Ep. 748: Creating Leopold Landscapes and Better Deer Habitats with Doug Duren

from the NBA just recently. It is my friend, mister Doug duran He is a land consultant. He is a well known modern philosopher of the hunting and conservation world. I'd say he's a really good guy. He's a wise man and a friend, and he today is joining me to do two things. Number One, we're gonna chat a little bit about the hunt that I share with him.

This past season in September, as he gave me access to a nearby farm through his Sharing the Land program on which I was able to hunt killed a really nice buck and a dough out there back in September. So we're going to talk about that hunt a little bit. We're going to talk about his Sharing the Land program, which helps connect landowners with access seekers, folks who want to get out there and find a place like can hunt. He's got a really cool way to help people do that.

So we're going to talk about that, and then we're going to spend the bulk of our time together talking through Doug's approach to managing wildlife habitat, managing is private property, managing the during family farm in a way that's good for deer. It's good for deer hunting, but it's also

good for the rest of the ecosystem. We talk about this biotic focus, the larger biotic community, the larger ecosystem, and how we can do things that are good for our hunting but also good for everything else out there.

This is the theme I talked a pretty good amount back during the Back forty Project for those of you who remember that show in that time period, but I want to bring it back to the table here today because we are kicking off a month long series on habitat work, and one of the themes I want to continue to return to is how we can utilize the properties that we manage not just for shooting deer, but also to make sure that everything else around us is

flourishing too, because all of these things are connected. So the fate of the birds and the bees and the rabbits and the soil and all that stuff is intricately intertwined with the white tailed deer and all the other things that we care about, you know obviously as hunters. So what we're gonna try to explore here today with Doug and probably in some of the other conversations this month is how we can do these kinds of projects in ways that help our hunting and everything else and

it all circles back. So that's the plan today, That's the conversation we're going to have. We're gonna have some other folks this month that are more tactic focused. We're going to talk to some people that are going to be, you know, talking through how to strategically place or create food plots or strategically create betting improvements or different ways we can funnel deer through a landscape the way we want. But that's that's not today. Today, we're going to take

a kind of thirty thousand foot over you. We're gonna step back, and we are going to look at you know, how can we approach this habitat management way with a little bit more diverse viewpoint? I suppose so, as I mentioned, the first part of the conversation is a little bit more hunt focused as far as our story and my experience with Doug. If you just want to get right to the habitat conversation, fast forward, maybe about thirty ish minutes, that's about when we get into the habitat dialogue. I

think it's some good ideas. There's gonna be some good ideas for us all to ponder. There are some good questions to think about, and hopefully this will leave you with a few new ideas, maybe a new way of looking at things, and some inspiration to get out there and get to work on your own back forty if you have one, or volunteer on a friend's property, or volunteer in public land, any way that you can get out there and get your hands dirty. Improving habitat for critters.

It's fun, it helps, it makes a difference, and I've certainly seen the positive benefits in my own life. So that's my pitch today. Hope you guys enjoyed the episode. Thanks for being here. Now let's get to my chat with mister Doug durrec All right here with me now on the line is my pal, mister Doug Duran. Welcome back to the show. Doug.

been working on, and I think that's the most important thing, right, the ideas that we've that I've been working on a group of people that I've been working on it with and you know, and how that impacts the bigger conservation community and and deer and deer hunting. So yeah, thank you. But it's that that's the cool part about it about it for me, is that it's highlighting all these ideas and and uh and other folks that are working with me.

So so that being said, then I want to rewind the clock maybe four months now, four or five, four months something like that, back to September when you were so gracious as to have me out to your farmhouse to spend some time hunting in your neck of the woods. We didn't get to do a podcast right after that. I did a show with Tony talking about the story

from my perspective. But today, what I was hoping to do, if you think this is a decent idea, I was hoping to spend a little time kind of getting your your perspective on my time there and my hunt there. I want to talk a little bit about how I got access in your program that I kind of got to trial run, and then I want to talk about a little bit of what you alluded to there second ago, which is kind of what you and your property has come to represent or stand for in the deer hunting community.

So that's that's my framework. I just want to make sure you know I prepared for this, Doug. And with that said, I came, I hunted, We spent some time together, we had some great conversations, and then before you knew it, I was gone. What did you think about our time together? What did you think about what was your perspective on the hunt? The story?

up kind of where we left off. Yeah that the same birds under the saddles are still there, but the good fun part of it was still there. And the real disc ushians that we've had about deer hunting and conservation and land management and and philosophy and all of that, we just picked it up. So from my perspective, we had a bit of an outline. I mean, it was heck, it was that you got here on the opening weekend of the bow season, which I think was like the

fifteenth or sixteenth of September this year. Nobody hunts here that early, which was a really interesting thing for me, you know know, and then I'm not a bow hunter, uh, to kind of see how that was going to play out.

Honestly as a little like, I hope this works out pretty well, because I know there's always a little bit of pressure to to produce and you know, and especially here at the Durham Farm, where it seems like every time cameras show up that we have great success and great fun and all of that, and but that's it's almost like how times you how many times you do something, you still get that feeling in the pit of your stomach, right,

And that's one of the cool things about hunting. So what I thought was most interesting about it was that you and I had some exchanges. We went back and forth on with some onyx maps, and you know, I pointed out a couple of things, and you asked some really good questions about what's going on up there. And I should point out the folks that because of some

arrangements that I have with bow hunters. With with some bow hunters, I didn't want to hunt have you hunt the farm, but I have I managed the property next door and have the hunting rights for it as well, so I was able to give you access to that. And my friend who who's a part of that program with me over there, Chip Bird, also was gracious enough to say, heck, yeah, I have Mark he can hunt over there. And so we don't know that property that well.

I know this place like the back of my hand, so that time of the year, a bowhunter taking the thoughts and the stuff that I have noticed. Having that exchange and then you pulling in and we had a really good conversation about where you're gonna hunt, how you're gonna hunt, and well it all worked out pretty well.

So from that standpoint, it was a really cool It was a really cool beginning to it and then sort of the setup and it wasn't anything different than I would I do, like with my bow hunter guys who come here the short standards as I like to call them, those guys, you know, they come and they ask a lot of questions and then they go out and kind of do things on their own. You kind of went,

you went a little bit different than that. Really, you really were interested in what my perspective was on it all, and I guess you were most interested in the local knowledge there, and there's nobody more local than me. So I thought it was we had great fun, We have good you have good success. I thought we had great fun.

this puzzle together. Right, You've got like a blank slate and you're slowly trying to put things together, and so you arrive to a brand new place like this and it's like, Okay, I've been able to look at the maps online and I've got all these ideas and I have assumptions, but then coming in it's like, hey, you know, if you have the opportunity to like fact check a little bit, why not. So so yeah, some of the most valuable time spent. There's two things that were the

most important for me. One was when I got is from a hunting perspective to clarify. One when we arrived there and we've got that big map on the wall of farmhouse and I was like, hey, Doug, let's talk about the map. And I was like, here are the things that I was looking at, and I was thinking and and is that right? Is this really what this thing is? Or is this really what I think it is?

