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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to the White Tail Woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light Go farther, stay Longer, and now your host Mark Kenyon.
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Speaker 2: What is going on?
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Speaker 3: Welcome to Wired to Hunt. I’m Jake Hofer. In this week we have Jack Houston with Midwest Deer Surveys. Jack has flown over five hundred farms and we talk about some of the observations he’s been able to make from habitat deer density where mature bucks are living, the impact of insects in how it may correlate with healthier dear So we cover a lot of different topics here on Wired to Hunt, presented by Multrie. Hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Here we go, Jack, Welcome to Wire to Hunt.
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Speaker 4: Thanks for having me. Jake looking forward.
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Speaker 2: To absolutely so.
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Speaker 3: Just to rip the bandit off here you I think you have flown and observed more farms than probably anyone else in the United States, and have surveyed more farms than anyone else. How many farms are you up to now?
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Speaker 4: Roughly uptown right around five hundred, yeah, three years sixteen states roughly from you know, western Pennsylvania all the way to western Kansas, from Minnesota down to Florida, so and everywhere in between.
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Speaker 3: So okay, a lot of different farms, and you know, just in passing, a lot of people bring up, like, you know, everyone wants to form an opinion on thermal drones because I think there it’s a pretty fascinating piece of technology. You know, there’s I think from the deer survey, like I feel like people fully.
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Speaker 2: Kind of buy into what you’re doing there.
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Speaker 3: But then like there’s the question of abuse and the question of the technology and the space that often comes up. But one parallel I will draw for everyone is you’re basically conducting scientific research on a micro scale for every single farm, and then you can take all that data and form all these different trends that you see across the whole country and over five hundred farms or you know, almost five hundred farms. And whenever there’s a new GPS study that comes out by MSU, I’m the first one reading it. Probably not the first one, but it’s something that like you want to read, like, oh, what is the dear behavior?
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Speaker 2: What are they doing?
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Speaker 3: And just trying to learn to apply it to your own form of hunting and all these different things, and you’re doing that on steroids. And so that’s kind of where I’m positioning this conversation, is like, I’m looking at this from a research perspective, a live version of a GPS study. Someone can argue with me, say it’s not the same, but that’s where my head’s at. What do you think about that? That parallel?
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Speaker 4: It’s deer data, right, who doesn’t love that? I think, you know, I’ll take take it real serious and cracking everything well, location numbers, breakdown all that stuff. I’ve had a lot of people reach out they’re interested in, you know, getting access to that data, which I think is really cool and one day I’ll kind of release that as a large set. But there’s just there’s so much to learn, right because research researches, you know, in captive herds and all that’s one thing. But actually seeing it across the country, what changes where what’s actually going on is really cool and it really wasn’t possible, you know. The thermal drone just allows us to take a step that we couldn’t do before.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: I think another thing too, it’s it’s the most relatable dear information, dear data, because you’re fine a variety of different farms, right, different sizes, different regions, different habitat types. Where often the GPS data I enjoy reading and learning about it, but it’s usually on a specific scientific site. Maybe it’s six thousand acres that is partially allowed there’s hunting, or maybe there’s no hunting. It’s like, well, how can I compare if I have forty acres or I hunt a track of public that’s two hundred acres to that GPS data where you’re able to see like the different density and behaviors and how they bad. That’s applicable to more people than a specific scientific site. So I’m not I’m not dogging what they do because I find it really interesting. But this is the most relatable data I think across the board that you’re that you’re going out there and seeing.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, it’s just it’s what’s actually going on in the real world. You know. I feel like I’ve got a pretty large shamful size now, so it’s cool to actually, you know, once you get enough, you can really start to see a few trends that you know, maybe I had never thought about before or things you just didn’t think were possible or you know all that stuff, and we’re gonna we’re going to dive into that today. But there’s a few.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, what what surprised you most early on when you were just starting, let’s say at Milestone Farm one hundred, so you have a lot of farms under your belt, and what you’ve been able to, you know, see those first hundred farms. What was really shocking or surprising that, you know, conventional wisdom would have told you differently, but you were able to deserve like, oh man, I didn’t I didn’t realize this was the thing.
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Speaker 4: It’s unbelievable how many deer are out there in certain parts of the country. I’ve worked for some state agencies in the last year and flew with them. I said, how many do you think we’re going to find today? And they say their number, and I said, how many deer do you think is the most possible will find? And then they tell me and we’ll find twenty five percent more than that. So they’re just mind blown. There are a lot of deer out there in certain parts of the country, not so much into others. I would say, you know, talk about social stress. A lot but just how important that is, how that plays into growing bigger deer, you know, optimizing your herd all that. But and I think we’re going to dive into it. Density rings. That’s probably the biggest jake that applies. I don’t think it matters if you’re hunting forty acres of public or you’ve got a five thousand acre farm in Iowa. Density rings play out everywhere I do a survey, and I think I think hunters can use understanding them, can really help anybody anywhere.
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Speaker 3: So for someone that’s never heard of this, what is a density ring? Like, what do you mean by that?
