(bright upbeat music) - Welcome to "A Shot of Ag."

I'm your host, Rob Sharkey.

I'm a fifth generation farmer, from just outside of Bradford, Illinois.

I started a podcast which led to an XM radio show, which led to a national television show, which led to me being right here today.

But today, today is not about me.

Today is about Wes Lehmann.

How you doing Wes?

- I'm doing great, how about yourself?

- I'm slightly concerned with what I'm sitting by.

This thing is deceased, right?

- It sure is, I'd say it's one of our dog training tools.

- This is okay.

Yeah, we will get into all that, but that was a pheasant at one time.

- Yep, sure was, just normal one of the birds we had on the farm.

- Yeah, and did you take care of this one?

- I don't know if I did or not, but I'm sure one of my clients did.

- Okay, it's not mounted.

Right, this is not a mount.

This is for training dogs.

- Yeah, it basically unwrapped essentially.

And then compressed, and then we use it to steady the dogs and get, and get started retrievers or puppies, used to their natural instincts.

- Gotcha, alright, let's get into it.

You're from Dwight, Illinois.

- Yep.

- Where's that at?

- It's straight up 55, about two hours South Chicago.

Just kind of a rural community, rural farming community.

- Is that where you're from?

- Yep, born and raised.

- Okay.

You went off to school.

Whatcha study?

- Ground management and Agribusiness.

- Okay, so what did you wanna do with that?

- Well, I really wanted to be an Ag teacher, and then the whole kid scenario wasn't for me.

- Oh, they're the worst.

- Yeah.

I couldn't do it myself.

- You can't hit 'em you can't slap 'em around.

- Sure couldn't.

So I always liked like seeing things improve.

- And so that's why I started out in the fertilizer industry.

I kinda testing out new products, and foliage and stuff like that.

And then I worked for a tiling contractor through college, and he ended up, his supplier needed a rep. And I always liked teaching people, and being highly involved in the farm, and also watching yields just come to life.

And so I got into the drainage industry.

- Not everybody knows what tile is, in a nutshell, can you explain it?

- In a nutshell, it's kinda like, like the gutters on your house, like your roof collects the water, and then it runs into your gutters, and then it ultimately leaves through a pipe, and down to the creek essentially so, - Creek.

- Creek.

(both laughing) Either way, - I don't know how they say it, Dwight, but yeah.

- I would say my family's from Southern Illinois, so I get a mix of both worlds really, but yeah, I mean, drainage tile essentially, it just brings oxygen in the soil.

Plants need air to air to live and, - So you were selling like the, it comes in huge rolls.

It's corrugated plastic.

So you put it in the ground, the water seeps into it and drains the soil.

- Yep and it just makes for an uniform profile, So the farming practices can basically take care of, in a timely manner and also bump your yields up, take care of your wet holes.

- So what was a desire to get into Ag?

Were you a farm kid?

- I grew up in the farming generation of my high school.

All my friends were came from farms, and I was kind of the outlier.

My mom was a nurse.

My dad was a decent mechanic.

And I mean, when my buddies would call me, we'd either go ride four wheelers around the farm, or I just sit in the tractor with them, and it just kind of grasped me, honestly.

- Just something that drew you to it.

- Yeah, it's just, I mean, it was just the way of life I wanted to live, really.

- Gotcha.

Now, when did the hunting come into it?

- As far as the pheasants site of things go, my Ag teacher was sitting there and she's like, well, she wanted all of us to have some type of proficiency, because we competed on a state, and county level and everything.

And I just couldn't find anything, that I could do because I didn't own a farm at the time.

And I've was always been an avid hunter and one of my best friends took me on my first pheasant hunt.

And his dad always talked about the glory days.

Like there was pheasants on every ditch, and you only had to walk a couple hundred yards to get your limit.

And one thing led to another and I talked to my dad about it, and his buddy had a slice of ground.

And I started out with twenty five pheasants, and then the biology teacher got me into a pheasant farm.

And so I helped him with his hunt club and raising pheasants and quail, and chickens and ducks and everything.

I just got hooked.

- When I was in high school.

We got done with football practice, and then my buddy and I would go walk just a fence row.

We'd have a half hour after practice when shooting light ended.

We'd always limit out with pheasant in a half hour, every single day.

Now I think I saw one pheasant during the entire harvest.

What happened to 'em?

- It a multitude of things?

I mean farming is a business, and everybody wants to farm up to the creek banks and strip out all the tree lines and everything.

Well that's where pheasants thrived at.

