00:00:00 Speaker 1: Hey, this is Tyler Jones and you're listening to the Element podcast. What's happening on the Woods People? We are chilling in the mouse house here in Alba, Texas, and the guy laughing across from me is your favorite co host, Casey Smith. What's happening that? I was not prepared for the mouse house. That's pretty funny. He left you some little uhwhere I'm taking a bath when I gets yeah, so that we're in a We're in a room that's like a joined to my house. It's not like truly part of the house. It's like an add on or something. I live in a rend house now, but apparently it's not the most mouth mouse proof place, you know, so definitely not. There's yeah, and what's bad is like all my fly time stuff in here. So he's gonna go there and chew on all my bird feathers and gonna cheer your vice down man, speaking of vices and mice is hey for real? For real? We uh? We are pretty fresh off of Atlanto River trip down in Texas. We did a little fishing trip and by the way, happy Easter, everybody. I forgot to say that, uh, which by the time this releases will almost be into the next weekend. But we are talking with a guest today that it's cool for me because I've been a fan of the media that he has put out for the last like ten years. Um, we're talking with Sean Luctel of heart landbou Hunter. We're talking to him about burning the burning sensation that a land manager has inside of him to burn his property. And uh, Shawn's got some experience doing that. Uh, He's got some guys that work with with him at Hartland bow Hunter that that know their way around the woods pretty well and know this different plant species and that kind of thing. So you guys will get to hear about that. But back to our trip, the mice and the vice. We tied some flies in this very room and tied some flies and then hit it out shortly there after. I mean, what's it the next day, Well, it was. Yeah. We head out the next day to uh the central part of the Grand State of Texas. So the goal of the trip was to go down there and catch some Texas native species, specifically the Texas uh state fish, which is the Guadaloupe bass, and then also the real grand cyclid, which um, I'll just go and let you know one made an appearance, one did not. You've got to watch film see which ones. But they If you haven't done the hill country thing, go down there. Forget about all the wine tours and all that jazz and go to a river and get somewhere where there ain't nobody else, because that's what's cool. Which speaking of getting somewhere where nobody else is we kind of we saw that play out. Yeah, you know success wise for us UM, Like the further we got from people unless people we saw, the better the fishing was. And uh, it's pretty cool because al right, so a little plug for friends on x UM. Down there in the hill country there's like no cellphone service. Yeah, and you can't do nothing. But before we went down there, save some maps, offline maps, and we were able to find like those super secluded little uh what what what do you call low water crossings? Uh, and use that for stream access. So what you can do in Texas if you didn't know this, this is one of the few like super awesome public land things we have in Texas. Anywhere a highway right away or any sort of right away crosses over a navigable, navigable waterway, you can use that to access that waterway. So on a lot of these hill country rivers, you anywhere you cross it on a highway or road, you can get out there and walk as far as you want to in the stream bed. And that's what we did, and that's how we fished and found some really cool spots. Yeah, so we didn't have to have any kind of crazy cool access or pay our way into anything. We just gas money to get down there and uh slept in the bed of the truck and uh, not the most comfortable night I've had, but I slept pretty decent. But yeah, it's it was really neat man. We got to hop off in some river beds and uh, super clear water and really cool cool water. You know, it feels good this time of year, especially considering we had a couple of warm days, you know. Um, but yeah, we had a blast. We caught quite a few fish. It was a little slow because I guess the river was kind of low, and it was a little bit low, a little bit clear, and in the past I've had better luck, like not like when the river's high, but when it starts falling, it starts clearing up and falling to where you have like pretty clear water but pretty swift and higher water, and that's when it's the best. But this year it was kind of more. I mean, it was a lot like what it is in the summer when I'm down there and it's just you just gotta figure out how to catch him. And I think by the last day we were there, we'd figured it out, like, well, okay, so there's a top water pattern. Just gotta watch films see what that's all about. But uh, there pretty much like mid day you just found find like the deep deep spots and there was fishing there and at one spot we stood there and just warm out for a while. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah, Hey it was fun, man, And you know, the like like you said, there were more remotely gut to seem like the better of the fish and got and um. There was a couple of times when you're sitting there driving you're like, I'm not sure that I'm not on just a ranch road here, like I'm for sure, Like we crossed some cattle panels and you're an open range country, right, you know, it's it's it gets kind of wild, actually, oh man, Like one of the best parts of the whole trip. We weren't even on the Lando proper is a feeder creek and the water crossing across it, and we're literally driving in tyler See's fish barely had any water and pretty killer. You're just gonna have to watch. There's a pretty good one, pretty good fish that uh was in that creek and several of them and yeah, that was That was cool, man, and the weather was great. Um only had one you know, snake encounter, uh, which somehow I can at least manage one everywhere we go. It seems like, but you know, down there, you're thinking rattlesnakes, you know, and you're kind of it's dry and arid, you know, and uh hot down there, and it's just that kind of Southwestern field and you're thinking rattlesnakes the whole time. I'm and man kind of keeping an eye out, but not worried too much, staying in the river mostly. Well, I hear a little the I guess the morning we did we made a quick trip out of it. So the only morning we fished there, I'm walking back up the bank and they here and I'm like, what is Uh, it's kind of behind me at this point. You know, and uh, and so I turned around, knowing pretty much what it is, and there is a large cotton mouth with his mouth wide open, facing right up at me, and his tail twitching in the leaves and the straw right behind him, making a noise just you know, kind of like a rattlesnake would do, except for he doesn't have any rattles And I had just walked past this thing. I'm talking within probably tun a half feet and he was laid out though, And I guess when they're laid out like that, they can't really strike very far, you know. I mean, they don't have a whole lot of body to bring him out there, and you've got stepped on, so pretty sure he could have got for sure. I mean I was very close to him, and then uh, anyway, he's he was just very very large, and I had walked right past him, and uh, anyway, we got little footage of him, but not much. He was just nasty and no point in doing it, you know. But um, yeah, it's fun trip, fun trip. So let's go from the cool waters of the hill country to the burning fires of the Midwest and get shown on the phone. What do you think that already all right, all right on the phone. Now we have Shaun Luctel of Heart Lamb Bow Hunter. What's good brother, Not much man, just just working away here in the office. Shows we share doing something outside today. I was supposed to be burning, but conditions a little too windy, so I opted out of that and I'm sitting here at the desk just getting some work done. Well bummer on that man. Um, we are not learning property either, so there are things that we would definitely rather be doing right now too. But um, so goes live. Man. But uh, you know, I was I'm I'm glad that you were decided to be a part of this podcast man, that you I wanted to come talk to us a little bit. Um. I just want you to give us a rundown of, um, how you came to be where you're at today. You know, um maybe from like college all the way through uh today, kind of give us your story, give us a background, let us know how you got where you're at. Sure, yeah, thank you guys for for having me on here. By the way, surely appreciate that. I always look forward to doing stuff like this. It's always fun to I didn't talk about what we've got going on and just kind of the new things that are out there that we have going and trying to tell our story as well, because we do get that question quite a bit where you know, how how do you guys get started and where do you come from? You know how to just what's the story, what's going on? So m yeah, back in uh, back in high school, myself and Michael Hunsucker, we we just became friends through school and uh we um we both bow hunted at the time, and there really weren't that many people in our school at bow hunted, and so just through mutual friends, we kind of met and that was one of the things that we shared together and enjoyed a lot. So we started kind of bow hunting together. And later on in high school, UM, we