hilltopper
5 year old buck +
Yesterday I hired a guy with a Fecon Forestry mower (see pic). We spent 6 hours creating perimeter trails, clearings for food plots or planting, and many random openings/trails to improve deer access to brushy areas. My property has acres of dense winterberry (aka Michigan holly, Ilex)that is basically impenetrable to deer and people. We tried to create deer access in a manner that didn't reduce security. For perimeter trails, I followed the advice from a different thread of putting the trails 20-30 yards inside the property line so you are not actually leading deer to the neighbors or inadvertently creating better lines of site into the property.
The forestry mower can get an incredible amount of work done in a short time. Most everything gets chopped up pretty well so the trails are clean and there are not stacks of debris along the edge. It also levels out the ground pretty well, so it helps going through hummocky marshy areas as well. You can see a typical before and after in the photos below.
I make the perimeter trails fairly straight because they are primarily cross-country ski trails. I spent many hours in the woods marking the trails with ribbon as high up as I could reach so the operator could just follow my markers. They move pretty fast, and you can't be out front leading the way because they throw a ton of debris forward and to the side. If they need to, they can go right through a 6 inch tree, but I usually worked out a route that avoided trees- it slows things down and I had a low enough tree density.
This winter provided the perfect conditions, as much of my area is wet. With the frost in the ground the mower never got stuck or even made an impression other than leveling the ground. This mower was on tracks, which I think is superior to the wheeled mower I hired several years ago.
Not sure what I'm going to do with some of the clearings. I will probably spray them next summer to kill the resprouting Ilex. If I can get a lime truck in I'll put in some clover plots. Throw and mow is incredibly useful because the areas would be very difficult to work up. I may also simply decide to plant some ROD, swamp white oak, elderberry, etc (all with cages or tubes).
I got a lot of bang for my buck..
The forestry mower can get an incredible amount of work done in a short time. Most everything gets chopped up pretty well so the trails are clean and there are not stacks of debris along the edge. It also levels out the ground pretty well, so it helps going through hummocky marshy areas as well. You can see a typical before and after in the photos below.
I make the perimeter trails fairly straight because they are primarily cross-country ski trails. I spent many hours in the woods marking the trails with ribbon as high up as I could reach so the operator could just follow my markers. They move pretty fast, and you can't be out front leading the way because they throw a ton of debris forward and to the side. If they need to, they can go right through a 6 inch tree, but I usually worked out a route that avoided trees- it slows things down and I had a low enough tree density.
This winter provided the perfect conditions, as much of my area is wet. With the frost in the ground the mower never got stuck or even made an impression other than leveling the ground. This mower was on tracks, which I think is superior to the wheeled mower I hired several years ago.
Not sure what I'm going to do with some of the clearings. I will probably spray them next summer to kill the resprouting Ilex. If I can get a lime truck in I'll put in some clover plots. Throw and mow is incredibly useful because the areas would be very difficult to work up. I may also simply decide to plant some ROD, swamp white oak, elderberry, etc (all with cages or tubes).
I got a lot of bang for my buck..
. Looks great.
