Ep. 32 - Creating The Perfect Menu: What Every Hunter Should Know

Taking your deer hunting to the next level starts with what happens months before the season. In this timely episode, we break down the science and strategy behind successful food plots as we hit the 128-day countdown to opening day.

Soil testing emerges as the absolute foundation for food plot success, yet it's often overlooked by eager hunters rushing to plant. We walk through the simple process of collecting and submitting soil samples, interpreting results, and implementing recommendations like lime application for our naturally acidic southeastern soils. The discussion turns practical as we explore how even small-scale hunters can effectively manage quarter-acre plots without fancy equipment.

The conversation expands beyond seed selection into strategic timing—how spring/summer plots support antler growth and lactation, while fall/winter plots create hunting opportunities. We tackle real-world scenarios like competing with agricultural fields, working around oak mast drops, and selecting seed blends that allow deer to meet their specific nutritional needs.

What's particularly fascinating is our deep dive into deer behavior—why they sometimes ignore beautiful food plots, how palatability differs from visual appeal, and how creating proper staging areas and edge habitat encourages usage. We also address the critical relationship between herd management and food plot effectiveness, emphasizing why balanced doe harvests directly impact your chances of growing trophy bucks.

Whether you're a seasoned food plot veteran or planting your first plot this season, this episode offers actionable insights that can transform your hunting property. Don't miss our practical tips on frost seeding, working with neighbors, and creating ethical shot opportunities through thoughtful habitat design. Your countdown to a successful deer season starts now—grab your tools and get to work!

Thanks for joining us on The Bowtreader Podcast. Leave a comment to let us know where you are listening from as well as any topics that you would like to hear us cover. Be sure to like the episode and subscribe to follow along. 

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Transcript

Food Plot Preparation and Soil Testing

Speaker 1 1:19

All right, we got the machine on, we'll get rolling. So we're going to talk food plots today. And, man, we were knee-deep into it before we even hit the button here. So we're going to try to bring you guys into the fold a little bit, but it is officially May, so it's definitely time to start thinking food plots. So it's definitely time to start thinking food plots.

Speaker 2 1:53

You know we've crossed into, I think we're sitting at 128 days until opening day, still holding on to turkey season a little bit, yeah. I mean we got seven days of turkey season left right Still holding on.

Speaker 1 2:02

I have entered that time of the year where I start telling people every day that you need to shoot your bow.

Speaker 3 2:08

Every day shoot your bow.

Speaker 1 2:10

Because I mean, like if you shoot your bow three times a day on average between now and opening day, that's like 500 times 400 times somewhere in that neighborhood, right? If you go up to five times a day, that's almost 700 shots that you've put through.

Speaker 2 2:23

You're talking about a week, sorry, are you saying a week or a day A day? Oh dang, I'm not pulling my bow out three times a day, I ain't got time for it right now.

Speaker 1 2:35

Come on man. Well, if you average it, you're only going to shoot once a week, true Then? Shoot 50 times when you pull your bow out yeah, once a week, true, you know. Then shoot 50 times when you, when you pull your bow out yeah, um, you know, really go over it and make sure everything's working like it's supposed to three shots. I am a huge proponent of cold shots, because that's what you're taking when you're true.

Speaker 2 2:55

Yeah so instead of I got no, I'm saying I'm saying three shots got, got it.

Speaker 1 3:01

Okay, okay, yep, yep. I mean I can't tell you how important I think that is, because when you're in a hunting situation, you go on a hunt, you might go on a week-long hunt to shoot once you know, and that shot's got to count. So how good are you at that cold shot, you know? And if you practice that cold shot over and over again, just shoot three times in the morning before you go to work, or in the afternoon when you get home from work, and if you don't have the time to keep shooting, or whatever, that's fine. All you're trying to do is build that, teach yourself that cold shot, because that's the shot that matters. Build that, teach yourself that cold shot, because that's the shot that matters, you know. So now do I also want people out shooting their bow 50 times at a clip? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely yeah. But you'd be shocked, you'd be amazed at what having those cold shots is going to do. Absolutely, yeah. So that that's, that's where I'm coming from with that.

Speaker 1 4:05

But but anyway, let's talk food plots, because it is, it is. You know. We're getting into that time where we need to do it, or at least prep. You know, pulling soil samples. If you've never done that before, you know it's. It's not. It's not a a huge deal. The easiest way to do it. Um, I don't like using any of the like, any of the little kits or anything like that.

Speaker 2 4:26

Yeah, don't waste your time with that um, really, just go to your uh like, we've got a uga extension office. They've literally got the free paper bags for you to fill out. They've got a line on there. It literally says dirt line. Um, yeah, go out to a food plot, don't just dig a hole and and fill it up with just one hole. Take a subset sample. If you're looking at a square, hit all four corners and get a couple in the center and you mix it in a clean bucket. Mix that dirt up and you're not going three foot down, you're digging the first six or so inches and you mix it together. Make sure you get all the organic matter out, so any grasses and stuff like that, because that could um kind of sway some results, but not really. They normally sift through that.

Speaker 2 5:13

But don't mix it in a metal bucket yeah, or a bucket you change bucket, or when you change your oil in like, do do a clean bucket buckets are three bucks at Lowe's.

Speaker 1 5:24

That is my shopping cart of choice.

Speaker 2 5:27

Oh my gosh, that's literally mine too I mean.

Speaker 1 5:29

I buy a bucket every time I go to Lowe's. You can't. You really can't. It's not possible. So every time I go to Lowe's or Home Depot or something like, that I go over and I pick up a bucket.

Speaker 1 5:43

You know I need a new tape measure. Always, every time you go, you got to get a new tape measure. You know, need a new chalk line because nobody can keep up with a chalk line, you know, and you go through and get those things and then you go to the checkout and it's like well, I guess I got to buy my bucket. Yeah, buy a $3 bucket.

Speaker 2 5:56

Stockpiled. It's like yeah, yes, absolutely. Yeah, for sure, but yeah send in the soil sample off to uga. I think it used to be seven bucks. It's still seven. Uh, I mean I think they've got it used to be five yeah, it's seven now, inflation okay. Well, I will say the turnaround time has been a little little slack. Um, I, I sent some out for some dove fields we're doing and uh, I had to call to like hey, I hadn't seen this. It's been like three, maybe four weeks really okay and, uh, I think I don't know.

Speaker 2 6:39

Um, I think the writing on the bag was a little off and they might have just not. Either way, I got it in the mail, the physical mail, before I got it on email.

Speaker 1 6:51

I was gonna say, since they started doing the email, it usually it's normally pretty quick within seven, seven to ten days.

Speaker 2 6:58

But uh, yeah, this last one, I was like man, this is taking a little long, yeah, but yeah, you get the. You get the results on that On the bag itself. The best way to do it is if you have a name for your food plot, or whatever you put the name of that food plot, just so you can keep up with all of it. It then has a line for the crop that you're going to be planting, for the crop that you're going to be planting. So, uh, if it's a corn or a sunflower or if it's going to be a clover, you put that on there. That way, when they give you the report, it's custom to whatever crop you're going to be putting in the food plot.

Speaker 1 7:35

Um, or if you want to do one for your garden when you're doing this? Yeah, right garden, yeah, it's just you know vegetable garden, you put that on there.

Speaker 2 7:43

So that allows the the results of it to customize to okay, what's the optimal ph level, what is the optimal um sub, like micro minerals and stuff like that that need to be there, and then it just gives you a spit out of okay, this is how, how much phosphorus nitrogen, um, that you need to to meet your goals? Um, yeah, how much phosphorus nitrogen that you need to meet your goals? Yeah, how much lime you need to put? Yeah, lime, you need Calcium or whatever.

Speaker 1 8:09

It gives you everything.

Creating Successful Food Plots

Speaker 2 8:10

Then you just go to your local either co-op or we've got Bullock Fertilizer. Shout out to them, they do a great job. I'll send it to them. They'll give me a custom blend, basically to what my needs are. I can rent a spreader for 200 a day and I hook it up the hydraulics on my tractor and they pre-set it to um whatever speed my tractor is, it slings it and it'll sling it about 50 feet on either side and you can cover some ground pretty quick. So, um, then they, you also could just, uh, if you didn't do a custom blend, you can find, uh, a blended bag that's already pre-made, like if you got these little smaller plots, you can get a. You can find a blend that's that's closest to what the prescription is and and kind of do it from there.

Speaker 2 9:06

Um the the. The thing we're dealing with right now is um april is normally a. We've normally got rain. That's somewhat uh, consistent. But we have been very dry, very, very dry. We got a lot of, a lot of farmers praying for rain right now. So soil moisture is another thing and we can kind of get on soil moisture later. But I guess the prep side is super important, mainly because if you don't have the right pH, the crop itself is not going to do what it needs to do.

Speaker 1 9:45

Well, um your, your fertilizer, and everything is not gonna, it's not gonna have the same effect.

Speaker 1 9:51

You know it doesn't uptake if you're if your ph is wrong because the plant is just not, you know, it's just not in a healthy environment to start with, you know. And so from from a, from a pH standpoint, let's say, let's say you pull a soil sample and your pH is sitting at like six, you know, or five and a half maybe, and your optimal pH for what you're growing. All right, let's use, let's use sunflowers as an example. That's a good, it's a good food plot seed for birds, and it's good for deer Deer love it Okay. Plot seed for birds, and it's good for deer deer love it okay.

Speaker 1 10:29

So your your ph for that needs to be somewhere around seven, um, and so if you're sitting at five and a half or six and you need to get to seven, you're looking at probably a ton to the acre of lime. Now let's say you've got a very small food plot and it says a ton to the acre. You know, it's not like you've got to go out and you've got to rent a spreader or something. If you've got a quarter of an acre to work with, you can go out with a bucket of lime and spread it. You know, by the bucket.

