Ep. 527: The Kansas 80 Case Study in Land Management with Nate and Thomas Krick

managing their famili's eighty acre farm. All right, welcome back to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light, and we are continuing here with our white tail land management series of sorts that I'm doing here this month. And it's kind of taken a kind of an average Joe spin because last week it was me and Tony sharing our experiences, and this week I got the did to talk to a couple folks who I don't think we would normally be looking to for advice

on how to dive into white tail land management. Usually, you know, usually the people we talked about these things are consultants. They're experts in the field who have been doing it for forty years. These are guys who owned two thousand acres and killed big bucks every year, YadA, YadA, YadA. But what about the rest of us. What about young people? What about folks who don't know everything and who are

just trying to figure it out? I think that is an interesting perspective to explore, too, and that's why today I asked Nate and Thomas Crick to join me on the show. These two guys, they are brothers there and

their early twenties. They host a show on their YouTube channel called Identical Draw and their die hard deer hunters, and a handful of years ago their family decided they were going to buy a family farm somewhere and Naton Thomas were going to be in charge of the search for that farm, and they were going to be in charge of managing it, managing it, turning this into something that could be great for their white tail hunting and for the other goals they had as a family for

this place and as twenty year olds when this all started, I think that probably was a pretty intimidating thing, and I'm interested in that. I'm interested in what it looks like for a young couple of kids to try to figure this kind of stuff out. They can be kind of intimidating figuring out how to plan a white tail management. You know, the series of years. What are you gonna do over the next decade, How are you going to plant food plats to timber work burned anything like that.

That's a lot for me to consider thirty four years old. I know a lot of forty five and fifty year olds who probably feel the same way. Let alone, if you were twenty and these guys did it. They dove in, they read everything they could, they talked to everyone they could, They brought in some people to help point them in the direct direction, and they learned and they learned and they learned, and over the last three years they have been enjoying the fruits of that labor and those learnings.

And that's what we're going to discuss today. We're gonna find out how Thomas and Nate figure this haul out themselves. And in short, I think it's pretty inspiring. You know, if you're a young person yourself, if you're twenty or five or thirty, and you've been seeing people on TV doing this land management thing, and maybe your family has property, or maybe you have been in a position where maybe you could buy your own little piece. But that seems

like a whole lot to consider, and it's pretty intimidating. Well, I think this conversation today might just empower you to give it a shot. And if you're in a different position but still have been wanting to dive into this world, I think what Nate and Thomas have to share will be very useful to you as well. They share with me a lot about what they've learned on the side of food plot. We discussed a lot about timber management and what you can do with very limited resources to

really improve a property the timber management. We talked about fire and what it takes to kind of go down that road and begin trying something like that, and a lot more too. So I enjoyed this one. I think you all will as well. This isn't like, uh yeah, this isn't Craig Harper diving in from a university professors standpoint right. This is real people sharing real experiences, and uh, you know, I think that's something that's that's pretty cool to dive into. So I will give you two other

quick reminders before we get into this one. Number one, if you are not already subscribed to the Wired to Hunt newsletter, please go do that. Go over to the meat Eater dot com and you'll see options in the menu there to subscribe. That's where we send out our weekly updates on the new content, the new articles, were publishing,

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wired Hunt YouTube channel. So go on over to YouTube search for wired to Hunt, hit subscribe. Then we're cranking them out. It's it's a lot of work the team's putting in the hours to get quick, helpful and and I think you know pretty pretty um oh, heck, I

don't know useful. I guess maybe it's the simple word, looking for useful, quick videos that I think will give you quick tips and suggestions to point you in the right direction, whether it's the off season right now or as we move into this summer and then the fall. The information you need to take into the field right away. So that's all I got for you today. Guys, appreciate you listening. Let's get to my chat with Nate and Thomas Crick. All right, hear I mean now I've got

Nate and Thomas Krick. Gentlemen, thank you for joining me. Yeah you better. Yeah, I think you guys are the perfect people to talk to today for the conversation I want to have, um because I don't know how to put this in a way that doesn't sound slightly offensive, but but I think you guys are are kinda just rosy eyed knuckleheads just like me. And by that I mean like you've dove into a big, crazy project without a ton of experience, just wanting to learn a lot.

When I when you think about your Kansas City project in your your dreams to transform a piece of property, does what I said does that sound accurate? Yeah? I mean that's like perfect mark because we didn't like have the Grandpa that had a couple of thousand acres, like we just hunted some some public like public land and a little bit of private that we had permission on. So yeah, exactly, Yeah, we had I mean zero land

managing experience. Before. I mean, yeah, still really knew, definitely feel a lot better where we are now as land

managers than we were three years ago. But yeah, well, I think that one of the things that at least I felt when I started doing this kind of stuff, and I'm guessing a lot of other people out there feel too, is you know, when you hear about most white tail land management or white tail improvement projects or advice, you know it's coming from these people who have been doing it for thirty years or forty years, and they've got thousands of acres, or if you watch somebody on TV,

they've got two thousand acres and they're doing this perfect thing, and their their food plots look like perfectly manicured golf grains, and they've got twenty seven different box lines across it, and they shoot a hundred eight inch bucks four times a year, and and on and on and on, and it seems both so outside of the realm of possibility, and it seems intimidating when I hear about the nineteen different fertilizer types and the seven different tractors I need

to have, and YadA, YadA, YadA. I think all of that can for some people be paralyzing, and it keeps people from ever wanting to actually dive in and and try it if they just have thirty acres or eighty acres or sixty acres and a four wheeler. Um. And I think your story is one that I think and hopefully we're gonna find out here in a second, I think it kind of flips out in its head. Um. So so can you can you just set the stage for me, Like, how did the Kansas A d come about? Like?

I know that this is a property that your your family bought and you guys have kind of taken the lead on it. But how did this this whole idea come together? Yeah? So basically, I mean we've been avid into the outdoors, um for forever, it seems, um, And so I don't know for us it which just like this like general like accumulating want to like have our own ground because like we have we have a lot

of generous friends that would let us hunt. But man, in the back of our minds for so long, we're like, man, wouldn't it be sweet to have just even the smallest little chunk of ground that we could manage ourselves, like actually like have some food sources and do all this stuff, and so kind of we sat down with the parents because obviously, um what we were teenagers basically at the time we were trying to figure this all out. We're like,

obviously we have like ten bucks to our name. So luckily we have amazing parents that also wanted property just for like the family's sake and just like kind of a family legacy that you can start and have for generations and stuff like that. Um. And so we kind of combine our efforts and um man I had Luckily, I was friends with a few different land agents in uh, Nebraska, Iowa, and Kansas, and I kind of, I mean, I went to look at a lot of properties and I I

kind of told him. I was like, Hey, this is what the family is looking for. It needs to be like less than this far away from the house. So we wanted it to not be a super long drive away from our home home. And then we wanted to have a certain structure for um, not only just like family, Like we'd like to have like a build side, like we uh could build a shed so we could have

families stay down here sometimes. Um. And then also we wanted to have a hunting side and so I told those guys like, hey, if you see this perfect property of things we want line up, you better I better be the first one you text. And so it's show enough. It should be noted that I mean that we were looking pretty aggressively, like at at properties for two years, uh, leading up to when we purchased a d So we kind of I mean, it wasn't just like a right

away thing that we found this. So you always have people reaching out asking like how how we decided to buy a property, because one it's a huge financial investment, but then secondly, it's just like you wanted to be the perfect thing if you're gonna put the money down. So we always just had a kind of a scale one to five what's most important, And then every time we'd roll up to a property, you wet, um, we kind of go through that list and it kind of

