EP: 469 | Drones For Wildlife Surveys

On this episode we’re joined by Kurt Colgrove and Justin Ballard of Paragon Aerial Solutions. These guys are using drones to do wildlife surveys (think deer, turkeys, pigs and even coyotes), but they are actually kicking your typical drone survey up a few notches. We’re all familiar with doing annual deer censuses with trail cameras, but these guys have determined a way to have instant data. Its impressive. 

We talk about what all they have learned that could benefit a Gamekeeper. We also discuss the ethics and legal issues around drone usage.  

Listen, Learn, and Enjoy!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm Jeff Foxworthy, and welcome to Gamekeeper Podcast. If you want to learn more about farming for wildlife and habitat management, inviting you are in the right place. Join the Gamekeeper crew direct from Officer Land Enhancement Studios as they discuss the latest wildlife and habitat management practices. News, and of course, funny. There's no telling what you'll learn, but I'm going to tell you, I bet it's interesting. Enjoy.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

We're alive in three, two, one.

SPEAKER_05 0:28

All right, Lenny, that's enthusiasm. Jack, it's early. We're kind of early this morning.

SPEAKER_04 0:33

He's got a lot of pep in his stuff this morning. That's good. Thank you, Jackson, for counting down. Yeah. Look, uh guys, this is going to be interesting. You know, it's new technology and we're learning about it. Where does it fit in? Where does it not fit in? You know, we'll discuss some of that.

SPEAKER_05 0:49

I'm always on the quest for you know the best management practices for wildlife, and you know, that all revolves around uh good information.

SPEAKER_04 0:55

Yeah, yeah. That's right. So Dudley's not here. Dudley is traveling doing another podcast. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:01

I think it's with Matt White with uh MDWFP or Mystippy Outdoors, something like that. Miss Dippy, so he'll be in there representing uh left us hanging.

SPEAKER_04 1:09

So I went outside and just threw uh just threw a rock, and the first thing that I hit was John Tatum. So John is sitting here. In the flow in the house, the kazoo's for him. Sometimes when we when we have you, I I just I just I wonder why why did I what was I thinking?

SPEAKER_06 1:25

Well, we've been trying to get tried to get out of it, but you wouldn't let me.

SPEAKER_05 1:28

He well he felt he feels pressured because you know he said he was gonna bring a bunch of crappie fillets down here and cook them. Oh, bring Mr. Black Eyed Pete's any time. They didn't grow. So I know you caught some fish. Your wife still won't let us have any.

SPEAKER_06 1:46

No, she likes it.

SPEAKER_04 1:47

All right. Look, let me look around the room. We've got so up uh all the way from Minnesota, we've got Todd Amonrood, who uh edits our magazine. Welcome, Todd. Let's hear. Todd is uh, you know, he's a serious deer hunter. Uh very. And we're talking talk about drones today. He shot a drone down in his backyard one time. So a neighbor was trying to spy on him, I think. Or Todd thought he was spying on his deer, and Todd full choked that drone like that. You don't mess with Todd.

SPEAKER_07 2:22

Uh how are things in Minnesota today? It's cooler today for a change. We got a tiny little bit of rain this morning, uh, but it's been hot and dry where I am. So are y'all planting food plots yet? Absolutely. All right. In fact, we're finishing up planting food plots.

SPEAKER_05 2:42

All right. What'd you plant?

SPEAKER_07 2:45

Uh everything. Everything, Land. Everything.

SPEAKER_05 2:49

I mean, everything like he when in the staff meetings on Monday, he won't quit talking. He's not talking at all.

SPEAKER_07 2:55

That's that's terrible. Well, if you really want to know, we we planted some uh deer radish, some uh cereal grains, oats, and wheat. Uh uh we got lots of stuff in the ground, though. That sounds like a virtual biologic buffet up there.

SPEAKER_04 3:11

All right. Well, let me look over here on the couch. We've got two guys they drove all the way over here from West Alabama. Yeah, across the state line. Yeah, yeah. So we've got Mr. Kurt Colgrove. Yes, sir. And we've got Justin Ballard. Good morning. And it looks like there's been a lot of weightlifting going on with the line. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 3:33

Bobby's Bobby's intimidated, isn't it? Well, you know, I work out every day, but I my my mistake.

SPEAKER_04 3:38

You can't look at me until I don't know why. I mean, I need to do something differently. And I understand that you guys produced uh did some charity work last year and got John a turkey. And we just want to thank y'all for that.

SPEAKER_03 3:50

Yeah, it was it was it was difficult. He needs all the help he can get. It was difficult. We had a good time, though. We had a real good time. We were on turkeys the whole time.

SPEAKER_05 3:58

Hey man, you can't go wrong with that. No, but West Alabama in places has got a lot of turkey. Yeah, we were talking about you know where they're they're from, man. It's some of the the most best-looking land I've ever seen, I believe. Rolling Hills, good dirt. That part of the world grows uh just a lot of wildlife. Yeah, black belt, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:16

Green County, I think, g has more non-typical re record book deer come out of that Green County area than anyone.

SPEAKER_03 4:24

It's it's a lot of them, and it and it's still a lot of them. Um not as many getting killed, but but it's still a lot of it's still good deer there.

SPEAKER_05 4:33

Yeah, no doubt.

SPEAKER_04 4:34

Yeah. Well, normally we would do we'd start this thing off with rapid fire. It's brought to you by Nutrient Act Solution, so we'll still get credit for that. That's right. At least we can say it. Dudley's hung us out to dry here. Uh-huh. So, well, this particular And John refused to do it. Well, yeah. Well, he can't just reading is a challenge. So uh why don't we just get right into this? And um look, when I talked to you, John was telling me that uh about how you were surveying some hunting properties and you were learning things. It was just shocking, you know, about deer movement, things that you learned. And then when you and I talked on the phone, you know, a couple of first questions you asked me kind of put me on the spot. Uh it it sounds like you really have learned a lot through the it just tell us about that whole process, how you got started doing this.

SPEAKER_03 5:25

Well, how we got into the to the drones was um there's some pieces of property close to mine, and some bigger deer were getting killed, or do over and I got a phone call that that a deer that I'd been watching had been shot and got couldn't find him. And I didn't find out about this until about four or five days later. Went in there and I looked for the deer for three or four days and could not find him. And I said, I'm I'm fixing to get me a drone to where I can, you know, if this won't happen again, maybe. Um got to flying looking, talking to Justin, went to one of his places, and he had cameras out, um, knew his deer herd pretty well.

SPEAKER_08 6:10

Yeah, we we had like 40 cameras on 1600 acres. I'm like, surely we know all the bucks on this property. Yeah. And in 30 minutes, it was either. Yeah, we'd found a couple bucks right off the bat that we had never seen. Never seen. And they were, I mean, they weren't studs, but still. You're talking about flying with the drone, flying with the drawing with a drone with thermal drawing. Okay. We're looking at I'm looking at deer that I've we've never seen with 40 plus cameras. You know, like well, I mean, there's you know we've we've talked about it a lot.

SPEAKER_05 6:40

Some of them avoid them. I mean, it's like they know good evidence of that, too. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:44

It's crazy. That then he got a drone, and then we just kept on flying and and getting better with them and all that, and said, Well, let's let's do some surveys for some people, and then it just morphed into something that's this.

SPEAKER_08 6:57

We we got a 700-acre high fence, and so we started flying it, and we flew it, I don't know, ten or twelve times, and we started realizing we're counting 105, 106, 105, 105, 106 every single time we're flying. So we're like, Well, wait a minute, we can be pretty accurate. Like, this is I think we're catching every single deer out here. Um, so it gave us the confidence that we were actually seeing everything. That's right, every single time.

SPEAKER_04 7:21

So are y'all seeing pigs and uh just coats, uh all uh you could kind of give a guy an inventory of what's at that point in time is on his place.

SPEAKER_03 7:30

We did the survey on our place last year. We had to stop counting pigs around 250, and we estimated we had over 400 on my place. So that drone won't drop napalm or anything? I wish it would. And so um, yeah, we we can give a well, we can't give a good number on pig because there's so many in a group, you know, if they're running around and all that, so we just kind of mark them and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and they put a like a dash twelve, you know, that was twelve in that group, five in this group, you know, and so you kind of get an idea of baseline of how many you got.

SPEAKER_08 8:04

Yeah, the pigs and the coyotes, um turkeys really difficult to see because they got that little bitty body mass, all those feathers, they don't put off a big heat signature. Good. And then they're also the same size as squirrels and raccoons and everything else. And if we stopped and looked at every single one of those during the survey, well then it just takes too long.

SPEAKER_03 8:24

Yeah, their heat signature is about the size of a squirrel.

SPEAKER_05 8:26

They got all those feathers and insulation around. So thank you, man. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:30

Well I mean so i all this that we're we're talking or we're gonna talk about, it are is it I guess it's it's legal. There's no there's no lines here uh that somebody's like, well, you shouldn't be I I'm I'm asking because I don't know, I don't know.

SPEAKER_08 8:47

Kurt when once Kurt showed me his drone and I decided I had to have one. A few days later, I go, I'm in the checkout, about to pay a lot of money for one of the for my first drone here. And I said, uh same put had the same question. This better be legal. So I picked the phone up and called the game warden and started having that conversation with him. And he said, Absolutely. You know, in in Alabama, it's basically considered scouting. Um so as long as you're not using the drone to actively hunt an animal, you can't have any kind of electronic communication uh during the hunt. Yeah. Um but as far as quote unquote scouting, uh yeah, it's it's perfectly legal. So wildlife surveys, I would I would think that's right.