on that and pay attention to that. So that was number one. And then the second thing, you know, the first night I rushed into it, I was I was over excited and I wanted to hunt, and I thought, okay, I can hunt based off of just what I think is there on the map. And so I went. And you know, as you know, that first night, it was different than I expected. Where I went, it didn't work out the way I thought. I couldn't see what I

was hoping i'd be able to see. I was assuming i'd be all to see a lot and learn a lot, and I just didn't put myself on the right spot. So that next morning, you know, I told you just like, hey, you know what, I don't think I should hunt tomorrow morning. Think I need to like lay eyes on a few

more things. And and you know, we talked about the fact that you drive around on your side by side a lot, and I thought, you know, I wonder if I could just tag along with you as you drive around to you know, pretend like you're doing your farm chores, and I could see a couple of these things, like with my own eyes and maybe actually set up a stand, you know, without the deer noticing anything's different than Doug

doing his normal stuff. And and so that was that was key because that was what allowed me to go and see that apple tree spot that seemed so intriguing and then be able to confirm like, oh, yes, this is exactly what I hoped, and then be able to get in there and get set up in the right spot with you know, the cover of the UTV being there.

You know, if if I try to go in there without that, you know, those bucks might have been bedded nearby and spooked out of there, and maybe they wouldn't have moved through in daylight two days later, the dough might have spooked worse and not have been there the next day. So so those two things were huge, and uh, you know, wouldn't have beenossible if I didn't have your local knowledge and your amazing chauffeuring skills there on the side by side. So thank you for that.

what about that walnut tree over there? And I don't know it was thirty five or forty yard distance, but a farm road that goes up through there that gets traveled a lot. So we went past it. I slowed down. You kind of looked at both and I remember your eyes kind of like this. I like the looks of this. We went up past, like I would often do, just checking on things. I turned around, came back down. I never shut it, can am off. I just sat there.

Lauren stood up in the back. You hopped out, and I'm just observing you this whole time, because you know, I'm taking lessons from the master, and watched you go over there. SA same look when you're up in the tree. You got up in there and you looked over and your eyes were really big, like this is really nice. If you remember, there's the cornfield that we drove up

through that that road comes up through. There's water and tag alders down on that bottom, which comes into play later, of course, and then betting area up above, and gee, you know, it's just there's just so much about the terrain of that property was so cool. And I don't know, Mark, were you in there ten minutes? It seemed like you got in and out of there.

I mean pretty much straight to the west. And when we're getting that call from you, gee, this is really strange, and you are describing what happened to me, he said, Well, I already took the head off of it because it's clearly the deer that I shot, but it's half eaten. And what an interesting thing when folks get a chance to see this whole thing. When with with the the episode that you put out, I'd asked him to look

at bobcat activity. Since then, there was a whole kind of speculation, Right, we have a neighbor who's got a beer on it. Yeah, And I remember Ronella was like, as a coyo, you know, so, yeah, this doesn't look like what a coyo does at all. And there's a bear in the area, so maybe that. But that thing had to be right on top of it, right, I mean,

it had to run by it and smell it. But then recently I've seen some studies and some work done on bobcats, and I remember how it had to hide, peeled back and it it's like it removed the back strap and clean that was taking the meat between the ribs hadn't really actually the rear end hardly at all like a coyot typically would. To see all that was just I was just fascinating to me, and I know to you. We speculated about a lot. I actually got

a lot of questions about it. And then putting the trail camera up and getting nothing.

you know, I don't. I don't know if that's a thing, but yeah, I don't know what. I have no explanation except it was interesting.

But uh, but not and uh yeah, the whole the whole event with that dough was just really uh, it was just really interesting. It's it's been on my mind ever since. It's just so.

So that was that worked out? Well? Yeah, So, so you talked about the fact that right you have this permission next to your farm and you were able to grant that to me, and we talked, you know, this summer about me coming up and hunting with you, and we talked about, yo, well maybe I could get you

access to this property next to us. And then you had the idea like, Hey, if you want to hunt here, why don't we treat it just like anyone else else in the Sharing the Land program that you run, Doug, And why don't you run through that process and we can kind of, you know, show you what this is like. And it gives us a great opportunity to talk about a little bit And that's what I want to do here now, Doug. Is for people that don't know about Sharing the Land, Can you give us a rundown of

what the program is? What could someone expect if they wanted to get involved in this like I was able to.

And it's a it's a cooperator's network in which we connect the access seekers and private landowners to the purpose of providing conservation cooperation on properties and in exchange for access, so that access seeker is spending some time helping the conservation on a property and in return they get access to it in whatever way they work out with the landowner. And in some cases it's it's you know, wide open access,

and in other cases it might be very limited. The real theme of it is is that people are providing that they're they're providing conservation benefits to either that land or somewhere else. So one of the questions I first started asking people when I when I started thinking about this was what's your contribution to conservation? And really it started with with me with a guy who had been volunteering for some of our local conservation programs. Seeing a young

guy and conversation with him. One day, he had told me that he lost his his turkey hunting access and I was like, well, what season do you have and he said, well, you know, told me what season. I was like, I don't think I have anybody hunting the farm that weekend or that week So if you don't find another place, let me know and we'll be able

to work something out on the farm. And he goes, well, that's very nice of you guys, like, look, man, you're volunteering to do this conservation work for the community, not necessarily on my farm, but for the community. So that was sort of what motivated me. So sharing theland dot com is where you go to do it, and there's an opportunity for access seekers, which we have a lot of.

And I will tell people right now that Cal and I did a podcast when we was here recently for the deer season and poiwe has just got hundreds of access seekers and two landowners signed up. So as you might imagine, we have a lot of supply on the I'm sorry, a lot of demand on the access seeker side,

but less supply. So we're approaching a thousand access seekers who have filled out conservation resumes, and these are folks from all over the country and we have only but still a lot I think thirty properties in different parts of the country. Interestingly, I get a lot of requests to hunt here and then we have at there's another property that's not far from here that we're just started getting access to and as you might imagine, landowners are

a little they like slow walk this in. Access seekers are like heck, yeah, let's go, and you know, landowners like, well, let's we'll see how this all works out. So well, you can understand that a landowner would be a little cautious, right, I mean, this is their place, this is their thing, this is their property. So there's been a lot of interest from landowners and then they it sort of takes there's a number of steps we kind of have to go through with them for them to really embrace this idea.

But the conservation resumes are really important. The fact that these access seekers are you know, I mean it's a resume, just like if you're applying for a job. And so with this idea that we're connecting people put your best went forward as and not you know, filling them full of blowny or anything, but that that an access seekert

really has some uh something to offer. And you know, we've had landowners who are looking for very specific things like I need a carpenter or I need a somebody helping me with prescribe fire and those sort of things. And so of course that kind of thing is in higher demand than somebody goes, oh, I can come and help you fixed fence or rock roll a ployer or something.

