house hunters property management

grant: the growingdeer field event is oneof the most exciting things we do all year long. we’ve held this event for more thanfive years, but we knew the one this year would be extra special. we started registrationin may and it sold out quickly. so quick that i ended up saying yes to about 60 additionalpeople, we knew it’d be a full house, but great days to come. grant: if you’re not familiar with thisevent, it’s a time when we bring a lot of people in and share all our hunting and foodplot strategies, as well as all our pro staff and partners. there’s a lot of people givingand sharing information. it’s a great time

to tune up before deer season. unknown: planting? grant: friday morning adam had all the prostaff in for a camera school. they were able to actually go out, put the stands on trees,set some cameras up, refine our techniques before season starts. grant: we had several events that afternoon,including the ever popular archery shoot put on by morrell targets. we had a 3d range,and also, several targets setup for guys to try bows and check out their pins at variousyardages. announcer: growingdeer.tv is brought to youby bass pro shops. also by reconyx, trophy

rock, eagle seed, nikon, winchester, scentmaster,dead down wind, antler dirt, lacrosse footwear, whitetail properties, bloodsport arrows, outdooredge knives, flatwood natives, morrell targets, caldwell, hook’s custom calls, montana decoys,summit treestands, drake non-typical clothing, howes lubricator products, lem game processing,g5 broadheads, prime bows, redneck hunting blinds. grant: it was hot friday afternoon, but saturdaymorning started off totally different with fog and a light mist. grant: our tree plot was our first stop. theboys from flatwood natives explained what we’d done in the past and shared some techniquesto plant trees to ensure their survival.

lance: flatwood natives grows healthy treesfor hunters. uh, it’s not just planting trees in your backyard; it’s designing andlandscaping tree plots so that you can hunt around. go to our website, look at our speciesthat you may be interested in, and each one of those will have a heartiness zone. if youhaven’t tested your soil, you’re really making a mistake. always start with that.diversity is the key. the more diverse your species are, the longer drop period your foodsource is gonna be on the ground. lance: it’s important to note, too, whenyou’re setting your tree in your hole that you don’t want the tree too deep. it’sgonna settle a little bit. depending on your soil type, your tree’s gonna settle, soyou want to try to raise it up, i’d say

about a inch above the surface. that’s gonna,after your first couple rains, it’s gonna settle down where it wants to be. if you getit too deep, you’re gonna – it’s just gonna be too wet and it’s gonna kill thetree. lance: one of the things that keyland’sadding right now is a product we – it’s a stock absorber, it’s a moisture retainerproduct – basically, all that’s doing is holding moisture for a longer period oftime. so if you’re like us and you can’t get to your farms very often, doesn’t meanyou can’t put a tree plot in the ground and expect it to live or not live. use theseproducts because they’re just gonna help survival rates. the next step is wateringthe tree. uh, probably, the most important

step you can take. that’s gonna aid in gettingrid of a lot of the air pockets that were in the soil, especially, with rocky soil like,like it is here – you’re real susceptible to air pockets. you don’t want any air touchingthe root system. the next thing we’re gonna do, before we put the weed mat on, is we’regonna use a slow release fertilizer pack. so what we recommend – keyland’s gonnadrop it in – just set it about four, five inches away from the base of the tree andbury it about an inch under the surface. also, obviously, the weed mat is to, to keep theweeds from growing, so it’s going to allow your tree’s root system to absorb all theavailable nutrients in the ground, and they’re not going to the grasses and the weeds thatare surrounding.

lance: tree tube does a couple things. wecall it a growth protection tube, so it’s gonna promote upward growth at a, at a fasterrate. if you do know prevailing wind, try to put your stake on the prevailing wind sideof the tube. it’s just gonna, it’s just gonna help the process. grant: there was a lot of great questionsand answers from the attendees and the boys from flatwood natives. after we finished thatdiscussion, we moved up the hill to our professional trapper, clint cary, who shared some of hiscoyote catching techniques. clint: when i make my sets, i try to causeas much intrigue as possible. very rarely will i ever have a dirt hole that’s justa hole with a bait in the bag. i’ll have

