No More Wind Free Range Sessions
 

My rifle range - before & after.

This is what the 300 yard rifle range at our hunting club lease looked like up until last week.



And this is what it looks like now, after a clear-cut of about 100 acres of our 900 acre lease.

That is a big difference! One question though. Where is your backstop?
That sort of looks like the reclaimed strip mine areas I shoot at up in PA.

It's difficult to tell from those pictures. But there's a gentle upward slope starting at the 50 yard mark and extending the length of the range out to the tree line seen in the second picture. That tree line is 340 yards from the bench. Most shots bury themselves in the soft sandy loam just beyond the targets. If there are any ricochets, the backstop is the tree line. It's all private land and our lease extends another 500 yards beyond that tree line.

wow thats a huge change of scenery.

I hate seeing clear cuts after I get used to hunting a certain area. But the amount of bucks you will see in 2 years on that clear cut will be amazing. It will be a deer salad out there soon.

You're right deer655. We're really excited about the cut. The herd on our lease was declining over the last five years as trees matured in much of the area. Then two years ago they did a "3rd Row" thinning cut on about 150 acres of the lease. Then last year they did another thinning cut on another 100 acres. In both instances we noted an increase of forage, thicker understory, and and increase in the deer population. Now with the clear cut we're going to see a real population bump over the next five years or so.

Thats the plus for sure. But DANG... why'd they have to do the section where your range is :(

Will they replant in rows, or just let it grow up? I assume rows for future harvest.

Yep definitely changed the landscape

Don't know the planting plans yet WV. They usually row plant.

This may be true in some cases, but we have a land owner who had the cut under growth killed off!!! Since this was done our deer have cut paths going around these areas.

As for me, my lease is mostly wet lands and what is dry is too small an area to harvest the lumber. I hope.

Our problems here in Virginia is that the price of hard wood lumber has gone way up!!! Once we loose the hardwoods and have them replaced with pines the area isn't the same!!