started filming a little bit, like just jacking around with a handicap, just not nothing curious whatsoever. And then we uh we went to college together because we still enjoyed bow hunting and we also were on a trap club or Trapp scholarship. I guess you would say that. We went in Wood University in St. Louis, and so we both went there and there were other hunters there obviously, and we kind of all had like our own whole click and we're all just bow hunting together. But Mike and I just seemed to film our hunts even more than the normal and anytime that we weren't in school, we were we were hunting there doing something involved with hunting and filming it as well. And so that kind of brought up the side of like a tree arm. When we used so solid tree arm, there really wasn't a good tree arm on the market at the time, and my dad owned the machine shop, um while he still does, to the stage a different one, and we had one of his toolmakers build up a tree arm. So from there we uh, we basically just manufactured the tree arm that we wanted to put onto the market, and we started kept selling the HB Sniper Pro and from there we wanted to show what quality footage came from that arm, and so we decided to start the TV show, and I can't remember, I think we started out on the Man channel at a Man or something like that and graduated from there to the Sportsman's Channel for a few years, and then from there, like our sixth season, we um went to the Outdoor Channel and have evolved into into what we are today. That's kind of a short version. There's obviously been a lot of things, um along the way, but UM, super blessed to be able to do what we do. We're always always eager to learn something new, or whether it's the production side, the hung side, the manage in side, or whatever it may be. And yeah, we just just very very fortunate to be able to to do what we're doing today. I never would have imagined I'd be doing this back when I was in high school or even college. Really, I didn't know what I wanted to do. Once through college, I got trying to figure that out tonight. I just decided to get business degree with an emphasis and entrepreneurship, and I wasn't even sure owing own my own company. But it's all kind of be evolved in what it is today and so here I am. Man. That's awesome. You know, personally, I think a lot of you guys, and I know there's a lot of people out there that have U that had the same feeling is in uh it's I think it shows in media man, like UM, you guys were the pioneer of a lot of the things that are happening today. Um, you know just uh in in the video film space. UM, it seems like to me that you guys kind of started that uh upper end production value in the outdoor world. And uh, personally, like I said, I've followed you guys for a long time now, I guess since you guys kind of started season one. UM, so I really excited to have you on the phone, man, and then UH really happy for your journey for sure. I uh definitely support what you guys are doing. I know you guys um have been doing some burning lately, and UM, usually if you're going to be burning, you're probably burning your own property. UM. And so I think the first thing I like to talk about here is just purchasing a property. Some of the people that listen to this might be interested. I know personally, UM, I'm interested in uh property and I don't have one currently, but I would love to have something around here, uh local, just to be able to manage and kind of get involved with that whole side of things. So I don't really want the real estate investor perspective unless you you know, like at the end you cap it off a little bit of justification, but you know, from a deer hunter perspective, UM, you know, you guys, the properties that you hunt are important to what you guys do. Um, you know, they give you ability to go out and be effective getting harvest on film. So from somebody who not necessarily would be uh looking to film, but just to be effective hunting, what should they be looking for when their first uh looking for properties to buy? Well, that's a that's a great question, um. For one, I want to I want to kind of start off something like like if people are ever hesitant about buying land, like you know it was a smart thing to do. Yes, it is. It's one of the smartest investments you can you can make because I mean there there's only a limited supply of it, and it's it's only uh it's only getting locked up more and more in smaller tracks are being made rather than you know, bigger tracks. So by land, it's an extremely good investment because the price continues to only go up. I mean, yeah, it may drop down a little bit, but as time goes on, it's gonna continually go up. So you're gonna you're getting told you're always gonna have a great investment in that. But um, as far as white fields go, when looking for certain properties, UM. I think it's kind of tough in Missouri. So I feel like I did a lot of searching prior to it UM and talked to quite a few people, and I was very very hesitant UM on what piece I wanted to buy. It took me a while and I was patient, which I think that's really really smart. Don't don't necessarily jump on the first one, the first one that you come across. But looking back, I kind of wish I would have. I was just overly hesitant because the piece that I looked at originally, the very first one I ever looked at UM was actually priced bright and it kind of had everything you'd want in a smaller track. It had rolling, a big rolling hill that went up into all the cover with warm seasoned grasses UM on the lower portion of it that led into the timber and run in the bottom was it was worth the agg was at and UM, it just kind of had all of it for a recreational piece. I even think it had a pawn on it well UM and I it was, like I said, it was Chris good. It had income and I just was I was a little bit scared at the time. I guess I wasn't quite ready. I was just kind of looking. I wasn't quite ready to purchase. I was more or less just looking at getting a feel for it. But um, anyways, I think when you're looking for something like that, you want something that kind of has it all like that. Um, if there's income on the property, like agriculture like that, um or CRPS paying um, it's gonna be higher priced. In this case that actually this one wasn't and I was just a little nervous. UM. So it was have been a great investment, But there are underlying things you've got to look for as well. You know, there could be a bottom where there's w RP, which is Wetland Restoration Program, and with the Wetland Restoration Program, UM, yes, there I believe there is some sort of income with it, but it will always be in a w RP. It's never taken out. There's it's a lifetime term, so it's always gonna be kind of like a swamp ground. I guess you would say. So if there were w RP on it, you know, it may be lower priced, and so I think that drives a lot of traffic to it. But if you're gonna if you're gonna buy it, You're gonna always have w RP on it. You can't ever put anything else in there. So you gotta look for something that. UM trying to think of some other things that we're kind of underlying that I've come across. Well, neighbors, for one. That's another thing that I UM that I was looking for. When I was looking at the pieces the property, I found a really really nice piece. It was small, I think it was only like fifty or sixty acres UM and I could put agg on there. It was just in pasture at the time, so there was there. They weren't drawing the income off the property, but if I were to buy it and put crops on it, I would get income. The only thing was the more I talked to the agent that was selling it, and the more I realized that the neighbors were, UM, we're trespassing on that property. And I didn't really want to. I didn't really want to deal with that. UM was coming onto my property with without permission and UM, so that kind of drew me away from that. I'm just getting to know the neighbors and what's surrounding the piece is is really important as well. Um, trying to think of any other underlying things that might kind of be in the way. UM access. Yeah, that is another big one. If there's just one point of access onto the piece of property, uh, and you have to go through all the cover to get to where you want to hunt or anything, and you're gonna spook all the deer out, it's probably it's probably not a good thing. UM. So I'm always listened to that UM. And that was kind of the reason that I ended up buying the piece that I did buy is it has a couple of access points. Um. Actually has three access points and potentially another one UM. And so it's it's only an eight acre piece. It's not really big, but I think it's a perfect piece for the average bluetollar guy. UM. You can act so you can access it from three four different areas. It's got a ton of cover. UM. The one thing it doesn't have is any income as far as agriculture. But I really wasn't looking for that as a white tail hunter necessarily. I was more attracted to all the cover that it has, all the brushy stuff and extendep timber um. And I was able to also put in some food plots. I've got uh an open area, but it's rolling pasture, so I put I drilled in alfalfa there so the the roots will still hold the dirt together. And only road and it's just something going and maintaining with mowing, and I can spray it to keep the weeds down. Um. And then I also have a lower food plot that's probably only