00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyon in this episode number two hundred and seventy seven, and today in the show, we're joined by Scott Manifold of Dreary Outdoors to discuss the story of his Michigan hunting property, how habitat management hunting differs between his farms in Michigan and Iowa, and detailed ideas for improving food plots, hunting access, and much much more. All Right, Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by on X and Todan. The show my guest is Scott Manifold. He is originally a Michigan native who has hunted and owned farms in Michigan and Iowa and Missouri, and he's been all over the place across the Midwest in the country hunt. And he's also a longtime friend of Tom Ware who together the two of them filmed for Our Bodies over at Drewy Outdoors. And I somewhat recently discovered Scott uh and that he actually lives not too far away from where I am in southern Michigan. So recently he invited me to tour his property take a look at what he's got going on. So this past week, the two of us headed out and walked his Michigan property. We explored all of the different tweaks and changes and improvements that he made to this farm over the years, and it kind of dovee into how he's improved this little chunka dirt for deer and other wildlife here in Michigan, and and that's just cool to see. I I always geek out when I'm getting to see firsthand how someone else goes about these types of projects, because I've got all sorts of ideas, and we listened to so many different people here on the podcast about how they are actually trying to improve where they hunt for deer and for a wildlife. It's it's something that's endlessly fascinating to me. But when I actually get to go out there and see it myself, it takes it up to a whole another level. And so I think it's really cool to be able to help a conversation just after that talking about things that both of us actually saw and hopefully we're able to communicate that to you in a way that makes it more helpful and interesting as well. So that's the game plan for today. I think, um the property kind of content is very interesting. I also found that Scott has an attention to detail with everything that he does, whether it be just hunting or managing and improving a property, that was really interesting to see and to hear about. He also has a lot of ideas around dear behavior movement that I think could be helpful to anyone, regardless of if you own and manage a property, or if you lease property, or if you're hunting public or by permission. I think there's a lot of things in here that can be applicable to to any and all of you. So in short, this was a really fun day in the field and a fun conversation that I'm excited to share with you. So I think we should just get right to it, all right. I am sitting now in southern Michigan in the basement of a home, and I see over my left shoulder, I see like a hundred and eighties something in deer and a hundred nineties something inch deer and more one forties to one fifties, and I can probably count, and I see several elk and a whole bunch of mule deer and a pronghorn. Um. I feel like I'm surrounded by royalty as far as as far as white tails right now, and sitting next to me is Scott Manifold. Um. Scott first up, thanks for for today, Thanks for taking the time to chat with me and for showing me around your place, because what we did and I'm I'm rambling here before I even let you talk, um, but Scott was so kind as to take me out and walked me around his Michigan hunting property. It really really cool place, show me all all of what he's been up to, the projects he has in the works, and what he's done in the past. And uh, it's been a lot of fun. Scott. So thank you and welcome to the show. Oh, thank you, and it's great to have you. It's always going to have another set of is. Everybody sees things a little differently, so I appreciate your input. Yeah, and it's it's as we were talking about out there, I just geek out so much seeing how, just like you said, each different person's mind goes about scheming out of property figuring it all out. As we were walking, you're kind of talking about that's the fun part when you get a farm, is this scheming. It's like figuring out how you're gonna do it, and where the deer going to move and how this change could influence this movement and all that kind of stuff. And I can see that we are like minded in our excitement or all that. Well for us whitetail nuts. I mean, that's that's all part of it. And yes, it is fun to figure it all out. And sometimes you're right, sometimes you're wrong, but it is. It's a fun, fun journey. So that it's that journey's that process. Yeah. So so Scott, I know of you and knew you because of my relationships with the guys over Drewy Outdoors. Um, and you are doing a lot of stuff with them these days now too. Could you give us like a real quick cliff notes on, uh, you know what you're doing now? How I get to this point? Sure? Sure? Well, Um, you know I grew up hunting Michigan and farms around here and chasing the white tails, and as I got older and maybe a little more successful in life, I always dreamed of hunting Illinois. Well, Pike County. That was the place, right, and you uh, you see on TV people killing hundred sixty seventy inches in Pike County. That Pike County. So I thought to myself, someday I'd like to go there. And uh, leading up to that, I had been clipping out articles in the back, snippets in the back of the magazines that outfitters in Pike County. Right. So the day came, you know, I finally felt like I could actually go on this dream hunt of mine of Pike County. So I delve into my folder full of these little cutout ads and I started thumbing through them all and I gravitate towards one um and it was Bucks Beware and it was small, you know, kind of innocuous, and I thought maybe this would be kind of houn I could afford. It doesn't look too overbearing. And so I call the guy, you know, and he answers the phone and oh man, he he didn't have any spots left for that year or whatever, and but he's like, go on my website, get on the mailing list, and maybe something will turn up. Well, turns out this guy that I was talking to was Tom ware and for those of you the follow jury know he's he's quite the land manager and what a deer hunter as well. And uh, what he did was eventually email me within the months saying, Hey, I've acquired a new Missouri property. Are you interested in going out there. I can't promise you that it's set up real good yet, we've just got it. You'll be the first one to hunt it. And uh, I said yes. So that kind of got the ball rolling. I didn't actually meet Tom when I went to Missouri. He sent somebody out to get me organized in that. But after the hunt, I, you know, sincerely thank him because it was it was a great hunt, a great little cabin back in the woods. Uh. I spent a week there and I had my crack. I missed it one sixty bo. Yeah. And so just I think the fact that I contacted him to say, you know, I didn't kill anything, but I am extremely happy with the way this turned out. And then I had a very good time, thank you, you know. And and then it wasn't long he said, you know, would you be interested in shed hunting that property with us in the spring. So I got a chance to meet him and in subsequent fall, I did get to go hunt Pike County, and while I did not kill anything there, it was great to hang out with Tom and you know, all his guides, and uh it just became a relationship that Tom and I developed, and a lot of shed hunting and then uh going to Iowa to help set up his farm that he had, you know, had there, and uh that was the sort of thing I really enjoyed, was building the food plots and then figuring out where they should go, what we should put in it. I mean right down to figuring out what kind of fertilizers are, how much lime needs to go in there. And so we you know, became close friends over bonded over that, as you can imagine, and uh eventually, uh it led to a going hunting on his Iowa farm. He invited me out just to hunt with him in Iowa and uh so you know that continued for years. I even took my children out in the shed hunts and we always worked every August out there, and uh, you know I started harvesting some deer and they were on camera because I was a friend of his. And then uh, you know a few years ago, um, you know, Mark just kind of came to us and said, you know, Scott should uh should be on the team. He's a great contributor, and uh, you know, I like what's going on here. You guys are making a good team. And so our team blossomed with three man team. But it's a kind of a dream come true for you know, the guy growing up and uh never having a whole lot of uh what I want to say, opportunity like that. You know, hard work, dedication to the dream and it gets there as you know, you know, sometimes you get what you put out and put in, which yeah, yeah, And I think for any Michigan hunter to to to go from what we all know is can be challenging. Sometimes here at home it could be great too, but it can be channeling UM to a different kind of great in i or Illinois and Missouri. I'm sure it's just been a different experience out there. It is, uh and I have had great success in Michigan, don't you know, not knocking Michigan, but there is a lot more hunters, there's a lot more pressure. So when you go to Iowa or Missouri or even southern Illinois, it's a it's a different world and the biggest thing that I noticed right off the bat that has blown me away. And I still tell people the biggest difference is how much time you can spend watching deer b deer. Here, the deer's primary focus is survival, you know, because there's someone just walked down the other property line. You know they did, and the wind has wafted through the woods. So they're on edge all the time. Here. But when I started hunting Iowa deer just did what dear did they come out? They'd spar they decked normal, There was no they didn't ext spookie. It was just so different. Rattling word, grunting word, you know, and here good luck. Yeah. I just don't rely on those tactics because they've been used too much and the deer are two on edge and but out there they really work and it's just really lack of pressure. I mean, a lot more daylight movement out there. For you know, you want to get a four year old on its feet. In Michigan, who that can be? That can be a challenge. There's a lot of them go nocturnal. I've got one that I've pursued in Michigan now for a few seasons, and uh, you know, I get pictures every year and I've only ever laid eyes on him once and it was right at dark Yep. That deer has been on the farm for he's well, he's I think eight this coming here. Yeah, so he's ancient and he's always just been a really big eight point. But the age is that is another reason I like to go after him. He's mature, and boy is he tough to beat. In in that book, I would say if he were living in Iowa would be a lot easier to kill because he's probably going to come out to the food during daylight from the lack of pressure. Yeah. So a whole different set of challenges, it really is. And then I can attest this some of the same things you said to like growing up hunting in Michigan and only knowing this, I had no idea what it was like until you know, eight nine years ago or whatever it was. Ten years ago I started traveling to some of these other states, and yeah, when you go to Iowa, Ohio or Illinois, Um, not only are you seeing you know, older deer more often, you're seeing more daily activity, You're seeing them act more normal. One of the really cool things I noticed was the vocalizations you hear, Like I never heard a buck roar or snort, wheeze or anything, never once in twenties some years that ever hurt some of that. And then I go to Iowa and I'm seeing a buck lip curling and snort, wheezing and grunting all sorts of crazy stuff, and and getting to see, like you said, serious bucks fighting, and it's just you know, whether or not you have goals of of killing an old buck or a big buck or whatever it might be, traveling to some of these other states can just be a lot of