From Harvesting to Hunting

Les Bensch, a former computer company executive, and his wife, Bette, a technical writer, operate Viking Valley Hunt Club on 400 acres of pastureland in Ashby, located in central Minnesota. Les and Bette have turned a marginal farm into a hunting and shooting business they say earns five times the revenue of a conventional farm.

Once the soybeans are harvested, a new crop grows here—six feet tall with roots 18 feet deep and sod so dense it shuts out weeds and discourages even pocket gophers. The crop is switch grass, a native plant that provides outstanding wildlife habitat. It is one element of a diversified farm with an unusual product: sports entertainment.

Les says recreational hunting is a good way for farmers to generate additional revenue from their land. “I ask farmers, Why don’t you plant some native grasses? Instead of draining that slough, why don’t you plow around it, preserve it and lease it for hunting?”

Creating a Natural Habitat

The couple bought the farm in 1985 and soon after began converting it to wildlife habitat by planting pastures and fields with native prairie grasses:

• bluestem
• switch grass
• Indian grass
• tall wheat and more

They restored four wetlands and planted 10,000 new trees and bushes, including red cedar, pine, hybrid poplar and lilac. They also planted buffalo berry, chokecherry, wild plum and other fruit-bearing plants to supplement food plots. Management has been labor intensive.

For one thing, native grasses are hard to establish, says Les, who learned grass production through 10 years of trial and error. Seedbed preparation must be meticulous. Hillsides usually have to be planted by hand. Prairie grasses also require periodic burning along with vigilant weed control and annual spot reseeding.

The managed habitat “is highly productive for waterfowl,” Les says. Pheasants also do well here. Viking Valley augments natural bird propagation with more than 9,000 pheasants from a game farm down the road. Between September and April, sportsmen from 10 states pay handsome fees to hunt pheasants, partridge, ducks and geese on the farm.

Value-added Ag Opportunity

Les and Bette, entrepreneurs who have founded and sold several successful ventures over the years, also operate a handful of other enterprises at their Viking Valley home. Two glacial lakes, Jolly Ann and Rask, are available for fishing. Les manages Rask, a catch and release lake, for large mouth bass and northern. And they also breed and train fine hunting dogs—pointing black labs from English stock that trace their genealogy straight to the Queen’s kennels, Les says.

On a sunny weekday in November, a group of fathers and sons from Fargo is just coming in from a morning hunt at Viking Valley. “They released five birds for us, but we saw more than a dozen,” says one man, whose young son is grinning as if he just saw Santa Claus.

“There are thousands of urbanites who need and want recreation,” Les says. “People are clamoring for places in the country to get away.”

But is this agriculture?

Yes, Les says. “One of the value-added ag opportunities we’re missing is entertainment.”