Who is "popeyoung9" on QDMA?

[Bill]

There is one idea that I can dirive from this thread that I've often thought about this forum.

For the majority of the members this isn't our first attempt at a food plot.
I've often said the only thing I'm true expert at is killing seedlings and cuttings and I have much more to learn. But, in the past 7 -8 years I've learned a vast amount and even been blessed enough to put some real dandy's on the wall. (And realize that's easier in my location than most) when I talk hunting with someone I'm just meeting it only takes me a few questions to know if they get it or if their just sitting in a tree in open timber. (and I refrain from educating them unless they ask). No one likes a know it all.

I've often wondered if a new section or topic shouldn't be added to the forum.
Something like "new to habitat? Ask your question here". For guys that wander through but feel intimidated or feel we lack the basics they need.

I'd be willing to bet if a newbie asked a ? On just about any topic the info that would be offered from the members here would blow them away.

Just a thought....

 

[Satchmo]

I've often wondered if a new section or topic shouldn't be added to the forum.
Something like "new to habitat? Ask your question here". For guys that wander through but feel intimidated or feel we lack the basics they need.

I'd be willing to bet if a newbie asked a ? On just about any topic the info that would be offered from the members here would blow them away..

Great idea Bill.....I can see how reading through some of the threads on here could be very intimidating. It would help new folks get to know people here and become come more comfortable on the site.

 

[foggy]

We have a habitat section?? ;)

Perhaps the habitat section should be above the general section? May help to get started there?

 

[West Branch]

An "expert" is one that has a seemingly sound position on fact (also called "plausible").....and is located 30 miles from home. Hell.....even I qualify at times.....but so does Cliff Claven. ;)

:D

Maybe we need the electric shocker for some folks:

 

[Catscratch]

Lol, he us the ultimate "expert". Don't forget Clavin's most relevant (for habitat and hunting) theory of buffalo and brain cells.

 

[West Branch]

Lol, he us the ultimate "expert". Don't forget Clavin's most relevant (for habitat and hunting) theory of buffalo and brain cells.

I wasn't able to find a good video of it on youtube which was surprising. They were all some person doing a voice over of some images.

"That's why you always feel smarter after a few beers."

 

[Maya]

The ulterior motives are their supreme commitment and dedication to the profit margin and not deer, habitat and deer hunters. As a local branch volunteer, branch board of directors member, and eventually a branch officer I saw this first hand.

If you're interested in further discussion shoot me a PM, after reading J-birds requests in his thread I probably shouldn't have stated any of this to begin with, so I'm cutting myself off....not trying to be deflective Maya, just trying to keep it civil. If you are interested in hearing more shoot me a PM.

I was on a local branch board too. I wouldn't call it an ulterior motive, but all non profits try and make money to fund their programs. I think they did a lot of good , hab projects , youth programs and studies. Not trying to start an arguement, I just don't agree w/ the use of the term "ulterior", that's all. No biggie on my part, just asked the question.

 

[West Branch]

I think a lot of people get confused about what a non-profit is. Their goal is still to make as much profits as possible, but instead of profits going back to stockholders or partners they are supposed to be used to advance their goals. They still generally have to pay decent salaries and have bonus plans that allow them to recruit good workers. Just like any other business if a nonprofit isn't making money it will go out of business.

Of course I am not talking about the more local non-profits or branches of larger groups, but the main orgs like QDMA, MDHA, NWTF, Pheasants Forever are still all corporations bringing in some big money and pay out a ton of administrative type expenses. In most communities that people live in there are non-profits that provide services for county and state programs through MA and medicaid and things like waivered services provided at nursing homes. You can look up their form 990s on a website like Guide Star and see their financial information as well as a list of some top paid employees.

 

[Tree Spud]

The ulterior motives are their supreme commitment and dedication to the profit margin and not deer, habitat and deer hunters. As a local branch volunteer, branch board of directors member, and eventually a branch officer I saw this first hand.

If you're interested in further discussion shoot me a PM, after reading J-birds requests in his thread I probably shouldn't have stated any of this to begin with, so I'm cutting myself off....not trying to be deflective Maya, just trying to keep it civil. If you are interested in hearing more shoot me a PM.

All of us are members of many organizations & groups and are not even aware of, or recognize the everyday politics ... our neighborhood, our schools our kids go to, our places of work, the local bar, etc, etc. Every time you buy a magazine subscription it seems you are indirectly joining a

Do any of you understand what you have done by being a member of Facebook?

You can be a part of an organization or a community of folks, and not get hooked up in the politics ... most of these places are driven forward by the grass roots people who do the work to support the org, there are always those that are behind the scene focusing on the $$ & politics.

I got turned off years ago by the Ducks unlimited/Wisconsin Waterfowl/etc groups, banquets & pressure to be ever involved was a problem. I still contribute to those orgs, just won't participate in the "clique" ... effect.

I am still a member of QDMA/QDM ... whatever you guys want to call it.