fun simply because of the like the wildlife experience is just different, like getting to see it, like you said, of getting to see these dear do dear things, Um, just doesn't happen as much in super high pressure states. No, that's that's very true. I mean in Michigan you heard grunting really Uh usually there's the guy on the other that's that's like grunting on his toe, That's right. Yeah, Or was a year and a half ohold buck harassing the dome maybe, but but out there that's the vocalizations are super common. And you do here and see all that, and uh, and it is during daylight. So it's a it's a I hate to say it's more fun, but it's it's just, uh, it's different. Then a topography is different out there. The pieces of land tend to be larger. Um. You know, there's a lot of ten acre are forty acre pieces around here, uh in Michigan, and so coming up with a bigger piece of ground can be difficult. And when you break black up a black being like a six d acre a square mile whatever, a lot of times there's on it where and if you get in some of these other states, you know, the blocks are more like two square miles, three square miles and there might only be four homes on the whole thing. So just a lot less, a lot less people, and a lot more a lot less pressure. Now, all that said, despite these challenges that we just mentioned here in Michigan, Um, you just show me that you've still been able to have a lot of success here in our home state despite all of those challenges. Um. And it seems like a lot of that has been kind of near where we are right now, on some of this property we just walked. UM. And that's that's kind of the I do want to talk about once some of the things you guys have been doing out in Iowa and Illinois Missouri. Um. But I'm just selfishly particularly curious about Michigan too, since I spent so much of my time here and you know, starting to look into the possibility of of possibly trying to find a little place that we can start fixing up and and see what we can do with it. Um. So I'm just really fascinating the story of how you started that here. Um. How did the how did it start for you buying your first hunting property and farm, and what does that look like the beginning? Well, probably nearly twenty five years ago now, but we my friend and I knew about this property and it had you know, you saw a lot of deer here and that was that was a big thing. If you were seeing a lot of deer, that's pretty special here in Michigan. Thirty years ago and through simple asking permission to hunt, Uh, she offered to sell the property to him. And we you know, we were young then and him was a stretch, but we did it, and uh he elected to try and farm it ourselves. It was fifty seven acres, but it butted up to an eight four acre woods, so the deer naturally filtered into those corn fields, bean fields wherever we had in there here. And I did that a few years and you know, it worked well. We did. We did harvest some deer, and at the end of the day, I think I had offered these CRP programs and we decided that, wow, well for the money that can come in on this, and and the fact that we get to plant trees and brush and all that into here, uh, I think flowering dogwoods, all kinds of stuff were it was worth it to us to do that. Because the end goal for us was deer hunting or pheasant hunting. It really wasn't to be farmers. So we simply took the fifty seven acres and said, okay, got a clean slate here. Because there's nothing here, what can we do? And in the program we were enrolling in, we were gonna need to plant some pine trees along with some switch grass and maybe I think golden rod and some other shrubs and stuff that they expected us to put in, and they were going to help pay for that. So it was kind of a no brainer when it came down to it to do that. And so we watched this cornfield basically morph in to cover over the last a couple of decades. But every year it got better and better the pine trees, you know, and from two ft to three ft to four foot, and the weeds were better in the briers, and it just got thicker and thicker, and we saw more and more deer in it, and uh, we did. We did leave out nine acres to two four and a half acre field so that we could always have some grain to offer, you know, the deer, and another couple of acres for food plots out of fifty seven. But the rest of it was really put into pine trees and bedding area. And you know, if you don't have a long term vision, you know you're never gonna get there. And what you know, what I've always said is if you have an idea that's going to take five years, you might as well go for it, because at the end of the day, five years go and buy you either way. You know five you know how five time goes. So at the end of five years, you can either have what you were dreaming about having or you can still be stuck in that rud of Oh it takes so long to do that so you know, sometimes it's just a matter of kicking yourself in the button just getting started on it. And it took a lot of work to get this rolling, but now it's you know, it takes care of itself and sit to seven aches pretty well, well we gotta do is maintaining food plots. Yeah, I feel like this is something that I know, um, having looked at properties myself and talk to buddies who have looked to properties and stuff, lots of times they'll find like a big crop field or a property that's a series of small fields or something and just see how there's not a bunch of big timber on it, there's not a lot of cover on it. Not what I'm looking for. Um, But it seems like that's kind of what you guys had and you transformed it into something more. Um. Absolutely long did it take to to to make that change a positive? One? After year one, after year two did you start to see positive things? And? Um, how long of a roadmap does someone have if they're trying to convert oldfield to dear habitat? I would say my favorite years actually after starting it was probably years five through ten when the pine trees were at that four ft to twelve feet level and there was a lot of weeds in between them. Uh, those are some of the better years. But having said that, it was an instant improvement in that we were able to put in some green plots to intermixed with it. And even if it's just weeds or briars that are surrounding that food flat like ours was the first couple of years. Um, it still givesn't that sense of security that they'll come out into that. And prior to that we had just had you know, like I say, corn or beans, which work than not knocking them. But when you through in the green plots too, it really was a bonus and they were drawn to it. The other thing we did was we actually added a little water and it was kind of a simple move at first seemed maybe a little silly, but uh we took just a kiddy waiting pool and yeah, submerged it and and kept that full of water best we could. But you would be amazed, since we don't have a lot of water right here, how fast they would drink that down. And during the rut we would literally have to fill that every five days or so, take the tank back and fill it. Yeah, and and you know, trail cameras come along. We get pictures the deer standing in it bucks during the rut. And granted, you know they weren't like we weren't being over run with shooters or anything. But the point is, um it kind of added to the smortgage port. Now they've got some green, they got some water. Uh. Now they're not traveling an extra three yards to get a drink. They're gonna take that easiest drink that they can, even if it is of an old kiddie pool. And they laughed, but they really did use it quite well. And you know, now we've maybe moved down a little bit from there to make some better water sources, but that's all started. That's cool. Another thing I saw that you did out there in that old field area is you've kind of broken it into smaller sections with with screens um or something on those lines. Can you describe kind of what you guys did there. Yeah, well, we we left to four acre pieces for farming purposes, just to have grain out there. But the one that is particular back there by um our say our favorite blind. Uh, you get a lot of time in the blind, so you think a lot of a lot of thoughts, and one of the thoughts that occurred to me one day was what if this four and a half acre field and I have what if straight out from the blind I was to put in a hedgerow, build my own, you know, everybody, And the thought being that we have why these deers step out of the woods at the time and step into our field and the food's right there, you know, and they don't necessarily have to go very far to eat, and or if it's a run, they could see the whole field, so they knew, you know, if there was a dough there or what was going on in the whole field. So I don't whim, you know. I actually went out and bought a tree spade when I went on the back of the tractor, you know, and started transplanting. We remember, we planned. So I had a lot of pine trees and and a lot of autumnble had come up, and a lot of honeysuckle to come up, and I literally built a hedge row straight out from the blind that divided that field and half. Now as you seeing that today, it looks pretty thick and pretty big. It wasn't always again long term vision, it didn't have a whole lot of effect on the deer first, but as the years went on, Uh, it worked to the desired effect. They step out into the field, they checked that field now, and then they wonder what's on the other side of the hedge road They can't see, so then naturally they're gonna walk across and have a look sie on the other side of that. So it was just a simple thing. It didn't take much crop out of a much field out of production, and it gave us a chance to bring the deer out further to investigate and maybe a chance to harvest him at that point. But just one of the little features that we added over the years. Now, not all of them work like you hope. You know, you try some things and you've gotta be willing to change when it doesn't work. But overall, the experimentation part of it is some of the funnest stuff. Uh. I don't know if you recall how long ago that the tree coy came out. Okay, yeah, I think it was Steve Bartila wrote an article. I I've seen his name right there. Yeah, yeah, he wrote an article and in uh he had placed a tree, dug a hole, put a tree in the field, right, and uh it it seemed like a great idea. He said, it worked, well, why not? Right? So you know by now this is uh I'm hunting with Tom now and it's an Iowan but as an experiment on one of the Michigan food plots. Before I go telling everybody this great idea that Steve had, I'm gonna try it, right, So I put this tree quay on the field and yuh put a camera on it and pretty soon getting all these pictures and I said, Tom, this works in bottom line. So he's like, okay, we gotta we gotta do this and some of the Iowa plots. So we tried it on one plot that year for starters. Phenomenal scraped up shredd and remember where I went out that you're doing there, want to do all the time kind of sort of thing, and uh, phenomenal success with the the you know, the reconics over that tree koi and scraped up tour up. Bottom line is now, that is a tool in our arsenal that's used every single food plot. Yeah, you know, fifteen yards twenty yards on in front of the blind, we're putting a tree koi and if you watch much of the Dury stuff, you'll notice that a lot of bucks are killed coming into that. That tree koi so very effective tool and just you know, simple idea, but again experimenting, and that was one of the things that I felt worked really well. Yeah, it's definitely something I've I've added to my repertoire too, and I haven't killed one coming into something like that yet, but it certainly has helped me get a lot of good trail camera pictures in those areas. Um, and I'm sure it's you know, one of these days will work out for a shot. So it makes a whole lot of sense. Pretty cool. Well, we learned a very hard lesson this year over a tree KOI didn't Yeah, it wasn't actually me hunting. Tom was hunting with Brandon and in Illinois, and uh the tree koi is a particularly beautiful one that