weekender21
Well-Known Member
That’s awesome! I have hopes of burning in 2022 but need to define the where and why first. You have a big jump start on habitat season!
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Stone Branch, build it, they will come.
- Thread starter George
- Start date
That’s awesome! I have hopes of burning in 2022 but need to define the where and why first. You have a big jump start on habitat season!
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Wind was blowing 50-60 mph here today...bad storm brewing...
MarkDarvin
Well-Known Member
I was itchy to get back to habitat work as hunting season was winding down. Between the arrival of rifle season, and then the first big snowfall, it just isn't the same as far as deer behavior goes.
Mennoniteman
Well-Known Member
I love it! I really enjoy your pictures of all the timber management that you are doing, and you are doing a lot of the same things that I do, but using slightly different approaches to get there. I'm not sure where you are going with this particular area from here, I know that you opened up some of you other areas with a chainsaw, which is what it takes for great deer habitat. As I look at the pictures I see a nice mix of small, medium, and large trees, and your woods in this burn area look relatively healthy, but IMO could also use more sunshine on the ground, for my deer woods management style I'd consider taking out at least half of the stem count that I'm seeing there.
Here's 3 pics of what I'm doing today, instead of being out in the woods running my chainsaw and flicking my bic, I'm sitting behind my desk while my undesirable high stem count trees are turned into into OSB. The trees that are left standing in the timber stand improvement area are mostly red oak and white oak, which is what I want to reseed, and there were a lot of Virginia pines taken out of here, so there will also be a lot of small pines popping back here for thermal cover.
George
Well-Known Member
Thanks Allen, I love it back at you, that is some operation that you have going there. You have been after me for a while to let my maples resprout, so my plan for this area will be right up your alley.
The blue line is my property line. The blue cross is where 3 different properties meet. To the southwest is 700 acres, they hunt on the ridge tops from their vehicles. The bordering ravine area is essentially an inviolate deer sanctuary. To the east my neighbor, Dwayne, owns the drainage and adjacent ridge tops. Dwayne is a good guy, family has been here forever, he hunts and food plots but also has a wife and a job and is not as nuts about it as I. It is fortunate that he is a good guy because my survey line down there is a mess for him if I wanted it to be so. I have survey pins across his access to his property and out in his food plots.
The black x is the stand that I killed target 10 out of.
10 bed down in this ravine. Last year in January when I started habitat season, I pushed 10 out probably into the adjacent ravine. This ravine from the ridge tops is 21 acres in size.
Looking south from the bottom of yesterday's burn area in red the ravine bottom levels out some into a deer travel corridor which I plan on improving.
Looking up the skid trail to the right is the burn area in orange. A nice scattering of oaks, I killed red maples in here back in the fall. This is now my oak savanna that I have been looking for. I plan on working this all the way down the ridge line where there are lots more really nice oaks.
For the burn area in red my plan is to create a food plot of maple and poplar. There are a select number of oaks, few, cherry, poplar, sugar maple, nicer ones, that I raked out prior to the fire. I am going to clearcut the rest and have a big campfire leaving the stumps untreated to sprout and to be controlled by fire in the future.
Yesterday during the burn by the time that I got down to the bottom it had started to rain so I just flicked my Bic and let these little babies go knowing time was short before it poured, and it would be an inferno which it turned into. Weekender, my goal here was to top kill trees.
G
The blue line is my property line. The blue cross is where 3 different properties meet. To the southwest is 700 acres, they hunt on the ridge tops from their vehicles. The bordering ravine area is essentially an inviolate deer sanctuary. To the east my neighbor, Dwayne, owns the drainage and adjacent ridge tops. Dwayne is a good guy, family has been here forever, he hunts and food plots but also has a wife and a job and is not as nuts about it as I. It is fortunate that he is a good guy because my survey line down there is a mess for him if I wanted it to be so. I have survey pins across his access to his property and out in his food plots.
The black x is the stand that I killed target 10 out of.
10 bed down in this ravine. Last year in January when I started habitat season, I pushed 10 out probably into the adjacent ravine. This ravine from the ridge tops is 21 acres in size.
Looking south from the bottom of yesterday's burn area in red the ravine bottom levels out some into a deer travel corridor which I plan on improving.
Looking up the skid trail to the right is the burn area in orange. A nice scattering of oaks, I killed red maples in here back in the fall. This is now my oak savanna that I have been looking for. I plan on working this all the way down the ridge line where there are lots more really nice oaks.
For the burn area in red my plan is to create a food plot of maple and poplar. There are a select number of oaks, few, cherry, poplar, sugar maple, nicer ones, that I raked out prior to the fire. I am going to clearcut the rest and have a big campfire leaving the stumps untreated to sprout and to be controlled by fire in the future.
