You are right Markey. It is one thing I need to get better at. I am just super paranoid about starting the woods on fire. We did one timber burn on my southern Iowa farm and I had six experts there to create the breaks and manage the burn. I didn't really like it, though it sure did burn off all the leaf litter. Again, it is something I need to get better at. The local forester at my new farm has been suggesting I burn to remove barberry that is growing unchecked in certain parts of my farm. I think he would show up to advise on the burn if I asked him to, so maybe that is another opportunity to learn. I have had a few switchgrass fires over the years that nearly got loose on us and that was plenty stressful enough. Maybe I just don't trust fires in general! I hate telling my clients to start things burning, when I don't trust the process 100% myself. Happy New Year.
One of the most important improvements you can make on this property is to stop cattle from browsing in your woods. I cringed when i heard that. Its kind of like putting goats on a sod farm. Counterproductive. The cows will eat alot of young browse and compact your soil. Will be very hard to thicken your woods for good deer habitat, especially browse / security and good bedding areas. I bought a dairy farm were the farmer had allowed cows to wander throughout. . Night and day habitat difference once the cows were kept out of the woods ! Hope this helps. I love Kansas and all the kind folk ! God bless !
Thanks for the input Robert. The cows have been off this property for about one year, maybe a bit longer. The differences will show up over time during the next couple of years, but it is always good to help nature along by encouraging the plants/trees you want to grow to fill in the habitat void left by the cows. Nature will fill it eventually, but it may take a while. Have a great day.
@@bill-winke the one good thing that the cows did do was to disperse apple seeds everywhere ! Pocket orchards in just about every bedding area. Love it !
Didn't want to do that to Rob. There is a line when it comes to showing other people's property, but I am not afraid to do that with my own when I start projects there this winter. I will show all those, also. Good input. Merry Christmas.
Agreed, have learned several valuable lessons over the years. Even today, somethings I agree with, some I don't, but the perspective and reasoning for the perspective is a great refreshing angle.
It's ugly but you plant your screening trees which will obviously take years to grow. Then you run 100 yards of green snow fence at about 3 feet high so you are screening from 3 to 6 feet. That is right at the window height of a vehicle. It's inexpensive and works till the trees grow.
Rob - looks like you should add a double row of cedars along the road to prevent people from seeing into your property. In 5-7 years you will have a wall. Which also creates 'edge' and deer love 'edge'!
I have road hunters to deal with myself. I went the “native grass” route to help also with habitat. The deer have responded quickly to use and their travel paths have been adjusted in just a couple short years.
At the 27:00 mark, when you were talking about the road fringe, I have found that letting the cedar trees grow in my fence line, along the roadway, has been my BEST WAY to not only create a fringe, but also a buffer that prevents people from "looking" onto my property. I try to keep the cedars limited on the interior parts of my property, leaving a few areas for thermal breaks, but for the most part I will cut the cedars down. This creates bedding areas for the deer and great nesting areas for turkey and quail.
Good input Lonnie. I think that is a very good suggestion for Rob in those road frontage areas. We discussed him renting a tree mover for a skid loader to see if he can relocate enough good, healthy growing trees to those areas. Biggest problem on that farm is that most of his cedars are too big to move so he would have to start with really small trees and that will take a while. Good luck and Merry Christmas.
Bill wouldn’t he be better off putting beans that first year along the road portion? Not sure you’re going to have much of a crop going from pasture to corn with all that root structure. Beans the first year will go a long way to prep the soil for a better yield the second year.
Ernie, that is not a bad plan. I just don't like having food you can see into on the road frontage. Also, I have had good success no-tilling corn into sod in the past. So, I would not be afraid to do that - you just need to get the kill early so the grass isn't robbing the ground of subsoil moisture that the corn will need very quickly once it starts growing. Good luck and Merry Christmas.
Thanks for the support John, but we also need to thank Rob. He allowed me to film that and he did a really good job articulating his challenges on camera. I think we was the perfect co-host for that segment. Merry Christmas.
Great video Bill, I have taken a 30 acre small homestead and turned it into an awesome hunting property over the last 7 years. This property is surrounded by 150 and 200 acre cattle farms with very little cover and security. High hunting pressure all around. Just by creating natural habitat cover and absolutely no human intrusion. A few mowed paths with brush hog twice a year and I have pulled most of the deer from neighbors farms and they now stay year round. They have natural brows, natural cover and water with no reason to leave. My only issue is I have way too many does now and I can not seem to kill enough with bag limits to get the numbers where they need to be. I only enter the center of property in early spring when still cold and everything is dead to see how they are using it to determine my setups for fall the next year. Guess my point is the best improvement I have made is not stepping foot in the interior of the property except that one day a year so they know they are safe there.
That is good input. I would also say that making the habitat the best can be is a big step also. If it was wide open the deer would not feel nearly as safe there and they would see you every time you moved. Having thick cover in your hunting is way under-rated. I think it makes a huge difference. Thanks for the comment and Merry Christmas.
Thanks Kurt. Yes, I like to make the property deer friendly so they will want to live there. If they are there, I can figure out a way to shoot them. That is not the hard part. Getting an older buck on the property in the first place is the hardest part. Good luck and Merry Christmas.
Very informative to see you reinforce your previous episodes and blog posts about one way to build a farm! Appreciate all the knowledge Bill, there are people out there taking some good notes like I have!
I always like to see other properties and what works in different areas. I like the fringe hunting idea but getting the deer to pass through those areas is the most difficult part.
Trees are so sporadic in Kansas. In Michigan our trees are within an arms length of each other. It seems so open to me yet am sure the deer still travel and live in those areas where in Michigan they would stay out of those types of cover because it’s too open. Michigan is such a high pressure state. Your cover has to be thick and short sight lines within the cover.
That makes sense, Steve. We discussed the need to create more cover on Rob's farm too. Really open cover is not a good thing no matter where whitetails live. Thickening up that farm will only make it better for Rob also. Have a great New Year.
Agreed. I have much more fun working on the farm now than I do hunting. As strange as that sounds. I think the challenge of just creating a really cool property that is home to mature bucks is very rewarding. I still like to shoot them, but not as much as I like to manage land to produce them. Have a Merry Christmas.
Bill and Rob, Thanks so very much. This was SPOT ON for what kind of information that is helpful to me. This spring I bought a 640 in SE Kansas. Rob I’d love to share ideas with you if we could connect.
