Home Forums Birds & Dogs Turkey Hunting When you hunt an actively managed state forest, sometimes...

...the woods get erased.

I knew it would happen sooner or later. It's to be expected when you hunt a state forest where the state actually manages it for forest products. Though, it's a little bitter sweet.

I hunt a state forest that is around 10,000 acres, broken up into 8 or 9 tracts. I hunt one of ther smaller tracts - about 798 acres. Its a mix of clear cuts overgrown with very young pine and blackberry, tightly packed young pine about 6-8 inches in diameter, medium pines that have been thinned, more mature pine, and hardwood trees that are *mostly* in the bottomlands near water. Hunting the areas where different mixes come together is very productive. That's where I shot my spring tom last May, where the mature pines met the ravines and the hardwoods.

I knew I was on borrowed time. I knew those mature pines were going to get harvested sooner or later. Well, it happened over the summer. The area where I killed that bird in May? All cut down. I would estimate 75-80 acres.

It's bittersweet. I loved that area. I'm sorry to see it raized. But I also know, it creates a healthy forest and will be a boon for wildlife.

It appears the old trail is being maintained. New browse is growing. The blackberries are already coming up. There are green plants already popping up all over. The deer are already using it. I saw an unbelievable amount of deer tracts all over the clear cut.

The hardwoods in the ravines are still standing. Luckily the ravines are all wetlands and can't be cut. I could have limited on squirrels this morning in the ravine I was hunting in and hour or so. In fact, I would say 700+ acreas are unaffected. The young pines that hold the turkeys in the winter are still there. While I was exploring, I actually flushed 6-8 turkeys that were up in those trees. Scared the hell out of me - I never saw them before I heard the woosh, woosh, wooshes. And I flushed 3 more in another area, and 1 more in yet another. So, the birds are still there.

There's turkey and deer crap on the trails. Scratches all over.

Oh well, such is life. I'll adapt. I love that forest. I think that active forest management actually generates more game that the WMAs the state owns, that really never get any trees harvested.

Anyways, here's what that portion of the tract looks like now. I do plan on hunting the edges with my scoped slug gun. I really wish I could use my .30-06.











According to On-X ap, this is about where I was when i shot that bird in May.

But the birds are still there. I saw many of these on the wooded trails. And I saw at least 10-12 birds today. (Which were totally silent. No putts or any other sounds, even when I flushed them.)



If the tracks and the crap are any indication, there are a lot more deer on this tract that I ever thought.



I am not overstating it when I say I think I saw a 1,000 tracks today. They are all over the bare grounds.

Understand your feelings. A hunting stand becomes like an old friend, and to see it worked like that would be heartbreaking.

I took my muzzle loader out today. It's the last day of early muzzle loader season before the general firearms season starts tomorrow. I took the opportunity to rebuild my blind from last season. I don't have any more time off during the week until December. I took 3 weeks off for my 2 week trip to Alaska in July, and that ate up a lot of time off I had, so my hunting is screwed up this season. By December, hopefully it will be colder (it as downright hot today.) And the 3rd, and longest, segment of the fall turkey season will be in swing.

Just down the hill to my left is a pond. The pond I've told you about that always seems to have Bald Eagles flying over it during spring turkey season. I never saw a beaver in it. But I guess they are there. Here's some of their art work.

It is. But there are so many deer and birds on that land, and so many good spots.

I'm hoping that new clear cut eventually brings in some quail. The other older clear cuts that have very young pines and that are overgrown with blackberries attract the quail. I tend to flush several coveys a year when I walk by them, unaware that are there.

It's heartbreaking to see that.

Just realize that, starting THIS spring.........that area will become a deer and turkey magnet with all the early successional regeneration going on. Then, it'll become a bedding and nesting haven.

It is heartbreaking, but only temporarily, and really only because of the memories.

There are a couple of other clear cuts on this tract, ones that are a few years old, with 6' tall pines, and thick with blackberries and devils walking sticks. All but impenetrable. One might look at it and wonder if anything could live in it. Yet, that's where the turkeys nest. And when I accidentally flush turkeys, many times that's where they fly to. The deer bed in it. And it's thick with rabbits.

A dead forest is one that never gets cut or never burns.

