Life in the great outdoors

OSSEO, Wis. – Ryan Nordahl has turned his love of hunting whitetail deer into a full-time business.
In 2017, Nordahl quit his job as a full-time breeder and started his own habitat consulting business, called Epic Whitetail Habitat LLC. His main objective is to help landowners attract and hold more deer on their properties. It is something he has been practicing on his family’s land for his whole life.
The process involves redesigning properties to cater to deer’s natural instincts. It can involve food plots and suggestions for logging and utilizing connections in the forestry industry to do so.
“I’m not a logger or forester by any means, but I can tell, especially from a deer standpoint, if a property needs to be logged or thinned,” Nordahl said. “Basically, it’s a whole property makeover.”
Nordahl began the work after more than a decade of running a dairy farm with his brother and working as a breeder for a couple years. While he stays involved in the show cattle scene, his focus is on consulting.
“If it’s not farming, it’s deer,” Nordahl said. “I have a big vision for my life and where I want my legacy to be at the end of it.”
Nordahl, along with his three sons, own a small string of show cattle that are housed at a friend’s dairy nearby. Along with herdsman duties, Nordahl does all the breeding for the farm where his cattle are housed. His son also works at the farm assisting with chores. While he is passionate about quality show cows and farming, Nordahl said his true passion is hunting.
“I’ve spent almost 40 years of my life wondering how to get into the outdoor industry because this is what I wanted to do,” Nordahl said. “When I was milking cows, this took priority.”
One of the main things Nordahl notices when working with clients is many people do not realize they are over hunting their properties. Nordahl said while hunters are in the woods trying to pattern the deer, those deer are trying to pattern the people.
“Deer are an animal of survival,” Nordahl said. “They are very predictable in the late season.”
Nordahl focuses on the survival of deer. He said deer are going to be found where the most abundant and ample food supplies are. Nordahl said farmers become frustrated when they see deer on their properties all summer long and then are nowhere to be found after harvest when it is time to hunt.
“If you don’t have food surrounding your property, they’re shifting,” Nordahl said.
The process for hiring Nordahl begins with a consultation. Nordahl walks the property with the landowner and discusses the depth of the need. Once a plan is formed, the management can be as involved as the landowner wants. If someone wants to do most of the work themselves, then Nordahl serves as a consultant. Sometimes there is a case of an absentee landowner, in which case Nordahl manages the property for the person. Management can include, but is not limited to, hinge cutting, mowing access paths, hanging tree stands, tree planting, and planting and maintaining food plots. Nordahl said he travels to wherever whitetail deer roam.
One of Nordahl’s most exciting deer harvests was in 2013 when he shot a nontypical buck with a vertical bow. He started hunting that specific deer December 2012 after seeing the buck in the woods one night. The following year, Nordahl started using trail cameras and realized the buck was unique with a drop tine.
He discovered the deer had a nocturnal pattern and also figured out where he was bedding. Nordahl’s first approach was to try to get in the woods early enough and catch the deer on his way back to his bedding spot. At the beginning of November, and right before the rut of the year, Nordahl went to a tree stand near the spot where he figured the deer was bedding. After several days of hunting and not even sighting the animal, Nordahl finally caught sight of the animal but did not get a shot because the buck would not come out of the brush.
Finally at the end of a long week of hunting, he managed to shoot the buck on a Sunday afternoon.
“Right out in front of me at 20 yards I got him to stop, and as soon as I pulled the trigger, he took a step toward me,” Nordahl said. “I caught him in the last rib, and it came out his flank.”
It is a shot known to most hunters as a gut shot. It would be a successful kill, but it would take a long time for the deer to bleed out. If chased too soon, they would surely lose the blood trail and possibly never find the deer. Nordahl said a common mistake with gut shots is to track them too soon.
He decided to wait until the morning to track the animal when the chances were good that if left alone, the deer would not go as far. It proved to be a wise decision. Nordahl and a friend tracked and found the deer the next day. The deer is now mounted on the wall of Nordahl’s home.
Nordahl said his hope is to help other hunters achieve victories in the outdoors as well as give back to causes that are important to him. Nordahl would like his business to be able to afford a scholarship to someone going to school for wildlife biology or management. Another cause he works toward is giving 10% of his proceeds to the family of a business partner who passed away in an accident last year.
Nordahl is also hoping to hire interns in the coming year to help spread the enthusiasm and knowledge he has for the outdoors.
“I want people to understand that I’m not in this just for me,” Nordahl said. “I have things that I want to be able to give to because they were a big impact on my life.”