Show Notes
In this episode, Jon Teater (Whitetail Landscapes) and Perry Battin (Drury Outdoors) discuss considerations and best ways to set up a hunting property. Perry discusses the drought that he has been experiencing on the Drury Farms and the approaches they are using to grow productive food plots. Perry explains the primary elements, and what many miss out when they purchase a property.
Perry explains the methods on how he evaluates each element of the farms he works and hunts on and dials in his equation from putting in food plots to specific hunting locations. Jon discusses herd size and the importance of managing deer and calculating deer numbers. Perry discusses the steps to take when laying out a property and the options of having various food sources.
Jon discusses the importance of natural capital and building food reserves, carrying capacity. Jon discusses the importance of assessing food quality and quantity. Perry discusses the items in the farm design that are the icing on the cake as it pertains to layout and access. Perry discusses the importance of creek beds for access.
Perry explains the top end Drury properties and what features make these properties function correctly. Perry details wind, food, herd ratio, timber and cover components that make the Drury farms compete in the neighborhood.
Perry explains the importance of smart intrusion and setting up properties at the right time to limit human disturbance on deer. Perry explains the tricks and tactics to taking trail camera data and what tools he uses to access cameras. Perry explains mistakes that he has experienced over the years and what a landowner should do for hunting access and how to manage location trails to treestands.
Social Links
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https://www.druryoutdoors.com/
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https://www.facebook.com/whitetaillandscapes/
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Show Transcript
Welcome to Maximize Your Hunt, the podcast dedicated to those who want the most out of their hunting property. This podcast explores land management, habitat improvement, and hunting strategies that will help you maximize your time in the field. Follow along as industry professionals that live and breathe whitetail deer share their secrets to success.
And now. The founder of Whitetail Landscapes, your host, John Teeter.
Jon Teater: Hi, I'm John Teeter, Whitetail Landscapes, this is Maximize Your Hunt. Welcome back everybody. Hopefully everyone's doing well. I've been on the road. I just got home today and I'm amped up for deer hunting season. I think some of us are already out there hunting. I know some people on the podcast that participate have already killed deer.
So congratulations to them. Hopefully we get them on and hear more about their stories. And I was visiting client today and I just had a nice time. It's getting to the time of year where it's great to scout. I love doing [00:01:00] client visits in September. Best time to do client visits, bar none, no question about it.
You can make immediate changes and give recommendations on the spot. So one of my favorite guests back is back Perry Batten from Drury Outdoors. And we're going to talk to him a little bit about farm development and intrusion today. Perry. Hey, are you on the line?
Perry Battin: Yes, sir. How you
Jon Teater: doing? Good, man. It's happy to have you back.
It's been a little bit for us, so it's good to reconnect. I called you Rain Man the other day because you were maybe you called yourself Rain Man. I think I called you Sprinkler Man. What have you been doing on the field, man? What's been going on?
Perry Battin: Yeah, the Midwest is no different than we talked about the same time last year.
We're we went 30 plus days with no rain and we're still there. We just got a little sprinkle today, which knocked the dust off the roads, and that's about it. But I put the last two weeks I put 131, 000 gallons of water down on on about nine different food plots to grow them and save them from this drought.
So that we have something green to [00:02:00] hunt over come October 1st here in Iowa. The last two weeks. That's what the story has been. So that's
Jon Teater: a tough season to walk into when you're struggling like that. But, hopefully at least the gallons that you put out there were worth the time. How are you?
How are you getting that out across the crop field without creating too much damage? What do you how you spraying that using a sprinkler system or what? What are you doing?
Perry Battin: We have a 18 foot trailer hooked to our tractor, and then we have a 1600 gallon water tank with a two inch trash pump on the back, and that allows us, the valve system that's set up allows us to suck water out of ponds or lakes, and then we haul that water to the plot that needs it, and I try to stay on the perimeters of the plot and shoot the water into it.
I have a, like a, It's like a fire hose nozzle set up and then a two by four that's screwed to the trailer to arc the [00:03:00] water up and get a good distance. I could probably shoot water about 20, 30 yards. So typically I can water the, from the perimeters of every plot and get, 85 percent of that plot water, but that's just a quick rundown of how we're doing it.
