SharkFarmerXM's podcast
Jerod Mills 9-02-24
[Music] And welcome again from Radio. We're here live at the Farm Progress Show just outside of Boone, Iowa. Emily and I have been enjoying the warm weather, been enjoying seeing a bunch of great people. It's just a lot of fun out here, a lot of fun seeing the people of Ag, the salt of the earth, and man, there could be no better ice cream in the world than the ice cream made at the Farm Progress Show. You're going to have to get some of that. I plan to pump the walk around and see everything. They make them with the old engines like the old poppers. There you go. It makes it taste better. That's the taste, yeah. Yeah, they infuse the exhaust into it. Man, that's fantastic. Today we're talking with Jared Mills. Jared is famous in the hunting community. He got a really good YouTube. You were just gifted at hunting. Would you say that? Possibly. There's a lot of luck involved, of course. But yeah, it's a big passion of mine. I enjoy and along with the hunting, the filming side too. I enjoy the challenge of trying to capture high quality video when you're working with non-cooperating actors. The filming has... Well, they don't want to be harvested. They do not. They don't follow the script very often. I love just documenting for my own memories more than anything. It's fun to go back and relive and have been fortunate to build a career around big passions of mine. Where are you from? I am just south of Iowa City, southeast Iowa, a town called Riverside. When did you get into the filming side of your hunting? I think I first started filming my hunts in 2008, so 16 plus. Okay, and you've got some trophies. You've done well. I have. I've had some really good experiences in the woods and we talk about the harvest. But to me, the success is just enjoying the time in the field and just the encounters and just being out there is where I kind of count the success. Do you have a hard time finding a place? It can be a challenge. Of course, like anyone I've gained and lost permission quite often. What do you do? How do you screw up? Things always change. I've showed, in some cases, you show landowner what they have in terms of quality hunting and they want to experience it for themselves, which is fine. The biggest thing I've learned is you have to. Gone are the days where it's just knock on permission. You have to offer some type of value for the landowner. That's probably the biggest thing that I've learned over the years is find some way to work for the landowner or do something of value. Build that relationship and that's how I've been able to kind of keep and maintain properties. I credit to our friend Brad. He's the one who set us up. He's got that common ground. Do you ever use that? I did. I first met Brad and the team a few years ago and I was a new, relatively new landowner at that time. As far as I had owned property before but nothing with tillable ground on it. My first experience with common ground was figuring out what to charge for cash rent and be it kind of averages, what's high, what's low, made a lot of sense and something I hadn't seen before prior to meeting Brad and the team there. If you want to know about Google it because this isn't a common ground commercial. We're here with John Deere, Brad. Have you had much experience with John Deere? You're still talking to Brad. No, we're done making fun of Brad. We'll wait until the commercial to do that. No, I have. In my world with regards to food plots, land management, a lot of it's the smaller equipment. You're gator or the utility tractors. I used the 4052 quite often. To me, I managed like backing up, I'd say close to 2,000 acres but it's not contiguous. It's a lot of one in 200 acre property spread out. What's really important to me is being able to be mobile with equipment and what I found that 50 horse range at 4052 is about perfect for being able to throw on a trailer and haul around property to property but still having enough capability to get the job done, enough power and being efficient. If it's still, don't you really, you want bigger? Bigger is always better for sure. There's a lot of fits on a trailer. That 9Rx out there, that would be a great plot tractor. One pass I think. You know how quick you'd get done with that? That's right. I don't know if you'd be able to turn around at a deer plot but it would be a lot of fun, wasn't it? No doubt. Have you ever been an attractor like that? Not that big for sure. Some big ones but nothing nearly that size. Yeah, I mean either but I just look at it as amazing. Yeah, it's pretty impressive. How many plots you think you put in? Oh man. I would say and keep in mind not a lot, not all these are for myself and in fact most of them are for other people to hunt or other land owners but I'd say in the ballpark of 50 to 60 each year. You're almost a farmer doing that. That's like a one-time job. You want to be small scale farmer, that's right. And it's mainly with kind of whatever equipment's available. Yeah, it depends on the location, what size equipment I can get into and you know a lot of times with deer plots and small properties, you're talking small plots less than an acre that are hard to get to or you know protected by a bigger, tillable field. So getting equipment isn't always easiest so it really depends on everything from you know if you can think of a