PODCAST EP. 365: Trading Habitat Help for Hunting Access

Transcript for On The Wing Podcast Ep. 365: Trading Habitat Help for Hunting Access

Speaker 1 (00:50.516)

Welcome to On The Wing podcast presented by Purina Pro Plan. Coming at you from one of the more beautiful hunting lodges. Can we call this a hunting lodge? What do you call this, Tim?

Speaker 2 (01:05.91)

I call it the farm. farm. But it is a hunting lodge.

Speaker 1 (01:09.304)

The hunting, we are surrounded by beautiful taxidermy, woodwork. see a speckle belly. I'm looking at a timber doodle, sage grouse. There are deer and bear and it's just a beautiful, beautiful setting. Setting I've come to know over the last couple of years and I love spending time here. The voice you've heard is my friend, Tim Kraski. Every spring.

couple times a year or a couple times a spring, Tim invites his extended group of friends and family and hangers-on. I fall into the hangers-on category, right? And Tim owns a bunch of property in Southern Minnesota, Brown County, Minnesota, that he is gracious enough to let a wide array of folks

come and pheasant on his property in exchange for a little sweat equity. And that's what we just got done doing this morning, providing some habitat help to my friend, Tim Kraski. You may recognize the name. He is a longtime volunteer of Pheasants Forever with the Brown County chapter of Pheasants Forever. I'll have him introduce himself in a moment. Another friend of mine, Christopher Davis.

who I see is often pheasant hunting, grouse hunting, as I do at these habitat work days. Also a Pheasants Forever Life member, Quail Forever Life member, and a guy that I, third member of our conversation today, a gentleman I only know just a little bit through habitat projects just like this is Brandon Johnson. Thanks for joining, Brandon. So we'll start.

We'll go around the horn, have you guys introduce yourselves to the listeners, and we'll talk about what we did today and kind of the unique bartering system that Tim Kraski has. let's first welcome Tim and tell folks about yourself.

Speaker 2 (03:19.406)

Well, thanks Bob and I enjoy doing these types of things because getting the word out and getting people educated on what it takes to be a landowner is very important. But like you said, I don't charge people to hunt here. It's friends, it's family, it's colleagues, know, stuff like that. But I'm usually with them and stuff. It's not like I open my property up and say, go hunt. Sure. But you know,

with owning property comes a responsibility and that is to manage it. And management is really tough because you have to sit every year and go, what am I going to do to this property and make it better? So people, I always get asked when I tell them I'm going to the farm, they say, what do you have cattle? Do you have sheep? Do you have pigs? know, do you, you know, grow crops? You know, I says, Nope. my, my, my animals are deer, turkey, pheasants.

doves and ducks. Exactly. So part of that responsibility is, is like every spring, I basically say you want to hunt this fall, you got to put a day in, you know, and I try not to make it the whole day. Usually it's three, four hours. You know, we started about nine in the morning. We're done by lunch, but I have a tree cutting day or I'm going to go on a tree execution day.

Speaker 1 (04:19.442)

You're farming for wildlife.

Speaker 1 (04:43.182)

Primarily cottonwoods in this part of the world.

Speaker 2 (04:46.75)

Cotton was are my nemesis. Yeah, and I've gotten one patch down here It's taken us three years to get the cotton was really under control and then you know I have usually a couple weeks later. We have a tree planting day Now the tree planting day really is it's about making habitat That is a good winter cover, you know shelter belt type winter cover for the animals Yeah, so they can get out of the blizzards and hide in the you know, and you know under the trees and

Speaker 1 (05:16.022)

near the food.

Speaker 2 (05:16.526)

And it's always near a food plot if I, know, for the most part, or food source. And, you know, when you own, I own almost 400 acres.

Speaker 1 (05:28.024)

on a variety of different tracks.

Speaker 2 (05:30.446)

There are seven parcels

Speaker 1 (05:32.702)

Okay, didn't know I I think I've only let's see one two, I think I've been on four

Speaker 2 (05:39.704)

These, this is actually to the main hall, but it's actually two, it's 160 acre. That's where the homestead is, but that's actually two piece of property. And I have to treat them differently because every piece of property also might have a program around it. When I talk about a program, I'm talking about a federal or state programs. P CRP, CREP, rim, WRP, you name the program. I probably have it. Okay. And I'm working on some fishing game, you know, programs right now. Partners. Yep.

Speaker 1 (05:41.864)

can I,

Speaker 1 (05:57.429)

See you

Speaker 2 (06:08.846)

And if people aren't, you know, people are familiar with, if you're familiar with like CREP-RAM, which is a permanent easement, that's really a state program. That's not a federal program. And the permanent private easement fishing game program is a federal program. Okay. And the nice part about that program, which reason I like it's over CREP-RAM in some cases is because if you have

I'm gonna call it edge wetlands in a dry year or whatever. You can farm it. Okay, hay it, farm it, know, do whatever. You cannot do that in crepe rep. So it's got some, I'm gonna call it other flexibilities, which matter. So you gotta look at every program on their own.

Speaker 1 (06:57.55)

Christopher, are you watching it? Like I asked him to introduce himself and he's so enthusiastic and passionate about habitat. Yes. minute diatribe to jump right into this passion for habitat. So, I'm just giving you grief. So we're going to talk about your property, your vision, your philosophy. Tell us a little bit about.

Speaker 2 (07:19.586)

You're very welcome.

Speaker 1 (07:27.084)

your connection with Pheasants Forever. I know you're a long time volunteer. How do you first get involved in the organization?

Speaker 2 (07:34.238)

it happened a long time ago when they, well, it actually happened probably when I first bought the property down here. I don't know if people are aware when they're looking for hunting land or property south of the Minnesota river. It's almost never listed. all the transactions are private. Well, I lived at the time in Minnetonka and I was trying to find a property within two hours, south and west of the Minnesota river. It just so happened the first property could actually acquire was in Brown County.

Well, the guy who I called every chapter in southern Minnesota, they called all the people who were on the boards or presidents and asked them if they knew of any land for sale. You know, we're talking Brown County, Blue Martin County, Redwood, et cetera. And nobody knew of any land for sale. But then I finally got a hold of Jeremy Berg, who you probably know, he's longtime Pheasants Forever member and does a lot with the PF acquisitions.

He says, I know a piece of property that's probably coming for sale. And he gave me the guy's name and number. He got permission to give me his name and number and I call them. And next thing I know, I hooked up with him, came out here, looked at it and bought the property. So that was my early stages of being involved with Pheasants Forever. Then I got to know Jeremy because he did the land closing and all that. And so the next thing I did was I,

joined Pheasants Forever down here and was getting involved with the committee and the chapter. Eventually I was involved with the banquets and then not that long after I was doing all the marketing for it and then after that I became the president.

Speaker 1 (09:23.494)

And you recently had a chapter, Hands On Habitat Workday, which we're celebrating all month long right now. How many people came out and volunteered with your chapter?

