00:00:00 Speaker 1: You got a month to add three core, huge things right there, and then you also have a month to be like, hey, I'm going to get five really good setups up. 00:00:10 Speaker 2: By the end of season. You know, I may have a half a dozen or more on that property, but I'm not coming in and hanging them all at once. I'm bringing them in. On hunts, I'm hanging them. 00:00:18 Speaker 3: Welcome to Back forty. 00:00:19 Speaker 4: I'm Jake Hoefer, and this week, if you just got a new farm, you just got permission, or even if you've been hunting a farm, the same farm for a year. After a year, you're going to get a fresh perspective from eight experts on what they would do right before the season with limited impact or maybe large impact projects. 00:00:37 Speaker 3: Set yourself up for this fall real quick. 00:00:40 Speaker 4: The Back forty's brought to you by land dot com, the leading online real estate marketplace to find your perfect rural, recreational, agricultural, or hunting properties here. 00:00:51 Speaker 3: In the US. 00:00:52 Speaker 4: Now, a lot of these things that we're going to hear from the expert panel maybe things that seem obvious, But I also think after finishing this episode, getting a reset on hey, do I have all. 00:01:05 Speaker 3: These things that I can do here for this fall? Have I done it? 00:01:08 Speaker 4: Also, if you haven't done the scouting, or maybe there's a specific terrain feature that seemed to be very important, or maybe you've been too nervous to go in and make any impact on your farm because of the season is getting closer. So you're going to get a lot of different opinions and observations based off of our expert panel of guests. And to kick things off, the question is I just got access to a new farm. 00:01:30 Speaker 3: What can I do now? And we're going to start with Bill Winki. 00:01:39 Speaker 4: Okay, I just closed on a new farm, or I just got a new piece of private It's August twenty fifth, and a lot of the big fun offseason projects are off the table. Where do I start right now? It's August twenty fifth. 00:01:55 Speaker 5: Well, there's not much you can do from a improvement perspective on that property. I would say the most important thing would be to mow probably a few access trails, something that you know, just have some way that you can get around. It's still August, You've got time for the deer to get used to a little bit of human activity there. I think the first thing I would do is just establish maybe a few ways of getting around in that property, so you're not just busting through a brush and making you knows, you need to be able to hunt it. So I think that's probably priority number one, and then I wouldn't be probably number two. Then for me, it would just be running the cameras and finding some shooters, you know, finding out what's there, you know, getting an inventory, figuring out which parts of the property or are the peris that you want to focus on that season. But if you can't hunt it effectively, like you can't get into it from the different directions, maybe you know, because of you know, whatever reason, you need to establish access first, and maybe that means talking to one of your neighbors and you know, paid him a little fee or somehow getting permission to come in from that direction where you know, otherwise you would even be able to hunt one into your property because you know, on certain wins, you'd be messing it up if you came in from the wrong way. So access is probably, like I said, number. 00:03:26 Speaker 4: One, would you go in and tear through the whole entire farm, let's call it let's stick to the eighty acre example, and the back part has thirty acres, a really really good cover where you anticipate there to be you know, good betting opportunities, good good corridors. 00:03:40 Speaker 3: Everything. 00:03:41 Speaker 4: Would you go through in lay eyes basically on the whole entire farm at that time. 00:03:47 Speaker 5: No, No, In fact, I used to hunt. Gosh, you'd laugh. But when I was a kid growing up in the country, I was related to everybody. I was like fourth generation on both sides of my family, so I had permission everywhere. I think I had sixty some different farms. I had permission hunting a lot of them. I never scouted, you know, on foot. I would just go in there with the tree stand on my back. Based on the area. Photos you can tell you buy a driving paths it or whatever what the trade is. But the aerial photo kind of gives you a visual and you can say, okay, I see a pitch point here, I see you. You don't need to even scout, you know. Back then, I wish I would have had truck. It was because gosh, there's no telling what I could have killed on sixty some different farms. There had been some big deal there somewhere. But anyway, I rarely scouted more than you know, five to ten a year. But I hunted a lot of different spots, and you don't need to scout pick good standing locations. You just need to be handy with the map. And so I'd say no, I wouldn't go in unless you're going and stand on your back. But you know the kind of the method that everybody talks about now, you know the ultra mobile type of money. I was doing that quite a bit when I was You're just a young guy because I had access to so much ground. See, you always keep the the uh element of surprise in your favor. You always want to be you know, people know after a few years of doing this is the first time you hunt a stand is probably gonna be your best chance because they dear don't have any history of you being there that they don't have any reason not to be moving comfortably and naturally. Every time you hunt it after that, it can potentially get worse. So I have been a few stands in my whole life that that didn't happen on. But so going in there to scout it, I mean, if you're gonna, if you're gonna scout it, let me give you this one last piece of advice. If you're going to scout it you feel like I have to get in there, then I would make all kinds of noise. I'd be the farmer checking his fence with a chainsaw on a tractor. Just be as you know, completely give them so much warning that they're more curious than anything else. You know, I've seen that work. But if you try to sneak in, and usually that doesn't work, you better off you staying completely out. 00:06:17 Speaker 4: Okay, this real quick question. When you mentioned identifying different pinch points, would you pick a pinch point or inside corner just off a map? And I know that's so situational, but you know, people talk about a handful of different buzzwords of identifying, you know, from the scouting. What is your favorite feature from an scouting perspective for you know, something like this scenario. 00:06:42 Speaker 5: Well, the best ones are the most obvious ones, and that's usually the kittie corner or the corner crossing two large blocks of cover. So let's say you got you know, a big chunk here and a big chunk there, and they're connected, you know, through one little narrow whether it's a creek bottom or you know, the open gate between two or whatever it might be, those spots are really hard to beat during the rut because they become super highways for any bucks that are going from one area where dotes are probably betted to another area where those are probably betted. Then you don't need topography. You don't need to know the topography to see those. The ones that I like that are topographically focused are the ones like the funnels at the tops of ditches where the deer go around the top of the ditch. And that's a no brainer because they're very apparent when you're studying the topographic maps, and usually there's there's dope betting areas on either side of that ditch. It is usually the way the land lazes. That's why the ditch is there, because you got a point, and you got a point, and then the ditches between them, well, the bucks are going to gain between those, you know, checking through the different dough betting areas. So the very upper end of that ditches is almost always, you know, kind of a no brainer. Then you can get the wind to work for you and you could use the ditch for access, you know, for sneaking in and out. I've set up a ton of those, and you usually you want to go in there with a chase saw during the offseason and clear that ditch out. But you can come and go, you know, very well undetected now if you use that ditch. So those are really good ones to find too. I love those. But there's tons of different options out there, but those are the two most obvious ones there. 