[Music] Lakeland Currents, your public affairs program for north central Minnesota.

Closed captioning is made possible by Bemidji Regional Airport, serving the region with daily flights to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

More information available at bemidjiairport.org Hello again, everyone, and welcome to Lakeland Currents.

I'm Ray Gildow.

Minnesota is blessed with many, many outdoor writers, outdoor photographers.

We have some really, really talented people in this state, and none more talented than my guest today, Bill Marchel.

And Bill has been on the program, it's been a number of years ago that he was on here but, Bill, welcome back to the show.

It's good to see you again and to see what you're doing.

And our focus today is going to be a little bit more about planting for wildlife, but we're going to talk a little bit about Bill's background and his--he's just a phenomenal photographer.

If you're familiar with the Brainerd Dispatch or the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and Outdoor, I think, Outdoor News, maybe, but all the outdoor magazines.

Just about every outdoor publication.

That you can imagine over the years.

Either Nature or Hook and Bullet, which are the hunting and fishing publications.

Yeah.

Well, Bill, tell us a little bit about where you came from, your background, how you got into this business.

Well, thanks for having me.

I appreciate that.

I grew up on the north side of Brainerd, you know, close to the Mississippi floodplain, between the paper mill dam everyone's familiar with in Brainerd, and we called it the Dairy Queen Bridge, the Washington Street Bridge.

It's all wild down there and it still is, you know.

Nobody can build there because their houses would be underwater in the springtime.

Which is a good thing, probably.

A very good thing, yeah.

But, you know, I was within walking distance, only a block and a half from the flood plain.

And so we were able to, as kids, you know, do whatever kids wanted to do, you know, hunt, fish, with BB guns and slingshots and our little bows and arrows.

And we even did a little trapping along there as kids, so it was an ideal place for me to grow up.

And it's such a varied landscape down there, you know.

It was--we just had a blast as kids, and I think that's where I started becoming, you know, have a passion for the outdoors.

I, you know, just started to love it, you know.

I mean, in the winter sometimes, I remember would be way below 0 and, you know, the clothing we had back then and everything, you know, hold my hands over my face because, you know, mittens to keep my face warm, that kind of thing, you know.

We we were out all the time, did fun stuff.

So did you start doing photography right after high school or during high school?

Nope, I didn't buy my first, whatever, professional camera till I was--until 1981.

But as a kid, I used to cut pictures out of Field and Stream and Outdoor Life and different things and have scrapbooks.

Really?

Yeah, not hunting and fishing pictures, but the pictures of the critters, especially whitetail deer.

I had a passion from really young and, you know, I studied those photographs.

And so, when I I did buy my first camera, you know, I really didn't have an intention of becoming a professional or becoming, you know, a way of earning income.

But I also had, in the back of my mind, that I think I can take pictures like this, you know?

The very first day I got it, I went out and photographed some deer.

You know, I didn't really even know how to work the camera.

In fact, I kept trying to put the lens on when I first got it, and I'm twisting it the way you'd think it would be twisted but it twists the other way, you know.

I'm like, what's wrong here?

But, you know, gradually I kept saying, you know, I can take as good of pictures as there are in the magazines and calendars and whatever.

And so I just started gradually working into that line--more equipment, better equipment-- and it just snowballed from there.

The thing that's always amazed me about you is you're self-taught, for the most part.

Nobody's told you how to go out and take pictures and what to do.

You have done that on your own.

You've learned that through the school of hard knocks.

Well, yeah, in a way.

But also, you know, when you learn from someone else you're only learning what they know, you know?

And so I think by, you know, attacking it on my own, I was able to to learn, you know, things that I wouldn't have learned and maybe not even tried to learn, you know?

I mean when you go into something completely green, you're wide open to anything, anything and everything.

And then with the passion that I had and, I thought, the eye that I had, I didn't realize it, but by looking at pictures all my life, you know, what I thought were good, were good.

And, if they are good, then other people would like them also.

And that proved to be the case.

So, when you started taking pictures, did you also start writing at the same time?

Yeah, kind of, yeah.

The, you know, words and images go together well, as you know.

So, yeah, it's a good way to sell photos, by having some writing skills, but it's also a good way to sell writing, by having good photos.

Sure.

A photo-text package that's done well is, and was especially, highly salable.

And your images have been published nationally.

What are just some of the magazines that you've had your images in?

