Many people don’t know how important land management is to hunting success and preservation of wildlife. What are some simple ways that you can do to improve your property? Rackology’s Eric Fitzgerald and Jason Obermiller are helping landowners get to the bottom of their goals and take action accordingly. They encourage asking questions and seeking knowledge because that’s how you learn.
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Rackology From the Ground Up with Eric Fitzgerald And Jason Obermiller
We’re traveling up to Loup City, Nebraska. I’ve got a couple friends up there that own Rackology. If you don’t know what Rackology is, it’s a double helix chromosome. I’m talking to Jason Obermiller and Eric Fitzgerald. Eric’s an agronomist and had been in the business a long time. Jason teaches school. They got together a few years back and created some products and now their business is growing. I’ve asked them to be part of the Whitetail Rendezvous Spring Series, talking about land management.
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Welcome to the show. We’re going to talk about why land management? What’s so special about that?
I appreciate you having us on here, Bruce. It’s great to visit with you again and see a familiar face. When it comes to land management, a lot of people don’t understand how important it is, especially if you own or lease or even get the rights to hunt a piece of property, and how important land management is to your success if you’re hunting. It doesn’t matter if it’s whitetail deer, pheasants, turkeys or if you want to have an abundance of wildlife out there. Land management is crucial. In this day and age, we’re seeing a lot more land being developed, especially in our neck of the woods and has taken some of the habitat out.
That leaves less areas for wildlife to go, and to use as their home range. Something as simple as a food plot, or setting up a feeding station in the off-season could really increase your odds of harvesting the buck that you want to harvest, or just going out with your family and seeing wildlife, land management is crucial and it could be something simple. That’s what we’re trying to educate at Rackology is how simple something could be, do it yourself and produce the results that you’re looking for.
In my classroom, growing up here in a rural area, I got a whole bunch of kids that are farm kids and we’ve got a lot of tight places in this area where they plant right up to the fence rows, and you get asked all the time, “How come we don’t see any pheasants? Where’s the wildlife?” A big thing that I point out, and I do this carefully of course, is when you plant up to the fence rows, and it’s all a monoculture like corn. Once the season is over and it’s been combined and it’s gone, there’s no habitat left for those deer or anything to hide in. Not only that, if you have a little strip of grass along the fence, what occurs is called the edge effect. If you do have any birds or game that’s using that grass for cover, coyotes and predators. They’ve got a very narrow area to hide in and so it prevents them from having any type of hiding, any type of escape.
When we get into land management, talking in one of my Wildlife classes, we discuss this, “How can we manage our land for wildlife but at the same time, accommodate what brings a lot of money into this community, that’s agriculture?” They can both work very well together, so long as both sides are willing to do a little give-and-take. Land management doesn’t necessarily mean shooting a 160 or 180-inch deer. We want to see healthy does and fawns. We want to see birds, turkeys and stuff. We might be talking with them about putting in native grass stands.
Eric, they deal about a lot with the native grass seeds and everything that he works with, farmers and ranchers around here to do that. A big thing is we start to find out from people when we talk to them is, “What do you want to accomplish?” because each person has their own idea of what land management is. Just like, you can preach to the neighbor that you need to let this deer walk or we’ll ever shoot a 180-inch deer, a 160-inch deer. In their enjoyment, because they might only have one week out of the whole year to hunt. They’re not worried about going out and shooting a 180-inch deer. They want to be able to go out and enjoy it. If they shoot a 120-inch deer, that’s great for them because it’s all about the experience. We have a wide array of clients and customers that, when you talk to me, I feel out, “What do they want? What’s their goals?” With Rackology, that’s how we have to curtail what we suggest to them to do with their land, because it might not all be about creating this giant buck sanctuary. It might be a number of things that they want to do and enjoy on their land.
Know what you want to do with your property, see the what's possible with its current state, then come up with a game plan from there. Share on XHow do you find out what they want? I’m not a farmer but my family left some land, and I do like rural America and so I go, “Some deer out there, I’d like more deer, I’d like some turkeys, I’d like to shoot my eye out. I like to bring my grandkids out there.” I got a piece of ground I don’t know a lot about because I haven’t grown up for decades on it, as some people your neighbors have. That type of guy calls you up, what kind of questions do you ask him?
Jason hit on it. First is if he didn’t know what he was wanting and he called you like, “I got some ground here and I have grandkids that love to hunt, they like to fish or pheasant hunt, or come out and coyote hunt.” The biggest thing is the conversation you have with that person and get down on the nitty gritty on what they are looking for and what they’re hoping for. There are some things that isn’t possible on what exactly they want, but we can come up with a great alternative. If that case rises, we could facilitate what they’re looking for.
That’s where the conversation starts and getting to know the person. Ask for a permission to maybe go out with them to take a look at the ground because that’s where a lot of questions actually starts. Those are types of guys we welcome. Jason talked about giving back. It’s scary how many farmsteads used to be on the corner section in the area we live, and now it’s dwindled down. We used to have eight homeplaces on one section of the ground. Now, you’re lucky to have one every two sections or less.
