How To Hunt Small Properties #3

In this final episode of the series on hunting small properties, Dan Johnson and Jason Thibodeau discuss strategies for success, recap previous episodes, and emphasize the importance of timing, patience, and building relationships with landowners. They share personal experiences and practical tips for effectively hunting small and suburban properties, highlighting the need for careful planning and observation to maximize hunting success.

Takeaways:

• Identifying and accessing small properties is crucial for hunting success.
• Building relationships with landowners can open up new hunting opportunities.
• Patience is key when hunting small properties with limited access.
• Timing your hunts based on deer behavior can lead to better results.
• Practicing with your equipment is essential for confidence in the field.
• Keeping a journal of observations can help track deer patterns.
• Utilizing multiple stand sites can increase your chances of success.
• Understanding the pressure from neighboring properties is important.
• Breaking down larger properties into smaller sections can simplify hunting strategies.
• Always be proactive in seeking permission to hunt new areas.

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Dan Johnson (00:00.578)
All right, everybody. Welcome back to the third and final episode of this series, How to Hunt Small Properties. And we're going to get into it today in just a little bit, but we're also joined. My name is Dan Johnson, by the way, but we're joined by Jason Thibodeau out of Illinois. And he, he's the guy who brought this idea up to me. And so we're, running with it and he hunts, he hunts smaller properties than I do.

And so he's like, people need to know about this stuff and that's why we're doing it. But Jason, have you been out shed hunting at all yet?

Jason Thibodeau (00:36.422)
So last week we talked a little bit. had gone out and I found one. And then last week we got snow Wednesday, Thursday.

So I went with my kids, they got school off on Wednesday because it was going to be some major snowstorm, which never appeared. But we went out in our woods by the house here and obviously didn't see anything, didn't find anything. But I did a lot of like dissecting the property a little bit more, which we can get into. And then Thursday I went to another property we have.

about 15 minutes from here and I shed hunted that pretty decent. I put a couple, two, three miles in zigzagging through it and I didn't come up with any sheds. This was after the snowfall. I mean, maybe some of the little ones are underneath the snow, but yeah. So I've been out. How about you?

Dan Johnson (01:23.768)
Yeah. Nah, nope. Full blown kids, full blown sickness throughout the entire house. Like I told you before we started recording, my daughter has full blown pneumonia in one of her lungs and, and so she's not doing very well. She's on antibiotics now to get that cleared up. My wife is sick as a dog. My, like I'm, I got something. I'm not sure what it is. It's just.

I'm not feeling 100%. My boys have dodged the bullet so far, but at some point it's coming. I mean, we haven't had the quote unquote typical flu come through the house yet, like throwing up and diarrhea and stuff like that, but it's all been viruses and head cold. So my guess is right when we need to do something important, we're all gonna get sick.

Jason Thibodeau (02:16.571)
Right. Yeah. It's that's funny too. Because I mean, I think in a car drive, we're about three hours away from each other. And every week we talk about the same stuff. And I've had for the last week, another like sinus thing in out of the seven of us that are in and out of the houses. You know, it's amazing that one of us gets it. The other one other person gets it and then nobody else gets it for a while. And then somebody else will get it a week or two from now. And it just doesn't go away. It's crazy.

Dan Johnson (02:22.222)
Yep.

Dan Johnson (02:41.454)
Yeah, that doesn't that doesn't make sense of how germs and stuff and viruses spread it doesn't make sense to me that You know one person will be sick one week and then there a week will go by and then the next person is sick after that I don't understand why like I would assume we all spread it I mean we're we're a close family and what I mean by that is we hug and wrestle and and do all that stuff so we're on top of each other and

Jason Thibodeau (02:49.245)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Thibodeau (03:05.241)
Right. Yep. Right.

