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Cleaning up

EDIT: Pic added to first post....

Just checked this morning, and there are tracks since still using the trails.
It was just so overgrown with sticker bushes and vines, it was a mess. I figured if I did this early, they would be accustomed to it by season opener...hoping.
I didn't do anymore yet seeing how this goes first...getting a cam down there later today. This is a residential, somewhat rural area with lots of farms around. I would love to do a feed plot in one area, but sure I can't contend with corn and bean fields.

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I will probably be OK. Looks like you did not go to crazy clearing it out. When I was in a hunting lease we had huge blocks of regrowth cutover. It was very thick and nasty. I would often chop hidden trails out across these cutovers to gain access to SMZ's. The deer would almost always take to using these trails I cut. Sometimes I would stop short of finishing a trail and come back a week later to finish it and the part I cut would be covered with deer tracks already. I'd also trim small lanes in the SMZ for shooting lanes. If I did all this in the early part of the year and then left the spot alone the deer went right back to using it.

If it were my property, I would look at how I thought the deer were using it and adjust accordingly. If I thought it was a bedding area I'd leave it alone. If I thought it was a travel corridor between larger tracts, I would clear the lanes I wanted to hunt and block the ones I did not want to hunt.
 
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You can perhaps try to plant switch grass or other screening cover to augment a more permanent tree/shrub planting plan over time as well. Identify a corner where they could tuck away to bed in and start screening within and around it.
 
White line is outline of woods
Blue lines are deer trails
Orange line in my ATV trail
Yellow line is the stream that crosses my property
Bedding area is where I have jumped deer cutting grass or walking in a few times
Clearing is roughly 100' x 225' <-guessing
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My favorite screening cover is light, so it's almost never a bad thing to open it up, sometimes it's just a short term sacrifice which can be tough or non negotiable on micro properties. Still takes a few years for stuff to grow deer high, but if you can drop some junk trees with bigger tops that can really help things along in that regard. I don't even attempt to look at maps for habitat work, have to see how everything flows in person. If you're in a planting mood, I love planting stuff that stays green all year for deer cover. Pines, rhodendrons, laurels, cedars, you can really direct traffic. Just keep them in succession because once they get above cover height, they're just shade/junk.
 
I know my property is just a cut through from big woods to farm fields and back.

I've been cutting grass and had 5-7 just browsing 20 yards away, but always keeping an eye on me, been in my garage working on my Camaro with the stereo playing, hear a noise, and not 15 feet away had one feeding on some bushes, leave in the morning and have 5+ laying in front yard maybe 50 yards away....they just really use to daily life I guess.
 
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