By constantly complaining about QDMA/QDM here ... you are making a choice to be "anti" or "for" something. No group is perfect and all will fail if you over analyze ...

Stop worrying about the politics and the $$ ... join a group who you think does good work and enjoy, life is too short to be always being angry at the other group ...

.

 

[foggy]

All of us are members of many organizations & groups and are not even aware of, or recognize the everyday politics ... our neighborhood, our schools our kids go to, our places of work, the local bar, etc, etc. Every time you buy a magazine subscription it seems you are indirectly joining a

Do any of you understand what you have done by being a member of Facebook?

You can be a part of an organization or a community of folks, and not get hooked up in the politics ... most of these places are driven forward by the grass roots people who do the work to support the org, there are always those that are behind the scene focusing on the $$ & politics.

I got turned off years ago by the Ducks unlimited/Wisconsin Waterfowl/etc groups, banquets & pressure to be ever involved was a problem. I still contribute to those orgs, just won't participate in the "clique" ... effect.

I am still a member of QDMA/QDM ... whatever you guys want to call it.

By constantly complaining about QDMA/QDM here ... you are making a choice to be "anti" or "for" something. No group is perfect and all will fail if you over analyze ...

Stop worrying about the politics and the $$ ... join a group who you think does good work and enjoy, life is too short to be always being angry at the other group ...

.

^ Hard to belong to QDMA when they ban you for telling 'em that they do not have an active branch for many years.....and it's never been active. Then they take your dues money and ban you when you try to get them to engage in a big deer problem. .......and now you say I have sour grapes. Go figure. ;) I'd say they are out of line.....and I will bash 'em every chance I get.....until they take down that stupid dot that says they are active in Pequot Lakes MN. THEY ARE NOT......NEVER HAVE BEEN......DAMMIT.

 

[foggy]

..........OH.....and if they take down that dot that says they have an active branch in Pequot Lakes MN.....please let me know.....because I cannot (legitimately) access their site to determine if said dot is still present. If and when they remove that dot, I will then quit bashing 'em for not being honest with me and others in this area. Until then.....maybe NOT. My advice to deer groups: If you say you are represented in an area and are not....then you are part of a problem and need to change your ways. QDMA has NO knowledge of the deer situation in North Central MN and never has had any representation......yet they hold national "summits" with MY State DNR in attendance and have a "dot" that says they are active and have a club here. Disingenuous by any measure. Moroons by other measures.

How can you "join them" if they don't even exist and never have existed??? Duh!

Can somebody please let me know why I should be banned from their site for getting this information to the fore?

 

[habitat]

I think he didn't want to see what he didn't want to see. You beat me to the punch.

Ok,instead of experts I guess I meant seasoned veterans.And yes I had trouble with the site The registration is not to straight forward and I wanted to make a change so someone made it then I couldn't access at all and had to make a whole new account on a new email.But I never bad mouthed the site,just said I didn't see much about habitat.We discussed waterholes for a bit.I just thought this site was a bunch of guys that liked to do habitat work and discuss and share ideas

 

[Riggsgwp->]

I just thought this site was a bunch of guys that liked to do habitat work and discuss and share ideas

That's exactly what this site is. As a matter of fact there's a group that gets together to share land habitat tours with eachother. Read through some of the stuff outside the general discussion forum and you will find a lot of great info. Occasionally people are badmouthing the other site so just ignore it if it pisses you off. Many of the most experienced habitat gurus have left the other site and now share here so the info here is second to none. If you like what you see once you take the time to read through stuff then stick around cause it will only get better. We like this site and will defend it from negative crap most of the time anyway. No hard feelings hope you can learn to enjoy the place but it's not for everyone.

 

[Satchmo]

.But I never bad mouthed the site,just said I didn't see much about habitat.We discussed waterholes for a bit.I just thought this site was a bunch of guys that liked to do habitat work and discuss and share ideas

Your partially right there. Like Sandbur stated earlier, there is a probably a higher percentage of guys here from northern states on this site. Well, our waterholes are frozen, our fields are covered in snow, our trees are dormant, our deer are just trying to survive, and we have cabin fever from not being able to get out and work on warm weather projects. There is still great info flowing here. Just not as much hands on stuff until the weather breaks in a lot of areas.

 

[Steve Bartylla]

Ok,instead of experts I guess I meant seasoned veterans.And yes I had trouble with the site The registration is not to straight forward and I wanted to make a change so someone made it then I couldn't access at all and had to make a whole new account on a new email.But I never bad mouthed the site,just said I didn't see much about habitat.We discussed waterholes for a bit.I just thought this site was a bunch of guys that liked to do habitat work and discuss and share ideas

Maybe this will help put things in perspective. When I have either a legit ? or an idea I think may work, this is one of the sources I go to, to get answers. I've fought the temptation of listing who I consider true "experts" here, as I'm afraid I'll miss someone, but I can come up with right around 10, off the top of my head, that if I have a specific question about a specific topic, I REALLY WANT that person's input on it and I'm going to weigh their input extremely heavily into my decision making. Keep in mind, I know most "habitat experts" in the industry and could be asking them instead. A couple of them I wouldn't hesitate to ask ?s of on specific topics (Bill Winke and I shared notes a couple times on herd dynamics observations, for example). Still, I go to these guys, as I believe they are the best sources I'm aware of on certain topics.