Speaker 1 11:00

Just take your hand, the lime's not going to hurt you right just take your hand and scatter that stuff out over the food plot and basically take that bare dirt and turn it white. That's basically what you want to do and that's gonna, that's gonna get you somewhere close to a ton of ton an acre, um, and you can, you can, you know, judge it a little bit. You know, if you, you know you need a ton to the acre and you've got a quarter of an acre that you're working with, you know you need 500 pounds of lime you know, so it's not.

Speaker 1 11:29

It's not. I don't want it to, I don't want us to talk through this, because this is something we do all the time and we skip over stuff and make it sound like it's super overwhelming, because it's really not that bad you can.

Speaker 2 11:41

You can make it as difficult or as easy as as you you like. I mean, it's one of those things just like anything else.

Speaker 2 11:48

I mean it can. You can get super in the weeds pun intended um. You can get super technical on it and get overwhelmed, but in the end, making sure your ph levels uh, basic it's, it's, it's neutral, basically it's a. It's a seven um. Seven ph is across the board. If you've got a seven, a six to seven ph, you're, you're gonna be able to grow just about just about anything.

Speaker 2 12:19

Sandy souls down here. We're super uh acidic um and so we are constantly having to apply lime um on pretty much everything that we've got um. This time of year also smells like chicken litter when you're driving down the road because we got farmers slinging that around um. So it's it's that time of year where people are preparing uh. There's a couple fields around here. I already got corn shin high um, which I'm thoroughly impressed with the lack of uh rain that we've had, that it's had that much soil moisture. But I wanted to mention something else. May is a month where it's super important not to crank up the old bush hog. I always like to remind folks to leave the old bush hog under the barn or wherever. This is super, super crucial time of year for poults and chicks and just just critters and fawns, and fawns.

Speaker 1 13:18

Yeah, fawns will start dropping in a couple of weeks.

Speaker 2 13:20

So it's just important that, even though we are preparing the soil on food plots, it's a smaller area, but your roadways and stuff like that just leave them dirty, Leave them. I know it looks nice to have them all cleaned up, but it's super important to kind of leave those edges rough to let the critters do what they're doing. So I wanted to shout out for the fawns and poults and the chicks that are being born right now. So they already got an uphill battle. So we might as well not fight against them, fight with them.

Speaker 1 13:58

Yeah, no doubt, man. So when you're looking at doing a food plot, man. But so so when you're, when you're looking at doing a food plot, everybody that I talked to is always super concerned about what seed they're going to use. You know what? What mix do I need to have? What seed do I need to put out there, what? What's going to be the best? What can I plant one time? And it's going to last the whole season and all that kind of stuff and all that is important.

Speaker 1 14:30

But I'm telling you, do not skip the step of testing that soil and figuring out where you're at, so you know what you're working with, because you're going to get so much better results if you've got a good foundation to work off of to make sure that dirt's where it needs to be. And, like Jace was saying, especially where we live here, it's super sandy. So I mean, it's like it is a constant that you're having to put lime out because our soil leaches so much, especially in the way of lime. So it just seems like it's something that you're always having to add. Unfortunately, if you put lime out in May, you're not going to feel 100% of the effects of that this season.

Speaker 1 15:19

I mean, it is going to make it better but you're not going to feel 100% of the effects of it. That's one of those things that is an ongoing, kind of a perennial thing that you need to be doing for your soil. But my opinion, is it's worth doing it. Yeah, you know even if you're on lease ground, that you don't know if you're going to have it next year. You know what, so what?

Speaker 2 15:43

Yeah.

Speaker 1 15:43

Leave it better than you found it. That's right. You know it is going to make for you to have a better crop and the thing is, weeds will grow really good in acidic soil Yep.

Speaker 1 15:55

They thrive in acidic soil right they do, and the stuff, the desirable stuff, that we're planting will not thrive in it. It will struggle in it. We could still get it to grow, but we've got to do more work to make it happen. We've got to put in more inputs, we've got to hope for timely rain and all that kind of stuff and we've got to hope that they're going to somehow choke out those weeds that are really going to grow well in that acidic soil. So those are the reasons behind doing that stuff. Um, and it's just, you know, I don't know about you guys, but I, I. It's frustrating when I know I'm wasting time.

Speaker 3 16:34

Yeah.

Speaker 1 16:35

And when you go out and you plant something and you haven't done just a little bit of extra work to make sure that you're, you know, in the best position for it, you've really wasted a lot of time.

Speaker 2 16:46

Well, time and money, cause I mean to be real, the seed nowadays, I mean it's not cheap. Um, it's not cheap at all. We're, we're doing some dove fields and man, they are proud of them. Sunflowers and and and the corn as well. So, um, yeah, I'm doing like six to ten acre plots here and there. I feel it for the, the farmers that are having to buy seed for hundreds of acres. Um, but yeah, you got to make sure you do your prep work. Um, we were talking, uh, offline earlier.

Speaker 2 17:18

Uh, just to kind of switch it up just a little bit, um about frost seeding some clover um, and I know we're on the obviously we're 85 degree days now, so we're on the back end of that but just another strategy to kind of a low, low impact uh deal. But frost seeding is one of those times, uh, when you're the transition from winter to spring, where you've got those cold, cold mornings, where you've got the layer of frost on the ground. Some of your plots that you've got already from the fall, most of their crops, they've already been ate down and they're down to the ground. Frost seeding is just a really good strategy just to have a cover crop on the ground. It's really good protein. But that freeze-thaw period is what helps kickstart and germinate that clover and we've been doing it for a number of years just to kind of keep a supplement on the ground. So that's another strategy that's. That's super helpful and super good.

Speaker 2 18:22

Um, and it carries over, um, these lactating fawn or, uh, not fawns, lactating does and these bucks while they're starting to put on antlers. Uh, was driving the other day, saw a buck in the edge of a field and already starting to see some growth and um, so it, it's happening. Um, so this is this is the building blocks for what we're pursuing in October and November, so it's just cool to see that. But yeah, I wanted to mention the frost seeding, since we had talked about it offline.

Speaker 1 18:55

Yeah, it makes it. It's a pretty easy concept because you're not having to prepare a seed bed or anything like that. You just kind of go out and scatter that seed. It's just sitting right there on top, like jace was saying it.

Speaker 1 19:08

Just it germinates because of that, that constant moisture that it gets every day um, so it makes it makes it pretty simple. That's right, um, but yeah, so we can talk about food plot seed. I've got some sitting right here on the table right now. This is is some of the pure whitetail seed that we actually carry here in the shop. Most of these, I think, are these bags, will do a quarter acre. It says quarter acre, yeah, five-pound bags, so they are $35 for a five pound bag. We've got anything from some no-till it's called Shady Patch, that if you have a spot back in the woods, you know All right. So let's look at that from a quick standpoint. Real quick, because of the storms we had last year and how we've taught all season all this time leading up to this we talked about how much our season was affected last year because of just the change in landscape from trees being blown over and everything.

Speaker 1 20:24

So you may have some areas that you know you're looking at now and you're like man, if I could get a piece of equipment back here, I could put a food plot in, yeah well, you don't necessarily have to do that. This seed, that, um, that I'm looking at right now, is is. Is is called a no-till seed. Basically, it's just seed that germinates really easily. It's like a throw and grow.

Speaker 2 20:48

Yeah, it's, uh, it's, it's right on concrete, it'll, it'll spread.

Speaker 1 20:51

Yeah, yeah, really it's ryegrass white clover, and uh, let's see what is it ryegrass white clover, forage rape and winfred forage brassica, so it's basically a bag of weeds that deer like to eat.

Speaker 2 21:07

Yeah, they'll eat them. But it'll literally, if it has any moisture, it'll germinate. You can put it on the top of a center block and it'll probably establish. Yeah absolutely.

Navigating Spring vs. Fall Plantings

Speaker 1 21:18

And then another one that I've got here that I really like is this is one that you need to plant later in the year. Uh, it's got turnips, sugar beets and then brassica in there, so that's going to be that food plot. That that's like the food plot that you think of when you think of food plot. That's that's what you think of seeing, you know, it doesn't have peas in it, which are really good. Uh, it doesn't have soybeans in, it, doesn't have corn in it, but it's got those. It's got a bunch of those, uh, those root crops in there that have those really good uh, leafy tops that, uh, that grow out of the ground that the deer love, and, uh, I love seeing a buck walk up to it and tear one of those turnips out of the ground and just sit there munching on it.

Speaker 1 22:03

You know, I can think of a time where I watched a deer grab a whole turnip, Pull it out of the ground Like it was a turnip or a radish or something. He pulled the whole thing out of the ground. He's sitting there, like you know, holding it right at the base of the root and he's just chewing on it. I mean just looking around, just sitting there chewing on it.

Speaker 3 22:26

That's cool.

Speaker 1 22:29

You know, so they just love that stuff.

Speaker 3 22:32

And I love watching them.

Speaker 1 22:35

To me, that's one of the coolest parts about hunting is being able to get out there and watch these guys, you know, see how they make it happen. And you know, because a lot of times you know I how they see how they make it happen. And, um, you know, because a lot of times you know I'll see a buck and I'm like I'm not shooting him, you know. I mean because if he's not where I think he could be, I just don't I just sit here and watch you know, you're talking just age wise and stuff.

Speaker 1 22:58

Yeah, I mean, if I just think he's got there's more that he's going to do, I just don't shoot him.

Speaker 2 23:05

I think, too, food plots are really good one just from a nutrition standpoint. But if you looked at the and I don't have the data in front of me, but I'm thinking back on a couple National Deer Association things, a couple um national deer association things. But the diet from a food plot is, uh, for whitetail deers in particular, is pretty low from from the wide span of of a year, but it still it does. It does hold and sustain them in in your areas that you're you're hunting. So when you look at it it's it's important to maintain those, keep those um, if you're wanting to get after it, doing a spring and a summer plot is is important just because, honestly, it's honestly almost more important than the winter plots. Just because, although everything is green right now, it's not always the stuff that they need um, and by need is like they don't have. There's not just things popping up everywhere that's got a lot of protein, or the the does need certain minerals and stuff like that for lactation, so um, even though they need fat, though they need fat.

