Ep. 1018: What Habitat Work REALLY Makes a Difference for Whitetails?

This is an iHeart podcast guaranteed human.

Okay, so you know T mobile 5G home internet is easy on the wallet, but here's some big news.

It's now the fastest 5G home internet, according to the experts at ucla speed test.

And yeah, it's a great value because you get a five year price guaranteed T mobile 5G home internet.

It's the fastest 5G home internet at a great price with savings that stick.

Check availability at t-mobile.com slash home internet.

Price guaranteed exclusions like taxes and fees apply.

It's the fastest based on ucla speed test intelligence data from the second half of 2025.

All rates reserved.

You ever get that feeling the walls closing in the concrete jungle suffocating you?

You crave some wide open spaces the chance to connect with nature maybe in a spot

all your own will head over to land.com.

They've got ranches, forest mountain streams.

You name it search by acreage.

You can search by location.

You can search by the kind of hunting and fishing you're dreaming of land.com.

It is where the adventure begins.

Man, I'm telling you what, when I need auto parts, I go to O'Reilly auto parts.

Here in my hometown of Boson, Montana.

Love those guys.

Always nice.

Always helpful.

They're in the business of keeping your car on the road.

O'Reilly auto parts offers friendly, helpful service and the parts knowledge you need

for all your maintenance and repairs.

They've got thousands of parts and accessories in stock in store or online.

So you never have to worry if you're in a jam.

Need your battery tested?

Windshield wipers replaced?

The brake light fix or a quick service?

They'll help you find the right part or point you to the nearest local repair shop for help.

Last time I was in there, it was for wiper blades and a brake light bulb.

Whether you're a car, aficionado or an auto novice, you'll find the employees at O'Reilly auto parts

are knowledgeable, helpful and best of all friendly.

The professional parts people at O'Reilly auto parts are your one stop shop for all things auto,

do it yourself and you can find what you need in store or online.

Stop by O'Reilly auto parts today or visit O'Reillyauto.com slash meat eater.

Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to the white tail woods,

presented by First Light creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand,

saddle or blind. First light, go farther, stay longer.

And now your host, Mark Kenyon.

Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, this is Jake Hofer.

On this week's show, we have Thomas Millsna who owns the untamed ambition to talk about habitat

projects you should be thinking about right now.

Welcome back to another episode of Wired to Hunt, I'm your host, Jake Hofer.

And today we're diving into a topic that I think a lot of dear hunters care about,

but sometimes struggle to prioritize.

And that's habitat projects that actually move the needle.

There's no shortage of things you can do on a property,

food plots, bedding cuts, hinge cutting, water holes, access improvements, tree planning,

the list goes on.

But the reality is not every project delivers the same impact.

Some projects create real measurable improvements in how dear you use the property.

Others sometimes just feels like busy work.

Today we're going to talk about what actually matters.

Joining me is Thomas Millsna from the untamed ambition.

Thomas has a biology background and has been spending years working with landowners across

the country helping them design habitat systems that not only improve hunting,

but improve the overall health of the landscape itself.

And that's where this conversation gets very interesting.

Because when we talk about habitat improvement, we often focus on bigger deer or better

opportunities. But the reality is that healthier landscapes can also mean healthier deer

herds.

And a time where hunters are increasingly concerned about diseases like EHD,

the role that habitat quality plays in deer health is something worth paying attention to.

So today we're going to break down what projects actually move the needle and how to do it

and why you should consider some of these projects for this upcoming season.

Welcome to Wired Hunt, presented by Multree.

Let's go and get into this week's episode.

Here we go.

All right, Thomas, welcome to Wired Hunt.

How's it going?

Great, great.

How are you?

I'm doing great.

We have a lot of excited things to talk about here today.

It's spring.

People are either relishing from a great season or even if they are,

they're probably identifying some different habitat projects that are going to help

incrementally increase their success for next year and maybe even five or 10 years later.

So I mean, a lot of different things.

There's a lot of different habitat conversations that focus on projects like

that will hit the high ones, like hinge cutting, food plots,

creating bedding areas.

But in your experience, what are a few habitat changes that actually move the needle

to improve your property?

I understand this is completely situational.

But on a high level of that, you know,

you consult for a living, you work on, you know, your own place and all these different things,

what is typically one of the biggest holes in the bucket that people need to get out the

flex seal and slap it on a bucket and fix it?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's a kind of loaded question.

You know, every situation is so different.

You know, in the complexities of every individual landscape or every area

are so different that it's hard to have, you know, that cookie cutter or generalized

answer to that response.

What I would say, you know, in every situation, our goal is always to analyze that objectively,

highlight the strong points, highlight the weak points of every property,

and then we prioritize that, you know, what is that low hole in the bucket?

When we are trying to build a property, we really focus on three main factors,

holdability, huntability, and management efficiency.

You know, our design element in and of itself is generally what creates the huntability side of

things. The holdability is somewhat related to the design, but largely related to the habitat.

And then the management efficiency is how effective you can improve and maintain

that habitat along the way.

So, you know, we're talking about springtime, things are green and up.

I was just in Southern Iowa, which is drastically different from here in the Midwest.

I mean, we're forecast to get eight inches of snow tomorrow.

But I get down there, I almost have like a little bit of a panic attack,

we're like, oh, spring is here, you know, like to bring us here, and we're not ready,

and all these clients are waiting to, you know, get ready to hit the ground running with spring.

But every single individual client property has different low hanging fruit, so to speak,

or that one project that's going to give you the most ROI.

When you go back to holdability specifically with habitat,

the common denominator that I've seen on every property I've been on this year

is availability of food.

And, you know, availability of food comes in a lot of different layers and levels.

More often than not, we're always thinking like, what's the thing that we can plant?

You know, what's the magic being or this food pot that we can plant?

Which in some situations that might be the low hanging fruit, it's usually the easiest thing

to address, which is largely why a lot of us gravitate towards that.

That's pretty simple.

There's a clear area there, or we'll push open this area, we'll plant this seed.

It's going to solve our problems.

But I think it's really important to emphasize and for the listeners to

consider or remind them, because we're all aware of this at some level, right?

But understand that when you look at the deer food pyramid,

the cultivated food sources, and that's how I categorize them, you know, food plots and even

egg fields, it's cultivated food sources, make up less than 20% of a deer's diet.

It actually probably closer to 15 or 10% most of the year.

So that's not the thing that's really going to move the needle for you.

It's all the other food groups in there, soft mass production, hard mass production,

native forbs and legumes, woody stems, bramble, stuff like that, woody vines, I was going to say,

bramble, and then your woody browse in general.

And then at the foundation of that food pyramid is your moss's fungus and lichen, which are part

of good habitat management, good forest and management in general.

And they kind of go hand in hand with the woody regeneration, which would bring me to,

you know, probably the top of the list in most situations, the project that's going to move

the needle the most, if a guy has an afternoon or a day to get out and do something,

it's going to be a timber stand improvement project of some sort.

That's going to, you know, get, I should back up.

Your priority or your objective with any timber stand improvement project is going to be to get

sunlight to the ground to promote regeneration, but it's not always a straightforward as that,

which is why, you know, it's important to have a good plan or really understand

what that project entails as far as like what you do and the results that you should expect,

which is going to be based on a lot of different parameters, right?

Aspect of that piece of ground, that particular area.

So, so let's back up.

If I, if I want to do a timber stand improvement project, and maybe I want to focus on

an area that could be improved for bedding.

So, I'm moving the needle ahead by improving cover.

I'm improving availability of food in a secure location, which is going to increase the

holdability of the property, especially when you're talking about mature bucks that are

more susceptible to pressure, right?

So, if I want to move the needle on that and I want to assess that specific location,

I'm going in there and I'm looking at, first and foremost, the aspect of that location,

which direction does it face?

Is it totally flat ground or is it a hill?

How much sun is it going to get when I punch a hole in the canopy here?

You know, in hill country where I am, you get a self-facing slope.

You don't have to cut nearly as heavy to get the same amount of sunlight in there.

But at the same time, there's different levels to your TSI that will promote the best response.

And ultimately, when we boil it down to management efficiency, we want to be thinking about

this project, but then how do we maintain that or get ourselves in a routine that

incrementally improves the property, whether it's this one specific area that we've improved,

or the whole property, you know, painting with a more broad brush.

But we don't want to fall into this trap of go cut a bunch of trees,

like you mentioned hinge cutting.

You don't want to go like hinge cut a bedding area and then think that you're done, right?

Like when I lay things out for the client, as far as like priority projects,

things that are going to move the needle, it's like, what can we do now?

And how do we do that in a way that is a one-time or money investment to push you forward?

But ultimately, how do we manage that from that point on so that we don't go backwards?

