Whitetail Landscapes - Whitetail Deer Master Class Event, Elevate Your Hunting Game

0:00This episode of the sportsman's empire is brought to you by interstate batteries. Since 1952, interstate batteries has been evoking compassion and a trustworthy spirit into the surrounding communities. Interstate batteries is a mission driven company fueled by purpose and guided by their values. If you need help locating a specific battery, stop into your local interstate batteries retail store and speak with a battery specialist. They even offer cell phone repairs. Interstate batteries outrageously dependable. Welcome to Maximize Your Hunt, the podcast dedicated to those who want the most out of their hunting property. This podcast explores land management, habitat improvement, and hunting strategies that will help you maximize your time in the field. Follow along as industry professionals that live and breathe whitetail deer share their secrets to success.

1:00And now, the founder of Whitetail Landscapes, your host, John Teter. Hi, I'm John Teter, Whitetail Landscapes. This is Maximize Your Hunt. Welcome back, everybody. Hopefully everybody's doing well. I'm in between client visits, so I need to do a quick one here today, and I hope that you enjoy this. This is just going to be me one-on-one. And you know, I just wanted to let everyone know. I appreciate everybody who's supporting me, who supports the podcast, who shares the podcast. You are supporting my business. You are being a steward, more than likely of the land, and you're hopefully the information that we provide resonates with you. And it means something to you because a lot of this is about connection. This podcast is intended to create a relationship, a relationship with you and me, and everybody that listens to this every single week that follows me that is die hard and appreciates everything that is presented and brought to the table. Those are the folks that I think really get it. And those that don't listen to the podcast get them to listen because, you know, they'll

2:05start shifting their way that they approach things and, you know, my idea is really to cross-pollinate with all these different consultants, with all these different experts in different fields, and try to glean from them some ideology, some philosophy, something that maybe makes us think differently and is creative. And creativity is a big piece of this. Somebody reached out to me the other day. Young man, 16 years old said, I'd like to do this. I've been doing food plots. I'd like to do what you do. I want to be you. I want to essentially do what you're doing. And there's a piece of this that said, and I said to him, I said, you're at the perfect age to start, but you need about four or five years of just, you know, hands-on training and learning. Nobody's going to give you that. You know, there's an education side of the house, which I think is relevant. You can go to school, you know, maybe natural resources, wildlife management. There's a lot of things that you can do, but you've got to get dirty, you've got to get your hands, you know, kind of in this game.

3:07And one of the things that I did, and I would recommend this for anybody, you know, do 20 or 30 clients for free. Go work with people that you've, you don't know, and build relationships with them. That'll teach you the business side of this thing. They'll also teach you how to build relationships. And once you start to learn how to do this in your own way, your own creative way, you'll start to develop a methodology. We each paint differently, you know, the brushstrokes that we each apply on a canvas are going to be laid a little differently. And that piece is really, really critical. You have to bring your own elements, your own flavor, always with clients, they say, what do you know? What do you don't know? What do you want to know? I think this should look like. And in those discussions, you learn a lot about their perspective. When you have an outside perspective brought into something that may be almost unrelated, but it's the ideas. And when you consolidate their ideas, your clients ideas with your concepts, a lot of times

4:09you create this, you know, this team mentality. And I think when you create those 20 or 30 clients on your own without any payment, you're showing them that you're willing to sacrifice and take time out of your life in order to benefit them. And this sport is a selfless sport. Anybody who's doing this for cloud or to boast themselves as something special, essentially doesn't, doesn't have your interest in mind. They're selfish. And so, you know, my objective is to kind of eradicate that. I have to get paid for my time, right? I have so much invested in so much knowledge and experience. But I'm at that point, this is 20 years later, I'm finally at that point, but it took a long time to get here. And I sacrificed, I gave, you know, those multiple clients for free opportunities to work with me. And I started to say, you know, I'm, I'm valuing my time more because I have more expertise. And it took a long time to build that up. So that's my recommendation.

