Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the white tail woods, presented by First Light, creating proven,
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand saddler blind, First Light,
Speaker 1: Go farther, stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyan. This week on the show, I'm joined by
Speaker 1: Mark Jury's farm managers, Wade Robinson and Perry Baden to
Speaker 1: discuss the habitat strategies they employed to create world class
Speaker 1: white tail hunts. All right, welcome to the Wire to
Speaker 1: Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light. And today
Speaker 1: we are kicking off another series and it is Habitat Month.
Speaker 1: That's right, four straight weeks of white tail habitat discussions.
Speaker 1: We're gonna cover everything from food plot to timberstand improvement,
Speaker 1: to grass management and water holes and hinge cutting and
Speaker 1: who the heck knows soil health, regenerative agriculture, everything from
Speaker 1: this way to that way, everything we can be doing
Speaker 1: to improve our properties for deer and deer hunting and
Speaker 1: all sorts of other critters too. I think that's an
Speaker 1: important thing to remember. We have an opportunity and and
Speaker 1: and I would say an obligation to not only you know,
Speaker 1: steward our landscapes for the creatures who want to hunt,
Speaker 1: but also for all of those other creatures out there, um,
Speaker 1: who share that landscape, the birds and the bees and
Speaker 1: the pollinators and turkeys, squirrels, rabbits, raccoons. It's all an
Speaker 1: interconnected system. And by working to improve these places, we
Speaker 1: can help that entire ecosystem, which I think is pretty
Speaker 1: darn cool thing. So that's why I'm particularly excited take
Speaker 1: off another month of this habitat kind of discussion. UM.
Speaker 1: I found myself a lot last season dreaming about, Oh, man,
Speaker 1: I wish I could have done this thing. I wish
Speaker 1: I had improved this area. I wish I could have,
Speaker 1: you know, tweaked this food plot in this kind of way,
Speaker 1: or I wonder what I should do different next year.
Speaker 1: There's there's been a lot of those kinds of questions, UM,
Speaker 1: as you all know, or at least long time listeners. UM,
Speaker 1: you know, I had had a really fun hunting season
Speaker 1: last year, re energized and excited to uh to do
Speaker 1: some new things this year. So there's gonna be a
Speaker 1: lot of work done on my side on a property
Speaker 1: I have permission on and then on my family deer
Speaker 1: camp up north. Hopefully we'll be doing some work too,
Speaker 1: so we'll we'll be exploring some of those ideas as
Speaker 1: we go along. But like I said, it's Habitat Month
Speaker 1: and we're kicking things off today with a really great
Speaker 1: duo of guests, and I'm going to give you a
Speaker 1: little bit of background on them in a second, but
Speaker 1: I want to first give you I'm not gonna say homework,
Speaker 1: but I want to give you some extra reading material
Speaker 1: if you want to dive deeper into these different habitat
Speaker 1: ideas that we're going to discuss today and the month.
Speaker 1: I wanted to share four different now it might be
Speaker 1: actually five, five different reading recommendations. If you follow my
Speaker 1: Instagram account over at wired Hunt, you know I'm a
Speaker 1: big reader, always digging into different things, and that applies
Speaker 1: to deer and habitat related topics too, And so I've
Speaker 1: got five books here that I highly recommend if you
Speaker 1: want to get more habitat ideas, if you want some
Speaker 1: more detailed insight into how to improve and manage your
Speaker 1: land for wildlife and white tails. Here are some recommendations. First,
Speaker 1: I'm a really big fan of White Tailed Deer Management
Speaker 1: and Habitat Improvement. Very creative title. That's the title of
Speaker 1: the book by Steve Bartilla. Steve has been on the
Speaker 1: show in the past, We've talked habitat in the past
Speaker 1: with him, and this book is it does a really
Speaker 1: good job of covering the whole slate of management questions,
Speaker 1: habitat improvements, um. But particularly he does he's a lot
Speaker 1: of illustrations maps where he showcases his plans, his designs,
Speaker 1: how he you know, plots out different things, how he
Speaker 1: puts an access routes and food plots and habitat and
Speaker 1: cover improvements, all that kind of good stuff like that.
Speaker 1: The diagrams are are really helpful, a lot of good
Speaker 1: pictures that showcase some of the work he does. So
Speaker 1: so that's a really good one. Another great book if
Speaker 1: you want to really get into the nitty gritty of
Speaker 1: food plots. This is probably the top book I would
Speaker 1: recommend if you are starting as a food plotter and
Speaker 1: just need like everything from eight is he covered. It's
Speaker 1: quality food plots and it's published by the Quality Deer
Speaker 1: Management Association, or well it was published by the q
Speaker 1: d m A. Now they're known as the National Deer Association.
Speaker 1: I believe they still sell it on their website. Um
Speaker 1: so that's called quality food Plots, really really good, kind
Speaker 1: of step by step by step as far as everything
Speaker 1: you need to know to prepare locations, to choose locations,
Speaker 1: to amend the soil, to you know, take soil tests,
Speaker 1: to choosing the right seed to plant, to how to
Speaker 1: manage it, you know, just everything. So definitely check that
Speaker 1: one out. The next set of books is as a
Speaker 1: duo here as well, and it is White Tail Habitat
Speaker 1: Success by Design and Food Plot Success by Design. The
Speaker 1: first book is kind of a more holistic set of
Speaker 1: ideas across all habitat projects, while the second one is
Speaker 1: is very food plot focused. Um but both of these books.
Speaker 1: What I like about them written by Jeff Sturgis, of course,
Speaker 1: is Jeff's approach to habitat management improvement. It's very system focused.
Speaker 1: By that, I mean he does not recommend anything in isolation.
Speaker 1: He's not gonna say I just plant a food plot wherever,
Speaker 1: and here's what you should plant in and here's why. No,
Speaker 1: it's it's always connected. He discusses and really emphasizes the
Speaker 1: connected nature of everything on a property. So if you
Speaker 1: put a food plot here, what does that mean for
Speaker 1: the betting and what does that mean for your access?
Speaker 1: And how do all these things interact and how will
Speaker 1: the deer movement change? And how will that impact how
Speaker 1: you can get in and out or how you should hunt?
Speaker 1: And so it's a very strategic approach to habitat improvements
Speaker 1: and to food plot design, location, planting, all that stuff.
Speaker 1: It's very very good. So if you want to take
Speaker 1: that next step in your habitat work and your food
Speaker 1: plotting work, um, these two are are really good, really
Speaker 1: diving into that, you know, how does this all impact
Speaker 1: a hunting strategy? And then last another book called Grow
Speaker 1: Him Right by Neil and Craig Doherty, another really good
Speaker 1: overview of a bunch of different things when it comes
Speaker 1: to habitat improvement and and more of a habitat management philosophy.
Speaker 1: I think there's there's definitely some how twos in here,
Speaker 1: but I love the philosophy that Kneel and Craig share here. Um.
Speaker 1: Craig was a mentor of mine previous to his passing,
Speaker 1: and I can't I can't tell you much I appreciate
Speaker 1: some of the things he taught me. Early on, and
Speaker 1: I think this book does a great job of continuing
Speaker 1: sharing some of those messages and insights to people through
Speaker 1: the written word. So those are my five Habitat book recommendations.
Speaker 1: Check them out if you want to for are your
Speaker 1: foundation in this kind of stuff. So that is a
Speaker 1: long roundabout way of getting to our main kind of
Speaker 1: topic of discussion, which is how Mark Jury has such
Speaker 1: amazing white tail hunting properties. How does he get these
Speaker 1: amazing deer year after year after year. How does he
Speaker 1: keep sony deer in these areas? How does he have
Speaker 1: so many quality hunts? How does he manage these places
Speaker 1: so darn well so consistently. That's our topic of discussion,
Speaker 1: and we're doing it with the two guys who are
Speaker 1: the blood, sweat and tears behind Mark juries, or at
Speaker 1: least behind much of mark juries success. Not saying he's
Speaker 1: not doing a lot of this work too, but he
Speaker 1: has the help of Wade Robinson and Perry Batton, his
Speaker 1: farm managers, who are out there seemingly every day doing
Speaker 1: some kind of project. And my goal today was to
Speaker 1: get a behind the scenes look at just what they're doing,
Speaker 1: how they're doing it, what the strategies are that they're employing.
Speaker 1: You know how I think about food plot design, food
Speaker 1: plot location, what they plant, where they planted, how they planted,
Speaker 1: how they deal with drought. Um, what are the little
Speaker 1: tweaks and tiny details that they focus on that most
Speaker 1: people don't. I think that's something that really stands out
Speaker 1: about Mark is his attention to detail, not just with hunting,
Speaker 1: but with his property designs and habitat improvements. And we're
Speaker 1: gon dive into that as well. There's some some really
Speaker 1: interesting things there that that Wade and Perry share. So
Speaker 1: that's the game plan. Wade and Perry are are good guys,
Speaker 1: smart guys, hard workers, and uh, they really know how
Speaker 1: to do this work and do it well. That's why
Speaker 1: I was so excited to have him on the show.
Speaker 1: And that's the game plan for today's episode. So without
Speaker 1: any further Ado, let's listen to Wade Robinson and Perry
Speaker 1: Batton and then I will definitely recommend you guys check
Speaker 1: out everything the guys over the Drewy Outdoors team are
Speaker 1: doing on their deer Cast app the YouTube channel. It's
Speaker 1: all great stuff. So, without further Ado, Wade and Perry
Speaker 1: all right with me now on the line, I've got
Speaker 1: Mark or he's terrible to some of Wade Robinson and
Speaker 1: Perry Batton, guys, thank you for being here, absolutely, thank
Speaker 1: you for having us just sir, no problem. I'm glad
Speaker 1: we're finally getting the chat. I've talked to Mark a
Speaker 1: lot over the years and have been there to h
Speaker 1: Q and hung out, but I've yet to get to
Speaker 1: bump into you guys. I'm glad we're finally finally connecting
Speaker 1: and and talking about something that I know that all
Speaker 1: three of us really love, and this time of year,
Speaker 1: I think it's top of all of our minds, which
Speaker 1: is uh which is habitat work, which is working the ground,
Speaker 1: growing you know, wildlife, and and making for some cool
Speaker 1: memories out there. So so I gotta start with a
Speaker 1: quick question for you both right now, you know, as
Speaker 1: we're getting into late winter, maybe you'd call this, Are
Speaker 1: you resting and recouping it all or do you feel
Speaker 1: like you're revving up already into like the busy season
Speaker 1: already because you can see like nineteen thousand different things
Speaker 1: already on your to do list to prepare for next year.
Speaker 1: How do you feel right now on that you know,
Speaker 1: you know, going into this time of year. We we
Speaker 1: just finished up um Missouri into January, and uh, this
Speaker 1: is the time that if we're going to take a
Speaker 1: little week vacation or a long weekend, this is the
Speaker 1: time to do it. But um, like I say, the
Speaker 1: work definitely doesn't slow down. We uh you know, this
Speaker 1: morning we were already putting out uh analogics and trying
Speaker 1: to keep dear healthy, bringing in bringing them into next year.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and I mean we certainly have a little
Speaker 1: bit shorter days kind of due to the season and
Speaker 1: you know, hot cold at the grounds of frozen. We
Speaker 1: can't do some of the things we want to do.