bait in one, lure in one. you can take a pieceof rebar here and just kinda hammer it in the ground to the side and put a piece oflure in that hole. and what you’re wanting to do is get as much foot movement from acoyote as possible. the pan of this trap is right here. i broke up this pattern, justby tearing grass clippings and sticking ‘em right through the jaws of this trap in places.you know you wouldn’t step on something that looked totally unnatural and differentfrom everything else. unknown: offset it a little bit, so… clint: like i said, i don’t care. most ofmine, i have no idea where it’s at, really. here, i, i kind of dig where the rock tellsme to go. (laughter) you’ll start digging,

and you pull out a rock this big, and “oh,i need to move it over here.” so like i say, that’s why i’ll add holes. i’lladd bait in other places, and that’s the main thing, if you don’t take anything elseaway, is when this trap is in the hole, you want to touch all four corners. you want totouch the levers, and you don’t want that trap doing this, or that. you want it what’scalled bedded solid, almost like a mold that i’m cutting here in the dirt. i’m gonnasit this trap in, and it’s not gonna move. clint: this is a, a drag connected to a chain.you can set that trap, cover this drag up out here in the weeds. i’m just throwingit down. you would have it connected, and the beautiful thing about that is that youcatch your coyote; he takes off and gets tangled

up somewhere out there, you have no work todo, other than what i just then done. you’ve already got your trap bed there. he didn’ttear up anything. he’s caught over there. you go over there, dispatch your coyote, bringyour trap back, and just cover it back up, basically. it’s a time saver. clint: all right? you don’t want to usethe drags, and you’ve got fences around, this is just eighth inch cable. do the samething, same principle. most of the time, the coyote is over there somewhere and your set’sstill intact, in good shape. unknown: do you always wear gloves when you’resetting your traps? clint: i do. it feels a lot better when youget caught. (laughter) and one very important

thing, multiple odors, multiple odors, alwaysfor coyotes. the hardest thing to do is stop a coyote. and then, what i’ll do is justtake some kind of somethin’ and spread it out there next to the travel way, and whatyou … unknown: (inaudible). clint: i’m sorry? unknown: what is your something? unknown: what is that? clint: that’s our coyote chum. it’s, it’sjust got a good odor to it, and the coyotes, when he runs by here, he’s gonna stop. nomatter what the wind’s doing, you’re at

least stopping him and giving yourself a goodchance of getting him over here. unknown: what do you use for bait? clint: uh, we’ve got a beaver meat baitwe use. uh, there’s a lot of good baits. deer meat’s an excellent bait. any meatproduct’s a good bait, really. i hadn’t found anything that wasn’t. our adult coyotecatches went up considerably, since we started throwing stuff out to stop ‘em. it’s kindof like me going to that interstate. it takes a lot to make me stop. just this, this righthere – if i’m traveling, i’m not stopping. i’ve got my mind on something. coyotes arethe same. so you’ve got to give him something to build interest and intrigue. if you’recoon trapping (inaudible) stealing time – duke

dps. you just set it, stick it in the ground.uh! yeah and give her a little twist to lock it in, and you will catch coons right there.same principle, throw some free bites out there, and this is a good spot for coons,too. i bet you catch a coon right there on that corner. tonight, probably. grant: trapping can be a critical managementtechnique. in many areas, fur prices are way down. therefore, our predator populationsare way up and out of balance with prey populations. with clint’s technique, landowners can workto bring those populations back in balance. grant: i have taken an increment bore throughmost of these poke oaks, post oaks and white oaks here; and i did it about seven yearsago. in that time, they were all about 204

years old. count the rings with a microscope.204. now, these trees are small, compared to where a lot of you all live, for that age,cause we’re really poor soil. remember – soil is antlers. there’s been one boone and crock,one pope and young, and never any boone and crocketts in this county. anyway you measureit, this is really poor soil. we come through here with chainsaws – this is too steepand too many little two foot bluffs, and five foot bluffs – and cut thousands, and thousandsof trees over approximately 800 acres of my property, here and in cedar glades. and then,we let it get good and dry, we drop a match, and all this beautiful native vegetation – notjust the saplings, i don’t want those, they’re just part of it – all the beautiful vegetation,this is literally a cover and food plot right

in the forest. this is what forest shouldlook like. there’s legumes – and i see some legumes right up here for quail, fordeer, awesome turkey nesting. obviously, they can hide. they can nest. predators don’tfind them as well. they can get out here and bug. this has had two fires, in the last sevenmonths – maybe eight, nine months. i’ve forgot it’s august. two fires, still producingacorns. you don’t need a lot of trees to make acorns, right? i wish my deer never atean acorn. never. never. they’re low quality food and make deer very tough to pattern.i like acorns, if you’re in western kansas. there’s like one tree per section. then,you know where to hunt. unknown: do you incorporate any, any commercialtree harvest to, to help do your savannahs?

