Clear Cutting by Timber Company
 

Just found out that my hunting club is getting heavily cleared/thinned before the season. At least 20 people and their spots will be effected. I just got done hanging and setting everything up. Now I have to find a way to get everything back down before they cut and clear. They will not hesitate to cut and destroy all the equipment. I'm very disappointed and frustrated. Especially when my feeders are 20-25ft high hanging from a tree and just filled them both up (300lbs of feed total). I know one spot I hunt is getting cleared. I'm hoping my other spot is just getting thinned but I doubt it. The only good things there are pockets of oaks which can't be cut that are in my spots. I'm really hoping they get in and get out. Maybe the season won't be ruined but I'm thinking its done for as far as deer. I believe the hogs will come back easier but that's not what I want to hunt the entire year and I hate this to be a waste of 1800 dollars. There still will be good timber around but nothing near me. When Generally clearing that much land how can it effect deer movement?

My dad had our wood clear cut mid 1980's. I had hunted the area since I was a kid and was up set about it but to late to find another place. So opening day of fire arm deer season finds me in my stand. By noon I had filled both my tags with respectable deer. That afternoon I took my mom to my stand and she got a buck also GEES you could see a long ways and the 243's were perfect for those ranges.
Second day my brother filled both his tags from my blind although not in as short of time as mine.
All total for the season 6 bucks were taken from my blind and none less that a 6 point.
I don't mind clear cut hunting at all, doesn't seem to effect their escape routes one bit.


:D Al

The blue boundary is the hunt club. All the yellow is getting cut. The 2 spots I have are outlined in black. You can see the pockets I'm talking about for oaks. I am not able to move to other areas. The entire club is about 4300 acres.

I own 40 acres surrounded by over 20,000 acres of county owned land---was great hunting until county clear cut almost entire area, took out tremendous amounts of oak trees, the only mast crops in the area, after 10 years we have the rthickest meanest area to try to hunt in most places you can not shoot 20 yards with an arrow let alone see far enough for a rifle--yes deer like it but mostly they do not ,move they just browse very slowly no mast crops to hunt ( acorns ) I absolutely hate hunting the area now Best wishes

I would wonder what the logic is to clear cut that much timber, are they planning to sell it in the near future to a developer??
I would be asking questions here?

that said
clear cutting can do both help and hurt things
can be a great time to start planting tree in areas you like for down the road, as it will give new planted tree's a much better shot at taking roots for you , less issues with shading and competing with other things

you can also, add fertilizer and lime, to areas you hunt and they will be preferred
so you can make your own sweet spots better
add in a few shooting houses now will be easier too, ansd you can start working shooting lanes in and then just UP keep them
I;'d be chatting with timber guys to ask them, to help clear some lanes for you too, a couple bucks in cash, will work 90% of the time and save you a lot of leg and back work LOl
as they will have HD equipment on site I gather, a dozer say, will make fast work for you here
you can also use them to make some small clearings for food plots, which will be Awesome for building about !!
as they say either adapt or go under when things like his happen
and also, build it and they will come??
clear cuts will grow back faster than you think too, and provide tons of cover and new browse for deer
remember, deer are browsers by nature, acorns are nice, but there NOT a food source all yr, browse is, and GOOD browse is all they need!

Who owns the land and who made the decision to clear cut all of those areas you show on your map? When does the cutting start and how long is it projected that the company will be doing the work? Will they be there all the way through all or part of the hunting season since that looks like a lot of work to get done and out unless it's a huge company with a lot of human and mechanical resources?

If the oaks remain the area cut will brush out and provide some good habitat down the road in 3 or 4 years. Mature trees normally shade out the forest floor removing any browse. Up here in the North some clear cutting improves the hunting. It will definitely change the deer patterns but funnels created between the cut areas will be gold mines for deer movement and ambushes.

A buddies lease I used to hunt often, had the only timber on the lease clear cut. After a few years (now) the Deer are just passing through. Most of it has turned to thicket. Most of his lease was farmland. maybe twenty acres of woods. The Deer preferred to feed at the forest edge or at the most maybe a hundred yards from the trees.

The thing about thicket is it is usually made up of plants the Deer won't eat or it wouldn't grow that thick to begin with. Good cover but not really a feeding area. Thickets often grow to thick for Deer to move through them well. Good for small game, not really good cover for large ruminates. Hogs use it for cover.

The Deer did eat all of the replanted saplings.

Basically the hunting/management got a lot worse. Instead of choosing from maybe twenty Deer feeding at the forest edge, you have to settle for whatever is passing through. Now instead of harvesting Deer with the overall health of the herd in mind, you take what you can get.

What you have the first couple of years after the clear cut may be OK. Farther down the road, maybe not so good. The edible wild stuff growing after the cut may draw the Deer until it is depleted, then the other stuff takes over.

