Logging and Whitetails

[John Scifres]

I would love to hear your experiences with recent logging on your bowhunting season.  I have a small plot I hunt that is being logged right now.  It is only 20 acres but is surrounded by similar and bigger size plots.  Most are used only for hunting and fishing.  A few have houses on them.  

They are removing 170 trees pretty much throughout the property.  Most of the acorn-bearing oaks are going.  But, this plot serves as a main transition between ag plots and bedding areas.  It has a couple great funnels.  My best hunts are usually where the deer stage before hitting the ag fields.  Typically they browse on the acorns while waiting for full dark or on their way to their beds.

Our season opens Oct. 1.  The logging should be done this week or next.

So let me know what you think and especially what you have experienced.  I feel real good about the overall, longer-term effect this will ahve on the deer but wonder about the short term.

Thanks.

[Pat B]

We had our club logged about 8 years ago.The bottoms were left uncut so we had places to hang stands. Except for lack of cover, I don't think the deer care. By next year the blackberries and other briers and weeds will be coming up so that makes for good cover and food for the deer. The tree tops, if left on the ground, will make for pretty good ground blinds. Usually in cut over plots I feel like I can't find a place to hide but thats just me.    Pat

[geno]

tell us a little more john. Is this your place? Will they be leaving tops.170  big trees sounds like alot is that a clearcut. what is going back in anything? I have hunted alot of select cut national forest and have had good luck.The deer dont care about loging especialy when you leave tops. My old farm had some timber cut where they left tops and grew up wild. I killed alot of deer there.
G

[pseman]

I have found it to be both good and bad. The good is that 2nd growth/regrowth after logging will provide lots of food and cover for deer, often attracting more deer to the area. The bad is that the lack of trees and heavy understory can make bowhunting difficult. If enough trees are left to climb, then it may turn out to be very beneficial. Also, if you have the means to clear areas for food plots, this is a great time to do so.
The immediate effects will largely depend on how much is left. If the area is scalped of trees, then the deer may avoid it until some re-growth occurs. If areas of cover or trees are left, it my make it easier to pattern the deer movement.

Mark

[John Scifres]

It's not my place.  It is a select cut.  I saw the marked trees last fall.  It seems like 170 is a lot to me also.  I don't know if that counts incidental cleared trees.  I think they are leaving the tops since the owner heats with wood and wants to cut them for firewood.  The owner lives there and is pretty green so I think he is doing it right.  There will be trees left to hang stands based on the marked trees I saw last year.  Here ar a couple hunts I made on this place:    2006 New Year\\'s Eve Hunt  

  Emily\\'s Hunt

[Huntschool]

John:

170 is or isn't a lot. Depends on basal area and how the selection was done.

One thing you already know is deer are inquisitive.  They will be out in that mess looking around and "nibbeling" on whatever is there.  The eventual outcome will be more sun light on the ground (next spring) and consequently, more browse.

It will look awful for the first year or so but hang on to your tree steps for the third and on.

My expeerience has been mature bucks like cut areas where the slash (tops etc.) has been left. They will actually get in them and bed down.

If it was me, I would find a tree out there in the midst of all this and have a sit.  Oh yea, as stated in a reply above, do not overlook the tops as ground blinds.

[John Scifres]

Thanks for all the info.  More is welcomed as well.

My kids and I are hunting a special youth gun hunt at the end of the month.  I should know a lot more about my bowhunting prospects.  I really consider this my go-to spot for the kids anyway.  I have other spots to hunt.

I really have high hopes for the next few years.  Even though I'm losing the oaks, this is a transition v. a holding area.  the thicker cover should help keep the deer here longer during the day.

[Rico]

With all those tops left and down it will be a jungle in there for awhile and it will look like a bomb went off in there. Once you relearn it the area you will probably have some good hunting

[Jerry Jeffer]

My experience is that it makes for great hunting.

[rascal]

Ive had good and bad luck near or in clear cuts depending on the regrowth stage it is in.  If you can move the tops around it will help funnel the deer to your stand sites, deer are lazy that way.  I know it can get really thick a few years after a clear cut that makes it really hard to hunt sometimes.  Long term it is usually a good thing though.

[bunyan]

Is this a clear cut?  As already mentioned the slash will provide food and cover for the deer.  But if this is only cutting selected oaks and not leaving enough mature trees for seed it has me worried.  Where will the next generation of oaks come from?  And when you get into highgrading only the choice timber, the remaining trees are often inferior and are what provide the stock for the future.  And this can end up creating a poorer forest environment.  I don't know the details of your situation, and I'm no forester, but I have taken classes on this sort of thing and these are the concerns that come to my mind.

