Dummies Guide to Land Management

This is an awesome rifle and basically Savage is at it again. These guys have done amazing things in the past and now they're doing amazing things in the future. If you want to find out more information about the one Tent Ultra Light, visit Savage Arms dot com. My name is Clay Nukeleman. I'm the host of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll also be your host into the world of hunting the icon of the North American Wilderness Fair.

We'll talk about tactics, gear conservation. We will also bring you into some of the wildest country on the planet chasing fair. This week we had Matt d and Adam Keith of Land and Legacy consultation. Come to the Bear Hunting Magazine Global headquarters. These guys have been friends of mine for a while. They have a really good and very informative land management podcast, but they do a lot of land consultation. They in the last three years have

done consultations in twenty seven states. So we have a conversation about land management, about white tail hunting, and a whole lot of stuff. Interesting conversation. The first of this podcast is us touring some land right here in the Ozarks of Arkansas, and we're kind of just getting their commentary on tree species and ways that I could improve

this property. So you're gonna enjoy that. Muzzleloader seasons in the United States and in Canada are typically fairly liberal in terms of season dates, length of seasons, and that's why I love to hunt with a muzzloader, taking some good deer with a muzzloader. And I'm gonna be hunting more this fall with a muzzloader than I'll probably ever have. And c v A, the company c v A, makes

an incredible line of muzzloaders. The company was established in They're known for their Bugara barrels, which is a world famous high quality barrel they have multiple lines of muzzloaders. They're owned for some very high end, very accurate muzzloaders, but they're also known for their price point in some places. C v A is a is a great place for you to step into the muzzloader world or to upgrade your old muzzloader to something way better. So check out c v A dot com. Be ready for this fall.

I know that I will. You know, one of the big ex bearers ever killed with the Musloders building. Mm hmmm. The Western Bear Foundation nonprofit hunting conservation organization based out of Cody, Wyoming. They're fighting the good fight out west, standing up for the rights of bears. Yep, that's right. These conservationists hunters like us members of the Western Bearing Foundation, we actually love bears. We like them, we want them

on the landscape. We also like their fat, their hide, their meat, their claws, and I think we can both have what we want. And that's what the Western Bear Foundation is doing. They're standing up for the rights of sportsmen and for hunting, but also for solid bear conservation.

Check them out. So we're just gonna walk through this property, small property here in the Ozarks, and I just want to hear your commentary on the different species, maybe what you think happened here, and maybe what you would if you just had like a ten minute consultation with a client, like you would say, yeah, hey, this is what you should do if we were managing this for for white tail deer. And uh, we've been doing a little logging on the property. You guys will be glad to know.

I know you guys hate like can't full canopy cover? Um. So yeah, I'm working on a barn over here. So we cut down some oaks that we milled up, and I'm amazed that you can take out one oak tree. Well how much lumber, but also how much canopy space? I mean like I've got like what feels like room for like a quarter ack or food thought after like, uh, you know one time cutting down a tree. So let's just walk up here. Hey, yeah, all right. Do you guys have these white buck eyes or Ohio buck eyes

of man? I bet this property has a thousand Ohio buck eyes on it. I mean, I'm serious, they are. It's kind of a weird sight for us to see them in typically yeah bottom land, um, but it's are there wet? Is this not hillside? No, usually typically dry. Yeah, there there I've been some of them out. I've got some that I really like. But so there's a lot of limes stone in this area, surprisingly really good soil.

Like we have these big limestone like shelves. Like there's parts of this property where you can see, yeah, big outcropference. But if you're not, like if your shovel is not hitting you know, a five thousand pound rock, you're in pretty black dirt. Yeah, all right, tell tell you what.

It's an interesting forest composition here with you know, you've got some taller Eastern red cedars thirty plus foot tall, but then you have hedge or o say George Berry, and then you have the um oak regeneration where there's a little bit of sunlight. There is a major issue that we see that will address more and more as we move up through here. Can I guess what bush honeysucker that's the place is full of it? And and how far are you from Flattville? So us off the

understanding Kansas City, St. Louis, these big metropolis areas in Illinois, Ohio. God, you can just see it like spreading like a virus. So people don't say the coronavirus. Did anybody we are staying pretty close to each other, did uh? Did they

bring that in for what? Ornamental? So a lot of our No, no, but it's got tons of berries and birds eat the berries and then they carry those berries away poop mount woof, and you can just see it just it goes from residential areas out to the rural areas. So and what you see like with these tree species, a lot of them are some of the first ones from a tree species standpoint to come back after something was open walnut, honey, locusts hedge, eastern red ceatar, and

per simmon in this point in the country. Yeah, that's what you typically see come back from that first generation forest would have been have been definitely definitely this was open probably. I would like to honestly go back in Google Earth and see or see what the sight would register as. But this was way back when very open. Now close all secondary growth, so you know, go back presettlement most likely glades, savannahs, open landscape because we're right

at that transition. You would have had that, you know, but your south, your south slopes would still have raging fires going up on them and so they would be more open south and so then once fire was removed, then it started to you saw the tree species probably transition over from the north and east slopes or areas where fire wasn't as severe, so you would have um the o' kickry transition more on the south and the west facing slopes. But then when started getting logged out.

Here we are now where at some point it was probably logged out, and then you have these tree species that are here. Now do you think it would be safe to say that this was probably logged like in the nineteen forties or something, because there are some big oaks, like like we're looking at a start left here, there's a big hole in the campy where I cut down

one of my better oaks on this property for that barn. Sure, And I mean we we counted the rings back on that oak um, you know, like from just right on the ground, and it was eight plus. Yeah, we kind of it was. It was I think a northern red oak. It was definitely red oak, but it could have been a spotted oak. Some people from spotted oaks. All right, probably a northern red oak. Let's keep walking up there, um, But I wouldn't say that a lot of these other

that's amazing. How fastened some of the cedars growing, how big and quick get Yeah, you nailed it, man, chink a lot of chicka pin oak here, Like down two hours south of here, you can't find a chinckapin oak. I mean it's not as rocky down there, probably is it. Maybe you know, like on the other side of the Arkansas River down the wash toss like, you can't find

a chicken pan oak. This place wants to have chicken pin oaks more than standard white oaks because of all the you know we see at the site of chicken pin oaks on bluffs creeks so rocky. Yeah, so that's that's another sign that hey, this is or once was very open, glady like. So right over here is where

I cut down a boat dark. There was a boat dark right there that was probably twenty two at the base and was straight as an arrow, which is unusual, and it was I guess was because canopy was already around it, and so it just had the same thing that you see with a lot of the seaters. Even some of the heirs Simmons in here, they're typically straight, but I mean they're big simmons on the cherry over there. That's very straight. You can get the leaning to that

seat right there. Man, I'm surprised you didn't it. Man, I would have cut that I was going to. But it's this is like my trail, so you know, we kind of gotta keep that one. But like, see here's a big, big red oak, big nice red oak right there. Yeah, this is like when we look here, it's it's a it's it's diverse, which is great. You have some chink a pins. But then like you look up here and you've got per simmons which are tall and straight, and that tells you that it was open. It was. Yeah,

there's another bit of black locust right there. There's a honey locust just down below us. Again, those are some of the first ones that will come back. Every farmer deals with black locus, honeylocus coming in pastures well, because that's the first thing that comes back in an opening to make it in transition. Here, here's a good case study right here. So when we bought this place, the first thing I did was I cleared order acre food plot.

Of course, that's what you're that's exactly what you're supposed to do. So this was woods where we're going right now. This was all woods and I'm gonna tell you a tragic Okay, I'm gonna tell you a story of triumph of the white tail hunter. But then I'm also going to tell you the same story in the same story, a story of tragedy. Built this food plot, dug out the stumps. You know, you could probably shoot forty yards across this and uh, let's go, let's way through all this.

You're probably good. You're probably good. Got it all probably is easy to say, but we still have a two hour drive. Good thing we didn't use Kolby's tick repellent chapstick. Okay. So this was in two thousand five. I cleared a lane so from my house I could see this plot. It's since grown up. I saw a giant deer from my house in two thousand seven, and this the deer I ended up killing that, that big, big deer that's

in there. This field was a beautiful clover field. I mean, this is pretty a clover food plot as you've ever seen. The deer were hitting it well, So that's the victory, okay. And what I was shocked with at the time was that this was not the kind of place I wanted a deer hunt. I mean, to me, deer hunting was like going to some wild place, and here in my backyard I had the suburban, pretty suburban backyard had these deer. But the reason I had these deer is because the

forty acres north of me was uninhabited. I killed two real nice deer out of this food plot. And then a guy bought that place who was a big deer hunter and totally changed the deer hunting. What's well, he just lived there. He just bought the land and was a deer hunter, and more power to him. He just started bringing in family and they killed deer, and he actually killed a giant deer on that place. So do you see the status my food plot? How dilapidated it is?