00:08:31 Speaker 3: You guys have it. 00:08:32 Speaker 4: That is Bill's perspective for someone that just got new access on what you can do most of access trails if you do go in and scout, make a lot of noise, and the most obvious spot could easily be the best spot. So now we're going to get into skips Lie and what he would do in the next thirty days to make his farm the best possible and a short window and the full project detailed list right now. I just bought a brand new farm, or I just not on a door. I got a piece of private ground. It's August twenty seventh, Gune goes off. Time to go, what do I start? 00:09:08 Speaker 1: You can make some exciting things happen. So late August funding season opens what October one? 00:09:18 Speaker 6: Sure? 00:09:18 Speaker 1: Okay, so you definitely could still plant things. I would get out there. I would I would beg borrow and plead with anybody I knew to borrow a tractor and a drill, rent one higher, one out, and I would go plant a combo of like winter I winter piece, when are we tri to kale, trit to kelly and clovers, and I would quick get that seated down, like kill it, set it down immediately, So there's your food for the year. That it's not it's not ideal in that you know, you don't have other things now, and that's really the only thing you can really get going one in most areas by that point. But it's actually an ideal time to plant that too. So and I'd add oats in there too, by the way. So I would immediately do that, and then I would immediately go in there and just be like, hey, I'm gonna go in there when I plant, I do it the same day. And this is just me being fussy, But the same day I would go through there and be like, hey, while you're planting this stuff, because I'm hiring you, or I'm begging you to do it, or maybe I'm running it, I'd go take a bunch of chainsaws with me, and I'd go in the timber and I would find some things that, like, you know, figure out what your undesirable trees are, your poor quality trees, and just dump a few here and there to create some structure. And that structure will last, you know, continually, it'll definitely impact the whole fall. And by the time even hunting season comes in a month later, they're going to start using that as betting and structure and like you know, even some of the brows that'll come down and maybe a little bit will start to yeah, probably not much, but they'll be definitely more betting, and that dynamic will change by the fall. So that's really simple. That's just two things. That's just quickly, add some food if I can chain saw, some cover if I can. I know that's being very specific, and there's more to it to that, and this is if somebody can manipulate the habitat. And then if you could add a watering hole too, I definitely would do that. And all of a sudden, you're like, so you got a month to add three core, huge things right there, and then you also have a month to be like, hey, I'm going to get five really good setups up and maybe I do some mock scrapes, maybe I put a rubbing post in. Maybe I just have five stands that are in sweet funnel locations with the dear naturally travel. I mean, going back to the basics of how I started hunting, high spent. It's spent decades hunting. I didn't need to do all this stuff either. I didn't need to put in a food plot to shoot a big deer. 00:11:57 Speaker 6: I didn't. 00:11:57 Speaker 1: Most of the year I've still shot to this day. Probably did not involve a food plot or a watering hole or rubbles. Do all those things help, of course they do, But usually it was hey, man, you can just hunt my ground. 00:12:10 Speaker 7: I'm like, thank you. 00:12:11 Speaker 1: I got a place to go, and hopefully it wasn't shared with like fifty thousand other people, and then I would just go in there and hang. My basic approach was like, okay, I got forty acres, let's go hang six killer spots that make great sense and go hunt it. 00:12:28 Speaker 7: And I kill bucks just doing that. 00:12:31 Speaker 1: So sometimes it's very simple, and hey, I have no money, but I can go. 00:12:37 Speaker 3: You know. 00:12:37 Speaker 1: So I can't do plots, I can't do timberwork, I can't put it in a waterhole. That's fine, pick out six sweet spots. And go hunt it. Hunt smart and go find the natural movement of the deer. Use your woodsmanship skills or learn your woodsmanship skills to set up sweet six, eight, five, whatever. Just really good spots. Go hunt them correctly, and you probably will have a chance at a good deer if there's a good deer in there. 00:13:05 Speaker 3: Really simple, some great information here from skipping. 00:13:09 Speaker 4: I think those projects he'd listed, whether it's permission farm, maybe it's a farm you've had for a long time. If you don't have those items, make a punch list. Go out there, get it done, hand your cameras, find the best five spots, get them set up, and patiently be ready to strike. 00:13:22 Speaker 3: When the time is right. 00:13:23 Speaker 4: Next up we have Bobby Kendall, and Bobby buys a lot of farms, and so he is in this position a lot, and you get to hear what he would do, basically what it does every year. I just drew a tag in a random spot. I knocked on a door, got permission in an area. I have no clue where to start. I want the powerball, and I spot a farm. It's August, and where do I start? Feel that a lot of the spring food plots long gone a lot of these really big projects that take a while off the table. 00:13:52 Speaker 3: So brown zero, where do I start? Race? Gun goes off? 00:13:56 Speaker 7: Yeah. 00:13:56 Speaker 8: So I actually am in this situation a lot because I buy a lot of farms, and a lot of times I don't I don't control when I buy them, So a lot of times I'm I'm past the point of a lot of this stuff. 00:14:07 Speaker 7: So a couple of. 00:14:08 Speaker 8: Things to come to mind. Like one thing you can you can, you know, get on the horn with is if there's a farmer is reaching out to him and starting to try and figure out if you're gonna be able to buy back crops because that's huge, especially corn. And the other thing is you're going to want to go put cameras out immediately to see what's there. And so that time of year, if you have beans, it's a lot easier because you have lots of places to put I was just on a farm earlier, and I think we talked about this a little while ago. Beans last year, eight or ten cameras, corn this year a couple And so if you have beans or olf outfields or stuff like that, it's going to make it a lot easier. Some ponds, natural ponds go and trim down a nice spot, or back your mower in and make a spot. They're going to go to that easy spot of the pond, you know. But otherwise, what I like to do on a corn here, and what I'll do on this farm down here, on a corn here, and I always look forward to this day. I'll get my backpack and I'll fill it up with sell cams, and I'll get my hedge clippers, and i'll take some t posts. Everything's all grown up and nasty, and I'll just go around the edges of all the corn fields in like mid September, and I'll i'll just study those licking branches. You can tell where they're gonna want to scrape concentrations a scent where a point comes up out of the woods to a cove or whatever. You'll be able to see the branches that have been hit years and years. You can generally tell what licking branches look like. So I'll and they're already starting to put their face in them by mid September, so I'll just wait a little longer. 