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Today’s whitetail hunters have numerous consultants to choose from to help them take their property and their hunting success to new levels. However, there are some big differences between these consultants and as a potential client, you should take a close look at any that you are considering hiring.
Right from the beginning of the process, you will see that Don Higgins is different from other consultants. Don starts by looking at an aerial photo of your property and asking a few questions to get a good feel for your property and your goals for it. While many consultants’ first concern is getting you booked for their services, Don’s first focus is to make sure you are a good fit for what he offers. He wants to make sure that he can offer you something of value before agreeing to take on your project and take your money.
Don will only visit properties during a small window of opportunity in the winter and early spring months. At this time of year, the woods are open and everything is much easier to see and evaluate. He feels strongly that this is the only time of year when any consultant can really offer their clients the best service.
In a nutshell, what separates Don Higgins from other whitetail consultants is his screening of potential clients to make sure they get something of value for their money and his insistence that his visits happen during the best time of year. These things clearly prove that Don has his client’s best interest at heart. Furthermore, no consultant in business today can match Don’s track record for hunting success or the hunting success of his clients.
Don Higgins is the only consultant in business today that has killed multiple wild free-range bucks scoring more than 200” and who also has multiple clients who killed bucks scoring over 200” after his consulting visit. Note: All of these bucks were officially measured by Boone & Crockett scorers!
During the month of October 2021, three of Don Higgins’ consulting clients killed bucks scoring over 200”! Two other clients killed bucks scoring in the 190s and another killed a buck scoring in the 180s. All in one month!
Due to the ever-increasing demand for his services and so many new consultants getting into the business, Don Higgins has assembled what he feels is the best team of whitetail consultants in business today to work under his guidance. Don has personally known each of these gentlemen for many years and selected them for this position based on two primary criteria. First and most important, he had to trust each of them without question as men of integrity. He had to know that each of them would treat every client with respect and be totally honest in all dealings. Secondly, Don had to respect them for their whitetail knowledge and success. He had to know that they could be trusted to offer sound advice to our clients.
Below is a biography of each consultant (alphabetical order) working with Higgins Outdoors. Feel free to contact any of them directly or email Don for a recommendation based on your specific property. One of these consultants should be a perfect fit for your budget and property.
Base Fee – below is a base fee listed for each consultant. This is the typical fee that the consultant charges for a property tour, plan design and follow-up phone/email consultations. Your fee may be more or less based on a number of factors such as size of property and distance the consultant has to travel. Please contact the consultant you wish to hire for a specific quote for your property.
At the age of twelve, Wes Delks, received a trail camera for Christmas that he promptly put out and checked the very next day! To his surprise there were two young bucks fighting in front of the camera and a fire was lit for whitetails that burns hotter with each passing day.
Throughout his whitetail pursuits, Wes has raised captive deer, received his degree from Purdue University in Wildlife Management, performed third-party food plot side-by-side trials, and has written articles published in various hunting and outdoor magazines. Wes is currently the general manager and co-owner of Real World Wildlife Products.
Wes has been blessed to hunt and manage properties alongside Don Higgins for many years. You will hear Wes say that his education from “Higgins University” is the most valuable education he has. Wes truly considers Don to be the best whitetail hunter in the world and is very grateful for the opportunity to study so closely underneath him.
Wes and his wife Madison purchased a farm that lays out similarly to the Higgins farm where they are diligently working to build “Higgins 2.0”. In the winter, Wes travels the country for Higgins Outdoors, consulting on farms, and showing other landowners how to turn their properties into whitetails meccas as well.
Faith and family are most important in the Delk’s household, but whitetails follow closely after! Any chance Wes gets to share about his Savior, Jesus Christ he always takes the opportunity.
There is likely not another whitetail consultant anywhere that can match Don’s resume as a whitetail land manager, success as a whitetail bowhunter, or the success of his past consulting clients. This combination of factors has made Don the most sought-after consultant in business today, bringing in more requests for his services than he can possibly handle by himself.
For nearly two decades Don owned a business as a conservation contractor where he planted literally millions of trees and shrubs on wildlife habitat projects as well as thousands of acres of native warm-season grasses. He owned a tree nursery where he grew both potted trees in greenhouses as well as field-grown trees for digging and burlapping. He owned a captive herd of research whitetails for 25 years where his studies focused on nutrition and genetics. He founded and is still the majority owner of Real World Wildlife Products, a company specializing in food-plot seed blends and deer nutrition products. As you can see, when Don visits a property for a consulting tour, he comes armed with a wealth of knowledge and experience to make any property the very best that it can be.
Mark Luster has been involved with the Whitetail industry for 15 plus years. He started filming and hunting for Drury Outdoors and later was one of the founders of the “Legends of the Fall” TV show on the Outdoor channel. Mark is excited to now be consulting with Higgins Outdoors to help landowners achieve their whitetail dreams on their own properties.
Mark has made a name for himself in the whitetail hunting community by finding and harvesting specific target deer. Mark’s ability to think like a mature whitetail and ultimately use that knowledge against him is hard to dispute! With more than 15 archery whitetails that gross Boone and Crockett, Mark’s method of approaching mature whitetail bucks and the success he has had definitely speaks for itself.
Don Higgins has known Mark for many years and claims that Mark is one of the top-5 whitetail bowhunters alive today. That is some pretty high praise! Without a doubt, Mark will put his knowledge to work to provide you with the best plan possible to help you make your property the best that it can be.
