I'm with the cut trails through it group. Back when I was a kid, we had no deer around. It was rare to see a track. It was open woods and cattle pasture. The neighbor passed away and the cows were taken off the property. They let me ride horses over there. There was a field they let start growing up. The first thing that came up were briars and pines. There were lots of early successional plants. It wasn't too long before deer appeared in there. I rode horses through it and kept trails open weaving in and out. I would see deer regularly in an area that didn't have many. But, once the briars got too tall and out of reach of the deer, the bottom underneath became bare. It was impenetrable wasteland below the food above. The deer use dropped dramatically, pines overtook the overstory, and briars started dwindling away. There's a point were it outgrows its usefulness to deer. Set it back to where they can use it for both food and cover. If you can put firebreaks around it, burn it. If not, weave trails in and out, and set it back with chemicals. Keep it at the stage where they can bed in it, but still reach the good stuff.
