Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to the whitetail woods presented by first Light, creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light Go farther, stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on the show, I'm joined by Kyle Perry of Dreamland Wildlife Properties to answer your habitat management questions. Welcome back to the Wired Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light and their Camera for Conservation Initiative which supports the National Deer Association, and today we are talking habitat management. We are continuing the habitat series this month and my guest
today is Kyle Perrying. Kyle runs a habitat management consulting and contracting company in which he and a Kylie go all over the country helping folks implement their habitat management goals. He does all sorts of on the ground projects. He's not just a guy that gives you ideas. He actually gets out there and does the work. So he brings a lot of firsthand practitioner experience to the table. And
I met Kyle first a handful of years ago. I think when he was starting to help out over on the Back forty property, which hopefully most of you know about. Kyle's continued to help with the continued management of the Back forty doing projects out there, and also helped me this past season with a pretty substantial habitat improvement project
at my family deer camp. So today Kyle is joining me to first walk through some of those things that we did there up at my camp, Ken Roven talk through what he thought of the property, what we accomplished, what we still could accomplish in the future, some things that think about moving forward, and then the lion's share
of our conversation today is spent answering listener questions. I set out a request for questions from you on what kinds of things you're wondering about when it comes to managing and improving habitat for deer hunting and for wildlife and all that kind of good stuff. So we got a lot of great questions to cover. We tackle a
number of things around working with small properties. We tackle some questions related to how to get started down that road if you just picked up a property, or if you've just decided that you want to start trying to work the land, you know, how do you prioritize what to do first? How do you start tackling that. We talk through a good amount about natives versus invasive or non native plants, and why you might want to consider
focusing on the former rather than the latter. We talk about ways to convert old fields or even yards into wildlife habitat, and a whole lot more So that's the plan for today. Kyle's a good guy. He's an up and comer in this space. I think he's got a bright future ahead of him, and I appreciate the perspective and the ideas he brought to our conversation today. So but that, I'll said, let's get to my chat with Kyle Perry. All right with me now on the line,
I've got Kyle Perry. Welcome to the show.
Kyle, thank you, Mark, pleasure to be here.
Yeah, man, I'm glad you can make it. I'm glad we're doing this. We've been talking about a podcast together for I don't know, around a year now, so I'm glad it's come together. Every time I talk to you, though, you are usually surrounded by like loud like equipment sounds, or like trees falling down around you, or I hear the wind in the background blowing through trees. I've never once talked to you in a situation where it's quiet and you're in an office, So this is a rare occurrence. Man,
I didn't know that you. I didn't know that you ever spent time inside.
I generally don't like to. I really truly enjoy being in the outdoors and learning about all the wildlife and habitat improvements we can do. So I'm always out there in the woods, you know, or in the in the field. I truly do enjoy that. The office is not my happy place.
Yeah, man, well, I appreciate you you stepping inside the studio for a quick second to do this conversation. But what have you guys been up to this week? If you weren't in here, sitting in the office talking with me, what would you beat up to right now?
Well, if mother nature would cooperate, we'd be out for schrom altering right now, clearing out some invasive species throughout a prairie. It's a project where the property is currently enrolled in a CRP program with the NRCS, so we can removing autumnaive and honeysuckle and some multi floor rows out there with the foresch malt getting that prepared for prescribed burn in the spring.
Nice? Is that kind of stuff? Well, I guess let me take a step back. You work on so many different types of work. There's a lot of guys I talk to in the Habitat space that that operate primarily as consultants. You know, they walk around and they tell people, Hey, you should do this, Hey should do this. What I found a little bit unique with you is that you're very much a practitioner. You're not just consulting. It seems like you are out in the field doing all the time.
You are constantly out there doing the work, seeing the results, putting things on the landscape, and then you know, actually being able to say, okay, we did this, this and this, what were the results of that. Can you run me down all the different types of projects and work that you in a given year might be tackling, because it's not just like I go out and plants some food plots, like you are doing a lot of different things.
Yes, how long do we have to record the podcast?
Yeah? Okay, give me this in five minutes or less five.
Minutes, so we do. We cover a lot of applications. We do see orp establishment, so native prairies, grasses and forbes. We do timber stand improvement work, will work go through and mark with a forest or the different tree species that need to be removed to ensure a healthy forest
long term. We do facilitate timber harvest. We're kind of where the media the guy in between ensuring that the timber buyer is there doing the work that he says he's going to do on site there with him making sure the right trees are getting taken and that the landowners getting the true value out of his timber. We work closely with US Fish and Wildlife doing wetland restoration
and establishment work and facilitate prescribed burns. We do a lot of prescribed burns, generally in the spring because most of our work is for outdoorsmen that are hunting in the fall, so we don't generally do too many burns in the fall. But we also offer food plot services, so we also cover a lot of ecosystem restoration projects where we're working with a landowner that you know he wants to put in a trail system throughout the property.
Create a clearing or an opening for creating early successional growth. We run a lot of different applications to just ultimately create that dream land that the landowners and inspired about.
What of all that is your favorite? If you had to pick one of these types of things that you just enjoy doing out there, what do you think that'd be?
My favorite is mulching invasive species. It's a way where you're inside a cab, you know, generally in the heater ac it's relaxing, I can talk on the phone and take care of invasive species at the same time. It's pretty profitable.
Yeah, that's a pretty good setup. Well, I definitely want to talk more about the invasive species thing we've got. We've got some listener questions surrounding that, and as you know, one of the things we're going to do here today is tackle a whole sew of questions that we got from folks who've got their own challenges, their own problems, their own situations, and they're looking for our insights. So one of those things is invasives. There's some questions around
honeysuckle in particular, which you mentioned. There's some questions around why native like why don't we want invasives out there. So I'm glad you brought that up, and I'm glad that's something you enjoyed dealing with because a lot of people have questions about that. Before we get to that, though, I wanted to take a little time here to talk about, you know, the intersection of your work, the stuff you just described that you do, and my stuff, which came together.