Some of the ones that I'm most proud of would be Audubon Magazine.

I had a cover and 12 images in 1 issue.

I've had like 4, I think, National Wildlife Federation cover shots.

Ducks Unlimited has really been a good client of mine over the years, and had a lot of covers and lots of advertising.

I even was, through Ducks Unlimited, able to get a image of mine on the side of a NASCAR car that actually won the race, too.

Really?

Yeah, it was a really coincidence that the car would win also, you know.

That's pretty cool.

Yeah, that was neat.

And, when you started this process of writing and taking pictures, how did you make contact?

Did you just contact people on your own?

Yeah, pretty much.

I'd spent a lot of time in magazine racks in the stores, you know, and I would grab a magazine and look through it and well I think this would be a potential client for me.

And back then there weren't that many of us out there, you know, that were doing that.

And so, you know, when I first really got, you know, what I thought was quality images and words, I had great luck selling, right out of the blue.

Grab a magazine, a new one, that was just published or something, and, you know, get in contact.

Back then it was all almost all through mail, some email, but you'd contact them and send them a submission of the slides.

Back then it was all photographic slides and, you know, 20 slides on a page and send them five pages of slides.

And, yeah, it worked really well.

Wow.

It was a lot of, you know, compared to now it's so different, you know.

You hit the computer button and the image flies off into who knows where.

You know, back then, it was, you know, put them in and send them out, and then they had to take them and print them and send them back to you, you know?

And it was a lot of logistics were involved.

But when you didn't know any better, who would have known about the digital world?

Yeah.

Let's just talk a little bit about how this industry has really changed.

And, from my perspective, I was a writer for a number of years, a lot of the stuff I wrote was in newspapers rather than magazines.

Although, I did do both.

The newspaper industry has changed so drastically.

And I just read recently that the St.

Cloud Times services an area of 200,000 readers.

They have 2 reporters.

Right.

They used to have 16 or 18.

My wife and I spent a little time in Florida in the winter.

Tampa Bay Times, huge publication, they come out with two papers a week, and the rest of it's digital.

That's really affected this industry that you and I have been involved with, hasn't it?

Oh, for sure.

And part of the problem is the web and free stuff, you know?

I mean people have blogs.

They don't get paid a cent, you know.

Some people have YouTube channels that they claim they make money off of, but in reality they probably don't, you know?

And so, you know, if a client that I've had in the past wanted to print a brochure of their company or whatever, you know, they came to me for an image.

And now they just go on the web and find one for free.

And that's the brunt of the problem.

That's what I have some acquaintances that have done shows on the Outdoor Channel or the Sportsman Channel, and it used to be that you had to really have good equipment, really high quality cameras to do that.

Now, the cameras are so good that a small inexpensive camera can be used.

And, like you said, a lot of these people are making these programs, but they're not making any money.

Right.

They're really not making a living on it.

They're promoting products.

It's more like an infomercial.

Exactly.

But it's just completely changed the way that the people in the outdoor world, who made a living, are existing today.

But you've been a person that really changes with the time.

I've tried.

But, you know, there is no way to compete with free.

No.

Yeah and I won't do that.

I'm not going to give images away.

I'm not going to give my words away.

That's all there is to it, you know?

And, you know, I try to protect that, try to protect industry by standing tall but, you know, eventually, it just doesn't work.

So, now, if somebody wants to buy an image, Bill, that you still do, how do they get your information?

Well the best way is to just contact me directly.

You know, you go to my website and get the information.

My website isn't set up very well to sell, like, prints, you know, and that I might change in the near future.

But, right now, the best way is to contact me.

People see images on Facebook and they'll say, "Can I get an enlargement of this?"

And yes, and then I deal with them that way.

But, yeah, I wish I was set up better for prints because that is something that still a person can make some money.

But it was, you know, back in the day when it was so easy to sell to calendars and publications, prints were a hassle.

They were just a hassle, that's all you know, not a money maker.

But, like you say, you've got to roll with the punches.

Well, you've got a parcel of land that you've owned for quite a while.

I think it's down by Saint Matthias in that area, south of Brainerd.

Yeah.

Talk a little bit about your, I mean, you still have interest in photography, I'm not suggesting you don't.

But you've had a long-time interest in planting for wildlife, to attract wildlife.

And I know I've read a number of your articles in the Minneapolis paper about that.

