They are cutting up Hickory Ridge going across to Lackey Knob then all the way to the back to Sumach Creek. Down both horse trails at the end of Lackey Knob road.Muddy Branch, Green Pond, all that area in there. They are right around Rocky ridge now and moving. If you want to hunt back in there you better go soon. That will be messed up for turkey hunting for years.
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Cutting on Cohutta.
- Thread starter Timber1
- Start date
whitetailfreak
Senior Member
I was in there Wed back behind CS and they passed me going in. I thought they had finished up in there but I was wrong.
chrislibby88
Senior Member
It will be great for next season though.
1eyefishing
...just joking, seriously.
I think it will help all around in the long run…
I thought all of the mountain hunters have been begging for years for some timber cutting !
jbogg
Senior Member
I wish they would cut on this side of the Forest.
chrislibby88
Senior Member
Turkeys love a fresh open clear cut. The spring after seems to be the ticket, once some grasses and fresh growth start popping up. Killed one few weeks ago that was in a fresh cut at 4pm gobbling, brought him from the cut down into a creek strip surrounded by fresh greening up cuts. Deer thrive on that new growth too.
It will be a lot sooner than that.
deerpoacher1970
Senior Member
You cut mature hardwoods,you kill the turkey population.
chrislibby88
Senior Member
They seem to thrive in the mixed pine ridges, hardwood bottoms, and multi stage cuts of central and south GA. In fact the solid mature hardwoods of north GA National Forest seem to support far less numbers of game animals than the rest of the state. I do believe turkeys need mature hardwoods, but habitat diversity IS the key in supporting healthy populations. Clear cuts are diversity.
mguthrie
**# 1 Fan**OHIO STATE**
We have one of those guys in our club in central Georgia. They clear cut 170 acres and are thinning other areas of our 3000 acres. He's been crying about the timber company cutting THEIR trees on THEIR property. Even said the government needs to stop them. He's a retired school teacher
deerpoacher1970
Senior Member
I agree they need diversity but cut the trees that don't produce a mast crop.
chrislibby88
Senior Member
They need more than mast, the mast only comes a few months a year. There’s hundreds of thousands of acres of mast trees through CNF, what there isn’t is new successional growth, and thick low cover that a lot of animals thrive in. New mast trees will grow in there, as well as a lot of fresh leafy browse down where deer and turkey mouths can reach it instead of 60-80ft up in the canopy.
chrislibby88
Senior Member
I mean I get it, it shifts things up pretty bad at first, and could “ruin” specific spots and honey holes. One of my favorite pig stalking spots got cut last summer and screwed things up a bit. There’s still pigs, deer, and turkeys in there, and it forced me to find some other spots that are better. Glass half full/ glass half empty. A good spot is only good until you find a better one, and some folks don’t get that clear cuts, thinnings, and hot burns turn in to really good spots in a very short time.
chrislibby88
Senior Member
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I dropped a pin on my map where this cut is and will be scouting it out and any recent burns if I make it up to Cohutta next year. My best mountain spot is on a 2017 burn that killed a buncha trees along with the hurricanes from the past few years. There’s all kinds of blowdowns, open canopy, new growth, younger thickets, and a TON of deer.
chrislibby88
Senior Member
I bet there’s turkeys already strutting where they are done logging.
herb mcclure
Senior Member
Being one who hunted turkeys and grouse back in the late fifties and sixties when timber was being cut out of Fannin County's Blue Ridge WMA's area, I can vouch for the benefits the cutting did for both the turkeys and grouse there. But of course, back then it was selective cutting with logging roads and grass was sowed in the log roads. However, something has got to be done on much the CNF, before the turkeys in the high country are going to be a thing of the past. With plenty of acorns or no acorns. Things have been going downhill for several years up there.
I for one believe the season is way too long and opens too early. Also, the bag limit should not be statewide, one shoe size fits all places.
Also, as Dr. Mike Chamberlain turkey biologist has recently been quoted as saying,
"Georgia's gobbler harvest is up 53% already this year on public land and this is without any increase in turkey reproduction".
You might recall earlier here on the forum I posted a thread titled, Very Concern.
deerpoacher1970
Senior Member
Select cutting and clear cutting are 2 major different things, clear cuts grow back up as a jungle with nothing a deer or turkey can eat in 5 or 6 years then they are fit for nothing the rest of our lifetime.