Those little home sections used to give a lot of tree cover and leaves would grow around the places and just turn hogs out and let them knock the leaves down. By then, a lot of pheasants or deer have been utilizing that. Getting out there and conversing with that customer or that land owner, and really knowing what they want, looking at the ground and knowing what’s possible, and then come up with a game plan from there.
Sometimes, we have people that call that they don’t know what they want. We’re actually dealing with a Rackology customer that’s got about 300-acres of ground and doesn’t know where to start. We’ll talk about what we’d do with him in this next segment when we actually get into “what we do.” We’re in that process now of he doesn’t know what he wants to do, he’s got this ground and he doesn’t know how to make it any better. Now, the tables have turned and we’re the ones asking him the questions as far as, “What do you want to accomplish? If we recommend something, how far are you willing to go as far as, whether it’s removing trees for food plots or whether it’s cross-cutting an area or just laying down trees to act as a screen to go into a stand? What about crops on your ground? Is a farmer renting your ground?” I’m finding out what they’re dealing with and then we suggest things.
A lot of times they’ll say, “If it was your ground, what would you do?” I like that because you have a clean slate and you can suggest some things. Whereas you got some landowners that they know exactly what they want. Those are easy too, because they know exactly what they want. Give them a few suggestions and you’re on your way. Then you have the people that are in the middle, they might not even be landowners. I keep saying landowners because most of the people we work with are renting ground, or the neighbor lets them hunt. They may say, “We’ve got all this ground, but the neighbor will only let me put a food plot in this little spot or won’t let us cut down any trees or very particular where we put tree stands.” Our land management is that wide. It’s from being really handcuffed on some properties to what a person can do to having the whole shoot and match as far as what we can suggest.
Wrapping everything up with that is that conversation you have with that person, whether you know them. We make the assumption, if we know somebody, we know what they want but having that conversation with them to know what they’re looking for. I’ll be the last one to admit that I know everything about soil chemistry or agronomy. I know that Jason will be the last one to admit that he knows a lot about biology because there are always things to learn. We consider Rackology as an ever-evolving machine. We’re going to seminars, just like what you’re doing with the podcast, to get the education out there. There’s always education to soak in. There are always guys trying different things, whether it be cover crops and different species in a food plot that’s working good for protein that might be helping. Whether it be something to help with some of the disease issues that deer, or pheasant, or turkeys might have. Going to different land management seminars, hearing from other people because you’ve got to stay humble in this business and you’ve got to soak everything in.
We’re living in an age, when it comes to hunting and stuff that’s growing rapidly and deer management is growing rapidly. People are knowing the importance of it finally. I like to immerse myself. I know Jason does too in research, learning and it’s fun. Going to somebody’s place who’s trying something new, taking notes and saying, “This is something we can incorporate from the agricultural world into helping deer management.” I think that’s huge and that’s important. When we talk to people, we let them know that we’re always trying new things that have been researched a little bit. We’re not just going to throw something out there new. We’re going to fine tune what we learned and what we see, and what works in our geography or the geography of this person is coming forth. As Rackology says, “What do you think?” The people value our opinion that we need to do the due diligence in being researched and ever-evolving. That’s different than some other things out there. That’s what we pride ourselves in.
You have to also be able to take no and maybe for an answer too. We were having a conversation about what are some things we should do this upcoming year. One of my suggestions after seeing the amount of deer on this property was, “We need to take some does out.” Me being a biologist, I know what our ratio should look like, I know what is going to be healthy for the deer herd but ultimately, what it boils down to is the person has to remember the landowner who’s actually controlling the property. They don’t always understand. They think if you go out there and take out a whole bunch of does, they like seeing all those deer, which is great to have all those deer. When you start talking carrying capacity, because of our agricultural community, throughout the growing season you create a false carrying capacity. We’ve got all these crops in the field that the doe is throwing all these fawns, and then come winter time, they’re all starving because what do they got to eat?
If your property can hold 80 deer on this whole place, every deer that’s on there is taking up a spot. If all the spots are filled with does mostly, you don’t have many spots left with bucks. Bucks have a big comfort zone. One buck might occupy a two to three doe area as far as feeling comfortable. By taking some of the does out, you open up space for those other bucks to move in. I’ve had people ask me, “I watched these deer, they’re a year-and-a-half. Then this buck is two-and-a-half, and they all disappear at three-and-a-half. How come none of my bucks are sticking around?” If you got a high doe ratio and a low buck ratio, those younger bucks, when they get older and they start feeling the pressure of being crowded, they go to someplace where it’s not as crowded.
Some landowners, they don’t understand that and they don’t want to take out a bunch of deer. I’m not saying you’re going out there laying a bunch of them down. There’s a way to manage your property as far as harvesting specific does and a certain deer, that can create a better place for your bucks. If that’s what you’re wanting to manage for, but we have to also be cognizant of landowner’s desires. They don’t want to see a bunch of does get killed. They like to go out there in December and see 200 heads of deer on their cornfield.
That’s one of the things we have to realize, to each their own. Sometimes our suggestions are not what they want to do. Plan B is here’s what we can do then with your property with the number of does and everything you’ve got on it.
