Taking a Holistic Approach to Habitat Improvement

In this episode of the Nine Finger Chronicles podcast, host Dan Johnson interviews Jon Teater from Whitetail Landscapes about habitat management for hunting properties. They discuss the importance of understanding the complex environment that deer live in and how it affects their behavior. Teater explains that the most common goal for clients is to shoot bigger quality deer, but this goal can be abstract and requires a deep understanding of the deer composition and the specific makeup of a high-quality deer. They also discuss the role of risk and pressure in deer behavior and how to create a habitat that reduces risk and holds deer on the property. Teater emphasizes the importance of good habitat and cover, as well as the balance between food availability and cover value. He also explains how to assess the carrying capacity of a property by measuring the amount of biomass consumed by deer.  Jon and Dan discuss the importance of habitat improvement and deer management. They cover topics such as diverse diets for deer, equating the number of deer to be removed from a property, and the impact of deer behavior on habitat management. They also discuss the role of aesthetics in deer management and the need for a holistic approach to habitat improvement. Jon emphasizes the importance of pushing oneself to experience difficulty and learn from different environments. He also provides insights on how to choose a habitat consultant and the key factors to consider.

Takeaways:

• Understanding the complex environment that deer live in is crucial for effective habitat management on hunting properties.
• The most common goal for clients is to shoot bigger quality deer, but this goal requires a deep understanding of the specific makeup of a high-quality deer.
• Creating a habitat that reduces risk and holds deer on the property is key to successful hunting.
• Balancing food availability and cover value is important for attracting and holding deer on a property.
• Assessing the carrying capacity of a property can be done by measuring the amount of biomass consumed by deer. Diverse diets for deer and understanding the volume of edible biomass are important factors in habitat improvement.
• Equating the number of deer to be removed from a property requires considering recruitment, residential and non-residential deer, and the availability of food.
• Understanding deer behavior and individual preferences can help in making management decisions.
• Aesthetics and creating a good environment for deer are important aspects of habitat management.
• Pushing oneself to experience difficulty and learn from different environments can lead to better habitat management practices.
• When choosing a habitat consultant, consider their experience in your region, their ability to provide ongoing support, and their approach to habitat management.
• Consultants should consider the specific goals and challenges of the property and provide tailored recommendations.
• August and September are good times to consult for hunting season preparation and to assess the status of the environment.
• Habitat improvement requires a holistic approach and attention to detail.

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Dan Johnson (00:00.738)
All right, everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Nine Finger Chronicles podcast. I'm your host, Dan Johnson. And today we are joined by Mr. John Teeter from Whitetail Landscapes. How we doing, dude? It's been a

Jon Teater (00:14.756)
Good, good man. It has been a while. How you been?

Dan Johnson (00:19.19)
I don't even know. dude, like it's summer vacation and dude, I love my kids so much. And if you listen to the nine finger Chronicles podcast, you're, you're going to find out that my kids cause a lot of my stress, which, which I love them. They're very vibrant creatures, but they also cause me a lot of stress and maybe it's because I'm not built to handle stress very well. I don't know. I don't know.

So when someone says, hey, how you doing? I should learn to just go, I'm doing okay, how about you? know, like the answer that nobody really cares about.

Jon Teater (01:01.328)
standard guy talk. You just got to go right to the point. Don't give too many details. We know you're in pain like the rest of us, Dan. We all experience the same thing,

Dan Johnson (01:05.263)
Exactly That's a fact Man like I had a conversation with you the other day and it kind of sparked an idea in my head and like It's about habitat obviously First off just tell everybody what do you do for a living?

Jon Teater (01:28.548)
Yep. So for a living, I am responsible, a responsible individual that works with folks in the Northeast to design and optimize hunting properties. So there's an aspect of biology, vegetation management, like mechanical, you got to have experience with running equipment, using machinery, running chainsaws. There's, there's a discipline related to

I answer to permaculture. mean, there's just a whole host of aspects of this job that are so far superior, technically than you would ever think to do a good job at this. The animal itself isn't complex, but the environment they live in is complex. So you have to learn how to kind of evolve in that state. So my job is basically, ecological design and management, and I optimize these properties. So really hard to hunt areas.

Dan Johnson (02:16.421)
Okay.

Jon Teater (02:24.504)
are way easier and it makes everyone's life a lot better when you're able to shoot the deer you want or experience quality hunting, whatever your goal is. We try to meet the customer's goals. I mostly work in the Northeast, but this year I'm traveling. I'm going to Canada, I'm going down south, I'm going out west. I've kind of been all over the place, but I'm out of New York state and I want to work in New York state as much as possible because I don't want to travel.

because I got kids.

Dan Johnson (02:54.669)
Okay, all right, so hunting, land management, consultant, all this stuff kind of rolled into one, okay? All right, and you said that the environment that these animals live in is very complex. All right, so when a client comes up to you and you have to ask them the question, like, what is important to you? What's your goal with this property? What is the most common answer?

Jon Teater (03:01.198)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Teater (03:23.12)
Mostly I want to shoot bigger quality deer. That's mostly what folks say. And that's such an abstract goal Dan. Like that's about as high level as you possibly could get. And it requires you to look at the, what is the particular makeup of that deer composition that allows you to shoot those high quality deer? What is a high quality deer to you? Because high quality deer to me may not be 160 class deer. It may have nothing to do with antler characteristics. That may be a secondary trait or consideration.

Dan Johnson (03:27.92)
Okay. Yeah.

Dan Johnson (03:48.663)
Yeah.

Okay, so now I'm gonna ask a couple questions here in a kind of a devil's advocate type of approach to this. And so I hunt on a farm that, I hunt on two different farms here in Iowa. Now take, maybe just take Iowa out of this equation because one farm is, has really

In my opinion good thick cover. There's water. There's food. There's browse like everything a deer needs to survive that farm also has a variety of bow hunters shotgun hunters late season hunters mushroom hunters turkey hunters like it's flooded with people throughout the entire course of the year and the deer Exists there. There's no management.

