From Passion to Business: New Era Habitat Services

In this episode of the Pennsylvania Woodsman, Mitch is joined by Hunter Scott and Tyler Hanna from PA Boys Outdoors and H3 Game Calls. They discuss their hunting seasons and the growth of their brands, as a new brand has been developed in the world of food plot and habitat consulting. The conversation delves into food plot management, strategic land management, and setting realistic expectations for hunting properties. They emphasize the significance of access routes, wind direction, and habitat improvement for successful deer management. In this conversation, they discuss various strategies for enhancing deer hunting success through effective habitat management and food plot implementation. They share personal experiences and insights on the importance of water holes, equipment investment, and understanding deer density. The conversation also touches on the balance between agricultural practices and wildlife needs, as well as innovative techniques like hinge cutting to improve habitat. They emphasize their commitment to helping others achieve success in their hunting endeavors through their services.

Mitchell Shirk (00:00.79)

All right. Joining us on this week's episode of the Pennsylvania woodsman, have Hunter Scott and Tyler Hanna from PA boys and H3 game calls. Gentlemen, thank you for joining us on the show. How you been?

Tyler Hanna (00:13.794)

Good, thanks for having us. We appreciate the opportunity to come on with you and chat about hunting and land management and everything in between.

Mitchell Shirk (00:21.512)

First and foremost, how'd your guys' hunting seasons go?

Tyler Hanna (00:25.39)

Hunter, you want to go? I'll let you go.

Hunter Scott (00:27.508)

Yeah, so I tagged out the first night of archery season that would be the statewide archery season there in beginning of October. I had a buck that I had patterned that entire week before every night hitting a food plot between 6 and 6.30 and I knew it was just a matter of right place, right time and ultimately I was able to capitalize there the first night of archery season.

We did, I did jump into a lease in Missouri with my father here. We went out, the first and second week of November. I sadly did not have any luck, but my father shot a nice buck out there. So it's up and down season. Just between what my father and I, because we do all of our hunting together, we shot both of our bucks over food plots again this year. So that's the second year in row now that we've both taken bucks over food plots that we've planted and installed. So overall it was a very successful season from the PA boys.

Hunter and Ross side.

Tyler Hanna (01:26.766)

So my season was good. It was a little rough to start. I didn't have a target buck really in mind that I could chase right away. I had a couple decent deer that I knew were four and a half, but I wasn't so sure if I wanted to shoot them yet. So wasn't until we got into that third week of October, I did really start narrowing down my options for what I was gonna take a look at targeting. And was luckily able to catch up with a buck I called Jester. It a deer that didn't live on our lease property.

We known him to travel in the rut at times and knew a general area where he usually frequented throughout the rut portion of the season. And I was able to catch up with him on November 1st, actually shot him over a water hole, which was my first time doing that, which is pretty cool to see the dynamics of how much a water hole plays factors into a deer movement. So I was able to harvest him on November 1st and then just enjoyed the rest of season hunting with family and doing some filming and.

Hunter Scott (02:17.013)

.

Tyler Hanna (02:25.964)

and wrapped it up and ready for turkey season now.

Mitchell Shirk (02:29.121)

Yeah, that's really exciting. I was just talking about this with Aaron Hepler and a couple other friends that, you know, whitetail biologists and a lot of research in QDMA over the years has shown that, you know, whitetails don't need a lot of water intake and they retain so much moisture from the plants that they eat and they can get their moisture content from that. And I just got to say my hunting experiences the last few years have just not paralleled that.

I have seen so much activity around water holes or springs or, know, know, isolated places where they're standing water in a mountain or a water hole I created on a property or something like that. So really cool for you to get to, experience that and harvest the buck. mean, I remember the first water hole that I put on my place. I'd helped with some other ones, but I decided going into one year in 2020, I was going to put a water hole in my property. just to try to.

Hunter Scott (03:12.628)

.

Hunter Scott (03:26.096)

you

Mitchell Shirk (03:27.071)

Add a little bit of traction. was a specific deer I wanted to harvest and lo and behold, I ended up killing him drinking out of the water hole at 20 yards. And it's just such a, such a neat thing to see come full circle and add one little, little, tool to the trade, I guess, so to speak on, on a property. And that's kind of what we're going to get into a little bit today. So, you know, for those of you guys who don't know about PA out, PA boys outdoors and H3 game calls before we get rolling on.

this, the next journey that you guys have installed, like introduce yourself and talk a little bit about that and how it snowballed into what's happening in 2025.

Tyler Hanna (04:05.902)

Yeah, Hunter, do you wanna go with that since we kind of intertwine there to start this whole adventure?

Hunter Scott (04:11.978)

I mean, yeah, I mean, it all depends on how far back we're well, we'll kick it off and we'll talk I'll bring up how we kind of got tied in with with h3 game calls and then you can take it from there. about that? Cool. So I'm I'm hunter Scott. I'm the owner of PA boys outdoors. I started PA boys outdoors realistically in 2016, but 2019 was the big push I made to try to

Tyler Hanna (04:22.072)

Yeah, that sounds good.