way to plan a plot and I've done it you know a weed eater with a backpack sprayer all the way up to you know an auto steer tractor and and you know 10 foot drill. So just depends on the property and and what I didn't in there. Gotcha. All right, we do gotta go to break. Today we're talking with Jared Mills where they find you on YouTube. What's the channel? Just my name Jared Mills. Jared Mills and yeah I love your uncle general. There you go. We'll be back right after the break. This segment is brought to you by Common Ground. Are you looking for an easy way to buy, sell or lease your land? Well check out Common Ground where they connect land owners and farmers and hunters too by the way go to commonground.io that's commonground.io And welcome back shark farmer radio. I'm your host Rob Sharkey. We are live at the Farm Progress Show just outside of Boone Iowa. Full day if you like to live in Hades. It's a little warm out there isn't it? Yeah it's not bad in here but yeah it's a warm one. Is it always this way in Iowa? We've had a little stretch these last few days but overall it's been pretty good this summer. Okay today we're talking with Jared Mills. You may know him from his YouTube channel is a world famous hunter and also a hunter because I'm kind of in that realm where I kind of know the the YouTube hunters and that because we're a whitetail deer outfit or it's funny it's fun to see like the comments. A lot of people like to hate honors but you you seem to gather a lot of respect. You seem people like you. Tell me how you do that. That's a good question. I think to me it's just being real and relatable. I'm definitely fortunate to have a good solid following of guys that are like me and you know I'm like them. My biggest thing when I'm creating hunting con um you know I don't love the word content but the videos is I want them to be relatable. I want guys to feel like they're in the tree with me for a couple of reasons. One I think it's a more enjoyable video to watch but you know when a lot of guys say they learn so much from watching these videos and I think the more you can replicate that experience the more guys can learn from it and so that's a big one. When a guy says like man my heart was pounding I felt like I was in the tree with you. Like I did my job at that point. I want to replicate that as much as possible and like I just feel that. As experienced as you are hunting and is successful have you been do you ever get buck fever anymore? I do. I think I internalize it a little bit more because a lot of guys say you know I look calm all the time but I feel like I get worked up but part of it I do a lot of self filming so you know don't have a camera very often and so there's kind of that aspect of where it takes my focus away from you know maybe the buck fever aspect so I'm focused on making sure the camera set all the everything's good to go focus all that stuff it's kind of that side distraction. Yeah are you a hard guy to rattle to scare? I would probably say yeah. Yeah you are good aren't you man that's impressive okay I can understand now while you're able to shoot so many bucks. Yeah that's part of it. Why do you hunt? Man that's a good question. For me you know the harvest aspect of it is such a small part of it for me to me it's like it's the year-round work that you put into it but just the experience I love chasing the most mature animals I can find and just enjoying every aspect of being out there I think it's a lifestyle more than anything for me and just just trying to keep it enjoyable trying to think back like you know why a lot of us got into hunting you remember those childhood days and what it felt like to this day I tried to replicate that I don't want everyone to lose that feeling and that's that's really what drives me to hunt and what drives me the way I hunt you know to me it's it's not about again the harvest it's about just you know enjoying every encounter enjoying every outing and again it's why I film I want to rebuild every deer I've harvested over the past 16 plus years I can go back and watch that video and relive that experience any time I want and that's a big part of it for me too. We were talking about deer plots and that I got to thinking when you were talking like because you need to be mobile from field to field do you think in a plot and be happy with it with just a gator? Oh absolutely. You think you need a tractor too? No you don't have to have a tractor I mean well like anything you know we all want bigger better more efficient but damn right the gator is is pretty effective from you know whether you're I use it a lot for for colt packing or spreading fertilizer spreading seed spraying is a big one for me a lot of time and broadcasting not not work out the soil you know retain some of that moisture don't regenerate new weed so it can be just as effective as using you know the biggest piece of piece of equipment you can find yeah I've done the spraying and like the broadcasting with a gator and the old one didn't have the the guidance on there and it did it did not look pretty now we've got one that has guidance on there yeah but I want the one that's going to drive itself it's amazing you don't realize it until you experience either in the in the the gator form or tractor how many missed spots you have you know just overlap well I wasted chemical and you know