you loved it. But it had a it had a lower limb that came off at about oh, I don't know, foot high maybe and angled upward right. And uh, usually you know, the if a deer comes in, they'll work their way around it or be near it and you'll get your chance. But this particular deer. Uh was over, Yeah, and he came in. It was it was like it was scripted. He came into this tree coy and for minutes he's shredding it. And for Brandon, I mean he's at full draw and and then he has to let down, then he has to draw again. But uh, the whole time this limb that was left on there, it was right smacked across the vitals. And I don't know about you. I probably could have aimed at the limb and I'd have got the deer just how I wanted. But sure enough, if you aim to miss it, you probably hit uh. But the bottom line is he didn't feel like it was a clean opportunity. And at the deer exited stage left walks straight away from him after two minutes that you had to have a boon? Who gross boon and buck that close? But tried at the tree KOI for bringing him in and given two minutes of time to harvesting him. And if that limbs not there, it's it's a buck. They won't even hear the string go off. His head was in the limbs raking him and it was made for great, great video, exciting stuff. Just a little tree KOI story there. Yeah, yeah, that's uh, that's pretty awesome that that kind of situation would arise because of that. Now, what about the reverse situation? So have there been any things maybe on this the first City seven in particular, maybe if you can think of any in which you tried something and found it didn't work and had rewrite the script on some project you tried out here, some change you made to the habitat Um, was it anything like that pop up on the first chunk or no? Yeah? Actually there. Uh. One of the things that it may be regrettable is and it actually that this occurred, um when I was still trying to farm it. Uh well, first five years we owned and I farmed it, so uh to make the farming life a little better, I removed a fence row. And you know, I look back on that and think, would you do that for it? Because you know eventually it was going to evolve into the way tail habitat it is. I would love to have that fence row back. And it was, you know, because it was a mature fence row. And at the end of the day, I wasn't in it for the corn and the beans. I was in it for the nearer turkey, pheasants and squirrels whatever would live in a nice thick fence rol like that. So so yeah, that is one thing I wished I had had not have pulled that out. Um, I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure. As you've now expanded your um your projects to to include other other farms and stuff, I'm sure there's all sorts of other things you've learned over the years, and maybe we'll get into some of those. Um. But but one other piece on the on the fifty seven, on the first chunk, Um, what about the hunting on that because I think a lot of times one of the questions people have, especially somewhere like Michigan, but anywhere really is can you take a small property like that forty acres or sixty acres or something smaller on that and really notice a change and actually see better hunting and better recreation or whatever it is. Um, did you see real change that improved your hunting and the time you had out there in those early years when it was just turning from a corn field and to this new wildlife paradise. Did that did it come to fruition for you? Yeah? The U from the beginning until no even it's so much better. If you're into deer hunting, it's a must. Just wow, I would say ten years in. By then, um, we were seeing so many deer uh and and a lot of the reasons. Of course, now we're in Michigan, so deer hunting pressure is so heavy, and by us taking this fifty seven acres and just making it this twisted up mess of pine trees and Russian hall of and just an entire mess, it attracted as a safe haven so many deer. I remember taking uh uh people hunting and seeing one deer in one night. Now we were by yeah, so we were into the taking those at that time too, because the numbers were so high. But they weren't when it was just a cornfield. It wasn't like that. Once we thickened it up and gave them this safe haven, they could go to hunted the wind, and we were strategic and didn't push them out of there like so many you know, people do by walking in the wrong times they're walking through or deer driving whatever it is. Those deer ended up on us. So we were seeing tons of deer. I can't so many year and a half bucks. You can't account him not. It is still very hard to get him to three or four or five years old Michigan. But the your numbers were way up. I took my cousin one night and he said, I just, Scott, I just want some some dough meat. And I said, I'll tell you what. I'll take you back there on one condition. You don't shoot a deer until we've seen forty yeah. Yeah. And he's like, well, I did want some meat. And I said you'll have your meat, you know, so, and and it happened just like that, I mean, and we got to the deer's anything like, okay, go ahead. But remember now this is muzzle over season usually. But by then, um, many of the deer have been pushed so hard that they were really coming to us for for sanctuary. And the four acre woods next to us, which we'll get into. UM that also harbord a great many of them. And you know it, if you can give him some sanctuary and a high pressure situation, your odds go way up. And every now and then, you know, a big one slips up and you get that one forty, but you just increase your odds. The downside is with that many doughs, you know, and you and if you do a late season dough hunt on that, while it may be fun, you don't really know how many of the doughs that you're taking are actually yours because they get pushed in from all over the place. Yeah, that's one of the things I've always struggled with on on one of the main spots of hunting Michigan is that it's usually the spot I've got the best chance that like a decent buck in Michigan. It's the spot where I think I can kill mature buck. But I'm always like on pins and needles every little thing I do on that farm, I know if it make like one mistake, I'll probably never shot him because a lot of the best covers on neighbors properties. So I'm just hoping for him to you know, just be I'll have like one or two chances during the year, and if I screwed up at all, I'm just not gonna have those. So I'm very, very very particular about what I'm gonna go in and what I'm gonna hunt. So that's all to say that I've always been paranoid to go in there and try to shoot does earlier because if I shoot a dough and it runs into that one main betting area and have to go walking through there that that might completely eliminate any chance of seeing that mature buck and daylight again. So because of that, I always end up waiting until December to shoot does. And to your point, sometimes in wonder, well, I'm seeing tons of does now, but now, yeah, there's just a lot deer in general. But um, but yes, I'm always pushing it back late. I'm always rushing, rushing at the end, trying to trying to fill enough dough tags. Um. And then to your point, you might be looking at a large number of doughs that come from all over the place, not necessarily representative of the home core range doughs. You might not even take one of your local dosts happy when you have numbers like that rolling in. I mean to me, uh, you know, you're hunting, maybe an agricultural feel, hoping that the deer to come from the cover and give you an opportunity to get to you in in daylight. So and another reason for taking a piece of fishes of an acre piece and making it into what it is is the person who holds the cover holds most of the cards, because that's where nine of the daylight movements can take places and cover. So if you're just hunting getting into cultural field, it's a lot harder on you. And and and for me, we had a choice because it was ours. We could either have the corn or we could have the cover. So we elected to do a little bit of both. I mean, we went from fifties acres of food down to UH nine, but all that cover put some of the some of the cards in our hands, so we were getting a whole lot more daylight walkers. Yeah, and something you said we were walking resonated with me, and that was that when you do have that cover, when you do have the ability to uh house more deer during daylight on your ground, you all of a sudden have a good disproportionate impact on the future of the deer herd of the entire area, because if more bucks are staying in your chunk during daylight and you're choosing not to shoot the young bucks, then these deer that maybe otherwise would have been spread all over and shot by other people. Maybe you now have a larger number of bucks than usual hang out during daylight and your property during the fall or during gun season that otherwise would have been shot, and you are maybe you know, even though you might only fifty seven acres, if you make it the fifty seven acres that from November, all these bucks want to be in because they know it's not nearly as as everybody out where else, all of a sudden, you could have a really significant impact on what bucks make it through for a whole large area. Maybe, um it past sounds you kind of had that impact, right, Yes, you do. To your point, most people get excited about opening Day. I mean, if Michigan get someone will go from a state holiday to a national holiday for the fift November, they would. And personally, I'm not a big fan of that date because it happens during the rut and I wish that would change. But to your point, I would generally not even get too excited about the gun season until about the eighteenth and nineteen and the now by now you've had several day night cycles and several people just getting out the woods like a million hunters, you know, And so by the time we got to the we had a lot more deer on the property, and my odds of taking went way up. So you know, two point yeah, they get pushed in on it and having to cover and pays dividends and you can hold bucks that you wouldn't normally hold. Now, who do you know that would say to you, well, Mark, I don't care for the opening day. I prefer to wait till the twenty from my opening day. Not many people, but I'll tell you who it is. It's it's always with us with cover. So you know, for for me, if I can give him a place to feel safe and go to bed, I'm not doing something right. And then next relief, I can give him something to eat prior to going out to the big agricultural fields. Better yet. Yeah, So, so you were able to do that to a degree on yourn, but then recently you were able to take it to a whole another level. You've you've alluded to this. Can you talk about how how you came to to own that? Well, I mean it always had been next to us here on the fifty seven, but um, basically you know the fellows that and his wife they passed away and the family offered to sell it to me, and at that point, you know the idea of of having that tied into this original fifty seven was very appealing to me. I had a at the time, I had a a Missouri farm. I was fond of it, but to me it was worth the trade. So I, you know, was sold out of that property and and into this one. And it has really made it so I can take it to the next level. Uh. This it wasn't an overly hunted property, which is part of the reason something we asked me to around to begin with. But how often do you get a chance at a clean slate with eighty four acres September. I mean, there was barely any paths in this to walk on or right a four whela and there with anything really in there. Quite a few tree stands, but um, I've always found that, you know that that can be difficult if you have a tree stand out in the middle of a hardwoods. I mean your winds going somewhere, so at best, you know, it was kind of difficult the way they did hunt it when they did, in my opinion. But now tying that back into the fifty seven, I've got that nine acres of grain out there in another couple of acres of food plot, and then this eighty four acres of solid timber. It it was it was an