Hunter Scott (04:35.378)

Become established on social media. 2019, that fall, I was a senior at Slippery Rock University. I had my job lined up there for when I graduated in December. And I told myself, if I'm going ever try to make a go of pushing and having a social media type of account outdoors page, that was the time to try to do it. I'll be honest with you, not with skill, but just kind of with luck and working algorithms, PA Boys Outdoors blew up.

and what five years from what twenty nineteen by his for twenty twenty five now actually i should take that back but what world right around thirty thousand followers we've had made some awesome partners we have a great staff field staff now we now have directors are just from an organizational side we've made some huge steps outdoor shows were actually were returning to central pennsylvania outdoorship i'm not sure if you've heard that or not but

It'll be, the one, two, this will be the fourth year that we've been at the Central Pennsylvania Outdoors Show. We'll be doing food plot seminars there. So it's kind of became a ritual for us to go there. We got some other outdoor shows on the schedule here for the next month or two that we're really looking forward to as well. But what, two years ago, a company called H3 Game Calls reached out to PA Boys Outdoors on Instagram. And Tyler messaged us and said, hey, how about we send you a couple goose calls to field test?

Let us know your thoughts. from what? It was like in August that happened two years ago. And my gosh, how our relationship's grown and into what it's of become today just from a couple goose calls that you sent over for us to field test. It's just been an awesome partnership. And on top of the business relationship that we have, Tyler and I have established a great friendship here over the last two years.

Tyler Hanna (06:23.052)

Yeah, absolutely. It's amazing what things can turn into in life, like the friendship and partnership and now business that Hunter and I have together. So starting H3 game calls, you know, always been a big hunter, very avid turkey hunter. Probably my favorite thing to do is turkey hunt. But one day I just thought I'm gonna start making some alf calls for myself. So put a couple of these calls together and...

hunted throughout the season with them and had some success. And towards, I think it was the last Saturday of season, my dad and I went out together and I made him one, made myself one. And we shoot these birds, call these birds and if the two calls are made, we double up. And we're sitting there against the tree. That's one thing we like to do. We sit there after the hunt and just kind of enjoy and take it in. And I'm a big faith guy and just kind of say a little thank you and a prayer. It just kind of hit me like.

this is it, this is what you've been looking for in the outdoor industry. You we tried, my cousin and I tried the social media route, hunting group route, and we had no success. Like Hunter and the PA boys, they've had tremendous success with that. And we just couldn't get anything to go. And I told my cousin from the start, we're ever gonna be in the industry, we're gonna need to have a product that we sell. That's how we're gonna make it. And lo and behold, just sitting there over those two birds we killed that morning, praying and thanking God for it. And it just hit me like a ton of bricks, like, hey, this is it.

start making calls. So H3 started out with just two handmade mouth calls that I made on my press the night before that day or the night before the hunt. And we just built from there. So now we, you know, we don't only, we offer turkey calls, waterfowl, deer, predator, you know, we've expanded our line. We probably have somewhere close to 70 products and calls that we carry between merchandise calls. We have our coffee line, we have a whiskey line.

we have really expanded and started to scale upwards over the past couple years.

Mitchell Shirk (08:23.883)

Very cool and exciting. know, to snowball from that is getting into the land management side of things, which is the new thing for 2025 for you guys. So Hunter, question for you. So I know you've done a lot of seminars and talking food plots and stuff, and you're getting a lot of interest, a lot of questions. What are some of the most common questions and the common holdups that people have that you encounter on your, in your travels and your communication with other people who are getting into food plots?

Hunter Scott (08:53.004)

Yeah, so two off the top of my head and first one's pretty general, but it's a question that somebody who's never really gotten into this before asks and that is what do I plant? I think that that's one of the most common questions you get. Another one that I'll get frequently is, hey, know, last fall hunting, whether it was archer rifle season, I'm seeing deer, but they're not in range. What can I do to try to get them in

bow range, for example. And that's kind of where food plots can be a great way of trying to bring those deer in closer for you to be able to capitalize. Some other questions I get, some people who have established food plots, you get questions about liming, you get questions about fertilizing, weed control is another big one. So those are some very common questions that I've gotten personally here over the last couple of years.

Mitchell Shirk (09:52.59)

Tyler, when it comes to taking your deer hunting to the next level, know, hunters shared a lot about food plots. know he loves food plots. I love food plots. I think they're a critical asset on private land. Um, but sometimes it's not just food plots that get it done. So when you think about starting land management, habitat consulting, aside from food plots, what are some of the things that get you fired up? That's going to help people that maybe they're missing the mark on when it comes to hunting on a piece of private land.

Tyler Hanna (10:22.99)

So first thing I'm gonna do with a consult, with a client, or even for myself personally is I'm gonna look at a topo map. I'm very big on topo maps and e-scouting. I do a lot of boots on the ground, but the first thing I do before going to properties, I'm gonna e-scout it. And I'm gonna find pinch points, funnels, natural terrain features that are gonna shift or funnel those deer into those areas. And then from there, we're gonna start breaking it down to entry and exit routes. Where are we gonna enter from, exit out of?