Speaker 2 (09:34.958)

We had 22 people, included adults, trap team. We even had some younger, know, I'm going to call it seven, eight year old. Oh, wow. Okay. know, a couple. And it's amazing. They got into it because, you know, the first thing we were doing is this one piece of property. And all of a sudden I almost stepped on a Woodcock nest. Woodcock got up, took off and I looked down there and I could see the eggs. So I got the kids to come over and I said to, they wanted to go pick the eggs up. But I said, no, you can't pick the eggs up.

So then we're going like another 50 feet. Then we scared up a hen mallard. And she was on a nest. And then we went about another 100 feet and there was a pheasant on a nest. So this is not that big a piece of property. This was like, jeez, maybe two acres. And there were three different breeds of animals with nests on it.

Speaker 1 (10:29.362)

And this was a state-owned wildlife management area? Correct. And you said, as we were having lunch here, that the chapter has six land acquisitions in process right now.

Speaker 2 (10:40.684)

Roughly, yes. And we closed on, I want to say, six other ones in the last two years.

Speaker 1 (10:47.938)

That's awesome. So you are truly like, we're going to talk a lot today about private land habitat, but I bring this up, you know, everybody benefits from your passion and your passion as a volunteer for public land as well. You're helping create public land, WMAs, WMPAs, walk-in acres here in Southwest Minnesota that people see the fruits of those labors through access.

Speaker 2 (11:16.396)

Yeah. And one of the programs that got us to focus on the public land, which has really helped us focus as a chapter as well, is the adopted WMA program from the DNR. And if people are not familiar with that, we adopted all the WMAs in Brown County. All of them. Well, it's kind of hard to keep track, but we're at 40 different parcels. Wow. So, pick out, you know, in the spring, we work with the DNR, pick out certain ones.

Speaker 1 (11:31.406)

them all. How many is that?

Speaker 1 (11:40.152)

That's a lot.

Speaker 2 (11:45.934)

And we go work on those for specific tasks. And then we have other tasks through the summer where we get other people, probably not as many, you know, but we get a handful of people come out and we rip out barbed wire fence or we create a parking area because a lot of the WMAs didn't even have parking areas on, you know, and over the last five years, I want to say it is we put in somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 plus parking areas. Wow. They're designated parking areas.

we've cleaned up miles of barbed wire, know, Fentanyl posts, you know, stuff like that garbage, you know, and you know, that is, there's a, people think sometimes WMAs are dumping grounds for their garbage, you know, and that's a real problem. So, you know, I got my ways of dealing with certain people that I know are doing it, you know, so it's, you know, I,

Speaker 1 (12:39.746)

You're like the Brown County mafia. Are they sleeping with the fishes now there, Tim?

Becoming a little uncomfortable with this line of questioning. We don't want to let Tim put himself in legal jeopardy. So we'll move on. Since we've talked to Tim to start for 12 minutes of an introduction to Christopher, thank you very much for joining. Thanks for coming down and helping with the Habitat Project. Tell our listeners just a little bit about yourself. Sure. Christopher Davis.

My daytime, I'm an attorney and nighttime I'm a dad of two now adult sons. I was born and raised in Decora, Iowa. And about 30 years ago, my wife and I escaped across the border to Minnesota. Haven't been caught since. And so I grew up hunting. Drifted away for a few years after law school, raising kids and spending time out in football fields and soccer fields.

And as I got older, I was able to drift back in and have never looked back. have two labs now? Yes, I have two labs. have one that is pretty much retired now, right? And I have a six-year-old English lab that I hunt extensively with. And it is my passion, right? When I'm out in the field, it is my...

as my wife calls it, my happy place. When I'm with my dog and I'm just out there and I see him starting to move and you know that tail, once that tail starts moving, that moment is special to me. on a day like today, to be able to come out and actually do some work is actually very rewarding, very rewarding.

Speaker 1 (14:44.066)

meet Tim? Through a mutual friend of ours, of course everybody knows Matt Kharosky at this table. He called me up and he said, well, there's this crotchety old guy that, was he talking about himself or is he talking about Tim? That has some family and friends that on opening day he brings in and then there's a big game feed. And we need somebody

with some dogs because there's quite a few nephews that if you do not know, Tim Kraski's dad was quite prolific and so every year it seems like I meet a new nephew out of the woodwork. I have no idea. So the first time I arrived, you know,

Speaker 2 (15:24.419)

Children.

Speaker 2 (15:29.696)

I don't know and I thought it was my mom. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:42.37)

day was just running running dogs, right? No gun in the hand. I got to experience Tim's private property. And of course that was, it's a very special experience. You know, for the listeners, it's like going to South Dakota to give you a reference point. On opening day, we really do well. And then, you know, through that, I got to spend some time with Tim and

Speaker 2 (16:06.638)

Hmm.

Speaker 1 (16:12.524)

realized how committed he was to pheasants forever. And obviously the habitat community that we have here and the absolute hours that he spends on public lands just in maintenance and preparation, whether it's helping with burns or cleanup or even putting in simple things like parking. So for somebody like me who extensively hunts public land,

to come and be able to help Tim on his private land is not only fair, it's real. Yeah, I agree with that too. I do want to point listeners to davislawmn.com. You could see a photo of Christopher the day he left law school.

Speaker 2 (16:46.936)

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:03.214)

You might want to update that picture. Okay. So my youngest son told me not long ago, dad, you need to change that picture. You look like you're catfishing. I have never been on your website before. did preparation. checked it. was like, my God. It's on the to do list. Yeah. Yeah. There's a, there's a few more gray hairs and a few more pounds. it's fun.

Speaker 2 (17:22.574)

Alright

Speaker 1 (17:32.91)

davislawmn.com, check it out. And thank you for being a Pheasants Forever Life member and a Quail Forever Life member. And you have at least one dog life member too. That is correct. Yeah, that is correct. And we will round out introductions Brandon Johnson, who I think we've met maybe one other time through a Habitat Day like this, right? Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you fit in to the Tim Kraski habitat tree.

Speaker 3 (18:04.558)

Yeah, well, thanks for having me first. I think maybe I fit in just because I'm younger so I can have some muscle and help. No, we go, we go way back. So, you know, just like Chris and a lot of people, Tim's touched a lot of people and I had a mutual friend that knew Tim and this was, I was what, I think in high school or something. It was like, Hey, I have this old guy who needs some help on his farm. Want to come help out? was like, you know what I'm doing?

Speaker 2 (18:11.766)

All right.

Speaker 2 (18:30.698)

I have no... You know, I don't feel that old. Well, maybe take that back. Maybe I'm feeling old because I'm getting more surgeries.

Speaker 1 (18:35.696)

Yeah!

Speaker 4 (18:41.752)

Hmm.

Speaker 3 (18:42.776)

But I don't know, that first time must've come out, must've done a good job, cause I got invited back and now because of that, I've actually kind of developed a love and learned so much for habitat and pheasant hunting. So before that, you know, I was born and raised just outside of Minneapolis, you know, Minnesota boy my whole life. And I grew up deer hunting cause that's the, know, what I had access to as a kid, but pheasant hunting, I didn't know how to do public land. didn't know, you know, where to go, who to talk to.