made it easy for us to decide. So and the white tail side of me like we grew up in a breast pretty good white tail hunting, um, but like not to fin mind a Braska friends, but it's not on the level of like an Iowa in Kansas, um. And so I was looking in Iowa and Kansas because we live We lived down south, like south southeastern Nebraska, so like Iowa Kansas. We're getting to both those states

like within an hour. So I was like, the white tail side of me is like, Okay, I'm definitely gonna be looking at Iowa Kansas a little more than Nebraska, um, just because I know they managed or stay a little different and they grew getting big white tails. Um. So sure enough. One of my buddies from the Land real Estate company text me is, actually we're at the Archer Trade Association trade show between nineteen and he's like, I've

got a property. You want to see this? And he's like it's gonna go like on the market market like next week, and like everything's gonna be shown, like they have a bunch of big buck trail camps and stuff. Was like, so if you want like stab at, that's seeing I get down to your fast and so we, uh, that's what we did. We were there early that next week, and I mean we saw the property, loved it, parents loved it, um, and we shot, we shot low and

we got it. So that's that's basically. It was freaking perfect. So what were those you mentioned. You've got a bunch of different criteria that you were looking at, and you were kind of like a one to five scale of what's most important everything like that when you were looking for this perfect property that would both achieve your white tail goals but also the family goals. What were those

perfect things you were looking to check the boxes on. Yeah, so it was there kind of like two lists or like what the parents wanted to see and then what means they wanted to see, and then we kind of men in the middle. But um, ideally we wanted water on it, some sort of water, whether it be a pond or or a creek. And we've got a creek on ours basically running all the way north to south that most years is has water in it u flowing and the whole whole time. So um that we checked

the box there. Um distance from home right at two hours, Um, we didn't want to go close to three uh. Two hour drive to us is much more dooble than at in an hour, so it worked for our for our distance, um size wise, UM, I wasn't going to break the bank. UM, So I don't know me what else doing. We wanted definitely just diversity on it. Um. So we noticed on this piece we had. It was mainly like at least sixty five seventy acres of the eighty acres that we

own is like all timber, um. We love that. Um. And then there was also like some um just grassy fields and stuff like that that we were picturing. Okay, easily food pots, but also just good um, just good grassy mixture up there on top. And so those are kind of the things. We wanted to be able to

access it pretty easily. And one of the sides has a road that we can that runs right along the side of it, so um, we didn't have to worry about not being able to get in there certain times of the year there being like really rainy or something like that. But I wanted to the parents really wanted to build location kind of like I already mentioned for like a shed or a cabinet at some point. Um.

And so yeah, those are kind of the checkbox. And this one just this one just met It was in the price range and also just a size like I mean, I think that's one thing that Thomas and I really tried to stress through our channels is like small properties can be deadly. You don't need anything crazy. So this ad acres fit that perfectly as well. It certainly seems like it from the you know, from watching the videos and everything that now you mentioned there's there's a stream,

there's this road access, there's timber, there's grass. When you stepped foot on the property for the first time after you guys had you know, it became your family's property, and you stepped foot and you realized, wow, this is this is ours? What did that? Can you remember what that first day felt like? Are those first moments stepping foot out there, walking across it was? It was it overwhelming? Was it just exciting? Uh? What was going through your

guys heads? Yeah, it was like where do we start? Like we uh, since identical draw was the thing back then, we we filmed it so you can actually watch like our first time walking it as landowners on our YouTube channel and it's we like, I go back and watch that episode because sometimes you get just so in the mix of trying to kill a white tail and you just gotta uh get that feeling of what I felt like the first time you're on it. But um, yeah,

it was it was a really snowy day. Actually the first day it was gosh, it was like sixtight six eight inches down, I think, um, so it was just like where do we start and like, let's just see what this place has, because we did a walk through before we put an offer on and we just it was quick, like I know, maybe thirty minutes to an hour walk through, and um, I think it's just excitement of what we were gonna what we're gonna find. Yeah, I mean right off the bat you could uh just

see the deer travel was like really thick. So that was exciting. Um. Our Ad is definitely a big turkey hunter. He hasn't he hasn't dabbled as much into there, but I remember seeing some turkey tracks. I remember him being really excited about that. But I do think the overwhelming thing was like, man, what are we going to turn

this into? Like it felt like we had like a just a clean slate, like you have almost eighty acres of just pure timber that you can just open up where you want to open up, leaf thick where you want to leaf thick, and um, I don't know, it just seemed like a mixture of like really daunting and super exciting that I mean, this ground that we're walking on. His arts like that I mean, it was a really surreal,

crazy feeling. I can imagine I've I've I've had sort of like that, Like when we when I got to be a part of the back forty with Mediator and I got to essentially steward and head up that project. I was there for all those types of things, and I put in helped put in the offer, and I got to be on the property and all that kind

of stuff. So I was the pseudo owner of the farm for two years, and I felt a kind of similar things like that, but but knowing that there was gonna be this heartbreak some number of years down the road when I'd have to walk away. So you guys got to get to keep enjoying it. So I'm jealous about that one, um. But I do know one of the very first things I had to be thinking about during that was right off the gate, you know, before

I even started making plans or thinking about plans. I remember sitting down and thinking through, Okay, before I can know where I'm going, or before I can do anything, I need to know where I'm trying to go. I need to know what the goals are going to be for this property. Explicitly is it just to kill the biggest buck ever? Is it to kill a lot of deer?

Is it to have deer and turkeys and squirrels? Is it to do this and that and this and that and have all these different people and all these different things. There's a lot of different questions I was working through when trying to figure out what we should do with that place. So what was that process like for you guys? How did you guys go about figuring out what the goals were? Was that simple? Was that like a debate between you and the family? What did that look like?

And then where'd you end up? Like what was the what was the goal list once you guys came to some kind of agreement if if you did, yeah, so those I mean definitely right off the bat, we uh, we did think about management things. But it's also like, man, the parents like really wanted like a ship or something down here because it's like, you know, we come down here, there's nowhere like if you work on it, there's nowhere to shower, Like, there's nowhere to just like like chill out,

to canna eat or anything. So it's like, okay, that was that was definitely a high goal. But that was like kind of out of me and Tom's rown back then, because again we were just poor kids back then. UM. So it's like, okay, parents, you can work on putting

maybe a shed up on the property somewhere. Um. And there were a lot of discussions about where we're gonna put the shed, um and when we're gonna there's a tricky situation mark because they're they're funding the project, but at the same time we're trying to convince them on when to do it, like during the summertime, uh not

during the fall. Actually ended up happening like in the smack dab of October were which which didn't actually have a huge effect, but it was definitely like one of those like I'm just gonna we're gonna have to let you do this one day because you did buy it, so we're just gonna There were a couple of sits, like mid October, late October. You could just hear like the construction guys music blairing like a couple hud yards and when you're like, okay, like this might have an effect,

probably have an effect. We'll see I don't really have a choice here, but um, I don't know. So that was definitely something we discussed a lot um management side of things. We really like had no idea where to start.

