Trad Gang
Main Boards => PowWow => Topic started by: Mr.Magoo on September 02, 2008, 12:28:00 PM
-
I went out this morning to walk one of my favorite game land areas (I'd been here about 6-7 weeks ago). It's an "archery only" area (only a couple hundred yards deep along a lake); one of only 2 such places within many miles.
I'd spent years in here figuring-out how the deer moved, which trees to hunt from, where bedding areas are. I was greeted with a picture of devastation. The area had just been logged! All the trees I'd hunted from were gone. In fact, almost all the hardwood trees were gone. All that was left were scruffy pine trees. There was so much debris on the ground, you could hardly walk. Every trail destroyed.
The real kick in the head was I found-out our local DNR had a timber sale and did this only a couple of weeks ago. Just a few weeks before deer season opens!
I called the DNR and spoke to the "State and Private lands manager" responsible for the timber sale. I asked him what his thought process was in logging one of our only archery zones a few weeks before deer season opened. I got a bunch of "um" "well" "um". I asked if he'd been down and looked at the job he did. No he hadn't. I asked if they notified the public or took comments before they did this; no they didn't.
He started to tell me how they managed for wildlife. I asked him if they were managing for snakes, since the oak trees and acorns were gone. I got some more "um" "well" "um".
Makes me sick. You think someone who works at the DNR would know better.
This was a nice little bottom section that had some big feeder oaks.
(http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n217/dave27615/pt1.jpg)
This was a little meadow and bedding area where deer would also cross from one section to the next.
(http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n217/dave27615/pt2.jpg)
I still can't believe it.
-
Thats to bad....Dont give up. The deer will still be there. There food source may have changed now that the oaks are gone..It area will "calm down" and the deer will find another pattern. You will pattern them again. I understand your frustration though. Good luck....You can do it!
-
Sorry to hear about that. Absolutely sad. There are times in life when you just have to scratch your head and wonder why....
Mike
-
I know your pain and it's awful, I had the same thing happen to me a couple years ago in southern Ohio. Sorry Bro
-
Many times I have thrown my heart into a patch of land like yours. When something like this happens, I feel all hollow inside. There are more trees there than I had envisioned, it sounded like they had all been taken.
I know that your heart must be shattered, but there is hope. The tangle of treetops are providing free food and cover for the local deer. Look for the tracks.
The openings will provide food once the brush starts growing. Don't give up! Oh, and yeah, you are exactly right...their timing sucks big time, the stupids.
Killdeer :knothead:
-
I'de go out and buy some winter rye and spread it around where I would like to hunt. When it comes up the deer will be all over it....especially in the spot in the second picture. Winter rye is cheap and will germinate in about a week.
-
the place will be hotter than ever shortly.
Let others give up on it...it will be YOUR hot spot.
-
You know, I'd plant trees and forage that feed deer and won't have any timber value. That rye comment sounds like a good start.
Also, talk to a local nonprofit group about possibly suing for lack of an environmental impact report or any public notice. If this is publicly accessible land, and they did that much work in it, then the public was at least in harm's way from the machinery.
And last, I understand your feelings. Yesterday I was told by a warden that I could no longer hunt on a property I had hunted for twenty-five years, since I was eight, and I was just about the only person to ever hunt it. I learned just about every game path on that land, even mapped it when I was twelve, but no more... at least it's not been destroyed...
I'm so sorry for your loss.
-
That area will be hot again in a year or so. Let the ground cover get up about waist high and the deer will be back. It only takes a litte cover for them to feel safe and secure.
-
Ray is right. The cleared area will result in more attractive forage for the deer and the tops left over will be an immediate food source with great attraction. Go out and check it again and I will bet you find heavy deer sign. Either find a usable tree on the fringe or construct a ground blind and hunt it. This is not the disaster you think it is.