Lost interest in hunting here? After all, the potential for big deer was pretty much gone. So anyway, this has been grown up for seven years. So if on this small property this opening, what would be most beneficial for me to attract wildlife? Here? To do with this piece of property? At one time I would say this was

close to a quarter acre. So I guess a big question would be what are the this is the same questions we always ask our clients want to kill a deer, all right, so we want to kill a deer, just any dere or a mature four and a half for older buck, I'd like a three and one quarter. So then we got to look at the neighborhood and say, what's the limited resource here? Um? Is there food plots? Most just like you told the story, Yeah, their food plots in the area. People are feeding deer. Okay, so

that's right. Our saw out that different from Texas, right, just more trees, but we still have good you could and so uh, you know, feeding is a big thing. So you're not gonna be able unless you want to spend a fortune to outbate your neighbor most likely. So okay, what is something else? And this is where a lot of people aren't doing this? But what happens to a deer that gets pressure during the fall? He starts trying

to hold up get thicker cover. He's just trying to survive, and that comes in the form of thickets, the best cover that's also secure. So it's not getting he's not even if you have the thickest area in the neighborhood, if you walk through it every day, they're not going to utilize it like they would. So if you could turn in these thick pockets or use um just young forest restoration, cut some timber let, some thickets, some stump sprouts grow up, that's where hinge cutting is come in

really popular. If you do a mix, you can provide a secure area for the d here, especially a maturity or who's keying in on a pressure a lot more than a dough and a with a with a button buck behind her that's coming into your yard every day. So I would much prefer if if this is an area we're in a state that you can bait, I would much prefer to have quality cover then a quality food plug. Well, there's food out there, as we're saying through bait that's super easy to get to. It's always out.

What if I want to be cool and have a food plot I can put on Instagram? What'd you doing that? I think? I think clearly I don't property. You really need to take in the neighborhood and what those other resources are or aren't identify that limited resource here and what we find in most places it is not only just good cover, but suit the secure cover and then hunt that because The thing is, it doesn't take reset

it get the cool season out. Well, I mean okay, but but you're not saying come back in here and plant more clover. You could if you want to, and then pick a spot just hundred yards that way or whichever way the property lays, and get over there and then cut into young forest pocket. It may be a half acre where you just go in kind of do what you did here, but lead the tops where they lay, just cut them and and that creates. Now you have pretty good food. You could have your feed er if

you want, so you've got a destination feeding area. But then you have a couple of areas if you do them. Una always spied something. What is that? What does it look like? Uh? We kind of looks like weak. So it's a cool season grass. Its native but in a practical sense a bottle brush right, bottle brush grass, that is what it is. That's that's a pretty common that's a cool see you'll find um. And of course so I think elm cut elms. Yeah, they're not doing any good,

are they? Well? When they're you know, above the reach of a deer. But elm is one of the species American elm. When you cut it, and it regenerates highly palatable foods, and deer will go to that woody browse over other species such a you know, another one is flowering dogwood. Um, maples. There's a couple of maples and stuff therough here. Cut those things that's additional foods or greenbriers growing everywhere, encouraged that type of native forest to grow.

So we've worked now we created Land of Legacy in two thousand seventeen, and we've worked in twenty seven states across the country. Um, mainly about white tail deer. And there's only a few tree species that we would say we find deer highly selecting to eat the leaves. And one of those probably the most popular, boat arc really crazy. It doesn't look like a leaf that a deer with eat. It looks waxy, leathery, thick, but they just devour it. Yeah,

I'll be doing it. And so you may not notice it because you have an abundance of it around here. And and this is a pretty thick you know, you have a lot of undergrowth. Yeah, unfortunately it's getting the bush in bush honeysuckle. But um, yeah, you know another tree that I've I've seen in this part of the world deer selecting for their leaves is um is mulberry. That's the other one that at one time was watching

the dough feeding on acorns. It was it was in the fall, the leaves returning, and I was sitting right under this big, big mulberry and one of those you know, the leaves are like five six inches across sometimes and this big leaf like you know, we kind of swoon down to the ground and landed and that no walked like thirty yards to pick that leaf. This and but that's just observation though. In a tree stand and just being out with nature, you see those things, and that

is obviously a preference. Right key into those preferences and offer those types or or make that food available here on the property where it's not being elsewhere that forty acres at the guy bought, he's not gonna go in there and do that kind of stuff. Diverse by your property, make it different by knowing what they like, what they're attracted to, and make it where it's accessible to him. Anybody who's hunted national forest is probably ran into clear

cuts before and gone. Well, it seems like those deer really like that clear cut. But those could be fifty acre clear cuts. We're talking half acre to an acre to where it really congregates deer travel patterns, and so it's like, well, there's still beneficial. Now, the same number of deer wouldn't use that. That us a two acre clear cut, but the deer in this area will certainly key in on that and start using that. Summer tanagers still saying, all right, we're at the Bare Honey Magazine

global headquarters. We just went on a little tour nature walk, nature walk. Yeah, so I've got Matt Die Adam Keith, Colby moorehead with global headquarters. Um Man, thank you guys for driving down here. I appreciate it absolutely. So you guys are fellow Ozarker's that's right. So we're like, uh yeah, so so you're like pretty much in your home turf here, so you're about two hours away from from where we are here. I'm born and raised Ozarkian, Matt semi adopted.

I guess that's just now home. You know, we've been talking about a couple of times on the podcast. We've been talking about tribalism and how that's bad. So I'm trying to reframe my mind to not say like us and them like ozark ER's like versus the world. You know, that's kind of my world view. Is that what's coming down to You're on the border, moved here from Dallas. He's doing really good. He's uh, he's kind of picking up.

You know. So you said us and them and Matt and I are we those well yeah, undetermined those guys from from the state line. Yeah, you know what. What what is funny though, is that between here and there, between like you know, our northwest Arkansas and Missouri, people are really confused whether where the South starts. Absolutely because to me, southern Missouri exhibits the characteristics of an upland

southern culture. Yeah okay, uh so upland southern. You know, like when you when you hear the words southern and here we go again travelism. Nope, we're just talking about what we see. We're just a messenger here, observation. Now, like you know, like southern culture you would typically associate with agriculture, swampland like like, and so that's not what this is at all. No. Um, but I heard a phrase actually pretty recently about Upland Southern culture, which would

be the Ozarks and the Highland Appalachian region. I was gonna say, because I came from the east and so I had a lot of experience Appalachia. And it's like this compare and contrast. I have both experiences, like I put almost them together. That's got my heritage, you know, I'm I'm scotch Irish. And so when when we were I guess my ancestors were brought over um it was and they and then they started taking homesteading or taking up um home places. It was. It was the Appalachia's

West Virginia and Virginia. And then whenever that started to I guess when they started to move um and I guess with a little bit of history, Uh, when they ran out of money, then they moved on to those arcs. Because it was so much like West Virginia Virginia. I would think that, you know, in my mindset, if if it didn't work back there, I wouldn't move to some place that looks very similar and again again. But they

did so here. That's why the Ozarks are one of the poorest places in the country because they tried it again here and it didn't work again. You just stop in Kentucky or Tennessee. I read just the other day that um, at one time in the Ozarks of Arkansas, seventy percent of the settlers were from Mid Tennessee Middle Tennessee. So we have we had a ton of overlap with culture between Middle Tennessee and in Eastern Tennessee as well.

But like that was like the travel route, and you can see how patterns started to develop in communities because you know, there would be these communities that formed and then they're like, hey, Jim and Sue moved to Arkansas. Yeah, I hear there's this, and that there and this, Like constantly, these people were moving based upon a promise of a better It's a cattleman's paradise. Uh no. So yeah, it's

good to have you guys here. Man. So, you guys have a business called landing Legacy, and landing legacy is a lot of different things. Tell me what land of legacy is. How much time do we have? So give a short version and then we'll get into the long version. The short version of so were natural Resource Management land consulting from So we work with landowners across the country to restore landscapes, to offer quality, healthy landscapes for the

wildlife that lived there. Um. Sometimes we get into cattle multi use properties where we're trying to integrate crop rotations, cattle rotations with with more productive wildlife populations. Yeah, now are are you guys? I know you're very well versed in biology. What's your educational background in So I have a degree in biology with the concentration wildlife management and I'm I'm an agriculture animal science, So I come from

the agg world. But have you know I was fortunate enough to have a family farm that was cattle operation, but was really passionate about hunting. So my brother and I, um, we just kind of self taught school of hard knocks of cutting trees that really attracted wildlife, burning that really helps the wildlife. Things like that. It sounds like you have a really complicated process here. Cut trees attracted wildlife, burn attracted wildlife, like caveman stuff pretty much. Yeah, it's

like what was nature? You know, cave may in style, Like I I call it caveman Um thought process. I was making a joke and now you're like, I'm dead serious, Like because you know, first caveman when he saw fire for the first time, he said fire good. Yeah, Yeah, if you build the bedding gear will come. Essentially you can boil land management down to disturbances. Fire and cutting trees are is a type of disturbance. Cattle grazing as

a type of disturbance. So as many articles and stuff as you can read about land management and this and that, you can quickly complicate things. But essentially, man, you've got a lot of disturbances on properties, you're probably gonna have quite a bit of wildlife. Yeah, but isn't that the history of North American continent? Like we often have this image that pre European settlement the continent was just like

full of wildlife. And what I've been read in in uh a book by Brooks Blevins we had Brooks Blevins on the podcast a while back, is that there was a there was a period of time potentially thousands of years when much of the Ozarks were uninhabited year round by Native Americans. Yeah, so there was there was year round colonization by Native Americans. Well, let me back up twelve thousand years ago as the first human evidence in the Ozarks for you know, that's that's when the people

first got here. Yea, they stayed here year round for like a couple of thousand years they were here and then for whatever reason, permanent settlement retreated, and then there were several thousand years and that was part of the reason the Ozarks were so uh uh, such a good place to settle in the seventeen hundreds, and like when French trappers and stuff, the French were the ones that settled all these places, named all these places. It's really

a shame tribalism. I love, I love the French um the and when they got here, there were no year round native tribes here, and the O s age were the main ones that were using this and they would seasonally hunt this and uh So, anyway, I can't remember exactly why I started telling that story, something about disturbances maybeces. So we had we had this idea that that there

was all this wildlife here. But when the Native Americans weren't here those several thousand years, where there weren't as much human disturbances, primarily by fire, wildlife populations were lower.