And Tim kind of opened my door to that. And, you know, obviously I'm very fortunate to be able to help out and, and, and hunt private, but it's also given me the knowledge to be able to go out and hunt public. And that's what I've kind of become. And I even got a hunting dog a couple of years ago now. So.

Speaker 1 (19:28.854)

That's cool. So your ability to kind of learn how to read Habitat and go with other people on this private land gave you the confidence to go do it on your own.

Speaker 3 (19:39.606)

Yes. And I've, it's fun to, bring out other people. So I feel Tim's brought, you know, a bunch of family and friends out to his farm to help and bring the love of habitat and, and sport like this to others. So I try to return the favor. I've got, you know, coworkers who wanted to get into hunting. I'm like, well, I might know where some good public land spots are in Brown County. can go together now. And before that, I wouldn't have been able to do that. So it's been, it's been a really cool experience and I'm.

forever grateful.

Speaker 2 (20:10.574)

It's interesting, Bob, because in Brown County, we have really good habitat for pheasants. And you saw pheasants this morning when you were coming in. And Chris saw them and Brandon saw them. There are a lot of birds here. There really are. We have great habitat in the whole county. Brown County is roughly five million acres or something like that. And if you take in CRP, WRP, CREPRIM, all the WMAs, all that, it's...

about 6, 7 % of the 5 million acres, Habitat. Correct. Which is probably twice as much as some other counties. know what mean? and we, the nice part is we got it in the, I'm going to call it grouped up in the right places as well.

Speaker 1 (20:43.99)

is in some form of

Speaker 1 (20:57.72)

connectivity to a lot of it too.

Speaker 2 (20:59.822)

Yeah, and I will say this for the listeners who come down here at Brown County. You know, they all hear about, you know, because when you see the roadside count, Brown County is all brown, which means it's got the highest density of pheasants per acre.

Speaker 1 (21:12.269)

Many years, it's one of the hotspots.

Speaker 2 (21:14.58)

Right. The only challenge is if everybody wants to come here opening weekend, now they're finding it hard to get on a WMA because if they're not here at four in the morning, you're probably not going to get on one unless it's in the afternoon. that doesn't mean you can't. Nobody shoots all the pheasants because guess what? We're seeing all the roosters around. Even now. I counted the other day on one plowed field, which is probably 80 acres, 40 pheasants out there in the morning. 40.

And I would say the brood count is like one rooster and every has at least four or five hens. And they're everywhere. You know, you can hear them, you can see them, you know, the spring, can see them all. I can't see them in the fall because all the grass is up and they're all hiding on you. Once they've been hunted, they get smart real quick. So, you know, people don't kill them all. They just happen to find places to go hide.

Speaker 1 (21:48.61)

Great.

Speaker 1 (22:05.39)

Right. Yeah, it is one of my favorite areas of the state. And if you live in the Twin Cities, this is a doable day trip. can slip down to Brown County or in the surrounding counties, hunt with some beautiful public land in this area, or you have some friends that own some private land. There are birds around and you can get back home and eat a church on Sunday morning.

or whatever the case may be. It might be dinner Saturday night or dinner on Sunday. Or you're making a week. There you go. before I transition, you have written a cookbook before.

Speaker 2 (22:36.654)

Might be dinner.

Speaker 2 (22:41.87)

or pheasant.

Speaker 2 (22:50.019)

Yes, I did. I said I wanted to write one book in my life. It became a cookbook.

Speaker 1 (22:54.112)

and tell us about the book and where people can find it.

Speaker 2 (22:57.75)

Well, the book is titled Red, White, and Everything Else. And I was trying to basically write a wild game cookbook for people who want to basically cook their wild game and want to know how to have some recipes and options how to do it. So the red is for red meat, white is for white meat, and then everything else. That includes rubs, vegetables, salads, stuff like that.

It's been published now, you know, out for five years, probably. the only place you can get it actually is for me directly. Cause the publisher I published it through actually went out of business. So they called me up one day and said, we're closing the doors and we have to ship all your books to you. Okay. So I never put it on Amazon because I don't want to bad mouth Amazon only they just take so much of your money in it, you know, by the time you're done.

you know, because all the money I put out all the money to publish it. did. Okay. And basically they want to keep most of it. So I just said, you know, I'm not doing that. I published it and I paid for it anyway. if you want a cookbook, get in contact with me. well, that's pretty easy. Tim at Krasky.com.

Speaker 1 (24:11.832)

What's your email address?

Speaker 1 (24:16.334)

Tim at Krasky, K-R-A-S-K-E-Y dot com. And how much does a book cost?

Speaker 2 (24:19.758)

You.

Speaker 2 (24:26.638)

20 bucks plus five bucks for shipping if I'm shipping it. I'll autograph it if they ask, just ask me to autograph it if I will.

Speaker 1 (24:29.836)

And you'll auto- you'll autograph.

Speaker 1 (24:36.046)

All right. And if I could just add to that, I've not had a bad meal out of that cookbook. Some of the best Asian out there and hands down. So very approachable too. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:48.664)

Right. Well, some of the recipes might take a little longer for prep, you know, stuff. you know, I spent...

25 years on a plane probably, somewhere in the world. you know, I've been to Paris probably 35 times. So you eat French food and I used to go to this one restaurant or all the time when I was in Paris and...

Speaker 1 (25:12.814)

What was the name of their restaurant?

Speaker 2 (25:16.652)

La Corsica. Because the owner was born in Corsica, just like Napoleon was. And he basically opened it, it was called La Corsica. it was a, it's not, it's not in business anymore. Cause you know, it was like every restaurant after 10 years, he seemed to just turn over. But I got to meet the guy, the chef and the owner. And cause I kept coming in there and he said, how do you make this? You know,

Speaker 1 (25:17.77)

La Corsica in prayer.

Speaker 2 (25:46.166)

And he didn't speak a lick of English and my French is really bad. So we communicated through food and spice. So I would eat dinner there and then I'd go down to the kitchen and I literally would help him. You know, and I didn't do this all the time, it's, know, like two or three times, but I got to see how he made certain things. so when you travel the world, you get a sense of different spices, tastes, how to mix things. And.

So this, I've got Moroccan dish in there. I've got Asian dishes in there. I've got European dishes in there. And it's all wild game. Yep.

Speaker 1 (26:23.694)

Cool. Red, white, and everything else, Tim Kraski at timatkraski.com. Before we transition, talk a little bit more about your habitat. I want to thank Purina Pro Plan, the official national dog food partner of Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever, and the presenting partner of On the Wing podcast, My Pups from

Speaker 2 (26:32.162)

Yep. Okay.

Speaker 1 (26:50.892)

Tramiel and Izzy and Esky to my current pack, which includes Gitchy and Winter, have always eaten Purina ProPlan. Not just because Purina supports the wildlife habitat mission of our organization, which is very important to me, but what's even more important is that Purina ProPlan was created for the working bird dog like yours and like mine. You can learn more at ProPlanSport.com.

Carina ProPlan nutrition that performs.

