Ep. 1047: Back 40 – Affordable Habitat Projects That Actually Work

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Hey, what is going on?

00:00:00
Speaker 2: This is Jake Hoefer and welcome back to another episode of Back forty. We have four guests, one question, and this week we’re talking about what are the most affordable habitat projects that actually work? So we can come up with a million different things that you could potentially do, but the eighty twenty rule, what is the twenty percent effort that may help you have eighty percent more success?

00:00:21
Speaker 1: And they have to be affordable.

00:00:23
Speaker 2: So I hope this helps folks throughout this upcoming season on planning out priority list. A lot of these things are expensive and so we wanted to focus on what is affordable and what is impactful. Once again, we have our cast of four guests for this episode. We have West Elks, Steve Hansen, Jake Ellinger, and Sam bill Horn.

00:00:41
Speaker 1: Each of them have a little bit.

00:00:42
Speaker 2: Different habitat terrain, a little different issues they’re trying to solve or overcome. And to kick things off, we’re going to start with West Elks with Higgins outdoors. He consults on a lot of farms every single year and here we go. All right, Wes, welcome back to Back forty. We have another burning question for you, and you know I feel like when it comes to managing a property, it gets really expensive, really fast. There’s all these things that you can do, and we talked, we previously talked about what you avoid it all costs, but now you know, let’s say someone has a fixed budget. You know, they’ve they’ve stretched to get whatever hands on a piece of property, whether it’s a lease, they knocked on doors and you know, have exclusive permission, or they bought a farm. And ultimately, in your opinion, what are some of the most affordable projects that actually make the biggest impact, Because I mean, I could rattle off some cheap projects, but I don’t know how much they will really make a true impact. So with your own experience, what you’ve observed from even clients that farms you’ve been on and like, man, that was a very affordable project, and you know, they have the opportunity to show you the success that they’ve had.

00:01:54
Speaker 1: Tied to that. So what is cheap and what works? Is the simplest way to say.

00:01:59
Speaker 3: This, Yeah, cheap is relative, but I can tell you what’s effective, And I would say encouraging and discouraging deer traffic is something that ninety nine percent of hunters are not doing but makes an incredible difference in their deer hunting. And I talk with so many hunters that I would consider conservative hunters, and they’re sticking to the edge that they’re blowing their wind into areas of lesser deer likelihood. But when it comes to November, they are banging their head against the tree because they’re seeing deer, they’re seeing the bucks that they want to but they’re eighty ninety one hundred plus yards out and encouraging and discouraging deer traffic. To me, is the number one thing that a deer hunter can do to improve the huntability of the properties that they’re on. And it doesn’t have to be expensive. It takes a lot of work, it takes a lot of sweat equity. But champions are made in the off season. I don’t care what sports you follow. If you watch NFL, NBA March Madness, they didn’t win that championship the week that they showed up. It came through a year or even a life of committing to their process. And champions are made in the off season. And if you’re showing up to November hoping to kill a big buck each year, but haven’t put in the off season efforts to make that possibility or reality.

00:03:43
Speaker 4: Like I said, it’s a recipe for frustration.

00:03:47
Speaker 3: And what I mean by encouraging and discouraging deer traffic is encouraging deer traffic to me, is making the path of least resistance by any and all means possible for the deer, selecting a stand location based on access and wind, and then doing everything that I can to make a deer walk within twenty five yard.

00:04:15
Speaker 4: I like them close.

00:04:16
Speaker 3: I don’t want them at forty I want them at twenty twenty five yards. And so I will encourage deer traffic or I want it. And that might be using a chainsaw and cutting a trail and then coming back through with a backpack sprayer full of round up in a residual.

00:04:35
Speaker 4: That might be.

00:04:36
Speaker 3: Creating a creek crossing, getting in there with the skids deer and excavator, grading the banks, maybe bringing in some rock and making that creek crossing a shallower crossing. You can do a lot of things to encourage deer traffic. Put in a big culvert across the ravine, create a land bridge. Those are all opportunities of making the path of least resistance. But what I find is even I would argue even more effective is discouraging deer traffic. And discouraging deer traffic is the exact opposite of what I just talked about. Is I want to create the path of least resistance for the deer, but I also want to create the path of most resistance for the deer, and that means building brush blockades.

00:05:30
Speaker 4: To me, what a brush blockade.

