Podcasts about grandpa ray outdoors

Grandpa Ray Outdoors owner, John O'Brion, understands Food Plots through multiple generations of experts in the industry.

John O'Brion is the founder and owner of Grandpa Ray Outdoors. He's been dealing seed since 1991 and started doing wildlife seed with GRO in 2014. John is a wealth of knowledge on food plot seeds and planting. He's also authored several books on the subject, with another one coming out later this year.Grandpa Ray Outdoors is also our longest-standing partner for the podcast.For more on GRO, or John, or to find him on socials:Grandparayoutdoors.com (books can be purchased here)Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/grandparayoutdoorsInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/grandparayoutdoors/YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@grandparayoutdoors5044---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Ridge Hunter Products and Merchandise:Ridgehunteroutdoors.comDiscount Code: RHOPOD for 10% off everything in your order---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Support our Partners:Go to Grandparayoutdoors.com and use code ‘rhopodcast' for 5% off your entire order.For any info on real estate available through Midwest Farm and Land, or anything that RG Outdoors has, contact Rodney Hawkins 618-925-3153.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Submit questions or comments to: Ridgehunteroutdoors@gmail.com---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Find us on Social:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RidgeHunterOutdoors Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ridgehunteroutdoors/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/RidgeHunterOD

This week, Nate and Canyon talk to John O'Brion, owner of Grandpa Ray Outdoors. They discuss what makes GRO different, the best types of seed blends, the food plot seed market and much more.Grandparayoutdoors.com - Discount Code: rhopodcastRaksmineral.com - Discount Code: RHO22Ridgehunteroutdoors.com

In this episode we talk with John O'Brion, owner of Grandpa Ray Outdoors about everything fall food plots. From timing to blends to prep to fertilization and more.   Stop by ArcheryCountry.com or visit Facebook, Youtube, or Instagram About Archery Country Archery Country has the Midwest Premiere Archery Pro-Shop's located in Waite Park/St. Cloud, MN, Rogers, MN and Brainerd, MN. We pride ourselves in our extensive knowledge and depth of products that we carry in a true Pro-Shop setting. Archery Country provides professional advice and service for bows, archery accessories, and everything archery or hunting related.

We’re headed out to Wisconsin and we’re gonna talk to Zach Haas. And Zach’s with Wisconsin Lake and Pond Resources. http://www.wisconsinlpr.com/ Zach, welcome to the show. Wisconsin Lake and Pond Resources Yup. Glad to be here. Zach and I have been talking about water. What’s so special about water? Well, the Earth is made up of water, human beings are made up of water, and the deer we hunt are made up of water and need water, as we do, to survive. So having said that, Zach is a Senior Aquatic Biologist. He knows his stuff and I’m so glad that John O’Brien from Grandpa Ray Outdoors gave me a shout out. Said, “Hey man, get Zach on because he knows something about water.” Which I don’t. You know, I’ve been fortunate enough to hunt places where there’s plenty of water and it wasn’t an issue. Well, it might be on your property and so that’s why Zach’s here today. Zach, tell us about why water is important for a healthy whitetail herd. Yup. So I’ll start with the basics and kind of get crazy, and I might nerd out here a little bit on water. So the basics. What does everything living need? It needs food, cover, and water. And water is the most overlooked thing on most property and most properties don’t have water. Especially if you get out of areas like Minnesota-Wisconsin. We have a lot of water. When you start getting in areas like Kansas, Iowa, South Dakota, you start getting into areas that don’t have a lot of fresh water, you’re starting to actually see less successes in that way. You know, so whenever you get water on properties the goal is to get them that third element that they all need. Right? You know, it’s just a matter of you give them that element, now it’s a matter of making it the right element and the way I bring that up is there’s a lot of bad water out there. Possibly the biggest thing that’s striking most, actually, of the country. You go to the Dakotas, out west, Iowa, we have EHD issues. Now that stems from poor water quality. You know, so obviously the EHD midge loves poor water quality. So our goal is to show land managers, show hunters, show conservationists how do I get the right healthy water. You know, so that’s my goal here. That’s kind of where out of my work more recently because being a big hunter, it’s been a passion that’s a good combination for me.