Dan Johnson (03:09.352)
I don't know, I don't get it. I'm not a doctor or a viral allergist or whatever the hell those people are called,

Jason Thibodeau (03:14.141)
No, I'm not either, you know, but I mean like her oldest daughter had something super bold Sunday And so Monday came around and I just deep cleaned the house. I disinfected it I sprayed I did all the things, you know this will get rid of this virus and so on and so forth and then lo and behold by Tuesday I had it and you know, everybody else can go without getting anything. It's just I don't think crazy It's been a bad winter as far as that goes

Dan Johnson (03:38.767)
Yeah, yeah, what'd they say? The flu, the flu is up 15 % or something like that this year. So it is what it is. just, you know, I'm that kind of guy who likes to bitch about everything. So I'm to that age. I'm 44. And so I used to not bitch about a lot, but now I bitch about everything. But I think that's because of my age.

Jason Thibodeau (03:45.873)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Thibodeau (03:58.942)
I can agree. I'm 44 as well and I think, you it's like you've lived probably half or so of your life. It's like, you know, it's got to get better at some point,

Dan Johnson (04:10.517)
No, it doesn't buddy. I'll tell you that right now. You just asked my shoulders, my knees, my vision shit. had a vertigo spell a while back. Dude, I couldn't even sit up. I couldn't even sit up one day. It blew my mind and I thought I was having a stroke and shit and so I had to go to the doctor. But getting old sucks. That's what we'll say.

Jason Thibodeau (04:22.232)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah, you did

Jason Thibodeau (04:28.209)
Yeah.

Jason Thibodeau (04:34.577)
Yeah.

Yeah. You know, I try to keep, you know, running and riding the bike and working out. So I've been adding each time I work out, you know, I try to add something else and I tried to do more of like stuff away from, like machine weights and stuff like that. So I use a lot of dumbbells and kettlebells and stuff. And then I just do, you know, pushups, pull ups, kind of stuff, sit ups. And man, I step on the scale and I just keep thinking they're going to start coming up with a diet plan for me because it's not the weights, not going away. And then I don't feel.

Dan Johnson (05:02.584)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Thibodeau (05:06.547)
like completely better you know I have a lot of stamina and stuff like that but man my gut is just the biggest it's been in a while

Dan Johnson (05:13.846)
Mm-hmm same dude same and mine is because of my limitations with my shoulder and my knee So this is my problem. I was on a really good exercise program for a while and I Then my knee and shoulder went out and I didn't change my diet Right, and so I kept eating large amounts and now I'm fat again. So

Jason Thibodeau (05:24.784)
it up.

Jason Thibodeau (05:31.322)
Yep. Yep.

Yeah, I think that's probably my biggest thing is I'm a food junkie. You know, my kids are always like, Dad, you're always making something different. You know, like, yeah, I love the taste for stuff, you know, and I think that's probably what it is. If I was more strict on my diet, I'd probably be OK.

Dan Johnson (05:52.227)
Yeah, well, good luck, right? You're fighting the inevitable. You're fighting the inevitable.

Jason Thibodeau (05:56.091)
Yeah.

Well, yeah, and you know how it is having kids. mean, there's always, you know, there's Easter, there's Halloween. my gosh, there's always you're always trick or treating or you're always going to parade. There's candy. Grandma's sending this, sending that.

Dan Johnson (06:03.947)
in the house. my god.

Dan Johnson (06:12.046)
Yep, that's a fact. Well enough about our dumb lives. Let's talk about hunting small properties. Finish this series out with a bang. the title of this last little portion you've wrote is Seeing Success, all right? So just as a really quick couple minute rundown of week one and week two, what did we cover in week one and week two? And how does that lead up into this final episode?

Jason Thibodeau (06:16.944)
Yep.

Jason Thibodeau (06:40.701)
week one was identifying possibilities and that was starting with just knocking on doors and getting permission and then having the permission and knowing what kind of permission you have within that and if it's going to be gun bow. And then we went into week two where it was accessing and pressure and accessing was once you obtain that property, how you were going to, where you're going to park and where are going to get to your stands and how it affects the deer on that property. And the pressure also was

the pressure from you, also the neighboring properties. How much pressure can that property hold? so once we kind of summed it all up, you know, I just thought we'd go into seeing success. And one of the things I've, you know, noticed with the small properties is it's hard to envision a fence line producing, you know, giant deer, but year in and year out, I see tons of people that have success with this. And it's the same. mean, you can relate this small properties to, you know, suburban or urban areas where guys are hunting behind house.