I hunt allot of old clear cut stuff. It's thick and nasty and the deer are everywhere. it can be tricky finding a place to get a shot though. As for this year... It looks like there's plenty being left around it. So the deer aren't going anywhere. They'll be in there. But their movement patterns will change. If they're done cutting by season you'll still be able to get deer I think.
-Jake

It's a timber company called Rayonier. They do not care about hunters and are in it for the business. They will not tell us when they will start cutting. Usually they cut spring and summer and it usually isn't nearly as much cutting. The guy who runs the club was notified by the company with the map I posted. We have no control of what they do. It would have been nice if they already knew they were going to chop that much before the lease renewed. I think they will start cutting after the holiday, I'm not sure where they will start. They won't tell us anything. Last year they only had a couple machines. I guess it depends on how fast they want to harvest. The club is pretty easily to access and they could have multiple crews going at a time if they wanted. Usually they stop cutting just before the season starts. I know clear cuts are good but just that much is a little ridiculous. The only information I got is that pine and pulp is in high demand and that's why they are clearing this much.

I guess you are at their mercy if they own and control the land. I doubt that they will change a lease to give you any more control than you already don't have! All you can do is get your stuff out of there before they start and hope they finish before the deer season starts so they don't completely ruin this season for you as expensive as that lease costs per person.

Funny!! just the other day I had a Yooper friend tell me several of the UP paper mills are setting idle and many a pulp cutter is off on a forced vacation.


I did get a letter from a timber company that wants to log off the hardwoods at my deer camp property and the cedars.


:D Al

vermont has some pretty strict timber cutting laws but with the high price now paid for softwoods a lot of that has been cut removing needed wintering yards. Up here they are leaving the sterile hardwood stands with no browse and taking the softwood. Luckily they are limited in scope of how much they can cut.

Don't know if this helps or not. The artwork is how my setup was before the logging.

Black X`s were my raised shooting platforms or high seats.
Light green is the border. The Duke owns the other side.
Kind of brown line is where the Deer regularly fed.
Black lines is where the Hogs crossed.

Now after the cut, there is pretty much nothing going on.

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If you don't own the land, not much you can do, if you want to manage land as you see fit, buy it... ;)

Cutovers can be hotspots, deer can't reach much over 3-4 feet high, mature hardwood forest only feed them a few months out of the year whereas a cutover is loaded with low growth plants that deer will eat...

Most of East Texas is Timber Company land. You are at their mercy, as they can do what they want, whenever they want to! It is their property! That said, I am hunting 5500 acres of timber company land. They have been clear cutting and thinning for the last 3 years. Normally, they will not cut on opening weekend, after that, all bets are off!
Also, most of them will not just run over your stuff. They will move it over a few yards or cut around it. Plus, if you catch them "thinning" at the right time, they may just cut you a shooting lane that they did not intend to cut!
All-in-all, over the years, I have not seen that their cutting has hurt the hunting much, if at all!

It helps tremendously out here. Clear cuts and soon after a big fire is prime time for big bucks.

How long does your lease run for? How long are you stuck with the situation after the clear cut or in other words can you move?

Before the clear cut on the lease I hunted, there were two groups of a dozen Deer that fed in the same area on a regular basis. Mostly Doe and young Buck. During the rut, the big Bucks would show up.

After the clear cut, I'd see night feeders foraging through the new growth. Mostly just singles passing through.

The clear cut was near the end of a five year lease. Needless to say we didn't renew and moved on to another lease.

Has happened to me three times now, once was the clear cut, another time a highway right through the middle of a centuries old game trail and the last time some busy farmer moved the creek, which was the border between him, his neighbor and one side of my lease. All three times the hunting went bad or the game just moved to a better area.

My best hunting with my buds, are making drives through 2 year old plus + logging clear-cuts, deer love the thick stuff, browse, cover, hunt them up.

I'm a logger, so after i log/clearcut a county tract off, we go back after 2 years and drive & post. We get plenty of deer. Because of logging the Moose in the New England states made a come back. It works the same with deer as they are browsers also.

While it's unfortunate that the company may affect your hunting this year, I think in the long run it will be beneficial.

I always thought a chainsaw is a deer hunters friend especially in the north country. Mature trees don't provide any food or shelter unless they are nut trees and they don't normally cut those up here. The mountain deer don't get much agricultural feed so they rely on softwood browse. Some timber harvest is always good as long as they don't take the whole mountain.

I can't move until the season ends and people leave the club. I'm stuck with my spots. And I'm not sure I will even renew for next year.

Also with them clear cutting the area it would be a good time to think about where to put some new food plots. After all the trees are gone and the ground in some areas will be easier to access. Our club land was clear cut last year but we saw no decrease in club harvest last year. The deer will return it just means you have to rethink where to put your stands after doing some additional scouting. Time to go to work.

He may not even be able to do what you're talking about since they just lease the land from that timber company. Some places allow things like that and others only allow you to put up stands and hunt.

Clear cutting = sprouts/browes :) Hunt!!

My self I would not give up on the place. Seen to much good happen after timber harvest from select cutting to clear cutting.
One thing you will never know if you give up.


