Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
Speaker 1: modern white tail hunter, and now your host Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyan, and today in the show, Tony Peterson and
Speaker 1: I are breaking down the good, bad, and ugly of
Speaker 1: our experiences with white tail habitat management. All right, welcome
Speaker 1: to the wire to Hunt podcast, brought to you by
Speaker 1: First Like and today we're talking whitetail habitat, but but
Speaker 1: from a from a very different perspective than many of
Speaker 1: the white tail habitat conversations you here. This is not
Speaker 1: gonna be a conversation with experts. This is not gonna
Speaker 1: be a conversation with consultant or paid I don't know,
Speaker 1: spokespeople for food, plat, seeds or anything. This is gonna
Speaker 1: be white tailed habitat from a couple of average joe
Speaker 1: get their hands in the dirt, sometimes know what they're
Speaker 1: talking about, sometimes don't. Kind of guys myself and Tony Peterson. Tony,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, buddy. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I gotta point out though I made this
Speaker 1: whole long spiel about how we're just average joe's but
Speaker 1: then as I was saying this, I recalled the last
Speaker 1: time we were together, you called yourself the step Curry,
Speaker 1: the Steph Curry of the deer ownning world. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: from humble beginnings here, folks that that was a tongue
Speaker 1: in cheek statement. Uh, And I fully admitted that I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that Steph Curry was considered the best basketball
Speaker 1: player out there today. You can safely say that as
Speaker 1: far as the habitat and movements and stuff, I definitely
Speaker 1: don't consider myself the Steph Curry of that category. But
Speaker 1: you're on the team, You're you're on the bench somewhere.
Speaker 1: You're on You're on the team somewhere. I'm a screw up.
Speaker 1: I'm on the bench. But yeah, yeah, man, how how
Speaker 1: how are you? I'm good, man, I'm I'm scouting Turkey
Speaker 1: is like mad and finding a few antlers, and I'm
Speaker 1: getting ready to go cut down some trees this weekend.
Speaker 1: And I'm I'm so happy to look out my window
Speaker 1: and Nazi snow. It's been a long while, hasn't oh man? Yeah? Um,
Speaker 1: since we chatted last, you also went to Florida. Uh,
Speaker 1: totally unrelated to any of this, But how was the fishing.
Speaker 1: The fishing was really good despite the weather and we
Speaker 1: did not have the most ideal beach weather, but man,
Speaker 1: we caught a lot of different fish, a lot of
Speaker 1: different species, and just I still have it was such
Speaker 1: a good trip. I still have fish spines stuck in
Speaker 1: my fingers right now. I can't play guitar because I'm
Speaker 1: in I'm on the I R right now. But it was.
Speaker 1: It was a good trip. Man. That's sweet. Uh, your
Speaker 1: daughters catch a bunch, Oh my god, they caught so many.
Speaker 1: We we really kind of got some stuff dialed in
Speaker 1: on this trip because I'm such a newbie with that
Speaker 1: saltwater stuff. And we we figured out, you know, how
Speaker 1: to catch some trout really well. And we found you know,
Speaker 1: some ladyfish and some jacks and we actually got into
Speaker 1: this catfish bite at our house that I've caught them before,
Speaker 1: but never, you know, I've never really focused on them.
Speaker 1: But I kind of figured those fish out and we
Speaker 1: had a night bite that was so fun, Like I
Speaker 1: finally figured out and you know, they fight pretty well.
Speaker 1: And the girls, you know, the girls caught a lot
Speaker 1: of fish. It was it was a blast. Man. Did
Speaker 1: you get to eat some of those Um, we did
Speaker 1: not because I can't eat fish. I'm allergic to fish,
Speaker 1: and we didn't catch anything that I really felt like
Speaker 1: cleaning on the vacation so somebody else could eat them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get that. Yeah, that's a bummer. I did. I
Speaker 1: forgot that. That does suck. Yeah. I can't prove this,
Speaker 1: but I think I hold the world record for most
Speaker 1: fish clean and not eaten in my life because I've
Speaker 1: cleaned a pile of fish and I don't get to
Speaker 1: eat them. Yeah, it's definitely not worth it if you
Speaker 1: don't get to enjoy them. There's some days where I
Speaker 1: do enjoy them, and I'm still like, dangn. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that was worth it, but it was not
Speaker 1: not ever a good idea to do it and then
Speaker 1: not be able to eat those suckers. Man, that's a bummer.
Speaker 1: It's a bummer. I I can. I should say this too.
Speaker 1: I can eat trout and salmon. So they think it's
Speaker 1: a mercury allergy. And for some reason, you know, because
Speaker 1: of the water that salmon and trout live in, they
Speaker 1: don't they don't get the build ups of mercury and
Speaker 1: their fat deposits. I guess, and I had to travel
Speaker 1: nurse tell me that once and so I do actually
Speaker 1: really enjoy eating salmon and trout, but everything else will
Speaker 1: kill me. Dude, If that's not incentive to be against
Speaker 1: pollution of our waters, I don't know what is. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm all for it, man. I do you know
Speaker 1: people people they don't seem to understand this allergy. It's
Speaker 1: a weird one, but every I haven't done this since
Speaker 1: I quit drinking. When I when I used to be
Speaker 1: a much bigger fan of like wild turkey everyone, like
Speaker 1: once every ten years, I would just decide, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try it. Just see and if I take
Speaker 1: a bite of fish, it feels like I swallowed poison.
Speaker 1: I can feel it spread through my entire body. Wow,
Speaker 1: So it's not good that, Uh, that's a good thing
Speaker 1: for me. Keeping the back of my mind for the
Speaker 1: next time of our outings, We're definitely not gonna have
Speaker 1: a fish friend. I thought he meant a different way
Speaker 1: if I started to get more popular than you, that
Speaker 1: you're gonna slip some fish into my sandwich or something.
Speaker 1: I've got more ideas. Uh, well, what what I really
Speaker 1: want to talk to you about other than poisoning you
Speaker 1: with delicious wallee filet Uh is that other stuff that
Speaker 1: we're working on this spring? You're gonna be cutting some brush.
Speaker 1: I'm heading out next week, I think to do some
Speaker 1: frost seeding of clover up in northern Michigan. Uh So,
Speaker 1: getting our hands dirty with some habitat work. And you
Speaker 1: are not someone who I think anyone typically thinks about
Speaker 1: when they think about habitat work, improving properties, working ground.
Speaker 1: Because you, Tony have made such a name for yourself
Speaker 1: on the you know, public land side of things. D
Speaker 1: I y, traveling trips, all that kind of stuff. But
Speaker 1: you're like a closet private land dude. No one realizes it,
Speaker 1: but but you do this stuff kind of secretly in
Speaker 1: the background. Are you willing to come clean today about
Speaker 1: what you have done on private land with habitat Yeah?
Speaker 1: This this can be my coming out party. Sure, okay,
Speaker 1: So tell me give me the story, like when did
Speaker 1: you first get into this kind of stuff and and
Speaker 1: what does that look like? Because you you not only
Speaker 1: have you worked ground, but you even own land. Yep. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I actually I got a couple of Foundations episodes
Speaker 1: coming out here pretty soon about kind of the land
Speaker 1: buying process and what it took for me, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: all really shortened us up here. But you know, I
Speaker 1: grew up it was never even like a thought to
Speaker 1: own land like it was. It was never gonna happen.
Speaker 1: Like I grew up with a poor mindset, and so
Speaker 1: it never it never occurred to me that it might
Speaker 1: be possible that I might be able to buy some
Speaker 1: grounds someday. And I just randomly, I've got a buddy,
Speaker 1: really good friend of mine who he bought some He
Speaker 1: bought eighty acres in northern Wisconsin, like probably two thousand
Speaker 1: and six or something. It was a while ago, and
Speaker 1: it just it blew my mind when he called me
Speaker 1: up and he's like, yeah, we've you know, we made
Speaker 1: an offer. And back then the price I think he
Speaker 1: paid was like seven or fifty bucks an acre or something.
Speaker 1: You know, I mean, it would it would be different today,
Speaker 1: But even then, I was like, I can't believe I
Speaker 1: know anyone my age who bought land. And so I
Speaker 1: started looking around there because I was up in him
Speaker 1: work on his land, and I ended up finding a
Speaker 1: property over there that was twenty eight acres and just
Speaker 1: really weird shape and not all that appealing by the road,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of half high, half low, and it
Speaker 1: was offered pretty cheap. And then it dropped and I
Speaker 1: was like, man, you know, it was like finally a
Speaker 1: piece of property that I had walked that was kind
Speaker 1: of in my wheelhouse. And it was a horrible idea.
Speaker 1: My wife was super pregnant with our daughters at that time.
Speaker 1: But I drove over there and looked at it and
Speaker 1: just it was like, you know, not ideal, dreamy, dear ground,
Speaker 1: believe me, but it was it was within the realm
Speaker 1: of possibility. So I made an offer on it, and
Speaker 1: I got it, and I was terrified, and it was
Speaker 1: I paid for it, so I'm not talking like, you know,
Speaker 1: three dollars or something. And even then at that time,
Speaker 1: I was terrified to take on that debt. And but
Speaker 1: as soon as I did it, I was like, well,
Speaker 1: now I know, like not I gotta pay the bank back, now,
Speaker 1: I gotta I just gotta do it, you know. And
Speaker 1: as soon as I got my hands on it, I
Speaker 1: was just like, well, I could put a little kill
Speaker 1: plot here, I could cut this trail here, and it
Speaker 1: just opened up a world for me and really changed
Speaker 1: how I look at you know, the possibility owning land
Speaker 1: and just what I could do with my deer hunting.
Speaker 1: So before we get any further than that, I guess
Speaker 1: here's here's like a high level overview of where I
Speaker 1: want to explore. Um, what I'm hoping by the end
Speaker 1: of this we're gonna get to is a little bit
Speaker 1: of insight into what you and I have both experienced
Speaker 1: with these types of projects, as far as you know,
Speaker 1: what we actually did. I think we should give an
Speaker 1: overview of of like what our experience set is, because
Speaker 1: I think lots of times we never hear that from people.
Speaker 1: We just expect them to tell us a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of stuff and we never really end up finding out
Speaker 1: what they've actually done themselves. Let's like break down what
Speaker 1: we have worked on the past. But then I want
Speaker 1: to kind of get into, Okay, what was what was
Speaker 1: the good side of the What did we do that
Speaker 1: actually worked, what was fun about it, what was satisfying
Speaker 1: about it? Did we enjoy it, didn't make a difference,
Speaker 1: did we see positive impact? YadA, YadA, YadA, And then
Speaker 1: the flip side. I kind of want to talk through
Speaker 1: what was a ship hole, what didn't work, what was stressful,
Speaker 1: what was upsetting, what was a waste of our time?
