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 episode number one thirty seven tay in the show, we are joined again by Donnie Vincent, and this time we're diving deep into his hunting and habitat improvement experiences on his own Wisconsin property. Hey there, folks, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Sick of Gear. And today we're back again with a very recent guest, Donnie Vincent. And in our last episode with him back during the fall, we talked about a bunch of different things, but right towards the end of that conversation we really briefly touched on the fact that Donnie had been doing some habitat work and hunting on a property of his own in Wisconsin. And after that episode went live, both Donnie and I got feedback from folks wanting to hear more about that side of what Donnie's doing. You know, you hear a lot about Donnie's big sheep hunts, and I don't know moose hunts or bear hunts all over the place, but not often do we get to hear about what he's doing, you know, on a regular piece of property that he owns and manages kind of like us. So today we wanted to specifically talk about, you know, how Donnie found this property, how he acquired this property, what his habitat and deer management goals and plans have been, what has he specifically done, why do it all that kind of stuff, and also kind of catch up on some of his more recent hunts there too since last time we talked. So that's the plan for today and then and then also on top of that, I did want to follow up on something that we talked about again last time, and that was a book that Donnie had mentioned that he reads. I think he said he reads every year, and I've read it recently while I read it several years ago again recently, and that's a Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold. And Leopold someone you've probably heard about when it comes to the history of hunting and conservation in this country, But if you haven't read the book, you might not know a lot about his ideas, or in particular his idea about a land ethic, which is something that's guided much of the conservation movement over the last I don't know, thirty fifty years or so. So I'm hoping we can dive into this idea of a land ethic too, because I think Donnie is going to have some interesting insights to share on that front. And Uh, this whole topic of a land ethic and conservation and wildlife and wild places that's been on both of our minds a lot lately, hasn't it been. That's a fact man. You you sent me a message today and you said, hey, can we get on a little bit earlier today because I need to. I need to vent about some of this kind of stuff. And and I love it when I get those messages from you, because when you need to vent, I know, it's usually about something that I want to vent up out to. So, right, what's what's on your mind? Well? And you know, this all kind of started. I mean it didn't really start, but it diesel was dumped on the flame, so to speak, at the A T A Show when I realized, you know, when it I shouldn't say, I realized I felt that there was not enough emphasis on conservation or the animal or you know, the keep it public movement, UM, that we hunters should be really focusing on. And I don't just mean we, I mean every person in the industry, whether you sell a product or you make your money off of advertising dollars like some of the hunting celebrities do, or even you know, guys like me and you, um, and I'm just as guilty of it. There needs to be more focus on it. And uh, if you are to the point where if you are in the end street, it should be mandatory because you are making your money off of um uh, a natural resource that is kind of being treated as like, uh, I don't know, like a commodity. Almost. Yeah, no, absolutely. It's funny you mentioned that commodity piece because there's there's some really interesting things that Leopold had to say about the difference between looking at the land and wildlife in our natural resources as a commodity versus as something that we are part of a community with UM and I and and later when we're Donnie, I want to actually read a couple of things about that, because I think he has some powerful things to say. But but dude, you're so right. Um, And it's funny. I was just thinking about this too, and how you know whether it's the public land's issue specifically. Um, well, hey, I think what you're saying is a right in general when it comes to conservation or just taking care of the land that we hunt, or the environment, all these different things, but also when it comes to this kind of public lands thing specifically. I was sitting here and thinking, you know, okay, like I care about public lands because I have got to experience them a lot. I've gotten to hunt on them, I've gotten a fish on them, I've gotten a camp and hike and backpack and kayak and and and and see these places. Um, but some people maybe have not ever gotten to one of these places, you know. And I start wondering, you know, what, do these people care about it at all? Like I do? Like do they hear me talking about this stuff all the time and just like roll their eyes and say Mark again on in one of his rants about public land. And I started thinking, like, should these people that only hunt private land that have never been to these plates some of these bigger western maybe public lands, or maybe haven't hunted public land here in the East or the Midwest or south, Like, should they care about this kind of thing, And I'm actually writing an article right now about it, kind of laying out like four or five reasons why I think they should um even from like a selfish standpoint being that, you know, really quick not to like steal the thunder of the article that I still but but really quickly like, Okay, I think about this. Even if you only hunt private land out here, what happens if all the public land around you or around the country. What if that public land is so mismanaged and degraded and developed that it can't support wildlife populations anymore and you can't hunt there, or what if it just gets sold? So what happens if the millions of hunters that do utilize public lands all of a sudden can't, Well, they're going to start trying to hunt private land, or they're gonna try to find private land. So that means, you know, more competition for the pieces that you have permission on. There might be more people trying to lease properties, There might be more hunting on your property borders that are bugging you. You You know, competition is like a thing already for private hunters. It's going to be a lot worse if there's no public access at all. So there's one simple reason, like just purely, if you want to think about how it will impact you as as a private land hunter, there's one simple way. Or what about the fact that new hunters traditionally typically don't have a place to hunt, So a lot of new hunters are dependent on lands because that's that's the easiest way to get out in the woods and try this hunting thing. Um. Right, Well, if we don't have public lands or there's not public lands available to hunt easily, you know, we're not going to gain those new hunters as as easily as we might have otherwise. And as we've talked about in the past, you know, if the numbers of hunters continue to decline, we will lose our influence in democracy where you know, votes equal privilege. Right, So I won't go down this road any further, but it's it's been something I've been thinking about two and it's something that I think it does impact all of us. Right. I saw I saw a article or comment on social media where and this it's it kind of goes back to the two percent for conservation organization. How you know, I feel that as hunters we should demand that the companies who are making money off of hunting give back in some way, shape or form. Therefore, you know, we can say, all right, I would love to see you support two percent for conservation, you know, and and because of that, then I will buy I will continue to buy your product, you know what I mean? Um, I just feel that there's so much money out there that could be given to conservation efforts that's currently not Yeah, whether that's commercial or individuals like ourselves, right, And I'll tell you what I don't. I don't know if this is just because I'm kind of weird like this, but I think that that is some of the best marketing a company can do. Like I see companies that do support conservation or you know, the environment or whatever it might be, whether it's two percent for conservation or one percent for the environment, or you just hear about some of the different things that companies are doing. When I know there's a company that prioritizes that, um consistently, and I hear about that, and I understand that that's something that matters to to the people there, Um, I'm way more likely to spend my money with them. Um, that's a fact. I mean, I can't remember if I've talked about it before, but you know, so obviously, as we talked about all the time, I wear sick A gear for like all my hunting stuff of course, and they're great supporters of this, but like for for my non hunting um stuff like fishing gear and some of that type of stuff. I'm a big supporter of Patagonia because of how much they do on that front. Like if you look into the things they're doing to help a lot of causes related to public lands and wildlife and stuff like that, Like they're doing some really cool stuff there too. Um, And that's like, if I'm going to spend you know, however many dollars it is on a pair of waiters or something, I'd rather spend it with a company like that who's doing some good things with that money versus you know, someone who's just like looking to make a dime. So I think it drives sales too. It can help companies, and it's also the right thing to do. Right now, I have a question about the Patagonia is and maybe I'm thinking of a completely different company. Um, they're an out they're an outdoors company, but from a backpacking or camping standpoint, Um, is Patagonia pro hunting. So Pentagonia, as far as I understand is now they're not like a hunting company at all. But I know that I know that Ivan Shnard is the founder, and I know he hunts um and I know upland hunting and he I know he lives in Jackson, Wyoming and eats a lot of elk and eats a lot of deer from some of his friends that are hunters and stuff. So from everything I've read and seen, um, they've been you know, hunting neutral and pro public lands, pro environment all that kind of stuff. Um So, so yeah, as far as I'm concerned, that's that's the type of company that I'm that I'm interested in support. And now, of course, you know, if I found out otherwise, you know, there's definitely some companies out there that are you know, pro environment but anti hunting, and those are the types of companies that I definitely you know, would like to see change that stance. And there's there's two and this is this is a whole another thing we're getting into. But you know, there's I don't know, I think there's a lot of ways that the non hunting environmental movement and the hunting, environmental or conservation movement, however you want to phrase it. I think there's a lot of things we have in common. So, like one of my big things is I'm always trying to find was, like, how can we try to bridge that gap a little bit more. I know, sometimes it's not always going to be possible. There's going to be crazies on that side that refused to look at the world that we the way we do, and so that's kind of a lost cause. But I think there are people that are willing to listen and willing to work with us if we don't like