maybe a half acre that I've gotten clover, and then one other food plots that I'm gonna turn into brass mix. But basically with the surrounding properties on on two sides of it are just um wide open cattle past year, so there's not really any deer hanging out there. And then on the other side, other two sides are are bigger block September, so it's more or less like a travel border I feel like for deer passing through. And so, I mean it holds some deer, but they're definitely moving back and forth between mine and the neighbor's property. Yeah. Man, it sounds like an awesome place, and you know, I too can I'm kind of at that point in life where I'm really starting to explore the explore the options of buying a property. Of course, as an investment. But you know, let's be honest. Every time I look at a property, I'm always thinking, dear, you know, and like, what's how is this gonna hunt? What's it gonna do? Is it worth it for the white tailor standpoint? Um? And I'm very guilty of looking at a property and assessing it for what it is and not seeing what it could be. Like I want I want that property that's kind of set up, maybe not like with food plots and everything, but like I want the cover to be there, I want the forage to be there. I want the water to be there. And if it's not, you know, keep looking. But I don't look at the things that I can do to change it, to make it better. When you look at a property, what's what's some of the more easier things that like maybe something doesn't have but are easy to put in or easy to change, easy to make habitat manipulations too. Well. A lot of people don't really think much about timber um in Missouri especially, I feel like, um, you know, you look at a block of timber and they may want to look at logging it, and yeah, you can, you can get you can get some income there. But you also, it needs to be at selective harvest. I feel like, um, you can't just go in and UH do what they call it a hy grade where they just take all um mature trees off, because then that just leaves your less desirable trees there to rise and then you just have a really bad stand of timber. UM. So I think that that's something you should definitely pay attention to. What kind of timber standards that have or they're like heavy oaks that they or their walnuts that are in there. Um, are there a lot of good hardwoods that are still they're standing on the piece of property. And in Missouri, you can go to your the conservation department Missouri Partment Department of Conservations and apply for a timber stand improvement project on your property and they'll give you an option of either doing it yourself or UM hiring a UH contractor to come in and complete the timber stand improvement for you. I am choosing to do it on my own, which it doesn't matter either way, but you have to apply for this and there's actually UH state funding for that that's allocated each year. And Missouri has I believe the the wealthiest UM conservation department in the country. UM. I could be wrong with them pretty sure. I just know there's a ton of funding there. And so they allocate this money for timber stand improvements and if you are selected out of the member of people that apply UM, they will fund you a certain amount per acre for timber stand improvement UM to be done in your Propertying with that basically includes a forrester will come in and evaluate the property and take a inventory of the trees and the timber in this unit that you want to be select before the timber stand improvement and what trees are good and going to stay and what trees need to be removed. UM. I could go into some technical terms, but it might kind of be above everyone's head. But yeah, essentially, they're just gonna come in and UM I tell you what what you're gonna do. What you can get out of your farm as far as income to complete this process, and they'll pay per acre you can you could if you do it yourself. You basically have to. You would have to. UH if you don't know how, you have to research out to complete the timberstand improvement and go in and girdle or UM girdle the trees or basically just remove the less desirable ones and treat them with with tord arm, which is a um basically just a tree killer. And yeah, so I'm kind of I feel like I'm trailing off here, but there's fun chamber stand improvements on your farm and then the CRP as well if you can, if you can get areas of your farm put into c RP, that's another sources in income. Um, it's also desirable for them for the wild life. Sure, yeah, not pertaining to your farm, not pertaining to anybody in Missouri or elsewhere overall. Just why is why would you burn? What's the general concept and the idea behind burning a property? Well, um, for one, before you even do burn, make sure you know um what you're doing, and you could just keep professional health there if you have no idea what you're doing and you've never done it before, because the last thing you want is for fire to get out. But then you're then you're doing it for the wrong reason that it can be a huge problem and you could get in a lot of trouble. But um, some of the reasons that we do burn is basically reduced fire hazards, UM, fuels and stuff on the forest floor or even um in a field. UM, there's just a lot of fuel sitting there um if it's not especially if it's ever been burned or in decades since it has been burned. And that's a huge reason why fires have started out west every year, big giant fires, because you know, that stuff used those forests used to always be essentially naturally burned off on their own, um through just wildfires, and that stuff has been basically stopped um because of you know, human invasion, you don't you know, they don't know, fires going crazy and people's homes being destroyed. So now there's a lot of fuel sitting on the on the forest floor and the fire start and basically just rage. Um. But anyhow, just reduced just your hazardous fuels that are on the on the forest floor. Um. And then there's a lot of debris that needs to be removed um that may be sitting on the floor four flour like dead trees and stuff like that. So it helps clean it up and make it a lot better. Are a lot more peating into the eye and just it looks better in the timber. UM. And really the main reason that we do just to improve the wildlife habitat um, whether it's just in a field of native grasses or in the timber. If there's sunlight reaching the floor, you're your habitat is gonna be better. All your native plants are gonna thrive from that um as far as your trees go to help remove less desirable small trees um or some invasive species, not all, and some of them will actually be will thrive from it, which is kind of a bad thing when you have to you have to treat those. But in Missouri, I can't speak for other states, we have what's it's called multi floural roads and it's just a nasty invasive books that's uh sny. And if there's stap flow going through it and you run a fire through it, uh typically if it gets hot enough, it'll burn that plan up and it will not come back. So it helps remove that. So if that's being removed, all your leaves that were sitting on the fourth floor removed. Now your other plants, like your your native forbes and in other plants that are the ceilings that are on the floor actually close to sunlight and they can grow. So it helps do that. It helps to manage competing vegetation. Like I was saying, Um, maybe there's you know, five little saplings coming up right next to each other, and one of them, you know, three or four of them are weak and two of them are really strong. It's gonna eliminate those three probably, and the other two are gonna thrive and outcompete the smaller one. Yeah, that's just there. Um. With the grasses, Um, it just removes all that thatch. So like the you know, the dead grass that fell over from the year before, once it went dormant, it helps remove that. And so then when the grass of the cool season more warm season come back up in the spring, there's you know, there's not all that facts that have to grow through. So this year, what projects are you working on? What? What what are y'all burning in? Why? Um? Basically just a few different savannah grass areas open are open grass areas and then um September. But like I was saying, that we have one area on my my dad's boom. I having something online yet, but we just um completed dis mberstand improvement project on a block Ofptember. And so most of these trees, not most of them, but like a percentage of tree were removed, and a lot of these uh, these mature folks were left that they were already there that are now they don't have to compete with, you know, for the other trees right around them, just a few others in their giant tree. That also opened up the uh, the canopy to where sun I can reach the forest floor. So we're burning the timber floor so that all those plants and other small trees can thrive on the on the forest floor and come back up cool. So I've got a question for you, uh that I know we're kind of concentrating on whitetail stuff, and for good reasons because we all love to hunt, hunt big bucks and does and everything. But so I'm a general a generalist when it comes to outdoor opportunity. I love too, I love burning, I love to shoot small game. I even have a book collection at home. And it's kind of weird, but um so, do you ever take like time of year into consideration or anything when it comes to these burning like, you know, say a