Speaker 1: What made you never wanted to do it again? Anything
Speaker 1: like that? And then hopefully by the end of this
Speaker 1: we'll kind of have a no bs idea of you know,
Speaker 1: the good and the bad of trying to improve whitetail
Speaker 1: ground for hunting and for wildlife and who it's right
Speaker 1: for and maybe who it's not right for, or what
Speaker 1: are some things that people should think about before they
Speaker 1: get into this, or for people to have started but
Speaker 1: feel like they're just kind of muddling around maybe what
Speaker 1: to think about next. That's kind of where I see
Speaker 1: this going tony um, and feel free to press me
Speaker 1: on some of these things too as we as we discuss.
Speaker 1: But um, you know, how big was this property? Again?
Speaker 1: You had that the first one I bought was twenty
Speaker 1: eight okay, and then this you've you've got remind me
Speaker 1: what it looks like now. You bought one, then you
Speaker 1: had a second, and then you sold one recently into
Speaker 1: relatively Yeah, so I bought a twenty eight acre property,
Speaker 1: and a twenty nine acre property and a thirty acre property,
Speaker 1: and so that's about where uh an outdoor writer, that's
Speaker 1: that's the sweet spot there. I did the twenty nine
Speaker 1: acre property we did sell last year because we had
Speaker 1: some neighbors come in that we're not fun and it
Speaker 1: was just it was a property I really wish had
Speaker 1: not gotten ruined by other people, but it just was
Speaker 1: really tough. So we got rid of that one. But
Speaker 1: so now I have a twenty and thirty over in
Speaker 1: northern Wisconsin. And are they like close to each other?
Speaker 1: Are they adjacent? Are they two separate different worlds? Um?
Speaker 1: They're about probably about ten minutes apart. Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: So then what I want to know first is I guess, like,
Speaker 1: I'm sure we'll get into the d I'm curious about
Speaker 1: getting the details, but like, give me the uh chapter
Speaker 1: in debt and what is it table of contents? Given
Speaker 1: the table contents, like a list of all the various
Speaker 1: projects you can think of off the top of your
Speaker 1: head that you've tried on those properties over the years.
Speaker 1: If you could just like run through what you can
Speaker 1: think of right now, what would those first things be
Speaker 1: to come to your mind that you can remember? But
Speaker 1: you know, probably very similar to your experience. A lot
Speaker 1: of uh, you know, cutting trails, a lot of cutting brush,
Speaker 1: a couple of little kill plots, a fair amount of
Speaker 1: apple tree you know, planning apple trees and working with
Speaker 1: some natural apple trees kind of open them up. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, that's that's primarily what I've done. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't have I don't even have a four wheeler,
Speaker 1: so everything I do is by hand. So every bag
Speaker 1: a line I carry in by hand. And so I'm
Speaker 1: into little, the little stuff I can do. But that's
Speaker 1: that's mostly been my focus. And you know it's been well,
Speaker 1: we'll get into this. It's been fun and not fun
Speaker 1: at times. Yeah. Alright. So on my side of the coin,
Speaker 1: I don't own anything, and I haven't owned anything, but
Speaker 1: my family does own a forty acre piece up in
Speaker 1: northern Michigan. So up there we've done some cutting and
Speaker 1: basically like one small food plot up there. Um. And
Speaker 1: then I have permission on a property down in southern
Speaker 1: Michigan where I've done hinge cutting and screening and food plots. There.
Speaker 1: I've been able to plant about two acres of food
Speaker 1: plots on that property and I've done some hinge cutting.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I said that, um. And then
Speaker 1: I worked the back forty project of course which I
Speaker 1: got experienced burning tree planting, using screening, cover planting, switch grass,
Speaker 1: working on invasive species removals, and uh no till food
Speaker 1: plots specifically, got to dive into that a little bit.
Speaker 1: So that's that's kind of my experience set and I
Speaker 1: started this. UM I did my first food plot, I
Speaker 1: think thirteen years ago. And that first food plot, Tony,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've ever you probably have done
Speaker 1: something like this. Well maybe you've done something even more smaller,
Speaker 1: smaller than this, given what you just described. But my
Speaker 1: very first food plot was on a property I had
Speaker 1: permission on in outside of Annarbor, Michigan, so outside of
Speaker 1: a college town. And I was renting this old, old,
Speaker 1: old farmhouse. This is my first place I've ever lived
Speaker 1: outside of college. This is my very first year after college.
Speaker 1: And I was living in this little rundown farmhouse in
Speaker 1: the edge of town and it was on a larger farm.
Speaker 1: And the owner of this farm um was gonna allow
Speaker 1: me to hunt it. And I had this idea, like, man,
Speaker 1: I'd love to try food plotting and want to try
Speaker 1: all this kind of stuff. So I, uh, I asked
Speaker 1: if I could plant a food plot in this little
Speaker 1: corner of grass that tucked into the wood lot that
Speaker 1: was next to this farm, and the little part of
Speaker 1: grass was a part of the landowner's yard. And so
Speaker 1: basically I was asking, could I plant a food plot
Speaker 1: in your backyard because it was the only place that
Speaker 1: seemed like I might be able to do a food
Speaker 1: plot with the tools I had available without messing with
Speaker 1: the farm field. And so they let me do it.
Speaker 1: And I'm trying to remember, I'm trying to remember where
Speaker 1: this started. I think I went out there. I don't
Speaker 1: know where I got it, but I must have rented
Speaker 1: a road or tail, like a push road or till.
Speaker 1: I must have got it like an equipment rental place
Speaker 1: somewhere in town, because I had this little push road
Speaker 1: to till, and I had like, I don't know, like
Speaker 1: a twenty yard wide by ten yard wide little space
Speaker 1: that I was trying to till up like this, and
Speaker 1: the ground was really hard and dry, and the road
Speaker 1: of tiller was not hardly making a dent, and I
Speaker 1: just was out there for I don't know, two or
Speaker 1: three hours, just kind of slowly chugging along trying to
Speaker 1: break up this ground. And you know, I no idea
Speaker 1: what I was doing, but I was really stoked to
Speaker 1: be doing something. And uh and the landowner lived in
Speaker 1: this yard, obviously living in the house at the front
Speaker 1: of the yard, I think, kept looking at me, and
Speaker 1: then finally he came out. He's like, you know, I
Speaker 1: gotta tractor, don't. She's like, why don't. Why don't you
Speaker 1: just let me make a pass here and then you
Speaker 1: can be done with it. So he came up with
Speaker 1: this little lawn tractor and uh just finished it off
Speaker 1: for me. But that was my first food plotting experience,
Speaker 1: was telling this guy's backyard, and Uh, I ended up
Speaker 1: just like stomping on it with my feet to get
Speaker 1: it packed. So I foot stomped the whole thing and
Speaker 1: then I used like a little like plastic grass seeds
Speaker 1: spreader to spread like some no till food plot seed
Speaker 1: on this thing. And uh, sure enough though, stuff sprouted
Speaker 1: and a food plot came in and UH, I remember
Speaker 1: thinking it was the coolest thing to actually have planted
Speaker 1: this little patch of ground and he was all this lush,
Speaker 1: green looking stuff. I didn't really know what a lot
Speaker 1: of it was. And uh, I got a trail camera
Speaker 1: set up there in the first picture of a buck
Speaker 1: in that food plot. I was like a kid opening
Speaker 1: the best present on Chris this morning. I was so excited.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I yelled out loud, probably, I
Speaker 1: was so excited. I mean, it was just the coolest
Speaker 1: thing to to just do something like that and see
Speaker 1: it come to life, both the plants and like animals
Speaker 1: using it. That was like an eye opening experience for me,
Speaker 1: that very first time when you could do something and
Speaker 1: see that kind of fruition. Do you remember what what
Speaker 1: you actually had planted in there? I remember as a mix,
Speaker 1: it was like I think it was white tail institutes,
Speaker 1: no plow or no til mix whatever that whatever that was,
Speaker 1: So I'm assuming there was probably I think there was
Speaker 1: some clover in there. There was some kind of brassica
Speaker 1: in there, and there was some kind of cereal grain,
Speaker 1: so probably oats or wheat or something like that, some
Speaker 1: mixture of those things. Yep. I just remember it was
Speaker 1: like a a blend. There was the leafy brassicas, there
Speaker 1: was some wheaty looking kind of stuff, um, and deer
Speaker 1: in it. And I mean I I didn't I didn't um.
Speaker 1: I never did shoot anything around that food plot, but
Speaker 1: I had a camera, and only hunted there one year,
Speaker 1: I guess before I moved. But that that year I
Speaker 1: got a bunch of pictures of deer using it, and
Speaker 1: it just was it was surprising, actually how easy it
Speaker 1: was to actually make something. It wasn't great, it wasn't big,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like earth shattering, but I did a thing
Speaker 1: like I actually planted something. Deer actually started really using it.
Speaker 1: And uh and I was just like two years old
Speaker 1: and really didn't know anything, and I was able to
Speaker 1: try it. So that was I guess that was encouraging
Speaker 1: to to start, I suppose. So why why didn't you
Speaker 1: hunt it more? Well? Um, I only hunted that property
Speaker 1: one year because I moved. So the next year I
Speaker 1: moved about an hour away. Um, so that was my
Speaker 1: only season there, and I didn't end up you know,
Speaker 1: try and remember why I had a tree stand that
Speaker 1: I set on the food plot. Um. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: I hunted it few times. I really can't remember, Tony,
Speaker 1: I don't remember. I don't remember what the plan was
Speaker 1: or why I didn't hunt there more often. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of it came down to I was also
Speaker 1: getting permission on some other spots where there was just
Speaker 1: seemingly better deer hunting, so I end up traveling to
Speaker 1: those spots more often. Um. I can only remember a
Speaker 1: few hunts on this property as I'm like trying to
Speaker 1: rack my brain right now. I remember one like opening
Speaker 1: day of that year. I know I wanted to hunt
Speaker 1: the food plot, but must the wind must have been
Speaker 1: wrong or something, because I remember really wanted to hunt
Speaker 1: that spot but couldn't, And I hunted a couple hundred
Speaker 1: yards down this other corner of the property and shot
Speaker 1: a doll opening night coming out of this little swale. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I can't. I can't recall why I never
Speaker 1: hunted that spot, but I can't even remember actually sitting
Speaker 1: on that food plot. I'm sure it must have, but
Speaker 1: I can't actually remember an experience there. Um, But I'm
Speaker 1: glad I did it still. Yeah, well, I asked you
Speaker 1: that because I'm I love working on food plots, and
Speaker 1: I love seeing that progress and getting the pictures on them.