shut them out, if we don't like automatically assume well, because you're a quote unquote tree hugger, I don't want to have anything to do with you. Um, when maybe of those people actually are, hey, pretty okay with what we do, when they find out what we do and how we do it, and hey, maybe we can work together. My I'm just like advocating for let's let's have an open mind, and but on both sides, asking for them to have an open mind, asking for us to have an open mind, and like, let's work together, because whether it's public lands or clean air, or clean water or healthy wildlife populations like all that stuff. We both want the same things, um and and I think if we hunters don't you know, recognize that and don't like start caring about that a little bit more. Hey, we're not going to have any deer to to fill the freezer put on the wall, and we're not gonna have places to go have these incredible adventures were not you know, our way of life just doesn't exist if those core elements aren't there, right, And I think that's that goes to an organizational level as well, where you know, companies I don't know, hunt some kind of hunting organization, let's say, like the Rocky Mountain el Foundation or National Deer Alliance partners with someone who they might never partner with, like the National Federation of Bird Watchers, you know, you know, something like that where where I don't even know if that's a real thing first of all, but it could be. Or you know, the you know, people who are into kayaking or you know, backpacking and you know, like just going out backpacking and coming back in Really we should, like you said, we share way more in common than we have in differences. The only differences we we kill an animal and we eat it. That's really that's really the only difference between myself and someone who goes out and backpacks. Yep, it's we share the same we share the same beliefs, we share the same interest we we share the same love for nature and the same uh you know, the same you know, the respect for the public lands. Yeah, it's very true. It's it's just sometimes people get bogged down in the one piece that is different, and understandably that's a big thing, and some people can't get over that. Um. But I'm just I'm just trying to say, hey, there are some people who can who can see through that and see the value of what we do, and let's let's let's let's put a hand out to those folks at least. So well, I got a question for you, Dan, Okay, when was it? And I don't know if you can think of a moment or in an experience, but was there any moment for you when like you started to feel this way like for me, you know, for the longest time, you know, I hunted just because I hunted, and I was outside all the time, and I loved the outdoors and I love fishing. I loved killing deer and eating deer and doing all these things, and I was obsessed with it um But then like at some point, like within the last like eight years, eight or nine years, it really last like five years, especially the last like three years, really really like something clicked for me. And I don't know if it was some of these experiences I've had, but something clicked for me where all of a sudden I went from just wanting to do that thing to like really wanting to make sure this thing is taken care of and avail in the future. Like do you remember any kind of moment like that for you? Is there an experience that kind of epitomizes that? So I don't even know. I'm gonna say early nineties, mid nineties, probably early nineties. My dad took me and my brother from Iowa to Colorado on a UM on the amtrack train and we drove all we wrote on it all through the night, got in Denver, rented a car, and went up into the mountains. We went to Rocky Mount Mountain National Park, and I don't remember all of it because I was younger. And then we went to a couple other places, all public land, right, and you know, just drove up in the mountains and it took my breath away. And I had already had a love for nature because I did a lot of fishing and trapping when I was younger, but just going out there and experiencing like the mountains and and and stuff like that was for me kind of a game changer. But as far as me realizing that it's time to actually start, you know, like take action and time to put in work and you know, enough of this bullshit talk that everybody talks, but very few people follow through with action. And it it was just, I guess ever since I went on that elk hunt with you in I'd home, there was a fire that was lit in me where I want to live this life. Not not necessarily I want to I want to live It's it's hard to explain because it's more of a feeling than it is words. Right. I want my kids to have the same opportunity to go out and experience, even if they're not hunters, but to go out and stand on a mountaintop and just look and not see any buildings, or if they want to disappear into the wilderness, they have the opportunity to do that. If they want to go, you know, to a public boat access or a public access waterway and someday go fishing, you know, fly fishing or even fishing around Iowa. I want them to have the same opportunities that that I did, because I feel that nature can really change your life. And like I said, it's it's hard to put into words because it's it's a feeling. Just like you know, I talked about how bow hunting kind of changed my life, how I jumped into bow hunting and it kind of took me off of this weird, you know, this self destructive path. I feel that nature has these these healing powers, not just not necessarily physically, but for the human spirit and like emotionally as well, you know, without a doubt. And I gotta believe anyone who has done this kind of thing long enough can relate to that. Like we've all had those moments where it's revives you and it brings you back to life. Almost sometimes when no matter how bad the badest stuff is in the rest of your life, you can go out and whether that's the back forward behind your house or if that's a piece of public land and you're able to get away from it all like that has, like you said, a serious kind of healing power. Um. But I do think that sometimes it takes like some kind of experience or enough immersion in that to like begin to realize it. Like I mean, you know, you can't expect someone to care about something or to take action on something until they've actually experienced it and felt that type of thing that you're talking about. Um. But to our point, most hunters have felt something like that. It's just a manner of like being thoughtful and mindful of that and realizing that and realizing, hey, this isn't a guaranteed thing unless we take that action. But I mean, think about this, Dan. Back when we're hunting elk in Idaho. Right, We've got our our two tents set up on that little knob, and we've got the forest and the mountains rising up behind us. But then looking downhill, you've got this big valley and then that great big mountain and ridge lines on the other side of the valley, and you and me. After a long day hunting, it's dark out. We hiked all the way back to camp. We put our pull our food down from the bare bags, grabbed our little portable backpacking stoves and a little pot and fill those up with water and set on our butts right there on the edge of that knob, and are the waters boiling for our little freeze dried meal. And the sun is set, but there's a little bit that little line of orange, you know, on the horizon, but the stars already coming out above you, and the mountains in front of you now are just a silhouette, but a very clear black silhouette. I mean, do you remember that moment, just sitting there and it's perfectly quiet, and it's just you sit there in a moment like that, and you see no lights, you see no civilization, It's just you and this wilderness. And I don't think you can sit there and have an experience like that and not like feel something, um and feel like I think. I think though in a way, um, you were there once and although you did experience it, I think a majority of the people out there. For me, it's I feel I have this negative feeling towards my cubicle and I dislike it, you know, like I feel like I'm in a cage at times. I dislike it. Like, don't get me wrong, I love the people I work with. It is a great job. I love doing my job, but sitting in my cubicle gives me kind of the opposite feeling of sitting on top of a mountain, you know what I mean, or walking through the timber looking for sheds or whatever. But I feel that that negative energy can trigger positive energies without necessarily without necessarily experiencing what you're talking about. So I feel I feel that can be motivating to want change, even though you may not have experienced it up front in your face. Yeah. Yes, so you're saying by vertus with the fact that so much negative energy out of this current experience, that you want to ensure that there is the potential for that positive out there, which which there's you know, there's something to be said about the fact that I can't remember. I think it was well. This guy is famous writer named Wallace Stegner was writing about the importance of wilderness and he wrote this thing called this this letter called the Wilderness Letter, back in the year sixties or seventies when the Wilderness Act was passed, And you should google this and read the letter. It's it's it's very it's very profound writing about the value of wilderness and He said something in the lines of the fact that you know, even if you're never ever going to step foot in a in a wilderness area, you know, in one of these places where you know there aren't cars and parking lots and lots and people and buildings and businesses and all that stuff, even if you're never going to go to one of those places, there's an inherent value just knowing it's out there, Like when you're sitting in your cubicle miserable and work down to the bone and you've got fluorescent lights staring down on you for twelve hours a day. Just the fact that you know that there is something still wild and free and available out there. I think that has some power. And he said that you know that those those places, those last vestiges of like that hope out there. He called that the geography of hope and um and that's kind of a pretty powerful thing. I think even if you aren't there right now, or can't be there, or never plan on being there, there's a value just to know that there's still places like that out there. Yea. And it motivates me, yeah, Like it motivates me to do good on my podcast so I can someday maybe step away from my cubicle. It motivates me to save my money so I can take my family out there to show them what it's all about. I talked to my I talked to my daughter. I'd say once a week, and I always say, ay, but do you want to come to the mountains with Daddy sometimes? Yeah? I want to come go to the mountains with you sometimes, And I cannot wait for that day to take her to some you know drop, you know, drive up overlook of the giant Valley somewhere, it doesn't matter what state it's in, and just be like, look at all this we could explore if you wanted to. Yeah, we can do we can do whatever you want. Yeah, that's and that's gonna be a pretty awesome moment. And then I'll say, though, too, right, the tiny at home wilderness quote unquote areas are are just as important to whether it be you know, the little county park or you're hunting property. I mean, I think I think the things we're talking about, like the valuing these places and trying to find a way to protect them or um help conserve them in some way like that can be applied to big Western