John O'Brion (WI) - Grandpa Ray Outdoors.  In this VERY INFORMATIVE episode we cover: Extreme Property Makeovers, Seed Research, Nutrition Per Acre, New Forages, Herbicide Resistant Plants, Deer School, Grandpa Ray Outdoors, Plantains & Hybrid Clover. www.grandparayoutdoors.com

Hey, folks, this is the last segment of the “Whitetail Rendezvous” spring series on land management and food plots. And I crisscrossed the world, I’ve got some friends down in the south, Atlanta at Legacy. I’ve got friends out in Nebraska at Reck Agri. And I’ve got friends in Madison, Wisconsin with Grandpa Ray Outdoors and John O’Brion. And John’s gonna wrap up this whole series and, you know, it’s gonna be fun to see where the thing goes. But having said that, Grandpa Ray sets expectations for being a 365 food plotter. John, what the heck does that mean? John: Well, the last time I checked, deer eat every day and if your goal is to try to increase the deer numbers on your property, pull them throughout the whole year, there’s got to be food there. There’s got be bedding there. There’s got to be water. It seems pretty simple but yet the wildlife industry in the whole focuses on about, oh, maybe one or two seasons a year. Usually the focus is from when opening day of hunting season starts to when it closes and, again, that’s bad science. That is not where your brain should be wired and we would want to do our best, as a goal, to have something there every day. The short-term and long-term success. Bruce: So deer need, you know, well just January, February, March the bucks have been through the rut. Those are either bred or…not bred, so bucks are tired and does throw a lot of food to a growing, you know, fawn. So what do we need during those months to make sure bucks and doe are getting the right nutrition? John: Yeah, no matter if we’re in north of Madison, Wisconsin, Tallahassee, Florida, or Oak Way out in Colorado, you know, there’s Mother Nature that comes into play in the northern climates where you get cruel at times with the 2 feet of snow, 20 below zero. You know, you even have higher [inaudible 00:02:28] challenges there. So, you know, my focus is, you know, when hunting season is done do you have sources of supplemental stock piles to forage. Which in the industry, I mean, you know so many people are familiar with turnips but are they familiar with other species of forages like rutabaga, maybe sugar beets, fodder beets, weeds, things like that. Things like grain store gums. Thinks like millets can also, which aren’t as desirable during the fall season, all of a sudden, you know, when a deer is having a hard time walking through that deep snow and wants to eat whatever is the easiest at that point in time. You know, there’s certain things that we can focus on to give that energy that’s really needed in those really stressful conditions. And, again, so many people think, you know, if their goal is to grow healthy, big deer they focus on the fall. Well, when that buck has dropped its antlers and it could be January, February in many areas or even before then. Backing up, you mentioned, you know, when the ruts done. Guess what? That buck’s reserves are tapped out. You know, he’s drained and then the big thing is you want to keep it maintained or replenish it. The main goal I throw at people is we do not want a deer, no matter buck or doe or fawn from the previous fawn [inaudible 00:03:58] our goal should be to reduce the amount of weight they lose throughout the winter. Next to impossible no matter where you live to put on weight. If you don’t lose as much weight and body condition, guess what’s gonna happen? They’re gonna…the term’s called compensatory gain. So instead of having to replenish those bones, you know, with the calciums and the proteins and our nutrients, they’re able to…if you don’t have to worry about…if the deer doesn’t have to replenish itself, guess what’s gonna happen with those added nutrients that are out there? Whether it be from browse or supplemental sources, going towards antler development.

Hey, folks, this is the last segment of the "Whitetail Rendezvous" spring series on land management and food plots. And I crisscrossed the world, I've got some friends down in the south, Atlanta at Legacy. I've got friends out in Nebraska at Reck Agri. And I've got friends in Madison, Wisconsin with Grandpa Ray Outdoors […]

Planning for Food Plots with John O'Brion... Hi folks, it's the second segment with John O'Brion of Grandpa Ray Outdoors, and John and I are talking about "do it right the first time". And what happens to us all, and I'm guilty as anybody, I go...oh, I get all excited, and we get the plan […]

