00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the wire to Hunt Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan in this episode number two eight In Today in the show, I'm joined by Terry Dury of Drewy Outdoors to discuss the dream scenario of buying and building your own piece of white tail paradise. All right, welcome to the wire Hunt Podcast, brought to you by Onyx, and We've got a good one for you today. So I'm not gonna beat around the bush. I gotta believe that most of you are familiar with Terry Dury, uh for for many reasons, but maybe one of those being the fact that I did a podcast with him and the juries for several years that would Percent Wild Podcast, and he's been on this show in the past two But if you're not familiar with Terry, he is one of the co founders of Drewry Outdoors, which is one of the most successful media companies in the hunting space, and the host of many many different shows and videos over the years, and most important, probably everyone listening, he's a very experienced and successful white tail hunter and property manager. Terry has owned and improved and managed many different white tailed properties over the years, and he's killed a whole lot of big, mature bucks because of that. So today, of the many different things we could talk about with a guy like Terry, we're going to focus just on this aspect of land. You know, a lot of us, including myself, dream of someday owning a deer hunting property, and Terry has lived that dream. But he started out very modestly. You know, he got a very small property start, and he slowly built his way up over the years to now having a great, big, really well managed property. So today we're gonna talk to him about, you know, how any one of us can start that process of finding and maybe owning some hunting ground and then building that into something pretty special. That is our topic for today. On top of all that, Terry also shares us the details of a pretty insane giveaway actually that they're doing over a jury outdoors in which they're literally giving way a farm. Like literally they're giving a hunting property away to one of you guys or gals or to one of the other thousands of fans across the country. So you definitely don't want to miss out in the details of how to get on that one. It's pretty crazy. So with all that out of the way, we don't have a pregame show today, so without further ado, I think we should just get to chatting with Terry Drewy. All right with me now on the line a repeat guest that I'm excited to have here. We've got Terry Drewy. Welcome back to the show. Terry, Hey, Mark, how we doing. It's good to be back. Yeah, I'm doing well. I'm glad that we can be chatting again. I miss our frequent conversations when we're doing on Wild so this is this is nice to get to catch up a little bit. I know you kept Matt on the straight and narrow, and now we're now marking our face with that tap. That's no easy task. But no, it's not. It does seem that he's up to some good work because he was telling me the other day about a very interesting new initiative of sorts you guys are working on, which is kind of what um give me the idea of having this podcast, which is today. Mainly what I want to talk about Terry is talking all through different ideas in ways of kind of building a white tail paradise, how to take a property and turn it into just a mecca for deer hunting and for deer. Um. You've had a lot of experience doing that, and it seems like from what I understand, you guys are now going to help someone else live out that dream and actually give somebody a farm. Is that is that true? Terry? It seems kind of unbelievable. Um, is that true? And can you talk to me a little bit about about what you guys are doing and why? Well? I think that is the probably the maybe the feeling that everybody gets is it if it's too good to be true, it's too good to be true. But in this particular scenario, it's Uh, it is the truth and its reality. We're gonna be giving a sixty acre farm away. And uh, this is just a gesture on Mark and I and Matt and Taylor. We wanted to say thank you. We're celebrating our thirtieth year being in in the outdoor industry and being in business, and uh, it's it's more of a thank you to all of our fans and everybody that supported us throughout the years. And uh, we want to take a farm and we want to trick it out. We want to put our footprint on it for thumb print, and we want to turn it over and give it to somebody so that they can enjoy it with their family for years to come. And uh, it's one that Mark and I looked at and did and did some searching quite quite for over a long period of time and finally found the one we wanted and said, let's uh, this is the farm. It has a little bit of everything. And when we go into a parcel or look at a parcel property, we want to make sure that it's got all the elements that we're looking for in water cover, uh you know, spots that we can put food plots in, an hank tree stands, different access, you know, and we always have wind direction in our back of our mind when we look at those spots. So it had a little bit of everything. It had a mixture, and that's really what we were after and that's what this farm entails. So some lucky winner is gonna end up with that and hopefully they'll be able to use it for years to come. So so number one, am I ineligible to to apply to win this farm, and uh, you know, don't know you have to read our terms of service. Yeah, I'll check that out. And and number two, Um, how can other people enter to to win this farm? How does that all work? Well? They can go, uh, you know, into either Google Play or the app store and are the are you know, the download download the deer cast app. It's a free app that they can download on either an iPhone or on an Android. And all you gotta do is go into Google Player the play Store, download the app for free, and then you'll see there's some information in there that gets you to the spot where you can download. Uh this entry form, it's very very simple. You have to log in and give an email address and a password so that we can get a hold of you if you win it. We've got to be able to contact you somehow. So they put their email address and a password in there, and then they are automatically entered to win whenever they enroll or subscribe to dear Cast. So in addition, in addition to that giveaway that we're doing in December of the grand prize, which is the farm, there's a monthly prize that that some lucky winner is gonna win each and every month. At the end of the month, you know we're gonna do the same thing. There'll be an email it's randomly drawn and and uh, we'll contact that person and they will they will find out that they've wanted a great, great prize package that many of our sponsors are participating in and making making it a really really nice giveaway feature each and every month up until the grand prize there in December. Wow. Yeah, I actually did go and mess around with the the entry form just to see what it took myself, and and I did enter. So I don't know if if I end up winning, I probably shouldn't take anything, but I thought I should at least try it out myself and um, and it was really easy, especially if you're already using deer cast um and if you're not using deer cast And this is just me speaking here, This isn't any kind of promotion, this is just I honestly found it useful this past year. I used it a lot. I looked at it both from looking at the weather features and the prediction features. That was was really interesting and handy. And then you guys are just putting a lot of interesting content out there I love being able to follow what you and the whole team were up to the kind of success you were having and having it all there and in an easy kind of app feed to kind of scroll through whenever I was, whenever I had a few extra minutes. It's um, it was. It was very impressive. You guys have done a slam dunk job with it. So if you're not using deer Cast, highly recommend it. And now you're gonna get to enter this kind of remarkable giveaway or not kind of absolutely remarkable give away. So um, I don't know, you guys continue to surprise and impress me. Terry. I'm I've got all sorts of works you to try to keep up with the great work you guys are doing. Well. You know, we're just a couple of rednecks that like the deer Hunt, so not necessarily app developers, so we we Uh, it's been a learning curve, I'll be quite honest with you. But but the performance because we hadn't run a beta test, you know, the previous ball just to kind of get some of the bugs worked out of it, and then went full board with the alpha test there this last ball, and it it worked quite well, we had a couple of little changes that we wanted to make, and we tweaked a few things here in the off season already on the algorithm and just trying to you know, kind of hone it in and get it fine tuned the best we can. And what we found last year last fall that it was you know, about eighty five accurate for instances of undisturbed white tales. And and that's the clincher. You know, what you don't know is if somebody went you know through there on a four wheeler, if kylots ran through, our dogs ran through, you know, and if they're disturbed, obviously a lot of that goes out the window. But if they're undisturbed and they're in their own element, igali, it's pretty dog on accurate. And there's uh twelve influencers that go into this algorithm, and and uh, you know, I won't bore you with with all the details, but it's uh, you know, a departure from from average temperature. It's barometric pressure, it's wind speed, it's cloud cover, it's moon phase. There's just a ton of elements that go into it. We call them influencers, and then those are weighted Accordingly, each one of those is a different weight for each of the thirteen individual phases, because barometric pressure in phase one has a different effect than barometric pressure in phase thir team winduh wind speed has you know, one effect in phase two than it does in phase eight, and sawing down the line, every one of them is a little bit different. And and Mark and I are so analytical. We've been keeping tabs on this for many, many years and then trying to you know, refine it each and every year. And I think we've cracked the code, so to speak, to where we've optimized your time in a in a tree or in a blind and said, you know what, your odds of seeing dear during daylight hours and particularly mature dear h during daylight hours are are really good this time of the day. And that was really what we wanted to do. It's not the cure all end all. What it is is another tooled or another you know, just maybe a pawn in your in your bag of tricks. You know, you've got rattling antlers, and you've got grunt tubes, and you've got all the other different elements UH and access and so on and so forth. As far as deer hunting, but we wanted to have something for a hunter to be able to optimize this time. And we think we've done that, and we've gotten a lot of terrific stories have come back where guys say, you know what, I wasn't gonna go hunting deer cast a great I went, I killed the biggest deer of my life. And that's Those are the Those are the accolades that we want to hear from from different hunters. But if nothing else, we want guys to start thinking about those different elements and say, hey, I'm and And some people don't want to do that. Some might just enjoy going and sitting down by tree and saying hey, I'm enjoying the elements out here, and that's fine too. But for that guy that wants to learn a little more and say why or dear moving during daylight hours on some