5:09I get inquiries like that all the time. I think there's probably been at least the past couple of years, 50 years, so inquiries, people want employment and stuff like that. And I'm definitely favorable to have more relationships with folks when it comes to doing work. But the bottom line is this field is starting to get, you know, I think a little more polluted. And I think some of the people we put on pedestals, and I mentioned this multiple times over, maybe shouldn't be on the same pedestals they are. Most of the time, they're selling products. And I see that, you know, there's some individuals that are almost dictators in this sport. And you know, what say, what they say goes and anything else beyond that is wrong. And I don't think there's, there's wrong in right ways. There's more correct ways. And there's more optimized ways to do things. But there's efficiency in all this. And then there's new ideas that are brought to the table. And this podcast is supposed to propel that type of thinking. And this is the sharing credibility that I think you all get every single week. So I just want to just sit back and think a little bit about that.

6:10And think about what you bring to the table. The concepts and ideas and strategy that you can bring if you have a consulting visit. And that consult that will be more educated because of your relationship. It's not always my turn to teach. It's my turn to listen sometimes. I think sometimes I'm in the field. I'm working with clients. Boy, I just won't stop talking because I am so passionate about getting this much information out there. And that takes away some time from the conversation because you've got a short window to work with these individuals. You've got to give them a consolidated report. You've got to have a plan, but they have to have the carnal knowledge. And I think through this podcast, we've started to build some of those foundational elements. Of course, I haven't shared everything with you. If you unless you're a client and you're doing work with me with me for several years, you will not learn the master plan. But we're going to talk a little bit about my master class here today. So oh, hand, one other thing. I wanted to give a shout out because I did get a review. And I wanted to make sure that this individual is recognized.

7:11Please continue to give reviews on Apple iTunes. And then on Spotify, you can leave comments. I noticed that the other day, which is really cool. And I responded back to some of you. So I appreciate you leaving comments. So here's the review. John Spockass is easily the most informative and relevant source of whitetail habitat improvement information for the everyday outdoorsman. He had allowed me to see the great opportunity on my small track of land. Josie 232, please reach out to me. Joe, I'm not sure which client you are, but you definitely sound like a client of mine. So I appreciate you. And those that want to give reviews, please do that. Anybody on the mtech network that's listening to this podcast, if you'd like to get all of me for consulting or support, my number is 315-559-0617-315-559-0617. In addition to that, you can contact me at John, J-O-N, at whitetaillandscapes.com. All right. Let's get into the podcast. So my masterclass is this July, July 18, 2026.

8:15It's on my website. I want to talk a little bit about that. I want those that listen to this podcast to attend, I do have a bunch of attendees, but I wanted to take some time to dedicate to the purpose of that event. The event is on my property in Tulling, New York. That would be the central part of New York State. You can fly into Syracuse and there's local accommodations. There are people flying in from all over the country, which is great. They're just not local. So you've got a chance to commiserate and learn from people around you. We're going to do roughly two to two and a half miles last year, excuse me, two years ago. We did about 3.2 miles. It was a little bit long, but I wanted everyone to see every inch of the property that we could show. We missed a whole bunch in that. I'm working on some new design concepts that I want to show during that event, how I move and utilize water in different spaces. And then more importantly, at the end of this podcast, I'll talk about the tree species that I've recently bought for my property. I won't go into how I'm going to lay them out on these two parcels that I own.

9:15We're only going to look at the larger 50 acre parcel. But some of these tree species are really critical to the overall design. All right. Let's get into what you're going to learn at the master class. And this should be informative. I hope for some people that are thinking about how to kind of constrip these events. And basically, we're going to start out the day doing kind of some basic agenda type items. We're going to have an agronomy expert there. We're going to have an equipment expert there, forester there, a professional forest there, doing some forest layout with you all. I'm going to identify all stand locations on a map. We're going to go through a circuitous route through my property. We're going to look at all my bedding areas the way they cut them and set them up. We're going to look at all my water systems. We're going to look at the food pot layouts, all the layering systems throughout the entire property. So you're going to see pretty much, you know, 80, 70, 80 percent of my property. And you're going to see how unique and different those property is. It's, there's a lot of steep terrain that may or may not relate to your particular property.