warm season grass thicket they grew up, you know where you trying to get rid of that thatch and all that from the past past seasons. Do you take uh time of year or just like say the small game insects, birds or whatever may be nesting in there at that time of year. Do you burn at specific times or temperatures or weather conditions to avoid you know, taking out that section of wildlife. Absolutely, yeah, that's a really really good question. Um. We do think about that stuff all the time. And it's super tedious as well because right now there's quite a bit of stuff that we we need to burn on our farm. Um, up north, I was gonna burn today here in the central Missouri where the where it's a little bit dryer, but up north it's super super wet, and so that's kind of delaying our burning. And that's fine. But with being that without being said, like I don't want to get into into mid April and and you know it's it's finally dried out or not for whatever for us to burn. And there's turkey laying eggs and other sorts of animal, other sorts of birds that are that might have masts on the ground or something like that and go and burn them all up. So yeah, we try to get most of our timber stuff done um by now. Um, it's just it's just a matter of if it's dry enough for the condition that you're right, and so here pretty quick if we do, um get the right conditions, we'll get into the timber and get the rest of what we want burned off. And that kind of goes the same for most of our open savannahs with the with the graass and stuff um, but some we do burn later on. For instance, I have some two smaller areas one ones maybe like hat acre, and then the other one is probably three acres on my farm there basically overtaken by fescue. And I don't I mean, I have no desire to have fescue growing on my farm. I'd rather it come back into native grasses, which are mainly warm season grasses, will either cool season grasses, so when they start to grow, it'll green up. It'll be your cool seed, which is like April and May. And so if you go in burn those as they're starting to green up, it'll really knock them back quite a bit to where the warm season glasses can actually come through in in July and June and July and start to grow and grow through where you just burned and outcompete that fact. So you give some, you take some on that like, yeah, they're I mean, there could potentially be um nesting going on in there, but um, there's quite a bit of other cover that will be left untouched, you know, where I'm not going to be burning this year to where they could they could have other nests and and wildlife you move to, Like I wouldn't want to go in just burn off, you know, several hundred acres on my dad's farm, because then that that's gonna push all your wildlife out. They're not gonna have any cover right there or left. Um, So we do it. It's certain small units throughout so that um, they have a chance to move. Um. And we don't burn off like we don't oh and burn off the whole farm each year. It's just small units and different different places each year. And so we'll give we'll give areas a break for one, maybe even three years each time. Yeah, So it sounds like there's a pretty narrow window in there when it's you know, like a good time to burn And I guess it's it's all dependent on what you're trying to do with the with the property and all. Yeah. Yeah, and like you could you could start in January February if the conditions are right, but that's the nst thing we run into. It's like, I don't want to go in and burn off, um, the cover that we have for the deer, and especially if they haven't shed yet. You know, you know, it's gonna drive them off your farm and then they're gonna be over the neighbors and they're probably gonna shed over there, um, and you're not gonna find their shed. Yeah. Yeah, I mean that is how I'm sure pretty much us were thinking. You know, you want you want the buck to shed on your product. Yeah, I mean, oh yeah, we've got to try to pay attention to that as well. Yeah. So you know, I would think that the burning is uh, it's not a yearly thing. So you kind of have to keep up with what you've done. Where do you have any specific way of like remembering like, hey, I did this place four years ago and it was intensive, or we did you know a minor burn here? Or can you just are you good with your mind like that you can just keep up with it. We've we've pretty well kept up with it. Um. If we were organized on that, and I think we probably could write that stuff down, but we we haven't. Um, I've yet to run into something like that to where I forgot. Um last year, conditions this time of year world unbelievable, Like it was almost it was super dry up there. Um, it was actually too dry most of the time to where we were under like burn warnings and we get well, that's another thing. I don't know it's anybody familiar with it or not, but when you do burn, um, you have the conditions have to be right as far as the humidity levels they need to be below and the rottive humidity and if it gets down until like thirty or below, that's when can light up. I mean like their clothes could catch on fire, no problem when they get that low. And that's what was going on last year when it was so dry. So we'd go and we'd light stuff up and those fires were braids. They had a lot of heat and we had to be super careful to make sure you're fired, didn't get out of your line or anything like that. And it was good because we got a really hot burn in some areas in the timber where we haven't done t s I yet. Um or we just had a really bad stand from the previous owner and had a lot of the trees cut out of there. So we've got a lot of soft wood trees and stuff that we didn't really want, so that hot fire win and really torch some of those those, uh, those trees that we didn't really want to So that was that was kind of cool. But at the same time, it's like, all right, you gotta be you gotta be really careful. Yeah. So, I mean, what's the best way to kind of curb the anxiety of burning for somebody who's never done that. There is a time information out there online. UM that's really I mean outside of control. One of our our our guys, he he worked for the Conservation Department, UM, so he was extremely familiar with with how to do a prescribe burning. But prior to that, you know, or other than that, I've researched a lot of them on my own. And there's also workshops that our conservation department puts on UM where you could I'm sure you can find all sorts of different stuff online UM as far as other workshops in your area that might be going on. UM. I was gonna ask if you'd taken any classes or anything, uh to to learn more about this. I sure should you know it's it's easy for me a singer and say that I feel like I know it all but extreme as you think that you definitely don't. So I have not, um, but I have looked into quite a good of stuff online and being around Joel. He is certified and that stuff, and he's he's actually gone out West. We bought a lot of h fires. So being around him and kind of mentoring him and seeing what's going on, I've learned quite a bit. Um And uh yeah, something else that I meant to say is the number one thing that we actually used to um keep our fires in control is a backpack boiler. Um. I remember the first time that I I learned about that. You know, we had a backpack blowler out there and I was like, what what do we need of this thing? Why why do we have this? You know, I just always think it was we you know, you put it out with a rake or with water or something. You can't you can't haul that much water out there. So yeah, the backpack forward and just you blow the fire out and it works extremely well. That's probably the That's definitely a number one thing to use control a fire. But black I'm saying, like it's best to be uh, to be educated on any of this stuff. M tired of ever doing it um in speed you don't you don't want to a real high um, but then your fire to burn out. And another thing is to use a disk in disking your burn line so your fire can um. But yeah, I would just say highly recommend, just looking and best so uh the right way to do it and go about it. Yeah, sure, so do you ever? Well, let me give you a little bit of a snario. So say you want to burn an area to start a new and plant your food plot, and that's in that spot you know, say you're playing clover or something that needs you can see bid as opposed to uh, like if you're just gonn burning area to kind of control the amount of grass that is built up there and have the same stuff come up again. Uh, do you structure those fires differently or do them on different types of days or different wind speeds or something to get different results? Um? Not necessarily uh, as far as burning um for a food plot or just burning um like grass to promote other grasses, it's kind of all relative there if you want so, if you wanted you wanted to be dry enough regardless to where you're not just burning off a little bit of fats on the top and then everything underneath that's wet stays there. Um, you wanted to be dry enough so that it's a lot of pretty much everything is removed and burned off. Um, if you were just burning off an area to uh to put a food plot. Yeah, it's the same thing. You just want it to be to be dry enough to where it removes all that fast. But you're still gonna have to go in and um and disc it up to basically kill off anything that is going to come back. You'd have to wait for