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Introduction

BW: Hi, and welcome to The Land Steward Podcast. So we took a little bit of a break as you might have noticed, but I am back in the studio with our amazing producer Abigail Holmes, who's been so patient with me. But I have a new kind of episode to share with you guys that took a little bit of time and a little bit of creativity and humbled me in the best of ways. I was able to join my family a couple weekends ago, out at the ranch where now almost everyone in my family is bow hunting, which is exciting. So we were doing a little bit of target practice and I said, “Hey guys,” you know with my podcast brain on, “I would love to capture a little bit of our conversations that we're having, you know, just in the moment about MLD tags, how we are doing surveys,” because most of the landowners and land stewards that we know in Texas, especially right now, are wrapping up their wildlife surveys and working with their Texas Parks and Wildlife biologists to make sure that they are stewarding the wildlife in the best ways possible. That's taking into consideration weather, which of course for us most of the time looks like drought. Ironically in this recording you will hear some of the pitter-patter of the most amazing rain sounds that you will ever hear in the Texas Hill Country. So, it was a good day for us as we were out on the porch recording and just talking about some of the experiences that we've had, but you know, we're also talking about the other factors that play into the decision for your wildlife biologists on how many tags you'll be allocated.

So, if you don't know anything about MLD or if this is something you're curious about, you know, the first thing to know is that you don't use your normal hunting license tags. And of course to hunt almost anything in Texas except for wild pigs now, you need a hunting license. So when you are on an MLD program, working in collaboration with your wildlife biologists, you don't need to use your hunting license tags. You do need a hunting license still cause you do have to record your hunting license number. But based on the conditions of your property and your wildlife management goals coupled with of course the weather and other environmental factors, but the vegetation that you have on the ground, other wildlife competition, other livestock competition, you know, the whole kind of like the holistic view of everything that you have going on in your property. And it definitely goes beyond wildlife management, which we're just having some of those conversations on the back porch, which is very cool to think about.

And you guys get to hear in the background my uncle, who is, you know, has always been kind of an inspiration to me growing up. He actually helped me clean my very first deer way back when and has always taken my brother and I out. You get to hear my dad, who is, you get to hear a little bit of story about what he's doing and how he's involved in the ranch now and just his story overall about kind of just making his way back to the land, just in general, which is very cool, also very inspiring. And I think something that is very relevant and reflective of many of the landowners that we know now. Oftentimes we end up kind of finding ourselves in these positions where we've moved away from land stewardship and moved away from the land, moved away from the ideas of living on the land and found and pursued our careers elsewhere and his story is just very cool but I think it's very relatable. You also hear a little bit of from his wife Heather in the background and some banter from the kiddos that we've got going on. There were four generations out there on the deck that afternoon. All target practicing with our bows.

You also get to hear, you know, I mentioned this is a humbling experience. I am, if you've never met me in person, I'm only five two, so you can imagine my draw length is also very short. But mind you, I might be small but I am a mighty hunter. Those are just the things that I tell myself to boost my own confidence. But our family is very playfully I would say competitive and that's what makes hunting season really fun for us. But just to be able to bring into our conversations these ideas of conservation and being stewardship minded and just knowing that rooted in all of our conversations, whether it's witty banter back and forth or making fun of each other because we can't quite retrieve our arrows, there is this underlying feeling of that ecological conviction. We're doing it because it's important. We're doing it because we know that that land will be there after we are and as you guys remember our property is on a conservation easement and that in and of itself is you know its own animal but it definitely means that that land will be there in perpetuity so it is our job to make sure that we're doing the best that we can with the resources that we have. And that's why, you know, on the base of it, the heart of all of this and this podcast is that I'm gonna share some of those experiences with you guys. And you'll get to hear a little bit from my grandfather who is, you know as most grandfathers are, the pillar of our family and somebody who I respect so much and somebody that has brought me up in a way that, you know, I don't think that I would be doing this work without some of his influence. So I'm excited for you guys to get to hear from him and to hear the things that that are important to him. So I am going to throw our audio out to that afternoon so you can kind of hear a little bit of that, those conversations that we were having out there on the deck about how MLD and kind of stepping into that world of wildlife management from a different angle changed the way that our family came together.

Family Conversation

[6:54]

Matt: Brittany, it’s okay. It’s technically legal in Texas as long as one person knows that you’re spying on everybody else.

[group laughter]

[child singing]

BW: Not good.

Matt: Did she act- did she actually hit the bullseye?

James: She hit [inaudible].

BW: Thank you! Thank you.