Speaker 3 (27:23.544)

Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever National Headquarters in St. Paul, Minnesota, this is Casey Sill with the Upland Newsroom, delivering top stories from the Habitat Organization and across the American Upland. We'll start today in Tennessee, where Governor Bill Lee recently signed a bill helping pave the way for a Quail Forever specialty license plate. The bill provides a meaningful way to support Quail Forever's conservation efforts in Tennessee, and specialty plates are a proven tool that allow us to directly invest in the conservation efforts we value.

The plates cost $40 each and 1,000 pre-orders are needed by June 30th, 2027 to make them available statewide. Head over to events.fezendsforever.org to pre-order your plate today. We're in the throes of tick season and this spring is shaping up to be particularly intense across much of the country. In April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported visits to emergency rooms for tick bites were higher than normal in many parts of the country.

In all regions except the South Central United States, weekly rates of ER visits for tick bites were the highest for this time of year since 2017. Outdoor News also recently reported that tick season is off to a fast start, with an unusually high number of bites already reported, leading some US doctors to worry about the potential for a bad year for tick-borne diseases. So, be sure to keep tick prevention in mind for both you and your pups as you're out and about this spring chasing turkeys and training dogs.

Finally, we've got a number of new land acquisitions to celebrate across the uplands this week as the organization has added significant acres of public access in our home state of Dedication ceremonies were held in early May at the 214-acre Sakonics Wildlife Management Area addition and the 164-acre Pelican Lake Waterfowl Production Area addition, both of which are in Wright County, Minnesota.

Both parcels expand on existing wildlife complexes and are located near the towns of St. Michael and Monticello along the Interstate 94 corridor, less than an hour's drive from most parts of the Twin Cities metropolitan area. These additions, acquired primarily through Pheasants Forever's Build a Wildlife Area program and Minnesota's Outdoor Heritage Fund, each features several restored seasonal wetlands, areas of forest, and upland acres planted with diverse prairie mixes.

Speaker 3 (29:39.608)

That'll do it this week. Reporting from PF and QF headquarters in St. Paul, Minnesota, I'm Casey Sill.

Speaker 1 (29:45.998)

All right, Tim, you talked about, we dove into a little bit to your property. You've got seven, is that what you seven different tracks? And you have a little bit different, well, my perception is you have a little bit different philosophy for each of them. Some are with a deer focus, some are with a pheasant focus, but that's just my perception. Tell us a little bit about your...

Speaker 2 (29:54.114)

I think it's six or seven.

Speaker 1 (30:13.486)

philosophy on how you manage these properties.

Speaker 2 (30:17.358)

Well, you got to look at each property and I'm going to say have a plan. And I think people, when they buy a property and they don't have a plan, they really don't get what they want out of it either. having a plan of what you want. if you want it to be a deer property, it's not just about creating woods, know, more deer lay in grass, you know, during hunting season than they are in the woods. know, they only go to the woods, you know, when you got a blizzard.

Or they need browse, you know, because they need to eat in the winter. But for the most part, I got more big bucks sitting in my big bluestem out here, you know, that you can't even see because they're like bluestems taller than the deer. Most of the people who've hunted mine last year, I can tell you that I was standing in the back of my Ranger on a post and I could not see the hunter's heads in the grass. That's all the tall the grass was.

So even shooting a bird and dropping it, you're going, where did it go? You hopefully the dogs are on it, but it's it's just really superb grass. it took a lot of work to get to that. So you, you.

Speaker 1 (31:29.518)

You would employ prescribed fire pretty frequently. That's one of your main tools, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (31:34.572)

I would tell anybody, you haven't burned your property in, you know, call it five to seven years, you have to almost have to burn your property. That's just a good number of things. One is it gets rid of all the underbrush. Okay. So the, so that it can come up more vital and vigorous in the spring, the grass. Number two, you're getting rid of a lot of, I'm gonna call it noxious trees, noxious weeds, you know, stuff like that, you know,

all the saplings that want to make tree, basically grasslands now want to become forests. And the only way you get rid of it and keep it manageable is burn it.

Speaker 1 (32:13.816)

burn it or in the case of your cottonwoods, it's a constant fight. I've cottoned them down and squirting it with chemicals so it doesn't come back.

Speaker 2 (32:22.19)

Yeah, and I will tell anybody if you're go cut a cottonwood you're and you don't spray the stump Mm-hmm. You're asking for it to come back worse because it comes like an octopus back It doesn't come back as one tree. It comes back as an octopus

Speaker 1 (32:35.372)

How long did it take you to learn that?

Speaker 2 (32:38.35)

three years, the hard way. And it's cost a lot more time and a lot more money, but now we, think I've got it under control, you know, where whenever we go out on tree cutting day, I've got a team, somebody cuts and somebody's got a spray bottle, you know, Hudson sprayer with the chemical and sprays the stumps, you know,

Speaker 1 (32:59.564)

And then if you got enough people, have the folks out. Christopher and I have been teams before where we wrap the cut down cottonwoods. then one of us gets the fun job of driving the Polaris. then throwing that onto the burn pile. What I haven't been invited to is the winter bonfire. Have you been to the I have not. know. Brandon, have you been to the

Speaker 2 (33:24.44)

When you roast?

Speaker 3 (33:28.312)

No, I haven't.

Speaker 1 (33:29.378)

But every year, these bonfires are like skyscrapers.

Speaker 2 (33:35.288)

So next January, I'll make sure to invite all you guys. There has to be snow on the ground. Yeah. Because you don't want to start everything else on fire.

Speaker 1 (33:38.712)

So as I, you burn them in the dead of winter.

Speaker 1 (33:45.848)

They're giant. These fires are giant.

Speaker 2 (33:48.94)

Yes, they are. And to give people perspective of how big the one pile we got is, it's probably 12 feet tall, probably 30 feet around, okay, of just cottonwoods. But you got to leave them sit for a year. Dry out. Yeah. And the only good thing, I'll tell you, the only good thing is too, is you get rid of a bunch of coons when you burn it. those things are, they're, they live in them. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:13.72)

Desting inside that thing. Just for the record, there's no coon recipe in your cookbook, You could, probably.

Speaker 2 (34:22.702)

You know what? There's not many bad things other than, how hard is it to tell you a spoonbill is not good eating? But other than that, most things, I've tried the craziest things in the world too. I've had camel, I've had ostrich, I've had a snake alligator. You name all these crazy things. I've had emu, I've had like everything. Kangaroo, a lot of them, they don't taste bad if they're prepared.

I will tell listeners out there, the first thing with especially red meat is they overcook it. Almost all red meat needs to be medium to medium rare.

Speaker 1 (35:05.186)

I tell you what, if I'm eating raccoon, I'm cooking the All right, back to the habitat. So you're looking at your properties, and I know you love... My perception is you love deer hunting above all other types of hunting. Is that accurate? Really? Okay.

Speaker 2 (35:22.604)

No. If you were to put it, what I love to do best, duck hunting. I grew up.

Speaker 1 (35:28.386)

Duck hunting. Well, that makes sense because you do it like the new property here, you want to dig a pond. What your, is it the 80? You got a little wet one on.

Speaker 2 (35:39.49)

The 80s of the West is they got a crick on it that's been dammed up.

