TSI Questions

[cornfedkiller]

New guy here from Iowa. Been reading through lots of topics on this site and love all the knowledge here! I have a few questions for you guys and I'd like to get your suggestions...

I live and hunt on 80 acres (timber and CRP mix), and the timber was very mature, very open, not much foliage on the ground, and it held a few deer in the summer and early fall, but typically no more than a couple does and fawns and a buck or two, and during the late season, there were hardly any deer on the property at all. Anyways, after talking to a few people, my landlord and I decided that a timber stand improvement would be beneficial. He hired a forester to come mark the crop and cull trees, and decided in order to increase the cover ground as much as possible, that rather than girdling the cull trees, we would hinge as many as possible. There are 2 or 3 areas that are very thick and tangled with trees, but the rest of the timber just has trees laying randomly all over.

The canopy has been opened up a ton, the undergrowth has already started taking off quite a bit, and it seems like everything is going according to plan so far...except for one thing. Maybe its a little soon to notice any changes, but I have some cameras out over some food plot edges and some corn and I'm not seeing nearly as many deer this year.

I'm sure there are many other factors such as different crops rotated in the area, water sources (very dry here), etc.. but I'm curious if hinging as many trees as we did was the right thing to do, or if that made it TOO thick and now the deer don't like it? Should we have only concentrated the hinging to a few small areas and left the rest "open"?

Or maybe there is so much browse in the timber now that they don't have to come out to the plots to get food? Does it take a few years after a TSI before you start to notice an increase in wildlife?

 

[broom_JM]

You have a much thicker forest, with browse where there hasn't been any for decades. Deer movement patterns will change. Turn off the trail camera and go wear out some boot leather. Don't be surprised to see many MORE deer this fall and winter!

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[Bill]

I'm with Jim. Typically deer use will increase with a chainsaw. But yes it can be done wrong. If the hinges are all low to the ground and deer have to jump and jump and jump to get through an area they may avoid it. Shoulder high hinge cuts for bedding, knee high hinge cuts for blockades.

If you can walk in, through and around the hinge cut areas its fine. If you have to literally crawl over tree trunks to get in the hinges are to low. If that's the case go back and cut trails through the areas. If you have to go back for trails cut some openings. 10 yard circle void of anything here and there on some flat ground. Gives doe families a place to bed. Does typically want to see each other when they bed.

I doubt you did anything wrong. There's probably a preferred food source close by getting the deers attention.

 

[j-bird]

Something else to consider is that the thick areas won't allow the air to circulate as much. Many mature timber areas are used by deer in the heat of summer to escape the bugs by being in the shade and having the breeze keep the bugs off. The thick cover and the browse now available will attract deer....you may see a bit of a shift in the time of year of that activity as well. The browse will take pressure off the plots and the cover should hold more deer later in the year. I agree with the others. Don't freak out just yet. You shook things up pretty good and depending on how the property fits and works with your neighbors and the like things will be different to some extent, but you probably did the habitat a great service. The deer will be there....and they may even bring more this time. Don't keep the same mindset as before. The property is different and you will have to learn how the deer use it differently as well.

 

[bueller]

a picture is worth a thousand words...

 

[cornfedkiller]

Thanks for the help guys..

j-bird - excellent point on the air circulating and the shade.. I had thought about the shade thing, but never considered the breeze.

Bill- There are small areas, maybe a 1/2 acre, that are very thick and you wouldnt want to try to walk through it..you would just go around them. But the rest of the timber is just single trees laying over that you can walk around. You definitely can no longer walk through the timber in a straight line, but we shed hunted it plenty this spring and you can walk just about anywhere you want - you just have to go around trees on your way there.

bueller- I have some pictures but they are on my photobucket account, and I havent created a new account on a different image hosting site yet, so I can't post pictures at this time.

 

[cornfedkiller]

Bringing this old thread back up now that I have some pictures. Now that I've been hunting in the timber a little, it has me thinking about it again...

I know things won't be the same as they were, since the timber is vastly different from what it was before, but I'm again wondering if it's TOO thick and needs to be cleaned up a little. I know deer like to travel the path of least resistance, so I'm curious if they may be avoiding large areas of the timber all together. I know deer like edges anyways, but I watched a small buck chase a doe the other evening and she basically stuck to the edge of the timber the whole time (no hinge cutting the first 50' in), and I also seem to have more activity this year on the edges, and the points and fingers that didnt get cut. There doesn't seem to be as many scrapes and heavy trails as there was in past years, but some of that may be due to a combination of the deer not finding good travel routes yet and not a ton of leaves on the ground so its tough to find "well used" trails. Most of the trails made over the past decade, which I would call the main travel routes have been blockaded at some point or another along the path.