[inaudible]

BW: So we're gonna talk a little bit about wildlife surveys, and I think, so not last night but the night before we finished night three of our deer surveys for 2024, 2025, deer season.

Dad: We did?

BW: We did.

Dad: Oh yeah, well. 

BW: [laughs] So when do we start these? We have data back to 2019, or 2020?

Dad: I think 2020.

BW: 2020. So that first year, who were our surveyors? We were like figuring this out. It was James, Dad, Clint. And Matt did some of them. Heather did some of them. Wes was there. [laughs] So Wes would have been 11.

Dad: Yep.

BW: Yeah. There was a little guy starting this. And that first year we had, I mean we were hitting almost 200 deer, just in our surveys. A lot of unknowns, which was a challenge. So we worked with our biologists, which you guys have heard me talk about, Joyce Moore, from Parks and Wildlife.

Dad: Yay, Joyce!

BW: Who has single-handedly taught us a lot about hunting, deer season, just in general, surveying. So that first year was tough because we had how many… we had 67 doe tags that we had to fill. That was doe tags alone.

Dad: Well, yeah, that was a real eye-opener to find out just with the science behind it all the yeah, we really are… we've got way too many does.

BW: Yeah, we're…

Dad: We've got way too many deer.  

BW: Yeah.

Dad: That buck:doe ratio that was… that was like “oh my word, good grief.” Okay.

BW: But our fawns were low, which was crazy just to think we're over capacity. It was cool to walk through the property with her because she did kind of like a vegetation survey and helped us ID what we had out here that the deer actually prefer, and then where we were missing on some of those big like protein gaps for vegetation. And a lot of that was just, we were over capacity on deer, over capacity even on our cattle. So we were bare ground in a lot of places and you don't have much rain typically. It was just a challenge to find a really good ecosystem balance, I guess, was what we were looking for. So it was nice to just have—

Uncle: Do you remember the browse lines?

BW: The browse lines. Yeah. Just being able to look out across a pasture and see straight through to the other end across a hundred acres because of our browse lines and looking at, I guess being able to walk up to any kind I guess what kind of bush, I don't know, not yaupon, but anything and just see what percentage was actually eaten up by the deer and how hungry they were was I guess the bottom line looking at what we were missing. So that first year and really Joyce set a precedent that was first maybe year two that we would have a high number of tags so that we could knock back our population get back to a healthier balance. So, it was tough, but to be able to, looking back now, to be able to fill 67 doe tags, we filled all of them, didn't we, between us and the hunters, or maybe minus, minus a couple.

Dad: A lot of venison in the freezer. 

BW: A lot of venison that year. A lot that-

Dad: Yeah, but that was also, it was also sobering.

BW: Yes, very sobering.

Dad: And to consider that if we hadn't harvested all those does, that the range would continue to be even less healthy. The deer that existed here would be less healthy. We'd continue to have low fawn counts. Yeah, so it was interesting to see how all that stuff started working together. And then we also got real aggressive with the cattle program at that time and started, what, we sold off half our herd?

BW: It was 17 at first we sent.

Grandpa: 40%. 

BW: Yeah, 40%.

Dad: Yeah, 40% of the herd we got, yeah, we sold off.

BW: Yeah. So that's grandpa. I don't know if you guys can hear in the background the significance of being able to record this right now is that it's raining and we're on the back porch shooting doe… shooting doe?... shooting bows. And I have… and Grandpa dozed off for a little bit in the chair because it's such a peaceful time in the Hill Country to be able to be outside while it's sprinkling and raining. Such a cool thing, especially if you're a native Texan to be able to experience rain showers in late August, early September. Well, obviously he's trying to get his bows out of…

Dad: He's killing an arrow, that's what he's doing. I'm gonna go help Matt real quick.

BW: [laughs] Okay. Oh my gosh.

Dad: Did you get it?

BW: [laughs] So Matt's arrow is officially stuck in the bow target.

Dad: Are you gonna cut it out?

Child: Yeah. 

BW: [laughs]

Dad: Yeah, I'll get one in a second.

BW: Oh my gosh.