I do agree that this site has a lot of "chatter" about things having little or nothing to do with habitat improvements. I personally don't see that as a negative at all. Frankly, with such a high % of members ranging in experience between "pretty darned experienced" and what I'd consider "experts" on their grounds & on specific topics, there just isn't a lot of "what do you guys think I should plant" type questions/threads. It'd be pretty dead here if it was as habitat related as QDMA's forum (and I like/still visit that forum...for the most part, I go there to share info/try to help others and to explore herd dynamics type topics with Dgallow. I come here for habitat answers and talking w friends).

You can sure spend your net time where ever you so choose. Personally, I sure wouldn't tell anyone they "shouldn't" go to QDMA's forum. IMHO, they lost a ton of true "expertise" when they went on the banning spree, but they still have a good resource. That said, I sure wouldn't ignore this place, either. If nothing else, keep it in your back pocket for when you have questions. If you post a legit ?, you'll likely get some of the best answers possible from here.

 

[shawnv]

This is where I think you are wrong in your view habitat. Fact is there are very few experts or whatever you want to call them regarding habitat. I think to be an expert requires one to see the habitat process over many years (and have success), which might be 25 years or more. Even those who have experience that long may only have experience with a single property they own and what is good there may not be the best option on another. Still there are a few who have done it that long and in multiple locations but outside of them the true expert is the collective knowledge and experience of everyone that participates in this forum.

 

[Jeff23]

Ok,instead of experts I guess I meant seasoned veterans.And yes I had trouble with the site The registration is not to straight forward and I wanted to make a change so someone made it then I couldn't access at all and had to make a whole new account on a new email.But I never bad mouthed the site,just said I didn't see much about habitat.We discussed waterholes for a bit.I just thought this site was a bunch of guys that liked to do habitat work and discuss and share ideas

I was referring to your implication there are no habitat related topics on this forum. In the habitat portions of the site, nearly every category has very active threads every single day. Maybe you didn't notice them, but I surmised that you would rather complain on this thread than spend time on the threads that contain volumes of helpful info. If I was wrong about that, I apologize- but either way I would say participate in the threads that interest you (I guarantee there is plenty of info available from experienced sources) and ignore the ones that don't. Another suggestion: introduce yourself in the "who are you" thread if you haven't, and share some of the things you are particularly interested in so some of the "seasoned veterans" can introduce themselves to you. Expertise, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. ;)

 

[Tree Spud]

I think we do have some experts on here. To me, an expert is someone who has very good technical knowledge of a subject, typically a subject without a lot of easy to understand "how to" info. More importantly, an expert is someone who isn't just scientific in their knowledge, but has applied the knowledge and can speak from experience.

Folks like smsmith, crazy ed, steve bartylla, & maya are all folks I consider experts (hope I didn't offend anyone by not mentioning them). The topics they discuss are somewhat obscure and do not always have a right answer. They all have been willing to share their expertise, discuss the actual application, to help out many of us neophytes.

They hang out in the habitat section ...

 

[Steve Bartylla]

^^^^^ smsmith, crazy ed & maya sure would make my list. A couple others that also jump to my mind are WiWhip, as having such an impressive level on knowledge on so dang many subjects, and dipper. He has taken Doug Gallow's pet project and ran with it. He is this forum's northern version of Harold (Crimson and Camo). How about Bill and what he has done with miscanthus? Wouldn't Phil qualify as an "expert" shed hunter? I know he is compared to me. I find a bunch of sheds each year, but I'm just finding them when scouting the ground. He goes specifically to find them and is pretty darn successful, from what I've gathered. I`d keep going, but I'd end up missing someone like Art, who I bet would never agree to being an expert, but could tell you how and where just about every deer related plant will grow in C MN. The more I think about it, I short changed this forum by tossing 10 out there. I'd say the number is significantly higher. I don't mean to blow smoke up anyone, but I interact with a lot of hunters and habitat guys. There is a lot of expertise here......Now, add in what shawn was referring to, what I'll call "collective expertise" and this is a heck of a resource.

 

[bryant]

Part of recognizing expertise is having an understanding of the real questions we each need to ask as it relates to our properties. For example, the farm I hunt has two giant holes in the bucket. One is cover as virtually all of the timbered areas are park like from high stem count and fully closed canopy. We have laid out a multi year cut plan that will start in a couple of months. Cover is a pretty easy fix IMO. The other issue though is barely avg to poor plots. That is because we are working with completely crappy ground, sub 1% OM, fine texture that leaches fast and dries faster, rocks by the train load, etc. Because I understand the biggest issues we face, I can gain insights not only from all of the guys previously mentioned but from lots of other folks who faced similar issues. Everyone that tries anything on their property and post about the results they had contributes whether they " have a following " or not.