SPEAKER_05 9:26

And do y'all do anything other than wildlife surveys? With the thermals, we'll we will do some deer recoveries.

SPEAKER_08 9:32

I mean, yeah, not many. Not not many. We we know a lot of people that do, and we'll we'll send folks to them.

SPEAKER_04 9:37

But see, you know, Lanny, I'm thinking if you're a guy and you're looking at buying a property, say let's just say it's 200 acres and you it's you've never been there before or whatnot, you can actually learn a little bit about the place and kind of know, well, this is this is you know, it's got deer on it that late in the afternoon or whatever. Yeah, but before you pulled the trigger and bought it, you you would you can have a better idea of what you have.

SPEAKER_08 10:01

Tell them about the other property.

SPEAKER_03 10:02

Yeah, we uh we had a guy that that wanted us to come do that and um before he listed it, so we go in and give him a deer survey. It was an incredible place, had 23 eight points on 573 acres. 570 acres, and it was four or five of them were over 140.

SPEAKER_08 10:20

I mean and so but but if you looked at the pictures online, like this the listing, you're you're not gonna be interested in it. And it maybe even if you rode to side by side around looking at it, you're not gonna be you're not that interested.

SPEAKER_03 10:32

I wasn't interested in it when we went to fly it that day. I'm like, what are we doing here? And picked the drone up. I was like, oh wow. Yeah. And I think he got it sold like the first or second person. I thought she was gonna say you bought it.

SPEAKER_05 10:44

No, no man. Hold up just a second.

SPEAKER_03 10:48

But I think he got it sold, first or second person that saw the deer survey bought it.

SPEAKER_05 10:52

Yeah, I bet so. Interesting. So are y'all running group do you just run grids and how many hours? Kind of what's the methodology behind you know this time of day or how long does it take?

SPEAKER_08 11:01

Or so before we show up, the property owner, they'll send us like a an on X link or something showing the property boundary. Um we'll take that, I'll enter it into all the different controllers, the drones that we're gonna fly, and depending on how big the property is, depends on how many we're gonna fly. So that kind of sets us apart from anybody else out there in the in the country that's doing this. So y'all got a fleet of these things. We got a fleet. Oh no, that's what I'm talking about. That's right. Like a swarm.

SPEAKER_03 11:25

Can you have we can have as many as five to six going at one time?

SPEAKER_08 11:29

Yeah. Yep. So on these bigger properties, we'll we'll we'll set up so if we've got five drones flying, uh, I'll have it pre-programmed on every single drone. Each person has their own air, they fly. And so if you add them all up, we make sure we cover the entire property. That way, each time somebody takes off, they know where to fly. We're not missing an area, or we're not double counting, you know, flying somewhere that's already been flown. Um, and then while we're flying, it's all they're all connected. And so every time somebody sees a deer, we drop a pin on it, and then the other pilots can see it. So we make sure you know we're aware of where everyone is.

SPEAKER_03 12:04

Yeah, I can see everywhere he's flown and everything he's dropped on. So if we get to a spot and he's coming up a line, you know, grid line, and I'm coming up the behind him or you know, different part of it. Well, I see two deer right here standing on my side. Zoom out and look what he just marked. Uh-huh. I'd be like, Justin, did you just mark a dough and a phone right here? Yes. So those deer traveled over 50, 70, 500 yards. Just make sure we're not double counting. Make sure we're not double counting. And then if I look around and say, okay, there's not two more deer in this area, that's the two that he just marked. Right.

SPEAKER_08 12:39

So we're flying, we're flying like using the thermal cameras, flying it's like you said, essentially a grid pattern uh back and forth. And then as we see, as you see the heat signature, we'll swap to the daytime camera. You can zoom in and you can count exactly how many points it has.

SPEAKER_05 12:56

See, I'll do most of this at daylight. Do it in daytime. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 12:59

Again, something different than nobody else does. It's gotta be overcast and cloudy for the thermals to work in the daytime. Um, but so you zoom in, you can count how many points, or see if it's a doe or coyote or pig or whatever it might be. Um, and then we'll drop a pen, just say like red for does, blue for bucks, and green for fawns. Um, and then if it's a buck, we'll we'll mark it, you know, nine point. Um and then take off to the next one. Well, before we take off, I guess we will take a few photos or a 20, 30 second video clip. Um that's because that's part of the deliberals we'll provide is you get to watch that buck in real time where he was during the survey. So so then we'll we'll again everybody, all the different drones are flying the same same type pattern. Um then once it's over, I'll compile all that information together, put it in a report, and send it out to the client.

SPEAKER_03 13:47

And we screen record from the time we take off to the time we're done. So if you have a question about the survey and you have uh eight hours to sit there and watch the two hours off of mine, his, yours, yours, you can sit there and watch the whole survey being done.

SPEAKER_08 14:04

And I tell you, uh one of the first questions that always comes up is how accurate do we think we are? Well, while we're flying, we've got an enclosed trailer with 50-inch TVs mounted on the outside of it. So we'll plug all the drones into the TVs. And so the the owner, client, whoever at hunting club, they can sit back and drink their coffee or and watch it in real time. And it doesn't take but about 10 minutes of watching it to you you make your own analysis of how accurate it is. Like they they just can't hardly hide.

SPEAKER_03 14:33

And and if you wanted to sit right here in this office, we can link you in and you can sit there and watch the survey on your computer while we're doing be 200 miles away.

SPEAKER_05 14:44

But y'all show up on site with this trailer, and that's where y'all did like command centers. That's right. This is pretty tactical.

SPEAKER_04 14:49

So we've talked about, you know, for as long as I can remember, uh, well, when we started getting cameras, every year we do camera surveys. Yeah. And and so this is this is the next level to a camera survey.

SPEAKER_05 15:02

It is, and the time, you know, that wildlife biologists have spent over the years going through photos and marking unique bucks, and you know, it's a very time-consuming process. It really is.

SPEAKER_03 15:14

It sounds like especially with the corn, putting having to go put the butt the you know the camera sites out. That's right. Another thing mentioning that too, uh don't get me wrong, I I agree with camera surveys. I mean, they are as close as as you can get, but where we are in Green County, we're an eight-point gene in the area that I'm in. Now, right down the river, they've got a 10-point gene, I'd say. There's more 10 points on this one particular property I know of than eight points. How can you uniquely identify five two-year-old eight points that look absolutely the same unless you had tags in their ears? They're all 120 inch eight points. All 120-inch eight points, you know.

SPEAKER_05 15:56

In my case, like 65 inch eight points.

SPEAKER_03 15:58

But you don't, they're all standing there in front of the camera, they all look the same.

SPEAKER_08 16:03

You know, and and then the does, how do you tell the difference between all the does?

SPEAKER_03 16:06

30 minutes later, I don't know their metrics that they use to count those, but I mean I know there is one. But the eight-point thing is is what we can go in there and give you a a one-day snapshot and count every eight-point on your place.

SPEAKER_05 16:18

Right. I think the condensed time frame is obviously an advantage.

SPEAKER_06 16:22

When I was with y'all, you talked about your place in particular and how you would fly, nobody hunting, nobody nothing, pick a good pretty afternoon when deer are supposed to be moving, and you would fly just to see what deer we're using and how they why why are they not using this place, but they're using this over here? Um but you got a big pretty food plot here and they're not in it. But why?

SPEAKER_03 16:49

And the habitat that you can do that you're going into and the the a lot of those deer are standing, you know, they're standing in the in the timber. I mean, they're eating, they're they're constantly eating, you know, walking around. Um they're gonna use the greenfields, but I know what you're talking about. I would go and fly. We flew our place a lot, being test place, learning, you know, better ways to do this. There were several pieces of uh spots on my place that never had a deer in it. Whether it be daytime, nighttime, whenever you're flying, never go in there and look. So I went in and and uh mulched it all down and planted uh brood habitat on all of it. So I've got a lot of spots of brood habitat on our place now. Because I mean, if the deer weren't using it then, make brood habitat, they'll use it. If you you make it for a turkey, a deer use it. And so trying to protect the turkeys, and and so that's what I did on my place, went in and so the deer's showing up there now? First year that I've done it.

SPEAKER_05 17:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 17:47

So so So you it sounds like you learned things. If so, if you got hunters in a club to agree not to hunt an afternoon and y'all flew just to kind of see what was going on, what what did y'all learn? Does anything shock you, surprise you?

SPEAKER_08 18:00

Um well, so you could, as part of that report, when I send you that map that's got all those pen locations of where the deer were during the survey, let's just say it was a thousand acre track, you'll see clumps of pens together. Uh you know, so you could you can tell where most of the deer hang out, and then you'll see these big areas where they don't hang out. And so that's what Kurt did. He took the areas where there was no deer and tried to find out why.

SPEAKER_03 18:24

That's right. And this could be shocking, but most of those spots were thickets. Oh, yeah. And they never were. Well, what was those?

SPEAKER_06 18:35

I was where no deer were. What was those plants that you're trying to get rid of?

SPEAKER_03 18:40

That was uh a Yopon Holly, is what they've been uh, you know, what it what it is, and and you would think that it would be great. Uh when it gets tall, say ten feet high, it's real clean up under it and it's cool in the summertime and warm in the winter in there. But they don't like them for thermal carver. They do not stay in it ever.