opportunity. I mean I walked it with you know, with some people and just picking the brain here one of them that can see things. And I come back to the you know, land management. Uh, it's it's the clean slate thing is so exciting for me. Yeah, I am looking forward to seeing how this turns out in five years. And I and I have great feelings about it because you know, I've been around and doing this long enough. I know it's gonna work, work really well. But you know, day one walking into this new timber and gone m And the thing is it was not a mature timber. It wasn't like the kind of woods that you turned into a city park. So while that has a certain field to certain people, uh, it doesn't so much to the deer. And in this woods was um new by wood standards, I think probably seventy years ago. It was past year, you know, and with some fence roads in it. And so it's been let go a very long time and it has grown mature enough to have been logged a couple of times. But overall you saw it, it's just loaded up with trees that are sixteen inches or less. Yeah, so a lot of light gets through and that gives you a lot of undergrowth, and so so walk me through what those I don't know if you did this in a matter of weeks or day or months, but when you first took possession of it, and now you're starting that process you just described. I have a blank slate acre rectangle of solid timber, relatively young, pretty thick, and then I know that there's food to my one side. That's on the fifty seven. You own to walk me through how you looked at it, what you were thinking, how you start planning. Okay, these are the first things I need to do. How did you walk through that plant? What did the plan look like? Well, the plan originated twenty years ago. I've been sitting next to this works for a very long time just dreaming about it. Well, you spend time at the tree stand, you get time to think that. Boy, if I had that property, this is what I would do. But one of the first foremost and obvious things that I had always said to myself, like, you know there's a power line running through this. Uh, you know it's up towards the front, and why why not if the power company is gonna keep it clear anyway? Why why not put that all in clover of the deer something to to eat. So without even walking the property, you know, I was able to identify something right off the bat that I would do different. And uh then once I sat down and you know, really thought, hey, I'm gonna own this, What what am I gonna do to this property? It really comes down to one word access. How am I going to access and not blow the deer out? You know? How are we going to keep it very much a sanctuary yet make it honorable at the same time. So one of the first missions was to create, uh, some roads around the perimeter towards the outside edges of woods. You know, you've got to give something to get something. So some trees are gonna fall over and and you you know you're gonna have to drive in there, You're gonna have to walk around it. You can't hunt property without going into it. But being attached to the fifty seven and being attached to the road instantly, you know, I had access from three sides and that was key out there. So the first thing, I mean, the first thing we did. I did was get a bulldozer and and navigate some trails along the edges. You know, wide enough to get a tractor down through and and start the process. But um, the process of deciding where to put food, you know, a little bit more involved. So what I tried to do is identify what the deer, how the deer moved naturally anyway, So in other words, I knew that out the back side of the woods, uh, that there was a big water source. It was forty acres away, But it really was about doing things around back there. So my thought was, Okay, if I can get to that backside, maybe get a little food source In the back of this was maybe I can give them a little something to eat before they head out in the dark to go over and get a drink from that lake. The one thing they're gonna need is water, period. They've got a drink, so somewhere, I mean, I knew they were getting water, and this particular property had little to none on it, So that was a major consideration for me. What way are they already wanting to go, and how can I intercept them, you know, without much of an invasion along the way, And and that that worked well. And on the other side of the property, I know that they were going out to a cornfield or a bean field, and from years of just monitoring deer activity from the road even I had could see where these deer tended to exit the property, you know, and we can go in the corn field. So you've got so you've got deer moving from the core of the eighty four betting area and stank there. Some are heading out towards this corn field, Some are heading out towards this lake or water source. Some are probably heading out towards the fifty seven and the food up there. Would you say there's the three main directions stuff emanates out of No, I would say there's four out the other direction too. Yeah, yeah, they're they're actually do exit on the roadside very heavily because there's some some massive agricultural fields over there, and you know, so you've probably hit some along the way, but you're not afraid across the road. And so I this this woods, I mean, it looks great from satellite, it really does, because it's it's big, and it's in the surrounded by food essentially, and so they're kind of migrate out of it in this case four directions, and of course, you know, the road being one of my access points, you know, it's not in base of at all, hardly to you know, pop in fifty sixty yards off the road and it's set up a good spot to hunt. And then then the sides were a little more challenging, you know, to to access, and some of them can only be accessed when the wind is just right. But being that I had the fifty seven acres with other road frontage and been able to access the back quite easily too, so uh, good access, that's really what it comes down to. And then when I decided where approximately within this to put the first food plot, I simply looked for something that could be farmed, somewhat flat maybe, and not too many humongous trees. So so when I found this little valley that I thought could be farmed and would be right in the migration path to the water, it was I'm gonna say, se sassafras soft maple trees that I didn't mind losing, So you know, that just played into it all the better, you know. And then I knew that, you know, to the north of it and to the south of it through walking, the bedding was phenomenal, so uh, you know, I was able to find a little spot to tuck this in that I don't feel tore up too much cover and it didn't destroy too many good trees. And that's where we put it. That was the first food plot in And it's secluded from all sides to right, but but close enough on one edge that you can walk the perimeter and then walk in I don't know, forty fifty yards or something that's into it right precisely. Yeah, yeah, that's that's the philosophy. I mean, if you if you go in with the wind in your favor, then that forty yard trip from the outside end isn't so bad. Um. So, so how did you go about carving that in? Did you have any thoughts on how you shaped it any other things when it came to preparing it, um that you were thinking about? Um? Walking through the details of that first food plot, Well, this was this was some thick and nasty you know, because stuff because of the sas frustrees and the vines. There's a lot of vines in here. And so you know, I walked it. I used you know, the on X app and I did some walking and I said, well, that's about three cores of an acre, and and I saw the shape that I had walked in and the shape was dictated somewhat by the you know, the topography, and also by where I just want to say, I'm not taking those big trees out or whatever it is. So that that was a phase one of so UM identified a shape it I thought could be hontrible and accessible and where I would put the blind all prior to the dos are going in. So then we fired up the dos and my son and I and we dozed dozed this plot in and and last year was the first year hunting it, and it proved successful. My son got a nice buck there and my great nephew killed his first buck in there. It was great, but uh, you know, I think you need to be ready to evolve when when you're doing this stuff. So you know, it worked, but not quite to the degree I wanted it to. There was there was a fair amount of deer that were bypassing us just because they were headed to the water. You know, water first, they must be better all day. However, it worked out they were kind of skirting the plot and then obviously the trail cameras would show us that they were there after dark. So this year I went ahead and modified it a little bit. I uh, increased the one end of it to kind of get out into that little travel corridor. So, um, it's a little out of bowl range, but certainly easily within gun range. I don't think there's a spot over about eight yards there period in the whole plot. But the other thing I did was when we took out those trees this year, was brought the stumps that remained in the brush and I placed them in a spot right across from the blind building out from the structure was already there. What I ended up creating was a U shape. Okay, so any deer traveling this food plat from one end to the other was going to come past at the bottom of the U. And you know that's the blind was at the very bottom edge of the U. And then the bottleneck I created was kind of in the bottom of the saddle of the U if you're following me there. Yeah. So basically now for archery season, I think that any deer that passes through that plot, uh from east to west, even eating or not eating, it's gonna have to pass by that thirty five yard point and hopefully it's a it's a a good buck and he's interested in the trick. Oi and he comes to twenty yards. But the bottom line is, you know, there was a little bit of evolving that took place this spring on that back plot one with shape and two was kind of pinching them in so we could get the archery shots that we wanted. I also saw that you and you just mentioned one example of it, but you definitely when you're when you're pushing all these timber plots, I've seen that you're taking the debris from it, whether it be stumps and root balls or some leftover tops or whatever, and it seems like you're using those strategically to um to help manage where movement might be. Can you talk a little bit about how you think about that too, And it definitely does make a difference. Well A, it can make him feel a little bit more secure, be it can give you this screen that allows you to get to the plot undetected but knocking and not knocking the trees down and stacking up the root balls, and that helped us with the bottlenecking of the deer. But uh, it also made it so that I could carve holes through there. It spots maybe twenty yards from the blind so if they you know, wanted to travel across the plot. I know that good chance if they exit, they're going to take the easiest path. Not saying they can't get out of there, but I am saying that if you give a deer an easier place to walk a lot of times you'll take it. And if that happens to be yards off the blind where you can get a shot or power to you. So yeah, we definitely used the brush strategically, and all the logs and that have been removed for fireworks or otherwise, and why not. You have it, and you gotta put it somewhere. So I prefer to have it a lot of times at my back so that when I look um out across the plot as much as possible, I can see deer filtering through the timber, because that's what I enjoy. You know, you see a set of legs moving through and Europe with the binoculars instantly and you're just hoping, hoping, is it a good one? What is it? What? Something's coming through the brush. I can see it. So I try not to screen myself too much, but but I will play stumps in some rus should order to push it to your closer to me as I passed you the food plot. Yeah, yeah, I could definitely see that you put a lot of thought into each