Speaker 1: I just don't like hunting them that much, Like it's
Speaker 1: at least the ones that I've created, but the process
Speaker 1: of making them is so worth it to me still,
Speaker 1: So I wondered if you kind of bumped into that
Speaker 1: where you're like, man, this is a fun project to
Speaker 1: take on, even though it's really you know, in like
Speaker 1: that little kill plot sense, probably not going to change
Speaker 1: the outcome of your season a whole lot, But man,
Speaker 1: they're fun to build. So let's let's talk about that. Well,
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about the fun part first. So what's
Speaker 1: fun about him? Because I think some people look maybe
Speaker 1: they haven't tried it. I might look at it and think, gosh,
Speaker 1: that's that's like a big farming project that's just gonna
Speaker 1: take time, energy and sweat, and um, maybe that doesn't
Speaker 1: sound fun of people? Why was that fun for you? Especially?
Speaker 1: It might be. I mean, it's kind of surprising to
Speaker 1: hear you say that, because you're a guy who I
Speaker 1: expect wouldn't think that's fun. I don't know, man, It's
Speaker 1: just it's the same thing. Like I was talking to
Speaker 1: my wife about this weekend where we're gonna go cut
Speaker 1: down a bunch of trees and some brush, and I
Speaker 1: can't wait. And I just like watching trees ball down
Speaker 1: like I could. I literally when I watch a tree
Speaker 1: fall down, I feel I can feel my chest hair grow,
Speaker 1: like I feel like I just become a little more manly.
Speaker 1: And you know, even though I know, you know, especially
Speaker 1: for years I worked on those little kill plots on
Speaker 1: my properties, knowing almost without question I was never going
Speaker 1: to sit them, or I might sit one one or
Speaker 1: two days in like October and just try to shoot
Speaker 1: a dough. But I just love the process of just
Speaker 1: looking at the woods and going, Okay, I'm gonna clear
Speaker 1: this part out and it's gonna take a couple of
Speaker 1: years for the soft wood, you know, kind of work
Speaker 1: its way back into the soil and a a little stumps
Speaker 1: and stuff, and just like start to see that process
Speaker 1: of building it up and start seeing does come back
Speaker 1: with fawns in the spring. And I love every part
Speaker 1: about it except sitting on it to hunt. Why aren't
Speaker 1: really hunting them? Ah, I think it's just where I'm
Speaker 1: at as a hunter now. I plant those plots and
Speaker 1: then I do a lot of work on them, and
Speaker 1: then I drive down the road fifteen miles to public
Speaker 1: land and I go, you know, totally different style, and
Speaker 1: I just want to do that. Like I it feels
Speaker 1: weird to me partially because it sort of feels like
Speaker 1: you're just you know, I don't have a place where
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, there's big ones coming in here consistently,
Speaker 1: Like that's not what I'm hunting, and so I know,
Speaker 1: like there's an outside chance that one might show up,
Speaker 1: but I have a better chance of running into a
Speaker 1: deer I'm gonna want to shoot if I go and
Speaker 1: you give me a thousand acres a big timber, you know.
Speaker 1: So it's just it feels like when I go sit
Speaker 1: down there, I'm like, Okay, I know, I know what
Speaker 1: I'm dealing with, and sometimes I love it because it's
Speaker 1: easy and I might get a crack at a dough,
Speaker 1: but most of the time I'd rather leave it for
Speaker 1: somebody else. And now with my my little girls hunting,
Speaker 1: like I have a perfect excuse to just work as
Speaker 1: hard as I can on them and then you know,
Speaker 1: save them for the girls. Okay, So that was what
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask Next, is what's the point of
Speaker 1: planning them then if you don't never really want to
Speaker 1: hunt those spots. So it's it's mostly now getting your
Speaker 1: your your girls a good opportunity. It's that's a big
Speaker 1: motivator right now. But I also, honestly, I just love
Speaker 1: making them and I just love having the excuse to
Speaker 1: go over there and put some sweat equity into it.
Speaker 1: And even though you know, I mean, I'm not, I shouldn't,
Speaker 1: like I should clarify this if if I started getting
Speaker 1: pictures of like at inter coming in every day, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna plant my ass on that plot. Believe me, it
Speaker 1: just doesn't really happen for me. Like it's never been
Speaker 1: the answer to my big buck problems. But I love
Speaker 1: the process and I love the just feeling of having it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. I do. Agree with the weird
Speaker 1: fun of just the project itself. I really have come
Speaker 1: to enjoy, you know, come from a background of like
Speaker 1: no experience whatsoever with farming or agriculture or anything like that.
Speaker 1: Just an excuse to learn about that stuff was really interesting.
Speaker 1: And then like getting out there and you know, telling
Speaker 1: us some soil or spreading fertilizer, spreading seed or the
Speaker 1: the whole new appreciation I found for rain, Like I
Speaker 1: never paid attention to the rain in any kind of
Speaker 1: real way. And now all of a sudden, I've become
Speaker 1: like hysterical obsessive, you know, checking the weather and monitoring
Speaker 1: radar and trying to figure out the right time to
Speaker 1: get out there. And do the work. UM, and then
Speaker 1: how excited I get when that rain does come when
Speaker 1: I really need it. I mean those little kind of
Speaker 1: connective tissues that kind of bring me back to the
Speaker 1: land Because of those projects, because of working on food
Speaker 1: plot or something, I really came to enjoy that UM.
Speaker 1: And then you know, the payoff. One of my very
Speaker 1: favorite things about the whole process is that first time
Speaker 1: you go back out to the site after planting to see, like,
Speaker 1: is it coming up? How does it look? And the
Speaker 1: first time you go out there and you see that
Speaker 1: all that work you put in is actually paying off
Speaker 1: and there's a lush, green carpet of something. UM. That
Speaker 1: is a really really cool feeling UM. Not to mention
Speaker 1: when you go out there and see animals using it.
Speaker 1: Now I I different than you. I still like to
Speaker 1: hunt around my food plots sometimes, but it's to your point,
Speaker 1: not often because I think I'm gonna kill a big
Speaker 1: buck there. It's more so because you know, it's a
Speaker 1: great spot to shoot does, it's a great spot to
Speaker 1: observe other things UM. And I just enjoy the fun
Speaker 1: of watching deer use that place. UM. Especially early on,
Speaker 1: when like those first food plots, I was doing when
Speaker 1: I still didn't really know what was going on, and
Speaker 1: getting to see those changes in dear behavior and seeing
Speaker 1: those critters enjoying this thing I put that time into,
Speaker 1: or you know, on the back forty that was such
Speaker 1: a cool experience because there's so much work that went
Speaker 1: into that thing, and seeing the pretty dramatic changes in
Speaker 1: some case that you know it could come about because
Speaker 1: of that work and all of a sudden seeing I
Speaker 1: don't know, there's a lot of stuff that we do
Speaker 1: tony like in day to day life or in our
Speaker 1: careers or whatever, where you put in a bunch of
Speaker 1: work into something and then you don't see like a
Speaker 1: very tangible result. You don't get noticeable recognition of it
Speaker 1: or any kind of real payoff. Uh. With a food plot,
Speaker 1: it's very transactional in a way. Maybe that's not the
Speaker 1: right word. But if I do A and if I
Speaker 1: do it right, I'm gonna get B. And B is
Speaker 1: the enjoyment of seeing this thing grow and seeing animals
Speaker 1: use it and and yeah maybe some hunting success, maybe not,
Speaker 1: but um, it's it's there's not a lot of things
Speaker 1: within the hunting world that you can control, right. You
Speaker 1: can't go out on a deer hunt and guarantee your
Speaker 1: gonna see a deer, shoot a deer, or I don't know,
Speaker 1: have a great encounter or anything like that. But if
Speaker 1: you work on some kind of land project like this,
Speaker 1: you can at least be guaranteed some kind of result.
Speaker 1: Might not always be the best result, but some kind
Speaker 1: of like growth happens, some kind of change happens, and
Speaker 1: just seeing how nature adapts to the changes you make,
Speaker 1: that's kind of a fun payoff. Um. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that makes sense. I'm not sure if I'm describing
Speaker 1: this right, but um, maybe I think I think it
Speaker 1: makes sense. I mean, you know, one of the one
Speaker 1: of the things that always has bothered me about being
Speaker 1: in the position that we're in is we were always
Speaker 1: tasked with like, how's it? What's the point a to
Speaker 1: be to? You know, not kill a buck? To kill
Speaker 1: a buck? And you just realize so much of what
Speaker 1: we do, like we we you know, we preached the
Speaker 1: scouting game and you know, long range glassing and boots
Speaker 1: on the ground, winner scouting, trail cameras, all this stuff,
Speaker 1: and it's all sort of couched in this idea that
Speaker 1: this is the path to kill a big one, but
Speaker 1: really what it ends up being is, yeah, it might
Speaker 1: nudge you in the right direction any any given moment
Speaker 1: you spend in the woods, but the act in and
Speaker 1: of itself is pretty enjoyable and it's it's something worthwhile
Speaker 1: regardless of the fact that it probably doesn't take you
Speaker 1: that much closer, Like in any given scouting trip, probably
Speaker 1: doesn't take you that much closer to a big bucket
Speaker 1: might help. But I kind of look at this the
Speaker 1: same way like this is, you know, working on the land.
Speaker 1: It's a pretty good reason just to get into the
Speaker 1: woods and enjoy yourself, regardless of whether you know there's
Speaker 1: gonna be a bunch of dead hut at the end.
Speaker 1: And I think we've missed that message in the outdoor
Speaker 1: media space a little bit, where we're kind of conditioned
Speaker 1: to speak like we're always giving the answer to big
Speaker 1: dead bucks and a lot of this stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like it's ancilarily might get you there, but mostly
Speaker 1: it's just really fun for the process of doing this stuff,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's it's fun. It might help you
Speaker 1: on the hunting side, It certainly can help you on
Speaker 1: the hunting side, and then the whole other thing. You know,
Speaker 1: you're you're giving back in a way, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: we go out there, we shoot a deer, bringing home,
Speaker 1: we eat it. This is a way to kind of
Speaker 1: come full circle of that. I really do, you know,
Speaker 1: enjoy that part. I feel like in some kind of way,
Speaker 1: I'm you know, balancing the scales a little bit. When
Speaker 1: I can go feed those deer, or feed the rabbits
Speaker 1: or the birds or whatever, do some kind of improvement
Speaker 1: that helps out in a place. Um, I feel a
Speaker 1: little bit better about going out there and shooting something
Speaker 1: the next day, UM because of that. UM. So it's fun.