And I think populations too. When you read the journals of some of the early exploration, they'll talk a lot about wildlife and in the vast quantities that were there but you also have to understand two when you look back and and kind of study that is that populations fluctuated pretty significantly, like if you had really severe winners a couple of years in a row, populations were lower or major drought, and or you had a influx of prey population and then at some point following that as

an influx of predator population, so the prey species lowered, and once it lowered to a certain amount, pray species are predator species moved on or or starved. And so you know, depending on when you were here. And we talk a lot so much about native landscapes, that's a big part of our business. But that's where you know, the question is, well what do we call a native

what time frame? And we go for what's achievable. Well, you know that seventeen hundred just pre European settlement, because we can't go back and bring animals that have gone extinct, like we can go that's not in Yeah, that's right. So we really try to manage for that native presettling.

And we know that it was through the settlers that it was an abundant landscape with lots of wildlife, with lots of diversity, fantastic mixtures of different plant communities from hard mass producing trees all the way down to you know, grasses both cool and warm season stuff. Like, they's everything here growing in the landscape. So if that was some of the best times, well, let's restore it, let's get

it back. Or or you read those journals. Uh, you know, everybody's probably at some point stumbled upon or read a portion of Lewis and Clark journals. But they talk a lot about the species that they find or used for medicinal purposes, and it's like, oh, yeah, we got that. We don't have a lot of it anymore, but it's still here. Um. And so that's always been really really cool for me to look back in history and study those cabas Davaca. Have you ever Have you ever read

that book? I have not? Um, it's right, really you should you you you should read the book. It's it's the first journal of the first European that traveled across the southern United States. Uh fifteen something is that the day Vaca? Uh that that was his name. He was, he was a Spanish guy, and uh, incredible book. Um. And I'm gonna backtrack on myself because I think I got it mixed up. When the when the Native Americans

were gone, there was wildlife populations increased. When they were here year round, they decreased, but the fire suppression and the stuff that they did was was obviously really beneficial to him. And so the whole point of a lot of people that talk about that Cabaza day Vaca book by Sickly, he went all the way through He started in Florida and went all the way to South Texas basically all so he was burning up incredible, especially with

the amount of swamps that we had. Yes, and and basically he they saw very little big megafauna like they talked about deer. They talked about seeing Native tribes that had some puma mountain lion decor so, you know they were mountain lions, but they never killed one. They never talked about bear. Yeah, it was it was pretty it

was pretty incredible. But but the whole point of it was is that there there these fluctuations and we would you know, you would think it would just be this like zoo, you know, in fifteen I can't remember exactly when the book was written, but incredible book. Wow, it was incredible and thinking, you know, one thing he said there kind of stirs a comment for me is when the when the Native Americans who were here, there wasn't as many animals because they were obviously killing them and

eating them and and putting pressure so driving populations away. Um. But then you think a lot about well, what was probably occurring if there was no hunting, well, populations grew, they probably started eating a lot more. We see this all the time in our work in present day of deer populations exploding, people not managing them. Um. Therefore young forest uh and woody brows and plant communities are are

over eaten um to where then you have winter kills. Uh. If you get a really bad winter, there's no food. So then nature then's the herd in a very brutal way compared to the way we should be doing it. And that's not documented because people weren't there, so you're just you're left to assume, like, well that's the way populations work. Um. Yeah, it's crazy, and there wasn't that uh suburban area impacting all of this at the same time, like you know, isolization of of um populations where they

can't move and micrate like buffalo. Gosh, imagine the range on those things back then. Yeah, well yeah, there were there were buffalo all the way down into Arkansas, all through the Ozarks and Missouri. And that's relevant to you guys because what you guys, what I hear you guys talking about a lot is restoration of native landscapes. So I think probably two two people that are paying quite a bit of attention, like they recognize that, like invasive

species are a big problem inside of our landscapes. Um. I would you say, I feel like sometimes when we talk invasive species, that we could we could take the people in this country that are really aware of it and fill up this room. Um. It seems like there's not a lot of people that are aware of what's

going on around. Well, talk to me about that, because I hear you guys talk about that a ton and and and with my background too, I mean, I recognize invasive species and sometimes we have this love hate relationship, like Japanese honeysuckle. Like I grew up killing deer on Japanese honeysuckle in January and February down public lands South in Arkansas. I never was that great at it, but

my dad was better. So like honey stuckle to us is like sweet in it, but but we also know the overall long term benefits of that are yeah, low compared to what you could have. So talk to me about invasive species. Yeah, you know that's something that you say that, Um, it's it's in our position, um, and in our what we promote is uh, you know, it can Obviously we've had a we've got to work with

a lot of landowners. But if we go down south and we're like invasive species, we gotta get rid of Japanese honeysuckle, and a deer hunter down there who's been making his life finding patches of he's like, get out of here. You guys don't know how to grow deer that they're eating the honeysuckle. Well, then we go up north and it's like, uh, you know, we gotta get rid of the autumn olive, and they're like, that's where

all the deer are. You guys are foolish, Like, But when it comes to longevity and the actual health of animal populations that's actually sustainable and can continue, we have to monitor our invasive species. And so why why are there's so many invasive species that people are still connected to for instance, Uh, eastern red cedar around here. Like I know you guys like that's a curse word. Well I should say that. Yeah, uh, invasive species, that's not invasive.

That's a native species, native species with an aggressive tendency. So if you disturb the landscape, it's gonna pop up, or don't burn or improper grazing management things like that. Yeah, because there's the non native side, and then there are just invasive species that I have that tendency to just grow, grow, grow without that disturbance. So because they don't have a natural predator. And so like you take like a beaver eating like a cedar tree eating beaver, like like focuses, insects,

things like that that are controlling that species. Those don't usually make the whatever transition from whether the species came from Asia, Europe, whatever. Those natural predators are left. But this plant is here and now it can grow seemingly uncontrolled, very aggressive because that predator is not here present in this landscape. Take common milkweed, which any deer hunters probably at some point use common milkweed to be a wind indicator.

It's a native species here, but if you notice some years you can monitor common milkweed and be like, you know, there's there's a couple of bugs that are all over that, and it started to make seed pods. And those seed pods kind of just shriveled up and it didn't make seed. It didn't appear like those little black and orange sometimes solid black, but little aphids, um, little insect that are all over them. In some years you're like, man, that

if it took all the milkweed, that something happened. Um. But then other years you're like, man, I got a ton of milkweed. But then it's like as you see that population increased and you see the insects come in um, and it just looks a little sick. But you take common milkweed and then go to Asia where it is an invasive species on there in their part of the world, and the leaves are all perfect. It makes seed because there is no natural predator, nothing to really kind of

keep it at bay. And that's just one example. There's been so many times on my farm where I've been fighting invasive species, and through whether it's cutting or herbicide use, whatever it is, it's just like, oh my goodness, is this a never ending battle? Because it sure feels like that and you kind of have that thought process, is there somebody where I'm sitting here fighting a species from Asia?

Is there's somebody in Asia fighting a species and they are like common ragweed, calmon milkweed, those are the common invasive species. And so at least we do have that to cheer about. It's a fair trade. But like going back to that common of like down south, yeah, people are promoting and hunting over and and like Japanese honey cycle up north, a lot of people are loving the autumolive.

But it's like what happens like that, that's such a small time frame to put yourself in of you going to the woods observing maybe a deer walking out of an automn alive thicket, but that same acre. What happens if you remove that automolive and you replace it with a native shrub, Now that offers both cover the same quality cover and then forage on top of that. Now you just improved acre for the species here for the time frame. So I understand what you're saying. So like, yeah,

like Japanese honey suckle would be benefit. I mean, there aren't browsing Japanese honey suckle that much when there's better stuff available, they are browsing it at the peak stress periods, the only thing that's green right that time. And so we would come in without knowledge and go, well, Japanese, honey, suckle. The only reason these deer survived, man mindset. Remember I said, okay, man, fire, good, more fire. It's like, oh, Japanese honey suckle good Japanese,

my dear. But if you took that what I what I'm hearing you say, Matt, is if you took that five acres and improved it with a native vegetation, that would become valuable year round for the deer. They may not all thirty deer on your you know, property, may not be in that one half acre, and that's what that's the that's that's then the perception that this is valuable. Well, yeah,

you might spread them out a little bit. We have to look at and we've fight this quite a bit, but we have to look at population and landscape level, not just we did it here on your property, not just your seven acres or not just your forty acres. We gotta look at like the whole neighborhood and say, what's what does this population this, dear, population need, not that individual target buck, Like, what what does he need?