Speaker 1 (35:42.69)

But I don't see you duck hunting that often. Are you duck hunting and I just don't know it?

Speaker 2 (35:47.126)

Well, can only the only thing that really you can duck hunt over there is probably Woody's really early. Okay. Okay, because let's see with the other ducks don't like the trees. But I got the you know, the 40 over here, it's got a two and a half acre pond on it. So we get geese out of their ducks out of their Woody's out of their you know, okay.

Speaker 1 (36:08.014)

What's your favorite duck?

Speaker 2 (36:10.232)

God, I love them all. know, favorite to eat? Wood ducks. far. You know, they're, tasty morsels. Teal are pretty, I put teal and mallards about equal.

Speaker 1 (36:12.771)

to eat.

Speaker 1 (36:20.45)

better than teal.

Speaker 1 (36:24.76)

would,

Speaker 2 (36:27.936)

a good northern mallard with all that fat on it. God, those are pretty good.

Speaker 1 (36:32.568)

So you put waterfall at the top of the list for hunting.

Speaker 2 (36:36.174)

I loved a pheasant hunt. And I bought this property for pheasant hunting. You did? It just happens to be a really good deer. You know, with the other properties, I've got really good deer habitat too, because I manage certain parts of properties as well for deer. know, like the West 80, it's got that creek with the dam, creek, you know, where pond, but it's got a grove there. The deer love that. They love my

Speaker 1 (36:43.768)

Okay.

Speaker 2 (37:04.898)

bottom over here on the 40, you know, we don't pheasant hunt that much because it's such a good deer habitat.

Speaker 1 (37:10.526)

So, you know, in your past life, you're talking about traveling all over the world. You're in marketing. So give us a old fashioned SWOT analysis on your property here in Southwest Minnesota. What's the easy strengths? What are the easy weaknesses? The opportunities to do something different and the threats against what you're trying to create here.

Speaker 2 (37:17.122)

Right. was. Yes.

Speaker 2 (37:37.134)

Well, the strengths I've got is some of the habitat I acquired was planted with good grass seed, know, what I call a native mix. Blue stem Indian grass.

Speaker 1 (37:45.23)

Okay. Blue Stem or... A fair amount of flowers into the mix here.

Speaker 2 (37:51.02)

Yeah, some of us, you know, I reseeded part of this on the main property here. We did reseeded to about 20 acres of it with, I think we have 34 forms in it for pollinator. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:04.334)

34 different flowering plants.

Speaker 2 (38:06.328)

Correct. And so that's hopefully going to be up, you know, it won't look great this year, but next year it'll probably really look great. Okay. So, you know, it did that and that was just so everybody knows. If you have crep rim ground in the state of Minnesota, there's money available to take advantage of to reseed it. Okay. Okay. You have to contact your local SWCD office and talk to them. They have to actually inspect your property to see if it qualifies. Okay. Okay.

Speaker 1 (38:34.936)

So strength, you got grass and you got some good flour. What's the weak, what's a weakness down here? Cottonwoods.

Speaker 2 (38:35.808)

strengths

Speaker 2 (38:42.84)

Cottonwoods. Those things, cottonwoods and Chinese elms.

Speaker 1 (38:47.374)

In the cottonwoods, because there's a fair amount, this is lot of low ground with some, it's wet soil, so the cottonwoods just keep popping,

Speaker 2 (38:58.862)

Correct. you know, in the spring when you get the, you know, the cotton, you know, from the, with the seed, they find the wet spot and just...

Speaker 1 (39:08.77)

disburses everywhere. What's the opportunity when you look at this to really improve it?

Speaker 2 (39:15.182)

Well, like the property we worked on today across the road, we have an opportunity. The opportunity is a couple of things. One is it had a lot of old growth trees in there and a lot of them are Chinese elms, really just bad trees. There's, I asked, there are mushrooms over there, probably pop and gnaw. Okay, I'll take a look. No, we didn't see them.

Speaker 1 (39:29.198)

We should go look for mushrooms later.

Speaker 1 (39:36.696)

Tell you what probably or did you guys see that? Yeah, but we're talking about this. Okay. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 (39:42.722)

So we can go after this.

Speaker 1 (39:45.196)

You're darn right we're going go look for mushrooms after this.

Speaker 2 (39:47.406)

So there's Chinese Elms over there that need to be just taken out. Okay, because they're just old growth and they're not the most attractive trees and

Speaker 1 (39:56.63)

Is the bark sloughing off of them? Yeah, that's a good indication that the mushrooms are going to be right underneath. I'm sorry, is the Morrell mushroom episode. Sorry, Tim, go ahead. You want to get rid of these elm trees.

Speaker 2 (40:13.816)

taking all the trees down. The first thing is the opportunities are burn it, rid of all the thatch because it's never been burned. Get rid of all the trees. Okay. And then I want to dig anywhere from a two to a four acre pond on it in the lower to hold the water back to make another duck slough. So you can imagine even this fall with the new grass growing in there. And then if it's, we'll see what it looks like this fall after it regrows.

But if it's not quite right, we can do some interseeding to get some of the taller grasses in there as well, the bluegrass and Indian grass and stuff like that. And then there were seven acres of ag land on it, which became a perfect food plot. know what I mean? So those are the opportunities. Just take a piece of land like that, it's 22 acres, and just look at it differently and rebuild it for habitat.

Speaker 1 (41:08.492)

When I think threat, I come back to cottonwoods again. Yeah. Yeah, as a threat, because of the seeds, because of the soil, it feels like you're in a constant battle with the cottonwoods.

Speaker 2 (41:21.57)

Like I said, this is where I have to look at it. And if they get too bad, it's called have a fire. You know, I go in the fall, then if I'm to do that and cut burn breaks or pass. And then I hire the local fire department, the Springfield fire department, you know, to come and burn it because they're actually very reasonably priced, you know, to and for those people who don't have access to, to burn their land. Yeah.

talk to your local fire department.

Speaker 1 (41:51.788)

That's a tremendous pro tip. Talk to your local fire department. You can hire them.

Speaker 2 (41:58.562)

Well, give you an example. The town of Sleepy-Eye doesn't do burns. So I talked to the Sleepy-Eye chief and I says, do you mind if Springfield or Comfrey does your burns? And they said, no, have at it. They just let us know that you're doing it. Because chiefs talk to chiefs. Sure. You know, and so I've referred five or six people in the last two years to the Springfield fire department because Comfrey's booked out almost two years.

Speaker 1 (42:27.63)

So I had this question come up from a Pheasants Forever member via Instagram recently. Can you hire local fire departments as a chapter to do WMA burns? Have you done that as a chapter? Okay.

Speaker 2 (42:42.176)

No, and that gets into state control. The DNR, but wait, you would have to have permission from the DNR first to do that. Well. And it depends on.

Speaker 1 (42:53.16)

Sure, it does manage land. The local wildlife area manager?

Speaker 2 (42:59.938)

Correct. they, and they do burns. You know, the question is, if you don't enlighten them, where do you need them to burn? Sure. You know, if you don't, it's kind of like, you know, squeaky wheel gets the grease. Well, if you're not complaining to your local DNR regional manager,

Speaker 1 (43:18.818)

How about having a conversation, not necessarily...

