00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number three and tell you in the show, we're joined by wildlife and habitat consultant Rob Hobbrey to discuss late season hunting and ideas for improving deer and wildlife habitat. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by on X. Today we are talking with Rob Hobbrey. Rob is a land specialist for white tail properties as well as a consultant. He runs a wildlife and uh forestry consulting business. And Rob actually joined us on the back for to this summer and helped us out with some trees and tree plantings and and during that time with him, I realized that he has got a lot to offer when it comes to ideas around both how to hunt deer and how to improve a piece of ground for deer and other wildlife. Um, just a great source of knowledge. And today that's what I wanted to do, was was get him talking on all those topics. So what we're gonna dive into here momentarily is a little bit around Rob's late season hunting plans, the types of things he's paying attention to, as well as a little bit more generically, things he thinks about just when it comes to hunting a small property in general, especially with lots of pressure around you. He has a unique situation on his home farm and and he has some ideas around that that I thought were pretty interesting. And then for the majority of our time, we then are going to talk through ways to develop a plan for improving your property, whether it's twenty acres or two acres. UH. This is a eight time a year here at the end of the year to be thinking about what we want to do this next time around. So we discuss how to audit your property, how to determine where to start, how to prioritize projects, and then discussing everything from improving food sources to you know, improving cover and timber stands or creating brand new cover in the middle of the fields. We talk about food plots, we talk about evergreen tree plantings, we talk about planting orchards, UH and everything in between. So if you are into just hunting, we've got something for you. And then if you're into improving ground, we've got that as well. It's a fun talk. Rob's got a lot to offer, so I'm just gonna let us dive right into it. We're here at the very end of the year, so uh, I just want to wish you all a merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, happy New Year. I hope it's been a good year, although I know it's been tough for a lot of folks. I hope you've been able to uh weather the storm and find some silver linings and uh, we're gonna head into one with some optimism, is what I hope. We're gonna have a better year everyone. That's what I believe. And uh, let's let's make that a reality real quick. Before we get to Rob's chat, a couple of quick plugs, I'll just let you all know that the back forty series is completed. That show that I host, it's now all out there. It's on the Meat Eater YouTube channel. You'll get to see Rob in one of those episodes as he helped bring out and help us get started with some of our tree plantings and episode two, so make sure check that out. I hope it's something you enjoy and can learn from and maybe be inspired by a little put a ton of blood, sweat and tears into it. So head on over scope that out. And then finally, if you got some gift cards for Christmas or maybe a little cash and you're stocking and you're looking for something to buy. Um in particular, I'm gonna recommend some books because I'm a book nerd. I love reading. I'd recommend checking out the new book for Meat Eater, which is The Meat Eater Guide to Wilderness Skills and Survival. That's a dang good option. Or if you're looking for more of a history and adventure read, I got to suggest that Wild Country. That's the book that I wrote and had published last year that I'm super proud of and would love for you to give a read. I thank you for your support on that one and all of this. So that's it for me. Thanks, and let's get to my conversation with Rob Hobbrey. Alright with me now on the line is Rob Hobbrey. Rob, thank you so much for making the time to do this. Great to be with you. MARKA not a problem at all. Yeah, I, as we were just talking about before we started recording, we had a We had a quick visit this summer in that left me wanting to have a real deep dive with you for for months now, so I'm excited to be able to do this. I want to talk through a bunch of different things, everything from late season hunting to you know, land management throughout the year. But before that, I guess I would be curious to hear from you what your life looks like. What's the day in the life of Rob Hobbrey looked like? Because I introduced you a second ago before we started recording as someone who consults and you're also a land specialist for white Tail properties. But people hear about folks that do that. They hear about people that are land consultants or or habitat management consultants or forestry consultants. That's a term we hear a lot, but I'm not sure people always know what that looks like in reality. What what does a day in the life look like for someone like you? Well, the beauty of of my job and and how I've been blessed immensely by God is every day, every single day is something different. Uh. You know, I started my career back in after I graduated from Purdue had a double major enforced management wildlife management. I worked sixteen months with the Indiana Division of Fish and Wildlife with their Forest Wildlife division, and I absolutely loved that job. And and my true passion is habitat management for wildlife species. I just loved that. But it's hard to make a living in wildlife habitat. It really is unless you're you know, one of the top research biologists or you know, Grant Woods or somebody like that. And so my my career tailored into forestry because they had the double major. I worked for a hardwood lumber company and then after a few years, I started my own forestry consulting business um and with that, after fifteen or twenty years, I was called by White Tail Properties. A friend of mine worked for them and gave them my name, and uh, you know, my business has kind of transitioned a little bit now that I'm a forestry consultant, a habitat consultant, and I'm also a land specialist with White Tail Properties. Every single day is something different. One day, I'm looking at a parcel of land that somebody wants to sell. Uh. The next day, I'm showing a property that somebody wants to buy. Two days later, I'm marking a stand of timber in UH in southern Indiana, and I'll spend two or three or five days on that hour long takes me to finish that UH and maybe the next week I'm over in west central Indiana looking at three acres with a landowner wanting to improve his habitat, and he wants me to write a management plan. So every day is something different, every day is something unique, and that is what I absolutely love about my work. I'm fifty seven years old, UH, and I I really don't have a set date or a year that I want to retire because I still love what I do. Um. It's just it's just that simple. So I've been really blessed in that regard. So every day is, every day is different, every day presents a different and unique challenge. UM. At first, it was a little bit difficult trying to juggle all three aspects with real estate and the forestry and the habitat. But I've gotten to a point now to where, UM, you know, I know how far I can stretch myself. UM. So it's it's been it's been a real blessing, and and I just I enjoy getting out of bed every single day. I just really do. Yeah, that's that's the dream right there. With all that going on, Do you do you find any time to hunt? Because it's funny you hear from folks that work within this industry and from the outside it seems like, oh, they just must hunt every day, but then lots of times the work during this time of the year could be really busy. Is that the case for you or do you a are you able to schedule things that you can actually get out and practice what you preach? Still, Uh, it's difficult, I have to admit it. Uh. You know this hunting season, I've hunted five days, um, and that's that's been it since October one. Uh. I hurt. I actually hurt my arm using a piece of equipment, so and it was my my my my draw arm for my bow. So I wasn't able to bow hunt at all. Um. But that allowed me to get some things caught up in the field. But a lot of people take a lot of time off during hunting season. And you know, if you get a couple of warm days and the deer aren't moving, Uh, they'll call you and they want to see properties. And sometimes you just have to take that opportunity when it arises. So I try to make my schedule um to where you know I can. It's not just rock solid. Sometimes, you know, I I can arrange things a little bit. But my wife is really good about telling me, you need to take the week that you want to hunt and just turn your phone off and hunt that week. Uh. And I'm blessed to have a wife that wants me to do that. But my my problem is is I just don't like to turn anybody down. Uh. If somebody calls me wants to look at the property, I want to get there as soon as I can. If somebody calls me wants to see a property, I want to show it to him as soon as I can. If an individual calls me and they're wanting me to look at a track of timber or do some habitat consulting for him, I want to try to reach out and make it as convenient on them as I possibly can. So sometimes I just have to arrange my schedule. Now, what makes it a little bit easier for me is, um, I'm mainly and I do and I do mean mainly. I mainly just hunt my farm, which is right out my back door. Um. So, Uh, the buck I killed on opening day this year, I've been after for two years and I shot him two hundred yards behind my house. Um so you know, I I know the dear by watching him and by a trail camera and everything. And you know, I don't have to leave the house at four am to try to get my stand by six or six fifteen. Uh you know I can. I can walk out the back door and be in my at six and be in my stand at six ten and and I absolutely love that. I mean I absolutely love that. Yeah, that's pretty darn cool. I gotta I have to ask about this story then, the the opening day behind the house buck two year history. Uh, how did it start and how did it end? I had this buck on my trail camera's last fall. I was seeing him quite a bit, especially in the middle of the morning. I would I had him on trail camera anywhere between nine thirty and noon, going through my food plots. Um, and he was I could tell he was a really mature deer. Um. I mean for my farm, you know, uh, four and a half year old deer as a mature deer because on the east side of my farm is heavy state land. Uh. And then on the northeast side of my farm. Uh, there's a couple of guys really hunt that property really hard. So for me to you know, for me to let a deer get five or six years old, is really tough because they just get hit hard as soon as they leave my property. Um. But anyway, I had him on Trail Cameron and last year opening day, I didn't see him at altering bow season, but I was only able to hunt three or four days. Opening day at firearms season, I saw him, uh in the same stand I killed him out of this year, but he was at a hunt about eighty five yards and I was hunting with a gun that I didn't feel comfortable at that with and I watched him for ten or fifteen minutes. Well that evening, I went back to that same stand and I saw him again, and he was at the same spot he but he was only out for about thirty seconds and I didn't have a shot. I did not see that deer again until the opening day of muzzleoader season, which would have been sometime around December tenth, and he stepped into my food plots broadside at thirty yards at five o'clock in the evening, and I thought, buddy, you are dead. And I