I had an enjoyable afternoon. I had a consultant tour my hunting property. It was worth it. Nice to get a fresh and expert perspective.

This is who I used and I was really impressed:

https://epicwhitetailhabitat.com/index.html

He covers a large geopgraphic area & really knows his stuff. It was fun to talk to someone that deals with whitetail deer and their habitat every day, and in a hands on manner on my own property. I picked up some good tips on a broad array of hunting advice, stand access & selection, & some ideas short & long term to improve habitat.

I'm anxious to get out hunting. Don't rule out having a consultant walk your property with you. It might surprise you the ideas that can be garnered from such an experience.

AJE,
YouTube whitetail habitat solutions. Tons of videos and information. Western Wisconsin/ Minnesota based. Jeff Sturgis knows his stuff, all free too!

He had a good channel.

Wow, does he ever. Thanks. Between Jeff Sturgis & Epic Whitetail Habitat, I am learning a lot.

Not trying to get in your business but can you give a ball park price per 100 acres. I’ve been seriously considering hiring someone myself but wanted to make sure I get my money’s worth.

Fair question but too variable for me to give a clear answer. I've had Epic on my property. Sturgis I only know from his online posts.

epicwhitetailhabitat@gmail.com

AJE

Dunno but in SE Nebraska good timbered hunting property is worth alot more than farm ground.
Field and Stream Whitetail Properties.

I would add Don Higgins (Chasing Giants) to the list of people that hold my attention, he's an excellent Whitetail hunter and has studied deer behavior in captivity for probably 25 years. One take away from Sturgis that we've employed on our property and didn't seem intuitive until he explained it, was mock scrapes. - not creating them but getting rid of natural scrapes that occur at non-stand locations and redirecting those travel patterns to your stand, allowing you to control positioning, wind and create preferred travel patterns. All of these activities require boots on the ground and the less boots- the better, most of our improvements are made now.

Yeah, Sturgis's mock scrape licking stick idea is something I will try next year

I finally got around to making the mock scrape licking stick. The bottom of the vine is at belly height perJeff Sturgis's advice. The vine is a tad thinner than he recommends but is the best I could find.

That’s cool AJE! I finally made one myself for the first time. Put this one up a few days ago with a camera over it. Can’t wait to see how the deer interact with it!



I also left some little pine twigs on the branch. Good, bad, who knows? It’s an experiment anyways.

Cool. Lol, maybe we can compare notes. This is the first one I've ever tried too but I hear tremendous things about them, so am a tad excited.

Ya if I remember, I’ll post pics here.

I’m excited too lol

So you can charge people for that ?. LOL Heck I have done it for free around here.

Well this is a new one on me, lol.
So you have someone come out and tell you where to put your stands and where the deer are? I can learn that from OnX and boot leather. Never knew people got paid to do that. I got a bunch of folks that now owe me lots of money, lol. Of course those I’ve helped were new to hunting. Heck, I even helped put up stands.
Please expand on what exactly these folks do.

Folks wanting to make improvements, tend to change the way they do things. Folks wanting to make major improvements, tend to change the way they see things.

Most people only go so far, before their own success stops their growth. The best consultants are the ones that are not afraid to shatter a paradigm.

It's the extra set of eyes that carries value.

Curious what the goal is as well? More deer? Bigger bucks? How many acres of land do you have?

Anyone else pull red maple saplings over so the deer can reach green leaves under your stand in early October? The deer will strip off every leaf. They seem to know that this particular food source will not be around for much longer and take advantage of it.

A note on mock scrapes as ive tried a few. Some get adopted very well. Some get ignored. Ive had better success with adoption on edges of fields then trails. For trails i definitely recommend the vine or branch to be directly in their way. A couple feet off the trail is all it takes to be ignored sometimes. Also keep them lower than you think. Mid thigh on me but im over 6 foot.