Pick rock. You can always pick rock. That So when I when people ask me, well, what can I do to make myself more attractive to a landowner, I was like, well, develop your conservation resume, join an organization like a like a Pheasants Forever, or go to you know, university extension classes. Go to these landowner days where landowners are learning about land management, and go there and learn the same things that they are in. Gee, you might even meet a

landowner there. The idea, of course, is that we're trying to be a meeting place and a connector. But what we really want to do first and foremost is to highlight these stories and put examples out there, and we've been doing that. We recently filmed some stuff with on X down and we went to a place down in Iowa and a farm where it's actually a native seed company who became both a sponsor of sharing the land

but then also became a participating farm. And we had about a half a dozen people who came out there and who helped for a day of you know, on a native seed farm, there's a lot of manual work and some of it was like digging plants undesirables out of a particular field, and then we were doing hand stripping and that kind of stuff. And then we went back and we filmed the day of hunting as well. So they are real, you know, great arrangement there, and it worked out really well on both sides at a

blast we went pheasant hunting. We've also there's there's these properties in North Dakota that I was talking to you about that where they're doing shelter belts and removing wire, but then also doing plant other kinds of plantings. And and then the exchange was they got to come back pretty much whenever they wanted, as long as they contacted the landowner to upland bird hunt. One of those landowners just contacted me and said that he is also now

interested in limited deer hunting because they're deer hunters. And you know, it's sort of like with me, I'm not one. I have this arrangement with these bow hunters for the farm, and I have the well's lease arrangement that I have next door. It's a management at Lisa was sort of a hybrid. I helped manage the property and or you were able to hunt. So bow hunting's kind of out here.

And then the opening weekend of gun hunting, my brother and my nephews and well, we had a We always have something going on, it seems like with with you know, Medior.

This year we had a thing with Canam. But then the rest of the season, the people who were my who are my conservation cooperators, access seekers had access to come in and then gee, the the later bo seasons, the dough Derby antlerless hunt, and then the holiday hunt, and we did squirrel hunting, we did we've we've done some foraging, we've done uh man, we just had days where people got to come here and shoot and you know, just a lot of different things that you can you

can think of. So what I asked landowners to do is to think about what it is that they do on their property and then what are some of the other possibilities, and we list some other possibilities so you don't have to give up you know, one hundred percent access. It's sort of like, you know, it's almost like you have a menu of things that that won this this is the menu of things I need help with and then here on the other side is the menu of

things that I'm willing to provide access for. And then we what we do when these things come in is we try to match them up. And really what we do is send the most likely conservation resumes to the landowner and then they take kind of ticket from there. There's an agreement involved, and there's you know, there's insurance

involved there. They can the landowners wonder about reliability, and there's an insurance policy that they are the access seekers can get and so we've kind of kind of run through every you know, issue that we can so if people are interested in it, and boy, this twenty twenty four is the Year of the Landowner. We're going to be doing a bunch of recruitment of landowners. I'm going to a thing this Saturday where there's a bunch of

landowners who were presenting. Following Saturday, I'm going to another one. I'm out at pheasant Fest then after that. So we're really going to try to recruit more landowners because, as I said, we have plenty of demand and not enough supply, and especially in areas where you could imagine one of the things we did last year also working with the National Dear Association and with Pheasants forever. Is that we did a learn to hunt in the early season, during

the bow season. Because it was DNR sanctioned, we did it. We were able to do a gun hunt in September. It was the weekend after you were here, I think. And man, we had you know, we had fifteen properties. It was almost like fifteen hundred acres as it all adds up, and twenty two new hunters, twenty two mentors, and some of those mentors were the landowners. So they took, you know, folks out and these are guys, who are

you interested in big giant bucks? But they also understand that, holy moly, I got a andlerless concern here, management concern. So all of these things kind of come together. We can introduce people to hunting, get them out there early in the season before the best bow hunting is going going on. And we had a real successful hunt. I

think we took twelve or fourteen deer. We had. We did a butchering demonstration and he heck, even one of the landowners because it was sanctioned and as a result, if the landowners said it was okay, they could shoot a buck. And so he's sitting there in the blind with one of these hunters and his buck comes out, and the access or the learn to hunter was like, you know, wow, that's really cool to see it. He goes,

you want to shoot it? So can you imagine? I mean, the landowner got so wrapped up and so interested in this, and I don't know, had the bigger smile that hunter or the land So that that whole thing of where you're getting something out of it, I get so much out of it. I mean, you and I had a blast together. But it's not that much. It's no different really when I have my my cooperator's access seekers come and we do things together, and it's just if it

wasn't fun, I wouldn't do it. And that's one of the things I keep telling the landowners. It's really nice to do this, and it's really fun to do it. And then you talk to the access seekers on the other hand, you know with the same idea that this needs to be beneficial to the land It needs to be beneficial to the land owner, and it should be fun. And let's talk about what it's like to be a good guest. And you could do a you could do a seminar and what it's like to be a good guest.

You really could. You're a great guy to have around.

Sometimes we assume like, oh, it's just obvious, but not always. So that's more than just a compliment, which I thank you for, but also a good idea. So yeah, something to think about, Doug with with this, Like you're talking about this menu of different ideas, and you mentioned the menu could apply both for the access seeker and the access provider, right, So the access seeker they can have a menu of things that they can add to their

conservation resume, all these different skill sets or experiences. But then on the flip side, for the landowners, there's always something more you could do, right, And and that's kind of where I want to push you a little bit or or points you, I guess because you are someone

in the deer hunting world. Now that you are the NDA Deer Manager of the Year, you have you have now the authority, Yeah, you have the you know, the authority and the title to speak to, to speak to a little bit of how unique your own personal menu has been compared to some others in the deer hunting world. And this is something that I think, you know, Steve's

giving you an opportunity to talk about. So people I think are well aware of the fact that you manage your property a little bit differently than the typical property we're going to see on the Outdoor Channel or something like that. Right, you have gone to great lengths over the years to manage the Duran family farm in a more holistic way with a more of an ecosystem focus

versus just a make big deer focus. And that's kind of where I want to spend a little more time here, because we've talked around the edges of this over the years, but we've never really dove dove deep into it. So I'm curious, first, what was the impetus for that with you, Like how did that philosophy get into get under your skin and become the way you want to do this?

Because I know, like you had a journey when it came to really focusing on big giant bucks and then you've you've kind of traveled along a slightly different route over the years. But also when it comes to just like how you worked with the land, was that from an early age or early in your management kind of journey that hey, I want to do this a different kind of way or at first where you just thinking, man, I want big deer and this is how we're gonna

do it. Can you just give me a little insight into how this came to be where we are.

I can't I can't say. Oh, and here's how they managed it exactly I can tell you what the results were. I don't know what their intentions were at the time because it was one hundred and twenty years ago. I never met those people, but I can tell you that I cut my great grandfather's trees a few years ago, right because it was there. Some of those trees were it was their time to go. I did speak with my grandfather a lot a bit about it. He died

when I was eighteen, and he also had sawmills. So it was first and foremost a place that was producing timber for saw mill production. And then this farm, you know, quintessential Wisconsin dairy farm. You know, the red barn, the white house, the white milk house. It looks like the Wisconsin license plate was carved out of it. And of the four hundred acres, you know, one hundred acres tillable, sixty acres of pasture, two hundred and forty acres of woods.