public lands, but it can also be applied to your little farm too, and showing that care and respect even here. Um. And I think that's kind of kind of where our conversation is going to go from here. As we talked to Donnie, I really want to hear about how he's implementing these types of ideas on a little property here in Wisconsin, just like any one of us listening could probably do. UM, because there's something special about that too. I think you've got to kind of feel that even a little bit. Just planning a food plot this year, you know, it's kind of cool to to to to give back in some little, tiny way and see the wildlife using that and benefiting from it. I mean, didn't that feel pretty special in a small way? Yeah? It Uh, I don't know, man, Like I said, it's it's more feeling for me than than words. I I got so much enjoyment out of it. Was almost like check me out, I'm a man, right. I planted stuff and it grew like beat my chest. There's there's a little a little bit of that, and at the same time there was this, hey man, this is awesome. I helped feed the animals through breaking of ground, I don't know it was. Well, it's it's another one of those ways that we connect back to the earth kind of you know, and I think every time we're reminded of that connection, it like it. It's so it's natural, right, I mean, humans have been doing this forever. It's only just recently that there have been all these kind of I don't know what you call them, obstructions put in the way between our relationship with the land and us. Now there's grocery stores and you know, all these other things that keep us from being connected to it. So every time that we can reconnect that, you know, whether it be through you know, planting a garden yourself, or planting a food plot for wildlife or hunting, I think all these things that were tap into something that's like very human and um, it just feels right, you know. Or even something as simple as leaving your phone in your truck or your vehicle and going and sitting down next to a pond or lake and just not being connected. Yeah, so true, so true. I think I think people feel vulnerable and that's what scares them on some of this. You know, this is a little hippie talk, you know what I mean. But hippie podcast episode, right, But this is definitely it's definitely needed. It makes I feel, it makes people better. I agree. I agree. Speaking of better, is is your daughter feeling better after screaming back there in the background. I told you every podcast there's gonna be the random outbursts, and that there it was, and there. I love it. But it was perfect because we need to we need to take a break now and we gotta get ahold of donning. But first we're gonna take a fast break to thank our partners at Sitka Gear. So if you heard our episode last week discussing the Archer Trade Show, you might remember us mentioning that Sitka is launching a new big game line and camera pattern this year called Subalpine. And today, to give you just a little more insight into what this whole Subalpine thing is all about, I wanted to share with you guys a little snippet of the video they're released to help with this announcement. We don't design all purpose gear, because all purpose gear really translates to designed to compromise. We designed specialized gear an improves the experience. So it's a constant questioning are we doing everything to land to optimize for the pursuit. Our core big game hunters start chasing Elkin Yell during late summer and it can be hot at that point. Weight and breathability mean everything. So we developed the lightest system we've ever created. This is close quarters Huney. So we've optimized these systems with an all new pattern called Opti Fate Subalpine. It's designed for engagements of fifty yards or less on the ground in bench Dave Terin. And so it comes back to experience. It's our desire to go further, to get closer, to stay longer, and it's through a focused approach they were able to experience more. If you would be interested in learning more about Sitka's new Subalpine line, you can visit sitka gear dot com, slash sub Alpine and out. We're gonna get back to the show and give Donnie a call. Al right back with us for round three is Donnie Vincent? Thanks for joining us again, Danny, Yeah, thanks for having that. At least it's not two years in between like the last time. That's true, that's true. It's it's only been like a couple of months or something like that. And and like we were talking about um before we got you on here. You know, when we talked with you last time this fall, we talked all about, you know, your deer hunts in North Dakota, and we talked about some different things with kind of current events and everything. But at the very end we had touched on, you know, really briefly, the fact that you have this property in Wisconsin that you're working on and hunting all that kind of stuff, and we just very briefly touched on. So I thought today we could really focus there, um, you know, talk about how you found this property, how you start thinking about it, what were the things of your goals plans, what did you actually do all that kind of stuff. Um. So does that all sound pretty good Donny if we go down that road? Yeah? Absolute? Really In fact, um, after our last podcast, UM, I had quite a few people write me just questions here and there about things that I've done, management, Why why this? Why not this? So there's definitely some interest even though we just touched on it towards the end there. Yeah. So I think when most of us think about you, Donny, we think about you know, your films. The rivers divide out there in North Dakota or Terra Nova hunting Caribou. I think that was in Nova Scotia or something like that. Um, Newfoundland, Newfoundland. Thank you and your bare hunts out in Canada or last all these different things. I don't think many people think about you hunting a little egg property in Wisconsin like all the rest of us. Um, can you can you tell us a little bit just about like your history from a deer hunting perspective in that part of the country, because that's like where you've lived and hunted for quite a while when it comes to deer, right, Yeah, I've I've hunted Wisconsin since oh Man, um, since the early two since I had a friend of mine, Like when I was in college. I had a friend of mine that owned fifty three acres in Manominee, Wisconsin, which is about, I don't know, call it two hours east of Minneapolis, uh in you know central Wisconsin and people in north central Wisconsin. And I leased that from him for years and years and years, and then a few years ago he ended up selling that property. And it was fantastic because it was fifty three acres. It was a rolling wooded ridge with a little trout stream what's my eastern border and you think fifty three acres whatever, what could that be? But um lo and behold. It had fantastic wildlife on it, and I had a couple of really I never killed one. It was a difficult property to hunt, but I had some books that lived there that were you know, world class one and you know, if you're talking inches of antler, I'm talking one sixties to one nineties things like that, that of deer that I had, um that were you know, that lived in that valiant. And so when my friends sold that property, um, you know, I just kind of would hunt with friends here and there. But I was very much interested in finding another property the lease or buy, um just because I love obviously I love hunting their home. Not everything can be a huge expedition. And I've had some really very real adventures and very real, um sensational hunts, you know, an hour from my house or minutes from my house, I've I've seen some really fantastic things. So I never I never turned my nose down to hunting around locally. And I always like to, you know, have something some place to go, a place that's my own, you know, where I can just go and Wednesday night when I get when I get out of the office, I could sneak into a tree like everyone else for a couple of hours. Do you have any one of those hunts or experiences that close to home hunt or experience that stands out is like one of those that right off the top that you heard like that was one of those really special moments even though it was just right there. Yeah, I'll be uh, to be honest with you. One of the ones that I think of often, there's there's two of them. One is the very first white tail buck that I ever killed with a bow was on that fifty three acres. Because I didn't start bow hunting until pretty late in life. Um so I was in my twenties when I started bow hunting, and and I had I got off that super early in the morning, and and this was back when I was just fanatical about quote unquote scent controls. So I had all my clothes washed. I had washed my street clothes because I had a long drive, trolled all the way from my house in Minneapolis to my property. And I got out in my driveway and I was getting dressed. It was chilly. Morning, was awesome. It was in November, I was just starting to snow a little bit and I realized that I had forgotten my release on my kitchen table in Minneapolis. I was just my word, I forgot my release, so really quickly. I tried to come to full draw with my compound boat and I was shooting a whole it at the time, and I tried to come to full draw with just fingers, and I was like, can I do this? And I and I did come to full draw, and I was like, I cannot do this. This is this is gonna be messed up, you know, because I was still learning. So I was like, no, this can't happen. So I was like, calm down, chill out, because I was, you know, very very high energy about hunting perfectly as perfectly as I could. So I just got back on my truck, calmly, drove all the way home, walked inside literally my releases sit right down in the kitchen table, and grabbed it, walk right back outside, got in my truck, drove another two hours back to the property, and I got there about I don't know, it's like nine thirty ninety five in the morning something like that. Got my stuff on. I was like I was just quietly walking, and I walked in big puffy snowflakes coming down, and um, I've always been afraid of heights, and so early on I was very afraid of heights. I've gotten much more comfortable over years of hunting and being in the mountains and in the cliffs. I've just kind of come to the realization of dealing with it. But back then, I was terrified of being twenty ft in a tree, and so I hunted with a summit climber. You guys know those things, right, climbing up the tree that way. Yeah, So I really like hunting with a climber because it had that rail that was around my body and I would just feel so much safer in that manner. So I had my climber, I hiked into my spot, set my climber up, and I sat there, you know, all the way up got into my spot, this is absolutely true story. And I was pulling my bowl, roll up my bow rope, pop yet my bow up. I was pulling it up, and just as I got it to the base of my stand, I bumped my quiver off and it fell all the way down to the bottom and I just literally stop there like and im a state like, okay, just everybody chill out where it's still. There's a lot of hours left. It's a beautiful November day, USA. So I all the way down, grabbed my quiver all the way up, and I had, um, this is gonna be kind of gross, but I had drank a couple of theses of tea while I was driving back force. I'm like that P So I pulled my PA battle out. I'm going pe Actually, let me interrupt myself. I decided I'm going to do a rattling sequence, then I'm going to pee, then I'm going to sit down. And so I rattled, as you can guess. In the midst