Would like to know you guys opinion on timber being cut during the hunting season. We are having some Timber cut off out lease. I would say it is some of the less hunted areas of out lease but think it could help more than hurt.

I have had good luck when they cut timber on our lease. Especially on the weekends when they aren't cutting or on a rainy day when they aren't cutting

Do you hunt close or stay away?

If you're hunting where I think you are on 112, they have been really laying the logs down around there all season. Right now they are thinning a nice longleaf stand. If you are in Baldwin County HC, pm me and I'll tell ya where they cross on a regular basis. I run that road just about every day. The deer tend to skirt the edges of where they cut from what I have seen.

I'd hunt close. Deer love fresh dirt.

No I hunt in River Run across the street and just found out they are cutting this week. They have cut on our property before just not during the season.

Hunt the edges like slippin said. Walk the roads and edges looking for fresh tracks in the soft dirt. If they are cutting oaks during bow season they will go for the topped trees and eat the acorns scattered everywhere. It's not a bad thing. It's how you use it to your advantage. You would be surprised what you can see sitting in a skidder on a rainy weekend afternoon.

They are thinning a small section off my lease now... I sat our gas line which is less than 200 yards from the cutting and had 9 deer come out on different areas of the gas line... They fed like normal but when their heads come up they would looked back toward the cutting...but never spooked... They stopped around 5ish and the deer piled on in......

I have heard good things about hunting around cut timber but I have just never done it.

As long as they aren't running equipment, get in there and hunt it.

I don't worry I will be hunting

If you can determine what time they shut down for the day, i would be there ready to set up when they pull out for the evening if there is enough light left.

I have watched tops fall on one side of the powerline and had bucks under me on the other side of the powerline at the same time.

cons:
yeah it's great when you're on stand and the weather is perfect (low 30's) and you hear the jake brake of their trucks (up on the paved road) and then your stand begins to shake as they pass you by on their way down the logging road



what goes in must come out


nothing like leaving the equipment in your line of sight to the food plot


when they tell you they are "finished" in an area and you put your cameras back out only to find out they decided they could cut a few more trees in that area


don't have a picture of it but the tall pine tree in front of the plot had a double man ladder stand attached. the ladder and the tree were flagged very well. one day as the skidder was dragging from the bottom up to the log landing, the top of the pine tree grabbed the ladder portion of the stand and bent it 90 degrees to the left.


rutted out roads that fill with water are great too


pros:
if you talk to the cutters, they will tell you where they flushed a big buck or three from where the buck(s) were bedded .

easy to see deer tracks in fresh dirt

smells really good (if cutting pine)

cutters will also tell you if they find signs of poaching - one of our cutters told us where he found some lawn chairs where a popup blind had been set up . they also told me about a climber they found close to the creek bottom. 'tweren't ours .

deer are curious. they will come out and investigate when the loggers leave. be ready.

Lots of big deer killed on a freshly cut (or active) tract. One of my loggers used to hunt out of the window of the loader after they quit for the day if the landowner gave him permission. Deer love to investigate around soil that has been exposed.

Timely thread. While I was in the stand this morning a member on one of my leases texted me and said they were cutting on the property on our south border. Then when I got out of the stand and was walking back to the truck I noticed flagging tape running down the property line on the piece of property I was hunting. Went by the land owners place on the way home and he said he was going to log it.