Speaker 1: I feel like it does bring you into like a
Speaker 1: closer connection. Like I said, like I've learned so much
Speaker 1: about rain. I've learned a lot about soil. I've learned
Speaker 1: about trees and plants and all these things that if
Speaker 1: I was just out there deer hunting, I don't think
Speaker 1: I ever would have, or at least not as often
Speaker 1: have had to learn about all those things. Um. But
Speaker 1: I think because I've had to learn about soil and
Speaker 1: water and sun and different tree type, some plant types.
Speaker 1: Because because these kinds of projects have forced me to
Speaker 1: start learning those things, my experience out there as a
Speaker 1: hunter is much richer, right when you know, like, oh,
Speaker 1: that is uh, such and such plant, or this is
Speaker 1: that kind of true or this you know, I just
Speaker 1: I'm getting more and more tiny moments of joy when
Speaker 1: I noticed something in the woods that I never would
Speaker 1: have noticed as a thing. I used to go through
Speaker 1: the woods just like on a terminator mission, with only
Speaker 1: one thing in mind. And as I've learned more and
Speaker 1: as my experience has grown, all of a sudden, what
Speaker 1: used to be like a blank what used to be
Speaker 1: like a tunnel you just went through. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you realize that there's murals on this tunnel all around you.
Speaker 1: And if you turn to look at them, you realize
Speaker 1: there's some incredible artwork all around you. Right, it's like
Speaker 1: a subway tunnel almost, And I'm noticing all the murals.
Speaker 1: Now I'm seeing these different plants. I'm seeing, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm taking a handful of soil. I'm looking at this,
Speaker 1: and I used to think this is just dirt, And
Speaker 1: now I've realized that there's actually a whole lot of
Speaker 1: life and these unbelievable roots systems and um crazy things
Speaker 1: going on beneath the surface of the ground that allow
Speaker 1: plants to grow and trees to grow, and trees to
Speaker 1: communicate and all this kind of stuff that's super fascinating
Speaker 1: that I just never ever would have found out about
Speaker 1: if I hadn't taken this baby step into saying, you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm gonna try to do something on this
Speaker 1: piece of ground and make it better for deer hunting,
Speaker 1: and then fourteen years later find myself learning about, you know,
Speaker 1: the importance of soil biology or how trees you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean that there's just so many
Speaker 1: different wormholes you can go down into that are fun interesting,
Speaker 1: and then no, yeah, it can actually help your hunting too.
Speaker 1: So I feel like that's like that's my big sales
Speaker 1: pitch too. Why for some people doing habitat work is
Speaker 1: worth it because it can absolutely help. It's it's all
Speaker 1: those things. But I think the biggest thing is just
Speaker 1: this way it connects you to a place and opens
Speaker 1: your eyes to so much more. It opens up all
Speaker 1: these new doors to enjoy hunting and the outdoors. Um
Speaker 1: that that just don't come by way of just going
Speaker 1: out there trying to shoot stuff. Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 1: totally agree. I mean, one of the things that I
Speaker 1: enjoy so much about this kind of stuff is like,
Speaker 1: like you said, you sort of get in tune to
Speaker 1: a lot more of the plant life around you. And
Speaker 1: one of my properties over there in Wisconsin that I
Speaker 1: the one that I really like. It has a ton
Speaker 1: of crab apple trees and a ton of dogwood in there.
Speaker 1: And so when you go over there at the right
Speaker 1: at the right time of the year usually sort of
Speaker 1: the end of September beginning of October, there are so
Speaker 1: many songbirds coming through and so many grouse feeding in there,
Speaker 1: and it's like it's just this like added bonus if
Speaker 1: you do sit there, you know, like when I'm sitting
Speaker 1: there with my girls, were always looking at something cool
Speaker 1: because they're in there feeding on this stuff that was
Speaker 1: there naturally. I mean, we we opened up some of
Speaker 1: the crab apple tree system sun so they're you know,
Speaker 1: they're doing really well now. But that kind of stuff
Speaker 1: doesn't have anything to do with deer hunting, but it's
Speaker 1: it sure makes those sits more fun. Yeah, So, of
Speaker 1: the work that you've done on those properties, are there
Speaker 1: any specific projects or ways you did anything, or is
Speaker 1: there anything that stands out as having actually made a
Speaker 1: real difference either in killing something or seeing something. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you could point to a couple of
Speaker 1: your greatest success stories, does anything come to mind? Man,
Speaker 1: I'm so bad at this. Uh the one killed plot
Speaker 1: I have on that property with the dogwood and the crab.
Speaker 1: The crab apples that one. So I've shot a couple
Speaker 1: of dollars on it over the years, and then my
Speaker 1: daughter's one of them shot a doll one of them
Speaker 1: shot of four key in there last year. That's sort
Speaker 1: of my crowning achievement because I've put I think I
Speaker 1: bought that in so I've put quite a bit of
Speaker 1: time and work into that, and you know, built a
Speaker 1: couple you know, cut a couple of entrance and exit
Speaker 1: routes to get in there and park in different spots.
Speaker 1: And now when I you know, that one's probably the
Speaker 1: best I've done, but it's also the one that's I've
Speaker 1: put the most work into. So what about that? Like,
Speaker 1: what what is the work that you've done? These things
Speaker 1: actually made that as successful as has been? Uh? Cutting
Speaker 1: down you know when I when I bought it, when
Speaker 1: I bought that property, I just I don't I don't
Speaker 1: plan stuff very well and I just walked in there
Speaker 1: and I was like, I feel like this would be
Speaker 1: a good spot to start cutting stuff down and started
Speaker 1: getting a food plot in here. And I way underestimated
Speaker 1: the amount of work it would take to get something established,
Speaker 1: and it was really it probably took me three years
Speaker 1: of going back in there, cutting brush, clearing everything out,
Speaker 1: uh you know, carrying bags a line in there because
Speaker 1: I did a soil test the first year, and you
Speaker 1: know I needed to. I needed to bump it up
Speaker 1: a little bit and just a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of work to get it to even be like a
Speaker 1: like most people would look at it be like this
Speaker 1: food plot sucks even now they'd be like, this was
Speaker 1: not done by a professional. But we have deer that
Speaker 1: use it every year, and there's some dough groups that
Speaker 1: seem to really have figured it out, and the buck
Speaker 1: swing through sometimes and it's just it's just been. What
Speaker 1: I really like about it is it's been like a
Speaker 1: multi year process. Like in two weeks, I'm going over
Speaker 1: there to open it up a little more because I
Speaker 1: keep finding apple trees in there, and I keep finding
Speaker 1: cool stuff, and I'm like, man if I if I
Speaker 1: cut it another ten yards deep, this way, I'll have
Speaker 1: a nice apple tree on the edge of it that
Speaker 1: gets a bunch of sun and you know it can't hurt.
Speaker 1: And I just I love I sort of love that
Speaker 1: feeling of like not never being finished with it, Like
Speaker 1: there's always something I can go do over there, just
Speaker 1: around that plot that's gonna eat up a couple of
Speaker 1: days of my time here and there, and I just
Speaker 1: I love that. I love that option. Yeah, what's this area? Like?
Speaker 1: Is this is this like big woods northern Wisconsin kind
Speaker 1: of stuff or is the Agg country or like, what's
Speaker 1: what's the canvas you're working on this? It is right
Speaker 1: on the cusp of big woods. So you'll see some
Speaker 1: egg in the area. There really isn't any egg close
Speaker 1: to this property, but it's it's in an area where
Speaker 1: that the kind of the last messages of agg give
Speaker 1: way to real big woods. So I can you know
Speaker 1: a lot of the places that I that I hunt
Speaker 1: there that are public. You know, that's like a fifteen
Speaker 1: minute drive and you're in thousands and thousands acres of
Speaker 1: big wood stuff, So it's it's really not a very
Speaker 1: good place to hunt. I get I get as many
Speaker 1: pictures of bears and bobcats as I do deer on
Speaker 1: that plot, and you know, I plant apple trees in
Speaker 1: there and cage them up, and the bears tear them down.
Speaker 1: And you put a blind in there, the bears tear
Speaker 1: them down. It's not. This is not like Iowa stuff.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's a significant step down, but it was,
Speaker 1: you know, where I could afford, and I love I
Speaker 1: love having the grouse there are, and you know some
Speaker 1: of the local trout streams and stuff. So it's not
Speaker 1: I would never give people advice and be like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: if you really want good deer hunting, this is where
Speaker 1: you should go, because this is not it. But it's
Speaker 1: good enough. Well it's funny, Uh, it's kind of it's
Speaker 1: kind of like our northern Michigan spot, which, if I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of my success stories, our little food plot that
Speaker 1: we've planted on our forty acres up north is one
Speaker 1: of my greatest successes and we've never once shot a
Speaker 1: deer anywhere near it. But but it's this, it's this
Speaker 1: spot that, right, I love for so many reasons, for
Speaker 1: all the history there and all the time I've spent
Speaker 1: up there. But it's a place where we've you know,
Speaker 1: have never seen very many deer at all. Haven't killed
Speaker 1: a whole lot of deer over the years, at least
Speaker 1: not in the last fifteen twenty since the old hey days, UM.
Speaker 1: And we we had this idea like, hey, maybe we
Speaker 1: could improve things a little bit with a food plot.
Speaker 1: And what ended up happening kind of like what you described.
Speaker 1: We cut down a whole lot of trees. It was
Speaker 1: a lot more work than we realized it was gonna
Speaker 1: be had. We didn't have big equipment, so we're we
Speaker 1: did have a four wheeler, UM, but we were taking
Speaker 1: you know, loads around way around to get across this
Speaker 1: creek of lime and fertilizer and supercidic soil. So we
Speaker 1: really had to fix the soil up and had to
Speaker 1: cut a million pine trees to open up a little
Speaker 1: bit of space. And then we didn't really have a
Speaker 1: good plan for getting rid of a million tree stumps
Speaker 1: since like all that stuff all stacked up and end
Speaker 1: up being a heck of a project over multiple years.
Speaker 1: But we got a little something growing and then the
Speaker 1: next year is a little bit better, and the next
Speaker 1: year is a little bit better, and we put cameras
Speaker 1: on a couple of cameras on either side of this
Speaker 1: food plot, and all of a sudden we had our
Speaker 1: eyes opened to what's out there. I mean, for years
Speaker 1: and years and years, we would hunt and see very
Speaker 1: few deer, like I said, and you know, even the
Speaker 1: couple of cameras we had up and around there did
Speaker 1: not get very much activity because this was like big
Speaker 1: woods habitat big woods, low deer density kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: But by putting this little, tiny, I don't a third
Speaker 1: acre food plot in the middle of the big woods
Speaker 1: where there's no egg, no nothing, all of a sudden
Speaker 1: this spot really became a hot spot. Um. And even
Speaker 1: we only hunt there a few days a year, so
Speaker 1: we're not, you know, taking advantage of it necessarily. But
Speaker 1: what the cameras tell us is, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: there are deer out here, There are deer here consistently,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, holy crap, there actually are bucks.