Our fear of somebody thinking we’re stupid or that we asked a dumb question hinders our learning. Share on XJason brings up a good point about land management too. He was talking about this landowner having this issue with all these does out there, and going out an hour before sundown and seeing an astronomical amount and the neighbors all see that. They also got to talk to the grower about if they’re managing their own land, any information we can get on the neighbors. Not to be nosey, but to know what they’re doing I think is important too. If they know what their neighbors are doing, it makes our job a lot easier. It takes a lot of the guess work out. What we’re trying to do is capture the bucks that are two or three years old that are moving, and holding them up in an area that they’re going to like. They’re going to have bedding areas, some corridors feel safe and secure. That’s something that I think when you have that initial conversation with why land management. You know your neighbors that well and what they’re doing because that could make or break what we’re trying to do.
I’m hearing from the audience. When you think about asking somebody to take a look at your property, you’ve got to set and define what you want because it’s your land. You’re housing these deer on your land and you’ve got to decide what’s important to you. That’s the biggest thing you can do. How does somebody get ahold of the guys at Rackology?
The best way to get ahold of us is via our email, which is [email protected]. We’re on Instagram and Facebook, but a lot of times you don’t see the questions that people ask in a timely manner. Our email, we do. That’s usually where we get a lot of our questions, and we answer a lot of our questions via our email. When you email us, you talk to Jason or I, which is a lot different than some other companies out there. When you email Rackology, you’re talking to one of us two. We’re responding with what we know and what we see in the past, and trying to get, well thought out answers to the questions that we get.
It’s on you, readers, if you’re considering this, there are plenty of people that want to be land managers for you. You have to do your due diligence. This is like if you’re going out west or any place and wanting to go elk hunting or deer hunting Midwest with an outfitter. You’ve got to do due diligence. Nobody else is going to do it for you. I don’t care how many articles, how many TV shows, talk to somebody that’s been on their ground. It’s your job to figure out what you want, what you want to see, not only next year but the year after year. This isn’t just a one and done. When we we’re in the food plot segment, we talked about the food plot, throw and grow. That can work, but land management isn’t. I’m going to do hinge cutting and I’ll see improvement and call it good. That’s one tiny part as I understand. Please correct me if I’m wrong, what land management is. In the last part of this segment, tell the people how they can ask you the right questions or give you the right information so you can talk to their needs.
You can also get the email address off of our website, which is Rackology.org. When you email in, if you don’t ask a question, the first question we’ll ask is, “What do you want to accomplish in your land? What are your goals? What do you want to do?”
A lot of times, our emails are about our products. There’s no such thing as a dumb question. I tell my students this all the time because a lot of times, when we want to learn, a thing that hinders our learning is our fear of somebody thinking we’re stupid or this is a dumb question, or they’re going to think I’m an idiot for asking this. I ask dumb questions when I go to the doctor all the time because I’m not a doctor, and there are questions I want to know. I’m not a master at agronomy. There are times when I ask Eric stuff about plants that I might feel like maybe I’m stupid asking this question, but that’s not my forte. That’s one of the biggest things is not worry about what your question sound like. Once we get that email, if we don’t understand what you’re asking, we’ll shoot you an email back and ask you, “Is this what you’re talking about?” There are a lot of times that once the day is over, and I’m done in the science classroom and he’s done doing agronomy, I might even email, “Give me a call after 4:00.”
That’s huge because we’re both busy but we will take time for our customers and if people are serious. There are times where we get people throwing a question out there and that you know they’re not serious about land management or what they’re doing. The serious ones, you could pick those guys out. For those guys, we don’t answer every question. With the guys who are serious, we have no problem with them calling us. I’m a verbal guy, I can’t text very well and I can’t type worth a darn. When I talk to somebody, I could hear them on the other end and know exactly what they’re passionate about. You can’t see that with an email sometimes.
We encourage people that if they’re serious and they’re wanting to know some answers, and they’re getting serious about what they’re going to do with their ground and how we could help them, to give us a ring. Our phone numbers are on the email, on the website as well. We entertain people calling us if they need some further explanation of what we’re doing. To put it into perspective, to know what they want, ask us any questions they have, what our thoughts are. If they’ve got some aerial photography, if they’ve got something that they could share with us to help us assess the area, what they want, that is always a huge help too if they have that access. If they have Google Earth, if they have, “Here’s what I’m thinking about, I talked to you about a food plot or what I could do to improve my whitetail herd here. Here’s our land and this is what we’re dealing with.” That’s a huge help for us to see that.
With that point, great segue into the second segment, walk on the ground. Before you do that, even before you go out, we’ll be talking about the prep work that you do. The different technology and digital resource that you have that’s readily available more than ever before. Even before you guys get on the ground, you’ve got a sense of what’s there. There are always some surprises as we talked about earlier. We’re going to move on to Land Management with Rackology course 102. Thanks, Eric. Thanks, Jason.
Thanks, Bruce.
IMPORTANT LINKS:
- Rackology
- Jason Obermiller
- [email protected]
- Rackology on Facebook
- Rackology on Instagram
- Rackology.org