pulled the trigger on that muzzle loader, and that deer just stood there, looked around and turned around, walked across the pond, damn, and went right back up into the woods. And so I got down now my stand after half hour so and went and looked right where he was at. Not a not a hit, not a hair, and I dropped the blood. Nothing. I mean that that deer didn't act like he'd been shot. And I got back up in my tree stand and looked in front of me in about ten yards in front of me was about a four inch elm tree, and I shot one of the limbs right out of it. And I didn't see it through my scope, and it was it was actually laying right. It was laying in the crown of the tree, right in front of me at ten yards. So there I knew why I missed him. And I did not have that deer on my trail cameras all fall of this year. I hadn't. I had not seen that deer since I missed him that day and open day, I'm hunting behind the house and right about nine or ten h I start getting several young bucks. Year and a half to two and a half h I think there was five bucks and all chasing two doughs, all through the bedding areas and prairie grasses and and just all around me. And this went on for an hour hour and a half. Well right about noon, a dope went through the soybeans in front of me into the little woods right next to me and to the prairie grasses, and three little bucks followed her, and I was watching them, and right behind the third buck, that big buck that I had not seen for almost twelve months stepped out of the woods and he was about he was about sixty yards and so that I was able to put a good shot on him and UH and we were really blessed and that it was. It was pretty unique hunt because he wasn't in a position at first for me to shoot him. And well, he and I had a forty five minute standoff. I'm standing with UH with my rifle on him, and he was still not in a position. I felt comfortable that I was going to take the shot, and he stood there and stared at me, and I stood there and stared at him, and we did that for forty five minutes and he stepped back. Then he stepped back into the woods, and then five minutes later steps right back out and in the exact same position. And he just stood there and and watched me. He knew there was something there, but he couldn't figure it out. And the wind was right, so I knew he couldn't win me. The wind was out of the east that day. That's why I hunt that stand. And uh and so it it, It made for a It made for a really really uh interesting and exciting day. Oh yeah, what was going through your head or the course of that forty five minutes, Like what was the Rob Hobbery self talk to make it through that without losing your mind? The Rob Hobbrey self talk on that was move, do something, take a step. And you know he didn't he because he was a big mature buck. He didn't do that bob your head, stomp your foot, Bob your head, stomp your foot that you see a lot of young bucks and does do He just stood there and was literally locked on me, and every now and then he just turned his head and watched the dose and the little bucks around him. But the fascinating thing about that hunt that I found was those those little bucks were chasing those does in circles around him, and he still never moved. He was still just staring and fixated on me. And uh I found it. I mean, you know, that's the beauty of deer hunting, especially, you know when you when you go out and you spend time in the field, you get to see how deer react to certain scenarios, um and and you just you can just learn a lot. Uh um. You know people have always said, well, a big buckle standing in the brush and just watch things for forty five minutes, for an hour. I believe that absolutely, because that that dear just I mean, he wasn't in a hurry to move, and he he wasn't leaving the prairie grasses. Because those young bucks chased those two doughs uh an eighth of a mile out into the bean field and into a little patch of corn and then back around me. I mean they they had a quarter of a mile loop they were running around it. And that that buck wasn't leaving that woods and he wasn't about to step out of those prairie grasses. Well, yeah, they're they're almost a different species once they get to four or five years old, aren't they? Oh? I mean just absolutely. And I checked my my trail cameras. Uh. Again a matter of fact, I pulled the SID cards last weekend. And because I hadn't pulled the SID cards since the first week in November, and I only had that buck on my trail car trail cams one day. Uh, And I got and I had five pictures of him in one spot. So he wasn't he wasn't venturing all across the farm. Uh. I felt that he was probably staying in that little woods right behind my house. And and that's my believe it or not, that's my sanctuary. It's a three and a half acre woods right behind my house. And I never ever ever go in unless once a year I looked for sheds and here within a month or so, I'm going to go in and do it a little bit of habitat improvement. But other than that, I never go in that woods. And every year there will be a really nice mature buck, make that his little bedroom. So and maybe that what you just described was going to be the answer to my next question. But what I'm wondering is how do you manage to have a good mature buck like that on what I think it's a it's a relatively small property that you have, right am I read on that total of eighty acres? Okay, yeah, so that's kind of what I was assuming. And so with state land on one side and another heavily pressured property and the other, you know, I think a lot of people might assume in that scenario, there's no way you're gonna have a four or five year old buck because you know that eighty acres is not the entire range of a big deer like that. He's gonna get He's gonna get killed on one of those neighbors. So what do you have to do from a hunting perspective to to not pressure deer off that and have them on the neighbors getting shot or I guess is it a habitat thing that you do that leads to these bucks being able to make it despite the neighborhood. Is it uh conservative hunting approach or is it an aggressive hunting approacher? What do you think it is that allows you to still have good deer like this despite the fact that there's public land two hundred yards away or whatever it is. And and they're right there. I think it's a combination of both the habitat and and your how you hunt the property. Because in the past, Um, I would have trail camp pictures of really nice mature deer, determined to kill that deer before a firearm season came in, so I had the month of October to hunting, um, because the rut isn't in full swing yet in October, and you know, does aren't really going into estrus and there's not a lot of chasing going around. UM. I think the mistakes I made in the past was I was so determined to kill that deer in bow season that I think I put too much pressure on the farm, even though I'm very meticulous on how I hunt the farm with the wind there there. I mean, you know, we've got eighty acres and I think I've got thirteen or fifteen stands. And when I tell people that, they think I'm nuts, Well, you know I have got a tree stand for any wind direction to be able to hunt at whether it's a morning or or an evening stand. You know. And this is the beauty about owning your property is you know, if you just take time and enjoy it over time, you will learn how the deer move and how they come in and out of the property and what they like what they don't like. And you will also learn the best places to hunt and the places you don't want to hunt because you've got busted too many times. And so if the wind isn't right at a certain time of day, for example, if the only place I have to hunt is my back the back forty of our property is all timbered, and if the only place I have to hunt is evening with an east wind, I don't get to hunt that day because on the back forty of my property with an east wind, I'm out of luck. That's just all there is to it, because if I try to hunt that with an east wind, it's going to interfere with where the dozed bed and where the bucks bed, and I'm just going to mess it up now. And if I want to hunt a morning hunt and I have a west wind, I've just got a fabulous stand on our back ridge. I know where that I know where they bed, and I know how they travel through and you know, I've got a really good standing from from that standpoint. So I think what's really helped me, especially the last three or four years, is. And I don't want to take any thing away from the guys who loved to bow hunt, but I have just not pressured to farm at all during bow season. And I think my thoughts on this, and my father and I were discussing this here last week. Um, I think what's happened, what's helped with that is because the lack of pressure that I put on yet the pressure that the neighbors have put on, has allowed the deer to feel comfortable on the farm. Uh. And then once those does start to go into estrus in the end of October one November, because they feel comfortable on the farm, and because there's a few little bucks on the farm, I think, uh, you know, uh, at least in my case, a mature buck will come in. And this isn't the first time it's happened to bet you know. That was one of the best year I've ever killed on the property. Second best year I've killed on the property came out of the same a little three and a half ager woods. Um. And so you know, I think what's taken place is because of the lack of pressure that I put on it. You know, I'm not out there every morning, every evening, six days a week. I think that helps the deer feel comfortable on the farm, and that allows me to hunt on days that I know I can if I need to, I can put in a full day sit. If the wind is right, I know I can hunt a specific stand. And the other thing I think I've done mark that has really helping, you know, and I've read a lot of articles on this and and I'm I'm finding it to be very true, is those approaches to your tree stand and and the exit routes out of your tree stand are absolutely huge. I mean, just moving a tree stand fifteen yards uh, you know, with a south wind, uh, and being able to get out of that stand down into the creek and leave that stand and not have dear blow out of your food plots. That has really helped immensely. I mean, you know, I love late season hunting. And we've got a little bit of snow on the ground this morning from last night snow. I'll probably hunt this evening and there's you know, I've got six acres of standing soybeans and there's a good chance there will be fifteen deer and my food plots this evening and I may not kill one. I just like going out and and watching how they behave and watching how you know, how they work through the food plots, and then and then once they passed by me, and you know, I usually take my binoculars and look real close the best I can. You know, I might sit out there an hour after dark, just so I don't spook deer when I leave. And I think that has helped immensely as well. Now I want your listeners to understand every year I learned, I'm learning something constantly. And you know, I'm not the guy like Don Higgins who's gone out and killed two inch deer. I just haven't. But you know, I enjoy hunting my farm. I enjoyed doing the habitat improvements on my farm. And that's what has really brought the joy of hunting to me is seeing how the deer react to those habitat improvements and seeing how those habitat improvements have have helped the herd quality on my property. And so I've learned a lot over the years. And I've learned a lot by listening and watching videos and listening to a podcast like yours, and you know, in reading articles, you know, and every every now and then you know, you'll read an article and go, I've never thought about that, and you try it and you think