Glass is half full, Tim.

Speaker 2 (43:29.624)

Well, let me tell you kind of how some of this happens too is like when I talked to our local DNR, wildlife manager, asked him, says, what do want us to work on with the adoptive WMA? know? And so this year he goes, you know, Hey, we need to remove a fence line on the, Basha WMA. old barbwire there. And I go, I thought we took it all out. Lo and behold in the middle of the Basha, which I had never been in.

Speaker 1 (43:51.087)

certain dogs.

Speaker 2 (43:59.766)

I had to drive my ATV back there. You know, I found this old fence line.

Speaker 1 (44:04.532)

So was it the same barbed wire that Simonette mentioned? No. It was a different one.

Speaker 2 (44:09.198)

It's a different one. So I drove back in there. Sure enough, there's an old fence line there that actually goes from my property, which is, you know, on that corner I never go to anyway, because it's all buried by willows. And it goes all the way to the west.

Speaker 1 (44:23.96)

So, and you pulled it out?

Speaker 2 (44:25.996)

No, we're going to pull it out this summer. It was too wet. To get the machinery back there, get people, I know how to get back there, when you get another four or five guys with ATVs and machinery and stuff, it's, you gotta have a, I don't wanna be making a lot of ruts and tracks through the WMA either.

Speaker 1 (44:45.326)

So I want to bring Christopher and Brandon back into this conversation. Thank you for listening patiently. You've talked about both helping out, doing these volunteer days, and then returning hunting and seeing tremendous bird numbers. Tell me about just your experience. You touched on the satisfaction of working and putting these

worth the work. There's a feeling when you're hunting, like you had a role in seeing those birds too. Absolutely. And when you're hunting now, after you've done this a few years, you're kind of now starting to look at the topography in a totally different viewpoint, right? You're like, I bet you we're coming back to take care of that. See that, Nate, bro?

Speaker 1 (45:42.698)

That's a big cut in the work.

Speaker 4 (45:46.26)

It's a win and lose kind of proposition.

Speaker 1 (45:49.166)

You know what you're getting yourself into. Yeah, but what it does do is it actually again re-educate you as as you're going about on what is good habitat. Hmm, right and what are things that are invasive? I mean even sometimes, you know when you're walking down there, you're like, huh? This looks looking pretty good except now you've got this tree and you see a raptor sitting there Well, you know, know that is not going to be very productive area

for pheasant hunting. Sure. Right. yeah. What about you, Brandon? You've been here a number of years now. What's your experience? How do you feel when you walk out on this property?

Speaker 3 (46:29.69)

I feel like I've had a part and it's a fun just to see how big some of the trees that you've planted were. I looked back at my first row of trees, which is, can almost see from here. And I was like, I can't believe I did that, you know, 10 plus years ago. And then the icing on the cake is when you go walk that line and some pheasants pop out of that line of tree. And you're just like, I think I played a part there. So it's been, it's been extremely rewarding and just to, have fun there and then to.

you know, create that population and have fun with others around you because you know, hunting and sport, it's about the friends you make too. So I've made a lot of good friends here, all because of that.

Speaker 1 (47:09.71)

Yeah. On a personal level, mean, our listeners know I spend 95 % of my time on public land. I love public land. However, you know, there's one weekend a year, one long weekend a year where my brother and nephew come down from Northern Wisconsin. They live in the Grouse Woods. They both work for the US Forest Service. And they get one weekend a year to come pheasant hunting with Uncle Bob. And, you know, we...

We hunt some public land, I also, you you have that Uncle Bob sense of, want to make sure they get in front of some birds. And a lot of times this is December and, you know, public land have been pounded pretty, pretty hard. So being able to call my friend, Tim, and say, can I bring Matt and Nicholas and spend the weekend hunting your properties?

is a really, really gem of an experience that Uncle Bob can put my nephew and brother on. So thank you for letting me do that, Tim. It means a lot to me personally to be able to have friends that open up their little slice of Valhalla. And same thing that you guys articulated coming down here. Although I...

I arrived about two hours after you guys did. I use the old Saturday morning radio excuse, but. Typical pointer guy. All the work is done by the labs. the pointer goes, finds the birds that have already been flushed. Yeah. Here comes Bob. Trees are cut. Yeah. My shirt is as dirty as yours. That was the hug.

Speaker 2 (48:59.336)

I was going to say he's still wearing his war paint on his face.

Speaker 1 (49:02.414)

But it is a sense of accomplishment that when you're out here taking down these cottonwoods and piling them up and a little sweat equity knowing that Tim is going to repay in kind come fall. It's pretty fun. like today, had obviously younger gentlemen sitting to my right, Brandon here, right? But we had guys of all ages, right?

And everybody was contributing. You know, and I would, I would tell the audience if you've never participated in a habitat day, whatever you can bring is good enough. Right. Show up. You know, if all you're doing is, is driving the ATV or, or watering the trees. Perfectly fine. Yeah. Right. Although Leopold talked about this, you know, pitching in and helping, know, Doug Durin.

Speaker 2 (49:50.306)

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 (49:59.5)

has his Sharing the Land initiative. And those are fabulous. they're, in Doug's case, very formalized. And he's doing an unbelievable job motivating people to give back. But I encourage folks, you can do this in a very small level, too. Find a friend. Find a Tim Kraski, because they probably need a little muscle, somebody to turn a chainsaw.

Speaker 2 (50:28.662)

What better way to maybe access to private land is to go put in a day on somebody's land.

Speaker 1 (50:36.162)

Help the plant, help burn, help do something.

Speaker 2 (50:38.936)

I have a neighbor over here. He went on Facebook and you know, he's, he's a great guy, but he, he went, he did his rant on Facebook and his rant was everybody sees the turkeys on my property and then they come and want to hunt on, on Turkey season to see if they can get permission to go out to turkeys. Where were they when they wanted to put some sweat equity into, to get permission prior to the year of actually hunting. And he made a really good point.

You know, if you want to get on somebody's private property, sometimes it's not, it's not the first time you knock, you know, the first time you're not, you're probably told no, but they say, look, if you want to come help me for a day, do this, this, and this, you know, take out some dead trees or that need to be removed, you know, and stuff like that. Well, if you don't go do that, you're probably not going to get permission next year either.

Speaker 1 (51:29.762)

Has anybody ever knocked on your door, the complete stranger, and said, can I help put in a little work? No.

Speaker 2 (51:38.094)

No, they just want to know if they can get hunting. Sure. But most people know down here that I have a lot of family. most, I want to say if it's somebody who comes and knocks my door to ask to hunt, they're not from around here. They're probably from the cities. know, everybody around here knows me pretty well and I know them pretty well. And so the nice part is, I don't even have just my own property at times to hunt on. I have a lot of other people's property in Hunton. You know,

They're not going to open it up to everybody. if I ask like my next door neighbor, Zach, if I can I go over and, know, remember, remember, was it, was it three or four years ago? We had Marilyn and Clyde, Matt, you and I, right? Yep. Zach. Yep. And we got, we went over on Zach's. Remember how many pheasants got up out of there? There must have been 300 birds that got out of But they were in the worst.