And that's what we see a lot on a lot of properties is, you know, it's a project we cut,

we do this thing, you know, maybe it's broad scale, logging project, whatever it might be.

But we go in, we create this disturbance, ultimately mechanical, maybe some chemical for cutting

and treating and removing invasives. But how do we keep that in a state that is either constantly

improving or at the very least maintaining so that it still offers that food value for deal, right?

What are some of those things for someone that's like, yeah, Thomas, of course, TSI, everyone says,

TSI is one of the most impactful projects I did it four years ago. And you know, it seems like

every year, you know, first, first two years, it was really good and they were using it and there

was a lot of browse and, man, I found two sheds in there, one shed season. And now it seems like

activity and use is going down. So like, what are the things to address of whether

undesirable species are coming back up or, you know, like, what are some of the things that you can

diagnose to where you've already done it and your year four into it? Like, I need to revisit this

because you're saying the management of it is almost as important as the initiation.

I would argue it's more important, for sure. You know, and that's where I have two demographics,

two multiple demographics, but two real main demographics of clientele. And both of them

have the same problems, right? You have, in your realtor, so you understand this, right? The cost

of land is not going down. No. The guys that can afford hunting land either are so busy with

their career that they don't have time to put into it or they're, I mean, ultimately it's the

same thing, right? Either they're a prominent business man that doesn't have a lot of time or

there's someone blue collar guy that works his tail off and either doesn't have a lot of time or

doesn't have an extra, a lot of extra cash to jam into the property to hire someone to do these

projects. Either way, I look at the same way. It's like, when we break these plans down into

different projects based on a timeline, you know, year one do this, year two do this, similar

like an equip contract, right? We're like, you're one focus on this zone, you're two focus on that

zone, but then go back and follow up on on zone one, right? And you get you in kind of this routine,

but that's where equip kind of falls apart because then just like, well, after three years and

you're paid and you remove the impaces, what do you do? So ultimately, prior to stepping into

any of those projects, we need to be thinking, what are we going to do as far as a controlled

disturbance to maintain some level of early succession in this area? And my approach, I try to

get really, really detailed on properties. So we'll look at specific betting locations,

specific feeding locations, you know, and various different types of food sources in general.

And we're trading travel corridors and so on and so forth, but between those locations,

we're trying to paint with a much broader brush so that we can manage at a more efficient level

because it's unrealistic to think that a client's going to go in and recut every betting area

on their property. Now, again, every situation's different. So if I'm a guy that has 15, 20, maybe

even 40 acres, you could do that. And you can do that. Yeah, exactly. And that's fine.

But I could argue that you could be a lot more efficient with your time having a manager plan,

right? And more productive as far as the regeneration and the response that you see from the seed bank

and the current vegetation. So ultimately, what it comes down to is before you create any form of

disturbance, you should be thinking, two, three, five, 10 years down the road, what is my follow-up

response to that to reset that area into early succession, which is going to promote a lot more

food value, right? But ultimately, or in addition to that, would be to govern the response of the

vegetation or what you're going to allow to grow. So TSI, to really boil it down and simplify it,

really for me, how I explain it to clients, TSI, the mindset you need to have with TSI is

termination or regeneration of what's growing there. And then am I bringing in some added

diversity to that location? Or am I just waiting for the natural native setting to respond

appropriately? Which, again, this might get in the weeds a little bit more, but what we know

more and more now, learning more and more now, is a lot of these invasive battles. And it depends

on the type of species, but a lot of these invasive battles are a result of soil at its core.

The soil makeup, how soil is evolved over time from lack of management or previous management

practices. For example, a property I just came from, old cattle pasture, right? So what happens

when you have cattle on a pasture for a long period of time is they're relatively selective of

what they graze, less selective of what they graze, but more selective of what they browse,

what happens most cattle pastures ends up being a sea of eastern red cedars,

multi-floor rows, honeysuckle, locus, honey locus, all those things that pop up that the

cattle didn't want to eat. So when you start to decrease the species diversity or composition

of vegetation on the property, the soil structure starts to change. In addition to that, you have

cattle that are conducive to ground compaction, especially if they're in a pasture under all

types of conditions and they're not rotated, they're just kind of let to do whatever they want to do,

right? So there's all these things at place. So if you go into a project and say,

another thing that could move the needle quite a bit for someone, depending on their situation,

if they have decent timber or maybe the adjacent property just got logged, so there's some decent

browse that's going to be taking place there. But maybe their property has more open area,

they don't have a timber project that they can even do. So maybe that property moving the needle

there would be increasing the native forb production in open areas. But just going in and killing off

cool season grasses, your seed bank response is likely not going to be desirable because a lot of

things are suppressed or have been killed off over time, and even just going in and throwing down

seed, which is not cheap, preennial native seed is not cheap. Fantastic investment. Don't

want to discourage anyone there. But just throwing that down and expecting it to do its thing

isn't always a straightforward either. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, but it's a role of a

dice at a cost of 300 to 400 some of my dollars per acre for a diverse preennial forb mix, right? So

when we look at that from that standpoint and kind of start with the foundation, again,

we're looking at the soil type, we're looking at the soil moisture content, the current species

compositions, how much sun it's going to get when we open up the canopy. And really at the end of

the day, it just all boils down to having that plant. Like how do I get ahead of this? You know,

whether it's timber stand or it's prairie, as simple a thing as like before I go and plant this,

what is going to be my next round of control disturbance? And if it's something like fire,

which I don't argue about. Exactly. So you know, that's going to be the most efficient.

Then it could be as simple as like, well, I don't want to start managing that area unless I know

I have good access to it. So maybe I need to put a road system in first. You know, and that might

not require a bulldozer onsite. It might just mean a weekend with a chainsaw and cutting a path

where you can follow up a year later with a backpack leaf blower or drive a UTV through a certain

area, you know, to get access to the top of the hill or the back corner of the property, stuff like

that. Access is going to be, we talk about this all time, right? From a hunting perspective,

access is so incredibly important. From a management perspective, I would argue it's even more

important because if you're not accessing certain areas of your property, then you can't manage them.

And not efficiently, right? If you're doing everything manually on the ground, hiking back and forth,

doing all these things like young strapping dudes like us can handle it, right? But then you hit that

certain point in your life where you can't or you don't have enough time. And if it takes an extra

day or actually half a day to prep that, then that project won't fall into a weekend project list

per se, right? So I kind of went down a tangent there, but I think you kind of understand where I'm

going. There's no like straightforward, easy response or approach, but I think the biggest thing is

is thinking like, I want to do this thing, but what's the next step to maintain this thing? It's like

I can go buy a nice chunk of land, but if I can't afford the taxes on it, how is that sustainable?

Or if I buy my truck and never get the oil changed on it, that's not sustainable either, right?

So then your time investment, your monetary investment, starts to decline, and then you look back

and like, well, did that really move the needle? Now, on the other side of that, you know, that's

talking like long term mindset, long term planning, right? But if we back all the way up and go all

the way back to the original question, like, what's that one thing I can do now that's going to move

the needle for me this fall? Depending on your situation, you know, maybe you have a property that

has relatively poor habitat, but it's still holding deer because deer are general species. They

need food and cover, food plus cover equals habitat. And a lot of situations right now, what we see

is that this concept of habitat, right? Where you have cover here and food there, and that holds deer

on the property. It's not a sustainable long term resilient ecosystem by any means,

but if we're talking right here, right now, what do I do to move the needle? Or maybe,

maybe you're a person that doesn't have control over the property to begin with, maybe your

permission base. And you have, you can do limited improvements, but you're not in a position to be

putting together a 20 year management plan, right? And you have deer there. I think that the primary

thing to consider is if you have deer currently, or, you know, probably not currently if it's poor

habitat because it's probably not there in February or March, right? But ultimately, if you have

mature buck activity or the quality of deer that you're willing to put your tag on activity on

your property, right? Because everyone's goals are different. But if those deer are there, but you're

not connecting with them, then it might be, you know, a simple, you know, to move the needle is like

dropping some trees or hinging some trees to create a barrier. And that's where I like, when it comes

to management and hinge cutting specifically, I love hinging trees to manage or to manipulate

movement, not necessarily to create food value. I don't want those trees to stay alive. I just

want them to stay off the ground so they don't rot to create a natural barrier that maintains

for the next 10 plus years, right? And in time, that'll kind of fall apart too, but you can a lot of

times condition deer to move through certain areas. So like an example, I can think of actually,

if you dial back two years ago, I probably four years ago, I did a big timber stand improvement cut

on an area of our farm. And it moved the needle for sure. You know, we had a logger in, we took out

some dead ash, we thinned some hickories, we released some oaks, turned into a nice bedding area.