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Speaker 4: So across the we just take a twenty thousand foot view of you know, a county or a township or whatever. There’s there’s changing density densities among that landscape. So there might be a dense pocket in this forty acre patch timber here, or this ridge. And usually you know it’s not not just ten acre little spots. It’s we’re talking a little bigger than that. But there’s less deer here, there’s more deer here, simply put so that that we can’t really see that, but the drone that does allow us to see that, and I see that on surveys all the time, and how does that affect deer. There’s a social aspect with the white tail that we can’t we can’t really see from a stand that they know there’s a lot of deer over there, they know this buck’s over there, and so that influences how they act and where they want to be. And and I found, you know, density rings are kind of the base level of it is the dose are more in the higher density areas, and then the bucks are kind of outside that. And then even further some of the biggest bucks in the air area are usually one to two to three miles away from the highest density area. So it’s kind of a there’s a localized density ring of the dose might want to be here closest to this food cloth that’s in the center of the farm and the best and then a quarter to a half mile away you’re start finding a lot higher density of bucks. But then there’s also you know, look at it from further up, two to three miles away, is where the biggest buck in the whole township or you know, area that county might be because they’re just they just want to be away from all the ruckets. I guess we’re still trying to figure it out. I talk with a lot of people about it. But that’s been really cool to see. And if you if you understand, here’s where a lot of deer are. Here’s some good cover one to two miles away. Maybe I can get a spot there. I’ve seen over and over again. Those are those are the best spots to get the biggest and best with your bucks.
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Speaker 3: It seems it seems almost counterintuitive to like the you know, I’m mis picturing in my head, you know, one farm that’s highly managed, a bunch of food, really good cover, and then in my mind and I could be wrong, and you could tell me I’m picturing like a ditch with maybe twenty acres of cover, you know, two miles away as could be a better spot, is what you’re telling me? Or is that at least for where that deer lives.
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Speaker 4: Absolutely, I mean there’s some I love my clients. I would never do this, But there’s some of my clients where I would. I wouldn’t want to be on their fence, even though that might be kind of the logical. Oh, this is a really good farm, I want to be right here. I’d want to be two miles away, somewhere most people would never think, but that actually ends up being where that one eighties killed or where that two hundreds killed, and then that really good habitat on that great farm. It got a lot of the year, but they just don’t don’t maybe have the quality they’re wanting.
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Speaker 2: That’s interesting.
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Speaker 3: What so if you had to say where you’re finding the highest concentration of mature bucks and this is more like habitat related in association to the density rings, I mean, is it pretty consistently like two or three miles away from wherever? Like imagine for someone that doesn’t have a thermal drone or doesn’t you know, they’re just trying to figure this out. Like if you drive by and you’re like, man, there was twenty doers out in that field, that’s crazy. And the next logical thought would be, okay, based off what Jack’s learned and seeing, what’s another block of cover two miles away, and that might be the place where you can find a higher density and mature bucks, not necessarily near the field where you see a bunch of deer.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you can just play around on a exis great. So what I do and you can you know, it doesn’t always hold true that every single block a cover two miles away as there’s going to be a giant deer, but it does hold true that those bigger deer are in one of those block September two miles away or draw or whatever. Yeah, you can. You can play around on on X and once once you see one or two, then you can really start to pick up on. Okay, I think he’ll be here, and a lot of factors, but.
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Speaker 3: How does how does that conversation often go with someone you know, like I don’t own a thousand acres, but we can pretend I do for a second. I hire you and you’re flying and then you know, let’s say I own a satellite farm two miles away and they’re like, oh man, I’ve worked really hard over the last fifteen years and this farm has a bunch of deer, but the little ditch farm I bought on a second second thought, is better? Has that happened? Or like what is the conversation for them? Because like anyone that has like a core farm, they spent a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of effort, a lot of energy, and like, man, is all this for nothing?
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Speaker 4: It’s unbelievable. And I do work for a lot of people that kind of have their main farm, that’s their baby, that’s where they do all the habita at work. But if you look at where they actually kill their deer, their biggest deer, maybe half or less than half are actually there. And you would think that every single one would be there. But if they have access, they have a lease over here. A lot of times that’s where those are actually getting their their bucks. If you look at it fifteen twenty years mark, mark it down, crack it. But you know, I tell them, if you’re not going to take your herd management serious and get your numbers down here, you’re just honestly, all this work has benefitting the neighbor more than you your neighborhood.
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Speaker 3: And so let’s run through that example. Let’s say let’s say someone listening to this has an eighty A one to twenty whatever it is, or just a honeyhole permission spot where there’s a bunch of deer. What is typically your suggestion, Let’s say number one, what is the density of Like okay, yeah, you have too many deer for this block, Like quantify that and then maybe walk through an example of a prescription of like you need to shoot x percent of dos for how long? And like what do you anticipate how long until you see a return from doing that? Because I mean, honestly, shooting a bunch of dos is a lot of work.
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Speaker 4: It’s an unbelievable amount of word.
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Speaker 2: So let’s walk through that.
