Stone Branch, build it, they will come.

[George]

I really enjoy watching this project George. Is there any market at all out there for firewood? Or is Hickory even a good firewood? There's not much here, so I have no experience.

I go hard at my property after deer season. I've got a 40 surrounded by un-hunted land, so it hunts big. I subtract the outer 100 yards on three sides of my property from improvement (with some wiggle there), so that only leaves me around 12-15 acres to do intense chainsaw work. I typically take nearly everything down, with the exception of oaks, paper birch, yellow birch, basswood, conifers, and good shrubs.

I've got pockets of native swamp grass that respond amazing well to sunlight, and after the brush comes up, that grass stands 5-6' tall through hunting season. There are not deer trails in there, but deer tunnels. I've talked with a forester, and they told me I have nothing of value, and too small of acreage for them to even come with machines for the firewood. So I have free reign to manage for deer and good deeds alone.

Most of what I cut down is aspen, poplar, tag alder, diamond willow, and black ash. I've been trying to use all of my black ash for my own firewood needs, which isn't much. Then I make as much as I can for my neighbor to use for his home heat. He uses firewood as a primary, and he really likes the ash, especially when I do all the cutting and he's just got to pull up to a pile and take it away.

Thanks Mark. That is nice of you to help your neighbor out, I have done that too in the past. Firewood market around here brings $75/pickup load, which works out to around $5/hour of labor if you're lucky.

Ash is pretty good firewood, here, I have burned through the white ash that was still available after beetle die off.

Hickory firewood is about as good as it gets. I will get after the stuff that is laying on the ground and leave the hinge cut wood in storage for a year or two.

I am a firewood snob, I like oak, hickory, walnut, black locust for my hardwoods in about a 50/50 mix with red maple. All of the wood that doesn't get burned is good where it is at for the environment. I burn about 3 cords as my only source of heat.

I planted aspen in Michigan, they are fun trees to grow up as thickets then clear cut for regeneration. You need twice as much aspen for the same BTU's but it works. I was heating my house with spruce and pine when I lived in Colorado, about 7 cords/year.

I enjoyed my time spent in marshy thickets of southern Michigan, dogwood- gray and red, and tamaracks. Reed canary was the conquering grass.

G

 

[dtabor]

Thanks Mark. That is nice of you to help your neighbor out, I have done that too in the past. Firewood market around here brings $75/pickup load, which works out to around $5/hour of labor if you're lucky.

Ash is pretty good firewood, here, I have burned through the white ash that was still available after beetle die off.

Hickory firewood is about as good as it gets. I will get after the stuff that is laying on the ground and leave the hinge cut wood in storage for a year or two.

I am a firewood snob, I like oak, hickory, walnut, black locust for my hardwoods in about a 50/50 mix with red maple. All of the wood that doesn't get burned is good where it is at for the environment. I burn about 3 cords as my only source of heat.

I planted aspen in Michigan, they are fun trees to grow up as thickets then clear cut for regeneration. You need twice as much aspen for the same BTU's but it works. I was heating my house with spruce and pine when I lived in Colorado, about 7 cords/year.

I enjoyed my time spent in marshy thickets of southern Michigan, dogwood- gray and red, and tamaracks. Reed canary was the conquering grass.

G

Its always a tug of war with me between habitat, leaving the wood there or hinging or firewood for the larger stuff. We heat with wood all winter so cutting down big trees and leaving them there, and then turning around and paying to have a load of logs delivered for firewood seems blasphemous. I will burn stuff down to baseball/softball size so thats always a conflict with hinge cutting as well. I have a big habitat project to start this winter and the big trees I plan to leave tops but I believe the wood will have to come out with me for future heat.

 

[George]

Its always a tug of war with me between habitat, leaving the wood there or hinging or firewood for the larger stuff. We heat with wood all winter so cutting down big trees and leaving them there, and then turning around and paying to have a load of logs delivered for firewood seems blasphemous. I will burn stuff down to baseball/softball size so thats always a conflict with hinge cutting as well. I have a big habitat project to start this winter and the big trees I plan to leave tops but I believe the wood will have to come out with me for future heat.

These slopes make a lot of what I cut impossible to get at.

I found a couple of deer back in my big buck bedding ditch.







The area where I am working over hickories.





G

 

[Mennoniteman]

My guess, 90 and 50, tally trees per acre

My paperwork looks like 35 and 55 trees per acre.
When I'm out in my TSI areas visually looking around the areas seem more open, having less trees than what your pictures appear to look like. But that's based on comparing pictures mentally, not actual measurement and count. I will take some current pics the next time I'm out there and see how they compare to yours.

 

[Mennoniteman]

These slopes make a lot of what I cut impossible to get at.

I found a couple of deer back in my big buck bedding ditch.

View attachment 29093

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The area where I am working over hickories.

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G

Nice. Are you flying a drone across there every day?

 

[George]

My paperwork looks like 35 and 55 trees per acre.
When I'm out in my TSI areas visually looking around the areas seem more open, having less trees than what your pictures appear to look like. But that's based on comparing pictures mentally, not actual measurement and count. I will take some current pics the next time I'm out there and see how they compare to yours.

Wow, I like it.