SPEAKER_08 19:03

Yeah, those those deer we all grew up thinking, you know, our dads and granddads taught us, you know, hunting, of course, growing up. And I thought all the deer always hung out in the thickest, you know, places, thickest bottoms. And we can just tell you from from flying last few years, those deer do not like walking through that thick stuff. You're your bigger butt mature bucks. I mean, you can watch them, we've got videos, hours of videos of these big mature bucks walking through that thick stuff, and they're dragging their head like they're they're visibly frustrated trying to walk through that thick of area. Not saying that they don't or that they won't walk in those areas, but they just look frustrated. Like, so why would they go in there if they didn't have to?

SPEAKER_04 19:44

So wouldn't it would are we talking about like during the pressure of deer sheep? Anytime, anytime.

SPEAKER_03 19:49

Anytime. Now, you know, definitely during the rut, he's gonna try to get a doe into it to where, you know, he can try to protect her. Um, because that's that's something totally different. Oh gosh. You're sitting there hunting, you know, and and you got these two or three bucks is chasing those one doe, you're not seeing the majority of the deer that's chasing her.

SPEAKER_08 20:10

Yeah, your whole life, we've we've all hunted the your stand, your greenfield, most everybody's seen a buck chasing the does before. Not a big deal. And maybe you saw one or two, maybe three bucks chasing that one doe, but that's not the big picture. The big picture, when you've got that drone in the sky, I mean there's 10 or 12 bucks. Nearly every single time chasing that one doe. They're just in a 30, 40 acre.

SPEAKER_03 20:33

In a in a circle around her. That's right. And he's trying to, you know, he's not a big thing. They're not in that one, two acre greenfield that you're sitting in. They're all around, you just never see them. And that poor sucker is fighting all day long, trying to uh keep keep them away from him. There are always a ton of bucks. There's never one or two. It's every bunch of them. He's always watching. We've got the videos. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_05 20:53

I mean can you see are like the smaller bucks staying on the fringe and the bigger ones?

SPEAKER_03 20:58

Tighter and it the yes, and then when he tries to get one of those, here comes that little buck in there trying to get to it.

SPEAKER_05 21:04

He's got his back turned. Let's go.

SPEAKER_03 21:05

And then he's back in there again. Uh it's it's it's pretty interesting watching it.

SPEAKER_08 21:11

I was gonna say, so we surveyed right at 192,000 acres last year's season. So we're we're not wildlifeologists, we're we're not trying to give advice there. We're just telling you guys. Here's a snapshot from we've saw a lot of deer. Yeah, yeah. That's just last season.

SPEAKER_04 21:27

Well, that just makes I mean I always knew the rut was exhausting, but that just uh it tires me out just to think about having to do that over a couple of week period of time.

SPEAKER_03 21:36

Well, you know, and there's and there's so many deer, it's happening two or three times a year. Right. You know, so he's he's he's worn down at the end of it. Yeah. Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 21:48

Well, what else have y'all what have have you learned that would surprise us?

SPEAKER_08 23:48

Let's let's go back to the kind of what our dads and uncles and grandads taught us growing up. Much if you do the opposite of what they said, you're usually a lot better off of what we learn. But the one thing that we as in notice, as in like hunt do not don't hunt the thickets. That's right, not hunting the thickets or yeah, that's right. Um, but one one thing that does check out, I'd at least know my dad, and you know, we we grew up firmly believing in is the moon phase, the feeding times. I mean, how often is that oh wait, wait, say that again? How often does that coincide?

SPEAKER_03 24:23

So we'll we we're flying and we want all the deer to be laying down when we're doing our survey. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 24:28

We want them laying down. We're flying and we'll notice, you know, all the deer laying down, then all of a sudden they'll start getting up. You start seeing them getting up. And we'll start, you are you seeing your deer get up? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:38

We might have four drones flying, and within 15 minutes of each other, every deer on the property is up walking. And somebody's like, Check the charts, check the charts, and we'll go look it up. And it's you're right there on it. Right there on it. During daylight hours, yes. Right there on what? The the major or the minor feeding periods. They will get up and start walking around. They might not go to a greenfield, but they are getting up and starting to move. That's right.

SPEAKER_08 25:01

Yeah. Yeah, that doesn't mean that's right. That doesn't necessarily mean you're going to see them during those feeding periods, but they're on their feet moving. Yeah. During daylight hours. During daylight, oh, yeah. During daylight. Or whenever that major feeding period is. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:11

And I'm talking I'm I mean 75 or 85% of the deer on the property get up.

SPEAKER_04 25:17

So uh surveying that many acres, you guys have had to see some giant bucks. Just some stuff that would just make you go, oof.

SPEAKER_08 25:23

We've seen a lot of yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:25

A lot of deer. A lot. So a guy like yesterday, I'm just gonna you we had Adam Wainwright, and he had this buck caught, what do you call it? Linebacker? Linebacker because he was what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_05 25:37

Yeah, a strong side and a weak side.

SPEAKER_04 25:38

And he's had he's had him for five and a half years, and then he didn't know if he's there. Yeah, he just he just kind of went off that he hadn't found him that this year. And so a guy like that could fly his place and maybe find the deer. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_08 25:52

We do that all the time. Guys hadn't seen their deer, they saw it boat during bow season and hadn't seen it in a few months, and they're starting to get worried, think it got shot or run over, and they give us a shot, we come out and so where about the, you know, so I'm I got my just say my place, you know.

SPEAKER_05 26:08

I'm just saying I don't have it, but you know, I'm got a thousand acres here, you know, it's my place, and I'm missing my buck. You know, how much liberty do you have to go look for them on other people's places? Right.

SPEAKER_08 26:20

Well typically when we fly, we'll fly an extra 20, 30 percent.

SPEAKER_05 26:25

Yeah, like outside the radius. That's right.

SPEAKER_08 26:27

I mean, we're flying at 400 feet. 400 feet is as high as we can legally fly. And you can see a long way from 400 feet, so you you can see a good bit around your property. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:38

Todd, have you had any experience with drones up in in Minnesota? Other than the ones you shot down?

SPEAKER_03 26:45

I need his address, so we won't go near him.

SPEAKER_07 26:48

Let me drop you a pen. Yeah. No, but I I I do have a question, and I hate to be the person to ask this because y'all sound like uh amazingly ethical people, and but do you need a license to do this? How how do you keep it ethical?

SPEAKER_08 27:04

On the license side, yes, you gotta have a uh part 107 from the FAA to commercially fly a drone. Um all our pilots, of course, have that. And I will say all of the people in the industry that are doing this commercially that I know of are doing their doing the right way, doing the right things. Um all any of the few, it hasn't been a whole lot just yet, but any of the few incidents that we've heard of folks getting in trouble and and doing things they shouldn't, it's all been private individuals going out and that don't know what they're doing. They're the ones that's giving the the drones and deer bad names right now. Um but yes, sir. We all of our guys, they have to have to be part 107 um license in order to fly commercially.

SPEAKER_03 27:47

And and then again on the legality part, when we when we get through with a survey or during a survey, we will not give if a landowner is standing there, he does not get any of the pin drops. Yeah, no, it usually takes a few. He gets none of the information while we're flying. I mean he might know where it is, but we don't give anything out that nothing that day.

SPEAKER_05 28:06

No specific data. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:08

People ask, I mean, they're like, hey, where's that deer at? Well, we're not we're not telling you where he is.

SPEAKER_07 28:13

Oh, that that's someone needs to mention that that everybody needs to check their their state regulations because it can vary. I read a story uh about uh a man in Pennsylvania, I think it was last year, was arrested and he only used it for recovery. And and but they considered that part of the hunt and in pursuit, even though he only used the drone for recovery, he was he was busted for it. So read your own state's regulations.

SPEAKER_08 28:45

And that's kind of the way it is in Alabama and a lot of our southern states. It like on deer recoveries, for example, if you go in and find the wounded deer, if he's if he's dead, then you can go in and retrieve it. But if he's still alive and you got video evidence that he's alive, you cannot you can't go in because that's considered actively hunting an animal. So I mean what we do, we'll drop a pin on it, give the location, put the coordinates to the landowner, and leave. And leave, let them go back to the room.

SPEAKER_03 29:11

We would rather leave first, you know, and then drop them the coordinates. That way we're off the property. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:17

That's interesting that y'all are thinking about that way, because there is it is a little bit of a line that we're gray area. Yeah, that we're gonna see get established over your state by state. I mean, you know, region by region, you know, where the the line is, you know, where I mean, because really, you know, you can, it can go from hunting to, you know, assassination, I guess is the best way to put it. You really could uh with the technology that's out there. But at the same time, it's giving us more real-time data for the right wildlife management decisions and the best habitat decisions, and trying to make you know decisions for the whole herd. So uh I hear you loud and clear, Todd. We gotta, you know, just uh And there's always gonna be people that are take advantage of it. Yeah, that's right. I mean, that's the way hunters have gotten a black eye over because the one guy you know did that one time, and then now we're all labeled that way.

SPEAKER_07 30:06

Right. Laws take a long time to catch up to the technology a lot of times. It's you know, it's the same with Wi-Fi and cellular trail cameras and you know things like that. But uh I suppose someday they'll they'll come around. But if it if it doesn't feel good to you, if you feel like you're doing something wrong, then don't do it. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_05 30:27

Well it's good to hear y'all have already thought about and that and not you know, not given in real time.