one of these little aspects of the plots. Um, it didn't seem like there was much done by accident. And I feel that's a really consistent thing I see with all the different people I talked to, those those best hunters, Um, they always um our detail, worrant, and they're they're not cutting, you know, not making shortcuts. They're they're thinking through the long run. Um. While all these things might mean how each little piece could stack on top of each other and give you that best possible chance. Another thing that uh, we did was trying to incorporate some of our own water, you know. So so that's actually last year was the first year for that. And I set up a nice blind over a water hole that I created, uh, simply by dozing a depression into an area and then lining that with a big tarp, and then after that we put all a foot of dirt back on it to protect it because you know, from the deer's hoofs and uh, and then I've had to fill it since I don't have water flowing on the place, I I have you know, an old water tank that maybe holds three warter gowns, and several trips later, I had it. I had it filled up in a blindset overright now. In this particular case, the very first one. I liked it not to have any food sources around it because I thought, you know, that would be what an all day ruts that this could be. I was just picturing this in my mind. You know, we're just off some of the bedding and the thickets, and in these they are thirsty. They've been running, chasing dose on the move all the time. How fun it could be to sit in this timber location throughout a day set and watch deer filter into this water through the woods and not have it be a great, big, wide open space of of green. So again I'm experimenting behind you. But what I saw last year made for some of the most fun Michigan hunting that I've had in a long time. That you know, even once they got cold, the deer were coming in and punching their feet through the ice right along the edge just to get drinks. And it was steady flow. Now this first year, um, you know, by the oldest deer I saw do that was two and a half. So not that we drew in a lot of big bucks right off the bat with that new water hole, but it drew the deer and and and my belief all these year and a halfs that came in steadily will someday be three and a half one and a half year old deer. They're accustomed to drinking there, and I'm hoping that will work. And the turkeys loved it just as much. Squirrels, raccoons, everything drinks out of this thing is pretty neat. Yeah, the deer would punch holes in the ice and then the deer the turkey would come and drink out of all those of prints. Yeah, it was fun. Um. Another thing you mentioned me when it came to water is the fact that you you've found that this definitely worked. And then there's a temptation though maybe like, oh, if I found a water hole works, if one water hole works, I bet you two and three and four or five and six and seven and fifteen water holes of work better, right, And they would, But you said no, I actually want to be careful with how many, um can you describe? Ye? And I saw you you've got two other water sources that you're working on but you wanted to keep it um a relatively low number. Can you Can you talk about why, well that the theory is anyway that, uh, if you have a lot of water holes, it's gonna be a little harder to have one be called a destination water hole, you know what I mean. So if I throw a water hole in every food plat and in every corner of the woods, I'm sure it's very good for the deer and the critters, but I think that it, you know, spreads out your opportunities for harvesting those same animals. So while I want to have one on each side, maybe that creates a stop point for the deer to come and get a drink. I don't want so many that I have no clue where to hunt. So right now I'm looking at it like I'm going to have a three water holes at the end of this, and I'll have a particular deer I'm after who tends to spend more time on the reconics over on this side of the farm, or he's exiting into the grain fields on that side of the farm. I'll know that the water hole I want to pursue him over is this one one he's exiting near. So you know, one thing I've learned that even with just eighty four acres, and I realized that's not a whole lot. Uh, I will find that my cameras do not turn up the same buck on every camera. The bottom line is there's cameras. I never saw bucks from the other end of the eighty four acres on that. That's kind of amazing to me. Yet it's true, and you would see constantly the same deer on the same cameras, occasionally capturing him on the others too, But there may be two or three cameras and you never saw that deer. It is because it's not that much l in. It really isn't. But when you picture a deer's home range, you don't know if you're in the middle of it or if you're on an edge of it. So when I get, you know, pictures of a buck just on one or two cameras all the way to one side of the farm, I'm I'm just making the assumption that I'm just on the edge of his core area. Now, I'm not gonna say you'll never wander. You know, after the first brought's over, he could be anywhere. It's true, but they do have a core area and I think they it's actually quite discoverable even on a small pieces like four acres. Yeah, what is your trail camera strategy on on these pieces here? We didn't really talk about that, But how do they work into your hunting? Do you? I know, you know, folks of Mark Drey are really big into getting a lot of photos, but mostly by using last year's photos. Are you planning your hunts this year? Because he's looking a lot like annual patterns and trends like that. Um, are you are you doing that kind of thing? Are you just trying to see what kinds of deer are out here? Or are you using amorous to actively choose where to hunt right now? And you're getting pictures yesterday and you're hunting here the next day because of it? Where do you fall on that spectrum? Well? Inventory, for sure. I'm always taking inventory, and yes I do keep on all the pictures from previous seasons because one thing that uh, I've discovered, it's a if a deer tends to hit a particular area a particular time of the year, he'll be consistent with that the next year. Good chance if he's still around that two year old now is a three year old is likely to be hitting that same food plot in December, which just tells you something about his character and and there's a good chance it will be the same the following year. Uh So there's the inventory side of things is just maybe well back when you could use mineral, you know, you get your mineral out there and and you just kind of take a general inventory throughout your area of what bucks made it through, and then as season season approaches, you know, I'm moving off of that. I'm getting on green uh or in this case, maybe a water hole as well. But I'm getting it to the food plots, especially you know in the clover and that, and trying to see what what they're hitting particular food plots at that point. But by the time October gets midway through, I'm changing that tactic as well, because dear the bucks in general, uh, you know, I was not thinking of their bellies quite as much now, So I'm moving the cameras off to get them on scrapes. At that point. By mid October, I've got them pretty well all on scrapes and maybe just one per food plot as a general monitor, and you know, maybe even I have that, you know, on a on a food plot timer, and it's taking a picture every five minutes during the you know, the morning hours, in the in the evening hours like they do now. So UM a couple of different tactics, but the scrape has become my primary focus after mid October. When you put them on the scrapes, how far how close to the scrape do you do you sit your cameras. Some people talk and say that they're worried about spooking deer, so they don't want to have the camera right on the same tree that the scrape might be on UM or they'll try to put a high angle down. I've been kind of conflicted on this. I've ran scrape. I've ran cameras right in a tree that's ten yards away or five yards away from the scrape, and it seems fine. And I've had other times where there will be one buck and I get one picture of them, I never get it again. I wonder, has that because I had that camera, there should be putting these high and farther away. I don't know what the answer is. Where are you on? UM? I think you're right, it can affect them, and and I've had the red light cameras, and I definitely feel that that does have an effect on them. I mean they do turn and look at it, so uh and you may not see that here again or I've even seen them in the third and fourth picture of them running away, so I know it affects them. But so what I tried to do is go, you know, all with cameras that don't have that, certainly not a regular flash anymore like they used to, but even gotten away from the red just to improve my odds there. But in question to where do you put it, um, I consider access usually you know, that's I'm putting it on a side of the tree that allows me the least invasive footwork from a standpoint of getting to and from it. And honestly, I like scrapes that occur on old old lane ways. Uh. The reason being, you can take an electric vehicle or you know, maybe a golf curtain slip back in there and never put your foot track down at all and roll right up to the camera with your gloves on and flip it open and change your card. Uh. The other the other thing that I've started doing for the food plats sake is I'm mounting the cameras right on the blinds, and that way, when I go to my blind to hunt, I can pull the card. So I use that type quite a bit. Two plus. Uh, you know, I'd like to put the tree coise out so, um, there's usually a tree twenty yards in front of the blind, so that gives me a natural spot. But whether they're just up there scent marking the tree or rubbing it or putting a scrape on the ground, A dozen bucks alike are attracted to those, and you do get quite a lot of pictures that way. UM. So back to your food plots. You're you're talking about, you know, having cameras over these food plots, monitoring what's there. Um in these kind of satellite food plots like you you described one of those that you're you're carving into the timber, and there's two others like that on this piece that you carved in. UM. You described to me kind of seems like a relatively consistent food plot plan for each one of those. Um, can you walk through what that is why you chose to plant these several different varieties? Sure? Uh, you know, a basic philosophy of mine is with with your food sources um aside from grain, and we're just talking about typical food plots of you know, turn up some radishes and clover and the like. I like to see a balance of fifty six in the clover overall. And the reason is, uh, it's it's habit forming. Clover is works all year unless they completely annihilate it. They're gonna paw to it down to it in the snow. I mean, they're gonna go for it. And and that's not different in raddishes all the time. But raddishes are not there all year or turnips. Clover is. So it's it's awesome for the turkey hunting as well. Uh. But bottom line is a clover is fairly easy to grow, fairly easy to maintain, and it's a it's a year round attract And so to me, habit forming is good. If you're gonna hang onto a property for more than three years, you've got an opportunity here to form habits with those year and a half bucks there on your property. And there's usually a lot of them in Michigan. Yeah, and a few of them are going to make it through. And if you can form some good habits coming to the clover or whatever. That's a great thing. Now get fast forward. You're thinking about season in end of July. Of course I'm I'm burning down you know what's not clover, and I'm turning it up and getting it propping the soil, getting my lime on there. Usually actually that's more towards spring, but getting the fertilizer put in and worked into the soil. And then for uh, you know, planting strategy. A lot of times we'll put the clover. Uh, I like the non typical