it to green up. And I think I can't remember the exact length of the plants, but I would assume it's around like six inches. You gotta wait till it grows about six inches before you come in and spray it. But if you're gonna disc it, you just let it come back a little bit and then go in and disc it up to where you just have just dirt. But the only other thing that we is different as far as burning conditions is um in the timber you need you need a lot lower humility levels. So I said, that's kind of that's mainly for grasses. If I was going to burn the timber, I probably wanted to be around forty percent relative humidity and have about it m hmmm, ten to fifteen mile per hour winds, Whereas if I were just burning grass, you only need about a five to ten UM And if you have anything about fifteen or grass, you might not want to do that because maybe it's gonna it's gonna run a lot quicker, just because the fuel for the fire the fastest on the ground, there's a lot drier and thicker than in no timber. So, um, do you guys deal with cedars much? And does that worry you if you do? Um? You're talking about there right, yeah, like, uh, you know when you're burning in the timber um, I mean whether it's dead or green. A lot of times I've seen some cedars go up pretty quick. So I was just wondering if you guys ever have to have struggles with that in noptember um. Not in the timber. No, typically, because our the flames don't usually get that high unless it's I want to Like last year, like I was saying, was really dry and had low humidity. UM. Typically not in the timber. They don't usually light. The only time they'll ever light is in those open areas of are asked to like our open savannahs. We we have a lot of feeders, and really it's only about the first time that you go in and burn those areas that that those feeder light up. And if you have a good line around your whole um, your whole burn area, there's really nothing to worry about. They'll light up and they burned down and they won't come back because it kills them. But now we've never really had too many issues with the here. It's pretty cool to watch and burn though. Yeah, no kidding, especially for a pyro like myself. Yeah, that's that's where that's kind I am. Yeah, yeah, I had way too many fireworks as a kid, for sure. Yeah. So how long, um, how long does it take you to come back to a section after you burn it and say, well, we need to do this one again. Um? Well, it just depends on what's in there. Um, if it's kind of a like we have one area on the farm that uh it has a ton of fun a little like uh, I think they're like pin oaks came up all at once. So I don't know if there was a pasture there thirty four years ago what was going on there, But there were no mature trees, and you know it may have been raised at that time and then just left alone. And then all these trees came up at once, and so they're all trying to outcompete one another, and they still are to this day. But they're all the same size. They're all probably like six twelve inches in diameter. So there's a bunch of thick trees in there. And we've gone through. I mean, there's there's no room in the canopy for some like it hardly, so there's no there's no small vegetation on the fourth floor. So we've gone in there and burned off that leaf crop or leaf fall crop. And uh, we've waited until that. You know, the conditions are right for real hot fire. And when we do that, it's burning a lot of those trees and hitting them pretty hot. So it's like I was saying earlier, it sends out, um, a bunch of those a bunch of those less desirable trees, the ones that that parting as strong as the other ones, and the stronger ones thrive and make it through. So well, that being said, those weaker ones are dying off, which open up sunlight for it to hit the forest floor, and it's just kind of regenerating growth at the bottom. So stuff like that, we'll go in and we'll burn. Um, we've been burning almost every year. Um, we've we've given it, I think a year or two rest here and there. But until we feel like, you know that that standard forest looks good enough to where we have healthy, mature trees and sunlight sitting the floor and there's vegetation draw on the ground, then we'll start to back off on how many times we burn it. Um. As far as like the grasslands go, we try to give those if if it's a really good stand of warm season grasses, well uh, and there's not much cool season growing in there, Um, we'll give it mm hmm to three years rest before we go back in and burning again. Um. So once once you get closer to the point to where you're you're happy with it, that's probably when we back off on the burn a little bit and you had a little more rest. So are those grasslands, um, are they regenerating in one year enough to give like adequate cover for for deer? Yeah, it just kind of depends on on what was there to begin with when we got to place. I was actually just looking at pictures the other day. I think I think my dad purchased his property that that's the main piece that we hung, by the way, and it's the biggest piece that we do most of our stuff on. But yeah, we I was looking at pictures earlier this week, actually five years ago, and this one stand that we have is probably the best on the farm. Is it's just like the perfect stand up form season graphses and I actually put it on HP story the other day. Um. And when we first got it, it was kind of a mix between the two between warm season and some cool season and faescume stuff like that. And I think we've burned it three or four times in that five years span. Um, so I think we only gave it one year off. And now it's to the point to where I mean, I'm not I'm not going to burn it this year. We burned it last year, and I probably won't burn anything next year either if it if it looks about the same, But the year after that I will just because of the the layers of fats that are it'll be on the ground, just to try and remove those. But um, yeah, so there's there's certain ares that that looks really good and there's others that still work. So when you do burn like that, how do you know what's coming up is what you want? So a great clust I'll give credit again to Joel on that. That's That's another thing that I've that I've been learning as we go, is what what is good and what's bad. There's their avasive species that will thrive off of that fire that I wouldn't have known otherwise about if I really if I hadn't kind of mentor Joel on that, and he, like I said, he learned all this stuff time working for the Missouri Department of Conservation. But all this information is also online, which I've I've researched as well on my own because I you know, I've asked him so many times, what's this, what's this? What's this? And it gets to be probably repetitive with him, and then I want to I want to learn a lot of it on my own, want to sit at home thinking about it, So I researched it. Um It's just yeah, it's just something you really have to learn. It's not like you're going to go out there and know what's good and what's bad. Um, we want the warm season draft of to thrive. And then the native plants that come up in the spring after we burned there. Like we'll burn, for instance, one of these grasslands and we'll go walking through there, uh a months into the spring or during turkeys and or whatever. And Joel's calling out all these different types of native plants that are popping up. So you know, he's like, oh, there's Indians, paintbrush. Oh, you know, like all these different names and uh, purple cone flowers coming up right there. Just all sorts of native plants are coming up. And so a lot of it I've learned through him. Um, like I was saying, but um, the invasive species are like Tercio lestedsa. And that's that's just a native Like it's not native, but it's a it's a a plant in Missouri that's actually founds all over the place. And if you go in and you burn that, um, it fries off of it and once it's once it's it's just it spreads like fire essentially, and it choked out all the other plants below it. And so after a few years of burning it. Your whole fields will probably becovered in it and all that would be growing there. So when you when you run into yeah, when you run into something like that, it's it's more or less. You gotta know what you're looking at and what you're looking for and what you're burning. And if there's if that stuff growing, you need to you need to kill it um. And again you just have to research what what you kill it with. Whatever the plant may be, like that stuff you kill with a product called pasture guard. Oh m hmmm, So what's that? I'm sorry, So at that point in time, you're resorting to spraying as opposed to burning, Like, you gotta bring in a different type of implement. Yeah, and that and that's another time period you have to do that. We do that when in the summertime, once the plant is kind of like that invasive species has um basically matured and it's you know, it's got all like it I don't know, got all of its leaves and everything or whatever whatever it would be called this pig. And then if you if you do it too late, it won't absorb the her Besides, you know, it won't get you to it like fully borned or whatever towards the work. Um And by the way, on all of this stuff, I'm still learning, So I might sound like I know exactly what I'm talking about when I'm still learning all of it. I'm I'm not an expert yet. You know way more than I do, so I'm glad to get to pick