grant: i don’t have any timber value. thisis some of the best trees on the whole property, literally. you’ll see that as we drive through.so i, i do, on other client land. on my place, i don’t have any timber value. we cut itand let it turn to dirt. grant: i wish i could, but i just don’thave the value here. unknown: on this place how much of it wouldyou like to see in a savannah, percentage wise? grant: oh gosh, 70, 80, 90. i mean, outsidemy bedding areas and where i don’t have – let me rephrase that. in the timberedareas, i’d like to see 70, 80, 90. this is tremendous habitat. much better than tree,tree, tree, tree, tree. much better. my, my

objective is wildlife, so for my, my goalsand objectives. unknown: grant, now that you’ve got it thisway, about how often do you think you’ll have to maintain? grant: i, i, we, i ideally would like to burnevery time the conditions are right, so if we could burn every two years, i would doit. we just have so much land, and so few days, we get – i’m gonna say – dependingon the year, five to 15 days that we can burn. one more question. mrs., mr. shields. i’msorry. shields: could you use chemicals to controlany of this? grant: you could. i like fire. i mean, i’mnot chemical phobic at all. i use herbicides

and chemicals all the time. but where i don’thave to, i don’t want to use ‘em. grant: our next stop was at one of our foodplots planted with forage soybeans. and there’s no one on the planet more qualified to talkabout soybeans than brad doyle. both, brad and his wife did their ph.d.’s on soybeans. doyle: we’re not gonna grow this for anagricultural crop. we would grow a smaller, uh, stature soybean that would mature earlier– easier to harvest. for grant’s purpose, and for, for deer that are out here 24/7,we want something that will keep up with it. he’s done an excellent job of its fertility– uh, biologically, as well, with his antler dirt. we recommend he inoculates it everyyear. the inoculate process is very simple;

put it on the seed; put it in the ground;and what that does is allow this plant to make its own nitrogen from the air. it pullsout atmospheric nitrogen, converts it to usable nitrogen. uh, when we measure protein, welook at the nitrogen content. you know what we’re looking for is the highest proteinavailable, highest nitrogen content available. so we don’t, we never want this plant tostruggle for any of its nutrient needs. besides nitrogen, uh, potash is a very important nutrientfor soybeans. so we always want to make sure that we’ve got that in check, as well asthe ph. ph, like they were talking about earlier, so important with soybeans. 6.5 would be ourideal target, uh, but you know, in the upper 5’s, you can work with that. very, veryimportant, because exclusion cages tell you

two different things – one, how much thedeer are using it, but also, the capability of your soil minus the deer, deer browse.so always do that. it’s gonna take a couple of frosts to kill these, if they’re notalready done by then. but you’ve already done your job of uh, banking that, that, thatnutrient in that plant. a lot of the food plots, properties we visit, you can actuallycome in and you smell the deer, because they just, they love to bed down in it. and uh,it’s great cover for fawns. you know, they don’t – they don’t have to leave theirfood source. unknown: for, uh, smaller plots, uh, can youuse a broadcast spreader, instead of a drill? doyle: absolutely. yeah. we – you know ifanybody calls, number one choice, “hey do

you have a drill?” yes, no. that’s fine.uh, majority of people broadcast. that’s what they do. unknown: how many years would you generallyplant beans before rotating to another crop? doyle: we plant continuous soybeans. moreworried about corn. when you’re planting corn, after corn, after corn, you start buildingup insects in the soil, and you can get leaf disease. never, never really concerned aboutsoybean on soybean. grant: brad shared some great informationand tips so we all can improve our food plot techniques. after a few questions and discussion,we rolled on to the next stop. grant: and cj and i are both very passionateturkey hunters. i mean we really enjoy turkey