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Speaker 4: So typically on let’s call it not saying one hundred and fifty acre farm a small farm, but one hundred and fifty acres and less. You just battle the problem. Less you don’t have as many acres. You can’t get the just in terms of the math of the totality of numbers, I can’t get as bad there. So you want to have great habitat and then you know, ideal, if we could do a survey, right, we can get an idea of the herd. I kind of understand most neighborhoods. We can understand a little bit about the neighborhood, what the dynamics are there. And then really you want to create a different density dynamic on your farm that’s more favorable towards bucks. So what do I mean by that? Well, simply put, if you get rid of does and bucks, you don’t want to be there. You make it a lot better scenario for a buck that you do want to be there to move in so and that’s social stress. We’re eliminating social stress, which makes that far more attractive to the kind of buck that we want to kill. You if you just kill those, stack the cold bucks out of it. Over time, what you’re going to see is your buck to dough ratio is just going to get better seeing that over and over again. Talk about Bill Wink’s old Iowa farm a lot, but you know he killed fifty dolls a year for years on end, and he says at the end of it he had a three three buck to one dough ratio. And that’s because as you as you take some of the doughs away, maybe they move in at a one to one rate. But after you do that so long, then you’re left with a bunch of bucks, which does make it more attractive for a bigger buck to be there. But jump back to your question, Drake, not to go on a tangent there. You know, if I had an eighty or one twenty, I want to make the habitat great and keep the numbers low, and that’s going to make it a great scenario for the kind of bucks we want to be there to make their home there.
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Speaker 2: How do you how do you make it?
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Speaker 3: The conundrum I think a lot of people are thinking of, like, man if I have, you know, a year round food and like it become and maybe the surrounding area does not have is high quality of habitat or high quality year round food. How do I keep that balance and kind of manage the six forty we’ll say the square mile on my eighty to where it’s like more likely the dose are going to want to be on this farm because it’s, you know, the best little eighty in this block. Is there a way to do it from what you’ve seen or like, have you seen anyone do a really good job of it?
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Speaker 4: It’s it’s very hard to be the central density farm. I don’t like you talked about just being by far and away the best habitat in the area. If you’re gonna battle high to year numbers just because you’re always going to have that problem. That’s kind of why I like being in a little better overall habitat area because then I’m not going to have such a draw that I’m gonna have to fight every single year. I would say even if you are a big draw that you still want to keep your numbers down. Deer will move in, there will still be plenty, but those bucks are always going to push out. It doesn’t matter even if your overall numbers are low, They’re always going to push out to the edge. And recently did a survey on Bill Winkie’s farm for the third year in a row, and he has very low numbers, but almost all of the bucks we found were on the edge of our survey area. Even though he’s got low numbers and great habitat, all of the bucks still are on the edge because there’s this social dynamic between deer where the dose are going to be in the best spot, the bucks are gonna be on the edge, even if there’s not that many overall.
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Speaker 3: That’s fascinating when you think about it, it’s you know, it’s I’m just I’m almost speechless, like what is the right way to do it?
00:18:05
Speaker 4: Then? Uh?
00:18:06
Speaker 3: If you want the deer to live on you, It’s like it’s doing nothing better than than doing everything. Because there’s this there’s has been this movement of like you know, you can tune into any podcast ever and like you got to have diversity, you got to have the best habitat, you got to have this, you got to have that. And then it’s like, yeah, that’s obviously great, and we’ll make potentially more opportunity to kill the buck that you’re wanting when he shows up. One hundred percent agree with that. But it’s like, even if you do all the management and you don’t have a big enough piece, like they’re still going to end up probably on the outskirtser edge.
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Speaker 2: And I could be looking at this wrong. So like you’ve you’ve seen this, I haven’t.
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Speaker 4: No, it’s that’s uh, it’s very true, Jake. I was in Iowa last week with the landowner who’s killed a lot of two hundred inch bucks and he’s got a lot of acroog and he said, Jack, I’m almost just one hundred percent done with the food plots because it was better before I ever started doing them. And he’s talking about thirty acre off alfa fields and you know, all of this stuff because he understands just it’s a huge straw and that pushes the deer deer out outward. Yeah, I mean he had a he had a great deer that got got pushed three quarters of a mile away and and got harvested by a neighbor, which is great, but you know, we were talking about how that probably happened because he’s he’s just too populated.
00:19:38
Speaker 3: Did he say what he would replace those food plot acres with? Like is it is it more habitat or it just like throw the keys to the wind and let nature reclaim the ground.
00:19:49
Speaker 4: We were talking about filling it in with warm seasoned grasses, but or just just plain syllable mm hmm.
00:19:57
Speaker 2: Interesting. Yeah.
00:20:00
Speaker 3: I mean I’ve seen where people like through selling land, like people go in, they fix up this farm and uh, you know, like it was maybe pretty raw before they they had bought it, and then it’s like all of a sudden, the neighbors are like, oh my gosh, we hadn’t killed a big deer in a long time. And it’s like I’ve seen that happen time and time again, where you know, raw piece gets improved and then the neighbors, you know, raap the benefits of it. And that’s not dogging the situation whatsoever, but like that’s just a trend I’ve seen to some degree, and that follows with what you’ve you’ve been seeing with how the deer actually behave and uh, it’s it’s just interesting.
00:20:35
Speaker 2: It’s like it’s it’s uh, it’s a lot to process. Jack.