I think if you're somebody that's looking to do it and afraid I think look at some of your rental places. I got some friends and some buddies that have rented 500 gallon tanks. You got to make a few more trips, but it's it is doable. If. If you've got a big deer, you absolutely have to have a food plot when you're, I think, you, somebody could put enough water down to grow one.
Jon Teater: Yeah, that's a good thing for folks that are dealing with that particular issue and problem solving on the spot there. All right. So I want to get into, the. Concept of building a farm from scratch, and you've had many instances of this and probably some this year and we want to talk about your process and where do you start, maybe you have some history on the property from just leasing it, but you're actually have the opportunity to enhance it [00:04:00] and I want to go down that road and maybe understand a little bit more on how you attack a farm from scratch.
Perry Battin: Yeah, for sure. I think the, hopefully you have some sort of history if you buy the farm, whether it's just an open listing, hopefully the previous owner was some sort of hunter and had trail cam pictures and some sort of idea of where the deer spent the most time. But I think it all boils down to three things.
Really, you identify right off the bat, and that's, food, water. And what the deer numbers look like, and also, a fourth big one that's probably something you think about after you buy the farm, but maybe prior, I think we think about this a lot more is access, how you're going to get to the spots on that farm to hunt them, because if a farm could look amazing, but if you don't have access to get to where you need to hunt it, it, it dwindles that amazing name very quickly.
So I think once you identify those [00:05:00] key things of the farm especially your deer population, because, whether we're, there's pockets of deer populations here in Iowa that are just... And then there's some that are pretty, pretty balanced and then you get to Missouri and it's the same.
It's very pockety and to decide, how much food you need to be successful. You dive in to the deer population overall, and it's not bucks to does really just numbers get in because if you're going to be successful on that farm, you have to have some sort of attraction to get the deer in front of you to be able to harvest them.
And that could be. Water, you could be the only water in the next, however big that block is, but a lot of it for us is identifying how much food we need on the farm and how much food the farm allows us to grow. Meaning, is there a ridge top? Is there something flat we can plant on? Is there a nice bottom field?
Because if it's not suitable [00:06:00] to plant a food plot on, we're not going to do it. We're we hate erosion. It's something we deal with here in the Midwest. But once you identify those things it's then boiling down to, okay, we need, let's just call it a 80 acre parcel of a, of an 80 acre farm.
Let's boil it down to our deer. Our deer numbers are medium to high, overall population of deer. And we have good access, I'm just thinking about my own farm that I have down in Missouri where the deer numbers are medium to high, it's 80 acres, and I've got three and a half acres of strictly food plots on that farm, and it does quite well.
Once you get to there, then you start saying, okay, there's a tree for a tree stand. There's a spot that I can access very easy to get in a blind or whatever your hunting setup may be.
Jon Teater: Yeah, I want to add to that topic, Perry, and I think one of the [00:07:00] things that I think people struggle with, and this is just a metric, right?
We look at the deer population, and, we're just using, we're genericizing, right? High, medium, low. So I don't consider us necessarily in the low end, but comparatively, we are low in our area. We also have seasonality differences between, New York State and Iowa, Missouri. And the other piece of that is, diagnosing on average your deer herd size.
And there's metrics that are put out there. One of the metrics you can use is the deer tick numbers, per your particular area, per your town, per your county, etc. And then think about, what the population is based on that. Usually they do a threshold. They take, approximately a third of the deer.
Sometimes it's half, sometimes it's a quarter. Your local or DNR will have some of that information for you, through their metrics saying what is the average deer take. And in concert with the numbers that are being recorded, sometimes you can use that as a kind of a metric to figure out, generally, what your deer population is.
[00:08:00] However, on the side of that is when you're thinking about, your microcosm or your individualistic situation, these small parcels that abut each other. and doing count kicking count. I've seen many different studies where people have used and quality deer management had some studies out there, some methodologies, and a lot of that involves baiting, et cetera.
