Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum Question about timber company leases

The land for the club I'm in is leased from a timber company. Do these companies have to give any warning as to when they cut trees?

no, they come and go as they please

No but most will give you a heads up it's coming just no set dates.

Yep..I got a letter Dec 2015 that they would be thinning a 47 acre section of our lease sometime in 2016...They never showed up.Few weeks ago they came in on another section,widened the road and put a buncha gravel down.I got another letter the other day they would be thinning the same 47 acres and another 64 acres sometime in 2017..I wish they'd hurry up so I can go pick out some spots to hunt.

The timber company we lease from sends a "timber harvest map" each year notifying us what is to be cut the upcoming year. They don't notify an actual date just sometime that year.

It seems my club pres. isn't informed at all when cutting will take place. I found some pink marking tape on some trees last weekend in random places in some 15 foot pines. No one in club marked any trails with tape so it had to be somebody from timber company. I called the guy that runs the club and he knows nothing he says. Thanks for replies guys.

Problem is (or can be) that the land owner will sell the timber on a contract and the buyer (who hires the timber crew) can cut it when they want, within a given time frame. This allows the crews to work places when the weather allows rather than HAVING to go cut a place when it's way too wet and wrecking it.

I don't KNOW this for certain, not in the business on either side, but that's how it was explained to me. If this is correct, even if your club president was in touch with the landowner regularly, he may know of the sale and still not know WHEN they're coming.

I never get notice. I am in Bullock Co too.

Not all that uncommon with most timber companies from what leases Ive been around. Most leases are written where the timber co can do pretty much what it wants when it wants too without any notice.

We usually get a notice but in January I went in to hunt and found that they had started thinning pines a day or two earlier without making contact. They were working right where I had intended to hunt. It turns out that they did try to contact the president just before starting but he was out of town at the time.

About 1/2 of our property is due for a thinning so that would be ok. If they take it all, that could be disaster for our small lease.

Pink flagging can mean many things other than timber cutting. Timber co. may have not been the ones to put it there. Surveyor for example

As everyone has already stated they usually have one year from the date of the timber sale to cut the timber. So basically anytime within that year they could be on the lease.

I am the pres of our small club and I regularly contact the timber company for updates. When you ask, they tend to get you answers. Regarding cutting, it was already stated that timber is sold to highest bidder who has a set amount of time to extract it. Although there are no guarantees, your timber agent should get some sort of notice from the logging crew where they are going next. I asked my guy to let me know if he could. He called me when the logger called him and they were on the property the next day. I guess one days notice is better than none.

I also saw pink ribbon on trees in areas not scheduled to be cut or thinned. I asked my timber contact about this and he told me that periodically, survey crews go through timber to re-evaluate and document trees per acre, heighth of trees, health, etc. The company then uses all this data to make sure timber is on pace and adjust harvest schedules as needed.

Helped my feelings to at least have an understanding of what goes on.

The friends I have that hunt timber co land don't complain too much about the cutting. They generally get notice and work around it. Their biggest complaint is about tearing up roads and culverts. They also said they get a break on the lease price if the cutting comes during the season.

Thanks for the replies.

Just stay in touch with the timber company POC on a regular basis. If you know a sale has taken place, like they said, it's usually one year or less...market/rain/manning all dependent.

Not all harvest units will be "sold" necessarily. A good number of companies have a delivered logger system, where a harvest manager employed by the company, moves the logger specifically based on markets and weather. And those loggers can be moved on a moments notice - and for good reason. This is why some of you get the notices that give a large timeframe as a possibility. Of course, those notices go to the president (or whoever signs the paperwork). They have to communicate that.

Simply staying in touch with a POC on a regular basis may not give you any inside information at all these days. The rec lease representative doesn't always have a lot of contact with the day to day harvest managers. That would all depend on the structure of the company.

I wish they would cut some of the timber on our lease. We need some cutover

The forestry guys that take care of our place calls me before they do anything. Heck they have called me just to let me know they just went ride on the place. Top notch bunch of guys. A while back they were clearing fire lanes and caught the ladder on one of out tripods with the dozer and bent it. They redid our main road to our camp as payment for bending the ladder. Told him not to worry,that we had extra ladder section s to fix it. He said nope, they messed up and wanted to make it right. I did cook them a big pot of gumbo for fixing the road so I think I'm still ahead.