Eye sore to a bowhunter

[davidhelmly]

Cindy and I are sitting on the edge of what every bowhunter doesn't want to see but unfortunately is a way of life here in Georgia, a clearcut! They came in and sprayed it by helicopter in June to kill all of the scrub sweet gums that they left, unfortunately they killed all of the browse and 8 acres of clover that we had planted in this block. It's frustrating but it is managed for timber so you have to expect it, it's thick nasty cover so it still holds deer so we are scouting as much this morning as hunting hoping to put an eye on our number 1 hitlist buck and make a run at him here in late season.

 

[01Foreman400]

Good luck.

 

[SGaither]

Oh man, that doesn't look too inviting for a bow hunter right now but with the right equipment, i.e. loader, tractor and implements, I see a ton of future deer/wildlife habitat improvement options even with the soon-to-be planted pine seedlings.

 

[davidhelmly]

We wound up seeing 5 this morning but I really thought we would see more than that with all of the real estate we could see, it was a good morning for the Nikons lol!! Yeah I will be glad when they plant so we will see what we have to work with, they aren't suppose to replant what we already have in plots but they weren't suppose to spray it either...

 

[STMHunter]

David-

You might want to try a decoy with that situation. I've pulled them in across bigger voids with one.....

 

[GTHunter007]

Exactly what happened to us this year. Problem for us was they did that spray October 8th. The Saturday and Sunday before I saw 6-10 deer a sit...after the spray it fell to an average of just over 1 per hunt. At least now I know they can't mess us up next year...they will plant soon and never be seen again.

 

[Grey Man]

Man, that's tough. Best of luck.

 

[mauser64]

That happened on our place a few years ago. The silver lining is that it will give you an extra couple of years to hunt it that you wouldn't have had if they left it natural, ( depending on rainfall ).

 

[davidhelmly]

Exactly what happened to us this year. Problem for us was they did that spray October 8th. The Saturday and Sunday before I saw 6-10 deer a sit...after the spray it fell to an average of just over 1 per hunt. At least now I know they can't mess us up next year...they will plant soon and never be seen again.

Sightings are way down but there are still quite a few bucks using it but the lack of plots now has them spread out instead of concentrated in the plots and nearly no trees to hang in make it tough going. It could be worse, they could have cut 1250 acres instead of 160!

 

[kevincox]

Yep, in Ga we are all dealt with that deck at some point . Some footing hunting in future heads of those hardwoods left with all the thick pines around you. Gun hunters would be loving that cut next year for sure!