Tips for Hunting Timber Company Property

[Old Dominion Tom]

All of my turkey hunting experience has come on large tracts of hardwoods in the National Forest or on private property that consists of mostly hardwoods with small pastures or hay fields interspersed amongst the hardwoods.  I may try to hunt some timber company property this Spring and was wondering if any of you guys have noticed general trends in how turkeys related to the habitats common on timber company land?

This specific property is in the foothills of the Blue Ridge.  Remaining hardwoods are mostly confined to stream management areas (creek bottoms).  Other habitat areas include clear cuts of various ages, thickly planted young pine stands, and thinned mature pine stands where some sun light reaches the forest floor with some understory present.  Logging roads are present all over the property.

Thanks for any tips or patterns that you have noticed if you've hunted timber company land in the past.

ODT

[Dtrkyman]

I hunted some planted pine stuff in Wisconsin, birds were on the transitions from hardwoods to pines and they preferred a certain age pine stand that still had some under growth.

Hardly any birds in mature pines or really thick younger stands.  They definitely utilized the roads but were cautious of them while calling!

Find clear cuts close to the hardwoods with the middle aged pines from my experience.

[Old Dominion Tom]

Thanks for the tip Dtrkyman!  I'm sure it will be a season of many lessons learned if I give it a go in this location.  Habitat appears vastly different than anything I've turkey hunted before.  Did you happen to notice any patterns in preferred roosting trees (pines vs hardwoods, etc.)?

[Dtrkyman]

They roosted in both mature pines and hardwoods, I believe the key was those transition lines from hardwoods to pines.  The terrain there was flat so it seemed they roosted wherever they had good trees.  So basically all over!

[Old Dominion Tom]

Sounds like a tough place to hunt.  This area does at least have varying topography (lots of ridges, hollows, benches, etc.) so I should be able to use that to maybe help narrow likely locations.