Speaker 2 24:22

They need a lot of. They need a lot of content. Um, so having a concentrated area that makes it easier for them to do that just increases their likelihood of having successful um hatches or um fountains, so that's super important. Um, I had something else I was thinking about.

Speaker 1 24:43

Um, um, just had a brain fart. It happens, man. That's what I get for scheduling these things early um, no, it's just super.

Speaker 2 24:56

It's super important, oh, I guess. Um, what I was getting at. Yeah, so you've got your spring and summer food plots and then you got your your winter food plots. Obviously, we're not we're not quite there, but I think it is important, like we're talking about just having it at the forefront of your mind of, hey, hey, if I'm not going to do a spring-summer food plot, this is kind of the time where I can even start pulling samples now and start at least preparing for, okay, what am I going to need to be successful for that time. So it's just a good time right now. Just a daydream about seeing that whitetail, uh, eating out of the out of the food plot and, um, and kind of preparing for that yeah, yeah, the sooner the better.

Speaker 1 25:40

Yeah, that's what I would say for sure, uh, because if you pull that food, that soil sample and you find out you need lime or you need something, go ahead and get it out there. Yeah, lime is not something that, even if you haven't prepared your seed bed, even if you haven't done anything, you just know this is where a food plot's going. You don't have to go out there and do anything to it, just go spread the lime on it and it's going to start doing its thing. It's going to start working into the soil as it rains and stuff like that. So you're you're going to be putting yourself in a good position. So let's, let's, let's kind of pivot a little bit and look at seed blends and what to do and when to do it.

Speaker 1 26:17

And, um, I think that, jace, just like you were saying, you know you need to, you need to understand what role you're trying to fill with the food plot, right? And um, when we look at, when we look at our hunting properties, what do we have that the deer are going to be eating? You know. So if we've got, if we've got, a hunting property with a ton of white Oaks on it, you know we don't really need a food plot. That's going to be available. While those white oaks are going to be dropping, or while, let's just say we got a bunch of hard mass, a bunch of oak trees, they're going to be dropping acorns, starting sometime in late september or early october, depending on what our summer looks like right, um, and that are going to drop until sometime in November, you're going to be hard-pressed to pull those deer off the dock.

Speaker 1 27:16

So when you're looking at your hunting property and saying, okay, I've got food available during this time, what do I do to supplement that? What do I do? What things do I need to put in? What time frame does it need to fall that? What do I do? You know what things do I need to put in? What timeframe does it need to fall under?

Speaker 1 27:32

And if you'll just go at it from that angle with trying to put a strategy together, you know, you don't have to be a horticulturist, you don't have to be an agri scientist or anything like that to to really put something together. You're you're just trying to put food on the table for them. You, you know, and do it in a way that it's going to work for how you're able to hunt your farm or how you're able to hunt your property. You know, locate these food plots in spots where, um, you know you're able to to capitalize on those travel corridors. Um, we're in the southeast. Deer are no respecter of trails down here. For the most part, they just kind of walk wherever they want to walk you know.

Speaker 1 28:14

But they do go from this area to this area. There's a food plot along the way. Chances are they're going to visit that food plot at some point. Um, so that that's the thing that I always look at from a from a food plot standpoint of um is what am I, what am I providing, what time frame do I want it to hit in? And then, kind of, you know, begin with the end in mind instead of just saying I want a food plot right here, I'm gonna go plant a food plot right here. Well, you may, you know, this isn't, this isn't field dreams. Build it and they will come. Yeah, you know, you've got to give them a compelling reason, you know. I mean, you could have the most beautiful food plot, but if you've got 40 acres of oak trees that are dropping, they ain't coming out there. Yeah, I'm just telling you they're not going to do that, yeah.

Speaker 2 29:05

And then you get caught up in the mix of watching YouTube, hunts of people out in Illinois and stuff, and they've got 30-acre to 150-acre cornfields. You're like man, that's pretty cool, whereas here that's not very realistic. It could be, but there's just not a lot of that going on. So I wanted to bring up too, too. Just on food plots in general, like what, what is the reason for having a food plot? Um, my, my thoughts are are you're providing a food source throughout, depending on what you pick, like john's saying, depending on what your your choice of of seed or what you're going to put in the ground. Uh, like a clover or something that's a perennial comes back every year. It's something that you're just maintaining with, with a clethodum or a two, four, two, four db, which is just a broadleaf um, it kills everything but the clover, um, so you're just maintaining that as a as a so those are?

Speaker 2 30:09

those are herbicides, something to kill the weeds yeah, something to kill the weeds with, um, or if you're using more of of a, an annual, which is mostly your normal run-of-the-mill um, seed blends, um, the. The reason, like we're saying is, is preparing and coming up with a plan as to why am I, why am I doing a food plot? Is it to support just deer? Is it to be a mixed bag of of upland birds, uh, turkey and deer? Um, so, and then also think about it from this standpoint too um, shot opportunities, like ethical shot opportunities. Having a food plot one is a great opportunity to get youth to have success seeing critters, but also it gives the opportunity to slow down for a second and actually have some ethical shot opportunities.

Speaker 2 31:07

So, like we're talking about, if there's an area that you've got an idea of a food plot and give it a whirl, um, just, uh, don't don't get overwhelmed with it and uh, definitely just take it. Take it with a grain of salt. And there's a. There's so much, um, so much research and so many YouTube videos and this and that on it, um, and so many YouTube videos and this and that on it that you can be a YouTube university certificate winner pretty quick. So I don't know. I just would encourage you all to come figure out what's your reasoning behind the food plot and then kind of figure out a game plan from there. So those are my thoughts on that so, brandon, what about you?

Speaker 1 31:53

I know that you said that y'all did peas in a flu food plot last year.

Speaker 3 31:58

I guess it was just a mix. It had a lot of, uh, cow peas, um, just a big mix of peas that uh sorghum in it. It had some different things and what was interesting is the first time this area had ever been planted with, um, anything other than basically rye, and which I'm not. I don't care for that, I'd rather just not it's so pretty yeah.

Speaker 3 32:30

I just would rather not even do it. So anyway, what was interesting is the deer didn't eat it, and I don't know how much the pH levels affect the palatability of the crop A little bit. But we had beautiful food plots. I didn't lime anything. Yeah, I didn't do a soil sample, so I'm kind of late to the game. A lot.

Speaker 1 32:55

That's why I call you all the time for sure and so um, so I'm still learning a lot about it.

Speaker 3 33:01

So I've been kind of quiet. It's because I'm just like bouncing back and forth between you two trying to learn more about it. But, um, I've always been a dog hunter for most of my life, you know, and so you don't need a food plot, you just let the dogs go.

Speaker 2 33:14

You go to a thicket and you just dump them out.

Speaker 3 33:16

You know and so um, but I've gotten more and more into bow hunting, and so this is really something that I enjoy, the prep as much as the hunting and so. But what was really really interesting is, we had beautiful food plots, I mean oh, they were gorgeous.

Speaker 3 33:32

When you I sent you pictures gorgeous I was like man, these look really really good and I mean it's just like you know, a blind, blind hog finds a nut every now and then, right, because I didn't do soil samples, I didn't lime, I did fertilize yep, but I mean I just put like a 10, 10, 10, you know and so, but like the deer would walk out in the food plot and it's like chest high in peas and and all kinds of stuff, but like they were not eating it.

Speaker 2 34:00

Yeah, it was not a highly frequented plot which, like you're saying, like this is the most beautiful thing you've ever seen, but something, something was just off. Yeah, this is the most beautiful thing you've ever seen, but something was just off.

Speaker 3 34:13

Yeah, Did they ever revisit it later in the winter at all? And this could totally be like not connected in any way. But what I did is I went out and I put just some corn out in the food plot Like hey guys, we're over here.

Speaker 2 34:35

It's like hey, you can eat this, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 34:38

And so it was interesting when I did that in a couple of the food plots they started eating it and so it was just really wild, I'm like.

Speaker 1 34:48

The food plot was just so thick they had to eat their way down to the corn, that's what it was.

Speaker 3 34:52

They're like we want that corn, Wait a second, that actually tastes kind of good.

Food Plot Strategy and Local Agriculture

Speaker 3 34:55

But it was just very interesting that we had these great looking food plots. I don't know why, you know they weren't eating it. We would get pictures of deer in them. But a lot of times, at least early on, they were just passing through. Now, later in the season, they started spending more time eating it. It took a while for them to. It was almost like you walk through a restaurant and you see food on the tables and you're you're like huh and you just keep walking like you don't realize you can just like sit down and eat and so it was kind of crazy and I really don't know the reason.

Speaker 3 35:42

Yeah, um, but I would send jay's pictures and I'm like there'd be like a like.

Speaker 3 35:48

I remember one picture I had four bucks that were in the food plot but they were just like kind of hanging out yeah I mean, and so and maybe they were eating it more than I thought, but I never really saw where they were snipping it off much and it just wasn't. We weren't getting the pictures in the those food plots that we would get on a pile of corn. Yeah, you know which I don't know? It was this. It was interesting to me and I I don't know enough about it to know why. Um, but they were not eating, and everything I've ever seen or experienced with peas is normally you can't get them to grow if you have a decent deer population because you're just mowing them down.

Speaker 2 36:32

That's right.

Speaker 3 36:32

And we do have a ton. We got too many, does man? So it's not like there's a lack of deer, it was just they weren't eating yeah.

Speaker 2 36:42

Like you're saying too, it was a new area that had never been planted, so who knows if it was just a spot that they just weren't frequenting, and but yeah, that is super interesting. I'll be interested to see how it works out this year.

Speaker 3 36:55

Yeah, they might just like starches, I don't know. I mean, you know, just don't aren't for the green stuff, that's right. Yeah, they're like I don't want to eat the green salads so every farmer listened to this.