that gone, that really works. Yeah, that that process of continuous learning is is probably the very best thing about this whole thing ye're hunting and management and all that. You're never going to arn it. You're never gonna know at all. So it's it's a constant process, new discoveries, new things to try, and that's just a good time. Um. And that's that's That's one thing I love about my property that we have is you know, when there's a new food plot, blend comes out, or a new seed variety, I'm not afraid to buy it and plan it, you know, maybe in a quarter of an acre for a year or two, just to see if the deer like it. Uh. And that's that's how I've kind of narrowed down what I plant on the farm, because it's been a lot of trial and error. Um and uh So, I mean after after you do that quite a bit, you have a tendency to realize the deer really don't uh brows on what I planted that much, or the next year, maybe I'll plant something. A man they hammered that they really liked it, so maybe I'll try a little bit more. You know, as long as the nutritional qualities there, I'm not afraid to try new things. But that's the beauty of your own property. You know, you don't have to you know, you don't have to be you don't have to try one specific product, one specific seed blend and say, well, this is what I want to plant this year. I'm just gonna leave it at that. Don't never be afraid to try a variety because you know, you never do you never know what the deer might be liking next year. Yeah, Yeah, trial and error is is usually a good approach to uh take things that next level. You mentioned that you're probably gonna go hunting tonight or or sometime soon. So what's what's your program for late season deer hunting? What's what's your approach? And my approach is food because I know, you know, like last week it was warm. I mean we were in the mid sixties a couple of days. Um, I really there's one particular stand on my property that's right next to the creek, and I love hunting that stand. It's I've had it there since my dad bought the farm back in two thousand and that's my favorite evening stand. I can only hunt it with a south wind. Well, I hunted it one evening last week and uh, at ten minutes until dark, I mean shooting light was just about over. The deer hadn't even started coming out yet. So I went ahead and climbed down and left because I didn't want to be there an hour and a half after dark, and I didn't want to spook him. And so when it's warm like that in late season, they just don't move until almost dark because they don't have to because they're not cold, uh, you know, and they're not gravitating to the food as quickly. Um. And so I didn't hunt a lot last week. This week it's it's colder. I know they're going to move sooner. I have a lot of soybeans planted. So my goal for this evening will be to check the wind in the side which stand I like best based on the wind direction. Uh, and then I will basically hunt over food. Uh and basically I meet hunting now. I usually try to kill one large dough on the farm. Uh. Sometimes uh, sometimes I'll kill like last year, my my wife, I hadn't killed a deer for a couple of years because I hadn't seen one that I wanted to kill. And last year, my wife's like, we need meat. Kill your deer and then chase your buck. So last last year, I I shot a big dough on the first day of firearms season because it wasn't able to bow hunt that much. And I sent her a picture. I said, does that work for you? And she said very good? And so but uh so, but uh you know, uh and and we're the family that my we rarely ever buy beef unless we're going to grill a steak on a grill. I mean, we we eat everything that I kill. And my wife's a good cook, and uh so we really enjoy that. And even my daughter, you know, she's a she's a fifth year senior in college and and she's she even informed me last year, Dad, we're getting low one meat. So that's kind of nice. But to work, Yeah, my late season focus is I like hunting over food. Uh and so because I have a lot of soybeans. Um you know, they have a tendency too to be right there. Uh no, you know, depending on the wind direction and so forth. So but I have noticed on the farm as well that if if for some reason there's pressure on a neighbor, uh, and they have a tendency to bed close to the neighbors, but on our property, that can dictate how they move into the food plots that evening by what pressure they had during the day. So that by that, do you mean if on the neighboring property they were in their hunting earlier that day, that the deer coming into your place won't move until after dark or something like that. Or it's not only that, but you know if and this happens when you own land next to state land, if if somebody's come in and avoided or or trespassed on you and has pushed the deer out of the betting area, you know, while I was at work and they came in and do that, Uh, then uh, you know that might change the dear patterns that day because you know, they were ran off the farm or away from the farm, or in a different spot than where they knew normally bed. And so as they're moving into the food that evening, it might take them an extra fifteen or twenty minutes to get there, or they may not get there till after dark because they've been betting a half a mile away. Yeah, do you view that, you know, having public land next to you as as a detriment or as an asset in certain ways? I've I've talked to some folks that have similar situations like lists excuse me, like this, and the initial thought is typically, oh, man, there's guys in there all time, pushing stuff around, shooting things. It's a tough thing to deal with. But on the flip side, you might be able to look at and say, Okay, there's hundreds of acres of public land or whatever that if it was not public land, it might hold a bunch of deer that would stay there and I wouldn't see them. But instead there's deer there in the spring and summer, and then once hunting season starts, all those other people go in there and they push everything to your place. Do you do you get any of that kind of effect and all of a sudden, like your properties better because everything's pushed off by the pressure on the neighbors. I think most definitely. Um. I know since that that was forty acres on our east side, and we had told one of the owners that if they ever decided to sell it, we want first chance to buy it, UM. And then the Indiana Division of Forestry came in and bought it and we didn't even know it. UM. We were really disappointed in that, But I think since the state has owned it, that's exactly what's happened. I since people you know, with the with the with the g I S information you have on your cell phones, you know that most people don't go by a plat book anymore. They can pull up their cell phone and know who owns the property. And so most people now know that that piece next to us is public land. Uh. It does get hunted more than it used to since there have been more people hunting it. I think that has pressured that area a little bit more. And I do think that is one of the reasons some of these more mature bucks have gravitated into our property because there's no there's very little pressure UM. But I will admit from I like to be able to control what goes on on the farm UM, and I can't control that forty acres and that's uh. I don't I don't like having public land right next to me because, like I mentioned before, with trespassing, people can really mess it up. But on the other hand, I think that has, uh, that has been a little bit of a benefit in allowing more mature bucks to find a little bit better sanctuary on our property. UM. I know people from a from a real estate standpoint, I know people who have who are looking for property and they love the fact that a parcel I might have for sale or parcel they're looking at is next to public land because that gives them more acreage to hunt. And I understand that, or gives them more acreage to hike or whatever. Um. And from from a selling standpoint, you know, when you sell a farm, if it has if it's adjacent to public land, you know, I've not had anybody not like that. Um. I'm just I think what hurts me more than anything is the county road. Uh, there's a public there's an access site right there on this forty acres that joins us. If it was a little bit more isolated or landlocked, it wouldn't bother me a bit. But it's not. And so so yeah, there there's good points and bad points. I think, yeah, yeah, And it's one of those things that man having public access for those hunters that you know are going to use that, it's such a great privilege and it's great that people can get out there and enjoy it. It's just a shame when people abuse that privilege and then trespass on somebody else's land. So um man, I hate to see a good thing be you know, turned into a bad thing when people abuse that and uh, and I hope I hope that happens less and less because you know, we need place for people to go hunt. But you know, public access is gonna be taken away if people don't use it the right way. So it's a shame when you see those examples. I've certainly seen it. Um Uh. Now back to the late season thing. You talked about the fact that you're late season strategy all revolves around food, and you talk to a lot of different people when it comes to managing land or adding food to a property, and and some folks, many folks take the approach of the fact that they want, you know, year round food or season long food. Um. But there are certain parts of the season when food is disproportionately important, at least from a hunting perspective, and late seasons seems to be one of those times when you know a lot of neighboring places might be lacking, while in October everything's covering food. There's great stuff all over the place, there's great habitat all over the place. You know, it's a it's a diminishing set of resources that we have once you get into December or January. So my question is do you make improvements to your property or do you think about food specifically with the late season mind ever, because you know that, man, that's when my food plots will really be special. In October they're okay, it's great to have, but they're that not that unique compared to everything around me. But once we get to December, I could have the only show in town. Um is that in your mind at all? Or should be people be thinking about that? It is? But I do, and I stress this to like my clients. When I meet a client, you know, and a lot of my my habitat clients, they want me to write a plan and they want to implement it, which I think that's great. I think it's great when people can do their own management work and see the rewards of their hard work. And I just they kind of used me as a coach and that's great. But on my farm, I focus year on year round nutrition. I want to make sure that that let's start in January. I want to make sure that I have a good high carbohydrate, high protein food source January February March, because I want my deer to be healthy going into that lag time. Because that time period when your soybeans are picked off and the deer have been in the corn for the last two and a half months and they're just not much there and the grounds just starting to thaw out, and but you know the native fourage is is not budding yet and the deer are really just eating brows. I want to make sure I have plenty of nutrition at that time. And so that's when I think you're the fall food plots that you plant such as wheat, oats, turnips, winter piece things like that, they're breaking dormancy. And you know, in in April and May, before your clover starts to grow again and before anybody's planted any soybeans, you have got something that's really nutritious for the deer. And then you go into um. Then you go into the growing season where you plan