That's probably the second biggest thing that I've experienced with hunting is if you're gonna be successful, you gotta be able to get in and get out without being detected. looking at topo maps, studying those, figuring out your entrance routes in and out, and then you gotta locate the bedding areas. And then from there, you can really start to hone in on, okay, this is where we should put a food plot because of bedding, entrance, exit, hunting on this one direction or that one direction. So we start then taking more of a tactical approach of how to be successful.

and strategically place these food plots around certain areas of the property.

Mitchell Shirk (11:27.841)

I'll let this next question for either of you guys take it how you want. there's definitely a journey when it comes to, to a, to a property, you know, there's very few properties that ever get quote unquote finished. you know, you might get a property that it's fairly maxed out and it's main maintenance. You may might get 90, 95 % of the way there as far as your, your habitat, your hunting strategy. you know,

Quality TSI browse food plots all that stuff, but the work's never done but a lot of properties a lot of people don't understand The step the big steps the biggest hurdles that they need to overcome whether that's the food plots whether that is Hunting strategy. So talk to me a little bit about when you look at a property that you've hunted in the past Maybe you've started some consults or you help people in the past. Do you start with habitat first?

and then work the hunt into it? Or do you start with the hunt and then work the habitat around it?

Tyler Hanna (12:30.158)

You want to take it? You want me to take it?

Hunter Scott (12:31.354)

Yeah, I mean to me personally, I think there's a happy medium to it. Depending on the property, I think it's big. If it's a property that I personally own, I'll get away with focusing on habitat before a hunt. If it's private ground that like someone like you or I would knock a door and ask for permission on, yeah, it makes it more challenging where, okay, you're going to have to focus on the hunt side first because you might be limited on what you can do for that habitat. Property that I have,

Habitat first that way you're kind of setting the tone for the property I think number one first and foremost scouting is so important. I think we all three of us can agree on that That we have a property that we only ever really rifle hunted. We never archery hunted we just had other other ground to hunt and We ended up switching over to try to archery hunt that we now we had intel from what we've done from rifle season in past years

But to try to figure out how to archery hunt it, there's a different way that that property needed to be hunted. That property is challenging because access is one way in, one way out. So that's a huge challenge, especially with the way the bedding area was laid out. What we decided that we needed to do was one, and this is something that I'm ready to go back over here in the next couple of weeks and do, is just walk around the snow and scout. To me, that is so important to understand where those deer are traveling, where they're going from feed to bedding areas.

That to me is most important. Once you can kind of crack the code with that, I'll be honest with you, I still run trail cameras. I run trail cameras year round in some places, especially in areas where I haven't really cracked that code to figure out how they're traveling. I have an area right now where there's a bedding area below it there's a huge high wall above it that I have not hunted. I have trail cameras on right now to see how they're leaking out that top side of the property. Once that's figured out and you kind of put that time in,

I was lucky enough with the way that that ground was set up over there that there were some great locations for food plots. Previously, was like CRP, like ragweed type plants that were over there. So it was just ultimately, okay, we have an area. It was between two bedding areas. I think this is a great place to put a satellite plot and that's what we installed. So that's kind of an example of how we've kind of done habitat over hunt on our personal property.

Mitchell Shirk (14:50.168)

How do you guys view setting expectations for a property? And I'm going to preface it that by saying, you know, I've been on properties with people and communicated with people. And sometimes I think it's easy to have an unrealistic expectation. And with that, could be, that could be from the size of the deer you're trying to target or how often you're seeing deer.

One factor in that I've noticed on a lot of properties is, know, it's not, it's not just one soul person hunting a property. lot of time it's a family property and there, there might be brothers and dads and uncles and grandfathers and cousins and stuff. And you work this dynamic of multiple, uh, opinions and, uh, thought processes and stuff. like, how do you, how do you tailor expectations when you start to add multiple people?

onto a property. I'm sure you guys have had those kind of experiences when you're hunting with other people, friends, family, whatever on the same property. like, do you take that from your hunting and then translate that into a console?

Tyler Hanna (16:01.08)

Well, I think, you know, just being upfront and honest with the, with the client, you know, lot of it is depends on, you know, parcel size, neighboring properties, you know, what are your neighbors going to shoot? What are your neighbors going to pass? Getting all that information together and look at the Intel and, and then lay out a plan with them saying, here's what we can expect over the next so many years, you know, and then say this plan is going to be from year one to year three. Then we're to look at this again in year four and we can adjust.

and then move from there to see if, you know, all of a sudden, if everyone that's on that property is on the page of, we're going to pass three and a half and younger. Okay. And you give that a few years and see how it looks. And then you, and then you say, okay, well now we're going to pass our four and a half year olds that we think maybe need another year that are maybe only a hundred, 30, 140 inches. But if we get an opportunity to 150 inch four and half year old, we're going to take him. And you just kind of tweak that over time, you know, especially in the state of PA.

we don't get a ton of, one, you don't get a ton of mature deer that really make it to that four and a half, five and a half year timeframe. And that's one of the biggest things that we probably get challenged with is, hey, I want to shoot a big buck. Let's just do what it takes. And the problem is a lot of times to do what it takes is getting age on the deer. So it is passing the deer up. So it's really just tailoring it for the first couple of years, seeing how the clients respond to it, seeing how the herd responds to it. And then we adjust year three, year four, year five, and there on after.

Hunter, do you have anything to add to that?

