Lost Arrow
Member
Cover is the single most important habitat improvement we can make, yet most landowners completely overlook it. Whitetails don’t need food plots, they are merely a means of manipulating deer to make harvesting them easier. They do however need thick cover for bedding and browse, both of which are blatantly missing in most hardwood timber and many northern forests.
There are many methods of improving cover, specifically changing wide open timber into thick, dense, brushy cover that may hold 10 or more times as many deer. Hinging weed trees to release hardwood crop trees is an excellent way to quickly increase cover and browse.
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These pictures are from John's farm in IL, where the timber is wide open and the understory needs be thicker. Sound timber management requires identifying valuable crop trees and then releasing them by reducing competition from low value weed trees. We can accomplish this by double girdle, harvest or where feasible, hinge cutting the tree to leave it alive but on the ground where it's canopy will not compete with the crop trees. Reducing canopy will result in a marked increase in hard mast, and rapid growth of the high quality hardwood tree.
Trees compete primarily for sunlight, reducing canopy not only helps the crop tree but encourages a plethora of growth at ground level so timber management is a win win for both whitetails and landowner.
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Whitetails have social groups not unlike us, they need privacy from other groups and safe, secure cover to bed. They also need native browse, after all they are browsers not grazers like cattle, God created whitetails to be creatures of the edge where timber meets field. That transition area consists primarily of browse, from young saplings and shrubs to blackberries, it is all on a whitetails dinner menu. This is what we create throughout the timber using hinge cutting as a management tool.
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This is the summer after and already new growth has exploded and a new bedroom has been created. Native browse is what whitetails rely on and to feed more deer we need to provide more of it.
Instead of wide open timber, you can’t see much of anything and the last thing deer want is to be seen, but most landowners know little about whitetails and even less about their habitat.
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Edge feathering was first lauded by quail biologists but is also a great habitat improvement for whitetails. We use this tool as a form of timber management, hinge cutting weed trees along the edge and girdling trees too large to safely fall.
These are pictures from an edge feathering job Jesse did last winter and I sent my friend Walt through the brush for pictures. This is an example of a hinge cut tree very much alive though fallen.
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The object of falling trees along the edge is to create a dense screen between timber and field. This gives deer a sense of safety and allows the hunter to approach stands, do field work without scaring everything into the next county.
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Quail enthusiast’s spray glyphosate along the edge first to kill csg (cool season grass) which encourages a flush of native forbs, they in turn grow 3-4 high quickly screening the edge.
This rapid growth of forbs and shrubby growth provides whitetails with exactly the type of browse they require.
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The downed trees also provide blocking along the edge which means trees can be used to guide deer to an opening by a stand. We use a tractor and loader and build a wall of trees and limbs, this turns into a living fence that funnels whitetails past a stand. This jungle of thorns is also a mecca for small game and upland birds, full of seeds and berries.
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When you combine thick, impenetrable cover with centrally located food sources you end up with a whitetail oasis, much of it created with elbow grease and a chainsaw
When I get where I'm going....don't cry for me dow
There are many methods of improving cover, specifically changing wide open timber into thick, dense, brushy cover that may hold 10 or more times as many deer. Hinging weed trees to release hardwood crop trees is an excellent way to quickly increase cover and browse.
]
[/url] These pictures are from John's farm in IL, where the timber is wide open and the understory needs be thicker. Sound timber management requires identifying valuable crop trees and then releasing them by reducing competition from low value weed trees. We can accomplish this by double girdle, harvest or where feasible, hinge cutting the tree to leave it alive but on the ground where it's canopy will not compete with the crop trees. Reducing canopy will result in a marked increase in hard mast, and rapid growth of the high quality hardwood tree.
Trees compete primarily for sunlight, reducing canopy not only helps the crop tree but encourages a plethora of growth at ground level so timber management is a win win for both whitetails and landowner.
]
[/url]Whitetails have social groups not unlike us, they need privacy from other groups and safe, secure cover to bed. They also need native browse, after all they are browsers not grazers like cattle, God created whitetails to be creatures of the edge where timber meets field. That transition area consists primarily of browse, from young saplings and shrubs to blackberries, it is all on a whitetails dinner menu. This is what we create throughout the timber using hinge cutting as a management tool.
]
[/url]This is the summer after and already new growth has exploded and a new bedroom has been created. Native browse is what whitetails rely on and to feed more deer we need to provide more of it.
Instead of wide open timber, you can’t see much of anything and the last thing deer want is to be seen, but most landowners know little about whitetails and even less about their habitat.
]
[/url]Edge feathering was first lauded by quail biologists but is also a great habitat improvement for whitetails. We use this tool as a form of timber management, hinge cutting weed trees along the edge and girdling trees too large to safely fall.
These are pictures from an edge feathering job Jesse did last winter and I sent my friend Walt through the brush for pictures. This is an example of a hinge cut tree very much alive though fallen.
]
[/url]The object of falling trees along the edge is to create a dense screen between timber and field. This gives deer a sense of safety and allows the hunter to approach stands, do field work without scaring everything into the next county.
]
[/url]Quail enthusiast’s spray glyphosate along the edge first to kill csg (cool season grass) which encourages a flush of native forbs, they in turn grow 3-4 high quickly screening the edge.
This rapid growth of forbs and shrubby growth provides whitetails with exactly the type of browse they require.
]
[/url]The downed trees also provide blocking along the edge which means trees can be used to guide deer to an opening by a stand. We use a tractor and loader and build a wall of trees and limbs, this turns into a living fence that funnels whitetails past a stand. This jungle of thorns is also a mecca for small game and upland birds, full of seeds and berries.
]
[/url]When you combine thick, impenetrable cover with centrally located food sources you end up with a whitetail oasis, much of it created with elbow grease and a chainsaw
When I get where I'm going....don't cry for me dow