So I think one of our best um ideas we had was that first spring we had the property, we had a few people from q d M A now NDA come down and walk the property with us, Matt Ross being one of them, and he is just a wealth of knowledge and we walked the whole eight with him, and man like, I think that really lit our management fire for like our management goals, um, just because she's like a wealth of knowledge. He knew every tree we're seeing, he knew like good dear food, he knew the structure

we wanted on that property. So like that's when our management goals really kicked in. But other goals, I mean, obviously we're just like hunting was like number one, Like let's kill a giant white tailed big Kansas white tail down here. Um, we didn't really have like we didn't need to be like, Okay, this next season we need to kill like a hundred and eight inch year. We're just like let's just um trying to hunt this as well as possible and just like be really really patient

with it. Um. But yeah, the goals were definitely some of those things that shed and this different management stuff. But it's still like working propers, like our our goals are kind of changing throughout, but also like we're achieving some goals and then like a year later down the road, we realized that, Okay, that's not really goal we want to attain. We're going to switch it up a little bit. So, yeah, some of them were reaching, some of them we don't.

So what about that planning process you mentioned how Matt you know, came out walked it with you, helped you kind of get a better sense of what you had and what you could have. But but walk me through you know what that plan, you know how that plan came together and how that's evolved. Yeah, he I would say, he just really opened up our eyes. All all we had like really known, um was was what we had

like washed on outdoor TV. Like how are these like food plot everywhere that there's any uh crack in the timber anywhere that you can fit a plot with any sunlight? Um, that's like what we had thought before Um Matt introduced us to t S I all these different things. UM, but he all like one of the biggest things he mentioned to us was uh, kind of separating the eight into different management units and going about it that way, which was I would say the most helpful thing he

told us the whole time. So we broke eighty acres into six different management units. Um, and then we would decide what we were going to do in eacht unit, whether we're going to completely leave it alone, or food plot here, some t s I work here, maybe a prescribed fire um. So that kind of helped us really just slow down and look at it a big picture. Yeah, and I would say, a, UM, one of one of the things the first thing he was like, he was like, the first thing I do, guys, is make roads on

the property. Make a road around the entire perimeter, make roads throughout. And when he told me that the first time, I was like, mhm, Like I don't completely agree with that being the first thing that you should do. But now three years later, I'm like, one, Like, if you're a new landowner, put roads on that property so you can get around. Um, why is that so important? Because I bet you there's a lot of people skeptical just like you were. Yeah. So one, fire breaks. If you're

going to prescribe fire, roads are perfect fire breaks. Yeah, and if I mean that was like one of the biggest things that um he he and so many other landmakers we talked to stents have just like prescribed fire is just like one of the if you ask any land managers, it's in the top three things that you want to do with the property. So, um, it makes sense just to have that that road. Yeah. So that and then just being able to access different pieces is what.

Or you shoot a deer back there and don't have to drag it out a half mile, or if you're carrying a twenty pound chainsaw and fuel and water and chaps and all that stuff during a hot day or something. I mean, just getting around places has been like we didn't have like really decent roads until this last year and it has made like a night and day difference just with like being able to finish things faster. And then also like with our eighty, it's so thick, the

structure so thick that deer use them as highways. Like if you cut something, if you cut a path through the eight, the structure is so thick around here that it becomes a highway. Like I walked some roads this this offseason that we cut and I had I hadn't been there since like probably last spring, and I mean scrapes all over it, rubs running up and down because deer can get there now and they couldn't get there before. So yeah, I mean it just made our our work

go way faster. So these management units that Matt recommended, you guys use, uh, why why does that matter? Why is that something that you guys actually found relief valuable? And then can you kind of describe to me what those management units look like in your specific example. Yeah,

so we we really broke up the management units. Um uh, all because of Matt, because like we'd be just walking and he would just like stop and be like, all right, we're in a brand new management unit, just because he could tell timber change, structure, change of the forest floor. Um but what they look like are either basically differentiate them because uh, there would be really good um like like oaks and really good timber, and then you'd go over one ridge and then it'd be crappy, crappy bowl

on the maybe honey locust hedge. So he'd differentiated how we're going to handle the differences there and what we want to utilize, what we want to get rid of so um we always just we we went, we came on the eight thinking like okay, it's just all timber, that's it was just all one unit to us. But him studying this is completely different. This needs to be managed completely different. Um was huge. Yeah. So, like we had again we had six different units, like Unit one,

I remember Unit one and two. They were in like our southeast corner, which has been like traditionally like we have like the some of the most son back there. And then also like it's like a cedar just like really good like betting area, and so we kind of like designated those, okay, is like we're not gonna like really hunt those and we're not really gonna, um like go in there very often. That's kind of be the

sanctuary kind of. And those things have actually changed because we killed two bucks in December and the unit one this last year. But like basically like it gave us like really specific jobs we needed to do, so we could go through every single management unit and then have tasks we wanted to do in each one of those.

So like management Unit three on our property was on the west side of the ground and it was all like food plots so it's like, okay, there's zero timber cutting here, but like in April May, you're gonna need to figure out some food plots and maybe you wanted the fall plot. Yeah, it wasn't food plot when we bottom, it's all just pasture ground. The owner previously just ran cattle through it. Also, no food there. We we just

got the soil tested in UM. That was an easy management unit's up again for people who might UM own smaller tracts for just find property. We have no farming equipment. We just talked to a local farmer and he'll come over. We pay him hourly, cover all expenses for stuff, and he comes over and he puts in beans, corn um, Egyptian, we stuff like that. UM then comes back and sprays

it and checks. So that's been super easy. So yeah, that was like Management Unit three were UM and then Management Unit six was in our northeast corner and that was like, okay, this is like supermature walnut oak. He's like, okay, you don't really like this would be a really good UM hunting unit because like you have like a really interesting creek system right here that the deer would probably use. But like you're like you should get a like a

forester in here to harvest some of this timber. So it just gave us a really good way to break up the unit into smaller sections and just have really really sent goals instead of like looking at a whole lady, be like, wow, I just so much. What should we where should we even start? Just like, Okay, let's start a unit one today and then next week we can maybe work on food plus unit three stuff like that. So yeah, that seems I can make it a lot

less intimidating. Hum. That makes that makes a lot of sense. So then back to developing this plan. So other than Matt being there on the ground with you and showing you stuff, what were the what were the most useful resources or people or books or I don't know, what were the other things that you were utilizing in those early months when you were trying to figure out what the heck do I do with all this ground and all this everything? What were the most helpful things to

get started? It came it was nice Mark, because you were on your first year at the back forty two, So I'd be watching those YouTube videos like what's what's Mark dealing with? And he's trying to start this more and and then I felt better about what we were doing on the e D and we started far more.

We got issues too, but it's just like I don't know that the new things we are are big time mentors, I would say in the outdoor industry or the Harlem Bill hunter guys um so Sean and Mike, they've been a huge resource and obviously they give us tips on some timber things and also just prescribed fire opened up our eyes a big time on there um. But um landing Legacy guys have been pretty huge with land managing

over the past few years as well. I would say that was more in the last few years we've really hooked onto some of their their thoughts and ideas and the way they managed properties. The early on, it was a lot of reading and then having that farmer helped us really is. He helped us with the first prescribed fire. He helped us um understand where a good food plot start um starting point would be for our bigger plots. And then we that first year we did also have

um gosh, just one clover plot. Um. He helped us get in there, till it up a little bit, and we we decided that first year that we were going to do minimal change because we wanted to see really how the deer used the property property naturally. And I think we did. I think that was a good decision because um we did. Uh. We did end up having like a really really good hunt um early October, and

we haven't killed an early season buck since. Um. But we just kind of laid off of it, and besides doing maybe some little cutting here and there during the during the summer and putting in food plots, we just said, Okay, we're gonna we're gonna see what this eight does Natchurally, yeah, Matt. Having Matt down to the property definitely like lift the fire on us though, to like learn the timber and the plants there. Um. And one of the most helpful things I had on my phone was actually like a

plant identification app. And I'm like, hey, if you don't want to play for pay for the subscription, that's up to you. But the few bucks a month has paid off huge for me. Um. So I'm just like, I'm a freaking plant tree nerd now and basically just take picks of everything I don't know and then when I get service, I can download those and see what they are, and then I literally will google different resources and try to find out if they're good or bad to be here.