-
J,
environmental impact suits and stuff of that ilk only works in California and NY, or for the antis..here in the South we recognize that clearing land through timber harvest promotes the growth of forage plants all wildlife benefits from and uses and consequently we don't see it as a reason to sue, but a reason to celebrate.
-
Ray, you are spot on with the comment about California and law suits of this type. I envy how other states manage their lands since California manages ours based on the politics of emotional arguement and not scientific data.
Mr. Magoo...the comments about that property are valid. Deer will be in there when the ground cover returns. Go back in and scout...set up some natural ground blinds on the new trails you find using the leftover tree tops and limbs the timber company left on the ground.
-
At least it is public and it will regenerate. My problem is about the time I latch on to a real hot spot is the time my client wants to sell. Working for the dollar is tuff but the family needs fed.
-
I too figure it will be better than ever in a few years. I love to hunt the thick places nobody else will dare and in two years you'll have such a thicket going that you will be amazed. Probably briars and all sorts of nasty stuff that will tick you off but the deer will see it as a sanctuary and buffet in one.
Also, every oak and hardwood cut down is still alive under the ground. It will be sending up shoots and suckers like crazy. You could easily end up with more oaks than you had before. Just give it time.
Ive had the same sort of clearing and worse done where I hunt. It takes some adjustment but like others said, if everybody else gets disgusted and leaves, you'll have it to yourself. And ya know what? The deer are still there..... They didn't leave on the back of a logging truck.
-
Well here in IL. our great governor shut down 11 parks and lay ed off 39 workers.
-
Do you hunt in parks in IL, Ranger? We don't get to do that here. Maybe your parks are the same as our WMA's (wildlife management areas)
Our WMA's are the whipping boys of our governors along with the DNR..every time there's a budget cut our stuff gets whacked...and there arent enough wardens now to handle what we have...and the poor guys who have to hunt on public ground are practically shoulder to shoulder here as it is.
-
i had a similar experiance. I purchased 6 acres of land in New Jersey and was pleased to see plenty of large deer within a close distance to my house. All the land around me is private and i have permission to hunt it all!. well right before hunting season 8 large track hoes and front end loaders moved in and they were running 8 tri-axle loads of limestone rocks out of the 40 acre piece behind the house(like 600 feet away)for the next year and a half.well lets say we did not see any bucks for the next year and a half.they were done this past spring and we have bombers around now.Deer react to preasure but they come back justa s quick as they leave. all the added undergrowth will do wonders for food and trees will grow back. good luck this season!
-
Could be worse. :) I drew for a turkey tag on the same lake and had birds everywhere a couple weeks before the day of the hunt.Came over by boat in the dark that day and was surprised to see several campfires burning in the place I was to hunt.When I got to the bank and daylight broke I found they had burned the whole area 3 days before my hunt.The campfires were what was left of the stumps burning off.Birds were gobling all over the park land next to it but there was no way to get one to walk in fire to come to me. :bigsmyl: Hunting public land has it's own challenges at times. :(
-
Hey...That looks like one of my honey holes...I've been hunting on managed timberland tracts for twenty years...A lot of the logging is done DURING hunting season...I guess its weird but I hear loggers have to work during hunting season...It won't bother the deer one bit...it may change their pattern a little bit and the browse generated by the cut will feed more deer than a few oak trees and it will provide cover for years to come...rye is a good idea, too...deer love it...I'll be hunting an area on opening day, that was recently logged and I'll be thankful that I have a place to hunt. Land managers, foresters, loggers, etc. are people too, and they have a job to do. There is alot that goes into planning a harvest that the average person doesn't know about. Actually, if they can get a decent price for the product and quota at the mill, now is a good time to conduct that type of harvest because the residual trees are less prone to damage because the bark is tighter now than in the spring and the ground is drier and less prone to compaction and rutting...
Just my two cents...
David
-
I appreciate the comisseration and the comments. It was too early to cry in my scotch.
Seriously frosts my calvinator though.
For a guy who didn't start bowhunting until his mid-30's, it's taken a lot of work to get a little bit of knowledge base and find a few productive spots.
