Speaker 2: those things where there's a lot of different ways that
Speaker 2: you can do it and have success. But you're in
Speaker 2: Michigan and so you're you're cutting this a vine that
Speaker 2: you find, you know, sometime in the summer.
Speaker 1: Or like, what's it?
Speaker 2: It's a simple process, but I want you to walk
Speaker 2: through how how you do that?
Speaker 1: Do you cut it?
Speaker 2: Then you have a stockpile of vines behind your house?
Speaker 2: Or is it you go cut a fresh one? What's
Speaker 2: your strategy?
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a good question. And number one, we have
Speaker 5: a lot of wild grape. Okay, it's just everywhere birds,
Speaker 5: you know, eat the fruit and the seeds are. Anywhere
Speaker 5: there's a brush pile or a fence row, there's wild grape.
Speaker 5: And in the woods they're climbing up all the trees,
Speaker 5: the oaks, the cherries. So there's a lot of them,
Speaker 5: and some are real big. There's as big as my wrist,
Speaker 5: and the other ones are the size of my thumb
Speaker 5: or my forefinger, you know, And that's the size I
Speaker 5: look for. Okay, But what I do. I cut them
Speaker 5: the day I'm going to hang them. I want them
Speaker 5: fresh and dripping water the day I replace them, because
Speaker 5: they do dry out over season. And that's what happens.
Speaker 5: The ones that I put up last year, say right
Speaker 5: around Labor Day weekend, that's how long they've been there.
Speaker 5: And some of those vines have been broken off this
Speaker 5: winter while the bucks still had antlers, because they were
Speaker 5: still in there banging their heads on them and you know,
Speaker 5: leaving scent, and so because they're dry, they snap them
Speaker 5: off and break them off. Okay. So so my process is literally,
Speaker 5: you know, I know where I want to put it.
Speaker 5: I've got wire or parachute cord with me and a
Speaker 5: pair of clippers. I know where the where to look
Speaker 5: for the living vines. Okay, So I just literally go
Speaker 5: up there with my I've got a side by side
Speaker 5: and it's electric, and you know, cut it and I
Speaker 5: cut way more than I need. If I only need
Speaker 5: five feet of vine, I might cut fifteen feet. Kind
Speaker 5: of roll it up and put it in the back
Speaker 5: and it's going to be you know, thumb sized, like
Speaker 5: I said, four finger and size and it's just what
Speaker 5: I found on my farm, what they like. I've tried
Speaker 5: the bigger ones, I've tried little smaller ones. This is
Speaker 5: the size they like. And if I can find one
Speaker 5: that's got a y on it, you know it splits,
Speaker 5: that's like the ideal because I'll trim about a foot
Speaker 5: of those splits off and that will be the end
Speaker 5: that they work on. So it gives them two licking
Speaker 5: branches to put their you know, their mouth on and
Speaker 5: chew on and rub into their preorbital glands and that
Speaker 5: type of thing. And but anyways, when I get to
Speaker 5: where I want to put it, I've either a brand
Speaker 5: new vine, I see a tree limb. Most of the
Speaker 5: time I use an existing tree limb, and you know,
Speaker 5: cut the vine way longer than I need it and
Speaker 5: wire it up and make sure it's hanging down somewhere
Speaker 5: between about chest and belly button height off of the ground.
Speaker 5: And I've just found that when you know, vines are flexible.
Speaker 5: So when you're using say, you know, you go back
Speaker 5: twenty years ago, thirty years ago, when I was more
Speaker 5: using licking branches that I was pulling down from existing
Speaker 5: living trees. Those worked really really good, and they use
Speaker 5: it for the same reason, but I found the vines
Speaker 5: they spend more time in. They wind up those vines
Speaker 5: under their neck and across their antlers, and the pictures
Speaker 5: I've gotten over the years almost hilarious to see what
Speaker 5: some of these two in three year olds end up
Speaker 5: with that vine all tangled up in their antlers, and
Speaker 5: it kind of mesmerizes them, I think in a way.
Speaker 5: You know, they mess with them. They spent a lot
Speaker 5: of time. But it's real, you know, it's real easy,
Speaker 5: and I'm not gonna say there's any right or wrong way,
Speaker 5: but it needs to be in a fairly level location
Speaker 5: where deer can see it as they approach it, sent
Speaker 5: check it as they approach it. And it works really
Speaker 5: good in cover edges. The food plots works real good too.