So getting rid of the fence lines, and the buffer zones in between the creeks and everything, and also your feral house cats had a play on the diminish of the population.

- Cats?

- Everybody thinks it's coyotes, it's not, - That's what I would've said, it's the coyotes.

- No, I mean cats are ultimate predator.

- Really?

- They they're sneaky.

- That's a big foul right there.

Cat can take that thing down?

- Oh yeah, and I had to keep them outta my pheasant pen at times.

- Really?

I mean, I've got a CRP field, so it's a hundred and sixty acres.

I've never seen a pheasant on it.

It's covered in turkeys.

So, I mean, there's the habitat I always, I don't know, I guess I always blamed it on coyotes, the increase on coyotes.

- I think it could be a lot of things.

A harsh winter can take 'em out.

Like an average pheasant in the wild only lasts like two years, which is incredible, Like, I don't know how you sustain a population only living two years.

- Yeah, these are not native, right?

- No, they're actually brought over, and I can't believe they flourished like as much as they did back in the day.

- They're called Chinese pheasant, right?

- Yep.

- Is that where they're from?

- I would assume so.

I mean, I didn't really dove that far into it, honestly.

- Yeah, I would explain 'em always building walls.

- Yeah, right?

Kinda keeping 'em in.

- Yeah, tell the Mongolian pheasants come and try to tear down the walls.

- Yeah, I'd say so.

I mean, there's all sorts of different ones.

Oh, history lesson for you kids.

(both laughing) - I don't know how much truth is in that, but hey, I'll go with it.

(Rob laughing) - Okay, so you were raising these, so that was for the FFA?

- Yeah, and kind of just to release back out in the wild.

I mean, I never even really considered selling to hunt clubs until that one summer when I would think I was a freshman, or sophomore, I couldn't drive yet.

And when I got introduced to Joe Beson at Old Goats, just south of Chicago, I mean, it just kind of took off from there.

We went from that, - That's a hunt club?

- Yeah, It was a hunt club.

He's since retired, but I went from twenty five to five hundred the next year.

And then just kind of kept building.

- So you say five hundred pheasants and you think that's an amazing amount.

I mean, like how big of an area do you need for five hundred pheasants.

- Five hundred pheasants you can do in about, right around a third of an acre give or take.

- Oh, really?

That's it, huh?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

I mean, you want like, so I've learned, I mean, great like trial and error, right?

- I've learned that each pheasant needs about at twelve square feet of space at maturity.

- Yeah, do you ever say puff-pheasants?

- Puff pheasants, like kinda like a knife.

(both laughing) - It's an awkward spelling.

So you started all of a sudden what became like a hobby.

It sounded like now you're seeing a business opportunity with it.

- Yeah, I mean, throughout high school, I always raised pheasants and I went off to college, and my dad was in the midst of retiring and everything.

And he actually kind of kept things going, because I was bouncing around with jobs, and fiances and girlfriends, and all that kind of stuff trying to find where I wanted to be and, - Am I just supposed to let that go?

(both laughing) - Yeah, well she was an interesting life for Wes.

(Rob laughing) Yeah, I mean, it just, like I found the right partner, so to speak, I mean, her mom was in the dog world.

She was too.

And heck, when I met her, she that never even shot a gun.

Never like her mom killed birds all the time, but never shot a gun.

- Because they were in the, like the dog training world to retrieve.

So the hunting dogs, right?

- Yeah.

- That's to retrieve when you shoot a bird, the dog to go find it and retrieve it.

- Yeah, and there's all sorts of different sectors, whether it's retrievers or uplander, tracking and so I settled down with her, and we decided to buy our farm, and my dad was continuing raising pheasants, and I just looked at him and I was like, well, if you can raise five hundred, you could raise five thousand.

Because I mean, it's the same amount of work, essentially.

It's twenty four seven, three sixty five.

- It sounds like it'd be like ten times amount of work.

- Well, kind of, but you just, - I didn't do my math right.

- The area just gets bigger.

- No, that's ten, it doesn't matter.

Remember the Mongolian pheasant joke.

- You're right.

- That was funny.

(Rob laughing) - But yeah, it just lot of hard work and dedication, and I mean, the interest in pheasants is just growing astronomically.

- So tell me about like how this works.

You you're selling a pheasant that you raise to a hunt club and then what happens.

- Typically once they go to the hunt club, people kind of like yourself, that just aren't used to seeing pheasants anymore, but still want to get out and go hunt.

The hunt club will set the birds.

And if you have a dog, that's great, or if you needed a guided hunt, they just release 'em essentially.

And then you go find them and it's kind of set up like a natural scenario.