00:05:31
Speaker 3: Is is Donald Trump and I are on the same page when it comes to walls, and I like good strong walls. And what I will do with a timber project or along a edge is cut some low value trees, push them together with a skid steer and a grapple, and then hinge cut into it. And I don’t I’m not talking about a brush pile that’s knee high. I’m talking about a rush wall of a brush blockade, and that funnels a lot of deer traffic. So brush blockades lining up round bails. A lot of people think round bails are expensive. One thing that I’ve done is my warm season grasses. So I’ve got switch grass and giant miscanthus fields across my property that I want to burn every three or four years, and There’s a kid that lives down the road from my house, and he’s got a round bailer, and the week prior to the burn, I will come in and have him cut and round bail my switch grass and giant miscanthus to where it’s eight ten inches stubble swear can still carry a fire. But last time we did that here on my seventeen acre switchgrass giant miscanthus patch, that gave me one hundred and twenty three five foot round bails. So one hundred and twenty three three times five, that’s a significant distance of discouraging deer traffic. You line up one hundred and twenty three round bails, you’re gonna have a deer trail on either side. That’s the reality of it. Other opportunities would be on a property a couple of years ago, I dug a. You can call it a pond, you can call it a water hole, you can call it a trench, whatever you want to call it. I got in there with an excavator and one hundred and fifty yards long, dug a call it a waterhole. And so one hundred and fifty yards on the edge of a food plot, this water hole that is about four foot deep and probably ten to twelve foot wide. A lot of traffic going around the two ends of that water hole. I think of another guy.

00:07:52
Speaker 2: How long, real quick, how long? How long do you think those round bils will last? The one season grass?

00:07:57
Speaker 4: Yeah?

00:07:58
Speaker 1: Good questions last some time.

00:07:59
Speaker 4: Yeah, I’ve got a buddy that did it sixteen years ago.

00:08:02
Speaker 3: And with those five foot round bails, they’ve the wind and the weather has significantly brought those round bails down to probably maybe not half their height, but significantly smaller. They’ve absolutely degraded, but there’s been little trees that grow up in them, and yeah, there’s some places where they can.

00:08:23
Speaker 4: Get through, but you can go through there and put.

00:08:26
Speaker 3: A small cattle panel or something like that, and they’re the vast majority of traffic is still going around the end of that.

00:08:34
Speaker 4: So, and it depends on the quality of the bail that you’re using.

00:08:38
Speaker 3: I mean, you want to use a good binding material in the hay that you’re using is I think switch grass and giant miscanthus is. It’s a lot it’s going to take longer for it to break down than a low quality hay.

00:08:54
Speaker 1: So but yeah, for.

00:08:57
Speaker 3: Seeing all my Buddi’s property, that’s sixteen years letter it’s still effective. That’s long enough for me to be like, yeah, that’s fourth of my time.

00:09:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, that’s pretty fascinating.

00:09:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s that’s a creative and affordable way to cover a lot of distance versus because I was waiting for you to say fence, I was like, well, fence isn’t super cheap, but it does last for a super long time.

00:09:18
Speaker 3: Well, fences is not cheap. But you can go to Rural King and they sell cattle panels. Hog panels are a foot shorter. Cattle panels are a foot taller, and they come in sixteen foot sections and they’re normally about twenty five bucks a pop if you buy ten cattle panels. So you’re looking at two hundred and fifty dollars and you line up ten cattle panels, I mean, if you can make the two hundred and fifty dollars investment and like, it’s amazing what you can do with ten cattle panels.

00:09:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that’s you said they’re sixteen foot long yep to one hundred and sixty feet es. Yeah, I mean that is actually that adds up relatively affordable. Yeah, to cover that much distance and super easy to install as well. It is you were gonna bring up someone else for an example, and then and then we’ll wrap it up here.

00:10:12
Speaker 4: Just a client that comes to mind.

00:10:14
Speaker 3: Whenever somebody asked me about encouraging discouraging traffic is always brings a smile to my face. As he owned a junk yard, so there was school buses and RVs and old trucks and cars around, and I pitched this idea of things that we could do on his property to make it better. And I had these green lines where I wanted to encourage deer traffic, and I had these red lines where I wanted to discourage deer traffic.

00:10:43
Speaker 4: And he goes, well, how about a school bus there?

00:10:46
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, absolutely so.

00:10:50
Speaker 5: I mean.

00:10:52
Speaker 3: Some people make excuses and some people find solutions. That’s Don Higgins quote, one of my favorites. And if you can find do what it takes to manipulate dear traffic past those most conservative locations, you’re gonna have a lot more success.

00:11:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I love it.

00:11:10
Speaker 2: Where where can people follow along with what you have going on? Because I think these are all really great piece of advice, and I feel like someone could have a general idea and maybe they have a follow up question for you, because everyone’s situation is a little bit different.

00:11:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, I suggest listen to the Chasing Giants podcast with Don Higgins and Terry Peer. Or you can follow me on social media on Facebook or Instagram which is just Wesley Delks, or you can reach out to me via email which is Wes Wes at real World, Wildlifeproducts dot com. And I’d love to talk with you there. Awesome, Thank you so much, Thanks Jake. All right, there we have it with West Delks. Next up we have Steve Hanson and Iowa. He helps a lot of different people from his real estate career of helping those types of clients and also tackles a lot of projects on his own. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and get into it with Steve Hanson. All right, Steve, welcome to back forty back to run you through another scenario that I think everyone has fallen into us some point, whether they’re just getting started or as life evolves. You know, budgets have to get allocated differently, and in your opinion, of all the different projects that can be done on a farm, obviously there’s huge overhauls that are often you know, pretty expensive, what are or what is potentially one of the most affordable habitat projects that actually makes the best ROI. So, I mean we could rattle off a lot of you know, cheap projects that maybe might not move the needle a ton. But as a rule of thumb, for someone that has a limited budget, limited equipment, what gets you excited if if I called JEP and said, haste, if I have a limited budget, I need to improve my farm, and I’ll let you paint the rest of the picture, because I know every farm is different.

