Tom Rowland Podcast Episode 834 is my conversation with Nic De Castro, the founder and CEO of LandTrust, the leading land-sharing marketplace for outdoor recreation. Often described as the Airbnb of private hunting and fishing land, LandTrust lets sportsmen book day, weekend, or season access to private farms and ranches. Nic walks me through how he built a two-sided marketplace from a single New Jersey farm to more than 1.25 million acres across 40 states, and how trust holds the whole thing together.
Listen now: Megaphone · Apple Podcasts · Spotify
LandTrust is a land-sharing marketplace for outdoor recreation, often described as the Airbnb of private hunting and fishing land. Instead of renting a home or an RV, you book access to a landowner's private property for hunting, fishing, shed hunting, RV camping, or farm-and-ranch experiences. Listings can be booked by the day, the weekend, or the full season, which makes private ground accessible without buying it or signing an expensive annual lease.
Nic De Castro is the founder and CEO of LandTrust, headquartered in Bozeman, Montana. He grew up hunting and fishing in Southern California, spent his twenties in advertising and technology sales in cities across the country, and moved to Bozeman at the end of 2016. Frustrated by how hard it was to access great private land around town, he launched LandTrust in October 2019.
By the time of this conversation, LandTrust had roughly 1.25 million acres listed across 40 states, with Montana as its most mature market and strong density in states like Nebraska and Kansas. Most of that acreage comes from owner-operator production agriculture families who farm and ranch the land themselves.
Pricing is set by the landowner and runs the full range, just like a home-sharing site. Nic describes everything from small-game or prairie-dog hunts around twenty-five dollars a day to week-long archery elk hunts in the thousands. The early New Jersey farms started between fifty and eighty dollars a day.
Trust is in the name for a reason. LandTrust handles insurance in several ways and leans heavily on a two-way trust system: guests trust they will be hosted well, and landowners trust that visitors will be respectful, since most hosts are multi-generation families who live and work on the land, that trust is the foundation of the whole marketplace.
Yes. You can search by state, species, or activity, and when you create a free profile you tell LandTrust what you hunt or fish and which states interest you. After that, LandTrust effectively scouts for you year-round, sending a text whenever a new matching property comes online.
Access is the thing I hear about more than almost anything else from listeners. People want to hunt and fish, and they either do not have ground or cannot find a way onto good private land. When I found what Nic was doing with LandTrust, it struck me as one of the most practical solutions I had seen. He is not a guy who inherited a network of ranches. He is a sportsman who got frustrated by the same problem you and I have and built a marketplace to fix it. I wanted to hear the whole build, from the first listing to a million acres, in his own words.
Press play on the player above to hear how he did it.
Nic kept getting told no farmer or rancher would ever do this. A two-sided marketplace is brutal to start because buyers will not show up without sellers and sellers will not show up without buyers. He tells me exactly how he begged, borrowed, and scoured Craigslist, Facebook groups, and hunting forums to get his first landowners on board, and why one younger farmer in Southern New Jersey ended up being the spark that lit the whole company. The story of that first cluster of farms is worth hearing in full.
It took Nic a while to figure out which kind of landowner actually fits LandTrust. The answer surprised me. He explains why the multi-generation owner-operators who farm and ranch the land themselves are a far better fit than absentee owners who just hold ground for hunting leases. The difference comes down to stewardship and the relationship with the land, and he draws that line clearly in the episode.
I asked Nic the question every landowner asks: you mean strangers walking my property with guns? He walks through how LandTrust is not leasing and subleasing, how the landowner keeps one hundred percent control and sets every rule, and why hunting is both the hardest yes to get and the key that unlocks everything else. Listen to how he handles that conversation.
We get into where LandTrust could go next, including other countries and the kind of access problem I run into personally in places like the Bahamas, where you are never quite sure whose land you are on. Nic is clear that there is still a ton of work to do in the United States, but the vision is bigger than one country. Hear where he thinks it goes.
Listen to the full conversation: Megaphone · Apple Podcasts · Spotify.
What stuck with me after talking to Nic is how a single frustration, handled with enough persistence, can turn into something that helps thousands of people get outside. He wanted access for himself and ended up building the access tool for everyone else.
If you have ever stared at a map full of private ground and wished there were a way in, this is the conversation that shows you one. Go set up a free profile and let it scout for you.
Press play on the player above, or grab Episode 834 on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
LandTrust · Nic De Castro (founder and CEO) · Bozeman, Montana · Airbnb · VRBO · Outdoorsy · RVshare · Craigslist · Southern New Jersey farms · Montana, Nebraska, Kansas markets
The Tom Rowland Podcast brings you long-form conversations with the most accomplished anglers, hunters, conservationists, and outdoor professionals in the game. Listen to every full-length Tom Rowland Podcast interview.
Nic De Castro is the founder and CEO of LandTrust, the leading land-sharing marketplace for outdoor recreation, headquartered in Bozeman, Montana. Raised hunting and fishing in Southern California, he spent his twenties in advertising and technology sales before moving to Montana and launching LandTrust in October 2019. Under his leadership the platform has grown to roughly 1.25 million acres of bookable private hunting, fishing, and camping access across 40 states, built on a two-way trust model with owner-operator farm and ranch families.
Tom Rowland Podcast — Episode 834: Nic De Castro
In this episode: Nic explains how LandTrust became the Airbnb of private hunting and fishing land — from a single New Jersey farm to 1.25 million acres across 40 states, why farmers and ranchers are the right landowners, how you book access by the day, weekend, or season, and the story of killing his first turkey
Tom Rowland: If you want everything you need to take care of your boat, StarBright's got the solution. It's called boat care in a bucket. That's right. One three and a half gallon bucket packed with essentials, vinyl bright, deck cleaner, marine polish, a wash mitt, hull cleaner, and boat wash. That one kit will keep any boat clean and protected, but that's just the start. I also use StarBright's salt off, which is incredible for rinsing salt off after a day on the water. Their brushes and cleaning products work just as well on your RV and patio furniture and anything else that lives outside. It is a company that gives back. That's one of the things that I really like about StarBright. StarBright supports marine conservation through Project Sea Safe, and that means a lot to me personally. You're getting performance and purpose. Visit starbrite.com. That's starbrite.com, and get your boat dialed in for the season. From The Seychelles to The Keys, I trust Nikon binoculars to find fish fast. Visit nikonusa.com and upgrade your line of sight. I thought I was covered, but I wasn't. HH Insurance showed me that my old policy did not cover The Bahamas or nighttime navigation, two major gaps that could have cost me a lot. Jake and Landon fixed it fast. They know charter policies better than anyone I've ever worked with. Call (727) 498-5551 or visit hhinsgroup.com and tell them Tom Rowland sent you. Trusted enough to go with me to The Seychelles, my Danco pliers are a staple in my kit. Check out dancopliers.com and build yours today. What's going on, everybody? Welcome to the show today. If you've ever been frustrated by not having access for good hunting or fishing or other things, shed hunting, camping, walking around, we might have a solution for you. On today's show, we've got Nic De Castro. He is from Land Trust, landtrust.com. And landtrust.com is basically like Airbnb for property, hunting property, fishing property. Really cool the way that he's built this up. And, they're out there, located in Bozeman, Montana, and we got Nic on the show right now. So we're gonna have a great conversation with him. Hopefully, you'll learn something. Maybe go set up a free account like I'm gonna do right now.
Nic De Castro: I'm Nic De Castro, and this is the Tom Rowland podcast.
Tom Rowland: Nic De Castro. How you doing, man?
Nic De Castro: I'm I'm doing good, Tom. Thanks for having me on.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Absolutely. You're in Bozeman?