Speaker 1: And then like tonight, we're not gonna go kyled hunting,
Speaker 1: so it'll be a long night, long hours if you will,
Speaker 1: something we enjoy. But you know, we certainly have some
Speaker 1: shorter days now the season is over. But but we
Speaker 1: don't shut down. Yeah, and I guess that's part of
Speaker 1: the beauty of it, right. It's it's fun stuff all
Speaker 1: year around, a lot of work, but you're like doing it. Um,
Speaker 1: so we finish up just to start over again. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So so here's something I want to kind of kick
Speaker 1: things off of a little bit, and that's you know
Speaker 1: the fact that there's so many folks that have watched
Speaker 1: the product of what you guys do, right I mean,
Speaker 1: people have watched Mark's and your guys hunts on TV
Speaker 1: and YouTube for years. They've seen all these you know,
Speaker 1: beautiful looking places, They've seen these big old dear they've
Speaker 1: they've seen the hunts, and I think a lot of
Speaker 1: folks make assumptions based on that. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of folks kind of know how this is how it goes,
Speaker 1: or this is what they must be doing, or this
Speaker 1: is how it is um I mean think even maybe
Speaker 1: for you guys yourselves before you started working for Mark,
Speaker 1: I imagine you had an idea of, you know, what
Speaker 1: it was that was going on behind the scenes. So
Speaker 1: my question for you is, if you had to kind
Speaker 1: of put yourselves in the listeners shoes right now, and
Speaker 1: if you were just an average guy listening to this
Speaker 1: podcast making assumptions about, you know, how things go when
Speaker 1: it comes to creating the kind of hunting that you
Speaker 1: guys have and that Mark has. What's one assumption that
Speaker 1: you think people make that is wrong. What's one thing
Speaker 1: that we should just like get off the table right now.
Speaker 1: That's that's wrong that a lot of people think is true.
Speaker 1: Either one of you can, well, we have never stepped
Speaker 1: foot one in a high fence. Um. That's probably one
Speaker 1: of the biggest things. And another thing is is our
Speaker 1: property size. Everybody thinks that we're hunting these thousand acre farms,
Speaker 1: you know, five thousand acre farms, and that's definitely not
Speaker 1: the case. Granted, I started probably twelve years ago, and
Speaker 1: then in the earlier years we had some bigger farms
Speaker 1: right around that thousand acre mark um. But here over
Speaker 1: the last five years, we've made a huge trans transition
Speaker 1: into a smaller satellite farms type approach, and the biggest
Speaker 1: acreage consecutive farm we have currently is four seen acres. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, which is which is a big farm. But
Speaker 1: I mean we're we're also hunting farms, fifty acre farms
Speaker 1: and a ton of eighty acre farms, you know that,
Speaker 1: a lot of eighties and one twenties, a couple of
Speaker 1: forties across both states Iowa and Missouri. But yeah, definitely
Speaker 1: the high fence comment and then that we have, you know,
Speaker 1: five thousand acres, it's manicured like someone in the yard
Speaker 1: to hunt is a is a false statement. So yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean and in the hours and and work
Speaker 1: that like you just said, the hours and worth it myself,
Speaker 1: Perry Mark Uh, Terry Forest. You know we all put
Speaker 1: into these farms is what they're seeing in that you know,
Speaker 1: thirty minute episode on TV. You don't get to see
Speaker 1: that the hours, days, blood, sweat, tears that go in
Speaker 1: into into this these farms. Yeah, everybody just sees the
Speaker 1: thirty minute, thirty minute episode on TV or YouTube and
Speaker 1: think these guys got a great well, looks so real.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah exactly. I mean this morning our work truck,
Speaker 1: the starter was clicking, so that was you know, just
Speaker 1: right off the bat. You know, some Monday morning it's
Speaker 1: not Monday, but just simple things like that can make
Speaker 1: your day go south real quick. So yeah, speaking of
Speaker 1: Monday mornings, I saw me today that made me chuckle.
Speaker 1: It said, uh, Monday's are a stick that looks like
Speaker 1: a shed. I thought, yep, you see that stick up
Speaker 1: there and you go running after like ash ship. That's
Speaker 1: not a ship. Um. Anyways, to to that, to that
Speaker 1: one main assumption about the farm size, I think that's
Speaker 1: really interesting where you were saying, Wade about this transition
Speaker 1: you guys made. What was that? What was the thumb
Speaker 1: process about that? What what led to Mark wanting to
Speaker 1: switch from the big farms to the bunch of small
Speaker 1: pieces and satellite kind of approach. Yeah. So my very
Speaker 1: first year, two thousand twelve, I started in the summer
Speaker 1: and Mark was so excited. We had all these great
Speaker 1: year on on camera in uh, you know, June July,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, August hit and bam
Speaker 1: e h. D hit one of the hardest years other
Speaker 1: than two thousand and eight. It hit really hard, But
Speaker 1: in two thousand twelve it hit so hard and literally
Speaker 1: wiped out We had, you know, a couple of different
Speaker 1: bigger farms. Uh, you know, it just wiped out the
Speaker 1: whole population of bucks basically. I mean, we had some
Speaker 1: some nice bucks to still chase, but it wiped out
Speaker 1: eight percent of our deer. So, um, you know, Mark
Speaker 1: was kind of talking to different guys and stuff, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, this guy's farm over here five miles didn't
Speaker 1: even get touch with the HD. They never found a
Speaker 1: dead deer one. So Mark Stinking's like, man, we gotta
Speaker 1: we gotta, you know, broaden our our spectrum here, we
Speaker 1: gotta get out of these big farms, because if the
Speaker 1: h D hits, it wipes out your whole year or
Speaker 1: your whole you know, five years. The next five years
Speaker 1: is tough. Um. So he went to the more satellite
Speaker 1: type of approach because e h D is so spotty. Um,
Speaker 1: it allows you to get hit over here and not
Speaker 1: ruined you know, the next five years to come. So
Speaker 1: we just bounce around to two different forty eight acre pieces. Granted,
Speaker 1: like Perry said, we have you know, we do have
Speaker 1: a couple other UH farms that are are a little
Speaker 1: bit bigger in size. You know, four hundred and seventeen
Speaker 1: acres is is our largest track right now, consecutive track granted. Um.
Speaker 1: You know there's like mindeds managers that are neighbors in
Speaker 1: some of these spots, but our largest track is four
Speaker 1: seventeen acres. So um. You know, basically the main reason
Speaker 1: was e h D UM and hunting different a bunch
Speaker 1: of different deer herbs, you're more likely to have a
Speaker 1: really good deer um versus you know, your farm get
Speaker 1: hit one year and you have to wait, you know,
Speaker 1: three to five years to have another really nice deer
Speaker 1: to chase. And so far, man, it's it's definitely been
Speaker 1: been paying off. So outside of just the e h
Speaker 1: D kind of risk mitigation, what about how you know,
Speaker 1: has has it panned out the way you guys thought
Speaker 1: from you know, being able to steal, hunt and hold
Speaker 1: big deer side of things because the risk a lot
Speaker 1: of times people worry about what these small properties is
Speaker 1: that you just don't have as much influence over what
Speaker 1: deer make it through your age structure all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. Have you guys, have you seen like is
Speaker 1: the satellite approach harder or is it easier because you
Speaker 1: have so many other options and you can, you know,
Speaker 1: check this farm, this farm, this farm. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: I would say that. I mean it's definitely harder to
Speaker 1: raise and grow a big deer. Granted we've done it.
Speaker 1: Um we've had deer that you know, I have those
Speaker 1: deer that stay on those smaller parcels and and just
Speaker 1: don't leave. Um, but uh, you know, I think it
Speaker 1: can be a little harder in that regards. But you
Speaker 1: just have to find the right farm, the right small
Speaker 1: farm and make it as good as possible, have food
Speaker 1: half cover and uh, you know that's the main thing
Speaker 1: is is have you know you have these smaller farms.
Speaker 1: But make that smaller farm the best possible farm it
Speaker 1: can be, is the main main thing. Yeah, I would.
Speaker 1: I would add to that. Also, as you know, we
Speaker 1: have a little bit of risk factor when it comes
Speaker 1: to all of our smaller farms because we have to
Speaker 1: deal with more neighbors. Granted, as many farms as we have,
Speaker 1: we have some really really good neighbors that are that
Speaker 1: are on the same mindset, mindset as us. I mean
Speaker 1: there's a few, you know, bad apples here and there,
Speaker 1: but that's just part of the game. And uh. And
Speaker 1: also to add to the small farm is intrusion, Like
Speaker 1: we do not step foot on these places. She had seasons.
Speaker 1: It is about the only time in planting and hunting
Speaker 1: and stuff, and some of them, you know, we'll we'll
Speaker 1: hunt only once, yeah, twice a year. If there's not
Speaker 1: like a definite mature deer that's on the list to kill,
Speaker 1: we might not step foot on it at one time,
Speaker 1: but we'll plant it and act like there's a two
Speaker 1: hundred on it. Yeah, every farm gets treated the same
Speaker 1: as far as food plots and access and everything goes
Speaker 1: on the setup. But if the mature deer is not
Speaker 1: there to kill. We don't. We don't mess with it. No,
Speaker 1: let them grow. Yeah, you mentioned Wade. I think it
Speaker 1: was you who said that A big part of it
Speaker 1: is is getting the right small farm. What have you
Speaker 1: guys found so far when it comes to identifying like
Speaker 1: a small farm that can actually perform you know, at
Speaker 1: a higher level it can hunt bigger or hold you
Speaker 1: know more. Dear, have you guys kind of fine tune
Speaker 1: what it takes to find that right small farm yet? Um? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean again, the number one part of that is
Speaker 1: is due diligence on the on the neighbors and what
Speaker 1: they're killing and and what you know, what they're willing
Speaker 1: to pass. Um. That is I would say it because
Speaker 1: if they're shooting every two and three year old buck
Speaker 1: that you know walks by them, I mean you're you know,
Speaker 1: you're you're shooting for the moon at that point. Neighbors
Speaker 1: is probably number one. Um, due diligence on that. And
Speaker 1: then you know, obviously you want a good ratio between
Speaker 1: between cover and an open ground so that you could
Speaker 1: plant food and hold deer um, or have a lot
Speaker 1: of cover around you and plant you know, have a
Speaker 1: lot of cover on the neighbors. And and plant your
Speaker 1: big food on your open grounds. So I mean there's
Speaker 1: we have different farms with that, we have different tactics
Speaker 1: on um both. Yeah. I mean we have a uh
Speaker 1: fifty acre lease that's uh all open tillable, but it
Speaker 1: busts up to about acre block to timber. Well obviously
Speaker 1: there's acorns and stuff in the timber. But you know,
Speaker 1: we plant a big food plot and uh early in
Speaker 1: late season, you know, like taking candy from a baby.
Speaker 1: They all you know, on a on a wide open
Speaker 1: tillable field. You know, we'll see deer a night. You know,
Speaker 1: just the main goal is to plant food and have
Speaker 1: makes them want to be on that property. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: neighbors in that country he's talking about are pretty good too.
Speaker 1: That everyone over there kind of wants to shoot big
Speaker 1: deer and and late season and early season we do.
Speaker 1: We do well there because we always got food so
Speaker 1: so so and that is a lot of that is
Speaker 1: a big thing that a lot of people overlook so
Speaker 1: like why do you guys have all the deer? Why
Speaker 1: are you seeing fifty seventy you know, eighty deer a night? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, we got food. Like people think that you
Speaker 1: know that these deer are just gonna come out to
Speaker 1: a cut field. Yeah, they will if that's all that
Speaker 1: they got around. Um, you know, because there's residual and
Speaker 1: stuff out there. Um. But you might see here, you
Speaker 1: might see a twelve year there's a standing field next by,
Speaker 1: They're going to that one. Yeah, especially with these well
Speaker 1: not so harsh to pass a couple of years harsher
Speaker 1: winters here in southern Ireland, northern Missouri. You know, you
Speaker 1: get snow on standing food, You'll have all this year.
Speaker 1: So would you say away? And I know that that
Speaker 1: I hesitated even ask the question because I know it's
Speaker 1: it's always situation dependent. But if you had to rank
Speaker 1: order the importance of the different major factors in whitetail
Speaker 1: habitat when you guys are trying to, you know, make
Speaker 1: one of these small properties is the best it can be?
Speaker 1: If you had to rank you know, food, cover, water,
Speaker 1: and let's say access, how would you rank those four
Speaker 1: if you had to, you know, taken out you know,
Speaker 1: all the unique variables. Just if we had to average
Speaker 1: it out, how would you rank those four things? Uh?