of peeing, I looked down and here comes the buck of my dreams, comes walking in circles of the tree at twenty yards and I shoot him perfectly. This was my first year with the ball, first buck with the ball, and it was really funny. I shoot him perfectly. He runs just a short distance, tips over dead um, and I text a couple of my friends and said, I just shot a hundred and fifty ten. And when I got down and got to him, he ended up being a hundred and twenty one inch seven. Well, and he looked absolutely monstrous to me. After after a hunting a day like that, I'd say, any buck is a giant. Well yeah, hang on a second, Hang on a second. You didn't you didn't like finished the story where you were? I mean, did you? My mind instantly goes to, did you shoot this buck with your Johnson hanging out? I was, I was not. I was not put away. Okay, that makes the story even better. I we did it. We did it in the moment. Yeah, it was just free Willy if you will, Well that is that is a very memorable story, Donny. I wasn't expecting one that. And I've had lots of them, man, I've had lots of you know, awesome turkey mornings. I love the turkey on I've got awesome big white tails and and um, I've just been fortunate enough to I am. People think this is a line. But whether I'm hunting stone sheep in British Columbia or you and I link up on a Thursday evening and and we're gonna go and shoot a dough or we're gonna go hunt does on my hunting lease, literally, those two things are the exact same thing to me, They weren't. Always when I was younger, the bigger expeditions, I thought they meant more. But the more I went on them, the more every day on the expedition it was first day, second, third day, the more I realized that these were just little sub days of the exact same thing that I was doing at home, and that I shouldn't um It wasn't even a cognitive thought. It just became that I was getting just as excited. I didn't have to mentally get there. I was getting just as excited to hunt at home as I was to hunt in far off places. And it just happened because I realized that no matter what, whether it be in my backyard or in the Arctic Circle, they're both fantastic. Yeah, yeah, very true, very true. So and that and that's not the line. That's literally I literally wrapped my hand around that right now. I love it. It kind of falls right in line with something we were talking about earlier before you got on, just the just talking about how there is, you know, this special kind of experience and value in having big wilderness places, but then there's also a special type of value and experience and enjoyment of just the tiny little patches behind the house, and how there's a different kind of um special experience in both absolutely absolutely and they and they and they can hold tremendous value. Right that's like, right now, um, what we're about to talk about, I'm trying to manage or starting to change, not even managed, that's that's not even the word I want to use. But I'm trying to implement good into this small property because even a small strip of grass or a small tree cutting or planting a small section of pines or whatever it is I'm doing, I'm just trying to make that little section better. And you'd be amazed the impact that you can have by managing just bye bye planting and and um implementing habitat and just a small little pieces. It's incredible. Yeah, So take us back to the beginning. How did you go about you know, because it sounds like you've hunted Wisconsin at your buddy's place least different things like that, But how did you actually go to deciding to purchase? Because he did purchase this farm right now, and um, no, no, I I only leased this farm. I leave it. I don't I haven't purchased. I haven't purchased it yet. The landowner and myself I talked about it. We've been talking about it. He really wants me to own it, but um, we just haven't went down that road as of yet. Okay, So then can you tell us how you found this property to lease? Because I know a lot of people are always trying to fait. How do you find the least? How do you get a good lease? So how how did this work out? How do you know this is the place that you want to hunt? How do you pick it? That kind of stuff? Yep, Um, it happened to be the building maintenance man of where we have our offices for Sickmanta in Hudson. Uh. He's a local school teacher. He teaches uh special needs kids but in his uh not free time, but in his you know, this is like his second job. He's an awesome handyman carpenter. So he takes care of several buildings in town when he's not teaching the special needs kids and so and he has he has a lot of free time because he gets off early um at school. And so justin just a happenstance out speaking with him one day and he was telling he had a nineteen year old son, um at the time, and he's taught me about him and his son have this property out of town that they love to go to and just walk around the woods, and and he had just noticed around our offices, you know, the pictures of the wildlife and things like that. So he's like, oh, yeah, I have I have a chunk of woods east the town here that me and my kids love to go out on. And so I was asking him about it. He's like, yeah, it's it's a hundred and fifty three acres. And then I started asking. I said, does anyone hunt it? And he said yeah, there's there's a house on the property, and the guy that rents the house, he hunts it. And so I said, okay, cool. I said, well, if that ever changes, um, let me know I'd be interested in potentially leasing that thing. I'd have to go out there and look at it, but i'd be I'd be interested in leasing it for a long term. He's like, oh, let's talk about it right now, because the guy that rents the house is like seven months behind. And read Oh, well that's fantastic. So I'll leave you to deal with that gentleman in the house. But I basically went in and least I didn't do it maliciously, but I basically went in and and least the hunting rights out from underneath this landowner. So um, you know, are are superhero. Just basically once the rent e the renter and just said, hey, uh, you no longer have any hunting rights here. Uh you know, obviously you're still in the house. We'll we'll figure out rent that way. But the hundred and fifty three acres and as a whole, I've leased it to another guy. And and so I basically just went out there and checked the property out. And what it was is, um it's mostly wooded with secondary growth deciduous hardwoods lots and maple lots of popular things like that. UM. And then the whole center of the property, basically right down the middle like a you know, like a landing strip, is a twenty seven acre old agricultural field. Now, when when our super bought it, heat that field was, UM saw it had completely become overgrown and had little patches of cedar trees and then amongst it. But he was approached a few years ago, I think like four or five years ago by a local farmer and he said, hey, I'd love to come in there and rent that twenty seven acres from you to do roll crops, soybeans and corn. And at the time, he you know, he just wanted to make more rent on the property, just to make the property make more sense. So he was very reluctant as his nineteen year old son, Um really wanted to He had a vision of you know, he wanted to go out there and build tent platforms for him and his dad and so that if you go camping out there and camp amongst the you know, black eyed Susans and the prairie flowers and stuff like that, and just enjoy their time out there. But um, you know, so they ended up leasing it to this road crop farmer. He came in started to start doing road crops. Um. Then I came in and started leasing the hunting rights, and then you know, I just saw this thing. It's just you know, it's awesome having the farmer there and the crops and everything. But you know, as soon as the farmer would harvest, you know, he just leaves this you know, you know what I'm saying that he just leave this giant muddy are you know? Craft fest behind when they were done harvesting their crop out, and I was just like, man, I would of to do more here, because I would just look at literally as simply as I look at the woods and say, okay, the woods are doing this. Look at this field, which is basically essentially came up a parking lot, and then I look at the other side of the wood and say, okay, this wood's over here is doing this. And so then I just started thinking like, what if I could change this from a parking lot into actually having some value? Um, And so I sat down and talked to talk to the super and just said, hey, UM, would you anticipate would you have an interest at least in the entire thing to me? And as it were, Um, sadly enough, his nineteen year old son ended up passing away right at about that same time that I had asked him if I could lease the entire property, and so UM we had a very heartfelt conversation about me coming in and returning much of that seven acres back to how his oldest son kind of had a vision of going out there and camping with at and just bringing that place back to being very wildlife centric and turning it into a place that had prairie and uh and more wildlife and and than than it had evolved into with the road crops. If if you will, hm. Wow. So when you first saw it, you know, when you first started leasing it, you know, what did you see there that made you think it had potential? And I guess what we're I know it sounds like your goals changed when you start seeing that. You know, you just kind of had this camera parking lot in the middle and you could do more. But in the beginning, did you ever look at and say, wow, this could be a long term great thing or did it kind of grow on you? Um? It kind of grew on me actually because the first I'm not a very um I'm not an over anxious type of hunter. I'm not somebody that gets completely fixated on um. You know, I guess I leased it for at leased the property for two years before I even ever hunted it. I mean not, I did not step foot on it for two years. I just want I knew it was something that I want to put myself into, but I was so busy traveling and I didn't have a lot of time to put so I just put a bunch of cameras up on the property in different locations and just you know, trail photo trail cameras, and just left them and then became increasingly interested in seeing. Like when I went back and looked at the photos, I didn't have any big bucks on on the pictures or anything like that, but just watching the box interactions. I had taught several bucks, fighting, making scrapes, all of this stuff. And then ironically, the property was owned by an elderly woman prior to my super buying it, and she was I believe she was widowed, and she was a deer hunter. So on my entire eastern border of the farm field, she had planted apple trees all the way down that edge so that she could shoot deer underneath the apple trees with a rifle. And so I was starting to get pictures of these box under these apple trees and just getting tons of daylight movement, Like most of the photos I was getting up the box were in the middle of the day, broad daylight, and as you well know, as you start to hunt a property, that very quickly transitions to nighttime movement. If you're not you know, if you're not stealthy bot or if you're over hunting the property. So just seeing that the box were just moving throughout the property without harm. And then I've done some turkey hunts there and I went out three or four mornings in a row, not a row, but went up there three or four mornings and said, let's say like a week and a half. I ended up calling in like thirty five