Dan Johnson (07:27.726)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Thibodeau (07:40.668)
and stuff. You can relate it to public land hunting where you have multiple people hunting small tracks or even big tracks and there's just a lot of pressure. So I mean this isn't just necessarily small tracks or fence lines. I just thought it'd be a good idea to open the door for people to, know, growing up and getting into this, you know, I wasn't raised in this so I had to knock on doors and learn that. The only way I'm going to get property is to step up to the plate myself. I had so many people over the years like,

just can't get permission. I just can't get permission, you know, and, I'd just simply ask him, well, who have you asked? Have you asked anybody? And, no, I just, you know, I, there's nothing out there. And there was always the same excuse, you know, and they always wondered why at the end of the day, they were never able to fill tags. So to me, it was just simply just being bold enough to walk up to somebody's house and start knocking on doors. And it led to a lot of small properties, which

Dan Johnson (08:36.418)
Mm-hmm.

Thank

Jason Thibodeau (08:40.593)
can be hard to figure out.

where you want to go and focus your time because it's not like a block of timber where you can, you know, sit alongside a road and watch, you know, herd a deer every night and kind of get a pattern or put a trail camera up. And I mean, a trail camera on some of these fence lines. mean, you're looking at maybe one picture every couple, two, three days, two weeks, maybe even some of them. So it can be frustrating. But I just thought it was something that, you know, it needed to be talked about. So.

Dan Johnson (08:44.366)
Yep.

Dan Johnson (09:10.336)
Yeah, absolutely. And the cool thing about what we've talked about in episode one and two is you can really use everything we've talked about even on public land. Right. It's all about me because there's small pieces of public land, too. There's small pieces of private. There's another thing that you can do is if even on big. Here's a problem that I had.

Jason Thibodeau (09:22.162)
Yes.

Dan Johnson (09:37.631)
When I first started hunting a couple of these properties that I think the total acreage is like 480 acres, okay? Now you're like that's not a small property and you're right. It's not but you can take these principles and dissect bigger properties and treat them as small properties and and then try to figure out what the deer are moving if you break it down because there are times where I used to get overwhelmed

Jason Thibodeau (10:02.845)
Hmm.

Dan Johnson (10:02.862)
with the amount of land that I did have and I know that sounds like a first world problem, right? Oh my God, this guy's complaining, but he's got access to 400 acres. Well.

I was overthinking everything and I was like, should I go here? Should I go here? Should I go here? And I was overthinking it, but until I started breaking it down into sections where I would go, okay, here's a 40 acre section. How would I approach it if I could only hunt this 40 or if I could only hunt this 40? And once I started doing that, I started seeing more success.

Jason Thibodeau (10:34.237)
you

Oh yeah, absolutely. mean, and to that point, you know, my biggest property is around that 435, 440. And that was the same thing I did a couple of weeks ago when I went out shed hunting is I figured, you know, I need to take the time and actually break this property up because this, property is about, I don't know, you could probably break it down into eight small properties within that. And it's going to hunt the same way. It's fingers, it's draws, it's creeks. It's a major creek system going through the middle. And lo and behold, you know, once you start breaking it down, you see a lot more. And I think you can hunt those big

properties even more efficient by using these tactics.

Dan Johnson (11:08.556)
Right, right. All right. So seeing success, all right, we've got we've we've founded this small property, whether it's public or private, we've done our scouting. We have we've talked, maybe talked to the surrounding neighbors. We figured out where the pressure is coming from. We figured out access routes. How do we translate all of that into success?