Nice. Are you flying a drone across there every day?

Every day when cabin fever has set in weather permitting. A pretty good picture of my back country.



Deer were all mid slope on the sunny side of the cabin ditch.









Above camp in the barn ditch. I'm repeating myself, the hills have eyes.



G

 

[Mennoniteman]

Wow, I like it.



Every day when cabin fever has set in weather permitting. A pretty good picture of my back country.

View attachment 29099

Deer were all mid slope on the sunny side of the cabin ditch.

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Above camp in the barn ditch. I'm repeating myself, the hills have eyes.

View attachment 29100

G

You appear to have more snow laying than PA does right now.. What do you think your deer are browsing right now? Do you ever hinge any budding maples in February to make extra browse?

 

[George]

You appear to have more snow laying than PA does right now.. What do you think your deer are browsing right now? Do you ever hinge any budding maples in February to make extra browse?

I flush and hinge cut hundreds if not thousands of red maples last winter and I maintain maple mineral stumps. I don't have many red maples for hinge candidates left.

I went up yesterday to see if I could answer that question. They are browsing in the blackberry patch for blackberry and Jap honeysuckle.





I see trails through a wood browse area that had been thinned out and burned 2 years ago.



I cut maples and burned this west facing slope last year where I'm finding deer bed down this year. I walked it right before the snow and there are still a ton of acorns on the ground.



G

 

[George]

Deer heard the drone coming from a long way off and ran for the ditch.















G

 

[gut_pile]

Is the BA more on those ridges or is it just the angle?

 

[Native Hunter]

Deer heard the drone coming from a long way off and ran for the ditch.

View attachment 29109

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G

What are you learning about how deer react to drones?

 

[George]

Is the BA more on those ridges or is it just the angle?

Angle mostly, but there are some bigger trees on the ridge tops, chestnut oak.

What are you learning about how deer react to drones?

If I stay high enough above, bed down deer have ears up or heads down can't see me mode, and stay put. Deer on the move, are gone. A good tool to clear deer off of your ground. I've got all the pictures that I need for now.

G

 

[Mennoniteman]

What are you learning about how deer react to drones?

People say drones don't scare deer, but my experience also has been that flying towards them at 100' high our deer tend run out of the plot. I don't have any experience with bedded deer.

 

[Native Hunter]

People say drones don't scare deer, but my experience also has been that flying towards them at 100' high our deer tend run out of the plot. I don't have any experience with bedded deer.

I think in the next few years we will hear lots of stories of drones being used to ruin someone’s hunting, and that will be the least of the nefarious things they will be used for.

 

[Native Hunter]

Angle mostly, but there are some bigger trees on the ridge tops, chestnut oak.



If I stay high enough above, bed down deer have ears up or heads down can't see me mode, and stay put. Deer on the move, are gone. A good tool to clear deer off of your ground. I've got all the pictures that I need for now.

G

Thanks. That’s about what I would expect.

 

[Mennoniteman]

I think in the next few years we will hear lots of stories of drones being used to ruin someone’s hunting, and that will be the least of the nefarious things they will be used for.

Time will show whether my hypothesis is correct, but since drones are pretty costly to replace I don't think drone owners are going to fly them very close to gun toting people wearing masks.

 

[Native Hunter]

Time will show whether my hypothesis is correct, but since drones are pretty costly to replace I don't think drone owners are going to fly them very close to gun toting people wearing masks.

They won't do it while the land owners are there. And with thermal drones it can easily be done at night. Once you scare deer enough times at a particular spot (like a food plot) you can forget about daylight activity of mature bucks.

 

[BenAllgood]

George, are you finding any predictable bedding or daytime use areas in regards to topography or cover type by using that drone?

 

[George]

Time will show whether my hypothesis is correct, but since drones are pretty costly to replace I don't think drone owners are going to fly them very close to gun toting people wearing masks.

It is legal for me to fly over other people's property, but I consider it as trespassing, and I only fly over my ground.

They won't do it while the land owners are there. And with thermal drones it can easily be done at night. Once you scare deer enough times at a particular spot (like a food plot) you can forget about daylight activity of mature bucks.

The deer here are the most skittish deer that I have ever seen, they still are. I think that squirrel hunting has a lot to do with that. My drone won't be part of my hunting plan.

George, are you finding any predictable bedding or daytime use areas in regards to topography or cover type by using that drone?

My few hunting drone flights just confirmed what me and Menman were talking earlier here. Deer don't bed on ridge tops but rather down off of the ridge tops, maybe 75 yards, maybe 125 yards downs. I see that they are using my cut up areas on sunny slopes, but also north slopes.

G

 

[Mennoniteman]

George, are you finding any predictable bedding or daytime use areas in regards to topography or cover type by using that drone?

That's a good question, and it looks like George's drone observations further reinforce what most research has always shown; that the average whitetail's preferred bedding and habitat area (in areas of rolling terrain) is on the "military crest" of a hill (see below).
Along with that, while there are almost always a few lateral deer trails at the foot of the mountain and halfway up the slope, in many years of hunting mountainous terrain extensively for deer I observed that the "military crest" is typically the main location on the ridge where deer travel laterally on trails going long distances, most other deer travel is vertical "up and down" the hill.