And I am seriously considering going out there and sowing some millet and sunflower seeds and getting that growing in the short term. Or am I?

So I am seeing this as an opportunity. The entire tract is still surrounded by wooded and culivated private land. Thewre's lots of bottomland and hardwoods left. Lots of corn was grown this year so the birds are going to have plenty to eat. By the time the dropped corn is picked from the fields, the clear cut should have lots of new, low browse. There also still plenty of beech trees on the tract, and the beech nuts are thick this year. There's lots of thick young pines left they like to over-winter in. So, I'm looking at this as an opportunity.

Maybe I'll get some opportunity at some longer range birds. Maybe my new 10 gauge and TSS will come in handy.

Which state?

Clear cuts pay off pretty quickly so don't be heartbroke.

It may keep the hunters away that think mature trees are needed

Like Yoder said, that place will be a magnet this spring. The maples are sprouting back up from the cut stumps. There are some white oaks that are already knee high. The blackberries are sprouting up all over. It will likely be covered over completely in green by spring. I'm already planning hunting it. I know that area like the back of my hand. And it's far enough from where you have to park, a little over a mile, that most hunters just won't go to it. And this tract seems to draw very few hunters. One of the many reasons I like it so much.

I had decided I wanted to get out of muzzleloader hunting. I just sold a Knight Mountaineer to a nice fella on this site. (Hope he's enjoying it.) And I was trying to sells the Traditions gun in the pictures above. But now I think I'll keep it. In fact, I have a Bushnell Prime 3-9X40 illuminated that it just sitting around begging for something to go underneath it. I have a store credit at Green Top Hunt and Fish in Richmond, Va. I may use it on a Traditions Strikefire and put the Bushnell on that. That would be a good gun to cover a large swath of this clearcut.

Definitely changes things but it will be better in the future. I wish Virginia would do some of that in the western part of the state. Only thing we get is an occasional controlled burn or uncontrolled here lately

I have NEVER seen a section of the National Forests logged. Ever. Maybe it happens and I've just never seen it. But in the sections of the GW and Jefferson Nat'l Forests I've hunted, hiked, and fished on, I've never seen evidence of recent timbering. Ther only open areas are the gas and power line right of ways.

There are some very small tracts but very few . Lot of old growth timber .

Elsewhere here I’ve told about the changes the state made on my local WMA: clearing the brushy meadows and then planting food plots. Those plots are irregularly shaped and curve around the wooded areas. Makes for interesting possibilities while walking around; the vista changes as you walk around the edges. I’ve spent three mornings sitting just inside the edge of the woods on one plot, watching a bunch of rut activity and killing a fat scrag buck at 7 yards with my xbow a couple weeks ago. Ought to be very good for the spring turkey hunting, and opens up the possibility of some long pokes (relatively) with my rifles on deer and predators, up to 250 yards or so.

I’m still undecided as to where I’ll sit tomorrow for the firearms opener. I have to kill a doe to punch my Earn-a-Buck, and I’m not going to be very picky about it; pocket-sized will do. After that, I can look for a better buck, either during the rest of the rifle season, or the upcoming ML season that comes later.

My son’s club is near Lunenburg, VA, and is on private land owned by a retirement trust of some sort. It gets logged, and I think it’s up to the club to plant what they can AFIK after the cuttings done. At times, they have to move the camp shack out of the way of the loggers. He took a nice 8 there yesterday, and a slightly smaller 8 during the ML season.

It's sad to see one of your hunting spots just after being clear cut. I have hunted on three different leases in the last five years. All of these leases are timber company land. So you have to expect mature timber to be harvested. But it still makes me angry when you show up and find your deer stand leaning up against a pine tree standing out in the middle of a large clear cut area.

But the good news is, the Game animals don't seem to mind. They still use the area. I though they would be gone. I placed a pop up blind and a camera on the edge of the clear cut. Still have plenty of Turkeys, Deer and pigs on camera. During the daylight hours they seem to stay just inside the wood line. I left a camera out by my old stand just to see whats going on. There is lots of night time activity out in the open clear cut.

I got this guy last week. He was walking the edge of the clear cut at the wood line.
He's not a Big Buck. Pretty average for the area I hunt. But he's the first one this year. Meat in the freezer.