HOW TO HUNT CLEAR CUTS

How Norton Hunts a Young Pine Plantation

Editor's Note: For most of their lives, Larry Norton of Pennington, Alabama, and his cousin Ray Moseley either have been members of hunting clubs or operated hunting clubs. In 2002, they decided to lease some property and allow individuals to hunt on the property known as the Shed Hunting Lodge near Butler in west/central Alabama. All this property lies on either private or timber company lands, with the majority of the land clear cut. Most deer hunters have difficulties hunting clear cuts and uneven-age-stand plantations because they don't know the secrets for hunting these areas. But the six hunters who hunted at the Shed last year all took deer, with four of them harvesting bucks that scored 130 points or better on the Boone & Crockett scale. This week, Larry Norton, who avidly hunts deer for more than three months each year and is a World Champion turkey caller, will tell you the secrets for hunting clear cuts and uneven-age pine stands.

* Return to the trails you've marked with your GPS receiver as the pine plantation grows up. Generally the plantation is so thick and the young pines so small that you can't hang a tree stand on them. Therefore most hunters never hunt them. However, those young pine plantations are where the older-age-class bucks will have to hold to dodge hunting pressure. For this reason, I return to the trails that I've marked with my GPS. I look for the places where two trails run together, and I hunt from the ground. Many times, I won't be able to see but 20 or 30 yards. However, if I have the wind in my face, and I spot a buck inside those young pines, I can take him. Another advantage we have in the area I hunt is that we have numbers of rolling hills and mountains. I can get up on top of these hills, look down into a young clear cut with my binoculars and spot bedded bucks and/or moving bucks. Even though I may hunt from a ground blind, I may be 60 feet above the deer on the other hill or mountain.

* Hunt the thinnings. After the pine trees are a few years old, most timber companies will go in and thin the pines, taking out every other row. The young pines will have more room to grow and will grow faster. In bad weather - raining and/or windy - the deer will go into the pine plantations and just stand around in there. So, you can ease through a pine plantation on a windy or a rainy day and look down these lanes and spot the bucks. Or, you can build a ground blind beside one of the trails where there's an open lane or two and see the bucks coming through the pines. However, I've found that rainy days are the best times to hunt the thinnings.

TOMORROW: HUNT THE TRASH