Hunts On Outfitting Podcast
Stories! As hunters and outdoors people that seems to be a common thing we all have lots of. Join your amateur guide and host on this channel Ken as he gets tales from guys and gals. Chasing that trophy buck for years to an entertaining morning on the duck pond, comedian ones, to interesting that's what you are going to hear. Also along with some general hunting discussions from time to time but making sure to leave political talks out of it. Don't take this too serious as we sure don't! If you enjoy this at all or find it fun to listen to, we really appreciate if you would subscribe and leave a review. Thanks for. checking us out! We are also on fb as Hunts on outfitting, and instagram. We are on YouTube as Hunts on outfitting podcast.
Hunts On Outfitting Podcast
Midwest Deer Surveys; The Future of Wildlife Management
Modern technology is transforming the way we understand and manage deer populations, and Jack Huston of Midwest Deer Surveys is at the forefront of this revolution. Armed with cutting-edge thermal drone equipment that boasts four times the resolution of standard models, Jack travels across the heartland helping property owners unlock the secrets of their land.
What began as a deer recovery service quickly evolved when Jack recognized the powerful data these aerial surveys could provide. His passion for deer management merged perfectly with this new technology, creating a business that now serves landowners from Ohio to Wisconsin, South Dakota to Arkansas, and beyond. The results have been eye-opening: most property owners underestimate their deer populations by approximately 25%, a figure that remains remarkably consistent across different regions.
During our conversation, Jack explains how these surveys inform critical management decisions, often revealing that properties have too many does for optimal trophy buck production. "It's like fishing a pond," Jack explains. "Your land can only support so many deer, and we need to have the right number if we want quality." He shares fascinating insights about habitat quality, noting that farms with dense, high-quality timber consistently hold more mature bucks than open properties. This makes perfect sense when you understand that deer are actively feeding throughout the day and need both security cover and accessible browse.
Perhaps most intriguing is Jack's observation about predator impact. Properties with more open terrain often have lower deer densities, partly because coyotes can hunt more effectively without dense cover protecting fawns. Yet these same properties sometimes produce the largest bucks - Jack's personal best came from just such a farm. For serious hunters and land managers, thermal drone technology represents a quantum leap forward in understanding what's happening on their property and how to optimize it for wildlife.
Whether you're considering purchasing hunting land, wondering if you should harvest more does, or simply curious about what's actually living on your property, this episode offers valuable insights into how modern technology is changing the wildlife management game. Subscribe now to hear more conversations with innovative outdoorsmen who are redefining how we interact with the natural world.
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this is hunts on outfitting podcast. I am your host and rookie guide, ken marr. I love everything hunting the outdoors and all things associated with it, from stories to how-tos. You'll find it here. Welcome to the podcast. Hey, it's another week and we've got another great episode for you.
Speaker 1:So modern technology. Would you use it to better your property and deer herd, resulting in better hunting for yourself? Of course you would. Why wouldn't you right? Well, this is where Jack of Midwest Whitetail Surveys comes in. Using his knowledge in high-tech drone, he's able to tell you so much more about your property and give you a deer herd analysis. I don't want to give anything else away because Jack does such a great job of explaining it all. This is an interesting one that you are going to want to stay tuned for. You can find and check out Midwest Whitetail Deer Surveys on YouTube and Facebook and, you know, see some of their cool pictures and videos Talking about deer management and being able to help maximize results to get big deer.
Speaker 1:If you have a dog, your trusted canine deserves to be fed the best to maximize their best in the field. That's why I feed and recommend a Nook Shook dog food For general health and maintenance in the off season I like feeding their 26-16 blend With lots to choose from. Head over to their website. Check it out and see which blend is going to be right for your dog, from really high energy to general health and maintenance. If your dog has any allergies to corn or chicken or anything like that, they've got marine blends. It's natural, locally sourced ingredients. Highly recommend it. If you want to get in contact with me, you can email me at huntsonoutfitting at gmailcom. Check us out on Facebook Hunts on Outfitting or myself, ken Meyer, on Facebook. Send me a friend request. All right, let's listen to Jack. All right. So yeah, jack, with Midwest Whitetail Deer Surveys. Thanks for coming on the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me, ken, looking forward to talking today.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I mean, before we get delve right into all of this, you know, if you don't mind saying, if you could sum up yourself in a few sentences where you're from, and kind of, I guess have you always been hunting and fishing, or?
