I attended Lee and Tiffany Lakosky's semminar at Deer fest on Friday. My takeaway: Lee AND Tiffany both know their stuff, they are a little goofy on their show from what I recall but they are down to earth whitetail addicts just like us. Someone asked how many trail camera's they run, Lee said he runs between 3 and 4 HUNDRED camera's, and he checks them on a weekly basis. Can you imagine trying to keep track of that many SD cards and looking through all of the pictures. They own roughly 6,000 acres and keep buying more farms all the time, they were going to close on another property when they returned home from deer fest. They plant and maintain over 100 food plots on their property's, and they aren't little 1/2 acre ones either. I never thought about it but they said that you would not believe the amount of people who hunt on the property lines of their farms. They don't have much trouble with poaching but, they do have trouble with trespassers looking for sheds. He has tons of trail camera pics of people in full face mask sneaking around looking for sheds. I enjoyed the seminar quite a bit, I would definitely attend another one. The hour few bye.
The whole room gasped at the same time when he said that. And he checks them on a weekly basis....crazy.
They both gave up their previous jobs/lives and moved there to fulfill their dream. I am not surprised that they both know their stuff...but 300-400 cameras...
I know they are doing fine money wise given the success of their hunting career but do the math. 400 * 120(avg camera price) = $48,000.00 in trail cameras. I know that some of them were probably provided by sponsors but holy crap.
Forget about the cameras, do you know how much 6,000 acres of land in Iowa costs? Do that math. I say good for them. They're living a life that most of us only dream of.
I walked through the show yesterday afternoon pretty close to closing time. There was still a line between 20-30 people waiting to meet them and have their picture taken with them. Crazy.
My thoughts exactly. And yes, I have a very good idea how much that would cost as I have been looking for land to buy.
It was a Q&A format, they were just taking questions from the audience. Wasn't a true seminar Another interesting question that came up was on scent control and what they do/use. Lee said that he doesn't do anything to control scent while checking his trail camera's or filling his feeders. He says the deer get used to his scent and his routine and it does not bother them if pressure is consistent. You cannot bait in Iowa but once the hunting season is closed he can feed. All through the off season he feeds and the deer associate him, his scent, and his truck with food. As soon as he leaves from filling a feeder or checking a camera the deer come right in. The key is consistent pressure. He kept hammering the point that food is the key to attracting and keeping deer on your property. He also acknowledged that not everyone has the means to do it to the extreme they do it. It is his job he has time to do this stuff.
Just for fun Justin, I looked up a few property's for sale and came up with an average price per acre for Iowa. I am going to go conservative and call it 1,200.00 per acre. 6,000 * 1,200 = 7.2 million I guess $45,000.00 on trail camera's isn't that big a deal after all
more like $0.00 on trail cameras. Maybe a few thousand. But I would venture a guess that most if not all were given to them by sponsors.
I was going conservative, I found between 850 and 2200 per acre in my quick 5 min search. The point is, it cost a lot of money.
Listened to the Wired to Hunt podcast when they were the guests. Said he had to plant around 500 acres of food plots. I enjoy listening to them talk whitetails but most of the methods they pratice wouldn't apply to me or the majority of other hunters.