days and they're not on others, then that's what this is. Far and Mark and I did oh, I want to say a hundred and forty five or a hundred and fifty different interviews for each influencer for each phase, so that you can kind of go into it for that serious guy and and kind of pick our brains and and see exactly how we made those decisions. But it's been it's been uh somewhat successful so far, and we just want people to use it to their advantage. Yeah, I certainly think you achieved those goals you mentioned, And for anyone listening right now, if you want some more details about about the tools within the app and all the kind of underlying theories that helped kind of build up this algorithm and this predictive capability you guys have now in there. We did a podcast back in August, I think with Mark dury Um and it was we went very, very very in depth on all these types of factors. It's it's absolutely fascinating. So if you haven't listened to that one yet, definitely go back and listen for that one. Um. It just is very very interesting. So Terry, that brings me then back to the original part of of the Deer Cast giveaway, that being this farming you guys are going to give away. UM. I kind of curious using that as an example to see if you might be able to help me out a little bit, Terry, because I'm I'm slowly approaching the possibility of maybe trying to buy my first farm, um, small little piece, And I don't know if that's this year thing, or next year thing or further down the line, but I'm at least starting to really start the gears turning in my head. How how to possibly do this some day? Um, I'm kind of curious when you guys were looking for this farm, trying to find the right piece that you're going to be able to work on for a few years and then give away. What were the things? And you did kind of allude to these already, but I'd like to hear even more detail. What were the specific things you were looking at when you were trying to choose the right property. What were those most important criteria? How did you verify those things to to make this decision. Well, we've got a couple of aspects here that you covered, and I want to touch on both of those because they're both very very important. Uh you know, particularly when it comes to purchasing a piece of dirt for yourself. That one gets me excited more excited than probably shooting a big deer. I'm not kidding you, because, uh, you know, everyone is capable and able to do that if they play their cards right. So we'll talk about that in a little bit, but looking at the parcel and picking a parcel that we wanted to give away, and again I'll reiterate that was a thank you too for thirty years of being in this outdoor industry where some of the most blessed people on earth. We're humbled every day and we just cannot thank people that have supported us anymore. And we said, you know what, how can we do that? How can we give back? And this was this was an idea or a concept that we came up with and we said, all right, now, let's put it in motion, let's get the wheel going. So Mark and I you know, looked in research and looked at several parcels of property and we wanted to get one that was big enough where you could, you know, get four or five, six, seven different stand locations on it, and where you could access it easily with different wind directions on northerly, southerly, easterly westerly. We wanted to make sure that a guy was able to get in there and hunt it without running the deer out of there, so it has that, and then we wanted to make sure that it had every single element that we would want on one of our own farms, and we found a piece that fit that mold, and uh, it's got you know, a decent mass crop on it where it's got some white oaks and it's got some red oaks, and it's got a few shingles and some pins, so there was a decent ass crop on it. It's also got some cover, uh, some cedar thickets and some briars and some brush where you think a buck might go in there and lay down our bed or he made drag a dough in there during the rut. And then it's also got a really really beautiful pond location kind of down in a little bitty valley. Uh that was that's pretty decent size. That was loaded with tracks and rubs in and around this pond. And then below the pond, it's got a little bitty bottom field that's absolutely perfect for a food plot. So we wanted to get one up on a ridge top and one down below. The one down below. You have to be a little bit more careful about wind, but it just had everything. It had all of those elements that we were looking for. Uh, it's fenced. We did a little work on the gates. We wanted to make sure that it was gated and and uh kind of secure and posted and all those other things. But we then went through the through the uh efforts that send and now where would we hang a set? And we did that. We looked at it and we said, okay, you can get in here on what wind direction. Let's pick a spot or two, and we did that. We went ahead and hung some sets. So this thing is literally ready to go. Whoever wins it, uh, we'll be able to climb up and hunt. We we planted food plots in there last year, and the first year planting they did okay, but I'll be perfectly honest, they didn't do great. So we're gonna put a little more fertilizer. We're gonna add a little more line, We're gonna sweeten the pot just a little bit and make sure that this thing is uh exactly how we would want it. So we want those food plots to do a little bit better this year. But sometimes those first year plantings, depending on the acidity of the soil, or a little bit tougher to get started. So we're gonna work a little harder at that and uh and try and get those up the snuff this year so that whoever wins it will be able to sit down and say, you know what this is, Uh, this is a nice piece of property. Had reconics cameras on it. We were catching catching a few deer coming through some decent bucks that we said, you know what, here's an up and comer. Here's one we'd shoot, and so on and so forth. Several does where if a guy is looking at it and saying, you know what, all I want to do is put meat in the freezer, we've got that too. It's got all of those different elements. So we think that we have found the right piece. Uh. You know, it's just it's a matter of hunting it smart because it is only sixty acres, so you can't be in there romping and stomping around every day, uh, for fear of running some deer out of there. So we want to try and make it where it's a little mecca, a little home core area for a few deer and something that you can hold a pocket or a family, a dope family in there, and then catch these bucks that might be traveling, uh from every direction. And and when we looked at it, there's some really really big blocks of timber in two different directions, and then there's some agg on other directions. So we looked at and said, you know what, this is one of those spots where it could be a really really good travel corridor through the rut and uh, you know, we just looked at it from every aspect. So I think whoever ends up with it will be uh should be happy, you know, if they spend the time there and they hunt it smart. Now, with that said, purchasing a parcelo property in my eyes lit up whenever you said that. The only thing I can highly recommend is sooner rather than later. And everybody's in a pinch. We're we're always in a financial struggle, no matter what time of year, no matter what year, no matter what week, we're always looking, okay, how are we gonna pay the electric bill, of the car bill, the insurance, our grocery bill, and all those other things. Every person in America looks at that stuff. But with that said, in lieu love buying that new car, or in lieu of buying that boat, or a new set of golf clubs or season tickets or whatever, you know, any of those uh, you know, extracurricular items, why don't you take that payment that you were going to make for a new car, new boats, set of clubs, season tickets, all those other elements and make a farm payment. And and that's how you start. You always start small and do not get too emotionally attached, and then turn around and flip it. Hang onto it for a year or two, you know, get it to where you think it's it's reached its maximum or optimum capacity as far as a little deer mecca, and then turn around and flip it. And then take that, you know, that nominal or marginal amount of profit that you make on it instead of you know, splurging and going on a trip to the Bahamas. Then take that and roll it into another parcel of property. And if you start that at a at any age, and then you continue down that path, all of a sudden, when you get to where you want to be, whether it's three hundred acres, four hundred acres, a thousand acres, whatever it may be, at some point you look up and you go, you know what, this is what I was, This is what I UH set out to do right here. And that's kind of what we did many many years ago. Everybody always says, well, if I had your farm, I could kill big deer too. Well, by golly. For one thing, we're giving a farm away so they can do that. And for another thing, we started by buying small, all little bitty tracks. I started on a fifty three acre piece over in Illinois and uh and rolled it and then just kept kept the ball rowing. And that's that's really how we got our start. We went to a bank, borrowed the money, made payments just like everybody else. And uh, if you kind of sacrifice those big frivolous things, you can end up owning the piece of dirt that you want. And historically, right now, land values or somewhat uh moderate. And I'll say they've been in a little bit of a recession here for the last couple of years. And I watched this stuff fairly close. But now he's a pretty dog on good time to buy. Uh. You know, there's a little you know, some things that that uh, globally we're unsure of. You know, if you got a little bit of tillable acreage on your piece and you can get some cash rent off of that, or you could possibly uh maybe let's say sub leasa one firearms hunt per year. Or let's say it's got some timber on it, and you can figure out, you know that you're gonna maybe get some nets some income off of the timber. You know, there's an or even CRP income. I know the uh the administration just signed a bill and I forgot exactly what the numbers are, but I could foresee the CRP programs opening back up because I think the bill was for an excess of of the CRP contracts. So there's a number of different ways to look at it and to where you can get a positive cash flow, meaning to where the income that you're generating will service the debt. And that's really what you're concerned with, is, okay, the interest on this loan. How can I do that and still be able to make the payments? You know if interest rates would happen to go up, So you really got to analyze it. You've gotta be smart. It doesn't cost anything to look and if a guy is really really smart, if it takes him six months, eight months, a year, eighteen months, however long, if he gets a piece in his crawl and he says, you know what, I can get this thing to where it's cash flow positive. It's got a little bit of income from the tillable, It's got a little bit of timber on it that I could maybe log off and get a little income there. It's got maybe uh, the ability to to lease out one gun hunt or something per year for a buddy and and possibly use that revenue. All of that, you can figure out how it will service the debt on a monthly basis, and then uh, and then you're then you're worried about trying to make the equity payments yourself. But you give up, you make sacrifices and those things that you're your