hunting. cj’s taught me a lot about turkeyhunting, over time. and unfortunately, i, tracy and i used to live in south carolina,and i got permission to hunt a property, and i didn’t know it at the time, but cj’sfather’s land literally, you know, was the fence line butted up against it. so the gobblersalways wanted to strut on that side of the fence. and, and to this day, he’s accusedme of trespassing, and i just want to say, as you all as my witness on film, i nevercrossed that fence that i knew of. grant: i think every turkey we killed thisspring was over, or by, a montana decoy, literally. i, i just really fell in love with those decoys.i’m not saying that as promotion. i mean, cause we live in a really rough country, andpacking a bunch of full size decoys around

is just, adam gets tired of doing it. so,uh, this way, we can shove them in our vest and take off. cj: and grant just pretty well summed up whati really like about our decoy products. they’re portable, they’re easy to use, they’rerealistic, and they’re quiet. a lot of hard body decoys can make some noise. it’s prettysimple. comes with a strap like an accordion. it doesn’t play any music. we thought aboutputting a yelper in there, though. folds up that flat. and you can even fold the headdown even flatter, so it’s a, it’s a very portable. and i actually leave the stake inmine like that. it’s like a turkey popsicle. and you just grab the stake, pop it out ofyour vest, undo that, and you’re gone. and

it’s quiet. there’s no clanking, or clunkingaround with it. so – and the one thing with any decoy setup – there’s like three questionsi always ask myself. what phase of the breeding season are we in? because that dictates whichdecoy pose i’m gonna go with. what’s the terrain like? because that tells me wheredo i put it, so the gobbler can see it. because a decoy that can’t be seen does you no good.and then, once you’ve got those two questions asked, then, you fine tune it based on wheredoes it go from where i’m sitting? so i can make that shot. if the gobbler hangs up,if some other influence gets in the way and causes him to not come all the way to thedecoys, i still want to be able to make that shot. so breeding – you can see the henand the gobbler over there, that’s our miss

purr-fect, and that’s papa strut. and youcan see i’ve got her in a breeding, ready to breed pose, and he’s strutting behindher. that’s an obvious message to any gobbler coming in. “there’s a hen here that’sready to breed, and there’s somebody else that’s gonna get to her before i can, unlessi come in.” that’s a great setup early season when they’re still sorting out dominance,when the breeding is at its peak. later in the year, if the birds have been hunted, they’veseen other decoys, they’ve listened to other hunters, i tend to scale back, and so, whati’ve got here is one in a looker pose. she’s just got her head up looking around. turkeysare always doing that, and i’ve got the other one in a feeder pose. and what’s reallyunique about our products, that’s all the

same hen. so you can put it in whatever poseyou want, and also, the head is moldable. we call it perfect pose technology. you canput the head, fine tune it. i always like to give a little angle to it. you can takeall of those decoys, and grant, and adam – probably adam more than grant – has put all of thoseat one time in their vest, and you can carry it along with your gun, your camera, whateverelse you’re using. so it’s a system that you can carry throughout the season, and youcan deploy it when you need it, and if you’re in a setup where you don’t need it, it staysin your vest. it’s not in the way. grant: cj davis did a great job of explainingturkey decoy setups based on the stage of their breeding season, but getting a turkeyin range doesn’t seal the deal. so the boys

from winchester put on a heck of an exhibitionof how effective the long beard xr is at various ranges. criner: well, basically, the secret is theshot-lok technology, and what we’ve done is we’ve developed a resin that when weload the shell, that resin goes in first, and the shot goes on top of it. and then,it sets up like a cast on your arm around every individual pellet, and what that doesis on setback force, when you pull the trigger, there’s a lot of pressure on that lead shot.and because it’s soft and malleable, lead will move. well, when it does, it deforms,and a deformed lead pellet that’s not perfectly round will not fly down range straight. itveers out. and that’s what opens your pellet,

your pattern up and gives you flyers. by usingthis technology, we’re able to keep every one of those pellets perfectly round, so youget a lot more pellets going straight down range and a lot more pellets on a target. criner: all right. the range is hot. grant: i say that one’s dead. unknown: (inaudible) criner: so there you go. you can see at 20yards, you’ve got a, a good solid eight to ten inch pattern, so you’ve got someleeway there. and so, that’s somewhat of a fallacy that up close it’s just too tight.