00:15:47 Speaker 7: Kind of Okay, let's just wait a little longer. We're already this far. 00:15:50 Speaker 8: And I'll go in there and I'll hedge clip everything down so it's nice and low, and I'll put a camera up and I'll just load the farm up on those licking branches. 00:16:00 Speaker 7: Also, if I'm. 00:16:01 Speaker 8: Studying a TAPO or whatever and i'm the obvious rough funnels inside corners, obvious spots are gonna be good in the rut, I'll it's like I'll dive down in. I'll walk every inch I want to. I want to just do it once and be over with it, and I'll pick my stands. I always I use ONYX and I always when i'm scouting, whether it's a winter or that time of year, as I'm picking these trees, I always put a pin and I take a picture of the tree, and within the app you can attach it. 00:16:31 Speaker 7: Yeah, and I don't have any. 00:16:32 Speaker 8: Affiliation with these guys, but that way, I don't know if you're like me, but like I can't remember what happened two seconds ago. So that way, like when you get in the game later, you can just pull up your phone and be like, oh, yeah, that needs a lock on, that needs sticks, that needs a lot. You know that you can tell what that tree needs, and a lot of times you know if the spot can have two different wins. 00:16:52 Speaker 7: I'll take pictures of both of them. 00:16:54 Speaker 8: So I'm like scouting, but I'm also putting those cameras out along the corn on the licking branches. And then and it's very important those licking branches. Those that's where that's where you're gonna probably shoot one in October is on one of those straits. 00:17:10 Speaker 7: And so, okay, scrape spot. 00:17:14 Speaker 8: Where can I get with a north to a west a northwest wind in October because that's going to be the magic X days. 00:17:22 Speaker 7: That's all my design. 00:17:24 Speaker 8: Everything I do is based on a northwest wind north to west because those are the days that the deer we're after is most likely going to walk in October. I don't know about you, but I like to shoot my deer early as possible before he's dead by somebody else. So I put a lot of eggs in that north west basket in October. So I'm like, Okay, licking branch, this spot makes sense, this is where I need to be for the northwest. 00:17:50 Speaker 3: Does it work with. 00:17:51 Speaker 8: The thermals, because the thermals will screw you worse than the wind in October. You want a big ditch, so if you if you can find those spots that sets up for northwest with a big ditch. 00:18:01 Speaker 7: For your thermost a pull. 00:18:04 Speaker 8: Then you can be like, okay, well, if this farmer is gonna let me buy that crop, this is where I want to do it based off of access, but also northwest. And because again maybe the access isthing good, but the northwest setup and the thermal set up because I can't bring a box line here is really good for this spot, but the access isn't great. Well, I'm gonna pick and choose my days in October, like we talked about earlier, I'm gonna buy this little piece of corn back and I'm gonna hunt right there. So you're already visualize, you're thinking like a ear you're visualizing it. And then like maybe there's some more scrape branches down through here, and you're like, well, this one's gonna be so powerful because this is where the point comes out of the woods and there's a concentration is sent here. You can see the corn damage, you can see it. This is where they want to scrape because there's a concentration of set So I'm just gonna eliminate these other scrape branches around here anyway. And then they have to come here to my camera, and they have to come here when I shoot them in October. So yeah, I just go around and I load the load those liking branches up. I pop into the obvious rough donald stands because in October I'm not diving into those spots anyway. Yeah, unless there's really good access. We passed the. 00:19:07 Speaker 7: Full moon in the end of the month. 00:19:09 Speaker 8: I'm running out of my window because the mornings can be really good in October. 00:19:13 Speaker 7: But you just have to weigh is it worth it yet? 00:19:16 Speaker 8: And sometimes it becomes yes because of the spot, and yes because it's far into October, and yes because I have this deer peg. You know, I shot a big one two years ago October fourth, in the morning because I had him pegged, had perfect access. I knew what he's gonna do because of the front, Like he's gonna be checking marking territory in the front because or marking territory in daylight morning in the evening, because this pressure front just came in and wound him up, you know, so thinking like a deer. 00:19:48 Speaker 4: No, obviously, Bobby hunts in the Midwest a lot and buying back the crops. It's gonna cost some money, but can greatly extend your season for a late season opportunity. It could be an anchor for the farm throughout the majority of the year, depending if it isn't corner or if it's in beans, and so some really good pieces of information for anyone to go out and make their season as best as possible with with it just right around the corner, because we're running out of time for some of these big exciting projects. But with that punchless, you're gonna be a little bit closer. Next up we have Don Higgins on what he would do on a brand new piece that he just got at the end August. I just got access to a new farm. Where do I start? 00:20:23 Speaker 9: Now? 00:20:23 Speaker 7: What? 00:20:24 Speaker 2: Well, at this point of the season, you know it's late August, I'd be I'd be walking the farm just to learn the terrain as much as anything. I'm not looking for, although yeah, I'm looking for deer signed to some degree, I'm looking for old sign you know, old rubs on big trees and things like that. Trying to figure out potential stand locations, access points, How am I going to access that property? What wind directions am I going to be able to hunt this property? 00:20:54 Speaker 4: With? 00:20:56 Speaker 2: If the situation allows, you know, can I get a fall food pot in? I'm taking When I'm doing that initial scouting foray through the property, I'm going to have a bundle of trail cameras with me. I'm going to be hanging those to get an inventory of the bucks that are on the property, doing everything I can to make up for lost time, and doing it as quickly as possible. I'm not going to be going and scouting multiple times. That one trip through is going to be to learn the terrain, to get those cameras out to find potential stand sites. Then I'm going to be waiting to see what my cameras tell me as to how I proceed. If I can put a food pot in, I'm gonna be wanting to do that immediately. You know, September first is the magical date for fall plots across much of the Midwest. I know, the guys up north, I want to get them in sooner than that. The guys to the south may still have some time, but that's kind of the sweet spot for much of us, or much of the Midwest for most of us. 00:21:57 Speaker 7: So that's how I would approach property. 00:22:00 Speaker 4: When you walk that farm for the first time. Maybe you saw them on a gas station and you've been hoping to run into them, and hey, can I you might mind if I hunt that farm you never walked before. That first time you go in there, you mentioned looking for train, uh that may move to your old sign. How fast are you actually going through that farm? Because you and I imagining you probably take your time because that's your one time. So I just want to make that really clear where they hear fast urgency. Okay, now I have to burn through this farm and I don't know. You know, they don't make notes, they don't do what are some things that you do? 00:22:31 Speaker 2: Well, I'm taking my my phone on my on X app. I'm gonna mark potential pre stand locations. I love to drop pins, and every time I drop a pin, I'm gonna be making notes. You know, this would be good during the rut. I'm gonna need a northwest wind. I'm going to access you know, across an open cornfield. Gonna be a better morning spot than the evening spot. So every and when I put a camera up, you know, I'm gonna mark mark that location. I'm just gonna use that app to mark everything that I can as I make my way across that property. 