00:12:59
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, it’s a toss up between two for me right now. The two I’m thinking of is fertilizing the native vegetation that’s there, whether that’s prairie grass and stuff. But the one I’m gonna think I’m gonna go with is burning. I think burning is by far the most cost effective do it yourself landowner type, you know, reasonable landowner do it yourself project that simply you could do with you know, a backpack water sprayer, a leaf blower, you know some and you know, maybe a mower or something like that to create even a lawnmower to create some fire breaks depending on and it works both equally as well in the timber as it does in the CRP. And I think you’ll note or any native grasslands and you’ll notice big benefits with both. So the reason I chose that one is because not only is that one going to provide way better forage in the areas that you burn, it’s actually ecologically better for everything it takes care of invasive, it rejuvenates the forest, you know, it helps with It helps on so many levels in addition to the hunting. Where fertilizing native vegetation that was more of a that would help your hunting, you know what I mean. That was almost like creating micro food plots and little areas like that. But I think I think overall burning is probably the one that people that is lowest cost. And by saying low cost, it’s only low cost if you’re able to do it yourself. You start having a higher burning done that gets pretty expensive and pretty cumbersome. So a lot of states offer burn training seminars and then some states, I know Missouri does they sort of have a cooperative where you can burn and you’re expected to show up on X amount of work days and in return the collective or the group will show up and burn yours. So yeah, so you would. And then they have they have like trailers, small trailers with all the equipment. I don’t know if you pay a fee to join this thing, I know there may be something. I don’t think it’s expensive, but that’s a great way, especially for a landowner that has quite a few acres, you know, where they’re they and they don’t have anybodies that they could trust, or a local fire department or something like that. Obviously there’s there’s some safety concerns to doing it, but it of all the native vegetation everything in our part of the you know, of the Midwest, it benefits from fire done correctly. So that’s that’s going to be one the one that I’ll go with.

00:15:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that’s in terms of high impact, low cost that it doesn’t get, you know, much more affordable than a drip torch and a little gas and a little diesel and the leak lower like a lot of equipment you likely already have. And then also too to your point, like local volunteer fire departments, maybe we’ll if you can work with them and have a training day.

00:15:48
Speaker 1: Depending on a terrain and and do you think this is.

00:15:54
Speaker 2: A question do you think that people are too intimidated by And I know that is like it’s a fine line because you know, I think a lot of people are maybe overconcerned. And then I don’t want to downplay it either by phrasing it that way, but I want to get your opinion.

00:16:12
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think I think a lot of people are intimidated by it, and somewhat rightly so, because done incorrectly, I mean, you know, the results could literally be catastrophic. But it’s also very easy to manage.

00:16:26
Speaker 7: You know.

00:16:26
Speaker 6: The biggest mistakes that I see people make, and it’s is simply a timing issue. You know. They they you know, two months out, they plan, Oh, we’re going to burn March tenth. I’ve got these buddies coming, I got these guys coming. Well, they get up the morning of March tenth and it’s a northwest wind blowing about twenty five miles an hour, humidity down around twenty five percent. They have no business burning, but they’ve set the stage to do it, so they go ahead with their burn and it inevitably gets away. So that’s you know, that that would be that would be what I would avoid try trying to get trying to be flexible on the days because on the right day, with light wind and moderate humidity and burning, what’s a backburn meaning burning against the direction of the prevailing wind. It’s very safe and very controlled.

00:17:17
Speaker 2: Have you have you ever done like a like a fall burn or a late summer burn or anything like that. I know, I think doctor Craig Harper has some data saying, you know, like I think it. Don’t quote me, and so I haven’t researched this heavily at all, but in essence, I think at sometime of an August burn, actually, if the timing is right with the rain, it actually produces some like very very extreme high quality forage if you get the rain in that August time frame. Have you ever experimented with that.

00:17:45
Speaker 6: You know, I’ve not done an August burn. I have done quite a few fall burns. Usually we do them later. We’re doing them in like you know, there’s still a dormant season burn. They’re going to be after a heavy frost freeze like late November. I know, we burned a hundre at Acres at the end of November last year and it went really, really well. I’m glad we did it, and I’ve got we’ve got three that we didn’t at least three that we didn’t get done this spring that now will get pushed back. The other advantage is you’re you’re by doing a fall burn, you’re gonna benefit the forbes in your mix. You’re gonna it’s gonna help them. Basically a spring burn, a spring burn helps the grasses, hurts the forbes. A fall burn suppresses the grasses helps, you know. So it’s it’s kind of what your intentions are.

00:18:34
Speaker 1: So well, no, I think that that.