It's phenomenal what you've done there.

And you have, what'd you say, 70 Acres.

70, yes.

And tell us a little bit about what you've done there and how you're attracting animals to your place.

That's just amazing.

Yeah, it is amazing, how it works.

And, not to sound boastful, anyone who implements, you know, some simple, sometimes very simple, plans to either plant or whatever.

I've had ponds excavated and, you know, all kinds of different things.

Managing the land for wildlife is what I call it or farming for wildlife.

One of the first things I had done was had some ponds excavated and man, you know, having water and wetlands- and these aren't little donut ponds, you know.

One of them is almost 2 acres.

One's almost 1 acre, and then I have a couple--I have 5 all together.

Five ponds excavated.

Wow.

Yeah.

And it was really fun to do that.

I've got a couple images to illustrate that.

And how deep are those ponds?

Well, I purposely made them shallow enough to grow, like, wild rice, and I planted wild rice and Sago pondweed and buried smartweed--a bunch of different aquatic plants that are attractive to--particularly I was looking to attract ducks, but it also attracts a lot of other species.

Here's an image of it.

When you first started, right?

Yeah a big D8 Cat, had a wide track, 36 inch wide tracks, that you could go anywhere with that thing.

Wow.

Right through the mud and water and yeah.

Now was that land conducive to that.

It was lowland to begin with, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

And there's a permit process involved.

I don't want to pretend like I just called this guy and you can come out and start tearing things apart, you know?

It was a permit process involved.

But so many birds in particular are attracted to wetlands.

But not just birds, I mean, mink and weasels and otters and beavers and muskrats and all those things, you know, were all critters that I didn't have.

I mean, if you don't have water, you don't have those, you know.

And the ponds grew into the beautiful, you know, they have all the shorelines are shaped, you know, they're not round or square or whatever, you know.

If I showed you them right now, you'd have no clue they were dug.

None.

There's no piles of dirt.

There's nothing.

That's cool.

Yeah.

And, you know, this is the kind of thing that, you know, as a result of that, you know, these wetlands being excavated, a beautiful Drake Wood Duck flushing.

And, you know, like I say I planted wild rice in the ponds and all these different, you know, aquatic vegetation to attract wildlife and make homes for them, you know?

The muskrats use the vegetation to build their huts and, you know, that kind of thing, so that's been really rewarding.

One of them, kind of, butts right up to my backyard, so I literally look out the house, and that one actually formed kind of a moat around the house.

Oh, wow.

You know, if a wildfire comes from that direction.

Pretty safe.

Pretty safe, yeah.

Yeah.

But again, you know, wetlands being excavated was kind of the first project because I knew that would take awhile.

You know, what they did real quickly, I'll explain.

They came in with that big bulldozer and, you know, cleared it out.

But all these piles of dirt and mud and everything let that sit for a couple months so it can drain.

And then they come back and smooth it out as good as they can with a big machine like that, and I used an ATV with some farm implements to tailor it and further smooth it out and get all the sticks and stuff out of there.

And a lot of that--they call that spoil, the dirt that's dug out of the pond--a lot of the spoil is where I planted my wildlife food plots.

Great, you know, it's half peat and half clay, all mixed.

It grows beautiful food plots.

So, yeah, that worked out well.

And, you know, other things that I've done is just, I don't know, I hope you can see this well, but these two pictures are taken from the exact same spot only about 6 months or 8 months later.

You can see in this picture there is virtually no underbrush, nothing for the deer to eat, nothing for grouse, no place for critters to even hide, you know.

And so I went in there and removed all these shade trees.

That shade canopy is what shades the ground and prevents sunlight from hitting the ground, so you don't get any of this new growth.

And I think you've said you've done a similar thing on your property.

And just, you know, this is just one growing season later, Aspen are this tall and beneath that are all these little plants that are starting to pop up, you know?

And now, this is a couple years ago, and now it's really nice looking.

People think of clear cutting as being a bad thing.

I don't actually clear cut.

Right.

I leave, you know, an aspen here.

Selective harvesting.

Yeah.

Selective harvesting, yep, exactly.

Even something as simple as this, creating a Ruffed Grouse drumming log, is what I did here.

I cut this big aspen down and thought, you know, "Heck.

There weren't any drumming logs in that area.

Let's see how this works."

Well, it worked very well.