But I've seen thermal work. I've seen just number counts. I've seen drives where they're pushing deer out of areas at certain intervals of time just to get a numbers game. And then if you're taking the deer numbers, you're doing an aggregation. Of those numbers, and you're assuming, maybe there's on average, they eat about 2200 pounds of dry matter a year.
That's dry matter, not wet matter. And there's a big difference between dry and wet matter. So you can use that as a metric kind of as a baseline to figure out. How much food generally you want on your property based on the frequency of use. There's not an exact science to it, but you can come up with some metrics.
But, we may be talking deer numbers in the [00:09:00] 30 deer per square mile up to maybe 150 deer per square mile, or even more than that matter. So it's relative to your area and it's thinking globally about what the other neighbors are providing and comparatively what you can provide to at least compete with them.
So that's my two cents into that, Barry. All right, keep going down your your road. No,
Perry Battin: I think you bring up a very great point, especially about what you just said at the end there about what your neighbors are doing and what you are doing, in your landscape, I'm not very familiar up there, but just from the conversations we've had, if you have a client that has a property that allows you to put a, let's just call it half acre food plot and the whole neighborhood has nothing else, that neighbor.
Or that client of yours, or whether it be your own farm, you're going to, you're going to be very successful. In our neck of the woods, there's crops everywhere. And for the most part, there's a lot of farms that are food plotted, a lot of farms that are managed for deer. I think... You have to be a little better than the [00:10:00] neighbors, and have your stuff dialed in completely to be six as successful as possible.
Jon Teater: So I want you to, I want you to bump over really quick, Perry, and start going maybe through, and I didn't mean to cut you off, but go through some of the layout things that, have worked as of near term on something, you're starting from scratch and you're saying, okay.
We're walking into the season and maybe this is, this is preseason work, but you're doing your planning You're starting to do your layout. What does that kind of look like? What is the process you go through when you're starting to lay out? You laid out the food water cover piece of it differentiating or discriminating other properties from your own.
What did you do next?
Perry Battin: Yeah, I think the the best time to buy a farm in my opinion is a time where you can walk that farm in the Later season, December and later, February, March, be able to put boots on the ground and see where those trails are, where the pressure was at through the season.[00:11:00]
And it just allows you to identify a lot of things quickly. And so once those are identified, when we're walking that new farm, identifying what might be, very what we. What I like to call hub scrapes, very, a location that's been scraped multiple times by multiple bucks fence gaps, natural pinches like that, fence gaps, or ponds that are located close to food, or natural pinches and fields, whether it's going from a big ag fields to a small hay field, and there's a tree line that's making a 30 yard pinch all those things, once you identify those things, You can then capitalize on what you said, food plot layout in those areas, let's say you have a giant ag field.
And then it necks down into 30 yards and then it goes into a hayfield, and let's just, hopefully those two things are flat with the ag fields. Probably already going to be flat. [00:12:00] Hopefully the hayfield is too, and carve out a half acre on the hayfield side, your blinds in the pinch.
If you have a good access, identify the wind you need to hunt it on. And hopefully leave a little acre or two of standing grain on the grain side. So you have a very simple pinch point to get deer within bow range, and you can provide them two different types of food in that area.
Jon Teater: Yeah, I like that. I like the options.
And I think a lot of people don't plan options. And in the podcast I just did, I talked a little bit about polycultures and getting away from monocropping and having that diversity in the landscape. Diverse diet creates a diverse opportunity. And diversity in their the deer's gut biome is huge for their well being All right, so I want to go down this little road here And there's this is something a metric that I use in the last podcast.
I introduced the concept of natural capital I phrased it a little bit different but What it basically means to me is when you build a [00:13:00] property And you have a lot of plant life that the deer consume, but they don't consume at all. So you have capital built in and there's residual or I forget what the term I used last go around, but you have reserves.
And those reserves allow you to, basically have a good cycling of nutrients and those reserves show that You're you're not hitting a carrying capacity threshold, so the number of animals on the landscape is not exceeding the food value that's currently aligned with it. So that's a metric.