10:20But I'll give you a diverse perspective on the layout and things that I consider when I do lay. The benches, the cutting on hillsides, you know, hillside management, how I approach those topics. And we've talked a bit about this on this podcast. I did do a podcast recently and it was pretty detailed, legendary habitat. I did a podcast with Colin there and there was some good information on hillside cutting and things that I would do different. So you could go over and listen to his podcast if you want more information on that. But we can certainly do more on this podcast. And if people want to listen to certain topics here on this podcast, please reach out. Overburden me with emails, but please reach out and have some detailed topics that you want to address. And I would certainly be willing to do that. All right. So my objective during this master class is one to give you a bunch of information. You'll get a big packet. And then in addition to the packet, you are going to get a great opportunity to have me do your grounding work on your food plots. And that's included. So for the price of the day, you actually get the option to have me review your soil.

11:25And your soil chemistry. And so you will go to a certain lab. You will go through a certain protocol. And then I will receive your chemistry evaluation and I will provide you a recommendation. I will provide you a strict agronomy recommendation with solutions. And these are longer term solutions for your property. And then I will give you my abbreviated version, which is detailed and depth specific that you would want what I would recommend normally for clients. So that'll give you kind of some added value a part of that visit. So that's a bonus feature I didn't do with the folks last time. I am offering that or I will start offering some of those services because I've done so much agronomy stuff for various clients. And I'm doing it for all my clients now, but for folks in the future that will maybe a service that I provide. So part one is getting into my mind, the philosophy of design. And I had mentioned that I did a event with the National Deer Alliance this past year.

12:26And I got into some of my philosophies and design. Some of it's very basic and some of it's what's being missed in the industry. Some of the, I'll just say, bad actors or bad advisors in this industry really don't take an ecology approach to design. They're just hunters that feel like they know a little bit about landscape design. If hunting was always that easy, anybody would be doing it. And you know, the landscapes we work on also aren't easy. So you know, you have to be kind of well disciplined in this field. But we're going to manage, we're going to talk about managing our properties for holding capacity. And we're going to work through the attraction factor. And attraction can be temporary, but our designs hold dear longer. So the concept of building, betting, security and year-round nutrition is a big element of that. And most properties fail with creating the correct level of security cover. And their layouts, which you'll get to see my betting area layouts, will prescribe

13:27exactly the methodology behind that. Deer are attracted to edges. And there's types of edges, there's soft edges, there's hard edges. And there is, in my mind, a variation in how you layout edges within betting areas on edge, and edges of betting areas around corners or outside parts of betting areas. But you know, edge density and diversity in these areas has to be well thought out. And whitetail health and survival kind of surrounds that security and their related behavior. And most times, deer that relate to the various acotones of habitat type do so because they have security built into those designs. So there's a methodology with laying out edges that create an effect of interest for deer, whether it's a food interest and a security interest. And if you do it correctly, you're going to increase some daylight movement. And we'll go through that in my designs.

14:29Early succession is really a big part. You know, mature woods is essentially our deer deserts or biological deserts, at least on the understory of that forest. But it's important to make sure we walk through the correct disturbances. We will be looking at these systems of systems and Tim Russell, who's the professional forester that I mentioned earlier, will break down a forest in where I'm managing for timber quality and managing for timber in concert with food valued areas is something that you can combine. So I think in the Midwest, most time we think of a Savannah or Woodland type scenario where there's understory food, maybe not shrubby cover or security cover, but food resources. We have a combined approach where we do sometimes it could be a maple beach stand where you have a whole bunch of different options to create this ideal overstory and understory management regime. And we're going to go into how I employ those on the landscape and how I get deer to use

15:30those and adjacent to some of the other features. So we're going to connect pieces of the property. In the next piece of it, we're looking at our design habitat, like an ecosystem engineer. I have a technical background. So I'm always looking at how do you prescribe this and what are the steps that you need to take to make this area function. So we're going to go through bedding area architecture, how you lay out different bedding locations, hinge cutting, thermal cover, you know, where I place bedding, how I design group or single bedroom locations for the animal and then how I get them to move from section to section. So this is going to be very intimate. This is, you know, this is what you need to see to be successful. Now, this is one example. This is not how I cut every single property, but I'm my property. This is what I've employed a couple of the bedding areas that I have laid out. They have held the majority of my deer and I cut them like so minimal and they've been able to kind of like being this, I don't want to say low maintenance, but pretty low maintenance mode for years and years and years.