Dad: [inaudible]

BW: Yeah. Oh my gosh. So I have to [inaudible]… the other cool aspect of this is, so Dad just walked inside to get a knife, is that, you know, Dad has slowly made his way back to the land after having to start his career and continue his career away from the land for decades so what's been cool about this experience is watching dad get back into this. Being up here with Heather for three four days out of the week, moving their lives closer to the ranch, and just seeing how his dedication has just kind of enlivened the ranch and we talk about like breathing life back into these things that are so important to us, getting back to the important places and that's kind of, it's been cool from my perspective just to watch dad get back into that with the support of Heather, his wife, who is always in the background pushing dad to be better, to do better and to think about things differently. And you guys have heard me also talk about my two kids, his, you know, his grandkids now and watching his grandsons grow up here, I think that just the reality of watching the next generation come out here has been, I would say, eye-opening to him because it becomes, it becomes work that you're doing for people other than yourself and it becomes something that's more important than coming out here to enjoy it, but making sure that it lasts so that they can enjoy as they get older too. That's been just a cool kind of transition and observation from my point of view, watching dad grow up back into the land and really pour his heart and soul into everything that's out here and having Heather to be there behind him and make sure that he's not losing his mind cause we all know land stewardship is always fun, always fun. But it's also just been kind of soul refreshing again in the theme of it raining right now and just watching that rain soak into the ground is pretty cool. If you've ever seen my dad on Instagram he's also just one of those people that is filled with joy anytime it's raining, anytime he's out and watching especially right now we're getting we're preparing for calving season in September. And just looking at new life that's on the property and how green everything is. Those things bring him pure joy and excitement. So that's pretty cool.

 [background noise]

BW: Dad.

Dad: We're back.

BW: We're back. Did you save the arrow?

Dad: No. [inaudible]

BW: [laughs] Oh my gosh. So yeah, standing out on the deck right now, we have how many generations around here? Four? Four generations, right? One, two, three, four. Yeah. Just hanging out and enjoying the rain and practicing for bow season coming up in about a month. Thankfully, it starts a little bit earlier this year. And just thinking about how our wildlife surveys have changed over the years and what they look like now compared to a couple of years ago. I'm gonna bring grandpa onto this conversation. So grandpa we were talking about how our wildlife surveys have changed drastically you know in the last couple of years and knowing how many deer we were seeing in previous surveys compared to the survey you know the third survey that we just finished not last night but the night before thinking about how many more fawns we're seeing, the health of the herd, what has that been like for you to just watch the family kind of come together over that fun, kind of chaotic task of deer surveys? 

Grandpa: It's been encouraging. We really had no idea before we started doing surveys what our deer population was. We knew it was probably too many, but Joyce helped us tremendously in getting a handle on this and realizing the need to reduce the herd. And of course, after we reduced the herd, we got hit with a drought and a horrible cold spell, which probably killed a few more deer than we expected. But now we've got plenty for them to eat, even in a relatively droughty situation. And the deer herd is certainly recovering significantly, so that's encouraging.

BW: Yeah, it's been really cool just to be able to have that, even just the jumping off point to bring everybody and the family in toward this conservation-minded stewardship to think about how everybody has a role in the wildlife surveys and what that looks like. And it may be a late night, but having everybody pile into the vehicle and know what their roles are, we're all getting a little bit better each time, I think on spotlighting and then IDing. I think what was kind of comical is how many unidentified deer we would have in that first year and now how careful we are to make sure that we're understanding what we're seeing out there and that we're not missing any of those fawns that are bedded down and that we're taking the time to go slow, use the binoculars and truly figure out what we're seeing out there because at the end of the day it makes us better hunters, it makes us better stewards, and it helps us be more aware of what's going on around at the ranch.

Grandpa: This percentage of the deer were north of the…

BW: Yeah.

Grandpa: Okay, so just for them… So that they know that they still got a really good deal.

BW: Yes, okay, yeah. That's a good point.

Grandpa: And for Terry to have a feeling that, yeah, we're more than fair.

BW: [laughs] Yeah. 

Coffee House Chat

[19:23]

BW: Good morning from the Texas Hill Country. So I figured it wouldn't be an absolutely authentic managed lands deer program episode slash hunting episode if I didn't also take you guys out on a morning hunt. So I got up early for you guys, my kiddos, Cash and River, are still sleeping. They’re with my dad and Heather who have graciously agreed [laughs] to hang out with them this morning, and so I'm sitting out at a blind that we call the Coffee House, which is, you know, absolutely my favorite name for a blind. And I would say this is, you know, as close to a hunt as you could get for a podcast, given I am making noise and if you've ever set in an old blind, you know that the equation fr- between the movements that you make and the sounds that come from the old squeaking chairs is simply not fair. It's- it does not add up, so I spooked a doe this morning but it was before the sun came up so we'll see if they come back out.