They live hand in hand with livestock and an egg, know, egg operations. Okay. The other farm doesn't have good cover. It is mowed down to the grass. the grass is bailed a couple of times every summer there. It's never been managed for deer. So the stem count lower to the ground is, is not there, you know, only in the summertime when the leaves fall off, it's wide open in there,

because there's no hunters or it's been hunter free for several years, there's bigger antler deer that live there. And so my question to you is, if I come to you and I say, hey John, I want bigger deer on my farm, could the answer also be don't shoot small deer?

Jon Teater (05:45.668)
Yeah, I mean, that certainly could be the answer. think the topic you brought up is interesting. think this is really actually, there's actually some level of complexity to this issue. So you've got, I don't care what state you're in. I don't care if you're in Mississippi, Iowa, North Carolina, New York, wherever you are. Pressure is pressure. Now, some of these deer have grown up in situations where they're very risk avoidance. And so when you get these larger deer herds, a lot of times a deer feels safer because they have multiple eyes.

And so you design a property around pressure, whether it's hunting pressure or you're talking about cattle, whatever the impact is, there are going to be some individual deer that are very risk avoidant and there are going to be some deer that are tolerant of risk. And in some of these environments, risk tolerance is everything. And so we work with clients to help create the least amount of risk on their property. And if there's risk around them, it amplifies interest.

Big deer grow into great deer if they have the right environment. Social stress is a huge piece of this. Look at you and me, for example. If you and I had stress every single day, meaning you have eight kids running around you in circles every day, is that not gonna impact your physiology? It 100 % will, right? It may make you do things that you don't normally do. And so that's the same thing with deer.

Dan Johnson (07:06.37)
Mm -hmm.

Jon Teater (07:14.746)
their physical state and their mental state is critical. And when I'm starting to assess like hunting deer or attacking a deer, I'm evaluating its physical being on the landscape, meaning how does it interact with other deer? How does it interact with its landscape? That's a huge part of making decisions on when and how to kill a deer. And so anybody in the country can take that bit of advice and start applying to their property.

The whole concept of sanctuaries is only because we're trying to create a risk reduced environment. And if you have lower risk on the property, they're gonna spend more time there. And there's gonna be studies over the next 10 years where they're gonna say, hey, we're trying to create these ultimate properties. What are the conditions that prevail that create more interest in your property? Well, can tell you on 46 acres here in Tully, New York, which is like, know, anti -Iowa from when it comes to quality, I have as good as quality as probably you and soil.

as well as just the environment and actually a decent deer population now because I've created that similar environment risk avoidance type example that you're talking about earlier. They don't have any risky issues on my property and it's a sanctum for them. And so, you know, those are one of the critical things I think people should start playing out. Like do I have a property that has a lot of pressure? And what does that actually mean? Did this deer grow up in a pressure environment? The deer

psychological status is really important in the whole concept of designing a hunting

Dan Johnson (08:46.433)
Okay, so risk in your eyes, risk equals pressure.

Jon Teater (08:51.844)
Yeah, it's one of the factors in that. drought could be a similar issue where it creates stress. So look at all the stressors that create an issue with a deer. And certainly human presence is a huge piece of that. So the more presence you apply, the more you displace deer. That's a simple equation. But maybe you can design it so when you displace them, they don't run off the property. Or they're going to go in an area where there's a sanctum, where they feel secure.

Dan Johnson (09:19.246)
Yeah. Okay. So guy comes up to you and he says, I want to shoot bigger bucks. Right? That's why you're here. I want bigger bucks. Okay. Because, but, because realistically people are shelling out money to you, to a variety of other land, consultants and habitat management, money. Right. I also agree that money can buy bigger deer in, in some

in some aspect, whether it's going to an outfitter, doing habitat management and food plots and all, like the whole gamut on your own individual property, whatever the case may be. But. If dear, I don't know what I'm trying to get at here like. Money is driving all of these people to do that, right? And so how do you knowing that you make your money off like.

trying to accomplish this goal of bigger bucks. Also tell these people that we're going to do everything that we can to try to do this, but it's not guaranteed.

Jon Teater (10:26.446)
Yeah, I think that's the honesty that you have to have with people. I can't put a deer and lasso it and tie it to a tree and say, this is a deer you're going to kill. But what I can do is I can create at least a habitat where they're more inclined to be present on the property. There's a simple equation here, and it's really basic. Good habitat equals good deer. And if you hunt it smart and you manage it correctly, those things change. So you could have all the money in the world. You could buy

thousand acres, five thousand acres, right? You get these different people to go in and promote all these practices, whether it's burning, it's disking, it's timber management, it's forest stand improvement. Whatever the tactic that you're using, it has to relate to some outcome. So we do is we take a goal and like we want bigger deer. Okay, what is the status of your deer currently? How are we going to measure that? Like maybe look at the physiology of the deer. What's the retention, right? How many deer do we actually

pull back or create as these deer reproduce? Like how many fawns are retaining? What are the environments we're creating to grow or shrink a population? Like in Iowa, I have anywhere between 18 to 30 deer per square mile on average across New York state. That's a pretty good average. Now areas in the western part of the state are in the 60s, 70s, 80s. Iowa's anywhere between 50 to 150. And so what does that do? It creates more stress in the environment. Not only stressing the deer out, but actually stressing the habitat or quality habitat out.

So if these guys that are buying these 5 ,000 acre properties, owning land is one important thing, but making it a top tier property creates a whole bunch of work and effort. And so the money suck is you can have a smaller property and really be productive because nobody else around you is doing anything. Or you could have this really big property and then you're taking yourself to the next level. And one of the goals in some of these really big properties like in Texas is the fawns that they're dropping on their property, they're staying within the realm of that farm. Now they're not all fenced in,

Dan Johnson (12:15.368)
Thank

Jon Teater (12:24.292)
You know, they're staying in that wild ground and they're creating these great environments. They're, they're creating the most available food. And when the deer need the most level of protein is in that early development stage, you know, where they have high demands for calcium and phosphorus and aminos that's in that early fawning stage. If you provide a good healthy habitat, we want very tight breeding windows and good, good quality environment for escape cover and you

just increasing the food availability, you're just gonna be successful. And how do you do it in the cheapest, quickest way possible? That's kind of my job is how do we speed up the process? And if you buy like crappy ground, meaning it may be thousand acres, but you have terrible soil, I mean, that's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars you have to put into each acre of soil to improve it to have the high quality food. And what we try to teach people is increase the food value so much where the deer don't wanna leave.