Now I'm just throwing this out here as just a general number. And this is like the same concept of when you're haying a hay field. If you cut the hay field right down to the ground, what happens is it stalls out. It takes a long time to recover. And then on the flip side of the equation, Because it takes a long time to recover, you don't get that natural capital or that gain in your food plot or gain in your hay field.
So having the surplus allows for, again, more functionality in these plant [00:14:00] synergy kind of scenarios. The reason I bring this up is, when you're designing your hunting property and you're thinking about the food value content, like Perry just talked about, and these feed settings just to give them opportunities, we also got to capitalize.
In the woods and thinking about the value of food over time. And I mentioned this in the last podcast is you know, their gut biome is shifting at this point. Their focus on the forage changes on the landscape. So they're going to get into some of those natural browse materials which can include deciduous leaf matter.
So they're going to be eating some of the trees and some of the tree buds, etcetera as the tree leaf falls off. And some of those other plants like briars, brambles, things of that nature. So just remember, there's value in some of these other. Elements and structures and consider that, when you're assessing quality and volume of food on the landscape All right, perry.
I just had to add that in because it tied into the podcast I did last time No for
Perry Battin: sure. That's a great point. I mean I think in a farm setup if we're going down that road, we [00:15:00] start with our food plots and accesses and kind of the nuts and bolts if you will and then as we Hone that farm in better, through the years.
We'll add some TSI, identify You know, let's cut some hickories down because they have very little wildlife value and let's leave this nice grove of, whether it's wide oaks or pin oaks or shingle oaks, and add a lot more natural browse, if you will, and acorns and leaf matter.
No, I think that's a great topic. I just think that's something we do in the later years of owning, starting a farm to get to where it needs to be.
Jon Teater: Yeah, so let's take it down. Maybe another level. So we've got our framework. We've got our access. We've created this kind of, we'll say specialized features like food plots, etc.
What are the things that are the icing on the cake for you guys when you're doing your layouts? Is it screening? Is it the type of lines you're setting up? Is it being able to move the blinds in and out, like portability what are the [00:16:00] things that make these systems function so you can have opportunities, because I know you're hunting out of box blinds, and I think a lot of people are starting to recognize the importance of box blinds, but what are the, some of the other things that come to your mind that, that make these farms function better than they would originally after you start doing those improvements.
Perry Battin: Certainly, we definitely plant some screening, whether that's through an array of different grasses. This year we planted some sorghum in a spot as a screen. There's one field in particular that's a big bottom field that we hunt a lot during late season that's very visible from all the south slopes that the deer like to bed on.
And so when we're down there planting our cornfield, we just make a pass or two with the planter and leave the corn stand all year as a screen. Pretty simple, easy task. I think the easiest screen we've ever planted was this year's sorghum, just till it up quickly. Spread your correct seed rate, and you got a pretty solid screen.
And if you get a good sorghum seed, it lasts [00:17:00] through some freezes and thaws. I think we utilize a lot of creeks here in the Midwest, which anyone who's been to the Midwest or really anywhere there's big creek structure. They're really deep. They could be 10 12 ft. Deep walls. We use those a lot for access is if they're available.
You can literally walk past about a deer and if the wind's correct, it never knows you're there because. You're 10 foot underground, essentially so yes, screening with grasses and natural crops, and then your access is being designed and, just designed to a point where it's over. It's like a science.
It's literally down to the spot. You drop into the creek to the spot. You climb out of the creek and you're in a blind. I know 1 access. We built last year. You drop into a creek. You walk about. 80 yards and we literally built a ladder that's screwed and connected to tree stumps up the bank of the creek and it [00:18:00] literally puts you at the platform of the blind and you go right in
Jon Teater: it.
That's awesome. That's awesome. All so I want to take you, I want to take you like past what we're at now and I want to go to a farm that's really advanced and functioning correctly. And one of the things that you've had maybe a takeaway moment over the past years to that people can think about here now during hunt season, and make some changes their property.
So take us to a level 400 or 500 level farm that's functioning and what's really making that farm kick in and work good.
Perry Battin: I think all you know, let's just go to a 120 acre piece, pretty small acres, but you could have multiple locations called three locations. I think you have in those three locations.