Nic De Castro: I am in Bozeman. It is there's snow on the ground.
Tom Rowland: Yes. Winter has arrived. Yeah. We've got the, we've got the hot seat questions. We're gonna ask you to get to know you a little bit better and, also maybe have a little bit of fun. So you're ready to roll? It's kind of an either or. You just say whichever you prefer. You ready to roll?
Nic De Castro: Let's do it.
Tom Rowland: Spinning rod, conventional, or fly rod? No?
Nic De Castro: Both. Oh, gosh. That's such a hard one. If I had if it was done to my head, probably standing around conventional.
Tom Rowland: Okay. Freshwater or saltwater?
Nic De Castro: Saltwater.
Tom Rowland: Would you have a reptile as a pet? No. One of your favorite bands.
Nic De Castro: I mean Led Zeppelin.
Tom Rowland: Great choice. Instagram or Twitter?
Nic De Castro: I don't have social.
Tom Rowland: Okay. Even better. One thing you're afraid of, social media probably.
Nic De Castro: Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. Goodly bad.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Good thing. Office friends or parks and rec?
Nic De Castro: Office.
Tom Rowland: Good choice. One piece of technology you rely on heavily other than your phone.
Nic De Castro: Oh, digital technology?
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Digital technology?
Nic De Castro: Well, I mean, a Leatherman is technology. I use my Leatherman, like, five times a day. Right?
Tom Rowland: Okay. It's
Nic De Castro: a little bit more of a tool, but, yeah, I'll I'll take my Leatherman.
Tom Rowland: I'll take it. Coffee, tea, or energy drink?
Nic De Castro: Coffee.
Tom Rowland: Mountains or beaches for vacation?
Nic De Castro: Well, I live in the mountains, but beaches.
Tom Rowland: Yep. That's how it always works. Favorite fishing movie or TV show?
Nic De Castro: I like the Salty Crew guys.
Tom Rowland: K. Winter Olympics or Summer Olympics?
Nic De Castro: Summer.
Tom Rowland: Favorite pro wrestler of all time?
Nic De Castro: I mean, you'd have to go to Hulk Hogan, I guess.
Tom Rowland: I mean, especially from California.
Nic De Castro: Maybe some maybe some maybe some cold, Steve Austin.
Tom Rowland: But, I mean, that was that was like Hulk Hogan's thing. He was like a California guy. He was out there in the sunshine, taking your vitamins, saying your prayers. If you could have a fishing or hunting themed superpower, what would it be?
Nic De Castro: It'd be completely silent Yeah. From a talking perspective.
Tom Rowland: Nice. Sunrise or sunset?
Nic De Castro: Sunrise.
Tom Rowland: Country, classic rock, or rap?
Nic De Castro: Country.
Tom Rowland: Wow. But Led Zeppelin's your favorite band.
Nic De Castro: I know. It's a hard one. You're only giving you're you're filling one option.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. I know. Pancakes or waffles?
Nic De Castro: Waffles.
Tom Rowland: Early bird or night owl?
Nic De Castro: Early bird.
Tom Rowland: River, lake, or backcountry? It's kind of a saltwater question. River or lake?
Nic De Castro: River.
Tom Rowland: The best catch or kill in your career?
Nic De Castro: Bonefish in The Bahamas, all DIY.
Tom Rowland: Nice. Where was that?
Nic De Castro: It was on the I forget which island it is. The Bahamas. The one with a big resort on it. Mhmm. But I should yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nassau. I've I've done The Bahamas a couple of times, and I've never had a guide and just watched a bunch of YouTube and Nice. Figured it out and caught them dunked.
Tom Rowland: That's awesome, man. A movie that makes you laugh.
Nic De Castro: Dumb and dumber.
Tom Rowland: You know? Most people say that. Text or calls?
Nic De Castro: Yeah. Calls.
Tom Rowland: The last book you remember reading or your favorite?
Nic De Castro: Oh, I've listened to a lot of books. Yeah. That counts. I just was rereading slash listening to, oh my god. I'm gonna forget the name of it right now. I might have to look at my phone. Holy cow. It's a Hemingway book, and I'm blanking on the name of it right now.
Tom Rowland: Hemingway is a good choice.
Nic De Castro: Yeah.
Tom Rowland: East Coast or West Coast?
Nic De Castro: West Coast.
Tom Rowland: An early fishing or hunting memory, which you already referenced, that Mhmm. Made you a lifetime hunter or fisherman?
Nic De Castro: Yep. Dove hunting with my dad in the the deserts just north of the Mexican border, 115 degree heat. You know, being a bird dog, getting his doves for him.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. A place you would like to visit that you haven't been yet?
Nic De Castro: Oh, I really wanna go down to, like, La Paz. I wanna do, I wanna do a bunch fishing down there.
Tom Rowland: Nice. Android or iPhone?
Nic De Castro: IPhone.
Tom Rowland: Audio, paper, or Kindle?
Nic De Castro: Audio.
Tom Rowland: Chocolate or vanilla?
Nic De Castro: Vanilla.
Tom Rowland: And a piece of advice that has served you well.
Nic De Castro: Man, my pride comes before a fall.
Tom Rowland: Pride comes before a fall? Good. Mhmm. And who told you that?
Nic De Castro: Well, I think the Bible originally, but Yeah. My dad seemed to remind me of that too.
Tom Rowland: Dads have a way of doing that. Yeah. That's cool. I, I just met Turner and and my other son, Hayden, that are both living in Bozeman right now, and we went to Saskatchewan for hunting Oh. Saskatchewan and Alberta. Is a twelve hour drive for them out of, Bozeman. And we got up there. The weather was amazing. We had fantastic weather. It was almost like Indian summer, really. And, the last day, the day we left, winter arrived there. So probably not far, for you and Bozeman.
Nic De Castro: Yeah. Last week, it, we got down into the single digits and, definitely had some snow. Were you guys, waterfowl or deer?
Tom Rowland: Waterfowl. Duck and goose. It's amazing up there. You know, the the hunting in the the South is has been traditionally pretty good. Okay. You know, you got a place like a hotbed place like Arkansas, you know, Stuttgart, Arkansas says they're the the, you know, duck hunting capital of the world. And, boy, I'll tell you what. It's a eye opener when you Yeah. When you hunt here for a while. And, somehow, we just kinda got it out of the flyway in the south, I think, a little bit. And, you know, depending on the year, you'll have more ducks than others. But, man, they are squarely within it up there. And it is heard. It is incredible. I mean, just I don't know. It's like a dream. Like, you're you're watching a thousand birds work into your decoys. And, you know, they're not all gonna get in there, but it's pretty awesome. So I have my 85 year old dad, and he I watched him a couple of times. He just unloaded his gun, put his head back, and, just watched the birds. It was awesome. We do. It was so
Nic De Castro: awesome. Cool.
Tom Rowland: It was so awesome. So you must, have a a history, of hunting and fishing all the way back to your childhood, I would imagine, just looking at what you're doing with Land Trust.
Nic De Castro: Yeah. Absolutely. So, I grew up I was born in Southern California in a place called Laguna Beach. Most people are like, there's hunting in Southern California. There definitely was. I don't know if I could vouch for it now, but, yeah, I grew up predominantly bird hunting. So, we always have Britney spaniels. We grew up hunting essentially valley quail, some chucker too. Occasionally, we'd get up in the Central Valley and hunt pheasants and, you know, shoot some ducks as well, but, quail was kind of our our specialty. And, I grew up surfing and fishing out in the ocean, kinda inshore stuff. Grew up spearfishing from the beach just with Hawaiian slang. I've actually never used a spear gun. I'd like to. But, you know, lobster diving, all of that stuff. So, yeah, hunting and fishing since I was very, very young. It's like I think I've said before. I think my earliest memory is, like, on a dove hunt with my dad, like, three, three and a half years old, something like that. Awesome. A 115 degrees out in the desert and just being his bird dog.