And even your pressure can sometimes, as much as you want to disturb them, they want to stick to good. And that's always the equation. Good deer want to be on good properties. And that's simply it. So I can find good properties just looking at soil composition before I even look at the environment. And that's kind of how I distinguish, are you in a situation where you're to need to invest a lot of money? Or are we good with that and we just need to work on some timber, create better movement, management flow, travel corridors, all the factors that come into creating good opportunities.

and holding deer and that's a factor. How do you hold deer on your

Dan Johnson (13:55.425)
Yeah. Are your clients, do they want to play a role in what it is that you do or do they just go, here's my budget, do whatever you want to it, I just want to see bigger

Jon Teater (14:11.908)
Most of my clients over the past two years have been, we want you to come, do your consulting bit. Sometimes they want me to stay for two or three days and cut with them and work with them on their property just to help that continuity. But a lot of guys want to take that information and run with it. And that's one aspect of it. We got clients that are turnkey clients, we go in and do all the work. And many times those people are sped up. Like they've got too many things going on, they're running businesses, they don't have opportunity, they just want to show

And you don't have the same relationship with those folks, which, you know, of course would bother the normal guy because you're like, wow, you're not invested. Like I'm invested in your property. But that's not always the case either. Some of those guys are just invested. They don't have the time. So you communicate with them more frequently, but it's not like in a work situation, meaning you're not in the field doing the actual work with them. So they miss out on some stuff, but you know, it depends on your means and what your goals are and your time and effort.

and interest and money is time and time is money. So people have to look at how much time they're willing to invest in something. You know, if you're a guy that makes 500 bucks an hour, it's probably not worth it for you to go cut timber or maybe 150 bucks an hour, right? Maybe it's worth paying somebody 100 bucks an hour to do that because it's too strenuous. There's a risk involved, insurance, equipment, whatever the case may be. So with our clients, we sit down and say, hey, what time availability do you have? And then break.

What do you want to do? Like, are your real, what do you want to do on this property? What do you want your role to be? And we define that with them. I've had clients where they don't even show up. They send a manager in to work with me to do, excuse me, to work on their job and the client doesn't even show up, right? They're off in, know, whatever, you know, whatever and making, you know, money. And usually it's money driven. Not always, right? People have other priorities, but certainly everyone has different.

obligations and you have to understand that. But you have to connect with these clients enough. Because I work with guys that are normal guys. Like they don't make $60 ,000 a year, right? They make just the bare minimum. But they have these properties and you know they're willing to invest in it and they've been saving for three years for me to come out to their property. And that day is huge for them. And so that doesn't change my relationship. I work the same way with them as the guy that's got all the money.

Jon Teater (16:36.218)
but I really need them to be successful and that means that they've got to figure out what their goals are and I help define that and then we walk through a process, so decision tree analysis, of how to achieve those goals based on their time, their money, all those things that go involved

Dan Johnson (16:47.267)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (16:50.649)
Okay. All right, so you mentioned the term, like I hear a lot of habitat managers, consultants say, and that's holding deer. You know, gotta hold deer on your property all year round. And so I have a property down, that's the property that I've hunted for the most years, and it is a summer bonanza. And I mean, there's giants that hang out. There's tons of deer, very,

not only quality, but quantity are in on this farm. The second the velvet comes off, they redistribute. Okay, from your experience, from your experience, what are they doing? Why do they redistribute? And then also what could be done from a habitat standpoint to improve that so they don't redistribute and they all kind of stick around or most of them stick around.

Jon Teater (17:48.634)
Yeah, so this has been a huge problem for a lot of these properties are ag dominated if there's a lot of agriculture and a lot of it's blocked timber. And so how do you create more usable space that's functional all season long? That's the goal. So what you do is you just simply look at your demographic of your vegetation. You know, let's say you got a lot of timber or maybe you don't have a lot of timber. What is the status of that timber? What's the age class? What's the diversity? What's the value of food related to the timber? And

we try to regenerate areas where there's enough food seasonally to keep them hold over so they stick around the property. Now, one of the things I've been working on over the years is trying to define this a little bit better, but, you know, deer have a core range and a home range and core is, you know, tight. You know, think of the center of an apple and then the home range is a larger span where they may, you know, open that up during breeding season, but, you know, an area where they frequent around. Now on these properties that are more, most of my area in New York, it's mostly,

woodland dominated and forest dominated. In those particular situations where they're forest dominated, it's really easy to shrink their core area with vegetation. Really easy to do that. In your areas, they prefer those because there's been this cadence of movement over time. Like think of it like a historical pictogram where all these deer are so used to going in these areas, you've got to change the trend. So you got to get a little extreme on that. So one of the things you do is you bulk up and provide

as much food as you can, seasonality, during the time that they're going to leave. The other piece of it is you have to create the right volume of cover. Cover changes all the time. One of the goals is creating, the term we use is thermal neutrality. And we wanna make sure that the deer stay cool or stay warm during the right times of year. Comfort is a big piece of this. You can't put like a comfort scale, but you sit in that really comfortable chair in your neighbor's family room.

and that chair is better quality, it's got better leather, it's a little more plush, you're gonna create these comfort factors on these properties. So some of that is just how you build habitat. So one of the things we do is within the bedding areas specifically, we add food to bedding areas. And that seems like counterproductive because you want deer to move around the landscape. But realize to create these sanctums, the deer need certain features. And the certain features is safety.

Jon Teater (20:13.264)
And we go back to this whole risk avoidance thing. If you can create enough food within a bedding area and you stack deer and you have enough food value, the deer don't have to leave. And that's 90 % of the goal. So these little small timber lots, if there's enough food availability and they're not depleting the entire landscape, depending on the population, then you're probably in a good shape to shift their interest into your property. Security cover's huge. That's a major factor in deer selecting certain locations. Bucks, for example. Bucks want space.