You cover almost every wind direction. And you also have dynamite access in those three locations, whether you're utilizing screening to get into the blind, whether [00:19:00] you have a creek access, you're parking on a county road, you're walking down a bridge, you're in a creek, and you're going to the spot, and you're right in the spot as soon as you come out of that creek.
Every single one of those spots is dynamite access accompanied on that farm is the correct amount of food plots. And food left for the deer every year. And then also the correct amount of cover to food, meaning whether that's, grasses or some sign of some kind of CRP program, or that's hardwoods timber, that's you, that you have TSI and maintained through, I would call three year process to get that, completely.
As brushy as I would want it and grown up as I was, as I would want it to be and also, going in there every winter and maintaining that TSI and make sure that you have new growth, new woody brows and that, the trees that I like to [00:20:00] see perform here in the Midwest would be your oaks and your walnuts, everything else is low on the total pull from my perspective and view, but that's a short, Your every single one of your spots has good access.
You never question when you go in, is, am I going to spook deer or not? Your wind directions are covered for you a lot for allowing you to hunt multiple wind locations and also your food to herd ratio is correct. And your timber is whether it doesn't just have to be timber. You're covered for your deer, whether that's, like I said, grasses or timber.
Is top notch.
Jon Teater: Yeah, I think there's all good and everything I agree with. All right, so we're going to go a different direction now. Now we're going to, the rules of engagement when it comes to intrusion and this could be intrusion in that respect of you're getting trail camera data, you're hunting a stand location, what are good rules of intrusion and what are bad rules of [00:21:00] intrusion?
And we, I think people want to hear more about when you guys are trying to collect data or learn about your deer or make some decisions to move stands, how do you approach intrusion?
Perry Battin: Yeah it's funny. You brought this topic up because I was yesterday I had chatted with Mark about what I was doing tomorrow and this was on the topic because, our Missouri season has started already.
We have October 1st coming for Iowa start and so we're starting that very fine line when we go on the farms and when we do not. And so tomorrow I have to go put scrape trees on all of our western farms in Iowa and we discussed. By farm a list of, excuse me, a list of where we. Where I'm going to go put scrape trees and where I am not going to go due to the wind direction.
So we literally went through what the wind's doing throughout the day [00:22:00] and kind of pre planned my route to where I will work the entire day through that route determined by the wind
Jon Teater: direction. That sounds about right for you guys. And that, that's that's not surprising because the reality of it is, you're going for those top and top notch deer.
And. One little mistake at this point could change the game for you. All right, let's let's go to another rule that maybe you have, or you and Mark have, or, something that you guys play into when it comes to taking trail camera data, because I think a lot of people make a lot of mistakes and they take, and then, they may not have cell cameras, maybe their reception's bad, or maybe they can't afford a cell camera, and they have a regular camera at this point.
What are some of the rules of thumb when it goes to getting that data. What would you typically, how do you approach that?
Perry Battin: Yeah, that's a lot of that is determined by wind direction too. We might wait if we think we can wait, we may wait four or five days to get the right wind direction to even go [00:23:00] in and check a regular trail camera, which we also have a lot of, we have.
multiples of both regular and cells. And I think the biggest thing is like here in the Midwest, where agriculture is so large and deer grow up seeing tractors, smelling tractors, they grow up smelling and seeing, cars and trucks too. So it's not the worst thing. We have taken a John Deere track, any tractor for that matter.
And, we need to go check a camera with the wind is dead wrong. Drive that tractor as close to that camera as you can get out, get the camera and get right back in and drive out your chances of being successful are. I'm going to call it 90 percent better than if you're just riding an e bike in there or walking in there or riding a four wheeler, your wind's blowing everywhere, but that tractor for some reason, and I just think it's general because of [00:24:00] they grow up seeing them, smelling them.
On the daily almost in this country that we're in the Midwest here I just think it's a very non threatening to them. Very
Jon Teater: interesting. So let's go one other step So where have you and Mark had battles on intrusion because he sounds like he's a little anal about things So I'm interested to see what your perspective is and what you disagree with or what you agree with that might be You know something that you've had to learn over the past several years working on the jury
Perry Battin: firms.