your annual crops. And I I plant a forage soybean, and that is what I encourage my clients to plant. And the reason I like a forage soybean is because it's not an agbean. A forage soybean is the soybean that deer can browse, and that soybean continues to grow and will continue to put on new growth. So if you picture a soybean that grows out of the ground and once it's you know, ten or twelve inches tall, it's got two or three or four stems on it, and then the leaves start coming on those stems, Well, the deer comes in and browses those everywhere there's a crotch in that stem, it's going to sprout, you know, a new leaf. Uh. And so the forge soybeans can handle a lot of browse pressure. So the soybeans I plant in in May or the forge soybeans. But the beauty of those is they're very late maturing. So going into October, I've still got green soybeans. Last year I had six acres of green soybeans. The first week of November. Every soybean plant within five miles of me was nothing but a stem with a bean pot. And keep in mind it's still sixty five degrees, so the deer aren't necessarily gravitating too, you know, something that's high in carbohydrates. They still like that green forge. They still like the clover, you know, they like the If you've got winter wheat out, they like the winter wheat, they like the oats. Anything that's green. When it's not real cold outside, they're gonna move to. And that's the beauty of the forage soybean. And the nice thing is is if you have a good growing season, they're still gonna put on a lot of pods. So I've got green forage on my farm from the time I put my fall plots in until I plant my fall plots the next year. So so basically I've got wheat, oats, p and turnips in and brassica's on my farm going into the fall into the winter. They're gonna take off in late winter early spring and really grow nice and thick as it gets warm. And the beauty of those fall plots, or I call them winter annuals, is you know, you get you get a week in December when it's sixty five degrees, they're gonna grow, you know, unless the grounds just frozen solid. I mean, they're going to grow because and ben then when it gets cold, you know they're gonna go dormant again. And it's just a really nice winter porridge. When I missed that big buck last year during muzzle older season, he had a mouthful of winter oats. Uh he I mean he would. You could hear him pulling them out of the ground. Um and that was just literally fun to watch and until I saw him turn and go back. But anyway, so so I really focus on nutrition, um, but I also want, uh something that's going to carry the deer when it gets really cold, like with the no one right now. Uh, you know, I've got standing soybeans. The deer gonna be feeding on soybeans this evening. I'm I'm just convinced of that. Uh. So that's what's nice. They're talking by next week we're gonna be back up in the mid fifties, so they're probably going to be back in my clover and on the winter oats and winter piece. Now on those cool nights, they're still gonna eat soybeans. But you know, they're opportunistic, and so they're gonna hit a variety of forage types and I just want to make sure I have as much variety out there as I can and enough nutrition to carry them into spring. Because you know, there's there's nothing better than knowing when your doughs are pregnant that they're healthy. And as the dough is healthy, it's when when it gives birth to its fawns, she's gonna lactate really well and the fawns are going to be healthy. As a buck comes out of rut, you know, you've got to make sure that on your farm, he's got plenty of nutrition so his body is strong and healthy. So when that antler growth begins, his body isn't trying to grow antlers and replenish that body mass that he had before the rut. If you can help maintain that body mass, you know, and don't get me wrong, I know they wear themselves out and they run themselves down, But if you have the nutrition on your property to help maintain that dear's body weight when he's going back into the late winter spring antler growth and he's got plenty of nutrition, uh, you know, he's his body is able to really put an extra percentage in those antler growth rather than just on the body weight. Yeah, let's let's keep going down this road. Um. Because while people certainly are still trying to get some hunting in over the next month or so. Um. There's also a lot of people whose seasons are wrapping up and the new year is just a matter of days away. And at least for me, this is that time of reflection and looking back on the year and then planning for the new year. So from a habitat and property management perspective, how do you go about your doing this yourself or recommend other people? Kind of auditing what they have as they start planning out their plans for the new year. Um, what's that look like for you as you as you analyze things from the past and think through where we're going, you know, in the coming six to twelve months. So I think the best time to do it while you're it's when you're sitting out there in a tree stand and you're observing your habitat and you're observing what the deer like and what the deer don't. Um, you can you can visualize because you know, with me, I hunt several stand locations. So as I'm sitting in a tree stand, I'm looking around thinking thinking, man, I have got to get more cover in this valley right here. So that's in my mind, and maybe I'll pull my cell phone out and make a note my Uh, the northeast valley within our farm, I need to get in and do some hinge cutting in January and February. Um. You know. So as I'm on the tree stand, I'm thinking about different things that I want to do on the farm. Now. I will not start doing anything on the farm until the last day of hunting season is over. If I if I'm finished hunting for the year and I go out and I start um doing hinge cutting or or or making larger areas for my food plots or whatever, there's a good chance I could push the deer off the farm onto the neighbor's property during a hunting season and they could end up killing deer that I wanted to kill next year. And so I'm not going to do anything on the farm until after January six here in Indiana. That's just that's me. That's just what I do. UM. If I go into the farm other than approaching a tree stand right now, I'm always going in on an a t V. And even when i'm I might be changing a tree stand, I do that with the a t V running. And I have found that that as long as that, as long as there's a machine of some sort, it doesn't seem to bother the deer that bad. Now I'm not driving it through the batting areas or my sanctuaries or anything like that. But when I'm going around a farm to check trail cameras, or like last Sunday, I moved a tree stand and and I left the A t V running while I moved the tree stand. And uh, you know, I don't think that. I don't think that spooked the deer or pushed the deer off or anything like that. So as I'm thinking about different habitat improvements, I'm thinking about those when I'm sitting on the on my tree stand, observing the habitat, thinking about what I need to do, and maybe making notes on on my cell phone or if you've got a little notepad with you too, um, And then I'm thinking about implementing those habitat improvements as starting as soon as I can, as soon as hunting season is over. Now, if I'm going to go out and start doing a lot of hinge cutting or something like that, maybe I like to do it when it's coover. So maybe I'll do it in the winter. But um, you know, I'm not going to be out there consistently making habitat improvements between January and July, or or you're gonna there's just gonna be. In my opinion, there's just gonna be a little too much activity on the property. What do you recommend to folks when it comes to trying to prioritize all these ideas? Because someone could do what you subscribe, set up in their tree throughout the fall, and they're thinking, they're, Okay, man, I wish I had more food here and be cool to have a food plot there, and I need more cover here, and maybe I can improve an access round over here, and you know, YadA to YadA. There's a thousand different things you could do. How do you recommend someone prioritize, whether that be on a property they've been working with for years, or maybe they just bought a new farm, or they just picked a police and they're saying, Okay, where do I start? So my suggestion is, what is the number one limiting factor on your farm affecting your dear herd? Is it food? Is it cover or is it water? If you've got plenty of cover, but you're limited on food, then I would focus on food. If you've got plenty of food, Like on my farm, I've got plenty of food because of of natural succession that takes place in the four stand, A lot of my betting areas have grown into are starting to grow back into a two A four stand. So my focus this year this winter will be improving the betting areas and improving cover um And actually, uh here, as soon as dear season is over, I'm actually getting ready to market timber harvest onto my farm because we've got some areas that are mature. I've got some white oak I'd like to release for better acorn production, and so I'm going to create betting areas through the timber harvest and also help release some of the white ook get better white oak acorn production. But if water is an issue on your farm, then you know you might want to be thinking about building a pond or creating some type of a small wildlife pond on the property for water. But but I would look at your property and ask yourself what is the number one most limiting factor? Is it food, is it cover, or is it water? Because any wildlife species requires that those are the three main components of habit that food, water, and shelter, and you've got to have all three of them. Uh So if if if you've got plenty of cover, but all your deer going on to the neighbors to eat the food, I'd be thinking about food. Um, you know, but if you've got plenty of food but you're starting to lack cover and you're finding that the deer are starting to bed on your neighbors, then I would be thinking to do thinking about habitat improvements to improve the cover. Does any of that change if you have a really small property versus a really large one? Um? Have you found that? Man, when you've got those super small properties, X is particularly important or no matter what, you're always gonna want to look in an exam what that limiting factors? If you've got a really really small property. I mean, you can always put out some type of food source to at least get a shot at a deer, you know too, so they would come out of bedding cover or something and just stand there a minute and feed. Uh But you know, if you're looking at a really small property, I think the key to that is going to be cover. And the reason I say that is because you have and it's just my opinion, but you have an area that a lot, say, if you have a large farm around you and they've got all the habitat components you can want, and there's a lot of guys hunting, those deer are going to be searching for an area that's small and isolated. Um. And you know, if they've got just like that little three and half acre woods right behind my house, if they've got a little area like that that they can escape to, they're never pressured and they've got cover and they like it there. You know, if you can improve the cover on that property and then and then hunt around that property in a way to you know, because at some point the deer are going to leave there to go to a food source. Um. And so I think, you know, I think that would be really important because you know, if you've got a little ten or fifteen or twenty acre woods and you really don't have any place to put food. Uh. You know, even if you can't clear a little ridge top of some kind