They want space within their cohort. within the bachelor groups, some bucks are more individualistic. They want larger volume of space. There's concept called depth of cover, which is a fallacy. It's been promoted all through the industry, through the internet. Jeff Sturges does a good job talking about different factors of it. But on my properties that I designed, we don't have depth of cover. I'm stacking buck next to doe, next to buck, next to doe. Some deer don't like that naturally. They just are inclined to want space.

but some deer become accustomed to it. Good example, Don Higgins is a super well -known habitat consultant out there. Charges a lot of money, has a great property in Illinois. He's got an island property. These deer are so familiar with being integrating and having social stress, but they're used to it. And they grow up in that environment and they're used to congregating into his property. He separates them and creates space and does a lot of things that we're talking about here.

They don't experience the same stressors that you might have when you have some of these properties are completely depleted with food and don't have the cover value. So a lot of times it's creating that balance between cover and food. And like I said earlier, risk preferences and avoidances. And I could create a property where in a lot of instances, the big bucks stick around, they don't leave. Now naturally some deer are just gonna leave because they've had that cadence of movement of leaving, but you can change a deer's home range

and core range based on the improvements that we're making. And I've got plenty of examples that with clients and myself where, you know, that deer wasn't on my property, you know, two years ago when he was a two year old and all of sudden as a four year he's on the property and he's on it, you know, more frequently than he's ever been. And I'm killing him, you know, within hours of me trying to, you know, make a decision. And I'm, you know, I've got the data. He gives me a tell. I go kill him game over.

Jon Teater (22:36.464)
And I have instances where I haven't been successful killing the deer, but I've at least held them on my property and that's normally the goal that you're trying to create. But a lot of it's a food cover value aspect of it and diversifying your property. It's 90 % of the issue.

Dan Johnson (22:36.677)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (22:45.277)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (22:50.407)
Okay, so you used the term just now, depth of cover. Okay, explain, so is that a bad thing or a good thing?

Jon Teater (22:59.472)
No, it's just a theory that Jeff Sturges promotes it and this is a great conversation because his perception is that certain deer have to stack behind other deer. There's an understanding amongst a lot of people that do this that deer want space. I do agree that deer want space and certain individual deer may want more space than other deer. I'm not disputing

What I'm saying is in some examples, I've been able to stack deer closer to each other. like if you're going to hunt your deer, what would you say? Because of the value of cover and it's how you create cover in the landscape. And some of it has a lot to do with just orchestrating layering, having layering with embedding areas. Good example on a food plot. So people have like common understanding what this is. So I just had this big habitat day on my property. had like, you know,

Dan Johnson (23:33.979)
Because of the cover. Because of the cover that has been created. Okay.

Jon Teater (23:55.824)
20 clients out and we just I did a big presentation and you know they're up and down my property has ton elevation changes it's one of the most unique properties that I think I know any of these clients have ever seen and it's created this basic

basic focus on layering and layering could be even a food plot where you have a shrub, a grass, a conifer, a shrub, a grass, a conifer. have like these, these individual layers and that creates buffers and buffers, depending if they have a food value or a cover value are a resource. And so if you create these resources and you increase food value, it's really not hard to get deer to stack within an area. And

you know, it's the depth of cover is kind of washed away because I could stack a buck and a doe and a mature buck next to a of does within close proximity on these little islands and points. it's a lot of it's topography driven. Topography sometimes dictates where deer are going to be. So how do you maximize that location with the topography in mind? And that has a lot to do with managing vegetation and cutting. You know, and that's, that's really where we've kind of really like fine tune.

designing a property. So I can take any property, you know, anywhere and I can employ some of these tactics and change the whole prescription on how often did they use it, you know, how to control their movement in and on an area, how to take data on them. And it works. I mean, it's I've done it all over the country.

Dan Johnson (25:31.432)
Okay, now one of the things that you're alluding to here as far as deer needing space is carrying capacity and and so How do you identify when you go into a property or once the property is completed? You know you go in you do your thing five years later, you know Now it's to where like we've reached this goal from from a from a habitat standpoint. How do you identify?

whether or not the carrying capacity of a farm is high or low.

Jon Teater (26:06.928)
So the simple way to do it, and I think a lot of people just want the simple answer to this, is you take, you you have a food plot and you think about the amount of biomass in that food plot and you can calculate it. Like let's just say, for example, corn, which is a seasonal plant, probably not good example. You're producing anywhere to five to 10 ,000 pounds of food, you know, roughly per acre. That's kind of an average. But if you're doing clover, you can go in there and cut like a foot by foot section or a 10 by 10 section. And then you got this exclusion cage. And like, for example, my property,

I put out an exclusion cage the beginning of the month. And every month I check it and I see how it compares versus another area. And then I measure how much biomass is eaten. And then it gives me kind of an indicator of high, medium, low. So I know in that food plot that they're frequently often, you know, they're often up there, I can figure out how much they're consuming on that food plot within a 30 day cycle. So then I can figure out how much deer I'm feeding and I can do rough estimates. I mean, there's other ways to do this, population studies. mean,

Thermal drones are fantastic, where you can legally use them. You can at least get an idea of numbers. But on my property, for example, I average, and my cameras prove this, I average anywhere between 12 to 15 deer daily. So how many mouths do I need to feed? So how much food do I need on a per day basis? It's six to eight pounds of wet matter. If you just take a tote and you fill it up about three quarters full, one of those, I don't know how many gallons, 25 gallons.

Three -quarters full. That's about six to eight pounds. It's a lot of food per deer. So you're figuring out how much food you need to feed per deer. So when you go in, you start looking at preferential foods. How much are they depleted? Even within forested ground, if you take a fence and like lock off a 10 by 10 section and measure how much edible food is in there, you can compare it against a square acre and say, all right, well, I have about this much food. This equates to this much dry matter.

this is how many deer I can feed. And that's how you start to come up with this food value concept. And I think exclusion cages are great in the woods, in the fields, and you can do simple math. I mean, it's not hard to take something and weigh it and compare it against what you actually have. And so what I do is I'll have multiple exclusion cages in a field. I'll set them up at 30 days. I'll compare it against what's adjacent to it, and I'll do the math. And it's like weighing something, you know?

