00:00:00 Speaker 1: Hey, this is Tyler Jones and you're listening to the Element podcast. That's all I can say on the what's happening all my woods people? Man, it's a beautiful afternoon. What's the temperature? Right? One eighty Warren's supposed to be hotter than this tomorrow and today it was only supposed to get to like seventy six, So we might see nineties tomorrow. Really, I'm not sure if I'm ready. I'm not ready. I can guarantee you that I'm not. It was thirties just two weeks and you know, not even two weeks, not even two eight days ago. Yeah, we were shooting frosty bearded gobblers. We were shooting frosty bearded gobblers. I think you just uh, you just gave him a bit of information that they are gonna salivate over to tease it. We got that cool video coming up. We've been working on it today. Actually it's been hard at it on Element stuff. We haven't had a good work day like that in a while. Man. Yeah. Um, we got to do quite a bit of stuff, including some uh commentary to help the storyline for this Turkey video. And we're I'm excited about it, and Tyler gave me a little preview of I just rough cut that's what you call it, Riding of the Turkey film, and it's gonna be pretty sick, I like, because we may we did a whole deer season of like very blog vlog style you know videos, you know, day by day stuff and a lot of that kind of stuff. And it feels good to do some stuff like some some good shots and some cinematography and one you know, and I think that's gonna come over well, you know, I um, we we were talking about this earlier, but I've been building up some some footage, uh kind of archiving some footage that's that's good or whatever, because uh, you know, videographer will tell you, like we're gonna have so much footage usually if you do a ride, and there's gonna be so much stuff that's not used, especially in the deer hut in the world, Like you may go out to make this awesome video and get all these great shots, but you don't have anything to you know, any success at the end of it. Then you just have a bunch of really great footage. And I've had to happen so many times, and so I last October when the leaves were changing stuff. I got a bunch of footage out at the Walmart property and like good stuff, like shot it, you know, super flat, so like a color grade and just red trees, these big old tupla gums that were out there, and like yellow stuff. And then I got this. I had this awesome video from one morning out there of uh, one of these um squirrels just going up this tree and he was eating the little berries on the gum trees and the gum was lit up red and he's just sitting there against this blue sky background. It's it's such good footage, and I you know, I didn't really see a place that I could use it because I didn't shoot it here in East Texas last year. You shot one and you know, sweat sweat time, early October, and then the next one I shot was like January, so there wasn't a good time for leaf change. There was no leaf changing footage that was gonna go in there. And I never shot one at Walmart, So it was just like it's just footage that's that I have, so, you know, and hopefully I'll get to use it one day to just help tell a story or something like that. But man, um, yeah, I'm building up, building up some of that stuff, and and uh, I'm excited for this video, man. I just I think that people are going to really enjoy it. Um. Luckily, Texas is on the front end of the of Turkey season, so we may be able to release this during Turkey while you're still hype about it and while we're still hype about it. And I thought you and me when you said here, yeah about it. Uh, hopefully we get to go another time, but we're not sure on that, but we are gonna for sure to do some fishing. I haven't heard any croper reports earlier, but it's gotta be going going down right now, especially this warm weather hitting this week. Oh yeah, man, I think that throughout the week it's gonna build. And then of course on Thursday, we're gonna have a little bit a cold front's probably gonna set him back. And that's the one day I think I'm be able to go in the evening. So great, cool. I love it. Um, that's just the way it goes sometimes. Man. That looks like my my free day too. I think it's Thursday, so it's not good. Yeah, yeah, Well it's the way it happens sometimes, Man, you just gotta go when you can. Yeah, yeah, well I'm excited about doing that. You've you've been doing some projects on your property. I have. I have did a little bit of stuff. I put out some switch grass and stuff. And that's part of the reason why we wanted to get our guest on the phone today, Mr Jeff Sturgis of uh white Tail Habitat Solutions, Right, that's right, Okay, Yeah, I got the other day on a different brand. I was talking about uh said brand and really got their name messed up real bad. So now I'm pretty self conscious of that. But White Time Test Solutions with Jeff stir just we've had him on the show before and the dude is just brilliant when it comes to the concept of managing properties. And uh, I would think practical. It's a great way to describe Jeff to he like, I think seven eighths of his food plots are done by hand, like with a hand spreader and stuff like that. So like something that a lot of dudes can relate to, right, and um, we're gonna talk to him specifically about small properties, so that's like forty acres or less yeah, like micro properties. We're talking you know people, this is the this is an idea you came up with, Casey, and you you told me, look, dude, there's a lot of people talking about small properties right now. And in the same breath saying sixty acres, He's like, I just buy eleven acres. What do you what do you call that? That's what I mean. That's like tiny. And so we we thought, well, we'll do a micro pl you know, micro properties episode with with Jeff because we've had Jeff on before and we know this dude. Not only not only is he like you said, brilliant and knowledgeable about so many different things in the white tel world, he also is such a just like team player and the whole thing. When you ask him a vague question, Jeff's gonna find like three or four scenarios that, like this, this is what could be happening, and one of those is going to happen to be what you're here property is like, you know possibly. So I love that because there's just so many guys out there that just won't answer questions because they're afraid to say something that's not gonna work for somebody. And also maybe they don't really know, you know, and so many guys out there that are going to tell you, well, you can't hunt deer on eleven acres. Well, I'm here to tell you that I bet what at least thirty of the deer in our area get killed on eleven acres or less. Well, you just think something like that. People are on five six acres are shooting deer all over the place around here, you know. So that's just that's the norm. And I think that that's something that people across the country can relate to you because a, if you want to buy a property, most people can't afford the tune an acre places, right, And if you can, that's great, I'm glad you can believe you can let me come hunt. But uh, most people are looking at that, like, you know, ten twenty maybe thirty acres or whatever their little piece of heaven. Put a house on it, and you justify, you know, exactly. Yeah, I think with you on that. And even if they're not the ones purchasing it. Uh to be told, if you're in most areas of the country, parcels are just that size, right. If you're gonna get permission on a place or you know, people owns it or whatever. Like there's not a lot of those big ranches left around, especially in like the eastern half of the country. Yeah, and there's good deer hunting to be had on a man, there's just as many deer on one forty acre parcels as there is on for what would that be, you know, like ten thousand acre parts. Yeah, you know, like the same amount of deer lift there. You know, it doesn't matter. They don't care who where the property lines are exactly. And and in your case, you know, they've learned to live around houses and that kind of thing. And and you know, honestly, like a house is uh oftentimes it's a you know, it's security, visual seclusion from a road or something like that. It's also cover seen because those deer used to smelling people. You know. Yeah, that's the truth thing to see how much that that actually plays out, because I think I think deer have a pretty good idea when humans fifty yards away as opposed to a hundred yards away, you know, and they like they can tell the difference in that, but it might be that split second long enough that it takes to get the shot off from whatever. So that's right, man, Well, so you've done a little bit of switchgrass. Anything else out there, Um, not a ton. I got a garden in which is exciting, and peppers in the other day, UM, and kind of got that all planned out. I actually gonna have my one of my big projects is gonna be keeping the deer out of the garden. So I gotta figure that old thing out with electric fences and stuff. UM. I think next up, my next project needs to be doing something about um. One of my borders where a neighbor's UM residents kind of comes up pretty close to my property line. And in fact, I found a trail camera on my property just across the fence from this, so I wanted like super mad about it. I was like, look at here, you know, because I mean Tuesday told if I was that guy, I'd be wanting to see what's over there too, you know, Like it's not that big of deal. I just took the camera and kind of hung it on the fence right there, so they take it back. But um, I I just I know that there's a decent amount of activity here because it's like a it's an everyday residents. It's not like a weekend thing or whatever. So if I want to go back there and hunt, and it's in a really good spot, like there's gonna be deer moving through there. And I found a couple of beds around that general area actually, um, so I want to make sure that I don't go back there and hang one of these days and you know, eight fifteen rolls around. You know, Joe Shmall comes out and drinks coffee on his back porch and and you know, sneezes are allowed or something, and the deer go flying away because they can see him. And you know, I want to My goal is to find a way to make more of a barrier right there. And I'm probably gonna ask Jeff about that and see what he thinks about it, because I know he's got some good ideas. I bet he does. Let's hop on the phone with him and let him do it. It It sounds good. Now on the phone, we have Jeff Sturgis of Whitetail Habitat Solutions. Jeff, what's happening And you're busy? Oh yeah, I'm always busy. Actually, I just just left the house. I have seven clients in eight days in Michigan, so we'll be gone for gone for a little while. And uh so it's always always a masketing on the road trying to pull everything together for a long time. So there's been more than once my wife sent something next day here to the hotel. Yeah, I can understand that. So Michigan that's originally kind of home for you, isn't it. Yes. Yeah. In fact, I grew up in Lower Michigan, uh first twenty seven years of my life there and then moving to the up of Michigan. So I was basically forty two years in the in Michigan until I moved to Wisconsin. Wow. So was the Wisconsin move because of deer Yeah, that was one of the reasons. Um. A lot of my client base was around here too, and it was a good opportunity to get away. Um. I stayed out in Coon Valley off and I hunted their start hunting here in two thousand two, and so then it moved into twelve. But I got to know the community. It's a great community. Um. Also a great area, beautiful area, and it's kind of smacked ab in the middle. It's it's easier to get to southern Michigan clients. It is. For example, if I was going to southern Michigan. It be uh seven hours going away I'm right now to southern Michigan where I used to live, and then it's I believe eleven or twelve going through the up of Michigan. So everything was just further living up in the up. Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Yeah, you're kind of out there. Man. We understand that in Texas everything everything we do is a long ways from where we're at. Really is that, what would that be South Texas or work? Well, yeah, I mean South Texas. South Texas is as far as deer hunting goes, it's, uh, you gotta have a lot of money to hunt down there usually or a really good connection. And so basically once you start getting south of of where we're at, I mean really in state, hunting prices are kind of outrageous here. And um so yeah, I mean just but as far as like even just travel at all, you know, like everything we do is north and west or east, you know what I mean, it's unless you want to fly to Mexico and across the border, which isn't all that fun most of the time. Yeah. Yeah, So anyway, we understand the travel game and for sure, so um so, today we're kind of discussing micro properties, and the parameters that we've kind of set are under forty acres, uh, but maybe kind of have to an emphasis on those that are much smaller and and um, you know, I informed you earther in Casey just recently purchased a little over ten acres, and I know he's been itching to pick your brain. So uh, I'm gonna kind of let him, you know, lead things, turn it over to him, and maybe I can interject when I feel so inspired or knowledgeable at all. So anyway, I'll kind of throw it over to Casey. Now. Yes, So, Jeff, we've had you on the podcast before and it's always awesome getting to talk to you man. But for the listener who who doesn't really completely understand what it is that you do, can you just give us a quick overview of of what it is you do. Yeah. Since two thousand five, I've worked on a little over eight hundred white tailed parcels around the country I think about twenty six states, And basically I designed those parcels for deer hunting at a high level. And along with that, of course, comes the habitat. And so the habitat is designed with how you would hunt him at sure Buck in mind. And so I look at like, you can't just have random improvements. And you can imagine especially you know, when you have a large parcel, you can have a lot of waste, and you can get away with things that you cannot get on get away with on a small parcel. And so my my average client is I like, this year, I'm gonna go to about nineties clients, and about half of those are sixty acres or less. I'm purchasing the twenty four and a half acre personal here coming up. And then persons that hunt on are all forty acres or less in cover. In fact one is eight acres and cover. And then throughout all that, you know, you gain a lot of experience. And this is something I loved before I got into it. I was hunting out of state, working on property and combination of all those for about twenty years before I got into the business. And then for that I've written five books. Now I have almost three hundred videos on YouTube and then about six hundred little over six hundred white tail articles online and all those have to do with what I learned on each and every property. Because you do learn something and every property to go to. So I'm fortunate to keep doing this and to keep learning. It's kind of like the woods and my university. Yeah, so you can learn and learn something in every person. I people ask me what I'll do when I retire, and this is exactly what I'm gonna do. I might just go to fewer properties. I would rather stay at home, you know more, But I have a hard time saying no to So, yeah, retirement's going to kind of be a blurred line for you. I would imagine that it is. It is. I still because I love to write. Uh. The YouTube videos are fun to make and create. Uh, And then maybe I'll go to thirty My and my client seasons about ten months long from December through September. We're booked solid, and so i'd rather go you know, maybe three a month would be better than not eleven age or whatever. So yeah, sure, yeah, Well, um, I know you've got this down to a science. And if this is a little bit basic, I'm sorry, but um oh no, no, never, it never is. So yeah, we're building towards something, right, So when you go through these properties, especially when you're going to assess, like a new place, I'm sure there are some, like some key habitat factors that you need to see or need to improve on for white tail, and you've probably got these bulleted out. So can you give me just the few major ones that you see that would be key factors in in attracting and keeping whitetail on a property. Yes, yeah, that's that's a great place. And so when I meet my clients in the morning, we'll discuss for about two hours. You know, for one thing, it's getting to know them the resources or goals or neighbors the land. But part of that, I'm starting to assess the balance of food. And so really food is what sets the daily movement a deer. If you don't have food, you don't have movement. For example, you can have a huge federal forest location and you go four miles in and you think, man, I'm gonna be in this remoter. You're gonna find some huge box and you find there's no deer because there's no food. And so it all boils back down to food. And what I find is, let's say you're ten acres in a northern person and you're surrounded by federal land and you're at a one mile dead end road that only you can access. Then you can put most of your property and food because you can set the table for a white tail herd within a mile in any direction that the visit your land just about a daily basis in the afternoon. So you can be that property just with ten acres because there's nowhere else that has quality food. Now when you get into smaller areas, suburban areas, urban areas, then you're looking more for daytime cover because you have the one spot where there's no humans. It might not even be hunting pressure, especially if you're in an urban area. The hunting isn't necessarily the hard part. It's finding landing to get on. And so once you have those white tails attracted to that small high cover area, even if it's just ten acre parcel, then how do those bucks move or white tails move when they get on the property. So then it's more of you know, you have the gear there because of the cover. Now you can use food, scrape trails and possibly a large percentage of bedding area and a lot of diversity mixed in to move those gear when they come on the property. So I've had client on eight acres where they're hunting ten yards from the dirt road in a spruce yet and there's a house over to the left at sixty yards and they're shooting three or four year old box because of between a golf course and a huge subdivision with a little bit of agliand mixed in in uh, central Michigan, in a high pressure area. But when those gear moved through that area, they capture them on those trails where they want them to move, and they put them. They offer a shot. You're not really invading on your property to much. And and I think that will relate to your host, even on the land where you just stop at the door and you're back and cover at the back of the art shooting, you know, shooting whatever age structs you can shoot. That's the highest in that area. Yeah, that's probably one of the most encouraging things that I've heard in a while, because you hear so much about you know, sanctuary properties and uh, you know, I've had people telling like, oh, man, if you put a house in that place, you know you're you're gonna be done. You know, you're not even be able to see here. I'm like, man, there's houses all around. Why would this place being exactly right. That was getting used to that kind of thing. They're they're even used to, you know, tractors and horses and all this stuff. If anything, it might be pretty normal to them, right. And I also really really appreciate that, Um, you didn't just tell us that we need food, cover, water, shelter and everything under the sun on our property for it to be a whit tail property. Right. If there's that balance, Yeah, you hear that so much out there. So whenever you are taking a look at your property and you're looking at the surroundings, do you think it's better to, um, kind of look at your property, see what it can do well and go from there, or should you look at what's around you and try to mold your property into what that area needs? You know? That's a good question. And and so there's some certain concepts that apply anywhere, um, And so that's those are some givens, but it's all about a balance. Those concepts and the balance have have a lot to do with not only the landowner his resources, your resources, your amount of time you have money to put into the land, but also a huge amount on what is going on around you. And and that could be that you're in a big wilderness setting and act setting, you have a high pressure setting, you're an urban suburban setting, and so there's a lot of factors to weigh in as far as what you should do on your land. So there's there's no set of actual habitat improvements, for example, that should be completed on every single property that that I visit. There's just so much, so many other things to take into a take into account. And one of the big things that I was thinking about this is um just the last little intermission we had, but we had. When you go to any kind of white tail property around the country, I believe that there's less than ten percent of those properties that really hold the daylight attention of mature box on a daily basis throughout the season. And so that's actually a lot easier to do with a small parcel when you have when you're surrounded by people, homes, other small parcels than it is to do in a wilderness section where box are used to a lot of space and they may bed, for example, three cores a mile on a on a daily basis from their actual afternoon too source. So so you're talking about possibly in a situation like that trying to develop your property for betting. I'm guessing yes, Like in a small parcel setting where you're in a neighborhood setting where you have houses around you, because the amount of daylight cover that a buck may have to call his all one and where he feels reclusive enough is really in short supply. So are you in a situation like that, We're in a wilderness section, he's got, you know, just an incredible amount of selection to choose from where he can bet anywhere to feel unmolested, undisturbed. Um, where he does not have that high quality food source. UM in a situation like you're balancing more towards food in a big wilderness or wooded setting, and you're balancing more towards cover in an urban suburban, high pressure, high the non factor setting got you so in in that's in that setting? Um? You know, creating betting on a on a micro property is that something that can really limit your mobility and your hunting? You know, like you mentioned earlier, you're your guy that's got eight acres, he's hunting ten yards off the road. Is that because if he goes any further in, he's gonna end up end up you know, damaging or I guess you know, affecting white tails on his property. Yes, definitely. Um So when I grew hunting in the eighties even the nineties, I had a lot of five and ten acre parcels that I could hunt, or the corner of a wood lot and act land where there was not a lot of cover in the Thumb area Michigan through a flat or I had, uh maybe a ditch line or a fence row that I could hunt, and that was about