Speaker 1 (52:30.702)

There's a lot of birds down here.

Speaker 2 (52:36.8)

of walking the worst of everything because it was late December. I want to say it was after Christmas. think it was, or was it right before Christmas? was cold. was snow on the ground and you had to walk through all the really crappy junk to get to them. But there were a lot of birds.

Speaker 1 (52:44.556)

I think it was right before Chris.

Speaker 1 (52:59.918)

So let me ask you, if you're somebody listening and you live in part of a country that maybe has limited public access, but there's a lot of people that have private land, you're listening in May, is there advice you would give to knock on the door in May and June to get access come fall? Well, how would you approach that?

Speaker 2 (53:26.274)

The first thing is I would go meet the person. Okay. If you're knocking on the door, you want to meet the person and just be come out, come right out, you know, and, know, for the most part and say, look, I, I like to find a way if it's possible for me to hunt your land, if that means me putting in some time to help you improve your property. So be it. You got to tell me what you want done, but I'd like to be able to hunt it this fall. Okay.

The other, and the, if he gives you permission, will tell you, you're going to get permission with, especially the first year, you're going to get permission with a lot of eyes watching you, means if you do something stupid, trust me, you won't be back. You leave trash, you leave litter, you know, you have to actually, if there's something broken or you absclude, you do something by accident, you go tell the owner, Hey, I did this.

What do have to do to make it right? You know, I didn't mean to, but you know, I like to, I like to co you know, fix it, compensate you, whatever to get it fixed. You can't sit and like, you know, there are people who do stuff like that. then they say, then they say they didn't do it. You know what I mean? You're better off just coming clean and being honest. So, know, honestly is the best thing you could ever do anyway. So I would tell people you've got to start. If you want to hunt probably this fall, I'd tell you, you really should start your.

work now for the following.

Speaker 1 (54:57.036)

Essentially pay it forward. Yep. Yeah. So I want to round to the close here in a moment, but I want to also ask somebody that owns private land, you mentioned having your land enrolled in a variety of programs, state programs, federal programs, USDA programs. Any advice you'd give to maybe a new landowner that would like to explore conservation opportunities? Anything that you've learned the hard way?

Speaker 2 (55:25.92)

Well, the programs are very confusing. know, they're all, they all come with strings attached. They all come with money too. The first thing is what can your land or whatever you want to do qualify for? So an example, some of programs you have to have farmed it.

Speaker 1 (55:49.314)

Yeah, farm history within the last five or eight.

Speaker 2 (55:53.09)

last 10 years or something or may not qualify. So the first thing to do is start with the people that actually know these programs. So I'm going give you, it's not going to be just one source. So let's start with, if you have a farm bill biology.

Farm Bill biologist in your district, start with them.

Speaker 1 (56:14.03)

So you can find that under the Conservation tab on our website.

Speaker 2 (56:17.644)

Yep. And there's also like Brown County, our Riva is our PF biologist. She's in, and most of them are in the FSA office. Correct. There might refer you to SWCD.

Speaker 1 (56:28.663)

local USDA service centers.

Speaker 1 (56:35.278)

Soil and water conservation, at least in Minnesota.

Speaker 2 (56:38.55)

Yep. And they may not be in the same office. They could be in the same office because remember one state and one's federal. So they're probably not in the same office, you know, but, they will talk to you about things like CREP, RIM, know, permanent programs, state driven programs. And those are about protecting, you know, kind of like water, know, stuff like that, know, rivers, ditches, you know, all that stuff, know, slews, you know,

Speaker 1 (56:53.944)

This is a driven program.

Speaker 1 (57:00.184)

quality.

Speaker 2 (57:08.372)

and then the last person, which gets back to federal, which is similar to an SWCD is NRCS. Okay. And they do mostly the wetland stuff too. And if you ever look at ducks, unlimited Delta waterfall, they work with NRCS probably more than anybody, you know,

Speaker 1 (57:23.884)

Yeah, we do as well. They would be located in those USDA service centers as well. Correct. NRCS and FSA are the subsidiaries of USDA.

Speaker 2 (57:35.918)

Right. So we have right now, um, I talk to all of them myself all the time, because I'm trying to figure out, I've got this piece of property. I'm trying to figure out, I would like to, you know, have a pond on this property. What program might it fit in and where can I get some dollars to not make me pay for a hundred percent of it? So I'm always trying to figure out the leverage of the dollars too. know what I I mean, cause

Habitat works expensive. Especially if you're doing pond roosts, that stuff's expensive.

Speaker 1 (58:11.502)

All right, so I'm going to round third base and go towards home. I'm going to ask you each for kind of your closing thoughts. Before we get there, I want to also mention that it is Hands-On Habitat Month all May, thanks to Irish Setter Orvis and John Deere Tractors. You can find Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever hands-on habitat projects by going to our websites.

pheasantsforever.org slash hands on habitat or quailforever.org slash hands on habitat. And we invite you, the listener, to become a volunteer. Help us plant pollinator habitat, help us plant nesting cover, maybe do some invasive species removal like buckthorn, or help us cut down some cottonwoods, maybe get involved in a prescribed fire.

remove some barbed wire or help restore or put up new public land signs. All sorts of different ways for you to volunteer, get your fingernails dirty, maybe get a little mud on your face like my buddy Christopher did this morning. And once again, thanks to Irish Setter Orvis and John Deere for supporting our locally driven hands-on habitat work all month long. Christopher, we'll start with you.

Help me put a bowl on this conversation. What are your final thoughts? What do you want to leave listeners with when it comes to helping out a friend do a little habitat work? I always kind of go back to what Tom Carpenter talks about is you want a habitat in an area in a county such as Brown to look like a checkerboard. And it's very hard to do that in all just public land.

So when you have an organization such as Pheasants Forever that works so well with a private and public collaboration, it really provides why we have some of the best pheasant hunting in Minnesota. It's because of this. And you know, it does come down a little bit on the private land to legacy, right? There are things that we are doing. I Brandon talked about there's trees out there that he planted, right? And that the pheasants are coming out.

Speaker 1 (01:00:37.006)

You know, this is gonna be on the farm here. This will be the third generation that will be hunting. Tim's grandkids will be doing that. So there's things that we're going to be doing that we may not see the full benefits of. And you know what? That's okay. I like that a lot. You know, I like that a lot. And then maybe that's just because I'm the estate planning attorney. But that's just what I think of.

So, and it gives people the opportunity if they want to do something. know, Tim has obviously been such an instrumental part in Brown County. know, everybody can do their part. right on. Brandon, you're kind of, you're a little bit of the odd duck, odd pheasant in this. You're a little bit younger. I mean, you got, you know, you could be, it's a Saturday afternoon, you could be out hanging with your buds.

taking your girlfriend out to Valley Fair, doing something, right? There's all sorts of things pulling at your time. Yet you drove roughly three hours to come and burn a little sweat equity on Tim's behalf. Help me put a bow on why this is important to you.