Speaker 2:Yeah, jack Houston, from central Missouri, born and raised here my whole life, started Midwest Deer Surveys several years ago doing all this thermal drone stuff. But yeah, I've been an avid hunter and managed land with my dad for my whole life, chased whitetails and kind of just been Midwest guy, love turkey hunting too, but kind of that passion grew into helping other landowners with it.
Speaker 1:Yep, do you do any turkey surveys and stuff with your drone as well? I just got into turkey hunting this past year and I can see how people get the addiction and get hooked into it.
Speaker 2:I do not. We can see them on our surveys. It's just not something I've offered, but definitely potential for doing that kind of thing if somebody really wanted it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I suppose You're already set up to do, to do it really, I guess yeah, absolutely uh, so yeah, I'm really curious about how you I mean you so you grew up hunting, fishing, and then what got you into the drone? Because you started with deer recovery first, was it?
Speaker 2:that is true.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, I kind of kind of planned going in that first season to maybe jump into a little bit of this, but um didn't realize kind of the potential and how many people I could really help with it.
Speaker 2:So I just saw I'm sure people have heard of the company drone deer recovery with mike yoder.
Speaker 2:I saw them about three years ago online and saw what what that technology could do and I was like, hey, I can, I can do this um, and then didn't think it turned into anything like it is now but be localized and help people find the deer, and that's kind of what it was in the beginning. It was kind of fun and I uh, I'm real analytical love, love management for deer um, almost more than the hunting aspect, yeah, and so I just saw it as a great tool to um, you know, help people find out how many deer they have. And from hunting different properties, some struggled with low deer densities. I mean you might see one deer on a hunt to another farm not very far away that had too many deer given the level of habitat and it was definitely affecting the herd there that I just knew how important it was to manage a deer herd from from a number standpoint, and so started offering it as a service and then just grew from there, okay yeah, I was curious how you got going with it.
Speaker 1:So I mean, was there a big learning curve with just getting a drone, for instance?
Speaker 2:just starting with that, I had had a little DJI before so I knew a little bit about the operating system. I always tell people it takes, you know, probably 20, 30 hours to get kind of comfortable with it. Um, or says it takes part 107 if you want to do it commercially, which is just a drone drone aviation test, but nothing too hard if you really want to do it okay, yeah, I had a little experience with one last year.
Speaker 1:I didn't get to use it, but I got to see them used. I had uh, the neighbors had someone visiting they didn't think set off fireworks. All my cows went through the fence and were out for about a week and we had a guy come in with a thermal drone and it was midsummer, the foliage couldn't be any thicker and, sure enough, after a bit we ended up finding them and he was able to guide us because he could see us and guide us to the cows and push them out with the drone. I was like that's pretty cool, but we ended up finding some deer and I think even a raccoon and stuff as we were looking for the cows. It was really neat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's awesome. There's so many uses for them. So, missing people, missing animals, deer there's a lot of a lot of great opportunities.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you got into this. Um, how far do you travel? You're in Missouri. How far does do you take your business or does? Have you not set a limit yet?
Speaker 2:There's no limit. Um, I had a meeting with a person in Florida yesterday. Oh wow, I kind of travel all over this year. It'll kind of be as of right now Ohio to Wisconsin, to South Dakota, down to Arkansas, down to Alabama. So I cover a lot of the middle part of the United States, but always open to working somewhere else.
Speaker 1:Okay, wow, that's pretty cool. What would be say the average land mass on these properties that you go to?
Speaker 2:It's anywhere from 4,200 acres that's the biggest property I've ever done all the way down to um like a 40 acre partial, and most properties are probably 150 to 200.
Speaker 1:Okay, yep, so not a bad size to work with, really.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, I would say maybe I do a lot of properties in the 400 to 500-acre range.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, so that gives you, yeah, that's a fair amount to work with with the landowner and explaining on you know. So I guess, before I say that, how about you explain how it works? So the landowner calls you out to do you know kind of a herd analysis survey and what's the initial meeting like with them? Phone call.