00:20:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I would say, all I’ve learned, if I’m buying a farm, what I’m going to look for is I would never want to be in the area that’s going to constantly draw a deer in. So that’s that’s. Uh. You look at satellite, that’s the one or two thousand acres that you’re like, that’s the place to be. And I still believe in habitat management. What I would want to do is go one to two miles away from that in marginal habitat that maybe can only support a few deer. Now, make it really awesome, make it way more desirable the deer, and kind of start at that low level and keep it at a medium level and you’re just never going to have to battle it like you would on the other places.
00:21:27
Speaker 3: MM here’s a question for you. You know, for someone you mentioned you flew for a st aid agency and had twenty five percent more than what they thought they would have. So assuming that trend may kind of go across the board for everyone and they don’t have a thermal drone and sorry, Jack, they’re not going to hire you because they don’t have a big enough farm. But like, what are some what are some things that would tell you that there is too much deer or too much Like you’re in the you’re the ecubator farm here right now, and but you don’t know that. Like, what are some key indicators that would maybe tell you that that, Okay, maybe we need to readdressed strategy, Maybe we need to maybe we need to start managing some does it’s been five years since we shadow do off this farm like something like that? Like, what are some either deer behavior or on the landscape indications that there’s too many deer or just too much social stress?
00:22:21
Speaker 4: Yeah, we can start with, Uh, I’ve got a couple of obvious ones and then a couple that probably people have never thought of, but I’ve picked up on. You know, you could start with food. Is there a big brows line in the woods, Well, that’s that’s probably an indication that there’s just too many deer, too many deer there food plots, you know, a utilation Yeah, utilization cages those are great. You know you get to see, you know, how much is that food pot really getting browsed down? I mean if it’s nipped like that. That’s either need to plant more food or you’ve you’ve probably got too many mouths. Just deer body condition going into this time of year March April, that’s a great indicator a prolonged rut. I’ve seen many deer running in January and February doing these surveys, which is something that I didn’t really know happened before, but it very much so does those dough fonts come in to heat. And one thing I picked up on if your bucks are holding super late consistently year over year, that means you have a very out of whack buck the dough ratio.
00:23:43
Speaker 2: So say that again.
00:23:44
Speaker 3: So I just got a picture of a buck still holding both antlers yesterday, So tell me what that means.
00:23:50
Speaker 4: Okay, well, one off, you know, I’m not talking about one or two bucks. But if you consistently have bucks the second week some second week of March across all age classes holding, that’s that’s not a good sign. It means you have an idawhac herd. And actually there’s a balance to this because stress fears shed early, stress bucks shed early. But actually if you’re if I would say if all your bucks shed the third week of January. That would be a really healthy herd. You actually want them to shed earlier in a way that means you have a more balanced herd. And I’ve talked with some landowners who have gone extremely aggressive on harvesting does, and one of them comes to mine in particular, he had found almost every buck shed by the second week in January. And you know, we do a survey. He’s got three bucks to one dough on a thousand acre sample size, and he says, jackets one hundred percent. This never happened before we started implementing the aggressive dough harvest, and it’s because there’s no more dose to breathe and so they drop earlier. He had also to me he had he had spoken with with doctor Woods about that, Doctor Grant Woods. So mhm, something I heard, But.
00:25:19
Speaker 2: No, that’s pretty interesting.
00:25:21
Speaker 3: So for for if bucks you’re still holding the second week of March, you think you correct me if I’m wrong, But I’m the reason why they might be holding into the second week of March is because there’s so many do fonts going into extras and so their testosterone stays higher longer, and it like prolongs that period or like changes the natural resum.
00:25:46
Speaker 4: One more quick example, I flew uh flew kind of a big residential real estate development place that was having big, big problems with here and here and landscaping. Some of the members have got gotten Alpha cat house, so they had they had they had way too many deer. So they called me in to do a survey. This was the first week of mark. We found eleven hundred deer total, and only eighty of them were bucks. Now what’s crazy is you would think that’s that’s an extremely unhealthy herd, but probably seventy five percent of those bucks that looked as rundown as you could ever be, still had their antlers.
00:26:33
Speaker 2: That’s really interesting. There was eleven deer, eleven and eighty bucks.
00:26:39
Speaker 4: Said yeah, and one mature buck. Yeah.
00:26:44
Speaker 3: How big? How roughly? How large was that sample size?
00:26:48
Speaker 4: Seven thousand acres?
00:26:50
Speaker 2: Okay, that’s crazy, dude, Yeah.
00:26:54
Speaker 4: About five thousand the habitat, So that population, you know, if I were to look at that habitat, I would say it’s probably support about forty to fifty per square mile. It was really poor habitat, but it was holding one hundred and twenty five per square mile, and those numbers were just going up. Like crazy because they were kind of protected in the neighborhood.
00:27:19
Speaker 2: Wow. Why so okay?
00:27:22
Speaker 3: And that did you want to fly like two or three miles away to see how many big bucks you could find?
00:27:26
Speaker 2: Did that cross your mind?
00:27:29
Speaker 4: It’s it would be interesting. Yeah, I don’t know if that would be the case there or what. That’s kind of an extreme example, but yeah, there probably are some are some great bucks on the edge there. I mean, you would have to imagine there’s a huge crash in during the rut, there so many dos coming in the heat, what what happens?