Speaker 1: You know, either one pair you want to start? I
Speaker 1: would say covers number one. Um, you can't have and dear,
Speaker 1: don't live in a wide open uh cut cornfield, cut
Speaker 1: bean field. You know, you can own forty acres of
Speaker 1: terrible if there's no cover around it, you're having no
Speaker 1: wild So I would say that was number one, and uh,
Speaker 1: I think access for me would be number two, and
Speaker 1: then food being number three. I think that'd be the
Speaker 1: top for me. Um, because honestly, you can have the
Speaker 1: best looking farm on in the United States, but if
Speaker 1: your access is horrible, you might as well just chalk
Speaker 1: it up as a loss because you're gonna blow him
Speaker 1: and spook him every time you try to go to it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what do you think, Wade? I agree with Perry. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I would obviously, like Perry said, to cover
Speaker 1: if they're not gonna go bed in a wide open
Speaker 1: corn or bean filled Um. You know. So, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's hard to argue the cover. But access has always
Speaker 1: been number one for me. Just like Perry said, if
Speaker 1: you have bad access, you you're gonna blow the deer
Speaker 1: out that you're supposedly hunting before you even see them.
Speaker 1: In ninety five percent of the time you don't even
Speaker 1: know that you did it. You know, they won't even
Speaker 1: let you know that just you just won't have a
Speaker 1: good set it. You won't see any year you get skunk.
Speaker 1: So accesses in my opinion number one, Uh, in any
Speaker 1: type of hunting, you gotta you gotta be able to
Speaker 1: get in there without them knowing that you're there. And
Speaker 1: then um, obviously uh cover for them to stay in
Speaker 1: and food. I mean you don't have no food, particularly late,
Speaker 1: they are not gonna come buy you very regularly. So
Speaker 1: and then obviously water is great during the rut. But
Speaker 1: you know, we we started doing some water holes over
Speaker 1: the last couple of years and uh, you know this
Speaker 1: past fall we've had probably one, two, three three different
Speaker 1: bucks uh that were mature that you know we could
Speaker 1: have killed over water. Um. You know we almost killed
Speaker 1: one on a water Yeah. I almost killed one um
Speaker 1: on a water hole. So um. The only reason I
Speaker 1: didn't rink water high is because you know, you can
Speaker 1: run a track. Oh, you can hire somebody. You can
Speaker 1: put water where you want. Really, Um, you know we've
Speaker 1: taken fields that are flat food plot you know, get
Speaker 1: a traco in there and Diggie tiggy water hole kind
Speaker 1: of designs set up. You know, I take a little
Speaker 1: bit a little bit of time to get some random
Speaker 1: filled up. But I mean, you can get water where
Speaker 1: you want, really, and most of these farms have, and
Speaker 1: Iowa particularly, you know, it's so hilly and ditchy. You
Speaker 1: know there's water about anywhere. You know, they can get
Speaker 1: their water about anywhere. So it's not as a big
Speaker 1: of a factor, um for us here in Iowa and Missouri. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but no, I guess here's a slightly different way to
Speaker 1: look at that same kind of topic. Um, if you've
Speaker 1: got let's say, just like an average piece of dirt
Speaker 1: that's got some cover, it's got some openings, it's got
Speaker 1: a streamer pond or something. There's a little bit of
Speaker 1: everything on it. Um, what have you found to be?
Speaker 1: You know, if you had to pick like the most
Speaker 1: impactful project, if there was, you know, if I told you, hey,
Speaker 1: you can only make you can only work on one
Speaker 1: project this year, it's gonna be your only improvement you're
Speaker 1: allowed to make on this average piece of ground that
Speaker 1: has some openings, it's got some food, it's got some coverage,
Speaker 1: it's already got a little bit of everything. But nothing's great,
Speaker 1: and you have the opportunity to do one big project,
Speaker 1: you know my my assumption I jumped to assuming you
Speaker 1: would put in some awesome food source. Am I right
Speaker 1: on that? Or is there something else that you would
Speaker 1: actually find to be more impacted? Absolutely? You know, food
Speaker 1: plot architecture um would definitely be number one. Make you know,
Speaker 1: make them come within bow range and make it as
Speaker 1: large as feasible to your population on the place and
Speaker 1: uh feasible to hunt. Yeah, and then plan to your position.
Speaker 1: When you guys arted with Mark, and I mean you
Speaker 1: came into this in twos and twelve way and and Perry,
Speaker 1: it's it's just been a handful of years now for you, right,
Speaker 1: maybe three years, is that right? Yep? Yep, yeah, three
Speaker 1: years now. Okay. So when you walked in the you know,
Speaker 1: quote unquote door walking the door and Mark takes you
Speaker 1: out to one of the farmers for the first time
Speaker 1: or you get out there for the first spring or
Speaker 1: summer or whatever it was, and you started working on
Speaker 1: food plots with him, do you remember, you know, I
Speaker 1: guess what what's what surprised you the most or shocked you,
Speaker 1: or what stands out when you first got to look
Speaker 1: at how his mind is when it comes to this stuff,
Speaker 1: or what his approach is to food, plot, architecture, or
Speaker 1: his or how demanding he is about some aspect of it.
Speaker 1: Is there anything that stood out when you like got
Speaker 1: started where you were like, holy crap, this is a
Speaker 1: this is a different guy, or this is we're gonna
Speaker 1: be doing things different? What would that be? Would absolutely so.
Speaker 1: Number one thing is definitely the intrusion, Like whether you're
Speaker 1: talking out you don't talk out loud. You make sure
Speaker 1: you have everything you need for the project at hand,
Speaker 1: and only going to that farm one time. If you
Speaker 1: forget something, you're gonna hear about it. You do not
Speaker 1: want to go in multiple times if you can help it.
Speaker 1: That is the number one thing. And again that goes
Speaker 1: back to number one with access. You know, like if
Speaker 1: you're blowing the deer out, they don't feel comfortable being
Speaker 1: in your farm, they're not gonna be there. So intrusion
Speaker 1: and access two main main things right out the get go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I just revolved back to me being in
Speaker 1: a service. Attention to detail. Anyone who's been in the
Speaker 1: service has heard that um statement many of times. But
Speaker 1: Mark's very detailed in the way he lays things out,
Speaker 1: in the way we do the work. Too, you know,
Speaker 1: conduct that project or whatever it is we may be doing.
Speaker 1: But you know, from the littlest details of like don't
Speaker 1: mow behind the blinds of the deer, don't walk behind you,
Speaker 1: anything like that, some stuff that I did when I
Speaker 1: first started. Better you only do it once? Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: so well, definitely attention to details, and that's the reason
Speaker 1: why it's so successful. While while drew the outdoors and
Speaker 1: all of us as a whole are so successful. Are
Speaker 1: there any other of these little things that stand out
Speaker 1: to like little no nos, like don't mow behind the
Speaker 1: blind or or any other details that you know most
Speaker 1: folks never think about that in your mind, are like
Speaker 1: big flashing neon lights. Because of him, Oh, yes, we
Speaker 1: do not go on the farm if there's any if
Speaker 1: there's any risk of ruts, Like his biggest pet peeve
Speaker 1: is ruts, whether they're half inch deeper or a foot
Speaker 1: deep road. Yeah, just because our ground is so hilly
Speaker 1: here the roads and then we have to drive across
Speaker 1: it all the time and it's bumpy and and but yeah,
Speaker 1: his his deal with erosion and and you know that
Speaker 1: type of stool conservationist. It's very very high up and
Speaker 1: one of those pet peeves. Don't drive across his yard
Speaker 1: here at his house. Something I did right off the
Speaker 1: bat I took I took a took a buggy to
Speaker 1: go check a board. We were shooting sighting a gun,
Speaker 1: and I drove the bug across the yard. He goes,
Speaker 1: don't ever do that if we don't get off the driveway. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's nothing too major, but it's major to him.
Speaker 1: And you know, you know, he made those things clear
Speaker 1: right off, right off the get going. We do not
Speaker 1: do that. And uh, we make sure anybody who's in
Speaker 1: camp knows that ahead of time to save them from
Speaker 1: the earful details details, details, details, um, you know, and
Speaker 1: and and I think that's you know, what has made
Speaker 1: Drewy Outdoor so successful is is the detail oriented a little.
Speaker 1: It's the little stuff that that you know, especially you know,
Speaker 1: on the small farms we hunt, if the neighbors intrusive,
Speaker 1: or the neighbor does something we don't, that gives us
Speaker 1: a little bit upper hand to get the deer on us.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, So let's let's take that kind of
Speaker 1: detail idea and and kind of apply it to what
Speaker 1: you guys just mentioned. Is is probably the most impactful
Speaker 1: project you guys would usually work on, which is that food? Um? First,
Speaker 1: I guess when it comes like a food project and
Speaker 1: a food plot is is choosing the right location for it?
Speaker 1: And I'm always really interested. I like how you guys
Speaker 1: do a good job on a lot of these videos
Speaker 1: of showing you know where you're putting new food plots
Speaker 1: and why you're putting them there and stuff. But I
Speaker 1: guess at a high level, when you guys are making
Speaker 1: you know, looking at the map on a farm and
Speaker 1: talking about whether it's a new farm or just a
Speaker 1: piece where you haven't worked yet, and you're trying to choose, Okay,
Speaker 1: where are we going to put the plots? Can you?
Speaker 1: Can you guys walk me through you know what those
Speaker 1: most important criteria are to you when you're thinking through,
Speaker 1: all right, this is where we need to put it,
Speaker 1: or this is the easy spot to put one, But no,
Speaker 1: we can't do it because of X and Y. What
Speaker 1: would those things be? Well? Again, to our first statement,
Speaker 1: number one would be access. We gotta make sure we
Speaker 1: can get into these spots um without the deer no
Speaker 1: one that we're there um. And number two we always
Speaker 1: use an outside looking in approach. We do not enter
Speaker 1: the timber. Um. You know, we may carve out a
Speaker 1: food plot, get a dozer in and do something on
Speaker 1: the edge, but we just leave the core unpenetrated. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, so we always try and get the deer
Speaker 1: to come to us versus go in move in on
Speaker 1: the deer like. Um, those are two of the I
Speaker 1: would say the most main Yeah, for sure. I mean
Speaker 1: it all starts really at Mark's dinner table here at
Speaker 1: the house. Myself, Wade and Mark sit down, jump on
Speaker 1: deer cast maps and and look at it from an
Speaker 1: aerial view of a map. Um first and say, okay,
Speaker 1: you know what winds can we hunt it on? Where's
Speaker 1: our access going to be? And then design the plot.
Speaker 1: And you know, going back to what Way said, most
Speaker 1: of our plots are on the edge. We don't We
Speaker 1: don't ever dive deep into a farm because if you do,
Speaker 1: your access is never never good. It's on the outside.
Speaker 1: I mean, our plots are always determined mainly on access
Speaker 1: and wind direction that we can one. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: so these plots are usually on the edges. They're usually
Speaker 1: you know, access related. I guess how much though, do
Speaker 1: you factor in or worry about you know, um distance
Speaker 1: to UM neighbors. So I guess what I'm trying to
Speaker 1: get at is I've always worried one of the things
Speaker 1: he worries if put food too close to a property line,
Speaker 1: too close to the edge, you risk the neighbors impacting
Speaker 1: that food source or trying to hunt. Do you're come
Speaker 1: into it or something like that. What are your thoughts
Speaker 1: on that? Yeah, I mean we always definitely take that
Speaker 1: into consideration. Um, we try and just as being neighborly,
Speaker 1: we try and you know, stay away from the stay
Speaker 1: away from the lines. I mean, um, you know, because yeah,
Speaker 1: we've had don't want to benefit benefit of neighbor, but
Speaker 1: also sometimes you don't have the you know, on some
Speaker 1: of these smaller farms we have, we don't have the
Speaker 1: dirt to get away from him as much. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: have to be somewhat close. And that's just kind of
Speaker 1: how it how it crumbles down, you know. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's all farm dependent, but um, you know, again goes
Speaker 1: back to our due diligence on you know, when the
Speaker 1: neighbors hunt, what time of year, you know, if they're
Speaker 1: just gun hunting, you know, it may not be as
Speaker 1: big of an issue. Um, you know or you know,
Speaker 1: the biggest The biggest thing is no matter how close
Speaker 1: we might be to the neighbor, normally it's just an
Speaker 1: access route down a fence line. And then we would
Speaker 1: get into our food plot where the blind is obviously
Speaker 1: faced into our ground or the tree stands face into us,
Speaker 1: you know, never we're never facing someone else's far and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. However, our neighbors can't always say the same, yeah, neighbors.