Wow.

That grouse is sitting virtually where my chainsaw is sitting on in this picture.

Did you cut that in length or did you just leave the whole tree?

No, I did cut--grouse will always drum within a couple feet of the stump.

Oh.

Usually about 3, it's amazing, about 3 feet from the stump.

Wow.

Very rarely do they go out toward the end of it, you know, so all you need is maybe a 10 or 15 foot chunk of the trunk.

And the rest of it I cut up and burned.

That is a beautiful picture of that grouse, man.

And this one, by the way, I can see this from my house.

Really?

Yeah, from all the windows on the outside of the house, and I can hear them playing his day drumming.

Wow.

You know, a lot of people don't know, but they drum at night a lot, you know.

Yeah, and they even drum this time of the year every once in a while.

Once in a while, yeah.

I've heard them drumming every month.

Wow.

Yeah.

But very rarely this time of the year.

But, yeah.

That is a gorgeous picture there.

Yeah.

And for 3 years I've been able to photograph this grouse, you know.

So, yeah.

And, you know, it's pretty simple.

You think it's the same one.

I know it is.

Oh, you do?

Yeah, absolutely.

Wow.

The bronze colored rough instead of black, bronze colored tail band.

But more than anything, he's very cooperative, you know?

I mean, a lot of times, I can walk up to him when he's drumming and don't even need a blind.

No kidding?

Yeah, and that's the only, in 40 Years of doing this, that's the only bird like that I've ever been able to find.

That's amazing.

And have it right there in my yard.

Yeah.

He unfortunately got killed last winter by a hawk or an owl.

Oh wow.

But, yeah.

You know, cover is important too, you know.

I mentioned that, you know, clear-cutting little areas.

Of course, for a while there, it's lacking cover.

But I've always planted, you know, especially evergreen plantations or, in this case, white spruce for not only a wind break but a sight break.

This is a long row.

And it's a pretty durable tree.

Very durable, yeah.

I had terrible trouble with gophers on a lot of my trees.

You plant a tree and it gets to be at head height, and next thing you know it falls over.

Well the gophers ate the roots.

Never had a gopher bother a white spruce, you know?

And here they're in rows.

But a lot of places on the land they find them randomly, too, so it looks natural, you know.

This is in rows because it's along the road and, you know, now you can't see from the road out onto my property.

It's a nice sight barrier, you know?

And wildlife likes to feel secure.

You bet.

And then, nesting cover, boy, just about every species of bird like nesting in evergreens, you know.

They're tucked in tight and they're out of sight.

Plus, cover in winter, you know, cold winds and whatever.

It's really worked out.

Actually, there hasn't been anything that I've done that hasn't been successful.

And again, it's not just because I'm doing it.

Anybody can do it, whether you live in the country or in town.

And that's what we're here to talk about today, too.

Yeah.

How they can learn to do that.

You don't need, you know, acreage, you know, your backyard, your front yard, you know, fruit bearing shrubs and trees not only attract wildlife or birds in particular, but it increases the value of your property, also, you know.

Nice landscape doesn't have to be something that isn't edible, and I can rap off easily 10 different plants that I've planted that are fruit bearing or nut bearing, you know, that have worked, and unbelievably.

Here's a wildlife food plot of oats that I planted.

Oh.

And deer and rabbits and sometimes grouse will eat oats, you know.

And this is planted on spoil from one of my ponds.

So, when you plant that you just let it naturally go back.

You don't harvest any of it?

No.

You just let it go back.

Yeah.

And oats aren't cold hardy, so they die over the winter, but that's really what I want so then I can put something different in there.

Boy you've got a good crop there, really came up well.

And that's when deer like it the most when it looks like this, when it looks like a tall lawn, you know.

And they don't actually eat the oats very much themselves, so I don't let it go to oats.

I plant it late, like in August, and so it never has a chance to go to seed.

Okay.

In every different, there's so many different wildlife food plot seeds and things available now that, you know, each one has its own things, you know.

Right now the deer are eating on my land sugar beets that I've planted.

Oh, yeah, they love sugar beets.

Yeah, they do.

The leaves and the beet itself.

Yeah that's amazing.

And you mentioned fruit trees.

Here's a picture of I'm planting a apple tree.

And, of course, we have to protect them.