00:23:07 Speaker 7: That way, I don't forget anything. 00:23:09 Speaker 2: And then if a true target buck does show up, a buck I want to kill shows up on camera, boom. I've got all this intel right there on my phone where I can take advantage of it and not have to go back and refresh my memory. Oh yeah, I remember, now I did see that tree. I mean, I'm going to be taking spot. 00:23:29 Speaker 3: I'm gonna have I stand face this direction exactly everything. 00:23:32 Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna be saying, you know, there's a pin oak tree halfway up the ridge where the deer are coming off of the ridge. That's the tree I want my standing. I might even take flagging tape as well to mark the tree, but typically my notes are going to be detailed enoughing well, once I get to that spot with a stand on my back, I'm gonna remember. 00:23:54 Speaker 3: You know. 00:23:55 Speaker 2: The other thing is I'm going to be detailing things like, uh, what I need to bring in so when I come to hang this stand. You know a lot of times I'm going to do a hang and hunt. I'm going to come in with end season with my bow in hand, Novic's tree, stand on my back with climbing sticks and I'm going to note that need to clear a shooting lane to the south, so you know, I may trim a few branches, put my stand up, see if I need to trim more. Hopefully I don't, and start hunting right away. Typically i'll do this midday and I will put the stand up and I will sit the dark. That's kind of yeah. I don't come in and I see my target buck on camera. I don't come in with six trees stands and you know, burger up the whole property again. Getting all these stands in place, I will carry them in on my back today. I'm going to hunt each one. And you know, I may hunt that stand two or three times before the wind switches to where I can hunt another location on the farm. And when that switch happens, I'll come in midday with a another stand on my back and I'll leave the original stand come in with another stand on my back. And I think that's why it can be critical in situations like that, the stands that you're going to have, you don't want to be or I don't want to be coming in with a stand that's noisy exactly with a chain or you know, buckles rattling, banging on the metal and everything. That's where I think the Noviac stand really shines. You can come in and get that up real quiet, real easy, and if you feel you're confident nobody's going to steal it, leave it in place. This is what I do. And by the end of season, you know, I may have a half a dozen or more on that property, but I'm not coming in and hanging them all at once. I'm bringing them in on hunts and hanging them there. 00:25:48 Speaker 3: You have it. 00:25:49 Speaker 4: Next up we have Thomas Milsner, and Thomas works a lot on a permission farm, but works with a lot of different folks and he's putting together detailed plans short term, long term, and you're going to hear some of those things are right now. 00:26:02 Speaker 3: I just got a new piece of private ground. 00:26:05 Speaker 4: I bought it, I got a lease, knocked on a door, and got permission on a piece of private ground. It's August twenty fifth, too late to do a lot of the exciting off season projects, the off season scouting. So where do I start to get a leg up for you know what's coming two months from now. 00:26:25 Speaker 10: There's two perspectives here. One is going to be the long term. One's going to be the short term. And if your property situation itself is long term, you bought it long term lease with some flexibility on what you can actually do, and then I'm going to look at it completely differently from a property that I have permission to hunt this fall, right or you know, hidden piece of public ground or something like that. Right, So there's two completely different perspectives. 00:26:54 Speaker 6: If I'm focused. 00:26:55 Speaker 10: On the long term, in my long term goals, then I'm going to play it a little bit safer. I really just kind of want to sit back and see what is this property producing, and how are the deer operating on this property without the influence of human pressure. That's the biggest thing, because if you're completely new to a property and you go in there and you just start hunting how you hunted the last property or you know, or you're just diving into try and figure things out, even in August, especially in August, then you're just going to stir up the pot, you know. So the way I kind of describe it sometimes is you have all these different just visualize a bunch of different colors in a pot, right, and they all kind of like settle in it on spots. But if you stir it up, now it's just all brown. You can't really decipher what all these things are. You let it settle in. Okay, there's you know, the does are betting over here, bucks are coming from over here, you know, whatever it might be, and you'll figure that out because all those things change throughout the season. So you really got to approach it from that long term mindset, starting in the summer, moving to the end. And a lot of times I'll actually say just to clients, so they don't do any habitat projects the first year, even if it's July. You know, maybe there's some easy access spots we can throw in a food plot, or more often than not these days, there was an existing food plot out of property. So yeah, let's go in there, let's pull our soil samples quick, throw down a good fall blend, and then we'll regroup and figure out how to make things. 00:28:19 Speaker 9: Better and build the gar in year out. 00:28:22 Speaker 10: But for right now, as far as deer movement, we're not going to go and make major changes. We don't need to go and hang a ton of stands. Obviously, we can go scout some pinch points, throw some cameras up, throw a stand up, pretty simple, right, but always always, always scout from the outside in and hunt from the outside in, and it just works out that way really well. Anyways, if you're hunting the whole season and not just waiting until the rut right in the early season, you're those deer are more app to come to those bigger food sources, right, So why pressure and why put pressure on their betting areas if they can come to you right and scout from the outside end, hunt from the outside end. So you're on the outskirts hunting these bigger food sources. Maybe a transition plot leading to those food sources where you're keeping all that pressure off, and then as the season progresses, maybe you inch in little by little. But what I always tell everyone is don't be afraid to get aggressive, but understand the risk versus reward of those situations. So with that mindset, if you're a short term guy, if you just got permission to this piece and it's only for this year, and you don't know is there you know some neighbor's grandson that still has access to hunt this property in November when you've been keeping the pressure off, this guy is going to show up and hunt one day without telling anyone, because the person that gave you permission doesn't even own the land. To just connect, you know, there's all sorts of weird things that happen. Then I'm going to get a lot more aggressive. I'm going to go in you know, I'm still going to start with food sources, especially given the time of the year. Starting