SPEAKER_08 30:31

Yeah, we always reach out to in whatever state we're gonna be flying in, because we fly all over the country. We'll reach out and make sure that it's l legit and legal in that state, because there are plenty. I mean, I'm very familiar with Pennsylvania and that particular instant.

SPEAKER_01 30:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 30:44

Um we talked about it last year. Yeah, you can't in Pennsylvania you can't hardly do anything. Um but it and then I got like another example. This past weekend I was in Memphis at the Dutch Unlimited Banquet. Hey, and I went and stopped and talked to the the uh game wardens and all the guys, the the the state guys there for probably 30 minutes about this topic. And same thing, you know, pretty much the same. All the states are about the same. But as long as you're not actively hunting that animal, right? They're they're you're pretty good, they're pretty good.

SPEAKER_04 31:12

But on the flip side of that, I would think these would be a huge tool for law enforcement to be able to I mean, it they they would be able to buzz a place and get well there he is, he's not.

SPEAKER_05 31:24

Yeah, you can get in private property rights conversations and everything.

SPEAKER_03 31:27

Well I actually found a guy sitting in a um a climbing stand on me with the drone.

SPEAKER_05 31:35

Hey there. I think they got me. I'd be like, I saw it.

SPEAKER_03 31:39

And actually had a uh rifle laying across his legs.

SPEAKER_05 31:43

Looked at him in the eyeball with it. I bet you did. I'd be flying but look at him.

SPEAKER_03 31:47

Yeah, he got out.

SPEAKER_08 31:48

Yeah, I bet he did. Yeah. We do a lot with the LEO, different different groups, different units across the state.

SPEAKER_04 31:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 31:55

Good.

SPEAKER_05 31:56

Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 31:57

Yeah. So uh in my in my mind's eye, a guy could do this like late summer when hunting seeds are not and to get that inventory, see what's but what's or I mean, obviously, you know, postseason too, everybody's got questions after that.

SPEAKER_05 32:13

It's like, oh, you know, what made it, what didn't.

SPEAKER_08 32:15

So we we we typically see three different times of the year when people want to do this. Um the first being right before or right at the beginning of deer season, you know, once the deer have their horn horns and the leaves start falling off the trees. Um course the thermal works year-round, but once the leaves start falling off, we're much more efficient. So it's faster and quicker to kick to take some photos or record that video of that deer. Um and so and then if you do it right there at the beginning of season, you've got an accurate snapshot of your doughs. So if you're trying to figure out how many does to harvest, all of them in Alabama. That's right. Or if you want to create a kill and do not kill list of your bucks, it makes it you know nice to be able to do that at the beginning of the season. Yeah. Um so that's one group. Uh we got a there's a second group uh of of folks that like they like their property falling during the rut. You know, they feel like um you know maybe they don't have good bedding, maybe they don't have a ton of food on their property, um, but they always get a bunch of random bucks during those two or three weeks traversing across their property. So that's when they want to come out and just kind of see what's what's going on that time. Interesting. And then you got another group that prefers to wait at the very end or right after the deer season. And those guys are mostly folks that are concerned that the drones are disturbing the wildlife. Uh-huh. Um but can I tell you? No, I look, I'd say one out of three thousand deer might look up there at the at the drone. It is that's again what makes us different than anybody else. We're doing the daytime. And if you're doing the day, we're flying at 400 foot, which is as high as we can fly. And you can swap over and zoom in with those cameras and see exactly what it is. Now, for the rest of the folks that are doing it, the deer surveys are trying to do it at night.

SPEAKER_03 33:53

And by themselves, and by themselves on one drone.

SPEAKER_08 33:56

So, one, you've got to fly down to about a 200 feet or so, because you've got to turn a spotlight on from the drone to see the difference between a buck and a dough at night. And to me, that gets into disturbing the wildlife.

SPEAKER_07 34:08

What are the costs? What uh I I gotta say that I'd love to see surveys several times during the year to see the the difference. And you know, what it's like in the springtime, what it's like before the rut, what it's like after. Uh what are the costs? Can a person afford to do this several times a year?

SPEAKER_08 34:28

And we've done that on a few properties, fly it multiple times a year, so they can kind of see that snapshot a few different times throughout the year. But it it it varies, it depends on the property size, the shape of the property, sure. Uh how far you gotta travel, how thick it is. Um if it's if you got 2,000 acres and it's uh uh 1,999 acres of hardwoods, it's gonna take a lot longer to fly than if half of it was ag fields, right? So it just depends. But usually in that $2.50 to $4, $4.50 an acre, something like that. Cool. That's definitely what it is.

SPEAKER_04 35:03

Lenny, I'm just uh uh I I keep thinking about being a very good thing. What are you thinking about? So there's just gotta be some some really I mean this uh the camera survey is a good use of this, but th there's there's a lot of information that a guy could gather. So much faster on his on his place. I I see where this could be a tool for in a gamekeeper's toolbox to help him understand his property.

SPEAKER_08 35:30

Oh, completely. You talk about a few more interesting stories, stuff we've learned. Um how many times have you been sitting in a greenfield or sitting in a blind, and a coyote or a bobcat runs out across the field? Maybe you shoot at it, get a shot off. But typically you're like, well, my hunt's ruined. The hunt's over, maybe you go somewhere else, you know. How many times have we seen coyotes bedded down? They'll lay in this room together within 50 feet of the deer. They, I'm telling you, the the deer know they're there. They always know they're there. They're not scared of those coyotes.

SPEAKER_03 36:04

We watched one buck run a bobcat up a blowdown. I saw the bobcat going up and clicked the daytime camera on and saw it, and the bobcat turned around and looked back down. And when I moved the camera, a buck was standing there, had just ran him up that blowdown.

SPEAKER_04 36:18

So that that brings up an uh so could you what at the same token could you fly and tell the landowner, look, you got about 60 coons. So he'd have an idea, okay. Here's what I need to do. Here's where I here I need to keep the pressure on this.

SPEAKER_03 36:34

It takes us a special day cloudiness to be able to really find the coons, and most of those will be in the trees. We'll see them kind of nested up like squirrels. Yeah. And so you you can you can count coons, I would say to 40 to 50 percent, maybe. Probably 40 to 50 percent, you could if if that's what we were looking for.

SPEAKER_05 36:58

Is that the I would think the heat signature would be different on a buck in velvet versus a hard horned buck. Is there for a few weeks out? Yeah, yeah, but nothing major.

SPEAKER_08 37:07

Now, if you get way, I mean, right up on top of them, it's a big difference. I mean, of course you can see it really, really well. I think they'd look bigger with velvet, of course.

SPEAKER_05 37:14

They look bigger in velvet anyway.

SPEAKER_08 37:17

Um again, we're trying to fly as high as we can to stay away from them so we're not disturbing them. Yeah, and and back to your question about again, the deer are hardly ever bothered by drones. But a hundred out of a hundred times the coyotes, they're looking up there at that drone somehow. They are looking right at the phone. Every time with some kind of evil eyes, just stare at every time you can't get drawn on them. I mean, you think I got him, but what it is, but every time.

SPEAKER_03 37:42

And we'll be 400 feet in there and quarter mile that way, quarter mile away from the air, and they got there looking at you.

SPEAKER_08 37:47

Right there, it is it's creepy.

SPEAKER_03 37:50

Yeah. Bobcats don't really care. Pigs, you know, when you're flying, you're seeing a heat signature, and so you'll stop the drone and turn the camera on, the daytime camera on. When that drone makes it stop, it changes the pitch of the propellers, they'll they'll scatter for a second. But deer don't, turkeys don't. But that coyote's looking at you. He he looks like if you get a little closer, I'm gonna eat you.

SPEAKER_01 38:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 38:18

Um I going to another point uh that that we've learned from these doing all the deer surveys is water. Like the deer are not afraid to cross the water. I mean, that might not be a big surprise to a lot of people, but I can't tell you how many times we're flying, it'll be at the edge of a slough or a swamp. And maybe it's only 60, 70 feet to to walk around the edge of that slough, and that deer is just gonna walk right through it. Even if it means he has to swim or wade through it, they are not scared to and they're not being pressured by you. And they're not being pressured, that's right. They're just naturally doing it. Just naturally walk walking across it.

SPEAKER_04 38:54

So do y'all see that the like the big mature bucks are betting and using the terrain to their advantage? I mean, maybe they're betting up against that slough so that they can put their back to it and they're not worried about that. We always think that's what they're doing. Is or do y'all can y'all confirm that?

SPEAKER_03 39:09

They'll they'll those those bigger bucks, they'll get up against a blowdown. They'll have, I mean, he'll be you can barely see him. He'll be laying right up against it. Uh remember the two bucks last year we got to look at my place. One was on one side of a blowdown, the other one was on the other, and I could just see the tops of their head, and all of a sudden, they both laid over, prop their head up against that blowdown with sleek. Huh. So they got hooked, tucked up in there and laid over against it. It's pretty big. Back to back. They were, yep. They were side by side, one was on one side, one was on the other, and just laid their head on it.

SPEAKER_05 39:43

What about can you see any trends? I mean, with wind, obviously. I mean, if there's a prevailing wind, do you see deer traveling? I mean, to I mean, we always yeah, always think they're going, you know, with their wind in their face. Just to know if you had any observations about that.