Speaker 1: But so another thing on this sorry, another question I
Speaker 1: had to related to this location thing is I've have
Speaker 1: often seen Mark talk about trying to tuck them. You know,
Speaker 1: access is still good, but it seems like you guys
Speaker 1: tuck them up next to you know, I've heard like
Speaker 1: the Buck Hotel and stuff like that. You try to
Speaker 1: push them pretty close to these betting areas. So how
Speaker 1: important is it to be like smack dab against them
Speaker 1: versus like a transition corridor in between you and the bedding,
Speaker 1: Like how tight do you want them to be? I mean,
Speaker 1: are are both still type spots? Um are closer to
Speaker 1: the bedding because you know, to get those mature bucks
Speaker 1: up on their feet during daylight hours, you have to
Speaker 1: be um close to that bedding and and you know
Speaker 1: Perry can hit on this subject a little bit more.
Speaker 1: But you know, if there's not betting close, we will
Speaker 1: go in and make betting, uh, you know with T
Speaker 1: s I and hinge cutting and all that that type
Speaker 1: of stuff. So we we do like to get in
Speaker 1: close to that betting. Um, but yet where our access
Speaker 1: is still good. Right And to his point of that,
Speaker 1: like when we do T s I, if I, you know,
Speaker 1: throw my stuff on and grab my saw and just
Speaker 1: start walking to a general area we've picked out, we
Speaker 1: want to do T s I. When I get to
Speaker 1: a spot of that area, I turn around, call it
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty normally is about where it's at. We
Speaker 1: like to be off the betting. Would be like to
Speaker 1: be off the edge of the food plot to create
Speaker 1: the betting. You know, I want to get to that
Speaker 1: spot where I can't see the field, so that way
Speaker 1: when deer bed there, they can't see us get into
Speaker 1: our blind our tree stand and come down our access.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that makes sense. Okay, Um. Now another I
Speaker 1: guess tag onto that I often think about how dear transition,
Speaker 1: you know, from betting to a food source to a
Speaker 1: next to the next food source. You know, how often
Speaker 1: are you placing food plots in such a way to
Speaker 1: be like a transition food source versus like the final
Speaker 1: destination big food source. Like are you most of these properties?
Speaker 1: Do you try to have both or just one or
Speaker 1: the other or is it never big destination food sources
Speaker 1: now it's always little transitions Like talk to me a
Speaker 1: little bit about that. Yeah. So, um, you know, almost
Speaker 1: on all of our farms, I would say that we
Speaker 1: have both. Um, you know, like I was talking about earlier,
Speaker 1: we just plant to our position. I mean one of
Speaker 1: our farms, Um, you know what is it six acres
Speaker 1: of egg field that we got? We had sixteen acres
Speaker 1: in this bottom field and we direct the deer right
Speaker 1: past us with walking strips. Um. You know that walking
Speaker 1: strips radish fields um out in the middle of these
Speaker 1: giant grain destination fields. So yeah, I mean some way
Speaker 1: shape or form. You know, we're we're hunting these transition
Speaker 1: areas to get them within bow range. And was granted
Speaker 1: we back off whenever we have a gun in our hands.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean typically even on small farms, like
Speaker 1: say we've got they we've got three acres like a
Speaker 1: like at where mark killed this year over there and
Speaker 1: west stuff fifty acre farm or I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: we have about three two and a half three acres
Speaker 1: to work with. We have a green field that's half
Speaker 1: acre directly in front of the blind and then are
Speaker 1: surrounding it. On the rest of the field we have
Speaker 1: standing beans, so kind of a duel edge sword there.
Speaker 1: You know, you can hunt both season early on the
Speaker 1: green and then you know, gun comes and you've got
Speaker 1: a hunter and twenty yards shot and some standing bean
Speaker 1: field that we try to keep the deer you know,
Speaker 1: destination there and you know they're transitioning to both green
Speaker 1: and grain. And then obviously some filter pass us can
Speaker 1: go out to bigger grain fields, but typically it's very
Speaker 1: dark and uh legal light has has expired by them.
Speaker 1: So and a lot of these plots spots where we're
Speaker 1: back off of the food or back off of the
Speaker 1: cover rather um, you know, we'll go in and we'll
Speaker 1: make walking strips, uh to help guide them into our
Speaker 1: green field, like from the you know, the edge of
Speaker 1: the timber. Again, we hunt a lot of blinds. That
Speaker 1: another thing that we get a lot of, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a headache over everybody hates that we're in blind, but
Speaker 1: all these spots, you know, we wouldn't be you know,
Speaker 1: if we were sitting in a tree on the edge
Speaker 1: of the timber, you would hell, you would stop half
Speaker 1: your movement because your wind would have to be either
Speaker 1: blowing over the food or blowing over the cover versus
Speaker 1: getting off the backside of that that food plot and
Speaker 1: blowing it over you know, a safe spot. So you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes we have to you know, walk them all the
Speaker 1: way through that field to get to our within bow
Speaker 1: range at a radish field or or a clover field
Speaker 1: right in front of the blind, you know, and standing
Speaker 1: beans are standing corn elsewhere. So so speaking of that,
Speaker 1: then like these big fields versus the smaller fields, and
Speaker 1: how you get in the compast a bow spot I've
Speaker 1: seen like this example you describe where you do this
Speaker 1: kind of green and grain combo where you've got that
Speaker 1: green tight for the bowshot and then you know they
Speaker 1: can filter out to the larger being field or whatever. Um.
Speaker 1: When it comes to size of these food sources, what's
Speaker 1: the what's the minimum and maximum size for these food
Speaker 1: plots that you guys have found to make it effective?
Speaker 1: And are there some spots where like man we're gonna
Speaker 1: put a huge food source in, and we know this
Speaker 1: will never be a great bow spot because it's too big,
Speaker 1: and so you just kind of set up his gun
Speaker 1: or does every single food plot you guys put in
Speaker 1: has to be like, Okay, here's the bow set up,
Speaker 1: and here's the unique thing we're gonna do with the
Speaker 1: design or the you know, walking strips, and then here's
Speaker 1: the gun option. It seems like every one of our
Speaker 1: food plots has a bow set up. You know, Like
Speaker 1: we whenever we like Perry was staying here, whenever we
Speaker 1: sat down look over deercast maps, um, you know, we
Speaker 1: figure out exactly where we need to be to be
Speaker 1: able to intercept him going to the big food. What
Speaker 1: we need to do, whether it be plant or uh
Speaker 1: you know, drive lanes through the beans or or what
Speaker 1: it may be, we always seem to have a bow spot.
Speaker 1: I think there's maybe two or three of our all
Speaker 1: of our farms that are fields that we just got
Speaker 1: strictly gun hunt. Yeah, this year probably they're going to
Speaker 1: two or three. And even I mean even some big
Speaker 1: bean fields that we have, we just go in, set
Speaker 1: the tiller down and till up a walking strip. You
Speaker 1: know and plant green and nine times I said, may
Speaker 1: follow that path. I mean, it's a weird deal that
Speaker 1: I first saw when I started, and I was like
Speaker 1: made a believer out of me real quick. Think something
Speaker 1: so small even you, like Harry said, if it's just
Speaker 1: a walking strip um or Grand you don't have a
Speaker 1: tiller or you don't want to play green, you know,
Speaker 1: just driving you know, your truck through. You know, Grand,
Speaker 1: you have a lease and the farmer leaves five acres
Speaker 1: of standing beans, and you drive your truck to those beans.
Speaker 1: They're gonna walk that path, get twenty yards off that
Speaker 1: path down the middle of the field, and you know
Speaker 1: they're gonna walk that path and get within bow range.
Speaker 1: It's something so simple like that that you could turn
Speaker 1: up a five acre food plot and you know, into
Speaker 1: a blow hunting type area, have a blind out in
Speaker 1: the middle of the field and you know, drive your
Speaker 1: truck buggy forward or whatever you want, make make a
Speaker 1: two track and they're gonna walk it. Yeah. We did
Speaker 1: it in a spot where we have a big standing
Speaker 1: grain field that's in the wide open, and then put
Speaker 1: a scrape tree where we've met our tracks together and
Speaker 1: had a cell cam on it. And it did great.
Speaker 1: I'm bucks work that scrape on in the middle of
Speaker 1: the No man's laying in the middle of the bean field,
Speaker 1: all right. So I love these I love these little
Speaker 1: tweaks that you can make to a food plot to
Speaker 1: make it hunt better. So, so one of these things
Speaker 1: that you just mentioned is the walking strips. And so
Speaker 1: I like the idea of just driving through it if
Speaker 1: you can't, if you don't have the time or or
Speaker 1: tools or whatever to plant these strips of green, you
Speaker 1: can just drive and make a path. But then when
Speaker 1: you're doing the green strips, can you can you tell
Speaker 1: me in a little more detail how you like to
Speaker 1: do those green strips? Do you I'm assuming you you're
Speaker 1: planting your beans or I guess do you ever do
Speaker 1: this with corners? It always beans? And then what do
Speaker 1: you usually like to plant in those strips? Now we
Speaker 1: do it. We do it with both corner beans. Um.
Speaker 1: And because the strips are so small, um, we always
Speaker 1: do something like a wheat or an oat or a combination,
Speaker 1: we oat rye um. Just because if you do we've
Speaker 1: done it, and radishes or whatever they just don't it'll
Speaker 1: end up being a dirt strip. So um, you know,
Speaker 1: we always do those something that continues to grow after
Speaker 1: they handle the pressure. So that's what we But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the biggest thing is like if it's corny,
Speaker 1: you know, get a little mower in there and mow
Speaker 1: your path and then kill it up and and then
Speaker 1: hand seed it and hand fertilize it. And if it's
Speaker 1: just beans, you know, we got six foot tiller on
Speaker 1: the back of a tractor and until you a path
Speaker 1: and you know, do the same thing, hand seed and
Speaker 1: hand fertilize. I was still right through the crops, Yeah,
Speaker 1: until right through the beans. Mm hmm. But you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, if you don't don't have that equipment, somebody,
Speaker 1: somebody could go in there with a lawnmower and you know,
Speaker 1: normally underneath that exposed dirt of a crop field, you know,
Speaker 1: there's enough dirt you could get you could get wheat
Speaker 1: notes or you know, something like that to grow even
Speaker 1: if you just top dressed on the top dress timer
Speaker 1: rain and have the rain, you know, the rain, the
Speaker 1: seed and the fertilizer in. But yeah, it's a great point.
Speaker 1: The scrape trees, that's another thing. And I feel like
Speaker 1: I think that it was you guys and Mark and
Speaker 1: everyone who popularized that first. I mean I can't think
Speaker 1: of anyone who I remember seeing doing it before him. Um,
Speaker 1: but she've been doing you guys been doing it along
Speaker 1: to market the tree coy. Um yeah, yeah, so so
Speaker 1: it's been it's been really popularized now like almost everyone
Speaker 1: who has food plots does this. It's it's just such
Speaker 1: a proven tactic. But but what do you guys, what
Speaker 1: are you guys doing now that it's been fine tuned?