Tom Rowland: That's awesome. You must be pretty hearty with the being able to spearfish and and surf in the Pacific right there. I know where Laguna Beach is. I, did an event down at, not not Coronado, but down that way.
Nic De Castro: And Like, Point Loma area? Yeah.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. I'm trying to remember what the I I can't believe I'm spacing the name of this place. It's one of my favorite little towns down there. I don't know. Just just south just south of Carlsbad.
Nic De Castro: Okay. Yeah. Del Mar is in these places. Yeah.
Tom Rowland: Just a cool little Encinitas.
Nic De Castro: Encinitas. Yeah. I was gonna say. So I
Tom Rowland: love Encinitas. It's a cool little place, and SealFit used to be there. And we I went out there and did this thing with with those guys, and it is very cold. That water is Yep. Super cold. But they have those cool fire rings, you know, and they built fire out there. It was awesome.
Nic De Castro: Bonfires. I mean, yeah,
Tom Rowland: I just love that whole area all the way up. You know, you get to about, what, Huntington Huntington Beach, and, then it starts to change as you get a little closer to to LA. That's my experience anyway. I don't have a lot of experience out there, but, man, I love that Southern California area. That is really, really nice.
Nic De Castro: Yeah. It's pretty. I mean, they definitely have there's been a ton of development. I haven't lived there since high school. I just turned 36 of half my life ago. But, yeah, it was a really cool place to grow up, especially when I did because there's a lot less people. And, yeah, the water, people are often surprised. Like, oh, Southern California, go to the beach. Like, yeah, the water's cold. Okay. Most of the time, you you'll get, you know, you'll get south swells that come up from Mexico, and you'll get up in this early, you know, the the low seventies occasionally. But, no, it's either wear and wetsuits most of the time and, yeah, it's it's chilly.
Tom Rowland: What kind of fish could you spearfish for off the beach?
Nic De Castro: I mean, there's so many species. We, we spearfish sheepshead and, calicos and sand bass, you know, bunch of different types of perch. They have, you know, corvina. I've seen yellowtail in there. I mean, every once in a while, you'll get, like, tuna species coming in really close. I never got the spearing, but, and halibut, you'll go and just kind of searching for halibut. So there's a bunch and then a bunch of different types of, rockfish species that's in my house.
Tom Rowland: Really, interesting, you know, fishing techniques for those calico bass I know that, a lot of people are crazy about that. Big tournaments and stuff like that.
Nic De Castro: Calicos are a lot of fun.
Tom Rowland: But in that kelp, I guess, is where those are. I've never done it before, but my I have a friend that's totally into it.
Nic De Castro: Yeah. The kelp baddies.
Tom Rowland: So tell me about, Land Trust and and what it is, and how it kinda got started.
Nic De Castro: Sure. So, yeah, Land Trust is, I'd say, the leading land sharing marketplace for outdoor recreation. So, a lot of your listeners are probably familiar with Airbnb or VRBO, which are home sharing. Maybe they've used, like, some RV sharing sites like outdoorsy or RV share. Well, instead of renting somebody's home or RV, you're renting access to somebody's private land on land trust. And it's, you know, for hunting access, fishing, shed hunting, RV and camping, just all sorts of outdoor stuff.
Tom Rowland: That's cool. And how long has it been going on?
Nic De Castro: We just turned four at the beginning of this month. So 10/02/2019, we launched the site. So, yeah, we're over four years.
Tom Rowland: Wow. And in four years, I mean, I looked on it today. You got, like, 700 different places in Montana alone. You're making you're you're developing a lot of these, access, you know, I don't know what you what you would call an individual experience there, the hunting trips, the fishing, like, everything that you were just talking about, all these different access.
Nic De Castro: A lot of access. Yeah.
Tom Rowland: How how did you get your first one? Like, what was the did you just have this idea first and you thought, well, I'm gonna make it into an app, or did you kinda how did how did it develop into what it is today?
Nic De Castro: Sure. So, we talked about I grew up in Southern California hunting fishing, so I've always loved to hunt and fish. And, I came up to Montana a couple of times in my early teens with my family and did fly fishing during the summers. You know, Montana is incredible. I'm sure you've obviously, you've been up here with your boys, been up here. So it's a circular answer, but, you know, throughout my twenties, I did a lot of advertising and technology sales. And so I, you know, I didn't get get to hunt and fish a lot. I live in New York and Chicago, Boston, LA, San Francisco, a bunch of different places. And, finally, in '16, I ended up moving to up here to Bozeman at the end of the end of sixteen and immediately was kinda confronted with what today is land trust. So, you know, for the folks out there who know, like, land Montana has a bunch of public land, which is great. You get to go out and enjoy it. And, but there's a ton of amazing private land here too, especially in and around town, and I found myself in a situation saying, well, I'd love to have access to that place, and I'd be happy to pay for, you know, the access for a day, a weekend, or whatever it might be. But, there's no easy way to do it. Of course, any of the hunters out there listening understand that door knocking has been a thing for a long time. I think door knocking has gotten a lot less fruitful probably, in in the the recent decade or decades. So, yeah, it's I I started the company because I wanted to use it. I am I am a consumer of it.
Tom Rowland: Mhmm. And what's the I mean, do you when you go and and talk to these, landowners, what's the biggest challenge?
Nic De Castro: Sure. So, you know, we've got about a million and a quarter acres on the platform in 40 states. We're growing pretty pretty nicely. Most of most of that million and a quarter acres is owner operator production agriculture land owners. So instead of another way, these are multi generation families who farm and ranch. So they've owned that land. A lot of times, they've their family homesteaded it. So, you know, the hardest part about in in in, you know, the reticence is this is where they live and work. Mhmm. And so insurance is a big deal. We handle insurance in a few different ways. You know, just that trust factor. Like, trust is in our name because, you know, without trust, this thing doesn't work. Like, good old fashioned trust. Like, I trust that the people coming out are gonna be respectful, and you trust that the people who host here are gonna be, you know, great hosts.
Tom Rowland: And what what about the first ones? Like, was Mhmm. When you don't I mean, now you got a million acres on the on the property. You they can go and right away, you can show it to them on their phone or or whatever. Like, this is who we are, and this is what we do. It seems like things would be getting slightly easier, at least for for an introductory. But when no when they when you show up and you don't have the website built or I don't know. Mhmm. I mean Yeah. How was that, like, in the very beginning? Like, people are like, do you wanna do what?