Speaker 1 37:06

It's like let me go plant some cotton.

Speaker 2 37:08

Yeah, cotton, they'll wear it out, whatever that's about man.

Speaker 1 37:12

That's crazy how they'll eat so much cotton.

Speaker 3 37:14

And that's the other thing too is like I wonder and this was a question I was going to ask is like, when you do have so much ag around, obviously there's certain things that they would probably choose over cotton. But like I've got a place this year that there will probably be 50 acres of peanuts planted in a spot where I'm looking at possibly planting a dove field Yep, this is a small area and then also planting a food plot. But I'm like and this is a question I had is, if I do spend the time, the money, everything to plant this plot, that's probably going to be five to eight acres like is it worth it with 50 acres of peanuts? Yeah, you're competing with peanuts.

Speaker 1 38:09

The peanuts are going to be done pretty quick, though. I mean from a. The deer are going to hit the peanuts right after they first come up. They're going to really work on them and then they'll continue to graze on the peanuts as they're growing, but then in September or October when those peanuts get dug, yeah, it's like they're done immediately over.

Speaker 2 38:34

Yeah so what that I mean? Honestly, it's the best case scenario so they're planning your spring and summer food plot for you yeah so the protein and all that they're acquiring by nipping the tops and stuff like that? Yeah, there's no need of you wasting money and focusing on your spring and summer food plot, right, you need to focus more on your? Okay, after peanuts are harvested. Okay, now there is no longer that crop, let's backfill it with something else so planting something?

Speaker 3 39:04

I mean because I know a lot of times your, your fall, winter stuff gets planted in september right so september, october. Is that gonna fill that need though? Because I mean they're gonna be turning those peanuts about that same time, so is that stuff gonna grow fast enough to fill the void?

Speaker 2 39:21

it could? I mean the acreage you're talking about. You said what seven, eight acres? Yeah, something like that I mean that's a pretty sizable area, um, but what you probably need to do is not do that.

Speaker 2 39:31

Seven, eight acres, just in one thing it might be good to just break it up like you were saying earlier, doing borders and sorghum that's right and kind of maybe mapping it out a little bit, where maybe you've got a little sliver or a corner that's got a little bit more shade, you can make that your little clover spot, just so it's not direct sunlight, so you can kind of get creative with it and kind of give them the old golden corral treatment, where it's just, they got it all oh they got the old fondue fountain strips of corn out there, stuff like that.

Speaker 1 40:03

Yeah, I think that would be cool. You'd have to go in and plant that a little bit sooner than for sure you probably need to plant that no later than like probably the first week of august yeah yeah and, and it's going to be hit or miss, it's either going to do really well yeah, that's right so.

Speaker 1 40:23

But if it? But if it makes it like it'll, it'll. There are some corn varieties that'll make a crop really fast and you're not necessarily. So. When we say we're going to plant corn, everybody thinks standing corn with big ears on it, the deer walking up to it and eating. That's not necessarily what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the deer actually eating the corn stalk.

Speaker 3 40:44

Yeah.

Speaker 1 40:45

The actively growing corn stalk.

Speaker 2 40:50

That plant is extremely palatable to a deer the early growth of that, I guess, is the best possible.

Speaker 1 40:58

That's like a kid picking up a donut. I'm telling you they love it, and I would more prefer to give them something that's growing than put a pile of corn out on the ground.

Speaker 2 41:11

Yeah, because they're going to get so much more out of it.

Speaker 1 41:13

Yeah, you know when I put you go dump a pile of corn on the ground. You have a feeder, it's. You know slinging corn twice a day, or something like that. Yeah, you're, you're attracting deer to that spot but you're not giving the deer anything.

Speaker 2 41:30

Yeah, nutritionally it's, it's, it's a. It's basically like eating a box of goldfish. Hey, it tastes good and I'll wear out a box of goldfish, but it ain't doing nothing good for me right same thing for a deer. My uh, one of my wildlife professors uh at swanee, old scott toriano. He was from the UP of Michigan. He would refer to it as deer ice cream.

Speaker 2 41:52

Yeah, like white oak you had mentioned earlier white oak acorns, like that is deer ice cream. So, like the early flush of corn, or we talked about cotton earlier, it's that new growth, that succulent end. It's got all the nutrients that those deer need and that's why they're nipping them. Um, and a deer is, is a, is a browser. They they'll walk around and nip and select different things that are specific to what their needs are. Um, which is super, super neat, and that's, I think, one of the reasons, like when you do these blended food plots, like it allows the and it allows the critter to pick what they, what their needs are yeah um, whereas if you you've got a monoculture which is just a one species of plot, it kind of it just limits them to

Speaker 2 42:43

that so yeah, um, and they either like it or they don't yeah, that's right, they don't want to browse on that, or they don't, yeah or they'll like won't touch it, like we were talking about earlier, and then it's like end of November and it's like, oh yeah, I remember there's that field over there and they'll smack it, so it's one of those things they know their needs.

Speaker 3 43:05

Well, I know me well enough to know that if you put a donut next to green beans, you're probably going to eat the donut? Absolutely, but no, I think that's really interesting. You just need to write, or y'all need to write food plots for dummies, or even it would be really cool to have some type of calendar. Yeah, it would be. You just need to write, or y'all need to write like um food plots for dummies, you know, or or even like it would be really cool to have some type of calendar.

Speaker 2 43:33

Yeah, it would be, was put out.

Speaker 3 43:36

That would help people who are just getting into it to know like, hey, don't forget, in December you can go out and, and you know, frost seed, this clover, yep. Can go out and and you know, frost seed, this clover, yep, um hay, in april, end of april, beginning of may, go get your soil samples, get the lime out. You know just things like that, that that the person who doesn't do it all the time doesn't really know.

Speaker 3 44:03

Because I'm like what you said I'm either calling you or youtubing something trying to figure it out or reading, and so those are the things I think that could help, like these seeds are good to plant in our area because you can search stuff, but I don't care what you plant in Kansas.

Speaker 2 44:20

I don't care what you plant in Iowa, and most of the stuff you're watching on YouTube is kind of that area.

Speaker 3 44:27

So it's like, well, that doesn't apply to me is kind of that area. So it's like, well, that doesn't apply to me. Yeah, and I'm always harping on this, but I'm like come do like a massive whitetail show in Bullitt County. Like come do that here. Yeah, you know, because it's just different.

Speaker 3 44:47

It's totally different and so I don't know it's. It's one of those things, though, that I think would be really cool, like an easy resource for people to have that would give them like I don't know you, and you could make it as detailed as you wanted to you know, of so if you got this crop, this ag is near you because everybody's got ag yeah around here, for sure.

Speaker 3 45:11

And so if this ag's near like, this is the best approach. I don't know, you can make it as detailed as you want it to, but I'm trying to help you become a millionaire.

Speaker 2 45:21

Yeah, appreciate that, appreciate that, no, and I think too like you're saying, though like being strategic with it. So we're talking about if you're in an area where there's ag and you've got neighbors, or even on your property you've got ag if you've used prescribed fire in in areas um. So you've got a early, good flush of of succulents this time of year. That's pushing them through the growing season and all that being strategic with how you're managing the land and making sure it's benefiting the critters um is super, super important.

Speaker 1 45:55

But again, coming up with a plan and trying to to formulate a, an execute on that super, super important, so yeah, I think, talking with your local farmers, if you've got the opportunity to do that. There's this weird. There's this weird animosity between farmers and hunters that that that crap needs to go away. You know, first off, hunters need to. You need to realize that this land is being used to create a livelihood. Yeah, right, so don't just go drive through a field, yeah.

Speaker 3 46:30

That is the number one way to piss a hunter off, and not be able to hunt somewhere.

Speaker 2 46:34

I mean to piss a farmer off, right yeah.

Speaker 1 46:36

Because I mean, you see it every year this time of year somebody will say you know they'll put a post out on Facebook or something and they'll say you know, that's it, I'm done, no more hunting. Yeah, you know, I'm done. This happens every year. I'm, I'm, I'm not doing this anymore. You know? Or which, which hunter drove through the field this time? You know, and it's like man come. I mean I just use your brain a little bit. It's not just a field of dirt it's actually they're actually using it to, to their families.

Speaker 1 47:09

It is their livelihood and these farmers are already up against it. I mean we've got farmers right now that have booked some of their cotton at 65 cents a pound. Let me let you all in on a secret. They know, going into the year, they're not going to make any money. I'm just going to tell you right now I mean they could have, especially if they've got dry land, which means that it's not an area.

Speaker 1 47:40

They know that chances are, unless the government comes in with some kind of support system, some kind of support program, they will not make a profit and they will probably lose money on every acre of cotton that they planted. But what else are they gonna do? That's right, you know. I mean, it's not like they're sitting there with all this equipment and they can just say, okay, well, this isn't going to be that good this year, so let's grow this yeah, it doesn't work.

Speaker 3 48:08

The best you can try to do is just cash flow it and make it through the year.

Speaker 1 48:12

That's basically what's gonna happen, and that's why you'll see farms that'll, that'll it. It becomes. It becomes harder and harder, because if you stack a couple bad years together, man, you're, you're you're in bad shape, you know.

Speaker 2 48:25

Then you get a neighborhood put put in that field. That's exactly right. That's what we're seeing here, yeah and and how do?

Speaker 1 48:31

how do you not do that? From from a farming standpoint. You know when, when you get to a certain place where your input costs keep going up, your land taxes keep going up your equipment costs your equipment costs. I mean some of these cotton pickers. I mean you might drop a million freaking dollars on a cotton picker.

Speaker 2 48:52

And you're only using it one time a year Now. Hang on.

