If you’re a regular reader of this column, you may know that I pretty much grew up outdoors — fishing, hunting, fixing fences, working with livestock and generally looking for any excuse to be outside. My love of the outdoors is a big part of who I am and why I became a professional bass angler. If I’m inside for very long, I can actually start to feel uncomfortable.
When I’m on the road, fishing tournaments, I satisfy that need to be outdoors by being on the water. When I’m home, I love to go fishing and hunting. And as I get a little older (I’m 40 now), I’m starting to think about a future after professional bass fishing. One thing about that future that I know for sure is that it needs to involve the outdoors.
If I weren’t on the road so much, I’d want to have a ranch, but since the tournament trail keeps me on the road for weeks or months at a time, getting into the livestock business isn’t an option. When my father suggested that I look into a pecan orchard, it seemed like a great idea … but not an easy one.
I’m the kind of person who jumps into things with both feet, but before I jump I like to look around, learn all I can and figure out exactly what I’m jumping into.
For me and my wife, Tuesday, it started with a lot of research — online and at our local library. They call our part of Oklahoma “Green Country,” and it’s the best area in the United States for producing pecans. Growing up I knew I loved the pecans grown here, but it was fascinating to find out why they were better than other pecans.
We started reading and driving around to get a better look at some pecan operations. We need to find out if it was a fit for us. I saw it not only as a business opportunity, but also as a chance to instill some of the same values of hard work and appreciation of the land that my dad gave me when I was young. A lot of young people don’t feel connected to nature like I do, and I wanted to make sure our kids have that connection.
After checking out some orchards, our next step was to enroll in Pecans 101 at Oklahoma State University. We learned a lot there, including how to graft trees. It’s hard work, but you see the results of your efforts, you get to spend time outdoors and you feel connected to something much larger and more important than the things that too often consume our days.
After that, it was time to get serious about finding “our” pecan orchard.
One day I saw an auction flyer, checked out the property and fell in love with the place. The orchard covered 160 acres of a 2,000 acre parcel. I did my research on the number of trees it had, their expected production and what I could afford to pay for it. Then I went to the bank and arranged the financing. If I won the auction, I needed to be ready to pay on the spot.
The bidding started and it quickly came down to me and one other guy — back and forth, back and forth — but eventually I was outbid. We had to start over.
I decided to drive around, check out the orchards more closely — even knock on some doors and get to know the landowners.
A lot of pecan farmers I met were older gentlemen who were considering selling their orchards. The work can be demanding, especially for someone in his later years.
It didn’t take long before I found a great orchard not far from our home in Talala. It was owned by a gentleman in his 80s who was very interested in selling. He showed me his records, and I spent four hours looking over every last detail to make sure it was the right opportunity. The property was productive, beautiful and absolutely crawling with deer! There was only one problem.
I wasn’t the only interested buyer. The owner had been approached by a doctor or dentist who also wanted to get into the pecan business, and he promised the other potential buyer that he wouldn’t sell without letting him know. That’s when we started bidding against each other.
Things started slowly at first — $1,200 or $1,500 per acre — but they went up from there very quickly. Each bid increased the price by hundreds of dollars per acre. I knew that the property could be profitable even if I spent as much as $4,000 per acre, but I didn’t want to cut things that close.
We went back and forth, back and forth, and soon we were up over $3,000 per acre. And that’s when the owner stopped us.
He said things were getting too crazy. He would have happily settled for less, and he didn’t want to continue the bidding. Instead — and I can still just barely believe this — he said, “Let’s flip a quarter.”
I lost.
For something I never actually “had,” losing that farm hit me hard. For a week, I could barely speak or think of anything else. No bass tournament ever hit me so hard. Eventually, I got back to work looking for an orchard.
The next one I found was beautiful and had a home on the land. Since we weren’t looking to move and change school districts, that made it too expensive. I was zero for three.
But then things turned around. I found an orchard just nine miles from home. The property covered 160 acres and 40 of it was in pecans. Better yet, it had electricity and over a mile of Caney River frontage. That’s a big deal. Even though the Green Country area gets more rainfall than the rest of the state, droughts can be devastating to a pecan crop. With water and electricity, I could irrigate the orchard and make it more productive. I could even expand the operation into some or all of the other 120 acres.
And there were deer … lots of deer!
Did I mention the deer?
We bought the property, and we’re absolutely thrilled with it. In addition to the pecan trees, river (including a beautiful waterfall) and wildlife, it’s giving us some unexpected opportunities to spend time with family and friends.
My Uncle Charlie retired at about the same time we bought the property. He was ready to retire, but not ready to stop working. The pecan operation is the perfect fit for him.
So far, we’ve grafted over 2,000 trees and transplanted more than 750. We’ve irrigated a big part of the orchard and are working to get the rest done as soon as we can.
The important things in my life have always been faith, family and friends. That’s still true, but now I’m adding pecans. I hope you’ll check them out at our website.
We’re having a lot of fun with what’s also a serious business. I’ve been marketing myself as a professional angler for a long time, but I’m new to the pecan business. It’s been a blast to look for ways to promote the old and the new and make them work together. We’ve even shot some videos that I hope you’ll enjoy, and more are on the way.