SPEAKER_08 39:57

No, the only big trend we notice there is like your your deer, when it's windy, just as you would assume, but that when they're bedded down, laying down, they got their back to the wind and they're looking other way.

SPEAKER_05 40:09

So they're just you know always looking up when that's nine out of ten times. But travel-wise, I mean they could just be just yeah, they're just up walking around. Just the moon phase, the only thing to fix it.

SPEAKER_03 40:22

The majority of the mature bucks, if if the land allows it, if you've got your your pine plantation, your hardwood, your swamps, your cutover, and it's all in the same piece of property, you know, you're very diversified. Those mature deer are gonna be in that burned, thinned pine plantation.

SPEAKER_01 40:39

Hmm.

SPEAKER_03 40:40

And they like a pine plantation that's at the peak on its second thinning and fixing to be thin for the third time, or right after that third time and a burn comes through there, you know, they that's where they are. That's where the deer are. I'm interested.

SPEAKER_08 40:54

That's where they are. Yeah, we kind of grew up thinking hunting cutovers, I love hunting cutovers growing up. I mean, how many how often do we see deer and cutovers? Not saying we don't see them, but that's just nine.

SPEAKER_03 41:05

After about the second year of a cutover.

SPEAKER_08 41:07

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 41:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:08

I think when the hard woody stuff starts coming up, they they they kind of we're learning that from the secessional habitat folks for sure.

SPEAKER_05 41:15

Once the woody community comes up, they're they're moving out of there.

SPEAKER_03 41:17

Yeah, they're moving out for sure. And they're getting to where uh we had a really big deer on our place last year. Um one day we were there and one of our pilots and we said, Hey, this is your job. Stay with him all day. Eight hours we stayed over the top of this deer.

SPEAKER_08 41:32

We've seen this deer all we all the time we see this deer, but he's never on camera. I mean, twice, maybe he's never on camera.

SPEAKER_03 41:40

But we would go find him just to make sure he was still alive. Yeah, we'd find him within 100 yards of the camera every time, too. He was a whole eight hours we stayed above this deer watching him, and he moved 30 feet in eight hours. There you go. He'd stand up about every 45 minutes, go to the bathroom, get him a bite to eat, he'd lay right back down.

SPEAKER_05 41:56

What time of year was this? Rut. Rut.

SPEAKER_03 41:59

In the rut. Interesting. He would just and then later on that afternoon he'd get up and then he'd start mosing around, you know, looking for does. But we've had one deer last year that I don't know what this deer was from the year before. And he I got one picture of him in a in a year's time. And I could find him with a drone. I never he never went to a feeder, never went in front of a camera, never came out in a greenfield while anybody was hunting. So they stay away from it.

SPEAKER_08 42:37

That's how they get big. So so we probably had uh we probably did just under 110 different properties last year's season. And I bet ten or twelve of those reached out to us because they were like, hey, we don't know where deer are. Where'd they go? Our deer are missing. Yeah, one of the high fence.

SPEAKER_03 42:55

One was in a high fence. And they said it was all their deer were done.

SPEAKER_08 42:59

He's like, Man, we got cameras out everywhere. We're hunting greenfields, and we're not seeing we don't see any of our deer, like none of our deer. So they're, you know, having conversations with their land manager, won't know if they leave the fence open or the gate open, or do they jump out? Run them all. They're going out twice a week looking for buzzards. Like, what is going on? And we'll go fly and find every one of them. He knew he he should have thought he he thought he had about eight mid eighties, eighty-five something deer, and we found that's exactly what we found.

SPEAKER_05 43:27

They've just been watching him more than he'd been watching.

SPEAKER_03 43:30

The greenfields are this tall, and like, you've got something to eat them and there's no cows in here.

SPEAKER_08 47:12

So they're here. But it happens on properties that are not fenced too. Same thing. Sure. You go in and you know, people early season, maybe they saw a ton of deer and they just hadn't been seeing them. They're like, man, I that that big buck, I just think he's gone.

SPEAKER_05 47:24

And we'll go fly and more times than not, we'll we'll find him. This I wish Dudley was here because this all this everything that they're saying makes me think about killing cedar trees and knocking them over. It's all I think about.

SPEAKER_08 47:35

There's a lot of folks doing that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 47:37

Because it, I mean, exactly what you're describing are these cedar thickets that we were always like thermal cover, and we're learning that there's completely robbing the land of all the forbs and the grasses and the real cover that everything wants. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:51

It's impressive to me how uh reclusive an older buck can become. And for him to be able to avoid having his picture taken or being seen for no, I said it's amazing.

SPEAKER_05 48:04

Yeah, it reminds me of some old school hunting stuff back, you know. I don't know, Bobby, I'm sure. I don't know if you ever had deer drives, but uh, you know, that guy that was lagging behind that didn't get there until late, you know, after the dirt deer drive came through, they walked past the buck and he's walking the opposite way from them because he's stayed that tight on cover. Anyways, they're an amazing animal. Deer I know I know John's done some deer drives. A hundred percent.

SPEAKER_06 48:32

Every year.

SPEAKER_01 48:33

That's part of the yeah. Every year.

SPEAKER_07 48:35

Hadn't stopped, hadn't stopped. Yeah. Learning learning the escape routes. When when you do put pressure on them, learning learning their escape routes, I think would be uh extremely interesting. They're creatures of habit. If the pressure comes from the same general spot and the you know, wind and everything's the same, they you gotta think they stayed alive one time exiting that way, that they would use the same type of escape routes. So documenting those escape routes, I think, would be uh uh great information.

SPEAKER_08 49:07

And and look, what we're doing on the the the deer surveys that we're doing, it's essentially a snapshot on that property at that one that one time. Right. You know, all of our research on like the buck movements and the deer movements and all the different things, that's on our personal properties that we get to spend more time on. But when we go out to these people's property, it's just a snapshot. So that is that would be some great information to have, but typically we're just giving them but y'all do.

SPEAKER_05 49:32

Have the privilege of seeing the overall look. You know, you're seeing trends across various properties and different terrain types and everything else.

SPEAKER_08 49:38

Well, yeah, because like say down in this one county in in West Alabama, I mean we probably did 20, 2,000, 20, something thousand acres, 22,000 acres of a 30,000 acre block. Like it's all connected. It's all different landowners, but you know, we got to fly and see that whole block as a whole, not just somebody's 500 acres or somebody's 2,000 acres. Did they all share their information? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:02

Pretty much. They did the deer. Look at there. I'm gonna hit the horns, Jackson. Get off TikTok over there and do some. We're all friends and and from how often do the deer share though?

SPEAKER_06 50:12

How often do the deer don't jump? I hear it.

SPEAKER_03 50:16

More than you would think. Yeah. Um the one of the properties that we flew had had two well-known bucks on it. Um and they would always come back to the camphouse every afternoon to get a bucket of corn fed to them in the yard. And we found one was probably a mile and a half away from the camphouse in one direction, and one was a mile away in the other direction. And that afternoon they were right back there to get their bucket of corn in the afternoon. And this is a low fence. This is not a high fence.

SPEAKER_05 50:53

There's been some research uh I that Bronson them did on ranges. On have you seen any information because they're saying, you know, certain deer have certain personalities. Some of them are homeboys. That's what we've seen. And then other ones were.

SPEAKER_08 51:08

We've seen that some deer, like the one that went 30 feet, that that deer just never left. Right. Even at night when he traveled, he was going one field over. I mean, it's yeah, he wouldn't go quarter a mile. Yeah. Yeah. And then we've got deer like that big one that Caleb killed.

SPEAKER_03 51:22

I mean, that he was going a mile and three-quarters every day there and back. Just about every every two to three days, he would come a couple miles. He would go a mile and three-quarter, he'd walk by one camera.

SPEAKER_05 51:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:32

And then he'd be back at another piece of property. I think just like you said, I think every deer is different.

SPEAKER_08 51:37

Some of them are homebodies and some of them are home.

SPEAKER_03 51:39

And this deer was nine years old, scored 174, 176.

SPEAKER_04 51:43

Well, going to two miles. So using your own property as a kind of a base, uh, I'm assuming you've probably flown yours a bunch. But once a day, probably. So would uh would uh would a uh mature buck bed within a few acres of the same place every every every every day?

SPEAKER_03 52:02

It it's almost like uh what what we would see, it's almost like you know how you you've got your couple of bad turkeys on a on a place, and this is where they're gonna roost. This is my bucks are the same way from what we could tell on on our place. You know, you had this one big deer stayed over here, this older mature deer stayed over here, and they they stayed away from each other. The mature the the the four or five-year-olds, they gave each other their space, and then it was the two and three-year-olds that were giving them fits in their particular area. You didn't never see them, you know, come together, coincide together. You never they never were together. Never saw them in the same area together. You know, like one day if we were flying and you knew this deer and this deer, you know, Bob and Joe, they weren't within uh 300 yards or 400 yards of each other. You just never saw them closer than that.

SPEAKER_04 52:55

So with you guys have obviously developed an expertise in this, and I'm wondering if it's like state agencies are reaching out to you for advice. Are they flying like management areas and trying to learn the same information? Are biologists using drones as tools to to census or or check on ducks or or are drones going to be used in the future like that? Do you guys have a lot of people? I think they will think so.