Speaker 1 48:54

The truth is that cotton picker that doesn't roll the cotton, you know, when you're going through the field it'll still pick cotton. Oh yeah, you could still use that cotton picker, you know. I'm just saying you could. You know, and it ain't nowhere close to a million dollar price tag, or 780 000 price tag, or whatever it is you know, but I they know where they need to do spend their money and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 49:21

I'm just that's me from the outside looking in. I'm sure people could look at my business from the outside looking in and be like john. You could probably you could probably you know this corner right here and not have to do this.

Speaker 3 49:31

And there's definitely things that you see, like I know farmers who are really smart, that I mean they're very innovative in things they do and they're successful.

Speaker 3 49:43

Yeah, you know, it's just like anything I think with. I mean, it's a business, so you're going to have some who are really good at it and some that aren't as good at it and, um, I mean, there's some I think of in particular that they do well because they don't have to have the brand new thing you know, or or or. They're just smart and they, they just do things that other people don't do.

Speaker 2 50:09

Use a cover crop spray it, crimp it. It holds moisture in, so their seed has more success than a bare Well, and they're not stirring up that weed bed all the time right.

Speaker 1 50:21

So if you go to plant a food plot and you take a new area let's say that you've got a bunch of trees go down last year and you've gone in and you've cleaned all those trees up and now you've got this bare spot and you're like I'm going to plant a food plot out there. And you go out there and you plow that up, you are going to be shocked by the dormant seeds that you're going to stir up. When you go in there and chop that soil up, that they're just going to come out of nowhere, you're going to see weeds in that spot that you've never, ever seen grow right there before, Simply because that seed has just been down there and it's just been dormant. Now I'm no scientist and I can't explain to you why that happens. I can just tell you that it does.

Speaker 2 51:05

It's called a seed bank and it's pretty staggering to see what comes up when you aggregate and you aggravate the soil like that, like you're saying.

Speaker 1 51:15

Even going in and clear-cutting an area, you'll have weeds and stuff that'll start growing that you've never seen before. Some of it is because the soil was disturbed. You got in there and moved that dirt around he just just the skitter driving over, dragging trees. That was enough to disturb it enough. So you've got that part of it. And then you've got the part where you're getting constant sunlight in there.

Speaker 2 51:42

It's causing things to to start hopping and growing.

Understanding Deer Management

Speaker 1 51:46

Um, so it's. You know, to me that is. That is one of the parts of it it's so much. Fun is to learn how this stuff works. You know how can you use some of that stuff to your advantage, you know, resist the urge to get the bush hog out and just go through and go ham on all of it and cut everything down.

Speaker 1 52:06

That's right, because a lot of this stuff, especially like in a clear cut, a lot of that stuff that's going to, because a lot of this stuff, especially like in a clear cut, a lot of that stuff that's going to start growing, a lot of those grasses and things like that, they're going to get super tall and it's going to. It's going to be. It's going to be like a step down buffer from your hardwoods on your Creek bottom, you know, moving out into the clear cut area and then where you are able to get out, in that spot and put a food plot so it gives those deer a uh, a buffer to move through and they feel so comfortable oh yeah anything that's like taller than them they're.

Speaker 2 52:44

They just think they're invisible.

Speaker 3 52:46

But it's so funny, they disappear man do.

Speaker 2 52:48

But it is cool, like on a clear cut when you're hunting at I don't know, 15 to 18 foot high and you can see down and you can tell that deer is super comfortable with where he's at or she's at and you're like you're in the wide open.

Speaker 1 53:02

Right, it just doesn't so it's that they feel comfortable.

Speaker 2 53:07

But you've got a visual on them and that was something we had talked about earlier about field edges, like creating edging so your deer feel comfortable going into these areas Like a new food plot, a deer, a herd it's going to take a while for them to adjust to it. But creating either edging or soft edging or feather edging is important to kind of allow them to get comfortable. They'll stage in those transition zones before they feel comfortable to go out in the middle of the field, I mean around here this time of year. Like we talked about earlier, farmers they've got a nuisance license so they're actually killing does because they're they're killing stuff well, yes, well, and I was gonna step back to that they're they're seeing their

Speaker 1 53:56

brown is down and well, they don't use spotlights as much anymore because thermals thermals and stuff is so much so that used to be extremely expensive. Yeah, it's not that bad anymore, right? So that's what they're using now.

Speaker 3 54:13

And the thing you know, going back to sort of the animosity between farmers and hunters on the farmer's side it may be you know you drove through my field. I think on the hunter's side is you killed 50 deer out of my field that. I hunt you know, and I fed you around, yeah, and the thing, and I get it right. I see both sides of it.

Speaker 3 54:35

I mean for one, one party, it's a, it's a pleasure thing for the other, it's a livelihood thing, degrading my livelihood, yeah, and so you know, and you look at that and that's a challenge. I actually we have a little bit of land that we lease to a farmer and he does a really good job like he is. He's one of those that I think of. He's very smart, he does things the right way and so, like, I try to shoot some deer for him, but that gives me the ability to try to shoot the ones I want to shoot and not, you know, just a free-for-all, yeah, and so I try to shoot some for him.

Speaker 3 55:14

he puts me on a permit, um, and so try to help him out with that um, but I think that's where a lot of that comes into, is, you know, for the farmer? They want to get rid of as many, and our farmer hates a deer man.

Speaker 2 55:29

He hates a deer. I don't know many that care.

Speaker 3 55:34

And so you know, I think that's where some of it comes in, especially now with there's so much more focus on trophy hunting than there is on just where people used to just go out and shoot deer when they were hunting, and I think people like to talk about that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 55:52

I mean, let's just let's be honest for a second. I think people like to talk about trophy hunting, but I don't think people are really actively doing it.

Speaker 3 56:03

Yeah, there's a lot of. When I go track a deer, there's never. I can honestly say this I've never found a deer for somebody and they go wow, he's a lot bigger than I thought he was.

Speaker 2 56:20

The ground shrinkage is a real thing. The ground shrinkage is almost every time.

Speaker 3 56:24

Now there's been a few. I found one for somebody that was like a 148, and it was legit what they thought it was, but most of the time it's like man. I thought he was bigger than that, and so you look at that and so I don't disagree with you, john, I think the idea of I'm not going to shoot anything that's not a 5-year-old is great, but when that 2-and-a-half three-year-old comes through and he's a decent eight, like he's getting something slung at him most of the time and shoot what you want to.

Speaker 1 56:59

I don't care at all. I'm just saying stop saying that you're trophy management and doing all this stuff. You know, trophy management is not dumping corn out and putting cameras everywhere. That is not. Trophy management is not dumping corn out and putting cameras everywhere.

Speaker 2 57:11

That is not trophy management, I'm sorry, management also isn't not shooting anything but bucks like you have to actively kill does like yeah, your bug to their ratio is super, super crucial and brandon you alluded to earlier, like we are, just we're covered up with it does like we just got, yeah, does in particular. We just got those everywhere, yeah, well especially if you're not doing something.

Speaker 1 57:35

If you're not doing something to to provide supplemental food for your herd and and and you've got a a um doe to buck ratio yeah, it's like a dozen to one.

Speaker 3 57:50

That's right.

Speaker 1 57:51

Dude, you're never going to have a big buck Right. And it's not because, okay, they can't live with a bunch of does, it's because the does are it's competition for food.

Speaker 3 58:01

They are taking up the food source. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 58:03

Now that doesn't mean that that buck's not going to be healthy. He'll be fine. He can live like that his entire life. But he's never going to break that threshold of becoming what we would consider a trophy Right. And you're going to struggle getting a deer into Boone and Crockett. That's not a mainframe 10.

Speaker 3 58:30

Yeah, you just don't have the time length or the number of times to get the measurement.

Speaker 1 58:36

Yeah, it's really really hard for an eight point to get into Boone and Crockett.

Speaker 3 58:41

Boone and Crockett eight would be massive. He's massive man.

Speaker 1 58:45

I mean you're going to have antler bases that you can barely put your hand around Right Because you've got to have antler bases, that you can barely put your hand around right Because you've got to pick up that mass somewhere. The measurements have to come from somewhere, so it has to come from mass, because you're losing an entire point. So that's what I'll tell people and we can grow that stuff here. I have my own ideas of what it takes to grow that stuff here and I've been working that kind of on our place and I've seen, I've seen, I've seen stuff happen with it and, um, I think, I think that food plots play a vital role, but it's like it is one piece, it's just a piece of puzzle.

Speaker 2 59:30

You know it's one piece of the puzzle that's what's fun about it, though, is like having an impact, an influence on on what you're actively, actively pursuing, like you're providing something for them. You get to see them utilize it. Uh, then, after you harvest one, you get to actually you're getting the nutrients from that. It's just the circle of life that the lord's created for us to enjoy. It's so rewarding, but, um, yeah, it's one of those things we could get in the rabbit hole of like getting super nerdy on like how many does you should have and what you should do, but I think, in the end, it really comes down to like what your goals are.

Speaker 2 1:00:14

Like we've been talking about, um, if you got young kids and you just want the kids just to see deer like you want a target, reach environment, just just just let it go you'll have more than you can have, but um, but if you're trying to be successful on growing big, big bucks and stuff like that, you just got to get it's common sense. Less mouths equals more food equals bigger deer.

Speaker 3 1:00:41

Pretty, pretty simple on that side how much land and I think it's probably multi-factor here as well but how much land do you need to actually be able to manage and have the potential to do it right and actually see deer grow to something that you want it to be?

Speaker 1 1:01:08

Yes, something unusual.

Speaker 2 1:01:13

Yes, yes, the answer is yes. Yeah, there's not a like, just a number or a silver bullet. But I do think I mean, I don't think it matters if you own 20 acres or 2 000 acres. What I think matters is if you do have the smaller acreage, it's important to have neighbors that are always you neighbors that are on the same page as you, and that's not impossible but it's extremely difficult.