I hunted the fringe of that bedding area a couple years after that, and we were already seeing

pretty dramatic improvements. Traumatic increase in forage value in that location, increase in cover,

told in deer, pretty straightforward. But what happened is on stand, I had my target book at 55 yards

going to get a shot, right? Okay, so if you're in that situation, and maybe you didn't do a

prior improvement, but that's the situation. You've got an area that hunts well to a certain extent,

but you have a lot of close calls, or you just can't cross paths with deer, they blow right through an

area. That's where you can go in and what I did ultimately was I created a mox grape set up in one

spot, and I felt some trees, some ironwood, some lower quality trees in a different area to force

the deer movement around a certain, you know, a barrier essentially, right? To force them around,

so now all the movement flowing through there is within shot distance. Now when the deer are there,

as long as I'm there at the right time, I'm set up for success, and that's a relatively quick

project. So again, every situation is a little different, and when we analyze these properties,

we want to look at it that way is like, what can we do to move the needle right now? Knowing that

there's an overhaul coming to this property, but an overhaul doesn't happen in one season, right?

So how do we break that down, and then what are the low hanging fruits? Is it adding a food plot?

You know, I was on a property yesterday, and there was multiple food plots throughout the property,

you know, and on their map, they had two previous consultants on the property, so they had good plans,

and looking at the map, everything made sense. Oh, you've got all these food plots there, like, how,

what do we need to change on the property? And then walking the property, it's very apparent,

there are the food plots themselves were not great. Like the condition of the plots was not,

it wasn't anything that's going to be super, super attractive to the deer specifically,

and we can talk about that in a minute or later on, right? But ultimately, the food plots weren't

that great, and the surrounding habitat was terrible. So if you think that you're going to pull deer

into your property with just a food plot, but you're not holding deer to begin with, then that's not

going to move the needle for you. But if you're holding deer, and you put a food plot in the right

location, and it's an attractive food source there, that can really move the needle, right? But it's

not a long-term thing either, because every year you're looking at going back in and redoing that

some capacity or maintaining that some capacity. What's, you know, for the end of March,

first two weeks of April, what is the window of TSI, or what are time-sensitive projects that are,

like, man, if you're going to do this, and it kind of somewhat of a blanket statement for,

you know, the corn belt, or like, or even you can throw in Michigan, Southern Minnesota,

Southern half of Wisconsin, what are either the, what's the window of TSI, and second question of

that is, what are time-sensitive projects for the end of March to the first two weeks of April?

Like, if you're going to do this, you need to get it done. Well, this actually is not a great time

to be doing some certain TSI project, so I'd emphasize that. If you have a property that doesn't have

a lot of invasive pressure, then you can do just about anything, you know, cutting trees. When

you go back to what I was saying earlier, you know, this idea or decision you want to make as far as

I want to regenerate this specific species or terminate this specific species, right?

Right now is a great time for regeneration. When you cut a hardwood,

deciduous species, when it's dormant, it's got the bulk of its energy load in the root system,

so when you cut it then, it will regenerate with a lot more vigor when it comes out of dormancy.

Inversely, right now, these trees are kind of starting to wake up a little, you know,

also sap, starting to flow. Guys are tapping maple syrup. Like I said, I was just down

to eye what things are already turning green. So on the other side of that, if I'm trying to terminate

any given species, now it's not a good time to do that because if I try and cut and treat with a

chemical in that vascular system is moving the energy or the sap from the roots up, it's going to

push most of that herbicide out and you're going to do a lot of work and your efficacy is going to be

dramatically lower. So it's kind of, I don't want to say waste of effort, but in many ways, it can be

because you might think you're doing this thing that's one and done and it's certainly not. So

this specific time of the year, I would avoid, you know, and you'll know if you're cutting trees

and they're sap pouring out of them when you cut, then it's definitely not a time to be cutting

and treating anything. But if you're just trying to cut to create instant cover or structure on the

ground with that top, maybe feed the deer some buds right now, late in the winter and then set

yourself up for hardwood regeneration or, you know, herbaceous growth that's going to come from

getting the sunlight to the ground. Now it's definitely a good time to do that. That's what I

would be focusing on more than anything. You know, right now we're what I'm personally doing across

client properties, what my clients, what I have them doing is we've done a lot of the bedding area,

cuts and stuff already. So we're kind of working our way back now and we're finalizing and setting

ourselves up for the food plot side of things where we're feathering edges, improving the edge

structure. Maybe we're prepping for tree plantings where we're trying to peel back some of the

non-desirables and plug in some, you know, more specific attraction-based species in there.

And then we'll segue into pulling soil samples, prepping for food plots and so on and so forth.

Not to it, man. There's a lot to it. And that's the thing. It's like, it's hard to be like,

just go do this one thing. It's going to solve all your problems, right? That's just not the

reality in most situations. Most properties have that one thing that can exponentially move the

needle forward. But there's, like I said, with the complexities that are out there,

it's not easy to say, like, this is that one cookie cutter plan or idea that you should overlay

on your property and expect to see the same results that that guy saw or that guy saw. Yeah.

You've heard about T-Mobile 5G home internet. Mostly for how easy it is to set up and then the

value that you get. Well, there's some more big news you should know about. They now have the

fastest 5G home internet speeds. That's right. T-Mobile now has the fastest 5G home internet

according to the experts at ukla speed test. That makes backing up photos from your latest hunt,

streaming a new documentary or pulling up a wild game recipe super quick. And yeah, it's a great

value backed by a solid five year price guarantee and setting it up is still as easy as it gets. You

just plug it in and go. So if you want the fastest 5G home internet with a simple setup at a great

price with savings that stick around, get T-Mobile 5G home internet. Head over to T-Mobile.com

slash home internet to check availability. Price guarantee exclusions like taxes and fees apply.

Fastest based on ukla speed test intelligence data over the second half of 2025. All rights

reserved. Man, I'm telling you what, when I need auto parts, I go to O'Reilly auto parts.

Here in my hometown of Boson, Montana, love those guys. Always nice. Always helpful. They're in

the business of keeping your car on the road. O'Reilly auto parts offers friendly,

helpful service and the parts knowledge you need for all your maintenance and repairs. They've

got thousands of parts and accessories in stock in store or online. So you never have to worry

if you're in a jam. Need your battery tested, windshield wipers replaced, the brake light fix

or a quick service. They'll help you find the right part or point you to the nearest local repair

shop for help. Last time I was in there, it was for wiper blades and a brake light bulb. Whether

you're a car, aficionado or an auto novice, you'll find the employees that O'Reilly auto parts

are knowledgeable, helpful and best of all friendly. The professional parts people at O'Reilly auto parts

are your one stop shop for all things auto do it yourself and you can find what you need in store

or online. Stop by O'Reilly auto parts today or visit O'Reilly auto dot com slash meat eater.

That's O'Reilly auto dot com slash meat eater.

Texting privacy policy in terms of conditions posted at texting terms. US texting rolls you for

a current amount of text marketing. That's just message your data is my apply or play. Stop

doubt. Visit ISA online for details. Tired of the nine to five grind, looking for something

different that's flexible, fulfilling and pays well. How do you like to get paid to work out?

Now you can with ISA the global leader in personal fitness certification.

There's a huge demand for certified personal trainers right now and once you get ISA certified,

they guarantee you'll get a job. Trainers can make as much as $100 an hour. Yes, I said $100 an hour

and with ISA you can be certified in as little as six weeks. You do everything at your own pace

and 100% online. Pursue your passion in specializations like yoga, nutrition or strength training.

Get certified and live your life on your terms. Work at a gym. Start your own business or

a side hustle. Whatever works for you. Just don't wait. Get your free personal training evaluation

kit today. Get certified in as little as six weeks and ISA guarantees you'll get a job. Text

gym to 32 32 32 text gym to 32 32 32 gym to 32 32 32. I mean, yeah, I completely agree with that

and I've been on a bunch of different farms and it's sometimes you can almost categorize farms

to to where depending on I mean, most of most of where I'm at is obviously Illinois. So it's

like I can kind of categorize different farms here in Illinois. So let's run through a scenario

for someone that they did not have a great season. You know, they had night pictures of bucks.

They didn't find really any many Sheds sign was pretty lackluster but you know during peak rut,

you had just enough hope and excitement to keep you out there but it's like looking

inversely like, man, you know, something has to change if I want to increase my odds of success.