Speaker 5: Maybe you've got a main trail where they're coming from
Speaker 5: a transition zone or a bedding area where they enter
Speaker 5: the food plot. Well, maybe you're lucky enough to have,
Speaker 5: you know, a cherry tree or an oak tree or
Speaker 5: a hickory tree growing right there, and you can tie
Speaker 5: that vine and have that vine right there hanging out
Speaker 5: maybe in the first foot or two of that food plot.
Speaker 5: So the moment they leave cover, there is something they
Speaker 5: can communicate with. And you know, I've probably I'm guessing
Speaker 5: I got forty fifty of them that I set up
Speaker 5: on this farm every year. That's a ton.
Speaker 1: That's a lot.
Speaker 2: But because everyone was gonna ask you, I was just
Speaker 2: gonna ask you where about where, Like what's one of
Speaker 2: the key locations to put it? But it sounds like
Speaker 2: for you it's everywhere.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I have some great rut stands, you know, when
Speaker 5: I've traded you know, travel corridors and things like that
Speaker 5: through TSI work and I've got you know, on my
Speaker 5: right fifteen yards away and on my left fifteen yards away,
Speaker 5: I've got vines. And during the rut it's just a
Speaker 5: blast to watch all these deer, you know, running through
Speaker 5: the woods. Pretty good clip and they stop worked at
Speaker 5: mine for fifteen seconds. Go again, you know they got theercent.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, well that's uh, well, I think that's a great,
Speaker 2: great impactful project. That's that anyone can do really anywhere,
Speaker 2: no matter where they're at, and put a camera on
Speaker 2: there and observe it. Let me ask you this question,
Speaker 2: with that many different mox scrapes that you have on
Speaker 2: your farm, do you see them?
Speaker 1: I mean when you like, for example, when you had
Speaker 1: the one of fifteen yards.
Speaker 2: To your right and to your left, would they hit
Speaker 2: both of them or would they just pick one that
Speaker 2: was closest or like, what what have you seen from
Speaker 2: a behavioral s No.
Speaker 5: That's that's true. I'm glad you asked it, because it
Speaker 5: seems like the younger bucks will spend the time and
Speaker 5: hit both of them. But when you start getting into
Speaker 5: that three four year old mature deer, that's pretty you know,
Speaker 5: he's got one he singles out and he'll he'll go
Speaker 5: hit that one, or he'll just come in and just
Speaker 5: kind of sent check. He'll be three to five yards
Speaker 5: from it, kind of put his nose down near the
Speaker 5: scrape underneath it, and just kind of slow down a
Speaker 5: little bit, see what's going on, never even stop. But
Speaker 5: the other one he won't even pay any attention to.
Speaker 5: So yeah, I think you know, individually, they've got their
Speaker 5: own preferences.
Speaker 2: Okay, well out, Jake, where can people fall along with
Speaker 2: what you have going on? If they want to watch
Speaker 2: some of your content that you produced over the years.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, the best is my YouTube channel I
Speaker 5: habitat Solutions three six dy l and I'm also on
Speaker 5: Facebook under my name Jake Millinger and then also have
Speaker 5: a test Solutions three p.
Speaker 6: Sixty.
Speaker 2: All right, to wrap this up, we have Sam bill
Speaker 2: Horn with Whitetail Partners out of Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: Let's see what he has to say about this.
Speaker 2: All right, Sam, welcome back to then have another episode
Speaker 2: of Back forty. Last time we talked about the mistakes
Speaker 2: to avoid it all cost and now we're diving into
Speaker 2: affordable projects that make a true difference and impact. I
Speaker 2: understand so many properties different every you know, every hole
Speaker 2: in the bucket for each property is a little bit
Speaker 2: different that needs to get patched up. But the purpose
Speaker 2: of this question and thought process is simply, I have
Speaker 2: a limited budget, Thank goodness, I have a place to
Speaker 2: do some of these projects.
Speaker 1: What can I do that isn't going to break the bank?
Speaker 2: And I'm also going to see a reward for my
Speaker 2: work because I feel when that loop is not tied together,
Speaker 2: it's tied to frustration. So we're going to try to
Speaker 2: save some folks some frustration.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Well, thanks for having me again, Jake, and this will
Speaker 7: be a great balance to the last clip that we
Speaker 7: did in terms of talking about the other end of
Speaker 7: the spectrum.
Speaker 1: In our first meeting.
Speaker 7: We talked about the bigger picture and trying to you know,
Speaker 7: have budget and tackle those larger items and the enjoyment
Speaker 7: that comes from it. But at the other hand, there's
Speaker 7: a ton of things we can do to help make
Speaker 7: meaningful impact to our properties.