different coms on the property. And so there are a lot of turkeys out there gobbling their heads off and do a stuff. So I thought, man, there's all this going on when this is just a farm field, Like, what what pencil would this have if I actually started doing grasses and and planted some food that I laft year round and started planting food for both deer and birds and songbirds and you know, right on down the line. And so that's when it started to just kind of you know, started to roll in my head, started to kind of gain steam, and that I wanted to do more and and make the place pretty cool or try to anyway. Yeah, So how did that process then go when you started thinking about that you want to do more here? What what was your vision? How did you start putting a plan together? Well, I oddly enough, UM, I have a small infatuation with warm seasoned grasses. Don't ask me why. I just think they're pretty cool. Like my house is completely spotted by prairie. Yeah, and they're just like and um, you guys know that Mark Jury is a good friend of mine and and uh, you know, I talked to Mark often about habitat and about white tail management and white tail hunting and um, you know, and he sends me his videos every year. And I watched his video just like everyone else, and I, you know, I was looking at how he sets his properties up and just kind of seeing, you know, Because even though I have worked as a research biologist, I'm not very much of a white tilt biologist. I'm a deer hunter, but I've never spent that much time studying the white til deer. So while I had some ideas that I really liked warm season grasses, I knew I wanted to have a year round food things like this, I really didn't know what to implement. And so, um, I actually reached out last year to Ben Harshine, who was a new friend of mine. I had met Ben the year before, uh and really loved his maps that you know, Ben owns hun Teren makes these absolutely beautiful and ridiculously functional maps, and so we had spoken on the phone. I was like, hey, would you make me a map of this property? And they're like, yeah, man, I'd be honored to, you know. And so we started a relationship there and the maps came, and that solidified my ideas even more. Right. That got the wheel spinning even more because now I had this bird's eye view, and not just a bird's eye view, not just a pople map, but in the way that Ben does his maps, you know, I was able to see um edge. You know. You know, some people know that white tailed deer and different animals do really well where there's an edge where you know, goes from controvers to all hardwoods or conifers to a field or a hardwoods to a field whatever. Wherever there's a distinction and habitat, the deer do really well. So I started looking with Ben's map. I could see because Ben used Ben uses the sunlight, if you will, to kind of show you the shaded there is to show you to parking. And I started seeing edge in the woods um that I didn't realize it's there, stands up conifers butting up against the siduus trees that I didn't really see how they laid out until I got this map. So it's started to get me excited that I called Ben because he does a lot more with quality deer management. He does a lot more with white tail management stuff that I do, and um, it's just not a world that I live in. And I said, hey, do you know of any white tail managers or wildlife managers that could give me a hand? And very quickly he introduced me to a gentleman named um Eric Long who owns Drumming Log Wildlife Management. I think that's the name of company, Drumming Log, you know, like Grous Drumming. And he introduced me to Eric, and I just wanted to Um. I knew I wanted to do cool things out here. I knew I wanted to change it up, but I didn't really know what to do or how to do it, or when to do it. And as lazy as this sounds, I just didn't have the time to do all the research on the plants and the timings and all this tiff and stuff. And I'm certainly not a farmer. And so I reached out to Eric and just started the ball rolling. We had a conversation and it actually started out when I said, hey, I don't want to creep you out. I love warm season glasses. He said, well, I love warms eas and grasses too, So we're gonna get along this time. And that's kind of how it started. Um, And you know, and we slowly grew the project. Um. And luckily they both become friends. And you know, they have come here um very often on their own dime, have come up, driven up here, or or flew up here um to come in onto the property and grab a chainsaw and grab you know, a handseater and and come and help me when just out of the love of getting their hams dirty. So um, you know, that's kind of how it started, that's how it perpetuated. So we last time we talked to you briefly mentioned that you guys did a bunch of hinge cutting, I think, or cutting at least in the woods, and you had planned the grasses and some food plots. But how much how much work did this actually entail? I mean, was this was this all of the course of like one or two weekends, or this over the course of the entire year and what specifically did all you end up putting in place? Sure, um, it ended up being it was a considerable amount of work, but it didn't um, you know, it didn't envelope a ton of time. It's certainly enveloped much of I mean I talked to Eric and then often not daily, but often um in you know, April, May and June certainly, and actually March, April, May and June, because we did the majority of our cutting. We had a warm March here last year, so Ben and I and and Eric were able to get in and and um and we wanted to cause some disruption. Right, I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that, you know, Eric did help us lay out and map out exactly where we wanted to cut with the chainsaws and everything that we've done so far, I've been incredibly happy with. I can't tell you that I'm wrapping up like twenty years study on this because you know, I'm going into my second summer now where we've actually altered things. But we wanted there is literally a sea a secondary girls trees right literally of having um, you know, having three trunks that were two feet around down two four inches around and just an absolute see of them. Like if I told you to run in a straight line of stats that you could, you couldn't because you'd kill yourself. You know what I mean. It's just literally a wall. So we wanted to create some sort of disruption and and open up that canopy to get some secondary girls. And it was great because I went in there with Ben and we did a bunch of cutting and everything has kind of worked out exactly how we wanted to. But it was also great because Eric came back after we did a bunch of cutting and he came in the woodard us and he's like, you guys did a great job, but you did it wrong. And we're like, okay, well, uh, this is fantastic to know because we were sitting there at high five and fatting ourselves on the back all the way back to the truck. We're a sandwich, so this is awesome going and and basically it was like, you didn't do it wrong, but you did. Basically, we did a bunch of hinge cutting and we did a bunch of true cutting. I don't know if that's really a term, but I'm gonna make it up. We did a bunch of true cutting, but we didn't dismember these trees well enough and dropped them down all the way to the fourth floor so that we could get really good growth coming up. We basically just dropped their canopies down to the ground. They still ate up sunlight, they still consumed ground. So we went in there a second time and clean them up even more. Once we had Eric's direction where he came in and you know, it's kind of funny because you know, we're sitting there like the protege like looking at him and looking at the spot and looking at him and going what do you think? And he's like rubbing his chin on and you know, you know it's bad and he's rubbing and saying goes, well, you know, I mean you did a good job, and you're like, trap, here we go and he's like yeah. So we did the cutting and we knew like and I think we're even gonna do more cutting this spring. Um. And then we took the twenty seven acres. And I'll be honest with I think Eric will admit this to Ben will admit this. I'm still per plats. I'm still sitting scratching my head. But we took the twenty seven acre's this open palette. We could do whatever we wanted, and we made an idea of where we wanted to plant grasses, where we wanted to plant food, and kind of how the deer might move and how some of the other animals, both game species like pheasants and grouse, turkeys and also non game species would kind of move and utilize the property. And so um, you know, we made the best gas and we went in there. We ended up planting I think eleven or twelve acres of switch grass, and then we planted some sorghum um, some soybeans, and then we planted a few other areas with you know, different different um cultures of our different different clusters of you know, brassicas and radishes and things like that, things that would give because we have harsh winters here, so we wanted, um, the deer and the turkeys. We wanted these animals to have, these larger animals to have lay season food source. And it's actually amazing the other animals that I'm seeing feeding on them now. But you know, we laid everything out, we made our best you know, not not I'm not going to say our best lay plan. We made a plan, because when you do this stuff, you know, you have to sling some crap against the wall. Right. We don't anyone that's gonna sit there and tell you, Okay, this is exactly how I'd laid the thought, and this is exactly how it's gonna go. And this this, this is going to be profession is lying to your face. Right. You have to try and adjust, try and adjust, try and adjust. And so we tried last year. Um, and then we took our information and then now you know, this spring, we'll make some adjustments for sure, but um, but that's essentially what we implemented was eleven acres of warm season grasses strategically throughout the property, most of them hugging the the edge of the fours um and creating some travel quotaurs for the deer. And then um, and then we planned to the bean field that we left, We planned to the sorghan field that we left, and then and then some of the green plots and stuff for the deer to utilize now now that it's freezing cold and there's snow. Yeah, So when you decided to, you know, do all of this work on this property, and especially when you were talking about planning some of these grasses and some of this food. You mentioned something about grouse and turkeys, but was your main focus on white tails or were you trying to better this property for an overall game habitat, for overall game habitat and and non game species. And I mean, I mean that sincessarily. Like I started hunting the property when Eric came and met with me um and ben les here and and you know, said what are your goals? And I said, I really want to create a habitat here. I mean definitely was interested in the white tile deer in the wild turkey. I very much enjoy hunting both of them. I very much enjoy hunting healthy populations and healthy age class of both those animals. And so I wanted to create a habitat a property that these animals called safe at that they weren't being over hunted at, and they could get some actually get some refuge from my neighbors. Because this is Wisconsin, right there's hunted very heavily, reffal season muggled or season archery season. So I wanted it all encompassing. But I told Eric right away, like the first day, he said, well, what are your goals? And I said, well, this may sound