It's coming together in two different ways. One, you've volunteered and helped out a whole bunch over on the back forty and have done a lot of work there on the property since I have, since we gave it to the National Deer Association. So I want to publicly thank you for the work you've done over there helping remove invasive species. I know you've helped with the food plot planting.
Have you guys drilled grassed? Have you been on the drill helping them with switchgrass or do they just frost seed switchgrass?
No, we did in the spring I think twenty twenty two. Somewhere in there. The years fly by when you're having fun somewhere, I believe in the spring of twenty twenty two we interceded switch grass with the Great Planes drill throughout the prairie.
Okay, nice, So you did switch you did work on the honey Hole prairie restoration unit there. Yeah, that's a pretty pretty awesome spot. And then the food plots, And I gotta tell you, man, I went back there and helped mentor hunters last fall again and got to see it, and it is just so night and day compared to when I started there in twenty nineteen, I guess it would have been was our first year. It is transformed. It's really incredible. There was almost half of the farm
when we started that was like a wildlife desert. It was just very thin, weedy, invasive stuff that was provided, no food, no cover. It was just like desolate and now there's nothing like that. Every inch of that property is wildlife habitat. It is quality cover. There's so much diversity. There's the grass is the food plots, there's trees, there's native prairie. There's still some invasives because that property was full of them, but there's much larger sections where that's
been improved upon. It it's just exciting to see. So kudos to you for helping out there and doing some good stuff. And you're like the equipment and the skill you bring to the table helps so much to go from like what one of us could do with our hands and a shovel versus what you can do with a skid steer or a forestry malt or a drill. And I definitely saw that in the second place that we work together, which was up at my family deer
camp place we call ken Roven. Last year, you join me up at the family cabin in the I don't know, February or March timeframe. I think it was maybe April, I don't know, somewhere in that ballpark and April.
Yeah.
Yeah. So we were up there and I had some goals that I had talked to you about, mostly being the fact that we have this forty acre property which was mostly all timbered. Now there used to be old fields scattered with some timber, some young forests, and then some swamp and over the last you know, thirty some years that my family's had the property, it's almost entirely now mature forest. And so a handful of years ago we started trying to chip away at that a little
bit and create a couple of little openings. But we were doing this by hand. Me and my dad don't have a lot of experience of that kind of thing, trying to fall big trees or anything like that, so it was limited what we were able to achieve. And so I reached out to you and said, hey, man, I'm wanting to take this to the next level. You guys seem to have that kind of experience. Can you
come and help me do that? Create some big openings, expanded food plots, maybe create some wildlife openings, or some new betting habitat, different things like that. And so I had a general idea of what I thought I wanted you and I talked about that ahead of time, and then we met up there at the property together, walked it, talked through all these things, showed you the landscape, and then said, hey, can you do it? Or what can you do?
So?
Can you walk me through from your perspective, A like your assessment of the property after I showed it to you, after you looked at the maps, after you looked at it, what did you think was needed? And then b can you talk me through and talk to everyone listening through you know what you were able to do and what you thought about that.
Yeah, So we drove in. We started at the beginning part of the property. Again, I thank you for the opportunity to work with you and your dad on the property up north, very special opportunity. Initially when I when I drove in there, I was kind of looking at the access. Access is very key when evaluating a property. Especially up north, you have a lot of surrounding forests, so it makes it kind of an even playing field
when it comes to the ecosystem. You know, down south we have the fence rows and prairies and a little more diverse habitat. So first off I was looking at access. We walked down the southern part of the property border I believe, kind of got into an area of big, big conifers, very wide open. You could see for approximately probably one hundred to one hundred and fifty yards through
the through the timber there. So initially my thought was creating some early successional pockets that coincide with betting for deer and also areas for grouse. I thought that was a key important part of the establishment of the property there, So looking at early successional creating some train systems for access. I was listening to you and your dad kind of talk about how you hunted the property previously. What you wanted to do moving forward while we had the equipment
there was to accomplish those tasks. So overall I thought the property is very cool. It offered some unique diversity. My favorite part was how the clearing was right in the center part of the property, so to access from different winds was excellent. You could come in there from a southwest wind prevailing winds, get in there on the property from the north side there and hunt that real easily. So walking through there, we kind of looked at trail systems.
We identified a key area to open up, like a wildlife corridor, which coincided with the pockets that we put into getting lost in the direction up there. I think the clearing was to our east where we established those early successional areas, and then we opened up that wildlife corridor for a supplemental food source for the food plot. That then tied into a big open field that you and your dad had already started clearing, approximately a quarter acre.
I think we mapped out on using on X maps there, So walking through there, I knew that needed to be expanded. I felt that the property was somewhat lacking supplemental food sources like a good, good, established food plot. So immediately are you and I talked about that. I expressed my importance of clearing that out and making it a little
bit bigger. So we we went ahead and outlined that and started clearing the area, cutting the larger trees down, the non desirables, leaving behind the oaks or scrapes and regeneration of hardwoods, and took the brush and what was left over from the forest malt and kind of pushed it around the edge and created some pockets for you know, rabbits and other nesting species. Then we walked across my favorite part of the property that the bridge, the bridge
that leads the cabin. So we didn't really do too much over there. I think we ran out of time, but that helped me kind of tie the whole big picture together of the access from the north part of the property coming in from the east edge. So that really helped kind of put the you know, tie everything together and understand how do we improve this property and make it better for you and your dad for accessibility and overall use.