So in that scenario, I'm picturing average below average habitat, you know, the field,

you know, there's aground nearby but you know, there's really not enough room to have a true

destination food source. I mean, with something like that, is it an uphill battle that can,

that's worth hiking up the hill in that scenario and hopefully that's enough context where you can

picture a farm like that. I think realistically, more farms than not fall into that category if it's

not strictly managed. Yeah, 100%. You know, I would go back to, you know, this is just operating

under the assumption that someone has full control over their property, right? Not necessarily,

like you said, maybe they don't have the space or it does come down to the time and the budget,

right? You know, I talk about that food pyramid and then directly related to that, I've got my time

investment pyramid. Like where should you be sticking your time on your property that's going to

have the longest and the highest ROI returned on that investment? You know, when I have my discussion

with clients, a lot of them, money's not the issue per se. It's the time, right? And even if they're

willing to hire things out, it's like you can only get so much done in a year. So we want to look at

all the different parameters there. But if you have control over the property, every situation is

different. To be honest with you, I don't, I almost rarely, rarely promote destination style food plots

on properties. If there's egg in the area, the ROI and it just isn't there. It's just not.

So if you had, let's run the, okay, so someone has, I'm going to, I'm going to put, I did a podcast with

Dr. Bronson Strickland and like the break even on a big food plot, he discovered I want to say it was,

he's a three or six acres, I think it was six acres. So Thomas, I have six acres that I can do whatever

the heck I want to do. You're not telling me to plant six acres of a corn and bean rotation and leave

it for food. That's, that's what you're getting at because that's kind of a portrayal. Yes, it,

well, and again, it's all relative. If there's egg in the area, okay, let me add a caveat. There

is egg in the area and you flip a coin, whether they put anhydrous on it in November or if they work

the field as soon as they pick it, like, sometimes they do it, sometimes they don't. So like, you can't

bank on that nearby act. Well, and here's where I've, what I've boiled it down to, okay, and there's,

and my journey is obviously different from a lot of guys out there talking about this, right?

I'm looking at things, I'm trying to look at things objectively in every situation and not just

say, this worked here, let's do this here. And then ultimately, you know, I'm looking at this from

the long, long game perspective. Where has dear habitat come in the last 10 years, right? I think,

I think it's been a great thing in the industry in general as far as like bringing a lot more awareness

to improving habitat for deer. But I also think that we've gone off the path of long ways when

we start to consider corn and beans as deer habitat. Period. Deer food, your food. It's deer food.

Yes, it's deer food, but even the ROI on that and the cost of that, you know, what

from a holistic standpoint, right? I'm a holistic land manager and I say that in the sense that I

emphasize and everything I do is based on managing systems in not individual species or individual

plants. Where do deer fit into the system that they're a part of, right? Deer, they manage the

vegetation on the landscape, they cycle nutrients through the landscape. So they are definitely

part of the system. Where do hunters fit into that part of the system? We manage the deer and we

manage the landscape, right? So we have to figure out this balance as far as like what problems are

being caused upstream? What can we do to mitigate those? And how do we stop causing problems

downstream? Right? So let's talk about where maybe we have gotten off track and I'm giving you

the opportunity to say like, hey, maybe we should think twice about this management practice or

that management practice or like everything you're saying is long term, right? And I think

inherently two-of-a-fault deer hunters are one year-minded next year. Yes. You got any good bucks

hunt later this year? And then like that's, you know, bad is two-of-a-fault deer hunters.

Well, and I, yes, and I don't want to pretend like I'm like that much different from

everybody else out there, right? I used to say that I, I used to remember my past based on

the rock albums that were released by the artists I followed, like back through, you know,

back, you know, people listening, probably even know what CDs are anymore, right? But that

I used to think about that. And now it's on the target book that I pursued, right? I can think

I'll think of how I remember what year it was. Like my wife was like, what year did we start dating?

I was like, I, 2008, I can tell you exactly when you started dating. How do you remember that?

Because I remember the deer that I didn't kill the day that I didn't go hunt to go meet you

at college. I got to dinner. I was like, I remember that deer played his date, right? So I'm in

the same boat. And you know, to back up on it, again, I think that our biggest issue, the biggest

issue is that we have, we're trying to follow, you know, and I don't want to like beat the food plot

horse to death, right? But with food plots, and now it's kind of starting to extend into habitat

management as a whole, we're trying to follow this mindset or this conventional management mindset

in mirror conventional agriculture, right? And if you take a step back from that,

there's nothing really great about how that's, how that's helped our country,

how it's helped our environment, all these things, right? The only benefit from conventional

agriculture is it's efficient in the sense that you put so much in, you get so much back out.

But it's failing us as a society as a whole, right? We're not producing the healthiest foods.

We've got the highest disease rates we've ever had as a country. Our health care costs are

through the roof. And if we turn around, we take that same model and now we're employing it to

farm for deer, create deer food, where do we sit right now? We've got the sickest deer herds we've

ever had in this country. In some areas, there's way less deer and other areas, there's way too many deer,

but we're setting ourselves up for this long-term failure because our ecosystem resiliency is at

an all-time low because of biodiversity. So to back up to the question, the conversation with

Bronson, the food plot size and stuff like that, where I've shifted our last five or six years

is these bigger destination food plots. If we're planting a ton of food, a cultivated food source to

feed deer, right out of the gate, our mindset is failing us. We shouldn't be cultivating an insane

amount of food to feed deer per se. Now, having a supplemental food source, post-route early winter

into the winter, I think it's advantageous. Ultimately, I always refer to them as seasonally

attractive food sources. So what can I plant there that's going to ensure that deer aren't leaving

the property, especially during the hunting season, and ultimately pull them into the most

huntable or accessible areas on the property so that I can keep pressure off of the more sensitive

areas. I talk about this all the time with clients. Ultimately, when we're scouting a property,

we're looking for or looking to create the most accessible pinch points possible. There's

two types of pinch points that we look for or look to create. And ultimately, my goal is to always

create some hybrid version of the two. We have a physical resistance type pinch point, like I alluded

to earlier. Maybe you're dropping some trees. Maybe it's a river crossing, a hole in the fence,

topography, ravines, all these things that restrict deer movement on the landscape and choke deer

down. If you go out and try an engineer a spot like that, it can go against you if you try and

choke deer down too tight. So the other side of that is an attraction-based pinch point. We're drawing

deer in. It can be a food plot, it can be a water hole, some sort of limited resource. When we

hybridize a pinch point, it can go from either angle, right? So we hybridize that. We want to choke

deer movement down to a certain extent and then draw them in the rest of the way. It's like kind of

trying to get your parents to change their mind on something. You have to kind of plant the seed

and influence it and ultimately has to be their decision. If you try to get a mature buck to

choke down into a small gap, he'll do it, but not very consistently. I've watched it many times

where these deer get in these spots and get nervous. They back out, maybe they go wide,

you know, and then you're out of the game. So if you can choke them down to a certain extent,

draw them in the rest of the way. That's a beautiful thing. With food plots, we do this in many

different ways, right? We can draw them into a big area, but maybe we feather the edges and create

barriers, force them to enter in one end or certain areas. That makes that three or four acre

food plot hunt like a quarter acre, a half acre, and then we know where to set up. But ultimately,

the issue that we see that I see more and more is this mindset of planting more food for deer

that's annual food versus perennial food. So there's a concept we talk about frequently

that is permanence, right? Like what's something you can put down that's going to be more

permanent on the landscape. Now, nothing's truly permanent, right? Because everything's evolving

and changing. But what's something that's going to last more perennial type system? So what I've

done a lot the last couple of years and all the designs I drop now, we've shrunk down these six

acre food plots and stacked our food plot, created a system where stack our food in one area that

ultimately has a lower footprint, a smaller footprint. So instead of planting four acres of food,

because let's be realistic, most of those big destination food plots have to be four acres

because the browse pressure is so high on them that if you want to get one or two acres of

standing beans to last through the hunting season, you have to start out with four acres, okay?

So what is the cost of that? Management efficiency, what is the cost of that? I can tell you the exact

cost of that. $350 to $450 per acre, probably on average for beans when you start talking about seed

cost, fertilizer cost, chemical costs, right? Yeah. Corn's even worse, $400 to $700 per acre.

Probably, right? Yeah, depending, you could probably make an argument that $77, $7, $8, or $900

depending on the chemicals and treatments and fertilizer and corn's pretty hungry crop.

And to anyone listening that's planted corn the last two years and it's like, that didn't cost

me that much. Just wait, just wait, because corn pulls a lot of stuff out of the soil and doesn't

put a whole lot back in the soil, right? And that's a whole other thing too. So let's actually

talk about the cost of a food plot like that. On average, depending on your planting practices,

but on average, corn and beans are responsible for about two to ten tons per acre of top soil loss

on an annual basis just by trying to force a monoculture that doesn't protect the soil between

the rows. You lose a lot to wind erosion, you lose a lot to water erosion. Where does that end up?