Speaker 3 (01:01:54.188)

Yeah, it really just brings out that satisfaction, that reward of just, you know, like Chris said, just like kind of leaving a legacy. So obviously Tim is leaving an incredible legacy here and to be a part of that and just help make the world a better place here. I'm, I love the outdoors. I love camping, love hunting, anything. And I am a firm believer in leaving something.

Speaker 2 (01:01:56.6)

you

Speaker 2 (01:02:18.157)

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3 (01:02:22.956)

You know, better than you found it. So even if it's a little piece of trash that, know, you didn't throw someone else and show you found it's been buried there. Just even just taking that little bit out. think, you know, when everyone does their part, the world can get better. So that's kind of, it's kind of hard to put into words on why I make that drive down here, but it just makes me happy. I'm 31.

Speaker 2 (01:02:44.622)

Happy.

Speaker 1 (01:02:44.91)

You remind me asking how old you are? 31. Do you perceive your generation, so you would be a millennial, right? Do you perceive that your generation has a different perspective when it comes to the outdoors and conservation than, you know, I guess I would say Christopher and I are Gen Xers and Tim's on the baby boomer side of it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:14.534)

yeah, it can be different. think it kind of depends on like, you know, your background and where you came from and what you've been exposed to because, know, my, my background and what I believe in now is completely different from 10 years ago before I knew Tim, before I got involved in all this. So I was kind of, you know, my eyes were open to everything that actually goes into it. I didn't know so much work actually goes into Habitat. I thought Habitat was just Habitat.

Speaker 1 (01:03:43.896)

Sure. But yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:03:44.59)

birds will fly, whatever. I didn't realize how much work, you know, like these guys have been saying it actually takes to improve the habitat.

Speaker 1 (01:03:54.862)

Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. think so many folks take for granted that, you know, grass grows, trees grow, and that, you know, nature has a way of taking its course. Well, it's a little more complicated than that, right? To have, to maintain grasslands in the absence of, you know, natural wildfires, you know, of a bygone era, it takes work to...

make sure that these are grasslands and that trees don't take over the entirety of southern Minnesota and the Great Plains. It takes a lot of work and it takes people like Tim who are landowners that, whether it's their own sweat equity or engaging a whole army of people to help make it happen. Tim, first of all, thank you. Thanks for letting me...

Record a podcast with you. Most importantly, thanks for letting me bring my family to this little piece of heaven that you have. Thanks for engaging so many people in habitat management. Thanks for being a volunteer. Let me put a bowl on this. What do you want to leave listeners with?

Speaker 2 (01:05:09.846)

But you know, first of all, you're welcome, Bob. And thank you for helping as well. let me leave with what I didn't start with, like, who am I and how I got to here. My father and mother are both very driven people. And my father was an outdoorsman. He grew up hunting, fishing. There wasn't, if he had to, he had to work basically to, could hunt and fish. He would rather be doing that every day than anything else. I was in a duck slew at

years old and I shot my first duck at eight. So, you know, I was pretty young, you know, out there and I was at a deer stand, you know, at five, you know, stuff like that. And that was back when winters were a lot colder and you didn't, and you sat outside, you didn't sit in comfy stands, you sat outside. And so I think my parents, first of all, for, you know, probably instilling the values and the outdoors, because I grew up in Northeast Minneapolis.

You know, you had to leave the city to get outdoors. know what I mean? And so they put the drive on, you know, all of us kids, you know, to go do something, be somebody, you know, leave a legacy, you know, stuff like that. So I'm fortunate enough to where in my career, I got to, you know, buy property, a farm, you know, have a habitat place. And that now you...

look full circle and say, what are you gonna do after this? When I leave this world, what am I leaving behind? And I wanna leave a better place. And parts of the property are already gonna be donated to Pheasants Forever and become public land. I don't tell anybody that.

Speaker 1 (01:06:53.43)

I did not know that. You just did. You made me put that out there. Edit, edit, edit. Thank you for...

Speaker 2 (01:07:03.893)

David already knows. So, but I don't, you know, file a bunch of paperwork or any of that stuff, you know, because I said, no, I'll keep that to myself. It's already in the wills and all that stuff. You know what I mean? So those are the types of things that, you know, there are parts of it that just makes sense to do that with. Other parts of it, you know, like where the home is on and the 160, whoever, you know, I'm hoping.

You know, my grandkids, I have a one year old and a three year old grandkid, know, granddaughter and grandson. And I look forward to hopefully taking them out here someday, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:07:36.531)

Why weren't they carrying Codwoods today, Tim? My goodness. My one-year-old. I'm just kidding.

Speaker 2 (01:07:42.734)

My one year old has been in the ash, know, playing with that. But the three year old would have been throwing sticks at me. But they come down here, know, probably every three months or so. know, for them, because they live up in a brainerdow. So for them to come down here, you know, it's a three and a half hour drive.

Speaker 1 (01:07:50.626)

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:08:07.096)

Yeah, but I bet you it's pretty special for your grandparents.

Speaker 2 (01:08:11.358)

They love it. love it. First of all, they like to get in the Ranger and go for a ride.

Speaker 1 (01:08:16.664)

Thank you. Thanks for doing this, Bob.

Speaker 2 (01:08:18.496)

as usual, thank you for all you do too. you, you I look at Pheasants Forever and there's always certain people that are the face of Pheasants Forever and you're one of them.

Speaker 1 (01:08:28.845)

Well, maybe the voice. I don't know that anybody wants me that.

Speaker 2 (01:08:32.91)

You know, there's people in the, like, obviously Marilyn's a face, but Howard, Howard before, Howard, for this way, I've been nominating Howard every year since they've been doing the outdoor news. They still haven't picked him, but I've been nominated.

Speaker 1 (01:08:46.863)

Brown County chapter. Congratulations on that too.

Speaker 2 (01:08:50.666)

We did win that, but you know, it's funny. I've been picking Howard as the man of the year for the last, I don't know how many years and he's, you know, since he's retired, says, there's one guy who should get it. It's him, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:09:02.062)

I would just also add regarding you, Bob. mean, it's been my pleasure to get to know you over the past 10 years. And I've, you know, we've went hunting in North Dakota, South Dakota, the Northwoods, Wisconsin, Minnesota, et cetera. And, you you live what you preach. Thank you. And that is something, I mean, I could give you a hundred examples.

of when I've seen you just do even a simple thing, like picking up a shell that somebody else had shot and dropping it in your pocket. Your posts about people shooting public land signs. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that. But just the simple things. I just want people to know that the person that you hear on these podcasts is actually Bob.

Thank you both. is really about Tim and about you guys, but I really do appreciate the kind words. It's like we should have a group hug right now. Just remember I'm an attorney, I lie a lot. What's that website again? You can see Christopher's high school graduation photo.

at davislawmn.com. You're going to change that too soon. As quickly as I can. All right. For Brandon Johnson, Christopher Davis and Mr. Tim Kraski, thank you for listening to this edition of On the Wing podcast. I'm Bob St. Pierre reminding you to always follow the dog. Something good will rise. Thanks, folks.