Great video! Thanks for letting us walk around with you. It’s always exciting to figure out how deer will use a property. Was thinking possibly adding switchgrass to that rocky soil area for extra cover .
Thanks B Jamin. I appreciate the support and feedback. I am just not a big switchgrass fan. I have planted more than 300 acres of it in my life and have yet to see it really pan out for long-term permanent whitetail habitat. I think it is a quick solution in areas with no cover, but I would rather see those years devoted to growing permanent habitat (trees, shrubs). That is just my take. I am sure it is better than nothing in areas with no traditional deer cover, but where the deer have options, they just don't seem to use the switchgrass much other than passing through and maybe some summer bedding. I will never again plant switchgrass on my farm for whitetails so I have a hard time telling someone else to do it. Good luck and Merry Christmas.
No, I don't believe those low branches will ever come back. They are more or less all dead. Very brittle and break off with a snap. I think it is a natural way for these trees to shed low branches when they become a burden to the vertical growth of the tree. They are pretty ugly once they get past a certain size and density. Good luck and Merry Christmas.
Thanks Karl. It was fun to do. The trick is to find landowners who don't mind me showing their farms. I tried not to show much that would make the farm identifiable, not that I think anything bad would happen, but people need their privacy. I will focus on my farm a lot during the off-season and show all that. Have a great day and a Merry Christmas.
@@bill-winke Thank you Bill. I have lost leases over the years due to the filming aspect , and on my land I have lost two bucks I knew well. From showing footage before the kill. We no longer do that I will use older footage for shows except during a finished hunt meaning a taken deer. Merry Christmas to you also.
Rob/Bill. First thing I'd do is spray the brome and fescue grass with glysophate after the second frost. Especially in and around the cedar draws and thickets. Personally. I use a 4 gallon backpack sprayer. I choose an area and use up that tank. Whatever size pocket that creates is what it is for the year. Then the next year, I do an adjoining pocket (a tanks worth) this establishes steps of cover. I think I'd leave the majority of the cedars stand for a few years and just do bedding pockets of felled cedar.(I'd save the cedar posts) I'd do pocket burns on other areas. That's place needs fire badly! The response to this farm will happen very rapidly as it is obviously the cattle beat that farm up. Lastly I'd utilize the posts from above too build some fencing to create funnels to direct travel. Great spot!!
Chris, thanks for the input. There are a lot of ways to skin this cat. I just want to move faster and I want permanent habitat, not prairie restoration. That four gallon backpack sprayer is going to get about 1/4 to 1/2 acre max (in my experience). If that is my farm, I want to see it change much faster than that. If you watch the offseason, you will see this process happen on my farm. The episode we posted about the buck I killed there this past year shows the start of this process. I had 30 acres of old pasture to deal with. I killed about 13 acres in September, disced it up and planted it to 8 varieties of oaks (acorns) later in the fall. While a good portion of those acorns will germinate, there will be plenty of pockets where nature will provide the seed. I will do the other 15+ acres next year. I don't have 60 years to do it 1/2 acre at a time. I see the big picture habitat change as the background color for the future painting that I will make. You can always tweak that background later by planting pockets of other stuff (in my case, chestnuts, soft mast trees some preferred shrubs) but the hardest thing is to get something permanent and useful growing that you CAN tweak later. I start there - with the background. Again, rather than assume I can plant chosen pockets that will produce something useful, I just do the whole thing and then react to where nature puts those pockets and then tweak from there. I am not looking for native prairie, that is not my mission. I am looking for permanent, diverse whitetail habitat. This system worked well on the farm I owned in southern Iowa. Good luck and Merry Christmas.
@@bill-winke Thank you for explaining. Being in western Nebraska on a similar farm I can tell you with 14" of annual rainfall the response takes a lot longer then what you might see in the Midwest. Love the videos!
💯 spot on with habitat first. Access has always been limited for me coming in the east side only along property line due to bluffs on the roadway. Leaving any possible oak that produces is spot on. I’ve had forestry tell me different. You touched on doe numbers a bit. Sounds like I should thin a few out here as well. Having 2 family groups, the mother doe will spawn 2-3 buck fawns every spring. Should I take her out anyway? I really enjoyed this bill. Stay warm brother
Thanks Jay. Staying warm is going to be the challenge the next few days. I would not kill does unless you have a concentration of deer there. If not, you can do it for the meat, and the thrill of the chase, but not to create a real deer management advantage. Assuming there are enough deer in the area, those bucks will be there two years from now whether she produces them or another doe a mile away produces them. They tend to disperse into areas where they are tolerated. They disperse much more than doe family groups. This young buck dispersal generally takes place their second fall (when they are 1 1/2 years old). So, I would not stress too much about which does you shoot. There is minor science related to the subject, but it is much less important to the overall success of your property than just having the right number of deer to match the habitat and to reduce the kind of social stress that makes the bucks fringe out. Good luck and Merry Christmas.
@@bill-winke be safe out there. You guys are getting windchills worse than us. Thank you for all the info. I think I’ll take her out. I have a few 5 year olds around but they don’t like being around her. He tolerates the fawns much better. I’ve had a rough year with the drought. Failed plots. He made it through gun so maybe I can try him when he’s hungry and the right wind. Fringing of course. It was interesting, he vanishes every year nov1 -26th. I’d love to know where he goes.
Bruce, I will have to touch on that in a future episode. I am thinking of producing an entire series of maybe 30 episodes about land and deer management each year so I can save "Bowhunting Whitetails" for hunting strategies. Have a great day and Happy New Year.
@Bill Winke awesome bill, I would be very interested in that for sure! As always, keep up the awesome work, and a happy new year to you and the family as well !
Great new approach to helping making a property better. Curious how many hunters are on this 191 acre property and have they had some success previously? I think this property is unique and has a ton of potential ! Look forward to seeing what the property yields in 5 years. Thanks Rob for sharing your experience with Bill so all of us can find a few takeaways !
BJM, Rob bought it last winter so he has hunted it just two seasons. He hasn't shot anything off it yet, but does have some good up and coming bucks on camera. It is a decent neighborhood, from a deer hunting standpoint, so I think long-term this farm will become very good. Thanks for the comment and the interest. Have a Merry Christmas.
Blew past your place Wednesday evening after visiting the Redneck plant down in Lamar. We will show that plant tour on the Wednesday installment of "The Setup". Merry Christmas to you also.
You are right about the screen. I never even thought about that, but transplanting about 50 trees would really make a difference along that line. Good luck and Merry Christmas.