Speaker 1: And sometimes there's some pretty nice bucks out here. So
Speaker 1: what it did for us more than anything, was just
Speaker 1: like give us a big boost of hope and excitement.
Speaker 1: Like just checking the camera on that food plot is
Speaker 1: so exciting to see, like, oh man, there was bucks
Speaker 1: here and that day and there was a buck here
Speaker 1: that day, and there was a buck here that day.
Speaker 1: And I can tell you seven years ago there was
Speaker 1: zero excitement like that. There was zero optimism like that.
Speaker 1: And now all of a sudden, a little project and
Speaker 1: photos of what's going on on it when we're not
Speaker 1: there have like shine this brand new light on this
Speaker 1: place for us and um, and you know, I think
Speaker 1: it just like you said, it becomes a thing you
Speaker 1: can continue to tinker with and and I imagine some
Speaker 1: days sitting there with my son while got actually got
Speaker 1: to sit I got to sit on this food plot
Speaker 1: with my son last year, first first hunt up at
Speaker 1: our deer camp of his life at three years old. Me,
Speaker 1: my dad and my son sat in a blind that
Speaker 1: my grandpa built thirties some years ago and got to
Speaker 1: look out over this food plot. We didn't see a deer,
Speaker 1: but man, it was it was really cool to sit
Speaker 1: there together and be sitting somewhere that we put in
Speaker 1: work together to try to improve and uh see that
Speaker 1: kind of legacy that we started and with with Everett
Speaker 1: hopefully will be continued. Um. It's it's a cool thing
Speaker 1: all the way around, that is. And you bring up
Speaker 1: a good point there. It does give you, It does
Speaker 1: give you a weird sense of hope in a place
Speaker 1: that you know, like it would be very easy to
Speaker 1: just say there's no bucks here, no big Bucks. And
Speaker 1: that's That's one thing I've noticed on all my properties
Speaker 1: to is if I run a camera on a little
Speaker 1: kill plot, at some point during the season, a buck
Speaker 1: that surprises me is going to show up, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's always gonna be like a top end dear
Speaker 1: for wherever, and it's just it's amazing, and you just
Speaker 1: you think, like, man, he's he's in the neighborhood, you know,
Speaker 1: like maybe clearly not living right on your property, but
Speaker 1: like you said, there's a chance, like when you know
Speaker 1: he's there, like, Okay, he knows this is here, he
Speaker 1: knows the does are here. Like when you go out
Speaker 1: there to hunt, even though it's low odds, like that
Speaker 1: dude still could come down the trail, walk out into
Speaker 1: your plot. And I think, I think you know, when
Speaker 1: it comes to habitat work, Just like anything in the
Speaker 1: hunting world, the success you enjoy from any given idea
Speaker 1: or tactic or project, it's going to be on a
Speaker 1: sliding scale, right, I mean, if you dabble in it,
Speaker 1: there's less odds. If you really take it hardcore all
Speaker 1: the way. Maybe you increase your odds if you're doing
Speaker 1: everything right and you know just the way to operate
Speaker 1: in YadA YadA, YadA. Um. So I mean, you can
Speaker 1: go all the way like the Jeff Sturgeons approach and
Speaker 1: and have it very very carefully planned out and of
Speaker 1: to land and a lot of food plots and a
Speaker 1: lot of land improvements and everything, and you can enjoy
Speaker 1: some great success that way. Or you can just dabble
Speaker 1: and try to scrape in a little kill plot with
Speaker 1: a Rhodo tiller or something and just have that little
Speaker 1: bit of hope. Um. But I do think that if
Speaker 1: you like, like you said, there's always a little bit
Speaker 1: more of a chance. There's a little more hope if
Speaker 1: you do something versus nothing. And and I actually have seen,
Speaker 1: you know, even with my pretty pedestrian efforts compared to
Speaker 1: you know what, people have big equipment and a lot
Speaker 1: of land experience do even my pedestrian efforts, I absolutely
Speaker 1: have seen some pretty um, pretty noticeable benefits from my
Speaker 1: habit at work stuff that I can like point to
Speaker 1: and say, man, this just wouldn't have happened if I
Speaker 1: hadn't done this project or that project. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: none of these things are like silver bullets, right, You're
Speaker 1: not just gonna throw out some seed and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden killed big bucks necessarily. But you know, like
Speaker 1: I said, up north, we'd we'd spent all this time
Speaker 1: putting this little any plot in the middle of the woods,
Speaker 1: and now like we're seeing deer and camera that's exciting.
Speaker 1: Um or you could take it a look at something like, um, oh,
Speaker 1: like this farm I've hunted for a number of years
Speaker 1: down in southern Michigan where forever, um, I would see
Speaker 1: a lot of good deer, but they're always on the
Speaker 1: neighbor's property because the neighbor had all the really good cover.
Speaker 1: And then all I had on the side of the
Speaker 1: line that I could hunt were these big egg fields.
Speaker 1: And as soon as that stuff was taken out, you know,
Speaker 1: there'd be there'd be does and young bucks and stuff
Speaker 1: that would come out to those big white open fields.
Speaker 1: But you would never get one of the bigger, older
Speaker 1: bucks to come out in the open. So for years
Speaker 1: I just sat the edges of the property line because
Speaker 1: I wanted to be as close as it could be
Speaker 1: to that cover and hope that one of these bucks
Speaker 1: would pop out eventually, but they almost never ever did.
Speaker 1: UM eventuallyized there was a spot in a power line
Speaker 1: where I did have permission to make some improvements, so
Speaker 1: I dabbled with trying these different food plot ideas and
Speaker 1: that helped. But like the big change for me in
Speaker 1: this specific example was I started planting screening cover. So
Speaker 1: imagine like a swampy, thick, grassy, nice betting area adjacent
Speaker 1: to big, wide open like hundred and some acre you know,
Speaker 1: open bean field or corn field, and then there's a
Speaker 1: little point that sticks out of that that would just
Speaker 1: be kind of like short grass underneath this power line.
Speaker 1: I converted this power line clearing, which is just another
Speaker 1: essentially more of this wide open country. I converted that
Speaker 1: into a food plot with like thirteen foot tall Egyptian
Speaker 1: wheat all around the outside edges of it. And that
Speaker 1: is now right next to this thick, nasty betting area.
Speaker 1: So what went from being, you know, no big bucks
Speaker 1: gonna want to go out of the thick cover out
Speaker 1: into that wide open field or that wide open power
Speaker 1: line clearing, to all of a sudden, now there's this
Speaker 1: food that's covered with a wall all around it, making
Speaker 1: it seem like just a very nice, little secluded food
Speaker 1: pocket right next to the betting area. It totally changed
Speaker 1: what happens there. So with that one improvement, there was
Speaker 1: now a reason for those bucks to come across the line.
Speaker 1: And so without big equipment, without a lot of money,
Speaker 1: you know, I made these food plots with a four
Speaker 1: wheeler and a little hundred and eighty dollar disc that
Speaker 1: went underneath the four wheeler. When I first started doing this, um,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the good bucks that are on
Speaker 1: the neighbors were willing to come out to mine in daylight.
Speaker 1: And you know, I've shot two bucks in that spot.
Speaker 1: One was a three year old one was a five
Speaker 1: year old hundred six buck in Michigan that you know,
Speaker 1: no way in hell would he have come out there,
Speaker 1: I think, out in the wide open if it hadn't
Speaker 1: been for those types of things in the past. UM
Speaker 1: making that feel safe again. So you know, I do
Speaker 1: think it's possible even these small little pedestrian projects in
Speaker 1: some cases, in some situations can have tangible like oh
Speaker 1: wow effects. UM. Not to mention many many fun hunts
Speaker 1: for dose on them and then not to mention like,
Speaker 1: even if these spots don't become places you actually sit
Speaker 1: and hunt, even a small food plot or a water
Speaker 1: hole or a patch of apple trees or something, even
Speaker 1: if you don't hunt right on them, I do think
Speaker 1: like you can still utilize that within a hunting strategy,
Speaker 1: right because you now know, okay, this is a new
Speaker 1: destination of sorts. There will be deer relating to this
Speaker 1: in some way or another. So a mature buck might
Speaker 1: not come to your little hudeyhole food plot in daylight,
Speaker 1: but a very well might cruise down wind of it
Speaker 1: in the rut to be sent checking it, or he
Speaker 1: might swing past it on the way back to bed
Speaker 1: in the morning or whatever. I mean. I think there
Speaker 1: are ways that that can only sweeten the pot if
Speaker 1: you think about how it factors into the bigger picture.
Speaker 1: You know, absolutely, um So, so let me see here
Speaker 1: I mentioned how the screening cover was one of those
Speaker 1: things that kind of disproportionately helped me out with some
Speaker 1: of my small plots and improvements. Um you know, I've
Speaker 1: done some hinge cutting and that's helped in some spots
Speaker 1: I have not been able to do anything really big
Speaker 1: timber provement. But I can tell you that hinge cutting
Speaker 1: was one of those deals that had, you know, pretty
Speaker 1: high impact for a relatively small amount of work from
Speaker 1: relatively inexperienced kind of perspective. Um, I mean those have
Speaker 1: been like the big things I did. You know on
Speaker 1: the back forty we burned stuff, we planned switched grass,
Speaker 1: we got rid of some invasive grasses and stuff, and
Speaker 1: and I guess one big impact we had there was
Speaker 1: we were working with those old farm fields, you know, Tony,
Speaker 1: And that year you came. You came the first year,
Speaker 1: the second year you came. The second year. Okay, so
Speaker 1: the year prior to you coming, those fields were way
Speaker 1: more desolate, Like they were like really short and all
Speaker 1: like just like it was Mare's tale. So it was
Speaker 1: like they almost looked like a beanstalk after all the
Speaker 1: bean pods fall off, you know on the fall. Um,
Speaker 1: that's what that whole field looked like the year the
Speaker 1: year prior. But the year you came, I mean you
Speaker 1: saw it there was a lot more not saying it
Speaker 1: was all thick and tall, but it was much more
Speaker 1: dear friendly in year two than year one. And you
Speaker 1: saw not all of them, but a number of deer
Speaker 1: were willing to move through there and cross through there
Speaker 1: and and utilize those spaces, um at least noticeably more
Speaker 1: than they had the year before. UM. That was we're
Speaker 1: definitely using that. When I was out there, and that
Speaker 1: was you know, that was another thing that didn't require
Speaker 1: anything fancy. I mean, we just we went out there
Speaker 1: and did a spray and then hand broadcast um, hand
Speaker 1: broadcast switch grass. The spray knocked out the mare's tale.