Speaker 1: And I'll go you on that.
Speaker 7: I talk big picture, I'll go to some details here,
Speaker 7: especially for those guys out there trying to work hard
Speaker 7: to use their labor and their muscle to improve their property,
Speaker 7: and God bless them for doing it. That's some real work,
Speaker 7: but real enjoyment too. So a few things. My mind
Speaker 7: always goes to the timber. I look at it and say,
Speaker 7: we give a lot of press. The industry talks a
Speaker 7: ton about food plots. There's all kinds of products and
Speaker 7: equipment and all these things.
Speaker 1: For food plots. If you scroll through your social media feed,
Speaker 1: what do you see.
Speaker 7: It's food plot pictures and this and that all summer long.
Speaker 7: And you know it's that that's a marketable thing. It
Speaker 7: sells people want to buy and buy their equipment and
Speaker 7: their food plot seed and enjoy doing those plots.
Speaker 1: And that's all good.
Speaker 7: However, I think if you're trying to kill bigger bucks
Speaker 7: and have those opportunities on them, those opportunities nine times
Speaker 7: out of ten are going to be in your cover
Speaker 7: and specifically, I'll say, in your timber.
Speaker 1: Now with that, what can a guy do?
Speaker 7: So I am constantly preaching on client properties, and I
Speaker 7: still make the joke that I can probably count on
Speaker 7: one hand, even though I've been on hundreds of properties
Speaker 7: now that I there's only a few people that I said,
Speaker 7: you know, you're probably done cutting.
Speaker 1: Now you've cut enough.
Speaker 7: That I think we're good for a bit and we
Speaker 7: can just go into seeing how this rebounds and develops.
Speaker 7: So let's let's talk about what that cutting means. I
Speaker 7: say it generically and people to hear it. But there's
Speaker 7: another number of things you can do. First of all,
Speaker 7: if you've got a big, mature timber, maybe there's some
Speaker 7: value there. You can get a harvest don you can
Speaker 7: get some logs out, you can make a buck, you
Speaker 7: can get some money back from that investment that you're having.
Speaker 7: That's all well and good, and there's a place for
Speaker 7: that in the habitat planning that we do. Oftentimes we'll
Speaker 7: make a recommendation for that beyond that or next. I
Speaker 7: would say this is kind of in the order of
Speaker 7: operations too, is looking at larger timber TSI so maybe
Speaker 7: it's bringing down some of those bigger trees. Maybe they
Speaker 7: are not this saleable timber that we're going to be after.
Speaker 7: We just need to get them down for a number
Speaker 7: of reasons. We can go on too, all the TSI stuff.
Speaker 7: We could probably talk for an hour on that, but
Speaker 7: getting bigger trees on the ground, opening up that canopy,
Speaker 7: and now we're starting to get into some of the
Speaker 7: keys of habitat development and quality deer cover, getting sunlight down,
Speaker 7: increasing that forage, and also ground structure. I don't think
Speaker 7: ground structure gets talked about enough. You know, the real
Speaker 7: side cover of man. When you go out there and
Speaker 7: you knock down let's just take a five acre area,
Speaker 7: you go down and you go in there and you
Speaker 7: knock down fifteen or twenty big trees. You have changed
Speaker 7: the landscape on the ground and it doesn't take a
Speaker 7: lot of work. I know it's important to mention safety
Speaker 7: and doing things that you're comfortable with. You know, if
Speaker 7: you're new to this, working your way up to larger
Speaker 7: trees and understanding some of those things, but you know,
Speaker 7: getting those bigger trees down and then start to get
Speaker 7: into the finer work of okay, smaller trees. Now we're
Speaker 7: still with TSI mindset, looking for our future quality trees
Speaker 7: that we want to have either for forage or for
Speaker 7: timber value, and then all those things that we want
Speaker 7: to keep in balance, but increasing that cover, increasing that forage.
Speaker 7: Sometimes Now we're talking about utilizing other things like kingecuts
Speaker 7: and getting into bedding areas. So targeting specific areas to
Speaker 7: put trees down for habitat could be the developing cover
Speaker 7: for betting, could just be staging areas. And then again
Speaker 7: strategically starting to think towards deer movement. Now we're getting
Speaker 7: into corridors, trying to manipulate that movement across the landscape.
Speaker 7: If you have a wide open timber that has you know,
Speaker 7: it's very mature and very open. Number one deer don't
Speaker 7: want to be there in general, especially big bucks. But
Speaker 7: they can move freely. They can go wherever they want.
