Does anyone have any personal experience with Michael Murphy and Whitetail Sanctuary Solutions? We recently signed a purchase agreement on a new 80 acre recreation property and are considering using his services to assist in the habitat developement and strategic hunting plan.
Thanks in Advance
Jason
Don’t know who that is, but I would do all of that myself. Although I don’t know your situation either. You can goggle alot of information and get it done yourself?
I don’t have any experience with him. If you decide to go that way I would be interested in hearing how it goes. I’ve considered something like this. In addition to whitetails, I would like to cover grouse, turkey and just healthy timber management are all of interest to me.
Never heard of him or that service.
My farm has been a work in progress for over 30 years now. Learned a lot in what to do and what not to do as a lot of what we had done in the early years was trial and error.
Regardless of hiring a service or doing it solo, look forward 3 to 5 or more years. That is probably the one big mistake I made. Did too many projects in the moment for short term needs. Granted the 30,000 trees I planted is a 100 year program with about 65% in burr, white, and red oak. Huge food source with acorns and burr produces in just 10-12 years.
However, my 17 acre sanctuary is what has suffered. It’s been 25+ years of off limits. We only walk through there a couple times a year and that’s it. Amazing how the deer know it’s a safe spot. But as the years passed, the canopy choked out brush. Brush/treetops has decomposed and it’s become very open. I put a few round bales in there for bedding every few years. But out next big project includes “re-maximizing” bedding areas again
Deer need a safe bedding area and 100′ tall trees don’t do them any good. Last year we tried to get someone to log off our woods and no one wanted it, this year several called us back right away. We are removing almost everything to get some sunlight in and let it thicken up while leaving some stands of oaks for food. IMO it is pretty simple to come up with a plan yourself with a little research on the internet.
I’ve been doing a lot of research on the topic and working through the obvious things with the time and dollars in the fund. Jeff Sturgis, Whitetail Habitat Solutions has a lot of material on YouTube, books and he also does consulting. Have learned a lot from his material.
As Randy brings up, many of the things you are doing are for your kid’s and grandkids. With that kind of time horizon, you can’t keep redoing things as you learn. With the profit of a timber harvest you can recoup the cost of one these guys to give you another perspective on your property.
In my case, I do want to do a timber harvest and that area will likely become the next sanctuary/bedding area. With several choices on my property to do that, I would like to bounce ideas off of someone that has thought through these trade offs more than I have. I can always learn a new trick!
I have done it many times before, log it and leave the tops. In about 2 years it will be a great bedding area, just make sure and take everything down in the bedding area. You need the canopy removed completely to let the sun in and brush to grow. It will give you about 10 years of good bedding before you have do do it again. We are going to be doing that and leaving several 1-2 acre stands of oak in the middle for them to feed on…our sanctuary will be about 100-120 acres in the middle of the property.
I’m clearing an additional acre adjacent to my initial acre. Most of it is perennial clover with a brassica plot adjacent to my fruit orchard. I’ve got oaks in the immediate area and am planting a few chestnut trees. I have another 1/2 acre that is dedicated as a tall native grass bedding area. It is close to natural stands of thick viburnum that I find deer beds in. I’m getting very good response from deer this, our first year food plotting. I think I enjoy planning and installing more that actually harvesting the deer. Operating the tractor makes me feel like a kid with his Tonka trucks again.
UPDATE: We closed of our 80 acre parcel. We hired Kanati Wildlife Consulting to assist with our habitat goals. I will attach our finished plan for your review. It was a very good experience working with Nate and Ryan. If you need some guidance with forest management, habitat development, hunting strategies give the guys a call.
Nate and Ryan at KWS have a ton of knowledge and are great people. I’m happy to hear you had a great experience with them.
Jordan
Quality Landworks LLC
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