You know if you can, it's probably hard to see, but I got a six foot high fence that I put around them, but I also put window screen around the base because that keeps the voles, you know, from they'll come in and girdle it underneath the snow you look out and you think your trees are fine but underneath the snow the voles will girdle them and so this window screen over the trunk.

That's a good idea.

Yeah.

And then you put the, you know, the fence around it- that keeps rabbits and deer out of there and then when it's tall enough that the deer don't bother it anymore, then you take the fence off.

You still might want to keep some protection on the trunk otherwise bucks might rub their antlers on the trunk, and if they go all the way around it'll kill the tree.

So, yeah, for five or six years you have to, you know, you're planting them for the deer and wildlife but you have to keep them away while they're you know taking roots, so to speak.

Oh, I lost hundreds of trees early on when I didn't do that.

Just learning, learning the process.

I'd rather plant 50 and, you know, quick quickly right.

No it's better to plant 10 and take care of them than 50 you just randomly planted because they'll, you know, and that wouldn't be maybe the case in town but as you know deer have become urbanized, you know, and they go right through town now.

When you've done these things Bill, have you had a master plan?

Sort of.

You know it evolves every year, you know.

Yes, I guess so, but there's nothing you can do wrong.

I mean there really isn't, you know.

Oops, I put that in the wrong place.

You probably don't know this, but you're a lot like George Washington, President George Washington.

I've been to his place.

He had a master plan for everything.

Certain trees would go here.

Certain trees would go there.

And some of the trees he planted are still alive.

But he had this master plan for his property, and that reminds me of kind of what you're doing here, too.

Yeah and like I said it can evolve.

I planted a tree in my backyard and realized it's blocking the sight out to my pond and stuff, you know.

And I thought what'd I do that for.

And ended up cutting that down, you know.

So, you know, I made mistakes for sure, but really is it a mistake?

I mean you remove it, you know, and you go plant one in a different spot, you know.

So, yeah, I think I had some, but I have messed up.

And, you know, the fruit bearing trees.

That's beautiful.

Yeah, this is a Cedar Waxwing and, you know, that's on an elderberry plant.

Well, the elderberry is a great one to plant even if you just want one bush of it, you know.

You can make a hedge out of it.

They're edible.

You can make wine or jelly out of the fruit.

It gets gobs of fruit on these things, and the birds just love them, you know, I must have 50 of them planted, or more than that maybe, and there won't be a single berry left on it.

Wow.

Every one gets eaten.

And, you know, crab apples are great and, you know, they attract so many species of birds, even pheasants and Ruffed Grouse.

Squirrels eat crab apples and deer eat them.

Everything eats them.

Now have you had those nesting close by?

This is a Bohemian Waxwing.

They don't nest around here.

They're just migrating through, right?

Well, they come here in the wintertime.

Yeah.

And this one is a Cedar Waxwing.

They do nest here and yes I have had them nest on our property.

Cool.

But, you know, again there's so many fruit-bearing shrubs, you know, scarlet elder blooms right away in the spring and so there's fruit in early June, and then you get into some of the different ones, choke cherries, different dogwoods, arrowwood, high bush cranberry.

And so really, literally, in my yard and on the edge of my yard I have blooming things in May and some of them are still even blooming in August- the late ones, you know.

So there's something there for the birds and for our eyes.

I mean I love seeing the blooms and, you know, pollinators.

The bees are just everywhere on this thing.

We're running out of time, but talk a little bit about if someone's interested in learning how to do something on their property they can contact you and you can help.

And, again, you have a website and on the website I think you have your phone number.

Right.

If people are interested.

Or my Facebook page.

And we wanted to mention that, too.

This doesn't have to be, and you did mention this already, you don't have to have a lot of property.

It could be a small community where they've got a little park.

Exactly.

It could be a homeowner with a big backyard.

There's so many things that people could do.

Yeah.

And like you said, it's so rewarding, too.

It's very rewarding.

I can't even describe how rewarding it is to plant something and then to see it.

And it doesn't take forever.

No.

Yeah, well, Bill that's just fascinating, and thank you for taking the time to jump on with us.

It's really, really interesting to see what you've done there.

Appreciate it very much.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

You've been watching Lakeland Currents.

I'm Ray Gildow, and if you're interested in learning about how to plant for wildlife, this is the guy you want to contact, Bill Marchel, who is one of the best that there is.

Thanks a lot.

See you next time.