Think I'm going to be sick
 

My BIL called me a few nights ago and told me he had spoken to one of the landowners we lease from The landowner is doing a selective cutting right before Spring Turkey Season. I have seen all sorts of turkey on this lease in the fall and don't know what it will do to them. I don't even know if they will be through cutting before the season starts.

I understand why the landowner wants to do it now, and I don't blame him, but it is just bad timing.

I have another lease with my BIL so it isn't like I don't have a place to hunt. I have not seen as many turkey on the other lease as the one that is getting cut.

If they get done before season is over you may have the opportunity for some fine turkey hunting. While the dream hunt is in hardwood timber some of the best places to get on birds is in select cut/clear cut. Some of my best hunts I've had to find a brush pile to hide in cause there weren't any trees.

I concur, I hunt a lot in areas that have been recently
Cut---of course if the cutting is still going on---then
That might not be so great. Good luck

Could be worse... I didn't even get a tag this spring.

Could not tell from your post how large the property is. I'd say that if you are hunting a few hundred acres or more, it is likely that the turkey will simply relocate to an area not being disturbed .. and keep moving about as the cutters make progress. The issue that I think is likely the most negative is the effect upon next years crop of birds .... nesting. Once the hens nest, thats it as far as moving. Cutting equipment move in on a nesting area and it would be a miracle if the hen did not abandon her nest, or if the nest was not destroyed. On the up side, select cutting can dramatically improve turkey habitat and next few years should be very good.

Yeah, I was thinking about this earlier this morning and opening it up some might not be bad. If they are still cutting, then write it off . It is a 120 acre area, of which I hunt about 80 of it. I have another 180 acres under lease and another 80 available that doesn't get turkey hunted (BIL's family land) but I haven't scouted it either.

Thanks all for the input!

Well, 120 acres .... if the crew will get after it, they should be out of there in short order.

If they are finished cutting before season you should be fine. I hunt 200 acres, 100 of it mine and 100 I lease from a cousin. She had her property clear cut last year. I was still able to get two longbeards there last Spring.

Really, that would suck bad. So I take it there is a drawing for tags? Glad Mo dont have that crap. So I guess if you want to hunt then you have to go out of state right?

Well, I foolishly applied in two couties (first and second choice) that are near Sioux Falls (my home town) which has roughly 250k residents in the "metro area."

The amount of tags available for either one were a measly 50 tags, so I shot myself in the foot on that one.

Now, if I wanted to drive 5 hours to the hills, I would have had a lot better chance at securing a tag (unlimited resident tags for Black Hills turkey). But, I've got a kid on the way in the next 15 days or so... so a hunting trip was kind of out of the question.

There is a second draw for leftovers, but the counties are a bit out of range, so I basically need to wait until Fall.

Just to give you an idea of the numbers involved... in the WHOLE state of SD, there were ~7800 resident tags available for a state population of 833,000 residents. Of course, not all are Turkey hunters, but if even 1% are... then all tags should be taken.

So, 100 tags for my 250k area, means if .0004% of the population of my area applies, all tags will be gone.

That doesn't even bring landowner preference into the equation...

TL;DR - :violin:

Edit to add: If I still had a bow, I could have had a tag, as those are unlimited as well.

That just plum sucks that a turkey hunter cant even hunt his or her own state just by buying a resident tag. I guess Im spoiled here in Mo, but it seems like the hunters could help make new hunting laws for the ones that left out. It would be hard for me to call SD home if I couldn't hunt turkeys. I know thats a lame excuse but goodness, is the deer hunting like that too? Just hard for this missouri boy to see, b ut I never had too. Come to Mo and I'll hook you up brother

Well, like I said... if I wanted to drive 4-5 hours to the west side of the state, there are unlimited resident licenses for Black Hills spring turkey.

If you want to hunt anything outside of the Black Hills area, it's a drawing.

As for deer... there are many, many more tags available and you'd be hard-pressed not to get one.

If it wasn't for this darn baby on the way, I'd get a lot more hunting done... just don't tell the wife I said anything, lol!

I understand how it is, I'm raising my 6 yearold grandaughter. Its tough to just take off and go when the itch hits ya. Congrats on being a daddy, just wait till he or she gets old enough to hunt, good times. My little one is just now trying out the 410 and loves shooting the 22.

Good to hear... I'm excited, but it's already been life-changing and she isn't even here yet, ha. Thanks for the congrats.

A Deer Lease
 

....is income for the landowner, in between loggings.

They were select cutting an area I hunt a couple of years ago and I thought the birds had left the area till one gobbled at the air brakes on a log truck coming out. Never can tell but don't dismiss it.

Living in Alabama you get use to cutting. The regulations on cutting (I think they are Federal rules) require timber cutters to leave a certain amount of timber per acre. They also have to leave drainage ditches/water sources with a certain amount of timber to prevent erosion.

A lot of the smaller WMA's here in the state have lots of clear cut. The creek bottoms are left in standing timber and that's where the birds roost. They like to feed in the cutover and when the stuff starts to thicken up a bit the hens love it for nesting.

I have hunted property when the logging has been going on - got to admit it did cut some hunts short due to vehicle traffic - but it didn't stop me from whacking a bird or two!

They don't leave the territory at all.......

JW

We had a thinning job done on my cousins land a few years ago.Didn't seem to bother the turkeys or deer.

I have shot some nice gobblers on land that been selective cut. You may find some nice gobblers that still hang out there because it makes good nesting areas. I shot one of my biggest gobblers next to a choppings area.