Nic De Castro: Yeah. I remember distinctly people telling me all the time, like, no farmer ranchers ever gonna do this. Yeah. I mean, look. Especially so this is a two sided marketplace. Obviously, there is supply, land owners, and demand, people who love the outdoors. Two sided marketplaces are notoriously difficult to get going because of the thing you just pointed out. The buyers don't wanna be there unless they're sellers, and the sellers don't wanna be there unless they're buyers. You have that chicken and the egg Mhmm. Kind of, conundrum. So every marketplace faces this. So, look, we beg, borrow, steal to try and get our first land owners to get on the platform. We were, you know, scouring Craigslist and Facebook groups and, you know, hunting forums. And funny enough, the we really kinda launched the business off of, a a farmer in Southern New Jersey of all places. You know, I we've just been scouring the Internet trying to find land owners, and, he was he's a younger guy, and he's like, yeah. He's he had, like, I don't know, seven to 10 different farms in this one area of Southern New Jersey, anywhere from, like, 40 to 100 acres. Nothing huge. Mhmm. And so he's like, yeah. I'll try it. And so we, got all those listings built out and then went to the New Jersey hunting forums and said, hey. We got this, you know, we got this cool thing, and, there's some cool properties here for, you know, white tails and geese and turkeys and, you know, like, let us know. So it was, you know, and and, of course, we've found people on Craigslist and whatnot, but it's interesting. It took us a while to really understand that those farmers and ranchers, like, the owner operators were the right type of landowner for us. There's a lot of other types of landowners who just don't really fit well with us. A lot of the people on Craigslist who were just trying to do hunting leases really weren't kind of a fit for us. A lot of times, they just owned the land and didn't have anything to do with it. I never saw it. Didn't work it. Like, it just wasn't the right type of fit. Right. So, anyways, yeah, that's how that's how stuff got started, Southern New Jersey.
Tom Rowland: So this Southern New Jersey one, Mhmm. It was duck and geese and, I would imagine, turkey and deer. Yeah. And and people had success on that on the first season. Yeah. So
Nic De Castro: Yeah. Absolutely. And and just, you know, to for your listeners, this isn't traditional annual leasing. It's you know, you could book something for a day
Tom Rowland: Yeah.
Nic De Castro: Or a couple days. So it really makes accessing private ground you know, because look. Unless you own it, you're married into it, you get a friend or neighbor, family member who owns ground or whatever. Like, accessing private ground is pretty difficult and expensive. So either you buy it, which is obviously the most expensive option, or you do annual leases, which has kind of been a historical thing. But a lot of people can't put down a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars to, you know, lease ground for a year. Yeah. So with Land Trust, you know, it's, those properties, I think they started somewhere between 50 and $80 a day. And so tons of people, and the hunters in New Jersey booked those properties, and, yeah, they're but it wasn't like Boone and Crockett Deer, but they just wanted a place to go and have to themselves and not have to, like, you know, be elbow to elbow on public land with, you know, 50 other people.
Tom Rowland: Right. I think it's fantastic. I mean, this is a this is a great idea. I'm really happy to see that it's that it's working. What about expanding it into the other into different states? Like, what has been the has that been good for you or challenging, or how are you doing that?
Nic De Castro: All the above. Yeah. For the last few years, obviously, you know, Montana is probably our most mature state now. It's where we're headquartered. We're sitting here in Bozeman. So, yeah, you know, in evolution with market, you kinda, again, beg, borrow, steal to get it going and and try to get past that chicken and the egg. Then you start looking at, like, okay. Well, we kinda need to drive, some density of supply in certain regions. And so then you start looking at it from more of a market based perspective. So that's what we started to do. Montana, Nebraska, Kansas, we really focused on those markets and building it more and more listings. Excuse me. So that way when, you know, hunters come and they search for Montana, they don't see, like, one listing. They see 60 or 80 or whatever. And, you know, that was a couple years to start really getting some of these markets a lot of properties on them. And then it's funny. Now you we're in a different stage where we've got, you know, tens of thousands of sportsmen across the country who have accounts with us. And so now we're at a scale where it is if we turn on, you know, a new listing in Maryland, we can just send an email and a text out to our our sportsman who's who told us they either live in Maryland or interested in Maryland, and they'll book it right away. So now we're kind of moving back out of the pure market based approach to a no plus turn on supply across the country because now we have enough demand to be able to point it, like, sniper shot directly at it when it comes on the platform.
Tom Rowland: That's super cool. And I would assume that you're able to do that for certain species, like somebody's interested in trout fishing or or, you know, only they're only interested in goose hunting. Like Yep. Can they search that way?
Nic De Castro: Yeah. Absolutely. So you can search by, states. You can search by, you know, species or activities. When you go to landtrust.com, the home page, you'll see, like, hunting, fishing, RV camping, and then farm and ranch experiences, which kind of its is its own category. But when you and I would encourage yourself and any of the folks listening to this might even be somewhat interesting to you. Go create a free land trust profile. And when you do, we ask you what's what activities you're interested in. Hey. Do you are you interested in hunting or fishing or RV and camping? And then, you know, like, what state do you live in? What states are you interested in? And if you like hunting, like, what species are you interested in? And once you tell us that, we're basically scouting three hundred sixty five days a year for you. So Wow. Every single time we bring a new property on the platform that matches, like, hey. You told me you like, you know, Arkansas and hog hunting, and we have a new Arkansas hog property, you're gonna get a text with the property.
Tom Rowland: That's cool. And what do you think, I mean, I'm sure it's all over the board, but, like, what you mentioned some average costs of, like, what what somebody's paying for this. Like, what what would a day or a week or I I don't know how you can rent it necessarily.
Nic De Castro: Yeah. It could be as little of the day. It's up to the landowner. Right? So it could be as little of the day, the weeks, the, you know, an entire season. So, you know, just like on an Airbnb or a VRBO, you can rent anything from a hostel to a castle, right, from $20 a night to $20,000 a night. And I think you're gonna see the same, on a marketplace like ours. You know? You could you could go out, and we have guys who are booking small game hunts for, you know, $25 a day or prairie dogs or something like that. And then you've got, you know, week long archery elk hunts that could be $15. So it's, you know, just it runs the gamut.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. That's super cool. How about different countries? Are you gonna try to expand into different countries? Like, you mentioned The Bahamas. You've gone to The Bahamas a bunch of times. That's a place where, when I go down there, you know, you're trying to do it on your own. You're like, it's not that clear if you're on private land or not in some some cases, and you certainly don't wanna be trespassing. But, it seems like that might be good, you know, access. Like, there's there's sometimes you just gotta access the public land, but you gotta go across private land and get there. And then you can then you open up this giant area to your to you. And I'm sure you have those on on your
Nic De Castro: Yeah.
Tom Rowland: Your property or or your thing too.
Nic De Castro: Yeah. I think, certainly, we'll be in multiple continents. We had a lot I mean, we're still just at the beginning of the you know, we're in the second inning here maybe in The US, so there's there's a ton of business to be, you know, built and done here in The US. But we've already gotten calls from, you know, South America and and some other places too. So, yes, we absolutely will expand, but it's not, you know, it's not like next year. We've got a lot of work to do here in The US.
Tom Rowland: Right. Do you think you have more hunting properties or fishing properties?
Nic De Castro: Hunting. Hunting is still the core activity. It's you know, it's the activity we started with. It's a it's a two edged sword. I mean, it's the hardest thing to get a landowner to say yes to. Mhmm. It's the hardest thing to ensure. But once you can figure those things out and the landowner says yes to hunting, they say yes to all the other stuff, like fishing or RV and camping or or, you know, so for sure hunting.
Tom Rowland: What about, like, that that conversation that you're having with the landowner of, like, trying to figure that out, and they're uncomfortable with it? They're like, you mean there are gonna be people, like, walking around on my property with guns? Like, what I mean, how does that how do you kind of work with the landowner to understand, like, the type of person that's gonna be coming, what they're planning on doing, laying down some ground rules for them. I mean, I'm sure each property has different rules. Right? Like Yep. Yeah. So how how does all that go down when you're when you're kind of negotiating this?