Speaker 2 1:01:38

I mean, I've got clients that have got 1,000-plus acre blocks and they have one goal and that's to grow big deer and to have a lot of turkeys and some quail. And so when you have stuff like that thousands of acres you can execute that on a lot of turkeys and some quail. And so when you have stuff like that, thousands of acres, like you can, you can execute that on a piece of property, sure, but a full billy bob on the south, south boundary, like if it's brown it's down.

Speaker 2 1:02:00

I got plenty of billy bobs. If it's brown, it's down. So you've been watching this deer for three, four years and you've dumped hundreds and thousands of dollars to make sure the food plots, the feed, all that's dialed in, and he doesn't know the property. Old four-year-old buck doesn't know the property line. And old billy bob gets him a nice buck, um, or he gets the two-year-old that had a lot of potential. So again, it's just, I don't know. You just got to have, if you got good neighbors, just share, share photos, be like, hey, I think these are, this has got a lot of potential, yeah, and just relay it that way, um, yeah and a lot of it is too man like People are so secretive about this stuff, man.

Speaker 3 1:02:49

It's like man. We are holding top-secret government information about terrorist organizations.

Speaker 1 1:02:56

It ain't even ours.

Speaker 3 1:02:57

Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:02:58

You know, that's the thing I mean. I don't even care. Okay, you know what? Yeah, I've done some stuff to feed these deer. I think minerals are a big deal and I think fat's a big deal. So I feed cottonseed and I feed minerals. I have mineral spots out year round. Yeah, I think that is the number one thing that keeps us from growing deer in georgia like you see in wisconsin, illinois I think, the number one thing is the difference in the soil yeah yeah, I'm convinced.

Speaker 1 1:03:26

So, I'm constantly dumping minerals out, yeah, and I think that that's. I think that that's where it's at and you know, because I go up there and I hunt and I'm looking at what the deer eating, they're eating the same thing that our deer, you know the math ain't math, and yeah, I mean it's like.

Speaker 1 1:03:44

So where's the difference, you know? And then I start looking at okay, maybe there's a little bit more hardwood, so let's mix some more fat in there and I think fat. You know, cottonseed is super high fat. It's got a lot of protein too, but it's got a lot of fat. So does this time of year, you know, when they start lactating and they start dropping fawns, they, they need fat.

Speaker 1 1:04:05

Like when we used to grow cows and and I, I grew up raising horses anytime we had one dropping, um a uh, we had a cow dropping, or we had um a horse dropping, we would always boost their fat, you know, because they needed that to be able to produce that milk, you know. So I mean, that's like to me, if you can, if you, if there was only there was only one thing you could do, you know, for your deer herd I'd say do minerals. Yeah, if that's, if there's only one thing you could do. If you're like I don't have time to do food plots, I don't have the space to do food plots, I don't have equipment, I don't have an extra $2,500 to throw in the food plots this year, go buy a bucket of Jurassic Rock or a bucket of Lucky Buck once a month and dump it out in the same spot, and they will eventually get to a point where they are digging a hole trying to eat that stuff.

Speaker 1 1:05:06

And I wonder too, just genetically, sorry sir, From a genetic standpoint, I will share a document today. It's like 60, it's either 69 pages or 96 pages long it is.

Speaker 3 1:05:22

It talks about when we Can you share the cleft notes of that?

Speaker 1 1:05:26

You can upload it into chat or to Grok and let them let them summit but yeah, it was, it was um it. It is the full paper, um the published paper of when dnr reintroduced white tail into georgia and where they came from and where our deer came from, we should be able to grow the same deer absolutely, absolutely. Now, if you go a little bit that way, go east, you're going to see a lot of island, deer.

Speaker 3 1:05:54

Yeah, and they're just not going to get big, they're just smaller, that's right.

Speaker 1 1:05:58

You know, they're a little bit bigger than goats.

Speaker 2 1:06:00

Yeah.

Exploring First Peter: Faith in Trials

Speaker 1 1:06:00

Right, but from here up to middle Georgia a lot of our deer came from Texas because they were concerned okay, if we bring those Wisconsin deer down here, we're concerned that there was some kind of a bovine fly that they were worried about, they were going to be susceptible to. So they kind of had a line. It kind of runs with the fall line right. They didn't really come below, but there were still some that came below.

Speaker 3 1:06:31

Are there big deer in texas?

Speaker 1 1:06:41

yeah, for sure, some hammers, big old, wide rack deer, you know so. So a lot of ours came from texas to this area you get above, like the macon area, and going, uh, further north. A lot of those came from wisconsin and ohio. Okay, um, so that's why, when you see those deer that are killed, um you know, from like forsyth, georgia up, they'll have a big red patch that's right between their antlers. That's a.

Speaker 3 1:07:00

That's a wisconsin so basically then, the there can't be an excuse of genetics or limiting what we can do here. The genetics are here.

Speaker 2 1:07:09

It's just we don't let them the. The main thing is we don't let them get old enough. Yeah, um, they get hit by a car, they get shot by billy bob? Yeah, um, or we just we don't have, we're not utilizing the, the ground that we have, in a way that allows them to reach their full potential yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 1:07:29

What about the difference in, say, the number of mature eight points we have versus the number of mature, say, ten points? Because and I'm not hunting a lot out of Georgia, but people who do tend to tell me they see a lot more tens, twelves different, you know, than say here, um, even in kentucky places like that. So what's what is determining? That is it.

Speaker 2 1:07:59

I mean, we're just not age, just age so that you can't will turn into a 10. Oh yeah, eventually. Yeah, I mean, he's gotta get past his second birthday yeah you know what I mean. Like that's. I mean really that's our deer around here. If you look, if you went to local processor like, the average buck that's killed around here is two to two and a half like maybe three you let that deer get to six, I mean even four a half man.

Speaker 1 1:08:29

I mean, if you can just let him get to four and a half, there is a huge difference between two and a half and four and a half. Absolutely, there's a huge difference in how big their body is. There's a huge difference in how big their rack is. I mean, they're just maturing. You're talking about the difference between a 16-year-old boy and a 21-year-old man. Yeah, you know I mean that is essentially the line that you're crossing with that deer at that point.

Speaker 3 1:08:57

Yeah, and I don't know. Again, this is more of a question than a statement, but I've read a lot of stuff that say that by the time a deer is four and a half or so years old, that they may put on more weight body-wise, and that kind of thing.

Speaker 3 1:09:12

But um, antler wise, they're kind of become becoming what they're going to be they may grow a little bit more, but by four and a half five they're kind of what they are as far as as not that they're going to start declining after that, but that the biggest jump like you were saying john're going to start declining after that, but that the biggest jump, like you were saying John, is going to be in that three to four and a half five-year-old.

Speaker 1 1:09:36

Yeah, I think they're still going to put masks on. I don't think, from what I have seen in the things that I've read reading stuff that Dr Deere does and some guys from the UGA Deere lab and things like that I don't think that you see that huge degradation until you get like seven plus.

Speaker 3 1:09:56

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 1:09:56

That's where you really start seeing things change. You see this big. You see, you know, the back starting to swoop. It started looking like me, you start seeing that brisket starting to kind of hang down right, I mean, yeah, things start changing. Gravity sets in. Yeah, start changing.

Speaker 2 1:10:09

Gravity sets in. Yeah, gravity sets in.

Speaker 1 1:10:13

And so I think that that's where that happens. I bet you there hasn't been a seven-year-old deer killed in Bullitt County in 15 years Not on purpose.

Speaker 3 1:10:25

Not on purpose, not unless it was with a car. Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:10:30

I mean seriously. That's why I was saying everybody talks about trophy management because it feels so good to say it. It feels so good to say an ethical kill, Whereas if you're not practicing, bro, you're just happy you hit, Okay. So don't tell me you're looking for an ethical shot when I know good and well you hadn't even been practicing. When you come in here on opening day and you're like man, I missed, I don't know what happened.

Speaker 1 1:10:56

And I say well, tell me about what was going on when you were practicing. Well, I got my bow out Thursday and shot it four times.

Speaker 3 1:11:01

Everything felt good. I was dialed in. I hit. I was dialed in, I was within like a paper plate.

Speaker 1 1:11:08

Yeah, Good night. So. So that that's. That's what I'm talking about. When I look at, you know I people love to say you know, they kind of love the key in on those key words, you know, but in reality they're just wanting to get out and hunt, yeah.

Speaker 3 1:11:26

And that is fine, if you just want to get out and hunt.

Speaker 1 1:11:29

Go and do it. I, I, I care more about you being outside, being in creation, harvesting your own food, than I care about you trying to grow a big, a big deer. I really I'm fine with that. I've never, ever, tried to eat an antler yeah, not one single time yeah, you know.

Speaker 2 1:11:47

That's why I'm okay with shooting does yeah, yeah and honestly, and on that topic I almost feel like georgia or most southeastern states should be on a gotta kill a doe to get a buck tag like well, just get just to get our numbers down a little bit like we get 10 doe tags no, I know, but I almost like in my mind I try to kill two to three does off the rip.

Speaker 2 1:12:16

As the season starts I'll get two to three does is my goal before we start getting even close to October. That way. I've already got that out the way Now. Does it always work out that way? No, absolutely not. But in my head that's my goal is two to three off the rip. That way I can. I've still got some opportunities if I want to kill a couple extras, because we we normally household of four, we're six to seven deer we'll eat in a year, um. So I normally try to get three isish does off the rip and then as the season goes I'll try to get some more. But if you're focused on bucks, kill your does early and then that way the rest of the season you can kind of start watching your bucks or whatever.

Speaker 3 1:13:02

Yeah, and the thing about it too, and y'all may totally disagree with me on this, but the best time to kill does to to me, and unfortunately, um to me, it falls in bow season. Yeah, so there's not as many people hunting, because, personally, like, I don't want people that I'm hunting with, to speak honest, shooting does during the rut, no, that's you know, and so, like, if you can kill them early, kill them, you know, and so that's kind of one of those things that it makes it where not as many people bow hunt. You don't typically kill as many deer bow hunting, but to me that's the best time to kill them. This time is september, very early october, um, because I personally think the rut happens earlier than what typically people think it happens well, right now is the time to determine that, yeah, start watching.