I don't know Kansas at all, but is there difficulty growing evergreen screening in that area? We can plant several species of Pine or Spruce that will block all view in about 5-7 years in Indiana, then you don't think about it for years after. Guys here reclaim fields, or pasture by blocking the road edge with evergreen, and add a corner of about an acre to make a parking area or small camp sight that is hidden along the road. I agree that it's not a great planting for deer, but its the best planting for human avoidance, and keep your deer hidden. We can get Trees from the State of Indiana for about 33 cents each in bundles of 100. Really looking forward to you doing this on other properties... These are always great videos to get ideas for the viewers own place!
You are right, this would be a good option for Rob on this property. You won't get much from pine and spruce here but red cedar grows fast and thick and would make a good visual screen. We even discussed transplanting some trees as needed. Merry Christmas.
Bill, I really enjoyed this video. With the direction this channel is going I believe you could really benefit from an Insta360 camera. The personalized approach is refreshing. A 360 camera would have worked perfectly to switch back and forth without turning the camera. I've been eyeing them myself.
That is a good tip Lance. I will look into them. I appreciate the tip and the support. I plan to do a lot more of this kind of stuff on my own farm as I take steps to improve it over the next couple of years. Good luck and Merry Christmas.
Maybe, but I don't want basswood trees. There were only a handful of basswood there to begin with. I am a fan of regeneration of the timber in favor of oak. Oak are disappearing fast from the Midwestern timbers. I do everything I can to regenerate oak with my TSI work. In fact, that is the number one species I want to see prosper when I am done. As much as I want to create browse and ground cover for hunting, I also want to produce oak regeneration. I should have articulated that better in the interview, but I wasn't really doing that consult for the camera but for Rob. You have to figure I was there for 10 hours and the camera was on for just 45 minutes. That leaves 9 hours of off camera discussion to clarify some stuff that probably came off a bit awkwardly on camera. Have a great Christmas.
bill your in ks looks like the edge of the flint hills .Hard to till the ground in those hills ,feeders you have to use feeders .I know nobody likes to use them, but hunted ks almost 30 years, plant what you want but he with the biggest feeder wins every time.
Rob is still in ag country east of the Flint Hills. A big ag field to his south. He was able to plant roughly 75% of the open ground this past year. That other 25% is the hard part! Thanks for the input and the support. Merry Christmas.
He is about 7 hours from my home, so it may be possible somewhere down the road but not as easily as I can show the transformation of my own farm - I will start working on that soon. Merry Christmas.
Hello Bill. Great video but I’d like to add something of importance about cedars. I’m assuming most of the cedars are red cedar. Red cedar of course not beneficial to deer for food as you mentioned, but they make great scrape trees. If you however come across white cedar that is a very good food source for deer so you may want to leave those on properties. Not that it gets very cold in Kansas but the white cedar creates great thermal cover and deer always bed under them especially in snow country. Merry Christmas
Wow amazing work, amazing shop. At first I thought it was just a weekend warrior type shop, but then yoy were laying out some NICE tools so I knew you were more than just a hobbyist. If you don't mind me asking what did you charge the customer for that kind of work? I was thinking $2k seems very cheap for all the work you've done but on the other hand $2k for a gate is stupid high. Of course that house looks like they have $$$...lol. sorry I'm rambling...anyway, you earned a subscriber!
I have been dealing with locust since 1995. They are not for me. Despite the fact that deer will eat them (though not a preferred food), I get rid of those trees during any TSI or habitat improvement campaign. There are much better sources of food on a farm than locust trees. Plus, I love trees I (or my family) can some day climb into. I have tried to climb a few locusts in my day. No more. Get rid of them and replace them with oak or apple trees or even shrubs like wild plum or crab apple, etc. or fast producing trees like chestnut. Have a great Christmas.
Thanks for the video! At the 21:50 mark you say would plant corn or nothing most likely. Is the reason due to it being right along the road and you don’t wanna people to see in with the tall corn? Or other reasons as well. Thanks!
That is the reason. I wouldn't plant beans or clover or brassicas, etc. because that would pull the deer to the road where people could see them easily. The corn would serve as food, cover and screen (a very useful combination). Rob could hunt the edge between the corn and timber very easily with minimal intrusion. I have done this before on my farms. When the inputs were much cheaper (when corn was $1.90 per bushel) I used to plant all the fields on my road frontage (50+ acres) to corn every year and leave it standing until late January at which time I then paid a local farmer to combine just enough to pay the input cost. Ah, those were much simpler times. It worked awesome. Now the inputs are too expensive to take that kind or risk. Anyway, Rob could long-term plant (or move) cedar trees to the road frontage to block it, but that will take a long time to really fill in. Corn is the starting point. If the corn works, keep doing it. If it doesn't, he could try sorghum or just plant those acres to a mix of seeds that will long-term produce permanent habitat. Good luck and Merry Christmas.
Thanks for the response. Would you consider planting 10 or so rows of Egyptian Wheat on the outside by the road and then be able to plant rye, brassicas, or something that’s easier to grow if he can’t get corn to grow. Merry Christmas to you as well!
Doesn't have to be far at all. Ideally about 50 yards so you can sneak away from the small plot easier at last light, but less than that will work too, you just have to be more careful when leaving.
Is it an option to just let that rocky area just grow up with the seed bank, grasses and weeds already there for cover? Do you think it would be substantial enough to hold deer or serve a purpose? I am pondering that exact question now on a piece of property in KS. I would rather stay away from trying to plant an annual for cover but would like the increased cover. We did consider sorghum and corn as you mentioned as well. Native grasses have always been appealing, but with the winds and fires in the KS area I'm not sure that is the best strategy management wise.
