Sorry guys but I need to vent. Our lease consists of 4 tracts of land. Each tract is roughly 250 yards wide at the front and about 75 yards wide at the back. All 4 are just over a mile deep. The 4 tracts from left to right are #1 hardwoods, #2 four year old cutover, and #3 & #4 are two year old cutovers. We were told #4 would be sprayed, burned, and planted in pines. This was going to be a good thing. Today we found out #2 and #3 would be burned also with #2 being planted in pines. My best , most established food plot is on tract #2!!!!!! I went down today only to find that it along with the rest of that tract had been sprayed with herbicide. What was a beautiful plot of clover full of deer signs a couple weeks ago is now wilted and dying. We talked to the company who is doing the work and were told they would begin burning between September 1rst and the 20th. Opening day of bow season is the 13th. That will put me replanting the plot the end of September.

I was really excited to have such a nice plot to hunt over this year. I' ve got what will be a 4 year old buck that I' ve watched since 2001 that probably won' t be there this year due to the lack of cover now. The only good thing is it will be at least 15 to 20 years before anything else will be done on this lease.

For all of you out there that own land instead of leasing, consider yourself extremely lucky. This will be another hunting season ruined by the landowners that I lease from.

Sorry to blow off so much steam but I do feel a little better now.

Shane

REALLY SUCKS!!!!

But - the 4 yr old deer is still there - and thats what its all about - You' ll still have a memorable season - hopefully a very memorable one - and thats what matters.

Start making plans for the next plot - Ask the Lease Co. - " where you went wrong" - and hopefully gain something from the experience.

good luck

It sounds like they' re changing their plans year by year based on tree regeneration and the amount of cutting that took place. I' m not familiar with leases but couldn' t you get something in there to at least protect the present growing year against the company changing their minds?

Dan O.

Each individual tract is owned by a different person in the same family. The company I spoke of in the first post is the company hired by the landowners to do the burning and replanting. The landowners are brothers and sisters who basically despise each other. I' m suprised they discussed planting the land in pines. Normally they wouldn' t have anything to do with each other.

As far as the hunting season this year, there' s not much chance of salvaging anything there. I would be overlooking about 70 to 80 acres of 8 inch tall pines. The deer aren' t just gonna wander out in the middle of it. The cutovers had just become a bedding area and the deer traveled through them constantly. The thing that bothers me the most is now I won' t have anywhere to take my 8 year old son. I killed 2 deer last year while he was with me and we were expecting it to be even better this year.

Well, I' d better get off of here for now. The boss is due in any time.

ballastictip, sorry to hear of your loss, but i have to ask this, is there anything preventing you from HUNTING, not just sitting in a blind and waiting for a deer to come by a planted plot? i am not trying to sound snotty, but under qdm so much of what i have read seems to take the hunting out of deer season, where we become baiters sitting in a blind overlooking a food plot or bait pile. your deer will still be there, go out and find them, if there isn' t anything preventing you from hunting adjacent property. plus, you still have one tract on your own lease to hunt, too. deer probably travel through it, even if the property is being burned.

VT, you would almost have to see the land to understand the layout. If they do a thorough burn the area of the property I hunt on will look like a nuclear missle hit it. There will be about a 30 square acre area of absolutely nothing with my best stand right in the middle. The only wooded tract is divided by a road bed where we all park. We also have a camper parked in the wooded section. All four sides of our lease are bordered by other hunt clubs.

The one big plus in this situation is the fact that I will have more food plot areas than I will know what to do with. Now on to that question.

Last season my son and I saw over 40 deer and only took 2 of them. Neither of them were in the food plot. The reason I plant the food plots is to give the deer the nutrition they need to be healthy and produce larger racks. Yes, I do feed some corn during the winter months but rely on the food plots for a quality winter food source while other foods are scarce. With 3/4 of our land being cutover the deer have all they want to eat during the spring and summer but there' s very little for them to eat during the winter. Since we started the food plots we have seen a definate increase in the health of our deer.

i think your title says it all, i feel for ya. that does really stink!

I feel your pain.Paper company likes to show up and start logging opening week of bow season[:@][:@][:@]

CB