Yesterday during the burn by the time that I got down to the bottom it had started to rain so I just flicked my Bic and let these little babies go knowing time was short before it poured, and it would be an inferno which it turned into. Weekender, my goal here was to top kill trees.
G
Mennoniteman
Well-Known Member
I'm all ears, since I struggle to get deer into my ravines. Our PA deer like high ground to the point of exclusivity, and the only way to get them to use the bottoms is to create super thick cover in there, which isn't all that difficult if we can get sunshine in there, which takes a really big operation, hence my timber stand improvement.
Red maples re-sprouting for deer food?
That "BLACK X" where you shot the big 10 is such a validation of basic deer stand selection principles! I see 10 important points of stand selection where you shot the "10";
Red maples re-sprouting for deer food?
That "BLACK X" where you shot the big 10 is such a validation of basic deer stand selection principles! I see 10 important points of stand selection where you shot the "10";
- On the military crest of the ridge? CHECK
- Stand located well off the property line? CHECK
- On the downwind side of the mountain? CHECK
- Just to one side of the head of a hollow? CHECK
- Located on the edge of a (slight) bench? CHECK
- Stand located just off the side of a saddle? CHECK
- Stand located at the termination point of a bench? CHECK
- Has road access to sneak in without being soaked in sweat? CHECK
- Located at the intersection of multiple features coming together? CHECK
- In a travel corridor/ buck sneak trail just just outside and downwind of a food plot? CHECK
- Bonus; All downhill to drag a big buck out of there!
Mennoniteman
Well-Known Member
Let me guess, you gravity fed it with your chainsaw? Looking good, lettin in the sunshine
George
Well-Known Member
Perhaps I should have said gravity assisted feed it does still require chainsaw and George power.
G
George
Well-Known Member
I broke through to the rim yesterday about the time my chainsaw started losing power. The guy that I bought the saw from said they like to run with an air filter a bit dirty, I may have taken that line of thinking to an extreme.
I sure like this clump of 5 white oaks left behind when the property was logged back in 1996. They dropped a pile of acorns.
G
I sure like this clump of 5 white oaks left behind when the property was logged back in 1996. They dropped a pile of acorns.
G
I notice you said you had bucks bedding in those narrow hollows...is that normally or during wind events? I have hollows that look exactly like those and the bucks always bed on top so they can see. I have seen bucks travel just below the rim on a trail...
George
Well-Known Member
When I said that he beds/bed in the hollow I'm meaning somewhere in the 22 acres that is that little watershed. The ridge to the south along the blue property line is the sanctuariest of my sanctuary areas. There is a rim trail where the steep drops off between the light and dark gray and 1 below that. I was standing on the lower one yesterday, it is not a skid trail but rather an actual game trail that shows up on lidar. There are some neat benches on that slope. The whole opposite sunny slope is bedding area. They are not bedding down in the bottom of the crack necessarily but travel up and down it.
G
Mennoniteman
Well-Known Member
I don't agree on the dirty filter, Stihl is one of the best saws on the market, but their weak points are an air filter that gets clogged 30X faster than a Husqvarna and mine all run better the cleaner they are. After cutting for a day, do a simple test, run it, and listen to how it sounds, blow it clean with compressed air, then listen again, you can hear that it opens up faster and runs higher.
George
Well-Known Member
I'm pretty sure this was a case of air filter neglect, they don't run if air can't go in any better than if air can't go out. I didn't debate, he was the guy that attended Stihl mtronics institute.
G
dogghr
Well-Known Member
Any engine whether motorcycle, car ,or chainsaw can run better with less air/ slightly dirty filter, if it’s running lean with its jetting or carboration setting.
Regardless George you are definitely running full bore on all cylinders. Certainly a marathon man. Good stuff. Nice burn!!
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Regardless George you are definitely running full bore on all cylinders. Certainly a marathon man. Good stuff. Nice burn!!
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George
Well-Known Member
ms362c is back up and running.
Yesterday I finished cleaning out behind my Amphitheater of Hunting stand
Before
and after out the back of the stand.
In this picture you can see my camera tripod in the lower left corner. I set it over the rim trail and newly exposed acorns.
Merry Christmas to me. 10/27 was the date of the last picture of big 10 prior. He looks to be in great shape. I just need him to shift his core area to my ground so he could be my target 10 for next year. I have pictures over 3 years of this guy.
G
Mennoniteman
Well-Known Member
Looks like the schrooms are growing well. My forester is after me to try growing shiitakes in oak logs but I've got to many other interests. This might be your kind of thing?
George
Well-Known Member
Looks like the schrooms are growing well. My forester is after me to try growing shiitakes in oak logs but I've got to many other interests. This might be your kind of thing?