Jon Teater (28:31.248)
It's really not hard and you can weigh it instantaneous. I got these little small scales, I bring them with me. I weigh the food and okay, I've got 3000 or 4000 pounds eaten at this period of time. In this month, I may, on those food plots, I may lose 1000 to 1200 pounds a month. It sounds like a lot, but how much am I producing? And that's something about understanding what deer eat and why. And these diverse food plot blends are also kind of interesting because I think,

They're giving the deer a really diverse diet. You know, you've seen these like 16 species blends and you know, it gets a little complex, you know, with just, you know, what type of food is in there and how do you equate now what the volume of biomass is that's edible.

Dan Johnson (29:14.932)
Okay, so you improve a property, right? And let's say you don't hunt it. If you improve a property, you don't hunt it, more deer are gonna come live on this thing, right? And then you're fighting against an increased population of animals, right? And so now you need more and you need more and you need more. Okay, so what I'm getting at here is once you've implemented habitat improvement,

and you've gotten the deer to stick around, maybe even the does are having their fawns and they're not leaving, the bucks aren't leaving, everybody's sticking around. How then do you equate how many deer need to be removed off that property every single year?

Jon Teater (30:03.93)
So the recruitment piece of this is big. once those does take up space and they're producing fawns, those fawns are going to stick around, right? And so you got to figure out how many deer you're retaining. So there's residential deer and then there's non -residential deer. And so over time on some of these larger properties, like they've got all the food late season, all of a sudden a plumb of deer come into the property and they just devour it, right? And I think I've talked to the juries about

this issue right on their property, because I know their habitat manager. And so one of the things we try to do is knock down the resident deer population. Like trigger control management is like, is the focus. Figure out what you're comfortable with and how many deer you can feed. That's a calculation. Figure out how many are residential and how many fawns you're bringing to the equation. So every fawn you recruit, some are going to disperse. One of the good examples that I've been doing on my property, because I have so many deer,

This summer I've been over there almost every single day now I got bucks frequently property But they're not at the volume that they normally are because I'm pushing them off. I'm trying to preserve some of the food Some of the wooden material for late season because I'm I'm short on late season food on my particular property because it's only 46 acres I got 1 .7 acres of food plots and then I manage the rest for vegetation So I would say for most people figure out what your what you think your capacity is based on the volume of

and think about it seasonally, and then think about your recruitment number. So how many fawns, how many deer, and how many deer are immigrating your property? Now, one thing that NDA might tell you is, you you take a statistic, look at your fawn and deer population in September, don't look at it again and make your decisions. I kind of disagree with that. I think if you've got these deer coming into your property and they're coming from, you know, your neighbor's property and they're now becoming more frequent because you've got this metropolis, those deer might have to die.

So think some of it depends on their frequency. Then it's getting really intimate with which deer on your property, which honestly is really hard to do with some of these does. So now you're looking at age demographics. You know, what are they consuming? Like older deer, bigger deer, they eat more food, right? And younger deer eat better quality food. And so there's kind of a difference in some of the things are focused around what food you have when, and I think you need to understand when you have the highest volume of food.

Jon Teater (32:30.766)
And does that equate to this overlap of one deer on your property? And you kind of got to match the two up if that makes sense. So you might do more cutting to have more woody vegetation in the winter months because you have this influx of deer on your property. And sometimes you can't hunt during that time of year. So what do you do? Go put pressure on your property, kick them off, go over there every day. I have low deer populations in my area, so I don't have to worry about these issues as much, but I work out in Ohio and there's tons of

And I say, put pressure on your property. When you're not hunting, put pressure on your property, keep them off your land. Because again, deer know what good is. And this is totally opposite of what most people say. Leave it alone, don't touch it. No way, kick them off. Get them out of there. Shoot as many does as you can. Shoot the low quality bucks that are on your property of the right age class. And that could be two year olds. You could be displacing or shooting two year olds. And that might be a good thing depending on where you are, what your goals

Dan Johnson (33:28.454)
Yeah, elaborate on that right there. Like eliminating low quality bucks because I hear that and I go, why would you shoot young deer?

Jon Teater (33:41.338)
Yeah, think I always start with, in my area, we focus on maturity. So if I can get a deer to three years old, that's a great thing. If it gets to four, it's even better. So antlers really don't matter. But on lot of these properties where they're larger, they have more opportunity to kind of manage the deer. They're starting to get to that two -year -old age class where they see the potential differences in quality. Now, deer do make jumps and it's hard to be fully,

aware of what that jump may be, but they typically have trends. So if a deer falls outside of the bell curve, meaning its antler quality is such where it's not within the average standard, that deer could likely get killed. But if it's at average or above average, then based upon the number of deer and your ultimate goal of maybe growing trophy class whitetails, you can call out some of those younger deer.

That doesn't mean that those deer won't disperse either. Like, let's say you've got a neighbor that's doing all the stuff that you're doing. You may lose that deer to quality habitat. So you're constantly in this competition mode of what deer you can retain. And also, going back to the social piece of it, know, Dan, you got to realize some of these deer have individual preference. You got a bully buck on a property, guess what? It dies. I just did a podcast on this on my own where I talked, you know, on the White Tail Landscapes podcast, I talked a little bit about

what deer live and die and what my theories are on my property. And so if it's a doe that has this like social eclectic, like doesn't get along with other does, it dies. So part of my decision to kill a deer may be related to how it physically interacts with other deer on the landscape. Same thing with big bucks, bully bucks die. They usually don't stand a chance on properties like mine. So I'll prefer a bully buck.

over a more sedentary deer that doesn't have the same

Dan Johnson (35:40.608)
Yeah, dude, and that bully buck thing is real. watched a dude, he was a gigantic body and he was a hundred and twenty five inch eight pointer. Wide short times like put him on a wall. People were like, why would you shoot this deer type of type of buck? Right. But he was probably I'm going to guess five, six year

big mature deer. came and when he showed up on the farm last year and the year before, later November, he kicks every other deer out, every other mature buck. During the late season one year, I watched him come into a food plot on the neighbor's farm and he kicked every single buck off of that food plot and then he fought with one as well. And so, I can see how that is a huge part of management.