Speaker 2:We just look over the property, um, agree on a time and date and um, pricing and all that good stuff. And then we pick a couple of week window when the weather will be that uh, when, when a good weather day comes up, and we'll, we'll get it done. And then, um, let's say December 1st is when we're going to do a survey. Well then we might start talking November 15th, find a good day, and I go out there, perform the survey with them or without them, could do it either way and then, once the data is collected, I go back and do some of my after the fact stuff analysis. I go back and, you know, do some of my after-the-fact stuff analysis, if you'll call it, but giving them all their deliverables, and then always offer to have a meeting to go over it one more time with them once the finalized product. But that's about it on that.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what are you looking for for ideal conditions? Because remember when I had the guy out to look for my cows in the summer there he was even saying that some of the trees, I think, will even give off some heat mainly we're looking for just a not a hot, sunny day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, the sun's out and it's cooler. Um, with drone I'm able to filter some of that heat out and still see the deer. But once it gets to be just 70 degrees or warmer and sunny, then we want to stay away from that. Also, if it's extremely foggy or something like that, we don't want to survey in that.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, that would make it more difficult. So I mean the time of year you kind of prefer say like the fall.
Speaker 2:I'll do surveys. I mean, I did a survey last night, actually in the summer just in the evening, looking for deer as they come out into the field. Yeah, I'll do those in July and August here in the Midwest, but basically mid-November to mid-April is when I do most of my surveys, when the leaves are off.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, makes it a lot easier, Mm-hmm yeah. You know you haven't been doing this long and you've obviously uh, gotten a name for yourself very quickly by the range of area that you're getting calls from. And then you know it was neat too. I even saw the video with you and uh, you know don higgins, which is a pretty big name, the outdoor industry and doing his firm and all that. So I mean congratulations. It's uh, it looks like it's been going well yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2:It's been, uh it's been a lot of fun and um gotta gotta meet with so many cool people and work on so many cool properties, so it's uh been a real blessing yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So do you find that you do more work with just private landowners or do you do a lot for outfitters as well?
Speaker 2:Not a whole lot for outfitters Definitely be good to get in. I just don't think. Well, I don't want to talk bad about outfitting, but for the most part the money isn't something they want to spend. They're running it more as a business. So I'm working more for just private landowners.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, yeah, I kind of figured that just from the stuff I saw and everything. It's like food plots. I mean I think the majority of all people that do food plots are just private landowners, not necessarily any outfitters.
Speaker 2:I know a few. But yeah, you're absolutely right, it's definitely a little bit of a different thing. I've worked for a few outfitters, but primarily it's just private landowners on their properties.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so are the landowners usually surprised by the amount of deer you find. Like you know, they'll take a guess before and then are they usually? Is there usually a lot more deer than they figure?
Speaker 2:Typically about 25 more percent, 25 percent more. If somebody knows what they're talking about I'd say Okay, yeah, that number holds pretty consistent. Consistent, which I think is pretty interesting really, that it's almost always that 25% number, 25% more, yeah. Well, it's hard to really understand sometimes how many deer are out there just from hunting and trail cameras. So the drone allows us to really get that number correct and go from there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly how do the land owners use the drone info to improve, like after you're done? I mean, what do you usually go over with them after? After you've done? You know your whole analysis and everything. You've got the drone packed up, you're typing up, you kind of type up a report, right, and then what do you guys discuss after that?
Speaker 2:For a pretty good portion of my landowners, you need to harvest more deer. You live in an area, say southern Iowa, where I have a lot of data from and we can agree that certain parts of the state, especially that southern part and most of that southern part, probably has too many deer if you really want to grow on the top top bucks. So it's really, you know, how many deer do we want on this level of habitat currently? And then if we're going to improve your habitat, then we can hold some more deer and what's that? What's that good number um for when that habitat's improved? And ideally they're going to continually have me out every year to track it, but if not, then we make a game plan for that.
Speaker 2:It's just like I always tell people it's like fishing a pond. You know your pond's so fertile and there's so much food in any given pond and we need to have the right number of fish in that pond. And really deer are no different Like the broader landscape is. You know, not every property is like a pond. That would be more of a high-sense scenario. But deer have their areas and some of them overlap. But deer have their areas and some of them overlap, and so it's more like a fluid thing than just a pond with being all enclosed.
Speaker 2:But we don't want to have too many and deer naturally in a lot of these areas want to overpopulate and most of my landowners are trying to grow the top one or two bucks every year on their land. So I just help them understand that more is not always better. And then for some other landowners you know we may talk about, you just naturally have maybe a little lower of a population than you want, and how do we increase that? Maybe it's planting some warm season grasses to really help with, you know, getting those fawns through the first month or two, stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you're just going over.
Speaker 2:It's all about some people don't understand it completely the land's carrying capacity Mm-hmm, and a lot of properties have. I would say their carrying capacity used to be higher, but because the deer population got so got a little too high for too long, a lot of those preferred brow species have been mowed down and a lot of the landscape just doesn't produce the quality of food that used to be there.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, when you're out on these and you can see I've seen some videos like, depending on the area, you can really see the deer, travel corridors and all that, their paths. How important on your land do you find? It probably varies by state, but is a water source.