your brain on it. Yeah, I'm just reiterating the knowledge that I've learned. Yeah, the last five years. That's all. That's all anybody does. Like there's no new knowledge. You know, we just learned something from someone else and then tell the other person. But you're doing good man. Um So around here pretty much all summer, the deer just chowed down on forbes like golden Rod and stuff like that. Is there a specific way to burn to promote the growth of forbes, Like, is there a time period or how would you do that other than what we're what we've into it as far as burning this time of year before any vegetation has come up. That's the only the only thing that I know to promote forbes native forbes, unless there are like I was saying, like, unless there's um fest you grow on there or an invasive species. And I'm not sure if festu is is labeled as an invasive species or not, but I do know that it it really chokes out everything else. You can go in also, and you could burn it this time of year before it's u greened up at all. And I'm I guess I'm referring to the Midwest. Maybe not now maver you guys, because everything is probably greened up. It's pretty green. Yeah it's not, it's not here. But yeah, so like if it if it uh, if it hasn't greened up and we went in and burnt fescue, um, it's just gonna promote it. It's gonna thrive off of it because your cool season months about to happen. So if I did do that, um, I would go that woman to get rid of it. I'd go and uh, like I was saying earlier, when it gets to about six inches tall or whatever or six inches to about foot tall, and then go in and spread it with um with round up just to kill it. Yeah, yeah, okay, cool. So your native some of your native forms may be coming in a little bit with it, but at least and you make them. But your main objective here that best first. Yeah, sure, and and that will get it done. So I guess, uh, being where we're at and having in early green up can kind of be a good thing for burning purposes, at least if you're trying to get rid of it, like you know, something undesirable like that fescue. We get that green up earlier because our cool seasons earlier, and it gives us you know, I guess, more of a summertime growing season. Now, the thing we have to watch out four down here is that we hardly ever get those humidity days like you're talking about, Like it's usually just hot and sticky, you know, and then, uh, you gotta get on things early, because at least in our area of the state, Uh, there's pretty much a burned band from June till September about every year. So we have to, you know, pretty be kind of cautious of that. But I guess this is kind of simplistic, and maybe it's just because I'm an amateur at it, but I would think that whenever you're going to burn a piece of property, uh, you don't just like a lot of fire in one place and hope it goes out from there. Uh, I've seen it done. I suppose were you trying to lie a line of fire and then allow the wind to carry it across the property evenly. What's the best way to make that happen. Yeah, that's and that's another really good question. Um. When direction is is key. And then also elevation, which I'm not I'm not sure where you guys are a texts. But if you have very many hills and changes invation, that also will change it because you're thermal and everything health changed as well. But like if there were a hill, um and you were burning um into like say, say your winds blowing into that hill going up it, but once your fire hits that hill, it's gonna it's gonna go even faster once it hits that was just rush right up it. Um. So that's something to keep in mind. But what's the wind direction? Um? We're always we always like what you call it a black line, and that's on the down wind side of where the area you want to burn. So we'll go in in the first off, you want to make sure this or or super wet or whatever it may be on the back side of where you're gonna lightn this and uh lightness black line. And then if there's anything going back like with the wind. You want to put that out with your blower, and then your back your black line's gonna slowly feed up wind, so it's actually gonna burn slowly into the wind. And then you'll circle your way back all the way around and then you'll you'll light your backfire and it just burns right through your your your area that you're laying to burn. Cool. Cool that. So I've seen a tool um that people use. I don't know what it is. I just want to know if you've used it. It looks like some type of like an oil vessel or something, and they just walk down the line and a drip of fire falls like every foot or so, and it kind of creates like a line for the whole fire to go across. You ever use one of those or you know what it's called. Yeah, that's called the drip torch and um basically it's it's just your your fuel that's inside of it is uh three parts, one part unleaded and it's just nicked up in there and then um, so it goes out this little tub out the end of it, and on the end of your tube is like a little uh oh, I don't know what the material is, but it essentially soaks up that fuel that's coming out of there, and you'll light that on fire. And as you're going along, your fuels coming out and it's going past that through that flame. This this lit on the end on your torch, your drift torch um. So your fuel is lighting through the air and it takes it's taken the flames through the air and it's land. Once it lands, that's where it it sits and that's where obviously expands and it starts starts your fire. And so yeah, you don't want to use just straight unleaded because playing well, it won't. It won't actually, I don't think times I've never tried this, and I wouldn't recommend it, but I don't think it will actually even I don't think it would go back into your into your torch um. But like I've had when we've had a bad nick to where we've had a little too much unletting, and so when your your fuel goes through that flame, it burns up before you pen the ground. Yeah, I could see it. Yeah, sure, sound a little dangerous and a lot of fun. So it's kind of my kind yeah, yeah, all, like like I was saying, if you're gonna do it, and make sure you teak professional help, burst and sure do your research stuff thought there and be a dummy and light of fire and then out because that's the last thing. You want to be extra conscious and say something you're doing this. Yeah it can be I mean, it can be really effective and good, but it can awfully extremely dangerous and you don't want the wrong thing to happen. Yeah, it's not the first time someone told me to seek professional help. So I think, oh, man, so, uh, you know, I follow y'all's social media pages and stuff, and so you've been doing a lot of burning, and you find a lot of ships while you're burning. Do you uh ship hunt with fires? Do you just end up finding ships while you burn? Because I would think you wouldn't want the ships to be a charge, but I don't know. It's funny. It's funny because a lot of times we'll be like, man, there's such a big block of timber, like I know there's shed wan in there, and was walcked in and can't find them, and we're like, we're gonna light the sam on fire anyway. But we walked to them up from tired of it. Let's just uh, let's just look again with the furs, and so we'll burn and we'll go in there and pick up some sheds. But no, we don't ever intentionally burned the fine because it's sometimes if the fire is hot enough, it'll it doesn't fully burn them up, but it'll char them up. And then like if it's really hot, the tips will start to like your time, they'll start to break and stuff like that. Yeah, I mean they're not as good looking as they want for So yeah, we never we never burned just a fine. Yeah, it is fun not afterwards. Yeah. Yeah, it makes it pretty easy to say, hey, there's a lot thing out there in the black stuff, there must be a yeah, it looks pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. So another thing for strange intentional burnings um around here. Oftentimes habitat is pretty monotonous. Uh, and deer can be difficult to pattern, as they are in most places. But if you can get a penn down, it's good. Uh. Have you ever burned an area, say late in the summer or maybe even early fall to maybe uh funnel deer movement away from that burned area. And a side note I guess to the question is that even an ethical thing to do. And if you believe so, yes or no? And why? Well, first off, no, I actually haven't and I hadn't even thought about doing that time there. I never really thought about that. Uh. Man, that's a that's a tough question. I don't I don't know, um, And I don't know. I don't know the answer that how much they would actually avoid it either. Um, if it were a big if it were a really big piece, I would I would think that they would avoid, you know, the center of it and stuff like that. Um. But as far as the edges going, I would assume they'd still go. I mean, I've seen gear go through burns this time here that are I mean areas that have already been burned. Um. I've seen him go through there, um this time here. But I don't I don't know during Paul, That's that's a tough question now. I mean I I personally wouldn't do it, um. And that's what like there there are good times actually during the all two burns that I've heard, I've never done it. Um. But the reason being, I guess in in the forest, if you were to go in and burn in the fall, Um, it's it's more liable to kill off your