SPEAKER_08 53:19

So so with the as far as the wildlife biologists, I mean, they all have a ton of experience with managing the herds and managing wildlife, but but you need a good starting point. And that's where we come in is provide that snapshot, that good starting point to base all of their data on. And that's what we've done. We've we've teamed up with a few of them and and basically been the data that they start their recommendations on. And then they go, them and the client, they go and work their deal.

SPEAKER_03 53:47

But that's pretty much the You know, we can give it to you on Monday instead of taking three months to get this camera survey done, all the information back, go through 200,000 pictures and are y'all do y'all ever see anything that surprises you like black bears or or long-tailed cats?

SPEAKER_04 54:02

Long-tailed cats.

SPEAKER_08 54:02

I always saw one. I can't wait to see a cat. That is by that's that's the bucket list right now.

SPEAKER_03 54:08

There it is.

SPEAKER_08 54:08

We we've yet to see a black bear, we've yet to see a long-tailed cat. We've had a couple properties that said they had some bear sightings, but hadn't seen any. I say the most the the craziest stuff we've seen is probably the pie ball deer. Huh. Albino and pie ball. Seen a lot of them? I think we saw seven last year. Wow. 192,000 acres. And what's what's funny is I think all seven, I think all seven, maybe six, but all seven of them, the landowners knew they had them. They wouldn't tell us. They wouldn't tell us. They want to see if we could find them, they want to see how accurate we were. Oh, that's pretty cool. And so we found them and you know, and text them or either. They'd be sitting there and be like, hey, he's he's up there by the gate. Like, yeah, that's where he she always stays up there.

SPEAKER_03 54:48

And we did find one albino turkey.

SPEAKER_08 54:51

What about meth labs? Y'all ever into that yet. Oh good. We found some 200-plus inch deer on in some pie fences that they didn't know were dead. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's a lot of money there.

SPEAKER_03 55:03

Oh, yeah, no doubt. Actually, two on one piece of property in the same day.

SPEAKER_05 55:08

Going back to you, I know that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services are using technology. I mean, they have been actively I live out in a bunch of public land and they've been actively uh flying it at night. I don't know whether they're doing LIDAR, do y'all do any stuff like that? Do LIDAR as well. Uh-huh. So um, I don't know if they're specifically using it for wildlife management information, but we've talked to Dr. Brunson a few times, but we just hadn't had a whole lot of chance to work with each other just yet. Yeah, no, I'm sure they'll and we'll start utilizing some technology for sure. I mean, I don't know why they wouldn't. They certainly should. He's gonna argue with you about the moon phase, though, so get ready.

SPEAKER_03 55:44

But what he didn't argue with us about was the the dough population. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_08 55:49

See, and I think maybe y'all brought that up earlier too. Um talking about sharing sharing data with your neighbors. Yeah. So that's what one thing we're seeing is the property owners, they're getting several pro several guys on a piece of property around this one area. And if we fly their whole place or all their neighbors, and we can definitively say they have X amount of does, well, most people can agree on the ratio that they want. They just don't people can't agree on how many how many does they need to kill. Right. Well, if we can tell them, you know, between these six properties, there's 300, 300 does, and they know they want a two and a half to one ratio or whatever it might be, well, then they can all get on a uh a same program together. Right, right.

SPEAKER_05 56:34

It'd be great for hunting co-ops, and that's what we call them. Yeah, exactly. That's a lot of things. Plus probably more efficient to use y'all services too. Yeah, I mean I would think. Surveys, cheaper and faster. Yeah, and you think about how many times you go in and out of there, and you know Justin, what what else have you guys learned uh through through all this?

SPEAKER_08 56:54

I another interesting point is not every property has had this, but the deer sanctuaries. So we've we've noticed that the thicket. The thickets like if if on these properties that have a devoted spot that they absolutely do not disturb, they don't ride, they never ride in it, they never walk in it, they don't put cameras in it, they don't feed in it, they don't plant it, they don't do anything, it's noticeable how many deer those how how comfortable they feel and how many are are in those areas.

SPEAKER_05 57:23

But from what you've said before, that's probably because of pressure reduction, not because of thick cover. That's right.

SPEAKER_08 57:27

Yeah, I yeah, they could be different types of cover in those sanctuaries. But yeah, if if I mean we've seen it on smallest 500 acre properties, I mean most people want to utilize their whole property, so you know it does take a sizable piece of property to have a dedicated sanctuary area. Um but on any of these properties that they have had dedicated areas where they just not do not disturb, it makes a huge difference.

SPEAKER_03 57:51

There was a piece of property we flew last year and we got there, and and a young guy um want to know well who who's gotta fly this part down here. And you know, whoever told him, he said, All right, we got a we got a deer down there, he's a 14-point, and we hadn't got him on camera, you know, in a while. I don't know if somebody killed him or if he got ran over, or okay. We were flying around, and then then we didn't find the deer, and we got up to another part of the property. He's like, Who's gonna fly up there around around this? And and I said, I've got that. And he said, All right, I'm interested to see, we never go in there, we don't have any cameras in there or anything. It was probably two miles 14 point was in there. That's where he was. That's where he stayed all year.

SPEAKER_05 58:34

Any time frame perspectives on that? I mean, they'd not been in there in a year or something.

SPEAKER_03 58:37

No, it was like they'd been had like three weeks. He had he had all of a sudden disappeared, was getting pictures of him all the time. And then gone. Gone. And he had gone about two miles and was up in this other spot where they never went, and he said, We never go up there, we don't have cameras up there. That's where he went. And I watched him for about 45 minutes that day, and you could tell he was so comfortable, he never picked his head up and was walking around eating white oaks. Huh. He would get to a tree and he would just go in a circle, eating them, move on to the next one.

SPEAKER_05 59:08

So much, you know, pressure. I mean, it's the the it's the biggest factor. It's the biggest factor. It's the biggest factor.

SPEAKER_04 59:15

And it's so hard sometimes to oh, I want to walk in there. Oh, let me go. Let me go to work. I'm gonna go in the middle of the day. You make a lot of excuses.

SPEAKER_05 59:25

I'm gonna drive the tractor in there. He'll he think I'm working, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:28

So ideally, how large of a does of an area do would need to uh does a sanctuary need to be?

SPEAKER_08 59:34

It just depends on some of those 500 acre tracks. Some of those were 50, 60, 70 acres. It wasn't that big. And some of the 2,000 plus acre tracks, I mean, they might have three or four hundred acres, five hundred acres. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:45

Um it's just a blob of marks.

SPEAKER_08 59:49

You can tell where the again, watching the deer, like you said, you you're watching their activity, you they just they're not looking around, they don't feel they just look comfortable. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:01

You can tell the difference on on fly one property right here and how the deer are are calm and you go to the next one and wind pick up. My gosh, you're about to jump out of their skin.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:14

Um what about on young pine plantations? Are you seeing many deer just on the edges or in them?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:21

Depends on how thick it is. I mean, if it's like one time, they're there. Yeah. No times. It's it's it they're there, but it it's hard to find them in that too. You know, because you you know it's like being in a cedar thicket. Right. Uh they'll they'll not near as much as they are in a in a first thin, second thin, third thin.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:42

They love the pine trees for some reason. I wouldn't have ever thought that, but they they Yeah, it is kind of counter normal.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:48

But it makes sense too what we're learning about secessional habitat as you open up that canopy, there's more forbs and then for them to eat, you know, the yeah, on the on the thinner rotation.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:58

So and if you've got pigs, there's nothing for them to eat in the hardwoods. Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:04

Because the pigs have come through and vacuumed up all that vacuumed all that up.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:08

So they've got to go somewhere to get natural.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:10

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:11

And it's it's in the pines.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:13

Yeah, those those red oak acorns aren't there anymore in the winter's late that you.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:17

And yeah, I'm assuming that y'all can see that the deer and the pigs don't mix. They don't care. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:23

I mean it doesn't matter. They'll be they'll be right there around them. That surprises me. I mean, they're not gonna, you know, they're not gonna go hang out with them, but they don't, I mean, it's like a deer and a coyote.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:35

Yeah, they're not gonna eat from the same feeder at the same time.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:38

They will. I mean, they they'll you'll have them in pictures together, they're not gonna stand up here and eat together. But um, and especially at night, you know, a deer and a pig will eat in a greenfield together at night, but in the daytime, that's not happening. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:51

Have y'all noticed any mature bucks avoiding feed sites? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:57

Yeah, feed sites because that's where lucky gave you.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:00

Because that's where the cameras are. Yeah, that yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:03

So the spin cast goes off and they take off.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:05

Yeah, I think you'd be better off not putting corn out if you was trying to go after that mature buck. Yeah, I agree. I'd hunt his trail or his bed in his habitat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:15

There's a lot to be learned. I know, I keep on asking questions.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:19

And there's one the one other thing I'll say too. Um, so this gets into the late season surveys that we did. You get toward end of February, first of March. When people start burning, I will say, I don't know where the deer go when you burn, but when all the properties we fly after they start burning, there's no deer out there. So I never thought about it, but obviously they got they had to go somewhere. Yeah. And so I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:43

You'd think they're right back in there, but like if if we fly and it's still you can still see the hot spots from the fire, there will not be a deer in there for some reason. So I don't know where they are.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:51

I mean, but we've seen, I mean, we always think turkeys would be like, hey, there's a smoke. Come on, let's go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:56

