Matter Farm: How a Pennsylvania Duck Farmer Became One of LandTrust’s Most Trusted Hosts

In the rolling ridges of Perry County, Pennsylvania — tucked between timbered hollows, cropland, and the steady hum of a working farm — you’ll find 110 acres that have quietly become a kind of refuge. For new hunters. For traveling sportsmen. For anyone who appreciates the way a good piece of land can slow life down.

And at the center of it all is Dylan Matter, a duck farmer, forester by training, husband, dad of two, and the unlikely architect of a place where guests leave with more than just venison or a gobbler. They leave with the sense that someone genuinely cared about their hunt.

Matter Farm didn’t start as a plan. It started as a “maybe.”

The Buy That Shouldn’t Have Happened

Back in 2018, Dylan wasn’t shopping for a farm — at least not one he could actually buy. He was living ten minutes away when a property popped up on the MLS: a hundred-plus acres, old timber, the kind of terrain that makes a deer hunter stop mid-sentence.

He knew instantly it was good ground. He also knew he couldn’t afford it.

But Dylan mentioned it to his father-in-law, who took one look and said the six words every land-dreamer hopes to hear:

“Well, that’s a no-brainer. Buy it.”

Dylan laughed. “I don’t have the money.”

His father-in-law didn’t blink. “We’ll figure it out.”

And they did.

What followed wasn’t glamorous. No windfall, no inheritance. Just grit and a willingness to reinvent their lives. Dylan stepped away from the timber industry. He and his wife signed a contract to raise 40,000 meat ducks, a job with odd hours, steady work, and just enough financial stability to support the land they’d taken a leap on.

It wasn’t the plan. But the plan didn’t matter. The land did.

A Working Farm, A Managed Habitat, A Hunter’s Place

Spend a few minutes on Matter Farm and you start to understand how Dylan thinks.

Every inch has intention.

Food plots shift year to year as he studies wind patterns, deer movement, and pressure. Box blinds get upgraded. New tree stands find their places. Timber gets cut to open sunlight for the next generation of warm-season growth. Dylan carries the mindset of a forester, the work ethic of a farmer, and the obsession of a lifelong whitetail hunter.

But the property is more than that.

It’s a place where he walks guests into their stands at 5 a.m., shakes their hands, wishes them luck — and then goes back to the house to get his kids breakfast.
It’s a place where a kid got his first deer in seventeen minutes, and where Dylan was back in bed before the coffee cooled.
It’s a place where a man from Mississippi hunted turkey like a surgeon, tagging a bird before breakfast and teaching Dylan a few things about gobblers in the process.

Matter Farm feels like a friend’s place — someone you trust, someone who wants you to win.

Hosting, The Way Hosting Should Be

Dylan didn’t join LandTrust to create a tourism operation. He joined because he likes helping people.

At the Seven Springs Total Archery Challenge, someone from the LandTrust booth asked him one question: “You got turkeys on your place?”

He nodded.

“Then you should host some hunts.”

Simple. And suddenly, obvious.

From his first booking, Dylan approached hosting the way he approaches the rest of his life: be reliable, be honest, and treat people the way you’d want to be treated.

He meets every guest in person. Whether it's 9 p.m. or 5 a.m., he’s there with a handshake and a rundown.

He shares trail cam photos — not weeks old, but that morning. His guests sometimes get fresher intel than he uses for his own hunts.

He’ll loan a rifle, haul a deer, or sit with a family after a successful harvest. No fanfare. No fuss. Just the way he thinks it should be.

What surprised him most?
How many people arrive without the background he grew up with.

The guests from Philadelphia who had never seen country like Perry County. The brand-new hunter trying to learn the difference between a rub and a scrape. The father wanting to give his son a better first hunt than he ever had.

Dylan discovered he had knowledge to give — real knowledge — and the more he offered, the more the experience meant to the people booking hunts at Matter Farm.

Where New Hunters Find Success, and Seasoned Ones Find Quiet

Some properties intimidate newcomers. Matter Farm isn’t one of them.

Its layout — with access from three sides and stands designed for the wind — makes it a comfortable place for kids, first-timers, and anyone who wants the hunt to feel manageable rather than mysterious.

Yet it's also the kind of land seasoned hunters appreciate: low pressure, honest habitat, good deer density, and enough room to settle into the rhythms of the ridge.

It’s the rare property where a dad can bring his daughter to fill the freezer, and the next week a die-hard turkey hunter can come in and call a gobbler off the roost like he’s been hunting there for years.

Some places are complicated.
Matter Farm is straightforward — in the best way.

A Host Who Gives More Than He Gets

If you ask Dylan, he’ll tell you he doesn’t get to hunt as much as he wants. Duck chores, plot jobs, young kids — life is busy.

But hosting gives him something he didn’t expect: a front-row seat to other people’s milestones.

The first deer with a borrowed rifle. The Mississippi hunter grinning in the morning light with a longbeard on his shoulder. Two Philly guys learning how deer use ridges and thermals. A dad and a kid celebrating a short but unforgettable hunt.

It fills the space where his own hunting time used to be.

And someday, he’ll take more of those dream hunts for himself — maybe back to Montana chasing whitetails near Livingston, a place he fell in love with on a trip years ago.

For now, he’s building something meaningful right where he is.

Matter Farm Today

A working duck farm. A carefully managed whitetail property. A place where hospitality feels old-fashioned in the best possible way. And one of the most quietly impactful host experiences on the LandTrust platform. Dylan doesn’t talk much about what he’s built. He just keeps building. But spend a morning on Matter Farm and you’ll understand why the hunters who shake Dylan’s hand often leave calling him a friend. Because what he’s offering isn’t just access. It’s belonging.