Does he need this food plot? I don't know. We gotta look at the whole landscape and say we got to improve it. So if it means taking away Japanese honda cuckle from this big patch and improving it, well that's what we need to do. How many native species invasive species would be? Like if you just like on my property, would you say the species are invasive? Mm hmm,

I really on your property, on any property. I'm just trying to get it out because it varies so greatly, so it depends on the For here, I really only my mind probably only wraps around but chiney cuckle. There's multi floor rose. Yeah, I guess that's best rescue, which I don't know if I would technically call it an invasive um. Some people, You know, if you say invasive around a bunch of cattle guys and say fescue, you

probably get you're not walking your face re structured. Um. But now, but I mean, I guess the answer to your question, Yeah, it's a non native species and for these purposes of what I mean, it didn't come from here, you know, correct? Yeah, the blow for the cattlemanvescue is terrible if we're looking at it from a wildlife stand and it's really not great if we look at it from a cattle standpoint. It's terrible because we drove through miles and miles of brown, yellowish colored fields. It's a

cool season grass trying to survive the summer heat. It doesn't stand a chance. It's been hot and dry, um and so as on average. I'll play your game with the question I get us when it comes to overall working all these properties across the country, UM and trying to monitor uh, the amount of let's just say, non native versus invasive invasive. It would probably be mind blowing for a lot of people to realize how much of their property is colonized by a non native species, whether

it be uh smooth brome reads, canary, tall fescue. I mean, that's just listening some of our the grasses um or bermuda grass down south or bahaa grass um. And then you go into the shrubs autumala bush, honeysuckle, uh, Chinese privet um. Then you can go into trees, yeah, vines, English ivy, oriental, bittersweet. I mean, the list goes on and on and on from thesteria Vinco Vinca minor. Do y'all see that that sounds familiar? What's the common name?

I don't know, Yeah, may not minor, maybe Vinca major that I've got some And I think it was a landscape cover cross that I see in the woods. You're a landscaping guy, so yeah, there you know how awful it is in the in the landscaping company. Barberry. That's a bastall one of those that y'all posted that was out in the woods. Yeah, Crimson, Crimson, red Barberry or something like dwarf Barberry is a big one. Like we

drove by trying to remember where I saw it. It was a new church right up to where we're at, um that they had just built the church during all this COVID nineteen stuff. And then all of a sudden you see out in front and there's like twenty Barberry trees are shrubs planted, and I'm like, what, how, why do we have to repeat history? It's a popular landscape plant. You ever seen one outside of the landscape bed though?

And here's the thing. This is where because if you look, it was first introduced and using landscaping in the East Coast, so you have to have a like a seed source, and so out there that's where you have it. A lot here is just starting to be used in landscaping

on a on a pretty regular basis. So I mean, I hate to look in our magic eight ball and say, what's the future looked like, but I would imagine based on the planting rate that we're starting to see it on the landscape in residential and commercial properties will probably start seeing it. For instance, For as an example, the one of the one of the worst um infestations I've seen of Japanese barbary specifically was right on the New

York Pennsylvania border. We're talking the middle of nowhere. I mean small, small, small town, not a big intersection, traffic area, not and we're middle of four acres. It's everywhere through the timber. How did it get here? It doesn't matter because it's there. But yeah, absolutely, and we're again middle of nowhere, north central Pennsylvanias you've worked other properties in

central Pennsylvania that just crazy infested. It's almost like you know, when you go to the beach with a family and you head home they're saying, still everywhere, and then months later you're still at your house, states and states away and you still find that sand. It's like the seed source, like you know, it has to trickle out and rush talking equipment for uh skidders, dozers. It travels on that stuff. Boots,

you know, there's like a lot of these stuff. You know, we'll stick to animals high and for said they said they worked at twenty seven states since we washed the bower washer. Boy always make the w It's like we always make that joke. You go out west to hunt elk. It's like, well, let's make sure we wash our boots off. I don't want to bring you that stuff back. Yeah, that's probably not a joke. But it's the amount of traffic that moves around this place in the country. That's

how it gets moved. And you don't I mean, so the seeds, well, most of this stuff is so small. It's just think of the seed bank. I don't know a lot about the seed bank, but it's it is absolutely fascinating that you could take a chunk of soil from out in my yard that has been you know, in it was my front yard would have been a blueberry and kind of like truck farm from the forties through the sixties and maybe even seventies, and so you

know it's in agriculture for around here anyway. You know, you could take a block of that soil and go planet and and probably find an incredible amount of native stuff inside of it that's been dormant in that in that ground for so long. You know what strikes me about all that's even talking about invasive species and stuff is the resiliency and the energy and the life inside

of nature. I mean, it's like incredible. I mean that though could like all like they were as we are, or you go across so many areas that are like, oh, Man's that's such let's say generally poor quality habitat, like that's just bad man. But with some of the right practices and disturbances, the things that come back. It's such a short time frame. It is powerful stuff, and it's incredible to see, like there's so much life if we just let it breathe, if we just remove the bad

add sunlight, get a little bit of rain. Most times it's incredible. With no fertilizer, you don't have to plant the seed. It's just like the way God designed it to just bro just to list, just just work. Like we did a on a property that we manage um right next to my family farm. It was you know, it's a west mainly west southwest facing slope and crumby timber wasn't great, you know, real rocky, very barely any plants growing in the other story not stick not not

great quality. And and so we manage a lot. A lot of our landowners managed for dear that's the focus, or quail or turkeys. But if they've hired us, they've already probably gone to the holistic mindset where they're like, I don't want to do anything that's detrimental to pollinators or um to my forest, to my to the water quality, make this land as healthy as it can be, generally knowing that that's going to bring in more dear or bigger deer. And so we're like, okay, this is not

good for pollinators, not good for the birds. Really it's pretty much just setting idle and somebody's paying taxes on it. Um. And so what we did was we went in and we we did a logging operation. They cut some timber as much as they could find um and really the goal was to completely give it a facelift and just change it because where it's at was bad. Let's make it good. And so to real quick the direction. If

you hadn't done anything, it wasn't really getting better by itself. Yeah, it was just just the cake trees we're gonna they were all too densely growing, so they were not healthy. So that made them more susceptible to disease or storm or or whatever the case may be, to where we were going to have to just wait on nature to either kill it with the disease, blow it over with a storm, some kind of disturbance, or a fire. And uh so we decided to speed that process up and

do what God called us to do. Be a gamekeeper, be a land manager, be a caretaker. And so what we did was we cut trees. We opened up that canopy, and then we went back in with chainsaws cut. Because what's most timber operations, they come in it's almost like picture because most people picture a garden. You go in, you harvest your crops, your corn, your soybeans or I guess you're not growing soybeans in your garden vegetables, and

then you just leave even idol and the weeds grow up. Well, then they make seed and then that's what's growing back until you start this generation of weeds. And so what we did was we cut it. Now, we we cut a lot of crop. Now we have to cut the weeds to and release the next generation of crop um. And so when we thinned it and then we started burning it, we had big blue stem growing up that had a twelve inch crown at the you know, at the base of the ground where it had been sitting

there just trying to survive. One or two sprigs we may have seen on that site when it was roughly close canopy timber. Now we're talking it's full crowns six on this property. It would have been in the native range. Oh yeah, yeah, I hear. I hear. Big blue stem used like almost like the crown jewel of Southeastern like

Southeastern land management. So so I think that there's a big, big miss like well, like most people were gonna generalize here, love to manage for deer, and so they're like, all I want is you know this CRP grass, I want switch grass, indian grass, big blue stem, want tall grass does over Here's the thing. Deer don't eat grass. So all you have then is cover. So don't get me wrong, it's a native type of cover. But they're not eating it. So what are they gonna eat? I don't want to

hold property. Are don't want to property dominated and just a grass, don't I mean? I know they down there in the gut and they eat some like they may eat um. You know, wheat is a is a grass. I think it's about five percent of their diet is comprised of grass, but it's not very very they're they're they're a woodland animals. What grows in woodlands typically broadlis because it's a mixture of such and so the leaf

itself is is wider to capture more sunlight. Where grasses you find them in pretty much open areas where they're long and slender. When they get three sixty son, well they're gonna forage on something that is there woodland species. So if you know a lot of our I mean a lot of people, you know, the eastern decisionous forest takes up probably the majority or well, let me let me say close canopy forest would probably be the majority

of the North American continent. Now yeah, yeah, okay, So so what would you in general like if if a guy had a property, just average property, cut some timber, let some sunlight get down to the forest floor. What else would you tell him? I would say, manage with the natural disturbance. Um Man, you asked a question right there that would excite me not to say I want this position. I said, big Blue sto him, like five

minutes ago. He's got to come out of his chair species And you guys gave me a plenty plenty of room to wave my arms and your podcast in right now. So when when we look at our landscape now or our country and it is closed canopy forest, if if for the most part you see that, um, there's some major red flags of that, but there's some major possibilities I see of of the opportunity to restore a healthy

forest by doing some cutting. First thing I would probably do is consult with a local forest or UM and tell them the overall goal is a healthy forest for not just the trees itself, but the wildlife. I think that gets blurred a little bit of going I want a healthy forest, Well, it looks a little bit more close canopy than the wildlife may want. UM. So I would like to see some active management UM to where we are cutting a little bit of timber. We are

using that money to hopefully manage it. Give some employee, hire some employees to use prescribe fire if that's what that site needs. Um, if it's if it's not supposed to be a force. Sometimes we get into glades where it's like this is growing up in trees that we don't even need. Now, most likely those trees aren't ones that are gonna make any kind of timber income, but we need to cut those burn it. Let's bring in

some grazing animals. Let's let's get some disturbance here. Um. What you typically don't see any more happening Mississippi in east is the middle ground. You typically have pastures or crop lands, so open fields either canning crops or cool season non ave pastures, or you have a closed canopy timber.