Speaker 2:That's not something I've tracked a bunch. Most of my flights are from that mid-November to April timeframe. I know deer they get 60 to upwards of 70% of their food from the browse they eat. So that's not something I've tracked, but I'm sure there's some correlation that you could probably find there.
Speaker 1:I'm sure there's some correlation that you could probably find there. So when you're going out and doing this, you're able to.
Speaker 2:So you find the deer with the drone and you're able to mark each deer with like a waypoint. Is it Correct? Yeah, we have an exact GPS location we can pin down of every deer.
Speaker 1:So that way you're not marking the same one twice and then you're able to tell, because some people listening to this are probably wondering are you able to tell bucks and does?
Speaker 2:fairly easily Depending on the time of year, I guess. So kind of the quick way we do the survey is we're searching with a thermal sensor and then, once we find a heat signature that we know is a deer, based on size and mark, then we'll switch over to what is called the zoom camera, which is no different than your phone when you zoom in, it's just a little better and then we can zoom in and see if that's a buck or a doe or maybe something different a cow.
Speaker 1:Okay. Yeah, here's something that probably people are wondering is on the properties that have large bucks. When you're there in the fall, say, and you can see their potential and what their antlers are fully grown, is there anything that these farms' properties have in common that carry the large bucks?
Speaker 2:The biggest thing I've noticed is the quality of and this depends on where you're at, but in a lot of my stuff is what I would call at least 50-50 timber farms in the midwest. So maybe half the farm is woods and most of these farms are in the midwest, but for the most part, farms that have really high quality timber and um, better timber, more browse in the area around, are holding significantly more deer and mature bucks. So when that timber is better, it serves two purposes it's both thicker, which the deer like. There's more cover.
Speaker 2:A lot of people walk through a forest and you can see hundreds of yards. We're. That's not what we want for wildlife. We want it, want it to be really thick, hard to walk through, lots of sunlight reaching the forest floor, and so not only is there a lot of cover, but there's a lot of food. And another thing thing I've found on these surveys is deer will be on their feet eating all day long, and so a huge part of that is, you know, they want to be able to stand up and grab a bite to eat while they're in the woods. So having that is extremely important, and it definitely has opened my eyes on the places where I hunt and manage to really bring deer in.
Speaker 1:Right. Do you think that this is something that people should look into and be more open about? It's new technology People are hesitant. It's new technology People are hesitant. And to being a really effective deer management tool just more effective, obviously, than cell cameras and stuff and being able to figure out where the deer are, what's going on where to set things up.
Speaker 2:All that, yeah, absolutely. I mean I think everybody should use a thermal drone before they buy a property. If you're going to spend millions of dollars or whatever give or take on any given property, you ought to know what's there, especially if the primary purpose is wildlife. We're just able to learn so much so quick with that. Ideally, I think everybody would fly their farm every year at the same time and and have that data and be able to track it over time. I think it'll help people answer a lot of questions. Um then, on buying before property obviously very valuable there. So, um, the key is having the right technology and the right person to interpret those results and guide you in the right direction. That's what we try to do at Midwest Gear Surveys. I think thermal drones are a phenomenal piece of technology.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and that should be utilized. Your drone's really accurate. I saw one video where you guys you know you found a shed with it, which was pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was. It's definitely possible. In the spring Got to have the right conditions, Got to be sunny for most of the day and then kind of sudden cloud cover. But I was pretty pumped when I found that shed?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was neat. Do you find that a common thing with a lot of these properties? Mainly no matter what state you're in is? Do you think that a lot of landowners more does do need to be harvested?
Speaker 2:100%. Yeah, I mean ideally, in most places, we want our buck to dough ratio to be one to one or a little little more bucks of doughs. Honestly, um, and and in 80 of the cases that's, we're far from that um, I'd say my average buck-to-doe ratio is about 2.1 to1. I think is what it comes down to, and that's doing some math to exclude button bucks. So that's not just okay. We found two deer without antlers to one with antlers. No, this is the actual, real number of how many male deer are there versus female deer. And so I've seen, even in a lot of good areas, like I have, a lot of deer breeding in even January. That I've seen with the drone and that's detrimental to a herd's health when the bucks are still running around in the super cold winter trying to breed does.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly, you know, have you found? Have you ever found anything really unique while out flying, like if you accidentally found the landowner's big, you know, pot plantation or anything like that?