Speaker 1: Like if anyone who's been doing this, you guys have
Speaker 1: been doing this the longest, what's the fine tuned approach
Speaker 1: to it? Now? What are the little things you guys
Speaker 1: have found that makes this more effective? Um? When it
Speaker 1: comes to the details, give me the details of how
Speaker 1: to do the scrape tree to the Mark Jurie level
Speaker 1: of quality. In So, we we started, you know, like
Speaker 1: I said, maybe a year or two after I started, um,
Speaker 1: you know, and we just would go dig a hole
Speaker 1: with you know, post diggers and try and bury the tree.
Speaker 1: Well we figured that didn't work. Um, so then we
Speaker 1: we started coming in and literally just driving a teapost
Speaker 1: in the ground and um, wiring with some thick wire
Speaker 1: the tree right to the tea posts and that had
Speaker 1: seemed to work the best for us. And and another thing, huge,
Speaker 1: huge uh point here that we've found by trial and air.
Speaker 1: And the best tree bar none is definitely a pin
Speaker 1: oak um Like we've tried, you know, little locust trees.
Speaker 1: We tried shingle oaks and pin oaks that hold the
Speaker 1: hold their leaves forever. I mean it, they'd be dead
Speaker 1: and still have leaves on them for months on end.
Speaker 1: But they just seemed to work. Those trees over way
Speaker 1: way better pen times better than any other three you
Speaker 1: can find. Yeah, those are definitely the best trees. And
Speaker 1: another thing is is to make sure your limbs um
Speaker 1: are quartered to the blind uh you know, your your
Speaker 1: best scrape limbs. Sometimes we'll trim the back side of
Speaker 1: the limbs so that they can't scrape on the back
Speaker 1: side of the tree. But quarter that quarter those limbs
Speaker 1: to you so that when the deer comes to work them,
Speaker 1: you know they're quartered away to broadside for a shot
Speaker 1: because they're on the back side of the tree. It says,
Speaker 1: you know good, I mean you can shoot them coming
Speaker 1: and go into it, but um to you know, just
Speaker 1: to tweak it to do it perfect. We always you know,
Speaker 1: put those trees out there about eighteen nineteen yards and
Speaker 1: uh and quarter those scrape limbs right towards the blind
Speaker 1: for sure. But shingle pin oak, it'll work every time.
Speaker 1: That's a trick. And do you ever do you ever
Speaker 1: fix them up? Like I've had sometimes where a tree
Speaker 1: is lost all the sleeves before I was expecting, and
Speaker 1: I thought to myself, Man, I should go and and
Speaker 1: why are up a new branch or something? But then
Speaker 1: I worry about it. I don't want to walk out
Speaker 1: there and leave scent or anything like that. Uh. Do
Speaker 1: you ever go take a piss in the scrape or
Speaker 1: anything to freshen it up? Do you? Is there any
Speaker 1: other things you would do it in season? Or do
Speaker 1: you absolutely leave that stuff alone? No? I mean if
Speaker 1: they break one of our limbs, will absolutely you know,
Speaker 1: cut a limb off of a off of the same
Speaker 1: type of tree and and go read it back wired
Speaker 1: back up. Um. But no, we never start the scrapes
Speaker 1: or anything like that by pissing them or or you know,
Speaker 1: we never mess with them. They just do it on
Speaker 1: their own likes right there where they scraping, and you'll
Speaker 1: never see a doer there again, I'm saying it sounds
Speaker 1: like a personal problem. Um, but if they if they
Speaker 1: break the tree down, we'll redo it, okay, um. Camera.
Speaker 1: And another little what other little tip um that we
Speaker 1: also do is add too, you know, and make them
Speaker 1: walk between almost like a scrape line. Um. They seem
Speaker 1: to bounce back and forth for those trees. It's just
Speaker 1: like a fish to structure. And you know, kid'm walking
Speaker 1: right right there in front of the blood that give
Speaker 1: you an opportunity to shoot one broadside and you know,
Speaker 1: stop and walking you know, the main main goal. Okay,
Speaker 1: So that that's interesting. I hadn't thought about that before.
Speaker 1: That kind of ties into another thing you sometimes hear
Speaker 1: folks talk about, which is some people will put a
Speaker 1: scrape tree in and then they will purposefully try to
Speaker 1: get rid of like other licking branches on the field
Speaker 1: so that the only you know, good spot first scrape
Speaker 1: would be you know, your scrape tree right within range.
Speaker 1: And then I've heard other people who like to have
Speaker 1: like as many licking branches as possible because they want,
Speaker 1: you know, stuff to keep deer in the air. They
Speaker 1: want like time wasters so that the buck will stick
Speaker 1: around and scrape here and scrape there and scrape there
Speaker 1: and never make it to the neighbors, you know, until
Speaker 1: after dark. Um, do you guys ever worry about anything
Speaker 1: like that or or is that you know, not in
Speaker 1: your radar? No, I mean that's that's pretty uh deep,
Speaker 1: I guess, um, but no, I mean we don't we
Speaker 1: don't go cutting any other scrape limbs down or anything
Speaker 1: like that, like kind of like you said, like I
Speaker 1: think it's it's better because whenever a bucks you know,
Speaker 1: on that that scrape run, he just he hit them
Speaker 1: all and they seemed to they seemed to hit the
Speaker 1: scrape tree and I had, yeah, and the natural on
Speaker 1: the tree line and they'll hit twenty in a row
Speaker 1: if they got them there. You know, we've never went
Speaker 1: to set them down. So I was gonna ask them
Speaker 1: about your camera set up on the scrape trees. Now,
Speaker 1: those have been premier you know, photo ops for for
Speaker 1: you guys over the years. What's the current best set
Speaker 1: up for getting cameras and pictures on those scrape trees? Now?
Speaker 1: How do you guys like to position them? Um? And
Speaker 1: do you ever worry about those? You know, I've always
Speaker 1: worried about these cameras like on a T post or
Speaker 1: something right out in the open, like spooking some of
Speaker 1: the deer. Do you guys worry about that at all?
Speaker 1: And I guess what are the other details for your
Speaker 1: setups on your scrapes. No, I mean, we've never really
Speaker 1: worried about that. It's kind of like blinds on our farms,
Speaker 1: and it was just like basically trees because all these
Speaker 1: deer have grown up walking past them. I mean, I
Speaker 1: would say over six of our our cameras are out
Speaker 1: in the middle, you know, on T post and and
Speaker 1: now they have no no fear of them or we've
Speaker 1: never seen that. Um, you know, the only thing we've
Speaker 1: ever had them get very weary on has been sell cameras.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's a click or or what
Speaker 1: it what it may be, but um, we've we've tried.
Speaker 1: But but then again, like that's only a very rare occasion.
Speaker 1: But other than that, um, we haven't really ever had
Speaker 1: any issues. Right, Normally, are cameras are on a T
Speaker 1: post out in the food plot and the scrape tree
Speaker 1: is main framed, you know, main in the center of
Speaker 1: the frame, and then we try to position them to
Speaker 1: where if it's triggered. If a buck's there or a
Speaker 1: deer in general is there, you can see what else
Speaker 1: is out in the field. You know, get a background
Speaker 1: shot also, you know, kind of two for one if
Speaker 1: you will. Yeah, and then another another key thing when
Speaker 1: setting up cameras, a lot of people that don't realize
Speaker 1: and uh is facing it? Uh not not west, not southwest?
Speaker 1: And try and avoid even south um, just because when
Speaker 1: that dear movement time is it seems like a lot
Speaker 1: of sun cuner. Yeah, you just get blown out or
Speaker 1: or backlit and you just can't really tell what it is.
Speaker 1: So avoid that southwest sun in the evenings. And and
Speaker 1: uh so you can face it north or or southeast
Speaker 1: um or any northerly is ideal, um because again they
Speaker 1: just you can mess up pictures in a hurry. And yeah,
Speaker 1: and we always try and like to also be on
Speaker 1: the uphill side kind of pointing downward versus it's looking
Speaker 1: up a hill. Most of the time. It gives you
Speaker 1: that backlit view. So we always try and if you're
Speaker 1: on a hill, face it on the downhill, face it downhill.
Speaker 1: It seems to definitely help get those better quality pictures.
Speaker 1: You can add one of them. You can add one
Speaker 1: of Mark's pet tieves as a sunlit back photo on
Speaker 1: a trail camera. That be a way he put out.
Speaker 1: He's not happy about that. And the thing is that
Speaker 1: we don't The thing is we don't check those trail
Speaker 1: cameras very often now that we got selves. So you know,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't sit there for a month or so and
Speaker 1: and all the photos are backlit. Yeah, that doesn't make
Speaker 1: a happy boss. You got to be aware where you're at. Details, details, details, yes,
Speaker 1: So so back to the food plot architecture side of things.
Speaker 1: We've talked about the scrape trees will help you get shots.
Speaker 1: We've talked about the walking strips. Um. What about actual
Speaker 1: shapes and designs of the plots? Um? I've talked or
Speaker 1: I've heard Mark talked about the past about planting to
Speaker 1: the location. I think he will say sometimes so like
Speaker 1: pick a tree and then like design a plot around it. Um,
Speaker 1: can you talk through some of the design choices? Now?
Speaker 1: You know, it seems like a lot of guys will
Speaker 1: just make a big square or a big circle or something.
Speaker 1: But I see you guys sometimes doing horse shoes and
Speaker 1: different things like that. Um, what are some of those
Speaker 1: best designs you guys have found. Um, you know, one
Speaker 1: of the best and one that we have the most
Speaker 1: success on is that horseshoe shape. Um. And again planting
Speaker 1: to your position. Obviously, we try and put our blind
Speaker 1: you know, at the top end of the horse shoe
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, we have a plot or a
Speaker 1: boomerang horseshoe all the same, but we have a more
Speaker 1: of a rat type plot for you know, bow season.
Speaker 1: They seem to like their ashes more during bow season.
Speaker 1: Will plant that, you know, right up close to the
Speaker 1: blind and uh, and then out on the ends we'll
Speaker 1: have you know, winter bub of sugar beets or or
Speaker 1: clover or you know beans. Yeah. So the horseshoe is
Speaker 1: is one of our favorites just because they have to
Speaker 1: almost walk the whole plot to see what's on the
Speaker 1: other side, you know, or they'll be right in front
Speaker 1: of where they can see down both sides. Just seems
Speaker 1: like a they move through that type of plot better
Speaker 1: just because they're you know, so curious and they want
Speaker 1: to get to that point where they can see everything
Speaker 1: that's in the field. Yeah. Are there any others that
Speaker 1: you've been using lately or that have worked well or
Speaker 1: is that now, like you're the number one. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: another really good one that that we like to do
Speaker 1: if we're just I mean, we do a lot of
Speaker 1: green fields. Um the main another main shape that we do,
Speaker 1: and that is just like a football field. So like
Speaker 1: basically if they step into your green green plot, you're
Speaker 1: gonna get a shot. So fifty yards across fifty yards
Speaker 1: either way, and it seems to be about the right
Speaker 1: size that they won't eat it out, um, you know,
Speaker 1: and and really good size for bow honey. So those
Speaker 1: are the oh, it's two best, I would say. And
Speaker 1: always just natural structure that's on a farm, Like we
Speaker 1: plant some spots to have natural fence gaps where they've
Speaker 1: walked for years, and you know, we bring our green
Speaker 1: walking strips through that fence gap and then bringing them
Speaker 1: past us in a blind. Um. You know, natural structure
Speaker 1: works really good to also, but you create a new plot,
Speaker 1: like you were talking about, Mark picks a tree and
Speaker 1: that's kind of the uh turning point of the horseshoe
Speaker 1: or boomerang if you will, you know, that's kind of
Speaker 1: the center of it. So you know, another thing I
Speaker 1: think I've seen a few times and I'm curious if
Speaker 1: this is something you do a lot. I've seen in
Speaker 1: some of these plots that are more of like rectangular ish.