So from that perspective, when I was as a kid, we it was a farm, and we went out to the farm to work. I grew up in town two miles away, you know, I didn't didn't grow up in this house, and so hunting was something I was squirreling, rabbit hunting and that kind of stuff. I mean, this is you know, the early nineteen seventies, and you know, my buddies and I went squirrel hunting and rabbit hunting

and stuff. But when you came time to go deer hunting, we actually went up north, which is a whole other We could have a whole discussion of what was going on in northern Wisconsin right now, but we went up Worth a few years because that's what my dad did, you know, after World War Two, because that's where the deer were, and so it wasn't really a consideration. But but then by the time in the I guess the first year I deer hunting was nineteen seventy one. Boy

does that make me feel old. But by the mid by the time I was getting through high school, we were deer hunting around here because gee, there were deer around But it was never about oh, when we're going deer hunting, you know, like or we're going deer hunting for big giant bucks. She just went out. You had an antler, he had one buck tag and in those days, four people had to apply to get to maybe get

a dough tag. That's how few deer there were, but they the Department Natural Resources, are trying to do so. It was it was about farming, you know, if I say it was a yardstick, and still to this day it may seem a little different now, but you know, if the farm is a yardstick. Hunting was in those days maybe three or four inches. Now now it's maybe a foot, you know, but it's still about these other

specifically about deer hunting. Though. When my younger brother Matthew, my late brother Matthew coming up on or just past them, sorry is the twenty eighth anniversary of his death, he was he was, he was into it. The rest of us kind of left the area, and matt was the one, he was the youngest of all of us, and he said, yeah, I want to stay around here. He became an electrician and he lived here in the farmhouse, and he was a bow hunter him and I know you'd have got

along great with him. Ironically enough, he's exactly he would have been exactly Steve's agent and U. But he also gun hunted and he fished and they small game hunted all that. And he's really the first one who said to me, you know what we gotta let some of these little bucks go and see what happens. And you know, that was thirty five years ago, and so that kind of stuff was happening. I remember, Oh there was some noise about, but I mean a big giant buck in

those days was you know, a two year old. And so yeah, thats changed quite a bit, and and we certainly had the potential for all that. And every once in a while, some big ol' hog haud get killed and it would just be like, where did that thing come? As you get that up north and oh, no, I got it, you know, domind Hawkins crit or something. People just were surprised by that. And so all of that,

you know, is evolved. That evolved, and Matt sort of got me thinking about it, and we'd agreed that we were going to start doing that, and then unfortunately he died in a car accident right down here in the highway, and uh, I sort of took that idea. And you always get a little emotional when I start thinking about him and talking about him, especially especially this time of the year. But took that idea. He said one time when I killed this deer, that that was the best

buck I killed my life. Up to that time. He goes, oh, yeah, but he'd have been a nice buck next year, and and I'm like, what do you mean that? That was his point, right, It's like, you know, like the deer you see behind me. Then we didn't have that kind of thing are out here then? And uh so that's kind of what Guy's going in sort of in his memory,

maybe even in his honor, you know. That we started doing a little more of that, and I got a little wrapped up in the idea of let him go so he can grow and U and then our neighbor killed on agg tags killed like twenty four antler, this deer one winner. And the next year it was like bucks. You know, I like to think I pay attention. And I looked at that and went, well, that's pretty cool. We needed to kill more antler this year. So that was twenty five years ago. We started killing more antler

this year. From a habitat perspective, we were just managing our forests for our woods in a managed forest kind of way. You know, we were doing it was a productive forest kind of way. And boy, I learned pretty quickly that if if you're doing good forest management, you're

probably doing good habitat management as well. You know that you're you're you're creating edge and you're getting younger successional for uts, and gee, why isn't why aren't those We don't see as many deer hanging out in those big trees most of the year except for that time when the you know, like in the white oaks start dropping their acorns and then they're in there like crazy, you know,

and all of that kind of stuff starts happening. So you know, you think about that, and I mean, ultimately we were we were managing this property sort of in the traditional way of my great grandparents and grandparents, and and then what of the things that my dad taught me. And then we started getting foresters involved because I you know, I mean I have a bit of a conservation background and horticulture background, but it's like I learned a long time ago that you don't have to be the smartest

guy in the room. You need to find the smartest guy in the room, right, or the smartest guy about or a smart person about that subject that work with a whole lot of different foresters out here now and biologists and you know, I you know, looking for that. So we did the let him go so he can grow kind of thing for a while and killed more more does and then you know, twenty two years ago now CWD showed up sixty miles to the south of US and we were immediately in the CWD management z owner

the herd reduction zone is what they actually called. And it kind of made sense to me from an animal husbandry standpoint, right that you that that if you have a bunch of animals crowded together, they're more apt to get if there's a disease and more apt to spread it around. So that was it sort of made sense to me. And it also gee, when we were killing more deer, especially our antler. This year, we're getting bigger bucks.

So all these things were going together. We're doing this forestry work, and I started putting food plots in, thinking that was cool and being a farm kid. You know, I got a tractor, I got a disc, I got a seat planner, I've got all this stuff, and it

was interesting to do that. But then I ended up sort of seeing the I don't know the folly in it, but sort of the it wasn't multi dimensional enough, right, I mean, you and I have have this joke of course when I say food plots in farm country like taking sand to the beach, and it is a little bit like that. I mean, I go out for a drive this even after we're done, and I'll see a hundred year on a drive and they're gonna be just out on fields. So why would I go and put

more of that in? What is it that they what is it that they need? And what can I do for the whole the entire biotic community. And you know, I was read Leopold when I was in high school and certainly was influenced by him then and as I've gotten older, So one thing I'll warny you about is as you get older, he become more philosophical. And when we were doing the let him go so he can grow in management here the nice buck next year management, we talked, you know, we talked about I didn't it

was pretty loose. I mean, you had to wear sombrero if shot too small of a buck. You know, it wasn't like, oh, this was like we were finding people or yelling at people or anything like that. And when it was younger hunters and when it was newer hunters and that kind of stuff, it's like, go ahead and shoot a deer that you're going to be happy with.

Let's get some deer under your belt. Then my nephews and my daughter, you know, all of that was happening, and then I had a kind of an incident with a family friend who you know, made a really egregious area. He shot a real tiny buck fifty yards from him, and you know, I kind of barked at him about it, and he felt bad about it, and I felt bad about it. I was like, you know, I don't want to do that anymore. I don't want to manage people or have people wondering if that's going to be big enough.