There's nothing on a spectrum in between that. On your On You Guys podcast, one time I heard it described really well, it wasn't It was one of your guests and he described, I'm sorry, guys, I could have just slided and would have been like, yeah, I said that, now you probably have said it. But his analogy was like, like rating vegetation on a scale of one to ten, and a one would be like a fresh cut bermuda lawn on a golf course, and a tin would be a negative. Yeah, a tin would be a closed canopy

like full scale forest. And he said, we have a lot of ones and tens and not a lot of fives, like so that the gradient would be you know, like, is there how much of your property is grassland with mid level shrubs, you know, like successionary successful habitat, Yeah, is in such a decline. It's like, imagine, I can't even imagine a landscape where let's just say you asked about a percentage let's just say ten of the country's

invasive species. I don't I don't know if that's or not, But just imagine if that same tim per cent was early successional habitat, and how much better it would be, not just for dear quail, but also pollinators, which is a big buzz word right now, and not if you just look down the landscape right now and you look at let's just say Missouri and east because out west, you know, Oklahoma even has some pretty good native landscape still, um,

probably because we haven't moved enough of us, haven't moved out there to completely destroy it. Yet. But you go Missouri and east and we have a majority of the open landscape is either uh, we've got of course, residential areas, town cities. Then you go into crops or pastures, which for the most part most cattle operations are non native dominated grasses. So those two are both non natives um

and aren't great for wildlife. Then you go into the forest and you have close can be unmanaged forests um. And then you go down the south and you go into pine plantations where it's kind of monoculture. And and then now we go, well, how come there are wildlife anymore? It's that's a depressing way to look at it, because nothing that they adapted with over years and years and

years is that way anymore. I would I would say that's probably pretty confidently that in many places, or let's say regions of the country or your state, a lot of wildlife populations are surviving, they're not thriving. I think that we see some properties that are doing a lot of good things, or a neighborhood or a coop is where the wildlife can thrive, and that's where we see some of the best either populations or individuals, whether it's great, you know, a giant deer um. But in many of

the places we're simply just seeing wildlife survives. They're just and that's a little bit surprising, I guess because in some ways, because like around here we don't have a really thick populate, well there here we're running into a lot of problems already, Like maybe a thick deer population isn't what we want. But generally that's what people would think, like most deer haunters would be like a indicator of how good the habitat is and how good deer doing

is how many deer we have. But actually that's wrong. I would say this go back to that same analogy of the habitat of the one to the ten ratio. If you have a one or a very low population when comes to deer, you don't have a lot of individuals to determine how good or healthy environment is, so you just have a lesson of population. If you have too many that you have a stressful environment where none

of them can reach potential. But if you're in the middle at that five range, you have a healthy balance of I've got enough deer individuals on the landscape where I can grow get some to an age, but then there's not too many of them at their carrying capacity where they can all then still reach their full potential. So it's a happy medium between all for the deer hunters out there, you know you think about are part of the world is not known for growing giant deer,

but it's not known for really it's not. It's not southern Iowa or West Illinois that everybody's talked about. We have a lot more trees and most of our force is not managed, so we just don't have as much food availability. Um, the land use is different, and so we just don't have that many deer that show up. But you get you take a site or a coop, a decent track of ground, you really start managing and really increasing the quality of the habitat. You start seeing

big deer show up. But then what you also start seeing as dose with twins, dose with triplets, and you see that population start blowing up. And then over of course the time you'll see those giant deer that you've had faye away and start going back down to what

you had before. But you just have a lot more deer, social stress, food, availability has changed, And so if you really are shooting for giant deer, the biggest deer you can have on your or in your neighborhood, you've got to get the habitat at max level where it's just food year round, and you have to keep that dear

population below holding capacity. That way, those deer have the amount of nu transcription we've seen have been on a bunch of different places, some that are like, let's just say zero or one when it comes to the quality habitant. We've been on some sites that are seven and eight. It's like, man, this stuff is good, man, this neighborhood's rocking. But at the same time, most places have way too many deer, and you're like, you're you could they could

be doing a lot better. Absolutely, And I guess that that's just that's the point that I'm getting, as like, we evaluate deer so often just about how how many there are, I mean, and so you don't think about, like I I don't think about this area having like really poor habitat. I mean I do. I guess I'm a little bit I mean, I've been educated a little bit about, you know, how to improve habitat and stuff.

I mean most people wouldn't, like the landowners that I hunt on, like they're just like, man, we got lots of deer. Oh yeah, you know, you don't know what you don't know, Like just people for instance, just you know, we've worked around home. We actually do more work probably away from home than we do at home, because nobody's really setting out thinking they can grow a two deer in the ozarks um. And but we deal with our local neighbors and it's just like, so what do you

do you work with landoarders who we'll shoot. What we're doing here is great, We've got plenty of deer. It's like, no, no, we don't. It could be so much better. And I think that so many people in any given region likely underestimated their region itself. It's like I've been here, I've observed this for ten years. It's like this is status quo. Well, if something status quo, then you don't have again disturbances in that environment to change, manipulate, improve, Therefore the wildlife

will benefit from it. So status quo is like bad from where we come from, Like every region there, there's there's not a place I can like that We've been to them, like yikes, man, Just whether that's the native vegetation that's that's there or um that can be there is subpar most places we go to. It's all there. It just needs that massive facelift and then it will it will be that potential where and you can you can grow and kill doing a crocketeer. What's the what's

the what's the temperature? I mean, obviously your your your business is doing well. So there's people that are willing to talk about these things things and implement these strategies. What would you say the temperature of the you know, at least this part of the country is for the type of wildlife management that you guys are talking about. It pretty high just north North America. Yeah, you guys aren't being limited to anyway. I think it's growing. I

I definitely think that we U our mindset is growing. Um. People are being more aware of what's happening to our land. UM. I think people are starting to understand that you can't take a forest and say they're forest. Go be a forest, and you're gonna be a forest in a hundred years that's still healthy. We can't do that. The preservation mindset, in my opinion, is not something that we can do in a lot of places because of invasive species. Um and so I think there's people who are really keying

on on native landscaping. There's companies out there that are really starting to promote they're planting. I see I see more echinasa planted in landscapes now than I ever have. And people are starting to become aware of purple tone there you go. Yeah, and uh, which is endemic to the ozarks. There you go. Started here, we saw a lot of it growing in on the roadways coming down here. Um, I saw a lot of other bad stuff coming down through. Don't even say what it was, don't don't even propagate it.

Just people will go out. Whatever you'd say that's bad, people will go out and get it. And planet take a guess that was there that's cigarettes and friendly kids. Yeah. Um and so yeah, it's definitely growing. There's a lot of people that are like, I want clean I want a healthy landscape, I want clean water, I want clean air. I want to make I want to feel like I'm being a part of a of a solid movement that's worthwhile.

I think that's death that we're definitely seen, that we're seeing you know, people like the reginative agriculture model and just understanding cattle and grazing in the in the cattle are a tool essentially if if you cattles or mules, Yeah, can you'all implement mules into more of your stuff? Maybe? Maybe YEA is a lot different than that track the logs out that we cut. Like horses, horses grays differently

than cattle. Um, they do. Mules grays different than horses. Okay, how so well they're they're they're known for being less selective, so they could be good at weed controls if they there's the thing. If you can train a mule to select sire celestidsa you're hired and dude, you don't even need to mazin. We got a full time job for you. Just turn loose this mule, magic mule. Yeah. Because like horses, they eat grass and keep returning. Ultimately they'll pull it

up by the roots that they cattle. You know, if they're trained and used appropriately, they're not as active. They'll eat almost anything. Even we've seen cows on good operations eat honey locusts in a young form. You wouldn't think they would, but they hammer it um and so, And it's all the way that you use that tool. If you're rotating, managing them, keeping them on there, you're around, it's not doing any good. That's the thing. When we say, like the government U S. Force Service, I used them

as an example. They used to have grazing rights on a lot of the Ozark reagion. The glades would get grazed. Um. But at some point along the way the sixties, seventies, eighties, management was the grazing. Management wasn't doing what was healthy to the land over grazing was occurring. It wasn't managed. It was just being grazed, and so they pulled out. They pulled out the grazing. So now the landscapes not getting grazed. And it's like most people picture when we

say grazy and they think over grace. Well, wile if don't like that, well, of course not we would agree with that. But if you use them correctly, they're more beneficial wildlife than not having the grazing occasionally leaving residual grass. I mean the cycles and and all the things that we can go into. I mean, it's it's crazy to think.