customed to, you know, maybe that cruise that you go on, or that trip to to the breck and Ridge or whatever it may be. You've got to give up a few things. But then at the end of the day, you got the dirt to uh to keep for the rest of your life and your family to enjoy. Yeah. So, if if you're going to go into in that kind of with that kind of goal, the goal of starting small, flipping it and slowly working your way up, is there anything in particular other than the things you already mentioned. Is there anything else that you look for in particular when you're trying to find a flip type property, like something that's you can get for a pretty cheap price, but there's the potential to turn it to something with a profit. Anything that stands out to you that you're looking for for that scenario, check what's around you. You gotta know your neighbors. You've got to be very very uh in tune with what they're doing. And if they're on on track and they're you know, managing a particular area and there's maybe decent tillable fields and there's decent timber in and around, make sure you understand what that market will bear. You know, how much are they getting per acre on the tillable how much is the c RP income if it has the RP income, and you know, at least be analytical about it, be smart about it. It's not something you want to rush into. It's something that you want to take your time. Build your own spreadsheet. You know, if it takes you, you know, two or three weeks to build a spreadsheet and analyze every little detail. Uh, just be analytical. You know, there's there's a thing called due diligence. We've all heard about that. Be very diligent in in your efforts to make sure that you cover all your bases and you don't miss anything. But I would certainly try and find out what's going around going on around you, and then look at historical records as far as the uh, you know, what's that that property done over the years, take the last twenty five thirty years or maybe even go back further than that, and see what kind of history you've had there. And you can check those public records, you know, at the assess or the county courthouse, or you may go to a realator. You can contact a realtor. Some of them are gonna be really really uh in tune with recreational properties. Some of them maybe not. If it's a residential you know, real estate agent, they may not be is aware of what you're looking for. So make sure you you do your due diligence on that end to find out exactly what's available and make sure that you're hooked up with a real estate agent that knows. You know, there's guys out there like White Till properties. Those guys know what they're doing, they know the business. Uh. They've got some tremendous agents that that are all hunters and those are the guys you want to talk to, and just knowing what type of gear have been killed in that area, you know, as it have they've been killed, want someone seventies and two hundies and that sort of thing, or the genetics there than by all means you're gonna look a little harder at those types of areas. Yeah, Now something else, um, I imagine when you're trying to find a small property to get started with. Is um something I heard Maybe it was Mark talk about or maybe I can't remember when it came to this specific farm, the sixty acre farm. You guys have a couple of videos on the Deercast app where you you do a tour of the property and one of you mentioned that, yeah, it's it's only sixty acres, but it feels like twenty. It hunts like a hundred and twenty. It's a small piece that just seems much larger. What about a small property might lend itself to to feeling larger, hunting larger? What kind of things do we look for to try to find that small piece that actually feels bigger. I think because that piece was diverse in its cover and topographically, there was a little bit of elevation change from the ridges down to the bottom. So when you walk in there and you go, oh my god, this thing is huge, and you it just felt bigger. But I think that topographic change from the top down to the bottom elevation change might have been you know, a hundred and twenty ft hundred fifty and it may be in less than that. We didn't shoot it. But then again, there was such diverse uh selection of cover. You know, there receivers and brush and briers and those tickets that you look for, and then when you get into this bottom field, it was just rather open and immediately we're going, okay, there's our food plot right here. It's a no brainer. And then there was a pond just above that, and then you go above that and there's a hardwood ridge and it it gave us every every single thing we would be looking for on a parcel that that we wanted, and then when we walked it, it just seemed like it was bigger than sixty acres. And uh, I think that's why because of diverse, uh selection of of cover and then also the topographic changes in elevation. Yeah, so when you guys got there on the farm, um, or or any other new spot that you have like this, whether it be a new lease or a new property just bought. Can you can you share what your first steps are as far as like, how do you start kind of servying the farm to decide, Okay, this is what we have, this is what we need. These are the first things we want to do. Can you kind of walk me through your mindset and what that that first step might be as you start to kind of take inventor of what the situation is right out the gate. Well, I don't think we're we're any different than every other you know, true blue, red blooded hunter. When we walk in there, if our eyes pop open and we go, oh my god, then we know we've hit the mutherload. It's like, this is this is where a deer should live, This is where deer should travel, This is where deer is gonna want to be. And then okay, how can we make it fit to where we can get in and out of here without running them out? That's the biggest I think one of the biggest detriments that I see are people spending a lot of time on their parcel and sometimes pushing out the deer that they're trying to hunt. So the next thing we look at is, okay, do we have access and on what wind direction? You know, what's the prevailing wind for this particular area. And then how can we get in here without running deer out? Well, this parcel that we the sixty acres had that it had access on on several sides, and we were like, okay, that gets us in here. Now where are we going to put the food we wanted it? It felt like when we walked in there, you know, there was a sign, there was rubs, there was tracks, and and there was everything that that we were looking for, but it wasn't like you know, it wasn't tracked up or hugged up like we wanted. And that might have had something to do with the fact that there wasn't food on it. So that was the next thing. Okay, we're we gonna place these food plots so that we can still get in here without running them out, and so that we can access it from different wind directions. And then where is the uh, where's the most sense make to where we can we call it food plot architecture where we can pick the tree or pick the set and then plant the food plot accordingly, and we did just that. We walk it and we look at it. We look at trails, we look at tracks, we look at rubs. Look it's grapes, and then say, okay, where's he betting? And then where's he going? Is he going across the road? Is he staying internally here? Is he going to deeper timber? Is he going to a food source? You know? Where are they going? Morning? And we're one evening, so we're we're very analytical. But our first impression, our gut feeling when we walk into a piece is really not too indifferent from what most other hunters would have. And that's when our eyes pop open and go, oh god, this is the spot. And that's the feeling that we got when we walked into that sixties. Yeah, that's a good feeling when you're starting out on a new farm. Is food always the thing you prioritize first? Or do you go and look and see, Okay, where are my weak spots? And maybe in some cases I need more cover or sometimes it's food, or I'm kind of curious about how you prioritize it. What projects need to be done first? You know, I think when you look at it and you say, all right, is there is there a lot of sign and the deer are already living there? How much food do I need to plant? More would I plant? Or when you walk into a spot and you say, you know what, there's not as much sign here as I like, there's not as much try as many tracks and many rubs and scrapes, is what I prefer? I need to put more food in to suck them in here, you know, to pull them off on neighbors, and particularly if you're uh in and around are close to deep timbered spots where there's not a lot of acreage for tillable or not a lot of agg in and around you there for food, then by all means you want to load it up with as much food as you can put on it. And sometimes the acidity is so high that that becomes a you know, a cumbersome task of putting the amount of lime on there that you need to put to make sure that you get the pH correct. But you know, as far as we're concerned, on a on a piece where it's highly timbered, you can't hardly put enough food because you're wanting to suck some deer off of adjacent pieces to make sure that they have that food for the winter, not early not just early season, but also middle of the rut and light season. And you want to make sure that those that are traveling, those those bucks that are traveling, you want to make sure that they come in they park on that food source for a little while. If you've got those that are frequenting that on a daily basis, so we really balance it out. If it's got plenty of sign on it and and plenty of tracks and rubs and scrapes and trails, then it doesn't get as heavily planted. But if it's a little more scarce and it's not as heavy as you like, then we're going to load the food up. How do you make those decisions then as far as how to implement food? Um? Do you It's that kind of sounds like with a sixty acre piece, there were some spots that naturally lent themselves to being great locations for food just because they're relatively open and they seem to be in the right position. Um. But maybe another scenario is like, how are you thinking through how much food you need? Specifically? Like if you get a sixty acre piece, is it just how we want one or two acres, or do you actually get as scientific as, Okay, we want ten percent of our sixty acres to be in food, so we need six acres or I'm kind of curious about how you make the decisions decisions around the amount of food and of the actual locations of plots, where they where you start positioning this stuff within a property. Well, and in answer to the question, you know, there are percentages that we like to try and reach our goals that we like to try and hit where you have that open area where you can where you can actually utilize some of those open spaces and plant food on this particular parcel. And I'll use this one just because it was we were so excited about it when we walked in there. It had certain areas that were already open and at one time I assume they might have had cattle on it or something, or they may have hayed these little spots and made hay off of them, but they were just uh, just lent themselves very well to go ahead and put a food plot in because at one time they were kept fairly open. It's grown up in and around all those edges and there seems to be a tremendous amount of bedding in and around it. So there was nothing magic about the formula per se. But we're going to try and plant as much of those open areas as we can there as many of those open areas as we can, so