Planning for Food Plots with John O’Brion… Hi folks, it’s the second segment with John O’Brion of Grandpa Ray Outdoors, and John and I are talking about “do it right the first time”. And what happens to us all, and I’m guilty as anybody, I go…oh, I get all excited, and we get the plan in place, and then we go to work and we forget something, we forget one component. It could be any number of the components. The first thing that we never, never wanna forget is, of course, to do the soil test. But after that, it becomes a slippery slope sometimes. And others, you could go out there, I mean, you could build a food plot in downtown Manhattan without water and without dirt, and it would still grow. Well, there’s dirt in the street anyway, so it’s got that, so…you know what I mean. But most of it, you know, it’s a struggle. So why do we need to do it right the first time, John? John: Well, when I talk to people that either are brand new, or even for those that are very experienced, I ask a list of a lot of questions. The more questions I ask, the better I can give for a recommendation. The problem that we see so often is you get guys that are like, “Well, my buddy didn’t take a soil test and he had a great food plot this year.” He might have, he might have a great food plot next year, but if you don’t fertilize right, you don’t maintain your pH, eventually, it could be two years, could be five years, at some point in time, your soil will be mined, and then you’ll have a…you could have a total failure. You have a year with a total failure, you spent money on the rifle, the shells, all these inputs, and then all of a sudden there’s no deer on your property because you don’t have an effective, growing food plot. Best laid plans of mice and men. So we wanna plan not just short-term. So many people wanna just buy that mix that their buddy told you to buy, the celebrity, the hunting show, whatever reason, but… It might be a great mix on your buddy’s land, but it might be a terrible thing to plant on yours. So every situation’s different Whether you ask me, “Hey,” help you, and I ask you questions and you answer them, to give you some time to think and reflect, or even if, you know, you don’t get ahold of a guy like me, [inaudible 00:02:27]. Put on paper, what’s your goals? What are you trying to accomplish? How are you gonna get there? What’s your current strengths? What do you think your weakness is? Let’s improve our strengths and let’s do way better on these weaknesses. Formulate a plan before hard charging, and just get ground cover, get something to grow. Could be good this year, could be a total failure. And again, just like sighting in that rifle, do you wanna go hunting? Sure. Do you sight in your gun? You better. Same thing, we wanna sight in our food plots to not just have average, to reduce our risk, to be as effective as we can. That’s what I want people to think about. Bruce: So again, planning, planning, planning, planning, you’re gonna get sick and tired of hearing me say it. But by planning, okay, stage one, stage two, stage three in your land management plan, for your food plots, that’s the stages that, in my opinion and the opinion of a lot of people I’ve been talking about, you just plan it out and you plan a rotation in your crops, just like a farmer does. He doesn’t plant corn two years in a row unless he’s using a lot of supplemental fertilizers and stuff to replace the nutrients that are sucked out of the soil. So, you know, you have to do the same thing. Plus, your deer change. You gotta see what happens. If your neighbors change things up, you better know exactly what impact that is gonna have on your deer. You know, the more I get into this, people say, “Well, gee,

John, welcome back to the show and let’s talk about the Land Management plan and how it affects deer hunting from Grandpa Ray Outdoors. John: Yeah. If I have somebody where I’m actually stepping on property, hopefully, they’ve had soil samples taken ahead of time. But if they haven’t, that’s one thing that we’ve done at times is I’ve helped people take soil samples as we’re walking around touring the property. Because without a soil sample, I’m just guessing, we’re rolling the dice. It’s hard to formulate a solid plan. So that’s essential. When I’m on a property, we’ll walk around, and if there’s existing plots, everybody has probably got a name for each plot. And if they don’t, we’ll help create a name. Or I guess in some cases people are like, “I don’t care. Let’s call it plot one, two, three, five, eight, whatever. So again, what we’ll do then is I’ll have a plan that we’ll put on hardcopy, and it’ll have the name of each plot, the acres of each plot. It’ll have what seed mix that we’re gonna recommend, when to plant that seed mix, how much of that seed mix to plant, what fertilizer to use for that seed mix, how much of that fertilizer to use and when. And then again we also have some other little notes on there saying, you know, if it’s a perennial mix, clip every 30 to 45 days. Maybe if a guy has got certain weed issues, I’ll give a recommendation saying, “Hey, you know, use in May 10 ounces of clethodim, mix with 9-4-9 plant foods. And again, when I do a plan, it’d be for the existing, the current year, but then we also, when we’re walking around on these properties, we’ll also bring up as part of the plan that, “Hey, the following year, we’ll have another plan. What we’re planning this year is setting ourselves up for us doing something the following year on that bit of land.” So, you know, that’s one thing that we do discuss. And with technology, whether using HuntStand or onXmaps, we have the ability to use the aerial, you know, imagery to create a measurement tool and a shading and a layout where people can look on an email a picture as like, “Okay, this is plot one. It’s 0.5 acres. Here’s how it’s laid out.” And, you know, so that also is beneficial, not just with me short-term, long-term, but also for, you know, the land manager. Because in some of these plots, we might have multiple mixes planted. Just with any plot, we’d probably wanna be considering a scrape line, maybe screening to help get you in your stand or to make these, you know, plots a little less able to be viewed from a distance by a block. You know, trying to also create little doorways, travel corridors, etc., etc. to make your property more of a highway. You know, so it’s part of the plan. That’s part of, you know, the thinking there. So depending on how many food plots, maybe it’s a page, maybe it’s two, three pages of Land Management hardcopy, where we have all that essential information. So if a guy, let’s just say we’re planting a clover mix, I’ll have a recommendation of what the fertilizer [inaudible 00:04:13]. And then it also might have, “Okay, we wanna winterize that plot. Well, again, in September, you’re gonna come back with 0-0-60 straight potassium add another 100 pounds. So we put a lot of information on the plan that’s easy but…yet easy enough to look at because we could make this rocket science. And to the average person, they just wanna look at it, be able to understand it easily and apply it. It doesn’t need to be a bible. It doesn’t need to be a book. We’re just creating a basic plan that everybody understands. a href=”http://www.whitetailrendezvous.com/476-landscaping-trophy-whitetails-kasey-thren/gohuntinsider-50gift-cardlogo-2/” rel=”attachment wp-a…