So it's been it's been a lot of that, just like own research and just doing some digging. But there have been like a few different books, Like you can get different books of like trees, like the Eastern and half United States, things like that. But like finding it and like equating it to white tails and food sources is tough, like finding what trees and plants are really solid for for white tails and different um, I mean any type of animal that's using the property and stuff

like that. So um really, I mean just having those few individuals that helped us out and we'd we'd send Matt. We still send mat text every once in a while be like is this good? Should we get rid of it? Is? Should we keep it around? Things like that. So it's just a little by little, Um that's that's the biggest thing, because it I mean coming to uh in eighty acres or however big property somebody owns, I mean, there's gonna be hundreds of different things that you probably don't know

on on the plant and tree side of things. So just pick off a few every single time, figure out if they're helping gear not helping gear, and then deal with them as you wish baby steps. I think that's that's definitely something I learned to. You know, I don't know if you guys have seen this book, but Dr Craig Harper has a great book UM about food plots and early successional plants and grasses. And within that one, he's got a bunch of species UM I D pages.

I guess where it breaks down. Okay, this is what this plant looks like, and then a whole bunch of different nutritional information and how preferred it is by deer and wildlife and other stuff. That was a good one for me with the back forty UM. I used one of those apps too. I can't remember the name of it. I think it's I Naturalist is the one I've used UM,

and that was pretty good. UM. But I want to I want to go back to something you mentioned a second ago, because it sounds like something I wish I could find at a I don't know, Cabela's or Bess pro shops, or I don't know, on the Mediator's store. You mentioned that you have got a farmer who helps playing your food plots and tells you what to plan. How can I get me one of those that would

be very helpful? In all seriousness, how how did you go about, you know, developing a relationship with this person enough so that he would help you out? Because that is a huge thing I think for a lot of people that most probably aren't you know, able to either find somebody like that or have the confidence to ask for that kind of help. How did that come about

for you? Guys? What's really worked well for us Mark is is actually getting these contacts through land agents in the area because they're talking to so many different farmers and they most of the time that's that's how we got our farmer. He's helping us um most of the time. They're pretty integrated to the area and they know who's going to be willing to help you out or um work some hourly rate out for you. So I would say land agents number one are farmer Kevin. He's I mean,

he's awesome. He He also shows us things, which is like he has he has patients for us two year olds to like actually like dive into learning the equipment and why he's spraying this or why like how deep he's planned seeds, which is like a huge I mean huge help. But he's also just an avid white tail hunter. I asked him, I'm pretty sure his last year is like, how like, did you hunt as much of the season? Oh? I hunted every day. I was like, every day? Are

you serious? Every day? And he's like, he's like a die hard. I think he does a lot of like traditional bow hanging. He literally hunted every day of the season. I'm like, Okay, that's that's awesome. Like he he also I mean if you hunt every day of the season, I mean, even if you hunt half the days in the season, you're gonna really know white chill as well. And so like he's coming at it with like a

really white till my mind frame two. But yeah, we just got lucky with the land agent that helped us out with the property just knew him in the area UM, and so it was just like asking around. I think even just knocking on some doors on our neighbors were really fortunate. Even if we did have our buddy Kevin, I'm sure there's some neighbors in the area that we've created relationships with UM that would totally help us out that was one thing that we kind of haven't talked about.

Like the second time we came down here, Tom Snyd went around to every school neighbor on the eight and knocked on doors and shook their hands and we're the new guys in town. It's nice to meet you. Um, that's kind of what we're about, and stuff like that. And just like having those relationships, getting some phone numbers here and there has i mean paid dividends. But yeah, I would just man reach out to anybody in the

area because you'll they're out there. There's more there's more of them out there that can also lead to um different things down the road. Maybe they want to bail some like uh crp on your ground or anything like that. Um or or if you want to like have some cows roam around. Um. There's all different avenues that can lead in that relationship. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's hard to

their state just how important that is. I mean, there's it's just a hard not to understand how important that is because there's not only everything you describe, but also just like all the weird things that can happen when you hunt next to other people and you know, deer crossing property lines or other people showing up, or just a million things that if you have a relationship, it

makes so much easier to deal with. Um. The other day, we had a prescribed fire and it was at night, and I got text from like every single neighboring area. Like we we try to text a lot of the people that like the smoke would be going on too or something, just let him know. I was like, Man, if someday the eight starts lying on the fire, we're gonna have that taken care of because the neighbors are watching out for us. Yeah, And it was that was

that night. Yea. So it's a great thing to have. Uh. So let's talk a little bit more about the food because I mean, if there's if there's anything that deer hunting land managers like to geek out about its food plots. All right, Um, how how did that start for you? I know you had somebody there who had some experience who was able to help direct you guys and do a bunch of that. Um, but what do those first

food plots look like? What did you guys choose? How did you plan you know, the shapes, the size, all that kind of stuff. And then how has that changed over the last two and at three years Yeah, again it's like what did we see, Uh, what do we see the HP guys filming their bucks overs? Like, hey, we gotta do beans. We gotta do do what we see on the outdoor channel. So we did beans right away, and um we told Matt Ross that. We were like we're just gonna do We're gonna do beans in this

big field. And he's like why, Like why would you do why would you do I was almost like taken back. We were like at breakfast drinking coffee and I just said like nonchaline, like, We're gonna do a bean food plot. He's like like, why would you do beans? Like like you're if you're going to manage just for for for deer, like do something like a little extra maybe, um, something that's that we won't find on every other property around that your neighbors have. But um, he wasn't like against it.

He was just like he just was asking the question. Um. And we did end up doing beans um there, but we we definitely um kind of changed it up with our clover plot and braska game. We did. Uh yeah, we did beans. All I don't know was it maybe three acre Our biggest plot is a three acre plot, three to four acres, and we did beans um both our first dand second year and then switched it up this year. But yeah, that first year we did all

beans and then clover um in one small spot. And those beans that we did, we did stripped some Braska mixed in there, so you kind of had strips. It was kind of like you have ten feet of beans. But we had beans all through this summer, and then the fall, Kevin, our farmer, came through and like put a few, um a kind of late season um food plot stuff, so we had like peas in their winter pieas, and we had we had there's a Braska mix in there, um kind of stripped out in there. So that was it.

I mean, it was basically we kind of just took like easy approach, like Okay, we don't really need to remove any timber, let's just do a big old food plow right here. Just I mean, I don't I mean, whether you can find beans on our property or other properties, like it's it's still a food source there right next to really good betting. So we just kind of went at that and what makes it um extra good for the deer on our ground is that we just we

don't we obviously don't cut it. We just leave it standing all all through uh the fall, through the winter. So they definitely like hammered that December and January. Yeah. And then Clover, we only had one clover plot that first year, and it was we had to do a

lot of timber removal to find this clover plot. But it was kind of the we kind of went after with it being really easy to access um and then there's some really good um travel corridors through there UM and so that that kind of led us to it. Wasn't like we weren't I don't know if we made like the most knowledgeable decision. It's like it paid off

because it's still a really good spot. But we were just kind of like, Okay, we need to remove quite a few trees, but it already looks like it's a really good travel route UM and be easy to get too. So that was kind of our our basis of Clover. And then we just know Clover is just an easy

one to do. UM. We just had that first year, we had our farmer just till up that area, so we made a road back there and he tiled it up so we could just frost seed clover and it's been it's been a money plot for us the last few years. We haven't like shot a buck like in the clover, but we've we've shot mine this November like right next to it, and then it's just been it's been like dough Central. So like obviously if you have something that's like dough Central in the October November, then

you start getting those bucks through there um. And so that's that's basically that was our first year and kind of, like Tom said earlier, that first year, we kind of just wanted to leave hands off, don't do anything like crazy on the management side, and just kind of see how the deer naturally used the property. So you throw a bunch of stuff at the wall. That year what stuck the best? I mean you mentioned that clover turned out great, but what what were the big lessons learned?