silly, and I'm sure you don't ever hear this from other clients, but I've been on this property now for a few years. I've never seen a snake on this property. I know that sounds silly, but with all the times of walking through these fields, all the times they're walking through these woods, and I have a few crick bottoms, and like, I've never seen a turtle. I've not seen a box turtle. I've seen a few frogs, and I have never seen a snake. And um, and He's like, Okay, I totally get that. And so it's not that I was trying to create a property that's crawling with snakes, although I would love that. I was trying to create a property that all of these animals. I wanted to elevate the entire property so that you know, the songbirds are doing better. The grouse, like I would um every spring when I was hunting turkeys, that here a couple of grows, drumming. That's it. This year now, since planting some of this food and adjusting some of the cover and getting some of the grasses near the field edge, I mean I've averaged of you know, I flushed like four to six grouse every time I've went out there, which is fantastic to see. Now, did I create more grouse? Absolutely not. All I did was pulled grows from my neighbors or pull grouse centrally to utilize the food and habit that that I planted. But in the long run, this is definitely going to you know, this will bump off the grouse habitat. But it was a total ecosystem change that I wanted to do with an emphasis on the white to thea right. If I wasn't a deer hunter, I probably would have put in even more grasses and and did even more betting and try to increase some natural browsing different things like that if I didn't want to, if I didn't want to hunt the deer and I didn't want them to to reside on the properties, that make sense, ye, sure. So, so Dan planted his first food plot this year. And I've been planning and doing different habitat management type projects for probably five or six or seven years now. And we were just talking a little while ago about this kind of intangible feeling of accomplishment or something special about doing this kind of work and giving back to the wildlife and and and that little piece of ground there you're working on. Did you feel at all after doing these projects and now that you're kind of interacting with this landscape in a different way, you know what? It's absolutely I mean, you know, get tremendous value in watching, you know, sitting in a tree stand or in the ground blind or even just um being out there and glassing and seeing you know, a big fat dough come out of the woods with two fonds and they're out there cooker in their town. They're running around like mad men and they're eating. And you know, you're watching these plants that you planted, that you purchased. Right this is expensive, you know, and and a lot of work went into this. Consulting Ben consulting, Eric, we we we got all of our seeds from a company. UM. I don't know if you guys have ever worked with Have you ever heard of Merit seed in Ohio? I have have not? Okay, so Merit seed n e R I T just put it in the back of your brains. There's a guy there named John, There's a wildlife genius. And I would call John like when I couldn't get ahold of Eric, or Eric would call it John, their friends. They worked together all the time. But I would call him and talk to him about all these different plants and seedings, and and he's just a wildlife freak. He just loved growing wild life. So, you know, consulting all these different gentlemen, buying the seed, buying all these different things that go into the property, and then actually seeing it. And I actually seen the animals utilizing it, actually seeing them hoping they're gonna have not such a harsh winter and hopefully they're gonna grow big and strong and fulfill their lives. Only a couple of them are gonna potentially get killed by my bow or a friend's arrow. And uh, but the value, the value of seeing it and the value value of experiencing it is tremendous, tremendous. I just went out there the other day two weeks ago. Maybe I've never seen a pheasant on the property ever, never, ever have I seen a pheasant, And just naturally walking through there's I have an old growth field that I just left as it is. It's all golden rod and and grasses and some shrubbery. Some of those are dog with things. Again, I walked through there. Um I flushed. I flushed six hens and three roosters. I've never seen a pasant on the property. It's just just cool seeing it, you know, it's just fantastic seeing I saw several snakes this summer. I saw a box turtle, like you know, it's just it's just cool to see these things. And again, I don't have this delusion that we have changed the world in a single year, but I know we've made some enhancement that have made these animals move in um, and it's just really cool. It's it's really cool to see and and and feel. And I know, I remember I made a comment to you at our last podcast where I said, and I don't have any bucks anymore. You remember that, Yeah, And so it's funny because I had a couple of people write me and say, oh my god, like you got rid of your box and oh my god, like this Eric guy got rid of your box. And I just thought, oh my god, No, I can't believe that people think that we have the ability too, you know, grow white tailed deer or two produce whitetailed deer in a fashion of if you you know, if you're hiring a white tail manager to come on your property. I'm sure you guys know this. I hope you know this. But if you're hiring a white tulp property to come onto your land and and alter your land, and suddenly there's gonna be a hundred sixty d sev deer running all around and you have to work less too, um shoot big giant box old boxing, and this is why you're doing it, then I think you're doing it for a tremendously wrong reason. And and I think that you're gonna probably be greatly disappointed in that wildlife manager's ability to turn your property into shang rulat what what you're paying for? This is in my mind's diet, what you're paying for. It is, well, this is how I think about it. You're paying for that wallet man, your failures and sample set, his data set that's in his head. Like Eric has set up a billion more properties than I have, He's failed as setting up a billion more properties than I have. Because anything that any of us do. You know, if he wanted to make a film, if he attempted to make a hunting film, I'm sure that thing. I'm positive his first hunting film would be not good. And if you would have come to me. I could say, hey, look at if you did these three things here, I made these same mistakes. You know. It's just like we do anything in life. But um I had some people right and you're like, oh my god, he got rid of your box and just made me laugh. It's like, no, he didn't get rid of my box. My box probably got shot, not my box. Can you even I can't believe I'm even saying this. The boss probably probably got I mean, this isn't Disney, probably got shot by my neighbors, or moved over to another neighbor who planted a field and didn't harvest it because it was too wet or whatever. Like. These animals are free to move throughout their range. And I actually found it quite comical that, Um, I had several bucks the year before, and then I went in and then we did all this work, and then this year I'm sitting They're going, it's not funny. We spent all this money, did all this work, all this blood, sweat and tears, and and I'm seeing less dear less, mature, antler deer than I was the year before. Fast forward to right now. So we we did that podcast in November. Did that song right or was that December? I think it was late November, Okay, so I think it was beginning. Yeah, I think it right because the beginning of December um and actually made me chuckle because I went out there. Um, I had been out of property a long time. I checked my cameras and boom, I had like five or six big deer that I've never seen before, and now they're residing on my place. How they got there, I don't know, But I created the type of haboitcat that makes it very welcoming in the late season. Will they stay next year? Wud else? I don't care. But I just want to do better things for my property, do better things through my neighborhood. Do I care if my neighbor shoots a big buck that lives on my property. Absolutely not. I just want everything in the area to get better. And so it's it's very rewarding. It's tremendously rewarding. But if you're chasing big deer, um, you might end up being disappointed at the end of the road, at the end of the journey. Yeah. And it's a process. It's a process. And to your point, if all you're concerned about is the eventual outcome or whatever your outcome in your head is, You're gonna be very disappointed if you aren't also enjoying the process and the fact that it takes time and takes work, and that stuff has value in and of itself. So and it will never live up to your expectations, right, it will never ever Even if you kill a one eight, then what next year you want a one ninety? Like That's that's not how to go about this thing. I think if you change habitat more than dear, you're gonna come out winning on all sides. So so on this, on this kind of topic, we talked well, whenever it was late November early December we last talked. You talked about the fact that you had read Elder Leopold's Book of Sand County Almanac a number of times. I think you maybe even said that you you try to read it once a year or something like that, and um, I picked it up again recently and was looking at it again recently. And a lot of this stuff we're talking about now, you know, giving back to a property or conservation, whether it being a small personal scale or a big public land scale. It's got me thinking a lot about the land ethic that Leopold talked about in his book, and I kind of wanted to pick your brain about that land ethic we've never talked about in the podcast before for people. But I think people hear the name, although Leopold a lot here has kind of float that name out there, but maybe people don't really know what he was suggesting, what he was recommending and how that maybe has has kind of changed the path of the conservation movement to a degree here in the last fifty years or so. So if you guys will indulge me for a quick second here for those that haven't read the book, I just wanted to read a passage here real quick, and then I wanted to get your your thoughts on it. Donning so excuse my poor reading skills if I fumble here, but but real quick from a sand County element, I want to quote this right here. Although said that all ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. His instincts prompt him to compete for his place in that community, but his ethics prompted him also to cooperate, perhaps in order that there may be a place to compete for. The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively the land. This sounds simple. Do we not already sing our love for and the obligation to the land of the free and the home of the brave? Yes? But just what in whom do we love? Certainly not the soil which we're sending helter skelter downriver. Certainly, not the waters, which we assume have no function function except to turn turboines, float barges, and care off sewage. Certainly, not the plants of which we exterminate whole communities without batting an eye. Certainly not of the animals of which we have already extirpated many of the largest and most beautiful species. A land, I think, of course, cannot prevent the alteration, management, and use of these resources. But it does affirm the right to continued existence, and, at least in spots, their