Hunter Scott (17:31.401)

No, I think you nailed that on the head pretty well. mean, it's PAPA. mean, I'm a Midwest whitetail hunter. So the way that you would kind of make that determination in Iowa compared to Pennsylvania, it has its own, I guess, unique ways of how you would handle something like that. Out there, you run into 150s and that's your typical 120 here. It's just, it's the way that it is. And I mean, that's just the way that it's set up. But here, I think there's different expectations than

than what there would be out Midwest. So it's just being realistic with it.

Tyler Hanna (18:04.206)

And that's one thing we try to push at the start of a consult is what are your goals and what are your expectations? We get with the clients, we meet with them over a phone call. What are you looking for here? We can kind of already get an idea of what they're wanting from the start before we even set foot on the property, just so we know what they're expecting and what we need to relay to them as a true and honest answer of what they can expect throughout the consult and the visit and then years to come.

Mitchell Shirk (18:29.857)

Certainly, Well, I think whitetail hunting.

was trying to think of what I was going to ask you. just lost my train of thought. So we'll shift gears off and ask another question. So I have noticed, and I had to learn a very, very hard lesson when it came to hunting a piece of private land. I learned that, and the way I've described it is I can't out habitat hunt, meaning you can't overlook.

Your access you can't overlook which way you're blowing the wind while you're approaching a stand while you're on stand while you're leaving stand that sort of thing Learned a couple hard lessons of what I would consider not Nocturnal deer and it was really just the way I was hunting it was forcing those deer off of that property So when you step foot onto a property, how does the way people hunt it currently

How does that work into your plans when you view a property? I'm having a hard time asking that question, but talk about hunting strategy and helping people maybe change the way they've done something because it became habit on that property.

Hunter Scott (19:43.365)

.

Tyler Hanna (19:45.134)

You know, and that kind of goes back to what I said, first thing we're going to do is e-scout it. And then we're going to put boots on the ground. We're going to locate bedding and then we'll locate food and we can know, okay, here's bed, here's transition, here's food, here's how we access this. Then we're going to look at how many ways can you access a property? Some people have either a fortune where they can access five, six, seven different ways into a property. Some might have one way in and that's it. So that's all going to be depending on how many ways they can access. And then.

you might sometimes not that we're rude by any means, but sometimes you have to kind of just tell the truth of, you've been doing this wrong for so many years and this is really what you should be doing. You should be, you you should only be hunting this set on a West wind or this set on a North wind and you should be accessing from the South from here and just giving them a little more of advice on how to, like you said, specifically hunt these stands and areas to generate the most success they can have.

Especially in PA, I think that's something that's coming around more. you know, still, 90 % of the people that I'm friends with, that I talk to hunting with, they ignore wind direction, they ignore access routes. They just, they go in, they might not even decent, or they just don't care. They just, they're still that old mindset. And sometimes you gotta try to break that mold and show them that, this does work, it is proven, this is why we do it this way. Just give us a chance.

Trust me, we'll put deer in front of with these habits that we use ourselves.

Mitchell Shirk (21:16.647)

Absolutely. think, I think everything you just touched on sometimes without improving the habitat, without improving it, food plots and tree cutting and canopy reduce and invasive removal, all that stuff. I think that alone can fix a lot of problems on our properties. Then it just becomes, okay, how do you take it to the next level? So you were talking about age class of bucks earlier and you were talking about passing deer and stuff. So.

One of the things I struggle with is

I don't know how to word this setting an expectation. Like let's just say, let's lay this out. Let's just say I've got two and a half year old deer fairly commonly on my property. And I might have four buck that I believe are three and a half years old that frequent the property at some point in time. And maybe once every three years, I've got a four year old that comes onto my property. The question I always ask in a situation like that is what's it going to take?

to see those deer live, is there something I can do on my small property to get them to the next age class besides my trigger control? Because there's a lot of factors that are gonna keep those deer alive. you know, I don't know what the average property size is in Pennsylvania. I mean, we've seen anything from five acres to hundreds of acres. I'm sure you're gonna see all kinds of things under the sun. just with that in mind, how do you think like,

Hunter Scott (22:33.817)

.

Mitchell Shirk (22:49.601)

From your experience, is there a way of maybe getting dear to the next age class on smaller properties and like, just what are your thoughts on

Tyler Hanna (22:57.664)

It is possible. A lot of it's gonna depend on your neighbors. I'd say the typical parcel size we see or get consulted on is somewhere between 50 to 100 acres. Obviously there's much bigger parcels out there, but the common size we see is about 50 to 100 acres. And it's tough because my private lease that I have is 430 acres and those deer are everywhere, all over the neighbor's property. They don't even stay on the 430 acre piece. So realistic expectations is,

We can't keep those deer here all the time, but we can do what we can to keep them here. Maybe it's in daylight hours. Maybe it's majority of the time by establishing bedding areas, doing TSI work, putting in food plots. So they don't have to travel outside the property very far to get what they need. Most of the time, if you can get a deer to three to four and a half, you know, there's three and a half year olds, they're still kind of stupid. They still wander. They get crazy. They go chase some does. If you can get a deer to four and a half, you can

Hunter Scott (23:40.974)

you

Tyler Hanna (23:57.966)

pretty much get him to stay within, I'd say the property boundaries are a little bit close to it. It seems as they age, their home range really starts to shrink is what I've noticed. So again, that's where the bedding, the TSI creating that native browser, natural browse, putting in food plots, just make him comfortable. And then also that goes back to hunting the property correctly because the least amount of pressure you can put on those deer, the better. If they experience any amount of pressure, they're gone.