Yeah, well it it was amazing what you were able to get done in two days compared to what we had done in years of dabbling with things. I mean you and I think your brother was helping. Yes, you guys are good with the chainsaw, you're good with the good with the forestry multure. And man, I mean you took what was like an eighth acre a quarter acre, a little opening I had, and expanded it to almost
an acre. You create another like eighth acre ish maybe a little bit bigger plot in the middle of the timber. You created three or four more of these kind of pockets where we cut down a bunch of trees, left tree tops down, which I'm hoping is going to lead to more early successional you know, growth happening there now, because what you know, it used to be, like you said, this wide open mature conifer stand that was just like a wildlife desert. Nothing hardly passed through there, nothing spent
time in there. Now you've got three or four of these thick pockets where their sunlight get into the ground. And then you have that internal food plot too, like you talked about with pushing all the brush to the side, creating brush piles, but then also kind of tree top barriers along edges of the food plot too that you know,
when my dad and I started looking at that. After you guys were all done, we started, you know, and you and I talked about this too, like how do we strategically use these to set up hunting locations, And
so that's what we did. We came in there and we put two really nice groundblines for my dad on either side of that main food plot system, one of the south side, one on the north side, so that, you know, if we had a southerly type wing, you know, southwest west, southwest, something like that, he could hunt the one and then flip side. If we got like a northwest north northeast anything like that, you could hunt the other one, and had really good access routes playing to
both of those. With all that downtree cover, we're able to kind of push these blinds into that thicket created by these barriers and just perfectly hid the ground blinds in there. And then there's no way the deer would be at least not close to the line getting down wind because they'd have to go way around these barriers.
So it looks great. We came in there after you left and my first top seeded rye to try to get something started in the spring, and then I came back in the fall or not fall, late summer, I guess, and broadcast kind of a blend of grains and brasicas and clover and a whole different series of things, and that came in pretty decent, not perfect, but decent. We did a little more top seeding of rye in September, I think, but surprisingly the small food plot deep in
the timber maybe did the best. That thing came in really nicely, which we were a little worried about with sunlight or not. But you did position it so that it was running north south so you'd get as much possible sun as you could coming in there through the south,
and that worked. So that ended up being pretty lush green carpet inside the timber, and it was tight to the neighbors there where the neighbor had done a clear cut maybe five to eight years ago, maybe maybe seven to ten years something like that, and so the neighbors got really nice early successional habitat on their place. So there's a lot of deer spending time in there, and so we ended up seeing a lot of deer coming
out of there and hitting our little food plot. And so the grand reveal a lot of folks have wondered, you know, how do things go? How did the work translate into deer activity into hunting success, that kind of stuff. I've got a film coming out this fall that breaks down how my dad's hunt, the two of us, how that went. I won't tell you guys the specifics of that yet, but I will tell you that we had better deer activity on trail camera than ever before by far.
I do think that some of the jets, like the deer number went down a little bit earlier than I would have hoped. And I attribute that to just the food plot quality just wasn't you know what it needs to be. I've got to keep on working on improving that soil quality. And I do think that, you know, the thing that came in the best was rye, and so we had a lot of rye and that was super attractive early. But then I think as that matured, right,
it becomes a little bit less attractive later in the season. Yes, and so I'm I'm going to be rethinking or just thinking about how I can improve what we're planting this coming year. But all that said, with the new pockets, with a larger food plot, with a second food plot, I bet you we had at least four bucks on camera. Yeah, well, at least four bucks, and not just bucks, I'm set what I'm at least four bucks that were three or older, maybe four or older. I mean, we've never had mature
bucks like that. We have made, like since we did the first little food plot, we would get like one nice bucket year, maybe they pass through in the fall. This year there was four and there were two. Yeah, I think there's four bucks that were probably four or older, and two of them were absolute gaggers. I mean two bucks that I would be thrilled to shoot down in southern Michigan, like one hundred and thirty inch one hundred
and forty inch type bucks, like really nice year. So there were a lot of bucks in the area passing through in that pre rut to rut time frame. They stuck around, they continued to visit it consistently. I'll give you I'll tell you one thing. Well, no I won't. I'll save the specifics of buck stuff for the film, I suppose. But in short, we saw progress. It was exciting and I'm excited about that. But all that said, there seems like there's so much more to do, like
I want to continue to improve it. So with all that said, and with what you saw there, what would be like one or two things you would recommend I think about moving forward as far as next steps or the next project to work on, or the next thing to improve given what you saw.
The next thing that we didn't get to really touch on too much was that creek that runs to the north of the food plot. I kind of I believe it runs on a I'm going off memory, it's been been a year now almost. I believe that runs northwest to southeast.
If I'm mostly most mostly east west east west.
I think we we kind of touched on while we were there the first time of creating some some travel corridors through there and enhancing, you know, some of those areas along there to create some bedding and open pockets for for the wildlife. And that would be if it runs east west, that would be on the north side of that creek.
Yep.
I'm kind of just directly behind the cabin, YEP. So going in there doing some TSI trying to prove that's where I've seen or notice a lot of the hardwoods, So trying to enhance some of the regeneration of the hardwoods and and open those areas up for sunlight, sunlight and create more brows.
Yeah, yeah, that's that's the kind of place on the neighbors where they did that in the hardwoods that they have and it seemed to have made a difference. So so I could see that being useful on our side of the line on the north side.
So definitely kind of playing the tape a little bit we had when we first walked into the property on the south side. We were we were talking about the neighbors, the early successional growth, and that's kind of how we came to the conclusion that we should tie in that trail system food plot running north and or yes, north and south, to connect that early succession to the movement of your new destination food plot.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm glad to hear that that all tied in real nice.