Nic De Castro: Yeah. So so it's an interesting phrase. So negotiating wouldn't be the the right phrase because we're not I'll be clear. We're not leasing land and then, you know, subleasing it. So the landowner is directly listing on the platform, and I think it comes down to control. Our landlord has retained 100% control. So as opposed to, like, where if you did an annual lease to group of guys or if you leased to an outfitter, you kinda you sold away a property, right, for a period of time, and you kinda lost that control and that transparency. Whereas with Land Trust, you're the one directly listing your property, what activities you wanna host. You know, say your family you you own ground and you guys like hunting whitetails, but you got turkeys and upland birds and ducks, and you don't care about that. So you say, hey. Look. We're not, you know, we're not gonna be listed in Whitetail, but you can go out in the spring and shoot turkeys or whatever. So you get to choose what you wanna offer. Maybe you just wanna offer a few doe hunts or whatever, you know, population control. What you wanna offer, the rules associated with it, the prices, the availability, everything. So the landowner really I think it's been the biggest attraction for our landowners who you know, a lot of them understand that their land has value from a hunting and recreation perspective. But, again, the only real other outlet before us was leasing. And they they would have tried it and, like, I don't like losing control of that. So this has been you know, that's that's how we kinda have approached that conversation. It's whatever you want. And a lot of them will dip their toes in the water. You don't have to go all in and, like, you know, you could say, hey. Cool. We're just gonna start with turkey hunting. Turkey hunting, we did more turkey hunts booked through the platform last year than anything else. And it's just like a really easy thing to start with. And then we see you know, they'll start with one thing, and they'll host a handful of people who really like it, and then they'll start building out more. You know?
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Well, I would say out of all my hunting experience, turkey hunting would be the the type of hunting that I would most want private land. I mean, man, I went on a public land turkey hunt one time. And, you know, I mean, as a turkey hunter, you're moving through the woods as quietly as you possibly can. You're completely camouflaged. And, like, there are other people out there. Like, that's Yep. That's kinda scary.
Nic De Castro: Sketchy. Yeah. It is. It really is.
Tom Rowland: For sure. It's it's kinda sketchy. And, you know, when when somebody makes a call or whatever, the other person is basically hunting you if you're a good enough caller. Yeah. They're coming and they're trying to get close to you until they can figure out that maybe you're not a real turkey. But I would I would think that that would I mean, that makes sense that that would be the the number one. And you don't need a lot of you know, you could do it on You don't need
Nic De Castro: a lot of ground. Yeah.
Tom Rowland: Acres. You could
Nic De Castro: Yeah. I
Tom Rowland: mean, you could have a great turkey hunt there.
Nic De Castro: Yeah.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. That's cool. And then the turkey, you know, the the when I grew up, we didn't really have turkeys in the in the South. I mean, it was very rare to do that and, you know, forty forty years ago. And the turkey has had just this incredible, rebound. Such a great, conservation story, and they're everywhere. I mean, now we've got them in our yard in Tennessee. We've got them, like, all over the place. Just trees everywhere. So
Nic De Castro: Yeah. I think they're in almost every state and all the Lower 48, pretty much everyone, I think. Yeah. So it's pretty cool.
Tom Rowland: And bunch of different kinds too with different, you know, styles of hunting a little bit.
Nic De Castro: That is, you know, that's something that the real kinda rabid turkey hunters love land trust for. And we'll see with this last season, we saw guys book four or five hunts, and they'll just do a big loop across The States that are going for their slams and all that. But, yeah, it's it's you know, you mentioned you mentioned a a really good point too that we see a lot of folks using land trust for is, hey. I'm you know, I'm going out by myself on a turkey hunt, and you don't wanna be in a dangerous situation or you're bringing your kids out or first time hunters or new hunters, whatever. And they just want that exclusive access to private ground, which, by the way, does not guarantee I'm sure you've hunted a ton of private. It's, doesn't guarantee you're successful by
Tom Rowland: any means. By no means does it.
Nic De Castro: I have struck out a ton on private, but it does, you know, through looking through interest guarantee you, hey. You're gonna be the only one out there today. You do not have to worry about that piece of the puzzle Yeah. Which is a big deal.
Tom Rowland: Now do you, like, what about, like, the way that it works with with some of these, like, Onyx or something like that Mhmm. To where you could see the property boundaries and stuff like that? Do you have that as a part of your platform, or or do you use other other technology, you know, as well?
Nic De Castro: Yep. So we partner with Onex. We partner with, Huntwise. And so, you know, when you book a place so you can make inquiries with landowner if you're not ready to book straight away. So you can, you know, go to interest.com. You can find some properties that are cool, find some packages. Oh, this, you know, this farm has a three day, spring turkey on your package. Oh, I like emceeing photos. I can read about the property. If you still have some questions, you can contact the land owner directly, ask whatever questions you have. And then when when once you book, we send over kind of your, you know, arrival instructions, which is kind of the landowner, like, you know, where's the property, how to get there, landowner's information, phone number. And then, you know, Onyx maps of the property, waypoints, like, all that stuff, and same thing with Huntwise. We'll send you both depending on what, you know, mapping, software you use. And so we give you property maps and all that stuff, app after you book.
Tom Rowland: Mhmm. That's super cool. Have you had, like, somebody like, you mentioned the turkey hunters are going and trying to get their slam. Have you had somebody that has done that, like, through booking through your platform and they've been successful on all of that stuff?
Nic De Castro: Well, not the Osceola. You know? So we don't we have a couple of Florida properties that are in the queue coming on, but, yeah, I mean, they've definitely been very successful on Land Trust. But I can't say they did their whole slam on Land Trust because we don't have,
Tom Rowland: Right.
Nic De Castro: Any properties that have Osceolas right now.
Tom Rowland: But still, though, that's that's pretty good, man, just to be able to book something sight unseen off the off the Internet and go there and and have success. That's that's pretty awesome.
Nic De Castro: Well, look. You know, look. I I think it also is really because of who our landowners are. I mean, again, these are people who live and work on that land and have probably most of their life or their whole life and maybe a couple generations. So they they understand that ground. If you've ever gotten permission from a farmer or rancher, to go out and hunt, it's that experience. Right? They're like, hey. Look. Here's the place. Here's the kind of activity we see. You know? In the mornings, we usually see them kinda they're coming out of roost over there, or they're feeding down over here. They give you a lay of the land. So you couldn't have a better, you know, a better person kinda talk to you about that property. It's not just getting access to some nondescript timber property and figuring it out.
Tom Rowland: You know? Yeah. That's super cool. So, are you do you like to fly fish a lot in the in the Montana area in the summertime?
Nic De Castro: I do. I do. Well, I I will caveat that by saying I have three daughters, four years old and younger. So, I haven't got to do a lot of it in the last couple years, but, yes,
Tom Rowland: it's Three daughters, four years old and younger. Do you have a set of twins in there?
Nic De Castro: No. More, two and a half, and almost still one year old next week.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Well, that's that's similar to to my spread. That'll keep you that'll keep you pretty busy.
Nic De Castro: And a company. So
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Well, your company seems to be growing super fast. Like, how many like, you got four years under your belt now. You got a million acres on the on the platform. Like, where else are you going with this? It seems like it's growing pretty fast, but, like, what what's the what's the vision?
Nic De Castro: Yeah. Look. We wanna be the the world largest land sharing platform. And, you know, for tens tens and tens of millions of acres on the platform in the next, you know, let's call it four or five years. And, you know, the cool thing about the businesses, especially because we're partnering with farm and ranch families, this is a great ancillary income stream for them. Mhmm. You know, that symbiotic with production agriculture, so it's not like they gotta change anything. But, no, as we all know, farms and ranches are great place to hunt because because of their farms and ranches.
Tom Rowland: Right.