00:27:49
Speaker 3: But yeah, wow, so seventy five percent of them are still holding their antlers? First, was that in the Midwest? Or was I like, just for a reference.
00:27:57
Speaker 4: For it was in Missouri? Okay? Sure?
00:28:01
Speaker 3: So yeah, they definitely more than seventy five percent should have been shed by that by that point.
00:28:06
Speaker 2: That’s really interesting. I’ve never heard of that.
00:28:11
Speaker 3: What are they gonna do with the deer with that many deer? Like, are they gonna have some sort of program to allow hunting? Or I mean, okay, so in that extreme extreme scenario, how long does it take to course correct something like that or is it candy course corrected.
00:28:26
Speaker 4: From that’s a unique scenario just because it’s I mean, there’s people living there. It’s not it’s not just through out in the country. It kind of depends on how aggressive you get with the harvest. I mean, I think you could course correct in two or three years if you hit it really hard. But you know, just taking ten percent every year wouldn’t wouldn’t do anything. M assuming you do the numbers on that, that’s a lot of that’s a lot of deer.
00:28:58
Speaker 2: I mean, that’s crazy amount of deer.
00:29:00
Speaker 3: I mean you if you did shoot ten percent, that’s one hundred some deer every year.
00:29:04
Speaker 2: And what what have you been seeing?
00:29:06
Speaker 3: Like relating back to Winkie’s farm since he’ve phon it for a few years and has his because he’s been actively shooting does or at least I think it was two or three years ago, he was like, every every chance I get it to shoot a do, I’m gonna shoot one. What have you been able to deserve from that because you’ve been on the farm, I haven’t you’ve seen it?
00:29:29
Speaker 2: Like?
00:29:29
Speaker 3: What from your conversations with Bill and what is the trajectory of the current plan that he has, Because I feel like a lot of people could potentially relate to, you know, wanting to reduce dough numbers, and what is the positive of it, and then what’s the potential negative of it if fun recruitment isn’t great or like all these different factors that go under this.
00:29:52
Speaker 4: I’ve never seen anybody overdue dough harvest, really, not once. I’ve never you know, even after giant EHD kill offs, I’ve never seen anybody over do it. Now. I think doing the survey for Bill was great because, you know, he’s gung ho about getting on the dose and we kind of learned after three years of history that he probably needs to build his numbers up a little bit or at least keep them where they’re at. He doesn’t, he’s not battling that problem like many landowners are. His plan is, you know, it’s kind of come to the conclusion that he doesn’t have the best genetics in that area, which is a huge, huge factor and growing bigger bucks. He’s going to try to kind of hit it hard on on culling some bucks if he can taking those genetically you know, insuperior deer out. But really it’s just continuing with the habitat. It’s it’s such a unique scenario there that it was such a blank slate that I mean, he told me this year that he was there in January, the year he bought it. In January, he didn’t even see a deer track. So he’s going from zero to what he is now and just continuing on that progression. There’s not a whole lot he can do on the herd management side, just because he’s not not too high on deer numbers, which is which is kind of rare for my customers.
00:31:29
Speaker 3: So which would you rather have you have to reduce? Like what’s the better scenario for someone listening right now? Like solid genetics create you know, twenty thirty percent more deer on the landscape or forty percent more deer on the landscape than than what there should be, or the opposite of lower density with with not the best genetics, Like what is an easier thing to potentially improve.
00:31:55
Speaker 4: General etics or herd size?
00:31:58
Speaker 3: So yeah, good genetic way too many deer, way too many deer, or poor genetics not a ton of deer. And so like, can you, in your opinion from flying over multiple years, do you think that someone could improve the genetics I don’t want to say like improve the genetics, but you know, selectively harvest to where if you have five bucks, one of them has some potential, four of them are junkie. It’s a very complex question, but hopefully you get where I’m getting at.
00:32:26
Speaker 4: Oh, I would way rather have too many deer in great genetics. We don’t talk about it a lot in the deer world, but I’ve learned. I mean, I think having good genetics is I mean, that’s the biggest thing to grow on big deer. It really is. You have to have it. Some places don’t, some places do. I do think you can make a difference on genetics. We’ve seen you know you, and I know Don and Don’s Don’s talked a lot about over the last couple of years how he’s changed the genetics on farm. But that took twenty years and it’s some time, very very hard for anybody to realistically implement. I think it can be done, but it’s it’s such a long time horizon. So I would way rather have high view numbers and bring those down because that’s actually doable in the short term.
00:33:24
Speaker 3: Have you noticed any trends where you know, correlation of good genetics and different regions, different habitat types, River systems like anything that you’re like, okay, typically the better genetics are in these three categories or is it completely random?