From what I have seen, it is just going to be grass and eventually locust and hedge (Osage orange) and maybe some cedar. I think we need to help nature in that regard. Here is my take on this topic related specifically to Rob's farm. He is OK if he plants a corn crop that fails, so I suggested that he first plant corn in those areas and then let that determine his next move. If the corn does OK, that is a great option (food, cover and screening). If the corn crop fails, he has in the process killed the stuff that is there which would allow him to plant a mix of more focused cover. I am putting together a seed mix for him to plant in the future if that occurs. I am trying to focus on stuff that should do well in shallow, rocky soils: white, bur and shingle oak, wild plum and crabapple. Those would all be planted from seed into the failed corn ground after tilling up to create a decent seedbed for direct seeding. I have planted more than 300 acres of switchgrass in my life and have watched deer relate to that. If there is no traditional deer cover around, they will live in it. If there is traditional deer cover around, they only pass through it, rarely bedding in it. I won't plant it on my farms again, so I have a hard time telling someone else to. Nature will create plenty of diversity even if you plant the mix I suggested. Not all will germinate and lots of other stuff (weeds and some grasses) will crop up. I want cover deer will live in long term, not just pass through. I am sure there are other approaches, that is just mine. I want permanent habitat. It is easy enough to thin it out and plant strips to other stuff, etc. but permanent cover is the hardest to establish so I think that needs to be the starting point - the background color for the painting, so to speak. Good luck and Merry Christmas.
@@bill-winke What about burning areas like that? Also prairie restoration? some government programs as you know like CRP and others that brings a little bit of profit in for the land owners.
Hey Bill - Great video... Been a big fan for years. What is the best way to contact you regarding a consultation. I just recently purchased a farm in Southern Iowa and would love to get you thoughts on projects and prioritization to make the farm better.
Hi Bill The farm i hunted for 15 yrs is for sale on 200acres near three forks mt on the jefferson river its for sale for 10 million loved hunting that place is lowa prices that bad?
Scott, no the prices here are nowhere near that. I would say that in some areas of southern Iowa you can still find good hunting land around $4,000 to $4,200 per acre. That would put that farm at a bit over $800,000. Still a lot but a far cry from $10M!
Sean, fire is not my strong suit. I have had a few experiences with it on my farm in southern Iowa and it did no good in the settings where I used it. I understand its role in refreshing native grasses and prairie, but my timber burns never did anything useful, they just made me nervous! I need to learn a lot more about what fire does in the timber for permanent habitat (not prairie) before I start promoting it. I think just burning off leaves would really help to promote the growth of browse, so that is a simple goal, I guess. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife are planning to work on a few acres of "goat prairie" on my current farm. They will do all the work. Goat prairie is prairie on very steep bluff lands. I have a few spots that can be reverted to that. They plan to cut cedar and burn through it. There is a lot of oak and native flowers started there so I will see what happens there as a test for more practical knowledge of the use of fire. I will try to be there when they do it, so I can film and bring that to the audience here. Eventually, I may advocate for fire, but I have produced very impressive habitat (and deer) on my other farm without any burning. Best regards and Merry Christmas.
@@bill-winke if you want more information on the benefits of prescribed fire, I would recommend checking out: Dr. Grant Woods work in Missouri; Dr. Craig Harper from the University of Tennessee and others. But these two have done extensive research and application of prescribed fire in different forest types, fields and savanna's. Coupled with good TSI, fire is critical to maintaining good habitat in many habitat types
Jarrod, I think that would be good too, but some landowners will be shy about bringing attention to their property. Rob was good enough to let me film it and I think the video does create a cool resource for him to go back and look at later also.
YOU DON"T HAVE TO TILL! USE A NO TILL DRILL ON THE ROCKY AREAS AND IF YOU CAN'T JUST BROADCAST IT AND IT WILL GROW. SEE GRANT WOODS FOOD PLOTS FOR GROWING DEER TV IN ROCKY SOIL.
If you go back and listen to it again, the conversation on tillage was related to planting habitat from seed. You have to till to do that. Can be a one-time thing, but to have any success with direct planting of stuff like oak, wild plum, crab apple, etc. you have to get the seed into the ground. That was my reference to tillage.
@@bill-winke LOVE WHAT YOU DO MR WINKE. MY MISTAKE, I THOUGHT YOU WERE JUST TALKING ABOUT THAT SPECIFIC AREA THAT WAS ROCKY. I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU WOULD TILL WITH THE ROCKS ANY WAYS. HAVE SEEN GRANT DO SOME PRETTY ROCKY SOIL ON THE PROVING GROUNDS THERE IN OZARKS. MY 2 CENTS ARE NOT WORTH MUCH! LOL
Don’t forget the benefits of a timber burn as well to open up that forest floor for new growth.
You are right Markey. It is one thing I need to get better at. I am just super paranoid about starting the woods on fire. We did one timber burn on my southern Iowa farm and I had six experts there to create the breaks and manage the burn. I didn't really like it, though it sure did burn off all the leaf litter. Again, it is something I need to get better at. The local forester at my new farm has been suggesting I burn to remove barberry that is growing unchecked in certain parts of my farm. I think he would show up to advise on the burn if I asked him to, so maybe that is another opportunity to learn. I have had a few switchgrass fires over the years that nearly got loose on us and that was plenty stressful enough. Maybe I just don't trust fires in general! I hate telling my clients to start things burning, when I don't trust the process 100% myself. Happy New Year.
@@bill-winke be certain to get leaves/debris from the dead trees standing, and burn down hill!
@@bill-winke happy new year to you as well!
You have created a lot of side cover too with the dropped tree tops
Yes, in my opinion, dropping them is best. Have a great day.
One of the most important improvements you can make on this property is to stop cattle from browsing in your woods. I cringed when i heard that. Its kind of like putting goats on a sod farm. Counterproductive.
The cows will eat alot of young browse and compact your soil. Will be very hard to thicken your woods for good deer habitat, especially browse / security and good bedding areas.
I bought a dairy farm were the farmer had allowed cows to wander throughout. . Night and day habitat difference once the cows were kept out of the woods ! Hope this helps. I love Kansas and all the kind folk ! God bless !
Thanks for the input Robert. The cows have been off this property for about one year, maybe a bit longer. The differences will show up over time during the next couple of years, but it is always good to help nature along by encouraging the plants/trees you want to grow to fill in the habitat void left by the cows. Nature will fill it eventually, but it may take a while. Have a great day.
@@bill-winke the one good thing that the cows did do was to disperse apple seeds everywhere ! Pocket orchards in just about every bedding area. Love it !
make it bobwhite habitat. it will be high enough and great fawning cover.
Good input. Thanks for the comment. Have a great day.
Also…Our gifts in life are only because of Him. Thanks Bill, total fan.
An aerial overview would be a nice segment to add into these types of videos. Excellent content as always.
Didn't want to do that to Rob. There is a line when it comes to showing other people's property, but I am not afraid to do that with my own when I start projects there this winter. I will show all those, also. Good input. Merry Christmas.
Love hearing your perspective on hunting, access, habitat etc...
