Hunting in freshly thinned timber

[Tail Feathers]

Crews came in Feb and did the first thinning on some pine timber where I hunt turkeys.  I thought the birds would likely move to the nearby areas that had been thinned two years ago.

Guess I don't know turkeys because when I drove past the gate this morning I had to hit the brakes to avoid three strutters and some hens in the road.  Right in the middle of the thinned timber area.  This was 6:50am today, 20 minutes before official sunrise.  I guess they like to roost in that thinned stuff?  They couldn't have been off the roost long, it was still fairly dark.

Who else hunts pine timber country?

[wvmntnhick]

So long as theirs still a place to roost and the food/water hasn't changed, they're generally pretty cool with some cut timber. Where you run into problems is when they clear cut the property. That makes things quite difficult.

[Tail Feathers]

I was surprised by how much turkeys would use a clearcut when they did that some years back.

But yeh, no roost trees left will run them off.

[turkey harvester]

Had 2 yesterday right behind my house gobbling after 8:30 am. There is still a logging crew in there cutting. I just knew they would all be gone. Listened to them till 11am. Still trees to roost in for now.

[BrowningGuy88]

I am hunting freshly thinned pines and other than being able to see farther than 20 yards, not much has changed since thinning.

It does make moving set ups and getting in close to roosted birds more difficult


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[Dr Juice]

It must be very noisy to walk in freshly thinned pines to your setup.

[Will]

I hunt some pine timber country, a little over 2000 acres. Birds love those clear cuts. They almost always roost on the edge of the recently cut ones. As for the pine stand your hearing will be cut down immensely because of the pine trees muffling the sound. When walking and calling and you strike up a bird you must get ready quickly. More often than not he's within 100 yards from where you hear him. I hunt mature pines all age classes with new to old clear cuts spread through out the property. The land is flat as well.

[g8rvet]

Nephew killed a Tom last week in freshly thinned pines.  Just had to move in well before daylight, because they can see a long ways in them now. 

[Ozarks Hillbilly]

They are doing a large thinning project in the area that I hunt all hard wood. It will be interesting to see how it effects the birds this year and the next few years. The reduction in the mass crop is my biggest concern.

[Greg Massey]

We had a 100 ac. of timber cut last year on our 1000 ac. farm it didn't seem to hurt the turkeys that much during last years season. But this year is the second year of the thinning and it has made a big difference in the number of birds we are seeing so far because of the thinning of the timber we have increased our amount of clover food plots...so we are hoping as the season goes along the number of turkeys will pickup..I'm still getting trail cam pictures this week of the turkeys still bunch up in West Tennessee...was out yesterday and today before daylight and hearing a few gobblers..