Oh wait. I don’t live so close anymore do I? Sometimes I forget
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Habitat out loud
- Thread starter SD51555
- Start date
Oh wait. I don’t live so close anymore do I? Sometimes I forget
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Foggy47
5 year old buck +
I'll post if I can find some pics. No rush on my part......
These stands all have a trap door......which is a bit of a hassle at times. Best as a gun blind......not for a long bow. They are about 5' diameter and 5' high inside. Can have two inside....but best as one. Carpet on floors.....we used office chairs and a buddy heater. I have three of these. I did shorten the legs on one of them to about 8 feet and find that is more preferred in height. Easier entry / exit too. Ladders are 2x4. construction. All wood is treated. Windows are Plexiglas and fold down on hinges. The blind shell is rotomolded plastic and should last forever.
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Tree Spud
5 year old buck +
How did you reverse your forks?
Foggy47
5 year old buck +
The forks in the picture above are actually my home made version - where I used a Quick Attach Plate and attached some rectangular tubes to the plate to make high forks. But, later I saw the Tomahawk brand forks are able to be inverted (maybe other brands too?) by removing them and re-inserting upside down. Works slick and adds about 3 feet to your lift height.
I still have that original version If someone would like to buy it.
SD51555
5 year old buck +
Taking a chance on unprotected cedar. Some of you may remember the early winter cut I did…
I yanked 30 white cedar out of the ditch and crawled up in those brush piles and planted them as far away from the deer’s reach that I could reach.
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I yanked 30 white cedar out of the ditch and crawled up in those brush piles and planted them as far away from the deer’s reach that I could reach.
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SD51555
5 year old buck +
This also gives me new ideas for how to drop trees this coming winter. I always discard my ash tops. I wanna try chunking them up to make deliberate durable brush cages for high value trees.
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I planted a bunch of white spruce on my place the spring after I had my place logged. I did it more to prevent future buck rubbing damage, but you have it much tougher since the deer will want to eat your cedars.
I think your plan is definitely worth a shot, especially since the seedling cedars were free. You need enough downed brush to prevent the deer from reaching the seedlings, but not so much that it blocks the sunlight from hitting the seedling. I think it will take 5+ years for your cedars to get above the deer browsing height, so hopefully the downed tree tops will last that long. But you cut brush out there often, so it would be easy to drop a tree or two if your brush piles start breaking down before the cedars are tall enough to take the browsing pressure.
It will be cool to see how that turns out.
I think your plan is definitely worth a shot, especially since the seedling cedars were free. You need enough downed brush to prevent the deer from reaching the seedlings, but not so much that it blocks the sunlight from hitting the seedling. I think it will take 5+ years for your cedars to get above the deer browsing height, so hopefully the downed tree tops will last that long. But you cut brush out there often, so it would be easy to drop a tree or two if your brush piles start breaking down before the cedars are tall enough to take the browsing pressure.
It will be cool to see how that turns out.
SD51555
5 year old buck +
I'm hopeful.
It's hard to tell what's going on because things are never the same there. My browse is in the best shape it's ever been. On one hand, I've got more acres opened up now than I've ever had. It can give the illusion that I'm finally ahead of the deer. I measure that based off how hard my favorite species are getting eaten. I've got unprotected dogwood not getting hit, basswood sprouts barely getting hit, and plots not getting eaten.
Now, I can disqualify all of those as reasons to feel good about having un-protected and lesser protected high value species out there. There was a massive acorn crop last year. There are bur oak acorns that rotted in my plots. The deer population was in terrible shape going into last year. There just weren't that many mouths to eat all that food.
The one thing I'm hopeful for is the deer will find a new way through there, and grasses and re-sprouts of the tag alder will keep deer on trails and not meandering all over in that cut. If the grass and resprout tag alder come faster than those piles rot down, I'm hoping some can get through. Even so, I'm going to make better brush exclusions this winter when I cut.
SD51555
5 year old buck +
I don’t operate in absolutes, but I think this is it. I think I’ve found the final way I’ll tackle ROD in the future.
I was standing by the beaver dam yesterday pondering what I was gonna do first for the day. I was thinking about doing another 50 spruce rip and relocates, and then saw a dogwood right at my feet. I decided to try pulling it out, just like the others. It came right out…
Then I thought, “Why haven’t I tried the rip and relocate on dogwood?!”
So off I went. I ran home and grabbed a trailer full of tools and headed for the 2023 cut area. I found a spot to build a super cage, and dug some holes. I then whacked a straight ash, chunked it into posts, got them set, and dug my super ROD hole.
Then, I wanted to backfill with outside dirt to elimate weed roots, and juice it up with high OM soil, and stir in some rotted saw dust.
Then, I went and ripped 50 or so dogwoods from my own property that were not in an ideal location. There was a good clump in the shade right by the biff, and I'm not sky busting around the biff anytime soon. So they got the ride to the new location. There was a limit to what size I could rip out. But even the big ones that busted off some tap root, still had a good amount of roots left. I mean hell, if they can grow with no roots, some roots ought to give it a good chance at making it. This spot is also low and will be moist for a few months at a minimum.