Agreed, have learned several valuable lessons over the years. Even today, somethings I agree with, some I don't, but the perspective and reasoning for the perspective is a great refreshing angle.
Thanks guys. I appreciate the feedback. Hope you have a great Christmas.
It's ugly but you plant your screening trees which will obviously take years to grow. Then you run 100 yards of green snow fence at about 3 feet high so you are screening from 3 to 6 feet. That is right at the window height of a vehicle. It's inexpensive and works till the trees grow.
That is an interesting approach. I had not thought of that. Good input. Thanks. Hope you have a great New Year.
Rob - looks like you should add a double row of cedars along the road to prevent people from seeing into your property. In 5-7 years you will have a wall. Which also creates 'edge' and deer love 'edge'!
That is a good point. He could even use a tree mover and get some good younger trees in place that would fill in quickly.
I have road hunters to deal with myself. I went the “native grass” route to help also with habitat. The deer have responded quickly to use and their travel paths have been adjusted in just a couple short years.
At the 27:00 mark, when you were talking about the road fringe, I have found that letting the cedar trees grow in my fence line, along the roadway, has been my BEST WAY to not only create a fringe, but also a buffer that prevents people from "looking" onto my property.
I try to keep the cedars limited on the interior parts of my property, leaving a few areas for thermal breaks, but for the most part I will cut the cedars down. This creates bedding areas for the deer and great nesting areas for turkey and quail.
Good input Lonnie. I think that is a very good suggestion for Rob in those road frontage areas. We discussed him renting a tree mover for a skid loader to see if he can relocate enough good, healthy growing trees to those areas. Biggest problem on that farm is that most of his cedars are too big to move so he would have to start with really small trees and that will take a while. Good luck and Merry Christmas.
Bill wouldn’t he be better off putting beans that first year along the road portion? Not sure you’re going to have much of a crop going from pasture to corn with all that root structure. Beans the first year will go a long way to prep the soil for a better yield the second year.
Ernie, that is not a bad plan. I just don't like having food you can see into on the road frontage. Also, I have had good success no-tilling corn into sod in the past. So, I would not be afraid to do that - you just need to get the kill early so the grass isn't robbing the ground of subsoil moisture that the corn will need very quickly once it starts growing. Good luck and Merry Christmas.
Great video Bill! I learn so much watching you. Thank you.
Thanks for the support John, but we also need to thank Rob. He allowed me to film that and he did a really good job articulating his challenges on camera. I think we was the perfect co-host for that segment. Merry Christmas.
@@bill-winke yes your right Bob was great too! Merry Christmas Bill.
Great video and information Bill. Have a great new year.
Thanks Steve. I appreciate it. Hope you have a great new year also.
Great video Bill, I have taken a 30 acre small homestead and turned it into an awesome hunting property over the last 7 years. This property is surrounded by 150 and 200 acre cattle farms with very little cover and security. High hunting pressure all around. Just by creating natural habitat cover and absolutely no human intrusion. A few mowed paths with brush hog twice a year and I have pulled most of the deer from neighbors farms and they now stay year round. They have natural brows, natural cover and water with no reason to leave. My only issue is I have way too many does now and I can not seem to kill enough with bag limits to get the numbers where they need to be. I only enter the center of property in early spring when still cold and everything is dead to see how they are using it to determine my setups for fall the next year. Guess my point is the best improvement I have made is not stepping foot in the interior of the property except that one day a year so they know they are safe there.
That is good input. I would also say that making the habitat the best can be is a big step also. If it was wide open the deer would not feel nearly as safe there and they would see you every time you moved. Having thick cover in your hunting is way under-rated. I think it makes a huge difference. Thanks for the comment and Merry Christmas.
Very interesting. Most design the property to hunt. I agree in the "build it and they will come" approach. Merry Christmas.
Thanks Kurt. Yes, I like to make the property deer friendly so they will want to live there. If they are there, I can figure out a way to shoot them. That is not the hard part. Getting an older buck on the property in the first place is the hardest part. Good luck and Merry Christmas.
I got alot of education for my own property and when looking at other properties. Thanks
Thanks for the note and the support. Have a great day and Merry Christmas.
This is some great content and will help me implement those improvements on my own farm! Keep the videos like this coming.
Thanks for the comment. Have a great day and a Happy New Year.
Been a good year my friend ! Got some cold cold weather been moving through ! Hope everyone’s staying warm and safe
Thanks Kyle. Good luck and Happy New Year.
@@bill-winke happy new year to you and your family!!
Great topic and video Bill.
Thanks Mitchell. I appreciate the comment and the support. Merry Christmas.
Very informative to see you reinforce your previous episodes and blog posts about one way to build a farm! Appreciate all the knowledge Bill, there are people out there taking some good notes like I have!
Thanks for the consistent support Alex. I really appreciate it and hope you have a Merry Christmas.
@@bill-winke absolutely, easy to support quality content from a proven track record! Same to you and the rest of the Winke family!
I always like to see other properties and what works in different areas. I like the fringe hunting idea but getting the deer to pass through those areas is the most difficult part.
Trees are so sporadic in Kansas. In Michigan our trees are within an arms length of each other. It seems so open to me yet am sure the deer still travel and live in those areas where in Michigan they would stay out of those types of cover because it’s too open. Michigan is such a high pressure state. Your cover has to be thick and short sight lines within the cover.
That makes sense, Steve. We discussed the need to create more cover on Rob's farm too. Really open cover is not a good thing no matter where whitetails live. Thickening up that farm will only make it better for Rob also. Have a great New Year.
That was different and cool to watch and learn.
Thanks for the support Shane. I appreciate it. Merry Christmas.
Fun video, great to hear insight on land improvement. The more I hunt the more I lean towards enjoying improving the land. Merry Christmas.
Agreed. I have much more fun working on the farm now than I do hunting. As strange as that sounds. I think the challenge of just creating a really cool property that is home to mature bucks is very rewarding. I still like to shoot them, but not as much as I like to manage land to produce them. Have a Merry Christmas.
Really is a mindset. I guess once you really understand what your saying it really makes huge sense. Thanks Bill Another great episode 🦌🇺🇸
Thanks for the comment Shane and good luck the rest of the season. Merry Christmas.
Bill and Rob, Thanks so very much. This was SPOT ON for what kind of information that is helpful to me. This spring I bought a 640 in SE Kansas. Rob I’d love to share ideas with you if we could connect.