grant: the next stop was a really cool demonstrationshowing the effectiveness of winchester’s new deer season xp. jimmy: i’ve got a 20 percent ballisticsgelatin block in the middle of that 3d deer out there. and what i’ve done is about aninch and a half from the face of that gel block is i’ve placed a thin plate. whatyou’re gonna see – if i can hit the target, right – is a hole about like this size withdeer season xp, and you’ll see that it blows the back side of that out. so that bulletis upset rapidly in that first inch and a half, and it’s hammering into that plate. unknown: he’s down.

jimmy: so again, here’s our, uh, here’sour plates. this was a .30-06 conventional soft point with a smaller hole. jimmy: this is our .30-06 deer season xp withthat massive expanded hole. and now, this is our 243, which is nearly the same sizeas our .30-06. jimmy: and then, here’s our gel block. jimmy: so, you can see we got about the sameamount of penetration. 12 to 14 inches. large, permanent wound, wound channel – wound cavity.and you saw the plate. that’s knock down power. you saw what it did to that deer. grant: so i mean, look at that out of a 90grain bullet.

grant: as we were finishing that discussion,one of the attendees showed me his cell phone and it looked like a storm was just a fewminutes away. so we started hustling and getting people into trucks and rolling back up themountain for lunch. grant: the folks at eagle seed provided agreat lunch. everyone got a full belly, dried off, and we were all ready to get in the trucks,head back down the mountain and continue our tour. paul: we’re with a company called redeximand we’ve, uh, been manufacturing turf maintenance equipment since 1980, but a lot of the no-tillsare $20,000 plus, so we’re trying to find something in that mid-range, um, that mosteveryone can afford. it’s actually a twin

disc, and one disc cuts, the other disc opensthe slit, and the seed drops in, and the packing wheels in the, in the rear cover the ground,and we’re planting seed – not dropping seed – so your germination rate’s good.you’re not gonna see a lot on top of the soil to where it’s gonna fit with any seed,so you can use blends, you can use even tiny seeds. um, on golf courses, they use it foruh, bermuda grass and bentgrass, which is some of the smallest seeds in the world, soany of, any of the seeds that you guys would want to use, we’re not gonna have any issueswith. unknown: it leaves – it’s so efficient.it’s crazy. we don’t have any numbers for you, at this particular time, but we will.uh, we’re looking at full production in

the spring, so anybody who would like one,we should be able to provide it. paul: i mean grant’s put us in some of thetoughest ground i’ve ever seen. we were drilling into creek beds, basically. and,um, it worked, so if it works for grant, it should work for anybody. unknown: so no need for extra boxes, clover,things of that nature? paul: no. don’t need a second box. it’llwork with any seed mix. you just got to find your biggest seed and set the gap. grant: the real blessing of being able tofrom the ground floor up say. cause paul came to me, “all right you guys plant food plotsall the time. what do you want? you’re on

other properties. you’re helping clientswhatever, you know.” so i wanted a window where i could see exactly how much seed isin there without getting off the tractor. cause you know i don’t mind adam runningaround the tractor, but i want to stay up here in the seat all the time, and then, there’salso an acre meter on here. i – you know because everyone says, “well yeah, thatfield is five acres.” and you get your rangefinder out and it’s two acres, or whatever, andyou’re, you’re planting way too much seed, so it’s all crowded and not growing right.we’ve all done that, right? so i like an acre meter, which really helps me a lot. grant: we’ve been through several versionsof a prototype, and we’re getting really

close to something that adam and i are veryproud of. so we wanted to take time and show it to all the attendees and get their inputon what we’ve created so far. grant: and i don’t know if you all knowthis, but antler dirt – one of the main ingredients – or one of the ingredients,is trophy rock. that’s where we get all those different minerals from. it’s thathigh quality and i want my plants taking up. if you’re in illinois – and, and heavenforbid you can’t put out a trophy rock – you can put down antler dirt, get the benefitof the same minerals, but not as concentrated, obviously, as this. so with that, gene, willyou tell us a little bit about that? gene: sure. my name’s gene price. i’mwith trophy rock, um, marketing director for