But right now, I'm actually gonna show you guys some behind-the-scenes because the view of the Texas Hill Country on a cloudy morning is unmatched. Absolutely unmatched. We've got, in my view right now, just some swaying mesquite branches. And a couple of cedar, those mature cedar that we're okay with leaving behind, and I am waiting for the wildlife to show back up but just like looking out over some of these vistas that are out here is again like I mean truly unmatched one of my favorite views in the entire world. So you can hear a little bit of the birds waking up this morning. Probably a little irritated with me because I have disturbed the area. Anyway, so I wanted to bring you guys along this morning. I also just got news from my husband James who is hunting on the other side of the state right now, in East Texas. He's still… he's bow hunting right now and he's celebrating via text message – you know that your quiet celebration as a hunter that's like the loudest whispering you've ever done in your life. He just harvested a trophy buck that he has been watching for a couple years – beautiful, mature buck probably sitting in about six and a half. So I am absolutely elated for him right now. You know if you've ever had… ever been hunting with other people, you got hunting buddies there's just there's very few better feelings in the world than being able to follow and manage these white-tailed deer out here especially in Texas year over year, and then to watch them like peak, to watch them through every rut, to watch them as they kind of stake their claim, and they become you know the oldest and the brute of the bunch and then to be able to harvest that buck there is there are very few match feelings to that. And I just know he is like absolutely beside himself right now with excitement. So that's cool to be able to bring you guys to the blind and then to get that news from him literally minutes ago, so I am jumping from joy for him – silently, of course and trying to be as still as possible because this might be the loudest swivel chair that we have. It's fine.

So just to wrap up this episode with you guys - the Managed Lands Deer Program. If you have not considered it as a landowner or even as a leasing hunter on private lands in Texas, it's definitely something to consider. You can find tons of information about it on the Parks and Wildlife website under MLDP Managed Lands Deer Program. It's intended to foster and support that sound management and stewardship of the native wildlife and wildlife habitats on private land in Texas. And for us, I know for me specifically, finding the best solution for us that took out a lot of that guesswork was really critical because we do have a lot of hunters and we have a family partnership. So it helped us to make the decisions that made the most sense without feeling like you're trying to capture all the nuances that come with deer hunting. So, you know, obviously for us, the deer harvests, especially in the Texas Hill Country is definitely an important aspect, but just general habitat management conservation.

So we started… there's two different options just to give you a rundown really quick so you don't have to do all the Googling yourself. There's two options. There's a harvest option and a conservation option. The harvest option is where you'll start no matter how long you've been managing, if it's your first year on the program. Most of the time a wildlife biologist is going to have you hop on the harvest option to start the program to figure out how it feels for you to make sure it's the right the right fit for the property. It's kind of an automated do-it-yourself option for MLD participation and it provides landowners with more so like deer harvest recommendations and tag issuance and general guidance about wildlife and wildlife habitat management. So participation in the harvest option does not require habitat management practices, deer population data or for the property to receive technical assistance from TPWD, like for you to have a wildlife biologist set foot on your property and do a site visit. So it's you know it's kind of like the lowest barrier to entry if you're trying to figure out if this is the best option for you. Based on the habitat area, the ecoregion that you're in and just that most basic available data that the wildlife biologist has, they'll make a decision on the correct number of tags for your property.

Now the next level up to that which is the conservation option, which is what our family ranch, the Pike Davis Ranch in the Texas Hill Country is operated under, but it offers us kind of the opportunity to work directly with our TPWD biologist who you guys have heard me talk about a lot, even in this episode. Joyce has been working with us since 20- I can't, I always get this year wrong. I think I was 2019, is when we started this. But she provides us like customized ranch specific, tailored to us and our operation and our bottom line, what we need to achieve, habitat and deer harvest recommendations. She also gives us, you know, she issues the tags for us for white-tailed deer. If you're in a part of Texas that has mule deer, she or your wildlife biologist would also offer you mule deer tags. It doesn't require a whole lot more the conservation option, but you do have to report certain types of deer data. Again, going back to those the wildlife surveys that we conduct every year and then we do report on specific habitat management practices each year. So the Texas Parks and Wildlife has I think it's seven different categories of wildlife habitat management practices that you are probably already doing if you're managing your property. So just making sure that you're keeping track of that but it's also helpful just from a record standpoint for us. We have one point in the spring where me and my dad and my grandfather and usually a couple other people in the family just kind of sit down and have like an hour touch base on like what are the things that we achieved this year. And usually we do have documentation of a lot of that so it's an easy one-and-done, submit, and that's you've kind of met your requirement there. You have to do that in order to continue to participate in the program. So I think from a management standpoint that should be kind of a minimum requirement anyway, just to make sure that you're keeping track of what's going on.