Jon Teater (36:34.778)
Well, you bring up a point and you just said it right there. Like aesthetics is everything for people. It's the same thing with human nature, right? The guy always wants the pretty girl. And it's the same thing with deer. We perceive these things to be, you know, important and antlers have become important to people. And what was really important is having healthy deer and having healthy environments for deer. And so we've kind of missed the boat there.

You can have high quality deer that like great environments. They may have these personalities that you kind of got to rid out. But the reality of it is we're missing the boat and we're looking at things totally wrong. And, you know, I've been able to kind of shape and change people's way of thinking, at least in my circles. And I realized that not everyone, you know, buys into that. Like everybody wants that, you know, big giant truck with 400 horsepower. I drive a Subaru Outback. I don't, I

I don't need to walk around with a big stick. And so what I want people to realize is when you're designing these hunting properties, there's a lot of little small things that you can do. It's not about antler quality all the time. It's about creating the right environments. And sometimes it's the atmosphere. Like if we go to a bar and it's just got a good vibe, it's really one of those things where you just know it's got a good vibe. The people are there, the environment's there, there's nobody fighting. It just has a great environment. And think about that like your hunting

I don't want a lot of fighting. I don't want a lot of discord. I want people to get along. And that's the same thing with deer. And that's a great environment to create this opportunity. And I think a good property can be excellent. And I've seen a lot of people take their good properties where they're 150 class, 160 class deer and take it to the next level. And they're really assessing the deer differently and they're looking at their environments differently. I just, I think there's the next level.

It's really hard. Most of my client base is new to this. They're trying to understand how to just get going. But those that are advanced, you know, it's really easy to take them to that next level, that top tier farm. And, you know, those are great clients to have. And a lot of those clients are in the Midwest, which is tough because I'm a Northeast guy and that's, you know, I can't replicate that here as easily.

Dan Johnson (38:45.901)
Right, right. Okay. So I've been thinking about this recently about who's telling the story, who is promoting their thing, right? And what kind of knowledge base do they have to promote a certain message, right? And so you look at this in social media, right?

And that would be somebody with a big amount of numbers, followings, YouTube channels. You know, they're they're coming out and they're saying, hey, you should try to do this or you do this or watch me how I do this. And maybe their knowledge base isn't there, but people think they are the figure to listen to because they have giant numbers in social media or YouTube and things like that. So I don't want like any like anybody. I don't want you to call out any names per se, but

What is one thing that you see in this, this habitat management environment industry that really just was like pisses you off because I don't know from a, from a scientific standpoint, from a management standpoint, from a business standpoint, things like

Jon Teater (40:02.704)
Well, I want to say one thing that I think is important. I think that it's important to look at like, I'll bring up Jeff Sturges as a good example. He's been on this podcast and I don't know Jeff personally, but what I like about some of these guys is those platforms give them a chance to change people's state of mind and thinking. So it's critical. So you can't abuse that, right? That's important. And there's never one way to skin a cat. There's always many different options. So nobody's a hundred percent correct. Normally,

there's an 80 % solution to 100 % of the issues. That's normally what I think. There's so many things that are new now that the hunting community is not tied to. So you may be really involved in a Grant Woods YouTube channel and really immersed in his process. And it doesn't apply to your situation. You don't have the same soil type, climatic conditions, right? There's so many differences, but there isn't enough identified.

for you to understand what those differences may be. So people are not really inclined to understand fully what their environment provides to them. And some places, you know, have the sky's the limit and you just don't know it and you don't know what to do. So one of the things I will say that I think is really important is, and I think this would be important for you, and I think it's important for any listener on this, go try hard. And what I mean by that is it could be, you know,

It could be a marathon. It could be hunting. Go try hard. Go experience something more difficult than you currently are in and push yourself. Now, I know you do that, right? I know you go on hunts and maybe you feel at some point, I got no business being out here, right? I don't know. I don't even know how handle this. And I've seen you go through that. I think, yeah, and I think that's the best part of you. I think that makes you so real with people and that's why people relate to you. But if you're doing this, like you're working on your hunting

Dan Johnson (41:45.057)
Every year. Every year.

Jon Teater (41:57.284)
and you want to go experience hard, come out to New York, come out to New Hampshire, come out to Connecticut and struggle with us through the seasons and look at what those differences may be and appreciate what we experience because what that's going to do is going to give you perspective and it's going to make you change how you approach things. The other piece of it is there is more science data out there, not studied stuff that's in this world, meaning not in a deer world, but ecological

I'm studying stuff that is like, I don't want to say it's far beyond, but it's so significantly different than in the deer world that you would be amazed at how simply, like one example, next week, I mean, I'm on the road this week here. I'm with clients the rest of the week, right? Next week. But when I get back, I'm changing the microbiology on my property in such a way where I have more production. Meaning I'm processing nutrients that are such

higher rate, I'm mineralizing like phosphorus at such a high rate because my gear need high levels of phosphorus because I have deficient phosphorus across the landscape. And what does that do? It makes it good. And you how I measure that? I have tools where I can look at through a microscope or I can do sap analysis or do leaf analysis and I can look at the sugar levels of those plants. And I know that high sugar content equals high interest. And

I'm looking at things at a little bit finer level than the most habitat managers because I'm in a really tough area. And I think going through tough gives you perspective. And I think people should start pushing themselves to experiencing difficulty because when you do that, it'll change your ultimate experience. It'll push you to that next age class. It'll push you to that, you know, that next management decision. You know, maybe get away from fire. Fire isn't always the best option for people. And everyone promotes fires. The number one resource management

It's not, and it's not here in the Northeast. We have highly met, it's very wet here. Fire regime is not predominant in this environment. It's not a technique and tool that you can use very frequently. I'm not saying you can't use fire or you shouldn't use fire. I'm just saying there's differences and you should explore those differences and go see different things. Take a class in New York with John Titor. Go to Don Higgins' master class. Go to these other areas. Go across the country and see what other people are doing. You'll get great ideas on how to employ

Jon Teater (44:23.15)
change on your property. Have a consultant come to your property that's not ever worked in your area. That's a smart person that can figure out your ecoregion and different ecotypes and how to explore those because ecotypes drive how I approach a habitat design. And I think some of these people can't spell ecotype. They're doing this professionally and that's, you know, that's not calling people out, but really do your research on some of these guys that are coming out and doing this. like, you're good hunters. Cool.

