# Trail Blazing..



## simi-steading (Sep 27, 2012)

Ok.. so this isn't about hunting, but then again, It kind of is.. 

It all came about because I put a deer stand in a tree on a ridge I basically can't get to... When I put it up, my neighbor helped me, and we drove up his trails on his property to get to the ridge.

I don't want to use his land. That's why I bought mine.. SO.. I'm blazing a trail.. 

A lot of my property is pretty vertical. The ridge the stand is on is 450 higher up than my house. The ridge is about 1800 feet back off the road, so you're looking at a 450 foot rise in 1800 feet.. 

I am running up along the fence line between my property and the neighbors, That's the least steep area on the property to the ridge. 

Where I am going up, the area is over grown really bad with Autumn Olive.. NASTY stuff if you ever dealt with it.. Woven branches filled with thorns... All you can so is slice and slice and slice with your saw.. 

A few areas are heavily grown with briers of some sort... Other places, a few of the huge old fence line trees have fallen, and I'm having to forge a path through trunks 4 times the size of me... 

I've been taking the saw with one tank of gas up.. .When the saw runs out, I come home.. 

It's been working about to be about two hours a day ,and I've been doing this for three days now... AMAZING how far you can get in two hours.. 

I was thinking this job was going to take me a month of Sundays, but I'm thinking I may get it done sooner than I hoped... by next deer season.. LOL..

I'm also making this trail wide enough I can get my Jeep and my tractor up it... It's allowing me access to a lot of great lumber I haven't been able to get to before. 

OK.. that's my story.. Just sharing, and saying amazing what you can get done just working a couple hours a day.. 

OH, and I'm hoping that maybe some of these brush piles might start giving the rabbits some better protection from the coyotes, and maybe we'll start getting more around to hunt..


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## 1shotwade (Jul 9, 2013)

Keep in mind you are actually making a "deer trail" right to your blind!

Wade


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## simi-steading (Sep 27, 2012)

OH I've thought about that too, since the trail is leading to a nice wide cleared pipeline ROW the stand is sitting on... 

In maybe 5 hours of sitting in that stand, I've seen an easy 40 deer...


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## 1shotwade (Jul 9, 2013)

simi-steading said:


> OH I've thought about that too, since the trail is leading to a nice wide cleared pipeline ROW the stand is sitting on...
> 
> In maybe 5 hours of sitting in that stand, I've seen an easy 40 deer...


I don't see 40 a season anymore! Need help? LOL !

Wade


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## simi-steading (Sep 27, 2012)

LOL.. You'd not want to see these deer.. they come real small here in WV.. I had to laugh the other day when someone wrote about taking a whole processed deer home in a ziplock... Not too far off for the deer here.

In all of those, I saw one 4 pointer, and one little nub spike.. The rest were all does. That' the only reason I took 2 does this year... We got doe everywhere.. 

There was one doe that I sat with her in my sights for a long time, and I finally let her walk. Biggest doe I've seen in two years around here, but since I had no trail, I would have had to drag her through the woods to the house, and I figured it wasn't worth the risk of getting hurt to do it.. I figured it would have taken hours to get it done.. y woods isn't the easiest to walk through, much less drag 175 pounds of dead weight.

SO.... next year if she's there, she's going down on the ATV...


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## Oxankle (Jun 20, 2003)

Simi: Shoot the scrubs and let the big, healthy deer reproduce. If you don't, soon you'll have nothing but scrubs. Think about the way nature does it.

As for your chain sawing: get yourself a one-gallon gas can. A metal one if you can find it. Wash out a plastic detergent bottle, one of those with a pour spout, then fill that with bar oil. Find a little cloth bag (or make one from an old pair of jeans) to carry your bar wrench, screw driver and file in. Haul those up to the cutting zone and leave them in a place where they are weather proof. (hollow tree, under a rock overhang, in a heavy plastic bag)

If you do that you can work all day and carry nothing home but your saw, or the saw and an empty gas can. The detergent bottle of bar oil will last for a week. 