Jason Thibodeau (11:34.386)
Well, I think when you break that part down and once you know where you're going to be hunting and everything and you've, you've got your access figured out, you've got your where I'm parking my vehicle. I think you actually need to figure out where are my stand sites and then decide what kind of stand sites they are. You know, I, I mean, we get into this. Everybody wants to be mobile thing, but I don't think it hurts to have permanent stands. I don't think it hurts to have a ground blind here or there. And so I think that's one of the biggest things which translates to me.

me

being able to shoot your bow or gun out of those mobile setups. And I think with that multiple stand sights.

just being comfortable having those shooting windows, you know, like we, talked a couple of weeks ago about right now is the time to go out and potentially prep for these stand sites for this coming fall. And a lot of times like me, I'm laxadaisical with it and guilty to where I wait till September and I'm putting my stands up, you know, and you're dealing with poison ivy, you're dealing with all the things. But I think if you're doing it now, you can actually see what the whole picture looks like with no vegetation on it. And you can, you can trim, but don't

too much because I mean that's where you can fine tune it come closer to fall. So I think that's the biggest thing as far as the stands. And then basically I would transfer that into practice with your gun, practice with your bow. And that doesn't necessarily mean out of the stand, just get those repetitions in. know, so many times we get into the practice right before season and then we go hunting and we don't pick up our bow and then season's over and we don't pick up our bow until a buddy says, hey, you want to go shooting? then

Jason Thibodeau (13:41.449)
We'll go shoot for a day or two here or there, but it's not really the practice that you need. I think tying those two things together, seeing success really comes from practicing with your weapon out of your stand and just being efficient with it.

Dan Johnson (13:55.949)
Yeah. Yeah. And I'm going to elaborate a little bit on, this stand location thing, right? If you have limited access to a property, let's say I'm just saying on a small property, let's say you have a road that hits one of these properties, right? Or maybe just an easement.

that goes back into a square and you can only access it from a corner or one side, right? That limits a lot of things that you can do to be creative. And that's where things like, instead of walking all the way back there, maybe take a truck in there if it's an active farm, right? Figure out your access route or where these stand locations are and then reverse engineer your access routes. Because I'll be completely honest, man,

Jason Thibodeau (14:25.628)
Mm-hmm.

Dan Johnson (14:45.706)
On a small property, you have to be more patient. The less access routes you have or the less access directions you have, the more patient you have to be on how to hunt that property because it would be extremely detrimental for you to go in on the wrong wind or just maybe, hey, it's a morning hunt. I'm going to walk this field right in the middle of this field to get to this stand location. You're probably doing more harm than good. And so these are things that you would have to observe.

and things that you would have to identify before just saying, look, I got these three awesome stand locations on this 20 acres. You have to get to them first without bumping the deer. And that is the biggest hurdle on small properties.

Jason Thibodeau (15:25.105)
Right. Right.

I agree. And I think that's where, you have multiple properties and stuff, and once you're able to establish that relationship with the landowner and you know that you're going to be able to have permission the next year, the year after and so on and so forth, then you can actually dissect it down to or develop a plan as far as when you're going to hunt this one and when you're going to hunt that one. mean, for example, I got a property that, man, I've hunted over a dozen years now, and I know there's a two week window that the does come into estrus and they will

feed from one property to other. They will bed on one property. They will feed out into this field. And depending on crop rotation, I mean, this property in that two week window, I know exactly when to hunt, how to hunt it. And you can see success right in front of your eyes and you're not there the rest of the season. So, mean, depending on what you were looking for, whether it's harvesting a doe or harvesting a buck, either one of those is a great tactic for those two weeks. But that means that property does not get stepped foot on outside of, you know,

Dan Johnson (16:24.044)
Right.

Jason Thibodeau (16:28.783)
those two weeks during hunting season. But after hunting season, you can go in and you can check, OK, is there a little bit better angle I could have for next year? Is there another trail I'm missing? You know, but a lot of times if you don't have multiple properties, that's where this pressure comes in. And that's where you end up over hunting it or you end up trying to overthink it. And well, I'm going to walk here instead of here. And you end up becoming lazy.

Dan Johnson (16:52.172)
Right, right. And so I think a lot of this comes with with hunting, just hunting it. That's how I figured out a couple of properties. Now, I had a 90 acres that I used to hunt back in the day. And yes, 90 acres had a lot of access opportunity, but it was 90 percent CRP. OK, and then it had three fingers. It was longer than it was tall.