I guess from that first year of trying those different things. Man. I I would say obviously like the food horses were huge, like we but are but would almost say like not as not as big as we thought they were going to be, And we're just starting to get there because bucks like nobody none of the deer knew that like associated the property with food because it had never really been there besides what was naturally there with the brows.

But um, they just we would not have like crazy nights where the bean plots were just absolutely full like that just never happened. And we're just starting to get there because now it's been gosh, this will be our fourth spring that the fonds will have been born. So um, if you're a four year old deer, then you've known the eighty how we've how we've managed it. So we're starting to starting to get that that age class up

from our ownership. But yeah, I would say honestly, the our second hunt ever on the eighty, Thomas shot a hundred fifty buck coming after the beans on October three, and I think that kind of ruined us for a little bit. Yeah, Like I think it was like, oh my go gosh, yeah, this is this is this is what we're talking about, like Kansas, Like I'm like so pumped about this, and I mean, don't get me wrong, it was like the best hunt ever. I mean there's

a massive could for anyone. Like I think we shot him on a Wednesday or I think Wednesday and I think the Tuesday before was like ninety degrees and that day it was like forty, so like pulled front to the nines. You had a rainstorm that night, so like everything was like leading up to it. Um, And yeah, I mean that evening a freaking the biggest buck. I mean Thomas had shot at that point, walked out in

ten yards right to a scrape tree. We put up that evening and shot like hard shot and was like, man, like, this is it. This is all we have to do. And I think it like made us trust in like

the food plot hunting too much. Um, definitely for the rest of that year, and then the next year was like we definitely had to like figure things out, kind of reset our minds, like, Okay, that did happen, but like, don't think it did because that's still like there are a lot of things that came up to that moment um that we're also going in our favorite besides just sitting in a tree on a bean edge and early tour.

So it was that was definitely a good thing, but I think we also did put too much emphasis on the field. But um, those things definitely stuck. And then the I think one of the biggest things that stuck was just seeing how um the deer were using it. Having a full year of trail camp picks all over

the property that we could analyze and all that stuff. Yeah, I would say, Um, getting back to our goals, like what you asked earlier, Mark, we we did buy a little I would say, it's little, but it's just a like a twenty six inch mower that we basically um walked behind. And um having that and creating paths um was a huge, huge piece and they kind of already talked on it, like when we created a path, it

became a highway. So figuring that out, Um, we had never really seen that happened before on anything else we've hunted, so UM, having that that little um walk behind more was was huge. Yeah, I mean to kind of paint the picture, like, so most of our eighty is like a hunt like crown closure, which means like it's basically all shaded. So then um, it's all shade and then like up to like up to your waist. Basically you've got buck brush, you have multi flour rows, mazoovery gooseberry,

are there raspberry? So like I mean walking through anywhere, most of those things have thorns that are getting you, grabbing you, um, and like it's not trudging basically. So as soon as you mow like a path with like two inches of grass at the bottom, now, like that's why it becomes a highway because obviously do you want to use least resistance and stuff. UM. So we really realized that that was huge and we kind of hunted

according to that. So did you end up changing how and where you mowed to get deer where you wanted them? Or did you just recognize, Okay, the paths that we're using where they are dy are start being used and then that changed where you hunted? Like s what I'm trying to say, did you change where you mode or did you change where you hunted because of that observation. We did a little bit of both. It kind of

dependent in the area. We definitely mode certain areas after that first season to be able to UM because we knew we could hunt them easily and we knew they'd get used UM. But that also we did we did move some of our hunting spots to UM places that we already had mode that we realized we're just getting trampled on basically and also we did um, some of those mode areas we would we realized like, man, okay,

this is getting like a ton of traffic. Um, let's move it a little bit more and add another clover plot. So like right now in two we have three clover plot for four clover plots now, um, so you can kind of see how that's expanded. Um, And that a lot of that came through mowing certain areas and kind of seeing where the deer wanted to go now that we had opened some areas up. Yes, so tell me more about that. So you know, on the food plot side, year one, you had the big food plot up front,

you did some different things. Um. I'm sure over the years you've you've you've adjusted, you've tweaked, some things didn't work out, some things did. Where do things stand now with how you look at food and how you're putting in those food plots? Because I mean, even though you have a guy who's helping you put in these plots, you still have to pay him for his hourly works. I'm sure you're trying to get more efficient and more cost effective with all of that. So where has has

your several year long lesson taking you to now? What's it gonna look like here? In Yeah, so one of the first things Matt Ross Tolis was just because there's open canopy here does not mean that you should put a food plot here. And that kind of led us to um like deciding to not do a lot of work that first year. But yeah, from from first year to this management season, UM, we just we did put a couple of plots in where UM, we tested the soil and we thought it would be the best. Um,

where did we find like those soil maps? With that trying to think about where we found those soil maps that UM Matt like Ross printed off a ton of things and gave it to us. UM I should ask him, um, but we got basically a map of what soil would be good. So we went off of those for the future years and UM, I guess just getting off what they said seeing about seeing where those dense travel areas were, we would start with doing timber work in those spots,

and then then that was probably more. Year two is is let's let's work the timber around this area and maybe gets more sunlight and then see how they use it. And then year three was okay, let's burn this area now since there's been more sunlight UM and it's able to actually run fire through it. And then UM, this year has kind of turned into a great let's let's plan it with something, whether that's um, some warm season

grasses we have or clover mix. Yeah, we're wanting to get into the more like natural just uh, let's just make the food sources that are naturally in the in the seed bank. Let's like just try to build those up. So that's why we're doing so much timber cutting, because UM, you have food plots are great, but we really want like the whole ady to just be a food source

for these deer. UM. But I guess like one thing that's really transformer plots is not um just not being boxed in and also just like trying to get as many resources as possible. UM. We have one of our best plots. It's like basically smack middle of our ground. UM, really close like surrounded by good betting, but also like only a hundred yards yards from our big bean in

corn plot that we rotate. UM. And Sean Lucto from Harland bow Hunter, we had him down to walk last year and he was like, Man, this area right here, it's already a little open, but this would be like primo for a nice transition pot of clover before they got out there. Um, so we've taken just these ideas

from other land managers that they've really liked it and clover. Man, it's just so easy, Like that's I think why we just we we go to clover because um, obviously you could just frost see that, try to get some open soil on there, which we usually mow and then spray to try to kill that grass. Um yeah, if you're if you're able to spray it early, burn it and then frosted, I mean you can really cut out the farmer. Yeah. And then basically are our most recent plot that we

actually are just making this year. We have haven't hunted it just like in the works right now. Um, we were just it was it's in our southeast corner where we uh we shot two bucks right in this area. Actually we've shot three over the last three years within fifty yards of where we are making this plot. Because we're just like, man, they do so many different trails in this area. Let's just have like a tiny I mean,

is it an eighth of an anchor? Maybe back there we're just like we just have a little clover right here just to stop them, like just get them to pause when they're coming through here, just have like a little destination before they go and chase the dough or go and bed down or something like that. So it's just been kind of learning where they want to be in adding that, so you talked about how much timber factored into things than year two and in these years since.

