The choice to cut timber is a personal one for many. Most folks can appreciate the look of a park-like setting dominated by overstory hardwoods. Most small acre habitat guys know that a mature forest can be a hindrance to reaching your habitat goals. Maybe you’ve just purchased the land or have noticed the lack of deer sightings. At some point, most sportsman realize the need to actively manage their woodlot. Please understand there are a lot of ways to ‘skin a cat’, I prefer to have long term economic viability of my woodlot and have great deer hunting. I would recommend having a plan for your property before any type of habitat work begins, including timber cutting. Your habitat plan will direct access trails, food plots, bedding, sanctuaries, transition zones, travel corridors, future plantings, stand locations, and overall huntability.

One of the best places to start is a local conservation district to consult with a local forester. This service if free and it is always a great way to get another set of eyes on your property. I happen to have a forestry degree and I still took advantage of having the local forester come for a visit when I first purchased the property just to see if there were any programs I could potentially benefit from. The local forester can provide a few names of local foresters in the private sector that can help set up a timber sale. Foresters will keep a percentage of the timber sales, but can be a valuable commodity in marking trees, putting the timber out to bid, managing the timber operation and generally making sure the process goes as smooth as possible. They may also give guidance on which logger should be used.

Don’t expect any forester to create a plan for your property to maximize your whitetail potential. And therein lies the problem, you need to educate yourself on woodlot management. Most properties have 10 commercial species of trees or less on them, if you don’t know your trees find someone that can help you out.

On my property, I’ve contracted a diameter limit cut for the 20 acres of woods. I know, a DLC is high grading and is going to ruin my forest. Except I have a two aged class stand and a DLC is the perfect prescription in this case. I have a mixed hardwood overstory of basswood, red maple, hickory, and bur oak. My understory consists of mainly sugar maple, beech, and hophornbeam. I need to remove all the overstory competition to release my hundreds of 8-14-inch sugar maples. In my case, I’m more interested in my next cutting in 20-30 years. The logger will also be removing all the popple (aspen) on my property. There will be substantial work after the loggers are done. I will be releasing future trees, removing trees of poor form or quality, and removing tops where I don’t want deer bedding. If any large undesirable trees are left, I will girdle or fell them. This is where most folks don’t understand how to actively manage their woodlots for timber and deer hunting. Foresters and loggers are usually not the end all when it comes to managing your woodlot for whitetails.

In most instances, a timber harvest will focus on species, form, and diameter. It is important to understand not only what will be cut but also what will be left behind. Oftentimes, logging gets a bad rap because species of poor quality and form are left by the loggers because they do not have economic value. You can work with your forester or logger to mark low value species to be cut, I would prefer to go in after the harvest and deal with the undesirables. I personally want to decide which trees get felled and which get hinge-cut. I also want to cut those trees in the direction that promotes my selfish whitetail interests.

Tree size and value is one area I think people should be aware. A small diameter tree may have very little value, I have included a Doyle Log Scale below, notice the substantially lower values for smaller diameter trees. Those values are in board feet, timber can be bought per 1,000 board feet (MBF). If you’re getting paid $200 per MBF, obviously larger diameter trees provide exponential value. Trees are often purchased by weight also, but the concept of value remains the same. I don’t want a logger cutting 14-inch diameter sugar maple trees when they have relatively little value. That tree may be 60 years old, but older trees grow faster. Have you ever looked at the cross section of a cut tree? The annual rings at the center of the tree are compact and tightly packed, but the annual rings get further apart as the tree reaches a greater diameter class. That 14-inch tree may be 20 inches in 20 more years, going from 75 board feet to 192 board feet (assuming a 12’ log length).

In conclusion, having a solid plan for your property can help create the whitetail nirvana that you are working toward. For instance, a great strategy is to have multiple heavily cut areas that will be used as deer bedding and hunting between these bedding areas during the rut when bucks are bombing from bedding area to bedding area looking for hot does. Realize timber harvests will change the landscape, but the ruts and scraped up trees will begin to heal and the resulting new growth will offer a substantial food source, not to mention optimal bedding areas with increased structure. I would always recommend clients utilize the tops for structure, I would not allow someone to come in and cut firewood. Removing the tops can set back your habitat goals by 5-10 years. The only time I would remove the tops is where I don’t want deer to bed.