of put in a clover plot or something like that, you might be a little bit limited. So the easiest thing you could do is to create cover and and allow those deer sanctuary on that little fifteen or twenty acres. So, so walk me through how you would do that. And I know you alluded to some of the stuff you're gonna do on your own farm. What are your different tools for improving cover that that you liked it to use or recommend your your clients use. I know you do a lot with timber stand improvement. I've seen you talk about native grasses. I'd love to hear you expand on some of those things. Okay, So if you're talking if you have an area that is would say, if you have twenty or forty acres of timber, you know naturally your cover is going to be creating a betting area within that twenty or forty acres um So, as a forester, I don't want to ruin the the quality of my forest stand because my goals are two fold. My goals are growing timber for a revenue at some point in time, but at the same time of my goals are improved habitat excuse me. And so if my goals are twofold like that, I'm gonna I'm gonna select areas to go into. Say, for example, if I've got the woods that it's just it just appears to be pretty mature. It's ready for a timber sale, or or it could have it could stand at timber harvest. I'm going to go into that woods and I'm going to select those areas that you know, I know are going to provide a lot of cover really quick, maybe an east or northeast or north facing slope, and I like the toes of those small ridges, and I'm gonna go in there and I'm gonna I'm gonna mark every single three I can. Basically, you're making a small regeneration opening. And depending on the size of the property, it could be a half acre in size, it could be six acres in size. Uh. And I'm going to take all the timber out of there. And then once that timber is removed, and I'm going to go in with timberstand improvement and take out those trees that um that we don't want to leave, um that the timber cell didn't remove. So those will either cut those down to make as large of an opening as we can, or we can hinge cut some of those trees based on your management goals. Now I've cautioned people with the hinge cutting. I've been on properties where people have gone in and done a lot of hinge cutting, and and they didn't know their tree species, and they've gone through and hinge cut all the red oak and white oak, and they left a bunch of poplar and soft maple and beech. Um. It can be really discouraging when you see that um, you know, so I would encourage your listeners to to get an idea of the tree species or meat with a forester or something when you go out. If you're thinking about creating these betting areas using inge cutting and and hinge cut, those tree species that you know are going to sprout well, like a soft maple or beach or sassafras, hinge cut those they're going to sprout back really well. And that way you're not ruining the residual value or the future value of your timberstand, but you're also creating habitat. And so in those foested stand in those four stand areas, you know, once we once we have a timber harvest, if it needs it, then we'll go back and do timberstand improvement. Then we'll select those areas that we want to do the hinge cutting on and I always select those areas mark that that I know the deer already using. If I've got a spot on my farm and I know I've never seen those bed there, I've never seen bucks bed there. I don't know why they just don't like it. But I got another area on the other side of this ridge where that seems like they always want to bed and they always want to be there. You know, if I've got an area like that, that's the area I want to improve because if i'm I'm if I'm improving their home, they're going to want to stay there. And so I would encourage people to kind of kind of look at that as well. And so so if you're if you're looking at forest and you can look at possible timber harvest and after the timber harvest to post harvest timber stand improvement and incorporate your hinge cutting after that. If you're looking at a forest stand that is a really young stand. Um. I looked at a track of timber for a client a few months ago, and once deer season is over, they're going to do the work. But I'm going back into their property and I'm going to flag all the all the young white oak and red oak trees to make because they could to make sure that they don't cut them. And then they're gonna they're gonna go through this stand of timber because it's full of of sycamore and soft maple and elm, and they're gonna do some hinge cutting pockets based on our map and our plan, but they're not going to hinge ut those future acorn producing trees. And so you know that's that's a particular property where there's not enough mature timber to have a timber cell. But they can go out on a couple of weekends in January and February and start doing some really good hinge cutting and which I think will improve the cover habitat on their property immensely. How big do you recommend those types of cover improvements be, whether it be a hinge cutting pocket or you know some of these other t s I type projects when you're trying to improve betting and wildlife cover. Is there a size of cat shouldn't be any smaller than this, or it should be at least this big, or or is it just do whatever you can. I think it's based on your objectives for the farm. Um, if you have an eighty or a hundred or a hundred, twenty acres or anything larger than that. You know, there's nothing wrong with having a three to five to six or eight acre opening. You know, if you only own twenty acres, that's that's a pretty good size opening. But there's nothing wrong with it if your goal is cover and habitat. But what I like to do is I like to create a large opening, and I call that my dope betting areas. And then then what I'll do is I'll create a couple smaller openings, like a satellite. I call it a satellite opening, maybe just a few yards away from that dope bedding opening I made. And that smaller opening is going to be tailored to my buck betting UM and so I and it's just my choice to do that. UM. I really like UM too. I would like to go. I like to go into an area and create an area that I know the does are going to bed in UM. But I also want to create it in a fashion that I know, UM that I can hunt close to it. For example, on my farm, we've got a long ridge that runs through the farm, and and on the north side of that ridge is a valley um and that's where I'm going to focus part of my timber cell in that valley, because I know the dough like to go in that valley. But there's also a little pocket at the east end of that ridge that's got a bunch of small cedar and some small sassaf a cedar and percimmon at the end of that ridge. And the dough bed either on that on that north facing slope, or they bed on that west facing slope where the cover is. But that ridge right in the middle uh is where I come in from the east and I hunt that ridge because it's a it's it's a little bit more mature, it's got a lot of white oak on it, and the dough come in circle around that ridge and then go into their bedding areas when the wind is out of the west, and it's just a home run hunting area because the bucks just when the winds out of the west, they just come winding both of those bedding areas all the time. So I keep that ridge somewhat open. So that's a whole idea of a plan. You've got You don't want to just go out and start cutting things down. You've got to have a plan that this is a betting area and this is where I hunt. How am I going to approach it in the morning, How am I going to approach it in the evening with with certain type of wind directions? And you know that sometimes that just takes a little bit of time in a couple or a few years to learn that. And so, for example, on my farm, I'm going to improve both of those betting areas, but I'm I'm not going to do a lot on top of that ridge, and so my improvement might be through a timber harvest and then post harvest timber stand improvement, and then hinge cutting in the little area of where the cedar trees are. There's not We're not going to do a timber harvest in there, the timber is not mature enough. But I will go into where some of that poplar and soft maple and beach are and I will do quite a bit of hinge cutting in that area just to improve that spot. Back to that comment you made about how you'll make the larger openings for does and then you'll create these satellite openings um nearby for bucks. Is there any rhyme or reason to the orientation of where the dough betting area versus the buck betting is. I know some people propose something like this where they'll let's say you've got a food source. Let's say your proper is a four square, and let's say there's food on the south side, and will say they I've heard, will look at making your dough betting areas just north of that. So closest to the food would be your big opening for does, and then the buck betting might naturally be behind that. So further north of that, is that how you orient your satellite bedding from the main betting. Is it behind it? Or or does that not matter? What's your thought process there? Yeah, I like that approach, but I also base mine on topography. So let me let me walk you through a little scenario on my farm. So right in the middle of our our farm is is like a it's shaped like a dog's leg. It's almost l shaped. But right in the middle of the l at our farm actually gets narrow. Right there, that's the narrowest portion. And so real close to that narrow portion is it's where the creek valley goes through. It's kind of low, it's almost like a bowl. It's very very difficult to hunt. Um, but that's where my food sources are. Okay, So you go from from that little bowl where my food plots are, and then you start going east east. Just adjacent to the food plots is a half acre pond, and then adjacent east of the half acre pond are my doll bedding areas. And then you go just a little bit east of that and you can get satellite spots where the bucks bed and then just east of that you get into a little more mature timber on our farm where we have a lot of white oak and black oak, And so I can approach the farm to hunt with a west wind that if I approach it from the east, I never approached the farm and walk through that area going to my tree stand. And so to answer your question, yes, I would put those satellite those bucks satellite areas a little bit farther out, but I'm also not gonna put those satellite areas too close to the neighbor's property or too close to state land. And when I said that, I base it on topography. And this is just my experience as a forester, not a habitat manager or anything. My experience thirty years in the woods as a forester, I have found piles of not at the same time, but I've got piles of deer sheds in my pole barn. Where if you walk out a ridge and then drop off that ridge and get halfway down that ridge on that toe there, it seems like there's always a little bench right there. And that bench might be ten ft in diameter, it might be four feet in diameter, but it's a little spot. You go into those areas this time of year, or in January February their war flat, and that is where I always find sheds, and I call those buck benches. And so when I when I'm looking at a plan for a client, if I'm going to implement an opening for a dough betting area in this area, I'm gonna look topographically at those little toes where I know bucks have a tendency to bed and they like those areas because if somebody comes in from the top of the ridge, they have a quick escape group right down to the creek creek valley because they're halfway down already. If somebody comes in from the creek valley, they got as quick escape group right to the back to the top of the