Thanks Daron. If you want to send me an e-mail at bill@billwinke.com I will forward it to Rob. Have a great day and Merry Christmas.
Great video! Thanks for letting us walk around with you. It’s always exciting to figure out how deer will use a property. Was thinking possibly adding switchgrass to that rocky soil area for extra cover .
Thanks B Jamin. I appreciate the support and feedback. I am just not a big switchgrass fan. I have planted more than 300 acres of it in my life and have yet to see it really pan out for long-term permanent whitetail habitat. I think it is a quick solution in areas with no cover, but I would rather see those years devoted to growing permanent habitat (trees, shrubs). That is just my take. I am sure it is better than nothing in areas with no traditional deer cover, but where the deer have options, they just don't seem to use the switchgrass much other than passing through and maybe some summer bedding. I will never again plant switchgrass on my farm for whitetails so I have a hard time telling someone else to do it. Good luck and Merry Christmas.
When you thin cedars, do the ones you leave standing green back up and get thick on the bottoms or stay dead on the bottom
No, I don't believe those low branches will ever come back. They are more or less all dead. Very brittle and break off with a snap. I think it is a natural way for these trees to shed low branches when they become a burden to the vertical growth of the tree. They are pretty ugly once they get past a certain size and density. Good luck and Merry Christmas.
Liked it allot Bill great show! I am looking forward to seeing another layout vid!
Thanks Karl. It was fun to do. The trick is to find landowners who don't mind me showing their farms. I tried not to show much that would make the farm identifiable, not that I think anything bad would happen, but people need their privacy. I will focus on my farm a lot during the off-season and show all that. Have a great day and a Merry Christmas.
@@bill-winke Thank you Bill. I have lost leases over the years due to the filming aspect , and on my land I have lost two bucks I knew well. From showing footage before the kill. We no longer do that I will use older footage for shows except during a finished hunt meaning a taken deer. Merry Christmas to you also.
Thanks for this video. Great info
You are welcome Afif. Thanks for the support. Good luck and Merry Christmas.
Rob/Bill. First thing I'd do is spray the brome and fescue grass with glysophate after the second frost. Especially in and around the cedar draws and thickets. Personally. I use a 4 gallon backpack sprayer. I choose an area and use up that tank. Whatever size pocket that creates is what it is for the year. Then the next year, I do an adjoining pocket (a tanks worth) this establishes steps of cover.
I think I'd leave the majority of the cedars stand for a few years and just do bedding pockets of felled cedar.(I'd save the cedar posts) I'd do pocket burns on other areas. That's place needs fire badly! The response to this farm will happen very rapidly as it is obviously the cattle beat that farm up. Lastly I'd utilize the posts from above too build some fencing to create funnels to direct travel. Great spot!!
Chris, thanks for the input. There are a lot of ways to skin this cat. I just want to move faster and I want permanent habitat, not prairie restoration. That four gallon backpack sprayer is going to get about 1/4 to 1/2 acre max (in my experience). If that is my farm, I want to see it change much faster than that. If you watch the offseason, you will see this process happen on my farm. The episode we posted about the buck I killed there this past year shows the start of this process. I had 30 acres of old pasture to deal with. I killed about 13 acres in September, disced it up and planted it to 8 varieties of oaks (acorns) later in the fall. While a good portion of those acorns will germinate, there will be plenty of pockets where nature will provide the seed. I will do the other 15+ acres next year. I don't have 60 years to do it 1/2 acre at a time. I see the big picture habitat change as the background color for the future painting that I will make. You can always tweak that background later by planting pockets of other stuff (in my case, chestnuts, soft mast trees some preferred shrubs) but the hardest thing is to get something permanent and useful growing that you CAN tweak later. I start there - with the background. Again, rather than assume I can plant chosen pockets that will produce something useful, I just do the whole thing and then react to where nature puts those pockets and then tweak from there. I am not looking for native prairie, that is not my mission. I am looking for permanent, diverse whitetail habitat. This system worked well on the farm I owned in southern Iowa. Good luck and Merry Christmas.
@@bill-winke Thank you for explaining. Being in western Nebraska on a similar farm I can tell you with 14" of annual rainfall the response takes a lot longer then what you might see in the Midwest. Love the videos!
Very entertaining video,learned a ton,gunna be some bigguns on that farm
Thanks Scott. Much appreciated. Have a Happy New Year.
@@bill-winke happy new years,only 3 more days to hunt here in NC
💯 spot on with habitat first. Access has always been limited for me coming in the east side only along property line due to bluffs on the roadway. Leaving any possible oak that produces is spot on. I’ve had forestry tell me different. You touched on doe numbers a bit. Sounds like I should thin a few out here as well. Having 2 family groups, the mother doe will spawn 2-3 buck fawns every spring. Should I take her out anyway? I really enjoyed this bill. Stay warm brother
Thanks Jay. Staying warm is going to be the challenge the next few days. I would not kill does unless you have a concentration of deer there. If not, you can do it for the meat, and the thrill of the chase, but not to create a real deer management advantage. Assuming there are enough deer in the area, those bucks will be there two years from now whether she produces them or another doe a mile away produces them. They tend to disperse into areas where they are tolerated. They disperse much more than doe family groups. This young buck dispersal generally takes place their second fall (when they are 1 1/2 years old). So, I would not stress too much about which does you shoot. There is minor science related to the subject, but it is much less important to the overall success of your property than just having the right number of deer to match the habitat and to reduce the kind of social stress that makes the bucks fringe out. Good luck and Merry Christmas.
@@bill-winke be safe out there. You guys are getting windchills worse than us. Thank you for all the info. I think I’ll take her out. I have a few 5 year olds around but they don’t like being around her. He tolerates the fawns much better. I’ve had a rough year with the drought. Failed plots. He made it through gun so maybe I can try him when he’s hungry and the right wind. Fringing of course. It was interesting, he vanishes every year nov1 -26th. I’d love to know where he goes.
Love this bill! Would love to hear more on your thoughts on doe management. Merry Christmas!
Bruce, I will have to touch on that in a future episode. I am thinking of producing an entire series of maybe 30 episodes about land and deer management each year so I can save "Bowhunting Whitetails" for hunting strategies. Have a great day and Happy New Year.
@Bill Winke awesome bill, I would be very interested in that for sure! As always, keep up the awesome work, and a happy new year to you and the family as well !