clover real well, and I'll put that around the outside edges of the food plot. And part of the reason is, you know, clover is pretty shade tolerant compared to other plants. It tolerates that well. And and the roots of the trees get out in there some and and well, you know, drain nutrients away from other plants. Clover will survive that, and and we'll keep on where other types of plants won't. So a lot of times there'll be an outside ring of clover. But then when it comes to the food is so self out in the center. I like to um, stay agger seasonally, stagger what's planted there. You can't run radishes or turn ups year after year in the same spot. So I may take a food plot and draw a line from my blind across the food plot. Left side, I might plant uh, you know, tall tine tubers or some sort of uh winter bulbs, sugar beets, last bite maximum for the brassica, okay, And then on the other half, maybe is a resting year, Maybe I plant some chicory um along some oats. Now, a lot of people plant rye and where are we and everybody's got there there's favorite thing. But you know, for me, generally, I find that it's pretty easy to get a good standard oats, and if you can mix that in with something else, you know, more power to you. But what it does is it really gives that land some time to rest because if you plant uh, and we've discovered this, you know, year over year, if you plant maximum in the same spot, it becomes less and less productive in the in the funguses and the insects that survived that in the soil tend to be there waiting for it next year. And it just seems like a snowball. So you know, we're trying to trying to alternate them just so that doesn't happen so much. It's tough when you've only got you know, one acre to work with, but you know, we all you can do is do your best and and that's a small effort right there to split them up. Yeah. No, Now you talked about the clover, you've got the clover ring and then also on one of those food pleats, I think it was the first one, you talked about how you were going to leave a larger section of that and clover as well, and we were we were, um, I was asking about how you maintained it because one of the things I've been dealing with lately is just trying to maintain a small clover plot that I've been working on a piece of property that I can hunt, um, and you know, just dealing with the weeds, dealing with different things, trying to make sure, um, make sure you're timing all the different maintenance things right. That's what I always have questions, like when shouldy mowing, or when should be springer when she would be It's just there's there's a little bit to it. And you said that you have kind of system for managing your your clover. Can you walk us through what your system is? Yeah, I mean kind of what we discovered a little bit by accident actually years and years ago, was that I went to burn down a clover plot. And you say that, you mean spray round up, but that, yeah, true, I am not fire right, Yeah, so we're bringing it down with a chemical burness is what it is. See, and uh, you know, I think I may have gotten a little bit light on the roundup or whatever. And and uh go back in a couple of weeks to get ready planet and what in the world the clover that's in it has survived and it's starting to spring back, and I'm like, what the heck is going on here? So, uh, long story, shortly occurred to me that, well, if clover could actually survive a heavy dose of round up, what happens if I spray my clover with a light dose a round up? You know, will it still be effective enough on the other weeds in that And again, not being afraid to experiment, it turned out to be quite affordable option to spray it that way, And uh, I ended up mixing about three quarters of an ounce to the gallon you know of of round up in the water, So that's a fairly light dose. But yeah, heavy enough it killed the weeds. So the clover would be stunted generally uh it yellow, and then it would wait for the rain. So I'm doing this since say the end of August, right and uh, you know, for a couple of weeks or they say that it's best to spray and go on vacation. It honestly is because I had done it in the past, and I went back and you know, ten days and went this time, I've really done it. You're not have anything to hunt over here. But but yet a month goes by and you've had some good rains and suddenly the only thing that's green in that plot is clover. And not only that, without in competition, it just blows up. So I've ended up with some very very good food plots of clover with that method. And by the time that October rolls around, it's had a solid six weeks of growing and it's it's lush, works really well. Now throughout the course of the spring and summer, I'll mow it a couple of times, you know, uh, just to keep the weeds in check that are trying to come up through the clover. But at the end of the day, usually long about end of August, mid August, I'm gonna go ahead and hit it with a dose of round up, and I kind of I try to look and see when there's some rain in the future. I want them round up to be effective enough to knock out the weeds. But you know, I don't want the clover suffering indefinitely on drought conditions with that round up on it. So you know, if it's going to rain in the next seven eight days, I'm I'm happy. And that's I try to shoot for those times. Um, and when when's the right time to mow? You said you most several times. What are you waiting for to say, Okay, now it's time to just wait till it starts seating out? Or are you waiting till the weeds reached a certain height? When do you choose to go in there and do that. Well, yeah, I would say, you know, wait forward, seat out. But here's here's the thing. I mean. In June, uh, when you think you're due for that first mowing, I've discovered that it's just not worth it. We hit fawns, so we stopped that practice. You know at the time that I felt like we should probably get on it because you know, the summer grasses are now starting up through the clover um, so you feel like, man, I should maybe get out there and get that mode before them get going. The downside was, you know, you hit a faun or two and it kind of discourages you from doing that. So so my first mowing of the year, generally it is a little later than I would have liked, and the grass is a little bit taller than I would have wanted, but at least the funds are on their feet and it's not an issue. And then a lot of times, you know more one more time, say, you know, towards the all right at the end of July, and then the weeds in the in the clover has a couple of few weeks to recover and by the time I actually do the round up application to knock out the weeds. But the other part of that equation is we to maintain a good clover plot if you wanted the last five years, you gotta feed it. You know, they make their own nitrogen, so that's not necessary. But but we fertilize it like like any others. We treated as a drop because it is and we can Tom and I have stretched some of these clover plots out to five and seven years in good shape. You know, eventually you you there's no doubt you need to start over. But um, so what we'll do is we'll knock it out of the rotation, you know, remove it from clover now. And this is not the ring style. This would be if we had a whole plot of clovers what I'm really referring to now. But so after five years, let's say we go ahead and and uh do a hard chemical burn on it with some more aggressive chemicals, and then go ahead and turn turn it under and we'll run a year of brassicas on it. I mean, the clovers just pumped it full of nitrogen, and you know, the turnips and the radishes are nitrogen hogs. So that first year out of Clover they tend to do really really good. And uh, if we were going right back into clover the very next year along with those reddishes, we see clover again and those Seaton links will take root. And you know, after our year of brassica is the next spring it comes up quite strong, and generally speaking, we will do some frost seating in March just to bolster the weaker spots in the clover, and you know it's it's not terribly expensive way to do something, so you generally would do that too. So speaking of food sources, another you've got all sorts of you have several strategically placed food plots, which we've talked about, um three of these being tucked on the edges of sort of on the edges of your big of your big timber um, but then scattered throughout the big timber. I saw you have a bunch of different apple trees throughout, and you've been doing some things to try to begin, um putting those apple trees in a better position by doing some girdling or some other things like that. Can you talk about what you're doing, why you're doing that? Was my my thought that you know, this was an old farmstead many years ago and at apple trees on it. Of course, people grew their own food more back then, but and then when the pasture got let go, I think the birds and the animals did a good job of spreading apple seeds. So throughout this timber we've got a lot of apple trees. The issue really being is they're starting to be become shaded out killed by the more mature hardwoods that have taken so many years to get it going. And uh so you know, uh, it's such an advantage to have a good apple tree that it's worth to me girdling some of the trees that are shading them out to give them a look at the sun. They're just not tall enough and vines were trimming some vines away anything that's you know, trying to kill the apple tree off. And if we can stretch some more years out of that and get some apples on the ground all throughout the woods. Now, I know that's a scattered food source, but who wouldn't want a bunch of apple trees growing in their in their woods? So it does it does work. They eat them, Uh they they love to make scrapes under them. It's just a good low of a tree. But if you don't protect them by you know, something, they'll be gone. I can't tell you how many dead apple trees are are in this woods, and that's the whole reason they've been shaded out. So yeah, where you know, some of my cherry trees are having to get girdle to provide some light into the apple trees. But you can't have it all. So keep explaining what you mean by girdling, how exactly you're doing that. Yeah, well, basically taking the chainsaw and cutting a ring around the tree a couple inches deep, because that's where the nutrients move up through the trees, on the outsides of the at the tree, just underneath the bark. So like severing that lifeline to the tree, you know, the tree will die off. I don't necessarily want it laying on the ground. This wood is thick enough as it is, and in a in a thick woods, it's also very tough to topple a tree. Uh, when it's amongst other trees. It just stands there and leaning up against another tree. But so I found that, you know, girdling is probably the effective tool to just kill that that particular tree. Uh. No, I have to do it a lot. But if I can protect a small group of apple trees and you don't get him a few more years out of life, out of my will, it's it's it's worth that to me. Now, it's nice to have, like you're saying, it's nice to have those those little additional food sources scattered through Well, I've I've walked a lot of timber. You know from Iowa, Missouri to Illinois to here, and uh, I can tell you this is the first time I've really seen this many apple trees in a woods. It's it's rare. It's that rare. So yeah, I'm gonna do what I can to protect them. It's very cool between apple trees and the rolling topography in there, and uh, the already tremendous bedding cover. Um, it sets up really nice. Now tell me this, though, you have this farm here in Michigan hunt, and then you also have some farms you hunt and have in in Iowa, and you've had a Missouri farm and things like that. What do you have to do here on the Michigan farm or what have you been thinking about in the Michigan farm as far as your habit at work or plan or process. What have you done if anything that's different here than on those farms because of the specific challenges we have here. Is