There is definitely more browse which is awesome, but I'm curious if I maybe "blockaded" the timber a little too much and deer just arent traveling through it...or if they are and I'm just not seeing it much yet. I know there is usually more of a strategy to habitat improvement than just going in and cutting stuff down and making a mess (which is what happened), so I'm wondering if I'm not going to end up leaving a couple areas really thick but going in and "cleaning up" some of the other stuff after hunting season.

Here are some pics...what do you guys think?

 

[4wanderingeyes]

It looks good to me! The thick area will give them an area to hide in, or near when they are getting shot at, the other random trees look like good. he deer will be in there, give them time. I did about the same with my land, but where I blocked their main trails, at least the ones I wanted them to continue to use, I cleared them back out so they are steered where I want them to trail. What I found this past winter is beds all over. So they are comfortable on my land, and I am sure they will be on yours as well. Sometimes they need more time to adjust to things.

 

[Bill]

I'll be honest I don't like those last two pics for deer cover. Can they get into it? Absolutely. Will they want to crawl and jump everyday? I doubt it.

I shoot for shoulderish high hinge cuts for bedding. (So they can walk under lots of it.) knee high hinges for blockades.

I did a few acres wrong on my first attempt years ago. I just went back and gave them trails. 8 years later most of the blockades have rotted and it's a thick mess in there. They love it.

Some of those hard to navigate places will be avoided unless there is a lot of pressure, does are hiding or a buck wants to have a good place to hold and hide his doe in heat.

 

[tynimiller]

I'll be honest I don't like those last two pics for deer cover. Can they get into it? Absolutely. Will they want to crawl and jump everyday? I doubt it.

I shoot for shoulderish high hinge cuts for bedding. (So they can walk under lots of it.) knee high hinges for blockades.

I did a few acres wrong on my first attempt years ago. I just went back and gave them trails. 8 years later most of the blockades have rotted and it's a thick mess in there. They love it.

Some of those hard to navigate places will be avoided unless there is a lot of pressure, does are hiding or a buck wants to have a good place to hold and hide his doe in heat.

We did similar Bill with a messed up 2 or 3 acres once.

IF you ever fear the property is getting too thick...just be thankful and fire up the chainsaw. On the 22 I bought last year I noticed a suspected bedding area just wasn't getting used...went in this year early before green up and noticed I had to crawl or duck so low there just wasn't enough room for the deer to move around. I spent about two or three days and a few tanks of gas cutting arteries in no particular fashion throughout it...some wider some narrow...some I would open up a semi-circle throw a bedding log down and keep going. the use this year has been incredible!

 

[Bowsnbucks]

My camp did 2 logging jobs in the last 3 years. The object was to get sunlight on the ground and thicken the cover/create browse. Some of the guys were upset that the areas were " messes " and you couldn't get through them. I told them that the maple, poplar, and black gum tops would rot down in a year or so and the areas would look a lot more " passable " to foot traffic. That's what happened. Oak tops will last longer - maybe 5 years or more before they start to break down slowly. Very few hinge cuts - but will remedy that this winter/spring.

We caged some of the stumps to keep deer off so the stump sprouts could get growing. Spruce seedlings and ROD were also planted in the logged areas to create more cover/security/bedding. Now we have more cover, browse, and deer using previously un-travelled ground.

Can a " mess " be too thick ?? Sure. If a deer can't crawl into it or run through it if it's spooked, it'll probably have more traffic around it than in it. But if there are foot-path sized areas in & through your " mess ", the deer will find ways through there. JMO.

 

[cornfedkiller]

Thanks guys!

Bill- The last two pictures that you referred to - those areas are particularly thick, and more trees were dropped into a "central" location there than others - as the first two pics show, the entire timber isn't that thick. BUT I'm curious if going back in with the chainsaw after the season and cutting up the trunks (leaving the tops) will accomplish the thickening up and adding some cover that I'm looking for, while also removing a lot of the barricades that the deer might feel are "annoying" (for lack of a better term) while wandering around/traveling in the timber. Maybe pick 2-3 areas on an aerial and leave an acre or two in each place thick and nasty, but make the rest of the timber a little better for ease of travel...