John, welcome back to the show and let's talk about the Land Management plan and how it affects deer hunting from Grandpa Ray Outdoors. John: Yeah. If I have somebody where I'm actually stepping on property, hopefully, they've had soil samples taken ahead of time. But if they haven't, that's one thing that we've done […]

John O’Brion of Grandpa Ray Outdoors was started as a tribute to my Grandpa Ray who owned the farm where I grew up and received my passion for animal nutrition. In 1990, I graduated from UW-Platteville with a degree in Ag Business/Ag-Economics. In 1991, I became one of the first independent ruminant nutritionists in the United States. In 1992, I started selling alfalfa, clover, small grains and other seeds. I was involved in research at the state level for the discovery farm program, sampling forages every week to show the differences in quality. I still provide nutrition work for other nutrition consultants and independent agri businesses. I know nutrition at an elite level. I have over 300 products in the market place that I formulated for other companies. In 2015, I started Grandpa Ray Outdoors to educate people and raise money for our youth. https://www.grandparayoutdoors.com/

John O'Brion of Grandpa Ray Outdoors was started as a tribute to my Grandpa Ray who owned the farm where I grew up and received my passion for animal nutrition. In 1990, I graduated from UW-Platteville with a degree in Ag Business/Ag-Economics. In 1991, I became one of the first independent ruminant nutritionists in the […]

It’s amazing what whitetails teach us all the time and how much the experts think they know about them. When it comes down to the push and shove, they know some stuff, no question about it, but when you put the whole thing together, all these moving parts have to be very successful year after year. Dillan Porter of Trophy Whitetails R’Us grew up around whitetails and he said he can’t imagine anything different. He’d been to over a hundred sportsman shows and enough events to have an understanding of how they’re run, and they wanted to see if they can do it better. Learn from Dillan as he shares some tips and techniques on hot to grow and hunt trophy whitetails. — We’re going to head up to Northern Minnesota. By northern Minnesota from where Dillan Porter is, you can see the Canadian border. Dillan works for his dad, Steve Porter, and they grow trophy whitetails. His dad gets into the business a long time ago and now it’s grown. Even more important than that, he’s got some tips and techniques about using deer urine. He’s going to knock your socks off with some insights that maybe you haven’t thought about. The other thing Dillan is doing is Minnesota Monster Buck Classic and it’s going to be a big buck classic. He’s going to have some of his dad’s deer on display. They take live deer and they display them at this sportsman show. All in all, Dillan Porter has got one heck of an interview coming up. Listen to the podcast here: Trophy Whitetails R’Us with Dillan Porter We’re heading up to the corner of Minnesota, North Dakota and the Canadian border. We’re a long way from nowhere but that’s like Dillan Porter liked. He worked for his dad at Porters Trophy Whitetails. Also, Dillan is the Founder of Minnesota Monster Buck Classic. Dillan, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. I have a good friend, shout out to John O’Brion at Grandpa Ray Outdoors. John referred me to you and he thought you’d be a great guest. Let’s start right off with the Minnesota Monster Buck Classic, what it is, where it is and why you started it? Minnesota Monster Buck Classic is going to be a sportsman show that will be located in Perham, Minnesota. Perham is more rural area but it’s within an hour of Fargo, twenty minutes from Detroit Lake, not that far from a bunch of big towns. The people of Perham, Minnesota enjoy their hunting. We’re going to have a live trophy whitetail buck that we traveled with at that show. We’re going to do things a little bit different. We’re not going to have any boat campers or RVs at the show. We want to dedicate the show’s floor space to the smaller mom-and-pop run companies, guys, gear, outfitters, anything and everything to do with hunting and fishing. We’re going to have at the show. We’re going to have a lot of stuff going on there. We’re going to be a live dog demonstration, a working dog. We’re going to have bird dog, hounds, we’re doing a coyote hunting. The pointers and retrievers and we’re going to try to get a canine unit on scene to show what dogs learn and how they work with people. Why did you start this? What was the impetus to get a Monster Buck Classic? My dad’s been traveling with our whitetail deer display since 1997. We’ve been to probably over a hundred sportsman shows in that time with a live whitetail buck. We’ve been to over 100 schools in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and North Dakota area. We’ve been to probably 50 or 60 small stores with the Whitetail buck. We’ve been to enough events where we have an understanding of how they’re run and we want to see if we can do it better.