Speaker 7: There's very few trails that have been developed unless the
Speaker 7: topography is dictating it, and you don't have really this
Speaker 7: what I would call organized deer activity. If you do
Speaker 7: that and you start developing corridors and restricting the paths
Speaker 7: that they can go on. You're going to allow your
Speaker 7: self opportunities then to insert where you can hunt. And
Speaker 7: that's where all of this comes together and the planning
Speaker 7: and thought process to develop a property. But again getting
Speaker 7: back to your question is what can a guy do?
Speaker 7: All stuff is about really labor. It's simple hard work.
Speaker 1: Saw change the oil and gas, Yeah, you got it.
Speaker 7: So it's this is like getting out there and you'll
Speaker 7: learn so much about your timber as you start to
Speaker 7: have you know, you'll you'll get to know every tree
Speaker 7: by name in a way that you know your landscape,
Speaker 7: you know the details of it. And if you do
Speaker 7: this over the course of a few seasons, you'll see
Speaker 7: how deer using it. One of the things that taught
Speaker 7: me the most about habitat and how deer using the
Speaker 7: timber is being in it in all seasons, manipulating it,
Speaker 7: dropping trees and really seeing how deer react to what
Speaker 7: I'm doing. And you know, getting back to the core
Speaker 7: here is what can a guy do is put that
Speaker 7: labor in in the timber and make sure you're developing
Speaker 7: your quality entry points and hunting locations along the way
Speaker 7: to intercept those deer. In those locations that between your
Speaker 7: timber cutting, your access points, and the topograph fea the
Speaker 7: landscape that you're going to have really effective places to hunt.
Speaker 2: And I think another cheap and free thing would be
Speaker 2: find someone that knows more about this than you too.
Speaker 2: If you're brand new to this and this sounds very overwhelming,
Speaker 2: just hey, can I walk your timber with you sometime
Speaker 2: and and take the time to You're right, when you
Speaker 2: really start looking at timber, you remember almost every tree
Speaker 2: when you And you know, that's a really interesting thought
Speaker 2: and exercise because it's like oftentimes we just you know,
Speaker 2: at least me personally, you walk through it, and if
Speaker 2: you're not paying attention, it's like, oh yeah, there's a
Speaker 2: hackbread there, there's a locust there, and you can almost
Speaker 2: remember all these different things. And that's all free and
Speaker 2: and and and the knowledge is very powerful for sure.
Speaker 2: Where is where are some some good resources for someone
Speaker 2: to either like just some ideas for someone to track
Speaker 2: down someone that knows, you know, their their general uh
Speaker 2: timber composition and get a quick crash course.
Speaker 1: To to springboard everything.
Speaker 7: The resource I would tell people there's a number of
Speaker 7: written resources. You can go out there and you know,
Speaker 7: buy some basic books on Amazon especially that are relevant
Speaker 7: to your area. You can get you just simply tree identification,
Speaker 7: start understanding what you have. But then what I like
Speaker 7: to say is, you know, we talk on shows like
Speaker 7: this a lot about deer stuff, and you know, a
Speaker 7: guy like myself with Whitetail Partners, we're going to go
Speaker 7: and give you recommendations on your your habitat and what
Speaker 7: to do for the deer. But talking with your state
Speaker 7: and private foresters in the area, especially if you think
Speaker 7: there might be a timber harvest at hand, or you know,
Speaker 7: maybe there's a government program that you want to take
Speaker 7: advantage of for your situation. Getting all of the background
Speaker 7: on that. When you invite those people out to your property,
Speaker 7: you're going to learn a ton, not just about the
Speaker 7: deer aspect with a guy like me, but understanding the
Speaker 7: future potential for timber sale, maybe invasive species. You're going
Speaker 7: to get into all these things of you know, the
Speaker 7: health of your timber, and I think in doing so,
Speaker 7: you're gonna you're gonna quickly educate yourself and have a
Speaker 7: much better idea. I think it's pretty reckless and uh
Speaker 7: dangerous for you to go out there and just start
Speaker 7: cutting trees not knowing is you know what it is,
Speaker 7: where it is, what season is it? Should I even
Speaker 7: be cutting this tree at this time of year? And
Speaker 7: a number of other things and pitfalls that people can
Speaker 7: get into. So learn by you know, reading and hiring
Speaker 7: some of those professionals and I should I say higher
Speaker 7: but a lot of those government and private forcers, they're
Speaker 7: going to come to your ground for free as.
