CFAZ
Active Member
Well thought out post. Yes, I do prefer hunting the big hardwoods over the pine savannah, but I have hunted it some down in South Carolina and I will grant you it is productive hunting. But there is more to hunting than productivity for me. Its all about the quality of the hunt. Daylight breaking in an open pine patch doesn't' hold the same magic to me as it does in the big woods. The brown gold young beeches still hanging onto their leaves, the first squirrel down the tree to rustle the leaves, and then trying to discern that from the footsteps of the deer you always hear before you see - then a twig cracks and that electricity shoots up your spine. Everyone here I know can appreciate all that.
But if you read some of my posts here you will see that my main problem isn't with the savanah itself, but rather with artificially creating it on the Bridgewater property along the Caney Fork headwaters. it doesn't belong there, and I believe that the current forest composition tells us it never was
As I mentioned above, Scotts Gulf has a very unique biology. And the tell here is this case is the Hemlocks, which serves as the core part of the "run off processing" bio community. Hemlocks are not fire tolerant at all, are extremely shade tolerant, and also slow growers. Their presence tells us that those areas have never been exposed to regular burning, but rather those little communities survived since the last ice age tucked into their little niches up on the flat protected and shaded by the surrounding hardwoods. Until now that is. Now, well, people assigned to manage this unique property, that for the most part couldn't tell an immature Tsuga Canadensis from a Juniperis Virginiiana if it was growing out of their butts, are allowing those areas to be burned. AND, the wooly adelgid is starting to show up, so those hemlock communities up on the flat are for all intents and purposes dead man standing. Hopefully they can keep the fire out of the gulf, but the adelgid will certainly spread to the lower elevation trees. It is possible to treat individual trees, and they have been very successful at that in nearby areas even more remote like the Cane Creek gulf at Fall Creek Falls. But if there is a plan to treat Scotts Gulf I am unaware of it, especially since the since the treetards in charge there are all focused on their pine savannah case de jour (think global warming for conservative biologists. ). So its a pretty good chance those Hemlock communities in the gulf are dead man standing too. Once those Hemlocks are gone too the whole little bio community that makes those headwaters special breaks down. Rhodendrons go next. The canopy will change, the soil temperatures will rise slightly, but just enough, and the entire unstripped forest community changes to accommodate the latest management de jour tilting at windmills for a species that aint coming back.
There is just a better way,
Last edited:
