MN logging companies

I am currently hunting a farm my father owns here in Northwest Tennessee. The farm is approximately 200 acres and mainly consists of large fence rows, small patches of woods, and open fields. I found out this morning that he is planning on select cutting the timber. I am very much against this plan although I can in no way stop him if he decides to go through with it. While this farm is plentiful with both deer and turkey I am afraid if he goes through with it the hunting may be over because of the loss of habitat. My father put this farm in the CRP Program years ago and the deer disappeared and about two years ago we finally began having really good success in taking some nice bucks there. Opinions please?????

Responsible land stewardship means harvesting trees as well as game…

You’ll actually see increase in deer populations once the area is a little more open. New space means new growth. New growth means more food.

^^^^^This is the truth, all the undergrowth will flush grow in the years following and deer will be in there thick.

Correct. Mature woods is not the best deer habitat. A selective cut won’t be an issue even some clearcuts are good as long as there is still other habitats that are adjacent. It may look ugly but the deer will be all over it once the new growth starts. The long term battle can be with a hardwood clearcut that is planted back in pines. It provides escape and bedding cover but little else.

Go with it. Short term, minor disturbance with mid/long term benefits.

A two to five year old clear cut down here is a deer hunter magnet. Prescribed thinning and burning is a real boon for turkey and quail.

You will see an increase in deer probably. I would consider hiring a forester. There are some unscrupulous loggers who will say they will “select cut” your land. “Select cut” is not a technical term and can mean anything. They may end up taking all the valuable oak and leaving tree species that wildlife don’t like as much. A consulting forester can set up your sale to provide for your wishes be it wildlife, timber improvement, cleared out food plots or whatever. Often the forester can require competitive bids which may bring in more money than a private deal with the first logger that waves cash at you. I worked as a forester for many years. Timber ripoffs and mismanagement are very common on private land. A poor timber harvest leaving junk trees will set back timber and wildlife productivity for decades.

I am with Ravenloon on this one, get a management plan for the woodlot, I don’t know it they still do or not but Tennessee Division of Forestry used to help a landowner develop a management plan for little to no cost. If not talk to a consulting forester. I know everybody likes to use the term selective cut but what that usually results in without a true forest management plan is high grading the woodlot and leaving only the poor quality trees or the un/less desirable species. If it is a TSI thinning to meet a management goal it can be a good thing otherwise it can destroy the forest. Believe it or not but a clear cut is less damaging to the long term forest than a poorly executed “high grading” select cut is. In fact, a few small clear cuts can actually be very beneficial to a lot of wildlife species and some like grouse require them. However now is not really a good time to harvest your timber unless you have to due to financial reasons as the market is pretty low right. Not to be blunt but most peoples timber is not nearly the quality/value that they think it is unless they have a strong forestry background, when you are looking at it as a merchantable product. Many have it cut expecting one thing and when they get the check they wish they had their trees back, get that worked out on the front end as far as expected yield and spell it out in the contract.

Depending how the cut is done, it may well be beneficial to the wildlife, but you can do a cut that will be beneficial to the wildlife and still provide for sustainable forest health. Contrary to many peoples belief logging is not bad on its face, it is simply harvesting a renewable resource like a farmer picking his corn, the difference is if a farmer messes up his corn harvest he gets another chance next year if you mess up your forest management you may not get another chance at it in your lifetime so make sure you do it right. Also most loggers will not be interested in harvesting a small block of timber as it is just not time and cost effective if they are a larger operator so you may wind up with the less ethical loggers unless you have someone you know and trust who is in the business who is doing it for you basically as a friends and family deal.

Don’t forget to establish some good food plots and maintain them year round. The Quality Deer Management Association has a wealth of information.

RavenLoon said:

You will see an increase in deer probably. I would consider hiring a forester. There are some unscrupulous loggers who will say they will “select cut” your land. “Select cut” is not a technical term and can mean anything. They may end up taking all the valuable oak and leaving tree species that wildlife don’t like as much. A consulting forester can set up your sale to provide for your wishes be it wildlife, timber improvement, cleared out food plots or whatever. Often the forester can require competitive bids which may bring in more money than a private deal with the first logger that waves cash at you. I worked as a forester for many years. Timber ripoffs and mismanagement are very common on private land. A poor timber harvest leaving junk trees will set back timber and wildlife productivity for decades.