That's another one of those deals that I think probably is maybe underutilized by new land managers because it seems a little bit harder or a little bit more intimidating. What was that like for you guys early on? Was that like, hey, let's just jump right into it, or were you a little bit like I don't know exactly what we're doing here? You were you were pretty ancy,

almost too anty. Like looking back at it, I would have been like if I could go back in time and telling myself, like, you need to slow down and you need to go learn a bunch of things before you get into this, because um, it's definitely like definitely learning curb and like man, timber cutting can like not just scary, but like timber cutting can like put you in a bad way if you're not if you're not being safe about it just because you're dealing with um

big heavy trees some of them have if you're if you're cutting a honeymocus like we have down here, they have three storms and so like just being like overly safe, I think, Um, it was definitely something I would tell my my previous self. But like we just we were Auntie his heck to just like start cutting different things. And we we really knew what timber we wanted to get rid of. We wanted to get rid of hedge

locus um. We wanted to get rid of small wallnuts that weren't going to be any good for the timber market. And then we really wanted to open up our oaks um. We wanted to kind of we had different like tree species we wanted to hinge cut. We wanted to hinge cut some elms and things like that, and then some trees we just wanted to kill off. We wanted to kill off hickories um. And so we kind of just went through, we went to those management units and we're like,

what do we need to get rid of here? And then we would just start getting rid of it and where we want to have more sunlight, and basically the whole lady could have more sunlight still to this day, it could have more sunlight basically everywhere. But we just kind of picked certain days and we would, UM, we would girdle cut the entire tree down or hinge cut depending on what which trio was or where it was, UM, and then we'd we'd spray it and just knock out

some of those species. But I would almost say you can do more help to wildlife management with the chainsaw than you can with with a food plot, just because it does so much for other animals and species as well, um, all the birds and the property. Um. And then you've got to talk. You can think about all the all the food sources that are now getting sunlight. UM. One thing that said to us that really stuff was like right now and year one, we have all shade loving species.

What you want is some loving species. And that like really man, that that triggers something to us. We were like, okay, we need way more sund to hit the force floor. Um. Even just this UM this shed shed hunting season, we we dropped a ton of timber this offseason again and in one of our timber cutting spots. I was doing some shed hunting around and sure enough I found the shed to the biggest buck we know that made it through literally in a pile of chainsaw dust that we

had cut like a few ge people. So he's hanging out in this new servants and it's, uh, it's a good betting area. But also he has this new food source right now in Kansas, Like it's a little earlier for things to be butting up, but it's it's starting. The green up is about to happen. So you and that deer is probably betting in that area with the new cover or eating on some of those brows that that had been a hundred feet up in the air before this. And I mean that was just like a

eye opening finger right there. So yeah, those are some of the biggest um cutting things we've done. You mentioned several different types of timberwork. Though there's taking down full trees, it was hinge cutting, there was girdling. How did you guys go about you know, how are you choosing where to use each one of those different tools or when or how big of an area, like, how did you go about making those decisions? Yeah, it really just depends on the true. So if the tree leaves, which is

what the deer. Okay, so deer really tree leads orderly like a fruit, so like an a corner or something like that. Um. And so basically it went off that decision knowing like, okay, um, some of these leaves the deer will eat and some of them they don't really care for. So that was that was a big thing. UM. And other other trees like a hedge tree, you basically, I mean at least the hedge trees on our ground.

You can't really cut the whole tree down. It's kind of they're so like big and just entangled and massive that in the heart in the woods so hard that it's basically like, okay, we need to um these puppies to try to kill them, which girdling is like just killing the outer can be in layer and then we'll spray it um, which will kill the tree. But you don't have to cut it down because once you cut the tree down, man, you can just cover it up a tone of ground and then you have a ton

more work to do. So we're like, let's kill some of these trees without covering up the entire having a huge footprint on the ground, and then other trees say like, um, we know like elms, dear love to tell you ton elm. So we just hinge cut those things in certain areas that we want deer to like have food source. So it hinge cut, which basically like we're we're hinge cutting on these small trees and we can basically cut the tree through and then push them over with our hands.

So it's like a I don't know, a six inch diameter tree or less, and so that will that will create a food source, and we know, what do you like that food source? And then I don't know. Um, so other ones cedars we just would get rid of because we don't want them to be too thick. Um, I kind of wanted to just that that like a

dispersed area. I would say, um, gosh, if it was a big like a tree like eighteen inches in diameter, a bigger, we're almost always just girdling it because um one that like just starts the dyeing process with that tree. And uh, those some of those first trees that we girdle. Um, we've been starting to cut down and there's so much easier to manage. And um, if like we found out really quickly. If we dropped a big tree, um, we weren't getting very much done in the day. So girdling

is just the easy quick way. It doesn't um kill all the shade, but it does the pretty dang good job for really, I don't know, two minutes, uh two minute cut around the tree. Yeah, and uh we're actually on our property this uh the next two days because we're we're just uh dropping a ton of timber in

little betting pockets that we want. Now. Now that we have our kind of our food plots established on the property, we're just gonna cut them basically where the wind would be good for us hunting and then also for accessing and stuff like that. So it's just getting the sunlight there and then opening up those areas. Um. And then you just kind of have to learn with species you have in the property, which one you should keep around,

which ones you should hear it of. Um. This last year, we've actually cut down a few oaks because in our oak area they're just two cluttered so they're not really producing them many acorns. So it's kind of like, Okay, I have to cut some some oaks down in order to really have healthy oaks. So it's been just a learning curve on which ones we want to keep round and stuff like that. What's the biggest um lesson you've

learned on the timber side of things four years in now? Um, is there anything that you would like to go back and tell, you know, twenty nineteen Natan Thomas about that might have made things happen faster or better? Has anything come to mind? Yeah? Right away, I would say, what's really only begin to hit Like in starting year four, Um, we would cut down like a handful of trees in a in a unit and be like, man, we did

so much work. In reality, I wish my self would have known to like make it make this whatever like one like one eighth acre area, like cut it all, cut like cut most of the most to all the trees in that area, because that's when you're actually gonna see noticeable changes. We'd see like we dropped a couple

of trees or girl a couple here. And while yeah, sure I was starting to get to a better unit, UM, we didn't really find out till the last last year that um, it took quite a bit of really opening up an area to get that sun really to the forest floor because as the sun is like rotating throughout the day. Um, it's really only in that if you don't cut a ton in the area, it's really only on that the little sun spot for a little a little bit of time. So um, cutting cutting more than less,

I would say, and then just patients. Still to this day, we have to amount ourselves that there is a tone of timber, like you could you could cut timber every single day and like still have a ton of timber

out here. So just being patient and also just just absorbing it um and just making it um, just making it a thing that you look forward to instead of just like a job or task that you're trying to trying to get done with, because it can drive you crazy when you cut for ten hours a day and then you just do walk out and be like, man, there's so much more that needs to be changed. Um. But yeah, it's just it's just gonna be a long term thing. I mean, this property still won't be exactly

what we want in ten years. But that's just it's it's a it's a constant progression. Basically, there's there's certain like there's certain areas in the property room like man, like we have we have areas of hedge that are completely unpassable. Like it's like, man, how are we ever gonna make change in that area? But just a little by little tree by tree, um, And that's yeah, that's that's a basic thing we've learned. So food plots first, cutting tree second. Third. I know you mentioned that fire

was the next big step you guys took. How did you learn to safely use fire? Like? What was that process like? And then what have those prescribed burns been like to actually manage and be a part of. Yeah, So again, our farmer buddy Kevin that first year, he was like, you want to do a fire, And we're like, want to do a fire? So he brought the drip torches and we kind of talked to some lines and stuff like that where we wanted to fire, to go in direction, humidity, all that stuff. Um Man, that's a