Yeah, it's on its way. So that's exciting. So much to do though, so much, there's a lot to do.
The best part about this is the work never ends. You keep coming up with new things, maintaining those trails, ensuring that those food plots are staying healthy, doing soil tests. I generally do those every year, depending on the soil type. You know, you could get away with every other year, but generally up north, I try to do one every year to kind of monitor that soil health and ensure a good, good, strong, healthy food plot.
Yeah. Well, with that in mind, and with my wheels spinning as I'm thinking about what I need to be tackling next in the in the coming months, let's get to uh, let's get to the important stuff, which is answering the people's questions. So often I selfishly ask all the questions on these things, but every once in a while I remember hashat actually see what the listeners want to cover. So I thought that would be probably spend
the rest of our time. I got a bunch of different questions from folks, so I want to get your perspective on some of this stuff. And then I thought I'd throw on my ideas as well. You know, I've got obviously not as much experience as you have, but I have experience as a land manager myself in several different places, and you know, can bring that side of things to the table. So so you down for that.
I'm absolutely down for that answer questions.
Yeah, So the first question is from a new landowner. He describes himself as a new overwhelmed landowner, and he just wants to know what our advice is for developing a priority list and figuring out where to start on a new property that you want to improve for wildlife and for hunting. What would be a couple of things you would recommend for someone who's just trying to start to prioritize, like how to get this thing started.
So the first thing I would I generally prioritize is if he bought that property this year, I would I would at least hunt it for one year, kind of kind of do a lot of analysis, write down what you're seeing, where you're sitting, different wins that you hunted with in different areas. Just overall learn that property, spend time there in the off season, during the season, and just become a student of the property. Learn that that
piece and analyze. I can't say that enough. Analyze and analyze, analyze, and then from there, you know, after that first year or maybe two years, depending on how much time you got to spend there, break down you know, all that knowledge that you collected, and create a game plan. My first thing I always look for is how do you access the property? Access is key to keep pressure off the wildlife.
Yeah, I think that's that's a great point. Another thing I'd be thinking about too, And I like your point about learning right, Like you don't need to rush into this. Let's just focus on like figuring out what's the what's
our baseline, what are we starting with here? A really important part of that is to not just look at what's on your property, but also look what's in the neighborhood, so kind of zoom out and you know, literally you can zoom out by looking at an aerial map and zoom out, or you know, just drive around the neighborhood, or when you're hunting your place or when you're out exploring your place, you know, look at what's on the neighbors What are they doing over there? What do they have?
Look on your map, see what kind of habitat is over there? Drive around the back roads, watch, you know, as you drive by and see, okay, what kind of habitats here? Is there? Lots and lots of food? Is there lots and lots of cover? Is there water around anywhere? Is there you know, anything that's that's operating as a sanctuary or is everything getting hunted by all my neighbors try to figure out, like what's the what's the whole, like, what's the what's the missing link, what's the rare thing
around here. Yes, oftentimes, if you can figure out what is rare, what's missing, what's the thing that deer want that's not readily available in the area, if you focus there first, if you provide the thing that's missing everywhere else, you can start to have a disproportionately positive impact on your whole region. So, you know, example of that would be if you are in an area that's got tons
and tons of agriculture. It's just like let's say it's like northern Ohio or something like that, where there's just lots of open farmland and you have let's say forty acres and you're thinking, well, you know, I want food plots and I want food and stuff, and so if you go that route, well you're kind of adding more
of the same. But if you sit and you look at you see like all your neighbors are wide open farm fields, and you instead decide to add cover to your property, all of a sudden you become the only cover in town and that has a huge impact.
Then.
So that's that's one thing to think about. That's not all is the thing that you want to do first, but I think it's an important thing to think about, and that can help you set priorities. Those those kind of lowest holes in the bucket where the water's leaking on. If you think of like that metaphor, you got to plug that hole first before you can fill it up the rest of the way, And that's a that's a
thing to be considering early on. I think another thing to your point of analysis, run trail cameras a lot to get a sense of what deer doing and how they're doing it. Do your soil tests like you talked about, even go out there with like your like the seek app or different things like that, and start identifying, like what are the plants here, What native species do I have? What invasive species do I have? Just start building that baseline understanding of what's here, and then you know that
leads to the ability to the next year. Start saying, Okay, here's what I have, here's what I don't have, here's what's missing. These are my goals, and then you can have like an educated plan versus just willy nilly throwing darts at a wall.
You know, Yeah, a lot of guys you can you know, I've noticed they'll they'll want to everyone's excited. You buy that piece of property. You want to get out there. You want to start doing habitat work, and that is a big mistake in my opinion. You want to stay, you want to analyze learn that property. To talk on
your point a little further is meet the neighbors. Maybe as you're driving around, meet those neighbors kind of see, you know, are they warm welcoming to talking and seeing how you guys could collaborate and maybe create connecting habitat between both parcels and work together. I think that's another key approach, is meeting the neighbors and trying to get on the same page. Because we always know that we buy forty acres and then the next forty acres comes
up for sale, you want to buy that. So you're always trying to expand and go bigger, while capital could be a you know issue. So if you meet the neighbors, you can extend your property in a sense because you're working together and you're both creating better habits.
Have Yeah, good point. There's another question from somebody else that's very closely related to this. They just asked about what some realistic first year goals could be. But if we're if we're if we're saying, like, hey, the first year, you might not want to do any real big projects. You just want to learn. So let's let's fast forward to now our first year of like actively doing stuff. We've had time to assess the situation, We've had time to learn the property, meet our neighbors, do some of
this baseline setting. Now it's like time to get your hands dirty. You've got your first year ahead of you of doing work. Like you said, we all want to like change the world in a day. What would be a realistic goal or two or set of goals for that first year of work? What kind of things or what level of work do you think is reasonable to expect and year one of that.