00:18:37
Speaker 2: Do you have any bad fire stories real quick of what not to do for someone’s Like, okay, all right, Steve, you said this is the you know, highest impact. I feel semi confident. Uh, maybe do you have like whatever you do, don’t do this. You mentioned the right conditions is key, but beyond.

00:18:54
Speaker 6: That, this one would play into the right condition. So I have a good real estate client and and we helped him add to his already big farm. Bought a five hundred and fifty acre track and he said, hey, would you guys help us help me burn that? So I said sure. And he’s got all his own farm equipment and everything, so he went and did his fire breaks. He had a big disc, so I thought, oh, that he disked these fire breaks. Mistake number one, did not check them, assumed the fire breaks in his mind were done well. When you go in a heavy grass with a disk, the first pass or two would actually make it worse because it condenses that grass and fuel low to the ground, which will allow the fire to travel faster. So we get there. You know, we’re always busy, so we’re in a hurry. We assume he had his fire breaks, and we lit it. It’s windier than it should be anyways, but it’s a bit. He has a big farm. One side of this was a river, so that part of it. I was somewhat comfortable with what if it got away because it was limited to his land, the side we were burning and the river. So we light. It instantly crosses the fire breaks. I have a friend that was lighting for me, and I was usually one person lights and one person goes behind and stops it at the fire break from burning into your brakes. I can’t even catch him or get him on the phone to tell him to stop burning. Right, So the first the fire’s out of control instantly. The first little, you know, and it was. It was later in the burn season, so there’s a lot of smoke. First time we get a good wind and the smoke blows away, you know, blows out a different direction. I go, there’s a truck parked out there in the burn, and so I call the landowner and I said, there’s a truck out there. He’s like, no, there’s not, and I said, yeah, there is. I can see it through the smoke. He goes, oh, no, that’s a five hundred gallon fuel tank. We had it down there for the dozer, so left in the middle of the burn. Never told us again my mistake for not investigating what we were doing, just that yeah, that one was a near miss, so we instantly didn’t even worry about fighting the fire. All we did was worry about protecting that fuel tank. So then we just had to let it burn to wherever it went and chase it down, and it ended up getting on a neighbor, not really doing any damage, but I felt bad that one of their neighbors were obviously hunters. And I literally called the guy because it burned right under some of his stands, and I said, hey, don’t climb into those stands. It could have burned the straps, you know what I mean. I said, any damage we did, we’ll certainly cover for you. Another funny story is again helping a friend another friend slash real estate client. He’s burning at his pace. He had good fire breaks and is very very knowledgeable guy. But we burned some switchcrests that was every bit of eight feet tall, and there was three of us doing it, and we were burning hundreds of acres on his place that day. We got it so hot that, uh, I think it was I’m trying to think of the brand of the shooting house it was. It was a grizzly like one of those Roada molded plastic. It got so hot it just started to blow a big bubble in the plastic. And his wife came up and she was just screaming at me, you know, and I’m like, I’m like, it’s him, it’s not me. She’s like, well, I’m done with him. He’s I’m like. She was super mad, and he was laughing about it, so I didn’t, you know, I’m like, yeah, that sucks. We ruined your blind, But I said, you should you know, you should have mowed around your blind instead of burning. You know, he had a perfect setup, like super tall switchgrass as a screen to access is hut. You know that should have been mode flat to the ground, so it wasn’t a flash type fuel source. But yeah, I do have more stories, unfortunately, but those two.

00:22:58
Speaker 2: Do a horror story of burning before burning season next year. But the reason I asked that is because there’s a couple of lessons in that it’s obviously high fuel loads around the blinds and stuff. Take the time to do that, and also just the preparation, you know, makes it go smooth and not stressful, because if it gets out of hand, it gets really stressful really fast and.

00:23:17
Speaker 6: Can be Yep, we started doing the we started we started doing burns for another company that did habitat work and they lost their insurance because they had one getaway and they literally put it out as it was burning the siding on these people’s house.

00:23:34
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.

00:23:35
Speaker 6: Yes, and yeah, so and so their insurance dropped them. They do have their insurance back now they’re doing their own again. But it’s uh, yeah, I think they got that was pretty pretty scary, you know, and it’s something you have to respect, you know, you want to you want enough fear to keep you honest a little bit, you know what I mean. But you don’t need to be just panic afraid of it. And if someone’s never done it, I think if you can find a group like that or volunteer and just be involved in one burn, that would go you know, world’s worlds of it would make if I’d never done it would and after seeing the process, you’d be a lot more comfortable with it.

00:24:16
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, Steve, where can people fall along with your adventures?

00:24:20
Speaker 6: You know? Probably the best place is just on Instagram. It’s just my name, Steve Hanson, the third and yeah, we put what we’re doing on there. Good bet or otherwise awesome?

00:24:29
Speaker 1: Thank you?

00:24:36
Speaker 2: All right, Moving right along, we have Jake Ellinger with Habitat Solutions three sixty out of Michigan. He was on the Wired to Hunt show here not too long ago talking about his fifty years of experience, and let’s see what Jake has to say regarding this question.

00:24:50
Speaker 1: All right, Jake, welcome back.