Right? That ends up silting in these ponds that are catching runoff. On top of that,

the chemicals that go into that, where do those end up? Right? Those end up in those ponds,

they end up in the groundwater. Now, take this whole other level. What happens to those ponds?

Right? Anyone who's listening that's dealing with or terrified of the next year ahead with

EHD, potential EHD outbreaks, maybe took a huge hit last year, hopefully the deer that survived

our immune to it now did not just avoid getting bitten period, because you don't want two,

three years of that in a row. One year, sometimes it's actually probably a blessing in disguise to

help reset things as much as it hurts, but ultimately, where is that coming from? What's the problem,

the root cause of that when you look at the landscape? I can argue, again, objectively analyzing

these landscapes, being on many properties that had EHD issues and seeing the weak links in all

these properties, it comes down to biodiversity. So, a simple thing, and to go all the back to

the food plots, and where my mindset is, and the strategies I employ, and this is the same thing

that we use to combat EHD, to combat CWD, to combat whatever the next nasty diseases. In the

south, I've got southern clients that were bracing for impact with the new world screw worm.

If you've read anything on that, right? This is a potential issue coming down the pipe, too.

Fly lays an egg in an open wound, and basically that worm eats that deer alive. So there's

things like that out there. It's moving through the cattle industry and whatnot. But anyways,

the way that we combat that is by increasing native plant diversity on the landscape.

TSI projects a lot of times can be overwhelming for people, and harder to manage.

I think that that's where most people should be looking to move the needle. But if you do, and this

is kind of our approach, if you take that six acre destination food plot and shrink it down to a

super efficient two acre system, and then you take the remaining four acres and plant that to

the hoxie native seed, native perennial food plot mix, right? Just throwing that out there.

You know, a native food plot or native corn mix. So like for someone that's like, what is that?

Why would I, you know, take up precious food plot acres for something that doesn't look really

awesome, like from the drone or, or, you know, it's like the deer is going to be selectively

browsing in there where it's like most times probably don't even know what they're really eating,

because there's so many different things popping up. So what's in that that is truly attractive enough

for someone to give up acreage? Well, and that's the beauty of it, right? So we go back to habitat,

food plus cover equals habitat. The beauty of native habitat, hardwood regeneration,

native forbs, is there's a huge amount of food value in there. The timing of the year isn't

the same as a food plot, right? That's why I say food plots are seasonally attractive food sources.

The food will use the native forbs, for example, right? So,

pollinator planting, flowering forbs, like if you just whittle it down, like if it's a wild flower

flowers, it's a weed that flowers, that is most likely a forb or a legume. Those from a deer perspective

directly to the deer offer a ton of food value specifically during the growing season.

So to start out, you have a perennial plant with a significantly deeper root system

that is evolved over the last 400 million years plus to supply those animals with the

right amount of nutrients that they need, deep root system, mining minerals, the fiber ratio in

there with the protein, all these things are perfect for those deer. And that might be one bite of

that plant today and not for a week, right? But when you have a lot of diversity, 30, 40, 50 different

species growing in any one given area, those deer are in there every day throughout the growing

season. And the reason I bring up that native food plot mix from Hawksy is because there was a

lot of thought put into that to engineer that to get the most desirable, most palatable deer species

in there. And that starts to lose its attractiveness and food value going into like mid-October time

frame, which sets you up perfectly to pull deer into your food plots because they become more

attractive. But at the same time, it still maintains the level of cover. So what we do on most of

our properties now is we're shrinking down our food plots and we're filling that void on the outside

with perennial food sources like that. So we're conditioning deer to flow in those areas,

providing a lot of, you know, it's basically like creating a big feathered edge or buffered edge in

these areas as the transitions in, you know, and adding shrubs in there. If we want to create better

lines of movement, we plant rows of shrubs. How tall does that make skit?

Most of the time, you know, and again, it's going to be dependent on the conditions, right?

You know, the soil type and whatnot. But most of the time, what we see, there's

a much taller than that. Really? I would say, you know, there's species in there, but there's

a wide variety. So you're going to have shorter, statured species like some of your like prairie

clovers and stuff like that that are only going to get a foot or two tall. But then you're going to

work your way up to like golden rods and asters and stuff like that that are going to be three to

four feet tall. And then you're going to get up, you know, there's some grasses in there,

some extra structure and some cover and grass in it. I think. Yep. Yep. You know, but ultimately,

you're going to get, I mean, there's things in there that are five, six feet tall, depending on

how established they are on the soil type. And why I love it is because from a deer perspective,

like the best deer cover out there, especially in a transition zone, is eye level high on a deer.

They can stand in it. They can feed. They feel safe and comfortable. And then you take a hunter

and you put them at an elevated position, even, you know, like if I have a box blind set up near

a food plot like that, I like to keep them relatively low, five, six, eight feet off the ground,

not too high, but now you're looking down into that. So you can see everything. But the deer feel

super secure and safe in there, right? But from a deer perspective, directly feeding on a huge

advantage, but that's not the point I'm trying to make here with with this whole system and the true

cost of it, right? So we go back to the disease mitigation and managing a system as a whole.

When we increase the vegetation or the diversity of plant species on the property,

we increase the diversity of insect species on a property, okay? When we do that, it's the same

thing for deer. If we only plant food plots that are attractive in the fall, then we shouldn't

expect to have deer on the property all year long, right? So if we increase our food,

look at that whole total food pyramid, have a lot of food sources, we condition deer to stay on

the property year round, or at least the bulk of the year, maybe they're coming and going, but

they're always anchored to that spot. The same thing goes when we look at insect diversity,

if we have a lot of insects on the property, now we're anchoring and holding insectivores on the

property. So our predatory insect population like dragonflies and predatory wasps increases

exponentially. Our bird population increases exponentially. Our bat population increases exponentially.

Why is that important? Because when mid-summer rolls around and the biting midge that spreads

EHD works its way up from the south and creeps further and further north, bites a few deer lays

some eggs in the mud, waits for that next hatch. When that hatch takes place, if we have these

predatory animals, these insectivores on the landscape, they clean up a hatch really quickly.

And maybe you lose one or two deer, but these flies aren't running rampant. It's not 80, 90 percent

more tall. Correct. And then there is experience. Yes, and then they go lay these eggs in the mud

again, and the next cycle is even worse, right? So instead, there's one round, and mostly it's gone,

and we were talking about this earlier. On properties that have really good biodiversity,

we don't have EHD issues. Clean and simple. And it is a snowballing effect because the sediment,

topsoil that ends up in these ponds, that's part of the problem, the chemicals that end up in these

ponds, the chemicals we put on the landscape, they all affect all other things. There's a lot of

collateral damage with them. Now, and I'm not entirely anti-chemical, right? It's just like

what moves the needle. If we're just putting a lot of time and money and thinking that a two or

four or six acre bean or cornfield is going to change the game for us, we're setting ourselves up

for failure. And I can take that to a whole other level on that too, because if we're creating

these plots like that, specifically a standing grain that is super attractive in the winter time,

right? What we're doing is we're pulling deer and increasing the concentration of deer on the

landscape during the time of year where conditions are at their worst. The resources are at their

lowest point in the season. So it's easy from a deer manager standpoint to be like,

this is awesome, right? And there's consultants out there to talk like this. You want a big

food plot because you want to pull deer in from all around late the season. Well,

if you're in an area that has CWD, do you want a high concentration of deer on your property

during the winter? And I'm sure there's people out there right now rolling their eyes

as well. CWD is not real thing. You said the three letters. Yes. And now I'm speaking from the

perspective of someone who has dead deer on their farm every year from CWD. Okay, so I think it's

also important to understand like if there's people out there that are trying to poo poo the threat

of CWD, if they're not directly dealing with it in their scenario or on a client property,

then they shouldn't be talking about it. Playing simple. That's my perspective, right? Now I'm not

in the mindset of the sky is falling, right? You know, I don't do anything any differently to be

honest with you for CWD. We still need really good habitat management. Why? Because it keeps deer

spread out and keeps them healthy. You know, it's the diversity of the diet, the diversity of the

nutrition that they receive throughout the whole year and the consistency of it that's going to

keep them healthy. With that habitat comes the balance in that system. So we're mitigating things,

not just the EHD spreading, biting midges, but things that increase pressure on deer,

mosquitoes, biting flies, ticks, all these things cause problems for deer that can all be

mitigated by increasing the biodiversity and having more predators on the landscape that consume

these pests and these parasites. That's kind of your blank. These parasitic animals, right?

But ultimately, with CWD in general, like keeping those deer spread out is a big part of it.

But that's not even the whole issue that I've been seeing more and more and more across properties.