Depending on the composition of the property, say you have a say, are nice mature hardwoods area. I generally like to start with logging that puts money in the in the landowner's pocket, and that that can also set forward the improvement of the land, So creating some more of that early succession, encouraging additional browse before you do a timber harvest, though you want to make sure you're analyzing
invasive species. So if I was to say, start with number one, analyze invasive species, use different plant apps to id invasive species, because you could go on there and log that woods and next thing, you know, you got a fourth floor of honeysuckle, which is a whole nother battle that most of us don't want to get into. Unless you have heavy equipment, it can be a job.
And so I would say, manage invasive species, learn and identify those, and then I generally really truly like to start with a timber harvest, get some of that mature timber down, create some early successional growth, and increase that brows and side cover for all wildlife and generally that starts everything under goodfoot.
Yeah, this perfectly ties into another question, and it's a large topic. But someone asked, you know, just for our thoughts on managing for native habitat and why that's important versus, you know, just letting what's out there do its thing, letting the invasives go. Can you give me your you know, what's your pitch to somebody on why trying to promote native vegetation versus invasives is worthwhile. Why is that important in your view?
Well, natives certainly are more desirable for the wildlife, all wildlife, not just dear. You know, we have turkeys that use the insects that feed off those native plants, the butterflies that use those flowers that pollinate certain tree species that we we end time planting your apples and pairs your bees. Everything is really, in a sense, in the ecosystem working together. So the more you can encourage your microlease ecosystem call it on your parcel of property, the more you can
manage that in a native way. Everything generally works together, and it's much more desirable for the wildlife. Invasive species are invasive, Brewer reason. They can overtake the native habitat and completely change the landscape quicker than man can with mechanical tools or by hand. So making sure that you know you're identifying those native species and taking care of
them is very important. And also you know, going into the local NRCS office and utilizing the resources there that at all of our fingertips learning those species, seeing what programs are available to encourage native habitat and also manage the invasive species.
Yeah, are there government programs that will help help fund dealing with invasives, or can get you assistance to come out there and help remove some of that stuff or manage that. Is that anything that you've looked into that's available.
Yes, and it does vary across county. But I would recommend any land on or go into their local NRCS office FSA office and talk with the staff there and see what programs are available for their area and different and property. Because, for instance, our Hillsdale Farm has a lot of desire for the copper belly water snake, which is an endangered snake here in southern Michigan. So we've utilized some of the money available to encourage better habitat
for the copper belly water snake. We've added wetlands on our property. Very cool, so that so funding comes from some of that invasives from some of those endangered species as well to remote good habitat.
Yeah, that's great. I read a book recently called Nature's Best Hope by Doug Tellomy I think his last name, and it was one of the best things I've read to help me just understand the importance of the native vegetation and how much more beneficial that is than the invasives. And you know what he really emphasized, and what makes a lot of sense, is that the health of an ecosystem and the productivity of an ecosystem, so like how much wildlife your back forwardy can produce, it's all dependent
on the interactions between all the different species. And so you've got plants that deer depend on, right, So if you want a lot of deer, and if you want big deer or whatever it is, or if you want a lot of grouse, or if you want turkeys, you need the right vegetation and you also need the right insects because insects are providing food for many of those bug species that are pollinating the plants, propagating them, continuing
them to grow. And so if you want the turkey, if you want the grouse, you need all that kind of stuff too. And so what he emphasized that you need to look at each different layer of the food chain of the network. And there are many specialist relationships within an ecosystem between insects and plants or pollinators and plants.
And what you have when you have invasives come in is you have invasive plants that take over an ecosystem that insects do not have a relationship with, and so you'll have a whole bunch of plant life that a whole bunch of the native insects can't feed on, or can't pollinate, or can't interact with, and so you lose a lot of those insects that are important praise dicas for all sorts of birds, they're important prey for turkeys, they're important prey for all sorts of stuff. And then
that causes this trickle down effect. So if you want to have a lot of caterpillars and a lot of insects and all the stuff that all your birds want to eat and that you know are then going to continue pollinating the right things in your area, you need to have the native stuff that these species have evolved
alongside of. And so that's why you know, when you get a whole bunch of honeysuckle, or you get a whole bunch of autom olive or whatever it is, and you think like, oh, that looks a good deer cover, Well it might be in the short term, but that is negatively impacting everything else that in the long run negatively impacts your deer herd and all the other birds
and species out there. So yeah, I think it's important to try to emphasize the native vegetation as much as possible to not introduce something that's invasive and non native. Great point on connecting with the NRCS on government programs. There's a question from someone asking how to find information about the best native plants for your area. Curious what your answer to that would be if you have any other ideas. But there is one resource I found called
the Native Plant Finder. It's a program by the National Wildlife Federation and it's the link is Nativeplantfinder dot NWF dot org. You go to that website, you punch in your zip code for wherever your property is, and it will show you the top flowers, the top grasses, the top trees and shrubs, as far as native plants for your area that support insect life and all the other stuff that depends on it. So if you do that, you're getting all the other benefits. So like something like
like oaks are a top native in my area? Of course many places, yes, And they're great as we all know because they produce mass. But they also are one of the most important trees for producing and housing insects. They're one of the very most important places for or caterpillar production, which caterpillars feed the line's share of birds at certain times of the year, So super important for all sorts of reasons. So oaks are a big one
by me. Golden rods really good, sunflower is really good, loupine, violet, geranium, willows, beach plums, cherries, birch, aspen, maple, box elder, all sorts of stuff. You can go to that website, plug in your zip code, get some recommendations there. You mentioned the NRCS office in your neck of the woods. Is there any other resource you'd recommend for folks to go to to start getting some of this information.