Hunter Scott (24:23.539)

Better.

Tyler Hanna (24:27.15)

I've noticed with a lot of mature bucks, even if there's a lot of dough pressure, they don't like to be around other deer, they're just kind of solo. They like to do their own thing. So if you can keep the pressure low, establish the property with everything they need, the bedding, the food, water holes are huge because they need water obviously that we've already kind of touched on. Just give them everything they need, keep the pressure low and that's all you can really hope for and do for it keep them on the property.

Mitchell Shirk (24:52.29)

Talk a little bit about implementation of some of the Habitat projects. Maybe you've got Habitat projects you worked on in the past year or two and some properties you've hunted. Talk about building that foundation as some of those properties and maybe where you see an opportunity to fit yourself in with properties as a consultant and take it on to the next level.

Hunter Scott (25:14.229)

Yeah, so I think a great example that I have is we've had what one two three established food plots on a property that we hunt One of the issues that we were having is those deer coming and feeding in this food plate there for this food plots right at dark, right? So the opportunity for you to able to capitalize is kind of limited based off of that Something that we decided to do what two years ago with it was about 100 yards 100 125 yards away. We decided to put in a satellite plot

So with that being said, we planted a plot that had a mixture of clover and brassicas in that, and it carried into where those deer would begin to stage in that food plot. I mean, the highways or the corridors that you have between that satellite plot and that main food plot that they're feeding in there before dark, I mean, they're pretty established highways. But the deer, I mean, just through trail cameras and observation, they would stage in that food plot within the last hour of before dark.

and then with about a half hour, 15 minutes before dark, then they would transition over, which ultimately gave those who hunted that property with us a better opportunity for success. So that was something cool that we implemented within the last couple of years that we found success with.

Mitchell Shirk (26:29.197)

Gotcha, Tyler, do you have anything to add to that?

Tyler Hanna (26:31.554)

Yeah, I'm going to take it back to the water holes, you know, since I've seen how dynamic they can be after this past season. One thing I do with my water holes is I don't put them around my food plots and people might say, that's kind of crazy. But my theory behind it is those deer might come hit that water hole at 10 30 in the afternoon or 10 30 in the morning, two o'clock in the afternoon. You know, so if I put it next to the food plot, I'm basically giving them a one stop shop where

They come eat, go get a drink, then they're going off to the destination food source, whatever that may be. But I can target them over a water hole because typically I'm probably gonna catch them hitting that on the way to the food or coming back from the food. And it just kind of helps set up some same issue that Hunter was running into is I'm not catching them right at dark. Most of those mature bucks aren't moving until last light and things. I'm kind of getting a little bit of a head start on them, catching them coming to the food plot maybe, but I'm a couple hundred yards inside the woods over the water hole.

So that's what happened this year for me and that buck, it was two 30. He came to the water hole, got a drink and, you know, came right by 20 yards. So I think any little thing you can do, and it could just be a little water hole out of a plastic tote, a metal trough from Tractor Supply. I any little thing that just gives them something to come get a drink real quick on their way to their next stop.

Mitchell Shirk (27:53.068)

Yeah, that's a fantastic suggestion and I have to agree with that 100%. You know, I think putting a food plot and a water hole and all this attraction in one central location, it is minimizing the opportunity for diversifying your stand locations and spreading out movement on your property. You know, I think about a property, I would love it to have as much of that to the deer as possible.

Tyler Hanna (28:10.414)

something.

Mitchell Shirk (28:18.325)

And then have as many different wind opportunities to hunt as possible. And you know, the way we hunt, know, Hunter, you shot your buck this year on a food plot, man, the first 10 days of season of archery season, man, that is a fantastic time for an evening capitalization sit on a, on a, on a good buck. mean, it's, they're not expecting it's coming, watch the wind and sometimes the stars can align and that is a fantastic opportunity. But man, if you don't have that,

Hunter Scott (28:35.17)

Absolutely.

Mitchell Shirk (28:47.764)

have that success, like you just said in those first 10 days, then, you know, moving on to October, November, December, how are those deer going to move and what's the behavior of a deer? And I think taking that knowledge that you guys have and putting that into a property is going to be huge. It's going to be huge. Talk a little bit about some of the equipment and implementation that you've had on some properties and.

talk a little bit about what you think that's going to look like moving forward in your consoles.

Tyler Hanna (29:20.45)

You want to take a hundred, you want me to take one?