with food sources, finding you know, potentially a community scrape around the edge of a big food source. Don't expect to see deer there during daylight very often, but it's more of an inventory thing. What's in the area, Where where are they coming from. I'm starting to put together these theories. You know, where are they betting, where are they feeding? I know they're feeding here at nine o'clock at night, but where they start? And you know, where can I intersect them? And then I'm going a little bit deeper scouting, you know, trying to pick a rainy day or windy day. Got a camera in my backpack, throwing some cameras up. I'm getting more aggressive, but I'm still mindful of my pressure. Right So I'm going to take a I'm gonna take a shot early in the season I'm going to get in there, I'm going to scout, and then I'm going to back off. But while I'm in their early season trying to find an early season buck and make an aggressive move on him, I'm anticipating what things are going to look like come October November time for him for the rut, and maybe I'm hanging on a couple cameras then if I'm you know, in the depths of the property. But more often than not, I'm not going deep into a property if I don't have an intimate relationship with a topography and the habitat, because I know that I'm going to lose that game nine times out of ten when that buck knows that property so well it hasn't been pressured and then I go in there all willy nilly. So the biggest thing is short term, long term mindset. But long term, I'm really trying to learn that property without me stirring that pot so that I can come back after the season and put together a really good plan and start breaking that plan down into a timeline of you know, priority projects for that for improvement of that property. And maybe you don't need to do a whole lot. Maybe it's just improve a couple betting areas, get your stands out, improve a couple of pinch points, and improve that access. You know, maybe there's a lot of work that needs to be done, but I almost want to kind of get a feel for what's going on in that property. 00:31:33 Speaker 4: Something that's stuck with me with this segment with Thomas, to start from the outside and scout in and be very mindful that if you did, if you were lucky enough to buy your first farm or a farm, or a new farm, or a long term lease or a long term permission farm, having a long term perspective is obviously paramount for a long term success. And I think Thomas nailed it here on the head regarding that. Next up, we have Jeff Sturgis, So let's get right into it. Okay, I just got a new piece of private ground. I might have knocked on a door. I might have bought it and just closed on it. It's August twenty fifth, you know, the gun, the gun is getting really close for opening day. What can I do now? It's brand new and I don't have any stands, I don't have any cameras out. 00:32:17 Speaker 3: What do I do? Where do I start? 00:32:19 Speaker 11: You know, the first thing we did and we bought our property in June, we could start doing things. But you know, like I said, I wasn't even I wasn't even the core area of our property until after the hunting season. The majority of it, about seventy percent of the land I never even looked at because we couldn't go in it and spoke to here. So I'm looking at specific locations that I can hunt. I know that I can get in and out of this funnel. It's not just this is a good spot, it's is this a good spot and I can get it and out? 00:32:43 Speaker 6: Is a huntable? 00:32:45 Speaker 9: And what is that game plan going to be? 00:32:46 Speaker 11: Is it going to be a morning stand because it's more closely related to betting, or is this an afternoon stand it's more closely related to food source. Then I can start to identify a plan of this is how access that morning stand away from the food. This is how I can hunt near food in the afternoon. This is a morning stand, this is an afternoon stand. If it's a morning stand and likely not hunt that towards until towards the rut, then what I'm looking at is then I'm going in and identifying individual trees that I can hunt, and I'm going to place those cameras at those stand locations exactly where I expect to shoot them on the trail, I expect to shoot them in the location. 00:33:19 Speaker 9: I expect to shoot them. 00:33:20 Speaker 11: And I'm going to add mox scrapes to all those stand locations, something free and simple and make vertical will I looked this morning for some reason, but it was sixty two mox scrape videos that I have on my YouTube channel, and so it's in a playlist. Sixty two mox scrape videos. Feel free to enjoy but at nauseum. But they I've been doing it for a long time and it's free use no sense. But I'm going to put those at the stand location. I expect that buck to be shot in and around that mock scrape location somewhere on that trail, and then that's a great spot to haking a camera at the same time too. Now, if I want to enhance it, we've installed a lot of holes as late as early October. It's for a rut on end of October November. If you're in a dry area, people always say, well, I have a creek, we have running water, and springs down in the valleys and most of our location and a our entire property in Minnesota, and same with the Wisconsin reached on. 00:34:16 Speaker 9: It's where the deer are traveling. 00:34:18 Speaker 11: So if deer are bedded in dry areas and they're on the way to a food source and is dry in between, great spot for waterhole. If there's dry bedding areas and you put a water hole in between for morning rut stands, awesome spot. Funnel cruising stands as well. As you can picture a block moving from point A to point B and he can't get water in between them, it's a perfect spot for a waterhole, even if he has water one hundred yards opposite direction, because then you can keep them within the same movement. He has water there, why is he going to go one hundred yards out of his way. 00:34:48 Speaker 6: And come back. 00:34:49 Speaker 11: Typically, if he gets out of his bedding area at four in the afternoon's getting dark at five, and he goes one hundred yards off your property to go get water, he's not coming back. They're efficient creatures, they're not wasting two hundred yards of travel. So give them that water hole. And that's one of the things a quick install we use three hundred galon rubber maids one hundred and fifty gallon does and it's a lot easier to shovel one hundred and ten gallon cheap one from TSSE you use to get those for under one hundred dollars. It's one hundred and ten gallons that ends up about twenty four inches deep. I like that depth to size ratio because it holds water longer, it doesn't evaporate. You don't want one of the big shallow ponds you like a kiddie pool or something like that. So that's another quick enhancement to your hunt that once you have those stand locations narrowed down, you've narrowed down where a morning stand is afternoon, you've narrowed down your access. Added some mox scrapes your stand locations are in that water hole can be the perfect sweetener. And when we're putting, people say, well, do I use a waterhole or a mox grape? Always using mox scrape every stand location, no more, no less. But then a waterhole would be in addition to that off the side to the point when we have camera on that then the smack scrape is either in the background or the foreground, water hole vice versa. And get this, I get both of them in one picture, so I can monitor both of them for the entire year. 00:36:18 Speaker 4: I found Jeff's perspective on this to be really interesting on how careful he has been in the past when he has fallen into this category. And what's great about this is so many different perspectives from so many interesting hunters that have a lot of the same things that overlap, but little nuances, and so hopefully you're picking up these small little things and you're figuring out what will apply directly to you so you can make the next thirty days as best as possible. Next step we have Steve Hanson on what he would do and if he would take on a large project this late end of the summer. 