How many

[kholmes]

of you guys have created bedding cover on your hunting property?
What method did you use? I'm going to make some "nasty" spots this winter with some pine trees. Just curious as to what everyone else's method was-is.

 

[deerchaser007]

Interesting thoughts,... deer tend to make up thier own mind on bedding cover. Sometimes it is in the wide open if that is what suits them at the time. I think most folks think more interms of providing sanctuaries than specific bedding cover.

I agree with this. I just create a diversity of habitat on my property. Including openings, thickets, hardwoods,food plots, and i leave my cedars standing in thickets around the bottoms.

 

[kholmes]

We just select cut half of our hardwoods in may. The other half was select cut 10 yrs ago. We have NWSG growing on all fallow crop fields along with 6 acres of various food plots. I think what I'm lacking is some more diversity in cover.
Deerchaser007 what are you using for thickets? are you just daylighting and letting Mother Nature do the rest?

 

[Trapper John]

Clear cut. We didn't intend it to be a bedding area but the deer decided it was perfect. It's now a sanctuary area. We don't hunt it at all. We can hunt around it, but not the actual clear cut.

 

[BSK]

I like small clear-cuts myself. As they grow back they produce considerable food resources for the first few years and then great cover from years 3 or 4 through year 10 or 12 of regrowth. But planted pines, over-grown fields, and NWSG fields also make for great cover.

 

[deerchaser007]

We just select cut half of our hardwoods in may. The other half was select cut 10 yrs ago. We have NWSG growing on all fallow crop fields along with 6 acres of various food plots. I think what I'm lacking is some more diversity in cover.
Deerchaser007 what are you using for thickets? are you just daylighting and letting Mother Nature do the rest?

I like making small openings as BSK said,.. some 1/4 acre in size. Let it grow back up in samplings, with honeysuckle and greenbriar hanging all over them. You wanna see a sampling thicket produce fast,. cut a big beech tree down and clean it up. Little beech trees will sprout everywere producing a massive sampling thicket. Of course,. i've got beech trees so big 3 guys can't wrap arms around them. I cut one down,.. it produces a 1/2 acre thicket in itself.

 

[BSK]

Some of those giant beeches--once removed--can produce a huge hole in the canopy.

But you can "hack-and-squirt" them instead of trying to cut them down.

 

[kholmes]

Thanks for the information guys. I guess its hard to out-perform mother nature sometimes.

kh