And so it ran east west with the draws, just the tips of the draws coming up to the road from different properties that would, you know, that made it north set like small, right? Just the tips coming up to the road and then they would cross the road to go to a field. But most of the time that was in the dark. Now, with all that said, was, it hunted small because I only, had really three options in three small draws to hunt.

and I needed specific winds. And so if there was anything out of the north, it was a no-go for me. If there was anything out of the east, it was a no-go for me. And so I was really only limited to south winds and maybe some west winds, southwest winds, but usually it was a southwest wind is what I needed to be successful. And there was a lot of times where I just had to be like, dude, I can't do it. Like I want to so bad, but I can't do it. And it took me

Jason Thibodeau (18:14.45)
Mm-hmm.

Dan Johnson (18:19.414)
Watching a deer get downwind of me and not just not seeing deer but actually seeing a deer get downwind of me Putting his nose up busting me and run away for me to go. Okay, I am literally wasting my time If I'm watching them do that here, what about 200 yards further down that I can't see and so it literally took me getting busted Hundreds probably of times throughout my life in order for me to go. Okay

Jason Thibodeau (18:38.716)
Great.

Dan Johnson (18:47.446)
I gotta open my eyes and know that what I'm doing is a ton of harm.

Jason Thibodeau (18:52.443)
Yeah. Yeah. And that's the other thing too, that you can have so many properties that it actually becomes a hindrance also because

You'll find that during the rut, that's going to be the hot time to be in there. know, does are going to be in there. Bucks are going to be in there. And on these small properties, you might have trail camera pictures of this one over here and this one over here. And then you start second guessing which property you're going to hunt. And that's, that's a hindrance as well. So what I try to do is, know, if you can, if you can run trail cameras, if you can do what you said, you know, you go in there and you hunt, hunt, hunt, hunt, hunt, and you learn to figure this property out. You know, you learn to figure out is it more

spot, an evening spot, but then you got to start envisioning everything and then that comes down to envisioning your shot.

Dan Johnson (19:38.489)
Yes. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. mean, and that doesn't care. don't care what property, what size property you're on or public or private, all that that has to be done anyway. Right. So envision every shot, the confidence, you know, confidence. And this is where the confidence is absolutely key on small tracks or fence line properties.

Jason Thibodeau (19:50.065)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (20:02.498)
And you have to believe that what you're doing is right because if you're sitting there second guessing yourself, it's not a fun experience.

Jason Thibodeau (20:08.893)
No.

No, and I've sat those properties where it was a fence line because I got permission and people, know, farmer told me or neighbor told me, hey, there's deer that come through here. And I've sat these properties multiple times and didn't see the sign. I didn't see the deer. And then, you know, you give up on them. So as soon as you start to lose that confidence, that property is probably not going to produce for you. So if you go in with a different mindset and maybe spend a little bit more time on it, you'd be surprised what some of these people have been able to do over the years of just hunting a fence line.

Dan Johnson (20:25.624)
Yeah.

Jason Thibodeau (20:39.485)
And key to that is obviously location.

Dan Johnson (20:39.639)
Yep, absolutely.

Dan Johnson (20:43.692)
Right, right. Well, I'll tell you this right now. I have a guy, I know a guy who owns, I believe it's 20 acres and he bought it a long time ago and it is pretty much just a CRP field with about four or five mature trees on it that he can hang. There's not a ton of cover, but it is, it's next.

to an absolute killer farm, ton of cover, and he rattles across the fence.

every year or he has a little food plot on the north end that he finally started planting and it pulls deer through every year. So basically the people across the fence are doing 90 % of the work, 99 % of the work. He just has to be in the tree at the right time and during the rut and he just maybe sometimes he even blind rattles and they come across the fence to investigate and it's a big giant buck. He just happens to catch them at the right time.

And so he's playing the game, he's playing chess on his side and it pisses, it pisses the people off every year that jump, like they've tried to complain like, dude, you're hunting too close to the fence. You're, doing this. You're like, and they, has a different goal than what they have. Like these guys are trying to get deer to five and six years old. He's very happy with a four year old.

And so he gets the job done on his 20 acres all year. And that's more of where he, where this 20 acres is located as opposed to, you know, you know, in an urban setting or in like a whole bunch of 20, 20 acre suburban, you know, or maybe right outside of a big city where you have these hobby farms or whatever. But this guy, this guy has found out how to hunt this property. He stays out of it until it's game time.