I haven't found any any valid other resources other than the NRCS FSA office. You know you could you could generally reach out and try to find different groups you know that are focused on native ecosystem restoration projects in your area. Be a great learning resource. But I would say that the best recommendation from myself would be your
nr CS. Their local They're very educated on the native plant species and that specific east of ecosystem within that county, and I think getting this close down to the area that you're in with your native plant communities is very key because you know, you could say Michigan natives and that's a large area versus zeroing it down right into your local county area is the best for ecosystem management.
Yeah. One more on this line of thinking. Somebody asked, in what situation would you consider honeysuckle good or bad for deer? Is there any situation in which you would say is good?
This is a tough question. Yeah, I would say honeysuckle is good for deer when it's anywhere from eight inches to two feet tall, where they can browse that and eat that new growth, because it does leaf out before any other plant or shrub and as well as it loses its leaves last, so it's it's great from that point. It's nutritional. It does provide some automolive does provide nitrogen into the soil, so it is a nitrogen fixator. But
there's not too many pros of it. If you can, if you could mulch that down and manage it in a way that it doesn't get over three to four foot tall where it starts getting above the deer where they can they can reach to browse I would say anywhere lower than that is beneficial. As soon as it gets to that eight to ten foot range, plants underneath start to die off and the diversity has then lost.
Yeah, And is that the big knock? Like, the big reason honeysuckle is such an issue is because it's so it can so quickly take over an area that it can just, you know, just completely push out all of the native stuff that's really good for all sorts of things for long periods of time, and then it then matures the way you're talking about and then eliminates all value. Is that the big issue?
Yes? Well, and you were mentioning the importance of birds, and birds love honeysuckle berries. So as soon as that bird eats that berry, it goes and sits on that limb of the oak tree and decimates down and there's an opening opening in the canopy for sunlight to hit that that honeysuckle is sprouting. And then as soon as that takes off and starts to grow and gets mature,
everything underneath the diversity is completely lost. So it is very important from a management perspective to make sure that you are either eradicating it or managing it in a way that it's still beneficial for the wildlife.
Okay, speaking of birds, got a question here about turkeys. You've probably been seeing the same reports I have over recent years about declining turkey numbers in certain parts of the country. There seems to be this rising concern about what for a long time was a was a smashing success of a wildlife restoration story when it comes to bringing turkeys back, and all of a sudden like people are like, Eh, we're worried again about it. So someone here asked, you know, what can we do that helps
deer but also greatly benefits declining turkey populations? Is that something you've got any ideas around? Are there any specific projects or types of work that you think would be particularly useful to help turkeys too?
Yes? Absolutely, using those chainsaws, getting out there doing tim or stand improvement. Also, logging logging is a great way to create some of that side cover for those birds to get up under those tops. Post logging and nests. So having that side cover and brushy ecosystem is key for turkeys as well as other wildlife deer. In particular, having that early successional growth is very valuable for turkeys inside cover to reduce the amount of predation on those young poles.
Yeah yeah, I looked into this last year for a writing project and was trying to understand, you know, where, where are the real challenges for turkeys, what's the issue and most everything, The biggest culprit was a reduction in nesting and brooding habitat. Just like you mentioned, we really need to have that quality nesting and brooding habitat, which is like early successional growth three feet or lower grasses, shrubs forbes. You need that kind of safe area and
then also productive you know, insect population, insect growth. And then finally, an important thing that I read a couple of places was that when it comes to turkeys, having multiple regions like this is beneficial versus having just like
one pocket. So if you've got forty acres, it would be better to have at least according to these sources that I read, it would be better to have multiple pockets of this kind of habitat, like four or five half acre zones like this or an acre zone like this versus just one because you would have predators zeroing in on just that one location all the time and being able to sweep it clean and pick up those
polts versus having that spread out across your property. So multiple areas of early successional habitat that give you that brooding and nesting habitat seems to be a good thing for turkeys.
Diversity, diversity, diversity, Yeah, that is spreading out those areas of early succession. Like you said, that's some of the concerns. You see, Guys will go out and they'll they'll clear cut a whole area, you know, of their property, and that's the only thing that that wildlife use it is that one particular area. So you got to have certain pockets of different management techniques to help ensure the health
of wildlife. Have an areas where it's not too dense on the forest floor that they can feed on those acorns versus not find those, you know, and those are definitely key points.
Yeah, here's a unique one. This guy says, I just bought a home on fourteen acres. There's about eight acres of woods and six acres of yard with a pond. I'd like to add a food plot or some kind of wildlife holding habitat to my grass acreage. What would our suggestions be for turning some portion of that six acre yard into better wildlife habitat. What would you do with a big yard, Kyle.
Well, I don't like to spend time on the lawnmower, so I would most likely kill off that grass that's currently exists and plant either some grasses and forbes to create some of that again early successional habitat, some trees shrubs, creating that cover as well as forage at different times of the year, and really analyzing because that eight acres
of woods is key. Depending on his location, you know, if he has surrounding habitat, it might not be as key, but if he has fields surrounding him, staying out of that woods and really making it desirable for wildlife is key to hold those on your property. If you can go in there and leave that area alone, cut some of those you know, non desirable trees out of there or shrubs, add more brows to the forest floor, and then keeping that area low pressure, and then adding in
the diversity throughout the yard. That probably that would be my approach to that property without knowing the surrounding area.
What does that look like like like walking me through the actual process of killing the yard and planting this blend of grass as forbes whatever other stuff you would do, like how does the guy do that?