ridge. Um, so I'm going to try to improve those areas on the toes of those benches for the bucks because I know they're already betting there, and then and then create a larger betting area somewhere adjacent to the at for the does. But I don't want any of those betting areas to be too close to the neighbors, because you know, once the neighbors find out that you have a lot of good habitat, you'll start seeing a lot of tree stands along your property line. Yeah. So how do you typically orient uh improvements in relation to that? Do you try to keep most improvements towards the center of a property? Um? There's a lot of different opinions on how you should create improvements to try to keep deer using parts of years while you know you can look at Some people say try to draw a deer from other people to yours. Some people will say put your best stuff in the center, So keep stuff in the middle. Is that overthinking things? Um? Do you have any thoughts on just orientation regards to property lines? Yeah? Yeah, I mean I've got my own opinion on that. I don't ever put food right next to my neighbors, that's for sure. You know, I'm not going to put a big clover plot in a big patch of eagle soybeans in October that are green right now my neighbor's property so much so they can kill my dear. Um. You know, sometimes if that's all you got, that's all you've got. But I I like to try to put as much cover as I can toward the middle of the property if if your property allows you to do that based on its topography or orientation, you know, because I mean, if you've got to cover and you've got the betting um and you've got that sanctuary in the middle of your property, you know, you can always approach that property from different directions to hunt it. Um. So yeah, I like it. I like it towards the middle of I mean, it doesn't have to You don't have to draw a circle and then put an extraw circle and put a dot in the middle of that X and say I have to have my cover here. You know, it's based on your the aerial photo, and it's based on the topography of the of the property as well. Um. You know, you may have a small neck of the betting area based on the topography, that's going to be closer to the neighbor's property line. It's closer than you wanted to be. But based on based on the soils and based on the aspect or the direction that the ridge might be facing, or something that might be the best place for at that time. So UM, you know, you you have to you have to look at it as a whole that way. But I do like to have as much cover as I can towards the center of my property. Yeah, now what about the flip side of this, um, where we we've just talked about, you know, improving cover where there already is timber, where there already is some cover. But what about a situation where you've got wide open fields and you want to create cover. Um, this this is exactly what I was dealing with on the back forty property where you came out and helped us select some trees that we can start planning throughout that. UM. I want to dive into a bunch of things related to that, but I guess at a high level, if you had what we had, which was a farm with about half the acreage in these old farm fields and they were covered previously and mostly in Mayor's tale. So an invasive weed that was providing very little food or cover. Um. Then we had to start trying to transform those old fields into something that would work for us. What would your what would your take be on how to do that? Um? I tried some things and and some of it worked. But I'm curious now if that was your place and you had five years or whatever to start trying to transform that, what would what avenue would you have taken? So when you're talking to agg fields and cover, you know, because when we when we talk about cover, we want for our deer in the wintertime, we'd like to have good thermal cover. So you know, if you dropped to the ground on your knees and and picture a deer laying down, Um, are they going to be out of the wind? Uh? And are they going to be protected from the wind? Um? That's why some sometimes it's inside the woods. That's why timber harvesting can be good because you know they'll bed in those old tree tops right up against the an old piece of log that was left out in the woods, you know, and the wind is off their back. But when you get into an area where you know you don't have a lot of timber cover, and you're you have a heavy field component, then you need to be looking at native grasses. If if what you're looking for is cover, Now you can always plant a mix of grasses and pollinators. UM and if here's another caveat to this, and I've done this for a client up in UH north central Indiana and it worked out really well. He planted, UH, they planted several acres of native grasses. The deer were using it, but he couldn't get the deer to come farther onto his farm because they love the native grasses. So what we did is we actually planted a travel corridor of mixed evergreens. So we planted a mix of white pine and northern white cedar between the native grasses and between his farm where we did the timber sail and the hinge cutting. And you cannot believe how that turned out to be a highway for deer. They would bed in those prairie grasses, but they would use that travel because other than that, they didn't have any way to get from the prairie grasses a quarter of a mile back to his farm. UM for some wooded cover and the food. And so we we planted that mix of evergreens as a travel cord or between the native grasses and where the food and the and the wooded cover or the forested cover was, and it turned out just outstanding. So I think a good mix of native grass cover UH for a betting area as well as some type of tree planting, especially with evergreens to use as a travel corridor um you know, is really good. You can also mix some shrubs in there, because you know, shrubs will grow anywhere from three to four ft high to fifteen ft high, but they're really bushy and they provide a lot of cover. The drawback with some of the evergreens like pine or to draw back if you just did a general tree planting is at some point in time, the crown is going to be higher than the ground and so you've lost that thermal cover. And that's why the prairie grasses are so good, and that's why the shrubs are good because you still have that cover from five ft up in the air down to the ground that's protecting those deer from the wind. Yeah, you mentioned those travel corridors that you planted um in pines for that one client. If if I were trying to create something like that where I wanted to direct deer travel across some kind of opening, and and we're going to use some type of ever green component. What's the size? What was the orient Haitian? As far as planting those trees? Was it two rows of pines? Was it you know, fifty yards wide or ten yards wide? Or how did you actually make it so that it was big enough for deer to feel comfortable but still funnel them in that way? And how long did it take for those trees to get big enough to to provide that cover? So we actually used just the bare root ceilings and used my tree senter. Uh but I mean because you know, we were going feet so I mean, if you were going to use container trees, you'd have been shelling out a lot of money because that would have been a lot of trees. So what we did is and you have to basing on what you know. He he was allowed uh thirty or fifty feet because he didn't he himself didn't own that portion that we planted it on. It was on the family farm, and they said, okay, we'll let you put a travel corridor in there a thirty five feet or something like that because they wanted to continue farming the rest of the field. Basic basically glue, we took thirty or forty ft of their indrows. And so what we did is we planted a mix of white pine and northern white cedar, and they were barroots seedlings, um. And we planted those ten ft apart between trees, and then we did eight ft between rows, and then the next row we staggered. So basically, if you have one row of trees where the trees are ten ft apart, the next row of trees eight or ten ft over, you're gonna plant those trees in those gaps. So you so basically the trees are staggered, and we did that for four rows. So you've got one row of trees, you're offsetting an eight or ten ft and you're planting another row of trees, but you're not lining those trees up. You're planting them in those gaps. And and then then you then the third row you're planting the same as the first row, or maybe just offset just a little bit um. And they were bare roots seedlings. But to be quite honest with you, be cause because they hadn't farmed it, and because the trees were there, and because weeds were starting to grow between the tree rows, deer started using it the first year because you know, you're going to get weeds in between those tree rows, and so you've you've you've still got a little bit of native natural cover there because maybe you've got some ragweed or some mary's tail coming in between the three rows that are three and four ft tall. But within you know, within five years, these trees were four to five ft tall. And I mean that, I mean the rubs on some of those trees were quite phenomenal. I mean it was even even my client was was surprised. He just couldn't believe how well that worked. And so yeah, I mean it it it can be, it can be done. And there again, you know, if you don't want to plant all evergreen, you can always plant shrubs. But if you just keep in mind, if you plant like a native hard with like a white out black oak or red oak, at some point in time, the limbs are going to be six or eight feet off the ground and you're you're gonna lose that cover. Um, So you know, I would plant something that you have cover all the way to the ground because that helps the deer feel safe. Yeah, so when we met up this summer, you would walk to me through a handful of different things to be thinking about when trying to plant these evergreens. UM, just to make sure that they took well. And you mentioned some of it as far as you know your spacing between trees. But for those that want to plant trees like this to improve cover in certain places, can you walk us through some basics of of the right way to do it, the right time to do it, um, any other specifics as far as getting these things in the grounds that they will take and last and perform the function we want them to. So you want to make sure that the trees you plant are healthy, so you want to make sure you get them from a good source. And in Indiana we are they bless the Indiana Division of Forestry. We have a we have a tree nursery. It's actually five miles from my house. And I actually went to Produe with the guys who actually run the nursery now. But Bob and Rob absolutely do an outstanding job of growing the seedlings that the state sells, and so I know when I buy the seedlings from blown the nursery there in southern Indiana. They're going to be good and they're going to be healthy. And so they actually pull those trees out of the beds this time of year right up to the point where the ground freezes because the trees are dormant. And then then they put them in mulch and wrap them in bundles of a hundred and they put some water in the mulch, and then they keep them in coolers. Uh. And that keeps the trees dormant. And you want to plant the trees in the spring as early as you can when the ground is not frozen. So we depending on the soil temperatures, and depending on the conditions of the ground, we'll start planting trees anywhere from you know, the middle of March and will continue planting all the way up until uh, you know, middle of May, one of June. You know, you get into an area that's river bottoms that goes underwater a lot, those are going to be a little bit later planting, because