Speaker 1 1:14:05

Start watching every day. Check your trail cameras, go out on wherever you're hunting and start watching, looking for fawns as soon as you see one. Count back 200 days yeah, that's when that dough was bread right, I saw one yesterday.

Speaker 3 1:14:18

Actually they saw really, yes, uh, 100. Um really, I was turkey hunting and came up on a food plot. Uh, saw a big dough at the end of the food plot. She ran across the road and, like a tiny, tiny, just a nugget yes, dang was was with her.

Speaker 1 1:14:40

That's wild. So october 21st yeah, that was 200 days ago, october 21st 21st to 24th is normally like that's like you'd be in a stand around here, yeah.

Speaker 3 1:14:52

And you really start seeing a lot of movement Personally and like around the 15th to 20th it's starting to.

Speaker 2 1:15:01

I think it also depends Like we get a little cold snap or something like that.

Speaker 3 1:15:04

Yeah, you get different weather. We don't have hurricanes and tropical storms, Golly.

Speaker 1 1:15:12

But yeah, so Well, cool weather and we don't have hurricanes and tropical storms and golly, but um yeah, so well, cool, I think that's good. So let's get in. We were going to talk about first peter a little bit yeah I have something you've been studying through yeah, we're about to do.

Speaker 3 1:15:22

We're in a series on first peter, so yeah, you're good.

Speaker 2 1:15:30

Yeah, sorry guys, I got a jet, but it's been a pleasure. Yeah, dude, got it. Man Got some things I got to tackle.

Speaker 1 1:15:37

We're going to talk about Peter and we'll talk about you a little bit Perfect.

Speaker 2 1:15:40

I appreciate that.

Speaker 3 1:15:40

I look forward to that. Yeah, go back and listen so you can hear what we say about you. That's right.

Speaker 1 1:15:50

All that stuff that Jay said earlier, that was all bull crap.

Speaker 1 1:15:53

Oh my gosh. Yeah, so Peter obviously was one of the apostles. He had a well, he has a sordid story of being really, really good and making some mistakes along the way and, you know, the restoration that he had with his relationship with Jesus is something that should inspire all of us by the grace and the mercy that Jesus, that our Lord, is willing to show towards us. So I take a lot of comfort in Peter's story, honestly. But, yeah, share with us some of your thoughts on having gone through and studied this book here recently in your preparation.

Speaker 3 1:16:41

So, really, you know, like you said, peter was such an interesting person just in general. You know he was a fisherman. Jesus called him out of that to become a fisher of men and you see, as he walked with jesus, I don't, I don't think peter was probably high iq. Um, he's probably a little bit like me, a little bit stubborn, a little bit dense. Takes him a while to catch on to some things, and so you can see in the book, though, that that the thing he didn't like was a zeal and a passion, and that's the thing that I love the most about him is he was willing to take chances. He got out of a boat to walk on water, um, he had a lot of zeal for the lord. He cut a man's ear off, um, only because he missed he was trying to kill him.

Speaker 3 1:17:31

I mean yeah, and um, you know, so there was a, because they were coming after jesus, and so there's so much that I appreciate and can relate. Like you said, to peter, um, he was usually one who would speak, uh, without a whole lot of a filter, it seems like, but he's also the one and I love this. In matthew 16, when jesus asked the disciples, who do people say I am? And they're like, some say john the baptist, some say prophet, some say elijah, you know different things. And he says well, who do you say that I am?

Speaker 3 1:18:05

and peter says you know, you're the messiah, you're the son of god and he says yeah jesus says blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by God. And yet it had to be so confusing for Peter because a few verses later, when Jesus is telling him that he's got to go and die and he'll be raised in three days, and Peter's like never. Lord, you know, this isn't going to happen to you, we're not not gonna let this happen to you kind of thing.

Speaker 1 1:18:37

and jesus is like, get behind me, say it calls him satan, and he had just told him that you're the rock upon which, yes, he changed his name. You know that? That's that's kind of when, when that transaction took place where he changed his name from simon to peter and peter means you know the rock, yeah, um, so yeah that was, and so, but?

Speaker 3 1:18:50

but really I think the issue there for one is when it says that when jesus says upon this rock, I will build my church, he's not referring to peter the person, he's referring to the revelation of who jesus is. So know and I don't mean to be touchy on this, but I know we're going through this thing right now where they're picking the next Pope Well, a lot of the papacy came from that passage that upon this rock I will build my church, and so the Pope is supposed to be a descendant of Peter. And so when we look at this, to me that is something that got really taken out of context, because it's not Peter the person, it's the revelation of who Jesus is the church is built upon. The church is built upon the apostles and prophets, the, the revelation, the truth that jesus and god, the father, through the spirit, gave to his apostles and prophets as they wrote the scripture, and the truth was revealed. That is what the church is built upon.

Speaker 3 1:20:07

Um, and so when we look at that, I think that's really something we need to know is that Peter was not somehow more highly elevated than the other apostles. In fact, I mean, the one that was closest to Jesus was John, and so much so that John refers to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved instead of calling himself John. You know John? And so at the Last Supper, john is the one who's reclining upon Jesus' chest, which is pretty cool if you think about it, because he could have put his head to Jesus' chest and literally heard the heartbeat of God. That's kind of crazy, the heartbeat of God in the flesh, and so that's kind of a crazy thought.

Speaker 3 1:20:52

But so Peter was just a really interesting person, tough guy. Like we don't realize how tough these apostles and Jesus really were. I mean, they weren't sissy men. You see that from Petereter's actions in scripture. But you get to first peter, and he's writing to um, a predominantly gentile, which gentile is just people who are non-jews it's us, yeah, it's us yeah, so we're not ethnically jews, um, if we're christian, we're not religiously jews, um, from that standpoint.

Speaker 3 1:21:29

But he's writing predominantly to gentiles non-Jews and he's encouraging them because they're going through a lot of persecution, and he's encouraging them to stand firm in their faith. And so you get into it and what you see a lot with Scripture in general, but in 1 Peter in particular is you see a lot of um I guess you could call them commands or things that he's telling them to do.

Speaker 1 1:21:57

A lot of direction yeah right, he's trying to, he's trying to lead them because they're they're trying specifically with these folks.

Speaker 3 1:22:04

They're they're trying to live, they're trying to lead different lives and, if you think about it, to me the book of first peter sort of parallels the book of hebrews, but in a different way.

Speaker 3 1:22:15

So hebrews was written to hebrews to jewish people who were facing persecution and the threat was that they would turn back to judaism. And so, really, if you look look at Hebrews, it talks about throughout the book of Hebrews how Jesus is greater than Judaism in and of itself, that he is the fulfillment of the Jewish faith. And so he's telling them. You know, jesus is greater than the temple, he's greater than the old priesthood, he's greater than the old sacrifices. The message he brought is greater because it came straight from God's son. It didn't come to Moses through angels.

Speaker 3 1:22:53

So the book of Hebrews is written to try to encourage Jews to not fall away. Well, first, peter is really written a lot to Gentiles to encourage them not to fall away. And so if you read it, there are a lot of commands, directions, do this, do that. But the interesting thing about it is Peter never gives a command without giving a reason for fulfilling that command. So even if you look over in 1 Peter 2, he says in verse 1, he says Therefore, rid yourself of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander of every kind, like newborn babies, create pure spiritual milk so that by it you may grow up in your salvation. And he says this. So he gives them that command and he says, now that you've tasted that the Lord is good and so he's like, these are things you should do, but you know how good the Lord is, and when you look at this, 1 Peter is really a book that is encouraging them.

Speaker 3 1:23:59

As you begin reading in 1 Peter 1, he uses words like the elect, the exiles, those who've been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God, through the sanctifying work of Christ, and so he's using words that are very Jewish, and so what he's trying to get them to see is that you are not second-class citizens in the kingdom. The same promises that have been given to the Jewish people and the Jewish believers, the same promises that have been given to the Jewish people and the Jewish believers.

Speaker 1 1:24:34

Those promises are just as true for you, which is at the time. That was what they were constantly being told.

Speaker 3 1:24:38

Yes, right.

Speaker 1 1:24:40

Yes, they were. The Romans called the Jews dogs. Yes, the Jewish people called the Gentiles dogs. Exactly Right.

Speaker 3 1:24:49

So there was this… they were low on the, on the, on the.

Speaker 1 1:24:50

Yeah, there was this huge there was these huge contrasts of class yes, in that society in that culture um, and we don't, we don't really, we don't really appreciate or understand that very well right in our western society yeah, you know, I mean yeah, we kind of do have some we might make some different characters, like some different comparisons in some ways. But it's still not close. Yeah, it's not apples to apples, Right right.

Speaker 3 1:25:19

But you see where Peter is encouraging them that their inheritance is the same as the Jewish believers. And so if you read 1 Peter, you can go through there. I mean, take a notebook or something and just write down all the things that he says we have received through Christ. That should motivate us to hang on, just persevere, just keep stepping. When you can't take one more step, take one more step.

Speaker 3 1:25:45

Like lean into Jesus, lean into the spirit through which you've been born again, lean into his grace and his ability. And he's wanting them to see that you're this people. And he says this later. He says once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. Once you had not received mercy. Now you have received mercy. And so he wants them to understand that you have been brought into this great inheritance which is their salvation right, that ultimately and we think about salvation as being a moment in time, but the fullness of our salvation will not be realized until eternity Like there's so much more to it We've been given the Holy Spirit right now, but the Bible says he is a foretaste, and so Peter's saying as good as the Lord, and it tastes right now like you don't have any idea.

Speaker 1 1:26:41

Yeah, this ain't nothing, yeah this is not.

Speaker 3 1:26:43

And you think about Paul writing and saying you know, and he's talking about all the things he's been through, the things that the other Christians are going through, and he says I consider these light and momentary afflictions to not compare to the glory that awaits us in eternity.