I'm not really trying to "funnel" deer anywhere, just want them to feel comfortable, safe, and prefer my place over the neighbors...

Or am I just jumping to conclusions too soon and need to just sit back and wait?

 

[Someday isle]

I tend I agree with Bill. I’m new to hinge cutting myself thought. I’m trying to create thick areas as well and I opted for chest high cuts for most of my work. I’m a pretty tall guy though so chest high for me is is five feet. I used a silky Zumba tans that was a perfect height for sawing. The work I did late winter was pretty thick already this summer and I was t very aggressive. I could walk through it in July (the last time I went in there) but I couldn’t see very far. When I got down below five feet high.

 

[cornfedkiller]

Once a few more leaves fall, I'll get a couple drone pictures, and that will do a much better job of showing what the timber looks like overall - rather than just little snapshots with my phone while walking through.

 

[4wanderingeyes]

Once a few more leaves fall, I'll get a couple drone pictures, and that will do a much better job of showing what the timber looks like overall - rather than just little snapshots with my phone while walking through.

I am not sure how big of areas these "thick" spots are, but by the looks of them, they look to be about 50x50 foot, I am not sure how far they extend, are we talking these are hundreds of yards long? Or just small clusters of thick spots? I assumed they were just small clusters, which in my opinion, are nice to break up a big woods, to prevent deer from seeing very far. Small clusters wont interfere with deer travel much, unless you drop it on a heavy trail, but even then, they just move a bit to go around. I prefer that a buck has to walk around in search of a mate, that could be hiding in these clusters, or on the edges of them. rather then they being able to see a hundred yards in any direction. If you walk my woods, you will have to walk around stuff, or step over stuff, to get around. My thick spots are either a barricade, and I dont want them to go through it with ease, or they are smaller staggered clusters that are about 30-50 feet around, to block visual throughout my land. It seems to work well for me. My thought is if a buck is on my land looking for does, I want him to spend as much time as possible to scope out my land looking behind every brush pile, and ridge. The more time he is on my land, means less time on others land getting shot. When I first bought my land, you could pretty much see across the width of it, and about half the length of it, a buck wouldnt need to spend much time determining there were no does in the area. Now, most of the areas he would have a hard time seeing 20 yards, if he wasnt in a food plot.

Now if I mistook the thick spots, and they are an acre in size, or are creating a blockade where you want them to trail, then I agree, you need to open it up. Deer will still bed on the edges of the thick spots, but if that thick spot is taking up an acre of land, you have a huge dead spot in the middle, that deer wont regularly use.

 

[Bill]

I agree with the above sentiment. I was thinking a few acres continuous like this. When I did it wrong the first time it was like a 5 acre continuous block. I needed some trails through it as it was a battle of over, under and around for me to walk the next spring and very little deer sign. If you're talking about small areas within the timber I don't see a need to go back and trail it.

 

[cornfedkiller]

I'm hoping the drone pictures give a better visual (for myself as well), but I would say the very thick areas are like 8-10 trees all dropping in toward or on top of each other, so probably larger than 50x50, but not an acre or anything like that. The rest of the acres are trees laying randomly where you might have to walk around or over to get from point A to B - much like pic #2 shows.

I just wondered if I think its a pain to walk through, maybe deer are thinking the same thing..but I think I'm just nervous about the lack of new sign...but then again, pretty much all sign now is going to be new sign, and its going to be hard to pick up this early in the year. Trail cameras are showing decent numbers, so it's probably fine.

I will be sure to get some drone pictures uploaded though when I get a chance to take a flight during daylight. I'm curious to see what it looks like from the air myself.

In the meantime, some more pics I have on my computer from this winter when the work was done..

 

[4wanderingeyes]

I like what you have going on, it is almost identical to what I did, it seems to be working good for me. But I am no professional, and different areas of the country I am sure varies.


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[Bowsnbucks]

CFK - Looking at THESE pix ........ I would say it's def. not too thick. Our areas after logging looked much like your 3rd pic in post #17. Brush piles with gaps in between and tops scattered around. Deer were in there bedding and walking around with no problems. I found that deer liked to bed right up against our brush piles just like you have in that 3rd pic. We even jumped deer out of those areas on drives where we wouldn't even find a track in the snow before. Cutting and brush piles, sunlight and new growth = more deer.

 

[tynimiller]

I personally don't see any glaring issues with the photos provided above...sure the hinges are lower than I'd probably do as Bill described for travel places but that is definitely not as blocked off like I assumed.