I would rather plant a tree in a flood zone a little bit later than I would too early, because it's really hard on the trees when they go underwater. So if you know, if the listeners out there have areas that are in floodplains, you know, don't I wouldn't hesitate to plant those trees a little bit later, um rather than rather than too early, because when they go underwater like that, it can it can be a little bit hard on them because you don't want your tree standing in water. And there's some areas that you know, they just flood and that's going to happen. The second thing is you want to really make sure you select the trees that you're going to plant based on your soil types. Uh. You know, if you're planting on a a drier area and you want to plant hardwoods that you don't want to plant a bottom bottom land hardwood like a swamp white oak or a swamp chestnut oak. You're going to want to plant a regular white oak or regular red oak because they you know, because they're used to those soil types, those drier soil types. But there again, if you're planting in wet areas that flood, you want to make sure that the tree species you're planting can handle being in water for a certain amount of time. So in those flood zones, you know you're gonna plant something like bald cypress or or swamp white oak or swamp chestnut oak or shumart oak one of those uh native a native species to your state that can grow well in those in those soil conditions. Um. But and then uh, you know, once once you pick the trees up, if you can get them in the ground as soon as you can, um, that's always good. Because you know, when we open a bundle of trees, the roots are cold from being in the from being in the coolers, and so it's going to take a little time for that seedling for those roots to warm them up once it goes into the ground. And that's okay because that's just that's just a natural time frame for the tree to come out of dormancy. UM. So yeah, and I don't suggest we don't plant trees in the fall uh at all, because are the success of fall plantings is not nearly as good as spring plantings because you don't have the rain. You'd like to get some moisture on those trees before that ground freezes. And if you if you do a fall planting and it's dry and you haven't had much rainfall, and then we get a really early cold winter, you could end up having some root damage due to frost heave or frost or freezing or something of that nature, because the trees haven't had time to expand that new root system to really get established. So the springtime is usually the best time to plant them. Now, if it's a small planting and you can get a two gallon tank and go out and water, and you know, there's nothing wrong with planting them late in the spring in the early summer. You just have to make sure that you know you can get water to them, because I mean, my wife and I planted some around the house um this past summer and they were late planting. But you know, I've got a couple two d gallon tanks and and we have a water source there in town where the farmers and go and get water at the county water treatment facility, and you know, I would just go in a couple of evenings when it got hot and we got the trees water and they were going to turn out fine. So but springtime is usually the best time to plant. Do you have any preferred species when you're trying I know you mentioned evergreen, and you mentioned a couple that you used on that client's um. But as far as cover producing trees, So most of these evergreens, um, are there any that do particularly well as far as the amount of you know, actual cover they provide, or their resistance to deer wining to browse on them or anything like that. Cover wise, you know, if you're wanting trees or shrubs for for a really good thermal cover, then you know you want to you want to really look at something that's gonna have that's gonna provide branching all the way to the ground. And that's why you know, some of the shrubs are really good. Something like hazel nuts really good because it's it's just it has a tendency to grow into the just a thick shrub and plus they they produce mass of fruit, so you know that's a really good one. UM. And then uh, you know, I like I like white pine, but you have to be careful with white pine because everybody wants to prune the branches so they can mow around the base of them, and then you look at them five years later and the branches are seven feet off the ground. So I mean the key to that is, you know, you want to keep the branches as low as ground as possible. Um. Norway spruce is a good one that I have planted a lot of. UM. That's a really good evergreen that the limbs grow right down to the ground. And again you don't want to prune those limbs next to the ground. UM. And I honestly I've been planting some green giant arbor vite Um. You know, they're not necessarily it's more of a landscape tree, but boy, it sure provides really quick wind cover. And you know that that it's it's a it's very cone shaped, very conical shaped. Uh. And they'll grow fifteen feet wide and twenty feet tall UM. And they grow very fast. If you plant them on the right side, they'll grow three to five ft per year. The ones I've planted around our house when we built in two thousand and eighteen are already seven ft tall UM. So I mean they'll grow very fast. I don't recommend you plant the whole travel corridor or the whole cover area to those. I always like like to see a mix. And the reason you want to mix your tree species up is say, for example, if you plant all white pine or you plant all white oak, and you get a disease in that planting it's going to wipe out the whole planting and then you're gonna have nothing. And so you don't want just a monoculture of trees. You want a good variety. So you know, you might plant and mix a northern white ceedar white pine and and uh green giant arbor bide and then throw in some uh some hazel nut or some crab apple with those. You know, so you you ay, you've got really good foraging opportunities for variety of wildlife species. Plus you're providing a corridor or plus with some with some good thermal cover. You you describe some of the things that are exactly what we tried to do um on our property and in mostly because of your recommendations as far as providing that diversity and species, and we ended up doing these clusters of four or five tree ease and somewhere those are provieties somewhere white pines, somewhere uh spruce and and I think one of the other things is that you're gonna get different types of use by wildlife with them too. And some you know, dear will rub on, some deer won't. So in our cases, I've already seen a couple that got rubbed up. Um, And I'm glad we didn't plant all of our trees in that species because we might have been in trouble. Um. But what about in relation to that, what about protecting some of these things? Just should someone be caging these trees early on, uh, to avoid that issue of either browse pressure or deer rubbing them up and killing them anything like that. Yeah, you know, depending on how long your travel corridor is, or you know, if you're creating a bedding area, you know, and it depends on how many trees you have, it might be a situation where, um, for the first two or three years, you may want to just take that like either electric tape with a so or power source and and just almost fence the whole area off to try to keep deer out of it, to keep them from browsing the trees and to keep them from rubbing them in the fall. Or if you know, if you've got a small enough area, you can always fence to cage the trees. So, for example, I've planted a lot of orchard plantings for clients, and with when you're planting orchards, the deer love to browse them and the bucks love to rub them because they're aromatic and it's soft wood, and it's just a great opportunity to destroy a tree when a buck is in rut. And so we I actually use like a mesh wire or fencing, so to speak, and and wrap that tree. Basically, if you plant put a tree in the ground, UM, then I'm going to build a small fence around that tree so the tree can continue to grow. But at the same time I'm able to keep the deer off of it. So you know, I want to do more than just just fence off the the stem of the tree. I'm fencing off, especially with pine trees or with fruit trees. I'm fencing off if that tree. If the diameter of the tree is safe, for example two ft, I'm fencing off a four ft area just to keep the deer off of it. This topic that you brought up of the orchard trees beast producing trees, I've seen some videos of you talking through different ideas around that, and that's something I've not done but always thought I should. I've just been intimidated by UM how you have to do these different types of pruning, and there's certain times of the year and you gotta do that right, and I just have never went through with it because I just haven't committed. Um, that's probably mistake I realized, because the best time to plan a tree was yesterday or ten years ago. But can you walk me through some of your dues and don't when it comes to planning, you know, apple trees or other soft masked um stuff like that in addition to what you just described about the cajing. So with fruit trees, UM, you've got to start with the site. The key to fruit trees is you want to make sure that the morning sun can get to those trees as soon as it comes up, or as soon as possible, because the hardest thing on the fruit tree is if that morning dew stays on those leaves and on those stems um way into the day, because that's how you start getting the fungal diseases that are so prevalent and can kill fruit trees. And so you know, if you're if you have a have a ridge top that's open and you've got and the wind can get to it and the sun can get to it, that's great. If you're in a shaded valley and the sun doesn't get down there until noon or one o'clock. I would not even consider planting fruit trees in that shaded valley. Um, I think you would end up having disease issues. Now that doesn't mean you can try it and you might have success with it, that's great, But if I'm going to provide that service for a client, that's not an area I'm gonna select. So site is very important. So you can get the wind to them to keep the leaves dry, and you get sun to them as early as you can in the morning. And I like to use container trees with when I'm planting an orchard, just because you're gonna start getting fruit so much sooner. Um, So I'll buy container trees. And I mean honestly, you know, if the tree looks if you go to any of these farm stores like Real King or Tractors, supply they have them in the spring. You know, if the roots system looks good, look at the roots system, look at the stem of the tree to make sure that doesn't have a bunch of damage or or cuts or scars on it. And then look at the crown of the tree. You know, especially in the spring. Yeah, when you're getting ready to plant the trees, if they those buds are getting fat, you know that that's going to be a healthy tree. So so be selective on which trees you pick out, and then you want a good mix of them. So if you're gonna plant ten trees, I'm gonna plant maybe two or three apple trees, a couple of pear trees, a couple of plum trees, and maybe a peach tree. And the whole idea of that is each tree is gonna flower or bloom differently, and so you really want a good mix of blooms. So these trees can cross pollinates. So so the bees and the pollinators that are coming in to pollinate these trees are just flying all around these trees um pollinating. So you can get good fruit production. Because you know, if you if all you do is go out and plant, say, for example, in Arkansas, apple trees, and you plant ten of those, and you know they produce quite a few flowers, but not a lot, you may not be able