Have 100 acres of pine plantation that needs its first thinning. Everything will be thinned but I want to create an area for bedding that will be thick. Should I clear cut about 20 acres right in the middle and let it grow up into a jungle or clear cut several smaller 5 acre spots randomly throughout. To only be 100 acres I have a lot of deer and turkey. Just trying to make it better. Thanks

I would make th 20 a food plot. It depends on surrounding property as to wether you need a bedding area. If there's a lot of bedding around then draw em in with food. If no bedding near i would make a few smaller bedding areas and keep the 20 for food. A field that is cut once a year can be used for bedding and can be hunted just like a clear cut. I wouldnt let it become overgrown.

I'd do one big spot

I would divide the property into burn units, place a 4/5 acre clearcut in each burn unit that gets burned every 2-3 years with the pine stand in that unit. Several small patch clear cuts managed with fire will be far better than one larger clear cut. You’ll maintain early successional bedding and browsing habitat perpetually. You could place a 1/2-1 acre plot along the edge of a couple of the patch clearcut. I love hunting food adjacent to cover. Recipe for success.

Post up a map of the property. It’d help to make suggestions

I think 5 acre patches may be too small and just be magnets for yotes to target

That could be a neat project. Make sure you get a great logger.

Yep. There’s a better way👍

Y’all kill joys.

I thinned or clear cut 100 acres of 30 year old loblolly two years ago. They weren’t all together, so I broke it up and thinned 52 acres and clear cut and replanted 48 acres in long leaf. Goal was two fold with the first being to attempt to even out he cash flow over the next 20 years with different harvest intervals. Second was to diversify the habitat and create mature pines that would be maintained with fire and to create bedding areas with the long leaf stands. Work in progress but the mature pines have create deer and turkey activity. Long leaf are still in the grass stage.

Also created a 3 acre 2 acre plot in the mature pines. Eventually stumps will be drilled or removed. In the long leaf, I will create two new plots.

I already have 3 food plots in place. I was thinking more about trying to have the clear cut areas butt up against my food plots, and be more towards the center of my property.

I personally see no need in any openings bigger than 5 acres. Some people can’t shoot across 5 acres. Bow hunting will be harder, turkeys could get further out in the middle away from you. I’d do about 4 five acre plots, but I’d really spend some time with the placement of them. I’d consider the shape of them, access, surrounding property/borders, WIND, terrain, soil type of potential plots, and what do you want to do with those five acres? Keep it thick and nasty or grow beautiful plots? I’m a fan of long narrow shooting lanes. I’d connect the plots with a straight lane or two. Spend some time, flag a couple of rows out and tell the logger to take out both rows, and flag your openings. Loggers hate leaving trees, but they generally don’t mind clearing more as long as they don’t have to skid over a 1/4 mile. I like thick and nasty spots myself. FYI I’d rather hunt a 5 acre clear cut than a 100 acre one, too much to cover.
Love to see some pics myself.

Large fields can make it tougher for turkeys - I like large deer fields but my current situation is all small plots and they hav been productive

If I had a large plot - I would like to hav 10-15 yards of grown up growth around edges of field - bucks feel more covered up walking out In this - almost like they hidden and I would like to have my stand set up where I could leave and they never know you there (maybe don’t plant within 50 yards of your shoot house) and hav easy exit - if u hav it set up that way and can leave undetected and always hunt the wind - like it never been hunted - this always very productive for me - makes u more ghost like - key for big deer Sightings - this also alows u to hunt lot more w out pressuring if u hunt wind

Where is the property?

20 acres is a big ‘ol food plot. Unless you have a 75+ hp tractor and probably a batwing I think that would be a lot to manage.

The reason I ask is there’s a lot more to this question than you realize. Like soil type/texture, slope/terrain, ingress/egress routes, adjacent timber/habitat, and I could keep going...

This place is in MS. Its about 20 minutes from my office and my house. I go out there almost everyday, sometimes 2 or 3 times a day. Its my "happy place". Right now if you ride out there at pretty much any time of the day, the turkeys will just walk down the road in front of my truck and not want to get out of the way. If the turkeys are in my main field I have to drive through to get to my barn, they just watch you drive by. Of course when turkey season starts, that all changes. Sunday afternoon my son and his girlfriend were out there and had 45 turkeys in the field and she shot a good 8pt. The deer population is good enough that I can let parents take their kids out and let them try and get their first deer, which many have killed their first deer out there. Its pretty much a rectangle with a small creek as my eastern border. It is pretty much flat, with it being a little lower on the eastern side where everything drains into the creek. My main road pretty much runs down the western property line to my barn which is probably 2/3's of the way back. So I already have 3 plots in place, I'm not going to put in any new plots. I just figured since the timber is ready to thin, I would just try and give the deer some more cover and browse by clear cutting some areas. But I dont want to screw up the place for the turkeys.

Sounds like a fine place

The turkeys will Lov the thinned areas the first few years and turkeys will walk over corn to get to a fresh clear cut

Good luck w your place - sounds awesome

Sounds like you could benefit from taking two rows out in a couple of places, creating a power line/gas line type situation which “everybody” likes.
Plus maybe clearing a perimeter (an acre or so) around your existing fields, letting it come back in thick bedding.
You have an opportunity that many people dream of. Managing your own place as you see fit and shaping it to your liking.
Good luck!

I also considered incorporating clear cuts in my pine stand but an alternate to clear cutting, that has worked well for me, is 5th row thinning. Every fifth row of trees is completely removed which creates wide skid rows that turn into perfect bedding cover distributed throughout the entire stand. It will also alleviate revenue loss by not removing 1/5 of your pine stand (20 acres) at the lowest possible return on your investment, pulp is only bringing around $7 a ton in my part of the country.

Well,

You are going to have some clear cut areas, unless you want your fields to be used for the loading areas, and I do not recommend using existing fields for loading areas.

So, you will need to pick out area(s) for loading sites. Also figure where you want all the limbs, and unusable wood to be laid and placed. If you do any burning, these areas do not need to be close to existing timber unless you want to possibly kill some standing timber with the heat produced by the burn.

Many other things come into play.

Selecting the loggers is the biggest factor in providing the finished cut and your satisfaction in the end.

Ask what the logger needs to get per loads/day to make a go for his operation.
Normally, a logger with a high load volume per day isn't going to provide the best thinning job, but would be better for clear cut operations. So a logger that specializes in thinning is what you are looking for in your situation.

A 3 wheel cutter (narrower and easier to maneuver) will do a better job in tight situations than most 4 wheel cutters with wider widths and tires. If the operator of the 3 wheel cutter is good, he is able to do less damage to the surrounding trees, particularly with row spacing and how it is cut. It's difficult to find a 3 wheel cutter though, so this may not be an option.

A logger/sorter that does a quality job of sorting the timber and sizing is also a necessity for what money you're going to make.


Just a few of my thoughts which I don't think have been mentioned.
I'm by no means an expert or know it all, and could be wrong in my thoughts, so take it for what it is, an opinion.

God Bless,
David B.

https://youtu.be/JU2JF3GaGeY
This is a good sized field here IMO. Just right