This x1000

My grandfather took a cash offer for “selectively harvesting” oak trees out of the woods on the family farm. Twenty years ago I was just a kid and didn’t really understand. Now I wonder if the woods will be able to recover in my lifetime.

The question is, is your father up for hiring a forester? If not then you might have to step up and pay for one. If your not willing to step up and invest in this property, your at the mercy of others.

I would take the words of RavenLoon and 1773 very seriously. This phrase especially sticks in my mind: “…like a farmer picking his corn, the difference is if a farmer messes up his corn harvest he gets another chance next year if you mess up your forest management you may not get another chance at it in your lifetime so make sure you do it right….”

Yeah, it will do both the deer and you good to get rid of some of the junk and open things up a little.

Contrary to what some uninformed/crazy folks would browbeat you into believing, responsible logging (that is, select cutting, as is the common practice almost universally in the US these days) produces way more biodiversity than letting the woods grow to its final stage. When a forest reaches a certain age without select cutting, the trees block the sun and kill off everything else on the ground.

The new growth that will come will likely support future bedding areas. If this farm has good bedding and food/browse you’ll be sitting on a honey hole

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See Clutteredshop quote above! Absolutely! These guys are correct. We were fortunate enough to hire a forester 12 years ago, and the neighbor did not. It’s literally across the fence you should see the difference.

And the hunting will be better. In 3 to 4 years, it will be to thick to walk through. And full of berries and turkeys and deer… Keep managing your deer trails and setting up food plots and shooting lanes as the new growth comes in. You can create your habitat with some hard work and foresight.

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Lots of good replies !

I hunted on a large club a few years ago . The loggers came and select cut about half of it during the seasons beginning to middle.

We still killed the same amount of deer ,including some nice trophy bucks.

The next year the property was filled with shooting lanes and forage that wasn’t there because of the thick canopy above.

It’s gonna change your hunting for sure . Just make the best of it

RavenLoon said:

You will see an increase in deer probably. I would consider hiring a forester. There are some unscrupulous loggers who will say they will “select cut” your land. “Select cut” is not a technical term and can mean anything. They may end up taking all the valuable oak and leaving tree species that wildlife don’t like as much. A consulting forester can set up your sale to provide for your wishes be it wildlife, timber improvement, cleared out food plots or whatever. Often the forester can require competitive bids which may bring in more money than a private deal with the first logger that waves cash at you. I worked as a forester for many years. Timber ripoffs and mismanagement are very common on private land. A poor timber harvest leaving junk trees will set back timber and wildlife productivity for decades.

I’m a Forester and I approve this message.

A consulting forester will discuss goals and uses for the stand/property. Game management is a common goal among landowners and one a forester is likely to have heard.

You can find a Society of American Foresters Certified Forester here.
Why Hire a Certified Professional

Agreed. A selective cut won’t hurt as long as you do not wipe out all of the mast producing trees. Try hinge cutting a few trees to create bedding cover in select areas and stay out of them! Mainly the center of the wood lot or on higher ground. The new growth after the cut will provide forage and cover as well. Don’t be scared!

You will probably see an immediate decline in wildlife in the first 6 months. Then a surge in population following. Cleared land is great for browse and bedding cover.
A mixture of old growth timber, new growth timber, row cropped land and fallow ground are almost perfection for whitetail deer.

As an Arborist with 2 degrees in Forestry… Hire a Forester. This way you are guaranteed to get what you want. Ask around, it isn’t hard to pick out the good foresters… they have lots of clients. Unfortunately MA does not have a healthy forestry sector. I know a number of foresters who have day jobs because there isn’t enough work to keep them employed in forestry. Hence why I’m an Arborist and not a Forester lol.

Edit, sorry just reread. You don’t own the property. The farmer may be select cutting to pad his wallet. If this is the case you may lose some deer habitat. If he is selecting for forest health and habitat then you are golden. If he grows crops you should be able to find deer as long as there is a good place to bed down on the property and plenty of food/water.