that we get as much food on it as we can possibly cram in there. Uh And and those are some things that a guy can work on. Two. If he says, you know what, they ate everything I planted before October thirtie, then you're going, Okay, I need to plant more food next year. Or if you've got a little you know, some remnants and you still have some food left over, then you're saying, okay, I had the right amount of food, but I want I still want to expand it because I want to suck more deer in here. So there's a different way of looking at it. One of the things that we like to do on our farms is go green to grain, you know, and we talked about green to green transfer all the time, so that whenever soybeans start defoliating and changing and when the carn starts hardening and they're not you know, silking them anymore, you want to have a green food source in those October months for them to go to and we always you know, non typical clover clover plus both are biologic products. We plant a lot of that on our farms to make sure that we can handle that green to green train antsper because they're gonna be looking for that green food source once those soybeans defoliate and once the corn hardens and and they're no longer silking them, so we make sure that's number one. Now, if you can back that green food source up against a grain like carn and being then more part to you. You want to have that green as close and as tight into those bedding cover or those bedding areas as you possibly can. But you also want to stay cognizant of the fact that you still got to get in and out of those without bumping them out. So there's kind of a science to it, and uh, you really want to be careful on wind direction, how you access those and where you place your stands. But on a small parcel, if you don't have the abilities to go in and plant you know, soybeans and or carn, then green is so much easier to maintain and whether you want to do you know, like a trophy oats or winter weed or something. That's always a good one because you can plan it late. You don't have to go through those summer, those hot, hot, dry, arid summer months. You know, you can plant it in there when you're expecting some of those fall range to get it to German A. But we usually have that clover planet early to make sure that we've got both because on a parcel this size, it wouldn't have maybe been easy to get the implements in there to plant corn and beans, and chances are they may have not made anyway because they are it is a small parcel. So on something like this, we would probably stick with a little more green, and we planted in pretty close to their a little tight betting areas, because really aren't creating those destination feed fields. You know, they're not big twenty acre, thirty acre, hundred acre food food sources. Their little bitty pockets there, you know, acre and a half two acres, quarter acre, half acre. But you want to give them a variety, and you want to make sure that you can hunt those on different wind directions. Yes, so that kind of ties into the next thing I'm curious about, which is, you know, knowing or I imagine there's a balancing act. You kind of alluded to this as far as access when I comes to the number of different plots and how many, because I could I could foresee a potential situation where you have so many different little plots that then you have issues with access, issues with wind, issues with knowing how dear using it. If you've got one or two food plots, you might be able to determine a pretty consistent betting area here and betting are there, and they're going to one of these two food sources, and you can start to really understand that pattern. If you have seven little food plots scattered all over the place, I could see that being potentially more confusing. Um, how do you think through that? Or is that something you don't worry about. You just want as much food in there. You're not worried about having too much? No, I think you're correct. I would worry about that on a small, small parcel. You know where it makes sense and where it's a no brainer. Those are pretty obvious. You you would put in two food plots and then uh, just start with the historical data. You know, you'd sit there and you'd observe for the first fall and then maybe even the second fall, and it usually takes us about three years to figure it a stop, to really understand it and know it because sometimes crop rotation around you or mass crop around you may change those patterns. So we would study it pretty long and hard before we added so much food that it became detrimental. Meaning, uh, you know, if you're if you're sitting on one food plot and then you're casting your wind over the top of another one where your deer might come from, you know, then all of a sudden, it becomes detrimental. So we would hunt it smart. We'd start on those perimeters and make sure that we don't penetrate too far in, particularly on a small parcel like this one, until the rut then maybe you know first you know, uh maybe first ten days of November. Then you might pile in a little bit harder and go into the maybe into the center of it. But I would start on those perimeters and do a lot of observation because the m R I is is priceless on a new part of parcel like that, and we'd have, you know, put as many cameras out there as we could could do you know, you put three or four cameras in there too. I would put them on the perimeters, put them on the oscars to where you're not doing a lot of damage as you walk in there. Uh, And then maybe you kind of tip in and move one in there a little bit tighter, so during the rut you could slip in there and check it and find out what's going on internally. But I would I would be very very cautious about the amount of food I planted early on, just so that you could get the m r I and start collecting that data and then say, you know what, I can put another food plot down at the end of this ridge and I can access it from another direction, and so on and so forth, to where you're not being detrimental to yourself. Yeah. Yeah, making slow but steady progress as you learned that. That makes a lot of sense. Now, another thing I hear a lot of people kind of debate about on occasion is positioning of your food in relation to the borders of your property. I've heard some folks advocate for putting your food plots. At least if you were going to do like a large feed food plot, like your big plot, maybe that would be central, so place in the center of your property because that will keep dear moving in and staying within daylight hour is on your property. And then if you're gonna have some smaller kill plots those radiate out from there. Then I've heard other people say, no, you wanted the opposite. You want your best bedding right in the middle of your property, farthest away from other hunters and the outsides. And then you want those deer transitioning from the center of your property out to maybe little kill plots that you can hunt in the transition areas. And then those larger feeding areas are those primary food sources. Those would be on the very far edges of the outside of your property that hopefully they're not hitting those till maybe after dark, and then they're not going to your neighbors possibly as often until you know, after shooting ours. Uh, do either one of those two options, I guess appeal to your mindset most or do you what are your thoughts on those? You know, those are two totally different mindsets, and we hear those as well, you know, we hear them regularly. Uh. Grant Woods was one of the first one. Dr Woods was one of the first ones that said, you know, hey, you want to put your your bedding on the outside and put your food source in the middle, and uh and in in in certain areas you may want to put your just the opposite of that. So I think it depends on the size of the piece that you have and trying to be realistic with that piece. You know, you gotta keep it real and the fact, Okay, if you've got twenty acres, are those deer really gonna stay there? Boy, that's that's a tough one. The even forty eight acres, you know, it's hard to hold them, even on those big parcels. We see it all the time where they tip off. You just cannot hold them, you know, in certain certain parcels. So I think you have to be realistic about will the deer stay there to begin with? And and you're gonna do your best to keep them by putting as much betting and cover, and you may do some hinging, and you may plant switch grass, you may do all of those things, and the dog on deer will still leave your property. I have it all the time. I just I struggle with the and I don't know if it's because of the subspecies or what. But I really had a lot of deer tip over the edges, tip over the borders, and I may get a picture of them on my south end and then a mile and a half away on the north end to get other pictures of them. So it's it's that's a fine line and a different approach, both different mindsets. I think both of them work depending on the size of the parcel in you know, kind of the application that you're trying to achieve. Yeah, what about you mentioned food plot architecture and this kind of this kind of all falls in the same category, whether it's where you're position your plots or how you actually shape them plan them. But I know that you guys have have have been working with food plots for a long time now. You've taken it far beyond just the basics of find an opening, toss some seed, hope something grows. You guys are really really fine tuning things. What are some of those next level tweaks that you guys are making when it comes to your food plot strategy. Um, you you alluded to one, which is the fact that and correct me if I got this wrong, but you said that many times you'll pick the right tree first, and then plan a plot around that specific tree. Um, could you expand on that or share any other these next level food plot planning things. You're doing correct. And and that starts with m R. I. And it starts with observation. You know, we may take two years or three years and we may watch a food plot or a food source or just travel carters travel routes and say, okay, those dear feel comfortable being right here to begin with, Now, are there any trees in that particular area that would serve themselves extremely well where we have back covered and yet we can access that tree without running them out, and we get the proper wind direction that we need to keep dear from being down wind. Or they all always coming from one direction in the evening? Are they always coming from another direction in the morning. So that m R I and that historical data kind of tells you where to go and where they feel comfortable, because there's certain areas of a field where they just won't walk. And and we've noticed that throughout the course of time. You may put a tree, hang a set in a tree, and go dog on. I don't know why they won't come up here. I've got the food here, but they just won't walk over there. There are certain areas in a field where they feel extremely comfortable. A lot of them are because of visual observation. You know, we always worry about deer and their noses, but by ali there still want to see what's going on, and there's still a curious animal. So getting to certain areas where it may be a little bit of advantage point for them, you know, and they may come up a big drainage or a crack or a gully or a rut or something to get to it, but eventually they're going to get to the spot where they can see and uh. Sometimes those are the areas that you say, all right, they're all comfortable here. Now where's the nearest tree that I can pick that I can