I envy you that hunting site. 
Ox


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

if your making it wide enough to get the tractor up there why not put it all in the bucket or make a tub to attach to the tractor , should be easy to rig something up to haul some stuff and have a good place to sharpen on the front or back of the tractor 

one thing you may want to do is use a tordon RTU herbicide that you apply to the cut ends of the stumps it kills the stump so you don't have a bunch of suckers come up from the stump to have to cut again 

this way you can keep the bar 6 inches above the dirt cut , then apply 

check out this video it is not what your clearing but should work about the same [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-REC7vUEEFk[/ame] they are getting rid of bush honey suckle 

I get my bar oil in vinegar bottles the local saw shop gets it in bulk and puts it in vinager bottles I have no tractor or jeep , I would have a back pack with my 1 gallon gas can , jug of oil , spare chain and bar , water bottles , files , plastic wedge and maybe stump vise if I had one then walk in I can cut all day on a gallon of gas and it doesn't weigh much 

since you go back to the same spot you could stage much of the stuff in a tote that you move down the trail every day and only carry in new gas and water daily like ox ankle said 

but I think when your cutting wood later you will really appreciate a small work table attached to the tractor that you can stand and sharpen at

I have mine on the front corner of my trailer with a a small scrap wood table and a vice mounted to it , easy to gas up, oil up , sharpen and get back to cutting


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## driftwood (Jun 29, 2013)

getting ready for hunting is the best part..
you will have to brushhog or spray your trail yearly.....

I enjoy a tank of gas through chainsaw or weedeater a day also....


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## simi-steading (Sep 27, 2012)

Sadly I don't have a loader for my tractor. I've been looking for a good used one, and they are rare mythical beasts for a Ford 2000... The tractor isn't worth me buying a new one for it.

I am cutting so much, I'd spend a on of money on fuel dragging all the stuff back down anywhere to burn... It's just easier to pile it up to the side and move on... Eventually it will all rot away.

I know I'll have to go back yearly to clear this out... In this area, Autumn Olive is a real serious problem.. Once it starts to grow, you're fighting a battle from then on, and you're not going to win it... All you can do is hope to take half of it out..


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## 1shotwade (Jul 9, 2013)

Go to TSC and get a quart of TORDON. Make a cut and put it on the ring on inter bark. It's done. Will never grow back. A quart is $13 and goes a long way.

Wade


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## simi-steading (Sep 27, 2012)

Thanks.. I'll take a look for some of that... 

Oh, as far as sharpening, I've got several chains.. I have a nice electric sharpener, so I just run a chain until it's dull, then put on a new sharp one.. when I get down to the last chain, I take 10 minutes and sharpen them all at once..

I've found that a tank of gas gets me 1.5-2 hours of work... So its not like I'm killing myself trying to get this done.. 

It's nice to be doing this during the winter, because my heavy cover-alls keep me warm, and the keep all the thorns from tearing me up... I still get one every now and then I have to dig out after I get to the house... Had one just above me knee yesterday... 

Like I was saying.. Autumn Olive is nasty stuff... long thorns that break off in you when they stick you.. even if you pull it out, you still have to dig out the very small tip piece that will stay in, and have a nice blister within a couple hours..