Great new approach to helping making a property better. Curious how many hunters are on this 191 acre property and have they had some success previously? I think this property is unique and has a ton of potential ! Look forward to seeing what the property yields in 5 years. Thanks Rob for sharing your experience with Bill so all of us can find a few takeaways !
BJM, Rob bought it last winter so he has hunted it just two seasons. He hasn't shot anything off it yet, but does have some good up and coming bucks on camera. It is a decent neighborhood, from a deer hunting standpoint, so I think long-term this farm will become very good. Thanks for the comment and the interest. Have a Merry Christmas.
@@bill-winke Thank you Bill for the insight into the property. Wishing you and your family a Merry Christmas!
Just bought 90 acres an hour east of KC if you're still around!
Have a great Christmas either way!
Blew past your place Wednesday evening after visiting the Redneck plant down in Lamar. We will show that plant tour on the Wednesday installment of "The Setup". Merry Christmas to you also.
Great info and I love the habitat first mindset . Red cedars might be an option for that road frontage. I see many there already.
You are right about the screen. I never even thought about that, but transplanting about 50 trees would really make a difference along that line. Good luck and Merry Christmas.
I don't know Kansas at all, but is there difficulty growing evergreen screening in that area? We can plant several species of Pine or Spruce that will block all view in about 5-7 years in Indiana, then you don't think about it for years after. Guys here reclaim fields, or pasture by blocking the road edge with evergreen, and add a corner of about an acre to make a parking area or small camp sight that is hidden along the road. I agree that it's not a great planting for deer, but its the best planting for human avoidance, and keep your deer hidden. We can get Trees from the State of Indiana for about 33 cents each in bundles of 100.
Really looking forward to you doing this on other properties... These are always great videos to get ideas for the viewers own place!
You are right, this would be a good option for Rob on this property. You won't get much from pine and spruce here but red cedar grows fast and thick and would make a good visual screen. We even discussed transplanting some trees as needed. Merry Christmas.
Bill, I really enjoyed this video. With the direction this channel is going I believe you could really benefit from an Insta360 camera. The personalized approach is refreshing. A 360 camera would have worked perfectly to switch back and forth without turning the camera. I've been eyeing them myself.
That is a good tip Lance. I will look into them. I appreciate the tip and the support. I plan to do a lot more of this kind of stuff on my own farm as I take steps to improve it over the next couple of years. Good luck and Merry Christmas.
In my area NC SC deer rub cedar trees. I plan on leaving a few.
They won't hurt you, but other than thermal cover for wintering, they really don't do anything for your habitat. Good luck and Merry Christmas.
@@bill-winke Happy holidays to you and ur family
Deer love basswood leaves.
Big and green and luscious
Maybe, but I don't want basswood trees. There were only a handful of basswood there to begin with. I am a fan of regeneration of the timber in favor of oak. Oak are disappearing fast from the Midwestern timbers. I do everything I can to regenerate oak with my TSI work. In fact, that is the number one species I want to see prosper when I am done. As much as I want to create browse and ground cover for hunting, I also want to produce oak regeneration. I should have articulated that better in the interview, but I wasn't really doing that consult for the camera but for Rob. You have to figure I was there for 10 hours and the camera was on for just 45 minutes. That leaves 9 hours of off camera discussion to clarify some stuff that probably came off a bit awkwardly on camera. Have a great Christmas.
Small world. I walked this farm when it was for sale. My friend is his neighbor to the S/E. I actually emailed you about consulting it ;-)
A very small world Woody. That is funny.
bill your in ks looks like the edge of the flint hills .Hard to till the ground in those hills ,feeders you have to use feeders .I know nobody likes to use them, but hunted ks almost 30 years, plant what you want but he with the biggest feeder wins every time.
Rob is still in ag country east of the Flint Hills. A big ag field to his south. He was able to plant roughly 75% of the open ground this past year. That other 25% is the hard part! Thanks for the input and the support. Merry Christmas.
Can you do video of Robs place so we can see this farm transform?
He is about 7 hours from my home, so it may be possible somewhere down the road but not as easily as I can show the transformation of my own farm - I will start working on that soon. Merry Christmas.
Hello Bill. Great video but I’d like to add something of importance about cedars. I’m assuming most of the cedars are red cedar. Red cedar of course not beneficial to deer for food as you mentioned, but they make great scrape trees. If you however come across white cedar that is a very good food source for deer so you may want to leave those on properties. Not that it gets very cold in Kansas but the white cedar creates great thermal cover and deer always bed under them especially in snow country. Merry Christmas
Thanks Jerome. Yes, it all red cedars here throughout the Midwest - at least that is all I have seen. Good input. I hope you have a great Christmas.
Wow amazing work, amazing shop. At first I thought it was just a weekend warrior type shop, but then yoy were laying out some NICE tools so I knew you were more than just a hobbyist. If you don't mind me asking what did you charge the customer for that kind of work? I was thinking $2k seems very cheap for all the work you've done but on the other hand $2k for a gate is stupid high. Of course that house looks like they have $$$...lol. sorry I'm rambling...anyway, you earned a subscriber!
I think you may have posted this in the wrong place. There is no shop or house in this video. Merry Christmas.
@@bill-winke yep sorry...lol
Deer eat locust seed pods. Honey and Black locust.
Excellent thicket trees
I have been dealing with locust since 1995. They are not for me. Despite the fact that deer will eat them (though not a preferred food), I get rid of those trees during any TSI or habitat improvement campaign. There are much better sources of food on a farm than locust trees. Plus, I love trees I (or my family) can some day climb into. I have tried to climb a few locusts in my day. No more. Get rid of them and replace them with oak or apple trees or even shrubs like wild plum or crab apple, etc. or fast producing trees like chestnut. Have a great Christmas.
Thanks for the video! At the 21:50 mark you say would plant corn or nothing most likely. Is the reason due to it being right along the road and you don’t wanna people to see in with the tall corn? Or other reasons as well. Thanks!
That is the reason. I wouldn't plant beans or clover or brassicas, etc. because that would pull the deer to the road where people could see them easily. The corn would serve as food, cover and screen (a very useful combination). Rob could hunt the edge between the corn and timber very easily with minimal intrusion. I have done this before on my farms. When the inputs were much cheaper (when corn was $1.90 per bushel) I used to plant all the fields on my road frontage (50+ acres) to corn every year and leave it standing until late January at which time I then paid a local farmer to combine just enough to pay the input cost. Ah, those were much simpler times. It worked awesome. Now the inputs are too expensive to take that kind or risk. Anyway, Rob could long-term plant (or move) cedar trees to the road frontage to block it, but that will take a long time to really fill in. Corn is the starting point. If the corn works, keep doing it. If it doesn't, he could try sorghum or just plant those acres to a mix of seeds that will long-term produce permanent habitat. Good luck and Merry Christmas.
