What's your biggest mistake/regret with land management?

CAS_HNTR

Active Member
I was thinking about this the other day as I'm really kicking myself for not paying close enough attention to tree row spacing as it compared to the tractor wheel paths for a big patch of oaks I planted back a few years ago.....hard to mow between tree rows when the wheelpath is 2+ feet too wide! Damn!

Let's hear yours!
 
I have learned that whitetail habitat and high quality timber dont really mix. TSI helps a barren woodlot, but that is no substitute for land grown for whitetails--not timber.
Please dont misunderstand. One can have both. But ultimately whitetails prefer land without every square inch devoted to a crop tree. Which is unfortunate. I love tall straight hardwoods!
 
I have learned that whitetail habitat and high quality timber dont really mix. TSI helps a barren woodlot, but that is no substitute for land grown for whitetails--not timber.
Please dont misunderstand. One can have both. But ultimately whitetails prefer land without every square inch devoted to a crop tree. Which is unfortunate. I love tall straight hardwoods!
Interesting...3 of the 4 big bucks my wife and I killed this fall were killed in extremely open timber...so open I shot over 150 yards through the woods. None were chasing does although the last one may have been following well behind 2 does but interest didn't seem high with him...different areas of the country have different type areas that deer like to hang out. Deer like open timber here so they can see danger coming but do not like open fields. My hinge cuts have not been of use it seems other than in the areas I did it for screening purposes only...
 
Biggest regret so far is my north neighbor renting his rent house out to a 30 something who does not work all fall/winter who also has lots of buddies and cousins that hunt with him with rifles all fall even though it is not rifle season...

As far as what I did that is my biggest habitat regret is dozing in a food plot very near said property line and since it is clover it is slow to go back native which is what I am trying to get it to do...
 
Jumping on the hinge-cutting band wagon a few years ago. I honestly can't see much benefit to the hinge-cutting I've done on my property.
 
1 Not planting more fruit and cover trees in the beginning. Been better to ignore foodplots if given the choice.
2 Expecting prime fescue fields to convert to sucessional growth on their own . After 8+ years found it is an evil monoculture with root density promoting only itself. Since, I have sprayed/ mowed/ shallow tilled more aggressivesly and achieved more in couple years than all the years before combined.
3 Hinge cutting too low on the stump.

As a side discussion, I agree with Okie, in that my deer love cruising big timber during the rut. They simply dont want to fight endless thickets. But remember, I am 80% timber.

Disagree on hinge cutting but you have to understand its usage. I don't see heavy usage for bedding but I do see them skirt the edges that are created, and even bedding there. Keep in mind my hinges are the infamous Random Clusters that I've described in my thread and are relatively small lots, one leading to the other with open timber between. And I've found that cutting at least chest high makes more use by the deer if they can walk beneath the timber. I hate cutting that way, and consider not very safe but it works.. I watched as a buck worked toward one of my foodplots past weekend and as he neared the plot, he left the logging road and entered the hingecut/edge feathering I had done, walking under the fallen trees and into the plot.
And I would never consider logging my place and removing vast numbers of mature mast producing trees that are 50+ yo and in their prime. And some wonder why invasives like MFR take over these areas. Without natural fire, milder weather patterns, and the heavy browse, that kind of mature timber is hard to reproduce. A variety of growth in type and ages is much more productive wo the drama of invasives.
 
Not having an all out war on Autumn Olive and Sericia Lespediza when I had a better chance of winning. As stated above I wish I would have planted more trees 10 years ago.
 
Back in 1985 my mom’s friend Jane asked me if I would buy an old farmhouse and 56 acres that belonged to her recently deceased mother. At the time she offered me a land contract for the whole shebang at the price of $60,000. I was making about 15K$ a year, and 4 years income just seemed insurmountable to my 23 YO self. God, what an idiot I was.


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My biggest regret is the wasted early years. The years where I didn't have a plan and was trying to do things where I COULD and not where I SHOULD. I wasted a few years trying to plant plots in odd places and 1/2 assing it and not planting trees and not making the big improvements that I really needed. I was tip-toeing around when I needed to be kicking down doors! To be honest fear and the unknown where my biggest issues. That is where the now defunct QDMA forum really helped me. The information and encouragement and the success of most of you and others now scattered about is what gave me the confidence to step back and do it at least better, with a plan and to take on projects that I would have otherwise not have.
 
Not having a plan in place for plots, timber improvements and new tree plantings. I did a lot of 1/2 assing too with tree planting and food plots. Plant 1500+ trees with no site prep, and pissed that my survival rate was less than 25%. And the list goes on.
 
My biggest regret is letting the criminals poach on me for as long as I did thinking that the IDNR would actually catch them.

G
 
Good topic. I bought 20 acres of old-field habitat in 2006. I was ignorant about how to set up a property for deer hunting, but eager to do some habitat work. All I really knew was deer like white oak acorns, so I spent lots of time and money clearing good habitat and planting hundreds of white oaks in big blocks. It would have been much more productive to plant fewer oaks, more Norway spruce and both more strategically.
 
My biggest regret is not having a better long term plan while the loggers were clearing 50 acres of pines. If I had my vision solidified while they were doing that I would have saved lots of time and money.
 
Planting plots where the previous owners had, instead of scrapping some places that weren't big enough to feed deer, yet not in locations that made sense for the wind or my low impact style.
 
The not taking pictures is a huge one. Another is not protecting trees when planting them. Wasted a lot of time, money and effort for no results. Trying to change things for the better that didn't need to be changed while overlooking the obvious things that needed to be changed. Make a list of the most important and follow that list. The most important are not always the most fun or glamorous jobs.
 
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