there anything that comes to mind you you have to be more careful about certain things or do you have to put a little bit more thoughts into certain things or be more wary. I don't know if anything to jump in mind. Yeah, I think it might at least a surprise me. Maybe it'll surprise on other people. But uh, you know, access is key. We've we've talked about that, uh a lot, and I think it may be even more key in Iowa. Now we've said, don do what de're do in Iowa, right, And they're more at home and they do and more free to make their vocalizations and do this stuff during daylight. So naturally you would think, you know that maybe Michigan is one you better be more careful with. But the truth of the matter is, um, if a person walks down defense line in Iowa, it's a lot less common place, it can be a lot more alarming to the deer. I think. So access actually becomes more important out there, uh whereas here while I you know, would never really want my son to blow through the timber, believe me. But at the end of the day, dear smell humans in southern Lower Michigan on a daily basis. So I mean, it's not like I want my jet stream blowing right at the deer they're coming to me. They won't come, But if they catch a passing whiff, it could just be the lady walking or dog down the road. You know, it could be just the farmer out checking the fences for the cattle, So they have to contend with people all the time. And if they always always, you know, ran every time they got a little whiff, they would never have a place to live. So while, you know, I think they'll avoid you for sure, and you can't have your son blowing it deer they're approaching you, they won't do it. I think that if your wind does drift across him as well, it's not steady at me, you may get away with that, say a little bit better in Michigan. I know it sounds kind of counterintuitive, but they're so inundated or indeed with human scent that occasional whiff I think is just a little more commonplaces. Um, it would be maybe the equivalent of hunting suburb bucks sometimes. Yeah, you know, and I wish that this you know, farm maybe was in a different part of the county where there wasn't so so much human traffic around. But it's just hard to come up with that piece in southern Lower Michigan. There's too many people and too many small pieces aground. Yeah, yeah, there certainly is a lot of that. Now, what's next, Like, what's the next big thing you want to do out here that you haven't started yet. Is there still like a bucket list big project you really wish you could be able to put into action out here, um or or where you see. Where's it going? Well? Uh, you know, it all takes time. So you know, in my my grand vision, so to speak, one of the things I would like to do is take a two agger piece it's kind of in the middle and put a food plot. Now that sounds a little again counter intuitive, Uh, but I've I've navigated it through the ups and downs of it, and I think that I can hunt that occasionally. But the but the bigger thing that I'm trying to accomplish with that is if I can get a spot that's two and a half acres to to and a half acres, I believe that I can you know, raise soybeans on that. And uh, I know, because of the deer numbers that it's gonna require an electric fence, you know, and I'm gonna have to once a week go out and change a battery on that or and make sure it's not knocked down. But I believe that I can grow a couple of acres of soybeans out of that and and then release those beans once November hit, or if I even want to wait till gun season, I could but release those beans, meaning take down the fence. And now I've suddenly got this big food source that should be able to feed the deer four a couple of months, maybe three. You know, it just depends on how many deer come in and eat there. But the idea behind that was really one of Uh, if I can feed the deer and give him something to drink, maybe a few of them are gonna be all lived to be four years old because they didn't step out in front of a slug you know acrost defense. And and at the end of the day, if it works, I think everybody would benefit, even even the surrounding ground are going to see more in bigger box out of the deal because I've protected so many year and a half. Now will it work, like a tellgient before, it's all an experiment. I mean, I know a lot of things will work, and I do a lot of those things, but this definitely falls under the experimental part of it. And at the end of the day, if it fails, you know, and I don't like how it worked, it was too impossible to keep the deer out of it. Uh, And I don't want a food plot in the middle of the woods. Mother nature will take care of that in about two years. And all I got to do is stop and and believe me, the the honeysuckle that's around and and all the prickers and blackberries and raspberries, everything's gonna thicken it up. The weeds are coming, you know, and then the small trees. So it's there. The risk is well worth it to me to see if this will work. And I'm kind of excited. It's just something I've never been able to do. Take a take a solid chunk of timber and put a put a big grain plot in the middle of it. So uh, it's gonna take some time, though. I mean, that's a that's a lot of trees, a lot of firewood, you know, and I gotta I will say, there's probably a few logs in that area, so I've got a logger coming out to look at those. And it's uh, it's forward looking, but I enjoy it. I really like doing this sort of thing. You made a good point out there earlier today in that um we're talking to there's all there's this thing I'm working on the same working on this thing. You know, there's there's so many of these apple trees I can only get to a handfully or whatever. Um. And then you made the point that you wouldn't want to try to go and do all this all at once. Um. It's it's kind of a good thing to say, well, I've got this thing I can do next year, and I'll stretch this out over several years, because because to your point, it's the it's the process, it's the journey, like managing a piece of ground for wildlife and hunting and deer and all these things. Um, it doesn't I would say, it shouldn't be just about like be able to shoot one giant bucket. It should be a really fun, year round process. It should be a great way for you to interact with this place and get to know this place, and yet hopefully it leads to some great hunting. Um. But you know, you said you want to enjoy it. And if you're stressing out because you have to cut down fifty different trees, or you have to be out there every single day, or or you're so stressed about not getting all these things done on your list that you don't enjoy it anymore, then what's the point? Exactly right? And the bottom line is, from the time I got the first food plot done, the place had improved and was better hunting than it was before. So if I need to, you know, work on my Iowa farm and tinker and put a food plot in their water hole out there or Missouri, whatever the case may be, uh, so be it. And it doesn't all have to happen at once. So you know, uh, I like to see things get done. Uh, But I also realized that there's gonna be a sense of loss that occurs once I've got all the big stuff done. You know, that'll always be little things. But once I get past that, I feel like I feel like some will be missing, all right. So so really my goal was just to you know, add one food plot a year, one water hole until I get where I'm going, and and then sit back and reap the rewards. But again, I'll I'll miss that part of it, and trust me. So anyway, yeah, I'm going to get a few years of enjoyment out of changing this piece around, or at least maybe I'll find another piece too. I would like to keep my eyes open for something but it is. It's pretty difficult Michigan find a clean slate like this one, I'd say. So. Something that I liked a lot um was that while we were looking at one of your food plots, you talked about the fact that, um, a lot of what you're trying to to do now is not just set yourself up for success personally, trying to find opportunities in ways to use something like this to help other people experience these things that we've come to love hunting in the outdoors, um, and how that's become part of of of your goals kind of maybe with this place and with what you're doing, can you can you just elaborate a little a little bit on and why that's something that matters to you now and how you're trying to try to do that. M hmm, yeah for sure. Well, uh, you know, I I have killed a few boon and crack a deer now and then it's very exciting and I love it. I'm all in trust me. But and if you've ever sat behind a nine year old shooting his first buck, you know that's something too. And you know it doesn't go home and hang on your wall or anything. But the memories that you make doing something like that are incredible. So for me, it's been I don't want to say giving back, but you know, a piece of ground like this does give you an opportunity to share that experience with others, and and particularly in Michigan, if it's you know, there's there's a lot of deer here. Uh And if you have the right place, the right setup, you can see a lot of deer. And I think that's a great way to get young people involved. You know, they've grown up now with a phone in their hands or some sort of electronic device that you know, it stimulates them constantly. So to take a deer hunting, like when I started in the seventies, take a kid deer hunting a boy, you had to be all in because you might hunt all day and I see a deer. But you know, with this, you know a piece of ground, the fifty seven, and now you know the additional ground it's with it. If I take somebody out, they're going to see some deer and they're gonna they're gonna have a good time seeing them. And what you've probably done there has created a lifelong deer hunter because you know, once it's in under your skin. You know, it's hard to get rid of that bud. Yeah, but you do have to enjoy it and and get something out of it, not be too cold. I've I've taken to using blinds now almost exclusively. For one, they contain your scent a lot better. But you know, you can uh move about in them a little freer, which is good. As you get older, you're a little more fidgety. You don't sit quite as still as you want to. But it's kind of like with the young guys, the nine year olds, eight year old to go out with you, or even younger. I mean, I'm sure with the right blind you take a two or three year old out. My kids have been hunting with me for a very long time out of a blind, and uh, the windows are high enough that they could play with their toys on the floor and get away with it. But at least when the deer came out and I could point them out, and then they were all excited, you know. So I'm doing a little bit of that. We're trying to get some youth out. And I've got a couple of people in mind this fall that a never killed a deer or never killed a buck, and I'm hoping to get them out and get them their first deer and I'll get as much out of as they will. And then, um, you know, I'm I'm hoping maybe to use that liberty hunt to get a disabled veteran out someone again that may not have that you know, easy place to go see some deer. Uh. And you know these new blinds are very easy to get into and out of and situated in. So I'm hoping to do something like that as well. Yeah, And um, my son's girlfriend never been deer hunting, and she went with us last fall and she's like, Wow, this is really cool because you know, the deer and the turkeys and squirrels, it's it's a zoo out there. So you know there's another person right there that she's now going to go get her hunter safety this summer, and and she wants to go hunting. She wants to start shooting. And Paul so even know that that our sport is struggling to maintain its numbers and there's a lot of people that oppose it, so um, it behooves us to introduce people to the hunting. And so those of us that have a good piece to share and I should do it. Yeah, I think that's a great I think that's a great point because it definitely is I mean, of course, with this goes out