blacktail--timber or clear cut

[elksnout]

Wooltie

Where I hunt mostly (95% of the time) is old growth timber. Huge tracts of timber with varying elevation between 2000 and 3000ft. Mostly fir and hemlock forest with vine maple, ferns, big leaf maples, etc. It's steep country with benches and saddles. Nobody hunts there. They drive right on by. I've seen one hunter all this time. No joke. With heavy vine maples I don't spend much effort hunting there until the last week of the season. The visibility is just too restrictive. Plus, the last week of October the bucks are thinking about you know what. I still hunt by moving slowly and stopping often to glass. I also sit often. Maybe not for long but I do sit where I have a good view. I try to travel just below the crest of ridges and almost always see the bucks feeding below me. All the bucks come out on pack boards if that gives you a clue as to being close to roads.

I would hunt clear cuts more if there weren't so much pressure on them. I just do not like hunting around others.

[TikkaT3-270Shortmag]

Ive killed bucks in both.  I glass cuts at first daylight for the first few hours.  Then i will hit the timber later in the morning and afternoon.  There is no right answer because deer use both habitats

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[JBabcock]

I like big Maple, Alders and Fir timber. I like it wet and swampy. I've killed deer in clear cuts, but most of the big bucks I've taken have been in the Timber. That's the area I'm hunting though. Every area is different. But I usually head to the Timber now days. I like hunting along the edges of reprod to. I know their out there at night, but feel where I'm hunting they move back into the Timber and thick stuff during the day.

[SteelheadTed]

Four seasons of coursing the elusive blacktail, I've hunted timber more than any other cover type.
Absolutely love it!!
 From what I've noticed, the larger of Washington bucks will be taken in timber. The majority of great bucks harvested will come from openings like clear cuts and burn areas, and the alpine. 

The next world record is most likely hiding in a swamp.

I've got trailcam images of two bucks in the swamps near my in-laws property, all times of day.  I've crashed through there a couple times and could never find them.  I've even had someone wait on the other side to see if I bump them out without knowing it.  Their dog has chased them out of there before as well.  I figure it's just something I gotta figure out.  Some pattern I'm missing or they are gone before I get close.  I've never hunted in their in the rain.  That helps everywhere else so it might help here.  One is a nice four point so it's worth the effort me thinks.

[fishnfur]

Sidebar/point of clarification:   The current definition of "old growth forest" in terms of Doug. Fir and other western WA conifer is rather complex but must include a signifcant number of trees over 200 years old in the stand.  "Big timber" may be a better term for the mature second growth forests that most hunters (not everyone) refer to when they say they hunt in old growth.  As the map indicates, there is very little true old growth left in the NW US.   

I don't know about all of you, but I find a lot of variation on how easy it is to hunt big timber.  In some stands the ground is moss covered in places and can be relatively easy to remain quiet.  Others, there may be a significant understory of brush and noisy as all get out.  The amount of light making it to the forest floor determines whether and understory of any significance will be present.  Thinned mature timber stands where I hunt are the worst of all.  The sudden opening of spaces between trees causes a whole new set of reprod hemlock and brush to grow where there was none prior to the commercial thinning.  I try to stay away from these when I'm still hunting just for sanity sake.  There's probably a lot of animals in there, but they know where I am at all times.
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