I am planning on clearing some ground for a food plot. I will be clear cutting a fairly open area and removing stumps with dozer. My plan was to do some of the work in May (turkey season). We can hunt til noon and I'd be doing the work in the afternoon. Do you think this would greatly effect my hunting (scare turkeys away)? My gut feeling is that it won't bother much as long as we're not out there late (dusk) when they might be coming in to roost.

I wondered the same thing whenI did a chainsaw cutback on my property last year. I hunted till noon and worked with the saw until about 4 in the afternoon. I did not see a negative effect. Once my wife was with me and we heard a bird a looong ways off and she gobbled at him with her mouth a few times and believe it or not he actually came in to where we were running the saw. Every time I stopped the saw she would mess with him and he came to within 100 yards of us. I called it quits for the day when she got a bird closer than I did with turkey calls! LOL!

If you have doubts why not start clearning earlier than May? Is there a lot of snow on the ground? I don't know, down here in La. we rarely see snow anymore. I like to have all my cutting and work done by the end of Feb. My season opens March 25. I like there to be no disturbance for at least a month before season opens, but that's just me. I'll do more work in the summer and have it all done a couple of months before bow season opens, which is Oct. 1.

On some of my land we have cleared areas for food plots right before turkey season and the turkeys seamed to like the fresshly bulldozed and plowed ground.