Speaker 2:no, not that yet. Um, I have come across some weird spots in a cornfield before, but I don't think it was that. Um, I found all sorts of stuff trespassers Once I'm in Illinois. I thought this was pretty cool, but I believe they were great, great blue heron, um, but there were probably five or 600 of them and just a few big trees and they all had nests. They were all just in these giant trees um along the river and I guess it was breeding season for them. But you see, a heron, it's usually one at a time and to see 500 of them that close was pretty neat. I've got all sorts of cool videos and cool farms, but more on the deer side on cool farms, but more on the deer side. Yeah, I'd say seeing those birds was probably one of the coolest things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really neat. You're right. Yeah, I just see one at a time at most, so that is pretty cool. A lot of places do define that there's. Do you pick up a lot of coyotes, Like, how's the predator population in some of these areas and does that need to be worked on a lot for some of these landowners to have more deer on their property?
Speaker 2:I think that it definitely in open country that coyotes can do a lot more damage on being more effective at killing fawns because there's just a lot less cover um. Being more effective at killing ponds because there's just a lot less cover Um. I know for a fact. So I mentioned those two properties in the beginning, one that I hunt. They're only about five miles apart. One has a really low deer density and one has a very high deer density.
Speaker 2:One that has a very high deer density is mostly timber Um and the one that has low density is fairly open and the fairly open farm has a lot of cattle around it, but I know the coyote population there is very high, which I do believe has a pretty big impact on the low deer population there, impact on the low deer population there, and I think that coyotes can be a lot more effective in that open country just because there's a lot less cover for the deer to hide in. Right, yeah, so I think that has a big impact on the deer herd there. Now I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. The biggest deer I ever harvested was on that farm. So maybe there's less deer but there's bigger deer.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, yeah, that's true. So I mean, as busy as you are with this and everything, do you still get much time to go out and hunt yourself?
Speaker 2:I try to as much as I can in october, um, because once november hits and kind of floodgates open on finding deer and doing these surveys. Yeah, um, I run lots of cameras and and sell cameras and whatnot. So generally I have a pretty good idea of you know when a buck is, I'd say, killable in a certain setup and then I'll push hard to go hunt. Um, I don't hunt blindly a lot unless I have the time, but I hunt. I hunt as strategically as I can and, um, didn't harvest a deer last year but I have a few good ones this year that hopefully I can catch up to right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know I like to do it when I'm out. Hunting is uh, I don't spend a pile of time deer hunting, so I want to stack as many things in my favor as I can, so that way you know when I'm out the odds are.
Speaker 2:I would. The only time I'd hunt blindly is probably the last week of October and the first week of November. Okay yep, and you know you can hunt into November some. But man, what I've seen, just from a hunting standpoint, the last week of October if you've got a deer that you know is anywhere around, that's the time to be out hunting them with a bow?
Speaker 1:Yeah, before it gets too chaotic in the woods during rifle. Yeah, same thing here. So are you still quite busy doing the deer recovery in your area as well?
Speaker 2:Last year I did around 55. Um, yeah, so most of those come in a very short window and probably the first week of november was bow 30, so, um, I know there's there's significantly more people in missouri every year doing it, but, um, I think it'll still increase this year. I have a little better technology than a lot of the people with drones, which allows me to find a few more deer, but I would say, for the most part, just whoever is, you know, that's fairly close to you is a great option for helping you find your deer.
Speaker 1:Yep, that'd be a good thing to put on a business card. Is I have a little bit better drone technology than other people?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it's definitely a selling point. Actually, the drone I have is pretty much any other thermal drone out there. Uh, it's got four times the thermal resolution of of any other drone and twice the boom of the next best.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, that'll. Uh, that's impressive, that gets the job done. I mean, it must be so exciting, though, when you're with somebody they're like, yeah, I can't find this deer, but looking everywhere, you know we got rain, it washed the blood this and that, and then for you to be able to find it with them.
Speaker 2:I mean you get to feel that excitement every time, multiple times, many times a year it is so cool and I mean I don't even mind hunting less because I feel like I gotta go. You know I gotta go deer hunting 55 times on a successful hunt, helping these other people. So I get to feel that, feeling a lot, and it's a ton of fun and it must feel good too.
