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OK to cut trails throughout the property?

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waumpuscat

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I have 122 acres of ridges and hollows in middle tennessee and am new to any management activities. My property is surrounded by only a total of about 600-800 acres of assorted residents and some hay fields mixed with about 325 acres on the north of mature hardwood. My property was select cut down to 14 inches about 2 years ago. My question is is it OK to cut trails throughout the property so that I can access it or will this run the big deer out of their sancturary? I have pics of two bucks that look to go over 140 but have seen only one buck(a small 8) this entire season.
 
I hear ya Stovepipe,

I don't plan to crank not one saw until the season is over.
I am just wondering how much I can tromp around without doing myself more harm than good. I have yet to identify all of my thickets and bedding areas and I struggle with a plan for stand placement. Any and all suggestions and comments are welcome
 
One thing to consider ??Will the trails and easy access invite unwanted traffic from neigborhood 4 wheelers and kids.I would some would be O.K.. Try not to over do it. TRy to leave some thick stuff and sacnuaries. Keep in mind Big Bucks won't usally travel the main trails in day light. They often will have smaller secondary trails close to the main ones.
 
I would cut them after season and then just simply not use them much unless you have to getting a deer out or whatever. Take a good aerial photo and map/plan it all out so you will still have good spacing between roads and dont crowd your thickets too much.
 
It would be some "exercise" however you may can do a lot with a handheld brush cutter to get some trails in that would not invite 4-wheeler riders. I've thought it would be good to not really cut much 'til you're 30-40 yards back from the main trail also.
 
We do all of our trail cutting after season on up to a few weeks before season opens we never have a problem. It might keep them sterd up for a day or so but they wont leave for good they have been their to long.
 
The landowner cleared some trails and openings during late gun season in his select cutover with a frontend loader a couple of years ago .
I thought it was going to screw up my hunting , but I couldn't believe the deer sign in the clearings only a couple of days after he got done .
I thought I would take a stand in one of the areas , and saw 16 deer that morning in an area with visabilty of only 100 yards . The deer now use these paths to travel through the thickest parts of the cutover . They now are full of greenbriar and Honeysuckle .
 
stovepipe said:
Radar said:
The landowner cleared some trails and openings during late gun season in his select cutover with a frontend loader a couple of years ago .
I thought it was going to screw up my hunting , but I couldn't believe the deer sign in the clearings only a couple of days after he got done .
I thought I would take a stand in one of the areas , and saw 16 deer that morning in an area with visabilty of only 100 yards . The deer now use these paths to travel through the thickest parts of the cutover . They now are full of greenbriar and Honeysuckle .
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Radar, when I mentioned 'strategic bush hogging' in my post on this thread, that's exactly what I'm referring to. I'll channel or funnel deer to the specific places 'I want them to be' with this technique. I've made meandering one pass cuts with a 5ft deck next to opportune shooting lanes and or ambush zones. I've even brought several trails to one intersection next to the biggest brush sapling in the mix and placed a stand there. This may sound ridiculous or even far fetched for some of the professional biologists on here but it works at my place and I've been doing this for more than 10 years. It helps too if you have a topo overlay onto an orthophoto of your property to facilitate your network of trails.
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I'm trying to get the landowner to make some more strategic paths for better stand sites , such as creating a hub at the stand , and clearing the paths in a spoke pattern in several directions from the stand .
Right now he just drives the front end loader through the thickest areas without any plan for stand setups . It's hard to find a good tree to place a stand near the openings .
 

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