invade, like invasive species that are in there, where like if you had multiplow rose or rose bush, honeysuckle's grown in there because the fat flow is going back down into the roofs that time of year and it's becoming dormant. And so if you had a fire that you cut through there and it burns that cambium layer, which is the outer layer inside the park um while the statflow is going down, it cuts it off and basically choked out the planet ends up dying. Um. So it is. I've heard that it's a good thing to burn sometimes in the timber and the fall, but I've never personally done it. It's one of those things that I'm I'm unsure of and I probably won't do it just because that time of year on my hunting. And yeah, and there are like you're saying, like, there are areas that I don't most of the areas I want there to be covered. I don't want to remove it that time in year. So I've just never done it. Yeah, yeah, sure, but I could also see the benefits of that, you know, fall burning as far as like what we talked about earlier, with the small game, because all your younger the year is gonna you know, beat older, more mature. You're gonna have less insects in the woods, and you know all your birds are gonna be south. So I'm sure you you kind of have a lot less collateral damage as well if you were to bird the fall. Yeah, yeah, that is true. Yeah. Um, I don't know about yeah stuff that would be. That's a different book that I've never opened. I don't know if I ever will, just because me hunting that time of the year and being in the woods. Yeah, absolutely, I understand. Man. So are you, um, are you doing anything like so you have a big white oak tree and a big block of timber that you you want make sure that things survives because it's a big drawlity your property for deer. Um, are you doing anything to prepare that tree before you burn to make sure it survives or do you just burn around it? No? We just burn burn around it. Sphysically that those big trees, I mean you would have you have to get a really really really hot fire, yeah, to kill that tree efficient, like I was saying, to get to burn that whole canyum layer around the tree. So you have to have a fire that went up probably I don't know, three or four ft or more up that tree, and it has to be really hot and sitting there burning um constantly to get inside of that tree. Um. You could have a hot fire and it could go through really quickly and the tree would be fine. They called that like a flashburn. But if you had a slow, really really slow hot hot burn and it kind of went up that tree, um and it gets into that sap flow inside tree, that's when that's when it would kill it off. But no, and I don't we don't usually worry about that. Um. Like a lot of the locust trees, they're undesirable hardwoods, just nasty trees. Um. Some of our fires that especially if they go through a grass land and there's a locust tree in there, the sap flows um. There's a lot of stapflow actually through those trees, and the fire will climb right up those trees and kill them. So with those trees, I'm fine with that, But as far as no goes doesn't. Are you noticing this is just kind of a side note to to burning, But are you noticing, uh, deer eating the locust bean pods um? They I've seen him. I've seen him eat him on farms of hunted where there's really no food source. On a lot of the stuff that we've been managing lately, we haven't identity of food sources UM and a lot of variety to where they they don't typically eat that stuff. But there's a place here close to where we live that Mike's had Mike set control of for probably ten years now, but we really haven't done any any sort of management as far as um land management goes on there. And we yeah, we tried to shoot those and stuff like that and let bucks grow to mature age, but as far as the trees and stuff like that goes, it's kind of just overgrowing invasive trees. And there's a lot of locust trees and not not many good hearts the trees, and there's a lot of locust plots and I have been to meet those there, But outside of that, well cool. So I want to switch gears here just for a couple more minutes here and UM, you know you guys spent some time with the Missouri Department of Conservation recently. UM, what what can you disclose about what happened there? Really? UM? Are the reason that we set it up. It was we were we were wanting to hear their take on Missouri's right season and why it was in the middle of the rut. We also wanted to hear their reasoning behind um c w D in Missouri UM chronic wasting disease which was found I believe in too, the first case was found in two thousands ten in Missouri, and why they're what their methods was of UM trying to control it and why. And so first off, with the Missouri riffle season, things being only bows. I mean, I'll be honest, it is it's a little aggravating, UM having rifle season right in the middle of the road, because you know, we're in the woods and we're we're spending we've spent most of our season in the woods in that time of year, in the deer obviously running around their gods down. And then you know everybody shows up in their orange with their guns and start shooting at them and we're trying to we're stuff. You're still trying to bow on it. So it's aggravating, but um, they're behind it is it's kind of been a tradition that's uh it's been started, and UM, they listened to Uh, they listen to the hunter's feedback. UM. People fill out their surveys at the end of the year, and for the most part, the ones that have been saying UM have all said that they want to not all of them, but the majority have said that they want rightful season to be kept during the run. UM. And if that were to be changed, for one that you know, people would have to say they want it moved, and two they have to look at other options of how they're going to also control Missouri's dear population because I mean, we do have a very un identity of the year. UM. Some people might say otherwise, UM, this is they stop the many surveys and a lot of data that they've they've captured two to come up with this stuff. And UM, yeah, so those things that have to happen to get it moved. I think we're a rare case as far as what we've got going on. We've got a pretty good chunk of land and we try to manage it the best that we can. It's got a high identity of the year. We try to try to keep the ratio and check as far as bucks to those Um, not very many people necessarily have that luxury like we do. UM. So it's not just up to us if we want if we can have it moved. We just really wanted to hear what they had to say and you know what would influence that to have it moved. Um. And it's it's essentially up to the population of hunters and the majority of what they want. So if you got if if anybody out there has, um, you know, as something that they want to see change, they need to make sure that they've always their opinion to their conservation department and still out any surveys to them. UM. That's one thing that I think that a lot of people neglect, UM, including myself. I've done it before. I've gotten that in the mail and been like, oh, with nothing's gonna change here, you know, why would I fill that out there not gonna listen? Well they do. Um, they showed us. They showed us the data that they have on that and UM, if you ever wanted any of that data, it's it's open to the public. So UM. Yeah, on that that side. UM, that's that was their take on rifle season and then uh, product wasting disease. That's something that I think everybody needs to really be aware of. It really opened up my eyes. I wasn't I wasn't too worried about it prior to that, meaning I didn't think that it was um you know that's scaring of a subject, but it really is. Yeah. I think that the nation's gear heard uh definitely threatened by it because it's such a faithful disease. And I know people think that, well, it's never killed any gear. Um, you know, they may get it, but it doesn't actually kill them. They live it out, Well they don't. They actually do die from it, and it's extremely fatal and um, it's extremely aggressive as well. So Missouri's take on it, which every state has their own take on if it's in their states, if they're there, they all have their different models. Um. Some states choose not to do anything about it because they may not have sound ramming m samples of it in their states. UM. But Missouri's take on it is um, if they find a sample, a positive sample of chronic wastings of these in the whole, they go to that area. They set up um a perimeter I believe five miles around it and around where that was sound and there seek permission from landowners UM to eradicate deer, and by doing so, they're they're trying to kill as many years they possibly can in that area, which I know it does sound bad, but you've got to see big picture here. They don't want it to spread, so they're creating a radius around this area eradicating the deer. Sampling those deer, every single one of them, they filled ship, they've come up more positive samples and in most not most cases, but some cases that they haven't, they feel like they caught it early enough to where they can't spread UM and they remove all the carcasses and UM. That's that's something else that people need to be aware of as well as proper carcass disposal UM, especially the CWD in that area, because it's if you don't properly disposes the carcass, that could spread UM from the soil to other deer. UM. It's treat typically