Speaker 1: The hand broadcast seed got some switch grass in there,
Speaker 1: and that was all took to get switch grass to
Speaker 1: get started a little bit and then to open up
Speaker 1: space for other native things to come back. UM. And
Speaker 1: that was again like not the hardest, craziest thing to do,
Speaker 1: but actually made a noticeable difference. I think, like the
Speaker 1: point I'm trying to get here, Tony, I guess, in
Speaker 1: a very long roundabout way, is that you don't need
Speaker 1: to be Mark Dury and have a huge John deer
Speaker 1: tractor to test these kinds of things out and to
Speaker 1: see some kind of benefit. UM. I think that's that's
Speaker 1: been my overarching big picture lesson over the last thirteen
Speaker 1: years or whatever it's been, is that you can even
Speaker 1: as a Joe Schmo like me, have fun with it
Speaker 1: and see some positive, positive benefits well for sure. And
Speaker 1: I think what was really impressive at the back ford
Speaker 1: it was that you did all that in two years.
Speaker 1: And I you know, anybody who was asking me like, hey,
Speaker 1: I want to do this stuff, I want to put
Speaker 1: in a food plot, I would be my My first
Speaker 1: bit of advice would be, like, make sure that you
Speaker 1: have a couple of years to do this, because you're
Speaker 1: gonna learn what you did wrong. And like, you know,
Speaker 1: when you're you're kind of joking about paying attention to
Speaker 1: the rain, but like, man, if you if you're in
Speaker 1: the wrong situation and you plant that you know, plant
Speaker 1: that seed and it stays dry, it's just hopeless. Like
Speaker 1: you know, like you just learn how to work with
Speaker 1: your individual property and your local weather, and you make
Speaker 1: a lot of mistakes. So it's it might take a
Speaker 1: couple of years to get some real tangible results and
Speaker 1: you know, to maybe get through some of the frustration
Speaker 1: of the beginning stages, but it's so worth it. Well,
Speaker 1: so then I think that's a perfect segue though to
Speaker 1: the next kind of side of this conversation though, is
Speaker 1: like while there are certainly things you can do that
Speaker 1: make a difference, and it can be fun. It can
Speaker 1: also be all the other things too. It can be
Speaker 1: it can feel like a waste of time, it can
Speaker 1: be a ton of work, it can cost money, it
Speaker 1: can be frustrating, and it might not lead to much
Speaker 1: noticeable impact too. Um. You know there's a there's a
Speaker 1: dark side to habitat work too. Um. I mean how
Speaker 1: much of that resonates with you? I mean how much
Speaker 1: if you if you look at like this whole world
Speaker 1: of habitat work and the things you've done with would
Speaker 1: you say it's in that positive or sometimes like dang
Speaker 1: this stuff stupid? Uh No, I would say it's in
Speaker 1: that positive. I have a low I have low standards there.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not expecting I'm not expecting to create
Speaker 1: a deer o wastis or anything like that. So I
Speaker 1: come at it maybe differently than a lot of people would.
Speaker 1: But you know, yeah, there's some frustrating parts to it.
Speaker 1: I mean, man, I I've I've spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time cutting brush and doing some things where I'm just
Speaker 1: like I don't that's like all that was was like
Speaker 1: a exercise and just doing something like it's not going
Speaker 1: to change anything. And I've had times where I've I've
Speaker 1: tried to plan a food plot and for whatever reason
Speaker 1: it got overtaken by weeds because I couldn't get back
Speaker 1: there to cut it, or you know, the weather didn't
Speaker 1: shake out right. And so yeah, I mean there's frustrating
Speaker 1: parts to it. I mean you're gonna get stung by
Speaker 1: bees and you're gonna pick up a bunch of ticks,
Speaker 1: and you know it's not like all you know, roses
Speaker 1: and unicorn farts here. Man, Like some of it sucks bad,
Speaker 1: but it's still so worth it. I look at it, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I always talk to my daughters when we
Speaker 1: when we wake up to go fish Smally's in the
Speaker 1: summer and you know, it's four thirty in the morning
Speaker 1: or whatever time it is, and if we go out
Speaker 1: and have we don't catch them there. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: if we should have stayed in and and you know,
Speaker 1: slept in, it wasn't worth it. And I'm just kind
Speaker 1: of like, I don't know, I don't want to miss
Speaker 1: the sunrise, Like I don't want to miss a chance
Speaker 1: to work in the woods, even if it's you know,
Speaker 1: maybe not the greatest outcome that I expect, or it's
Speaker 1: you know, falls kind of flat. I still think that
Speaker 1: stuff is so worth it. It's so funny. We might
Speaker 1: we might be becoming like old men, Tony, because I
Speaker 1: feel like we're kind of revolving around the same idea
Speaker 1: that we were kind of talking about a few weeks ago,
Speaker 1: when we're just kind of we're discussing kind of our
Speaker 1: evolutionist deer hunters in general. Right, And so much of
Speaker 1: what I used to be focused on was the outcome, right,
Speaker 1: was all about like am I going to shoot a
Speaker 1: big buck? And how we're both you you know, have
Speaker 1: been figuring this out sooner than I did. But getting
Speaker 1: more focused on what the journey looks like to get
Speaker 1: there in the process and enjoying everything along the way.
Speaker 1: I think the same thing is I'm realizing now applies
Speaker 1: to all this habitat work too. It's like, if you
Speaker 1: adjust your expectations and how you judge a thing by
Speaker 1: in this case, you know, enjoying the process itself, you
Speaker 1: know it's it's gonna make for a way better experience
Speaker 1: all the way around. So I think that if you
Speaker 1: approach land management or trying to improve your habitat and
Speaker 1: you're just focused on Man, I want to do this
Speaker 1: because I want to kill more big bucks, or I
Speaker 1: want to kill a sevent buck, or I want you know,
Speaker 1: four or four year olds to be out here every year,
Speaker 1: whatever it is. If that's what you're gonna be judging
Speaker 1: your you know, success or the results of having bought
Speaker 1: a piece of ground or started managing ground. If that's
Speaker 1: the way you're gonna look at things, you are giving
Speaker 1: yourself a very good chance of failure and frustration. If
Speaker 1: you instead can approach it as, hey, you know what,
Speaker 1: this is a thing that I think will be fun
Speaker 1: and worthwhile just for doing it, Like just the act
Speaker 1: of it, just the learning and just getting out here
Speaker 1: and work in the ground and doing these things and
Speaker 1: hopefully making a positive difference, like that will be fun.
Speaker 1: And then also if I get to enjoy the hunting benefits,
Speaker 1: to which are certainly possible, if that ends up panting out, man,
Speaker 1: that's even better. If you can approach it that way,
Speaker 1: I think that eliminates, you know, so much of the
Speaker 1: possible downside, um, because they're they're just gonna be a
Speaker 1: lot of bumps in the road. Like there, Like you said,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be some really long, hot, sweaty, nasty, muggy
Speaker 1: days in August or May, and there's gonna be broken equipment,
Speaker 1: broken four wheelers, or broken lawnmowers or sprayers that blow up,
Speaker 1: or I mean, I've had so I don't know anything
Speaker 1: about anything when it comes to mechanics and engines or anything.
Speaker 1: And I've had so many days sitting out there with
Speaker 1: a four wheeler with a dead battery, or a lawnmower
Speaker 1: that won't start, or a lawnmower that the blade the
Speaker 1: blades come off for the belts come off, for some
Speaker 1: ship is not working right, and I don't know what
Speaker 1: to do. I'm sitting out there in the middle of
Speaker 1: the woods and I'm trying to pull up a YouTube
Speaker 1: video on my phone and learn how to do this stuff.
Speaker 1: And I'm cussing, and you know, I mean, if it's
Speaker 1: so how many things like that, Um, that's what you're
Speaker 1: signing yourself up for if you want to go down
Speaker 1: this road. But if you can, if you can look
Speaker 1: at that is like the hairy side of a good time,
Speaker 1: then you'll be okay. But you've got to be willing
Speaker 1: to eat your lumps in the Porridge with the whole deal.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, I think it could really appropriate. Analogy
Speaker 1: would be, you know, you and I get hit up
Speaker 1: a lot of who people who want to go on
Speaker 1: their first out of state trip, right you know, they
Speaker 1: want to go to Kansas or Iowa or somewhere. They
Speaker 1: want to shoot a big buck, and you know, you
Speaker 1: start talking to them and then you hear the expectations
Speaker 1: and it's like, you know, I'd just be happy with
Speaker 1: a nice one type buck and you just go, you know,
Speaker 1: I know, I know you think this way and I
Speaker 1: do too, Or in my head, I'm like, man, are
Speaker 1: you you know, I don't care what state you're coming from.
Speaker 1: Are you killing like top end bucks pretty consistently? Like
Speaker 1: are you you know, are you really in this thing?
Speaker 1: Or are you just thinking that you know, I'm going
Speaker 1: to a good state and that's going to make up
Speaker 1: for everything. And if you if you go into those
Speaker 1: hunts with realistic expectations, you have a great hunt. If
Speaker 1: you go into them sort of blinded to the process
Speaker 1: and how much it can suck the camp and you
Speaker 1: might be camping in you know, three days of rain,
Speaker 1: or you might do that early velvet hunt and it's
Speaker 1: gonna be a hundred degrees every day, Like are you
Speaker 1: ready for all of the that stuff? And it's so
Speaker 1: tied into you know, this land management habitat work where
Speaker 1: a lot of it is really not that much fun,
Speaker 1: but it is worth the effort, and if you go
Speaker 1: into it with kind of that mentality like, yeah, a
Speaker 1: lot of this is gonna suck, and you know if
Speaker 1: you look at you know, the the results that could
Speaker 1: be if you're in a place that just generally doesn't
Speaker 1: have very good deer hunting. You know, like when you're
Speaker 1: talking about your Northern Michigan stuff, you know, like that's
Speaker 1: you're you're gonna make that better and you're gonna give
Speaker 1: yourself something to look forward to, and it's it's gonna
Speaker 1: enhance the hunt, but it's not going to be the
Speaker 1: silver bullet to killing a bunch of big woods bucks
Speaker 1: all of a sudden. You know, like if you if
Speaker 1: you go to do this down in southern Iowa and
Speaker 1: your grandma has a thousand acres, Yeah you can put
Speaker 1: in a little kill plot and have a hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty inch run around opening night. It's a different thing,
Speaker 1: but you've got to be aware of like what you're
Speaker 1: really dealing with here, and a lot of it is
Speaker 1: a lot of just you know, kind of nasty work
Speaker 1: that really isn't gonna pay off with tons of filled tags,
Speaker 1: but the process is still absolutely worth it. Yeah, comes
Speaker 1: down to embrace in that process, Like if you if
Speaker 1: you wanna go deep with a place, like I think
Speaker 1: there's there's a couple of ways to approach deer hunting.