Britney Brothers, who was in an episode that we filmed here, apologized for shooting and she had full permission. She never shot a gear before and she goes shot a little one and I'm like, okay, I never want to hear that again. So I'm not saying that you have to shoot the first buck that comes by, but you can shoot the first buck that comes by if you want to, Like you did you shot the first buck that came by?

let them grow. And now more recently that's changed because of CWD and you know, getting more folks involved. But the habitat side of things and let them go, let them grow. What am I trying to say here? Managing for what's right for the landscape, or what's right for the larger ecosystem, or what's right for the forest, what's right by what Leopold might say, like that does not have to be mutually exclusive from somebody wanting to practice let them go, let them grow. I want better deer

hunting too, right. I think when I look at what you have there, I think what I'm getting at here is when I look at your situation, you are someone who said that I want to manage my landscape for the health of the ecosystem, not just big deer, but the product of you managing your landscape for the health of the ecosystem is that you do have great deer hunting and you do have big giant bucks. So I guess what I'm trying to say those things doesn't have

to be an either or decision for someone listening. It can be a yes and type situation. Right, I think you are living improve for that.

this is you know, this bigger southwest Wisconsin area. But you're exactly right, those things are not mutually exclusive. We can do we can do what's best for the biotic community as a whole. You know, Leopold said that whole thing about a thing is right when I actually wrote it down. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty, which I thought was an interesting word for him to have in there, the beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it

tends otherwise. So what's the biotic community, right? It's not deer, it's not turkeys alone. It's all of these other things. But like I said about forest management, like managing our woods, well, gee uh, one of the smartestportishers that I've worked with, who's not even a deer hunter, asked me after we did some work, well, you know, how's this affecting your deer hunting? And I said, it seems to be better, and he goes, yeah, isn't that interesting? Good forest management

is good deer habitat management. And then again, just making a vague reference to what's going on in northern Wisconsin, part of what the habitat part of one of the

issues they have up there's a habitat issue. It's just it's a degraded habitat and you know, maybe some overmature timber, but when you look at a piece of property like ours, and you know, and I didn't get we've spent a little time out here, but you know, we've got some brand new woods starting over where we did the shelter would harvest, and you know, one hundred years from now, by god, there's going to be a big oak trees

up there again. And the next whatever how many generations that is frum now they're going to be cutting great Grandpa's trees too, and only this time it'll be dugably great Branda, right. And then we have areas that we you know, we're just letting it go, sort of a legacy area. There's big, old, giant oaks in there, and we're in this wonderful position because of that two hundred and forty acres, eleven different stands of timber where we

can do that. And I don't take that lightly, but every decision I make about the management of this property is done thoughtfully and with the advice and help of experts, and then it all gets held up to the mirror of it's not ours, it's just our turn that we're doing. We're planning and implementing today something that's honoring the past and doing the best we can for the future, for the present and the future. And I think philosophically that's working.

I know, the philosophically is working really well for us, and I think that that was what Leopold was getting at. I mean, just stealing all this stuff from Leopold, you know, the land ethic, that idea, that and I've been there with the land ethic the reason he evolved into that. And he died when he was younger than me. He was sixty two. He had evolved and he talks about that in the Sand County Almanac about this isn't this is the land ethic is something that he came to

over time. And I think that the lesson of Leopold is maybe we can get that land ethics. We can rather than it being the the result of a lifetime, that those lessons can be learned that and even the lessons need to be learned over time, I guess, but philosophically,

you can develop a philosophy pretty early on. And it's been really gratifying that it's in our just our turn has been has resonated with people because it's pretty straightforward, right, I mean, Okay, it makes sense to me, and so is this a good thing to do for now in the future. Man, I've done plenty of things in my life, not just on this farm, but it all seemed like a good idea at the time, and maybe they didn't work out that well. And we certainly had some of

that in conservation as well. It's really interesting when you start to read Leopold's notes on Vacation. I was reading a collection of essays that hadn't really been published, most of it hadn't been published before that, and you know, he was really into upland game birds, and which was kind of interesting because it was like peasants. You know, there's in the natives, of course, but pheasants are an

exotic but he liked hunting pheasants. And the cool thing about that was is that the habitat that he was concerned about and was creating was for more than that

one particular species. And that's what I find to be really interesting that if you can work on a property and do conservation on a property that is thoughtful and looking forward, doing the best we can now for the future, learning from the past, the diversity that can happen has a lot more impact than managing for one particular species.

not the individual. It leads to better results for your deer hunting or whatever it is, your focus on your pheasants, whatever. And I think there's this this opportunity though, because people listening to this podcast want quality deer hunting, right, That's what I've always wanted, and so I've always looked at what can you do to get better deer hunting? And so often what we realize, though you brought this up earlier, is that our deer situation most cases is like the

least of our problems in the area. Right. Deer do pretty darn well and a lot of habitat types around today.

They are incredible survivors. They're overpopulated in many places, But all around them are all these other animals, all these different insects, birds, game birds, songbirds, you name it, amphibians, all sorts of other critters that are rapidly disappearing population declines fifty sixty seventy eighty percent, even common critters around me, I mean around you, like we are, everything around deer are kind of in crisis mode, unbeknownst to a lot of us. And then deer just kind of standing there

as the bathtub are draining around them. And so I'm increasingly realizing that if we, as folks who care so much about deer, if we don't plug the hole in that bathtub, because the whole thing is falling down around deer, eventually it will impact deer and the thing that we first and foremost care about or brought us to this table. And so it would behoove us to start doing some things to help the rest of that system, to keep the thing that we originally loved around too. And I

think we've got a huge opportunity to do that. And it's not it's not just altruistically, it's also self serving, Like if you want to enjoy the thing you love, we probably have to look beyond just how do we grow bigger deer? How do I get the best food plot or the best tree stand location? Right?

of people who are most interested in deer hunting. So then what happens Then what happens when that thing that you are most desirous of deer becomes a detriment to the rest of the biotic communit And that's what we have in southwest Wisconsin. And it's becoming a detriment to itself. And this is where I get into arguments with people, or people take offense at some of the things that I you know, but other people, you know, the offense. Why do you want to kill all the deer? I

don't want to kill all the dear You know. What I want is I want healthy deer. I want a smaller population. I want a healthy population, and I want a healthy ecosystem. Those things can all happen at the same time, but here's what we need to do to do it. Unfortunately, there's a lot of discussion these days about box biology, you know, like out west or up out west. I guess with the hunting lions all that stuff, and then in northern Wisconsin people just want to kill wolves.

Big wolves are cool. I think they belong in the landscape. I think we need to manage them, and I think it's really unfortunate that we're not getting to manage them. But one of the things that I've noticed is that about about a lot of folks, but particularly about deer hunters, is that they want to project more than they want to go. What what is it that I can do better? Looking in the mirror is kind of a tough thing. I had this conversation with a neighbor about you know,

it's just not like it used to be. You know, I've been hunting on that same stump for twenty years, and I'm like, you got to move stumps, man, But it's you know that they're not if they're not evolving, and he thinks it's well, it's because this or that is happening, and It's like, there's all of these things that are happening happening around you, but the one thing that you can really impact is what your behavior is. It didn't that doesn't work anymore, Let's do that at

U school like that. No, it goes like this. You know that that is really one of the things. But people calling for science based management, you know of wolves of bears, of cougars, whatever, what about science based management of deer. If we were following science based management and white tail deer in southwest Wisconsin, we would have still have earn a buck. We'd have I would think that

we would have an earlier done season. We don't start deer hunting until the week before the Saturday before Thanksgiving. And the reasons for that are they're political. Right now, We've got politicians want them being involved with the deer hunting up north and we're going to They want to outlaw killing does for the next four years. The biologists are all like, that's that's not that's not the problem.

