Land & Legacy - Habitat + Hunting – Details, episodes & analysis

On this week's podcast, Alan and Reid Summerford take to the woods in search of a velvet whitetail. The prep work has been completed and in part 1 of this podcast you will hear all about the work they have completed to make this hunt a success before the season even opens. Oftentimes, the hard work ahead of the hunt will prove itself deadly. This pre-hunt interview calls the shots of what they suspect will happen. Let's see if their suspicions are correct in part 2! During part 2 of the podcast, we hear how the actual hunt unfolded and why it was a success. These unconventional techniques can be the make or break of success. In this episode, you will really see how habitat management and hunting strategy are essentially one in the same.

On this week’s podcast we sit down the Shawn from Heartland Bowhunter. Shawn is a devoted bowhunter but now is a land manager. Shawn is passionate about trying to promote a healthy native landscape that improves the habitat and overall hunting experience. This transformation is journey didn’t happen overnight and wasn’t his due to his own interests. Many people along the way influenced and guided him to dive deep in land management. We hope you enjoy this story and journey from Shawn. If you haven’t taken a deep dive into managing quality habitat, we hope Shawn will convince you to join us on the journey.

Trees have been cut, now what?? Now that the timber has been cut, it's crucial to develop a strategy to restore the area. In this week's episode, Alan and Brady explore the steps to train your forest to reach your goals and leave a lasting legacy on the property.

This week we are joined with Missouri Forester and Wildlife Manager Daric Denny to discuss what deer eat, how to create more of it and the nutritional value it can provide. Are you providing everything your deer need to thrive?

In this episode we discuss getting involved in classes, PBA’s, cost share programs, and start the journey to a better understanding of managing habitat with a wholistic approach.

Bedding thickets and need for providing secure cover is the backbone of a solid hunting property.  In the timber it takes a distinct strategy to create these dense thickets. However they can’t be too thick that only the edges are used. These units also have to have 80-100% sunlight allowed in. So this week we answer the question of how to manage the canopy while managing the debris load of each unit. 

 

 

 

Not every consultation is created equal. Recently we travel to North Mississippi to work a bottom land floodplain forest property. These sites always have their challenges but we were in for a exciting spin on managing Bottomland forest this week. 

After spending several hours on the property, we were stumped the time being. Understanding the function of a property is critical to then making quality recommendations, but the function of this farm was way out of sorts. We break down how we approached this challenging farm and determined how to best strategize access and plan. We stuck to the Land andLegacy habitat management principles and these guiding principles revealed the next best steps.

Not every farm is going to be clear, cut, and dry. This farm requires extra attention to detail to realize its full potential. It also requires a landowner to be humble and work with Creation in their pursuit of reaching their goals.

 

In this episode we discuss what to do when the typical approach doesn’t work, when it doesn’t make sense to spend the money to fight what you have, working with your property instead of against it & managing your time and money for a higher return.

We talk habitat management 365 days a year because it’s critical to optimizing a landowners success. However, so is a well developed and executed hunting strategy for that specific farm! We tour farms weekly and find most hunters are hunting a farm all wrong! This can easily derail even the highest quality habitat or decrease your success in a great neighborhood with ample mature deer to chase. 

During this podcast, we urge you to balance your habitat management strategy with an equally solid hunting strategy. You have to be able to determine when not to hunt. The best days of the year are east to figure out with forecasts and increased deer behavior, but knowing when to stay out is critical! 

Give the three pronged approach a try for 5 years, you will see a notable improvement in reaching your goals! 

They are known as man’s best friend and quickly become a part of the family, they love us unconditionally and their only goal is to spend more time with us. Today we pay tribute to Piper as Hunter talks about his recent loss with her as well as many other four legged friends that have gone too soon.