Hunter Scott (29:21.766)

Yeah, I can. So, some common equipment that we've used in years past, it's been a mess just because we don't, we've never really invested to have the right equipment in years past. And now we're finally getting to the point where it's time to invest

get the right equipment to be able to install food plots more efficiently. Going back to like five years ago when my father and I started this and it's just like I said, it's been just trial and error over time where you learn and you kind of just carry it over. It started where we had a side by side, well no, it was a quad. had a four wheeler and literally we had like bed springs that you drag around just to try to tear up the dirt enough.

to be able to have that seed to soil contact to make a clover plot. The property that I hunt, it got stripped mine for coal in the 60s. So you have about a quarter inch of dirt to be able to work with before you hit straight shale. So that kind of makes food plots more complex on that property. kind of what we have found to be most successful is clover. And that's kind of what we established there. But just over time, just from going from a quad to where

Three or four years ago, we upgraded to a side-by-side and that enabled us to kind of use hairs and other sorts of equipment. We have now a sprayer that goes on the back of that side-by-side and it enabled us to finally be able to spray and control weeds better, whether it's with 2, 4-DB cleft, glide, whatever it is. And then something else that we really got into within the last two years spraying-wise is liquid fertilizer. That's been an absolute game changer for us here.

over the last two years. But just upgrading to a side-by-side has really helped us. We have a subcompact new haul and it's a 24-horse tractor. It has its limitations because of the weight of equipment that you put on the back of it. We've had great success using a single plow. We'll use a single plow to be able to plant like sorghum, for example, where you're kind of doing those screens on your plots. Single plow is perfect for that. We're upgrading tractors this year to where we'll be able to handle discs, a double plow to kind of

Hunter Scott (31:29.824)

be able to cover more larger areas for doing these plot installs. Something that we jumped into last year that I highly recommend is using a cul-de-pac. Man, just the way that the seed has came up and the improvements that we've had just within the first two or three weeks of planning through germination and starting up, a cul-de-pac is such a game changer and I'd highly recommend that too. The cul-de-pac we had, we ironic, I remember texting Tyler pictures of it when we found it.

It's it's large. It's an eight foot call to packer. That's actually one of the double rolls and It's not like you're going to be able to take that from property to property to be able to use so I'm I grew up on 15 acres with my parents That's that's where that call to packer is for the two and a half acres that we do there Something that I'm personally looking into this year I'm not sure Mitch if you've heard of the company called packer max. Have you heard of packer max? So that I'm looking into getting I want a six foot call to packer

Mitchell Shirk (32:22.549)

Absolutely.

Hunter Scott (32:27.907)

Packer Max, Calder Packer. It's going to be so much easier to able to move around the transport. You can fill them with water or sand. So that's kind of the direction that we're going. That way we can be more mobile with Calder packing. But that is such a huge part of food plotting that we missed before where, my gosh, that can really help you set yourself up for success.

Tyler Hanna (32:48.782)

Yeah. So like Hunter said, I mean, all great equipment, you know, not, usually use the same on my personal properties and any client properties we can get them to. But, I'll use an example. I had a client property this past season in the summer where we couldn't get equipment to it. So we did a straight poor man's plot. took a backpack sprayer in with a weed eater and it was probably a little over an eighth of an acre. and the client had 27 acres.

22 acres, then he had about another 70 acres leased around him. So he had almost a hundred acres. And we went in and we actually did a poor man's plot. We needed down all the vegetation, just basically moved and cut up whatever down trees or anything were in the way. We found the most open canopy we could find. This client had it timbered about 12 years ago. So there was a couple of decent spots we saw on maps that looked like there were some decent openings.

went in and we did nothing more than we need it, spray it, killed it, went back, broadcasted seed into clover in the summer. And it came up great. We went back just before season and started layering it with cereal rye. And the client actually told me that was probably one of the best seasons they ever had. They were seeing, you know, five, six, seven bucks in an evening, hunting there, multiple bucks every sit. He was so pleased with how things...

played out for the season just from implementing one small food plot in his property. And it was just a straight poor man's plot with no tools, nothing special.

Mitchell Shirk (34:23.408)

That's a great point. So talk about food plots. You know, we could talk about food. That could be a podcast for, for years on end, because there's so much about the intricacies of implementation and plant species and fertility and timing and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's, mean, it's one of those things that I'm highly fascinated with and I love, but it's, it's a percentage of a property, right? It's, and there's a lot of different numbers that that can come. I've heard people say it should be.

Hunter Scott (34:29.417)

.

Yeah.

Mitchell Shirk (34:51.534)

10 % of your property or 20 % of your property and some properties, if you can get 5%, you're, you're really lucky just because of the way that property lays out and stuff. So talk a little bit about implementation outside of that flu food plot world on properties you've had and, uh, and what you think some of the most important tools of the trade are in taking a property from good to great.

Hunter Scott (35:04.46)

.

Tyler Hanna (35:14.734)

I think one important thing you gotta look at first is deer density when it comes to these implementations of the food plot is you gotta see how many deer, I mean, if you're getting 30, 40 deer and a half acre food plot in an evening, you might as well forget about planting anything besides clover. So really deer density plays a lot into it to start with if it's a property that's completely blank slate that's never had food plots before.

Hunter Scott (35:32.199)

Okay.

Tyler Hanna (35:42.414)

Can you put a half acre brassica plot in? It's going to sustain how many deer are there. So, in a hundred he can follow up on this, but I think running a trail cam for trail cameras for a certain amount of weeks to find your deer density. And that's really going to tell you what type of plots you can have that can handle that amount of deer and throughout the season and summer and late season.

