Cutting on Cohutta.

Unicoidawg

Moderator
Staff member
Good, they need to do some more cutting, throw some control burns in and while they are at it add a few more food plots. I sure wish they'd do it over in this corner of the state.
 

herb mcclure

Senior Member
Having commented earlier on this thread about how I saw timber harvesting helping wild turkeys years ago on the Blue Ridge WMA, I want to clarify that statement just a little bit here today. Yes, back then it was selective cutting that was done and I believe it was helpful to the wild turkeys and would to some extent if done selectively with grass skid trails today.
First of all, I am not a fan of clear-cutting timber harvesting either. Here is why. One is only making things worst for wildlife in a very short period of time. When the canopy is open-up, the prolific white pines of the mountains will come up by the millions in an open-up canopy clear-cut and in ten years they will be so thick one can not walk through them. Never knew a turkey or deer to benefit from eating white pines. In a previous thread, I have already stated how the white pines will come-up in the Summer shade of the hardwoods and someday replace our hardwood forest in the mountains. I told of this happening in "A Changing Forest" thread.
What really would help wild turkeys in the mountains is to drop the harvest limit and shorten the season on WMAs. Privet land and out of Manage areas could stay the same.
 

chrislibby88

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.
That couldn’t be further from the truth. 6-8 year regrown cuts have a TON of food at deer level. They use the edges of those thick cuts very heavily, and bed into thick stuff. I’ve bumped a ton of deer out of beds head high thick that were so briared up I could barely crawl through them. Now you are right that they are thicker than syrup, and not easy to hunt, but that’s what makes them a sanctuary for deer. Turkeys don’t use them once they get too dense, but the first few years while it is greening back up it’s gonna be a turkey magnet.
 

deerpoacher1970

Senior Member
I just think it would be much better to select cut and burn,look at what that burn did for the deer hunting last season ,when you clear cut yea it is good for a few years but it will not grow back the hardwoods like it had.I am done I have said my peace.
 

Timber1

BANNED
It's got nothing to do with management or clear cut, or all the other stuff you clowns are talking about. It's the fact that the places I hunt there is a turkey behind every tree. If they cut all the trees how am I going to find a turkey?
 

MesquiteHeat

Senior Member
I can see me talking a man that owns 200 acres with 40 of it hardwoods, that the clear cut benefits of taking out those 40 acres would be more than leaving that established habitat. He'd look at me like we're looking at Chrislibby
 

MesquiteHeat

Senior Member
I'm telling you sir, in 5 years you still won't have acorns or roost trees out here but the Sweet Gums will fill in nicely
 

chrislibby88

Senior Member
I can see me talking a man that owns 200 acres with 40 of it hardwoods, that the clear cut benefits of taking out those 40 acres would be more than leaving that established habitat. He'd look at me like we're looking at Chrislibby
Dude nobody is cutting all the hardwoods in the ENTIRE wilderness area, in fact the scale of that clear cut on Cohutta WMA is akin to clearing a 1 acre food plot in a 1000 acre hardwood only property. I don’t think anyone would argue the benefits of that. That cut is surrounded by almost endless acres of mature, pristine hardwoods that could very well hold less deer and turkeys than a 20,000 heavily timber managed WMA in middle Ga. You can look at me dumbfounded all you want, go hunt around that cut this fall and next spring and then years to come and you’ll be singing a different tune.

Now I don’t think logging every inch of a property down to the ground is a good idea, and honestly I wish they would slow down on some of the logging on my local WMAs, but there is no question that wildlife benifits from any sort of forest management that creates edges, opens the canopy, habitat diversity, and allows new growth down where animals can reach it.
 

Timber1

BANNED
Dude nobody is cutting all the hardwoods in the ENTIRE wilderness area, in fact the scale of that clear cut on Cohutta WMA is akin to clearing a 1 acre food plot in a 1000 acre hardwood only property. I don’t think anyone would argue the benefits of that. That cut is surrounded by almost endless acres of mature, pristine hardwoods that could very well hold less deer and turkeys than a 20,000 heavily timber managed WMA in middle Ga. You can look at me dumbfounded all you want, go hunt around that cut this fall and next spring and then years to come and you’ll be singing a different tune.

Now I don’t think logging every inch of a property down to the ground is a good idea, and honestly I wish they would slow down on some of the logging on my local WMAs, but there is no question that wildlife benifits from any sort of forest management that creates edges, opens the canopy, habitat diversity, and allows new growth down where animals can reach it.

They are not cutting the wilderness area. Not allowed. Cut outside the wilderness. They cut rocky flats in the late 70's and it still has not recovered. Nothing grows back up there after they cut but white pines. They grow for 20- 30 years then die out and get blown over by the wind.
 

Timber1

BANNED
Go out Lackey Knob road. 630B. First road to the left after Hicky Gap campground. Go almost to the end and look at the ridge on the right. That was one of the last areas they cut before they quit cutting up there. Probably early 80's. Then tell me what thrives in that mess.
 

Timberjack86

Senior Member
I know this is an old thread but there's.so much misinformation I gotta have my say, I come from a family of loggers and hunters. The reason there's places that don't recover for years is because of the soil. The timber that was there was probably older than Methuselah. In poor quality soil it takes years and years for a tree to reach normal average size. Cutting mature hardwoods is great for wildlife. Gives turkeys nice thick areas to nest away from predators and deer have a good food source that serves as a bedding area for years. Sure it's hard to hunt but hunts around the edges will be excellent! Just because it's messes up your plans this season don't be so quick to write it off the next.
 

Timberman

Senior Member
Turkeys do just fine in pines. I’ve seen places in Florida that were nothing but slash pine with a titi/gallberry understory so thick nothing could hardly walk in it covered up in turkeys. I believe they lived in the roads lol.

In South Carolina I hunted a large tract that was nothing but loblolly pine plantations of different ages. I mean completely as it was before bmp’s so we cut right to the creek bank leaving no hardwoods. It was wrapped up in birds.

Of course this is anecdotal evidence just like other observations in this thread. What is scientific fact is the mountain forests surely need more active timber management which includes timber harvest. YMMV
 

Gaswamp

Senior Member
In the lowlands or river swamps, I do think timber cutters get to carried away with cutting out river bottoms and leaving them narrow little SMZ around streams and creeks. I wish they would leave larger swaths for wildlife corridors and leave timber in the river bottoms that are covered in water more than half the year. It ain't like you can plant them back.
 
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