it's all about being more efficient more time to do other stuff more time with family all that yeah plus I mean you don't realize how much you're hurting yourself by over planting those plots too oh yeah for sure especially small seeds your brassicas you do not want to go too high on that so do you do the broadcasting or do you actually have a planter yeah again kind of depends on property but those small seeds do so well broadcasting again you feel like you can control the rate really well but you got to have a good seed bed too so that that requires you know equipment whether it's a rototiller or a disc or whatever or seed soil contact you can have like anything you know food plots aren't unlike the agricultural side the better results you're going to have so you sell a plot seed I do I've gotten into the food plot industry recently just just more or less because I enjoy it I love the the trial and error aspect of it trying different things seeing how the how the deer spawn you know trying to create that all season attraction but also just like even throughout the year just just heard nutrition in general so yeah I love the food plots I want to be farmer aspect in me do you sell it just you're like kidnapped guys wipe it on amazon yeah we actually just did get on amazon um that's the brand is called monster buck again it's just a just quality seed but a lot of testing a lot of research over the years of has gone into it you know just like you look around the show and the amount of different seed and quality seed it matters just as much on the deer side as it does and finding out like the mixture because it seems like it's so regional specific it is and we've created cold climate and warm climate blends um just because it is different deer preferences even are different not just the the conditions is growing in um but there's like again like corn and soybean technology there's technology in food plot seed there's newer improved varieties that have drought resistance and better browse tolerance and things like that so um again I love playing in that in that space it's as fun and um it's cool to see the response from the wildlife all right we got to go to break again today we are talking with Jared Mills here at the farm progress show when we come back we're gonna talk more about how he can get plots to work on my farm because we're struggling yes plus we want to learn more about why he loves to hunt we'll be back all right after the break this segment is brought to you by common ground are you looking for an easy way to buy sell or lease your land well check out common ground where they connect landowners and farmers and hunters too by the way go to commonground.io that's commonground.io and welcome back shark farmer radio I'm your host Rob Charkey we are recording live from the show just outside of Boon, Iowa I've got a world famous hunter Jared Mills I love saying it because you seem like you it makes you uncomfortable when I say that hey I'll own it from here on out do you ever think that this was like gonna happen to you but I think that's part of it like you know I think not doing it for that reason has helped me again it's just I enjoy filming I love hunting and it's it's pretty cool that people like to to watch that and learn from it have you been down to the hunting part of the John Deere booth or you know there by the world's greatest deer blind I guess that frontier equipment so that's kind of the smaller line of John Deere stuff they got the you know the planters the spreaders and all that you ever use that stuff all I'm like I said it's the especially the seed bedside you know using a tiller or you know the brush cutters and and everything like that it's vital piece of equipment when you start to manage the number of acres that I've grown into and being able it's it's you know if you're always fighting the weather racing to get things in and having having good equipment makes a difference okay well me what I'm doing wrong all right so we farm so we worry about the farm side first so that means we're putting in plots probably mid-July-ish so it'd be nice if we had got in there at least got them sprayed first then we hit them with a tiller and then we broadcast it and I've got like a little paneling piece it's like a poor man's drag it across the top and then I let it go and then it it doesn't grow so what am I doing wrong yeah I think it is about time like if you want to if you're in a situation where you're fighting the time to actually work on it you know I'm a big fan of perennial plots your clovers your chickeries um a little bit less maintenance once you get them established and you know they're as close year-round food sources you can get so you're you're not just planning for a couple months for the hunting season but you're you're keeping those deer on and around your property year-long so if you're in a situation you're fighting time and just the ability to give effort towards the plot the perennial option is is a good way to go I mean it seems like all of them have turnips and radishes so you're saying I don't need those they're good to have but you can't you know sometimes you have to go in to eliminate weeds post planting um if you don't have time to do that and you're just gonna allow those to take over you know your expectations can't be as good as if you're going to you know spend more