Dan Johnson (22:41.054)
and then he attacks and he doesn't haunt very much but when he haunts it's the right time and I think that's the key to small properties timing

Jason Thibodeau (22:49.946)
absolutely. And I think I...

Yeah, I think timing is definitely the key to it, you know, and I'm not going to go back too far with this, but when you establish that relationship with these landowners or neighboring properties and everything, I mean, that's key to it, too, because I mean, it's funny, I got permission on these fence lines from a farmer. actually is this farmer's dad. And I'd hunted these properties for quite a while. And then lo and behold, this gentleman had a piece of property that it was a field.

that was tied into some timber and he wanted to sell the timber portion of it. And so I had been doing work for him and everything and we established a pretty good friendship and he wanted to sell it. he sold off the, it ended up being about 11 acre piece. He sold it to my brothers and I. And you know, through the years we've developed that property into something pretty, pretty special. And along that process of it, we've developed good relationships with the neighboring properties as well.

Obviously the farmer we bought from, owns a field out in front of it, but then there's a neighbor to the west of us and there's a neighbor to the south of us. And we're all on kind of the same game plan, you know, and one guy's got basically bedding. One guy's got a little bit more bedding, but he's, you know, developing his woods into, like he's doing some forestry management and then he's also putting in some smaller food plots. And then basically ours, it's like on the front side of everything coming out into this, you know, open field, picked field and everything. So we get to put food plots in, we get to mess around with.

that little bit and not to make this story too long, but you know, this year we'll finally have this property paid off. So, you know, as a as an outdoors person, don't ever think that those possibilities can't happen. And this all happened just because I developed a good relationship with a landowner hunting previous fence lines and stuff. So I just thought I'd throw that in there for guys that, you know, I understand land is expensive and everything. I understand interest rates are high. I understand all that. Trust me, I get it. You know, it's

Dan Johnson (24:41.782)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Thibodeau (24:51.543)
But don't ever rule out the fact that maybe it could happen. There are ways that some of these things can happen. If you really have the desire to do it, you can make it work.

Dan Johnson (24:58.588)
Thank you.

Dan Johnson (25:02.444)
Yeah. And that's the thing. Like that's where I get frustrated. And I know this is off topic, but I, want to own land right now, but I, I, every time I check properties prices, especially in the area that I live Eastern Iowa around two major cities, it's stupid. It's stupid, expensive. And then I go down a South where I'd be willing to let's say drive an hour. Right.

recreation ground is ridiculously priced right now. some people may go, well, just follow your dreams. If you want it bad enough, you can do it. But every time I try to save the money, I go and I'm like, OK, well, that down payment needs to be bigger now. Well, now it needs to be bigger again, which, you know, that's great for if you're an investor. You know, the price of land is just going to continue to go up and things like that. But for for for the guys.

Jason Thibodeau (25:47.254)
Mm-hmm.

Dan Johnson (25:58.455)
Guys like me where all of a sudden deer hunting started playing a huge role in the cost of land, especially in Iowa. It just it's very I'm struggling with trying to get a piece of property because I have to I have to decide what am I going to use this money for? Am I going to try to buy a property or do I need to go? It doesn't need to go to other things in my life. And and we all know how crazy expensive things are right now.

Jason Thibodeau (26:05.405)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Thibodeau (26:20.731)
Right.

Jason Thibodeau (26:24.941)
you have kids. mean, that's a that's a huge expense as far as that goes with all this activities and stuff. You know, and I matter of fact, just this weekend, I was looking at some properties and stuff. I saw there was one for sale potentially by us. And, you know, it's a 12 acre piece that probably is about 90 to 10000 dollars more than what it would have been about 10 years ago. And it's crazy because I'm not going to touch that again. Me investing in land right now is literally I'm going to have to start playing some scratch offs or something.

Dan Johnson (26:56.386)
That's what I'm thinking. just bought a couple. I was at the gas station the other day getting some gas and I walked inside to use the bathroom and I look at the power ball and I was like, well, I might as well buy one of those just in case, And just for fun. And if I hit, man, I'll buy a big farm. But until then, I just keep saving my pennies, I guess.