it. And so I learned pretty quickly if I went into a five acre parcel in the middle of the day, then those deer were gone. By the time I got into the edge of the wood lot, I'd walked a half mile across the open fields. Um, they were gone, and they weren't coming back to maybe the following day, the next day after that, or even a week. And so I could clear out and ruin my hunting pretty quick. And so when it comes to small parcels, I've always taken that approach where you're making the parcel as sick as possibly you still want to be able to move around it depending on where there's food on one side or another. That means you might be able to hit one side as deer leaving too in the evening, and you might hit another side where here coming back to you in the morning, and you you have the ability to sneak in the morning because they might be out in someone's yard five blocks way, um, when it's breaking down and they're just moving to the neighborhood. Getting back to that that reclusive area. Got you, got you so? Um. You know when you're when you're designing a small property of micro property like that too too for towards betting, Like you said, you're looking at putting more bedding or cover on your property. Um, is there a good way, um or some good factors that you want to look at, um when you go to kind of mitigate the issue of bumping deer that are bedded on your property during daytime. Yeah, a lot of times I'm putting the bedding towards one side or another towards for example, on that one eight acre piece, and I can think back to someone the ones that were in the teens or Um, the bulk of the betting has taken place in one side. I might even be three quarters of the property, but it's in that one corner and you have access coming in. And so what I'm doing is even on a parcel that size, you still have ample room to go around the all sides, say before daybreak and get into a stam position, wait for bucks to come back to you. And so really you're making a large percentage of the property that is bettable where a deer can get into they feel safe. And then how you do that is based on the land and the habitat and so on. Some properties were hinge cutting, other ones you're removing or uh, you're completed timber harvest. On others you're dropping big mature junk timber, and then you're hinge cutting to it if they're smaller timber available, if there's fields that love switch grass and diversity pockets. The bottom line is you're making a large percentage of that property vettable in an in an urban setting like that or suburban setting. And then you're using food scrape trails. Moch scrapes are great to define how the deer actually move when they come on the property or when they're moving through the property. Right right, I just love how you give answers to vague questions because I feel like so many people you know, they go, well, it just depends on what's around you, and then you just don't get any information, you know, And I love that's one thing you do so well, man, you're good at that. Yeah. I try to picture it because there's a lot of parcels that. Um there's always something going on around the land, whether it's a house of school, um, you know, in situations like that or at field deepan or a pasture. There's things that can be done on against those areas that you wouldn't do in another location. Again, going back to nothing's the same anywhere. If you have a small property like this where you are, you know it's say, for instance, that little corner woodlot thing, it's five to teen acres and the deer tender bed on one side versus the other. Have you had success with trying to add cover and move that betting area because that just that general area where the deer bed makes it so hard to access the property. Have you had success in like trying to change the cover typs to move that betting area to make it where they prefer to bed on the other side, Oh definitely. And and and you know sometimes they're betting on a certain side of the woods because wind. For example, you get a five acre wood lot in the midwest, you get an extreme amount of northwest west. Those are the cold, harsh winds. So a lot of times you'll see that gear beds. They'll be betting in the southeast corner of a wood lot, even if it's open timber, just because they're trying to get out of the wind. And so those deer in particular, if you make the northwest corner, and if you make that let's say you had room for us for switch grass stripping, even if it's you can add some thermal protection and then you have areas where you can actually put brush lockers or thick cover on the outside edge of that woods, and then you make hinge cuts or timber improvements or conifer plantings, um a diversity of habitat towards that northwest corner. Well, then you can take those dear in the southeast and moving to the northwest corner, because now that cover that was open and exposed to the northwest fields or those northwest winds. Now those areas are a eight out of ten for betting or seven out of ten as far as quality of betting, and they drastically I'll compete that betting. That's one out of ten over in the southeast corner, but was purely betting only because the winds were blowing into that northwest corner. And now that you can get out of wind on that extreme southeast edch So it really depends on what's going on on one side of the personal versus the other and and and so there's different ways to to accomplish that to move them over to that other side. Um, and so most situations you can move that. Uh. You know, obviously, even if there's a house over on the other side, you can still work on creating that extreme cover up against that edge, making a soul that that value of the cover is an appreciable amount of value different than where they were betting previously. And if you match that in with say some apple tree plantings on a scrape trail, some small clover plots, or a couple of harvest plots, and where you're trying to direct dear to move and it relates to that betting. Now you're not only displacing betting in an area that it should be and would will attract those dear over, but now you're relating that betting to afternoon food source movements, scrape trow movements, mocks, scrapes, maybe even a waterhole. So it's not just the betting features what it relates to, and that goes back to you know, what's going on around you. For example, if your neighbor has water and the deer that are bettered on your land or heading to that water every single afternoon to head to their major food source switches smack land, then maybe it wouldn't be a good idea to have water on your land, or if you have a swamp on your land too. But but again, there's a lot of a lot of ways to make sure that the de'er not only change betting, but to compliment that change too so that they can keep that that change and maintain it all season long. Yeah. Sure, and you touched on something there that's that's gonna really apply to me on my property. Um that I'll just give you a quick rundown on how things set up. So I'm one third uh wooded and two thirds open, but some decent warm season grass already on the place, and plan on adding more stuff. But you know, of course most of the deer are on the back side, and it backs up to four plus acres of timber on the back. So I'm in a great transition place. But on both sides, I have residences, okay, and one in particular is but it right up against my fence and it's in kind of, uh, I guess, kind of woodland top area. It's kind of on the edge of a of a ravine, and um, there's very little standing timber. There's a lot of saplings. And then on the actual fence road there are really big trees and that cabin can look right down into everything going on on my place, and if someone steps out their back door, it's gonna disrupt the deer. So there's not really something in there that I can hinge cut right against the fence, and that would be kind of, you know, my first inclination on what to do. So I don't know where to go with that. How do I add that, you know that barrier, that visual barrier you're talking about, to where even though there's a there's a residence right there, those deer can still use that freely. Yeah, that's a good question, you know. I really like so in a situation like that, for one, if you can knock down those big mature trees parallel to your borders, so great offense and you're walking on the backside or switch grass that area native grasses, you're you're lucky and you're in an area where you can use various types of warm season grasses and they're gonna stay up all winter long just because you don't I don't think have that appreciable soulfone. A yeah, that flattens it down, knocks it down like we would have even in you know, central Illinois and a hunt up um all right, you know north Um. So digital barriers one thing, whether it's those giant trees you can knock down like a fence if you can add switch grass, but um, if you can even put a privacy fence through their actual wooden privacy fence that you could walk behind. Is actually had uh quite a few clients you that berms of course and our thing. But one of the things that a situation like that is when you have a cabin there, you have a house that's an absolute and what's nice about that is then they're already adding human pressure um along that fence line. So it becomes a great access point for yourself where year as long as you're hidden in their screen. They can be twenty yards away and you could walk by them right on that line. They're used to humans out in that yard or in that house, and so you can actually walk by them really close as they're bedded down. And if that's you know that type of scenario. Um, and and get by with a great approach, uh, back and forth. No different than if you had someone with high hunting pressure and they end a blind right on your fence line. The worst thing you can do is move into your property fifty yards to avoid it. The best thing to do is move right along the fence row and give him a cup of coffee on the way into un be neighborly. Yeah, yeah, So what have you been seeing right exactly exactly? How's it going? How's your opening day so far? Yeah? Sure? And along that note, Um, all properties are gonna have neighbors, and it's something that you need to deal with an address. And I'm all about being neighborly, right, you know, I like friends, especially if you're gonna live on the property. You need to know your neighbors and know them well. Um. But I'm sure there's good and bad ways of going about, you know, addressing the hunting side of being neighborly. Right, So, in your opinion, what do you think are you better off to just be completely honest with exactly what you have going on over on your side? Are you better off just letting people know kind of what they need to know and then you know, this is my private property. I'm kind of just doing my thing over here. I think it depends on the situation. Um, you know, it's not just so if you see someone they're actively hunting, and you know they're out there all the time, you see them occasionally hunting, then I love going over and just making friends, you know, so talking to them. Um, usually if your face to face, even if there's some kind of hard feelings preconceived, because a lot of times someone will say, oh, those those there's certain people they're they're just bought land next to me, they're gonna be a hard, hard party to deal with. And if you just go over there and talk to them and say, I just want to let you know, uh, um, this is what I'm doing. I love White Tal's wildlife. And the worst thing you could do is we're passing on four points, and that's in three points, you know, three points on the side where we're passing on the young enough