Speaker 1:You're just giving that honor and respect to the animal finding it. You know because I mean, how many deer before this technology came out that were just never found. They just wound and go die somewhere and that's that. And you know, you got a hunter at home feeling sick to his stomach and meat wasted and it's just so great being able to have this technology at your disposal and be able to recover that animal that otherwise might not be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, what a waste to just let the animal go and not be able to use it. So the drone, for the most most part, has solved that problem completely and I'm sure the numbers well over 10,000 deer that would have not been found, that have been found across the states with them. Do you all have this kind of just just legally? Are you allowed to use this in canada for something like this?
Speaker 1:um, so I think it's going to go by province, by province, but as far as I'm aware, um, there's not been I don't think there's been any laws put in place yet, because it just hasn't become that prevalent here, so they haven't addressed it really. And I got to admit Canada I mean especially my province compared to the states we're behind in a lot of hunting things and all that. It's just, it doesn't seem to be looked at as much in, you know, when you're in politics and making the laws and everything politics and making the laws and everything, um, there are some areas I mean our natural resources minister before was really good at, you know, opening up the books, putting implementing better laws and stuff that made common sense, uh, but for the most part I don't think though, uh, it's, it hasn't really come up enough.
Speaker 1:And I don't know anybody using thermal drones, really, uh, to find dear the guy that helped me find the cows, I think he has found a few for people and stuff. He does a lot, a lot of work with the fire department too, finding hot spots and all that during forest fires and things. Um, but yeah, I'd have to look into more, but it's just, I don't know anyone that does it here and stuff. So drones are being used just for you know, checking. I had a buddy that had a guy come out with a drone checking an area that was a big swamp and it was hard to walk through and he was trying to see if there's deer trails through it, stuff like that. But it could be an untapped market here in Canada.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there's a lot of potential for, I mean, you all have different, more species of big game up there and I think I think it's a great tool that could be used for for managing a lot of those, whether it's moose or elk out West. Or said you're going on sheep hunt, yeah, and when I was in the mountains last week, um, I was over in montana at glacier national park, but I couldn't stop thinking just how how great a wildlife survey would be in the mountains I mean just being able to cover that whole valley at one time with the drone be so, so useful and, um, I wish that some of those government entities would use it more and for managing those populations of wildlife well, yeah, exactly, and yeah, I think it should be as well, like you guys in the states I mean anyone from canada, canada could admit this.
Speaker 1:I mean, just your guys' deer management there alone is leaps and bounds ahead of where we are here, but I don't know if it's the bigger—I mean, there's some landowners around that do a great job, but it's hard to get everyone on board with it as well, you know.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just, you guys do a really great job managing deer herds and all that there and it shows by some areas where you can harvest, you know two, three plus deer a year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, some of the states are that's pretty unreal um deer population. So, even though some of those states aren't managed the best, even though they have those, but um, we, uh, we've got some fertile deer ground down here, so yeah, absolutely just great agriculture land.
Speaker 1:And then said the more people you get on board with it with you know, all right, well, let's let the smaller bucks go and try to get bigger ones and manage the does properly and things like that. But yeah, it can be kind of tricky sometimes. So are you doing this full-time Jack?
Speaker 2:I am now. I'm actually still got a little bit of school left. I'm getting my master's in accounting here in Missouri, but that's kind of taking the back burner and I'm going to finish up school but really hitting this drone stuff hard, especially this coming year and seeing how it goes. So what's the future look like? Are you looking to grow this?
Speaker 1:franchise it, especially this coming year, and seeing how it goes, yeah. So what's the future look like? Are you looking to grow this franchise? It travel more branch off, like we talked about the turkey thing earlier. What's the plans, if you don't mind saying?
Speaker 2:Well, if I could get some good, like-minded pilots in some other parts of the country, then I would definitely be willing to branch out like that, traveling a lot as much as I can right now, but it's just got to find those like-minded people that both understand deer and drones. I think I think when you go and do a survey and you're trying to answer a question for a landowner on how to manage better and what these numbers mean, that you know almost more important than being a good pilot is just understanding deer and and kind of critically thinking about, um, what we can make better on that property. So just finding the right people to branch out. Hopefully that'll happen, but, um, this year it'll just just be me and just kind of take it one step at a time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's right. Well, it's uh, it sounds like it's been going really well for you so far and you know I love seeing the pictures and everything and the videos and I can't thank you enough for coming on the podcast and talking about this and just kind of explaining more into your world of, you know, the deer management with new technology, and I think it's really really cool what you're doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you, Ken. I really enjoyed it and hopefully we can meet up again in the future and talk about some new things in the drone world. Yeah, absolutely Thanks.