Hunter Scott (36:05.5)

Yeah, I think that's important. I think it goes back to, you know, Tyler saying that he's a stickler with topography, right? Figuring out where those bedding areas are, where your pinch points are, where you have water. I'm a huge proponent for Hunting Creek Bottoms, so I try to stick close to the water. But those are all things to take into consideration. Some other things to think about is the openness of your property, right?

If your property is just so thick, it's going to be a job to put a food plot in on something that's so thick. Plus, you might be eliminating potential bedding. So I think that like what we said, when we go out on the consult, one of the first things that we're going to look at, we're going to walk that property and get a feel for the land before we come up with any recommendations. whether it's 50, 100 acres, it thoroughly needs to be gone through before you can make that determination.

Tyler Hanna (36:53.806)

And sometimes the food plot's not always the answer. If you got a property that's got 20 acres of tillable ground, I'm gonna suggest, hey, is there a local farmer that you can lease it to to row crop it? Can you put beans in? Can you put corn in a destination food source? And then someone's gonna pay you to do that. Why not make a little money off your property plus also increase the success that you have hunting with row crops? mean, really, row crops are still the go-to. mean, to put a bean field in or a corn field in, that's gonna be...

just as good if not better than some of these food plots that you're gonna implement. And it's gonna basically pay you for someone else to do it.

Mitchell Shirk (37:32.16)

Right. And, there's, there's definitely some truth to that. There's also the flip side to that too. There's a lot of properties I've been to over the years that there's so much emphasis on agriculture and I have developed the opinion over time and I've kind of said this with, working on farms and working in agriculture now, the efficiency of our equipment in the world of agriculture today is so much better than it was 20 years ago.

than it was 30 years ago, 40 years ago and all that stuff. It is feast and then it is famine. will, what happens a lot of time. You know, we might have a smorgasbord of summer annual crops like corn and soybeans, maybe grain sorghum. When that matures and ripens in September, that's going to be a food source. You know, hay fields, you know, a mixed hay field that might have alfalfa. Maybe it's got, you know, different grasses that small games and things like that are going to.

Hunter Scott (38:08.875)

.

Mitchell Shirk (38:29.281)

to be attracted to, you know, that's all well and good, but there's a couple issues with as once that harvester comes through that field, it becomes famine. And you know, this was a perfect year example, the dry weather that we had in the fall. I saw a lot of corn and beans that were getting taken off early October, mid October. And if that's something you're relying on on a property, man, you could be missing the mark. Another thing to consider is hay fields. And a lot of people think that having hay is great. Now, Falfa is great for deer and stuff.

What about turkeys? Do you like turkey hunting? One of the biggest things, issues that we have with hay fields is hay gets cut in early May. And one of the best places for a turkey to nest is in a hay field, in an alfalfa field. And those, those big despines come through and can take nests. They can kill hens. They can do a lot of things. So while agriculture might have some benefit to it, looking at your property and understanding where

you lack the most in your general area as far as food and cover. Sometimes biting the bullet and saying, yeah, I might be paying my taxes and maybe even making a little bit of revenue on agriculture being done on my farm and paying for that stuff. Maybe I actually need to take fields out of agriculture and maybe convert back to wildlife because I need better food, better cover, better browse.

things like that and I think that's something that can easily get missed by a lot of places. mean, you guys have any thoughts on that or other ideas that spring off of that?

Tyler Hanna (39:57.23)

Yeah, it's a lot. That's just depending on, like you said, like what the property has already. Um, you know, up here, food plots becoming more more frequent, more and more common, but agriculture around the areas is becoming a lot, a lot less common. Um, you know, most of the places around here, most places we consult, there might not be a bean field or a cornfield within 20, 30 miles. Um, something that can sustain, you know, some, some browse pressure from the deer and turkeys and things. Um, but again,

Mitchell Shirk (40:19.405)

Mm.

Tyler Hanna (40:27.296)

It's all depending on the client's property, what it could set up for. What I like about having destination food sources like an ag field is then we can implement some kill plots before them because then like Hunter said, what they did with that staging plot, that is a huge, huge opportunity to put in some staging plots and these deer are going to hit in the daylight hours on their way to the destination food source. So it can play a big factor into success of the hunt for you.

Mitchell Shirk (40:38.029)

Mm.

Hunter Scott (40:55.284)

You know, one thing that hasn't been touched on that I personally think is overlooked, we talk about ag, we talk about food plots. What about crab apples, acorns? I mean, I don't know, me personally, just from my observations last fall, acorns were ridiculous last fall. And in areas where I had crab apple trees, they were phenomenal too. Man, the deer were hammering them. But those are two other things that I feel like crab apples get overlooked more than...

than oaks with acorns, but crab apples are awesome, man. If you can find an area where you have multiple crab apple trees, you're set as long as they're on. But I do think that those are some other things to get overlooked. Everybody has this mindset of ag and food plots. We got to clear land to put a food plot in. What about what you have? Have you taken inventory of what you have? Being realistic with what you have. If there's a way that you can hunt crabs or acorns, you can't beat it.