00:24:53
Speaker 2: I feel and I don’t want to project to anyone, but I feel like everyone’s watching their pennies a little bit closer, and unfortunately, oftentimes habitat projects can carry some carry some substantial cost when you start adding up everything that you can do on our property. And so I want to refine this to some of the most affordable projects that make the biggest impact, because obviously you can do a lot of projects that aren’t very expensive, but how much do they move the needle? So I want to focus on the cheapest, highest impact projects that anyone can do.

00:25:27
Speaker 5: That’s a good question because boy, you know, you go back forty five years ago and I was that guy. I had limited resources, okay, And.

00:25:37
Speaker 1: So everyone starts that way.

00:25:38
Speaker 5: I feel, yeah, oh, I think you’re right, Jake. For me, it was simple timber stand improvements I could do with you know, a half a dozen tanks of gas and a cort of oil buy oil for my chainsaw, okay, And what I could do in two days and a weekend with a chainsaw makes a huge impact of long term you know, everything from betting to security to screening, whatever I’m trying to accomplish. And that would be for anybody that’s got you know, some existing timber growth of you know, some age class, you know, something that’s ten to twelve feet and taller. There’s always things you can do. You know, you can create side cover. You can create natural deer movement trails. You can create barriers because hey, the deer always coming out on this corner. I want to stop them from you know, there’s and then you know very detailed timber stand work, you know, creating large betting areas and you know transition zones and that sort of stuff. So that’s one that pretty big impact for a small amount of cost.

00:26:47
Speaker 1: What’s another one or two?

00:26:48
Speaker 2: Because I know when I when I developed this question, I knew TSI was going to be probably the ringing answer for for everyone because it is affordable and it is impactful, especially if you have a game plan and know what you’re doing. What are some other things that maybe on your own property or consultations to where it’s like, man, this might cost you one hundred bucks, fifty bucks, twenty bucks just your time.

00:27:11
Speaker 1: What are some other things that people can do.

00:27:13
Speaker 5: I’ve got one that I’ve used for decades and now it’s very popular and a lot of people are doing it different ways, different methods, but mock scrapes. I’ve got one location right now that I’ve had, you know, I actually I have a camera there and I call it the Pines Turnaround because it was a place I had pines planted and do to die off and other things. I made this little area where I could back my pick up in there and turn around. Okay, so it’s right between some nestled and some pines. So thirty years ago I started mock scrapes there and to this day it’s where I can get pictures of every good antlered buck in this section. I can get him right there, and they’re always there, you know. And what’s that take? You know, literally it takes ten minutes of my time and seventy five cents worth of paara cord or wire and that’s all it takes. And I just you know, I cut I cut new vines every late August and put new vines in and reuse the wire that’s been there. So it’s it’s hard to calculate what my expense is, you know, just my time, and I do that multiple locations, but boy, it can have some long term effect and how the doves communicate to the bucks and the bucks communicate to one another, and you know, over over time and hierarchy, it becomes the place that everybody uses their nose to figure out, you know, what everybody else is doing in the deer herd, and.

00:28:47
Speaker 2: So you’re a vine guy because to your point, there’s a lot of different ways people use use mock scrapes and everyone, you know. I do think it’s one of those things where there’s a lot of different ways that you can do it and have success. But you’re in Michigan and so you’re you’re cutting this a vine that you find, you know, sometime in the summer.

00:29:04
Speaker 1: Or like, what’s it?

00:29:05
Speaker 2: It’s a simple process, but I want you to walk through how how you do that?

00:29:09
Speaker 1: Do you cut it?

00:29:10
Speaker 2: Then you have a stockpile of vines behind your house? Or is it you go cut a fresh one? What’s your strategy?