If the problem is I'm not seeing the problem, you know, And then you have these politicians have these public hearings and people are hollering about the deer hunting is no good anymore. It's like, well, what are all the reasons for that? And what they look at is wolves or we're killing too many doughs or you know, and rather than one specific thing, there are all these it's multi layer and that's where the scientists, where the biologists come in.

Let's talking to a dear friend of mine who's a dealer wildlife biologist yesterday, and one of the interesting things that he has said to me in the past. He didn't say it yesterday, but one of the things that he said was, you know, it's really hard to being a deer biologist because I thought that our job was to manage and the resource for the benefit of the

people of Wisconsin. It seems like, because of the way the system has worked and the politics and whatnot that are involved, is that what we're really managing, or being allowed to manage because of the laws that have been changed, is just the deer hunting experience. And people don't seem to think we're doing a very good job of that. And I'm like, I don't know, man, I think you

do a hell of a job of it. Part that is because we're looking in the mirror and here and doing it you know, we've had an incredibly successful year this past year, and we've had, you know, in terms of just numbers of deer killed killed, forty seven deer on this six hundred acres this past season. So six hundred acres is less than a square mile, and this certainly is an all habitat. But and people will say

to me, I can't believe that. You think there's sixty five deer per square mile of habitat in this county. And I was like, I think there's more, because that's I mean, that's kind of the number that gets banteed above, right, So I actually think there's more because over the past five years now, we've averaged almost forty deer a season that we've killed, so two thirds of the deer. And I've got trail cameras out right now and we'll fly a drona on that and those numbers are still way up.

Part of it is, of course, that neighbors are not. There's you know, a bunch of different variables in it, and a big part of it is is quite honestly, the six hundred acres is freaking deer habitat.

And look what we did this year. You got a four year old, cal got a five year old, We got three, you know, we had four or three year olds. We killed some younger bucks. Also. I still got really nice deer on camera. I mean, like I didn't send them to you because you might have been hey, you know, little late season. I actually did welcome a couple of my operators that come in late season hunt. They never got a shot tomorrow, I think it's the last day,

but they saw some of those deer. My neighbor shot a five year old buck that, unfortunately that I had on camera a bunch of times. Unfortunately, he was CWD positive and he was starting to show the signs. My other neighbor got a five or six year old buck. He doesn't test, so we don't know, but that deer

was definitely in decline his antlers the year before. I think even sent you a picture, big giant buck, big drop time on him, cal and I saw him the night before opening day, and then the neighbor shot him the next morning, and see and the other way there was another one. So really, you start to take these overlapping areas here and we're killing a half a dozen big mature deer and there's still some left. And the guys over to Durant Farmer, we're just laying them down.

And I've got some other neighbors now they're doing the same thing. You know. I mean when I say neighbors, they're not necessarily touching this. But you know, a half a mile away property another half a mile away, we're not going to run out of white tail deer from killing them with with guns and boats or cars. But the impact that that the disease is having is is concerning. So again it's sort of balance and all that stuff.

was twofold. It was one part which was, well, yes, but with a food plot, you can be more strategic with it in ways can help you actually shooting deer, you know, hunting, putting the plots where you want them, better, positioning or designing the food plot to give you a better shot opportunity. With a bow, you can plant something that's unique compared to what's on all the farm fields around you. So you can be the ice cream shop in the in the neighborhood and draw deer in because

of that, et cetera, et cetera. So there's all these hunting things and you kind of rolled your eyes and said, yeah, whatever, you weren't impressed with that. I stand by it for folks who for folks, for folks who especially bow hunting, you know, want to increase their opportunities. There's there's a reason there. But I think my best argument, which I'm curious if you have done some more thinking, and I think I'm wrong on this, But my best rebuttal to you on this is that I think that food plots

are a great entry way. They're a great entry drug, you could say, into the conservation wildlife habitat world, in that they are usually the first thing that a deer hunter tries when they're thinking about trying to improve habitat because it's the sexiest thing, because it seems to be the thing that is most you could be the most impactful. So it's a thing that everybody talks about and everyone sees like, oh, wow, so and so has food plots and they kill deer, and so I'm going to try it.

And so my argument is that that is not a bad thing. That is a good thing, and that people see a food plot on TV and they say, oh, I want to try that because it might make my deer hunting better. I say all that because if that person goes and buys a buck on the bag food plot, seed, whatever it is, and they plant a little food plot, I recognize that is not the end all be all of improving wildlife habitat or helping your deer population, but I think it's a really good way for people to

dip their toes in the water. And then all of a sudden realize like, oh wow, I this food plot thing, and I learned that I have to pay attention to soil quality. Hmm, what new rabbit hole might that they take me down? Or Hm, I'm doing this food plot thing, and all of a sudden, I'm realizing like, I'm spraying this roundup stuff. How does this kill everything? What does

this do? And maybe you read an article about it and then you realize like, oh, yikes, there's this thing called spray drift and it's killing all the milkweed around

here and that's why I don't see butterflies anymore. Or maybe you do this food plot thing and you realize like, oh wow, when I cleared out this little patch of forest to get the food plot in, not only are the deer feeding on the little clover patch I planted, but actually there's a ten yard strip of just weeds and stuff that are grown around it, and there's all these flowers in and out, and now there's all these bugs in there, and the deer feed on that too,

So maybe there's something to this, like early secessional habitat, and maybe I should read more about this. And if that person who at first was just interested in planning a food plot to kill more deer, if you give that person the opportunity to do that, not all, but many people I think end up in their own little way, having conversations with themselves or their hunting buddies or their family, kind of like what we're having here today, in which

they realize there's more to it. And if you have that opportunity to start realizing that there's more to it, then you have an opportunity for more people to start thinking about managing their timber, for more people to start thinking about early secessional habitat. There's more opportunity for people to maybe think about, hey man, not only can I improve this place for deer, but I could also make it better for the birds and the bugs and the water quality. And none of that happens on my mind

unless that person. I'm not saying this is the only interway, but I think it is one common enterway into that world. So that is my argument to you, mister Doug Darren, for why food plots aren't so bad.