00:36:49 Speaker 3: It's late August. You just got access to a new piece of ground. What do you do and where do you start? 00:36:56 Speaker 12: Well, the first thing I try to figure out is work on the access. You know, if if there's anything you can do, whether that be mowing trails, you know, just anything like that, even if it has to be with a you know, a weed whip to go along the edge of some crops. Just try to figure out a way that you're going to be able to hunt this or be able to access this to hunt. And then assuming it's too late to do any food plots where this farm's located, my next thing would be I'd be trying to reach out to whoever that tenant is on the farm, if there's crops on it, on the odd chance that he would work with you and you could buy a little bit of standing crop and give yourself a permanent food source. You know, those would be the first two things that I would be trying right away. So then you know, then after that it would be just you know, as many trail cameras as I can set up and use any other way of scouting as possible, like here in Iowa outside the season, we're able to put some corn out near the cameras. I would be pulling out all the stops trying to learn what deer are there and kind of you know, fast track it to that. That would be the first couple steps that I would would take without a doubt. 00:38:03 Speaker 4: Would you if you had the ability and idea to you know, with a being brand new and let's say you did buy it, would you go in and try to do any over major over overhauls like a new pretty hefty trail system, or man, it's late August. I know, the guy with the dozer can get in there this week and we can get the food plot in the first week of September. Would you do anything like that this first go around? 00:38:27 Speaker 9: Yeah, you know, if it was. 00:38:28 Speaker 12: An owned property, I absolutely would if you had the ability to work that quickly, and that would be the big question. If it was an owned piece where you had the control of the property, I think you still have just a little tiny bit of time to do that. I know the the year that I shot that two fourteen, we dozed and cleared that food plot Labor Day weekend, so that, yeah, we had picture. 00:38:54 Speaker 9: We got pictures of that buck and then went back. 00:38:56 Speaker 12: And altered our stand or our food plot setup up and that's where inevitably ended up killing them. And that was a food plot planted like the first week of September where we did all the dozing and clearing Labor Day weekend. 00:39:09 Speaker 9: So there's definitely still time. 00:39:12 Speaker 4: Okay, that's that's good. Now, what if it's a knock on door permission? Would you go in and what would be your strategy for potentially identifying stand locations and as far as identifying what this farm, what time frame in the year this farm might be good too, I think is another part. So we're just we're talking about imaginary piece of ground. So if you know, just for a guy that just randomly gets a piece you mentioned, you know, do some quick scouting the weed whacker and clean up access is a big one. But is there any other key things that someone should do on their first go around going into a brand new place? 00:39:49 Speaker 5: You know? 00:39:49 Speaker 12: The one of the simplest ones is I would get a copy of a lie to our map. A lie to our map is is like ground or penetrating where vegetation penetrate radar. That's going to show every little nook and cranny of that farm. And I would be using that to try to identify some rut funnels so that you don't have to walk the entire place. So I would do that, and I would probably pick the three most prominent rut funnels, and then I would, you know, put some boots on the ground and field scout those spots. And then but when I went in there, i'd be ready to set them up because you've really at this point got to start limiting your amount of intrusion into those interior areas. So I would be looking for three two to three different wind direction key rut funnel spots, and my first tool to do that would be a light our map so some of the app, you know, different apps can get you that. You can also get it right from your county from like our nrcs. They print those off for me. At times we can print them ourselves through different avenues, but they're super super helpful. You can do like I like the black and white hills what they call hill shade. You can get a color hill shade. It's all whatever you're used to looking at. 00:41:01 Speaker 3: Mm hmm, yeah, honest. 00:41:03 Speaker 4: Actually this added light r to their app to click, you click topo and then on the base maps and you switch a lighter on, which is really nice. 00:41:11 Speaker 3: To your point, be really nice. 00:41:13 Speaker 12: That's a great that's a great feature that's going to be super helpful, all on one platform. 00:41:18 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:41:23 Speaker 4: I'm trying to think here, just because I know there's this. There's if someone just randomly gets a new piece, you know, whether it's a lease or they're closing on a farm, or they knock on a door and they get permission there's just so much excitement and anticipation all bundled in right before the season two especially. Let me run this quick scenario by you for someone that just knocked on a door because they essentially heard there was a big deer in the area and they wanted to get in that ball game. And with that comes excitement of Okay, now I have an opportunity of maybe tagging this specific buck. 00:41:59 Speaker 3: But on the flips out of it. 00:42:00 Speaker 4: You know, throughout this series, a lot of folks have said that they wanted to be really patient, methodical, even leading up into the season, of not pressuring a farm too much. Where do you follow on that scale with it being late August and you just got access and you don't want to blow up you know, this potential mature buck that you're after. 00:42:18 Speaker 12: Yeah, you know the fact that you just the fact you already know there's a mature buck on the property or in the neighborhood, so you're way ahead of the curve there. You're not trying to find one. If the time of year you're gonna you think you have the best chance of taking you know, if harvestingham would be late October early November, I'm going to look for what food sources are probably still going to be there then for that Halloween time, places where I can start out hunting field edges and gaining a little bit more knowledge of the area while i'm hunting, you know, because that's those are the first areas that you're going to start to see rubs and scrapes around the field edges and stuff, and you still don't have to penetrate deeper into there. Once you hunt that, hopefully you get some eyes on the buck that you're after. And that's when I would kind of switch into that first week in November and start start being very very aggressive because obviously, if you know about this buck, somebody else probably does too, and you know, that's that's why you can't really be super hands off and let him come to you. I would use the last week of October sort of as my hunting slash scouting, with the plan of having a few quick setups with me and moving right in as soon as I get the intel that I need. So it's kind of a it's yeah, it's kind of a oh, a passive aggressive approach to hunting. You know, the first week you're you're pretty passive hoping he comes to you the second week, you have to go to him. 00:43:44 Speaker 4: Absolutely, Yeah, no, it'll be that'll be here before we know it. So anyone that tunes in and this throughout the season, a lot of things changed. Maybe you lose a piece that you were planning on hunting right now, or maybe you get one, and there's just a lot of a lot of things that can happen, you know, in the next four months. 