How to improve river bottom ground?

[Hoytvectrix]

We have a creek splitting our property in half and the flat ground that surrounds this creek is what many consider river bottom ground. See photo below.

This is a sizable portion of our property that is mostly unused by whitetails for most of the year. In the summer months does take their fawns in their to feed on annuals like chokeberry. In the fall, winter, and spring, it is incredibly thin and you can generally see 75-150 yards no problem. I know some guys like to hunt river bottoms because they often serve as staging areas. I question if these aren't too thin of areas, especially with deer having to cross between these and our food plots/Ag fields. The existing trees are mostly elms, hackberry, and cottonwood.

What are ways to improve these areas so they provide more value to whitetails during the fall, winter, and early spring? Should we be trying to thicken these areas up with hinge cutting? Plant mast trees?

 

[4wanderingeyes]

I would remove the big trees, plant a bunch of sand bar willows. My best hunting spot was a river bottom, filled with willows. They had bedding and food.

 

[Kev]

Without seeing the "big picture" it's hard to recommend what to do but you might want to develop a bedding area. My guess is that the grassy cover appears to be Reeds canary grass. With that said, if it can be done safely, drop a match & conduct a controlled burn. After that, try to drag a small disc around to expose the soil . This may encourage giant ragweed and other plant that will add some taller cover. If you don't disturb the soil, the canary grass will just come back. If some of the timber is marketable, sell some logs If you plant additional trees, I think you'll needs to get the canopy opened up to allow more sunlight to reach the forest floor. I would recommend putting a tree tube or cage around the seedlings too. If you don't, the deer will just eat them. Hope this helps.

 

[Kev]

Just blew up the picture. Didn't see much for canary grass. I'd still burn & disturb.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

I'd be hesitant to offer my 0.02 without seeing an ariel and knowing how you hunt it.

 

[SwampCat]

I have a fair bit of bottom ground that looks a lot like yours. The trees here are green ash and the vegetation is a sedge. It is always interesting to me to note the differences in areas across the country. This area, I consider southern thermal cover. Spring summer and fall, this ground is full of deer. It provides shade, but has open understory so as to allow a breeze. The deer love this area nine months out of the year. Jan, Feb, and Mar - it is pretty well devoid of deer. If that land was up north, any deer manager worth his salt would be trying to make a thicket out of it and ruin the area for deer. But down here, it is a deer mecca.

 

[bigboreblr]

In a 50 yard or so wide path, I'd harvest the big stuff, and hinge cut the small stuff, if it's something you can hinge cut. Maintain a path in the middle. Willows, red dogwood, or something flood tolerant. If you can make it between 2 spots of interest, or to continue a brushier travel path. How bad is it to travel in their with a tractor?

 

[Bassattackr]

Have you walked it with a forester to see what logging value it may have?

 

[Wind Gypsy]

More details of the whole property would be necessary but your post makes me think of my own plan.

I also have a small river cutting through the middle of my square 40. Because of the property size, I'm trying to keep out of the center to let that be the sanctuary. The deer use the river as a travel corridor but mine is thicker in cover than yours.

What i'm doing is felling and hinging several bedding areas where it makes sense near the river. In certain spots i'm going to cut trees in a line running away from the river that the deer will not walk through to route their travel away from the river and closer to edges of property where I can have low impact stand access. It will also make them zig zag through the property and spend more time than just blasting straight through along the river.

 

[sandbur]

More details of the whole property would be necessary but your post makes me think of my own plan.

I also have a small river cutting through the middle of my square 40. Because of the property size, I'm trying to keep out of the center to let that be the sanctuary. The deer use the river as a travel corridor but mine is thicker in cover than yours.

What i'm doing felling and hinging several bedding areas where it makes sense near the river. In certain spots i'm going to cut a trees in a line running away from the river that the deer will not walk through to route their travel in select spots away from the river and closer to edges of property where I can have low impact stand access. It will also make them zig zag through the property and spend more time than just blasting straight through along the river.

Good plan


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[S.T.Fanatic]

If it were me I'd be cutting trees down. Lots of them. Think food plots and travel corridors. The remaining areas could be addressed with a thinning, run a fire through it, and then maybe some conifer plantings. Lots of things you could do with it. All will depend on how the property lays out and what your objectives are.

 

[jsasker007]

I would go after that with my excavator and push those trees into a few big piles, disc as much as needed to flatten ground and then plant alsike clover with some millet. Egyptian wheat around the edges the first year and probably plant pine/spruce for long term screening.

 

[sandbur]

We have a creek splitting our property in half and the flat ground that surrounds this creek is what many consider river bottom ground. See photo below.

This is a sizable portion of our property that is mostly unused by whitetails for most of the year. In the summer months does take their fawns in their to feed on annuals like chokeberry. In the fall, winter, and spring, it is incredibly thin and you can generally see 75-150 yards no problem. I know some guys like to hunt river bottoms because they often serve as staging areas. I question if these aren't too thin of areas, especially with deer having to cross between these and our food plots/Ag fields. The existing trees are mostly elms, hackberry, and cottonwood.

What are ways to improve these areas so they provide more value to whitetails during the fall, winter, and early spring? Should we be trying to thicken these areas up with hinge cutting? Plant mast trees?

How often does this area flood? I see a bit of changes in terrain. I would plant spruce in there. Plant on the higher parts of those areas don’t flood. Come back in 3 years and start dropping the hardwoods around those spruce pockets.

I don’t know what part of the country you are in, so spruce might not be a good option.


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[Brian662]

This is a good idea if you have Reed Canary Grass in there. You're able to increase structure that will stand tall throughout a few seasons before the tree top eventually breaks down.

 

[sandbur]

This is a good idea if you have Reed Canary Grass in there. You're able to increase structure that will stand tall throughout a few seasons before the tree top eventually breaks down.

I like horizontal cover in RC and have seen the same thing. IF you find small patches of ground that are not RC, plant a few spruce.

I have also had a bit of success by carrying knee high potted (or dug) spruce into RC and planting them. It is very hard to dig and I would say under 50% survive, but it works to a small extent.


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[sandbur]

Here is an edge view of an area where I planted spruce about 15 plus years ago. The location on the right was an area about 40 feet wide and 100 feet long that was slightly higher than the surrounding ground. I carried in spruce and planted them. Tag alders grew up on both sides.


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[4wanderingeyes]

Here is an edge view of an area where I planted spruce about 15 plus years ago. The location on the right was an area about 40 feet wide and 100 feet long that was slightly higher than the surrounding ground. I carried in spruce and planted them. Tag alders grew up on both sides.


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I have a couple spots like that, that I am going to plant a few spruce trees.

 

[Angus 1895]

How about swamp white oak, water / swamp hickory, willows, dogwoods.

 

[buckdeer1]

It doesn't look like theres anyway sunlight gets to the ground.I would open up an area and burn if you can and see if anything pops up then do more

 

[b116757]

I’d have a logger take out all the large pallet wood trees. After they finished taking all large junk trees I’d plant in some Swamp White Oak, Northern Pin Oak and maybe some Bur oak they should all grow that far north and take some seasonal flooding in a river bottom. I’d also clear a couple areas completely maybe the log deck area and have them open another 1-3 acre area nearly completely. You can do all sorts of things in those two areas or do nothing and they will likely come back as thick cover.