Dozin' for deer

[String Music]

I know it's midseason, but I can help but look ahead to the offseason to continue to improve our habitat. Fortunately, we have a dozer operator that works for us on the weekends up there.

We have plenty of food plots, so I'm not too concerned with adding more food plots. Especially since food plots get the most hunting pressure on our property. I'm more interested in improving the landscape to hold more mature bucks.

Our property was logged a few years ago and there is cover absolutely everywhere. Thorns and pole timber are everywhere on our mountains.

My question is, how do I go about improving these narley hillsides, benches, and ridge tops with a dozer and chainsaws?

Should I brush crush all the new re-growth and cut shooting lanes or clear off the tops and benches (other than oaks) entirely?

I'm trying to manipulate these areas to be more huntable, but still hold deer. What would you do with a dozer operator at your disposal?

 

[buckaroo]

Next weekend I'm dozing some atv trails off the side of ridges.

 

[ROUGH COUNTRY HUNTER]

SHOOTING LANES

 

[Buckhunter72]

Trails, food plots, shooting lanes, water holes. I have hired a guy the past two years to do about 40 hours of clearing and work each year.

You would be amazed at how much better our property is now vs. when we started.

I will have him back this summer as well.

 

[BowGuy84]

As I have said before my land is similar to yours String Music. I wrote into the contract for the oil rights free dozing. So far I have focused on putting in food plots and trails to access new areas.

This year I want our best food plot expanded a little bit and one new trail to a previously untouched part of the property.

Other than that I am going mostly chainsaw and weed trimmer with blade. The goal is to cut down every trash tree in my up and coming oak groves....I want to free them from all the tulip poplars to let them do the best they can.

Looking at buying the adjoining track and if that happens I have a plan for a 3-4 acre t-shaped plot with nothing but thick around it to hold as many deer as possible... Might plant a pine grove on at one end if enough can be cleared.

 

[DOC1187]

:cool:

 

[String Music]

As I have said before my land is similar to yours String Music. I wrote into the contract for the oil rights free dozing. So far I have focused on putting in food plots and trails to access new areas.

This year I want our best food plot expanded a little bit and one new trail to a previously untouched part of the property.

Other than that I am going mostly chainsaw and weed trimmer with blade. The goal is to cut down every trash tree in my up and coming oak groves....I want to free them from all the tulip poplars to let them do the best they can.

Looking at buying the adjoining track and if that happens I have a plan for a 3-4 acre t-shaped plot with nothing but thick around it to hold as many deer as possible... Might plant a pine grove on at one end if enough can be cleared.

I'm going to focus more on native habitat as we have plenty of food plots. In fact, we don't even see deer in half our food plots as it is.

I think our property is too overgrown right now and not benefitting the deer much. The logging took place a few years ago and the pole-sized timber is 8-10 ft in areas. There is a ridge top point I can get on and look down over 5 different secondary secondary points ranging from 1/4 acre to an acre in size. It looks like a five-leaf clover from a topo map.
There is a logging road that runs all the way around the base of the ridge I'm on and around the mouth of each of the secondary points.
My plan is to completely clear off that logging road and combine hinge-cutting, clear-cutting, and brush-crushing with the dozer on each of the secondary ridges. I'm going to push all the cull trees and debris in the cuts/draws between the ridges to funnel the deer. This should allow for new growth to come up while keeping the area pretty thick. Right now, I don't think the deer are benefitting from the area other than it being a tall jungle.

I've drawn out a design I'm going to use for the ridges. If you stand on the logging road at the mouth of one of the secondary ridges, I'm going to clear-cut (not oaks) a Y-shape from the logging road and forking about 2/3rds of the way across. This will funnel the deer and clear the floor for new growth.

I'm going to hinge-cut along the rim of the ridge from the mouth to where the top of the Y-cut ends. This will proved a screening effect and give good bedding cover and browse.

Everything else on the ridge top will be crushed with the dozer by raising the blade about 2-3 feet and just running over all the pole-sized timber.

I think I will combine hinge-cutting and crushing on the tip of the points as this is where most of my deer bed. My deer love bedding with a fallen tree behind them to break up there outline.

I plan on removing every large tree that isn't an oak off the tops. This should open up the canopy to get sun to the floor and improve the oak trees.