Speaker 1: And you know, if you're someone who's learned that they
Speaker 1: love white tails and hunting of some kind, like you
Speaker 1: can go to two different directions. You can also do
Speaker 1: both of these to varying degrees. But you can go
Speaker 1: like far in one direction, which is like I want
Speaker 1: to be like a d I Y traveling hunter and
Speaker 1: go to different places or get permission on a bunch
Speaker 1: of different places and you know, travel and do all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. You can kind of go wide,
Speaker 1: or you can go deep into one place with your
Speaker 1: own back forty or your own whatever your grandpa's place,
Speaker 1: or you buy a spot and you you learn this
Speaker 1: small piece or whatever kind of size piece you can get.
Speaker 1: You learned that intimately, and there's something like really cool
Speaker 1: with both of those, Like I've I've been lucky to
Speaker 1: be able to do both. UM and I really like
Speaker 1: the fact that I can do both UM and UM.
Speaker 1: You know, I think there's probably different types of people
Speaker 1: that one or the other appeals to, and then some
Speaker 1: folks probably would enjoy both just like I do. UM.
Speaker 1: But but they are very very different. UM. And I
Speaker 1: think this route, the habitat route, is for that person
Speaker 1: who wants to have like a a very for lack
Speaker 1: of a better word, like intimate relationship with a with
Speaker 1: a place with you know, a landscape with work itself
Speaker 1: like this is very work intensive. Um, but again I
Speaker 1: go back to like finding ways to make it fun,
Speaker 1: you know, like for me, like the work up on
Speaker 1: our northern Michigan property, Like that's a fun thing because
Speaker 1: it's not just the work itself, but it's an excuse
Speaker 1: to like spend time with my dad. Like knowing that Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go work on the food plot means I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go pick up my day. We're going a drive
Speaker 1: or a go for breakfast. We're gonna have a two
Speaker 1: hour drive and talk about stuff they would never get
Speaker 1: to talk about otherwise. We'll get to go up there.
Speaker 1: He'll work for ten minutes and have to sit down
Speaker 1: and be sweating a lot, and I'll give him a
Speaker 1: hard time about how he's getting old, and like all
Speaker 1: that stuff becomes a part of it. And I think
Speaker 1: those are the things that make a lot of this
Speaker 1: stuff special. Um, it's not you know, it's not always
Speaker 1: the hundred and that walks out in the middle of
Speaker 1: food plot. It might be more about the night you sit,
Speaker 1: you know, sit there with your son and he sees
Speaker 1: his first turkey come out in the food plot and
Speaker 1: he's freaking out and all excited and all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff where it's that the day with your dad,
Speaker 1: or it's the day with your daughters, or it's that.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just think it it comes to
Speaker 1: like all like the larger experienced stuff more than like
Speaker 1: the shooting stuff, final outcome. That's I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: I'm repeating myself over and over again, but that's that's
Speaker 1: what this stuff kind of comes down too for me,
Speaker 1: big time. I have something I want to talk about
Speaker 1: that is a negative to this that occurred to me though.
Speaker 1: Should we go that route? It? When you when you
Speaker 1: go through this process of you know, putting in a
Speaker 1: food plot and doing this work food plot specifically. One
Speaker 1: of the downsides to it, I think is the poll
Speaker 1: to always sit there, you know what I mean, because
Speaker 1: you always you know, the kind of goal with a
Speaker 1: lot of property management now is to create this the
Speaker 1: destination spot, right like put that food plot in, have
Speaker 1: that you know, box blind over it, maybe have a
Speaker 1: little pond in there situated just so you can get
Speaker 1: in and get out. And it's just like that place
Speaker 1: where it's so easy to default to that because it
Speaker 1: is an easy hunt, you know, and you expect to
Speaker 1: see stuff and you probably will, and you put that
Speaker 1: work in. But in the interest of you know, being
Speaker 1: an effective hunter, if that's something you're really concerned with,
Speaker 1: like not just not just like well I want to
Speaker 1: go sit there because it's a fun place to go,
Speaker 1: but actually be in the moment with every hunt and
Speaker 1: and maybe make better decisions. Sometimes this kind of stuff
Speaker 1: can set you back because it gives you such an
Speaker 1: easy out. So true, I think it's it's one of
Speaker 1: those anything that locks you into a spot, you know,
Speaker 1: whether that's a really nice comfortable box blind or a
Speaker 1: food plot you worked on or hard to move letder stand,
Speaker 1: like anything that just makes you more apt to be
Speaker 1: tempted to sit the same spot over and over again.
Speaker 1: Has that other side of the coin that can be dangerous,
Speaker 1: and you know you've got to kind of learn to
Speaker 1: work around that. Either it doesn't. Either you decide that
Speaker 1: you don't care and that you're fine just seeing does
Speaker 1: in that spot and like that's why you have it,
Speaker 1: and then that's fine, I guess, or you start to
Speaker 1: learn about, you know, how you adapt to those behaviors,
Speaker 1: and maybe you realize that, hey, you know what, this
Speaker 1: food plot has spent a lot of time on. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna hunt on it, but I do know that
Speaker 1: if I hunt a hundred fifty yards over this way,
Speaker 1: a couple of times might be able to catch a
Speaker 1: buck cursing down wind of it. And then you can
Speaker 1: still take advantage of it. Um. So yeah, you gotta
Speaker 1: get you gotta get smart about all that kind of stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: And that's you know, it opens up a whole wormhole
Speaker 1: of possibilities if you want to go deep into it
Speaker 1: and start to really figure out, how can I take
Speaker 1: advantage of it still and how can I smartly design
Speaker 1: these things, and how can I make it so that
Speaker 1: I can still hunt it? Or can hunt nearby, or
Speaker 1: can do these things without spooking deer, or encourage mature
Speaker 1: buck use or whatever the goal is. Um it is
Speaker 1: a big, huge wormhole you can dive deep into and
Speaker 1: and really get crazy with if you want. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's a fun part of it for those that
Speaker 1: that appeals to. Yeah, and it does. It does open
Speaker 1: your eyes, you know. I know this has happened to
Speaker 1: me a bunch of times where I'll go out and
Speaker 1: shed hunter winter scout one of my little properties just
Speaker 1: for the hell of it. And when I see the
Speaker 1: sign where it is, or if I run a camera
Speaker 1: in a spot that I'm just kind of curious about,
Speaker 1: it tells me, you know, how out it. Maybe maybe
Speaker 1: I'm putting a little too much into this, but I
Speaker 1: sure feel like I get a lot of lessons on
Speaker 1: how the deer, Like, yeah, that dude likes to go
Speaker 1: to that plot, or you know, every time that that
Speaker 1: truck pulls up, there's a good chance that somebody's going
Speaker 1: to be in that blind and they even on little properties,
Speaker 1: it can be a real eye opener if you have
Speaker 1: that default spot, how those deer are just working around you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very true. So what is one, what's one takeaway you
Speaker 1: would say it is worth sharing for you when it
Speaker 1: comes to, you know, one one lesson learned you've had
Speaker 1: over the years dabbling in this stuff that you would
Speaker 1: like to pass along to someone who is either interested
Speaker 1: in doing this someday or who has began this journey.
Speaker 1: What's what's one thing you want to leave them with? Ah,
Speaker 1: this maybe this is like a greater life lesson. But
Speaker 1: just just figure out how to love the process, you know,
Speaker 1: like you, I know you're training for a half marathon
Speaker 1: this summer, and I do a lot of running, and
Speaker 1: there's so many things in life where we kind of
Speaker 1: just get locked into the end goal, Like I want
Speaker 1: to run that thirteen point one miles and I want
Speaker 1: to do it in two hours. Okay, that's a great goal,
Speaker 1: but like all of these weeks spent running building up
Speaker 1: to that, that's worth way more than that final product, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's awesome at the end of your season to
Speaker 1: have a great, big dead buck to send pictures out
Speaker 1: and post your grip and grins on Instagram and all that,
Speaker 1: but really it's so much more fun, Like there's there's
Speaker 1: so much that you're missing with just the focus on
Speaker 1: that like the process of doing this stuff like scouting
Speaker 1: deer and you know, if you want to go into
Speaker 1: public land on three states over and figure them out,
Speaker 1: so much of it is is so much more enjoyable
Speaker 1: than we kind of give it credit for because we
Speaker 1: tend to always talk about the end results of this stuff.
Speaker 1: And land management is the same way, Like you give
Speaker 1: yourself a chance to really of the process of cutting
Speaker 1: down brush and thinking about plants and thinking about what
Speaker 1: you're gonna do and how you'd approach it and how
Speaker 1: you design this and you know, what time of year
Speaker 1: do you have to go over there and get this
Speaker 1: work done? Now, Like all of that process it can
Speaker 1: be so enjoyable if you learn to just like really
Speaker 1: dive in and appreciate it for what it is. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I definitely second that, And I would kind of add
Speaker 1: to that in that, you know, one of the things
Speaker 1: that I often am guilty of is um making everything rushed,
Speaker 1: where I somehow feel like I'm always rushed. I guess
Speaker 1: I'm always always I never have time for anything, and
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm constantly behind the eight ball, and
Speaker 1: so I end up just being on like some kind
Speaker 1: of crazy mission like knock this thing out. Knocked this
Speaker 1: thing out, Get this thing done, Get this thing done,
Speaker 1: Get this thing done. Um And because of that, everything
Speaker 1: feels like very high pressure, Like if I don't get
Speaker 1: this food plot in right now, I'm gonna miss the rain.
Speaker 1: The food plot's gonna fail, this thing's gonna suck. And
Speaker 1: then I'm out there for seven hours in the ninety
Speaker 1: degree heat and I'm miserable, and I'm racing back home
Speaker 1: to make sure I don't miss lunch or whatever. It is. Like,
Speaker 1: I find myself getting to those types of positions a lot,
Speaker 1: and I'm out there, I'm doing it on my own.
Speaker 1: I'm time pressured. YadA, YadA, YadA YadA. What is a
Speaker 1: lot more fun is when I do a little bit
Speaker 1: better job planning these things, and I carve out time
Speaker 1: and I find a way to set the expectation like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm gone for two days this thing. I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: this thing, and I'm gonna bring a family member along
Speaker 1: or i'm gonna invite some friends, and I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: the little extra preparing I need to do to make
Speaker 1: this a fun event and not like a quick mission
Speaker 1: that I have to get done before all hell breaks loose.
Speaker 1: If I can do that little planning and say, hey,
Speaker 1: like this this day, I'm just gonna do this thing.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna be stressed about it. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: race back to try to get this other thing done.
