Let me guess – when deer season is over, you don’t give another thought to your prime spot until late summer or early fall of the next year. That’s when you go up there and find out that your shooting lanes are overgrown with tree branches and brush so you start hacking away to clear the area for November’s hunt.
Well, stop it! The reason it’s all so overgrown is because you are doing the pruning at the wrong time of year. You might think you are cutting things back, but pruning actually stimulates growth. And any growth that comes on in late summer and early fall will be too tender to withstand the cold of winter, causing a lot of die-back of branches. Indiscriminate hacking away at branches, done improperly, during warm weather, also invites disease. Not to mention that when you make a big change in the forest just a few weeks before the season, the area’s going to look a lot different and you’re going to leave your scent too. Deer aren’t stupid you know. If they were, you’d be bagging your buck on opening day every year.
Pay attention here, because this applies to the trees and shrubs in your yard at home as well. The best time of year to prune trees and shrubs is when they are dormant. That would be December through March. The exception is maple trees. March may be a little late because an early stretch of warm weather will cause the sap to rise and seep out of the cuts you make.
Make sure your tools are sharp, whether you are using a chain saw, hand saw or lopper. When removing a large branch, make three cuts. The first should be a foot or two out from the trunk on the underside of the branch. The second should come down to meet it from the top of the branch. This prevents the bark from ripping down the branch. The final cut should remove the branch stump from the tree. Do not cut flush with the trunk. You’ll see a branch collar where the trunk and the branch come together. Cut just outside this collar. This will allow the cut to heal properly. It is not necessary to spray or paint the cut with anything. The tree has its own defenses and will heal on its own.
When removing smaller branches and brush, cut at a 45° angle about ¼ inch above a bud. Cut just above a bud that’s facing toward the way you want new growth to happen. At home, this would be toward the outside of the shrub, to keep the middle open and allow air to circulate. In the woods, well, you do what you want.
Remember, if you’re cutting buckthorn, you’ll need to immediately paint a brush killing chemical on the cut, or by mid-summer you’ll have three times as much as you had the previous year.
You might still want to take a trip to your hunting spot a few weeks prior to the season just to do a quick final clean-up of the lanes. Have a little respect for the health of the forest that is providing you with venison by taking care to treat the trees in a way that will keep them healthy for years to come.
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