through saliva, so you know, like if a deer tide the head t w D and its bones and flesh when in the soil, another another deer comes along and just happens to lick that area, he could potentially have chronic wastings. These and then you know he goes and drinks out of this puddles over in another area and other deers have that puddle, and you know, they take up the saliva and they could potentially have it as well. So it can it can spread very aggressively, and seriously people need to kind of be educated on and look into. And UM, I know that nobody wants the Conservation Apartment to come in and eradicate all the deer in there. And I completely understand that if if we're in, if it were on our farm and they were like, we're gonna come in and eradicate all the year, you know, I don't. I don't want that to happen. That's that's gonna really suck pretty bad. But I also don't want it to be spread throughout the entire state and then you know, all the deer endpt dying from it. So it's it's something I think everyone needs to look into and just learn more about. You know what that states do absolutely. Man. You know a couple of things that I would say, um, in response to what you just said, is, um, we feel your pain with the rifle season down here in Texas. We have uh you know it starts first weekend in November, and next year across the state will go three weeks into January. So we cover all phases of the rut. Uh, we've got we you know, we have to deal with that too. And it's uh and I mean not to say that I haven't shot a few deer with the rifle either, but yeah, it's definitely Um, it's definitely lengthy here in Texas. Um. And you also make a good point about, you know, voicing your opinion. We've got a lot of pending leg legislation changes, regulation changes here in Texas. Uh. I think actually, uh they closed the public comment today, UM, which by the time this podcast uh episode airs will be uh in the past. But UM, you know, we we didn't see any regulation regarding c w D, no mention of it, and so we're kind of working on that here, uh since we've had a few cases pop up here in Texas. So, UM, I mean it is it's uh you made you know, you made all the good points about it. Uh. It's and it's something you know, c w D U prions or preons however you want to say, it can can stay um, you know, stay in the inhabitat in in the soil and the grass for a long time. They say, So it's a scary thing. Yeah, I think you're exactly right, just one of the sharies and about it. If they don't know enough about it too, basically get rid of it as far you know that as far as there's no there's no cure for it. There's no vaccination or something like that for these deer or anything like that. So you know that everybody's trying these different methods, and you know, I think the worst thing you can do is nothing, do nothing about it. If and ignore, that's that's the worst thing I think you can do about it. Educate yourself as much as you can on on what information is out there, and I think that's a great way to kind of wrap this thing up. I've got one statement. I guess they're both questions I've got. I've got two questions left. One is can y'all come walk around in the woods with me when I buy property? And the other is what's the best way to find out what Heartland bow Hunter and Sean Lucktel are up to these days? Um? Well, one, well, if you buy in Missouri, I might be able to. I mean, I love look laying around here. It's it's a fun look at but um probably not in tective, but I don't know if I'll get down there. That's right, that's all right. If you want to look for more about what we're doing, we're constantly doing. Look us up on social media um U Instagram or Facebook. We've got both of those with Twitter, UM and our handle one Instagram is Heartland bow Hunter all one word. You can find our Facebook page Heartland bow Hunter as well, and then UM, I think my Instagram. I'm not very active on Facebook, so don't look for me on there, um but order I guess you can, but you probably won't see much. But on Instagram, I try to stay more active there, and my handle on that it's uh Sean i'll t k w N underscore wactal l U c h t e L So you can find me. Find me on Instagram for what I've been up to, and follow Heartland bow Hunter on all of our social media channels, and watch our TV show on the Outdoor channel. Most importantly, UM for season eleven will be coming up here in July. UM. Other than that, you we've got content on Carbon TV. You've got full strut turkey stuff on there and then behind the Draw, which is another mini series of extra content that we have. Um. Also you guys having me on. Yeah, man, I appreciate you coming on and uh in party some of the knowledge that you've learned. So I guess, uh good luck in this in this off season, and uh, I look forward to seeing the new season. Thanks a lot, All right, we'll see you, thanks Sean. You guys, Well, I'll tell you what's burning within me more than burning property is buying a property, because you can't burn a property if you don't have permission to or own the property. And man, I just wanted property so bad. Yeah, I went looking today, which your fine, a bunch of high dollar properties that are way too big. Yeah, but no, I just I don't know. I would love to have a piece of to manage for sure. I mean, and having something like around home, man like just to squeak out there in ten or fifteen minutes and in the evening and just see what's going on, not even during the season, you know, just looking around whatever, just and just to kind of be able to have something in your back pocket if you get an hour or two to go out there and you know, make it a better piece of property for wildlife. You know, I don't know. That's something that I just kind of got this itch and do lately. And uh, it'll probably be a while before anything happens, you know. But the good thing is I've got I've got this podcast to refer to when I get to that point, you know, and lots of good tips there. So yeah, well, my my rental property here, my uh what do they call the people who my landlord to my landlord, Um, she's totally cool with me shooting deer off the place. I've got three acres here and none of it's wooded. But my plan is I'm gonna institute a little bit of Sean stuff back there. I'm gonna burn off about a half acre on the back back here, plant a three sided Uh well, I guess it's not a polygon like I square without one side, right yeah, and no, no, not triangle. It's gonna be open on one side, but plant like the perimeter in Egyptian wheat, to where it's like a visual shield. And on the inside there I'm gonna plant some sort of like en I don't know if it's gonna be like peas or something. Like that or what, but something to get the deer going in there. And I think it's gonna work. So you're you're one side that you're leaving open is facing here, facing the woods, Okay, behind me. I'm straight up gonna draw the deer off of its other property onto my place. But that's uh, welcome to free market enterprise. Everyone, you know, like it's a part of the game. And uh, I ain't trying to shoot, you know, a giant trophy bug. Everyone comes in, of course, but I think it'd just be awesome to shoot a doe right here in my backyard. It would be so cool. So hoping to do that this year. Well, good luck, man. Thanks. If you need any any supervision, let me know will Uh so you're gonna actually burn it though, Yeah, it's cool. Have you been out there in the back yet you don't think you have? I mean we yeah, we did some stuff out there, did we. Okay? Yeah? Some of it's like, I mean, it's not it's hard to say. When it grows up in the summer, I think it gets to be like knee high bermuda mixed with some berry vines and junk, which none of that is very good. For deer food, right, like the berry like the leaves and the black berries themselves are but the vines they're not gonna eat the vine, you know. So I think if I go out there and burn it until it for that half acre, might be doing something. M yeah, m hmm, Well that'll be interesting to see what had to Uh. Maybe we can like, uh put something on the website that's like the progress of the plot and then like throughout the fall, like trail camera photos from it and like show like just show the process. Yeah. Also had hogs like literally root underneath my back porch last night Instagram. Sure they wearing mice. Yeah, I'm pretty sure a little bigger, but not much. I don't know, some big old poops around here. Well, I guess that about does it for us. If uh, if you guys have not yet, there's a travel podcast that we did and it's a part one and two. Um, make sure that you've listened to part one before two. But that was one of the funniest things we've done, was doing that podcast and just dreaming of all the spots Sean had to talk about, and then you know, we posted Uh, I don't know, it felt like fifty or sixty pictures, but I don't know. I don't think it was that many. But I kind of had the whole like throwback, you know, of all these places Casey and I had been and then some was Shaun in there and that was a good time. So make sure if if you're a dreamer or a traveler, um, if you just like cool stories, go listen to that thing. Uh. We put a lot of work into that and that was fun. So anyway, other than that, man, we will We'll catch you all soon. We got another one, another good one lined up for you next week, so check in on that and remember it. This is your element living in nine

Save this episode