get into and still have the right wind directions. And we do that a lot, where we'll pick the tree and then we'll plant to that tree, and we'll create inside and outside corners with food food plots, whether it be corn and beans, or whether it's clover and carn or whether it's clover and biologic. But we're gonna change it up to where we've either got uh maybe an elevation chain with the with the food plot, or maybe it's just a variety change in what type of food plot we're planning there, But we do that quite often and create those inside and outside corners because they just they just feel more comfortable coming to those particular spots. Can you can you elaborate on what you mean by that the inside and outside corners and and correct me if I'm wrong, But I think you're saying you would position those corners to where your stand would be. Is that right? Because you think that that will be the most likely point of entry or exit for a deer where you'd all get a shop. Absolutely correct. If you got let's say standing carn and a lot of guys can't do this obviously because you don't have the implements, or you may or may not have the acreage or something. But if you're in an area where you do have the ability to get standing carn, uh, you want to make sure that you create that inside corner right there to where it butts up. The end of that carn butts up to either a clover field, a soybean field, a biologic winter bawls and sugar be its maximum uh turnips, all of those, all of those elements guard us what type of food plot you're planting. It's nice to have an inside corner where they're gonna file out and feel comfortable coming out, whether they're coming out of the timber or whether they're coming out of the carn, they always like that edge or that little bit of cover to pop out, and we create those on a very very frequent basis. And we do just the opposite. We create outside corners just like we do inside corners. And it may be where some fences come together, you know, it may be a spot where two fences come together and there's a tree that just happens to be there. We do that quite often as well. Then we plant to that outside corner accordingly, and uh, they may walk around the end of it, they may get to it and jump the fence right before they hit the corner, or or vice versa. You know, but particularly if it's a four strand barbed wire where you see that often, particularly where someone had been maybe cattling it for for many many years and they no longer have cattle in the timber or on that hayground and there's a fence corner there. We do that quite frequently as well. Yeah, and this is a concept that can help folks whether you're planting your own food plots and managing your property or not. I mean, you can look for these types of features just naturally as well, especially if you're hunting farmland. I I remember a specific example that still haunts me. I was heading into hunt a property at permission, and I'm sneaking and I kind of had an idea of where I wanted to go, and it was right on the edge where a standing corn field met a standing bean field, and then there's a chunk of timber, you know, right on the on the edge of that. And I thought to myself, Okay, this is that perfect corner. Like you just described their terry diversity of habitab, You've got a great edge here that then connects with the timber. It was just it looked screamed off the map as a great spot to be. But I walked to that point, I was about to get set up, and then I spotted a big oak tree down the edge of the field another sixty seventy yards away, and for whatever reason, I decided that I wanted to be close to those acorns and not be on that edge. I just thought I was a little more enticed by the acorns down the edge, and I went and set up seventy yards away from the edge of the beans in the standing corn, and at last light had to watch a really really nice shooter a point and go walking right down that edge, right past where I was originally going to set up. And it was a great lesson learn to uh, to stick with your initial instincts sometimes and hunt those train features versus getting tempted by a little bit of candy off off in the distance. And I won't forget that one. And you know, a scenario like that, late season is a really really good time to you know, inspect those areas and see exactly where those really really defined trails are coming in and out. Uh. And a lot of times those bucks bucks won't use those same defined trails and instead of going you know, with the trail, a lot of times they go against the grain and they'll be going perpendicular to those trails, particularly going back to bed in the mornings, where they're you know, they're kind of checking every trail. They're not just hitting one or two, but they'll check them all. And certain times of the years, they certain time of the year they may funnel out or they may file following some does out onto the food plot where they are on that trail. But that first week in November, when they're looking for those first available extra stoves, they go transverse to those trails, they'll go perpendicular to them, and they'll check them all. So being on that edge, uh, even though you're in that big old fat oak tree, you still may get a shot at him if he comes far enough. So that's not the worst thing. You had the right the right uh idea, And it might be different at a different time of the year where they may where they may be under those uh you know, those white oaks. But with that said, we always look at those uh definitive spots, the ones that jump out at you and say, you know what, here's where I'll start. But we picked the tree, and then we plant our our food plot accordingly. We always pick it first. And we've gotta have good back cover. You gotta have access and really really good back cover, particularly if he's sitting over a food plot where you know there's gonna be a lot of eyeballs, so you want to be able to sit there and and uh keep from getting picked off and make sure that you've got great back cover so they don't see you up in a tree. Yeah. So, so one of the challenges that I know a lot of people encounter when trying to set up a property with food and hunting access and everything is trying to think through where your wind is going to blow in a situation like this, because there's because one scenario where the wind is blowing from the bedding out into the open field, and that's great until that food source fills up with deer towards the end of the night, and now all of a sudden, you're wind is blowing to where all this deer are now, and you know, for the last ten minutes you're hoping that mature bucks gonna step out, and instead your wind is just spooked ten does off the food plot, and now they're all running back in. You're not gonna see the buck. The opposite situation is that if you you know, if you have that wind blowing anywhere into the cover, you risk of course spooking something um before they ever get out there. Ideally, you'd like to have a situation that doesn't do either one of those. Are there any specific things you think about or tricks as far as positioning your plot or your stands to negate those two potential wind issues. Well, it gets back to historical data and m R. I. You know an observation, where is where is the least amount of activity coming from? And you're going to give up a down wind side. There are no two ways about it. I don't care who you are, how hard you hunt, or how set free you are, You're still going to give up a down wind side if you're in a tree stand. So that historical data becomes extremely important, m R. I. Knowing where those deer are coming out, where they feel comfortable feeding, and where the least amount of activity comes from. And then you say, okay, I've been watching this thing for two or three years now, and there are zero deer coming from this direction. Then Baygli, there's the area that you're gonna want to look for a tree and say, I can I can get in there, and I can let my wind go out over this direction and do very little damage. And I think it's as much about being smart and observing where they're coming from and where they're going to as it is just picking that tree and and hoping and praying that the wind will won't mess you up because it only takes one and if she if she blows and clears the field and they domino back, that is the worst feeling in the world for them, the domino back because if you if they would have stayed on the field, pretty good chance you'd have seen that buck and he'd have been out there during daylight hours. But once they domino back, then you're another hour, hour and a half, two hours and maybe not at all, and you may not see him at all the rest of the night. So it's extremely important. But it gets back to being observant, you know, when you're sitting there the first two years, and that's the reason we like to hunt the perimeters first and try and start making those observations and saying, Okay, now I can move in. I know which tree I want to sit in because there's very little movement coming in and out of that tree. But yet I still want to be able to get that deer within bow range. And that's where the inside and outside corners become important. Yeah, that's that's when you start getting the kind of the art of it all. Um. You talked about that domino effect. When that one dough blows and sends everything back, and I agree that there's not a worse feeling I think in the world. Then when you hear that blow and you just your heart just drops, And it's funny. The other night, I was sitting in bed reading and all of a sudden, I heard a doe blow. I heard that, and my heart just dropped, my my breathing stopped. I had this this physical reaction because it was like my body automatically reacting to this sound that I hate so much. And then I took a second. I realized, Hey, you're sitting in bed. There's no dough blowing at you right now. And I realized it was my dog snoring. But but I had this very you had me wondering there. I had this very visceral physical reaction that was just like pre programmed into my body whenever I hear that kind of sound. Made me realize, that's been Yeah, it really is, I'll tell you. And and I'm I'm one of those guys. I thoroughly enjoy harvesting. The harvesting does. I've been doing it for many, many years. And if they so much as look cross eyed at me, they usually don't leave the field. That's probably the way to take care of that issue. UM, we had a luxury because the deer density is so high. I just can't seem to get the numbers down. And and that's a great problem to have. I'm not complaining by no means. I I enjoy seeing them, I enjoy harvesting them. We just had some venison sausage made, you know, some summer sausages made, and and uh, I was I was tickled to try it. I got my wife had picked it up. I had dropped it off and they made it. She had picked it up. So I tried a piece last night. It was phenomenal. So we we eat it all season long and continue to keep the freezers full. Yeah, you can't. You can't beat that. UM. One additional question on the food plot architecture piece. We talked about positioning where you want the plots. We talked about where your tree is gonna be handling wind. What about shapes of your actual plantings. Do you do anything to try to funnel deer movement into smaller areas or are you not as concerned about that. That's a great question, because we do do that, and we're pretty diligent about it. You know, if you see where there and again back to the data in the m R. I if you've watched them for two or three years and you know they're gonna pop out over here, and then as the evening progresses they slowly