Speaker 1: I'm just like, this day is gonna be for doing
Speaker 1: this stuff and to make a day like, make a
Speaker 1: fun day out of it. Make the time to allow
Speaker 1: you and your buddy to get breakfast beforehand, invite your
Speaker 1: friend to come on out and help out and you know,
Speaker 1: have some camaraderie, or go and pick up your son
Speaker 1: and your daughter, or in my case, like go do
Speaker 1: something with my dad and make it a fun thing
Speaker 1: instead of like a chore that has to get done,
Speaker 1: it could become an event that's fun to get done.
Speaker 1: And the more I do that, the more I enjoy
Speaker 1: that process. Um, So that's a thing that this is
Speaker 1: very much like a aspiration of mine. I don't do
Speaker 1: that enough, but the times that I do that, I'm
Speaker 1: always I'm glad I did it. So that would be
Speaker 1: a suggestion. So can we take the last two minutes there,
Speaker 1: cut that out, send it to Mrs Kenyon and see
Speaker 1: how hard she laughs. She would laugh Yeah, she's like
Speaker 1: this asshole thinks he's gonna get so much free time.
Speaker 1: Just wait till the boys are in t ball and basketball. No,
Speaker 1: but it's there's truth to this tot because it's like
Speaker 1: it comes back down to the expectations. Like I always
Speaker 1: find out if I try to like slip in like
Speaker 1: a little time to this, a little bit time to
Speaker 1: do that last minute, it's harder than if I, like
Speaker 1: a week or two ahead of time, said hey, I
Speaker 1: need to do this thing, when would be a good
Speaker 1: time for me to do it? And then I just
Speaker 1: need to carve out like this day or these two
Speaker 1: days or whatever like that always seems to work out
Speaker 1: better for me when I operate in that kind of
Speaker 1: way versus like Saturday saying, oh ship, I gotta get
Speaker 1: this food plot in, I'm gonna be gone to lunch,
Speaker 1: but I promise I'll be back before lunch, and then
Speaker 1: that you know, I meant up being two hours late
Speaker 1: and YadA, YadA, YadA, and that's no good. Hey, buddy,
Speaker 1: I get what you're saying. I do. I've just I've
Speaker 1: been married a little bit longer and had kids a
Speaker 1: little bit longer, and I'm just uh, I love your optimism, buddy. Well,
Speaker 1: I'll come back and talk to you in a decade
Speaker 1: and we'll see how it's going. Okay, So there's oh,
Speaker 1: you know one other thing I'll add, which is one
Speaker 1: like one tactical thing, if there's any one, if there's
Speaker 1: any one thing that I would say that has helped
Speaker 1: me from a strategic perspective, like actual some bolts of
Speaker 1: making habitat improvements work. There's any like overarching thing that
Speaker 1: I do think has been really important. It is to
Speaker 1: try to think about your property in like a holistic
Speaker 1: kind of way. Like any improvement, no, no improvement, no
Speaker 1: project lives in isolation. So by that I mean like
Speaker 1: if you go and you pick a random opening and
Speaker 1: you plan a food plot there, you've got to know
Speaker 1: that that's going to influence everything else. So if you
Speaker 1: plan a food plot, you've got to think about, Okay,
Speaker 1: how is that going to change, dear? Movement? How is
Speaker 1: that going to change how I can access a spot?
Speaker 1: How is that going to change how I exit the spot?
Speaker 1: How is that going to change? How dear? Maybe you're
Speaker 1: coming or leaving, and and then that should all be
Speaker 1: factored into your decisions when deciding what to improve, where
Speaker 1: to improve something, how to improve something, how to change
Speaker 1: how you travel or don't travel. All these things are
Speaker 1: connected and and that's something that has really been like
Speaker 1: continuously kind of brought home to me because I remember,
Speaker 1: like we talked about this couple don't a month ago
Speaker 1: or something. We're out there, uh in Wisconsin Tonia. I
Speaker 1: was talking about one of the first food plots I
Speaker 1: planned and how I planted it in the one spot
Speaker 1: that seemed like the easiest spot to plan a food plot,
Speaker 1: and I thought, oh, this would be great, but I
Speaker 1: didn't really factor in the fact that it's also right
Speaker 1: next to the one way I can get in and
Speaker 1: out of this property, so it's constantly having to walk
Speaker 1: back and forth past it and spooking deer every time
Speaker 1: I came in the morning, spooking deer every time I
Speaker 1: came out in the evening, and that was negatively impacting
Speaker 1: my hunting. I was trying to do something to improve
Speaker 1: my hunting, and because I didn't think about the ramifications
Speaker 1: of attracting deer to a new spot, I was actually
Speaker 1: hurting things. And I think there's a lot of different
Speaker 1: examples of ways that can happen on a property. So
Speaker 1: just just thinking about that ahead of time and trying
Speaker 1: to plan things in a thoughtful way, we'll save you
Speaker 1: a lot of headaches in the long run. Um. And
Speaker 1: And that's a just one simple thing to think about
Speaker 1: when you get started with this is is consider what
Speaker 1: these changes will what these changes will lead to, and
Speaker 1: make sure that a good thing for you. Um. And
Speaker 1: then I guess the one other thing, And this is
Speaker 1: something that's been like a like a a journey for me.
Speaker 1: I went from early on just like what can I
Speaker 1: do that will help me get a buck in front
Speaker 1: of me to shoot it? Like that was what I
Speaker 1: was trying to do with that very first food ply
Speaker 1: planet thirteen or fourteen years ago to now I'm getting
Speaker 1: more and more interested in you know, what can I
Speaker 1: do to actually make this place better for everything? Um?
Speaker 1: Because you know, I think as you start to go
Speaker 1: down this road we like we talked about, you start
Speaker 1: noticing the trees, You start noticing the plants, You start
Speaker 1: noticing the butterflies and the birds and the frogs and
Speaker 1: the quail and the different stuff like that, and appreciating
Speaker 1: that stuff more. I think, especially once you start doing
Speaker 1: projects and seeing more of them show up or seeing
Speaker 1: them use your land more often. Um, like that's really
Speaker 1: fulfilling too. So I've gotten more and more interested in
Speaker 1: trying to learn how not just how I can improve
Speaker 1: my property for deer, but just how can I improve
Speaker 1: this place as a whole. And um, I think that's
Speaker 1: that's all the satisfying to do that as well, and
Speaker 1: it's going to help your deer hunting no matter what.
Speaker 1: So that's my final thought is open the aperture a
Speaker 1: little bit, and I think you'll you'll be rewarded in
Speaker 1: ways you never quite imagine. Yeah, I would say if
Speaker 1: I have like a concluding thought on kind of on
Speaker 1: that note, would be keep it simple right away. Like
Speaker 1: I remember when I started planting food plots and you know,
Speaker 1: messing with apple trees and stuff. I had a buddy
Speaker 1: he works in a in a co op, a feed store,
Speaker 1: and I was like not having very good luck getting
Speaker 1: stuff to grow. And I was doing the same thing
Speaker 1: you talked about when it was just like throw and grow,
Speaker 1: and you know, I had a soil test done, but
Speaker 1: I kind of didn't take it that seriously and he
Speaker 1: was just like, dude, bringing the lime, fertilize it, right,
Speaker 1: and He's like, use clover and oats. And I was
Speaker 1: like why and he said, because don't grow. He's like,
Speaker 1: I think he was reading me. He's like, I think
Speaker 1: that you're not very good at this, and you can
Speaker 1: get these two things to grow. And it made me realize,
Speaker 1: you know, like I kind of had this dream about
Speaker 1: you know, that came from seeing a lot of food
Speaker 1: plots on outdoor teller television and hearing about them from
Speaker 1: people who have a lot better equipment and a lot
Speaker 1: better chance to get it to work. And my buddy
Speaker 1: was just like, listen, you're dealing with shitty soil in
Speaker 1: northern Wisconsin. Just just do what you have to to
Speaker 1: get this to grow, and stop thinking about, you know,
Speaker 1: what you would do in someplace else, because that's not
Speaker 1: where you're working. And so you kind of just have
Speaker 1: to work with what you have in front of you.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be pretty. You know. Like that's such a great point,
Speaker 1: you know, I think so much of the expectations we
Speaker 1: placed on ourselves are based on what we see in
Speaker 1: the media and how great it looks and how amazing
Speaker 1: it looks, and how great the deer Hunting is everything,
Speaker 1: and if if your reality doesn't match up to that,
Speaker 1: it can be disappointing. Um but dear, don't, dear, do
Speaker 1: not need a perfectly manicured, beautiful carpet of of clover
Speaker 1: forty acres wide, um, next to fifty acres of perfect seaters.
Speaker 1: They don't need that to you know, come and hang out.
Speaker 1: So even a little tiny patch of crappy clover mixed
Speaker 1: with a bunch of weeds, like that's better than nothing. Um,
Speaker 1: So yeah, do what you can. Try stuff, have some
Speaker 1: things that work, have some things that don't work, Carving
Speaker 1: a little something. I think it's all when it comes
Speaker 1: down to enjoying that process, getting out there, getting your
Speaker 1: hands dirty, being outside, and yeah, trying to make a
Speaker 1: little bit of good stuff happen out there. Like, just
Speaker 1: just do something. I think that's that's a really good point.
Speaker 1: Well do you think do you think we wrapped her
Speaker 1: up good enough? Buddy? I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: if there's anything valuable that we've discussed this entire time,
Speaker 1: because mostly two guys that are kind of okay at
Speaker 1: this who kind of know what they're talking about. But
Speaker 1: we're not experts on this. Subject. We kind of like it,
Speaker 1: we kind of don't like it. We're saying, yeah, I
Speaker 1: kind of do this, but don't do that. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure what anyone will take away from this except for
Speaker 1: the fact that every one listening should feel one qualified
Speaker 1: to try habitat work. Because if a couple of bows
Speaker 1: I was like me and Tony can do it, you
Speaker 1: can do it too. And I think that is the
Speaker 1: big takeaway here today. Absolutely all right, buddy, Well, thanks
Speaker 1: for rambling on this one with me, and over the
Speaker 1: next couple of weeks we're going to bring on a
Speaker 1: series of more experienced folks with some different ideas and
Speaker 1: perspectives to help anybody who is interested into either going
Speaker 1: deeper into the habitat world or just trying it for
Speaker 1: the first time. Well, thanks for having me, buddy. All right,
Speaker 1: and that's a wrap. I appreciate you tune in. This
Speaker 1: is just the first of a series of Habitat related
Speaker 1: episodes we're gonna run this spring, so stay tuned. If
Speaker 1: this is something you're interested in learning more about, We've
Speaker 1: got a lot more coming, so appreciate your time. Thank you,
Speaker 1: and until next time, stay wired to