Once you once you realize that and learn that like man cattle kind of really important to that and what I see, you know, I kind of try to we manage with a business mindset, like any business that just constantly loses money goes broke, right, And there's a lot of landscapes that our businesses that are just going to continue to go broke. And when I say cutting trees, a lot of people are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

I know to change to to fight climate change or two to make a healthy landscape, I need to be planting trees and making health trees. Well, there's a whole lot of there's oftentimes more things that go on than than just that one phrase. It's well and it's we know this world is way more complex. You can't You're not gonna be able to change something by planting some trees. Just trees go back to diversity. Grasses are super super

important to water infiltration, carbon city questration. It's completely different, but you need all of them at the right mixture to make something. So cutting trees you can make money. Cattle grazing you can make money, and all that money is all if done correctly, is also improving the habitat, improving the landscape. Now we're really starting to cook with peanut all. You know, it's like we're really we're really making something great here. Um because we're opening up that canopy.

We're we now have funds to either put back in the landscape or put somebody in place to manage this. And man, you want to talk about making a big impact not just for deer, but birds and everything. You know what I talked earlier about that that where we where we did the hillside that we cut trees and we did timber stand improvement. We cut the weed trees and then we burned it. Fellas that like the deer

utilize it now it's great nesting for turkeys. But what you can really key on, key in on, is the amount of birds that are in that. Like you can just go there and hear birds singing, flying, you know, just it's amazing. It sounds alive. And that's what we're looking for in a landscape. A landscape that is either

restored or healthy should not be stagnant. You should hear the buzzing, you should hear birds chirping, like, there should be activity from a wide range of whether again insect life all the way up to birds mammals utilizing that area. If it's not, it's probably a low grade site because they're not gonna Yeah, they're not gonna be there if it doesn't offer anything, right. Yeah, man, that's incredible stuff. I want to have you guys back on sometime we

can just talk about uh turkeys. Actually, back in the spring, I was wanting to I was trying to figure out a way to talk about turkeys and nesting habitat because she's this part of the world is hurting now. I think Mike Chamberlain, he was on some of the bigger podcasts. First you think I sent some of the bigger Uh no, I did hear him on your podcast? First? Um, and uh no. But but he's done a good job fifth grade. First,

Well he's I think he's done a good job. And I mean he's saying all this same stuff you guys are doing, but but just talking about brood habitats. But we don't really it's people aren't thinking that much about turkeys right now. But I really would like to have you guys back on. So we're very passionate about turkeys, turkey hunting and then making more of them. One thing that's not like poultry farmers, peanut oil, fry and turkey. My brother, my brother working in in kind of western

south of here. Uh in western Arkansas. Landscapes pretty similar, different mountain range air quote that um. But one thing that he's got to observe over his last four or five years working down there is the impact of you know, everybody knows Arkansas turkey population is not doing great, but where they find and like they can go and employee are other employees that he works with are are actively hunting in Arkansas. Of course he's a Missouri guy, so

he leaves Arkansas to come out Missouri. You know where they're finding populations increasing in a lot more turkeys to hunt these places that are very actively managed there. There are lots of fire, there's lots of timber sales or they're cutting timber. So there's lots of the early successional plants growing up in the disturbed sites. They're not growing them in close candic forests that are getting filled with

bushy suckles. Not by happens chance. Yeah, strong strong, strong correlations to disturbances and improving or maintaining stabilizing UM turkey populations. So hey, I want to I want to talk to you guys some about your hunting. Um, just like your personal hunting. So y'all are like getting big plans this fall traveling or hunting locally, mainly locally. My wife and I will have our second child in August mid August, so um my, my traveling is going to be pretty limited.

And at the same time, Manes was so crazy for us with consulting that once dear season starts to dwindle, you know, we start consulting in December, usually in January, February, March, April is just crazy. And this year it's travel enough in that first quarter generally that's like I'm done. So like going into the fall, we feel guilty leaving home, and frankly I don't want to because I just want to stop and sit down and and kind of go

hunt my own spots. And fortunately where I grew up hunting, my family farm, we still have it today and so I get to hunt the same turf that I hunted when I was twelve years old. And we have a pretty good buck on there. So what's a pretty good buck for up there? Uh? Well, this is above average for the area. A pretty good buck would be hundred and we have a couple of those that will probably be in the range. Yeah. Yeah, we got one that we're waiting on to show up. The last year was

probably low flow forty high thirties. That was three and a half year old that Matt saw late season. That should blow up. But we found sheds to a buck that um somewhere around one nine. I'll leave it at that. Are you being serious? Yeah? Yeah, wow, Yeah, that's been missed him last year. Uh took a shot at him

with a boat last light shot under him. But um, he's still around hopefully, and so that that's just uh, if you will again, the region of southern Missouri, it's not often characterized as a big buck place, right where you can have many hunting shows going to the ozarks it right, So, but in pockets where that habits hat

is in place. Again, another strong correlation to with you when you have that age structure built in and you've got some really good deer and then you'll find, you know, pockets across you know, I think I think of something like south central Missouri where they're doing more logging operations and there's the return of some of the great species that we want. In an understory, they've got them and

they've gotten spread across the landscape. Usually there's a couple of big deer to come out of there like the world, and then as the forest grows back and the canopy closed, it back up the big deer kind of you don't

see him getting killed there as much. I think in timber country you can almost like when you have hard woods, um, not timber country in this pine plantation, but if you have mixed hardwoods, uh, you can almost find a correlation between big deer that follow logging operations because those five years after logging operation there's food and cover everywhere. Do you think they're following the trucks or do you think they're actually hitching on I think there's more and getting

spilled out yuh um. What do you guys think about bears in southern Missouri. I think it's awesome. It's cool, Yeah that we've we've started finding them more and more, um there showing up on cameras. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And we're not too many years away from a bear season, so yeah, I don't know what that's gonna be like for us. You know, they're talking like it'll be in October. Rifles in October Rifle and it's kind of like, well, I want to be bo hunting deer at that point.

But you know, we had we had on Laura Conley, the the Yeah, so one of out there What's up your podcast? Of course one of the bigger ones. Um no, she I think it's pretty much if if you guys could bait deer in Soet of Missouri, or in Missouri at all, the bear would be a big problem totally. Yeah, yeah, because like what if you could bait there, there would be bears at every corn pile, tearing up every corn feeder,

and people will be throwing a fit. So it's interesting for me to look at it because it's a different setting and we've had bears for so long here people are just kind of used to it. But these bears are moving back in and they've been there for thirty years or longer. Even I think she said there was evidence of bears being in there, I mean pretty shortly after the reintroduction from Arkansas in the fifties and sixties. I mean there's been there, there's been bears there, but

just in the last ten years they've really crazy. You know. I worked for the Missouri Department of Conservation in college and shortly after right out of college, and when we first started trapping bears um and first started radio calling bears, and uh, you know, what's what's funny about it that that you know, fortunately for Matt and I were not government employees, so we're a little bit more aggressive with our management techniques. We don't have to jump through legislation

to try to get a timber sale or whatever. We can kind of just go recommend it and people do it. And uh so we can say things that maybe they wouldn't say. But it was funny when I was working there, um is we would track these radio collared bears. And when we first started doing it was late, it was

late in the summer. Um and even during deer season when there was no legal you couldn't legally bait, you would notice trends of bears going to sites on a regular basis where it's just like, I know, there's some sort of attractant there because bear is there almost every single feeding deer or something. Yeah, people feeding deer and bears were going in and so they couldn't complain that their feeders were getting tore up because they right, Yeah, what did I did I see? Uh where was I

at the other day? I was somewhere the other day. Well, it's it was here. You know. We we we now have CWD regulations that can't bait deer thirty days before season. Wow, that's what that's. So that's that's Missouri anyway. So like even without CBD, that's Missouri. You could bait during the off season, but thirty days before the season you had to stop. You guys are, well, no, no, we're the opposite. We can't. We can't feed any time except thirty days

before hunting is exact opposite. Does CWD stop being transmitted thirty days before the deer hunt? Is more important? It was totally a political political right but uh no, But like Walmart in different places around, like you're selling corn. I don't want to say right now because that hadn't been to Walmart in a long time, but like, yeah, people are selling corn. And it's like all the game Ward and would have to do is like the Walmart watch who buys, you know, gender pounds of corn and

then following up to the woods. But what's the point of writing a ticket for a judge or somebody just throw it out yeah, maybe, since it depends on the region. You know, in Missouri, um corn is sold in Walmart and supporting goods stores almost. I'm assuming you're around all other times of the year except hunting season. Yes, in Missouri, yes, us you're in a zone ten days before honey season.