saying, but to be able to be in a position to buy a piece of property, obviously in almost all cases, takes a whole lot of work in time and effort to to be able to be in a position to do that. But it also is is a is a privilege to be in that position too, and there are some people that maybe won't have that privilege. So I think it's really cool that you're taking that, um, that blessing of yours and helping others that maybe don't have that same opportunity. I think that's it's a great example for a lot of us to look at. Um another great privileges of yours that you're out getting to hunt in Iowa two spend most of my time, actually spend spend a lot of time there. Um. You know, is there just is there anything going on out there when it comes to the managing of a property or hunter habitat? Um? Is there anything out there that that is just other than you talked about access is a little bit different. But are there any other projects you guys are working out there on those farms. Um Or is there anything that Tom is doing out there that is just really different than what we've been talking about. M hm, I don't know. Well, we're talking about four acre wood. We're kind of in the detember, and that's something that we don't find ourselves doing out there. We're able to pick up field edges and turn those into food plots and draw them out of the thicker spots. So, um, technically it can be a little bit different out there, and that you don't hardly ever have to go in the timber. If we are in the timber, it's because it's the rut and it's on and so outside of the rut, we're pretty well hunting the food, so you know. Um, so that's a little different. If a person in Michigan has a piece of woods to hunt, he's gotta walk through a period. I mean, there's just no way to necessarily get around it otherwise. But it seems like out there we have a little bit better. It just seems roomier. You know, the pieces of ground are so much larger in general out there. If if someone has two or three hundred acre field here, it's pretty well. Fence rows are ripped out and it's just big old cornfield, you know. And those fields do exist out there, and even even bigger. But the tracks of land in general are so much bigger that uh, they take in a lot more um cover. You might be only four of you hunting a few hundred acres instead of four of you hunting forty acres. You know. Uh, in that difference in Missouri and Iowa. Uh, ellen Wis would probably another state that included that. What makes those states different than Michigan. And I don't know, maybe you've never thought of this, but uh, in those states, you don't have a swamp. It doesn't exist. In those states. Water moves period. If it falls down, it moves until it gets into a stream and then a river and off it goes. There are no swamps, just just and and so we have that to our benefit here because it does give a deer a great spot tide um. And so that makes us a little bit unique, is all the lowland and wetland that that we have here. But the other thing is most of that rolling ground in in say Iowa Missouri um was once upon a time cattle ranch. I mean they farmed for cattle, so all the rolling ground tended to be turned into grassy fields for them. Well, in keeping with that, they put reservoirs everywhere. So literally, if a rain drop falls out there, it's pretty much gonna go somewhere. So they created a lot, a lot of reservoirs, water holes for the for the cattle. So, uh, they're really all over So we don't use water holes quite as much out there, you know, as as we do here. Just seems like there's a lot of them and we're not well I'm not gonna say not. We do hunt over them, but it just doesn't seem to be quite as big a factor as a nice, big green food plot is, let's put it that way. But here, Um, you know, if a deer has to go three or four yards for water, he's likely to get shot at. So if you can put a water hole inside your timber, you've got a different it's a game changer. Uh. Something I've always liked to say, and this this is there's probably no factual basis to this. I'd just like to say it because I'm for Michigan. But I always like to say that if you can kill a mature deer in Michigan, you could do it anywhere. This is what I've always thought, like, this is one the same thing. You could say the same thing if you could kill mature about in New York or Pennsylvania or maybe George or one of these other high pressure states. I'm not sure what you know how it all ranks, but it's always been my thoughts. If you're kill in here, you can get done anywhere. So you can kill mature deer in Michigan, and you've been able to kill mature deer in Iowa. Now, I'm sure he won't listen to this, so don't worry about what he's gonna think about you saying this. But if you took Tom Ware from Iowa and through him in Michigan, could he kill mature deer here? Uh? Tom is good. Yeah, yeah, he's he's gonna find the most mature deer. Willie stay in Michigan. No, No, he's gonna he's gonna yeah yeah, No, Um, he'll be in back now he's not gonna be here probably with me this fall. No. Uh yeah. But to your point, Um, there's a lot of truth in what you say. If if you're a good hunter in Michigan, I'm sorry, You're gonna be very good in the Western states as well. Strategy is very a little bit. But um so, what you have to know in Michigan to be able to kill a good buck, it's simply translated out west means you will kill a good buck because it is easier in those states, a lot less pressure. So I mean, and you know, I don't know if the same is always true. I think that you know, well, there's plenty of uh, you know, old school farmers that just wait till the shotgun season and they go out and they sit in the same spot they always sitting for whatever reason, they always kill one there. Well, I don't feel that you could take those people and drop them in Michigan. It wouldn't work. You know, it's been a little bit too easy for him, and that there's not that many hunters out there. And you know, they've probably seen the deer coming out to the food plat for a month or two, an hour or just that spot's just always worked over there by the oak tree. And it's probably true. Um but yeah, turn about if I think Michigan hunters, if they're good here, are going to be good there. And they're gonna have more fun, probably because they're gonna see some some serious buck fights and they're gonna hear some snart leases and yeah, they're gonna they're gonna be excited. I know. Uh, the minute I started hunt out there over a decade ago, that was it for me. I had to be there. Yeah, it's it's hard to argue it's it's a whole lot of fun. I love hunting in Michigan. I love hunting these other states. It's just different kind of experience. But when you go somewhere like you know, Iowa, oor Ohio or another Western state, it is something special. Man. I would encourage anyone to give it a shot. And you don't need to own land to do it. You can certainly hunt public plan and have really cool experience. You can get permission still and have really cool experience. Um. But that's That's been one of my favorite things over the course of the last ten years that I started really traveling, is just having a diversity of hunting experiences, getting to hunt in different trains, different being around different cultures of deer hunters, being able to see all sorts of different scenarios from what's present in Michigan, to what's in Ohio to what's in Montana, to Iowa to Illinois to Pennsylvania. It's all different. It's all pretty cool its own um. And I'm kind of left with the fought that a deer is a deer in Michigan or Iowa. But in Michigan they're just more solf, just more self a deer. Everything's cranked up. It's a deer on edge, for sure. And I've spent my share of time on public ground in in states you know, Colorado, Nebraska, you name it, in New Mexico, and I have killed some game out there, and you're right it is. Now we're talking about maybe different species in white tail, but uh, a deer a meal, they're still a deer. But yet it's a whole different hunt. I mean, you're in the sage brush and oak brush and it's exciting to experience that. And I would encourage people to do it because it's not that expensive. A lot of those states are over the counter. And if you think you can't go out in public land and see something, you're wrong, and they're there. Yeah, you might not always get a giant, but I'll tell you, when you do something, it's out if your comfort zone and you go out to these public plans, success doesn't have to be measured in injas, because just managing to harvest one can be a small victory, and in a fun change of pace one even just going out there and surviving it at all would be a victory in many cases for some people. So yeah, I think this is I think that's great. What I what I enjoy about what I'm able to do is I gets talk to people from all different walks of life within the hunting world, and gets talked to some people that just hunt public land and they just get out there and they they're finding great deer and they're having a really great time, and they get they get a wide breadth of different experience because they're hunting all these different places all this time. And then you get to talk to someone who owns a farm maybe like you do, and you get to have a great experience, and you get to manage deer and hunt deer and kill some great deer, and you get to have like a really deep experience with a single place. And I think there's there's something cool and unique about all that. And I think all of these add to this great, big pot luck of of what it is to be a hunter, um. And I'm really glad that all of us are in that big pot together and that we can kind of learn from all of our different experiences. And so I've enjoyed hearing about your experience, how you're doing things here in Michigan, how you've been able to do some things out in these other states and bring it back and and it kind of makes a match, um. And it's encouraging exciting to see someone doing what you're doing here in a state that's not always easy, but you're still having a lot of great success and having a lot of fun. And uh, I just thoroughly enjoyed our chat and getting to see it here in person. So so thank you for Scott. I appreciate you coming out and I'd like to pick your brain too when we're out there, you know, another set of eyes. Hey, thank you for that. I'm always always going to be down for that. If people want to see some of your hunts in the future, is there anywhere you can direct them, Well, Drew has put a lot of them out on YouTube with their d d t V. There's a lot of out there you can actually search Scott Manifold, and I know I've done it to see what's out there, but yeah, there's actually actually quite a few of them out there. And currently I'm Tom and I are along with Mike Clementon are partners on Bowl Madness on the Outdoor Channel. Yeah, and then we do some stuff on Pursuit Channel for Natural Born Killers. That would be pretty much anything we've done with a gun gets put on that program. So yeah, there's some places out there, and if you especially if you have cable or this DV, you can get in there some of those channels and check it out. Excellent. Well, I'll definitely check them out, check out the YouTube videos here. That's what I'm always on. And I know you've had some some some great bucks that are out there. So we'll watch for us on deer Cast this fall. That that is a phenomenal app I use it religiously and I'm not just saying that. It works superbly. And it also gives us a chance to, you know, right after our harvests post to kill out there for for everybody to see what's happening. And I mean it's it's about as close to live as you can get on something like that, and just a great format that is a fun way to do it. So all right, well, thank you Scott and hopefully we'll be seeing some big old bucks on Deercast for me come fall. Thanks and that will be a rap today, So thank you all for tuning in. Best of luck on your upcoming turkey hunts or habita have projects or whatever it is you might be doing out in the woods and fields these days. Until next time, stay wired Ton