Thanks for the response. Would you consider planting 10 or so rows of Egyptian Wheat on the outside by the road and then be able to plant rye, brassicas, or something that’s easier to grow if he can’t get corn to grow. Merry Christmas to you as well!
How far from a larger food plot should I have my smaller kill plots.
Doesn't have to be far at all. Ideally about 50 yards so you can sneak away from the small plot easier at last light, but less than that will work too, you just have to be more careful when leaving.
@@bill-winke Thanks for the reply. I am learning alot from your videos
Is it an option to just let that rocky area just grow up with the seed bank, grasses and weeds already there for cover? Do you think it would be substantial enough to hold deer or serve a purpose?
I am pondering that exact question now on a piece of property in KS. I would rather stay away from trying to plant an annual for cover but would like the increased cover. We did consider sorghum and corn as you mentioned as well. Native grasses have always been appealing, but with the winds and fires in the KS area I'm not sure that is the best strategy management wise.
From what I have seen, it is just going to be grass and eventually locust and hedge (Osage orange) and maybe some cedar. I think we need to help nature in that regard. Here is my take on this topic related specifically to Rob's farm. He is OK if he plants a corn crop that fails, so I suggested that he first plant corn in those areas and then let that determine his next move. If the corn does OK, that is a great option (food, cover and screening). If the corn crop fails, he has in the process killed the stuff that is there which would allow him to plant a mix of more focused cover. I am putting together a seed mix for him to plant in the future if that occurs. I am trying to focus on stuff that should do well in shallow, rocky soils: white, bur and shingle oak, wild plum and crabapple. Those would all be planted from seed into the failed corn ground after tilling up to create a decent seedbed for direct seeding. I have planted more than 300 acres of switchgrass in my life and have watched deer relate to that. If there is no traditional deer cover around, they will live in it. If there is traditional deer cover around, they only pass through it, rarely bedding in it. I won't plant it on my farms again, so I have a hard time telling someone else to. Nature will create plenty of diversity even if you plant the mix I suggested. Not all will germinate and lots of other stuff (weeds and some grasses) will crop up. I want cover deer will live in long term, not just pass through. I am sure there are other approaches, that is just mine. I want permanent habitat. It is easy enough to thin it out and plant strips to other stuff, etc. but permanent cover is the hardest to establish so I think that needs to be the starting point - the background color for the painting, so to speak. Good luck and Merry Christmas.
@@bill-winke What about burning areas like that? Also prairie restoration? some government programs as you know like CRP and others that brings a little bit of profit in for the land owners.
Hey Bill - Great video... Been a big fan for years. What is the best way to contact you regarding a consultation. I just recently purchased a farm in Southern Iowa and would love to get you thoughts on projects and prioritization to make the farm better.
Mark, if interested, you can e-mail me at bill@billwinke.com. Thanks and Merry Christmas.
Hi Bill
The farm i hunted for 15 yrs is for sale on 200acres near three forks mt on the jefferson river its for sale for 10 million loved hunting that place is lowa prices that bad?
Scott, no the prices here are nowhere near that. I would say that in some areas of southern Iowa you can still find good hunting land around $4,000 to $4,200 per acre. That would put that farm at a bit over $800,000. Still a lot but a far cry from $10M!
I have 157 acres in IL. How would I go about contacting you for a consultation?
You can email me directly at bill@billwinke.com. Thanks.
Bill- like~interesting -see you o nmy side,😮
No talk of fire? Cut burn and repete
Sean, fire is not my strong suit. I have had a few experiences with it on my farm in southern Iowa and it did no good in the settings where I used it. I understand its role in refreshing native grasses and prairie, but my timber burns never did anything useful, they just made me nervous! I need to learn a lot more about what fire does in the timber for permanent habitat (not prairie) before I start promoting it. I think just burning off leaves would really help to promote the growth of browse, so that is a simple goal, I guess. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife are planning to work on a few acres of "goat prairie" on my current farm. They will do all the work. Goat prairie is prairie on very steep bluff lands. I have a few spots that can be reverted to that. They plan to cut cedar and burn through it. There is a lot of oak and native flowers started there so I will see what happens there as a test for more practical knowledge of the use of fire. I will try to be there when they do it, so I can film and bring that to the audience here. Eventually, I may advocate for fire, but I have produced very impressive habitat (and deer) on my other farm without any burning. Best regards and Merry Christmas.
@@bill-winke if you want more information on the benefits of prescribed fire, I would recommend checking out: Dr. Grant Woods work in Missouri; Dr. Craig Harper from the University of Tennessee and others. But these two have done extensive research and application of prescribed fire in different forest types, fields and savanna's. Coupled with good TSI, fire is critical to maintaining good habitat in many habitat types
Dream big😊
Exactly. This is the perfect part-time job for someone with a land addiction!
Great info should make video on all ur consultations if the owner don't mind people love seeing these
Jarrod, I think that would be good too, but some landowners will be shy about bringing attention to their property. Rob was good enough to let me film it and I think the video does create a cool resource for him to go back and look at later also.
YOU DON"T HAVE TO TILL! USE A NO TILL DRILL ON THE ROCKY AREAS AND IF YOU CAN'T JUST BROADCAST IT AND IT WILL GROW. SEE GRANT WOODS FOOD PLOTS FOR GROWING DEER TV IN ROCKY SOIL.
If you go back and listen to it again, the conversation on tillage was related to planting habitat from seed. You have to till to do that. Can be a one-time thing, but to have any success with direct planting of stuff like oak, wild plum, crab apple, etc. you have to get the seed into the ground. That was my reference to tillage.
@@bill-winke LOVE WHAT YOU DO MR WINKE. MY MISTAKE, I THOUGHT YOU WERE JUST TALKING ABOUT THAT SPECIFIC AREA THAT WAS ROCKY. I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU WOULD TILL WITH THE ROCKS ANY WAYS. HAVE SEEN GRANT DO SOME PRETTY ROCKY SOIL ON THE PROVING GROUNDS THERE IN OZARKS. MY 2 CENTS ARE NOT WORTH MUCH! LOL