box. I suggest you do too. I I like to approach it more like, hey, these are the box were seen in the area. Um, this is a potential hoping you can tap into some of those two and this is what we're doing on our land. And I think if you approach it like that, UM, it's a lot better than trying to start with rules and regulations and co ops and and and you know, making it so that they feel like they're um they be either angers them or they feel inferior or whatever, or they feel guilty when they mean the worst thing. It's it's so bad when a small when a neighbor shoots a small box and they actually feel guilty and and that that and that that's sometimes our fault, and that's I can't stand that type of thing where I've done that with my own kids. You know, my son j K has a small buck come by and he looks at me and says, dad, can I shoot that? And here he's he's I think thirteen years old at the time. It would have been us fourth block. It shot bigger ones. And what a shame that he thought that he had to get clearance for me to shoot something when he's only thirteen. Yeah. So I got the same thing with neighbors too, Yeah, yeah, man, And just I'm the kind of guy just want everyone to be happy. And if shooting those young bucks makes you happy, you know, then by all means, please do it, because that just means you enjoy hunting, and I do too, and so we're all just getting along, so you would yeah, yeah, Well I think one thing to that one thing that we start doing this because of our own My hunting partner, Carl, his cousin Max was coming on the property I had my hunting for Buddy Rich was coming on the property to hunt Wisconsin different times throughout the last twelve years ten years, and we looked at it at first like, oh, we don't want him to shoot these small box this yearly in two year olds. But then we really quickly realized that if they shot smaller box, they weren't shooting the three, four or five and even six year old bucks that we had running around. And so I kind of look at it like that too. It's almost like I had a neighbor two years ago shoot the small box. I'd watched the feed on some honeysuckle leaves for about a half hour opening day. Went over to his line an hour later, baying, and sure enough, I think runs on the property. I'm hunting dies. I helped him drag it off. It's a little yearly year and a half a four point. Um. I looked at like, well, he didn't shoot Whitey, he didn't shoot Jackson, he didn't shoot Stafford, he didn't shoot Russell. He didn't shoot one of our big ones. If you could tell, we named the box by quarterbacks. But anyway, so but but yeah, anyways, Um, you know, if they are shooting some of those small bucks, you know, is it really a bad thing In the end, I've seen all in areas where they have a huge age structure of box and and they're complaining about their neighbor shooting year and a a half old buck. You know, could be you could say it's almost a good thing. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And UM, I'm not a biologist, right, so I don't I don't try to dive too far off into this this stuff because I don't want to speak somewhere that I'm not well educated on. But when you start looking at um, this dispersal rates of one and two year old bucks books. Uh, at the end of the day, if you shoot when you're not even shooting the deer, that's gonna be your three and four year olds a lot of times, especially on these small properties, you know. And I feel like that's kind of something. It's one of those things where like the big property management is kind of bled down into what we think is just the truth across the board of White Tail. Oh man, you you you touch on a subject that could be uh a whole two podcasts in itself. But but what the problem is with a lot of the management in the entire country is that a lot of it's based on large science and large parcel science, public land, large southeast or Southwest holdings, almost none of the science and none of the research. And I've talked to John A. Zoga about this. He's uh, I was leading White Til research biled this, he was a deer deer Hunting research editor for many years. UM. But he said, there's just simply not enough money to study deer on a forty acre basis across a huge, huge neighborhood of deer. There's so many factors and conditions that would have to be taken into account. For peer review to pass peer review study that it makes it almost impossible to do. And so a lot of that research that relates to large parcel buck movement, open woods movement where they don't have a lot of food. Um, they're not Naggera's, they're not in suburban areas, they're not in urban areas, they're not small parcel northern setting areas where everyone has a cabin on a forty parcel. Then a lot of that science that gets applied to those areas are actually in some cases can be um a negative and they could be uh really something that can be misleading as it relates to a small parcel. So you can throw all the science almost almost out the window. Um when it comes to managing small parcels. You know, of course, even when it comes down the science of managing wood lots or trees or the bio biological aspects, um, a lot of those are of course the same. But um, even yearling dispersal rates. You know, yearlings they say if the mother is around, he's going to disperse at the time. If she's not around, hill state at the time, or seventy percent of the the time, whatever it is. There's percentages like that that I think called true just because that goes back to the biological need to the her um anywhere that that can be applied. But but yeah, you know, if you're managing your small parcel that a mature podcast a three mile home range, and you're considering that for his daytime movement, then you're not tapping into the potential of your person, even at even at ten acres. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So so you talked about the hunter the hunter neighbors, right, would you rather have? Would you rather have a a smart hunter as a neighbor or someone who is uh leaning towards the anti side, the don't shoot my dear kind of person? Which is the better neighbor on a small parcel? That's pretty mean, you know the h I would say, it's it depends on how you look at So if you have a private land neighbor that's doing the same thing you are, then I look at like you can accomplish three times what you would, you know, instead of just twice. So let's say they're working on almost like their own herd, not their own, of course, but they're working on a herd. You're working on a herd. It's almost like you can separate those two even on a joining ten acre parcels, and you're kind of looking at it as he's putting his resources there, you're putting your resources there, and that's a that's a good thing. Now. Now the next level down is you just have someone smart that's hunting next to you and they're not really working on improving the herd, but they are through trigger selection and they're making good choices and they're hunting very smart. They can tap into your property and your efforts. That whereas if you have an anti hunter or someone who's you know, the weekend Bubba Hunter, which is a good thing. With that probably the I mean we're a lot of times these podcasts things were doing. It's more these are more slated towards uh, at least the Bubba plus Hunter, where yeah, you know we're where we're you know, it might not be that you're just throwing seat on the soil and make a food plot. You actually have an a TV and a TV spreader and I'm using that from a friend gave me these this, uh those labels, and whether that's good or bad, it's kind of like, um, you know, if the average hunter that just goes out doesn't care about wind, maybe drives the a TV to the edge of the parcel parks that makes a lot of noise getting in UM. That person and then an anti hunter I think are sometimes more than neighbor I'd rather have because they have the least effect on my herd goals and my hunting success and the quality of the herd overall. As far as that smart hunter that gets in next year that doesn't do a lot to actually improve his portion of the woods. Um, but he's in nothing that there's nothing wrong with that, you know. That's what's great about small twenty acre neighborhood public land chunks that are in and then you can get in behind some I used to hunt that way when I was seventeen, eighteen and sixteen, where we would hunt behind the neighborhood where no one else could get there other than walking in a mile and a half on the other side from the other side. And so that was awesome because we could get into areas that But you know, going back to I've had in in Wisconsin, we had there are large lease uh the neighbor that at least now he has fifty two acres. It was up for lease. He didn't realize how much money you could get for I found a friend in Michigan. He came overlease it and they shot three really high quality box one was called Pushing one seventy within within two years, they shot those box where the previous neighbors were the ones that you know they drove their a TV in. They shot one nice book in seventeen years that the landowner knew of. And they were very invasive. They hunted with a lot of guys on fifty two acres thirty acres of cover and here these guys pop in that were smart hunters over from Michigan, and they hunted too years and shot three bucks. And I mean, and that was the kind of neighbor was kind of like. But by the end of the second year, my least partner, Carl, was saying, you know, how come you didn't least how come we at least that parcel? You know, why didn't you Why did you call your friends in that? And I'm like, I don't know. I just figured because I'm the one that takes care of our our persons a d sixty five acres, that was the one that managed everything. I just looked at like a people they have some friends in the neighborhood. But yeah, they but they were so Yeah, there's if you break it down into each you know, anti hunters, um, the weekend bubba hunter, the weekend hunter. They can only get out then and just going out for an enjoyable time, um, not necessarily carrying out what they shoot, just having a fun time, which is awesome. Um. Those those kind of neighbors, to me, impact the hunt less. Um. They're almost kind of like the neighbor So when you get into those subdivision settings, a lot of times that's awesome because you have people that are really literally on the fence of you know, hunting or not or shooting box or not whatever, even the whole game of only a gun alone hunting. And uh, a lot of times you run into yeah, I don't want you to shoot baby, but man, those suckers get into alias every night and I hate him. You know, like people already started talking understand the necessity of herd management. Yeah, almost like they wouldn't mind you shooting those deer, just they don't want to hear about it or see it. That's where you know, my my buddy, close friend last year, I don't know how many neighbors yards. He went to five acres, five and ten acre parcels. Last year. He ended up recovering his bock, but he had to go through a lot of neighbors yards to get it. He went, he went and sought permission and but um, you know, when he found that the arrow was sticking out, it just it was one of those he actually made a good shot, but they can still travel two hundred and fifty yards with an arrow when you know, in the lungs and and they dies nine seconds later. And it covered a lot of ground, and he had to go through through a few neighbors yards to get it. Yeah, but yeah, that's uh, you know. I that's why I think it's it is complex when you look at that, and that's why you can't say and that's why you know, it's kind of like those neighbors with the ornamental shrubs. If you're buying a golf course, Um, some of those types of areas that can just offer an incredible amount of food every single night to the deer. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Then you're really looking at I want all the cover on my land. And again it goes back to there's not a lot of areas in those kind of settings where you can give uh the chirt box unolested five acres to cover during this daylight area. And that's why a lot of times I find you can pack quite a few deer in that in that same little five to ten acres because you're only managing their daylight movements. They might move three miles at night, but they're only moving a hundred fifty yards during the day. Yeah. Yeah, And going going back to that whole you know, ignore what you know about science about deer. Uh, there's a little um lakeshore community near where we live that you know, they've got hundreds of resident does, right, and I'm pretty sure those does make a living between bird feeders and ornamental shows, you know, that's what they eat on a daily basis, you know. And yeah, and that's what people don't understand is that like those deer aren't you know, they're not visiting food plots, that they're not going out to act, right, It's just a different thing completely. So yeah, and there's nothing wrong with that science either. It's not like it's just that that's kind of a lot of times all they can go by. So they're studying deer over thousands of acres of open public land in Pennsylvania with radio collars and finding out their home ranges, how they relate to each other, where their home ranges are at, and someone to look at that say wow, this is great science. And it is if it relates to that exact specific area. But when you throw the complexities high quality food uh roller coasters on different people's land, land that have and have not water, short compacted movement, higher deer densities, higher mature buck numbers where they're not infringing on a neighbor early buck that much, they're not crossing lines, you don't get a lot of overlaps. There's so many complexities when you get into those small parcels that a lot of that science is your relevant even even heard census when you're taking a census in August September. That's great on giant open parcels where their dear head does not change because I might shift from one side of the land to the other, but it's primarily you're you're holding a captive herds to stays there all year. When you're comparing that to a forty to a four acre parcel, then your dear head really should be managing October November because they probably because of the resources are on someone else's brands and planned or on someone else in lant near in the summertime. Yeah yeah, so you know along that herd management idea. UM, what's realistic for for somebody on a small parcel? Do you think that someone can truly have target bucks and follow them season to season or if you wanted to be more satisfied with your hunting, would you be better off just saying, you know, I want to shoot something that makes me happy in the four and a half year old range and the first one comes in, just just have fun with it. Well, that's a good question, because if you have those older box in the area, then UM, I find on a thirty acre parcel forty acre parcel of habitat, and this is in an area where let's say there's an average of eight parcels and maybe fifty fifty at lands, we're talking to high representation of a lot of hunters across country. Um that you should be able to shoot if you manage your property right in your hunt, you should be able to manage and shoot eight of those target box. Seventy percent of those target box over a ten year period, very unfair advantage because if if no one else is hunting that small parcel or their parcels the same way you are, then you can so For one, if you're only hunting when the weather conditions are good in the in the good days, then that sets you apart from everyone else. If you're hunting with making sure that your wind is blowing off, If you're hunting land or into areas where there's no dear and you're setting that up I just stand locations far in advance, then that sets you apart. If you're defining a daily movement, if you're defining a deer travel a deer habitat provement line where when those bucks come into your land, actually follow the rules and follow the script and they stand your line, you know, running parallel to your borders. You're you end up doing a lot of things and every step that you do um is adding to your potential success to hear to your neighbors around you. So so when you do those things, then you should shoot higher percentage of those mature box in the area compared to everyone else. Now, at the same time, it really depends on you know, how much fun you want to have to. So if you're if you're a season hunter and you have that high experience level of shooting those mature box and you set your property up that way, then your expectations should be a lot higher than someone else. And so on the other hand, I've gone to clients that they're waiting to shoot a four year old buck and they've never even had a three year old on un film, and so for for nine years they haven't shot a buck. And so what happens if they end up shooting or having that four year old on their property or five year old, they're their failure rate. We all have a failure rate when it comes to shooting box, so where none of us is going to be a hundred percent perfect on making that shot, drawing back the bow, everything else. And so if you haven't practice shooting deer in bucks in general a younger age class, then when that older one comes down, you comes in. Your failure rate it's really high. And so I'm all about you kind of look at you know where you're at as a hunter, where your herds at, not not setting expectations that are either too high for yourself or for the land, and then going out and shooting something, yeah, and having fun, you know, really focus on I want to you know, I think hunters. You know, it's it's not it's not a bad thing past year, Um, you know, not shooting something. But if you enjoy hunting, you enjoy venison. And then by all means, set your sites realistic for yourself, your experience level, and your land in the area, and then go out and have a lot of fun. Yeah, for sure. And and for me, um, you know this is this is I'm gonna say, our first property because um, I'm a family man. I have a wife, right, and she's just as involved in this purchase as I am. You know, it's both it's a financial commitment for both of us. Roight, So how fair would it be for me to tell her, Hey, we're not gonna be able to actually enjoy this property. You know. It's just kind of it's really you know, you can have the front up here to do whatever in the yard or what have you, you know, but but really the back you're only gonna go back there six times a year when the winds right, you know. So see that ladder stand at the oak at the back of the yard that yours. Yeah, it's not gonna work. And my wife I hunted a fifteen times last year, not counting out the state she hunted forty five times, so you know, probably ever hear the house, and so part of that was inexperience and everything, but you know, I just wanted her to shoot a box. So yeah, when we're buying that acre piece this year, that's uh just as much sure land as my land for sure. And you know I want her to have fun or she's not gonna be hunting there long. Yeah, exactly. And and and truth be told, my wife, Uh, she likes to go with me, and she shot a few things, but she doesn't have the passion for it, and I do. But she really enjoys, you know, watching wildlife, and she she really likes how I teach her stuff about the land. Right, and and kind of my my vision for for this property has always been, um, find a way to use this he for my enjoyment and for her enjoyment, but also share this and educate people on on land management and and just wildlife in general. Right. I love the idea of being able to go out and take you know, a group of middle schoolers or something and show I'm like, hey, you know, this is a warm season grass. It doesn't come up until and you know when the temperature hits such and such in junior or whatever. You know, and talk about flowers and bees and and acrons and how there's red oaks and white oaks and all this, and I feel like you just you can't have your cake and eat it too when it comes to being able to do that and just and kill big giant bucks and only hunted place you know, first time in like you hear about so much on media outlets, right, there's there's a well, yeah, that's that's so true. I One of those things too, is that if you have a there's a couple of things. If you have a quality property, it's hard to hit that center holes. I have white tails and not affect every other piece of wildlife around in a good way. Say, for example, we were out shooting videos. We shot seven videos yesterday morning. Dylan and I We're out on the property and head and rooster pheasant takeoff right at the a TV to the point made as both jump. What was that close? They jumped out of some pocket of switch grass. We only have pockets of switch grass out there. If we had all pure switch grass, those pheasants would only be on those outer edges because we have pockets. Then we have an incredible model linear length out in that field that's not only affecting peazen populations positively because they're gonna be on those edges, but it affects rabbit populations. Now we have rabbits coming out on those fields for the first time we've ever seen. We find pellets out on the switch grass. We have pheasants actually out there now in an area where there's hardly any pheasants. And then we have dear that relate to all those lines of movement we followed that their lines like when they're beat down trails right now where you can see because it's you know, April, they're moving right along that pheasant and so you know that's all awesome. Look, what I find is you're creating white tail property, you're creating edge, you're creating diversity, and then for that you're creating wildlife. And when it comes to your your wife and hunting, I found that over the last couple of years. To me, it just might sound crazy to some of your listeners, but my wife is my absolute favorite hunting buddy. That I've ever had by far, not even close. So to see her excitement and her happiness, and to see her, uh, you know, notice things out in the woods that she's never noticed before, whether it's just a leaf. And she one time I was sitting with her. She kicked me out of the stand by the eighth sid last year, so the rest was all by herself. But she tell me, you know, so cool. I watched this oakleiff and you ever you seeing oak cleff in the window blow and you ever see are just like twisting and forth, almost like dancing by. Yeah, it's just a little flutter. She noticed something like that, and so she she told me these things. Of course, the sun setting a bird in the tree. I saw this really cool red bird with yellow So what was it? And we look, you know, we look back at it and we can look it up and yeah, it's stuff like that and um. And so when you're hitting the bull's eye and you're incorporating your family kids into it, it can be so much fun because there's so many other aspects of wildlife. They're gonna be improved on a white tailed personal if you're really doing it right. Yeah, what was that bird? I'm I'm a I'm a bird man. I gotta know the red with yellow. Um they was a and I don't know for his yellow, but it was a rosebreasted gros. Oh man, I love them. Yeah, they start coming in beautiful, yes, And uh, I really got into the birding thing whenever I lived in the Texas coast because we'd have that