The Outdoorsman's Art hosted by Blake Alma, Eli Gourdin, Jackson Hartley, and Alli Armstrong.Guests on this week's show: John O'Brion with Grandpa Ray Outdoors

Food Plots John O’Brion Mission – Grandpa Ray Outdoors’s goal-Food Plots John O’Brion is to provide the best products and the tools to help educate every one of our customers. Through education, comes success. Grandpa Ray’s works!! Testimonial by Lee Schneider – Boot Trac Adventures My Real World soybeans I bought off you fell to failure while battling what I call the perfect storm . Due to the size of the plot, they were over browsed by deer, groundhogs and rabbits. Along with the unprecedented drought and hot weather we had here, they didn’t have a chance. Most years with good moisture, they were able to stay ahead of the critters and although they don’t usually get real tall, they produced pods. Enter GrandPa Ray. Food Plots John O’Brion On July 28th with the prediction of rain, I went ahead and broadcast 2 bags of Grains & Greens and 1 bag of Frosty Delight along with 5#’s of buckwheat over the beans. Well no rain showed up and one week later I very little to no germination – only some of the buckwheat and in a few damper spots some Frost Delight. One week later we started to get some rain on a regular basis and low and behold, you see the results. Most of this growth occurred in the last 10 days. It’s amazing what some rain can do. The beans are also coming along too and still providing forage. I started putting in food plots approximately 15 yrs. ago. My soil is sandy and I plant “staging” plots for the deer inside my woods. Never have I had to cut my clover because it had grown too high. Last year I started using the Grandpa Ray 9-4-9 plant food on this 2 yrs. old clover plot. I had to cut it 3 times!!! I decided to see if it was a fluke that this happened, so am again using the 9-4-9 this year and as you can see the plot is nearing cutting height in this early June pic. This stuff works!!!

What once started as a tribute to his Grandpa has now become Grandpa Ray Outdoors – John O’Brion’s organic approach to wildlife nutrition. From deer fuel to wildlife attractants that work, every product is all natural. Grandpa Ray Outdoors offers great winter energy sources for deer, such as turnips and rutabaga. They offer only the…

What once started as a tribute to his Grandpa has now become Grandpa Ray Outdoors – John O’Brion’s organic approach to wildlife nutrition. From deer fuel to wildlife attractants that work, every product is all natural. Grandpa Ray Outdoors offers great winter energy sources for deer, such as turnips and rutabaga. They offer only the…

Grandpa Ray Outdoors John O’Brion talks Cafeteria Approach to Food Plots Grandpa Ray Outdoors is a unique company that was started as a tribute to my Grandpa, who influenced by career tremendously. He was a farmer and avid outdoorsman. His land continues in the family and much of my research and product development happens on…

Grandpa Ray Outdoors John O’Brion talks Cafeteria Approach to Food Plots Grandpa Ray Outdoors is a unique company that was started as a tribute to my Grandpa, who influenced by career tremendously. He was a farmer and avid outdoorsman. His land continues in the family and much of my research and product development happens on…

John O’Brion, What it takes to build a healthy deer herd Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is your host Bruce Hutcheon. We’re heading to Wisconsin today and we’re going to meet with John O’Brion, owner of Grandpa Ray Outdoors and he’s got a lot of exciting things happening, and the biggest thing,…

John O’Brion, What it takes to build a healthy deer herd Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is your host Bruce Hutcheon. We’re heading to Wisconsin today and we’re going to meet with John O’Brion, owner of Grandpa Ray Outdoors and he’s got a lot of exciting things happening, and the biggest thing,…