[Talondale]

Should be good.  Things will settle down and if it's a transition area the deer should still use it.  It's not too late to scatter some clover seed in the disturbed earth if your neighbor doesn't mind.  That will give the deer something to munch on while waiting for dark.  Cover will be the biggest problem since you will be backlit on any tree left up now.  I'd suggest making blinds and planting clover.  If food plots offend you then just try to determine travel paths.  Try going into an area and raking it clean and come back later and check for tracks. You are going to have to re-pattern the deer but one thing I have found true on clear cuts and selective cuts: if there are geographical features that cause a deer to travel one way (saddle, bench, draw) they will continue to use the same path unless physically blocked from doing so by debris. Key in on those areas if there are any.

[Larry247]

We had ours logged in 05. I didn't want them to do it but there were alot of mature trees that needed to be harvested. In 05 the hunting was just as good as past years, except for the travel patterns. I tagged a few trees that were not to be taken, some of the big oaks that were probably hollow anyway, well thats what i told'em anyway. I didn't want'em stickin there saws into them to find out. My dad and i logged some of it 14yrs ago and the deer seemed to chose to bed in the cut areas. The bear are all over the place now, which i don't think the deer care to much for. It seems they don't like to walk around in the thick stuff with them bears hangin around. The only downfall is the tree tops and the blackberry briears. You may not see'em but check out the little oak sprouts, they have acorns on them as well.  

[iacornfed]

we took 150 walnut and oak off of 50 acres of woods surounding our farm in 98 the tops were left laying. They took only the choice trunks. This left lots of cover on the ground. The deer loved it. Thick woods with alot of ground cover surounded by a broam hay barrier between the woods and corn/bean fields.

[ALW]

I hunt a farm that had one big hollow timbered about 10-12 years ago.  I never bow hunted that hollow much before it was timbered because it was big open timber and the deer just seemed to meander around it.  I also didn't hunt it the first few years after they timbered it because it was just too thick to get into.  It was select cut very well and they did a good job of leaving a lot of trees.  Since then, every deer I've killed on that farm with a bow has come from that hollow.  The deer bed deep in the hollow where it's still thick and move in and out of it and along the edges.  It has become a deer magnet.  And I've seen a lot more bucks in that hollow than anywhere else on the farm.

Aaron

[Minuteman]

It makes a ton of high quality browse for the deer after the first year and after the second year its so thick a baby snake would have trouble rigglin through it!
 At least thats the way I have seen it go behind my house on my grandads old place. They logged it over the summer 5 years ago. Finished up in late September. It was so trashed out the first year I couldn't stand to hunt in it. The next year it was like a jungle. I finally bought a D R mower so I could mow trails in front of the trees I had left to hunt in. The deer do take the path of least resistance many times if left to their own devices.
  Theres a bunch more deer on my place now simply because it went from having 20% bedding areas to almost 70% bedding areas. The whole dern thing is so thick that blood trailin is a real chore. Hand clippers are a must. We're talking inpenetrable thickets here.
 I'd hunt it for sure the deer are still there and like someone else said , the tops make great blinds with built in seats!
 Chris

[DarkeGreen]

I've never see anything but improvements to hunting when numbers of trees were cut. If they took the trees from one area it will likely be a hot spot next year and a good spot this year.

BTW, it's a no go on the trees up here. They just ran a road thru the place for gas line access and the owner doesn't want any more cut.

[B.O.D.]

I was in charge of a crew 2 years ago, we logged about 60 acres of cedar in total, the deer were in like mad, especially when them tender tops were down.
Hunt the cut, you will see deer, alot of deer.
Want to really fool 'em? run a chainsaw for a few minutes, then get in your stand, 30 min. later; deer will come looking for the fresh buffet!  

[Osagetree]

Big dog is on track IMHO..

Several years ago I was in a tree and at a property line where the logging was going on. I thought they were done, but after daylight I spot a logger walking the edge of the ridge right at the property line. He fires up the saw on a big oak. I almost left, but stuck it out even though the logger was less than 100 yrds from me.
Dang,,, here comes two bucks snooping around. I watched them watch the logger and eat acorns for over an hour just out of sight of the logger. I was between the logger and the deer. When the saw stopped, the bigger buck walked away, but the 6 point went for the fallen tree. Needless to say,,, the 6 point did not make it to the tree!
When the skidder drove out the ridge I was there gutting him out. The skidder was also the logger and he was amazed when I told him what had happened.

John, hunt that land now and for the next few seasons it will be great! In a couple years and If you take time trimming trails through the new under growth, you can actually change some travel routes to your advantage.

Have fun and be safe!