16:32And then I'm going to go on this year and maybe be a little bit more constructed so you can see the ways that I might cut another property or similar property to mine because I have changed the way I cut and I learn every single year how to do some of these layouts so they're more functional. So that's a big piece of this. So we'll talk about timber management for regeneration, you know, how we lay out a stand for oaks. I do have smokes in my property, but when we cut, you know, group selections versus individual trees, how we do clear cuts, you know, kind of managing sunlight and all that equation. And then focusing on softmast and hardmast apart of those systems. And most importantly, you know, creating the most native browse available, you know, for deer with the exception of, you know, increasing food plot value. So, you know, complementing one versus the other, I mean, generally 80% at least right now in my areas, you know, they're focused on woody browse and managing some of the stump sprouts and having a rotation of cutting on your landscape. That's all part of what you're going to learn here on this design.

17:34And again, you know, I've got information from other master classes that folks have done as well as some training that people employ. It's just more involved because the system has to be. And we can't have, you know, simple minds when it comes to these layouts, you have to be more complex with your thinking. And just, you know, looking beyond just food plots, looking at your properties and entire food system and designing some of those nutritional curves. So, you know, there are no ebbs and flows of food. It's very consistent. And you're thinking about, you know, protein in the spring, digestible energy in the summer, fall, you're thinking of carbohydrates, liners, survivability, high levels of browse. So you're thinking about those elements laid out in some uniform approach. And you know, looking at the plants themselves, what does the plant provide from a architecture standpoint, thinking about the diversity in our food plots with the above ground biomass, how those are laid out. And you'll get to see my food plot systems and probably eat some of my plants in the field if you're interested.

18:34Some of the other systems, no tilling, I do roller crimping, I've done that for over 10 years and throwing growth systems, you know, at least at least 10 years, not probably 12 years I've been doing that. And just mimicking some of these successful habitats, we're going to get into, you know, some principles of design when it comes to food plots. And basically just stacking biomass so the deer are highly attracted to these areas. And you'll get into the details of how I design hunting setups, looking at, you know, my wind and access, how to create these bulletproof entry and exit systems. And working trail systems within there for deer, how I layer my screening, what areas are huntable, creating optimal distances, I have deer bedded within 60 yards of most of actually one of my primary hunting locations and how I get in and out of that location. So there's a lot that can be employed in your design and setup where you can have deer very close to the hunter and hunt these stands multiple times.

19:36And thinking about your property and zones, a lot of times we try to use blocks or concentric rings as a means to kind of segregate areas. But having the zones transitioned to, you know, usable space for deer and creating these corridors where we have movement traps where I can collect data, I can analyze, you know, what's happening these areas. And really, the ultimate goal is measuring utilization. And then we'll talk about water, water is I think the most important resources resource beyond sunlight that we can use on our landscape and using that as a tool, a tool to, you know, move and improve areas because water improves the fertility in most of our landscapes. And creating these microclimates where deer are going to be highly attracted to an area. These small water holes or pond sources, you know, they're good for, you know, some element on interest for deer. But let's think about increasing those sizes of those particular areas and how we're going to do that to maybe regulate and create a better thermal mass in the landscape. So we have better thermal regulation in these microclimates and highly water rich plants.