time and dedication on a plot the brassicas are great options you know they're they're your annuals obviously really good attraction especially during the fall um but you just you got to know what can happen um you know just post emergence and and plant it and forget type of plot would I be better if we actually got a food plot planter so we're getting a seed in the ground and and like hit it with like round up over top post planting yeah the nice thing about that is your regen is right compared to completely turning over the soil with a disc or a tiller um so you're already a little bit ahead of the game there um you know another thing too is depending on the weather conditions some some post planting um care whether it be top dressing with some fertilizer like a urea or if we're in you know kind of drought conditions like we've fought a little bit the last couple years a full year fertilizer can really help the plants in that in that so um just keeping those things in mind after planting let's go back to honey what what do you want for the next generation and I think in the world we live in today when we're surrounded by you know technology and you know constantly trying to make things easier more efficient I want people to understand there's more than one way to to hunt and you that you don't need to hunt for social media other people you don't have to constantly prove yourself that you can you know you're on big deer and just just to enjoy the experience more and you don't have to const hunting's not like you know hunting's hunting's a passion a hobby it's you're not doing it for a living so you don't have to make things easier in fact the the failure is such a big part of my hunting career you know I think I am where I am because I fail him's but that's the fun part that you know continuing to keep that challenge not always fun well in the moment it's not but looking back you know if you can keep that challenge a part of your hunting I think you'll stay in it longer and that's the biggest thing we're fighting with the next generation to answer your question just the hunter recruitment and keeping people involved in it and I think a lot of it is there it's become too easy or where you know as as kids we're trying we're so scared of them failing that we're setting everything up for them and that's their idea of of hunting when I look back how I got into it cutting my teeth on it failing over and over again I think that's why it's such a big part of my life now so just keeping that experience the the primary factor for the next generation I think is as vital to continue to have hunters all right to hunt you know you you get all dressed up you get all unscented you get your ozonics up there you get up in the stand you get everything set you're ready to hunt and then this stupid red squirrel will come up and just start barking at you for hours upon hours what do I do to avoid that slingshot I don't know that would work yeah do you think that scares a deer or do they know just squirrels are a really dumb animal no I mean they they are certainly dumb but sometimes you can use them to your advantage too because a lot of times if a squirrel world will alert you to a deer come in prior to you being able to see it how you'll you'll hear him barking at deer as they're as they're coming in you know not always that deer sometimes it could be at a raccoon or a turkey but you know if you actually listen there's there's a lot of wildlife that can tip you off to something's about to happen blue jays squawking is another one so what's the weirdest thing you've seen from a deer stand weirdest thing from a deer stand um yeah you didn't know you were gonna get asked that did you know you want me and I didn't see it but I got a text from my hunter and says hey there's an ostrich out here and I said text it back I'm like you're an idiot that's what I did and then my kids they were driving home from school and they shoot me a picture of somebody had let an emu go and it was right by where he was hunting that's crazy so my wife is like you have to apologize to him now and I said no because he was a lion I think so that that does remind me of why it wasn't from a deer stand it was it was in the turkey woods in the spring but um a buddy of mine we go out to Nebraska every year and we we drove all night long it was after a wedding reception to get out there for the archery opener in Nebraska drove all night long got to the property in the dark went out set up and it starts to break light and in our decoys is kind of a foggy morning but it starts to break light just light enough to see and there's a llama standing in the middle of our decoys they're so dumb looking that was a nice nice nebraska opening morning surprise YouTube's probably the main main spot that's where I put most of the more longer form storytelling type of content I am on social media as well under under Jared Mills but I'd say YouTube is probably the best place to follow all right Jared thanks for coming to talk to with us today really really appreciate it don't go anywhere though Sean Haney's got his show coming up next he thinks moo's hunting is better and deer hunting he's Canadian thanks maple syrup I haven't done moo's hunting yet but I I would believe it we'll line you guys up all right we'll catch everybody next time care ready for care ready for the next shake up