trophy rock. we’re an, we’re an ancientinland ocean mineral deposit. our deposit is the only one in this continent of northamerica. there’s only been three that’s discovered. might see some other rocks onthe market. you know some smaller ones. uh, those come from pakistan. but if you see trophyrock, that is ours. there’s only one rock, it’s mined here in north america. we, weare a mine. we don’t make trophy rock. we’re truly a mine. we have miners that go downevery day that drill and blast – bring trophy rock up out of our mine. you know and we crushit to size, package it, so we, we don’t make those rocks. we have that question alot. “how do you make the rocks look so much like a rock and all different?” wedon’t. that’s mother nature. what separates

trophy rock from other minerals on the market?most other minerals have seven to 11 minerals. ours is an all natural salt and we have about65 different trace minerals, instead of the seven to 11. so we have a really broad spectrumof mineral in our proper – in our um, in our rock, in trophy rock. uh, i’ve had alot of questions, also, about our four65 you see that grant’s been using a whole lot.if you follow his show, you’ve seen him been using, he has been using four65 a tremendousamount this year, and last year, also. uh, there’s nothing different. it’s just simplycrushed up trophy rock. we didn’t add anything to it. we don’t add things to our, to ourproduct. it’s just crushed up trophy rock. one, that came from demand of our customers,and two, we wanted another product. we wanted

like an old school type mineral like product,and that’s simply what that is. we’re not trying to overload ‘em with a tremendousamount of calcium, a tremendous amount of phosphorus. you know it’s a real even naturalbalance of what we already have, to restore us back to a natural health, not an overabundanceof any one mineral in there. it’s a real good natural balance. grant: gene price did a great job of explainingall the benefits of trophy rock and gave some extra techniques of how it could be used onyour property. when gene finished up, john keller of summit treestands gave a cool demonstrationof how to use some of their stands and overall safety techniques.

john: uh, the first, uh and most significantis, uh, something that helps make the stand very undetectable, which makes you uh, uh– provides an unforgettable hunt for you, and that’s the dead metal technology. so,uh, this an, uh aircraft gauge aluminum, and, uh, you know there’s a patent to it, butprimarily, what we do is we fill it full of foam. the second is the summitlokt welds,and it gives it the tightest, uh, weld without air bubbles, and and so on, to add, to addany weakness. john: then, just simply pull the, the topup. a great use for a climber – for somebody who even has 140, uh, uh, ladder locations,is scouting. you know to scout deer isn’t like scouting a, a duck, or, or another animalthat you can scope, or follow its patterns.

you have to go in in a self manner and, basically,setup a hunt, as you would, and and, uh, ladder, or excuse me, climber stands are a great wayto do that. grant: after an extremely busy day, we brokefor just a little bit, and then, headed up to bass pro for a great dinner. grant: it’s easy to tell when folks arehaving a good time, and been outside all day, cause they tend to eat a hearty meal. andfortunately, there was plenty for all of us to have a great supper. grant: 384. 384. grant: 299. for a hoot’n stick. give mefive, man. (inaudible)

grant: after a good discussion, we gave awaymore than 50 great prizes. grant: a dozen duke coon traps. grant: i better shuffle that again. nope. grant: and another redneck chair. 333. 333. grant: the summit viper. how many people likethose climbing stands? whoo, look at that. 356. grant: everyone on the growingdeer team reallylooks forward to the field day. we know great folks are coming that are like-minded, andthey often teach us as much about techniques they’ve learned as we can share with them.

grant: are you getting ready for deer season?then, this weekend, go to bass pro’s annual fall classic. there’ll be lots of huntingpros and free seminars going on. plus, great sales on the latest hunting gear. i’ll beat the springfield, missouri store giving seminars and just hanging around talking foodplots and hunting strategies. check out bass pro’s website for more information. i hopeyou have a chance to get outside and learn something about creation this week, but mostimportantly, make sure you take time every day to learn about the creator and listento what he’s saying to you. thanks for watching growingdeer.tv. heath: all right, everybody up here, i’mgonna do a little fly by where you’re shooting.

please don’t shoot the drone. just havea good time.