Speaker 1: I've seen what looks like you guys are almost building
Speaker 1: a wall or laying blowdowns in a wall kind of
Speaker 1: right near where you're blind or tree stand is and
Speaker 1: then leaving a gap. Though, So there's basically like if
Speaker 1: you imagine you have a rectangle and then if you're
Speaker 1: blind is at the fifty yard line in the middle
Speaker 1: of the field. I've seen some plots where then on
Speaker 1: the opposite side from your fifty you'll have like a
Speaker 1: wall of trees that goes halfway across that pinches down
Speaker 1: the movement across that plot too, really close to your blinderstand?
Speaker 1: Am I seeing that? Did you guys make those? Are
Speaker 1: those just some coincidental natural structure that I'm seeing in
Speaker 1: some of these plots? Now, we always we always use
Speaker 1: that type of stuff, um, you know, I mean we
Speaker 1: put it on on the same side as our blind
Speaker 1: as well, just again for access coming and going, because
Speaker 1: going it's just as important as coming. Um, So you
Speaker 1: can slide down behind that wall of you know, trees
Speaker 1: that you may have taken out of that plot. When
Speaker 1: you built it and uh, you know, not affects the
Speaker 1: deer that are on the plot. You just build it
Speaker 1: up high enough and and slide in, slide out without
Speaker 1: the deer even though you're coming. And like what you
Speaker 1: were saying, the ones that are across the field, Um,
Speaker 1: same thing, just as a basically just to punch them down.
Speaker 1: You know, dear pretty easy to guide. They like the
Speaker 1: pass of least resistance, so they're gonna walk around the
Speaker 1: end of that and push them right in closer to
Speaker 1: Boe range. Yeah. Um, I'm I'm recall another These are
Speaker 1: all the little weird things I've noticed over the years.
Speaker 1: But something that I heard maybe as you Wade talk
Speaker 1: about or someone talked about one point was thinking about
Speaker 1: where food plots will shade first, and that that sometimes
Speaker 1: impacting how you plant or where you position things. Can
Speaker 1: you can you explain that a little bit, because that's
Speaker 1: something I've never thought about before. Yeah, absolutely so. Um,
Speaker 1: if you watch a field, those deer that come out early,
Speaker 1: they always go to that shade. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's you know, I know why it is. It's because
Speaker 1: they feel more secure there, um in that darker part
Speaker 1: of the field. Early season, it's cooler. Um, So yeah,
Speaker 1: they'll definitely uh go to that shaded side of the
Speaker 1: field first, um, Like I said, just for out of
Speaker 1: whether it be early season, in the in the heat,
Speaker 1: they go to that shade and and they feel more
Speaker 1: secure in that. So yeah, we'll definitely try and get
Speaker 1: closer to that shady side in the field if if
Speaker 1: that's the type of plot design that, um, that we
Speaker 1: have in that particular spot. But they definitely every single
Speaker 1: time you you watch the field, you'll see that. If
Speaker 1: people will pay attention to that, they'll definitely see with
Speaker 1: them here coming and they'll early season, we've had him
Speaker 1: run across like come out on the other side of
Speaker 1: the field, run across the sun and just stop and
Speaker 1: put their heads down right in that shape, right at
Speaker 1: the shade line. And it's funny the sun starts to fall,
Speaker 1: but you're start to ease, you know, just follow that
Speaker 1: shade line. They'll be right on it for sure, especially
Speaker 1: early season. Yeah, earlier warm is the main main time
Speaker 1: for that. It's interesting, Um, you mentioned the when I
Speaker 1: asked you about the down tree walls and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: you mentioned how sometimes you'll put those on your side
Speaker 1: of the field to help with access. Is there anything
Speaker 1: else you guys are doing with your food plots to
Speaker 1: help you with that access and exit? You know, I've
Speaker 1: some guys will hinge cut the whole side of a
Speaker 1: field so they can slip up behind that. Some guys
Speaker 1: do use blowdowns. I mean, if there are all sorts
Speaker 1: of different things, what do you guys usually use or
Speaker 1: or set up so you can get out of these places?
Speaker 1: I always wonder, like you guys hunt so many field
Speaker 1: edge setups and and there's always so many deer them.
Speaker 1: I'm always shocked that you guys can get in and
Speaker 1: out without these deer catching on really quick. Yeah, for sure. Um,
Speaker 1: like this year in a big bottom we have we
Speaker 1: you know, plant plant blockers standing corn um, any kind
Speaker 1: of blocker grass if you will plant that. Also, there's
Speaker 1: some spots where we jump in creek beds and walk
Speaker 1: those all the way from the road to the ladder
Speaker 1: of the back of the blind. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: anything that puts you your profile below. You know, eyesight
Speaker 1: is great, and the corn worked really good this year.
Speaker 1: We haven't hadn't done that in that bottom this year
Speaker 1: and tried it to work great. Snuck into that blond
Speaker 1: a few times with deer out on the field. So
Speaker 1: um and and back to these smaller parcel farms. You know,
Speaker 1: access is key key because coming in, going because you know,
Speaker 1: if you only have one small farm and you're you
Speaker 1: got the right wind, you know, say two nights, three
Speaker 1: nights in a row, you're gonna want to go back
Speaker 1: in there the next night. But you know by night too.
Speaker 1: If you blow that field off the second night in
Speaker 1: a row on your exit, you know they're gonna those
Speaker 1: mature bucks are are gonna you know, it's gonna start
Speaker 1: affecting them. So if you can get in and out
Speaker 1: of your blind without the deer knowing that you're there,
Speaker 1: like I said, X is just as key as entrance.
Speaker 1: So if you can get out of there without them
Speaker 1: even know when you're there, you're gonna be able to
Speaker 1: hunt those small farms, uh, you know, and not have
Speaker 1: to give them such a break. Because if the deer
Speaker 1: don't know you're there, you know, and your winds perfect,
Speaker 1: your access perfect, you know, you'll be able to come
Speaker 1: and go as you please. So that's why we do
Speaker 1: on some of these smaller farms, you know, try and
Speaker 1: make access number one. Yeah, more number one. Even when
Speaker 1: we get out of the blind, like you know, you
Speaker 1: just get a flash flight out of your pack and
Speaker 1: you know, get a light out so they don't associate
Speaker 1: with your wind or your scent when you get out
Speaker 1: of the blond. I mean we even out screech at
Speaker 1: him something natural to get them to bump off the field,
Speaker 1: not just walked out, not just some guy climbing out
Speaker 1: of belind you know. Yeah, yeah, those are always stressful
Speaker 1: moments when you think you've got it cleared and you
Speaker 1: finally slip out of the tree and then something blows
Speaker 1: right behind you or something. But yeah, we've all been there. Um,
Speaker 1: another kind of large topic that we probably don't have
Speaker 1: time to get into the real details of it. But
Speaker 1: it's also something that's been covered a thousand times, and
Speaker 1: that's you know, making decisions about what to plant and
Speaker 1: and that's very situation dependent and location dependent, soil quality dependent,
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. Um. But I but I
Speaker 1: have noticed something, and I'm curious if this is true
Speaker 1: or if it's just something that I've am mistakenly picking
Speaker 1: up on. I've it seems like rarely do I ever
Speaker 1: see a food plot that you guys have planted this
Speaker 1: just one thing anymore, like it's very rarely just like
Speaker 1: us just an oat plot. It's usually like a combination
Speaker 1: of something like a like a radish plot here in
Speaker 1: the corner by your stand, and then it transitions to
Speaker 1: something else, and then it transitions to something else. Do
Speaker 1: you is that the case? Do you guys always layer
Speaker 1: different things in each plot now? Or if if so,
Speaker 1: why and if not, you know, describe the situations when
Speaker 1: you would Yeah, no, I mean I would say that
Speaker 1: that is the case on on a lot of our fields.
Speaker 1: And and again that's just the whole soul purpose for
Speaker 1: that is is hunting different times of the year. You know,
Speaker 1: we plant the products that they prefer late um, whether
Speaker 1: it be grain or bolts or or Braska's um out
Speaker 1: of the distance when we would most likely be hunting
Speaker 1: with a gun, and then up close you know we
Speaker 1: have the clover or ad is something that they prefer
Speaker 1: um early season, uh, you know until that post rut time.
Speaker 1: You know, it seems like they really prefer those earlier.
Speaker 1: So just plant basically on top time of year that
Speaker 1: we're trying to hunt that particular field, if there's a
Speaker 1: particular target there. Um, when we want to try and
Speaker 1: target him based on history with him when he shows up, uh,
Speaker 1: so on and so forth. So it just kind of
Speaker 1: determine what dear we're targeting. Um, and then we almost
Speaker 1: sometimes will even plant for a particular dear of what
Speaker 1: he had preferred the year before winning showed up when
Speaker 1: we think we could kill him, um, stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So but yeah, I know that's that is correct. We
Speaker 1: do layer uh for that purpose. Basically because most of
Speaker 1: our fields, we have to plan them big enough that
Speaker 1: you know that they'll make. So therefore, to get him
Speaker 1: within bow range, we have to plan a product that
Speaker 1: they prefer during both seasons. Yeah, what what do you
Speaker 1: guys feel like? This is kind of going back to
Speaker 1: where we start a little bit. But Um, as far
Speaker 1: as like the size of one of these things to
Speaker 1: actually make a difference, do you guys have a minimum
Speaker 1: size food plot that you guys have found only if
Speaker 1: it's less than this size that it really doesn't do
Speaker 1: much for us? Um? Is that is that a thing
Speaker 1: in your mind? Or or will you do a half
Speaker 1: acre food plot if it's in the right place, because
Speaker 1: it's it's still got some power at that size. I
Speaker 1: would say for sure, we will do a half acre.
Speaker 1: We've got some half half acre green fields, but they're
Speaker 1: tucked into a bean field or cornfield that's carved out. Um,
Speaker 1: so there's more acres there for them to eat, I mean.
Speaker 1: And also I think a lot of that depends on
Speaker 1: your deer density, you know, across the Midwest, whether it's
Speaker 1: you in Michigan or you know, somewhere else in the
Speaker 1: Midwest and in the South, like there might be places
Speaker 1: where you only see five six deer at night. We're
Speaker 1: up here, Uh, there's so much habitat and the deer
Speaker 1: density is so high. We have to make that food
Speaker 1: plot means something to them, not only from a drawing
Speaker 1: standpoint to draw them in to get them to come
Speaker 1: feed there, but also yeah, sustainable. They're going to be
Speaker 1: able to feed on it for a month, two months,
Speaker 1: you know in a lot of these places you see,
Speaker 1: so you gotta have you gotta have some acres to
Speaker 1: sustain those mouths that or or just something that that
Speaker 1: regrows re regenerate clover or wheat, right, I know, that
Speaker 1: type of grain, especially the walking strips, like they're so
Speaker 1: small and they work so good. That's why we always
Speaker 1: go with you know, winter grass or you know, wheat
Speaker 1: rise something something that keeps growing even though they nip
Speaker 1: it off. Okay, So last food question, which is related
Speaker 1: to a challenge. I know you guys felt this year.
Speaker 1: A lot of people felt this year. I did, um,
Speaker 1: and over a lot of recent years, which is drought.
Speaker 1: You know, planting a food plot in August and then
Speaker 1: you know, the rain that was supposed to come doesn't
Speaker 1: come and you get a failure or some kind. What
Speaker 1: have you guys learned over these recent years as far
Speaker 1: as dealing with that and how can you recover? You know,
Speaker 1: I used to think, like I plant something a drought
Speaker 1: can aman, it was really crappy, and then I was kylie,
Speaker 1: well I'm doomed. Um And I've been trying later plantings
Speaker 1: and subsequent second or third seatings and different stuff like that.
Speaker 1: What have you guys found has helped you deal with
Speaker 1: that situation best? Well, we'll we'll say that all of
Speaker 1: our green fields were doomed to pitch year we plant.