Dan Johnson (44:52.582)
Yeah. Yeah. That's that was the point I'm trying to make here. You know, that's a little bit of so just real quick. Do you have an education in this field? No. No. OK. OK.

Jon Teater (44:52.878)
This is way beyond honey. You know, if this is all about honey, then, you know, yeah.

Jon Teater (45:06.864)
No, no I don't. I'm completely self -taught and I think that I have a legal background, which you probably don't know. I've got a technical engineering background. So how does that apply? Honestly, the way it applied was I started doing this 20, over 20 years ago. I'm 42 now. So when I was in my twenties, I was doing some of the stuff I'm still doing today. And I just took a different approach than most

And I think that really kind of changed my perspective. And now I take tons of training classes. I've gotten the education. I just don't have a bachelor's degree in biology. And I don't think I need it because I think the level of experience that I have, I mean, I'm teaching foresters and biologists. mean, I'm helping them explore how to do this better, which shows that you've started to hit the pinnacle. And where I've excelled is I know that I don't know everything. And I'm continuing to learn, continuing to learn.

And that's been why my businesses excelled. And having a fresh look at everything, taking maybe a more engineering design kind of philosophy and applying it to habitat management, totally applicable. Because a lot of it's mechanical. So it's just an interesting thought.

Dan Johnson (46:22.07)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (46:27.444)
All right, what is harder? The initial setup of a farm for whether it's you or whether it's you're telling a landowner what to do. Is it the first, let's say two years on a property to implement it or is it the rest of the time maintaining

Jon Teater (46:51.152)
It depends on how you cut it and how you manage it. So I have areas of my property where I to do very infrequent work the way that I cut it. So what we've done is a lot of my clients are anywhere between 55 and 65. So how do we make it easy for them to do the work? So if you cut it right and you do the work and you allow yourself to have machinery to get in there, like for example, you have a flamel and you go in there and cut everything really easily. You don't have to do it by hand. That's going to save you time and effort.

Getting the property set up is the biggest thing because people don't realize how much work is involved. Most clients on a hundred acres or less should be averaging 35 or more days on an annual basis just doing habitat work. 35 days. Now it's hard for Dan Johnson and John Tito to get 35 days a year just to do habitat work beyond all the hunting. But all that does is make your hunting easier and makes your environment better to attract and hold deer. So it's a win on the back end of it, but

I think it takes the biggest leap of faith is to get going and most of the time it's hard for people to translate a design, a prescription, and what do I do next? Like what are the steps that I need to take? And people are very simple. They want it simple. So you've got to make sure that you're going to give them the best bang for the buck and give them the direction they need. It's going to be different if you lay out a property for fire with a fire regime than you would with a forest management plan that doesn't

They're totally two different philosophies and techniques and it's your layout is going to be different. So I think a lot of it has to do with what are your issues? What are your ultimate goals and defining some of those such where you can put the right time and effort getting into a particular area and making change. So if you don't set it up right, you get screwed on the backside with a ton of maintenance. So I'll just give you one last thing because this podcast is going to come out next week with me because I had this masterclass. One of the questions that was asked because I had a guy interview me.

on the podcast and he asked me the question, I thought you'd cut more. And I said, I don't want the maintenance. The more I cut, the more maintenance I have. And if I'm not cutting the right trees, all I'm doing is setting myself up for more work. I want the least amount of work and the most amount of output. And he was like, that makes sense. So to your point, Dan, I think if you set up the property right for the first two years and you cut it right and you manage it right, the next three, four, five, six years are a lot easier. And the maintenance should be the fun

Jon Teater (49:17.712)
You're 35 days going on to 20 days. So, you

Dan Johnson (49:21.409)
Yeah. Yeah. All right. So people listen to this and they go, my God, maybe I should have a consultant come to my, farm, take a look at it, whether it's a thousand acres or whether it's 20 acres, whatever the case is. How do I go about looking for

a habitat consultant or a property manager or whatever the, I know those are two different things, a habitat consultant, a habitat improvement company, whatever the case is. What's, what's the first thing as a potential client that I should be looking for to where I get the best results out of the dollar that I'm giving him.

Jon Teater (50:00.08)
All right, so money matters for most people. So I think money's always the factor. Consultants are anywhere between, I've seen pretty inexpensive consultants, they're 1 ,700 bucks to consultants that are $10 ,000 for a day. So figure out what your budget is. Now beyond that, figure out somebody that you actually can relate to that has similar experience to you. Now the guy that manages 10 ,000 acres that does it once a year, right, that's focused on that property, knows that eco type.

Has he traveled a lot? What experiences does have in your region? That's important. think understanding ecoregions. I've had to travel quite a bit, so I've had to study different ecoregions. Deer are deer, but deer are different. So in the Northeast, I feel like there's a different type of... They're the same species, but their mentality or their physical, emotional state or mental state's a little different. That will change the way that you approach deer. So if there's a consultant that's done a lot of work in really tough areas, I would argue that they have a different...

perspective. Now, the other piece of it is what's your deer population like? I think that's another factor I'd ask. Like do you have high deer population or low deer population? And asking the consultant around those questions like, well, what do you do in this example? I think you should put together four or five critical questions that you ask the consultant that are meaningful to you that depending on the response, interview them, depending on the response, how they respond to that, what does that actually, does that trigger a response like they're, they know what they're talking about or

The last piece of it is knowing, will that consultant stay with you after the work that they do? So if I just give you a map and I walk away and that's all you want, and you don't want any follow up and you're cool with that, that's one. But a of my clients, what happened is they want to do an exit interview, they want to interview. Like I talked to a client I worked on two years ago, he called me yesterday and had five questions. We scheduled a meeting, we had five questions, we'd bang them out.