00:44:01 Speaker 9: Yeah, you know a lot of times. 00:44:03 Speaker 12: One thing that you know, kind of pushed me back into What makes this question pretty relevant is we've had years with EHD, or we've had a good scouting plan lost the bucks that were after so even though we had a great setup from June going forward, we had to start over virtually in this late this is typically when we have trouble with EHD, would be that kind of mid mid August to early September. So it's a very relevant question. 00:44:31 Speaker 3: So there you have it. That's Steve's perspective. 00:44:34 Speaker 4: And if you have a big project you've been kicking around, or maybe you fall into this category, you still have time to go make the big project, make the improvement to make the season great, if you feel good about the plan, and last but not least we have mister Mark Kenyon to close out this episode to get his. 00:44:51 Speaker 3: Opinion on a brand new farm. Where do you start? 00:44:53 Speaker 6: And here we go? 00:44:54 Speaker 4: All right, you just bought a new farm, you just got a new lease, you just knocked on a door, and you just got access. It's late August, all of the preseason major prep projects may be behind us. 00:45:09 Speaker 3: Where do I start? 00:45:10 Speaker 4: Because I'm excited and nervous at the same time, I want to make this happen. 00:45:14 Speaker 6: Yeah, all right, So I am first starting with maps, and I'm doing like a deep dive study of my map at two levels. I'm doing a macro study, so I'm zooming way out and I'm learning the neighborhood, what's all around my property, How do other properties feed into my property? How much deerb using the neighbors or the neighbors neighbors, How does all that? How does my piece of the puzzle fit to the larger picture? So I really want to try to understand that. And then I'm zooming in doing the micro map study, where I'm like just focusing on my forty year whatever it is, and really trying to as best as I possibly can with the map identify likely food sources, likely, betting areas, likely travel corridors, likely, pinch points of any kind. And I'm pinning or circling or marking all of those key places on the map and spending a lot of time thinking that through. What's a lot of time, many nights, okay, multiple nights or days around, just like studying and thinking and like imagining all the possibilities, and like you know, I'm looking at all the different I'm looking at cover, I'm looking at topography, I'm looking at water, I'm looking at maybe even soil type, or I'm looking at like layers on Onyx where you can see where the oaks are or where conifers are, and having vegetation types. I'm definitely looking at crop rotations. So there's layers on a lot of these apps now where you can see what fields have been planted. So I would like to know, Okay, where has corn been, where have beans been? What's the likely rotation now this year? So I'm definitely looking to see, you know, with like like Onyx or other apps probably have a tool where you can see what fields were planted and whether it's corn or beans or what that rotation was. So I want to look at all of those things to start thinking through where this deer might be feeding, where they may be bedded, how they're getting in between both, and that way, I have all of this done ahead of time with my maps, I know the key places. Now I can go in and do a serious but kind of concentrate scouting exercise. So if it's late August or early September, I am okay going in and like intruding and seeing the place. But I don't want to go overboard with it because my typical rule of thumb is, if possible, I like to leave any property that I'm hunting one undred percent alone for at least thirty days before running season. If I get so in this case, I'd be like right at that point. So it's like I go in like Labor Day weekend, and I've got one day and I'm gonna go in there and pound pavement, and I have this map, I have this plan, and I'm going to go and probably do the outside edge of the property, and I'm going to hit every one of these key points. So those key funnels, those key convergences, the key food sources betting area is the places that I think are hot spots. On the map, and I'm going to go on ground truth those places if they actually match up with what I thought they would, I want to understand like the pillars of this property. I'm gonna mark every little bit of data that I see along the way, So every trail, every scrape, every old rup, every masked tree, every you know, either a soft mass tree like an apple tree or a hard mask an oak tree, and mark all those things. I'm gonna mark every major entry into the property from the neighbors. I'm gonna be thinking through every topography future I'm gonna add notes like if I see like a super great looking vetting area on the slope, I'm gonna pin that and maybe add a few notes about what's there, what makes special. I want to learn and then be able to remember the party actionable like information from this all in that one day. I'm also gonna backpack the little cameras when I do this, so if I didn't you know, we talked on a previous episode about kind of doing something similar with trail cameras. I'm looking at kind of doing these two things together. So as I go and do this one day scouting run, I'm taking in my cameras with me. I'm setting them up so I can set them and forget them. So there's likely going to be what I'm gonna be setting up now if this is like sometime like just before the season, I'm setting up everything for hunting season information. So I'm less worried about setting something up to get summer pictures at this point because they're transitioning off their summer pattern into their fault pattern. So I'm setting up on scrapes or what I think will be scrapes. I'm setting up, you know, a place that I think will be eventually right funnels. I'm setting up in places that are close to bedding where I think deer will be transitioning out towards food. And again thinking about hunting season related intel. 00:49:35 Speaker 4: Are you prepping trees and picking trees where you pine on hunting or are you bringing any tree stands or are you pretty much fully a saddle guy in this scenario? 00:49:44 Speaker 6: Yep, in this scenario, I'm not prepping trees. I'm picking trees. Okay, So I will be going throughout this school process and picking And when I said I'm not prepping, I should, I will be mostly picking trees. I often have enough time, I will often have like a pull saw or yeah and so, and if I have time and I've gone through it did my full day, if there's like a handful of those trees that I picked as like high priority, and I have the time to go on there and just cut some lanes or just cut player it out enough you can get up in the tree nice and quietly, I'll do that. If I have a weekend, I can do that. In the second day, I'll do that too. But I'm not worried about going and prepping a bunch of trees anymore. I would rather just have a bunch of places like picked out. I was like, hey, this is pretty cool. I like this spy, like this spot, like this spot, and then come season I can go in there and hunt mobile with the saddle. And then what I think works really well is that you approach year one like that. You don't invest and double down on any one location with a big built up setup. And if you go in there and bring in a big ladder stand or bring in sticks, send up hang on and really strap it on their nice and carve out huge shooting lanes and all that kind of stuff, it's like an investment in that. 00:50:54 Speaker 3: Place, you became biased to that area. 00:50:56 Speaker 6: Bias to that place, you become like