00:29:15
Speaker 5: Yeah, that’s a good question. And number one, we have a lot of wild grape. Okay, it’s just everywhere birds, you know, eat the fruit and the seeds are. Anywhere there’s a brush pile or a fence row, there’s wild grape. And in the woods they’re climbing up all the trees, the oaks, the cherries. So there’s a lot of them, and some are real big. There’s as big as my wrist, and the other ones are the size of my thumb or my forefinger, you know, And that’s the size I look for. Okay, But what I do. I cut them the day I’m going to hang them. I want them fresh and dripping water the day I replace them, because they do dry out over season. And that’s what happens. The ones that I put up last year, say right around Labor Day weekend, that’s how long they’ve been there. And some of those vines have been broken off this winter while the bucks still had antlers, because they were still in there banging their heads on them and you know, leaving scent, and so because they’re dry, they snap them off and break them off. Okay. So so my process is literally, you know, I know where I want to put it. I’ve got wire or parachute cord with me and a pair of clippers. I know where the where to look for the living vines. Okay, So I just literally go up there with my I’ve got a side by side and it’s electric, and you know, cut it and I cut way more than I need. If I only need five feet of vine, I might cut fifteen feet. Kind of roll it up and put it in the back and it’s going to be you know, thumb sized, like I said, four finger and size and it’s just what I found on my farm, what they like. I’ve tried the bigger ones, I’ve tried little smaller ones. This is the size they like. And if I can find one that’s got a y on it, you know it splits, that’s like the ideal because I’ll trim about a foot of those splits off and that will be the end that they work on. So it gives them two licking branches to put their you know, their mouth on and chew on and rub into their preorbital glands and that type of thing. And but anyways, when I get to where I want to put it, I’ve either a brand new vine, I see a tree limb. Most of the time I use an existing tree limb, and you know, cut the vine way longer than I need it and wire it up and make sure it’s hanging down somewhere between about chest and belly button height off of the ground. And I’ve just found that when you know, vines are flexible. So when you’re using say, you know, you go back twenty years ago, thirty years ago, when I was more using licking branches that I was pulling down from existing living trees. Those worked really really good, and they use it for the same reason, but I found the vines they spend more time in. They wind up those vines under their neck and across their antlers, and the pictures I’ve gotten over the years almost hilarious to see what some of these two in three year olds end up with that vine all tangled up in their antlers, and it kind of mesmerizes them, I think in a way. You know, they mess with them. They spent a lot of time. But it’s real, you know, it’s real easy, and I’m not gonna say there’s any right or wrong way, but it needs to be in a fairly level location where deer can see it as they approach it, sent check it as they approach it. And it works really good in cover edges. The food plots works real good too. Maybe you’ve got a main trail where they’re coming from a transition zone or a bedding area where they enter the food plot. Well, maybe you’re lucky enough to have, you know, a cherry tree or an oak tree or a hickory tree growing right there, and you can tie that vine and have that vine right there hanging out maybe in the first foot or two of that food plot. So the moment they leave cover, there is something they can communicate with. And you know, I’ve probably I’m guessing I got forty fifty of them that I set up on this farm every year. That’s a ton.

00:33:01
Speaker 1: That’s a lot.

00:33:03
Speaker 2: But because everyone was gonna ask you, I was just gonna ask you where about where, Like what’s one of the key locations to put it? But it sounds like for you it’s everywhere.

00:33:15
Speaker 5: Yeah, I have some great rut stands, you know, when I’ve traded you know, travel corridors and things like that through TSI work and I’ve got you know, on my right fifteen yards away and on my left fifteen yards away, I’ve got vines. And during the rut it’s just a blast to watch all these deer, you know, running through the woods. Pretty good clip and they stop worked at mine for fifteen seconds. Go again, you know they got theercent.

00:33:41
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, well that’s uh, well, I think that’s a great, great impactful project. That’s that anyone can do really anywhere, no matter where they’re at, and put a camera on there and observe it. Let me ask you this question, with that many different mox scrapes that you have on your farm, do you see them?

00:34:00
Speaker 1: I mean when you like, for example, when you had the one of fifteen yards.

00:34:02
Speaker 2: To your right and to your left, would they hit both of them or would they just pick one that was closest or like, what what have you seen from a behavioral s No.

00:34:11
Speaker 5: That’s that’s true. I’m glad you asked it, because it seems like the younger bucks will spend the time and hit both of them. But when you start getting into that three four year old mature deer, that’s pretty you know, he’s got one he singles out and he’ll he’ll go hit that one, or he’ll just come in and just kind of sent check. He’ll be three to five yards from it, kind of put his nose down near the scrape underneath it, and just kind of slow down a little bit, see what’s going on, never even stop. But the other one he won’t even pay any attention to. So yeah, I think you know, individually, they’ve got their own preferences.

00:34:46
Speaker 2: Okay, well out, Jake, where can people fall along with what you have going on? If they want to watch some of your content that you produced over the years.

00:34:55
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, the best is my YouTube channel I habitat Solutions three six dy l and I’m also on Facebook under my name Jake Millinger and then also have a test Solutions three p.

00:35:06
Speaker 6: Sixty.

00:35:07
Speaker 2: All right, to wrap this up, we have Sam bill Horn with Whitetail Partners out of Wisconsin.

00:35:11
Speaker 1: Let’s see what he has to say about this.

00:35:13
Speaker 2: All right, Sam, welcome back to then have another episode of Back forty. Last time we talked about the mistakes to avoid it all cost and now we’re diving into affordable projects that make a true difference and impact. I understand so many properties different every you know, every hole in the bucket for each property is a little bit different that needs to get patched up. But the purpose of this question and thought process is simply, I have a limited budget, Thank goodness, I have a place to do some of these projects.

00:35:47
Speaker 1: What can I do that isn’t going to break the bank?

00:35:49
Speaker 2: And I’m also going to see a reward for my work because I feel when that loop is not tied together, it’s tied to frustration. So we’re going to try to save some folks some frustration.

00:36:00
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:36:00
Speaker 7: Well, thanks for having me again, Jake, and this will be a great balance to the last clip that we did in terms of talking about the other end of the spectrum.

00:36:08
Speaker 1: In our first meeting.

00:36:09
Speaker 7: We talked about the bigger picture and trying to you know, have budget and tackle those larger items and the enjoyment that comes from it. But at the other hand, there’s a ton of things we can do to help make meaningful impact to our properties.