We flew one property last year, and uh uh the the farm manager kept telling us that uh something kept tearing their skeet throwers up. And so just so happened, Justin was flying a spot, saw a deer, turned the thermal off, turned the camera on. Huge buck. Walks right up to the skeet thrower and eats the battery cables off of it while we're watching. We've got video of it.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:20

It's something property manager's like, I've been telling the owner for four years these deer are eating these battery cables out here, and he ate them off.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:26

While we were flying, he was we were videoing it. He ate the battery cables off of it.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:31

Never heard of that. I think, yeah. Man, you might could put out a battery and some cables. Well, I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:36

Well, I know we have the, you know, it makes me think about we always have rotor problems eating battery. Um that's what they thought. It surely is field box or squirrel. Might be deer eating those tractors up, eating the wiring harnesses up in our tractor.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:49

Well, this is interesting. So the uh and I just keep thinking that there's just ways. Obviously, every state's a little bit different, guys got to pay attention to that. But I I keep thinking that this would be so useful for if you've got a like a if you suspect somebody's sneaking in there on your hunting on your property, and you might have a way to actually get a video or a picture to be able to provide to the game warden to assist them.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:14

Uh to you looked at that dude eye to eye on his plug.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:17

Well, we did thrown down.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:18

We uh we did a survey for a guy this year uh flying around. I see something, turn the thermal off, turn the camera on, and I'm like, I can't remember the guy's name. Um, you've got a poacher. He looked at it. Oh no, that's my buddy. I was gonna see if y'all would find him. So we can find him sitting in a tree.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:37

Well, they're setting traps for y'all, that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:39

Yeah, most everybody does it.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:41

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:42

You know, see how, and I get it. I mean, you're gonna be skeptical. That's why we built this trailer so we can plug all the drones up and you can sit and watch everything we do.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:51

That's really cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:52

So you know we're working to try to find every every animal there.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:55

Yeah. So your service area, I mean, any state that'll allow it. Yeah. Um all over the southeast for sure. Are y'all you have one location you're based out of?

SPEAKER_08 1:05:06

We're well, we're based out of Tuscaloosa, but we've got pilots. We've got five or six full-time guys pretty much that scattered all cross. Scattered across the country. That's right.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:15

Y'all also do something with LiDAR to help a guy who's trying if you're trying to build a duck hole or something. Can you just talk about that just a little bit?

SPEAKER_08 1:05:22

Yeah, we spent a ton of time in in Arkansas uh this summer. Find the LIDAR drone, which what that does, it allows you to remove the all the trees, the vegetation, all the man-made objects, and you're left with just the bare ground. And then from the bare surface, you can, of course, create a topo map that most people are used to looking at. But you can also create like this uh it's called a digital elevation model, it's just a colorized topo map, basically. Makes it really easy to look at and understand what's going on. Um, and then we built this tool where basically you can simulate different flood stages over that property. Uh okay. And so, you know, if somebody decides, of course, you know, hunting flooded timber is the all their age right now. That's what everybody wants to do. Um, and so they're trying to flood a flood a certain area, they can simulate the water at different stages and see where the water elevation needs to be, and then they can go in the same tool that we built and go in and draw the levee in 3D and see how many cubic yards of material are in that levee, um, how deep the water is gonna be, how many acres are gonna you know be pulled up. Um bunch of different metrics you can get from this. And then, of course, you can export it to Own X and go out there and you know have an offline mouth and go stake it out and to see your contractor can go build it. But it'd say, you know, when you're building your levees, when you're doing all that work, all your money's in the construction. Yeah. Um so if you spend all that time and money and you build your levee three inches too short and don't hold water, or you build it too big, or you sp you overbuild it, you spend a whole lot of money. So it's just on the front end coming in and knowing exactly where it needs to go, what up what the elevations are.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:56

Like I said, we've been lake sites too, I'm sure. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:59

Well, we flew up the place the other day and he had it staked out and he said, Yeah, I'm gonna build a 13-acre lake here. I went back around the numbers and what was it?

SPEAKER_08 1:07:06

It was like three and a half acres. I look I can show you in 3D right here. Yeah, if you put it right here where you said you're only gonna back up three and a half acres. I mean, just ten short, yeah. That's right. That's right. Well, that's a big difference. Yeah, that's a huge difference.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:21

But a lot of these duck levees, they're not real tall. No, no, not at all. No, you're they're what and little bitty changes in elevation can create a can create some really good stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:31

So we've done a lot of that with the lidar um drones this this summer. Um another interesting thing we've we've done is setting up these uh docking stations. Have y'all seen the like the drone in the box type deal? So basically, if you can give me power and give me internet, there's a little box, it's like the size of a little Yeti cooler, basically. Yeah. And uh the drone lives in there full time and it's fully autonomous. Oh, he just gets up and go does it? Gets up and does his thing. And so, like we've set them up on some of these high fence properties where they've got people that they're paying weekly to go ride the fence line, of course, looking for down trees. Um, we've set these up where they go and fly the property line. Um, come back, land, it uploads the video that it just took uh of the whole route, and then the owner, the property manager, they can go in and review the footage and see if there's any trees down to see if they need to go spend time to ride the property or not. Come on. Yep. Man. I will say there may or may not be some guys in the in the deltas setting these up, flying every morning, going and looking at their duck holes. Yeah. Uh basically scouting, you know, same thing that they're using trail cameras for. Right. Um, but the same way you can set those up to go take off at eight o'clock every morning and go 30 seconds, yeah, thermal video see there's any ducks out there or not.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:50

I gotta think about that for a second.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:52

That's uh um Well, I mean, you know, we've heard of people having airplanes flying around looking for them. Well, I mean most most people you see they got they've got a fence stake and a trail camera out there.

SPEAKER_08 1:09:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:04

And we you know the live view is what we do. Trying to live view it. That's it. Still, you're not I mean again, even with trail cameras, and we all know this, you're seeing this. You know, I mean you've got tunnel vision no matter which way you're pointing it. With with a drone, that's right. You're got a big field. 360. I guess 360, pretty close to 360, especially if you turn.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:22

Oh yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:24

Lanny, I do think that it it that uh if it didn't spook the ducks, that the this would be would be much better than walking out there riding a forward.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:34

There they are. There they go, there they go. It doesn't spook them. Wonderful comeback.

SPEAKER_08 1:09:38

Again, you you can zoom, you can see so far. So you you you don't you're we're definitely not or they're definitely not fine up on the duck hole. We're way back away from it just because you can see so far. Yeah, I might think.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:49

I'm not sure how yeah, with big game, I know there are states that have regulations against this. For instance, uh uh Alaska. You can't, you know, the the famous Hayes bear bust up there, they were they were getting up in planes, finding the bears, and then going in and killing the bears, and and you have to give it, I don't know, there's a time period whether it's just maybe the next day or or several days. I know there is the same day. Uh there are some laws that uh in certain states that you cannot do that. I know in airplanes, I'm not sure if it's the same with drones, but I assume it would be. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:26

I would hope that it would be. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:28

Yes, but all right, Jackson, why don't we uh why don't we turn the show over to you for a few minutes here and let's do a uh trivia question.

unknown 1:10:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:37

First we have our review winner. This is from episode 453. What'd they win? It's what did they win, Mike?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:44

Yeah, so we've got one left of the thermosy. So uh really, I mean, they're very useful this time of year. But this winner, he will be proud to have it. We got one one of them. Just in time for winter, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:58

So Sawyer Henderson 2479 will be winning that. How about that?

SPEAKER_04 1:11:04

All right. So the trivia question is brought to us by the peanut patch. You guys being from West Alabama, I know y'all like some boiled peanuts. We love them. All these gas stations when you stop it, they got that same little kettle. It's the perfect outdoor snack. They're so good. John, you love a boiled peanut, don't you?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:20

I do.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:21

All right, Jackson, go ahead. Okay, here's our question: What state produces the most Pope and Young record book bucks?

SPEAKER_04 1:11:30

Ooh, what state? I should know this. Not Boone and Crockett. Yeah. But Pope and Young. Pope and Young Record Book But Pope. So we'll let you guys, Todd that did not. Todd, you can't use Google.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:43

We see your phone. We see your phone. Todd should know this. He's got more pop and youngs than any of us. All of us combined. I think Todd's got 25 or 26 pope. How many pop and youngs have you killed, Todd?

SPEAKER_07 1:11:58

Whitetails or everything in white.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:00

Well, let's go white tails first, and you can get everything else that we've got.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:03

Whitetails 31 combined 41.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:07

There you go. The man. That's crazy. He tears them up up there.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:13

Who all gets to answer this question?

SPEAKER_04 1:12:15

Well, that's that's for them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:17

Oh, uh. I can tell you where there are a lot of big bucks that nobody talks about, and they keep it a big secret. The state of Arkansas. Oh. It's not a secret anymore.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:31

Yeah, yeah. Well, not after today.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:34

I'm gonna say Kentucky. Yeah, I would probably say Kansas.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:39

So well, I have the top three here. None of those are the top three.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:44

Well, let's let John do he's gonna be.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:45

I'm gonna say Wisconsin. Wisconsin's one. Uh I'm gonna say Indiana's one. Well, Wisconsin is actually the one. Okay, well, there we go. Thank you. Hit the bell for that.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:00

Well, Lanny, uh they were if we stumped them, they were gonna give us a free survey. Particularly bad.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:06

They found a friend County is the lead in the entire nation in Wisconsin. There's one county there in Wisconsin. Yeah. The next two would be Illinois and Iowa. Illinois. So Illinois's number two and Iowa's number three.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:18

I was going with Iowa. I don't know why I went to Indiana. I just thought it was a sleeper state. That's why I say Kentucky. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, Kentucky's got some.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:24

Pike County used to be on fire. It didn't young.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:28

And for Illinois, it would be like Pike County. Yeah, or Brown. Brown's another one going up there, I think.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:34

All right. All right, guys. Is there anything uh that we didn't have a very interesting stuff? Yeah, what's the name of y'all's business? You got a website?