to attract the pollinators that you want. But if you go in and plant crab, apple and plum with those apple trees, crab apples really flour, plums really flower and and they really smell nice. And that's really going to attract the butterflies and the bees, which is going to draw the butterflies and the bees to your apple trees, which is really going to help with pollination. And so I like a good mix of fruit trees like that, and you want to plan them in a situation in a in a in a manner in which you know they have plenty of room to grow. I plan them twenty to thirty ft apart, because once you know the first two to three years of planting a tree, that after you put a tree in the ground in the first two or three years, it's going to maximize its root growth. You're gonna get some crown growth, but it's really going to put a lot of energy into those roots because it has to have a foundation to hold up that tree, and so you don't really want that tree to put it on a lot of new growth that first year. So when you put the tree in the ground and you plant it, you want to prune that tree back and then you want all that new year's that first two to three years of growth go into that root system. And so you know, once that root system takes off, you'll you'll see after year three or four that the crown of that tree will just really take off and you don't really have to worry about other than when you first plant that tree, you don't really have to worry about pruning it for you know, maybe another five or six years. Now you can just you can just let it, let it grow, unless it's unless it's a tree that's been there five or six years and you're really starting to get a lot of branches crossing each other and you're getting some wounds, then you need then you might want to talk about pruning. But you know, pruning is important on the fruit trees, but you know, if you don't have time to do it, keep in mind their fruit trees for deer. You know, you're not you're not an apple orchard where you're selling the apples. If you don't have time to do it, then you don't have time to do it. And and the nice thing about fruit trees are you know, it's it's not necessarily an essential, but it's just another attractive food source that a mass producing food food source that deer like. I love per symmetries, dear love per symmetries, and I like the fruit trees we have on the farm. You know, some years are really going to produce well. But if we end up getting a late frost some years, they're not going to prouce that produce that well at all. I saw somewhere where you're talking about a really interesting way to get double duty out of your orchards, where you were prescribing the idea of planting soybeans around your orchard trees too. So rather than have just a bunch of weeds growing up in all that open space between your rows, you were actually no till planting beans in there. Can you describe that idea and when or why that'd be appropriate? Sure? So, you want to maximize as much land as you can. You know, when when you first plant the your fruit orchard, you know the trees are twenty ft apart or maybe even thirty ft apart, because you want to give them plenty of room to grow. Uh So in order to rather than just going down through there three times a year in mowing it, you might might as well utilize that space. So I've got I've got a couple of clients in particular that we planted fruit orchards on and then I just I know, till the soybeans right between the tree rows. Um and it's and we just we just and yeah, A that provides a really good forage opportunity and be that you're maximizing your land value that way. Now, one thing we don't do is is I don't go through with a tiller or with a disk or a plow and and do any kind of tillage between those fruit trees because I don't want to damage the roots. But I'm not afraid to pull a no tail drill through because you know that no tail drill is only going down a half inch or an inch, and so you're not damaging the fruit trees that way. The other thing you have to be careful about when you're planting soybeans between fruit trees is fruit trees are very susceptible to herbicide drift. And so if you're using you around up ready soybean and you plant your soybeans between your fruit trees, you've got to make sure that your herbicide application and the nozzles you are using on your spray equipment are are our nozzles to where you don't get a lot of drift. So uh, I use an air induction nozzle on my spray applicators on my spray applications, it produces a larger droplet, so I get considerably less drift. But when that that that herbicide mixes with the air inside that nozzle, and so the larger droplet when it hits the leaf of the plant that you're spraying or the weeds that you're spraying, it kind of splatters. So your coverage and your application rate is the same, but your particle size coming out of the nozzle is the larger, so you don't get near the drift. And so I have to be real careful when I spray the soybeans close to those fruit trees that my wind direction is appropriate. And the other thing mark that I never do is I never use a two four D based product close to the fruit trees, or you will kill the fruit trees because two four D volatilizes really quickly, and those fruit trees will suck that volatilized herbicide gas right into those stillmata in the leaves of the fruit trees and you can get some really quick herbicide damage. So you have to be really careful of doing that. But it it There's not a thing wrong with utilizing your land in a way to where you know, we've got a new fruit tree planting. Um, but now we also have planted soybeans between the fruit trees. You know, the other thing you can do is plant clover between the fruit trees and you don't have to worry so much about her side application. And you've still maximized your land value by providing food in the way of clover, but also food in the way of the fruit production from the fruit trees. Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Uh. Well, we are running out of time here, um, so I wanna I want to wrap us up, but I want to give you a chance to to get across any one single most important idea maybe that you have in your mind. Um, And I want to pose this to you in an interesting question and see where you take it. Mom, if I gave you a billboard on the side of the highway and said you could put whatever message you wanted on that billboard for hunters to see and for land managers to see. Um, what would that message be that you would want everyone driving by to be reminded of and to keep in mind? You did you you'd have to throw one at the has to makes me think for a minute, and you know, we gotta we gotta close with a thinker and feel free to take your time and um, you know this this could be short and sweet, or if you want, this could be a very small, font long message on them on the billboard. But um, but yeah, is there any one thing that you think that everyone needs to be reminded of or something you're really passionate about that I want to make sure we we convey before we wrap this up. I I always lean to the first question I asked landowners. You know, I think that billboard I could see, I could picture it with some deer out in right next to woods, or feeding in a food pot or something like that, and I think I would have it say what is the number one limiting factor affecting your dear herd food? It's a cover as it shelter, you know. I think we get caught up way too much in I didn't put enough supplement out, or I don't have enough or or I didn't plant the right clover, or I didn't plant the right food plot. I really like to look at um at at the habitat management from the standpoint of here's my property. What is what am I limited on on this property? For my dear to be healthy. Um. And you know, if if there's one other message I'd like to express to your listeners is um, if you can on your property, look at the year round nutrition, you know, and year round nutrition for your dear may not just be food plots. It could be early successional food types, uh, you know, like that you that can be created from either a prescribed fire or from uh from a timber harvest, by creating those forest openings, uh, you know, or by providing a really nice edge along a woodline that isn't just a really sharp edge you know, has got a lot of native forage for the deer. You know, because when those early successional species come into a forest floor, whether it's the vegetative or whether it's the woody brows, you know that there's a lot of nutrition there. And and sometimes I think we have a tendency to miss that because we're so focused on trying to create a food plot or a food source when sometimes, you know, God provides us a really good food source right out there. All we have to do is put some sunlight into the woods. Yeah. It's a great point and easy to uh, easy to lose sight of that. With this sometimes uh more fancy options, but you don't wanna, don't want to miss out on what's already there, Rob. This is uh this has been fun, has been really interesting and as I'm planning out my two thousand twenty one ideas, this is definitely gonna help me out. For people that want to learn more from you or get ahold of youa to do some work maybe, or or talk about properties. Where can they where can they find all that stuff? How can they get ahold of you? Uh? Then get ahold of me through my website, uh Rob at Hobbury Forestry dot com, h A U B r y forrestry dot com. Um, you know so um And if if for some reason they can't find that, they can always contact me through white Tail Properties dot com and click on the state of Indiana and it will show all the agents. Uh so um that that's the easiest way to get ahold of men, you know. And some of the YouTube videos and things that white Tail Property is done on our land beat episodes. I've had a lot of people email me through the through those and you know, don't hesitate to shoot me in the email and ask me a question and I'll answer it. As soon as I can. I will admit there there there's every now and then I'll go through a really busy time where you know, it might take me a day or two to get it to get an email answered. Uh so uh but yeah, I will do my best to get everybody's email answered as soon as I can. But that's probably marked the best way to reach me perfect Well. I certainly appreciate rob your wealth of knowledge and uh and I appreciate your help not just now but also the summer helping us pick those perfect trees for our situation. And uh and I just want to thank you for for all the above. I appreciate it. Yeah, you're very welcome. Appreciate you're very welcome, and I appreciate you having me on Mark. And it's always a good time to try to help educate people. And keep in mind, I'm you know, I don't have a pH d or anything like that. A lot of what I've done and and some of my successes have just been through trial and error. So I appreciate you having me on. Hey, you're very welcome, and that trial and error that that's the best education you can get. As far as I'm concerned, that is true, all right, and that's a rap. Thanks for tuning in. I hope you'll learn something from this one. We're gonna head into the new year here very soon, and um, like I mentioned at the top, it's gonna be a good year, guys. Let's make that happen, and we're gonna kick it off with some good episodes year in the coming weeks and months as we build out new ideas, new plans, new goals and projects for for a new season. Because this stuff never ends, right, we we just keep going and going. It's a year run project. But this is that point to kind of reset, So uh, enjoy a little time off, hopefully, get your mind right, and get ready for a big year. Thanks for listening, and until next time, stay wired to Hunt.

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