migrate to another another part of the field, then by all means, you can do that little hour glass effect or figure eight, so to speak, and neck it down, uh to where you know you've got a maybe maybe a little bit closer shot where they're not you know, quite out there at eighty and a hundred yards, but maybe they get in with that thirty five or forty yards shot. Then by all means do that. We do that quite often, or make a little bit of a triangular effect, and it may be something that you've created with some hay bales. I use big round bales all the time and make them walk around the end of them. You know, we're I'll have them straight away from me in a tree stand up where I'm looking straight into the end of the bales, and they may go you know into the timber, oh three or four bales deep for five bales, but there within forty yards whenever they walk around the end of it. I do it all the time. So there's other way ways of doing it other than just necking down your food plot. But but marks a master at it. The Mad Scientist does it on on a lot of different things where he does that are glass effect. Yeah, that that seems to be a good way to Again to your point, there's a whole lot of ways to influence movement. And as you start stacking up that, m R. I you're learning, learning, learning, then you can start tweaking, tweaking, tweaking a little more every year. Um, and that for me is probably what's become the most fun. I love making all these little tweaks. You try something out, you put something out there. Then you get to sit first season and watch how they use it and watch how they enjoy the food or the cover you enhanced, Like that's incredible to see. And then the chess match begins again. You get to keep turning the knobs, pulling the levers, and uh, I geek out over that big time. Well, you know, I can't tell you how many times I've sat in a tree and go, why did I do that? You know that was stupid. I don't know why I planted so much food and made this plot so much bigger where now I can't I can't shoot any of them. So there you can make mistakes and to learn about those mistakes, but you've gotta be willing to say, you know what, next year, I'm gonna change this a little bit, or I'm gonna take a disk and I'm gonna disc up what I planted because they're out there at four yards or two d yards and I can't get a shot anyway. So you may, you know, eliminate a little part of it, you know what. It may only be a couple of brush hoogs wide or something, But try and direct a white tail in your position is not as hard as what someone might think. But it takes observation first, and if they're comfortable being there, then it becomes a lot more a lot more easily done. Yeah. So so to that point, if they're comfortable there, I think that is a key aspect of food plots is making sure they feel comfortable. And lots of times folks will plant food plots and then they think that's gonna be the silver bullet that's going to change everything for them when they're hunting. But then they go in there in the mornings and they spook deer out the food plots, and then in the evenings they leave their tree stands that are hung right in the edge of the food plot, and they walk through it and they spook a bunch of deer, And after doing that two or three times now they never see Bucks anymore. And then eventually they never see does anymore, and they're wondering, why is my hunting worse now than it was before I had the food plots? UM. I think that's a scenario that people sometimes experience when they're not thinking about access or ways to maintain security within those food plots for those deer. So that brings me to two questions. Number one, do you ever do anything as far as screening cover to increase security for deer within those food plots so they feel like they can't see things outside or they can't see you moving in um? And then number two, what else, if if there's things other than screening cover, are you doing to help improve your access your own hunting access in and out? Well? And you hit on too, they're in and out. It's as hard to get out of a tree stand as it is to get in a tree stand when they're you know, if you're getting into your tree stand early enough and the deer haven't moved yet. They're obviously not on the food plot, and you know a lot of times they won't see you access that spot. You can climb up, get settled in, but you still got to get out of it at night. So that's the one or in the dark, that's the one that that really is can do the you know the harm in the sidings UH literally go down. And I don't know what that incremental rate is, but if you go to the same set four or five nights in a row, your sightings are gonna go down accordingly. So it's extremely important to be able to bounce around and hunt on the right winds, but it's extremely hard to get out of there. And yes, we do create UH different access UH points, and whether we're cutting through a timber or using UH, I use you know, little drainages and draws, and I make sure that they're clean. Will go in with a chainsaw and make sure that they're clean, and you can slip in or slip out through that drainage without being seen. If you're up on top of a hog back or a ridge, they all see you. If you're down in the crack, you know, and you're and you're kind of hunker down and you've got a little bit of cover going in and out, and and rule will located tree stand sometimes in a spot where I know I can climb up the backs out of a tree without being detected. In addition to that, we may plant in areas. I had a spot last year on a farm that had a pretty big bottom field, and I felt like the bottom was way too open, and it felt like the deer didn't feel comfortable crossing that particular fee. So I loaded it up with carn and with biologic in that carn. Because my muddy bullline was on the other end of the field, I needed a way to access it without being seen. I planted a guest row, And a guest row is just where your planter you move over a little bit and you leave yourself a little with between two rows. And then we went down through there with a machete and we trimmed them just a little bit, and you could literally walk four hundred yards through the carn field without ever being detected. And it was as sweet access as I've ever had to get in and out of a spot. And we did that last year all we did was moved the planter over and I think we were maybe I don't know. Fifth. Uh, let's see twelve. We're sixteen rows in from the edge of the field and then planet at guest row, and you could walk all the way the blind four yards without ever being without ever being out in the open. And this was a pretty decent bottom field. So that was one way. Planting switch grass is another. Mark does that and and has that on a lot of different spots on his farms where he's got has it created that cover where it's up over your head, and then you might take a little more or something and and create a little path, or you can get in and out there without being detected. Uh. Using you know some brushy areas that you can get into a tree stand without being detected, using the terrain the topography to help you. There's a number of different ways of doing it, but being able to get in and out is always crucial. And you do as much harm getting out as you do walking in. Yeah, so so true. And um I will if I had the ability. I don't yet, but if I ever have the ability to plant standing corn that is a trick, I will definitely be be utilizing because that just sounds like the kind of access route that gets a deer geek like really excited imagining being able to slip in and out so easily without being detected. Uh, that's that's a dream scenario. Um. It was. I'll interrupt you here. It was the single best access I've ever created, bar none, and we've done a lot of them, but that one was slick. I kid, you know. It was you could walk down this entire bottom field and they knew they had no clue you were there, and it was easy. It was quiet, it was you didn't make any noise because we took the time in the summer months to go through with a machete, and even though the guest row was was wide, we wanted to make sure we didn't rub against anything or hit anything with a bow or cameras, are arms or elbows there, knees and it was clean. I mean you literally could skirt down through there and nothing knew you were there. Yeah. That's uh yeah, if that's a dream scenario, then, which it is, I need to ask you about a nightmare scenario, which is when your plans for a food plot, whether it be a corn plot, for access or a greenfield that hunt. Maybe I think probably the green fields a better example of this. But when you have a situation like that where you're hit with the worst weather possible during the summer or the fall when you plant it and you have drought and your food plot has failed. UM, I have seen you use some different creative ways to deal with scenarios like that. Could you talk to us a little bit about how you handle drought and other issues of food plots. Um, You've got a few tricks up your sleeve. I think. Well, for whatever reason, the the region that I'm in in northern Missouri there where my farm is located, I don't know why, but we we get hit with a drought seems like every single year. You know, and brother marks up there his carns twelve foot tall and his beans are up over his you know, his his belt, and he's telling me how good his food plots look. And I'm struggling, literally struggling to get a drop of rain. And it becomes extremely stressful. And the fact that you know, it costs a lot to you know, the input costs are high in the spring and all those other things, and it's just it, I'm faced with it each and every year. So I went through the trouble. I found a used fire truck that was for sale sitting at a uh, you know, outside of a firehouse, and I ended up purchasing it for a little bit of nothing. And this thing had a you know, a three ninety engine in it with a big stainless dred gallon water tank on the back, and the tank was worth and the motor was worth more than the truck. So I was like, man, I gotta get this thing, and I've been utilizing it. I pumped Unfortunately, I have some farm ponds, so I pump water out of the ponds, load the truck, and I try to try to keep a few food plots alive each and every year and then and then hope that we're gonna get a little bit of rain and mother nature be kind enough to keep some of the other stuff growing. But I found out that I can't water them all when it's a hundred and ten degrees, but I'm able to put enough water on two or three of them to uh to keep them, to keep them going and keep them green. In addition to that, because I have a few farm ponds, I started looking at areas where I could siphon water. And we've done that over the top of the levee, where I'll just take literally a garden hose and a bucket with a rock in the bucket and pook holes in the bucket, so I throw it out into the pond and uh, then I got a garden hose going over the back of the levee. And and typically the backside of a pond is usually a low lying area. It's some silt that's usually washed down in there. It's usually grass that's fairly tall or some thick cover. But it's not very hard to keep a food plot growing. And it may be a small one, you know, as small as it may be. It may only be a quarter of an acre, a third of an acre, half acre or whatever. But it's pretty easy to keep those growing if you've got a little bit of a siphon effect going. And I've done that on two or three occasions as well, two or three different areas that I had never planted before, and said, you know what, the water's right here, and we have an elevation change of fifteen