- Do you have to be careful in how you raise 'em so they don't become too used to humans.

- Yeah, we don't typically, once they get into our flight pens, they got blinders on to kind of protect themselves from us and them.

And then, - They got blinders on?

- Yeah.

- The birds do?

- Oh yeah, like, cause they're extremely aggressive and cannibalistic, they'll kill each other almost instantly as.

- You put like blinders on each one?

- Oh, yeah - That's five thousand blinders.

- Five thousand, yeah.

- Where do you get pheasant blinders.

- The store (chuckles) - I've been to Walmart, I don't know how many times I've never seen a package of pheasant blinders.

- I mean, it's kind of, I mean, chickens have 'em too, depending on your flock.

But yeah, I mean just a specialty store, essentially like QC Supply or Three, - I can't imagine they would stay on.

- It's kinda like, have you ever seen a bull ring?

Like where they stick that ring through the nose so you can control the bull.

It's kinda like that.

It's just like a fish hook that goes through and then it shields everything in front of them, so they can't fight.

They can still eat and drink.

It's just they can't chase after each other.

- Do you tape 'em on?

You glue it, staples.

- I wish there was a staple.

That'd be a heck lot easier.

- I bet you, the bird wouldn't be too much of paper.

- No.

(Rob laughing) - They're efficient.

Like their claws are like razors and, - If you put two rooster in a pen, would they just fight?

Wouldn't they?

- Once it gets later in the season, like they're kinda like a soybean.

How like a soybean goes reproductive due to the daylight hours.

- What?

- Essentially it's like a pheasant, like when the after wintering, and the daylight starts getting longer they, - Aaaw, I gotcha.

- Senses to say, "Hey, I'm in mating season."

So, I mean, at that point, I try to get rid of my pheasants probably like before February, because after that, I mean they start fighting with each other.

They go after the females, they just kind of just sit there, and I mean reproduce twenty four seven.

(Rob laughing) or whenever they can, - So this is the money right here.

- What do you mean?

- Because most people want to have a presentable bird.

If you don't have tail feathers, you don't have a good product.

- Is that hard to keep those intact?

- Absolutely, especially like, when it's raining out right now.

- Yeah.

- This tail just does nothing but collect mud, so we gotta make sure our pens are kind of.

- You make me nervous when you touch it.

- Why is that?

- I don't know.

It's like you're, I don't know, gonna ruin it or something.

- It's fine, the dogs have been chewing on this one for a couple years (laughing) - That's what this is, just a dummy to train with.

- Yeah, essentially, especially like when you don't wanna flush the live bird each time and you wanna really concentrate on that dog pointing, and waiting for your command, essentially to flush the bird.

- You and your wife bought property, right?

- Yeah.

- It's a farm?

- Yeah, It's a pasture.

- Okay.

- Because my dream was always to have a pond.

And so, - you have a yacht?

- Not quite, I have a kayak.

- We all gotta start somewhere.

- Right?

See maybe in a dock that floats, with fifty five gallon drums.

- Oh, that's sounding okay.

So you've now you have a pond?

- Yeah.

- Did you build it?

or was it there?

- So a puddle was there essentially, (Rob laughing) the cattle kind of came in through the years, and destroyed it essentially.

And it silted in, and that our pasture, like I wanna train my dog as well.

And there's a lot of people outta the city, surprisingly that have upland dogs too.

So after doing a little research, people need an area to train their dogs, and area to grow.

So we built the pond into a technical shape, to where dogs, whether it's an upland dog or a retriever.

- I don't know what that is.

Technical shape.

- So it's an E essentially.

So you got essentially.

- Lower case or upper case.

- Upper case.

So basically the legs of an E a dog can go in the water, outta the water, back in the water, to do a retrieve.

So that's mostly on the hunt, like duck dog side of things.

But I mean, pheasant hunting, I mean, you're typically, could be a around a creek or a wetland.

So your upland dog needs to learn how to swim too.

- Well, people might not realize this how big the hunting dog world is.

And those guys get nutty too.

I mean, they have trailers that are worth more than the pickup truck.

I mean, it's crazy.

And the whole thing is, the competitions up, you gotta practice.

And if you do, like you said, if you live in Chicago which your two hours from, they might be wanting to give you some cabbage to come hunt their dog on your property.

- Yeah.

- That's genius.

- They, especially a lot of started dogs.

You can't just release them into a big open field and expect them to form well, but it's why we have certain strips and areas that are more consolidated to where a guy could set a bird at a time, or what, have you, or use these to really steady their dog, and get 'em ready to go out on the hunting trips, whether it's Kansas or North Dakota, South Dakota.