:D Al

The same thing happened to me near P/Cola several years ago. I hunted the Perdidio Wildlife Management Area and always took a couple bucks a year off it. Then they went in and clear cut about 85% to thin out non-native trees. They planted long leaf pines which are the native trees. Last time was there it looked like it should be pretty good now. But they first and second year it looked like a war zone.

It's not that I'm giving up. The spother I have picked are it. If people get out, which I'm sure there so be many. I can then determine a new strategy. But this year my strategy has unfortunately changed since I had everything set up. My one spot will still pan out that's near the swamp. But my other spot may be dead. Time will only tell.

Northern Michigan woods in the fall, A chain saw is an excellent deer call.


:D Al

A chain saw can be a hunters friend BUT NOT CLEAR CUT and entire area thinning is good yes But Clear cut no thiose of you who thinks it is good have not tried hunting large clearcuts after the new growth grows a couple of feet and on its virtually impossible to get an arrow through as it grows a bullet becomes tough also , deer travel patterns drastically change they browse entirely after all mast trees are cut down so virtually no reliable travel patterns before you speak try it for awhile

Clear-cut & thinning are both good. Like i said, i clear-cut county land around Hatfield and we usually leave "mast" trees maybe 1-2 per acre. Anyway I go back to my clear-cuts for many years and we get plenty of deer in my clear-cuts! Deer love clear-cuts?! Especially the Aspen clear-cuts around Hatfield. Do you live around Hatfield, Hatfield Hunter? I was born and raised around here, just wondering because your talking like an outsider, this area survives due to logging and farming, and the deer thrive : )

I own land and hunt the hatfield area since 1972 yea sure I will show you areas completely void of mast trees want to take a walk the majority of areas I have hunted for over 30 years are now void of mast tree,s sure some driving groups get some deer, but most of the guys who have hunted the area have now left for greener pastures also look at the deer kill the past 10 years I rest my case new growth trees thicker than a porcupines back can not get an arrow through no patterns because all they do is browse wherever the walk which also means very little movement then ad wolves yes you are welcome to make a living but Clark county especially has killed once beautiful forests

GJERSY you sound like you make your living harvesting trees that's great its not your fault all the clear cutting---if this is so tell me how many acres of forest land have been cut in Clark county ? I am guessing 15 to 20,000 acres I think others from out of the area would be shocked ! Hey its so good take a drive in the trow mounds area opening morning of rifle season you will not see many cars trucks etc most have quit the area wonder why

Just like i thought you are not from here, i am, and i make a living here like all us local loggers/ farmers and thats why we have so many deer here! Do the math, Clark county has had the top deer kill of all/most counties in Wisconsin the last several years. I get as many deer for the freezer as i need, if you don't like hunting here i can't understand it? I love hunting and working here?

Some hunters????????
Ever hear of shooting lanes?
No Mast trees, what is wrong with doing your part and planting some.
Several years I have had post here, a medium flat rate USPS box of Acorns just for the cost of shipping.




That is about 22 pounds of acorns, a sharp stick to plant them with is all you need.
July first and you think the acorn crop is poor in C Wisconsin. You know any thing about Oak trees?
http://www.motherearthnews.com/organ...z03onzgoe.aspx


Sorry for got the instructions, poke a shallow hole with Sharpe stick drop acorn in and step on soil to close hole.


:D Al

Happened where I deer and turkey hunt this spring. Hunted last fall, pulled stands around Christmas, stayed out (request of the land owner to not go in during winter). Turkey season came and WOW, two PIECES clear cut, one is about 75 yards by 400 yards. EVERY tree gone, tops left in piles. Go through that to a section of wood where he maple syrups, but I've never seen much deer sign. Then to another clear cut section, this one about 150 yards by 400 yards, then into rolling hardwoods (I think the cuts follow property lines as they start/stop on stone walls. )


Where I actually hunted last year (good stand) is about 75 yards inside the rolling hardwoods from one of the cuts. I figure that spot will be a winner this fall!

alley yooper to clear shooting lanes a person would need a chainsaw--slightly illegal--in county or state forests plant an acorn ??? yea I am 61 years old maybe in 75 years I could take advantage of it-----also county land some other guy probably would have a tree stand attached to it anyway gjersy what does not living in area have to do with anything I own land I pay taxes, I have an opinion you sound like paper mill workers from years past yea we polute the air yea we polute the rivers but its our paycheck so what ??

At 61 you need a chain saw to make shooting lanes, sounds to me like you want a shooting high way.


I'm 69 and carry a set of friskers pruning shears on my person to make a shooting LANE every time I go in the woods.
If I run across some thing to big for the pruning shears I return with the Loppers. some times the shears will take care of a lot of smaller stuff.





:D Al

I'm so confused, logging has helped the Hatfield area immensely for deer populations? I've tried and succeeded hunting here for a long time? Hunt the edges as the deer come in to feed on the tender new growth..... pattern them?