00:33:41
Speaker 4: For the most part, there’s some randomness to it. I was there’s a couple parts of Iowa that are head scratchers for me in terms of like, this is the most beautiful farm I’ve ever been on in a great area you think is a great area, and they just don’t have the genetics that are twenty miles away. I would say it really sticks out in like Kansas, because in Kansas, especially as you get more western, you know, you have drainages, that’s where the cover is, that’s where the deer are, and then you go ten miles away, there’s kind of nothing in between. The deer really aren’t traveling maybe in between, and then there’s another drainage. Well, the genetics are different ten miles up here on this river versus ten miles down here on that river, and you want to be on that river and not the one above it. So they definitely do follow in the kind of extreme scenarios like that where they’re separated, isolated, they follow those rivers. I mean, there’s some rivers in Kansas that are you know, won’t name drop spots, but it’s like you need to be on that place, but you go ten miles away on the next river that looks same and it’s just not as good. And that’s one hundred percent genetics.
00:35:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, well that’s the type of information that wasn’t available, Like you know, someone local that maybe grew up their whole life, will you know, I would have figured that out, I think. But to have like the hard data and observation is pretty crazy that you’re able to do that. Talking about Kansas and you know, you had mentioned that the gentleman with a bunch of food pots to potentially put in a warm season grasses. We had talked about warm season and grasses on the White Tail podcasts and it ruffled some feathers. Have you changed your position or thoughts on warm season grasses in terms of deer habitat because it’s a it’s a quick way to get cover on the landscape, and I think that’s really attractive for a lot of people.
00:35:45
Speaker 4: They’ve really grown on me. I still I will say, you know a lot of my surveys are kind of November first through and now into April, and I very very rarely find a significant amount of deer bedded and warm season grasses, switch grass, you know, all of that stuff. Do they use it early season? They do, It’s definitely more utilized in the summer months and early fall. I think it’s much less preferable than say, well cut timber that’s really thick. That being said, I think warm season grasses and switch grass, they they add depth to a farm that’s super helpful. They add thickness to a farm that’s super helpful. I think they limit some deer interaction, which is social stress, which is great. You know, a huge Some of the best farms I’ve seen, like on their road front edge, they have really thick grasses so nobody can see in there, and I’ve I think that’s extremely valuable. Some places much more short than others, but I think they’re great for fun recruitment. I’ve noticed a huge increase in turkey numbers and areas that have a lot of CRP or switch grass just because I think they’re nesting is a lot better. So I think there’s a lot of benefit for wildlife and having it. The problem is people look at it as the best deer betting on their farm when it is absolutely not that MM hmm.
00:37:29
Speaker 3: What so follow up is what is the typically the best for the for the November SURVEYSS specifically like in November, wearbucks betted as a rule of thumb, as a general idea.
00:37:43
Speaker 4: In November, if they’re with a dough, they’re gonna be kind of isolated. It might be in switch grass because that’s really isolated out there, but don’t necessarily see that super common. They’re in ditches, they’re in draws, or in big timber way back they’re just they’re just by themselves or or they’ve got to go back there. But it’s, uh, it can be kind of random.
00:38:14
Speaker 3: Jake, you’re gonna say that I was gonna I was afraid you’re gonna say it was gonna be random, because that’s how November often feels random.
00:38:23
Speaker 2: So that that tracks for sure. What have you noticed?
00:38:28
Speaker 4: What so thicker cover? Yeah, bicker bicker cover with some form of isolation, that’s where big bucks are going to be bedded?
00:38:36
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
00:38:38
Speaker 3: What is Everyone has a different definition of thick on some of these When everyone’s like, oh, you need to thicken up the timber, or you need to you know, do t s I, you need to you know, open up the canopy. Like that’s a I almost feel like it’s a record album that gets on repeat. It’s like that is a common theme of if you want to hold more dear, hold more bucks, you need to have a thicker farm.
00:39:01
Speaker 2: Is that something that you have seen.
00:39:06
Speaker 4: Making your farm thicker? Let’s start with the timber does two things. It makes the deer. It kind of it limits the social interaction, so in a way it kind of boosts your ability to hold deer. But it makes if you’re if your farm’s much thicker, even if you have the same amount of deer, that mature buff doesn’t necessarily think there’s the same amount of deer because he’s seen them less. Just so much sticker you can hold more mature bucks. But it also adds a huge food component. You know, browse is the majority of a deer’s diet in the Midwest, woody browse in the winter time, So if you don’t have that on your farm, you’re not not going to hold deer in that time of year. I would almost say I used to think that brows was a much bigger part of doing timber stan improvement, but I really do believe now that it’s just the thickening of it security. Yeah, it’s such an attraction for bucks. And then you jump into the grass side. I mean we’ve all seen big tall fields of warm season grasses that’s such thick, so it just creates depth thickness.
00:40:26
Speaker 3: Have you flown a farm where they’re like, all right, security cover, I’m gonna make it thick. Have you seen an instance where it’s just simply tooth thick and you fly the drone and it’s like, this is a deer desert because it’s it’s tooth thick. They can’t work through it. Or is there such thing as tooth thick? From what you’ve seen from the air, Like I understand you’re not in there, like walking every squore inch of these farms at all, But just from from the air, what have you observed?
00:40:51
Speaker 4: I would say the only you know, invasive species are the only way that that’s going to become a possibility. So you’re bush on his uckle, your autumn olive, your multi four rows, if you’re going to open up a bunch of sunlight to let those species flourish, there’s a there’s a possibility that it may become too thick. Sure you see that in someone Illinois.