Mitchell Shirk (41:53.25)

Well, and to kind of piggyback off of what you just said there, Hunter, you know, there's ways that you can improve acorn production. There's ways that you can improve mass crop production. There's a lot of other habitat things that we're, we're not even discussing outside of food plots. Talk a little bit about some of that. you guys have worked on the property. What are some of the other tools of the trade and implementation things that, know, you you see outside of the food plot world that you're implementing on properties and really.

sets that apart from one property to the next.

Tyler Hanna (42:26.274)

Hunter, you want to take it or want to take it? I can take it.

Hunter Scott (42:26.91)

Yeah, I can jump in. So within the last couple of years, something that I'm learning to do and we're getting better with is hinge cutting. I think hinge cutting is an awesome way to create bedding. Just from hinge cutting there, now is about the time of the year to start doing it. But over time, since we've hinge cutted those areas, just from scouting, we've bounced deer out those areas and man does it feel good to know that the deer are actually utilizing those areas for bedding.

Something that my father and I both tried getting into that there's still some opportunity for improvement is grafting trees. That's something that I think would be awesome if you could get it to take off where I know a lot of people have had success with. We've had a couple take but our success rate isn't high enough for that to be something that would offer.

Tyler Hanna (43:16.504)

I'll kind of piggyback off of 100 set with the TSI and the hinge coming. It creates a lot of regen, a lot of native browse. It creates a lot of food for these deer throughout a year that they can depend on when you do that type of a habitat work to the property. And again, that doesn't really cost anything except a little bit of hard work and sweat equity with a chainsaw to go in there and improve a property like that. it's, you can kind of double up on the food and creating new bedding or more bedding to hold more deer. So it's a great option to try.

Mitchell Shirk (43:44.557)

Yeah, absolutely.

Hunter Scott (43:44.763)

So I'll say something else and I'll jump in here. And it kind of, this sounds basics 101, but something else that we've done that we've found success with. In and around where those crabapple trees are, you got young crabapple trees that aren't really established yet that are trying to grow. they're being, and you have that overgrowth of whether it's an ash tree or a different type of tree. Wool hinge, cut that down or cut that down completely.

to enable the sunlight and to be able to be absorbed ultimately and to try to help the growth of crabapple trees just because they're so beneficial.

Tyler Hanna (44:19.84)

One thing I do recommend too is if you have a property and you're wanting to do some TSI, some hinge cutting, just some improvements, it doesn't hurt to pay a forester if you got the money to come in and tell you what you have tree wise too. Last thing you want to do is go in there and hinge cut a nice oak tree or a black walnut tree and you're losing out on a couple thousand dollars. So it's also nice to know what you have to work with too. If you don't know your tree species, you know what you're looking at, it pays to just have an expert come in and walk that property with you and let you know what you have timber wise on that property.

Mitchell Shirk (44:50.174)

Absolutely. Well, boys, we could probably snowball so many different conversations. And I think what I'd rather do is let's go throughout the year and let's try to come up with some other ideas that we can talk about as far as implementation throughout the season and talk a little bit about what you guys have to offer and maybe some successful stories you've had over time. So, you know, before we go, just give us a quick shout out. know, what's the name of the company? What is what's going to be the way people can

get a hold of you, you know, get on schedule for consults in 2025, that sort of thing.

Tyler Hanna (45:26.446)

Hunter, I'll let you take it since you've run the social media side of everything and have a look at the contact info.

Hunter Scott (45:28.921)

Yes, no problem. right now we currently have Instagram and Facebook at New Era Habitat Services. My name is Hunter Scott. We have Tyler Han here like we talked about. We would be the two people you would contact. Our phone numbers are connected directly through Facebook and Instagram. You can also catch us this spring at the Laurel High School Sportsman's Night. That would be February 28th. It's a Friday night.

Tyler Hanna (45:32.558)

I

Hunter Scott (45:56.343)

And we will also be at the Central Pennsylvania Outdoors Show, March 14th to the 16th.

Tyler Hanna (46:02.358)

And pretty simple, we're pretty flexible. Send us a message on social media, send us a text message, give us a call, anyway, email, we'll respond to you as soon as we can and get all the questions answered, get you on the schedule for a consult.

Mitchell Shirk (46:18.401)

Good deal. Anything we should, we should close this out on before, before we head on to, to, bigger and better things here this week.

Hunter Scott (46:26.711)

Yeah, I mean, I think the big thing when it comes to new air habitat services is ultimately where we're at and why we came up with this is because we've learned from the failures that we've had and we want to help people with their properties and show how our successes can turn into their successes. I think that's big for us. We look forward to the challenge. I think it's going to be an interesting 2025 year and I know Tyler and I are both very excited.

Tyler Hanna (46:54.958)

very much so we just enjoy helping people. We take as much pride as when we see a client harvest a deer they've wanted to shoot or just a deer in general over their property that we helped with as us harvesting the deer ourselves. It goes a long way and it's very satisfying when we see that work come full circle.

Mitchell Shirk (47:10.797)

Absolutely. Gentlemen, thank you for joining us on this week's show. look forward to the next one. Thank you.

Tyler Hanna (47:18.318)

Thank you. it. Have a good night, guys.

Hunter Scott (47:18.775)

Appreciate it.

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