So it's a twenty three acre facility that allows somebody to kind of have one on one space with their dog.

- What's it called?

- So our farm's called "Feather Prairie Farms."

And that's just, we don't have a dog training side of it yet, but I mean, everything runs under our pheasant farm.

- But I mean, people they're wanting to come out and use your farm, right?

- Yeah.

- So have you molded to that into a business yet?

- We're in the starting of it right now.

- We haven't quite got there because I mean, it's just, there's been a lot of dirt work that's taken place, and I'm actually having ducks unlimited, and the federal government, and the wetlands initiative actually come in, and do a little bit more restoration, to give us some more habitat as well.

- Gotcha.

You said it was twenty three acres.

You can do quite a bit with that.

- Oh, yeah.

- And to get that, I mean, it seems to me like you're in a great area.

I mean, you're rural enough, but yet it's not too far of a drive outta Chicago.

- Great, we're right off the highway of 55.

So I mean, a lot of guys that come outta the city, I mean, you get off the exit, if you find the women's prison, I'm right next door.

I mean there's no women any quite yet, or I mean, have been for about ten years, but.

- What?

Where'd they go?

- I don't know.

State took 'em somewhere else, I guess.

Hottest thing, but here we are.

- But it's a land marking.

And I'm easy to find.

- What are they using the prison for now?

They could use it for dog training.

- I wish, I've been wanting to buy it for the last couple years, - Did you wanna buy it prison?

- Well, do you know how many fences I could put in a hundred and sixty acres of tall fence?

(Rob laughing) - My gosh, - Keep the cats out, anyhow.

- Yeah, you could electrify it.

- There's razor wire up, I mean, too much mills, (Rob laughing) But at times it's kind of scary because whether it's the SWAT or the fire department, I mean, they have all sorts of different branches in there and it could be six o'clock in the morning and all of a sudden you hear brigade of shots going on.

- Are we still talking about the prison.

- Oh sorry, yeah.

(both laughing) - Oh, you love a fun life Wes.

- I try to, it's really busy.

(both laugh) - Tell me about the decoy side of it.

- So a few years ago, like I'm an avid waterfowl hunter too.

So there's been an evolution essentially in the decoy industry, like your duck decoy used to, you used to throw the weight or uncoil it off the decoy, and throw the weight out, well, - It's a pain, - It's a pain, it's tangles and it just becomes a mess.

And so we evolved into the Texas rig, which is more of less a tangle free system, but it was terrible to carry.

So me and my dad usually hunt by ourselves a lot and he carries a gun in snacks.

I usually carry the rest of the stuff and I love.

- That's the benefits of being the dad (laughing) - He carried me for eighteen years, so I figured I could do a little bit, well, one day my buddies borrowed my decoys and I got it back in just an absolute mess.

And so I was sitting there with my dad in the barn and I was like, you know, there's a better way to do this.

So after some testing, we came up with a product called the hilrod, - The hilrod.

- The hilrod.

Yep.

- Okay.

- It's kinda like a nap sack, you've ever seen like a hitchhiker or something that like, you got a stick and then you got your clothes and stuff, and a bag and it kind of balances on your shoulder.

- Yeah, it's like the stew bums.

- Yeah, exactly.

- Gotcha.

- So essentially taking that concept, but enabling us to drawl up all the access cord, or anchor line for a decoy, it consolidates it into that rod.

And that way we're able to throw it over my shoulder.

And actually we test it out in Canada, and Canada's like the pothole capital of the world, essentially just, - Did you have to you use a metric one.

- A metric one.

- It's from Canada.

- Negative.

It's imported.

(both laughing) - But you made this.

- Yeah, so the last, oh shoot.

I think I got my patent in two thousand nineteen, but we've been doing this about two thousand fifteen, and it was the American dream, right?

Like you start your own business, and you make your product, and there's not much that you can call American made, but everything we make is in house.

- But you took it to Canada.

- I sure did.

I had it tested where the ducks were.

- Have you tried it in a prison yet?

- I haven't, but I will say, the old sewage plant that's in the prison, that's about three acres holds an incredible amount of wood ducks, and geese during the season, - You can't sneak in there?

- That's federal ground, I'd be in jail.

- I ask the question again.

(both laughing) - No comment.

- So do you think this is going to be a business?

- Yeah.

- Or is it a business?

- It is a business.

- Okay.

- Yeah, I say that's what I mean, we're we are a busy family (chuckles) So besides raising pheasants, and running a manufacturing business, it's been extremely rewarding.

