348Winchester,
What you describe is exactly how we managed our hardwoods for years. We would cut/heavily thin small patches of hardwoods scattered across the property. Most of these cuts were in the 3-5-acre each range, and we would create about 4 or 5 of these cuts each harvest. The food and cover production after timber removal was a huge benefit to our large expanses of no-understory hardwoods. Not only did it draw more deer to the property, but the deer also had a place to escape our hunting pressure, hence they tended to stay on our property longer, even under heavier hunting pressure than our neighbors were applying. In addition, by preplanning exactly where the edges of the cuts would be, we could create habitat edges along preferred topographically driven travel routes. In my earlier Rub Density and Distribution Study, I found that having a good habitat edge laying right on a preferred topographic feature, buck rubbing along that edge increased five-fold over the same type of edge not along a preferred topographic feature. By designing the cut edges to run along those features, we were creating much more predictable deer travel corridors that could be exploited during hunting season. In addition, we found older bucks were tending to hopscotch from one patch of cover to the next. That allowed us to find the preferred travel routes from one patch to the next, again locations that could be exploited.
One of the downsides to this method is, like PickettSFHunter pointed out, it can be hard to find a logger that will do that kind of specialized work. However, if you can find them (usually a small, family-owned group), you're good to go. Another problem is the duration of benefit. Normally, the summer forb, brier, and vining plant growth that first fills the cut area produces a huge amount of natural foods for the first 3 years, followed by a transition to cover habitat as the cut area regrows into saplings. However, we found the benefits to the deer population to be only temporary. We would see a surge in deer population peaking 3-4 years after the cut, but then that population surge would dwindle, and we would be back to where we started about 6 years after the cut. The answer is to either cut more timber about year 5 or 6 after the first cut or keep some of the scattered cuts in a perpetual state of early regrowth. And that is actually harder than you would think. Nature wants to return that ground to forest and fighting Nature can be tough! It generally takes either chemical applications, or fire, or both to keep the cut areas in that early stage of summer forb production. Fire is wonderful but very difficult to manage in an area where you are trying to protect the remaining oaks left standing in the cut. Oaks are very sensitive to fire, and even brief exposure to a hot fire will either damage or kill them. One way I've seen to protect oaks when doing a prescribed burn is to rake and/or back-pack blow all fire fuel away from the base of each oak. Basically, creating a 6-foot or so fire break around each tree. That reduces fuel load and fire temperature right against the trunk.