fallout from where they fly over from the Yucatan and uh yeah, so you know they'd come in waves and those rosebusted grossbeaks are just they're man, they're cool, cool birds. Yeah, we don't see them hardly ever. Yeah, so yeah, those kind of things that really stick out. But but yeah, so for white tail parcels, and when you have a small parcel um like I'm thinking that field, you have, you create warm season grasses mixed with diversity pockets of non grass. So whether it's shrubs, hardward regeneration, hardwood planning, shrub plantings, then you're creating food with that broad leaf. But you're also creating nesting opportunity and edge opportunity for whatever kind of wildlife species that you're targeting in that area. Um, you know a peer of course, peasants and the rabbits are big, even grouse up north further. But they all require a lot of diversity, and that all that diversity matches white tail habitat improvements really well. Yeah yeah cool. So so, um, tell me a little bit about this property that you're purchasing, because I think it's cool that that you're you know, what you do for a living and how much you know about property management, you're willing to commit to a small property. So what did you see on this property that made you say, you know what, this this is gonna be a good one. Uh, to be honest, you know, committing to a small parcel that's a whole lot easier financially. So it's not just what I'm saying now now in truth o um um it just real quick, I'd rather have three forty acre parcels around my house and one parcel because now I'm tapping into three buck herds in three areas. And again I can go back to I feel that I could shoot an unfair percentage and target an unfa fair percentage of those target box every single year over you know, a long period of time. So three three small parcels to me, is better than one large piece where I'm only tapping into the same bucker. But that being said, the twenty four and a half it kind of just came into my lap. For one, I think I'm getting a good price. It's up in Buffalo County. Um In Buffalo County is the number one county in the country for boone and crocket pulp countries. Said that, oh yeah, yeah. And then along with that, it's got a bottom. It's it's basically a bench system with a few ridge points in it between the bottoms um outside of Elma, Wisconsin, and then it's um between the Bluff country. And so it's kind of in between that location the bottoms and the bluffs, you know, let's say over a mile and a half to two mile area, and it has a lot of years right next to a neighborhood. UM, I was able to work out a good Eastman where I can drive right to it. There's electricity, there's actually a little building spot for a cabin. But then it's also I have a five foot Eastman where I can walk into the seller's yard just for walking eastment. So that one's like a hundred and fifty yards away from the other eastmunstle. A couple of ways to get in. It's hardwoods on the finger ridges and and then it's junk timber in the bottom. So with that junk timber, under the managed force plan, I can actually cut that hinge, cut a lot of that stuff, make it thicker in there, get more regeneration. And then also I can put about two and a half acres of food plots in there, probably only put about two acres off in either corner. I can access around those locations. And then also because it's dry, then I can add probably two water holes in there. So I can have maybe six or seven tree stands and blinds on that small parcel, two areas for access. And then the cool thing for me is will will be able to video it uh all the bulldozing. We'll talk about how to bulls those food plots, how to make them look clean and pretty. We'll talk about planting new food plots and water holes, and so basically that's what I do for a living. Will be able to video at the entire the entire offseason hunt it um. It's right by where my stepson is going to school near UH went on the university over in Minnesota, and so he's gonna be able to hit it and hunt it with his friends. They're all they all have video cameras. They love doing all that stuff anyway, So it's just it's a good fit for our family. Um, And to be honest, I'll probably put it up for sale at the end of the season. And so it's kind of one of those again going back to I already have uh two leases I might keep. I have a third lease, I might keep this year again, and then i'd still keep pleases. But I really like having those small parcels and maybe even one in Minnesota. But that's kind of the end game, you know, years down the road, is they have multiple small parcels in a couple of states I live. I'm only five minutes from Minnesota. So yeah, um, kind of a kind of an end you know, stepping stone. But even then, I'm still gonna keep focusing on most small persons, you know. It's what I do. It's in my wheelhouse. But I think again, I really have experienced it over and over again that you can tap into a high percentage. But that area buck herd, and if you have parcels, if you have one acre parcel, it's still the same buck herd for the most part. Yeah, Yeah, And I think a lot of times guys getting this mindset of I'm gonna buy teen acres and flip it and then I'll have enough money to buy twenty acres and I can flip that, and then people just think you need to stair step, But um, I think that. I mean, what you're saying about having two or three smaller places makes so much more sense, you know, because you can go in there and just extract those mature bucks that you're looking for, and you can also probably find a way to hunt more very terrain, you know, and you might have partial over here that's you know, eggs agg country with fence fence lines, and then over here you've got you know, a big woods place and it's just kind of can enter your general hunter enjoyment as well. Yeah, and even I look at some because they're covered up in elf, elf and beans and rotations all the way around them. Then they're more you can hunt those more of an early season as an early season property because your years and your property as early season cover and and then if you offer food plots um along with that, then you can create that early season and then fall on the nz you know, for the whole from all the way from August to January, and then you have other those other persons that might be difficult terrain, and it's more of a rut cruising area where you're actually adding less food plot and more in terms of UH travel definition or cruising draft definition as for in terms of water holes, box scrapes and travel corridors and better here. So I like having that blend of it all. I like doing it all and again. So I look at a personal I'm looking more at, um, what's going on in the neighbors, what areas it in? How is my access on to that parcel? Not necessarily that it has to have. I don't like hardwoods because it makes it a lot harder to change. Um and and and then you lack diversity right off the bat. So at least on this person I'm getting has two types of timber where you have a low junk and in the bottom flat area and then you have the high ridge with the big oaks. Yeah, and then we'll add the food plots and diversity, but um, you really want to have in in water because it's a dry parcel. Then I can actually add water to it where I needed to be right at a bowstand location. So if I didn't have if there's already water there, you're kind of socked into a stand location by that water or none at all, So you know, depending on where's at. Yeah, yeah, that's cool. So for a lot of guys, um, who are purchasing small properties, I feel like small properties kind of go hand in hand with first properties. And that's kind of where where I'm at, you know, And it's it's you know, it's just like what you're saying, it's a it's a list of a financial commitment. A lot of times it's something what people can afford, you know. Um. So with that thought in mind, what do you think some of the biggest mistakes you see people making whenever they do purchase that first property, probably a small property. What's what do they do wrong? Right off the bat um? And that's interesting. I just have have a couple YouTube videos out once from a couple of years ago. It's like top twenty, uh wait till habitat needs for purchase for your next land purchase or lease or new land hunting land. This year I did top five. What I see, um, one, I'll see hunters that are real excited by a property because it has a big pond on it, thinking that's going to be a good thing for white tails, and if it's in and it's not that a pond is a bad thing if you enjoy fishing or something else. But a good sized pond takes out habitat and you can imagine the bigger that pond is, the further mature box gonna feel safe betting against it if there's activity at that pond, human activity. And so I'd rather have a small water container or a small water hole that's twenty in diameter where I can actually pinpoint exactly where I need it for a white tail stands. So water on the property is not necessarily a necessity or a good thing depending on where it's at already or the size of it, and and it depending on an on Again, we're going back to a lot of this is it's a family thing, and there might be other recreational opportunities of family wants. The hardwoods is probably one of the big ones that people really like to have this big standing timber on their property. And those are some of the hardest properties to manage. You know, it's easy because you can just say, well, yeah, there's forty I've said, on one hundred sixty acre parcel in Michigan, Central Michigan, we're on a small knoll in the middle. You can see about hundred and fifty five acres. In the wintertime we snow shoot into it. It was all hardwoods and you could see almost the entire hundred and sixty acres just from one knoll in the middle. And that the amount of dirt work they have in dozer work and plantings that they have is in the tens of thousands to make that a good white tailed parcel because they do not have diversity. So so buying a large chunk of hardwoods as a general rule in this rule has hardly ever broken unless you get into properties or underwater extremely rocky, um, something you can't work with because of that steep train, whatever it might be. But in general, the lower the value of the timber, the higher the value for wildlife in general, not a lowe white tails. The higher the value of the timber, the lower the wildlife value, unless you're looking at squirrels, um, you know, woodpeckers, whatever, But you're the lower the wildlife value, the higher the timber value. And so that's so timber value gets people into trouble too, because now they're sucked into managing. I mean, who wants to cut down middle aged um potentially high dollar hard maple or cherry or white oak. That's gonna be um even uh boy, walnuts even worse. All line, you know, attracts nothing other than swirls. But it takes you know, decades to mature enough to harvest and have it have it be approachable visual. So until that it's dead space. And so those are some of the you know, uh too high a timber value, Watering the wrong locations. Access of course is really really bad. Um. You know, if your access it might be great that you have this really nice middle central trail that goes right through the property. But if if you're gonna have a hard time accessing that property because of water constraints around the outside edgies, then um, you know, access of course is really important as far as it relates to where you can put food plots, potentially habitat improvements. Uh. And so access, water and timber value would probably be right up there with the three are really tough ones. Yeah yeah, sure, what do you think is is fool's gold? Whenever