Well? Step one would be killing the grass. You know, if you're opposed to the chemical use, you could till multiple times and then call a pack and then I highly recommend no till drilling in the natives. That gets your best seed to soil contact. You could broadcast, but it's very difficult when you had a mix of forbes into that native plant community. So the forbes are more of a fluffy seed, so it's very hard to get those to run through like for instance, an earthwayte spreader.
So that's why I always recommend, you know, no till drilling. If you can back to those NRCS offices, they generally have a trill there that you can rent if you have a tractor or other equipment to pull that. So either spraying that grass and killing it or tilling it multiple times to break up that root system, and then no till drilling in the native grasses and forbes. If you were to just plant safe for instance, switch grass.
A lot of guys like switch grass recover in smaller areas as it grows tall and it stands real well when when it comes to the heavy west snow here in the Middlewest, so that you could call pack once and then broadcast the seed and then call pack again. That way, you're ensuring that that switch grass seed isn't getting too deep in the soil.
Yeah, yeah, I like the idea, And that would definitely be along the lines of what I'd be thinking of doing too, I think I would. You know, so we've got he has a six acre yard, and so we'll say, like the front acres around his house, so we'll let him keep that. So I've got five acres to work with, and he wants to make this you know, I'm assuming he wants to be able to hunt this place too, right,
And so I would I would say. The only other thing I might suggest is he like, yeah, do you can have a food plot and they have your acre food plot or whatever half acre food plot, but you know, strategically place that in a location where you can access it without spooking deer and then also you know, be able to get out of it. You know, if you want to hunt the edge of that food plot for an evening hunt, make sure that you're setting it up in such a way that you can exit heading back
towards the house. Without having spooked deer and or be able to hunt your timber without spooking deer feeding on the food plot. So thinking about your access when you place that food plot, and then the rest of it would be what you just described. I would plant that prairie native grass, forbes flowers, whatever, get that you know that's going to get us the early successional habitat that deer want, the turkeys want, that all the birds and
critters want. And then using something like you mentioned switch grass or you know, to help me get by a year one, maybe I would do something like a like a sore gum or something to create a screen. Because the one thing I would be worried about in a yard situation is like, how do I make sure that deer feels safe coming out and feeding or hanging out here in the daylight without being spooked by whatever I'm doing or my kids are doing behind the house or whatever.
So I would try to create some kind of screen to block off the house or neighbors from you know, these wildlife attracting spots. So the long term solution would be like a switch grass screen or some kind of native grass screen if you can find one that will be tall and hold up well, or plant conifers if you can find something like that. I know there are some willow species that can grow very quickly and create a visual screen. That could be something to think about.
But I would I'd be thinking about how can I screen. So what I imagine is is somehow screening the food plot or screening the main area that I want to be able to hunt from the from the house. And then inside of that screen is where I want my prairie and my native grasses and all that stuff. And then you can have your food plot tucked in there that gives you your little attraction point. And then you've got your timber behind that that could be your main
betting area or whatever. And so you've got these layers of habitat. You've got this diversity of habitat. But most important, I think is like providing a sense of security for them.
Ye, very good point.
Severity, I think that helps, Yes, Yeah.
And back to the food plots. I when I'm designing a property layout, I always try to keep in mind that I'm improving the habitat to the point where those food plots are simply supplemental food sources. The deer and wildlife are only using those when they absolutely need it, and they you know, they also can depend on those for different times of the year when things get tough, whether it's super cold, the snow gets deep, or it could be dry at different points of the year.
Yeah, all right, So Kyle, I've got another follow up question that's that's similar to that someone had asked about the best method for restoring or reforesting and old hayfield or pasture. You know, basically how to add cover to an old field. Would you have basically the same answer as to what we just said somebody should do with yard or is there something different we could do in this old field type situation?
Yeah, I would, I would take a little different approach. The local NRCS office could could potentially cover some of the costs of the re establishment of that old pasture. If there's invasive species out there, they could, you know, help give you some money to subsidize the cost of remediation work, whether it's removing those invasive species or establishing that prairie. They generally will help subsidize the cost of the establishment re establishment of prairie in those areas that
have been used for agriculture. Previously.
Okay, do you think that there's any value two. You know, in the last question we talked about, you know, planting native grass as forbes, all that kind of stuff to try to transform the yard into something useful. One thing I thought with like an old field situation is that you might not want to rush into planting something because there might still be native seeds in the seed bank.
If you were to just you know, disturb the pasture by disking it or spraying it or burning it, and then just seeing what's in the seed bank, see what naturally comes up, and you might actually get some good native growth that you want that would achieve this stuff for you. And then maybe then all you have to do is spot treat a few invasives here and there, plants some trees wherever you want it. But that might be a cheaper way to kind of use what nature's
already given you. I recognized in some cases you might do that and then it's all nasty, non native stuff that you don't want, So it's a hit or miss. But is that a reasonable possibility to do in this situation.
Absolutely. Yeah, that's a great way of kind of reclaiming that old pasture. One thing I would recommend in conjunction with that is getting on Google Earth and going back to the earliest aerial imagery of that area and kind of playing that tape forward to see if you can recognize any remnants of native prairie throughout the time. Depending on some of the maps, you can go as far back as the nineteen fifties and replay that all the
way to the current day. So that would give you a good idea whether there's potential for existing native prairie in that old pasture area.
That's a cool idea. Okay, here's a question that I can relate to you. I have this situation up at our Northern Michigan deer camp. Actually, the question is I can hold doze on our property year round, but Bucks only seem to come around during the pre run. What can I do to get Bucks to spend time on my property all year round versus just for that little window.