00:36:25
Speaker 1: And I’ll go you on that.

00:36:27
Speaker 7: I talk big picture, I’ll go to some details here, especially for those guys out there trying to work hard to use their labor and their muscle to improve their property, and God bless them for doing it. That’s some real work, but real enjoyment too. So a few things. My mind always goes to the timber. I look at it and say, we give a lot of press. The industry talks a ton about food plots. There’s all kinds of products and equipment and all these things.

00:36:54
Speaker 1: For food plots. If you scroll through your social media feed, what do you see.

00:36:57
Speaker 7: It’s food plot pictures and this and that all summer long. And you know it’s that that’s a marketable thing. It sells people want to buy and buy their equipment and their food plot seed and enjoy doing those plots.

00:37:11
Speaker 1: And that’s all good.

00:37:12
Speaker 7: However, I think if you’re trying to kill bigger bucks and have those opportunities on them, those opportunities nine times out of ten are going to be in your cover and specifically, I’ll say, in your timber.

00:37:26
Speaker 1: Now with that, what can a guy do?

00:37:29
Speaker 7: So I am constantly preaching on client properties, and I still make the joke that I can probably count on one hand, even though I’ve been on hundreds of properties now that I there’s only a few people that I said, you know, you’re probably done cutting.

00:37:43
Speaker 1: Now you’ve cut enough.

00:37:45
Speaker 7: That I think we’re good for a bit and we can just go into seeing how this rebounds and develops. So let’s let’s talk about what that cutting means. I say it generically and people to hear it. But there’s another number of things you can do. First of all, if you’ve got a big, mature timber, maybe there’s some value there. You can get a harvest don you can get some logs out, you can make a buck, you can get some money back from that investment that you’re having. That’s all well and good, and there’s a place for that in the habitat planning that we do. Oftentimes we’ll make a recommendation for that beyond that or next. I would say this is kind of in the order of operations too, is looking at larger timber TSI so maybe it’s bringing down some of those bigger trees. Maybe they are not this saleable timber that we’re going to be after. We just need to get them down for a number of reasons. We can go on too, all the TSI stuff. We could probably talk for an hour on that, but getting bigger trees on the ground, opening up that canopy, and now we’re starting to get into some of the keys of habitat development and quality deer cover, getting sunlight down, increasing that forage, and also ground structure. I don’t think ground structure gets talked about enough. You know, the real side cover of man. When you go out there and you knock down let’s just take a five acre area, you go down and you go in there and you knock down fifteen or twenty big trees. You have changed the landscape on the ground and it doesn’t take a lot of work. I know it’s important to mention safety and doing things that you’re comfortable with. You know, if you’re new to this, working your way up to larger trees and understanding some of those things, but you know, getting those bigger trees down and then start to get into the finer work of okay, smaller trees. Now we’re still with TSI mindset, looking for our future quality trees that we want to have either for forage or for timber value, and then all those things that we want to keep in balance, but increasing that cover, increasing that forage. Sometimes Now we’re talking about utilizing other things like kingecuts and getting into bedding areas. So targeting specific areas to put trees down for habitat could be the developing cover for betting, could just be staging areas. And then again strategically starting to think towards deer movement. Now we’re getting into corridors, trying to manipulate that movement across the landscape. If you have a wide open timber that has you know, it’s very mature and very open. Number one deer don’t want to be there in general, especially big bucks. But they can move freely. They can go wherever they want. There’s very few trails that have been developed unless the topography is dictating it, and you don’t have really this what I would call organized deer activity. If you do that and you start developing corridors and restricting the paths that they can go on. You’re going to allow your self opportunities then to insert where you can hunt. And that’s where all of this comes together and the planning and thought process to develop a property. But again getting back to your question is what can a guy do? All stuff is about really labor. It’s simple hard work.

00:41:05
Speaker 1: Saw change the oil and gas, Yeah, you got it.

00:41:09
Speaker 7: So it’s this is like getting out there and you’ll learn so much about your timber as you start to have you know, you’ll you’ll get to know every tree by name in a way that you know your landscape, you know the details of it. And if you do this over the course of a few seasons, you’ll see how deer using it. One of the things that taught me the most about habitat and how deer using the timber is being in it in all seasons, manipulating it, dropping trees and really seeing how deer react to what I’m doing. And you know, getting back to the core here is what can a guy do is put that labor in in the timber and make sure you’re developing your quality entry points and hunting locations along the way to intercept those deer. In those locations that between your timber cutting, your access points, and the topograph fea the landscape that you’re going to have really effective places to hunt.

00:42:04
Speaker 2: And I think another cheap and free thing would be find someone that knows more about this than you too. If you’re brand new to this and this sounds very overwhelming, just hey, can I walk your timber with you sometime and and take the time to You’re right, when you really start looking at timber, you remember almost every tree when you And you know, that’s a really interesting thought and exercise because it’s like oftentimes we just you know, at least me personally, you walk through it, and if you’re not paying attention, it’s like, oh yeah, there’s a hackbread there, there’s a locust there, and you can almost remember all these different things. And that’s all free and and and and the knowledge is very powerful for sure. Where is where are some some good resources for someone to either like just some ideas for someone to track down someone that knows, you know, their their general uh timber composition and get a quick crash course.