Nic De Castro: So it's a great way for them to that's it's real low touch to generate profitable it's almost pure profit profitable income for their operations. But, yeah, we're getting to connect people who love the outdoors with America's Farms And Ranches in a my perspective, a win win, scenario where you get access to these cool places you would have never had access to before, and and they get to generate some income and keep that fam you know, keep that property profitable in in their family's hands. So, you know, we can continue to do that at scale. We're gonna continue to add other types of outdoor recreation, fishing, and and and we're gonna keep growing those categories of fishing and, you know, RVs and camping and then just farm and ranch experiences. Yeah. I
Tom Rowland: was gonna ask about that, the farm and ranch experience. Is that that seems to be pretty popular. I mean, you listen to Joe Rogan. He's got Joel Salatin on there, and he's got, all these kind of sustainable Mhmm. Farmers that are doing, you know, things different than monocrop agriculture, and you can you can go out to some of these farms. And I I I'm assuming that's what what you're offering there, but tell tell me about what that looks like.
Nic De Castro: Yeah. So it's a honestly, I think that category could be as big as the other ones combined. It's still look. We're still learning it. It's very early. But we do have planners who are offering it's it's a broad category, so it could be something like, you know, hey. It's a calving experience or, you know, come out for branding or planting or harvest or learn how we do our regenerative grazing programs, bring the kids out, you know, to interact with livestock and stuff like that. So it could be a lot of it's a very broad category, but it's anything that's bringing the consumer, people like you and me, out onto the farm and ranch to learn about, you know, agriculture from the people who actually do it. And I you know, from my perspective, when we talk to our our our landowners, our producers, there is no better way to fight the bullshit that is viewed in, you know, mainstream media about, you know, farmers and ranchers killing the planet than to have the consumer come out, see these beautiful places that they steward. Again, we as hunters know that they do a great job because that's why all the wildlife's there. Right? Yeah. You wouldn't wanna hunt a place that wasn't well stewarded. There would be nothing there. And you get to, you know, have that direct connection and begin to get educated on what it is. I think in 1900, 40 plus percent of all jobs in The US were agricultural, and now it's 2% or one and a half percent.
Tom Rowland: Right.
Nic De Castro: So we are so disconnected from agriculture.
Tom Rowland: So disconnected. And and especially children these days. Yes. Like, you know, even when, you know, when I was a kid, we would have a field trip to a local farm because it was super easy to find a local farm. I don't know where they would take them now. I I don't I don't know where where you would go. Like
Nic De Castro: Well, land trusts will fill that gap. Yeah. So that's that's where that kind of that Burner Ranch category, again, it's still really young. You know, we've got have a lot to learn there, but we we have people who are booking that stuff. Oh, sure. You know, but it's it's still a young category for us.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. I think it's a great category. I think that's super cool to get, especially kids out there to just kinda understand, like, oh, this is where our food comes from. Like, because Yes. Most people have just completely either purposefully disassociated from it, and they don't even wanna know where their food comes from, or they have no idea. And and you you'll have kids that pick up a piece of fruit or a vegetable in the supermarket, and they don't even have any idea what it is what it's called.
Nic De Castro: Or a package of meat. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, it's funny with my daughters. I always ask them what type of animal we're eating when we're eating it. You know? Is it hell? Is it deer? Is it a cow? Is it pigs? You know, like so that they they they understand that, yeah, we we all obviously, we all love animals, but we also eat them. And that's kind of the the nature of this.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Well, I love that category. That's super cool. And, who knows, man? I mean, you got other things like the shed hunting too. Like Mhmm. That's that I mean, people will scour public land for for sheds, and then they're like, what if I could just get over there? I bet there'd be I bet there'd be some awesome ones there. And and for the for the, farmer, that's land they're probably not even they're probably not even going there. Like, they don't even Yeah.
Nic De Castro: Guess what? Farmers don't like sheds because they pop tires. Yeah. So they, like, they they cause a lot of damage, for tractor tires and equipment tires.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Pick those up. That's cool, man. That's cool.
Nic De Castro: Yeah. Foraging we've we've got people looking foraging from rail mushrooms and, you know, I think regionally, you'll see different stuff. Maybe it's snowmobile access, you know, in the colder climates or ice fishing. And so there'll be these kind of tentpole categories of hunting and fishing and these but then I think there'll be some cool regional stuff too that you see.
Tom Rowland: How did you start to build this this out? I mean, you had you had the idea. You're like, okay. Well, I think I think there's something here. So what was the next step? You had to build the technology or or or establish the relationships first?
Nic De Castro: Mhmm. You have to go back a little further. It's, you know, I raised I had to go fundraise. Yeah. So, you know, it would be I don't wanna say impossible. It would be very hard to bootstrap a marketplace like this. I mean, not raise any money and just do it all, you know, on my own dime. And I wasn't in any financial position to to self fund it anyways. So, you know, with the idea and I I had worked in early stage startups my whole career. So, you know, series a funded companies, venture capital backed company. So, you know, as the idea kind of coalesced, you know, I thought about it for a year, year and a half. When I first thought about the idea, I didn't go do it right away. I was still working another job and just kind of letting it, simmer, I guess. But, yeah, once I the the the switch flipped, it was like, alright. Well, I gotta build a deck, like a pitch deck, and really start to kind of, instill the idea of what I'm trying to do here and, you know, pitch some investors. So that started in earnest in November '18. And then the first investor checks in the company came in in June '19, and I went full time, you know, left a very good paying consulting gig 07/01/2019, one month before my first daughter was born.
Tom Rowland: Wow. Yeah. That's cool, man. I love to hear about people's, journey to that to that decision. Like, you mentioned the the moment when you kinda flip a switch and you're like, okay. I'm gonna need to build a deck. I'm gonna need to do all this stuff. Like, what was what was that like? I mean, I had to do the same thing with our with our company, Waypoint, that we that we have. And it's like, you know, at some point, you you get to a place to where you're like, you know what? This this has actually got legs, and we're either just gonna have this thing as a as a simmering thought in the back of our mind for the rest of our lives, or let's do it. Like, what was that like? How what what was the the the kind of straw that broke the camel's back for you to actually get started on that?
Nic De Castro: Yeah. It just got to the point where I couldn't not do it. Yeah. And I think, you know, I've been invited to speak to the business school here at MSU, and I've spoken to some of the kids in, entrepreneurship courses. And that's my my advice is don't start a company unless you can't not do that thing. Mhmm. Because it's really hard. It's not sexy and fun and, you know, like, I think media has made it just like I don't know. They've glorified it a little bit. It's just just a lot of hard work and over a long like, many, many, many years.
Tom Rowland: Yeah.
Nic De Castro: And, you know, if I didn't truly like, I wanted to use the product. I was a customer. So if I didn't truly have a direct connection to this thing, if I wasn't passionate about both sides of this marketplace, like, it's too hard. I would just give up. I can go I can it's actually you know, starting a company is a pretty crappy way to make money, as far as, like, a as far as, like, a a salary goes, I made a lot more money before I started this company doing other stuff. Now you do it in in hopes that, hey. Over the long term, yeah, you build a valuable business and you have a good outcome. But, I don't know. The five to ten years that that takes to build is a long time. Yeah. So for me, it just got to the point where I said, like, you know, we fiddled around with it. We'd it just been there and eating at the eating away at the back of my mind. I said, alright. Well, the time is now. Like, I've gotta I've gotta try it. I don't wanna be 60, 70 years old and, like, shit. I should have tried that thing. Yeah. You know?