foot. All I gotta do is start a siphon and let the water run out and we've been doing that and in a garden as it doesn't take much. You move the hose about every other day or whatever, and uh, it's just enough to keep it alive until mother nature blesses you with with a nice rain. And I think I saw. So what you're doing there with that hose is you're running it into your food plot and then you have a bunch of holes cut into the hose at different distances, so you're kind of getting almost like a sprinkler effect across part of the plots there, right. Yes, Yeah, I bought some half inch PBC and took a drill and drill holes in it, and uh, it's you know, you're it's a siphon, so you gotta neck it down a little bit to make sure it's got enough pressure to even come out of those holes. But it did. It worked, and uh we would tickled to death to get it to work. So you kind of got to be smart about it. So we've got a little bit bigger holes and going to smaller ones are smaller than going to bigger and trying to get that volume out and making sure that the uh, you know, the end of it is plugged. Obviously, but um, you know, we were just trying to get creative and say, how in the world can I keep this food plot growing Because it's in the middle of my farm. It's one of the best spots on my entire farm, and I have zero food here because it all burnt up. So we started getting more and more creative each and every year, and I said, you know what, this is a no brainer. It costs you literally nothing, a few garden hoses and some a couple of pieces of PVC pipe, and uh it's worked out pretty dog on. Well, yeah, that's that's that's pretty ingenious. I like the creative d I y work on that one to to solve a problem that could be pretty tricky otherwise, especially in a region like Sounds Like, where you're at work for whatever reason, getting some some funky consistent droughts. That's that's kind of a a frustrating situation, I gotta believe well. And and another thing we did to enhance that little food plot, we went ahead and put scrape trees in there. I cut some shingle oaks down and then planted us you know, just took a post hole digger and put a scrape tree in there. And then all and then put a camera on it, and it's amazing how many bucks I was getting on this a little bitty highhole food plot below this pond. In early season, it can be pretty dog on lethal if it's still warm, still hot, still dry, and they've got a green food plot, it's the lush food plot. And then they got water right there as well. So we put a scrape tree in, put a camera on it, and we're like, holy cow, there's a lot more deer using this than what I realized. Do you put scrape trees in all of your food plots? Are large open food sources like that? You know? I don't in all of them, but I do in several where I where I want to shoot one with a bow and I want to get him within twenty five yards or twenty two yards. I do, and a lot of those, you know, because there are there are firearm spots, and then there are archery spots. And we're a little more creative with our archery spots, uh than we are the firearms. But Mark's got him in most of his or many of his, and he's got there had really really good luck with it over the years, tremendous pictures and video footage of these things. Uh, So we've been putting more and more out, seems like each and every year. Yeah, and it definitely seems to be a u a tactic that works. I've been using it here in Michigan too, And great pictures and great way to get dear to move to a specific location and pause for a moment, sometimes for a shot. It's uh, it seems to be a no brainer in a lot of cases. Speaking of trees, though, I want to make sure that we do talk about the other half of white tail habitat. We talked a lot about food, but what about cover? Um, how do you think about how do you like to implement cover improvements in situations where you need that? Do you do a lot of that? Actually we do. And I'll tell you that I mentioned Dr Grant Woods a little while ago. He was one of the first ones that looked at a piece of property with us, and and it was a piece of market purchase. And Grant was walking through it and he said, you know what do you got here for for covering food? And and it was full of shag bark hickries. And Mark said, well, we got all these hickores and he said that that's not cover off food. Yet they get zero zero benefits out of a shag bark hickory. So you know we look at it and say, oh man, we got all this cover. He looked at and said, you know what you could be doing better to buy enging some of these trees and letting that sunlight hit the ground and promoting some of that uh you know that understory to grow in lou having that big old hickory there, because the only thing he's supporting as a as a nest of squirreld. So you know, everybody looks at it differently. It's nice to have someone with a forestry background that says, okay, here's you've got. You know, white oaks, you've got pin oaks, you've got breads, you've got shingles, you've got which ones are you know a prime food source for a white tail? Which ones do you want to promote? Where do you want to go in and put a little fertilizer stick at the base of that tree, or put two or three around the base of that tree. If you've got to stand nearby, you know, and your and your planning on hunting a white oak grow So there's different ways of looking at it and different people that have different facilities that can help you with that. But we always look at the mass crop. I always want to know exactly what's gonna put that fat, you know, onto their their body before the rut hits and during the rut, are they gonna have enough food source and enough mass crop to to carry them through? And carrying capacity is so important now in areas where there's let's say, you might be butted up against a tillable field. But because of the efficiency of of the farming equipment nowadays, years ago, there was a lot of it that laid on the ground. Anymore, there isn't many kernels that lay there anymore. You don't see a lot of corn and beans laying on the ground because the the equipment has gotten so much more efficient, and uh, you know, I think the numbers really kind of tested testimonial to that. You see the numbers have have declined in in those really really big areas where there are a lot of agg fields but it's kind of broken woodlots. I think the number and the deer densities down because there it doesn't have the carrying capacity that it once had. So we're careful about looking for a mass crop. We're also careful about looking at the agg fields that are in and around it. But you know how many how many white oak trees you got? You know, reds and blacks are all good, but we really want to make sure that it's got a mass crop as well. Yeah, Now what about what about actual betting areas within that cover? Do you get as strategic with betting as you do with food? And by that I mean do you ever try to go in and say, hey, I really wish that the betting was happening here and then create a great betting area there or do you usually just look and see where are they betting now? And then do we, if we need to improve it a little bit, improve it or do we just leave alone? Which of those two do you do? Well? I haven't done a lot of it on my form because I have what I feel as though sufficient amount of betting, and we got food plots planted in and pretty tight to that betting, and then we've got destination feed fields where they'll leave the betting, hit the green and then go to grain. So that's really the optimum if you can accomplish that on smaller pieces, then I could see doing a little more, uh, you know, as far as promoting that betting, and you can do that by hinging. It's really not that hard, and it maybe trees that are that are already dying. You know, in Missouri we got hit with a lot of diseases on on some of our oak trees that literally took out some of the most beautiful timber you'd ever want to see in In those particular scenarios, you can go ahead and log it out, get the logs off of it, and then promote it with with different brush poles. You know, take those tops and put them in a certain pattern or a certain direction where you kind of maybe funnel some dear past the tree stand. It's not that hard to do. It takes a little manual labor and a chainsaw. But uh, you know, if you go in there and you do it early on and you continue enhancing that each and every year, you can direct a lot of that traffic. You know, if you've got certain trails and they're just skirting you by, you know, an extra ten or fifteen yards that you don't like, then by all means, take some of those trees that are either not helping a white tail or they're already dead, and create your own funnel inside and it may or may not be betting necessarily, but just by creating that structure in that funnel type of effect, you can have a pretty compounding effect. Yeah, I see there being just as many interesting ways you could manipulate and tweak things within a timbered environment as you could in like the fields where you're doing food plot architecture. That there's probably and I know there are examples of people doing kind of timber architecture or cover architecture to get those edges to get deer moving down to funnel deer through different ways. Um, it's there, really is. It's kind of a property really can be a canvas and you can paint whatever picture you want on it, whether that be with a chainsaw or with a tractor. Um. Either way, there's ways to to move things around to work towards your benefit as a hunter, and then of course improving the habitat for deer and all the wildlife there. Usually they go hand in hand right well, and you you hit the nail on the head, you know it's a blank canvas. When it's a new piece that you're starting with and uh, it depends how assertive and how aggressive you want to get with it. But one of the things that I've noticed throughout time the guys that are killing the biggest of deer with consistency, you know, consistently. For those guys that are more aggressive, you know, the guy that sits on his heel and just sits back and watches. Uh. He may or may not. He may kill one or two, but he's not gonna do it year after year. It's that guy that's a little more uh maybe I don't know, a little more type A that's a little more aggressive mark being one of him. He just he's never satisfied and he's never happy with his own performance, so he continues to enhance it day after day after day. And if it means putting a few hay bales out in front of you in a in a feed field or a food plot, then by all means do it. Or if it means going into the timber with a chainsaw and taking a deadfall and moving it and creating that wind row of brushed where they gotta walk around the end of it, then do that too, Or move your tree stand one or the other. But there's ways of doing it, and they're not that hard. It just takes a little bit of manual labor. And and if you can conn a couple of buddies into helping you to see all that much easier where you just tell him what to do, that's a move right there that that's good to perfect. Um. You know, something we haven't really talked about it all is kind of the third leg of the tripod that that deer live off of, which is food cover and then water. Do you do you ever do much water manipulation? Do you ever try to dig in ponds or add things like that? Um? I know you mentioned using ponds to water food plots, but do you ever try to create water sources? You know a lot of guys do. I have not, because I have seven or eight farm ponds on my particular farm, and a couple of them are pretty good size, and we we fish them and and