So again, sorry, we've been going on a tangent here, but you back all the way up and like,

if your goal is to improve your property for the long term, and this is all as my goal of clients,

is what can we do that's going to be incrementally improving the property without this like two steps

forward one step back or more so one step forward two steps back is what we're seeing more often

not. These big standing grain attractive late season food sources, what they do is they pull in a lot

of deer. So that in and of itself is a problem. But something like corn, when you look at it from

an nutritional standpoint, it's not very good deer food. It's a very fast burning carbohydrate,

you know, deer ferment everything in their system, right? So it burns fast, but it's no different

than people. So if we go eat a ton of carbs or a ton of sugary stuff, do you ever feel full or

you just want to eat more and you want to eat more, right? Like you go out to eat dinner and you

know, you go to and specifically in America because of our drains and how they're grown, right?

You go out and like eat a bunch of pizza, you wake up the next morning, you feel like garbage,

but you're just hungry again. You just want to eat more and more and more. You're never satiated.

You have to have protein in your diet to feel satiated and deer are the same way. So if they

go out and they eat a bunch of corn, you're pulling all these deer in. Now you've got all these

deer from miles around that have pulled in and what are they doing when they go to bed down during

the daytime? They're just mowing down on your native habitat and setting you back. I mean,

this property that I was just on, when you want to highlight or emphasize the weak link on the

property, you know, of the food sources that we grade properties on, we look at cultivated food

sources, we look at soft mass production, hard mass production, native forbs and brows,

or native forbs and legumes, bramble and woody vines and woody brows. And then at the base of that

is mosses, lichens and fungus, okay? When we grade all that and we explain it to the client,

we're looking for those low points, bottom hole in the bucket. This property I was on yesterday,

I brought the client over and it was explaining the brows issue, but it can be deceiving because if

you don't understand the species you're dealing with, it looks like there should be brows and it

should be covered because there was plenty of brush and a lot of areas in the property, but it was

almost a hundred percent Japanese barberry, multi-floor rolls and northern prickly ash, which is

not an invasive, but shows up with lack of fire, lack of management. On this property, the deer were

eating, like if I had to guess, feet, feet worth of the canes off of the multi-floor rose.

I mean, the response where multi-floor rose was browsed down to about a foot off the ground and

the stem was like a dime size. And the same with the bush hunt or the northern prickly ash, I'm

just like, if deer are eating this, that's a problem, like that's a big problem, right? So it kind

of explains that, you know, to move needles. So ultimately, that's a good spot check for people

that maybe the next time they're going out to the farm, look at for the brows line and look for what

they're browsing. And if you see a row of cedars on the edge of the field and they're off every,

you're like, okay, well, we have, we, this is something needs to get addressed. Yeah, 100 percent.

You've heard about T-Mobile 5G home internet. Mostly for how easy it is to set up and then the

value that you get. Well, there's some more big news you should know about. They now have the

fastest 5G home internet speeds. That's right. T-Mobile now has the fastest 5G home internet

according to the experts at ukula speed test. That makes backing up photos from your latest hunt,

streaming a new documentary or pulling up a wild game recipe super quick. And yeah, it's a great

value backed by a solid five year price guarantee and setting it up is still as easy as it gets. You

just plug it in and go. So if you want the fastest 5G home internet with a simple setup at a great

price with savings that stick around, get T-Mobile 5G home internet. Head over to T-Mobile.com

slash home internet to check availability. Price guarantee exclusions like taxes and fees apply.

Fastest based on ukula speed test intelligence data over the second half of 2025. All rights

reserved. Man, I'm telling you what, when I need auto parts, I go to O'Reilly auto parts.

Here in my hometown of Boson, Montana, love those guys. Always nice. Always helpful. They're in

the business of keeping your car on the road. O'Reilly auto parts offers friendly, helpful service

and the parts knowledge you need for all your maintenance and repairs. They've got thousands of

parts and accessories in stock in store or online. So you never have to worry if you're in a jam.

Need your battery tested? Windshield wipers replaced? The brake light fix or a quick service?

They'll help you find the right part or point you to the nearest local repair shop for help.

Last time I was in there, it was for wiper blades and a brake light bulb. Whether you're a car

aficionado or an auto novice, you'll find the employees that O'Reilly auto parts are knowledgeable,

helpful and best of all friendly. The professional parts people at O'Reilly auto parts are your one

stop shop for all things auto do it yourself and you can find what you need in store or online.

Stop by O'Reilly auto parts today or visit O'Reilly auto dot com slash meat eater. That's O'Reilly auto dot com slash meat eater.

Texting privacy policy in terms of conditions posted at texting terms. US texting rolls you for a

courting on a bit of text marketing. That's just message delivery is my apply or play. Stoped out visit ISSA online for details.

Tired of the nine to five grind looking for something different that's flexible,

fulfilling and pays well. How do you like to get paid to work out? Now you can with ISSA the global leader

in personal fitness certification. There's a huge demand for certified personal trainers right now

and once you get ISSA certified they guarantee you'll get a job. Trainers can make as much as $100

an hour. Yes I said $100 an hour and with ISSA you can be certified in as little as six weeks. You

do everything at your own pace and 100% online. Pursue your passion and specializations like yoga,

nutrition or strength training. Get certified and live your life on your terms. Work at a gym,

start your own business or side hustle. Whatever works for you just don't wait. Get your free

personal training evaluation kit today. Get certified in as little as six weeks and ISSA guarantees

you'll get a job. Text gym to 32 32 32 text gym to 32 32 32 gym to 32 32 32.

But it's a snowballing effect and that's why I like I don't you know my job

at least the way I explain to clients right is like we're gonna take this thing

you know we kind of started the solder we alluded to it many times like there's a lot there's a lot

here to talk about right so let's take this thing that's super complex and intimidating for

people who have intimidating that this is all new to them right now. Well in a set of trying to

dumb it down to be like you know and this is something that we were talking about earlier and I've

heard it many times from different consultants different foresters like well it's not worth the

battle fighting these invasives you're never gonna get ahead of them and that's just blatantly

false it is blatantly false if you have a good management plan starting with the physical

setup the physical structure and components of a property and access included vegetation included

right starting there and working your way up it's very very doable it's very very doable and if we

ignore it in its entirety and just say let's simplify this just focus on a food plot that thick cover

that's being produced from those invasives is advantageous to us because it holds dear it really

does right any form of cover next to any any any type of food will hold dear I mean you can drive

through I've got a client up in Duluth Minnesota you drive through the Duluth Minnesota at any given

day and there's bucks bedded down behind wood panel fences and people's backyards and they're

feeding on bird feeders and introduced alien shrubs in their yard is that good dear habitat right

not really it holds dear point being is we we don't want to oversimplify things to the point where

it's just like cookie cutter by this do that we want to take this complex thing and boil it down

and I do think at the end of the day it's pretty simplistic it's just like focus on native diversity

and then the species types you know basically the the amount of structure and cover that you're

going to produce in any given area of your landscape is going to be based on the species and

the disturbance intervals or the return interval of the disturbance right so the more frequently

you disturb it with good management you know I say that because you can disturb and everything

can turn into grass right but the more frequently disturbed generally speaking the more food value

that location is going to potentially have so like food plots fit right in that same equation if

I'm doing an annual food plot I'm in there once a year maybe twice a year doing a couple things

for that it provides pretty good food value but it's very narrow in that timeline versus like

timber stand improvement where maybe we go in and reset with fire maybe you can't run fire through

there so you do have to do some chainsaw or bring a mulcher in brush hog it off during certain times

of the year that you know something you do every three to five eight years you know it just depends

on on the growing conditions but that resets things gets back to early succession and in that

that's how we kind of govern the amount of structure versus food but ultimately we want native

habitat because it provides food and cover together which is truly what habitat is at the end of the

day one question that will go to quick rapid fire here um more of a more of a request than a question

give give these folks right now a sense of words of encouragement of like because when the people

hear this like so you're telling me I had to do more than just do my fall food plot to really

be a true um advocate for for the landscape and to your point like the farms have really good

habitat they typically seem to be more resilient to EHD than the ones that have been degraded

so give a word of encouragement this effort is worthwhile because for a lot of people they're

gonna have to go down a wormhole start learning a lot of different skill sets which I like I get

excited about that what do you say to them well you know there's an evolution

of a hunter right we've probably talked about it before I know I know for sure Mark has talked

about it on this podcast right there's hunters go through this evolution where you know they're

just trying to get close to deer and they're trying to kill deer and they're trying to kill a

specific deer but ultimately as land managers we go through this evolution I see this with my own

clients you get to a point where the enjoyment the bulk of the enjoyment comes from

working the land at some level or some capacity right and that could be a small thing and that's

where I you know food plots don't generally move the needle but I understand it it's kind of a

gateway drug into land management right yeah because it's like you do this thing and if things go

right and you have a good plan or a decent understanding you know and that's where I would argue