of conservation, it's it's an introduction to farming. If you're gonna introduce somebody to conservation, let's introduce the conservation. And it's it's not if you're gonna put that energy in, Let's put that energy into simple habitat improvements, feather edging. And I'm not saying you can't do food or that

it's a bad idea. I'm just saying that I think that it's it's over focused on And the other part of that is what kind of a food plot and if you are going out and you're tilling it up every year in your spraining and you're doing the I mean all of that, right, I mean, because you know when you do you you watch a food plot video or go to a food plot seminar. They're talking about they're talking about spraying, they're talking about pH or the soil,

they're talking about fertilizing, they're talking about farming. And I'm farming, you know, or at least it was that's what that is. That's farming. But at the same time, I work with a do some work with a seed company feeing of our sponsors, Hoxy Native Seeds, And before I started working with those guys, I went on their website and you know, let's kind of see stuff that they have because Noxy Native seeds. And then I saw food plots and I went, Okay, I guess I'm gonna have to take a look at

what they're recommending for food plots. And maybe they're in the grassica business or corn and beans business too. And I went on there and their food plots were one native perennial and they were formulated for different species. I was like, that's a food plot I can get behind. I have giant food plots out here, it's called CRP. I have prairie strips in there, and those prairie strips are not providing corner beans. They can get and they're not GMO corner beans either, which is what most food

plot corner beans are. Right, it's round up ready and there's raying round up. I've had many discussions with guys about food plots who you know, They're like, my food plot's kind of dirty. I'm like, so what yah, you know, it's a lot. It's like I was thinking about going redwock ready, so I thought maybe I go and sprayed again. And I'm like, that's what I mean. It's an introduction

into farming. And man Like, sometimes I feel like I'm that guy at the AA meeting, Like I used to be way in the big giant bucks and I used to be way into food plots. But I guess I'm still into both of those things. But I just evolved, you know, over time, and I and and I just I and maybe everybody's got to involve and maybe I'm just like trying to, you know, push people along to learn things faster than I did. That let's worry about

the habitat. Let's worry about if you want to do something rather than keeping that in CRP or or in field, put it in uh CRP and have a nice mixture in there. That's going to be providing food and habitat to more than just white tailed deer and or wild turkeys. Yeah, as soon as we're getting Now, we had a bunch of snow here, but now it's clearing off, and I'll look on the side hill over here tonight where a crp is, and there's a bunch of forbes in there.

There deer out there scratching and stuff that's scratching it, just like they will in a in a cornfield or a beanfield for the leftover grain. So it's this we're we're we're accomplishing the same things without yearly inputs, you know, and all of that. And you've actually talked about the hell when are we doing the back fourty? You talked about that. So you don't disagree with me about this stuff. I just I would I would rather see people or

I was maybe even rather is the wrong word. Maybe I would just challenge him because I don't want to run somebody down from putting in, you know, food plot because I don't disagree with what you're saying. More I do disagree with who might chill you. But I'm but it's like my buddy Chip, you know, Chip, you met Chip because what do you think I want to do down here, you know, on this and he's had the

the Deer Management Assistant program. While I'll just come in and talk with him and he's like, oh, I was thinking about doing the food plot. Guy's kind of like it's all one big food plot. You got here already, and say, hey, feel why don't you let's think about

seeding into it? Well, but structure, and they started talking about this guy's Chip started talking about switchgrass and all that stuff, you know, borders and protection and all of that, and like seems like plant some trees or some native shrubs in that sort of thing would be a good

thing too. I think for almost every annual food plot kind of thing, you're going to find something that's perennial that's going to do as good as that's native, that's going to do as good a job, or semi native even you know, like an apple trees and stuff, and we're gonna going to provide what it is that you're looking for, and you're not going to have those constant you know.

with I want to kill deer. I want to kill big deer, And it might stay that way for long, for a long while. I think the trick is finding ways in which we can satisfy that based desire, like that initial desire, while also expanding beyond that to satisfy the rest, realizing that when we satisfy the rest, it comes back around and helps with that initial desire too. There's some people who don't need that initial thing, who just want to do the right thing for the ecosystem,

and that's enough satisfaction. But it's not. No shame on anyone else who also like, Hey, I'm spending this money because I really like big deer, and the rest of it's great too, and I want to help it, but I still really want my big deal. That's okay too, And so I think the idea that I want to keep hammering is like both are possible. But to your point, don't just get stuck in the original thing. It's a much larger universe. Explore those other things. Is there are

better ways. There's always a better way, and if we can continue moving down that path towards a better way, it will help with the original thing. That's like my that's like my thesis coming out of this, and that I think is where more attention, to your point, more attention needs to be focused on that stuff, because there's a lot of people talking about the obvious stuff, not as many people are talking about that next step.

doing food plots. But what's really interesting to me is how even that you know that that Pheasants Forever is that who started the Farm Build Biologists program, right, they pay for a portion of those salaries and all of that that happens, and we have farm build programs that are focusing on doing the best thing for the land. Last year I spoke at a landowner and operator forum and it was about essentially getting those people to talk.

And one of the things that another presenter talked about was red acres green acres, and so green acres are is the best land, right is the land that's going to be the most highly productive. Let's farm that. Let's

not farm those red acres. So you might see a field and you know how you saw how the fields are around here, right where they're kind of go in and out of these hillsides and into these wood edges and stuff like that, and you know you're losing the first twenty five feet to shade and to deer and to you know whatever, you know, the wildlife. Well, rather than that being another twenty five feet a corner bean, so let's put that into twenty five feet of CRP

or thirty feet of CRP. That's a perennial cover. That's a better filter for runoff. That's a that's for carbon sequestering.

We're not ripping that soil up every year. And really interesting talking to a couple of guys who were doing that, and they were actually whether they're outfitters, and they were leasing land from farm their farmer outfitters, so they were commodity farmers and so they had their own farm, but then they were also leasing land from other other farmers and they were showing them what they were doing on

their property. They said, we will pay you whatever the rate is for the whole thing, you know, for all the x amount of acres that you guys are currently being paid for. But what we'd like to do is take the red acres and not put those inputs into that area, put that into CRP, and if the CRP had paid is less than what the base rental payment is, will make up the difference. So you get to see our payment and we'll say if it's one hundred and seventy five, and then we'll pay the other twenty five.

If it's two hundred dollars an acre for everything else, and we'll put that in and we're not putting our inputs into marginal land. Then we're we're putting you know, we're focusing on the best land, and then we're creating that habitat and then as upland I think they're also doing deer deer outfitting. They were creating better habitat for not only the animals that they were that that was

a part of their operation, but for everything. I was like, and these guys were young bucks like you, and I'm like, holy moly, you guys are killing it. I mean, just from a thought process, right and and you know, here I'm sixty five, and what are you like twenty seven now? Or I just wasn't that far along in any of this as you are, and those guys were so so I think that's great, you know, I think I think that's kind of that's great. I also wasn't. I've always

been kind of a casual hunter. You know. Ninety nine percent of the hunting that I've done in my life it's right out here. You know. A couple of couple of trips that you know, end up on television and kind of looks like, WHOA, you can do that stuff all the time. No, I did it once, you know, and it was a heck of a trip, you know, and so it's never. It's never. It was never my primary focus to begin with. I mean, I like killing

big john bucks. You know there's a few on the wall back there, putting that big fella right there.

the same spot and that's where I killed it. Yeah, there was just the same Oh, and there was an apple tree there too, and it was it was the end of October, and in those days we could hunt at the end of October with rifle. So I shot him at thirty five yards with a rifle. Kind of felt bad about it. I was like, man killed him with a boat, But then I probably just wounded him. But it's that all of that is, you know, I get excited about it. I'm real interested in it. But the thing that I'm real.

of we're picking corn stuff. Have time for that. And one of these days I may get back out there with the boat. You've kind of inspired me.

do some things that help the larger biotic community. As Leopold put it right. You know, I don't know where I heard this first. I think it might have been my friend Craig Doherty, but I heard this idea of Leopold landscapes and that being like a land of property, an area, a landscape managed in this kind of way that we're talking about, with a little bit more of a holistic focus, with an ion doing what's right for

the whole ecosystem, for the biotic community. So this idea, if someone's listening and thinks themselves, yeah, you know what, I want to try to shift my little back forward

into more of a Leopold landscape. What would be the guidelines or what would be a handful of principles or guidelines to think about as someone embarks on that project, either from your perspective, Doug, or what you think Leopold would say if we wanted, if we wanted to look back at the original og of this idea, what do you think some of those things would be that that we could think about.