Back to the drawing board.
-
With all do respect, I think this place looks great. There are plenty of trees and the understory looks thick enough to hold plenty of deer. Deer like those new tree tops on the ground too. And as others have said, it will be even better to come. Heck keep that DNR guy's phone number, you will be owing him a scotch very soon. :-)
Also, sometimes I think we get too invested in one piece of land. It is always fun to figure out a piece of property - sure. But, we start going to the same trees, the same patterns etc. I've been there. Yet when I move on, I always like the new places better and the wanderlust of what's over the next hill is what "hunting" is about (for me).
-
Do not be too upset... When the browse comes back you will kill more deer than ever.
Some of my best bowhunting is over a clear cut logged area. Big time deer browse!!!! It may be slow this first season, but I know the next 4 or 5 seasons will be superb.
John III
-
try having a piece of land 25 years that you managed and grew up and your son grew up on all of a sudden sold and every single tree cut off of it with houses stacked side by side ..used to kill a p&y every year there ...makes me sick..gut
-
You'll get to learn it all over again! That prospect should excite you! The habitat will be better for the critters. More browse, and more cover.
This didn't hurt your hunting area at all. The next 3 to 4 years it should be better!
-
Doesn't look like 'destruction' to me, looks like they thinned a pine plantation. Trees are a crop and their comes a time to thin and to clearcut. Your hunting area isn't gone, it's being managed for a RENEWABLE resource. If you showed me a picture of a mall or parking lot, then I would agree with you. If you are wondering, yes I am in the timber business and yes we have families and need to work 52 weeks of the year like everybody else. Quit crying and go scouting the deer aren't far away!
-
I too have to agree with Ray, they opened up the understory and new stuff will start to grow right away. In a few years it will be great, still plenty to hunt it looks like and as Bill said now ya can do a few plantings to enhance the area. i know it hurts now, but I think you may end up being a very happy camper! Shawn
-
My dad and I had that happen to an area not once but twice over 20 years. First they came in and took all the big pines and then 15years later they came and took the lodgepole. You know the hunting never changed. We still took bucks off of the same trails year after year.
Mike
-
I'm not much of a wise-user kind of guy. In fact I've been known to hug a tree or two. But, my little honey-hole of 20 private acres was logged heavily in the summer of 2007. In the fall of 2007, the deer were still there just as heavy as always and my 10 year old son and I tag-teamed a doe in November. It looks even better this year as the understory is thick and offers the deer more security than ever. It used to be an early-morning/late-evening, catch them between feed and bed transition zone. Now it holds deer all day. I'm looking forward to the youth hunt later in the month to see what my daughter and son can shoot :)
-
Just for a sense of scale, the pines in the first pic are about as big around as your leg (bad cell phone pic).
Anyhow, no it's not the end of the world (though I wish they'd done it earlier or after the season).
As for the "wise conservation" angle. Cutting all the oaks, poplar, hickory, birch etc... and leaving scrubby pines hardly seems to leave the bio-diversity that once was there (though I'm sure it puts more money in someone's pocket). It does, however, give us another "pine plantation"; as my logger friend points out above.
-
I would throw a few bags of full draw seed in those open places since it looks like they didn't plant for erosion control. In a few weeks you will have a food plot to hunt.
-
What Ray and Biggie said. The next 3-5 years you will see more deer there than you ever have. That first picture looks great. There will be a lot of browse growing up where the sunlight is hitting the ground.
It does stink that they took oaks, didn't clean up the mess, and did it so close to the hunting season. It also is not as "pretty" as it was. BUT, you will see and kill deer there. Trust me-We live this life on timber leases in the South.
Since it is public land, be careful planting seed unless you want to draw as many people as deer.