um, you know that was one of the reasons I bought the piece that I did was because it had so many farm ponds on it. And when I bought it, I thought, Man, I'm gonna fish ease every day. And that doesn't happen. You never have time to fish them. But every once in a while we'll get a while here and fish them and clean them and eat them. But with that being said, I think water source is one of the most important, particularly during the rut and up in your aft of the woods. I know they've been masters at making it work farm for a number of years where they go in and create those little bitty uh, you know, farm ponds if you will, even though they're small. Uh. They'll do it in the middle of the timber and and I think that area probably has it down better than most, you know, other than those arid, really really dry regions down in Texas and Oklahoma where they have water troughs and and those types of things. I think where you're located there, they've been mastering that for quite a while. I have not because I think it's a fine line, and you've got to be careful when if you don't keep them fresh and keep them full, sometimes they can get stagnant on your depending on the size of that water source. So and there too, hauling water is not the easiest thing in the world, but developing it, digging a hole, taking a little mini excavator or something out out there, and and you know, kind of clearing a little area where it's in a little revetment or digging down and then building a levy. It's not that hard and it doesn't take much to do it. So if a guy has a forty acre or sixty acre piece without water on it, then by all means, I would highly recommend putting a water source on it. Yeah, it seems like you said, there's a lot of folks here in the Upper Great Lakes who have found a lot of success putting those little just like you described, these little water holes back in the timber that specifically during the ruts, seems to be a great way to get passing bucks to stop for a moment coming through hit those little water sources while they're cruising. Um. I've tried it a little bit. I put a couple in and still trying to trying to figure out the best way to do it. But it's definitely something worth considering, especially if you're lacking water in your area. Those those spots are tricky to hunt to. A mature buck is really apprehensive about hitting though, so you've got to be kind of cognizant of that you may or may not kill him when he's at the water. You may have to sit off of that and try and catch him coming to and from because they're very, very careful about how they hit a water source. Yeah, that's an interesting point, um, speaking of that kind of thing. I guess, right in the situation where you put in a water hole, maybe and then you find out, oh jeez, you know, these bucks don't want to come out to it, Maybe because I put it out too far in the open, or maybe because of how I set up on it. Um. Mistakes like that that you can only really learn after having tried it and then observed and learned from him. You have obviously done a lot of things right with your with your various farms, especially your main Missouri farm. I know you've spent a lot of time on there. You've built this into a piece of white tail paradise. Um, you've done a lot right. But I gotta believe there's a few things maybe you've done wrong that you've looked back on and said, ah, I wish I hadn't done that, Or maybe there's something you realize and you had to fix it. But it's one of those big cross in your back that you always remember. Gosh, I sure wasted a lot of time or money on this thing. Um, is there any mistake like that over all of your years on your main farm there Missouri that you could point to as being an example of that kind of situation. Yeah, Number one, I think it'd be the fact that I got old and lazy. You know, it's easy to get it's easy to get complacent. Know when we were younger and we were really really going at it, Uh, it was easy to stay aggressive and stay assertive and try and get all of these things implemented that you want to implement. And then as you as you get intimate with a farm and you start getting uh, you know, to the point where it's not easy, but it's easier than it was in the beginning. Then all of a sudden you start to get lazy. And I think that that that can affect a lot of people. So again, and I said it earlier, that it's a matter of staying aggressive, staying assertive, uh, and just not not being satisfied with your own performance. And I think that's why Mark and I excel at times, him him more so than me, because he's just his mind never stops. They call him the mad Scientist for a reason. His mind is always working. He's constantly looking at reconics pictures and constantly trying to play the chess match, and he's he's just never ever happy. And when he gets one in his cross, he is like an old coyote. I swear he when he gets one and he wants to kill him, pretty good chance. He's gonna work on it until he does. If they moved during daylight hours. If not, obviously, then it doesn't get done. But uh, he's just a master at it. And I think that's that's the biggest mistake for me. And I'm just saying this personally, but it's it's becoming satisfied and and maybe not being as aggressive as I once was. And some of that comes with age, some of it comes with just being glazier as you get old, but being more assertive because there's still no matter. Every day when I go out on the farm, there's still something I can make better, there's still something I can improve, and there's still other ways of harvesting white tails. Um, I learned every single day, and uh, we never ever stopped learning. We're always analytical. You know. I've been hunting through fifty years and March's been hunting forty years, so there's ninety years worth of experience between the two of us. And uh, that's one of the reasons that we get Deercast. That's one of the reasons we developed the app was to try and help other people and say, you know what, the next time you go out, what what was going on here today? What was the prometer, what was the departure from average temperature, what was the wind speed? What was the moon phase? You know, because dark of the moon is dreadful, and uh, we just our sightings go way way down and and we in full moon and it's just the opposite of that. So there's a lot of observations they can make and we're just trying to spur them on to maybe click something off in a guy's head and say, you know what today, here's where I'm gonna hunt, and here's why. And that's what deer Cast was all about. It was another tool to put in your in your pouch, so to speak, and help somebody kill that next big deer. But the biggest mistake I've made is probably being complacent, because you can't be complacent when you're hunting mature white tails. Yeah, like you said, never stop learning, never stop trying to improve. Um. And that's that because that's necessary. That's also a part of what makes this so much fun is the fact that there's always another move to make, there's always another challenge to try to tackle. And that's what keeps me going at it, wakening up every moore and getting excited about this stuff. Is it's it's never ending. Um. And And and I gotta I gotta thank you Terry for being, you know, such a great resource to so many people. Just like you said that the ninety years of experience that you and Mark bring to bear have helped a lot of folks, whether it be just through what you've shared in podcasts and your TV shows and DVDs and now with the app, Um, you're you're making a difference, and I certainly appreciate it. And for folks that want to dive into more of what you guys have got going on, whether it be the app or anything else, can you kind of point those folks in the direction where to find everything. Well, if they if they go to either if they're on an Android or and I phone, either are you know, and just go into the Google Play Store and and download the app. It's free and uh, it gives you everything. Drewy, there's a lot of video content on their moss Yoak was kind enough to to assist this and help us with some of their video content. Uh, it's got you know, we're gonna we're expanding on all that. We've been working with the developer to improve it. So you're gonna see a lot of improvements coming with dear cast and Gent two and Gen three were already thinking down the road three to five years, but we're just wanting to help people and as I thank you, we wanted to give back, So that was the whole idea of the farm giveaway. Uh. For thirty years of being in business, were very blast, very humbled, and uh we're just fortunate to be in this this line of work that we're in. White Tales can humble you, but pretty readily. It goes from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows, and you never get tired of those highs. Uh, they don't come near often enough. So when you do hit one, it's uh, it's it's pretty refreshing and you know, I don't know if anything else, it gives you a feeling like harvesting a big white tail or one that you've been after, one that you've got pictures of. Uh, there's just nothing like it. And and it's so infrequent that it really does hit home when you do it, and and you go, you know what, By golly, I won this chess match. This was finally I won the chess match. And then you go on to the next match, you know. So, Uh, it's it's as good as it gets. And we just want everybody to be say, keep that in the back of your mind. We want to make sure that they're taking some youngsters with them, getting getting kids involved and trying to teach them the right way. Be respectful of your neighbor and be respectful of the quarry that you seek. A lot of times we see that maybe that doesn't reach where it should, and we'd love to make sure that everybody's respects their neighbor in the animals that they're after. I don't think we could end with any better words of wisdom than that. Terry, so really really interesting stuff today. I really appreciate your time and Mark likewise, I always enjoy the visit with you, and any time you need something, I don't hesitate to holler you better watch how what you asked for, Terry, I might be asking for a farm here said, there you go, let's take a tour one day. We'll take you out there and have you look at it. I would love that. I would love that. All right, Terry, we'll talk against all right, and that's gonna be a rap. So like we're talking about the deercast after the juries are putting together. That they've put together is really great resource. So highly recommend that not to mention. This giveaway is pretty incredible to so check it out, join in and on my front, if you could happen to leave a rating or review of the wire Dun podcast, it would be greatly appreciated. That is a big help. It's how we are able to bring new listeners into the fold. So thanks in advance for doing that. Speaking of thanks, if you want to pick up a wire Dun hat or shirt or detail, you can do that by going over to the meat eater dot com. Go to their shop. That's where all my gears. Now, that's where my new content is. Now to the new podcast, my new articles that I'm doing, videos, that kind of stuff is over on the meat eater dot com. So that out of the way, I just want to thank you so much for listening to this podcast. I want to wish you good luck if you're out there scouting or shed hunting, or doing some other project. Maybe you're out there shopping for deer hunting property of your own. If you're doing any of those things, I'm hoping it's going well for you. And until next time, stay Wired to Hunt.

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