I mean, I love the outdoor industry and I mean, there's really no better people.

I mean, whether it's working with my drainage contractors, and farmers trying to gain their yields, or working with somebody, that's either trying to make their hunt more enjoyable or go shoot a nice pheasant.

So it's just, all that commute is really nice to be around.

- It is, it's amazing to me the lengths that people will go to have an enjoyable hunt, an enjoyable whatever, and the outdoor.

And it sounds like you've found a pretty good way to try to help with that, and, you know, get paid to do it.

- Yeah.

And for the most part, and especially like the dog side of things, I mean, I wouldn't be really hunting, as avid as I do right now.

If I didn't have my dog.

I mean, there's nothing more rewarding than watching your, - Is it a boy or a girl?

- We got both.

- What's their names.

- So Risky is our golden retriever.

And then Buck is my black lab.

- They're not as good as my dog.

- Maybe, it's all on perspective.

- My dog's the best dog in the world.

- Of course it is.

- Yeah.

- Can it sit and stay?

- Sometimes (both laughing) Dealt with the dog side of it.

Are you looking at doing something maybe inside indoors?

- Yeah, so right now we're actually, we took one of our shops, and that's what kind of sold my wife on the property really like his and her bathroom, right?

It's his and her shop.

So I gave her the newer building, and it was a sixty by sixty.

And her mom has essentially the identical building, at her house that's also a big indoor training facility, and Andy's really big into grooming and obedience, and tracking and agility.

And so she wanted her own arena.

So right now I'm about three weeks out, from having her eleven boarding runs, or kennels and then a grooming room, and then a indoor facility for training, in anything like agility or just general obedience.

- So is do that year round then with the indoor side.

- Yeah, we're hoping to, we wanna start holding seminars, especially like it's all about the youth, right?

- Yeah.

- So that's kind of what drives me the most is because I was a kid once.

And so I really want our facility to be able to bring the kids in and whether it's just to work with their family dog, or take 'em out and actually do like a hunt test, or simply get into the realm of the hunting world.

- Yeah.

- Cause there's, - You could hire that guy from the discovery, that Cesar.

- Cesar?

- Cesar Millan.

- I don't have a TV.

(rob whispers) I'm not sure.

(Rob whispers) Are you training me, Oh.

(Wes laughing) - See, it works pretty good, that guy's on to something.

- You sound like my wife, honestly, (Rob laughing) seriously like there's some days where she's like in her zone, and like, I'm not a dog.

(both laughing) You know, like, you could talk to me like a human.

- Well, we had you on the XM show.

You remember?

You remember what you said about your wife?

- As far as what?

(Wes laughing) - You said that you molded her, into how you wanted her with hunting.

- So yes, I did.

(Rob laughing) Well, she's never been hunting before.

And like, honestly, like, you know, I hunt with a lot of tough grown men.

- Okay, we let you go on the XM show.

- I'm like (Rob whispers) (both laughing) - I'm just saying that I've created the ultimate hunting partner that does things to how, I mean, this is gonna sound really selfish, but how I like to see 'em done.

- I didn't know where you were going with that.

(both laughing) But that is nice you and your wife have the same interest now.

- Yeah.

I mean, essentially, yeah.

I mean it all.

- But now have you gotten too busy?

You can't do it.

- Unfortunately, with kids, with our baby girl that was born last February, and then one on the way, it has hindered us a little bit, but that's why I'm really trying to strive to get my wife's building done so she can continue to do what she loves.

- Okay, where can people find you, if they wanna learn more about this.

- They can find us on Facebook, at feather Prairie farms, the hashtag, or FNS products on Facebook.

- FNS products.

- Yep.

- That's the decoy thing.

- Yeah, the FNS products is my father and I's company that created the hill rod and makes decoy rigs.

- Do you know TikTok.

- I'm not a big TikToker.

- You dance a little bit.

- You know, I just don't think people wanna see that.

(Wes laughing) - Oh, you never know.

Never know until you try.

- My body just doesn't work that way anymore.

(both laughing) - What you've built is impressive because I mean, a lot of people think the only way you can get ground, get farm, get anything is, you know, by having it given to you, having it inherited, and here you are proven everybody wrong.

What you've built is very impressive.

And I think you ought be very proud of it.

- Thanks, I really appreciate that.

I'm working very hard to expand.

- Yeah.

- And give us and give other people the opportunity that they never had before.

- Wes lehmann.

Thank you very much for coming on the show.

We really appreciate it.

And everybody else, we'll catch you next week.

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