I just think it's fifteen maybe somewhere in there. But but in ironically, and it's just like what a world we live in. But when hunting season opens up, it's like they go get the palette jack and they move it up closer, and you're just like, are you serious? Right now? We can't even in even CWT zones where you're not supposed to bait at all, is like they still sell corn, so it's sort of not money, it's

bird seed at them. Yeah, yeah, we see the same. Yeah, we gotta uh an uphill battle in the world of changing perspectives, that's what really it comes down to. And everything that we deal with is changing perspective and usually the most beneficial thing is long term. Oh yeah, I

mean that's the way it is. Cut corners with the kind of stuff I don't think you can cut corners and conservation really, yeah, it's a natural, it's a natural corners and conservation world that we're working with, and that you have to look at the foundation, which in what it operates on, and it doesn't really cut corners. The system is the system. I think we need to learn first what the system is, embrace it, and then may edge in that system. We're not now as we're seeing

all this stuff occurrently. We talked about the podcast Learn the System Management was you know when you learn that since the system that he's talking about, it's not that we set on a throne and rain over all of it would just fit right in the middle of all of it, and we just have to figure out how to And it's nothing that like manage with it we created or land lace it did. It's just like this

is the way that God designed it. I'm just embracing that, I'm learning it, and then I'm applying you know, truth and the way that nature works to nature. Well, it's like another statement we make sometimes talking about invasive species and improving deer and whatnot. It's like, I'm not going to manage a native species talking about dear with non native plants. Yeah, I want to find the native plants that they like manage for those, I'm probably going to

improve that native animal species at the same time. And that's a longer game plan than going out and buying corn and pouring it out it totally. Or you will create you will create a deer mecca for a couple of days by putting out two hundred pounds of corners there. Oh yeah, that's that's what's that's what's so it's so bizarre and at the same time, you're you're you're confined by the culture in some ways. But like, um, you know,

like baiting deer in Arkansas such a political thing. I mean, like the culture has become if revolves you know, on private land, can't bait on public land. So there's still guys that are on public land that are deer hunting based upon sign and trails and stuff. But then like if you're on if you're on private land, you're deer hunting in Arkansas. I mean, like, you know, it's almost like, don't hate the player, hate the game. I mean you

gotta bait deer. Yeah, I mean, and I said, quote quote unquote gotta and I'm torn on because I mean hunting small properties, I mean I have no and say that, I mean it's it's it's actually a lot harder kill a big deer over supplemental feed. Then you think, I mean there are guys that are masters at it, and you know what, they're there, Jedi masters because it's hard um and so you know, like to kill big deer over here. Here's an idea. Let me let me just off the top of my head, say what we do.

There's a lot of guys that hunt up the ground, and then you search for like these perfect betting areas like where he's like, oh he's betted here private land. Guys, we can go, well, okay, what is what makes that so special? Okay, I'm gonna take that and I'm gonna go do it on twenty spots on my farm to where I've got ideal betting everywhere. What about you know, when it comes to debating, everybody says most guys that hunt over bait say, well, it's really hard to shoot

a maturity or over a bait side. We have to really hunt him going to the bait side because they show up right after dark. Well let's not. So let's take and create ideal betting, secure betting somewhere using trained features and what we know about natural disturbance to create what he would call a bedroom, and then let's find a place in between the two to hunt him as he's getting up. It's like, that sounds sounds pretty pretty

fun to me. Now I don't have to sit and stare squirrels eating all the corn and you and you would and you would kill better deer too. Any time I dog on bait and deer, I've got to clarify myself. I've got to say. I've had people say, Clay, you're a massive proponent of baiting bear. Baiting deer and bait and bear is totally different things. We bait bear to be selectively to selectively harvest bear, we're not. We're not trying to supplement a bear's diet to improve his health. Yeah,

we'll see what I'm saying. We're when we're baiting a bear, we are we're trying to draw berrying because there's such a dispersed there. There don't have high densities, you know, like a deer. A deer would have these really high densities, of bear would have very low densities. And so it's like totally different because I just what is for you? You know who you are out there and podcast World's gonna email me and say, I thought you're a proponent

of baiting. I absolutely am for for for bear and and I'm not saying I'm against it for deer totally. It's kind of a catch twenty two in places where you have been able to do it for so long, they probably just needed they need to just cut it out. To me, I think it, and they do. I would be totally cool if they cut out baiting for deer. I mean, and they really should. It's this is what

we talked about, what we started seeing. Let's take a person who has a bait side out and you're monitoring it with trell cameras, and I want your listeners because I know there's probably a lot of them in this region that that that uh, that bait because that's the way of life. Like um, alright, So do you get more picture of raccoons in in a in the course of your baiting, you get more pictures of raccoons or deer. And based on my experience when I used to put

out corn, it was almost always more raccoons. And if your deer hunter, especially at Turkey Hunter, you're you've now got this like embedded in your in your brain that raccoons are bad, that you must trap kill them, don't stop killing them till you don't see him anymore kind of mindset. And it's like, okay, well is my corn more beneficial to the deer, more beneficial to my hunting,

or more beneficial to the predator that I hate. You're not only supplementing food for deer, you're supplementing for this species their benefiting as well, which man, And that's why I like when we step back to trying to replicate nature, it's like, well, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna use fire and grazing and this kind of disturbance because that right there is a little bit hard to hard to chew.

I think to me, the overarching principle that stands out in my mind is that it's much harder to do what you guys are describing, but the long term benefits are much higher. It's much easier too, you know, either not manage and just hunt the deer that you have, which you know, some people it's just not a priority to manage deer, so you know whatever, there's just some people that just have some land there. Like we go out there for three days a year and no big deal.

But it's it's anyway. Just in life, that's always the case. What's hard and long term is usually way better. Yeah, but takes a lot more energy and effort, you know. And so yeah, and you know those people who are sitting there wondering how do I fit into all that? There's a lot of winds along the way too. If you're if you're not just some incremental like like you could do small things. Yeah, like you you you you say, Okay, I'm gonna take that long route. I'm gonna manage in

this way, this mindset um. And let's say you're doing it for deer. Sometimes that that goal it may take years to get there and then you stabilize it and maintain it whatever. But although your goal is for whitetail deer and you want to kill one sixty whatever, there's other things that you can enjoy along the way. Rabbit populations are going to increase, other small game. The birds that we hear in the woodland that you just talked about, that's cool, Like you did that like that that that

is an ecological significance of what you did. It's not a hundred sixty in deer. But maybe you heard one summer tangent. Now there's what how many? You can go there?

And here half a dozen on the same side. There's there's these little winds along the way in this long game that you need to be focused on a certain mentality when you think about it, like we're as a human being, we're pretty prideful, Like we want to think that at the end of our life there'll be a ton of people at our funeral, and and two hundred years after our death that people are still gonna remember us and talk about us. Like that's just our human nature.

But if you look at the most common type of hunting habitat enhancement, and I say that kind of loosely because it's not really habitat enhancement. But if we go out and we put out a feeder, we put up a food plot, we hang a tree stand, or we make some trails, and you did that for five years, and then you didn't do it for five years and you came back, what would there be that you You'd have a rusted up feeder and arrested up tree stand and a trail that's overgrown. Probably wouldn't even be able

to tell that your work was ever there. But if you do, you know overall habitat enhancement. You plant a diverse prairie, or you restore a woodland or savannah, or you put in a young forest clear cut. That's something you go back twenty years later and they're probably gonna see it, and it's like it's like lasting impact, lasting impact.

It's a legacy of of managing that land in an appropriate manner to where your kids and your grandkids hopefully can see that and carry that torch rather than oh, there's there's dad's rusted up feeder and tree stand that now I have a haul out of here, and and that like there's even in in that same scenario, there's so many either life lessons about whether it is life and death or or the progression of new growth and spring greenups, all these different lessons that you can share

with other people. You can't really do that when you go in, walk into a feeder and put a fifty pound back of corn. You could see that dear respond to it. But you still have that same advantage by going the conservation mindset and and improving the actual habitat and the landscape itself. I think I think we often underestimate our potential to have that impact because they're simple ways to do it. But we can impact the landscape, we can impact regions, we the pact states. It just

is a long term. Yeah, that's cool. That's very cool. Um, I gotta I gotta tell the story and then and then we'll end, because this is it's it's pretty connected. Going back to supplemental feeding and everything you just guys said, I think sums up kind of who you guys are and kind of like your your like deeper philosophies for why you're doing what you're doing, which I like it. Um. Okay, So back to the like the the lesser topic of baiting bears and the southern washing dolls are expanding pretty

rapidly into the Gulf coastal plaine of Arkansas. So like the like the larger regions of Arkansas would be the ozarks like Western Arkansas Ozarks, Washtalls, and the Gulf coastal plane, which would basically be and be like getting in down to like the swamp country, like pretty much like alligator country and stuff. Black bears are rapidly moving south and uh that's a part of Arkansas that's fairly sparsely populated, like no major population centers. Uh, some well mainly would

be forestry, like big pine plantations and stuff. Myron means the bear biologists for State of Arkansas believes that the backbone of the expansion of bears into that area, which is pine primarily pine like dominant pine dominated landscape which pine tree does nothing for a bear, is uh, supplemental cornpiles. Wow,

he thinks. He thinks that basically, you know, so bears biology like or his his caloric calendar revolves around fall hard mast like gathering these massive calories in the fall before denning, and there's they're they're white oaks down there and stuff. So you know they're feeding on that sun. But pine not to the prevalence for an everything or majority as a pine plantation. Oh yeah, it's like massive

pine plantations and a lot of monoculture. So and he thinks basically corn people feeding deer has become the back like part of their Yeah, yearly architecture. I would say they're thriving. So, I mean, there's no point to that. I mean, I'm processed. I'm sitting there, Okay, what's that because I'll share a similar story. Um, I don't really get you know, the idea of Missouri repopulating or growing the bear population to a point where we can hunt them and and you know, make the state can make

money on license sales. That's pretty stinking cool. We're restoring a native species to a native region and now we get to enjoy That's absolutely, it's awesome. And there are deer hunters. They're going to complain, but you know what it's it's they were here before we were, um, and so like, yeah, it's super cool. But the idea that that population is growing because of a supplement doesn't have the longevity or the sustainability. That doesn't It was like