00:41:16
Speaker 2: Just a bushy circle here, those those.
00:41:19
Speaker 4: You know, viny and thorny plants can become and you just can’t walk through them, and neither can a deer.
00:41:26
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
00:41:28
Speaker 3: So, no such thing as too thick as long as it’s good habitat of thickness, like all thick all thick timbers not created equals what I’m picking up.
00:41:39
Speaker 4: Correct. Yeah. I think if if you have all great species and I’m not a forest free expert, but if you clear cut of forests with no invasive species, then you just let it grow up. I don’t think it becomes too thick for deer.
00:42:03
Speaker 3: Is there an example of a farm, and I don’t if this guy listens, I feel bad, But is there an example of a farm where like, dude, this this farm is a total like I’m picturing it like a like a house, right, like, oh, you know it’s got good bones, you can do this, you can fix that.
00:42:18
Speaker 2: And then there’s some houses like it’s not worth saving.
00:42:21
Speaker 3: Have you fawn a farm where it’s like this thing is really really really bad because of these key elements?
00:42:30
Speaker 4: Absolutely? I mean you start with neighborhood, right, If you’re in the wrong neighborhood and you have one hundred every forty yards on your fence, you can never I don’t think you can overcome that. So in scenarios where that’s that’s possible, you know, maybe moving it’s kind of your your option there. In terms of habitat, I mean, there’s certain scenarios that play out once you see enough farms where just you can’t make a difference heard management habitat management, you can’t overcome that problem. Trying to think of some specific examples, nothing too extreme comes to mind.
00:43:18
Speaker 3: Okay, have you did you fly any farms in southeast Ohio this this off season where EHD was a major killoff?
00:43:29
Speaker 2: What’d you see?
00:43:30
Speaker 4: I did? Yeah, I saw in southern Indiana. I think I did quite a bit of work there and they’ve I think they’ve had some incertain pockets, at least from talking to the locals, pretty bad EHD. And the numbers were they were lower than I would have thought going in, But they weren’t extremely low, or I wouldn’t even call them low. They were more more of what you might want to see. Now, I’m not talking about the high spots for I’m sure it’s very bad, but I’ve flown after quite a bit of bad EHD killoffs, and there’s still quite a few deer there. There’s the thing is it’s just a lot less than we’re used to. And many times that’s some other nature’s way of kind of course correcting. But I would say a typical non major EHD killoff might fill thirty percent of the herd.
00:44:30
Speaker 3: Have you on surveys have you flown a farm that was smoked by EHD. I’m just making these years up in twenty four and then you flew it in twenty five and twenty six.
00:44:39
Speaker 2: Have you seen.
00:44:41
Speaker 3: What what’s the trajectory of growth of If you haven’t flown that, that’s fine, But I’m just trying to see if, Like for those folks that.
00:44:49
Speaker 2: Are in Ohio, we’re like, yeah, we gotta hit really hard.
00:44:50
Speaker 3: What can I potentially anticipate a year from now, two years from now, three years from now, If you’ve been able to document anything like that, well, I think they should be.
00:45:03
Speaker 4: I mean they I think good things are to come for them. Uh. Once you lower those numbers, you reduce that social stress. A lot of times there’s bigger deer to follow. There’s one one farm in Iowa where I’ve consistently flown it and they in the first year I flew it, they didn’t think we were going to find, you know, fifty deer on the whole place, and we ended up finding one hundred and fifty, which was about one hundred per square mile, which is you know, actually a pretty high density. And they were shocked by that. And we flew it this year and I mean it probably gone up fifty percent in two years percent a year. What’s interesting, Jake, is so you know, we had this influx of fonts every year, and you know, some populations once they’ve reached kind of the holding capacity of the land. You know, there’s sponts that keep coming in and they’re shunning, you know, deep hunters feeling deer, but the populations kind of stay the same. You know, it’s x perstquare mile or x breaker. But on those growing deer populations like that one, they actually do I mean, you can you can add up to twenty twenty five percent more dear year over year in those in those places that they’re not at the holding capacity.
00:46:28
Speaker 2: Mm hm.
00:46:30
Speaker 3: We’ve talked very briefly in the past, but ticks and deer health, what what what What’s been your observations with that.
00:46:38
Speaker 4: Oh, I think kind of kind of Jack’s bold prediction for something in the next twenty years is that we’re gonna have some big discoveries on ticks and deer and and maybe ticks and humans too. But uh, you know, alpha gal is a term. I’m just hearing more and more that that place. I flew forward in Missouri and they had quite a few residents that had come down with it, and it was it was a huge deal. That’s why I was there. It was the spreading of alpha gal. And I think with deer, you know, it’s unbelievable how I don’t know how I track it, But there is some correlation between lots of ticks on deer and not as big a bucks. And there’s some areas I’ll fly that five miles away, I could go, there’s a lot of ticks on the deer. You know, I go this way five miles and there’s no ticks on the deer. Well, why is that? Is there is there some genetic trait that’s keeping them off? Should the landscape has something to do with it? But there’s not some giant difference in ticks five miles away. There shouldn’t be m m and If so, what’s causing that. I’ve had a lot of conversations about ticks and dear, and I think they make a bigger impact than we think, even in a localized environment. If you go look at all your bucks on a given farm and say, August, you know, maybe this is just my head playing games on me. I feel like the better bucks just have less ticks than every other one in the bachelor group sometimes.