What do you think of That's a tough one. It's one that could, you know, be answered in a few different ways. It could be one too many dos. That dose could be congregated the desirable areas of habitat on the property. Dose generally like that healthier ecosystem. They need that nutrition for feeding the young and taking care of the new fawns for the spring. So they need a lot of nutrition that does generally gravitate towards better habitat from what I've analyzed. And also, you know, it could
be a back to too many doughs. If you have too many dos, it will push out those bucks and cause them to go stay stay on different properties throughout the times of the year. Obviously during the rut you're going to have those bucks in their chase and after
those dos because they're commingling at that point. So that would say, you know, I answer that in two different ways, either too many dos or that the ecosystem has improved in small areas, and that means you could probably go through the rest of the property and improve that to help spread out that populations of dos and create less density in different areas.
Yeah, so I thought about it in two ways, and kind of similar to you. I think that one of the things that absolutely could be would be the too many dos in that like bucks, especially mature bucks, are like grumpy old men. They want space, they want to be left alone, they want to feel safe and comfortable in their old routine, and they need to have safe,
secure betting areas where they can get those things achieved. So, if you've got a place that's just overran with does and every nook and cranny and there's not a lot of good security cover and betting opportunities, you know, a mature buck just might not like to spend very much time there and so and so that's one thing. So I guess there's two three ways you could do this. One reduce the deer density. If you're in a place like that where it's just like tons and tons of deer.
You know, Jeff Sturg just likes to call us a dough factory, So if you are just pumping out doughs all year round, maybe you need to reduce the dough density some so that you open up more of these areas for bucks to live the life they want to live. Secondly,
you could increase your bedding cover. Maybe it's just the fact that you don't have a lot of good security betting cover, and if you were to increase that, then maybe you can create these spaces where a buck will feel safe, will feel comfortable, We'll have the separation from the rest of the herd, that he wants, so that could help. And then finally, you know, the second abtraction of a of a habitat or of a property is is there the food that bucks are going to want?
And so if you have a property that just you know, and I guess if you've got does, then you have your basic criteria mat from a deer attraction standpoint, because
there are does hanging out their feeding. But what I'm thinking here is like, for example, up in a kenra or deer camp, prior to doing the work we had and even now still to a degree, we have some food, We have lots of cover, although it's not like perfect cover, but we have lots of cover, a little bit of food, and it's been enough that we can get dos to hang out there consistently. But the bucks are not there consistently yet, and I think that's because there's just not
enough to go around. And so the only time they really are willing to come onto this still subpower property that's like just not quite right yet is they're willing to do that during the rut because there are females there and so that's a starting point. But until like there's lots of food and lots of cover. I don't necessarily see them taking up shop there year round. So I kind of think about this as like, oh, I don't know, like a a bad analogy, but like a
really creuddy bar. If there's a really credit bar and I'm a college student, I might be willing to go to the really credit bar at three in the morning when i'm you know, trolling and trying to meet a gale. But like, I'm not going to go to the really credit bar at eight o'clock or nine o'clock and spend four hours they're just hanging out with my buddies because it's not that much fun. There's not that much good
stuff there. I'm only going to go there when I'm desperate at the end of the night and I've had a couple of beers, right So that's kind of what I'm imagining my you know, our property might be for deer right now when they're desperate once it's the rut and they're just looking for anything anywhere, they're willing to come over there and hang out. I need to transform my property into like the really nice place where they where people want to start the day and end the day.
I'm not quite there it's it's a work in progress still, and I'm imagining that could be a scenario which you could which you could see this kind of thing happening.
Yeah, that's a that's a great analogy. I was actually thinking as you were talking. I kind of use this reference many times during consultations. Is you want to treat your property kind of like a hotel. You have a pool where everyone will congregate, all the families will come down there, they'll swim for the afternoon. You know, seven eight o'clock rolls around. You have that mom and dad and two kids that go back to their hotel room generally is on the first or second floor, depending on
the hotel type. And then you get those private suites where it might be a mom and dad's night out and you know you're just alone and you want that higher quality sleep, not not as much noise here on the top floor. That kind of goes to that mature buckbed. He wants that area where not getting disturbed, you know, he can be to himself. And then those dose are where the families are at. They're in the more congested areas where the food. They're closer to the food, they're
closer to the pool. You know, they're kind of closer to everything because they're nursing those young, they're keeping them protected, and they want to be close that way. They're spending a lot of energy getting to and from food sources and taking care of the young. As we all know, taking care of kids requires more energy, so that means they need to be closer to the food and good cover to reduce the predation on those young fawns.
Yeah. Yeah, I feel like we're knocking the metaphors out of the park right here, so I think it's a good place to wrap it up as we've hit our sweet spot of literary metaphors and whatnot. So with that said, Kyle, good stuff. We tackled some good questions here. I appreciate you helping out with this. Thanks for taking the time today. Thank you for the help up at our place up north. We're excited about the progress for seeing there and oh
a lot of that to you, so thank you. Hey guys, Mark here, just a quick heads.
Up, we had a little technical difficulty at the end of this interview that ended up leading to the end of our conversation being cut off. So apologies for the abrupt ending, and I also want to let you know that if you want to learn more about Kyle or contact him about consulting or actual contract work out on your property, you can learn more or get a hold of him at dreamland wildlife dot com.
All right, and that's gonna do it today. Thanks for joining us, Thank you for tuning in. If you're a habitat guy or garrel, I hope you get out there and enjoy these coming weeks and months of habitat season, improving early successional habitat, or managing your timber or preparing food plots, you know, creating new prairie habitat, whatever it is, it's great. It's good to get your hands dirty, get out there in the land and give back. So I'm
happy you're doing it. I appreciate it, And until next time, stay wired to hunt.