Speaker 3 1:27:01

And you think about. Paul was shipwrecked three times, snake bitten, beaten, all these things, and he says these are light and momentary compared to what awaits us. And so so much of 1 Peter is just the encouragement to hold on, to stand firm, to realize the enemy is trying to drive a wedge between you and Christ. Don't turn back to your pagan ways. And he wants them to become this new community. And even it gets into some things that can be really controversial in our day when it talks about wives submitting to husbands and different things like that in chapter 3. But we have to understand the culture in which that was written.

Speaker 3 1:27:46

So Peter is warning these Gentile believers to live in a way that is so contrary to the Roman household that it sets them apart. And so the Roman household was so. The man was so domineering over the rest of the family. It was almost like they were the Lord in that sense. But what he's trying to lay out is a healthy way for the family to operate. It's not to make it worse. It's to say, if you will live your life, women, by letting the inward beauty of the Lord in you shine, then it's going to look so different from the Roman women and the pagan women who try to adorn themselves and only have an outward beauty.

Speaker 3 1:28:41

He's saying, wives, if you submit to your husbands, and if your husbands submit themselves to the Lord, this is going to look so different from the culture around you that you, as Scripture says, that you are going to shine like stars in the night sky. And so he's really wanting them to catch this vision of what God wants for them and why it's worth persevering. And he talks about how, even though now you suffer for a little while like there is such an eternal prize waiting for you. And you know we look at this and the reality is that we're not really going through a persecution for our faith much. It's probably a little more now than it has been in the past, but we're not enduring anything like what these folks are enduring at this time. But it's still a great encouragement for us because life is tough and even in our world, where a lot of times our problems are first world problems right, but there's still trials and challenges and difficulties. And yet we can look at this and realize that God one has given us this incredible eternal promise of the fulfillment of our salvation and relationship with him that is going to far exceed anything we endure here. That is going to far exceed anything we endure here, but also that in the meantime we are strangers in this land and we belong to a new community and we belong to a new kingdom and we've been taken from this kingdom of darkness and brought into the kingdom of God's Son, whom he loves. And so we have a purpose while we're here to shine like stars in a night sky, to be this new and different, unique community and to show the world who Christ is, because of who we are now in Christ. And so that's a somewhat brief synopsis, I guess, of the book of 1 Peter.

Speaker 3 1:30:45

But if you can read 1 Peter with a couple of thoughts in mind One, he's writing to extremely persecuted Gentiles, and two, he's writing to them to encourage them that they are now the new part of this new community of people that belong to God and are called to fulfill the purposes of God.

Speaker 3 1:31:07

If you read it through that lens, it really starts to tie together purposes of God. If you read it through that lens, it really starts to tie together. And if you really stop, and even when you get to something that says wives, in the same way, submit yourselves to your own husbands, and you get to that and you go, hold on a minute, but you back up and you go. Okay, he's writing to a people who were in a quote foreign land because they're now like the exiles from the Old Testament with the Jews. He's saying you're called to be different and so you can start seeing the thread of that run through everything. That peace is in this letter, encouraging them to persevere and encouraging them to set themselves apart as God's holy people. And it's a really great book. I mean it should be, it's in the Bible.

Speaker 1 1:31:57

But this letter. I mean, I think that what I encourage people to do is remember that this was a letter, yes. So if you've never done this before, sit down and turn to the book of first peter, yeah, and just read the whole letter, yeah, read the whole thing through, yeah, and then go back into it and look at some of those key points and try to understand it better. Reach out to us if you want to and we'll help you. You know, go through it and if we can't help, if we can't answer, if we can't answer your questions, we'll, we'll help you.

Speaker 1 1:32:29

We'll help you find an answer to uh, to to any kind of question that you have. Uh, because you know, like Brandon was saying this, this, this little letter, this little five chapter letter is it is rich, you know, and it. And he doesn't stop with saying husbands or wives, submit to your husbands.

Speaker 3 1:32:50

Exactly.

Speaker 1 1:32:51

He goes on to say husbands.

Speaker 3 1:32:53

In the same way. Yeah, likewise Be considerate, yeah absolutely.

Speaker 3 1:32:57

Yeah, and you know. And then he says be considerate as you live with your wives, treat them with respect, as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers. And even the weaker partner part in our world today can be taken as well, am I not equal? Well, it's not a thing of equality of worth and value. But and I'll just go there like, as we look in trans athletes and women's sports, there is a difference. And what was happening in Roman society is the men were taking advantage of the women as a weaker partner, as someone who they could push around, they could dominate. And he's saying we're not going to be like that, you know, we're going to treat our wives as Christ treated the church and we're going to lay down our lives for them and we're going to treat them in a way that glorifies God, and he even says you need to do this so it doesn't hinder your prayers.

Marriage and Respecting Your Spouse

Speaker 1 1:33:55

Yeah, I mean, if you need to hear anything, listen to what it says right there. So that is chapter 3, verse 7. It talks about your relationship with your wife affects your relationship with God, absolutely Okay. If your prayers are going to be hindered, that is. That is our connection with God, the father. So that should be incentive enough for us to say I'm going to honor my wife and guys, I don't know, I don't know at what point this happens. I've been married, um, I've been married. I have been married to my wife. October will be 22 years and I've never referred to my wife as my old lady. Well, and yes, 100%. I don't know at what point you begin referring to your wife as your old lady, but is that really honoring your wife as your old lady? But don't, is that really honoring your wife? You know, I mean it's and I know, okay, that's a simple thing, john, you're pick, you're nitpicking or what just it's. It's the little things about how you think about somebody.

Speaker 3 1:35:02

Yeah, determines if you are honoring them or if you're not yeah, and and I'll talk to guys and, and and I'll have heard them refer to their wife as like the old ball and chain yeah and and then they're like man. You know, we don't already ever have sex, I just, I'm like probably because you call her the ball and chain, like I mean, you think you're gonna be like hey old lady, come over here, ball chain.

Speaker 3 1:35:30

And she's just going to fall into your arms, like no, I mean it's like you said, it's not respecting her, it's not treating her well and, again, it's not in judgment either, because we can all do better, better. You know there's always room to grow, and how we love our wives, as christ loves the church, and you know um and how we lead our family. So it's not to say, hey, you suck, but maybe what we're saying sometimes sucks.

Speaker 1 1:36:01

so yeah, yeah, hopefully it never feels like we're coming at you from a place of authority or from a place of you know. Know, we've got this figured out, whether we're talking about shooting bows or doing food plots or tracking deer or anything like that you know we may, we want to talk about these things and and and understand that that we're learning as we go on a lot of this stuff too, because I feel like I feel like if we're alive, we have the opportunity to learn you know, so.

Speaker 1 1:36:37

I'm going to have opportunities today to grow in the way that I treat my wife. If, if I will go into the day intentional about doing this, if I don't go into the day intentional about it, and something happens and my wife gets upset about something and I'm just like, would you, would you shut up? I mean why? Why are you so? Why are you?

Speaker 1 1:37:01

worried about this Just don't worry about it, you know I mean that that's not, that's not honoring my wife, that's not. That's not, you know, know, treating her with respect and saying you know what, to me this isn't really a big deal, you know what she's upset about this isn't really big and I'm not talking about you know if I've done something wrong I'm just saying if she's upset about something, but the right way to approach that is you know, all right, let, let's, let's talk about it.

Speaker 3 1:37:29

Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:37:29

You know what is it about this that upsets you, and there might be a problem in there that you need to solve. There's probably not a problem in there that you need to solve. But if you'll just give your wife the respect of saying, hey, let's talk through this and let her talk it out, you know, just like there's differences between men and women on the playing field, there's differences between men and women on the playing field. There's differences between men and women about how they process things mentally and emotionally.

Speaker 3 1:37:56

Sure.

Speaker 1 1:37:57

And respecting our wives can be as simple as just letting them talk.

Speaker 3 1:38:04

And it's multilayered man. It gets really complicated sometimes in in marriages and relationships because things have gone on so long in ways that they shouldn't um, but at some point just beginning to take steps to move in the right direction, um, and somebody's got to be the bigger person and you know really biblically that's the man and uh, so in a lot of ways it's literally manning up, yeah, and and having to maybe be the one who, who does apologize, even if you feel like you weren't in the wrong, or whatever it might take to begin to set that relationship on the right track and or go see somebody or talk through it all with somebody.

Speaker 3 1:38:53

You know, I mean I've, I've had to meet with folks because they couldn't have a discussion without blowing up. Yeah, and it's like they need somebody who could, but just don't give up on it like. Another thing you hear is like how bad marriage is right. That's the, that's sort of the cultural view of marriage. And yet marriage done god's way is really good and um, and so not giving up on what god has has called good, you know, um, I think it's real important, uh but I love what you said.

Speaker 3 1:39:32

Yes, very good, and I love it and so, um, I love what you said about the intentionality. You know, if we aren't intentional about the things that are most important in our life, then we're just going to drift through life and one day becomes like the next, and pretty soon 10 years have gone by and we never drift towards God Like there has to be an intentionality there. There has to be an intentionality. We never drift towards a healthier marriage, we never drift towards healthier friendships. There has to be an intentionality towards those things, because our nature is we're going to always drift away from those things. And so I think, being intentional, taking one day at a time, this is something that the Lord's been dealing with me on One day at a time.

Speaker 3 1:40:34

Walk with me today, do what I lead you to today and I'll do it again tomorrow, but be intentional in that. Today, you know, I think, is so important, because one day can turn into the next and and we get busy and nothing changes. It only drifts away from God's design. More so. It's just not going to. You're not going to wake up 40 years from now having to accidentally grown closer to God. It's just not going to happen.

Speaker 1 1:41:04

No, it's not, Absolutely not. All right, guys, we'll cut her off there. Thanks for joining us and we'll do it again shortly. Yep, enjoyed it.