Speaker 1: I think every single green sil we went across, we
Speaker 1: replanted it three times. Um. You know, obviously the last
Speaker 1: planting did the best, and and sometimes the second planting
Speaker 1: did all right, Um, but you know we uh we
Speaker 1: have a trailer with six fifty gallon water tank on
Speaker 1: it that uh you know again we target key bucks
Speaker 1: and uh plus that we're wanting to try and kill
Speaker 1: them on and we'll go in, we'll fence off those
Speaker 1: plots and we'll water it. One of our one of
Speaker 1: our best fields this year. We fenced it off right
Speaker 1: after it was planted, didn't even let it get up,
Speaker 1: and Perry mostly Perry uh watered it. You know, he'd
Speaker 1: put an enter rain on it once a week and
Speaker 1: uh it turned out to be one of our our
Speaker 1: best plots. And catch an enter rain across an acre.
Speaker 1: What is add some thousand gallons? I think, well, that's
Speaker 1: totally I had my anomical amount. Yeah, I watered four
Speaker 1: or five key plots this summer during the drought, and
Speaker 1: I had over a hundred forty thousand gallons of water
Speaker 1: put down. I believe it's is a rounded number. It was.
Speaker 1: It was in that hundred fifty thousand range. What we
Speaker 1: watered this year. It was. It was insane. And so
Speaker 1: about eight takes about eight takes a day, um I
Speaker 1: would do. And we have a sixteen hundred gallon tank.
Speaker 1: That's bolted to a trailer with a pump, so siyeh,
Speaker 1: about sixteen thousand gallons a day and I did that
Speaker 1: for a few weeks. Isn't that crazy? It's crazy how
Speaker 1: much work that is to do manually and mother nature
Speaker 1: just does it so easily. On it soon one one
Speaker 1: hour could save a week worth of work, you know, crazy, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we we talked about that all the time
Speaker 1: of of how I was like, dang it, one one
Speaker 1: half inch rain would would save us a week's worth
Speaker 1: of work of solid work, you know, solid watering. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: that's wild. And so how how did that pay off
Speaker 1: for you guys? Did those four or five key food
Speaker 1: plots end up being worth it? Yeah? Absolutely? Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean we definitely had some fresh green to hunt over.
Speaker 1: Most all of our third planning stuff have been planned
Speaker 1: all the way into October. Um, the first part of October,
Speaker 1: I think we were planning wet wheat notes and we
Speaker 1: got those October rains and it actually did all right.
Speaker 1: But that was our saving grace, that third planting that
Speaker 1: we we went in and drilled. But but yeah, those
Speaker 1: those ones that he watered, um, we're definitely key spots
Speaker 1: because there was zero green anywhere. So we did have
Speaker 1: some key spots to two hunts, but it's it's hard
Speaker 1: to to grab all of them. You just have to
Speaker 1: pick your key one key plots and and uh focus
Speaker 1: on those. That's all you could do. So so back
Speaker 1: to that third planning, would you guys say that you know,
Speaker 1: doing that late September or early October planting of some
Speaker 1: kind of cereal grain, You know, it sounds like that
Speaker 1: was still worth it. You got enough growth out of
Speaker 1: it that it actually helped and the the late the
Speaker 1: late activity didn't hurt you too much. Um No, I
Speaker 1: mean it it definitely definitely helped us for UM. You know,
Speaker 1: as mild as this as this um winter was, you know,
Speaker 1: they always come back to green really really heavy right
Speaker 1: after the rut. And uh, those were some of our
Speaker 1: best plots with those you know, wheaten cereal grain plots
Speaker 1: that we planted in late September early October. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it definitely definitely made a huge change because
Speaker 1: again there was no green anywhere else. No one else
Speaker 1: could get any green to grow um because again they
Speaker 1: would give up after about the second planning. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: so it did, it definitely did pay off. But we
Speaker 1: went over those fields so many times countless hours, um
Speaker 1: all you know, all for this season. And again that's stuff.
Speaker 1: Those weeks worth of watering, you know, just NonStop watering
Speaker 1: for eight ten hours a day. Um, you know those
Speaker 1: three times across this field. As the things that a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't see and scratch their head when
Speaker 1: we're succeeding. Um, you know, it's just the man hours
Speaker 1: that we put to to make everything go around. You know. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's definitely an investment for sure. Um. So I
Speaker 1: want to talk to you Perry about a specialty of yours, um,
Speaker 1: shifting gears here a little bit. Since we've I've I've
Speaker 1: somehow sucked an hour of your time already just talking
Speaker 1: about food. Um, you guys both talked about and uh
Speaker 1: and cover is you know, something sometimes that you're naturally
Speaker 1: blessed with on a property and sometimes you have to
Speaker 1: create it. Um when it comes to creating new bedding
Speaker 1: cover or putting it in the places you want. You
Speaker 1: mentioned something really interesting, which is that you go out
Speaker 1: there with the chainsaw and you're gonna you know, walk
Speaker 1: into the timber until you know you're at least a
Speaker 1: hundred hundred fifty yards away from that food, so you
Speaker 1: can you know, access without spooking deer off the bedding. Um.
Speaker 1: Can you can you share any other specific detail type
Speaker 1: things you're thinking about when you go and try to
Speaker 1: create these betting or better cover pockets with the chainsaw?
Speaker 1: What are some of the other things that you're thinking
Speaker 1: about when you're out there doing it, Whether it's the locations,
Speaker 1: the size of these patches that you're cutting, um, any
Speaker 1: other decisions you're making out there. Yeah, for sure. I
Speaker 1: mean Mark doesn't want his entire timber looking like a
Speaker 1: dead fall. Um. You know, it's underbrush everywhere, so we
Speaker 1: kind of pocket it. We make you know, we make
Speaker 1: little homes for the deer if you will. Um, you
Speaker 1: get that distance that we talked about earlier, you get
Speaker 1: to that spot and you look around and uh, in
Speaker 1: March timber, I pretty much cut everything except oaks and
Speaker 1: walnuts that that's uh cleared by him. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna say that everybody needs to do that, but
Speaker 1: we pretty much take every tree we don't want besides
Speaker 1: those two species, and we make a you know, whether
Speaker 1: it's an eighty by eighty yard or fifty by fifty
Speaker 1: yard shape or area, and we we drop all the
Speaker 1: trees in that area. We might not drop them all,
Speaker 1: we might ring some just to have some dead stands
Speaker 1: and to get the sunlight to the floor. And we
Speaker 1: do this in areas that we you know, on fifty
Speaker 1: acre piece or mark killed his big deer this year.
Speaker 1: Um it was wide open timber, a lot a lot
Speaker 1: of hickories, younger eighteen inch type pickeries that, and and
Speaker 1: and a few oaks scattered in and out of there,
Speaker 1: but mainly hickories which have very little um, you know,
Speaker 1: food and Wildlife specifies for deer at least values. So
Speaker 1: went in there and did some pretty extensive t s.
Speaker 1: I in in a big area about a hundred yards
Speaker 1: from that plot. And this year, I mean we held
Speaker 1: in that it's probably forty acres of timber. In that timber.
Speaker 1: We held more deer in there this year than probably
Speaker 1: ever hasn't an entire its entire life because you could
Speaker 1: see from one end to the other and now you
Speaker 1: currently cannot. So h when do you, yeah, when do
Speaker 1: you choose to do the ringing versus completely falling the tree?
Speaker 1: Is it? Do you all? Do you prefer to do?
Speaker 1: Bring the whole thing in the ground most of the
Speaker 1: time because it gets you that ground level cover plus
Speaker 1: the sunlight or or how do you make that decision
Speaker 1: between the two different applicate or ways to do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I would say I would say I'm probably
Speaker 1: seventy bringing it down ringing. Um, we've got some leases
Speaker 1: that people allowed us to do T s I. But
Speaker 1: they don't want a big mess. And so in that
Speaker 1: case we you know, ring more to let them, let
Speaker 1: them stand dead, but you still get that sunlight to
Speaker 1: the floor of the forest. Um, if I'm creating, you know,
Speaker 1: if it's a smaller farm where say I'm creating an
Speaker 1: eight by eight h pocket of T S I, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna bring a lot down because in that small pocket
Speaker 1: of timber, you're gonna want as much four cover as possible.
Speaker 1: You know, you're gonna want as many canopies you can
Speaker 1: get on the on the ground. Yeah. What about hine cutting?
Speaker 1: Do you guy ever do that? Certainly? Um, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna sit here and tell you that it's safe where
Speaker 1: your where your gear and you know, protect yourself and
Speaker 1: be smarter where you do it and where you cut
Speaker 1: the tree. Um, but get a tree to lay on
Speaker 1: the ground and continue to produce foliage. Um, you gotta
Speaker 1: you gotta hinge cut it. There's not a whole lot
Speaker 1: other ways to get it there. And do you do
Speaker 1: that in a similar kind of pocket kind of design
Speaker 1: like you're doing with your general t s as well? Correct? Yes, Now,
Speaker 1: another betting area I see you guys hunting around a
Speaker 1: lot is some kind of grass. I see some some
Speaker 1: pretty extensive use of some kind of native grasses. I'm
Speaker 1: assuming on a variety of your farms. What do you
Speaker 1: do you ever plant grass specifically for betting or is
Speaker 1: it more often like transition from timber to food. I
Speaker 1: think I've seen both with you guys. But how do
Speaker 1: you guys usually at grasses? And what's what are you
Speaker 1: guys using for? And how you know we do Mark?
Speaker 1: One of Mark's first farms up here in Iowa was
Speaker 1: basically cattle cattle pasture with a giant drawl um down
Speaker 1: through the middle with a bunch of fingers off of it.
Speaker 1: And uh, like I said, it was grazed by cattle
Speaker 1: for years. It was three inch tall grass and uh,
Speaker 1: you know he came in this was before my time,
Speaker 1: but he came in planted warm seas and grasses throughout
Speaker 1: the whole thing and rolled it in CRP and turned
Speaker 1: it into possibly one of the best farms in southern Iowa.
Speaker 1: That literally was just a growing up cattle pasture and
Speaker 1: mostly the grass served as a buffer, uh to make
Speaker 1: those draws that much more appealing it, you know, and
Speaker 1: give them that much more security cover more so than
Speaker 1: than the betting. I mean, they do bet out in
Speaker 1: the grass, um, but I would say it's it's definitely
Speaker 1: more of a buffer to make the draws in the
Speaker 1: timber that much more appealing to the year and access,
Speaker 1: you know, getting getting around left farm, getting from spot
Speaker 1: to spot. So um, they do bet at it, but
Speaker 1: I would say it's more of a transition buffer or
Speaker 1: safety uh type thing for them. And you know, we
Speaker 1: we do a mix of of big blue, little blue
Speaker 1: uh cave and rock switch um and some some different
Speaker 1: Indian grasses. And the reason that we do the mixture
Speaker 1: is because it it gives the diversity and the heights
Speaker 1: um you're anywhere from you know, three ft or you know,
Speaker 1: need a mid thigh all the way up to eight
Speaker 1: nine ft tall grasses and and those uh pockets of
Speaker 1: that shorter grass allows the deer to to walk through.
Speaker 1: You know, if you do solid cave and rock switch,
Speaker 1: you know, that stuff gets so thick that you know,
Speaker 1: a deer can't even hardly walk through it or walk
Speaker 1: through it comfortably. So, um, we do it, you know,
Speaker 1: with that, with that mixture of different heights of grass,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know you could you could turn a
Speaker 1: cattle farm into a really good deer farm with you know,
Speaker 1: all that extra cover of the grass and then you
Speaker 1: a little bit of T. S I and the and
Speaker 1: the draws and stuff. Um, but yeah, it's it's more
Speaker 1: of a buffer on our stuff than than it is
Speaker 1: for actual betting. Okay, okay, is there anything else you
Speaker 1: guys are doing when it comes to that cover side
Speaker 1: of the equation, Any other tricks up your sleeve or
Speaker 1: projects that you work on many years that that help
Speaker 1: on that side of things outside of grasses and doing
Speaker 1: some T s I. No, not something, Hey do you
Speaker 1: think anything? And I mean those are the two the
Speaker 1: two main things that we do to improve improved cover. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean burns you know normally on grasses. So yeah,
Speaker 1: we do burn our timbers some as well. Um, especially
Speaker 1: you have to watch your your t s I areas
Speaker 1: because you burn all your your cover there, so you
Speaker 1: kind of got to go around and and you know,
Speaker 1: make fire lines and stuff around your t S side
Speaker 1: so that doesn't burn up. But we'll run a fire
Speaker 1: through our timber and bring on that new growth. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, particularly right after you know the spring, the springtime,
Speaker 1: right after we do ring a bunch of trees and
Speaker 1: open up that soil so that sunlight from those trees
Speaker 1: that are wrong can shine through and turn it into
Speaker 1: a jungle. Wow. So what would be you know, with
Speaker 1: you if you were to set off on your own.