Many will recognize Terry as the co-host of the Chasing Giants podcast with Don Higgins where he doles out solid advice to those looking to better manage their property or kill mature bucks. Terrys strong business sense has been an integral in the growth of Chasing Giants as well as Real World Wildlife Products but his success as a deer hunter has also been noteworthy. Terry was featured on an episode of Whitetail Cribs where the whitetail hunting world got a glimpse inside the world of a man whose priorities have stayed in proper order as he quietly and routinely tagged one mature buck after another.
Besides his home state of Kentucky, Terry has hunted whitetails in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia and Kansas. Due to a full-time job and other obligations, Terry will be limiting his consulting to within 2-3 hours of his home near Dry Ridge, Kentucky. His experience in the hill country of Kentucky, Southern Indiana and Southern Ohio will certainly benefit clients in those regions as he designs plans to help them take their property to the next level.
As a whitetail bowhunter, Bobby has few peers living or dead. In fact, Don Higgins once said that if he were forced to name the best deer hunter on the planet, he would say “Bobby Worthington”. This lofty compliment comes with good reason. Bobby has had more whitetail bucks featured in North American Whitetail Magazine than any other deer hunter hunting with either a gun or bow. To date, he has killed seven bucks large enough to be featured in this prestigious magazine. All of these were taken with bow and arrow and even more remarkable, four of these were taken in Tennessee and four were shot on public ground!
Bobby was a freelance outdoor writer for several years. He wrote for several national outdoor publications on the subject of bowhunting trophy whitetail deer. Some of the publications he wrote for include North American Whitetail, Deer and Deer Hunting and Petersens Bow Hunting as well as many others. Bobby is a very sought-after seminars speaker and has recently spoken on a few podcasts.
Higgins Outdoors is very excited to have Bobby on our team helping landowners achieve their whitetail dreams and turning their properties into whitetail meccas.
If you know which of our consultants you wish to work with, by all means, reach out to them and start the conversation. Their contact info is above, right below their photos. If you are not sure which one would be the best fit for you and your property, just send us an email and we would be happy to make a recommendation – don@higginsoutdoors.com
Tips for hiring the Right Consultant for you and your property
Before deciding on the best consultant for you and your property, be sure to ask a few important questions.
1. Has the consultant consistently killed the caliber of bucks that you wish to harvest?
If your goal is to harvest bucks of a certain age and size, it is important that the consultant you hire is actually killing bucks of that caliber on a consistent basis. If he cannot do it himself, how is he going to help you do it? Would you hire someone to work on the brakes on your car if they had never done it before?
To take this a step further, you should look at how and where a consultant has taken the bucks he has. Can someone with a few nice bucks taken with a rifle really offer pertinent information to someone looking to kill bucks with a bow somewhere else?
Don Higgins routinely harvests and passes bucks scoring more than 150”. In fact he has passed multiple bucks scoring over 170” and has killed numerous bucks scoring from 150” – 214”, all with a bow.
2. Will the consultant go “anywhere” at “any time”?
Some consultants are willing to travel to all parts of the country during any time of the year to meet with clients and tour their properties. This can be a pretty good indicator that the consultant is more interested in taking someone’s money than offering them a quality review and plan for their property.
Our team of consultants realizes and accepts the fact that a much better view of a property can be observed during the winter and early spring months when the landscape is devoid of green foliage. For these reasons we like to limit our consulting visits to that period between the end of hunting season and spring green-up.
3. What do you get for your money when you hire a particular consultant?
When a consultant visits your property what exactly do you get? When one of our consultants visits your property, you will get a marked aerial map and a detailed written plan uniquely designed for your property. The plan will detail suggested habitat improvements, tree stand locations and other relevant notes and suggestions. We keep a digital copy of your plan for reference to answer your future questions.
New for 2023 – Don Higgins has assembled a 50-page spiral bound notebook full of advice regarding land management and habitat projects, deer herd management and lots more. These notebooks are only available to our consulting clients
4. Is the consultant experienced and familiar with government programs and plant species found in your region?
Don Higgins has worked as a conservation contractor for the past two decades and as such has planted literally millions of trees and shrubs on thousands of acres in multiple states across the Midwest. He has also planted hundreds of acres of warm season native grasses and is co-founder of a food-plot seed company, Real World Wildlife Products Inc. Many of these projects were for government programs such as CRP. Don brings the experience and knowledge from these endeavors as he puts together a plan to make each property the very best it can possibly be.
5. Does the consultant have a proven track record with satisfied clients?
Don is likely the only consultant in business today who has harvested multiple wild free-ranging buck scoring over 200” and who has multiple clients who have also killed bucks scoring more than 200” after his visit. Let’s face it; are you hiring someone to come to your property to show you how to use a chainsaw or how to kill mature bucks? Many “experts” and consultants have grand ideas and a great sales-pitch but really, if their ideas are so great shouldn’t they be easily proven with some mature bucks on the ground killed by the guys promoting the ideas. Unproven gimmicks and hype abounds in the whitetail hunting industry.
• Treestand placement with notes on access routes, time of season to hunt, etc
• Sanctuary designation and creation
• Timber Stand Improvement
• Foodplot placement, creation and planting suggestions
• Warm Season Native Grass plantings (specifically designed for whitetails)
• Tree plantings (with suggested species and details)
• Shrub plantings (with suggested species and details)
• Water Hole construction
• Overall hunting/management plan