20:40And you would get to see how I kind of laid that out in my design. And most importantly, how do we hold mature bucks? My property over the years, even if I don't have good cohorts of year and a half and two and a half and three and a half year old deer, I've been killing four year old bucks or older on my property consistently. And there's factors in that that keep those deer in those particular areas and knowing how much security covers enough. And why some of these deer avoid some of these, you know, farms that have some of the features we think they're interested in, but why they don't function appropriately and you'll get to see how you do that on a landscape. And I still think about the aesthetic value of these areas. And a lot of it, a lot of it boils down to building different echo tones within bedding areas and field areas and forest stands that create that value to the animal and it creates movement and flow that edge and flow principle will be emphasized a lot. We think of the social structure of the animal on our particular property and I would ask

21:41you to just start doing the same. Think about where the family groups tend to congregate and, you know, they may display some of the bucks in your property and maybe hunting pressure is another factor and why deer are not socially as active on your property. And then we're going to bring in brand new concepts you'll learn a little bit about agroforestry layouts. Unfortunately, you know, I don't have those systems exactly dialed in on my property, but other client properties that we're working on. That is the case. You'll get to see some centropic layouts where it's inspired a little bit like habitat blocks. I'll call them, but we have these stacked vertical layers and guilds and shrub layers with embedded in these individual areas for attraction. And then you'll look at the tree species that I've planted on my landscape where I've got them from how I've integrated them and designed a great movement of flow to attract deer. And then most importantly, what effort this took and how much time I got involved in this property will be a big part of the discussion. And having a plan, I mean, a lot of this is thinking through the time and effort you're

22:44willing to put in your property and measuring the success, you know, sometimes my success is just looking at, you know, I'll look at, you know, I'll do a bud survey in an area where there's a bunch of woody material and how many terminal buds are being eaten versus not eaten and what species and just looking at, you know, what they prefer and not and increasing the value of interest, especially this time of year where, you know, their predominant diet is around woody material. And then looking at your trail camera data and how important that is to looking at trends of movement and consistency. And if you have these buck age class shifts, which I've seen older deer, you know, randomly show up and be more attracted to my property because all the features that we're providing and I think you heard in one of the other podcasts, you know, a four and a half year old buck spending 19 out of 20 days of my property and then leaving for a day and then coming back for five more. I mean, it just says a lot about and during all daylight hours, you know, how interested that deer was in the property and really providing them everything they need. And really, you know, I only needed to kill that one buck and, you know, having that opportunity

23:49to interact with that deer would have been, you know, kind of the ideal scenario. And obviously my probability goes up every time that deer steps foot on my particular property. So these are kind of like the big ticket items that we're going to go through. A lot of habitat advice you receive isn't correct. And it's because it's in the context of their either simple, simple, minded approach, which doesn't consider the ecosystem as a whole. Or it's because they're trying to get you to go down this road of conventional practices. And if we know anything, if we know anything when it comes to conventional farming or life, that we've most of the time have lived in this cookie cutter world where we haven't been able to be very creative. And what that's detracted from is what we know intuitively. And there's some intuition in this that I think hopefully everyone takes away where they can connect better with their property. And again, you need tools to do that. But sometimes your property will speak to you and you'll have the opportunity to rearrange

24:54it. Because like I've said to my daughter many times, be the frog. When you are the animal, you can be the animal and you can feel what the animal is going to do. When I walk a property now, I'm not John, I'm the animal, I'm that mature deer that is walking every inch, thinking the way an animal would think for my benefit. And so that's the way I connect with these animals. I am the animal. And so when you're that in tune with an animal, all the ecological theory and advanced property design strategy that we'll go through kind of dissipates. And you know, being something that you currently are and being in tune with something will give you a different perspective. You'll see it in their lines. And that's part of one of the goals I would like from the master class. You're starting to look at your landscape like an animal. You're using their sensory functions, you're thinking, you're approaching things in a very similar way. And it's a very divergent way to look at it. But when my daughter was able to be the frog, the next thing you know, for her not finding

25:59a frog in one of the ponds, because she couldn't, she wasn't quick enough. She wasn't being the frog, she wasn't taming the frog. She wasn't reacting and moving the way a frog would move. When she started to move the way an animal would move, then the next thing you know, she's catching the frog. She's integrating herself into that world. And she's understanding, you know, what that particular animal or insect or amphibian or reptile, she's understanding how that animal relates to its world and she's becoming in tune with it. And that was a big part of her success. And we always say when she tries to figure something out, especially when it comes to something like that, you know, be the turtle, be the deer, be them. And she has more intuition than I think that most of us do because we've lost touch with that over the years. All right. That's kind of the, just to the master class, you are going to advance yourself, advance your knowledge and experience your kids to see an unbelievable hunting property. I think one of the best hunting properties in a highly pressured area and you'll get

