of bucks and logging

[shaneharley]

#2384

Saturday I went for a hike up to check my trail cam and noticed the last road I’m on briefly before cutting up through the timber had been mowed. So I’m pondering this development as I’m climbing the hill towards my trail cam. Now I’ve been getting some good bucks on my cam and have been planning on hunting this area this year. But I decided to pull my cam because I had a ‘feeling’. Sure enough when I got home and put the SD card in the computer there was a timber cruiser guy in a bright orange vest surveying the area. I guess it goes that way sometimes. So now I guess it’s time to scout in a different location…. I have had prime rabbit/quail/pheasant habitat mowed down recently as well…. I guess it is always changing and we need to be fluid but it still can be a bummer. How many of you have lost honey holes due to developments?

[David Fudala]

#9145

I live in northern Wisconsin and it happens to me almost every season. I’m a “restless leg” kinda hunter, don’t like to dwell in one spot very long. Every summer I scout as many areas as I can so I can move around and not wear out one spot. I hunt primarily on state owned and national forest land and I can usually plan on losing one of my areas to logging every year. However, there has been times when the logging has happened early enough in the year that it has actually improved my spots and even changed the landscape enough to cause the deer in that area to move through it in concentrated areas. I guess you could call them unnatural funnels?

[David Petersen]

#9218

What has hurt hunting most around here are the endless noisy parades of ATVs that invariably show up after new roads are gouged in for logging, ranching, mining, energy development … like maggots on a fresh dead corpse. And for elk there is no gain whatsoever from logging, unlike deer and bears which do use the cuts … unless, which is typical, cattle are put in and bring weed seeds with them and now we have nice big slashes filled with thistles and other noxious weeds of little to no use as wildlife forage and which displace native plants. Progress, jobs, economy …

[William Warren]

#9723

Hopefully they won’t strip it clean and plant pines. If they selectively log it it will be fantastic hunting in a couple of years. Even if they strip it and plant pines it will be good hunting until they clean up the understory leaving only the pines.

[shaneharley]

#9727

Naw they strip it until it’s just a big brown piece of dirt. They plant trees but it takes years to recover anything.

[skinner biscuit]

#9786

Here in my neck of the woods, they clear cut, replant with doug fir only.Then comes the aerial spraying of herbicide killing every thing but the fir. Then they spray again. You end up with a dead zone of vegetation that takes about five years to recover!…and they wonder why the blacktail and roosevelts are in decline.

[Goraidh]

#10946

If I’m not hunting around my house here in Maine, I’m up in the northwest part of the state. Most of that land is owned by Plum Creek and is continually logged for paper pulp and such. The landscape is constantly changing, and with it my hunting and fly fishing strategies. Kind of a bummer to see the machinery move into a spot I’ve been settling into the past few years, but as David stated above, the deer and bear make use of the clear cuts, as do the moose.

[shag]

#12058

I HATE clear cutting! It ruins the landscape, the wildlife habitat and the growth of future timber. It leads to soil erosion and it gives all loggers a bad reputation.

Don’t get me wrong…I’m not a tree hugging hippy by any means. I am a fourth generation logger…but I’m also a conservationist. We select cut hardwoods. We NEVER cut anything under 20 inches at the stump. We go to great lengths to protect young growth timber so its not damaged by our cutting before its ready to harvest.

We hunt alot of the places we log. If we don’t hunt it, we know that somebody else does. We leave and protect as many hard mast trees (oak, walnut, hickory) as is possible….mainly young growth and rough trees that yield a mast production but aren’t profitable.

If a piece of property is cut correctly, timber can be harvested every 15 to 20 years and there will always be a young crop growing…and keeping wildlife fed and housed.

Normally, the year after we cut the timber makes for the best deer hunting. When the canopy is opened up it lets the floor open up for all kinds of cover and browse for the deer. I have seen and killed more deer on places RIGHT after we cut the timber. But, when timber is cut correctly, It just lasts about 4 or 5 years…the canopy fills back in, the undergrowth dies out, and you once again have open woods before you know it.

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