That's another thing. If I'd go back in time, I would definitely do things different. I would how would have way more hands on deck because no matter how protected your fire is, no matter how good your lines are, like being like new with fires, so it's going to scare the hell out of you, like watching your beloved ground just like just go to ten foot flames on certain areas. IS's just like, wow, Okay, I hope that stops. Um things like that. But it's basically just like being

overly safe. Um, that's that's the biggest thing. The nice thing. Like what we talked about. On the west side of our property, it's all road, big gravel road, so I'm like, okay, it's not going there. And then through our property we have to creek, so I was like, okay, it's not going there. You basically got to worry about it. It's like going out to the neighbors in the north and south. So usually try to burn with like an east or west wind and then have some really good burn lines

and stuff like that. But just being overly safe to where like you can be confident like, Okay, even if the winds for gusts in twenty miles and the humanity was ten percent, it's going nowhere. That's like, that's like

being just being overly safe. But I would say, um, one of the biggest things that I it took me forever to my head around, was like, how the heck with all this shade, how are we going to get any fire through our timber which it was always like good to burn the like brom and and hot the warm grasses. But really to make change in our eight

we wanted to get the end timber burns. And only like this year do we really like wrap our hand head around, like what do we really need to see in the weather front moving forward to get a good productive burn, And um, we finally got I don't know, we probably burnt eights ten acres in the timber this year, which we like maybe done like a a quarter of that in the past, and just it really just comes down to having higher high enough wind speed and low

enough humidity to to do that burn. Some some some of those days are um are like quote unquote like risky days to burn, um because of the low humidity. But if you have really really good fire fire breaks, um, it's some of the only days you can burn if you're in a really really shaded area. And and girdling and dropping trees has only only helped the fuel source

on the e d So Fells. The first time landowner, I'd be I'd be making sure that there's more sun eating the ground if I plan on doing a burn in year two. And um, just knowing being with people that know what they're doing and what's to look out for on the weather. I think we're talking to the land leg sea guys and they're like, man, if you have a hard time like finding people that will help you out to burn, just go to the local fire department and see if you can find some guys that

would volunteer, like a few hours of their time. Because I mean, if you're volunteering at a firefighter, they're like, okay, you either like you either maybe board some days or you're like your your pyro, like you want to burn stuff. So he's like, go go to the local fire departments and I bet you can find a handful of guys that would help you know, know what they're doing with fire, and then also just be able to be more hands

on deck. Um. But yeah, every fire, we have UM burn lines around the entire circumference of what we are burning, and then we have um tons of water. We got a bunch of like high power leaf blowers that will put up fire, we have drift torches, UM and a ton of guys trying to help us out. So that's the I think. I think the biggest mistake you can make with fire is like rushing into it in a day. Um, like not having your fire breaks all all in the clear, um,

all all set. That's like the biggest thing that would have warned about, Like just have everything ready to go, whether you're doing that in January and then you burn it in in February or March. Um, definitely have everything set. Don't ever like just light a fire thinking it's hopefully gonna gonna be a good situation. Yeah, And the feedback from that has also been amazing, Like the turkeys on the fire, just they love that stuff. Um. And just so the different plants and stuff that have come out

of that has been really interesting to see. Um. The same day I found the shed angler this offseason, um from the biggest buck we have hanging around by a bunch of stuff, by a bunch of timber that we we felt in the property. We did was the day after we did a prescribe burn, And when I was walking to go get the u TV, I bumped like fifteen turkeys off off of the burn that we did the day before. So I'm like, man, this stuff has like sometimes it feels like this management is such a

slow process. But within like those like few hours I found a shed by a bunch of timber we dropped, and I've just found ten or fifteen turkeys off of a fresh burn we did the day before. And like, man, when you make change and you just stirred the property, you are going to see the changes for sure. So I mean, I think you kind of just answered it. But would you say that even though this prescribed fire, those projects, I mean, as you're describing them, it's it's

a good amount of work. It takes special care and preparation. It's kind of a lot for the average person to try to do. Is it worth all that headache? Yeah? I mean the hunting on our little track of eighty acres has has only gotten better. And like it's just in like we have been managing through our brains. We always say that everybody, we managed the property way more

than we hunted, like way more. Um, and it has just been I mean, our church population in our area has like boomed, and then you can't like just say it's our eighty acres, but like it has to have been helping. I mean when we were here our first frame, you couldn't hear gal And I mean we've I mean last year we called in a group of eight toms to our ground. And so it's like, Okay, how much can it change? How much can our eight change in

the in the grand scheme of things and stuff. But it's like, man, you gotta you just have to think as a land manager that like every little thing you're doing is making a difference. Um, I mean this last year in our in our timber, and we're also learning to hunt it better, but just with the management stuff,

I mean, we had a series of hunts. Yeah, I mean we saw at least at three and half real bucker better like six seven, eight hunts in a row, and that that just that just shows you, man, like, Okay, we have eighty acres, but we are seeing good deer every single hunt. So they want to be here like that. So that's just like I mean, like and even like turkeys being in the in the burn the next day, like they know changes happening and they want to be

there and they're gonna be there. So man, if even if you own ten twenty acres, implement as much as you can of this stuff because they will in our in our view, in our opinion, it's making fast, fast difference. What's the most satisfying part of this kind of work, this project in general. Is it just the better deer hunting? Is it? Is it the better wildlife sightings? Is it just the act of doing it? I mean, what is it about this that's been the most rewarding for it? Well,

that's a tough question. I mean, I mean definitely, Uh, deer hunting has been a huge thing. Um. Like there's there's a few deer um that we've killed in the last I would say the last two years. The first year was basically just dumblok. I feel like, um, just being on a good property. Where do you want to be nashurally eight um in killing deer. For the last two years we have killed deer because of how we

manage UM. The what was when we had Spencer new hearth obviously to the ground and he he shot an awesome buck in our late um late season still standing beans um. And that's why something as land mamager just like leave food out there. Um. And he came out of an area that we had dropped a bunch of timber and we knew like that was really good betting and so that's like, okay, they're gonna bed there. You

have late season food source. I mean I see that as like, Okay, yeah, Spencer's rifle killed that deer, But that's management in the offseason that killed that deer. Um. And then you also look at like this last December, we Thomas killed a buck December eighteen, and then our brother in law Tony killed him on the twenty nine. And so we killed two late season December bucks in the timber. They weren't on the food plot um, and

were in the standing crops. They were in the timber where we had drop trees, created sunlight, really warm betting for a cold December day, and food sources that the deer wanted to eat. Um. And so man like those deer like, that's that's the land management is killing those deer. So like like that has been probably some of the

most rewarding stuff. I don't know, Tom, you have any Yeah, no, I I would say it's when December thirty one, because that's that's the last day year in Kansas to shoot buck. When it flips over to January one, it's it's really honestly not a depressing day. Um. Towards those last days of December, you're almost like looking forward to management season because um, you're just like the tens and the stress from the season is just all lifted and now it's