27:01to hear some stories and experiences and connect with me. We'll have a good lunch. We'll have a lot of focus on just different things that I think, you know, we touch on in this podcast, what we're going to start to dig deep. All right. I said I would leave you with some information. I think that's always good. Let's always have a takeaway from this. What did John plant this year? What is he planning on his property this year? Well, the number one thing that I always plan on my property is Willows. I absolutely love Willows. We'll have a whole podcast and Willows this year and their significance on the landscape. But Willows become, in my opinion, mother trees. They are great of fostering and creating micro-roso connections with other plants. They create excellent structure. Some of them are excellent food sources. I have variety of Willows that I plant that you're ingest. Some are more for screening and protection and fencing and movement and security and those things. But it's one of my favorite plants to plant in the landscape. Other plantings, and you've heard probably some of this before, is lilacs. I'll be planting faults indigo. Types of crab apples. And I'm not going to get into specifics because certain crab apples do really well in my

28:06areas and other ones do not. So it's a bit of a trial and error in your area. I would ask the same thing. Norway spruces. I plant Norway spruces much greater than white spruces because of how they survive in my particular area and how well they do in the landscape. Although we planted a bunch of white pine last year and created quite a good plant to put in the landscape. We'll be planting nine bark, American plum, red mulberry. We are buying some trees from Blue Hill Nursery. I've mentioned that before. I always like to shout out Rhine because I really enjoy his products. Some crab apples, some pears and persimmons from them. Chestnuts. Everyone knows I've mentioned enough on this podcast on chestnuts. We're doing a chestnut planting on both parcels. I think we're going to plant about 85 to 100 chestnuts on the properties. And I know in my backyard I got some goomy berries and black grants and a few other plants coming in back there. Cup plant and soak in. Let's see what else I got. I got some root stock coming in.

29:07I'm going to be doing some grafting on a couple of apple trees here that are local that have been holding apple crabs into the middle of February, which is pretty amazing on this tree that produces almost every year, which is also amazing. So I'm going to be taking some cuttings off that tree. We're going to plant some rhododendrums in a bunch of areas, native rhododendrum. And I think that's it. That's my list of trees that I'm planting this year. I think there's anywhere between, I think, let's see, probably five to 600 trees somewhere in that realm. I've got a couple kids, local kids here that wanted extra work. And guess what? They're going to get extra work. They're reasonably priced and they're willing to break their back for me and some pizza and a good hourly rate. I think they'll be very happy. And so those are the other things. Connect with individuals that are willing to help you. You know, I'm taking a local resource, a young man who said, hey, I need some extra work. And I said, great, you know, you want to plant a thousand trees?

30:09And are you willing to do it over a couple of weeks? He said, sure. I said, great. Then you'll have work every day. And, you know, he's obviously, you know, will be more experienced in that. And then I've got a, you know, a good individual to continue to help me do work. And, you know, that's, I like leveraging, you know, local kids that have an interest in thirst to learn as well to, to get some value and they're getting value with the education a part of just the physical, a nest of what we're going to do on the landscape. So those are always fun things for me. All right. Well, that's it for the podcast. Those that want to reach out to me for the master class, please do. The topics that we went through here, I think are numerous, but there's a lot more. The packet materials actually worth the class. There's enough in the packet. I'm redesigning the packet. And like I said, the soil sample support for you will be extremely valuable. And you get to see, you know, a high level hunting property that has everything kind of done to the nines, some of the best food plots, the best layouts.

31:10Some of the really amazing systems of design that I've kind of come to learn and approach on my property. So you'll get to see all that, including how I make biochar and how I create my compost teas and how I spread things in the landscape and just my systems and systems. All right. That's it for me this week. I'm on the road. And I'll talk to you all next week. Hopefully everybody continues to do well. See you. Maximize your hunt is a production of Whitetail Landscapes. For more information on how John Teeter and his team of experts can help you maximize your hunt, check out Whitetaillandscapes.com.