-
Give it a few years and it will be the best spot around especially when the pressure is on you are going to have the best bedding and browsing area around,it happened to a state land I have hunted in Ohio for 10 years the best spot I got noew and nobody hunts it and they cannot drive the deer out during shot gun it is so good I have let numerous P&Y bucks walk and seen as many as 14 racked bucks in 1 morning it will get better. Good luck
-
Magoo,
Have 151 acres I hunt in north central Alabama. It was logged 1 month before season opening. Takes me 12 hours of driving to get there from east central florida.
After hearing of the logging we thought about not going that year but decided why not. When we arrived I couldn't believe the mess the loggers left! (In Florida what isn't good for timber is turned to mulch and sold leaving a nice clean site.) But this turned out to be a blessing, plenty of browse, lots of bedding areas, not to mention appx. 15 years of dry readily available fire wood.
We thought the deer were gone, but they had already moved back in. Opening morning I shot a doe, that afternoon a 4 point, and on day three repeated with another doe in the morning and a doe that evening.
With the regeneration of the property over the past 3 years the herd has gotten larger. And as an added bonus the rabbit and bird populations have exploded, leading to a large increase in coyotes! All kinds of targets running around there now, So smile your looking at a good thing! :goldtooth:
-
In many cases WMAs are not public land but industrial timberland leased to the state for a small fee. The State then manages it for public use. The harvesting and managament is done by the landowner not the state. A little inconvenience can be a small price for a place to hunt.
Most companies reframe from logging during the hunting seasons on these public hunting areas. One very good reason is the amount of vandalism on logging equipment and potential conflicts between the hunting public and contractors.
Deer are attracked by change and disturbance in their environment. One of the best stands is the cab of the loader after the job has shut down for the day.
Deer are browsing animals. Opening the canopy and allowing light to hit the ground will soon provide an array of "year round" attraction.
-
When we had our land in Upper Michigan logged, I thought that we had really made a mistake because of the mess the logger made. The aspen did need to be taken because it was getting to the age that it was blowing down, but I felt the logger had overdone some of the widening for the main road down one of the ridges on the edge of the property. It was a muddy mess and so wide that when I saw it, I commented that a C130 could land on it!
Now, 10 years later, "C130" is all grassed in, there are blackberry patches all along it, and there are deer and grouse everywhere! The second growth aspen and maple are coming in thick and the deer love it! The trees that were left are now big enough for tree stands and there are plenty of ambush sites. Yup, it looks different, but I'm having just as much fun hunting it as I did before the logging!
-
I agree with some of the others up top. I don't see anything to get me upset. In fact I believe like others have said, that place will get hotter than ever once the browse comes back. Don't despair good time are coming. Good luck.
-
Losing a treasured and familiar hunting ground is heartbreaking--I suspect most of us have been through it but it never fails to stun you. We need to protect the wild places (and the not-so-wild oplaces) better than we have. Can't leave it up to the DNR folks entirely.
-
Appreciate the comments. Hopefully the experienced folks are right and it'll be better than ever.
The land is Army Corps of Engineers land. The DNR guy made it clear he was responsible for the timber sale and its timing.
I also got the message that not a lot of thought went into the sale. When I asked him how they planned what to cut, what end environment they wanted to produce etc ... he said "Whatever is the least amount of work."
Anyhow, I'm over the shock and am going out this weekend to do a detailed walk-through and find new "hot spots".
-
one of my favorite areas is now a border patrol substation/helipad....
-
I sure hope logging it to the bare earth and leaving a lot of duff is better, too, but I'm more skeptical. Old hardwoods are difficult to come by, and pines don't give as much. I do think there'll be forage for a couple of years, as long as they didn't so decimate the ground that it just gives bad weeds (do you have star thistles out there?), but after the pines choke out that forage, I'd be more doubtful of deer sticking around so much, especially if there's better pickin's in local private land.
I'm not all against logging, but public land is public, and so it's something we outta have a say in, and I shudder to contemplate the alternative to a judicial system for righting wrongs, though I can see it in Haiti and Sudan and other less fortunate places of the world.