Can’t say what’s going to happen on your 200 acres. I used to be on a 4000 acre lease… about 300 acres got cut one year… all it did was push the deer elsewhere on the lease, though I did not shoot any myself and was kinda grouchy about that (statewide, it was a really rough year… heavy rains in the spring killed a lot of fawns, and drought the rest of the year didn’t help the survivors). The next year, though, I myself shot the 2nd largest deer taken… he was just out in the open, 50 yards off the treeline, walking in front of me… Probably had just mated, and was tired. A few days earlier, I’d been able to spot a doe running toward me from over a half mile out (2x 40 acre fields down. She’d been shot in the jaw on the lease next to ours, and was running the whole time… couldn’t drop her… tragic.) I’d see deer out in the open, feeding in the evenings, whereas before, they were either eating elsewhere, or hidden by the massive amounts of brush.

The year they cut so much timber (all on the side of the lease I preferred to hunt), they didn’t really tell us about it until they were doing it… some of the thicker areas were also simply thinned to allow better growth over the next few years. This opened a LOT more area to climbing stands and bow hunting, as well as making it a lot easier to see things from the box stands. The cut over areas quickly sprouted brush that the deer love, and it was a lot easier to hunt squirrels too, after (they left all the hardwood bottoms alone, with a bulldozed path all around the edge as a fire break/border for re-seeding.)

Also, I once saw a doe walking TOWARD the logging crew’s noise, with the wind, just because she was curious. I didn’t shoot her, but I learned about deer behavior… the logging was having no impact on that doe’s normal movements.

Seeker said:

Can’t say what’s going to happen on your 200 acres. I used to be on a 4000 acre lease… about 300 acres got cut one year… all it did was push the deer elsewhere on the lease, though I did not shoot any myself and was kinda grouchy about that (statewide, it was a really rough year… heavy rains in the spring killed a lot of fawns, and drought the rest of the year didn’t help the survivors). The next year, though, I myself shot the 2nd largest deer taken… he was just out in the open, 50 yards off the treeline, walking in front of me… Probably had just mated, and was tired. A few days earlier, I’d been able to spot a doe running toward me from over a half mile out (2x 40 acre fields down. She’d been shot in the jaw on the lease next to ours, and was running the whole time… couldn’t drop her… tragic.) I’d see deer out in the open, feeding in the evenings, whereas before, they were either eating elsewhere, or hidden by the massive amounts of brush.

The year they cut so much timber (all on the side of the lease I preferred to hunt), they didn’t really tell us about it until they were doing it… some of the thicker areas were also simply thinned to allow better growth over the next few years. This opened a LOT more area to climbing stands and bow hunting, as well as making it a lot easier to see things from the box stands. The cut over areas quickly sprouted brush that the deer love, and it was a lot easier to hunt squirrels too, after (they left all the hardwood bottoms alone, with a bulldozed path all around the edge as a fire break/border for re-seeding.)

Also, I once saw a doe walking TOWARD the logging crew’s noise, with the wind, just because she was curious. I didn’t shoot her, but I learned about deer behavior… the logging was having no impact on that doe’s normal movements.

Click to expand…

The doe walking toward a logging crew is not unheard of. Sometimes they will eat the fresh slash left behind… especially if it’s sugar maple buds.

Yeah… people tell me that… but it’s the first time I’d ever seen it… the crew (I talked to them later) told me that wherever they left their eqpt at night, in the morning, it was surrounded by fresh deer tracks, from the curious deer checking it out overnight… pretty funny.

When I lived in the Black Hills it was common for deer to travel toward the sound of a chainsaw, especially in the winter. When a logger dropped a tree the deer like to eat the moss than grew up in the limbs. I talked to a lot of loggers who would have deer eating on the other end of the tree as they were bucking it up, that was usually in the coldest part of the winter. Logging if done right, will help wildlife. Here where I live in the Rockies most of the timber harvest is for wildlife habitat improvement. The quality of the timber is not all that great for lumber, so the timber harvest is for other goals, like fire hazard reduction, habitat improvement, timber stand thinning so the remaining trees will be more bug resistant. The biggest bull I ever shot was standing on a hillside, that the day before was being logged with a big hydro logging machine.