the pressure that we all put on ourselves. But it's like, oh, now I can go walk around the eighty. This is gonna be fun. Like I've done this like ten times since owning it in three years because we're is always so so careful about it. But gosh, just the just the cycle, I would say, the cycle of deer hunting and what it brings um each each different season, whether it's management, shed season, UM, scouting season, velvet season, UM, the fall. It's just it's this, It's this cycle that

you just love. What do you not like? Well, like, what when you when you look at what all the different things that this kind of project entails, what are the parts that suck? What are the parts that make you think, gosh, some days I wish it took a golfing or something else. I don't know. Is there anything that stands out there is um and that is still I don't know. When you when you get the text that you're definitely the two underninch bucket shot by the neighbor,

that that's never good. But no, like that's like that was the most frustrating thing. The first two years we had like massive um Kansas buck in this place and we couldn't like we're still figuring out our hunting strategies here, and we I mean we left slip through our fingers. Looking back on that, it's like, Okay, give us that deer this year, because that deer is done for just because we've learned how to hunt it better. But no, like,

in all seriousness, even that's great. I mean that's Nebraska boys that didn't want any property were like, oh man, chasing deer that are way bigger than we ever thought we'd see. It is just amazing. But we honestly, every day down here is like a drink of true whether I'm going into the stand on November one or I'm ripping the saw January feverory time frame. Um man, it's just every single day is great. I don't care hard to work like we work ourselves way too our most days.

You don't need launch words out there just hammering away. Um And so it's just like I don't know whether you're just sweating like crazy in the summer and putting I mean, I've we've had some seriously long and tough days out here. But it's just the whether you're driving home after it or you're just hanging out of the property and just likes, howd you put in a full day of work. It's just rewarding every single day, no

matter what you're doing. So, I don't know if there's a I don't know if it's a bad I can't I can't think of anything. Yeah, So you're driving down the road and you come around the corner, come over a bridge you dropped down towards a nice creek, and you see two guys standing off the side of the road, their trucks parked off there. They've got Camo boots on. Maybe they're pulling an STUV or not SUV, a u

TV off the trailer. And you pull off the side next to him and start chatting with him, and they tell you, hey, you know, we just bought this forty acres here. It's been a dream. We finally were able to afford it. We went on it together. Whatever it is, we're gonna try to make this thing into a great

place to hunt. You've got a minute, you have one minute before you need to hit the road again and get back to your family's What would be the very most important thing you could leave with those two guys if you had just that minute to share with them the most distilled bit of wisdom you've gained over the last four years. What would you tell him, Okay, this is Nate. First, I'll give him my manute. You talkic. You can get yours in after this. Okay. First of all,

location is huge. I was I was going to Iowa and I was going to Kansas because I wanted to find a property where i'd kill a big baby. Isn't Yes, they're there, So I'm like, I'd shake their hands to the congrats guys, like, Okay, it's a good area because in our first year, we're like, we had a buck, and then our next year we had a two hundred and fifteen two interchange buck that we were chasing. So I'm like, Okay, we picked we picked the right area.

So my guys, great job, you picked the right area. Secondly, I'd be like, Okay, Um, I don't know how much work do you want to put in here, but if you want to like really manage this wealth of properties, I'd go to your local dealer and I'd buy um a couple of nice chainsaws. I'd buy a more and then I'd start knocking on doors and introducing yourself to the neighbors. Just get to know the area, get to know the farmers in the area, and have fun. Guys.

All right, that's a good minute. Oh man, I think I would uh might would be might would be much uh much less complex than they. I would just look him in the eye and tell him to to enjoy every like, every single minute of it, because sometimes I guess it could be a downside of being in the hunting industry, But there are sometimes when I'm just like, like, we just went down to the eight and that was that was the work trip. That wasn't a fun hunting trip.

We need to we need to slow down, and we need to enjoy this property for the really the reason we purchased it, which is being, um spending time on it, being around the wildlife, but ultimately being around our family and um, I think just not not taking the management and everything that you have professionally going on too seriously when you're on your ground, just just enjoy for for what it is and and bring the people down there

that you want to have a fun time with. So months months simple and not even really deer hunting and related. So yeah, I love it. So what's next? What do you guys see as the the things you're most excited to work on next or that you think are going to make the biggest difference in the coming year. Two? What's really getting you excited to see? What's gonna happen? Man?

We uh, I don't know, Like like obviously we've done all of like we've done insane amount of timber work this year, so like, okay, that's gonna be better hopefully just more do you want to be here? But as far as like I'll just go on, like the hunting side of things, Um, we're just kind of waiting for like that really uh next big deer to chase. That's

kind of been like our anti thing this last year. Um, it was like kind of a weird hunting year for us on the eight at least, like I was kind of saying all years prior, like we had a lot of big deer to chase at least one or two biggest again and the natural cycle of a big deer

coming through. We just had one of those like off years last year, which is three and a half year olds just everywhere just gosh, hate to ten different ones just um hundred and twenty hundred and fifty three and a half ruld maybe a four and a half yoruld in there, um and like and I mean it was amazing because we're seeing like those deer every single time.

But like now we're kind of licking our lips just waiting for like another um big stud to give us an opportunity to hunt it, just because we have kind of figured out the hunting and the managing side of things well enough where like we feel like we might have a shot at it. Of course, it's a big, smart deer and they'll price, they'll get the best of us. But um, yeah, we're kind of this way at least I'm waiting for like that next big one to show

up to be able to put these things the use again. Um. But yeah, we also thought it would be a kind of a fun idea. We haven't we haven't finalized this yet, but we thought would be fun if one of us hunted public the whole fall and one of us hunted the eighty Um we have public, I mean a couple of different parcels within five mile radios, so we were thinking to be kind of fun to split up the fall.

One of us is hunting the public, one of us is hunting the ore a seeing you can tell you out first if if having private land is really that big of a advantage or not so so, if the public land guy kills a better deer than the private land guy, what's the reward he gets? Does he get to, like, I don't know, you got you got drag all of the deer for the next five years or something. Yeah, maybe he's gonna be a cameraman for a while. I don't know. That's yeah, that's awesome. Well, where can where

can folks go to see this? I know you guys have been documenting what you've done so far. Can you fill everyone in on on where they can find these videos that you have done so far and how they

can stay up to date. Yeah, so you can watch a lot of our Kans eight Lanes Serry stuff on our YouTube channel, which was just identical draw you can wash the shoot that buck over the beans, Spencer's hunt, and then we also filmed like our whole conversation with mat Ross where you can see us breaking down all the different management units there. So um, you can basically see everything we've talked about on that YouTube channel, and and Stiff for another public land haunts that we've done,

and gosh, Nebraska's Outdakota to the Western States. Um, we try to put out just a lot of knowledgeable stuff as well, just like if you are wanting to learn how to cut certain things or whatnot. Hopefully we put out information that is useful to people learning how to whether it's a girdle cut, hinch cut, how we make little betting pockets, why we put food plots in certain areas, how we're accessing. So we we really try to break down our eight as much as possible on the hunting

and the managing side on all our social channels. So yeah, awesome. Well, I appreciate you guys sharing this experience. It's it's pretty fun to hear about, you know, what a couple of young guys can do with some sweat, some stick, tuativeness and uh and a good attitude. So I can't wait to see what happens next on the Kansas City. Yeah, it's more appreciate. Thank you. All right, that's it for today. Thank you for tuning in. Get out there if you own land and get your hands dirty, get to work.

If Nayton Thomas can do it, you can too. And if you do not own land, but it's something you thought about, or if your family is thinking about going down this road, I hope you'll pass along this episode, share it, let other people be inspired by and remember that it is possible. So without all out of the way, thank you and until next time, stay wired, don't