I've been distracted by this doe that is coming down a hill from the south and I don't think that she's detected that anything weird is going on, but she's a little cautious, it's the wind is, it's been breezy this weekend, you know in typical Hill Country fashion. It hasn't truly rained since I recorded the first part of this episode and then yesterday the clouds rolled in and I was like “Oh well here you go we're gonna round out this episode and it's gonna rain,” so it rained for a while yesterday. You know like good rain that just seeps into the soil, and the sun came out for a little bit yesterday evening and this morning the clouds are low sitting on sitting right above some of these those hilltops back there and the wind is kind of swirling just a little bit but just breezy. So it's one of those very quiet, except for me, hunting mornings out here.

So anyway, that's just a little bit of background on the MLD program. I felt like this is the best time of year to really start having this conversation, you know if it hasn't been, if it's not the best fit for you this year as a land manager or a landowner it's definitely something that's helped us and even this year we have seen an increase in the deer weight. One of the things that we've talked about as a family is, you know, keeping track of that data, the biological data year-over-year, which is, you know, something you should be doing anyway, but as a part of the program. Anytime we harvest, you know, we definitely take live weights, we take dress weights, and we document antler growth, we document, you know, lactation on does, and several other small little data points that just teach you more about your deer harvest. And something that we learned recently is you know you're looking at… when you're dressing out a deer that just the fat content and trying to make sure that you understand how healthy that deer is and what the range is providing. And you know, we're on a low-fence property in the Hill Country. So it's been cool to just learn anatomically that the more fat you see, especially around the organs, the healthier and higher nutrition content that that deer has received. And for us, as we're managing the habitat and the range land out here, I remember specifically seeing in previous years deer with very little fat around the organs and I mean that tracks with the competition that we had out here we were way over carrying capacity on whitetail, we were not burning as often as we should, we were not looking at truly what was on the ground in terms of competing livestock versus the wildlife that's out here. So it's definitely gratifying to see year over year when you make those very specific decisions that don't truly require a whole lot of you, to just shift your mindset into more of a conservation, healthy landscape, healthy wildlife kind of perspective on things. It's been cool to see how that's changed over the years but our deer weights have gone up, the nutrition on the ground, the forage that they have, the options that they have through the summer and through the winter have increased tremendously.

We're not seeing browse lines like we used to like my uncle mentioned earlier in the episode. We're not seeing the same sort of depletion in some of the forbs and vegetation that we used to. And you know, you can only make that decision once you decide you're going to learn to recognize what that looks like. So again, just for our family and entrance into more of a conservation-minded land and wildlife habitat management planning and perspective, the MLD program was sort of that door into that space because it required all of us. It wasn't just one or two of us in the family partnership to push that forward. It was every hunter on the property needed to have a better understanding of what harvesting whitetail on our property needed to look like. And then outside of hunting season, what health looked like for them, and in general trying to learn better for our property. What right looks like under certain conditions so that's just you know from our perspective from my perspective that was kind of the value of hopping on this MLD program.

So again, you can Google Managed Lands Deer Program in the state of Texas to get a little bit more information about it. I'm super excited that I got the opportunity to leave my sleeping kiddos behind at the cabin with my dad and Heather and sit out here with you guys at the Coffee Blind, just looking out over the vista and some of these hills back here in the background, and to watch some of these deer come back in after I accidentally disturbed them. Me and my backpack. 

So thank you guys for listening to this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you learned some… a little bit about you know deer hunting what it looks like, hunting as a group, as a family. Managing a property, maybe just tweaking a few things that have changed over time and looking into the MLD program through Texas Parks and Wildlife. Let me know if you have any questions. It's been an adventure, a journey for us. We're constantly learning, but the most important thing I think is that we are having open conversations all the time about, again, this idea of what right looks like for us. Thinking about the parameters that are set up for us, for the caliber or deer that we want on our property, and knowing what we know about what's on the range when we go out. So, thank you for listening to this episode of the Land Steward Podcast and we will be back on soon.

[Outro music]

Blooper:

[36:32]

BW: Listen, I think stealth is the true mark of a bow hunter, so if you can shoot something at ten yards [laughing]

Matt: Listen, just because, just because you’re half the size of a normal person… Hunting with the Oompa Loompas.

BW: Oookay.

[Laughter]

Dad: Capable of sneaking up [inaudible]

[Laughter]

James: Wonder what the rest of the hobbits have to say about that.

BW: Shut-

[Laughter]

BW: This is definitely going in the podcast.