He's done, right? He got his information. And by the way, that just helps me understand where he's at and his level of success. So figure out a guy that's gonna stick around with you. The last piece of it is how are you gonna do the work? Sometimes you need to be shown how to do the work. So if there are a consultant that comes out and just says, here's your map, good luck, or they're willing to follow up with you, but they're not willing to do the work, then you're kind of lost a little bit. You may not be able to do the implementation work.

Jon Teater (52:17.882)
through that whole discussion point, figure out somebody you're comfortable with, something that is gonna be able to follow through with you, and then something that's willing to help you if you need help. And that has expertise to do that. Some of these guys only do consulting in the winter time because it's easy to look at the landscape, it's easy walking. Well, the best time to consult is in August and September, right before hunting season. I can see all your deficiencies on the landscape, things have started to success a little bit, so you get to see what the status of your environment is, your quality of vegetation,

Dan Johnson (52:45.468)
That's a great point.

Jon Teater (52:46.468)
you get a great scout before season. So somebody's only doing the winter months, they missed out on the whole gamut of what is your hunting gonna look like before the season? Most of my consulting, like I've got client after client right now, this is the best time to consult for me. And I push clients off into August and September, because I'm helping them for hunting season. I can tell them what food plot, know, lot of people want to focus on food plot, but seed to put in at this point in time, right for late season. And then also, you know, I'm giving them great prescription, where they're gonna be, where they have a good opportunity to kill.

What are the improvements they need to make or could make on the property? And it's real -time information for them. And most of the consultants aren't working. They stop, right? I think there's only a few that continue all year. I mean, I do all year consulting. I take two months off a year. And that's during hunting season for me. And I still will cut timber. I cut timber in October last year on a client property in Ohio. So, you I still work if I have

Dan Johnson (53:40.107)
Yeah, yeah. Man, there's a lot there. I mean, from every this conversation today, and I know that from a and I know you because I've talked with you before and I listened to your podcast and and I know how detailed you are about the work that you do, which to this day blows my mind of of whenever I saw.

for every podcast that comes into the network, I'll listen to little bits of it to make sure the audio quality is correct. And listening to you and your guest or you and a past consultant or another a client or you and another consultant talk is just like blows my mind about the attention to detail and the levels that go into how you approach the, you know, how you approach.

you know, habitat management or, don't know, hinge cutting. Like when, when a guy has an entire podcast dedicated to like one or two specific plants, that, that tells you right there that this guy's serious about what he does. it's, and dude, and it's not a, it's not a, yeah, here's how you do it. You hinge cut, you plant, plant food plots and you burn. Right. There's so much more than

Jon Teater (55:03.086)
Yeah, we have, you know, that whole concept with that, you know, when I replaced Landon Legacy, the whole concept was, you know, how do I bring my business to the forefront? And then how do I bring other people along with that, but also learn from those other people? And it's just a good collective of folks that are willing to contribute. And Landon's Legacy has contributed. We've had some of their consultants on there. So I've opened it up to everybody because it's a voice, it's an opportunity for people to communicate. And really what I've realized over

time was, you know, you get there's always this paranoia and get tired of this. I'm like, am I good enough? Right? Everyone goes through that. Am I good enough? And I'm like, wow, you know, the more that I experienced doing this, the more that I realized, wow, we are different. And like I said earlier, you know, I would love to hunt with you. I would love to hunt with anybody that's even on the network. But it's just because you learn so much from people. And I think, you know, your perspective, my perspective.

There's nobody that's 100 % right, but man, the level of just interest and focus, like I'm so passionate about my clients. I don't care about my hunting season anymore. There's so many things I don't care about anymore. I just love changing things and I love helping people. And I can't stress that enough because I'm not always right, but I'm telling you, I will figure out what the best answer is every single time. And I'm just, I'm ingrained to figure out the right.

We were problem solvers, men are problem solvers in most examples and we're leaders. And so I want to be a leader in the industry. I do not have the social media presence that I probably need to be that leader, but I think over time I will. think over time, yeah, over time I think, I think, and I think, you know, I am the next generation. know, the Grant Woods and Sturges, they'll be gone in 10 years. Yeah, they'll be around, but they'll be gone. Some of these guys are doing it, they'll be gone. I'm the next generation and I need to be smart.

Dan Johnson (56:43.39)
We're working on that.

Dan Johnson (56:53.598)
Yeah.

Jon Teater (56:59.978)
and work well with other people and it's having great relationships that I need to focus in on. you know, these are the platforms to do that. And I feel very vulnerable saying that, but my business has grown this year. It's the biggest, it's the most work I've ever had. I can't take on much more work. You know, I try to and I will, but I'm super appreciative even of the network because it's given me a voice and platform and I needed that.

Dan Johnson (57:23.796)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (57:27.582)
Yeah, yeah. yeah, no worries, man.

Jon Teater (57:28.16)
I thank you for considering me, man, because you called me and I wasn't sure. So I think it worked out pretty good.

Dan Johnson (57:34.258)
Yeah, I forget how that all went down, but I listened to someone who I trusted say, dude, you gotta talk to this dude. it worked out great, man. You're putting out amazing content. We do have to work on the social media aspect of it a little bit more, and we'll get there. But dude, I really appreciate it. And I'm gonna put out, I'm gonna do a commercial

whitetail landscapes right now. Okay. And it's very simple and maybe you'll hate this, but I'm going to get, want people to call you. Okay. If you want big giant bucks on your hunting property called John Teter and whitetail landscapes, do it, do it right. Cause that's what people want is big bucks and you can give them big bucks. so

Jon Teater (58:24.164)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Yeah, that's my marketing advertising. I'm to be the big sexy buck

Dan Johnson (58:30.739)
Yeah. Yeah. The big bucks. Yeah. Big buck habitat management. I can just see it now. Well, John, man, I really appreciate you taking time out of your day to come on here and talk habitat with us, talk consulting and things like that. That's like self admittedly. It's one thing that because I've never owned a property, I've never leased a property. I planted a brassica food plot once that I definitely overseeded and it didn't turn out the way I want it.

But outside of that, I've done nothing in the habitat world. And so it's always, I love talking with you because it's very interesting conversation. so good luck with the business and good luck this upcoming season, man.

Jon Teater (59:14.234)
Thanks Dan, appreciate it.

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