SPEAKER_08 1:13:42

Yes, Paragon Aerial Solutions. Um we've got the website, all the social media, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook. Um you can find us anywhere on there, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:13:52

Well, y'all have like it's an interesting uh solution.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:57

I know there's some controversy, not controversy, but like Todd said, there's gonna be regulations and laws, and be sure and check, and y'all guys are ahead of it. And I think you're also go ahead, y'all are y'all have already put some ethical um boundaries, boundaries in place, which is is really good. It really is. Yeah, that's uh super good stuff.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:15

Gosh, we're we're we're all interested in trying to make our place better. But but being able to know what you got to begin with, having that that baseline is.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:24

Yeah, he hit the nail on the head baseline shoes.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:26

It's pretty it's pretty interesting.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:27

I mean, I would like to have a deer survey before I went to buy a piece of property.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:31

I I think you're dead on. Yeah, you know. Yeah. So all these listing agents need to call y'all. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:14:36

Well, if you're selling a piece of property, I mean it it can help you sell it.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:39

Oh, there's no doubt. Y'all know you did the great example. That place looks rough. Oh, it's got oh well, we'll we'll take it. It was unbelievable.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:45

And then three eight points and 570 acres? Come on. And then flip that over to understanding your predator problem. So it knowing boy, I got I got a pig problem. I didn't realize I had quite that many. At least you you you would know what you're up against. We see a lot of coyote's tooth.

unknown 1:14:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:00

And and y'all's understanding as you're looking over this over a widescape, will um you're gonna find out a lot more about what's going on.

SPEAKER_08 1:15:09

Yeah, you'd be surprised. A lot of landowners, and it goes both ways, but usually people think they've got a lot more deer than than what they actually have. Yeah, I would agree. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:18

What about have you just I'm looking at you? Have you crashed a drone yet? I'm not me.

SPEAKER_08 1:15:23

You look at the wrong one. This is his nickname's crash test dumb. He's crashed, not a drone, he's crashed all the drones. One of one of each kind. Oh, okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:34

Do you hit trees or what do you what's the No?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:37

One day we had we had nine drones flying one day at one time on a piece of pro. We were doing mapping, LIDAR, and deer survey. Wow. And I took off with one, um, and the camera went black on it, so I had to come back, and we had everything, man, it was perfect. We needed air traffic controller landing all of us. And um I came back, landed, had to restart, reset, and all that. Well, he was coming back, and he didn't tell me that he was coming back. Here we go. I take off, he's coming down, crash to them, tore them up. And then the other day I was planting a dove field.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:12

Now he's completely blaming you for that.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:14

I heard that. Yeah. I mean, it was completely out of my control.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:17

But I think you were completely blaming him in the beginning.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:20

And then the other day I was planting one of our dove fields uh with a with a spray drones, got the cedar tanks on it. Yeah. Um learned something. So I it was I had one run left to make with it. So it came and it made a turn, it lined up, and it started to fly and turn on. So those drones were so big and heavy. And I had the guy wire. It was programmed in to go around it. But when it started, you know, it it has to momentum. Well, then it went to try to get out of it when it saw the and it couldn't. And I mean it just gradually just I saw it on the camera and going, oh no. And it almost stopped when it hit the guy wire.

SPEAKER_08 1:16:57

And so it tore everything up. Yeah, it was only a $40 something thousand dollar drone, no big deal.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:02

Do y'all do uh do are y'all doing any seeding or or aerial applications of herbicides or anything? Yeah, we just getting into that as aspect as well.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:11

Yeah, that's more of a client necessity. All the different clients were doing all the deer surveys and LIDAR and everything else. I want you to plant this spray this spot.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:20

Duck pond, spray duck ponds, you know, plant them and um it is no doubt about it.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:26

The technology is great for that. Yeah. Do them by hand a couple times. You got an isolated like a kudzu patch or something, it seemed like that'd be the way to go in. That's right. What's payload? I'm gonna I'm gonna ask questions all day. Do y'all see deer in kudzu?

SPEAKER_03 1:17:41

I haven't we hadn't flown very many kudzu places, but I know they are. I had a friend of mine we were growing up that had a place that was covered in kudzu and it was full of deer.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:50

I mean, we flew a lot to Delta and overall Vicksburg, and I know that's kudzu capital. That's right, but there just wasn't a lot of kudzu in those properties.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:57

I mean it's high protein, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 1:17:59

Yeah, I think so. Back to your question. 26 gallons on the on the on the spray sprayer tank and 220 pounds on the sea tank. Come on. All right.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:12

That's a big drone. That's a big drone. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah, well, so you crashed drones. Uh you Rich one time I remember when we first got a drone. We crashed them too, trust us. Remember we had one, and Richie, uh, who isn't here to defend himself, but cranked it up and flew it off and sent it somewhere and it never came back. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:34

Well, Justin didn't tell you that he had to uh find a man, he was in the middle of nowhere, and a and an old guy in a bucket truck came riding by and Justin flag, he bound and had to go get one out of a tree. So he didn't tell you that.

SPEAKER_08 1:18:45

No, yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, we were flying, it's like the third day, we're doing a LIDAR survey. It's like the third day in a row in the middle of the summer, it's 100 degrees outside. Drones up and down, so it's all automated flights when you're doing the mapping LIDAR missions. And about every 35, 45 minutes, you just swap the batteries over. So three days of this is non-stop. Oh my god. About as boring as it gets. And so I just stepped inside the uh inside my truck to get in the air conditioned, and the drone starts screaming at me. This little lady's on there talking about motor failure, motor failure, motor failure. And I look up and it looked like a asteroid coming to the sky or something. And it smoked top of this big oak tree, and it's just like all in slow motion, and it's just kind of going back and failing back and forth, you know. And about the time it comes to a stop, the payload, the camera on it, which is the expensive part, comes unattached and falls like 80 foot to the ground. And it just goes in a bunch of pieces. We're sitting there looking at it, like, what, how are we gonna get this down? I mean, like, like they'll replace it, but I gotta send it back. I can't just leave it up there. And it's I mean, it's 80 plus foot up the top of this tree. And so we looked at it, stared at it for like 20 minutes, and finally we're like, let's let's just ride in the town and go get some watch and figure out what we're gonna do. And as soon as we pulled out of the gate, we're in the middle of nowhere, like right over here on the Alabama missing line. Absolute middle of nowhere. I'm talking about the closest dollar general is probably 15 miles.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:08

Yeah, yeah. And the country.

SPEAKER_08 1:20:10

Yeah, in the country. And the first truck that pulls by a half mile outside the gate is a bucket truck. I parked in the middle of the road and he had to stop. Gave him a hundred dollar bill and he went over there and got it out of the course. That's cool. But they do crash. They do crash.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:26

All right, guys, it's been interesting. Yeah, really interesting. Yeah, very Todd.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:31

We appreciate you joining us. Yeah, appreciate y'all being in the studio too at Art Cook Live. Yeah, you know, we're doing this uh Gamekeeper Scouting school, and this is a big part of scouting what you guys are talking about. Cameras are uh, you know, it's it kind of changed the way things operate, and looking into the future, drones may play a part too. Oh, no doubt about it. Sounds like they are. But we got we would do encourage everybody to do it um to think about the ethics that involved. Sure.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:57

Uh in everything you do, especially this stuff. That's a good point, Lenny.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:02

Because it's uh it's it's easy to try to find the the easier way to do things. John, I'm kind of looking at you when I say that.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:09

I know yours. Lenny, you got anything we need to cover? Uh no, just uh we got uh be sure to go and buy tractor supply if you're looking for seed. All the deer plot products are in there. Uh Outfitters Blend and Hotspot will be available at Walmart stores uh probably this week, so check that out too. Uh also the Mossy Oak line of uh game processing equipment uh is there too. So uh check by check out track supply and Walmart.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:34

Yeah, and then uh coming up real soon, September 17th, is uh you know the big Mossy Oak property golf tournament. Yeah, the Fox Hall Shootout is upon us again.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:44

You want to get a ticket and come eat? Definitely. The probably the finest wild game event. You know, I'm into food, not golf, uh, but one of the finest wild game uh events and auction, and it's all for a great cause. Uh Catch a Dream and other uh organizations.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:58

Yeah, you guys should donate a survey. That'd be a great thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:03

That's right, good job.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:04

All right, guys, I'm gonna look around the room uh if there's nothing else. Eli, thank you for joining us. Hey, what are you? Jackson, you did a great job. Why don't you say goodbye, John? Say goodbye, John. Goodbye, John.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:14

Get us out of here, Jackson.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:16

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the Gamekeeper Podcast. And be sure to tune in again. Subscribe to Game Keeper Farming for Wildlife magazine, and don't miss the Mafio Properties Fistful of Dirt podcast with my good buddy, Ronnie Guster.