Oh, yeah I mean I've certainly, myself and Wade have certainly gotten a talking to, if you will, about how we went and, maybe it was put a scrape tree up or check the blind or mode and access, or we needed a path to get to a blind or whatever it may be, we did some kind of work task on the farm and we tell Mark A, we got this done and he looks at his phone or looks at DeerCast And the wind is about 180 out of where he would want it to be.
We definitely [00:25:00] get an earful on those situations and I don't blame him. He's a perfectionist when it comes to that type of stuff. And I've learned that through the years and I've gotten much better and a little more. Cautious to that. I've gotten to the point where I try and remember to check the wind direction and think about where my wind's going if I'm doing a work task.
And it's, like we are now close to season or even during
Jon Teater: the season. Pretty interesting. Is there anything that you think, surprised you over the years or something you've learned? In the intrusion game with mark and maybe this is getting into a tree stand and the quietness of it The approach the tactics anything relates to an intrusion as or as it relates to hunting side of things It might be interesting for the listeners
Perry Battin: Yeah, I think the intrusion fact and the access aspect of it like something I did and messed up right off the get go and I was mowing farms and I would always Like I always thought in my head Oh, we're going to access this blind from, [00:26:00] this County road or this farm pole.
And I would always just get in the tractor with the brush hog and mow the access. And I learned quickly that was something that was very wrong because then you're now encouraging the deer to walk that mode path, which is your access. So your scent is going to be there. And now there's no, there's no brush there.
There's no grass. There's no, so the deer are now going to be more active and walking that. And it was just a. A bad move on my part, and I learned quick and quickly, and I don't do that
Jon Teater: anymore. I think a lot of people do make that mistake, but what would you do alternatively now in those examples in comparison?
Perry Battin: I think a lot of times, in those, if you've got like really brushy area or you're walking through timber and you want to be quiet, I think a couple weeks ago, you could have gone in and we use a weed eater a lot and just a simple [00:27:00] man sized path with a weed eater to get to those spots or to clear the leaves off the ground or a leaf blower, through the years to get that path, very small, very easy for you to access, but very less likely for the deer to go, walk down a nice brush hog path.
A simple weed eated path to get you in instead of the deer in. We do that a lot.
Jon Teater: Okay. Yeah, I think a lot of people would be, interested to hear maybe, those type of strategies. I think the other piece even for me is, today I was working with a client and talking to him a little bit about his access plant path to these particular areas.
So we're daisy chaining food plots together and creating just connectivity across the property. And I talked to him a little bit about how I create screening. I do it functionally in stages where, I may use various types of plants at various heights, et cetera. The access piece of that's critical because the deer are going to follow it on those trail systems.
And I said a lot of times I'll take, and I'll create fencing throughout that trail system. So you open the gate door, walk through [00:28:00] the door and then you're at the next gate, open the gate door. And it breaks down maybe some of these access portals by having, maybe snow fence across, et cetera.
That's worked well for me over the years. I do that on my personal property and if you're going to limit their access at some point, sometimes you'll need some physical structure to do that and to your point, Perry, if you're going to make these, open trails available they're likely going to utilize them.
So recognize that sometimes you got to give them some opportunities, but maybe that may maybe put your blind or your tree stand in a different location. So you don't have. Okay. You know that whole you're connecting to them and they're connecting with you and cutting your track, etc You're touching, any type of vegetation around those access points and they become aware they're being hunted and killed So just a thing there All right, definitely
Perry Battin: Go ahead.
We've yeah, we've certainly in areas too where we've, put a new blind location You know, we'll go Behind that blind, call it 50, 60, 80 yards and drop a couple trees so that you gain that [00:29:00] spot of what I would call your scent cone, where your scent's going to be blowing, and the deer are not going to walk through a giant top of a tree to come right up behind you.
They're going to go around and out of your wind. And, you design that on your downwind side, if you can. In the certain scenario, and if the trees are there to cut down which we have definitely utilized and done.