Got them laid in thick and backfilled.
Mulched and watered.
My 6’ tenax fence came in this week. I wrapped it and called it complete!
If this works, there is no need to ever buy dogwood again. The ditches are quite literally filled with it up and down the road under the powerlines. And they get buzzed off regularly by the power company.
I was standing by the beaver dam yesterday pondering what I was gonna do first for the day. I was thinking about doing another 50 spruce rip and relocates, and then saw a dogwood right at my feet. I decided to try pulling it out, just like the others. It came right out…
Then I thought, “Why haven’t I tried the rip and relocate on dogwood?!”
So off I went. I ran home and grabbed a trailer full of tools and headed for the 2023 cut area. I found a spot to build a super cage, and dug some holes. I then whacked a straight ash, chunked it into posts, got them set, and dug my super ROD hole.
Then, I wanted to backfill with outside dirt to elimate weed roots, and juice it up with high OM soil, and stir in some rotted saw dust.
Then, I went and ripped 50 or so dogwoods from my own property that were not in an ideal location. There was a good clump in the shade right by the biff, and I'm not sky busting around the biff anytime soon. So they got the ride to the new location. There was a limit to what size I could rip out. But even the big ones that busted off some tap root, still had a good amount of roots left. I mean hell, if they can grow with no roots, some roots ought to give it a good chance at making it. This spot is also low and will be moist for a few months at a minimum.
Got them laid in thick and backfilled.
Mulched and watered.
My 6’ tenax fence came in this week. I wrapped it and called it complete!
If this works, there is no need to ever buy dogwood again. The ditches are quite literally filled with it up and down the road under the powerlines. And they get buzzed off regularly by the power company.
Native Hunter
5 year old buck +
That's a good looking Job. I'm also planting and caging RODs now. My intent is to get them established well in the cages and then move the cages to new locations. If the birds will help, that will be good too. The birds single handedly have got arrowwood virbunums planted everywhere for me. I started with four plants and now they are literally everywhere - and they are browsed really well.It’s right out In the middle of the cut with lots of brush piles nearby for the birds to land and poop-stratify (I’m taki my credit for that term) those seeds into protection.
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SD51555
5 year old buck +
It’s neat. You never think those years will come around when you can see if what u did was a good idea, and then they do. I had to search quite a bit to find dogwood that was fit to pull. Most I found was in clusters that hadn’t been browsed for a couple years and they were bigger and hard to pull.
It was rewarding to find a lot and keep saying to myself, “too big. Too big.”
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Foggy47
5 year old buck +
How long do you think you will need to have the cage on it?
SD51555
5 year old buck +
I’m hoping it makes it 5 years before those logs rot. I think as little as 3 and those bushes could be big enough to be left alone.
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SD51555
5 year old buck +
After looking at it, I wonder if 5' fence would have been good enough. It's not a huge deal, but the 6' fence is 86 cents/foot. 5' fence is 57 cents/foot. It would have been even easier to work with 5', and possibly easier for the birds to get in and out. I think they'll manage just fine either way.
I don't need to wring every penny out of this, but it is fun hacking the hell out of the cost curve. The last thing to do, and just for fun, is to do one 4x this size and upwards of 300 ROD stems in one grand cage. Maybe 6 clusters of 50 in an 8x12 cage. I'll keep an eye on this one over the summer and see how it leafs out and then plan for this coming winter to cut more posts and get them staged right away for next spring to cut down on planting time. Then maybe I can get a few more done in that tiny planting window in spring. 24' of fence only weighs 3 pounds, so those posts are holding nothing.
I think a 5 foot fence would work fine, but you might end up with a little browsing on the edges when the deer stand up on their hind legs to reach some ROD. There's so much browse available on your place that I really don't think it will be a huge issue.
I also think you could get away with no fencing at all if you made 3 sided brushpiles in the winter and then just added the 4th side after planting the ROD in the spring. You might have some rabbit or mouse damage since they like to live in brushpiles, but I think it would be worth a shot at no cost to you other than time.
I also think you could get away with no fencing at all if you made 3 sided brushpiles in the winter and then just added the 4th side after planting the ROD in the spring. You might have some rabbit or mouse damage since they like to live in brushpiles, but I think it would be worth a shot at no cost to you other than time.
H20fwler
5 year old buck +
Looks like a good ROD plan.
When we planted our ROD it was more from cuttings that had hair roots.
Once established for a year it had a decent root system and it didn’t matter how much it was browsed it came back strong. I think the deer browsing actually made it much thicker and bushier throwing multiple branches from places it was nipped off.
When we planted our ROD it was more from cuttings that had hair roots.
Once established for a year it had a decent root system and it didn’t matter how much it was browsed it came back strong. I think the deer browsing actually made it much thicker and bushier throwing multiple branches from places it was nipped off.