a weird like stomach like I felt. It was like it's almost like And the reason I say that because I have a similar feeling with U with our our elk restoration that we're doing in Missouri, because a lot of the food plots, the areas that we're trying to provide this food, they're planting orchard grass, which is a

non native cool season grass. And it's like, so we're taking this big push to restore natives species for nonnative Yeah, that that doesn't make sense to me, let's let's try to fix the landscape and restore the woodland, savannah's the glades and give them the native species that they have adapted to because us. This is funny thing, like those sites with it which were restocked in obviously, like they chose those sites because the potential of the landscape to

offer to be restored. Yet we're supplementing it all with this non native green sources. It's like, that's actually the same story. Let's go take a native prairie and say we're restoring the native landscapes with throw cows out on it. Like it's large ruminants on the native grass and like, what's we just switched it from plants to animals. I don't know, it's it's cool that they're expanding, and it's cool that there's a potential that more people are going

to get to see Myron. Myron is the first one to say that's that's not research back, that's just his that's just his observation, that's just what he thinks is happening. And I think it's totally probable. I think what I've thought is that, well, heck, if if they outlawed baiting or something, you know, would that mean that they would leave those areas? And it's my Matt Stein saying, I think I think they'll. I think the bears will find

a way to survive down there. But I think I think they're using that because it's a great food source. It's probably prop them up a little bit. But I think if it was gone, I think, man, there such a successful omnibus. There's a question. Yeah, do you think one growing seasons are are different too, so like that length and severity of winter, I think it's gonna help. So it's like it's almost like that crutch to get

them into the area. But then if let's just say it did happen baiting was removed, do you think that you would certainly see that bear population if there was those um more populated areas, those bears then be supplementing

on trash. More of the cultural conflict people. You know, they have to take one supplement from humans and then go to another one to to from a caloric standpoint, if if nature is not providing it, they have a wide range of stuff that they eat, right, I mean, it's just it's crazy, but we all know that bears love easy meals. Wildlife in general love easy meals. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's entirely possible that if you took it away then all of a sudden you'd have nuisance problems and stuff. Yeah,

here's a question for you. So I mentioned earlier Missouri will open up a season, hopefully in the near future for bears. Um, they'll be from my understanding, and I didn't listen to that podcast, so my apologies. Do you feel from what I've heard, Um, there is not going to be any baiting and there's so there's no baiting private or public, and it's gonna be a short, short window with a rifle from what I understand, how successful

what I picked is probably by design. What I picture is a bunch of US Missourians who have drawn tags headed to the woods, no dogs either, I don't think, headed to the woods, walking around in densities where are in areas where there is a higher density of bears pushing them out. So what I picture is it's going to be very tough to fill tags. And I picture the bear hot spots or the bear population dispersing into larger regions to where then those bears can repopulate to

where ten years from now we'll have bears everywhere. Maybe that's by design, but I just when I heard the potential regulations, I was like, oh, that would be a to the right the right track and say that that's gonna be a super hard animal to hunt. We have a phrase that we use on the podcast, a type of hunting that we describe as the sheep hunt of the South. We actually have shirts that say sheep hunt

of the South. And the whole idea is that hunting bears in the eastern deciduous forest is hard, like a western sheep hunt. Like you're you're it's a low probability hunt, very low probability. Um. The only thing that Missouri has going for it is these are unhunted bears. So that's what's incalculable. And you know, it's hard for me to calculate based upon why because our bears are hunted and uh, I mean it's it's I think it's as tough a

hunt as there is in North America. And I'm talking about all the types of hunting to go take a bow, and now I'm also talking about take a bow and going to the national forest and kill a bear on purpose. Now almost next to impossible. Well, I mean, that's what that's that's what we've spent a lot of our time the last couple of years doing and talking about and and people are getting better at it as as they're being educated on how to do it. And it's much

more stable and predictable than I ever thought. That bear right there was the first bear that I ever killed, uh in national forest on purpose. Um. And that picture behind it right where I killed it. Yeah, that that that looks a lot like the ozarks, minus your rocks look a little bit more smooth than our, little bit more so regional, you know, like different places the rocks very But now that that bear was right there, Um, so I'm with you at them. It's gonna be a

low odds hunt. I think some people will kill some. But they had to go with that strategy though, I mean, they didn't want to start off that they're starting at the making it as absolute hard as possible, which that's a total that's a that's a great strategy for bears because bears are you know, low reproductive rates. The females don't start reproducing to their three or four years old and then they only produced cups every two years or something like that. Yeah, yeah, and that's a that's not

a super that's pretty average. So it's not like this population is just like growing exponentially. I think you'll see a time when it does. They're parts of Arkansas that are growing by eighteen percent per year myer means, which is incredible. And like because these big you know, large carnivore pipe they just just don't they don't naturally need to produce. Like you know, a dophon can give birth her first year of life. She can come into heat when she's six months old, be bread and have twins

the next spring. I mean it's possible. Yeah, So bears are not like that, so they manage them conservatively. So anyway, I think I think they're doing a good job. It's gonna be super tough yea. But could you imagine if they if they allowed you to bait out the gate then but then change the regulation and took it away. Yeah, that would that would cost even worse. It would big

political problems. Yeah. I think I predict that maybe one day they would have a bait on private land hunt, just because that's what Arkansas and Oklahoma have done pretty successfully, really successfully. And but our populations are so big, like the reason. And here's what a lot of people don't understand. We preached on the podcast all the time. Where you can bait bear in North America is because there is

no other effective way to manage them. I mean, like where you can spot and stock bears usually and they can harvest the number of bears they need to harvest by spot and stock. Then that's what they let them do. Man, in Arkansas, our population is growing so much. I mean, we currently have a population six thousand bears in Arkansas and we've been knocking the fire out of them for

twenty years. I mean, if we had not taken out three to four hundred bears a year for the last twenty years, I mean, bears will be overrunning this place. We'd all have one beating down our absolutely would. And so so it's such a win win for sportsman when you can manage a population keep it under control relative to the amount of habitat that we have. Didn't have any idea how much UH money comes in with tags, And for Arkansas, it's hard to track bear hunters because

everybody that buys a tag has a bear tag. So I mean, like you buy Arkansas Sportsn's license, you get sixty or two turkeys a bear. You know, all the all the small games, handing out tacks like it's candy in here. It is there. It's a good state for actually it's a terrible state. Slow down. Oh hey, thanks so much, guys. I really appreciate it than what you guys are doing. The people can find you, guys that Landing Legacy, Landing Legacy and now y'all would have like

personal Instagram pages to you or no? So uh I think Adam Keith something like that. I only posted photos like one Legacy Legacy. Okay, do you want to see Adam's daughter? Yeah? So yeah, Landing Legacy and Man almost started off the podcast by talking about your podcast. You guys, you haven't made six hundred episodes of your podcast? Have you too? Why are you number in your episodes? It's like six d I think that's Johnson. I don't know.

I don't know. You've made like two ding well been doing for three and a half years or so, and every week to two weeks. I appreciate the persistency. So I'll end up have said this before because I'll say this in the intro that I do. But like your podcast is full of it's like it's like information driven.

Um so, like our podcast is like more like conversational like long you know, we're not as much like we do some tip driven tactical stuff for sure, but but you guys is more of a format of we're given infort we have topics and we're given information, which is great, and they're usually shorter, uh you know, under an hour most of them anywhere. From Yeah, so man, tons of information. That's part of the reason I didn't necessarily want to go into like a specific topic on this party, because

you guys have covered so much. People can go back and and look at all your stuff and and learn a ton you really can't. You guys are doing a great job I think of just disseminating really solid information. You really are and uh so, yeah, keep doing it. Good luck with that big buck this year. Do you all both hunt in the same place? You let him hunt? We? Yeah, And I just I just leased a hundred and sixty acres and um, I don't know. It was the second

night of putting cameras out. There's a good one there. It's like, yeah, alright, alright, my brother and I are working on buying that farm, right now so out from but he's sitting Yeah. Yeah, but but no, no, you're trying to buy the least that he no, no, no, no, no, no, no no, no, the least try there. Him and his brother are purchasing the lane that's next to their family farm. Okay, and so okay, yeah, no no, yeah, was interesting story about a family farm. Not to go off on another

rabbit trail, but you know it's it's been on. My grandpa and great grandpa and a nineteen sold it to Stark Brothers of Fruit Tree Company. You ever heard of fruit the fruit trees, but sold it for a thousand fruit trees. Grandpa bought it back two so it's been in the family farm ever since. My brother and not trying to expand it and buy the neighboring property. That's cool. Thousand fruit trees. Trying to buy it for a lot of fruit trees. That's part of the world. Its a

fuel North America with apples. Yeah, like in the huge orchards first twenty years of the twentie century, early d Yeah. Do you have many short leaved pines around here where you're not like right here, you get twenty five miles away, they get cut out, or they just aren't here, man I. You drive from here to Fort Smith in the winter and see a lot of it's not all public land, but it's pretty just native ozarks. You won't see a pine tree. Did he say native ozarks? This he has

not listened to the podcast. Well, all right, thanks guys, keep the wild less wild because that's where the bears live and we got to get the Japanese have a suckle out.