Podcast appearances and mentions of john o brion

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 […]

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 […]

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/

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.

John O’Brion studied Ag business and Ag economics, was involved in research in the state for the discovery farm program, sampling forages every week to compare the differences in quality. Since then John established GRANDPA RAY’S OUTDOORS. Grandpa Ray’s specializes in providing the best nutrition for the whitetail deer on your property starting with the soil. And John will tell us how. Also We will be talking with Brett Engelking, Head Coach of the Kettle Moraine High School Shooting Team. Brett will be talking about his team, the sport’s growing popularity and about an upcoming fund raising event coming up August 4. The event is the SPORTING CLAYS & TRAP TEAM CELEBRITY CLASSIC. The even is to benefit the school shooting team and the scholarship fund. Brett will fill us in on how we can participate, too.

John O’Brion studied Ag business and Ag economics, was involved in research in the state for the discovery farm program, sampling forages every week to compare the differences in quality. Since then John established GRANDPA RAY’S OUTDOORS. Grandpa Ray’s specializes in providing the best nutrition for the whitetail deer on your property starting with the soil. And John will tell us how. Also We will be talking with Brett Engelking, Head Coach of the Kettle Moraine High School Shooting Team. Brett will be talking about his team, the sport’s growing popularity and about an upcoming fund raising event coming up August 4. The event is the SPORTING CLAYS & TRAP TEAM CELEBRITY CLASSIC. The even is to benefit the school shooting team and the scholarship fund. Brett will fill us in on how we can participate, too.

Nutrition and agronomy may seem too technical for any beginner’s out there to fully understand. John O’Brion provides an easy to follow guidebook, From Soil To Success, that lays down all the basics minus the complications. Giving you another perspective on nutrition, he explains and helps correct those perceived misconceptions and common pitfalls people make when […]

Nutrition and agronomy may seem too technical for any beginner’s out there to fully understand. John O’Brion provides an easy to follow guidebook, From Soil To Success, that lays down all the basics minus the complications. Giving you another perspective on nutrition, he explains and helps correct those perceived misconceptions and common pitfalls people make when it comes to buying their products. John further goes down into seed composition as he talks about the essence of coated seeds and why it is so. He shares some of his experiences in hunting and looks ahead into interesting forages.

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…

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,…