Jason Thibodeau (26:57.565)
it

Jason Thibodeau (27:12.061)
Yeah, just for fun.

Jason Thibodeau (27:22.577)
Yeah. You know, and I think that even with that said, I think too, the days of renting some small properties and stuff are even out of price ranges for people as well. And I think the days of doing a rent to own contract with a landowner, think some of those days are even over. And it's sad as far as that goes. you know, maybe I've gotten fortunate and caught a few breaks here and there, but I just, know, if you really have the desire, I think somewhere, somehow you can make it.

Dan Johnson (27:42.99)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Thibodeau (27:52.464)
it's not easy, it's not cheap, that's for sure. You definitely have to try to afford for it somehow, whether it's an extra job or something, because I don't know. It's been a work in progress, needless to say, can say it's gonna be, ours is gonna be paid off this year and it's gonna be great, you know, so.

Dan Johnson (28:01.868)
Right.

Dan Johnson (28:10.124)
Yeah, yeah, and that just opens up more opportunity for maybe you to buy another piece of property, Maybe.

Jason Thibodeau (28:16.623)
Yeah, maybe. don't know. Either way, I just thought I'd it in there that, you know, developing that relationship with the landowner could lead to other potential possibilities.

Dan Johnson (28:21.218)
Yep.

Dan Johnson (28:26.868)
Absolutely, Okay, man, I, I don't know. I feel like we've covered a ton of great information for this small property. Let's do a quick rundown. All right. So find the property, find ways to access it, hunt it, and then observe. So, you know, what are the best wind directions where scout it, right? Where are these deer coming from? What's the pattern? What's the,

Behavior on some of these deer are they spooky? Can you drive a truck in there and they're not gonna go anywhere? I've hunted farms where you pop your head out of the truck and the deer run away to you pop your head out of a Truck and they don't even move they just sit right there and then hunting it was Was fairly easy in the right times of year So you scout it you find what wind direction you find the access routes you talk with your neighbors

You practice, you observe, you see maybe, can you plan a food plot? Stay in communication with the neighbors and the landowners and just basically cultivate that relationship and then get out there and kill something, man.

Jason Thibodeau (29:43.036)
Yeah, and I-

To all that point, I really think that when you develop these relationships and stuff like that, and once you start to break these properties down, don't be afraid to carry around a notebook, take jot notes down. And if you bump into a neighbor or something, jot his phone number down. mean, there's a lot of key things that will make this property even more successful if you have that stuff, because there's so many times that somebody will give me their phone number and I don't put it in my phone or, you know, they text it to you and you delete the text for some reason or whatever. There's there's a lot of things that you take away if you just

be better with your management as far as keeping a journal or keeping a notebook or if you can run trail cameras, know, keeping the trail camera pictures that are meaningful. And when I say meaningful, I don't mean just the big buck pictures, because when you want to dissect a small property, you will be able to tell when that property is going to be its best is when the does are really active in and around scrapes and when they're most, you know, if running through there from bed to food, there's a lot of notes that you could take

Dan Johnson (30:19.107)
Right.

Dan Johnson (30:28.802)
Right.

Dan Johnson (30:37.379)
Yep.

Jason Thibodeau (30:43.679)
that will help you.

Dan Johnson (30:45.62)
Absolutely. And I think this closes the series, man. think this was a nice short and sweet series where if

you know, if you were listening closely, you could probably take away some of this. Some of this might be a refresher for you guys. If you know people who are struggling with the hunting a small property, send this link to them or whatever. And Jason, this was a great idea, especially this time of year when people should be plotting and scheming already for the next season. So thanks for listening, everybody. Any final thoughts?

Jason Thibodeau (31:20.421)
Not really, just like I said, if you want success, you're going to have to go out, knock on some doors, and you're to have to practice with your equipment.

Dan Johnson (31:29.327)
Absolutely. And that's how we're going to end it. Thank you, everybody. And stay tuned for an episode next week as well. Thank you.

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