WRP/ WRE Question

[loch leven]

I know many of you hunt WRP and the hunting has likely changed as the trees matured. If you could go back and redesign your WRP, what would you have done different to attract more birds and make the hunting better?

[novacaine]

Just a few thoughts as i have designed hydrology on many 1000's of acres and seen them go from open bare fields to 20 + yr of growth.

312 trees per acre is WAY NO MANY TREES...........while they are still small, mow many trails and fire lanes while trees are still small and mowable with tractor. If you wait to long it will take a shredder and money.
NRCS WONT tell you this but they approve a lot of plan modifications 15-20 yrs later for shredding.

Moist soil units that are great early tend to get crowded with trees and natural regeneration around the edges. Keep some of it knocked back.

Management, management,management........its a lot harder to farm for moist soil(annuals) than it is to farm row crop. Its not more expensive, its just more time consuming consuming. You HAVE to be on site to manage water March,April, and May at least once every 2 weeks. This is where everyone falls short. If you live 2 hrs away its hard to make that drive just to eyeball water. Fall discing and periodic weed control (weeds are what a duck DONT want to eat) are key.
Buy a disc and a spray rig. DONT depend on next door neighbor farmer to come manage your place. His priorities are NOT your priorities.
Its a huge investment of time. Dont expect great returns if you dont invest in the time it takes to make it work.
Just my thoughts from observing 100's of contracts from Tunica to Natchez.
You have on this site probably 3 of the best moist soil and management gurus around (Rob, Swag,DanP). They have been around a while,see what they say.

[JaMak84]

I've never understood why there is so much money spent on tree establishment on a perpetual easement anyway. It's not like there's a reason to get in a hurry. The number one priority is waterfowl after all. IMO the largest share of money should be spent on hydrology restoration and it shouldn't be limited to a percentage of the property. I've always been a proponent of finding the highest elevation on the offer and build a perimeter dike around the whole offer a foot higher than the highest elevation. Put pipes in the lows to manage what you can and walk away. Let mother nature do it's thing on the rest.

[novacaine]

I've never understood why there is so much money spent on tree establishment on a perpetual easement anyway. It's not like there's a reason to get in a hurry. The number one priority is waterfowl after all. IMO the largest share of money should be spent on hydrology restoration and it shouldn't be limited to a percentage of the property. I've always been a proponent of finding the highest elevation on the offer and build a perimeter dike around the whole offer a foot higher than the highest elevation. Put pipes in the lows to manage what you can and walk away. Let mother nature do it's thing on the rest.

During the Raymond Callahan days in the 90's...........that was the norm. Walk away and let it go. Then Bob Misso math came into play. They started throwing money on after the fact hydraulic restoration on WRP (early 2000's).
Then it morphed into front end hydraulic restoration.
The problem with dike and let it go is you get that Ducks Unlimited mindset that we spent years fighting. All water is not necessarily good duck water. They would ring an area that only held 6" water and would be solid bull rush (spike beak rush or something, dont know the real name). It wasnt worth a crap for anything except frogs and snakes but DU got credit for "RESTORATION"................i called it bull $#!+ restoration. I argued with them till my head bout exploded.

[bigwater]

That’s good stuff right there bill.
Glad your still here fighting the good fight

[NyssaAquatica]

I know many of you hunt WRP and the hunting has likely changed as the trees matured. If you could go back and redesign your WRP, what would you have done different to attract more birds and make the hunting better?

We enrolled in WRP in 1996, so our oldest trees are coming on 22 years. In our main duck hole, water floods 12 open acres and spills out into the trees for about 50 yards. Over the past 3 seasons, more and more woodies have begun to land in this spillover water. So, now we have a bang-up dabbler and woodie hole, whereas 20 years ago you would have never seen a woodie in there.

Only thing I think we would have done differently is to just let the natural browse propagate. We've blown a lot of money planting jap millet and other crops over the years.