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

if you are just piling it up to the side then all you need is a small pack with your stuff and your saw , stage your oil jug at the cutting location or even a quart oil bottle to carry in you pack

I keep thinking of making a pack that would hold 2 of the 1 gallon cans , a few tools , plastic wedges and have a light weight vise of some sort so I could set it down and use it to sharpen on but then I realized if I have to haul the wood out I cut there is just no point in getting more than 50 yards from the trailer , and the trailer has a vice and table

I have seen several tractors where they build a box that lifts up with the 3point hitch, they can store all sorts of stuff chains and weight to balance out the front end loader 

any way being as you don't have a front end loader , have you though about a pallet lift for the back to go on the 3 point

I have been thinking about how to better move wood from the woods , and one idea I have thought of was using pallet forks , and putting some sides on pallets so that I could bring out an empty bin set it next to the tree and stack the wood in as I picked it up from being cut , then lift and haul maybe even set them up with small roofs so that they would just get set at the edge of the yard and when dry moved next to the back porch so that the wood was dry and outside the back door every time one was empty move it away and bring in a full bin

other thought were to make a table with a vice on it that picked up with forks , be able to move it around , also build a bin to hold commonly used tools that could be picked up like a pallet maybe have one with fencing repair stuff and tools and be able to just pick it up and go mend fence , another with tools and supplies for other tasks 

one with barrels mounted on it to move water up to fill troughs 

I like the http://ezpourspout.com/ ez-pour spouts been replacing the spouts on all my cans with them, thinking I might mark one of the one gallon plastic cans as bar and chain I have a few of these 1 gallon plastic cans people have given me over the years usually when they move easier to buy a new gas can than move it with a 1/2 gallon of gas still in it 

any way I think this year I am going to put one of the ez-pour spouts on a one gallon can and remove the screen and mark it for bar and chain to make pouring easier


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

the Tordon RTU will kill what you cut in that video they use a Kiwi tennis shoe cleaner bottle to apply it and it looks like it works slick for getting it right where you want it without wasting any


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## simi-steading (Sep 27, 2012)

I've got a carry all for the back of the tractor. I do put a pallet on it some times to carry stuff. I've been meaning to build a box I can put on it too.. 

I've been thinking about building a log skidder for the three point hitch... just a short arm like a pig pole only real short, that has a pair of log tongs on it... Just back up to a big log, lower the hitch, let the tongs straddle the log, then lift up to get the majority of the log off the ground... 

As far as fire wood, I just load that up in the back of the jeep, but I'm on the look out for either a cheap axle and wheels I can build a trailer for the ATV, or a cheap trailer I can buy... 

The Jeep will probably be going up for sale before too long.. It's just not as practical as I was hoping it would be for me.


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## TRellis (Sep 16, 2013)

I do not think that I have seen any mention of what you may be seeding this new "road" with. On my old place, after a "management" cut was done of the woods, I threw down a lot of clover seed on the drag trails left by the log skidders. 

I was surprised at how well the clover grew, even in those areas surrounded by pine trees (I thought those areas would not have enough sun). 

The deer had additional forage and were drawn to it like steel shot to a magnet.

Might work at your place too???

TRellis


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## simi-steading (Sep 27, 2012)

That's an idea.... I've not put anything down, and wasn't planning to... Part of this was an old logging road. It only went so far though.. .Now I'm clearing ground that was just pasture 30 or 40 years ago... 

Some of this does sill have grass, other is just bare dirt with feet of leaves from all the years.. 

Around here, people just take a dozer into the woods, slash a trail and leave it... Kinda what I was doing, only I'm not scraping the ground.. .


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## 1shotwade (Jul 9, 2013)

Ladino,alsike or dutch white should do you well in the shade.


Wade


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

definitly a cover seeding on the trails will help hold the dirt with steep trail also it is like a walking twards you shoras board

tillage radish might do well early on in the flat areas , I was at a local truck farm and they had put down tillage radish for 2-3 years they said they hardly see a deer int eh fall but they have a hole heard of them as soon as the snow clears off that field it is the very first thing green, but you may have more green year round there

a higher protein forage will also increase the size possibly


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## simi-steading (Sep 27, 2012)

I think I may have to look into this.. .As far as road washing away, kind of no way around that.. First time you go up it muddy, the mess starts... Pretty much all the trails out here are steep, muddy, and rutted.. Rocks is about all that holds it together.. 

But anything fore more deer or bigger deer, I'm game for..


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