continued existence in a natural state. In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conquer of the land community to plane member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow members and also respect for the community as such. So Downny there is a brief snapshot of what Eldo Leopold was talking about when he said that we need to have this this land ethic. What what does that mean to you? How do you interpret those words from Eldo and how has that kind of been played out through your life? Maybe? Wells Um, you know it's in a word, it's harmony, right, Um. In a word, he describes that we're not here, and you can you can hear it in his writing. Um, you know we're not here. Um. To use everything. Having a renewable resource doesn't mean that you use it beyond belief for selfish reasons to make your life better, your life easier, and to propel the mechanized world and and make your you know, your day, Uh, you know, less busy, less full of hard work. Um. It's it's much more about you existing within the land and contributing as much as you're taking and and being being one with the land. Right. It's it's um, he's absolutely absolutely. You can catch and keep a fish and enjoy a fish for dinner. You can shoot a dock and shoot a deer and um, and you can cut trees down, but certainly all of it, whether you're killing a deer or planting a tree or cutting a tree down, um, all of it has to be done with great wherewithal on what your contribution is and what you're taking away from the resource, and how you're belonging in the resource, not dominating the resource, belonging in the resource, and so um in my life it has been you know, I had to learn these things. Obviously I didn't have this in not genius enough for at all to have this in my mind as a young man. So as I learned these principles, things that we're stirring in the back of my mind started to make sense. Uh. You know, when I was coming when I had encounters with grizzly bears, or I had encounters with different animals and different situations in my life, I really appreciated them and and wasn't I just wasn't always this um for lack of a better term, bloodthirsty hunter. It wasn't. I just didn't want to just um kill as much as I could and take away from the land as much as I could. When I was in these places, I wanted to envelope myself into the place as much as I could exist with the wildlife, with the fishes, with the plant as much as I could and participate in the present. And I didn't. Again, I didn't know any of the stuff. And then I started reading his writings and some other writings and some other um conservationists and the hunters, that I started to realize that that that's where I was getting. I had some similar concepts in my head that that they were lining out. And of course he's a beautiful, brilliant writer, and he had tremendous respect for the smallest pieces of land, and one of the things he also had that I have no idea how he accomplished this, but he had a fantastic idea of the history of the land. And maybe it was easier back then, maybe there were such significant events that went on and there was such a small human population that you could really put your finger down on timelines and really lay it out. But he literally has such a mental timeline, such a date book in his head of when things happened and how big changes happened and why they happened. And like he's talking about the extirpation of these major animals, well, that's all of that is from overuse from human beings. Everything that he listed off, everything, the commonality, the one commonality is the human being. And um, we're the ones that create overuse. We're the ones that are burning down entire pastures for you know, what he quotes is no particular reason. Um, someone else, you know, the rancher, if you will, just picking this out. But the rancher might think he has a tremendous reason. I have to create more brows from my cows. Um, and this is how this all works. But for him, he's saying, there's there's a way to do this in harmony, and can you do with eight billion people on the globe. Absolutely not. So we've had to make we've had to make up you know, adjustments all along the way. And that's where you start to have these extirpations of animals, right when you when you realize that, you know, Minnesota used to have woodland carible in it. Why doesn't have littleland caribou in it anymore? Because the white tail deer pushed them out, Because the white til deer started become more successful, because the different edges that were being created. You know, people talk about back in the day, but there were so few white deil beer that if you saw one, you told everyone in town about it. And now we have them everywhere, and people think, oh my god, we're doing such amazing things with management. We now have deer everywhere, But people don't realize that this animal has become incredibly abundant because of the changes that we've done to the landscape, the force we've cut down, the fields that we've burned, the fires that we've stopped when they needed to burn, and thus these animals become overpopulated. And you can cheer about this and think you're the champion of bringing these animals to a greater population, but it really wasn't meant to be right. These animals thrived in a smaller population in a big forest. And I'm just using this as a single example, as people you know, are fixated on deer, fixated on this type of movement. But you see what I'm saying. There was a there was a harmony with each thing that we do. We are creating way more disruption than we are harmony. And I think that's where he really lived with his ideas. That's why his writing is so beautiful and so eloquent because you can see in his heart and in his words that he wanted that harmony. And when you read about it and see it, whether he's cutting down a dead tree or cutting up a dead tree, or catching a trout and putting in his creole, everything was done with tremendous wherewithal and it's it's a really fantastic notion to belong to. Yeah, yeah, agree. So, so Elda wrote this back in the forties, I think late forties or early fifties, and so he had these ideas and he was, you know, talking about this given the context of that time period and the impacts that have already been seeing at that timp here. But now fast forward, you know, sixty five years or whatever has been now when you're looking at the world we live in today and the situation we have with wildlife and land, do you how do you feel about this concept of the land ethic that although you know, recommended or hope described us to have we have we do you think we put that into play or do you see that we have not been able to find a land ethic from your perspective, No, there's there's no land ethic anymore. Um, that's that ship has sailed. That's why, UM, I think, I think so. I'm truly not smart enough to understand the variables UM around it in all the difference UM, society and human interests that come into play. But UM, there are definitely, certainly individuals, certainly organizations, and certainly areas of the world that are chasing this harmony and try to live in such harmony. But you know, by and large we have thrown that any sort of land epic out the window. And that's why you know myself, UM, that's why I I chase off to these places, right, That's why I love going to the Arctic Circle because while it's not the same unic circle that was there in n I still get to look around and watch caribou migrate, watch wolves hunt, and and watch grizzy beerris deep blueberries and big for the ground squirrels and I And that's why I celebrate the same fact of going and slipping into a tree stand or a ground blind or even off to the lease, because I might bump into a garter snake and I might plush it as an or see a deer, or see the black eyed Susans in full bloom, and just for that split second, which is very important to me, just to let split second. I kind of am experiencing an alleged harmony, right, I'm convincing my off that I'm in the woods. I'm outside. Um. Our lives are finite. The clock is ticking. I might die in my truck tonight on my way along. I might I might get killed in a car, I said, when we get off the phone with this, So I'm going to try to live the life. You're to live your life like you're dying. Is is a foolish concept. It's a fantastic idea, but none of us can actually do it. But anytime you can steal away one of those seconds or a moment or the present in the outdoors, I really think that you've conquered that that realm of wanting to live in the moment. And for me, all those little things are my little personal land ethic. Right. If I sit in my office and think about eight billion people, If I think about the Internet, Facebook, social media, Instagram, the elections, all the freaking nuts, so I try not to pay attention to any of it, um, and I try to just go all I try to just go about my life. If I could spend time in the wild places that I want to be and be with my friends and be with my family because it's very important to me. But I can share my life with the wildlife. And that's greaty as it sounds and business like, is this sounds if I could do that stuff and create films that that people really enjoy to see. If if you can't get to the Autic circle, but I can show you some sites from the Arctic circle. It really gives you goose bumps or makes you well up inside with your mind, or sit in the theater and and maybe kind of forget that your mouth is wide open or that you're even supposed to be breathing right now. Like that's the stuff that I really love, is trying to trying to celebrate this stuff through film. And you know, sometimes we're successful. Sometimes we fell so visibly it's not even funny. Um, but that's that's Those are the little times that I try to steal away myself, right I don't, I don't, Um, I just that that's hunting for me, that's hunting everything for me, and and um, there's a lot of hunting that's going on right now that's not for me, and I don't even care to talk about it. But that harmony that Aldo wrote about, um, that's what I want to chase the rest of my life. Yeah. So so for those people that that that resonates with, for other people out there right now that this whole idea resonates with. But to your point, if you sit and you look on the web, you know, if you look on the web, or if you watch the news or anything, I think you know, continue with Eldo quotes. He had some kind of he mentioned something in the lines of like the curse of having an education in ecology is the fact that you will forever live in a world with a million wounds, or with your eyes open to a world of a million wounds, you know, saying that when you start paying attention to the things going on to the land, to wildlife, to the environment, you all of a sudden open your eyes up to just so many things that are going wrong, and it can be like disheartening, it can be depressing. I'll sit here and then the more I've started paying attention to this, the more it's like, oh my gosh, it almost seems like insurmountable, Like how can we stop some of this stuff? How can we make a positive difference, you know, how can we create a world where there is some type of land ethic. I mean when when you sit and think about that stuff, what what is the answer? I mean for someone listening, what is the answer for that person? How can we all build a little bit of this land ethic in our own world? You have to contribute, right, you have to do the best you um Like, um, for instance, I'll talk about something so so, for instance, you have a quarter of an acre next to your house. It's just Kentucky