Speaker 1: A part of their service that they do.
Speaker 7: So reach out to them because walking timber with different
Speaker 7: professionals is going.
Speaker 1: To help you a lot.
Speaker 2: It's one of my favorite things to do, this walk
Speaker 2: walk timber with different timber experts because yeah, right every
Speaker 2: single time to some degree.
Speaker 1: So well, No, I think that's great.
Speaker 2: I think that's a that's a good punch list for
Speaker 2: people to start and no matter where you're at and
Speaker 2: based off that information for today, there's likely room for
Speaker 2: improvement no matter who you are. So is it you know,
Speaker 2: with this it, with it being May right now, is
Speaker 2: there much that people could implement right now for the
Speaker 2: next two months?
Speaker 7: Yeah, So, you know, again talking about timber and all that,
Speaker 7: what I do say, is much of your timber cutting
Speaker 7: is done before green up, so that windows closed now
Speaker 7: for just about everybody, and you know, the big impact
Speaker 7: the heavier cuts, the the you know stuff we started
Speaker 7: with in our conversation on the logging and all that
Speaker 7: that is going to wait till next season. However, some
Speaker 7: of the things you can be doing is more of
Speaker 7: these what I would call micro improvements of making sure
Speaker 7: that that entry point on a corridor, that entry point
Speaker 7: to the hunting location. Maybe you got a mock scrape
Speaker 7: set up or something like that, making sure that that's
Speaker 7: dialed in. So if you're gonna you're gonna fall a
Speaker 7: few trees right adjacent to the stand, you're gonna maybe
Speaker 7: work on some hingecuts to funnel deer into the location
Speaker 7: that you're looking to have that opportunity that can happen
Speaker 7: right up until hunting season. You want to be mindful
Speaker 7: of tree species and disease and some of these things
Speaker 7: that you want to be cautious of, but at the
Speaker 7: same point in time, most of these smaller trees that
Speaker 7: you're working with, I would say that you're going to
Speaker 7: be in good shape to go out there and make
Speaker 7: sure that those hunting setups are good. I'm done cutt
Speaker 7: in heavy timber for the year, but we're going to
Speaker 7: be getting into smaller stuff all throughout the summer here
Speaker 7: as we're developing properties.
Speaker 2: It is now a good time to potentially track down
Speaker 2: a consulting forester with it likely less logging jobs going
Speaker 2: on too across the country.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great point to make.
Speaker 7: During that winter season, those guys are running like crazy
Speaker 7: trying to manage timber sales and getting their work done.
Speaker 7: They have a you know, they can do logging at
Speaker 7: different times of the years depending on what the project is,
Speaker 7: but you know, most of that work happens throughout the winter,
Speaker 7: So you're going to find that those guys are generally
Speaker 7: a little more relaxed and available, and they should always
Speaker 7: be interested in helping you out because that's just what
Speaker 7: they do.
Speaker 2: I like it, Sam, Where can people track you down
Speaker 2: if they havecific questions and you're part of the Neck
Speaker 2: of the Woods or anywhere else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, thanks, Jake.
Speaker 7: Just to plug here for whitetail Partners, find us at
Speaker 7: whitetail partners dot com or just google white Tail Partners.
Speaker 7: You'll find us on the top of that search page.
Speaker 7: And we have ten consultants across the country willing to
Speaker 7: help you and insert whatever we can in terms of planning,
Speaker 7: land management and all the things to get you going.
Speaker 1: On your property. Awesome. Thank you so much. Sam, appreciate it. Jake.
Speaker 1: Thanks all right, there, you guys have it.
Speaker 2: I hope you guys enjoyed this episode of Back forty
Speaker 2: handful of really good projects here that can help you,
Speaker 2: that are affordable. Some of them might even put a
Speaker 2: little money in your pocket. And these are just four ideas.
Speaker 2: And I think right now is a great time of
Speaker 2: a year to think on the past year. What can
Speaker 2: I do now? What can I do in June? What
Speaker 2: can I do in July, August or September leading up
Speaker 2: to the season to have the most potential success. It's
Speaker 2: easy to push things off. It's easy to say, you know,
Speaker 2: it'll be okay. But remember last year, think of where
Speaker 2: you were at in October and November saying this has
Speaker 2: to get done, this has to get done. Make sure
Speaker 2: to carve out the time if you can and get
Speaker 2: some basic projects done that's going to help you this
Speaker 2: upcoming fall.
Speaker 1: And you're going to thank yourself. We will see you
Speaker 1: next time. See ya