00:48:29
Speaker 3: M So, the question is, okay, if ticks do, if they’re a bottleneck to a white tail expressing I mean all white tails expressing the healthiest version of themselves, It’s like, okay, what eats ticks? Turkeys? How do you reduce take pressure? I would imagine obviously having good habitat for birds for them to get eight by ticks prescribed buyer. I feel like would probably be another thing that you could put in your control. And then hopefully there’s a biologist or someone listening to this smarter than both of us, like, all right, you want less ticks, this is the game plan. Maybe that’ll be something that gets implemented more in the landscape. And everyone hates ticks, man, if you could tell me, all right, there’s less ticks now, do this.
00:49:11
Speaker 2: I think everyone would do that.
00:49:13
Speaker 4: I think uh, I think fire. Maybe warm season grasses could potentially help. Fire is going to be your biggest one though. Oh and really just finding the area that doesn’t have as many I know that sounds dumb, but that’s that’s kind of the biggest.
00:49:33
Speaker 2: Thing, all right.
00:49:37
Speaker 3: Let me h, you need to rank these three things you have to rank. I had I had a note here specifically, I want you to rank one, two, three, One being most important, three being the least important, age, age, structure, nutrition or genetics for someone that wants to have the best ear possible. But what is the most important? What’s the least important of those three?
00:50:00
Speaker 4: Genetics is number one by far, And people might kind of argue with me on that, but there’s some bucks that they could make it to seven or eight years old and they’re never going to be more than a one hundred and thirty inch a pointer. And the mile of Hanson buck was supposedly three years old when I got shot. So genetics by far number one. Second would be age for sure. You know, a one year old buck in the wild is two year old buck in the wild will take the most extreme kind of into that it’s it’s never going to have a giant rat. And then third would be nutrition. I used to think nutrition was much more important than I realized it is.
00:50:47
Speaker 3: What’s made you come to that realization, is it fine deserts in Kansas that look like mars in.
00:50:56
Speaker 4: Yeah, deserts in Cans that’s a good that’s good way to put a jake, and those grow the biggest deer many times, biggest deer in the whole country sometimes. But even even you know, you go to the southeast, you have a pine forest, there’s nothing to eat, and you know, you do a clear cut you increase of food drastically, put in acres and acres of food pot. So you went from zero food basically to as much food as you can realistically put and you’re only going to see and I say only, but you’re only going to see it fifteen inches jump on your bucks on average. I mean you went from one end of the spectrum to totally on the other. And it made it made a great difference, but you know, maybe not as big as we’d hope. I think in the Midwest there is it’s important to have good food pots and great brows, but there is a lot of great food just on the landscape that deer can make it by with.
00:52:09
Speaker 3: What where do you think thermal drones? Where do you see thermal drones place in the world of white tails?
00:52:18
Speaker 4: Personally, I think they’re a great tool to understand her dynamics, study deer. Collect all the data I’m collecting. You know, there’s so much we don’t know about populations and her dynamics in the wild, and that’s such a huge part of management. So understanding that’s really important, and I don’t think there’s a better tool for the job than a thermal drone. I think, you know, on the recovery side, that’s probably where it’s most used. I would bet there’s probably been fifty thousand US dear over the last three years that may not have been found without thermal drones. That’s a huge number, and it’s affected a lot of people and their enjoyment of hunting because they’re able to recover that buck and not not not waste that resource. I do think there’s a lot of potential for misuse just because the power of the tool, and that’s that’s up to us to manage it. Right. I don’t have the answers on what the right legislation would be in terms of this or that, but hopefully we can come come to that soon and and you know, ultimately it’s up to people actually following the rules, and there’s always gonna be bad apples, right, But it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out. But I think they’re I think they’re here to say stay, and I think they’re a great tool for hunters and land managers across the board when they’re used correctly.
00:54:04
Speaker 2: Wonderful.
00:54:04
Speaker 3: Where if someone wants to reach out to you and they want to see what’s on their farm and get a dear study, because I know when you fly you give them full report and you know, some tangible information for them to carry along and build a management plan.
00:54:20
Speaker 2: Where do Where do people reach out to you?
00:54:23
Speaker 4: Midwest year Surveys dot com is our website. You can find all my info there and then on social media, YouTube all that stuff. Midwest your Surveys you can find my info there.
00:54:38
Speaker 2: Awesome, Well, thank you so much, Jack, Thanks Jake, appreciate it all right, you guys have it.
00:54:44
Speaker 3: Hopefully you’re able to get some insight that may impact how you scout per deer, how you manage your properties.
00:54:53
Speaker 2: You know, the whole gambit.
00:54:54
Speaker 3: I really appreciate Jack taking the time and sharing his observations because, like I said in the very beginning end of this episode, he has observed more farms than probably anyone else in terms of dear density, different trends, and it is a scientific paper on steroids with what he has been able to observe.
00:55:13
Speaker 2: So hope you guys enjoyed it. We will see you next time. See you
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