there's that like some Yes, now you've done all that work, you don't want to move. And I think that could be a huge mistake to go and like set up and invest in a place like that before you really know it. And so what you end up doing is you like made this purchase, and you're kind of like want to keep believing that purchase because he put in all this work, and then you're not willing to truly listen to what you've saw or learned about the area and make the small movement. So by having low investment on the front end, so again like just going in with a saddle and do very little majorly time investment, I don't feel bad when I hunt that spot. I'm like, oh, that's not quite right. I really need to be thirty yards that one. And so next time I go thirty yards that when I hunt it for a saddle, I'm like, oh, actually, you know, I need to. 00:51:40 Speaker 7: Be over here. 00:51:41 Speaker 6: And then I've done that. And now after that first year of hunting this new property, I've learned enough, I've tried enough things I wasn't scared or like in some way resistant to change. Now I know, okay, actually that oak there on the corner by the crossing, that is the spot. Now for a year two I will go fully prep that cut length, maybe put up sticks that stay up, something like that. But I'm doing it with a truly informed opinion rather than just my first gut instinct after having just just barely soft place. 00:52:11 Speaker 4: So that's how I was don in my first year when you said you would go in and map everything out this picture of forty yep, how many pins and annotations and notes would you have? And I guess even that's a twofold question before you go there? And then how many more are you adding when you're physically there? Obviously dependent on the features, but this a general idea so people can understand how detailed you're you know, really being. 00:52:35 Speaker 6: Yeah, I would guess like before, so just looking at the map before going in, let's assume it's like a mix of egg and timber, a couple of little fields, a couple of fingers and movie. Yeah, that might be eight to twelve things that stood out in the map. Maybe I was like, Okay, I definitely want to go check that out. It could be way more. It might be a place is way less but somewhere that though I don't know ten to twenty eight to well, something like that. Probably that I was like, hey, check it out, interesting, and then you go out there for the day, and then you're probably at least doubling that with real stuff on the ground. It could be you know, I could walk out of there with twenty pins. I could walk out of there with thirty five pins. How much time do you take to organize those? Are you color coding them? Are you actually you know, yeah, I'm guilty. I'm guilty of this season the on xpin and they're like what was that? Yeah? 00:53:26 Speaker 4: And then there's times where I do take the times it'll be more detailed. 00:53:29 Speaker 6: I don't color code. I do try to icon code, so like I will have a trail camera icon, I'll have a buck icon of that icon of scrape icon, yep, that kind of stuff, a stand icon. So that's how I organize them. 00:53:43 Speaker 1: You know. 00:53:43 Speaker 6: Also one thing I'll do that first day or two is if I find a couple of those first few trees, I'm like, oh this is interesting. If it's like thick, nasty stuff, I will walk and track the trail to it, so I know what the best quietest or easiest route into that tree is, because that's the thing, Like I'm not going to have pre prepped trails necessarily at this last minute. Yeah, it's a new place, but like that's another thing that it's a small thing just track in your walk there, but it can really help you when you go on it for the first time. That's another small thing all I at there. 00:54:14 Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. And it once again, you're excited. You just got this new place and you want to go in there and burn through it. But I think to your point once again, being really methodical, and I picture in my mind, I'm busy, just like everyone else. I am time blocking this and I'm not thinking or doing any other obligations during how this period. I'm solely focused on learning as much as possible, leaving detailed notes, and so my time is efficient and I'm not getting distracted. And I say that I want to do that, but it doesn't always work that way. 00:54:44 Speaker 6: Sure, But I think the key thing with it is because you're so close to the season starting, what you don't want to do, in my opinion, is you don't want to be like, all right, I'm gonna do a little bit this Saturday, and I'll come back next weekend, do a little bit next Saturday, and I'll come back the next weekend and do another next Saturday, and they'll do some the next and the season starts that someday. Whatever it is, you don't want a bunch of repeated intrusions and doing it. I'd rather blow it up in one or two days versus like blow up corner here, in the corner here the next week, and the corner here the next week, at the quarter here the next week, because that is just like consistent pressure. That's gonna have those deer more and more and more and more educated before the season starts. That's a huge mistake. Yeah, one bad day deer can get over pretty quick. Repeated bad days they don't tolerate nearly as well. 00:55:30 Speaker 4: Well, it's funny you bring that up, because that was that was the ringing advice through all of the guests. None of them said, well, I'm gonna go there on one day and then I'm gonna think about it for a couple of days, and then I'm gonna go back again, and then and all these multiple trips. It's very clear that if this happens to you, you're in this scenario, you have to be you have to have a really good plan, and you have to have one in one out best case scenario to maximize your opportunity and minimize the downside. So I think that's something that everyone should really consider. It. Man, what an exciting time if you're in this position. That's a really exciting time to go learn a new piece and test your theories and then affirm your theories for the following year if you're able to go back. And so I think it's a really exciting time. And hopefully all these experts give you some clear and concise guidance, because I think that was the case for this episode. And next week we have one that everyone that's planted a food plot has been in this scenario and we're diving into. If you're and you're listening to this right now, you're probably can we release it right now? Because you're probably looking at it. If your food plots did not turn out how you wanted, what can you do? 00:56:33 Speaker 3: What's a contingency plan. We're diving into that next week. 00:56:36 Speaker 4: With some people that have planted thousands of acres of food plots. You guys have it. I hope you enjoyed this episode. It was a lot of fun and I just want to drive this home. I want to reiterate it. Just if you do not have a brand new farmer, you don't fall exactly in this category. The point of this question was even if you've been hunting the same spot, to get a fresh perspective to go in and maybe do one last outing around, or go do the project, or go hang another set, or the obvious spot that felt too good and too good to be true, it might be the best spot on the farm. And so it's a good reset to revisit and look at farms that you're already hunting or places that you're hunting, and go through this checklist one last time. Because we're getting so close to season. Hopefully this episode pointed you in the right direction. And next week we're flipping the calendar to September, and if you have some food plot questions, you've been struggling the food plots over the years, or you haven't got them in yet, that episode is going to be just for you. So I hope you guys enjoyed this episode, and we will see you next week on the Back forty podcast.