Tom Rowland: I mean, that that avoidance of regret is a is a powerful, motivator for some people, not for others. So, I mean, not everybody has that, I don't think. Like, some people are like No. It's a pretty good idea, but I don't know. Like, maybe they're even more, like, the, the fear of failure or, I don't know, the fear of change might be more powerful. Yeah. They might be more powerful than the than the, you know, the the person that is, like, man, I just don't wanna regret it. I'd rather go out there and do this thing and fail miserably and just know, okay. Well
Nic De Castro: Yeah. I gave it my best try. Yeah.
Tom Rowland: That is funny. Like, the the advice that you're giving kids, you know, basically, don't don't start a business unless you absolutely just cannot live without doing this. That's pretty good advice because the the, you know, the entrepreneurship, like you say, is is is built up as, like, this thing that you should probably consider. But, there's that Elon Musk, quote. He's, something like it's like chewing on glass and staring into the abyss most Yeah. Most days and most times. I I know exactly what that feels like. Everything that we've ever done and built has been, basically entrepreneurial, but I I don't know any other way to do it. Like, I'd probably be a terrible employee for someone.
Nic De Castro: You prob yeah. I mean, you probably would be. I probably would be because it's like, hey. I I want to own my own destiny, and I you know? And I'm comfortable this is the thing that I I think it's really important for people who are looking at starting a company. It's like, yeah. Every it's sexy to on your own destiny. The unsexy part is that you're taking all the risk.
Tom Rowland: Yeah.
Nic De Castro: So when you go to work for somebody else and you get a w two paycheck, they've taken a ton of risk off the table for you. And that's that should not be, discounted. So, you know, I mean, shoot, man. It's it's hard. And and entrepreneurship doesn't have to be you know? Am I trying to build a billion plus dollar company right now? Yes. I am. It doesn't have to be that.
Tom Rowland: Right.
Nic De Castro: You know? You could start a services business tomorrow. You could start a cleaning company in your hometown. Like, that's starting a business too, and that's entrepreneurship. It's inefficient. It's a lot being
Tom Rowland: a hunter.
Nic De Castro: Being a vision guy. And it's a lot more achievable. Like, the success rate is a much higher success rate than what I'm trying to build here.
Tom Rowland: Mhmm.
Nic De Castro: The outcomes the outcomes are different, but, you know, there's a lot less risk risk there.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. But the similarities are that when you decide to do your own business, whether you're gonna be a fishing guide or try to build a billion dollar company, you're you're saying, well, I don't really wanna work for somebody else because I don't want them to necessarily dictate my schedule. But when you go and you own your own company, now you're working all the time. So you don't have Yeah. There is no there is no opportunity to dictate your schedule. It's work all the time, and it may look different than other people's work. Like, you could be at the coffee shop or you could be dressed in shorts and a t shirt, but, dude, your mind is going all the time. And and it's for the right person, great. But for the wrong person, like, if you were looking for smaller work hours, shorter work weeks
Nic De Castro: This is not it. You didn't
Tom Rowland: know. Not even being a fishing guide is is it? Like, it's like Yeah. Nobody is going to be a harsher critic on you than than yourself, you know, for the right person. Right? Like, some people might not it they might not it might not be the entrepreneur. You might like, they always say you got the entrepreneurial spirit or you don't. Right? And some people, it's fine, you know. That's that's cool if that's not it. But the person that that does it, like like you, I'm sure you're a very harsh critic of yourself. You want this company to be perfect, and you're willing to put in whatever time it takes to get there, which is probably more time than anyone would expect or hope that you would that you would give it. And that's why that's why, you know, companies like yours are are successful is that, you know, someone is putting in way more than anyone would have expected.
Nic De Castro: Yeah. Yeah. I am absolutely I am our product's harshest critic. Like, I hate our product. I I don't hate it. I I I like it, but it is nowhere near where it should be. And, I mean, I think you know sitting in your seat too, I'm sure there's 20 things that you wish you could wave a magic wand and change right now about about the business and the product.
Tom Rowland: The funny thing is is, like, when you change this in a tech business, I mean, I can't even begin to think about yours, but in in ours anyway, is it like we were always trying to put a search bar in, but it was it was like, that should be the easiest thing, man. You can get on Yeah.
Nic De Castro: Can't you just do this in years?
Tom Rowland: It seems so easy. It's like, yeah, it would have been easy if we had built that in at the beginning. Mhmm. But now to go back is, like, not so so easy.
Nic De Castro: We change your architecture and yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fun, fun fact for the, the folks out there. Never tell your engineers that that should be easy. It's not a it's not a way to make them happy people.
Tom Rowland: Well, I think it's I think it's super cool what you got going. And, I I think I'm gonna be a a, a consumer, a user of this thing because, like, the the, like, one of the things that I like to do is is to like, with my wife and family, sometimes we'll we'll do an RV trip. And, like, I noticed on on your thing, I'm not really down with RVing. I don't know. I can't I haven't really figured out, like, what the difference is between an RV resort and an RV campground in and an RV park and all these other things. And sometimes we show up and and, like, we think we're gonna be kinda out in the woods a little bit, and you show up and people have got, like, decks built around their RVs, and they're the it's like, okay.
Nic De Castro: They're living there.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. They're living there.
Nic De Castro: They got eight dogs.
Tom Rowland: They hadn't moved, and and and that's fine. You know? But that wasn't the experience that I thought we were gonna get. And so, like, I would be more like, I'd like to boondock out there. Just just go out there and put the RV there, and you got this whole place. Maybe you could fish a little, or maybe you can come and go as you please, but, I mean, I think that's a I think that's a market share.
Nic De Castro: A beautiful farm or ranch? Absolutely. That and we're building that product out as well. I mean, that's that's, I killed my first Cherokee this this last spring. I was out with one of the the guys who we work with. You know, John Dudley is
Tom Rowland: Yeah.
Nic De Castro: He does knock on you. So, John, you know, we're down there with him in in Missouri, just about a mile south of the Iowa border. But that property was amazing. Right? The the the property owner's sister had actually just bought a a travel trailer. He was like, hey. I didn't have logic before, but if you want, you could stay in there. We put in a beautiful travel trailer and a camper, and, John brought his down. You know, we camped on the property. He had seven ponds on there. Jerkies everywhere. Killed my first bird. But I don't know if you know, in Missouri, you can't hunt in the afternoon. You can't hunt after 1PM.
Tom Rowland: Oh, really? We
Nic De Castro: didn't know, yeah, we didn't know that coming down, so our hunts got cut in half. But it was okay because we went and just caught a bunch of bath and stuff.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Seven ponds. That sounds
Nic De Castro: pretty good. Yeah. So and, you know, and the landowner's off. I mean, he's the farmer. He grows Wagyu beef, which is even cooler because then we gotta eat Wagyu Wagyu beef. And so, like, you know, that's you could go book that in the spring and, like, on a turkey and have some fish and eat some figs. How do
Tom Rowland: you get Dudley to come down there and show you how to shoot better? Oh, well extra that's gonna be an extra charge. Yeah. I
Nic De Castro: was I said, you know, like, I've never killed a turkey. I've been on a bunch of turkey hunts, and I've seen a lot of turkeys with the tag in my pocket, but I've never gotten to kill one. I wasn't gonna mess around.
Tom Rowland: But you got one. That's
Nic De Castro: Yeah. I brought a shock I brought a, yeah, I brought a shotgun.
Tom Rowland: That's cool.
Nic De Castro: I shot I shot my bird. We had a crazy, like, hurricane level storm come through the night before, And Deb was like, hey. My uncle always said, after a storm like that, just walk a walk a timber road. And we did that. Saw some toms, belly crawled to him. I think I shot my bird at, like, 62 yards. Just dropped him.
Tom Rowland: Wow. 62. That's really good.