people um start looking at small properties, you know, like, what can people really think and get fooled by when they drive up and see if it's like, oh, look at all these tracks or or just something that's a that's a great point. So right now is a really deceiving time. And I just I'll have a video coming out soon, actually tomorrow, I'm gonna put it out talks about uh oh no. I put it out yes yesterday actually so I get mixed up here in my own but anyways, I put it out and talks about the four the four periods to scout white tills all year long, and right now is so deceiving because if you're looking at property, a lot of people are excited in the spring, they're starting looking at property. Deer sign can be very very misleading right now because it was winter signed. So you have properties to collect a lot of deer during the winter, but they are almost facing during the fall. And so if you're looking at areas of high grass, maybe it had a standing crop field next door, uh conna for thicket, um, it can look like there's gear tracks, there's pellets on top of pellets, and and really it's misleading because those deer aren't there. Here in the fall, and so those fall rubs and scrapes are so important. Um looking at rubs and shavings. Are those shavings under the leaves on top of the leaves I like and meaning that if they're under the leaves, they were early season, on top of the leaves mid mid season later. Um. I really like looking at trails right now because these trails that are evident right now before spring green up and might even be green up in your area, but they're so evident. So if you're trying to connect potential bedding areas in the future, or lines of movement between food and bedding, water holes embedding, or water holes and food, then the trails of those deer travel on right now are so evident. And so if you're planning out a property, this is a really cool time because you never want to try to reinvent the wheel again. You know, you can do that move a bedding area from one side of the land to the other, But in a case like this, you're using these trails that are so evident. The deer have told you now where they want to travel if they're moving through that area. So you say, I'm gonna put a beting area here and here, and then you use the trails that are so incredibly evident right now, flat them off in between, make sure you put your stands up accordingly, and you can pinpoint exactly how to move dear across your property. So if you're looking at property right now and you're seeing a lot of tracks, try to take a good, hard critical look at it. Was this from just over the last month, the last three months, or was this representative of a funning season or is this a summer percel? So you're you're walking out on the land during the summer and there's mature box everywhere. Mature box during the summer are typically not at all where they're going to be located in the fall because they need a completely set a different habitat conditions they can go through thick cover that they require in the fall. The summer food sources are gone in the form of alf alf and beans. And so you're walking on a property in the summer and you see a big box everywhere, Well, is that actually a fall parcel? Because if it's a summer person, you have a lot of work to do on that new land to make it into a fall person. Yeah, yeah, man, those are great points. And I never really thought about about idea of you know, not not taking the sign for what it is. You know, we we go out and we scout places, do you know, public land or what you know, and you're like, oh, you know, and you kind of get that. But whenever you apply that to to purchasing a place, it's different. You know, even if you went out and found a giant ship, you know, that would just be like, oh my gosh, this is the sign, this is the place. But really, you know that dear might actually you know, fall uh three miles from there, you know, so man, and well you think about that too, Like so, I've been like a Northern Michigan percel and they literally purchased it at the end of winter and it's a deer yard. And in that deer yard and those seaters deer came from ten miles away or fifteen miles away. And I mean literally there are pellets on top of pellets, der um deer beds everywhere. If there's still a little bit of snow, there's robs because there is that second and third rot that they're rubbing in either early December or mid December, and then early to mid January, So you know, you have dose coming from everywhere that maybe had low buck populations. You're putting them all in one spot. Now you're gonna have a December and January rut. So you're seeing sign in the area. Now, it's great, you might have a great hunt in December. But I've hunted those areas on public land a lot. You know. It's late eighties and nineties, and you could have an area we would hunt between Christmas and New Year's and because of those it was a warm winter, none of the deer moving into that area, so it was dead. There was literally no deer. And then another year we were throwing out bad At that time, we're seventeen years old, eighteen, We're throwing out hundred pounds of carrots or apples, whatever it was. It was legal back in the eighties, and all of a sudden, we have twenty five deer there the next day when we go out and side in the afternoon, and then one one year later there's none, and then the next year. So if you have a property, you know, you really have to be concerned about you know, really going back to when was this rough made, When was this time made? Is this representative of a fall parcel, of summer parcel or a winter parcel. And if I'm most here at this time of the year, going back to the summer parcels, they probably were in mark too. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, Jeff, you've made a lot of references to your YouTube videos, and I can tell you that a couple of the ones you mentioned I have already watched. I do it pretty often because it's so helpful for for you know, kind of what I have going personally on small properties and then just a general broad concepts of whitetail too. So can you tell people maybe where to to find out more about what you have going on, both with your business and in your YouTube channel? Oh? Sure, um, I have. Both of them are White Tail habitat Solutions dot com. We're on YouTube if you just look up white Till Habitat Solutions. UM. I also have on Instagram accounts that's white top Tat Solutions and same with my Facebook account. And I do go through in the streets with a small business. Diane, my wife, helps me out a lot. Um. I have Dylan, my editor, Taran that someone else that helps me out. So I have people that do help me out. But what it's it's uh, there's a lot of facets of it. I were My goal is to put out two hundred YouTube videos this year. Put out a hundred five last year, and we're on pace for that too. Again. We shot seven yesterday. Um, well, you know I add to that those seven will come out over the next two weeks or I'm really trying to put out an average of ray around four videos a week, and certain times we're doing that at a higher rate. UM. But I try to hit um. It's not about just wait until habitat. It's about what's going on in the white Tail Woods at that time of the year. So I have a video coming out tomorrow that goes over a twelve month UM checklist to what you should be doing in the woods over those twaulve months as it relates to either deer hunting or deer habitat. And I probably could have been more inclusive on that. But basically it's following out the content that I put out online, whether it's articles or videos. I'm trying to say, Okay, what is what am I doing right now? And if I'm probably doing it, it's important, I'm probably getting questions about it. My clients are asking right now. I'm always keeping notes, UM on my phone from my clients. UM. I think I have about I have at least two under five to bullet points of potential blogs and articles videos on my phone right now. But so depending on the time of the year, I'm always going back into that in trying to keep current with what's going on in the white tie or Unfortunately, I'm I wild turkey hunt, but I'm not a big I'm pretty boring. I do fish during the summer, but it's it's all about white tails for me, and it's my career, my profession, passion, and my family is involved in it, and UM we try to reflect that in all the social media posts and content that's out there, and there's certainly the videos. I try. I really try to answer everybody on the comments on YouTube. But I literally like this morning I get up, it's use the I would say an hour to two hours a day depending on the video and what's going on for YouTube comments, three sixty five days out of here. And so when I when I get behind, I've had like three hours of the time. And then there's sometimes I just say, you know what, I just have to forget the last two days and keep going. So I really try to answer everybody. And have you even had people to get slighted? You know, I'll come you answer everyone else around me, and todn't answer mine. But I honestly try. I play no favorites. I just answer what obviously, if it's an easy question, I don't have much time. I answer that one over a more detailed one. But um, I really try to interact with everybody. Yeah, sure, well you know if they if they want some of that really detailed stuff, they can just call you up and pay you to come to their property, right Like that's the way, that's the thing, it's and that's what stuff it's. I I really do want to answer all those questions. Um. I get uh, just almost every day. Sometimes you're in hunting season several of the day where people want me to help them out with their lands. And because I go to about ninety clients a year and we turn away about a hundred and fifty, it's just really hard to you know, and then you know, two hundred articles. I'll finish one to three more books this year and write about seventy five articles. Of course, spend time with family, and friends. So there's it runs out. You know, it is a seven day business, seven day business. But you know, at the same time it gets into a point where, um uh, some of those questions is that are too detailed about some of the specific property. Then unfortunately, either they mean I have I have almost a thousand videos and articles online that hopefully can help them, my books at best or worst or whatever, and um and then so I have a lot of free content that I hope can help people. And I wish I had more time, that's for sure. Yeah. Sure, well, you know you didn't mention sleep any of those things that you said you needed to get done. So I can only imagine that you just don't sleep very much, because I can't say I sleep more than my I sleep less than my wife Diane. But I usually it's one of those were first thing in the morning, it's a cup of coffee and answering or publishing YouTube content. So that's usually how I start my day, maybe an Instagram post and and then we go from there for shooting videos or you know, right now, like I said, I'm on a I'm getting towards Madison right now in southwest Wisconsin. I'm on my way to Michigan and at seven clients in eight days, and and so a lot of my client days are tip really ten to eleven hours with my clients and then I average of all three hours of driving on top of that. So that's for you know, eight out of nine days, seven out of eight days. There's not much else time for for that, and so usually I'm waking up early to post a YouTube video or an article. Yeah. During my trust to well, Jeff, I can tell you from first hand experience, Uh, your labors are well appreciated. Man. It's a great YouTube channel you've got going in, a great thing you've got going to the white tail. I have TAD solutions. Uh, I've learned a lot and specifically I can remember the first one I watched was about building visual barriers. So that's a great one with with SAD and yeah access. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. It's awesome stuff you got going, man. So as as I lets you go, oh you're welcome, man, you are very welcome. Thank you. And as I let you go, I want you to leave the listener maybe a little bit of encouragement, you know, it can it can seem almost a little bit overwhelming when you start thinking about, well, how can I you know, uh, kind of positively affect the limiting factors on this property. And then you go to your proper and you're like, well, it has all the limiting factors, right, it's small and it doesn't have anything needed to right. Can you just kind of give us a little bit of encouragement of why why we should get out there and get after it and improve that small property. And that's that's a great comment because I what I tell people all the time is for one year, property can change overnight. This is something that does not take years. Even an open field up north here you can use switch grass and diversity pockets, and one year that switch grass is propproximately to four ft high, you can provide cover for deer food. It can all happen in one summer. Um. Even just the last ten videos fifteen videos, I've taught that put out has a lot to do with habitat management, working on dough factories, eliminating does or raising dough numbers, raising a deer factor, or raising a deer population. Um. That can all happen very quickly. And just because you have a small property. You know my properties, I have eight acres to cover, thirty acres to cover, forty acres cover the new property is twenty five. And so any of the books you see that I shoot um, any of the habitat provements that I make, they're all based on those smaller parcels. Now what's cool is I put that you compare that to a hundred and sixty acre parcel. Where a lot of people fail with that larger parcel is they need to do the amount of work that it takes on forty acres times four. And so I find that the amount of work that takes on forty acres is enough for the for the you know, the food plot or habitat manager to handle. And so when you actually make a complete small property and it takes obviously a lot less work than parcel, then you can you make those connections, you make those features, you can turn things around overnight. For one, if you're experiencing a lot of nocturnal problems, I have a nocturnal playlist where I talk about how to reverse your property um um trajectory. But man, there's so much you can do right now, and it can happen quickly on your land. And what I someone always says like, when I come out to their land, they asked me our client objectives and goals often higher than I would expect for them. And actually it's the other way around. Most people with small parcels do not realize the potential of their land because they've never experienced it. That's what I hope to offer them. But I'm here to tell you right now that that can be done quickly and the potential on average is a lot greater than you think. Wow, that's cool, hard, I'm pumped. I'm ready again again. Even just look at mature Bucks. You're only managing the daylight movement. Who cares if they move three miles as a home range that or more is during the daylight. And when you have small parcels packed into small parcels, mature Bucks only focus on a small percentage of every land out there to attract their daylight attention every single day. And it's a hundred and fifty yard movement three hundred yards and in a little bit big area four hundred yards. But when you get those small micro parcels and neighborhoods, if you're talking a hundred and fifty yard for last, and that's the beauty of the wait till world and management and hunting. It doesn't take a lot of property, and I really firmly believe that the potential is a lot higher than a lot of people realize that or listening. Yeah, that's great news, man, that is cool out. Well, I can't wait to get out there and manage my small property. And I'm sure I'll be uh referencing plenty of your YouTube videos while doing stuff, so we'll be sure in that. We'll be sure and linked to your website and your YouTube page and your social media down here in the show notes below. And uh, Jeff, I can't thank you enough. Man, It's always great to talk to you. And uh, I probably had about thirty other questions I could ask you, So we'll have to do it again sometime. Well, I'll be traveling to clients some other time and we can we can get on the phone. That'd be awesome. So I'd always loved talking to you guys. Appreciate it, Jeff. Don't work too hard today, man, And good luck in Turkey season. Yeah, thank you too, all right, thanks, we'll see you well. Unfortunately I was not able to make the end of that podcast. I had some prior work lined out, and Jeff the interview up to uh because he had an opportunity to and so we were just all trying to accommodate each other. Luckily, Casey was able to kind of fish that thing out and it's okay. We just talked about how smelly you were that you got off. That's good. He was like, I get the phone. That's right, Yeah, I I wish I could have heard that, and I'm looking forward to listening to the full edit of this podcast. But what I did here, man, it's just you know, good old Jeff Man. Everything. Everything, everything Jeff had to say was good. I can't bap so much for myself, but he's he's a he's the man, dude. And I already, you know, truth be told. I've already purchased a small property, right so I don't need encouragement to do that, already feeling pretty good about it. There's there's deer all over the place, even though it's small. But Jeff's words and his knowledge like give me a fuller understanding of what I truly can make my place into, you know it, and it's uh, it doesn't matter if it's small, really, honestly, it's it's even an advantage if you play your cards right. So I'm pretty pumped about the years to come. It's exciting, man, and it pumps me up to talk to him because you know, hopefully, my my goal is to is to find the right property that's a good, solid, small property that I can afford and and uh, you know, unfortunately that's a pretty small one and and a lot of people that have those have already kind of done the same thing that I'm wanting to do. But um, you know, just gonna keep searching and hopefully eventually save up some money and be able to do something like that. It's inspiring to think that you might be able to harvest mature bucks on a small property, even in in UH areas like where we live, where it's pretty populated, you know, and lots of hunters wet. That's one thing. You know. They talk about some of that stuff in the Northeast and the population and everything, but um, we have like, like per capita, the number of hunters is pretty outrageous in taxas. Yeah, I think so too, And I think that, um, something we run into a lot that isn't accounted for is the amount of people who's who say, Well, my cousin hunts there once a year, so probably not, you know, Like I think that, well, you even run into this in like the Midwest and stuff, whenever we're getting permission places like yeah, nobody's hunting there right now, y'all can go in there. You know, it doesn't really matter if somebody hunts it in you know, in the first weekend in December or whatever. You know, you can go ahead and go in there right now. And and I that's private property. I can understand. You know, it's you're right to tell me not to go in there. But I think that that's just another hurdle that you have to jump whenever you live in a place where everybody hunts. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So but always good to hear from. Jeff Um will link to his uh anything that has to do with him that we can think of in the in the description, I'll probably throw some specific YouTube videos down there as well, like some of the ones that I've watched in the past couple of months that's really helped me. He actually has one that's titled very similar to the topic of this whole podcast, like the forty Acres of Less and I think he just released a new one that's like um twelve months deer management system, which is kind of cool, like kind of that whole idea of like what you can been doing all the time to kind of help yourself be a better hunter, right right, Well, I mean we're in a kind of a time period where there's just not a whole lot going on until you know, like I mean there's still some shed shutting, shed hunting opportunities, especially opportunities opportunities up north, you know, like we're but here, man, I mean, I'm looking out outside the window right now, and everything is just popping green. The grass is getting pretty tall already, and we had rain and we're having sunshine the rest, you know, for a few days here, it's gonna be it's gonna be pretty much hard to find a shed green up from this point of the show. So I'm thinking more about fishing until there is a little bit more antler on the head. But I can't wait either. I can't. I just that's a good thing about being all around outdoors. But I know a lot of people that listen to this podcasts are pretty strict and pretty serious about white tails. But man, it's there's some fun stuff to be he had out there in the off season and whitetail and and uh, fishing is one thing. And I talked to my dad about that the other day. He goes, and I don't, I don't know. I may have talked to you about this recently, but um, I don't remember who it was. But he was saying, man, you know, I just think if I had to give up one or the other, hunting or fishing, it would be hunting. I'd give up hunting and I'd do fishing. And I said, man, I think I'm in the same boat. I love deer hunting probably more than any sport, but I love fishing more than you know. That's a year round thing you could do if you wanted to. And I just love it, you know, just as much. And I'm glad that's not a real world scenario that don't face, you know, kid, that I do love I do love it all man. So but it's a it's a beautiful time of a year man to to uh, I don't know, it's it's it's like, uh, I kind of equate like right now to like you know, late October, you know what the same kind of thing is happening. You know, I think I see teal on the horizon right over there, over the tops of those trees. Yeah, you probably do. Speaking of changes, you know, that's that time of year those blue wings. You and I were talking about this because I didn't really know for sure the other day, but you said, Doc, you know, mid april's like the time, right April back through April's the time when we start seeing a lot of blue wings and they are fully plumed out by this point and they're about to hit the downhill. But they're tasty too still, I imagine, and I don't know that for sure, but the ones that you shooting December are still tasty in March and April. So anyway, I think it's about time to get off of here. Uh. We are working on lots of guests right now that we're lining up, and we've got some pretty exciting stuff coming up even though it's offseason. Some good things to learn about in the off season that can help you when you start getting a little closer and you start getting a little more hype and you start listening to those podcasts about tactics and that kind of thing. As far as deer hunting, goes. You already have these other things in your back pockets, so look forward to that. I look forward to talking to you guys, and God bless you guys. And remember is your element, living it I need, so I stay on the bright side of

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