like having a better understanding allows you to be more flexible and adjust your plan versus just

like this cookie cutter chain of events that we follow and pray for rain and hope it works right

but ultimately if you're in this and you're enjoying it you start to get to this mindset where

you're trying to build something that's truly long-term and I ask my clients straight up every time

like is this a long-term legacy type property or is this you know maybe it is a lease property

but or is this just like a cure and now I want to make the most of it the next five seasons maybe

it's just a land investment I'm gonna flip it I don't want to put a lot of time or money into it

and I totally understand that too but I think the biggest thing for people to think about or to

focus on is this concept of permanence or perennial systems like what can I invest my time in

money and right now that's gonna move the needle for me maybe it doesn't move it a ton this year

but maybe after a couple of years of implementation and initial management you know so like the native

native food plot blend for example so let's let's prep for that let's plant it the first year we

keep it mode knees to ankles knee high mode down to ankle height that reduces annual weed pressure

stuff like that the next year we don't do anything and by year three it's like alive and rocking right

so once we get that set up then it's just you know every few years we touch it either with fire

or moat and we have a system there that's feeding and improving the resiliency and the the

quality of our whole system but it doesn't talk it doesn't take any more time or money after that

so that's it finally at a point where like we've done this thing here now we can move away from it

yes we have to revisit it right we always have to maintain but it's moved the needle incrementally

forward in a way that's not just like well we got to do it all over again next year and all over

again next year so I really back to the food plot thing I really emphasize with guys like building

perennial systems to where you know maybe something happens business family not enough time not

enough money you could walk away from that for a year and it's not going to change the dynamic

of how your property hunts period you know a lot of my clients right now are in our generation a lot

of them are popping out babies left and right they're starting businesses changing businesses you

know they're doing all these things and it's like the conversation I have with the client yesterday

is like this this is awesome like everything that you're telling me makes so much sense at this

point and they're a little bit disheartened from the fact that they wasted 10 years from these other

consulting plans that were just like a list of projects do these projects you'll see the needle move

but ultimately he said it straight up he's like what we need to figure out is who's going to do the work

and how are we going to pay for it right and that's a whole nother level of it too and we can go down

that rabbit hole I mean a big thing I do with these properties is we're looking for ways to create

more cash flow on it outside of you know again like a project based income like a you know logging

project or even the limited cash flow that comes from renting out cropland right you know

and in your great a great advocate and educator on like the equip and CRP programs and that's the

other beautiful thing of you know and not to give them too much credit but you know that that

perennial native food plot blend from Hawksy falls into a polymer planting for CRP so if you're a guy

that has row cropland that you want to improve habitat you can get paid per acre to plant

a perennial food plot for your deer and it's a beautiful thing when you pull out general

general continuous is open right out so yes it does yes get in there but ultimately it comes down to

like thinking about you know there's the short-term things there's long-term things you know put

this water hole in do this thing like how do you maintain it moving forward but the mindset shift

that comes with thinking long-term as far as like where can I invest my time of my money now

that's gonna set me up or more so maybe even set my children up for success right I think that's

the big thing that we're we're overlooking more and more and more now is you know we're just

focused on how do we kill a deer this season but if we if any of us take a step back and objectively

analyze the current state of affairs things are not getting better they're not getting better

right they are in the sense that like the I do think that there is a mindset mindset shift happening

in the industry pushing more on habitat beyond just food plots stuff like that but where it stands

right now the current the conventional practices that are being pushed and preached and promoted by

some of the biggest voices in the industry have not been setting us up for success and if you take

a step back and look at those objectively and go is that guy's mindset based on permanence or

product sales and that's where we fall in this trap and myself include I sell food plots to

my clients for a living and not necessarily for a living you know it's supplemental income sure

but I'll be the first one to tell you like we should cut your food plots in half and pay for

this one time expense that you can set yourself up for that's gonna increase the resiliency of your

property across the board you know and there's a lot of it there and there's a lot of

opportunity out there but the mindset to go all the way back the mindset of like invasives are here

they're not going anywhere we just have to deal with them is complete BS you know another another

example of that is read canary grass is another good one for a long time the the conventional thinking

there even within like NRCS and some of these government agencies was you can't get ahead of

read canary grass it just is what it is right so anyone that has a wetland area that has read canary

you know that provides a decent amount of cover during part of the year and then most of

yours just lays out flat and zero food value right so we're actually working with Hoxie on creating

some wetland mixes but what I bring this up is I want to just tell people like first and foremost

there is a very effective approach to mitigating read canary grass and secondly when you look at

ecosystems and their potential productivity we we rank things on a parameter referred to as net

primary productivity how much dry matter or forage production is produced with any specific habitat

type and when you look at different habitat types and what is the most efficient or the most

productive water is the number one nutrient there so the the wetter the habitat type the higher the

net primary productivity so when you have a wetland area on your property to just especially

and I'm thinking this because I have a call coming up here in an hour with a client that 50% of

their property is a wetland area all reaconary grass and these are trees like is there like maple

scotten woods fastwood trees or is it around around some of the edges yeah other than that it's like a

mat of reaconary grass and almost completely flat the other 50% of the property rolls into this

really cool like ungulated topography with some little peaks and ridges and stuff like that so it

sets up really well it's like you got food you could have a lot of food in the swamp and a lot of

betting up here and even adding structure and stuff in that swampy area you know it's not like a

a true true wetland it's more like seasonally wet right sure it's wet enough that it's choked out a

lot of stuff at reaconary is thrived as what it is but you know something like that from a

productivity standpoint has the potential to not only increase you know dramatic amount of

biodiversity on the property which creates resiliency but ultimately feed your deer in insane

amount so you don't need to have five acres of alfalfa on your property to feed the same tonnage

to those deer and at the same time it keeps them all spread out throughout the whole year not

concentrated around those only food sources on the property real quick for someone has

reaconary what what is the book as fast as possible I want to be respectful of your time what's

the biggest way to get rid of it again you got to be thinking management so first and foremost you

got to if you can burn if you can't burn you got to figure out a way to create burn break around

the perimeter of what you're trying to burn and what I would tell people in this you know is

another big thing that I preach is like the more you can cooperate with your neighbors is

better off it is because sometimes it's it's a ton of time and money to create a burn break

cross middle of a swamp if the property line is there but if you talk to your neighbor and say hey

can we just access on this and maybe we do a collab and we do this together right so that's

one side of it but ultimately timeline there you want to be thinking is you want to burn

you know in the springtime or late summer you want to burn off the fatch later the fatch later

and then a fall treatment of herbicide is critical like cliff at him either clef or or even just

glide you know so and I tend to lean on glyphosate a lot more you know glyphosate's been in the news a

lot negatively but it is the lesser of all the evils I will tell you that right now all of those

herbicides have downstream effects or soil residual effects glyphosate is the least of our problems

it just becomes more problematic with repetitive use right so like food plot wise we try and peel off

the chemicals as much as possible once we get food plots established different topic of conversation

but in the fall specifically it's important because when those plants are starting to go dormant

and and reaconary grass has a very rhizomist root system it's you know it essentially creates like

a turf barrier very similar to turf grass but like insane and another mistake I see guys make

is like well I went I worked up that area when it was dry don't do that every time you bust those

roots in half you just multiply that you know you you cut that worm in half and it regenerates into

two worms right so you don't want to approach it from that sampling you want to fall treatment

over herbicide and that's why I like gly it's cheaper it's equally or more effective in general

but it's the timing of it and you want to hit any cool seas of grass in general if you can hit it

after a cold stretch in the fall when it's still warm you know worms back up and it's still actively

growing with a a full your herbicide like that the big thing is in the fall it's going to grab that

herbicide it's going to draw it down in the root system and usually in one year a lot of times

two years you can wipe out most or all that reaconary by doing that if you try and burn it and spray it

right away in the spring it's hit or miss because it's pushing a lot of energy up and it's actually

growing it's a lot harder to kill so that's the protocol that we follow and you know now with

drone sprayers and stuff like that it's a lot easier to get that done you know your conditions

and also with gly you know you can get wetland approved gly which has a different type of

surfactant built into it but ultimately you can use the herbicide at the most effective time and

not be limited by the ground conditions per se or even like the pressure it puts on your property

instead of living in zagon out there with an ATV or you know bigger equipment or god forbid you

have to do it with a backpack sprayer and that volume right it'd be terrible a drone guy can do

it super efficiently in and out and out with it but it the the key thing there is you got to reduce

the fetch layer so you get better contact with the herbicide and then a fall treatment of the

herbicide is a really good way and if you get into the part you know I usually would give it at

least a full year to make sure once you get to that last fall treatment then you can go right in