Of course I'll tell them to read, you know, Sam County Almanac, or excuse me, some of these other writings of Leopold, but engaging with a local land conservation department like we had in Wisconsin. We have them on the county level, most you know, and most of the folks that we engage with whitetail deer hunters in the in the Midwest and the East. Almost every state has a Department of Natural Resources, and they'll have like a forestry department.

Almost every state has a natural resource conservation service. And there those are the farm that's where the farm build biologists are. I think it's really important to engage with those people. But and don't be intimidated by their job. I mean, in a lot of their this is reservices to you. I mean it's your tax dollars at work. Is that they'll come out and they'll spend some time

with you learning about that. But I also think it's important that you can meet try to meet people that are are are like minded, you know, engage with with the National Deer Association chapters, engage with Pheasants Forever chapters, woodland owner chapters. I mean, if you're a landowner, you should be in Those are things that you should at least have a cursory knowledge of. And then and then you kind of go, yeah, I like the idea that. I don't like that. I don't like the idea of that.

But some of the the I one of the things that I tell people who contact me about land management consulting or I ask them is to talk think about what their goals and objectives are. You know, they might say, I'll want big giant bucks, and then my question usually is and is there anything else? Or why did you

buy the property? The other thing is to get yourself a I mean, Onyx is a wonderful tool, but get yourself a laminated aerial photograph of your property and look at it from the five thousand foot view right, and then just you can laminate anything. You can take a erasable marker and mark on there and and think about the different things about that property. Just sort of take take stock of what you have. You know, like this is where the water is. And then there's apps that

you can put on your phone. The plan identifying absolutely necessarily. Yeah, seek is the one. Actually that I have an old man head. I was forgetting there for a second. Uh, And that's fantastic that you're learning on your own a lot of what these things are. You don't have to be carrying a book around with you. You just tick a picture and that has been one of the most valuable tools for me. And then I have on X

on my phone and I'm constantly I'm walking around. If I showed you my on X screen right now, I mean there's layers in there. But of all the properties that I'm involved with, I've got all kinds of different notes. Some of it's deer hunting notes, some of it's turkey hunting notes, some of it's trails and all of this. But it's also cool stuff that I say, you take a picture and you know, and that's what it is. So you're gathering information about your property and then you know,

learn about your your watershed. You know, I'm in the in the Little Baraboo River watershed here and our crek, our little trout stream here is unnamed, but it empties into McGlenn Creek. You know, know how everything is connected. Get involved with a you know, if there's a neighborhood organization like a you know, like an NDA chapter, that

might lead to a cooperative or something like that. Just kind of figure out who what your neighbors are like, and who your neighbors are is there are there things that we can do together. That kind of goes back to some of that og farming stuff when I was a kid, when it came time to bail and hey, i'll tell you part of the reason I got to hunt on other people's properties because when it came time to bail and hay and they need people stack in

hand wagons areunloading them. Yeah, we got that call and b Barry just knew you had to be there for it, right. And it wasn't in exchange for it, because they've come and help you with yours too. But that was that community, that cooperation, that sort of thing, and I think that that's a great opportunity for fun, but it's also that great opportunity for cooperation, for becoming neighbors, and you know, sort of everything's connected, and that's those connections I think are super important.

great for overall biodiversity or ecosystem health. Can you think of a couple of your top projects that would be good for both of those things that someone could be listening today and say, okay, if that's something I got to look into further that I could actually do put on the ground this coming year. To two.

of this. So feather edging is one of those things there you need to learn how you know what's good and what's bad, right, I mean good tree, good tree, bad tree, good shrub bad shrub. But those are the kinds of things that you're immediately creating habitat along a field edge, and especially if it's kind of a you know, it's not a productive field or I mean when I say field, I mean openings. You know, that's one of them specifically for deer. Were just in general.

a bunch of different programs. So part of my agreement this time around is I wanted to do these things anyway, but is to to do these the pollinator habitat and and you can look at what seed mixes are are part of that, uh, and the pollinators are interesting, but man, a lot of that stuff is grasses and forbs, and so it's not only just for pollinators, but it's for you know, uh, it's for a lot of the bird

the species. But then deer get in there and eat that too, And it's great betting because there's gonna be big grasses along with those forbes up to game birds utilize that kind of stuff. So yeah, the perennial U the perennial food plot and in this case calling it really what we're doing, which is the pollinator habitat and

those are we're transitioning those too. That's I guess an important point on ours is that we're there's a pollinator habitat that's being connected to another pollinator habitat there with we're feather edging all the way along the edge of the road that goes up to it, so there's almost like this you know, connectivity. One other thing that I would mention that I did, it's coming up on ten years ago now, was on a real steep slope back here.

I didn't think i'd ever planned another pine tree because of some things, but we planted pines on some real steep slopes back here as a part of our and as a part of a part of our plan. That land that you know we've been farming, it was on the side hill like this, and we planted trees and that we planned planted pines exclusively, and it formed a It formed a you know, a connection wildlife connecting area. And I thought, well, the deer were going to use

that a lot. But it's been amazing. I've had trail camera back there. How other species are using that as well. And then of course there's thermal cover and all of that as well. So I really want to see a more hardwoods planet in our area. Seems like we have plenty of planes. But then I'm you know, contradicting myself, and I planted for acres of four acres of of of pines back here on these hillside strips, and they worked out really well for a lot of different species. But dear love them.

you'd recommend we go see. I know there's some cool short films that came out within the last year, So maybe that's something you want to plug, and then plug anything else of your own as well as if there's any other books or content from anyone else that you think would be worth us checking out to get deeper into this idea of you know, creating land or creating Leopold landscapes, this bigger picture kind of work.

Doug Duram dot com. Oddly, you know, you can find some of my content there. You go on Sharing the Land and you can see some of the content there. We will be doing more about farm this year again, and Uh, there's some short stuff about about sharing the land that I think is real, is really important, and so sharing the Land dot com, Doug Dura dot com. You can just kind of dig around in there, and I really encourage people to watch the video that's on

Savage's website. It's actually part of their Serve the Land series. It's twenty two minute video about Leopold and the Riley Game Cooperative and you can pretty much figure out I'm in it for like two seconds. But I was part of the production of the whole thing and put it together, and I wrote about Leopold there and how he's influenced me. But also that really introduces the idea and the thought process.

How too is one thing. How to think about it, I think is really you know, basic level developing a conservation philosophy. Think about that. What's my place in the world. So I know, I just threw all kinds of stuff at you, but that's who I am.