Nic De Castro: Yeah. Yeah. I didn't wanna take a chance with the bow. I'm not good enough with the bow or, like, you know, like, if I get a shot, I wanna I wanna kill them.
Tom Rowland: Well, I mean, that's the kind of the evolution of I mean, so many times, like, in in my world is permit fishing with a fly rod. You know? People wanna do that or even bonefish or whatever, but, a lot of people jump right from trout fishing to permit fishing with a fly rod. And it's like, man, if you just caught, like, a couple on a spinning rod, you would have caught one on a fly rod way faster because you would have the success, and then you could build on that success, and you would have more confidence. And then, you know, you could you could catch them on fly, but it's not like they're super easy. Just like a turkey, it's not like it's super easy to kill a turkey with a shotgun. Still, everything has to come you know, it has to it has to be working right. So to, you know, to to downplay that and say, well, I didn't kill it with a bow. It's like, well, yeah. But maybe you will next time or I don't know. Maybe you don't even want to. Like, turkey hunting
Nic De Castro: is a I'm I don't buy into all the, I don't buy into all the factions within hunting. I like I like every type of hunting and fishing I've ever tried. Like, I could be sink bait for catfish or, you know, fly fishing for tarpon and things. Like, it's cool.
Tom Rowland: I'm with you. I'm with you. And and I don't get into the, to the infighting amongst the the groups. Like, fly fishermen hate bait fishermen, and bait fishermen don't like, you know, what whoever. I don't know. Yeah. We all need to get along.
Nic De Castro: They make fun of me in the office because I'll I'll pull a Panther Martin out on the on the rivers up here, and I'll go head to head. I'm like, hey. You guys wanna I don't wanna catch fish today. I have a very short amount of time, you know, especially with kids. Like Yes. If I get for an hour to go fishing, I'm just gonna take a spinning rod with the Panther Martin. Like, I'm not gonna go do my whole setup and, like, you know, fly around. It's just it's less time efficient. Yeah. And I have just as much fun catching 10 fish on on Panther Martin than I would, you know, like, be otherwise. I like it all, but I also am not shy about up here, it's like, oh, you've you, you know, you conventional fish. Like, yeah. I don't care.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Well, some people told me when, when I moved down to Key West that, you know, I'd rather catch 10 I'd rather catch one fish on a on a fly than 10 fish when they were talking about Permit or Bonefish. Either one, Permit or Bonefish. I'd rather catch one on fly than 10 on bait, but I was like, I don't know. I've never caught 10 on bait. That kinda sounds kinda sounds fun. And so you go out there and you throw 10, you catch you actually when you actually catch 10 on a live crab, you know, damn, that was the best day I've ever had. 10 on bait turns out to be way more fun than one on fly, in my opinion. I mean, in in my opinion, like, that's but everybody, you know, everybody has their their different ways that they like to go about it, and and then that's cool. That's why that's why we have all the different tackle and the different places and, you know, to your to your place, you know, to what you do. Like, you can go and book all these different places that are really tailored for one thing over another. Like, this is a perfect place to archery deer hunt, or this is a perfect place to turkey hunt, or this is how you get the the fly fishing access for this particular species. I think it's super cool, man. So how do, how do people find out about Land Trust more, go there, set up an account? What do they what do they do?
Nic De Castro: Yep. So, it's pretty simple. You go to landtrust.com. You can kinda browse the site. It should look and feel familiar if you've ever used other sites like an Airbnb or whatnot so you can search, check out properties, do all that. You can follow us on Instagram, land land trust underscore hunt. And so we'll, you know, keep you up to date. But as I as I mentioned, just take one minute and create a free account. Like, if this is, again, at all interesting to you, even in a little bit, just create a free account. Tell us what you like, and then we're out there scouting three hundred sixty five days a year for you. We're adding tens of thousands of acres, you know, a week. So we're gonna find stuff that's interesting to you.
Tom Rowland: Now are you doing all that from Bozeman? Like, your team is all in Bozeman and and you're making these calls to the different states, or do you have people all over the country that are kinda looking for you?
Nic De Castro: So we do have what we call landowner success managers, and so we've got, and those are people who are kind of boots on the ground in different states. So we've got a couple here in Montana. We have, one in North Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa. So that's some some cover multiple states. So we do have boots on the ground that do go out and visit a lot of these properties and talk to the land owners and do that as well.
Tom Rowland: Mhmm. What about, like, we probably have people that are listening right now that have have property all over the place that might want to lease it or or, you know Yep. Use Land Trust, rent it out. Yeah. Yeah. How would they go about doing that?
Nic De Castro: Yeah. For sure. So, again, landtrust.com, you'll see when you go to the, homepage, you'll see, like, a little for landowners button on the top, and that page is kind of like, we've got a bunch of video testimonials from landowners who've been with us for years. Kinda breaks down the whole thing. If it's interesting by the way, there's a phone number on the site, so you can, you know, just either call or text us. We're, you know, we're real live people here. There's no AI, you know, answering you at the chatbot or something like that. And just for people listening, the number is (406) 709-8450. You can call us or text us at that number, and, you know, you'll get you'll get a person on the team, and they'll happy to answer any questions that you have. And, you know, as a landowner, you can build it yourself. We have a plenty of landers who build their own listings, and it takes, I don't know, fifteen, twenty minutes. Or our team's happy to build it for you. So let's talk to you, and they'll build it out as you guys talk and get you up and going. So we try to make it as simple as possible for landowners, to get up and running.
Tom Rowland: That's super cool, man. I love the concept. Love it that you, that you got it going, and and it's working. That's it.
Nic De Castro: Man. Yeah.
Tom Rowland: It's awesome.
Nic De Castro: Appreciate it.
Tom Rowland: Alright. So, if you're interested, go check that out. Landtrust.com or .org? .Com?
Nic De Castro: .Com.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. No.
Nic De Castro: No. We are for profit.
Tom Rowland: For profit. We
Nic De Castro: are nonprofit.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Good. Yeah. Good. Well, good luck. Not to
Nic De Castro: be confused with, like, conservation easements and that stuff. Those are the .orgs.
Tom Rowland: Right. Right. So landtrust.com. That's the place. And
Nic De Castro: just tell you
Tom Rowland: to pull your wallet out because you getting ready to spend some money. That's
Nic De Castro: Yeah. Yeah. I'm a well, and I also I get a speaking of hopefully, Turner doesn't charge me, but he did invite me to go shoot ducks at his place if the weather got cold.
Tom Rowland: Yeah. Well, he's got a nice little spring pond down there. I think it might you might wanna go on the first one because I believe that the neighbors are gonna complain. So I would I would I would
Nic De Castro: a little close.
Tom Rowland: I would get the first first hunt. Like, ask him when the first day he's gonna hunt and then go there and and make it quick.
Nic De Castro: Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Tom Rowland: It's pretty close. There's no doubt that there's it's gonna be loaded, I think. But
Nic De Castro: Oh, yeah. And as soon as the freeze is up here, those spring creeks, they just yeah. They pile in.
Tom Rowland: It's so cool, man. That's it. But he's got a great place out there with with all the horses and the the it's just got a lot of land. It's nice. It's really cool out there. But, anyway, Nic, it was great meeting with meet with you today, and, congratulations on on, where you are, in this entrepreneurial journey, man. It's, it's tough, but you're doing great with it.
Nic De Castro: Appreciate it. Yeah. Just a few more years to learn what I see.
Tom Rowland: That's right. Alright. Alright. We'll we'll see you next week with another guest like Nic. And, that's it for this week. See you.
Subscribe to get the latest episodes, show notes, and exclusive content delivered straight to your inbox.