Nearby trees harvested

[DiSc0Rd]

So my neighbor to the North harvested a ton of red pines I don't know exactly how many but it was a lot so there's still a tree line between our properties yes but just past it is a giant clear cut area we had a lot of evening dear come from his timber to our food plot and I'm wondering now that all these trees have been removed what do you think that's gonna do to the movement Will they be willing to walk through all that open bare ground to get to the wheat and radish?

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[Native Hunter]

It depends on the pressure in the area and how many other food options there are. Any little amount of pressure will probably make most of them come at night - especially mature bucks. And pressure generally changes as hunting season approaches.

 

[buckdeer1]

Look for the next thickest crossing and then when it starts to grow up they will cross right back there

 

[DiSc0Rd]

It depends on the pressure in the area and how many other food options there are. Any little amount of pressure will probably make most of them come at night - especially mature bucks. And pressure generally changes as hunting season approaches.

Good news is they don't hunt that timber, or not legally. Owner is very nice but old. I called to introduce myself when we bought the place and he said no one has permission to hunt but last year someone made a lean to blind. I called and told him and never heard a shot during gun season but I guess they could have just used a bow but I never saw them either.

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[yoderjac]

So my neighbor to the North harvested a ton of red pines I don't know exactly how many but it was a lot so there's still a tree line between our properties yes but just past it is a giant clear cut area we had a lot of evening dear come from his timber to our food plot and I'm wondering now that all these trees have been removed what do you think that's gonna do to the movement Will they be willing to walk through all that open bare ground to get to the wheat and radish?

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Your hunting will be disrupted this season, but for the next 5-10 years after that will be improved. By next season, deer will be bedding in that clear-cut and have a much shorter walk to your food.

 

[35-acre]

I wish I had some good news or some way to say "it's not going to impact you" or "it's going to be the same". It's not going to be. With major changes to the landscape like that, the deer patterns will change. Sometimes for the good and sometimes for the bad. You said these were pines cut so the tops provide no benefit to the deer nutritionally. If tops were left, then they will provide some bedding cover but not until things start to green up. In my area, it's mostly mature hardwood so when logging takes place the deer come in within a day and browse on the fallen tops, things turn around quickly but they still change.

My only advice - get some clover going now! (I'll explain)

Do you have any idea what your neighbor is doing with the land after the logging? If he's just letting it lay, things will be good (hopefully he's not selling it to a developer). There will be bedding once things green up and in the spring you're going to have fawns being dropped in there. Then within the next couple of years the place is going to likely become a doe factory. For me, I went through that on my property. It was tough to get things that I was planting in my plots to grow in the spring because they would be bedded in my plot or close to it and eating things as they sprouted. Eventually I stopped planting spring foods (there was enough green stuff around for them to eat anyway after the logging). This got them to move back to their normal (pre-cutting) habits. I stopped fall wheat/rye planting because they just used that thick 3 foot tall field to drop fawns in and lay in throughout the spring and summer.

I got some clover going and I would top dress it with oats. That was the most successful thing I've had going in a while. Then I did something dumb (right BEFORE Jack commented on how nice of a clover plot I had). I decided to go back to successional planting and I had spray off some of my clover (and had posted the pic Jack commented on - his words still haunt me very time I'm in my field). It's been 2 years and I'm still trying to get clover back. In my area, clover handles the browsing pressure well and it's super low maintenance. You can broadcast various things into it but it remains strong. It's still a draw, but I also rely on the other aspects of my land. I've planted some fruit trees and some chestnut trees and I'm waiting for them to produce.

 

[DiSc0Rd]

He isn't selling it at least not in the near future. That of course assumes he doesn't die. Not to be crass but he is very old late 80s not sure if he has kids to will it to and if so they don't hunt. So we will see how this year goes. I like the clover idea I was thinking about putting some down anyway

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[yoderjac]

One more thought for planning. When we bought our place, deer bedded at a neighbors that had clear-cut with natural regeneration. It was old enough to have a low canopy to shade out most quality food but had a very high stem count for good cover. Our place was becoming a pine desert. About 1/2 of it had a completely closed canopy with no deer food. The other half of our pines were young and had just closed in reducing food significantly. Deer were beginning to bed there as well. We have a pipeline bisecting the farm. Deer numbers were high and we started an emergency room food plot program. Deer would feed in the same field I was mowing and just reluctantly move into the pines as the tractor got within 40 yards or so then come back out when I passed.

For the next few years, deer had a distinct movement pattern between bedding and our plots with not much alternative for quality food. Eventually we got our act together and began timber harvest. We had the mature pines commercially thinned and we clear-cut a couple hardwood ridges totaling about 20 acres for bedding. We then conducted controlled burns in both the thinned pines and these clear-cuts.

Of course the disturbance of the logging changed the deer patterns, but it was not long before we learned the new patterns. However, one thing I noticed was deer were becoming harder to hunt. They were reacting to hunting pressure much more. Before we clear-cut, deer were forced to move between bedding and quality food. While they would avoid specific hunting locations but would still move from cover to food during daylight. It was just a matter of smart stand selection and approach.

After our habitat improvement, we created a bounty of food in cover. Both in the thinned pines we burned as well as in the clear-cuts we created for bedding. With quality food in cover, deer were no longer forced to move between food and cover during shooting hours. They reacted to hunting pressure by staying in the cover and eating quality native foods during the day and waiting until after dark to move to the open food plots. Finding good stand locations with good access routes became significantly harder.

If you can control the pressure on your place, this neighboring clear-cut will be a long-term benefit. If prevailing winds make your place difficult to hunt or if you can't control the hunting pressure, it may be problematic for hunting. Our place is owned by an LLC with several owners making hunting pressure control more problematic.

Thanks,

Jack