Jon Teater: Yeah, that's interesting. All right. Let me we're going to end here on this probably last topic.
And I want to know this year, you've done a lot of work and like you said, things are already starting to kick off for you. What was the biggest lesson? that you took away this season that was maybe different from the season before where you're either fine tuning something with your setups or personally you're approaching hunting a little bit different something so a takeaway that you had or something that you're going to do different this year going into a hunting season.
Perry Battin: That's a good question. I'm trying to think about the correct answer, maybe not the correct answer, but the best answer. From a personal [00:30:00] level, like I started shooting my bow June 1st and I shot two or three times a week. multiple arrows and just very consistent muscle memory, 20, 30, 40 every chance I shot and just being consistent so that when you get that opportunity it's second nature to you.
It's like picking up a fork and eating, something out of a plate or something out of a bowl. It's very, It's something you do every day and that's something I started doing this year and I think it's going to help me in the long run to just be a better hunter and, more precise with my bow shooting and hopefully more successful, when the animals in front of me from a farm standpoint, I think the biggest thing that I've gotten much better at and tried to just be better at is When you do, when you're doing a task, no matter what it is, whether we're putting up a scrape tree or Cleaning out of a box blind or planting a food plot [00:31:00] like being the most detail Oriented you possibly can I mean like a fine toothed comb over every Project that is done.
And just because for us, we're so spread it out seven. We're over 17 farms that we're managing. But, and they're an hour north to south. So when they're, when we're there doing a project, I would rather spend an extra half hour and be much more detailed in doing it than to have to go back.
Jon Teater: Yeah. And I'm going to, I'm going to give you my takeaway this year because we've had a chance to go. I've been on multiple client properties, obviously throughout the year. I have X amount of properties that I visit and I get to learn from all these clients. One of the things that I've realized is, and we talked about the concept of walls of cover recently, and in that fact, we're designing this structure, this immediate structure in a specific area.
It could be, a short interval of cover, which could be, 15 feet, or it could [00:32:00] be 150 yards. And I realize that the precision in cutting, the height that you cut, thinking about the long term effects of those cutting techniques, thinking about how transparent they need to be or dense they need to be, the depth of them, the height of them.
I think what I've done is I've been a lot more precise in my cutting and I really try to take my time so things last long term so I don't have to go back in there and do work later on a client property. That, is subpar or I'm not getting, the structure at the height that I want because gravity impacted it and I'm thinking through all my cuts and just being really patient and strategic about my cutting process because I realized on other client properties that I've been to, people are ripping and roaring and I'm just taking my time because I know if I do take my time, I'm going to get a better result and I'm not going to go back and have to work on that particular area.
Just with that one cutting technique of building a wall of cover. And knowing that it's going to be a staple there for 10 or 15 years because of the height, the [00:33:00] density, the width, et cetera, all those things that play into it. And it serves multiple purposes. It could be nesting cover. It could be back cover for deer.
It could be segregation. There's multiple purposes behind that, but it's thinking about cutting in a way where I have less maintenance down the road. And I think that's been my biggest takeaway this year, Perry. And hopefully that helps people when they're thinking about their hunting properties.
Perry Battin: Yeah. I think our, both our takeaways are that, that detail oriented, taking your time and just being as proficient as you possibly can while you're at that location.
Jon Teater: Yeah, I agree. I agree. All right. Anything else from you? Anything you want to lay on us before you start killing?
Perry Battin: Good luck everyone. And Kill him.
Jon Teater: All right. Good. All right. We'll catch back with you sometime during hunting season. I know you're busy, but if it's not during hunting season, we'll catch up with you at the end and see how things end up when you're in the the dough slam at the end of the year.
Perry Battin: Yeah. Yeah. We got we got plenty of Missouri DMAP permits to fill. So the numbers will
Jon Teater: be large. All right. Sounds good. All right, [00:34:00] buddy. I'll talk to you soon. Yep.
Perry Battin: Appreciate it. All right. See ya. Maximize your hunt. This is a production of Whitetail Landscapes. For more information on how John Teeter and his team of experts can help you maximize your hunt, check out whitetaillandscapes.
com.