00:42:57
Speaker 1: To to springboard everything.

00:42:59
Speaker 7: The resource I would tell people there’s a number of written resources. You can go out there and you know, buy some basic books on Amazon especially that are relevant to your area. You can get you just simply tree identification, start understanding what you have. But then what I like to say is, you know, we talk on shows like this a lot about deer stuff, and you know, a guy like myself with Whitetail Partners, we’re going to go and give you recommendations on your your habitat and what to do for the deer. But talking with your state and private foresters in the area, especially if you think there might be a timber harvest at hand, or you know, maybe there’s a government program that you want to take advantage of for your situation. Getting all of the background on that. When you invite those people out to your property, you’re going to learn a ton, not just about the deer aspect with a guy like me, but understanding the future potential for timber sale, maybe invasive species. You’re going to get into all these things of you know, the health of your timber, and I think in doing so, you’re gonna you’re gonna quickly educate yourself and have a much better idea. I think it’s pretty reckless and uh dangerous for you to go out there and just start cutting trees not knowing is you know what it is, where it is, what season is it? Should I even be cutting this tree at this time of year? And a number of other things and pitfalls that people can get into. So learn by you know, reading and hiring some of those professionals and I should I say higher but a lot of those government and private forcers, they’re going to come to your ground for free as.

00:44:32
Speaker 1: A part of their service that they do.

00:44:34
Speaker 7: So reach out to them because walking timber with different professionals is going.

00:44:38
Speaker 1: To help you a lot.

00:44:39
Speaker 2: It’s one of my favorite things to do, this walk walk timber with different timber experts because yeah, right every single time to some degree.

00:44:47
Speaker 1: So well, No, I think that’s great.

00:44:48
Speaker 2: I think that’s a that’s a good punch list for people to start and no matter where you’re at and based off that information for today, there’s likely room for improvement no matter who you are. So is it you know, with this it, with it being May right now, is there much that people could implement right now for the next two months?

00:45:08
Speaker 7: Yeah, So, you know, again talking about timber and all that, what I do say, is much of your timber cutting is done before green up, so that windows closed now for just about everybody, and you know, the big impact the heavier cuts, the the you know stuff we started with in our conversation on the logging and all that that is going to wait till next season. However, some of the things you can be doing is more of these what I would call micro improvements of making sure that that entry point on a corridor, that entry point to the hunting location. Maybe you got a mock scrape set up or something like that, making sure that that’s dialed in. So if you’re gonna you’re gonna fall a few trees right adjacent to the stand, you’re gonna maybe work on some hingecuts to funnel deer into the location that you’re looking to have that opportunity that can happen right up until hunting season. You want to be mindful of tree species and disease and some of these things that you want to be cautious of, but at the same point in time, most of these smaller trees that you’re working with, I would say that you’re going to be in good shape to go out there and make sure that those hunting setups are good. I’m done cutt in heavy timber for the year, but we’re going to be getting into smaller stuff all throughout the summer here as we’re developing properties.

00:46:22
Speaker 2: It is now a good time to potentially track down a consulting forester with it likely less logging jobs going on too across the country.

00:46:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, that’s a great point to make.

00:46:32
Speaker 7: During that winter season, those guys are running like crazy trying to manage timber sales and getting their work done. They have a you know, they can do logging at different times of the years depending on what the project is, but you know, most of that work happens throughout the winter, So you’re going to find that those guys are generally a little more relaxed and available, and they should always be interested in helping you out because that’s just what they do.

00:46:56
Speaker 2: I like it, Sam, Where can people track you down if they havecific questions and you’re part of the Neck of the Woods or anywhere else.

00:47:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, thanks, Jake.

00:47:05
Speaker 7: Just to plug here for whitetail Partners, find us at whitetail partners dot com or just google white Tail Partners. You’ll find us on the top of that search page. And we have ten consultants across the country willing to help you and insert whatever we can in terms of planning, land management and all the things to get you going.

00:47:24
Speaker 1: On your property. Awesome. Thank you so much. Sam, appreciate it. Jake. Thanks all right, there, you guys have it.

00:47:29
Speaker 2: I hope you guys enjoyed this episode of Back forty handful of really good projects here that can help you, that are affordable. Some of them might even put a little money in your pocket. And these are just four ideas. And I think right now is a great time of a year to think on the past year. What can I do now? What can I do in June? What can I do in July, August or September leading up to the season to have the most potential success. It’s easy to push things off. It’s easy to say, you know, it’ll be okay. But remember last year, think of where you were at in October and November saying this has to get done, this has to get done. Make sure to carve out the time if you can and get some basic projects done that’s going to help you this upcoming fall.

00:48:06
Speaker 1: And you’re going to thank yourself. We will see you next time. See ya