blue grass. It's grass that you every Saturday morning you get up and mow that thing, and and you know, you sit on the riding on more. You push your riding on more half hoping that a sniper's bullet catches you on the forehead before you finish. But what if you took that little strip of land and planted, you know, grasses. What if you just said, you know, like this summer, I'm gonna have a project. I'm gonna kill this up. I'm gonna kill this Kentucky blue grass. I'm gonna plant grasses, or I'm gonna plant a little stand of of pine trees or whatever it is. Um, and you create a little strip of habitat next year house. You know, is that going to do anything ecologically towards harmony. No, but it's going to do a little tiny bit to the animals that are in your neighborhood. Is going to do a little tiny bit to the animals that live around your house, to your intrinsic value of your own home, because you'll see butterflies and you know, you know, you go out there, your son or your daughter and you're gonna see different song birds utilizing the grasses and you were seeing before and and even catching one of the glimpses of them, or experiencing just having some dichotomy in your life rather than just mowing that lawn. Is uh, you know, that's that's taking a step in the right direction. And I think, you know, we just have to go if you take a look around and you see all the ecological wounds of living with your eyes wide open, like Algo says, you know, you can chase yourself into disgust and despair, but really, um, you just have to try to be better. You make better decisions and and do everything that you can to try to perpetuate good And you should hunt the same way. Um. You know, if you're hunting for um, a four bowl elk, and you could care less how you do it, or you could care less the things that you see along the way. You just want to get this animal balance so you can snap some photos of it to throw it up on Instagram so all your friends can say what a badass you are. Um, that's just gross. It's just not It's just not the same hunting that that I think about. And we've all fallen victim to it. We've all chased the big animals. We've all um lost their way at times, that's for certain. But I think you just have to do little things. You have to chase the good. You have to be better than you are right now and just constantly try to make you know, make changes. I'm gonna do that to this you know, do that to this hunting least that I'm working on. I'm just going to try to make it better. Is me changing that twenty seven acre field going to do anything to the ecology of that neighborhood? Probably not. Um, it might do some really good little things. UM, I don't know. Maybe it's gonna have a greater impact than I think it is. UM, but I don't know. But I'm gonna try to just keep keep focusing on the good and keep trying to do good things. We we just so many people on the globe right now that it's just really hard to find some alone time and and some wilderness space and people. You know, it's it's um. It's one of the things that drives me most nuts about um. Anti hunters or non hunters that try to celebrate untouched ecology. They're just absolute fools about it. And it drives me bananas that you think, if we stop killing wolves, or if we never hunt grizzly bears, or if we um, I can't even think of some of the idiotic things that some of these people come up with. But if we if we chase some of these things, um, and you think that things are going to perpetuate into shangra law, are going to perpetuate into the the happy place that that Walt Disney creates in his sketches and in his art, Um, you're absolutely nuts. And it's to go the same goals for hunters guys that you know, I see guys with stickers on the truck to say smoke a packet day, you know, shoot all the wolves you can. It's just as foolish if you think that you're gonna do if you think you're going to come in and change ecology and change a particular area or spot by killing all the wolves, are killing all of the coyotes, You're you're a fool. You're an absolute fool. Are there places that wolves need to be killed? Absolutely? Are the places where kyles need to be killed. Absolutely. There's also places where deer have to be killed, and where you know, species of trout need to be killed out of a stream, or microbes that are killing the trout or plants. There's lots of imbalance. But celebrating any of those with absolute certainty, um just points out to me that you're clear cut a fool. Absolutely, if you think you things can be reduced to a single variable and that you're going to have an impact with your rifle a foolish. It all comes back down to that concept of harmony, right we That's like we have indelibly left our mark, you know, human beings on this earth. We've left a mark that can't be taken off unfortunately or fortunately however you choose to look at it. And because of that, there is a can right, there's a chance once we all die off and we had to restart point we you, you and I won't be here to see it, but it will happen, right true, in the in then more near term future, though at least like that. There's no way to wholly remove our influence on ecosystems and everything. That's all we can try to do is as best as possible, find some means of harmony and balance. But but that's the challenge. And to your point, I think anytime you try to skew that balance in the favor of one person or group's interests. You know, when you say, well, we don't care about X animal because we just want a lot of why I mean, you know, to the to the example you've shared, predators. I think that this is a dangerous thing sometimes that we as hunters get into when we worry about our competition. Understandably, there needs to be balanced, but at the same time, the idea of eliminating predators completely just because we want tons and tons and tons of tons of deer, will you lose that harmony there too, And then what what you're left with is not a holy harmonious ecosystem. And it is not natural and you lose something there too, And I think, UM, we've got to be careful to to know that, yes we need, we have to have a piece apart in this whole system. But at the same time there has to be balanced to m HM and certainly live you know, live your life, find your harmony, find find your interactions. You know. A few years ago, I was in the Arctic Circle and I happened to be fortunate enough to um get surrounded by a pack of wolves, and UM, could I have shot one? Absolutely how a wolf tag in my pocket there were ten yards away from me, had my bow. Um, I chose not to shoot one. I just did not want to shoot a wolf. Did not want to shoot a wolf in that instance. I didn't want to shoot a wolf on that trip. Right then, I was hunting moose. Fast forward a year, another gentleman that I know that was hunting the same region. He went in there with his hunting partner, and they shot two of those same wolves out of that pack. Um that had surrounded me. Either one of us was right or wrong. I did not choose to shoot a wolf. It was not um what I wanted to do. UM. He chose to shoot two wolves. That area has a healthy population of wolves, that pack is a healthy population of wolves, and he shot two adults out of the pack. M is the packing to feel it, absolutely is the packing to recover. Absolutely. You know, both of us lived on lives, Both of us lived in the harmony that we wanted to be in in that area, UM, and both of us had a different experience, but neither neither one of them was right or wrong. Yeah, yeah, very true. So I kinda want to wrap this up down we can. I could talk about this stuff for for really very long time, and there's a lot we haven't touched on that I would like to talk to you about, but but we do need to wrap it up. UM. I want I want to kind of get your final thoughts though on the message that you want to leave with people. I mean, when Donnie Vincent is dead and gone someday and you've done your work, what message do you want to have left hunters or people anyone who's seen your work or been influenced by you. What is that thing or concept or idea or message that you hope will be left to those people. You know, it's very very similar to all those message and that UM, as as I went through my life filming and writing and just experiencing and being in wild places either by myself are with people, that UM, I've really chased that harmony and it's more and more every day. And I don't know if it's because I'm getting older and wiser and more aware, UM, but that's that's exactly what I want people to, um, to hang their hats on. Is that. UM. The way I hunted off camera or on camera is the same for me and my interactions with wildlife and habitat and just being present with in wild places with just UM, I try to go forth every time with harmony. Obviously, UH, it's not always perfect, um, but but it's it's it's where I really enjoy it's where I really enjoy living, and it's it's how I really enjoy interacting and and UM, you know that's basically and I mean that that book means so much to me. Is writing means so much to me. It's I can't articulate as well as he can not, not nearly in his writings, but so much of his words ring true to how I live my life and want to continue to live my life. From here on out. Yeah, I can say the same things too. There's really a lot there to be um to be digested. And from what I from what I've seen from the work down, you think you're well on your way to to communicating that message as well. So I appreciate that. I appreciate what you're doing. And uh, and hopefully we'll we'll see plenty more in the future. Thanks, man. I really appreciate the time to talk. It's uh. I really enjoy speaking with you, gentlemen. Yeah, and I gotta say Dan actually had to drop off the phone call. As our listeners know, sometimes he has baby issues and he had one of those right now. So so Dan is attending to the family. But but from both of us, t Yeah, from both of us though, thank you so much, and uh, we'll hopefully talk to you again soon. I appreciate it. Mark, thank you. And there you have it. Another episode is in the books. And as we said before, if you haven't gotten to check out Elderlyopold Sand County Almanac, pick up a copy and give it a shot. You know what it's It's amittately a little bit dense at times. It's not one of those quick, easy fund reads necessarily, but if you're reading little bits and take it over time and kind of chew on it, I do think you'll find something very valuable there. So moving on, I want to thank any and all of you who have left reviews all this podcast on iTunes. That's been such a big help over the years, and I appreciate that feedback so much. I just want to take an extra second to to call all of you out and thank you. And I also want to thank our partners who have helped to keep this podcast on the air. Big thanks to Sick Gear, Redneck Blinds, hunter a Maps, Yetie Coolers, Ozonics, Carbon Express, Maven Optics, and the White Tailed Institute of North America. And finally, thank you for being with us today. I hope you were able to stick with us on this one as we've kind of weaved our way through these topics of conservation and giving back and having a land ethic. I know, you know that's not always as exciting or entertaining as talking about new strategies and hunting stories and all that good stuff, but but ultimately I do think it's just as important, if not more so. So I thank you for being a part of this ongoing conversation that we've been having over these past few years, and finally, until next time, thank you all and stay wired to hunt.

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