Speaker 1: Let's say you guys are now both you've got a
Speaker 1: little nest egg from all your hard work, You've got
Speaker 1: a little money, you bought your own little farm, and
Speaker 1: you somehow have enough time to do your own work
Speaker 1: for a little bit. But Mark says, you can't use
Speaker 1: any of my equipment. You can't you can't use my
Speaker 1: big water tank, you can't take my tractor. You know,
Speaker 1: man up, boys and do it on your own. Figure
Speaker 1: it out. And so now you're on a tight budget
Speaker 1: and you've got limited equipment, and your first farm is
Speaker 1: a little forty acre piece or something, and you, you know,
Speaker 1: you had to get started with with a little bit
Speaker 1: more limited resources and stuff like that. What would be
Speaker 1: one thing you've learned from all your time here with Mark?
Speaker 1: What's one project or one thing you've learned that you
Speaker 1: would try to apply on a budget to improve your
Speaker 1: first farm. I don't know if something comes to mind,
Speaker 1: but if you you know, if it's if it's a
Speaker 1: food plot, you're gonna plan, how do you think you
Speaker 1: can do it on a budget with with limited equipment?
Speaker 1: If instead you're like, man, I'm gonna do this other
Speaker 1: kind of project, you know, how could you do something
Speaker 1: on tight time type budget in a small place? Um?
Speaker 1: What would that one thing that comes to mind for
Speaker 1: you first? Perry be, I was gonna let Wade go first,
Speaker 1: But I can tell you mine. I mean, I kind
Speaker 1: of I kind of got this. My dad and I
Speaker 1: have eight acres together in northern Missouri. Um, we don't
Speaker 1: we don't have a lot of money to do much
Speaker 1: of anything really, but this year I'm gonna frosteed almost
Speaker 1: three and a half acres of clover and uh, I
Speaker 1: bought a hundred dollar box line and redid it. So
Speaker 1: I got a box line and I'm gonna have a
Speaker 1: huge clover field. So um, that's that's me. Really, I
Speaker 1: don't have a big green food source, You're gonna have
Speaker 1: a lot of deer that use it. I mean, clover
Speaker 1: is one of the cheapest, easiest food plots you can do,
Speaker 1: and I mean the palllability is amazing. We've killed a
Speaker 1: lot of deer on clover and uh cheap box line
Speaker 1: and hold a little bit of cent in you know,
Speaker 1: get that upper hand on them. But that would be mine.
Speaker 1: Is is a clover field and a and a good
Speaker 1: box line. I like it. What about you, Wade? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was kind of gonna go down the same path
Speaker 1: as Perry. Uh in the fact of you know, putting
Speaker 1: in you know, hopefully you have a little bit of
Speaker 1: cover on that farm already that you can improve by.
Speaker 1: You know, most everybody owns a chainsaw, a little bit
Speaker 1: of t s I to picking it up and hold
Speaker 1: deer and then uh, you know, go in with a
Speaker 1: more you know, your lawn mowre and uh mow at all,
Speaker 1: mow down an area for a little food plot and
Speaker 1: uh you know, then go in and and burn that
Speaker 1: that area off. And then you know, if you don't
Speaker 1: have a drill or anything like that. You could you know,
Speaker 1: burn it and then top dress your clover and maybe
Speaker 1: roll it in with a cultpack. You can go rent
Speaker 1: you know, behind a four wheeler or truck even and
Speaker 1: uh but clovers, like Perry was saying, it's just so
Speaker 1: im palatable to them. It's really easy to get to
Speaker 1: grow because it's such a small seed, and uh, it's
Speaker 1: pretty low maintenance overall. You know, you could take your
Speaker 1: your house lawn more and mow the weeds out of it.
Speaker 1: You could spray it with a backpack sprayer, and uh
Speaker 1: it keeps regenerating, so you don't have to have a
Speaker 1: giant food plot. You know, you could have a you know,
Speaker 1: a half acre food plot and and be able to
Speaker 1: hand spray or four wheel or spray it and uh
Speaker 1: not need all the equipment. But you know, clovers, like
Speaker 1: I said, it's pretty pretty easy to grow and fairly
Speaker 1: cheap and easy to maintain and keeps growing here after year.
Speaker 1: So I mean, if you just frost seed it and
Speaker 1: you know, February every year and keep the grass and
Speaker 1: weeds off it with spray, you'll have a food plut
Speaker 1: there every year with low maintenance and low cost yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean plant food and t s I would be
Speaker 1: the two things that about anybody could do. Even if
Speaker 1: you go to your you know, a little rental place,
Speaker 1: they can about rent you a pull behind disc if
Speaker 1: you want to do that, or you know, it's not
Speaker 1: that expensive to to rent stuff. You don't have to
Speaker 1: own everything, but you can definitely rent stuff that. You know,
Speaker 1: you can even pull one of those behind your truck.
Speaker 1: Everybody has a truck, so um, you know, just small
Speaker 1: things like that. It's easy to do with just house
Speaker 1: household stuff. I mean, heck, whenever I was whenever I
Speaker 1: was in high school, my grandpa he owned an eighty
Speaker 1: acre farm, and uh my dad and I were out
Speaker 1: there with with rakes and weed eaters and we were,
Speaker 1: you know, a raking. I mean, it wasn't a big
Speaker 1: plot at all, but we got we got a greenfield
Speaker 1: to grow by you know t S I and you
Speaker 1: know some of that timber where the light would get
Speaker 1: down into it. We were right on the edge of
Speaker 1: the timber because he had a crop field, so we
Speaker 1: had to go right on the edge of the timber
Speaker 1: and we went in and uh wrung those trees where
Speaker 1: the light would get down to the plot and we
Speaker 1: use all the weeks that grew in the timber and
Speaker 1: raked all the leaves out of there, and and got
Speaker 1: that seat down and raked it all in. It was
Speaker 1: a lot of handwork, but we had a small little
Speaker 1: greenfield to hunt over, so it could be done. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it takes a little time and a little
Speaker 1: bit of effort and uh, but you could have have
Speaker 1: a little plot to hunt over for sure. But definitely
Speaker 1: food always helps. Yeah, hard to argue with that. So
Speaker 1: I want to I want to let you guys go
Speaker 1: so you can get your stuff together and getting ready
Speaker 1: to go coy out hunting to night. But one last question,
Speaker 1: which is that I'm curious as you look forward to
Speaker 1: this new year, and I'm sure you guys have already
Speaker 1: been thinking about this. I gotta believe that Mark's already
Speaker 1: staying up late at night, not sleeping, thinking about the
Speaker 1: one buck or the two big bucks or whatever dear
Speaker 1: he's hoping him praying will survive and make it to
Speaker 1: next year. I'm wondering, if you have a buck like
Speaker 1: that in mind already, what do you think the most
Speaker 1: important habitat project is going to be for you guys
Speaker 1: to help you kill whatever that one or two or
Speaker 1: whatever these target bucks are that you're really hoping they're
Speaker 1: gonna blow and survive next year. Is there one project
Speaker 1: that comes to mind that you guys are thinking, like, man,
Speaker 1: there's probably buck a and there's this little food plot
Speaker 1: that I know we gotta fix up. Or is there
Speaker 1: anything that you guys can think of off the top
Speaker 1: of your minds that you know you're really gonna have
Speaker 1: to nail this year. You know. The main thing is,
Speaker 1: like all of our stuff is pretty dialed. I mean,
Speaker 1: we haven't really gotten any new farms over the last
Speaker 1: couple of years, so everything's pretty dialed in from that standpoint. So,
Speaker 1: I mean the main thing that we got to focus
Speaker 1: on is just making sure we have good food plots.
Speaker 1: We get them in with the timely rain, we make
Speaker 1: sure they're prepps perfect, um, you know, just so we
Speaker 1: have the food that we need to sustain us all
Speaker 1: year to to be able to kill that deer. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's our number one thing. So I said, we've got
Speaker 1: everything pretty well dialed from the point of like improvements.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, we just picked up a new lease. Um,
Speaker 1: it's kind of uh, it'll be a project Farm if
Speaker 1: you will. We got clearance from the CRP program to
Speaker 1: do you know big Greenfield, Big Greenfield that's kind of
Speaker 1: out away from uh some huge cover. I mean there's
Speaker 1: some good cover on it, but it'll be interesting to
Speaker 1: see what bucks we hold from summer to winter because
Speaker 1: we don't have a pile of cover. We got some
Speaker 1: so there'll be a nice project farm. I think we're
Speaker 1: gonna dial it up real nice and I look forward
Speaker 1: to to seeing what it produces. Well, I think you know,
Speaker 1: everybody should know to be checking out dear cast and
Speaker 1: I'll be checking out the YouTube channel uh to to
Speaker 1: follow on these kinds of things. But is there anything
Speaker 1: specific you want to send folks to to check out
Speaker 1: or for us to be keeping an eye out anything
Speaker 1: new we should be keeping an eye out for this
Speaker 1: year when it comes to content or anything else. Or
Speaker 1: should we just stay tuned and keep on falling along. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, deer cast is are our main outlet for
Speaker 1: all of our new stuff. I mean, you know, you
Speaker 1: get in the now content right there. Um. With Turkey
Speaker 1: season coming up, we'll be doing doing all the Lives
Speaker 1: again and and having a Turkey Season twenty three where
Speaker 1: you know they could watch all of our turkey kills
Speaker 1: right there, you know, within a day or so of
Speaker 1: us killing. So we're gonna get that instant, instant gratification.
Speaker 1: So just stay tuned to deer Cast and and the
Speaker 1: feed there and um, best of luck to everybody this
Speaker 1: spring and uh and and working towards that that fall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're ready turkey and be where we're coming for you. Well, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I appreciate you taking time and do this. I know
Speaker 1: that this this slight slowdown is um time that you cherish,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, so thanks for sharing a little bit of
Speaker 1: that time with me and talking habitant. This has been fun.
Speaker 1: Absolutely appreciate it, Mark anytime, man, all right, and that's
Speaker 1: a rap. Thank you all for joining me. Like I said,
Speaker 1: be sure to check out what they've got going on
Speaker 1: over on deer Cast. Big thanks to Wade, Perry, Mark
Speaker 1: and the whole team. Um. I've appreciated what they've shared
Speaker 1: with the world for many years and with their generous
Speaker 1: you know the fact that they're always willing to chat
Speaker 1: with me and chat with us here at the podcast,
Speaker 1: I certainly have learned a lot and uh, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of you have too. So thanks gentlemen, thank
Speaker 1: you all for listening. It's time to start getting back
Speaker 1: to work. If we've had a little break from deer,
Speaker 1: now it's time to dive back in. We have work
Speaker 1: to do out in the property. If you own land
Speaker 1: or lease land, or have access to something with a
Speaker 1: buddy who does have the ability to do improvements, it's
Speaker 1: a great time to get out there, do some work,
Speaker 1: have fun with it, and invest in your future now
Speaker 1: by doing this work, and help all the critters that
Speaker 1: live out there too, So so win win in my book.
Speaker 1: So thanks all, appreciate you, and until next time, stay
Speaker 1: wired to HU