there a lot of times in broadcast in that perennial blend and it's got the whole winter to cold

stratify and it'll get a big boost the next year so that's that's our operating procedure in there

and you know again there's a lot of layers to it depending on site conditions and you know individual

landowner goals and such but that's very effective okay real quick rapid fire most underrated

habitat tool in your arsenal hmm most underrated habitat tool in your arsenal I mean obviously it's

easy to say a chainsaw or a drip torch right but I think I think we talk about those a lot now

and people are starting to catch on to it um yeah I mean you know again it it kind of starts with

that foundation sometimes the most underrated habitat tool is just a plan plain and simple that's

fair that's fair you know I mean because again like we we don't want to be thinking like project

project project and setting yourself up for success you know the burning thing always comes up

and and I have this conversation with every single client are you willing to burn do you want to

learn about burning some guys have done it they're all for it some guys are apprehensive some guys

are completely against it for various reasons uh usually they've had a traumatic experience

guy a client that uh had a house burned down oh my god it's just like I don't even want to think

about running fire through here and I always try and ease their mind I'm like I'm not saying this

to brag I just want to give you something to relate to I did all of my personal burns last year

with my four-year-old daughter my eight-year-old son they were the only staff I had right

and I see that keep labor very very very cheap not super effective they're mostly spotters right

you know I park my daughter on one corner safest spot she can be in you watch that fire line if

that fire gets across it you yell for dad son can go on the other side he's a little bigger

can make better decisions give him a shovel electric leaf floor if it hits the fire line put it out

if you can't get it out get out get out of there yell for dad pretty straight forward but

ultimately what it all comes down to is having a really good plan laid out yeah you know we've got

a good plan I know the timeline there I've got the you know I I could also say like you know

an underrated habitat tool be a bulldozer right if we cut in burn breaks or a mulcher

cutting in a burn break or a skit steer chain saw you know all that falls into their backpack leaf

creating access points in burn breaks something that's easy to maintain where you know

oh the conditions look right today I throw on the leaf floor go out zip a perimeter around that

I'm ready to burn and not like this ongoing thing where it's like well it's all this prep that comes

it you know with that but ultimately having the plan laid out and it's no different than how we hunt

right it's like if I'm a guy that only has like you know that one week out of the year that I can

hunt my property and I have to really be dialed in I'm looking for a very specific set of

conditions to go into some of those really really productive spots and if I hunt them at the wrong

time it can cause problems for the whole property right the same thing goes with a burn plan or any

plan is like if I have everything laid out in front of me where I understand the the timing that's

going to promote the best response then I'm just sitting back and wait for the conditions to be

right and I can jump and go do it right now you know maybe I've got an hour at the end of the day

well zip up there relatively easy right and I need more an hour to burn most of the time not

the burn itself but the mop up afterwards right but but even that's like oh we've got the right

conditions today and rain's coming tomorrow I'm burning and I'm going to watch it a little bit

and I'm going to sleep a lot better knowing that rain's hitting you know at the wee hours of the

morning to prep everything else but yeah you know again drip torches great chainsaw you know

it's probably going to move the needle for more people more than anything else but that's short

term if you don't have a long term plan so I would argue and we could whittle it down to having a

plan a good plan and I'm not saying that from the the viewpoint of like you need to hire me but

you should write things out on a piece of paper take your map lay it out look at every

individual area of your property and go okay what do I want this to be what's it going to take to

get there and then what's it going to take to keep it there or how do I reset it because you know

again painting with a broad brush there's going to be properties where you know maybe you're

all they're doing is managing via timber harvest okay well then don't harvest the entire hundred

acres in one or two years stagger it break it up a whole bunch in a mosaic so they're in there

every five years and you have a rotation in there right and again you got to stay ahead of the

invasives that's a big problem that we see on these properties where they just go in and cut heavy

and there's no management plan because then you don't get any good regeneration and then you're

talking a lot more cost per acre to get ahead of it down the road when you decide that

or come to the realization that it's a problem essentially yeah most overrated habitat practice

and then and then that's it most overrated habitat practice you know I don't want to jump on this

bandwagon but I would definitely say hinge cutting is right up there why is that well you know

again I don't I don't want to be I don't want to generalize too much I I definitely

employ hinge cutting and utilize hinge cutting and promote hinge cutting to a certain extent

but when you're hinge cutting I think it's important that you want to look at hinge cutting and

again what is this going to turn into years down the road a successful hinge

is very problematic down the road in the sense that it's it's hard to manage it's a hundred percent

manual reset of that hinge so if you're a guy with a small property or even a big property and

you have like a handful of very specific hinge cut areas bedding areas screens whatever however

you create those then you just have to have that on your reoccurring schedule of every X number

of years I'm going in there and I'm recutting that right versus going in flush cutting or cutting

like powdered cutting cutting at different heights and stuff like that to encourage regeneration

at certain levels and that can be managed a lot more easily either resetting with fire or just

going and cutting like one fell swoop whatever it might be where hinge cutting I think is the

most effective and how I utilize it the most is that back to where you're talking about creating

barriers or obstacles in some sense when I hinge cut to create a barrier I don't want the tree

to stay alive so I'll cut it as far the way through as I can to keep it hanging on and sometimes

I'll even hinge cut it and I'll girdle it below the hinge or usually girdle it first and then hinge

it so it's easier to get access to but ultimately I just want to keep that tree off the ground because

I want a barrier there that doesn't rot away in three to five years and also keeping it off the

ground creates a little bit better barrier also right but if I keep it off the ground out of the moisture

less bacteria less less bugs there it lasts a lot longer I'm creating structure that lasts a

long time so if I go in a bedding area I might hinge one or two trees in there but I'm not doing it

to keep them alive I just want instant back cover and I'm understanding that in time it's going to

fade you know it's not going to be a permanent solution but I would definitely argue hinge cuttings

you know it falls right in those parameters of a project that creates more work for you down the

road and I've been on so many properties where there's these nasty hinge cut messes that you know

basically it becomes a tree with way too many stems to try and manage again and then around it

is filled in with invasives it's hard to access those spots and it becomes a tangly mess and then

the mature bucks just don't like them as much you know the the those we'll talk in there the

bucks will bet on the backside of it but they don't generally get into it and I say this you know

again people will listen to this and be like wow that's bullseye BS you know I've seen that on my

property it worked every area is different right it's all relative to the area but as far as

things that I think are way overblown or way overdone are like massive hinge cut projects for sure

well Thomas if someone's fired up and wants to learn more maybe wants to get a plan

where is the best place to get hold of you and anything else you want to plug here

yeah well hopefully I didn't just confuse everyone or turn there there's some

confusion right here but hopefully sparks curiosity yeah yeah well you can reach out to me

Instagram is probably social media where I'm the most active the untamed ambition

my website is probably the best place you know if you if you're serious and you want a plan or

you want to have a detailed conversation the best thing is just go to my website schedule a

free call that's the untamed ambition dot com awesome well thank you so much thank you

you ever get that feeling the walls closing in the concrete jungle suffocating you

you crave some wide open spaces the chance to connect with nature maybe in a spot all your own

we'll head over to land dot com they've got ranches forest mountain streams you name it

search by acreage you can search by location you can search by the kind of hunting and fishing

your dream enough land dot com it is where the adventure begins man I'm telling you what when I

need auto parts I go to O'Reilly auto parts here in my hometown of Boson Montana love those guys

always nice always helpful they're in the business of keeping your car on the road

O'Reilly auto parts offers friendly helpful service and the parts knowledge you need

for all your maintenance and repairs they've got thousands of parts and accessories in stock

in store or online so you never have to worry if you're in a jam need your battery tested

windshield wipers replaced a brake light fix or a quick service they'll help you find the

right part or point you to the nearest local repair shop for help last time I was in there it was

for wiper blades in a brake light bulb whether you're a car aficionado or an auto novice you'll

find the employees that O'Reilly auto parts are knowledgeable helpful and best of all friendly

the professional parts people at O'Reilly auto parts are your one stop shop for all things auto do

it yourself and you can find what you need in store or online stop by O'Reilly auto parts today

or visit o'Reilly auto dot com slash meat eater that's o'Reilly auto dot com slash meat eater

when you're in the back country don't forget your own back country keep it pristine and

confidently cleaned by bringing along wet extra large dude wipes just like a truck gets

muddy out in the wild soaking your butt you never clean your vehicle with dry paper towel so

why would you clean your butt with dry toilet paper wetter cleans better so ditch the itch and

switch from tp to wet extra large dude wipes dude wipes it is the best clean pants down they're

available at amazon that's where i usually order mine from but you get them at Walmart nationwide

fantastic product proud to be doing ads for these boys at dude wipes this is an i heart podcast

guaranteed human