# Logging big bottomland hardwood timber South Louisiana



## kkottemann (May 18, 2007)

I just recently got a contract to fell big timber on this sale. It is a 400 acre tract, the loggers equiptment could not handle the big trees so I got hooked up with the job. I have 212 of these guys to take down. Last week I got 13 of them, then the rain put a stop to everything. I plan on getting many of these guys on camera because there is not too much of this sized stuff around any more.


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## kkottemann (May 18, 2007)

a few more


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## ericjeeper (May 18, 2007)

*Not trying to start another stump war..*

But man why leave it so high? Left a lot of good lumber to rot in the woods?


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## Streyken (May 18, 2007)

Good job. Nice gig. Eric, here they cut flares, etc. off them before loading them on the trucks, loads nicer (more room) and the butt is often crap for milling.

<edit>I don't know how they grade there, but often they'll grade a stick based on the lowest common denominator. Therefore, sometimes you're better off going with a shorter piece of clear than keeping something that's going to down-grade the entire log, unless it's going to chip, but it doesn't look like it.</edit>


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## clearance (May 18, 2007)

ericjeeper said:


> But man why leave it so high? Left a lot of good lumber to rot in the woods?



Not thing wrong with "so high" but how come no humboldt? No big deal either way, its fun to just fall isn't it. I like it, undercut, backcut, no messing about. Must be swampy there huh?


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## chainsawjunky (May 18, 2007)

Those are some big ole boys. What kind of tree is that? Nice saw too. Evan


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## kkottemann (May 18, 2007)

the reason for the high stump is the buttswell and flares in the tree. I am sure you get this in other parts of the country, but in this particular area it is 10fold. That tree is not so bad but most of them have flares which are pretty much unworkable. Amrerican elm is the worst. The mill has a special made piece of equipment called a butt reducer, but is only used on cypress. Oak, ash and elm is too hard to pass it through, plus the diameter of these trees would not fit through it anyway. So we leave it in the woods. I am going to try to use the humbolt when I go back, those flares are really bad and I did not like the way my cuts came out. That particular tree is a Cherrybark Oak (red oak family). It is the most valuable red oak around here. the saw is a 660 with a 36" bar. I am running .050 full skip.


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## ropensaddle (May 19, 2007)

I am sorry but I have mixed feelings on cutting oaks out of
forest habitat. How many years is it going to go on they are about to
cut every good mast tree out of forests and then spray the remaining
survivors to kill them and plant pine witch has no wildlife value except
for fox squirrel. The problem is the guys must make a living but at what
cost to habitat air quality etc. Management seems the guilty party as
they have geared toward a totally pine forest. I feel the should leave
what oaks there is alone before they end up endangered or at least
leave fifty yard strips every hundred yards instead of turning it into
the great plains.


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## Husky137 (May 19, 2007)

ropensaddle said:


> I am sorry but I have mixed feelings on cutting oaks out of
> forest habitat. How many years is it going to go on they are about to
> cut every good mast tree out of forests and then spray the remaining
> survivors to kill them and plant pine witch has no wildlife value except
> ...



Why stop at oaks?


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## kkottemann (May 19, 2007)

This particular area is bottom land hardwood, the soil is a sharky clay and is extremely wet. A pine would have a hard time growing here. This is a management cut on a wildlife management area. Everything 18" and under is being left. This very sale was cut 35 years ago. You all might not believe me but 35 years ago these big trees were not large enough to cut. The site on here is prefect and produces optimal growing situations for redoak, gum, pecan, hickory and elm. I used to be the assistant district forester for the company I am currently cutting for. I did a project while I was there on diameter growth of the various species while I was there. Some of them are growing and inch a year with the average being 3/4 per year. I can assure you that no pine is going to replace these stands of hardwood, this is hardwood country... That is 87 years old, in 5 years you will be able to walk back through this stand and measure 20" oaks standing 79-90 feet in height. 10 miles away is a $300,000,000 dollar hardwood sawmill/OSB plant, with that investment if a pine does pop up it will surley be cut to make room for oak, ash or hickory...


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## Ianab (May 19, 2007)

Thats a pretty impressive tree, even by NZ standards 

An oak tree that size is cool no matter where you are.

As for do you cut them...?

Cutting them and planting pines is a crime, leaving them to rot is an even bigger crime. Hopefully they make a big enough return on the logging to be able to shut the land up for another 50-100 years, and then harvest it again.

There are few things that are a bigger rush than dropping trees that size, and the amount / quality of the wood you can saw from logs like that is amazing  Problem is most commercial mills cant handle that size log. 

Ian


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## Ianab (May 19, 2007)

kk, you replied while I was typing, glad to hear it's part of a managed harvesting plan. 

I'm thinking your climate is more like ours with those growth rates 

Cheers

Ian


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## kkottemann (May 19, 2007)

Yea man, by next summer with a year of sunlight on the ground there will be so many seedlings poping up you will not be able to walk through there. No need to plant, that tree has been dropping its seed for 80 years. I think we have somewhere between 250 and 275 growing days down here, and when it rains it floods so moisture is not an issue. It also gets hot as hell during the summer. Shoot, we have already been above 90 a few days.


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## Peacock (May 19, 2007)

Ianab said:


> kk, you replied while I was typing, glad to hear it's part of a managed harvesting plan.
> 
> I'm thinking your climate is more like ours with those growth rates
> 
> ...



Louisiana has a lot of rain and sun. Pretty much everything grows fast there!


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## sILlogger (May 28, 2007)

so i gotta know, is your company hiring???im a contract cutter. im looking for something during the winter, because around here it has been getting too wet to work steadily in the winter and considering going elsewhere for the winter months. 200 of them would almost make me drive down there. what sort of skidders u running?


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## stihl 440 (May 28, 2007)

*skidders*



sILlogger said:


> so i gotta know, is your company hiring???im a contract cutter. im looking for something during the winter, because around here it has been getting too wet to work steadily in the winter and considering going elsewhere for the winter months. 200 of them would almost make me drive down there. what sort of skidders u running?



I don't know, I was going to ask the same thing. They must be running cat 545's, franklin Q90's, or those 6X6 monsters by tigercat! It will take one h:censored: of a skidder to pull them out of the woods!:chainsawguy:  :biggrinbounce2:  :rockn:


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## joesawer (May 29, 2007)

At most mills a swell butt like that will lower the grade of a log like that.
A humbolt will get your face wood out of the stump instead of the log. It is also much easier to get the face cut out as gravity works for you instead of against you. Once you get used to using it it is much faster and easier on larger trees than a conventional.


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## kkottemann (May 29, 2007)

SI, I will let you know. these opportunities do not happen often because this is special timber on very wet ground. mostly they use the bell harversters for the smaller stuff. I am not the logging contractor, I am simply a contracted faller for the really big trees. I personnally own a tree service, but used to be a forester for the timber company which bought the timber and they knew I could get them down and bucked up. The winter time is the worst time of the year down here. the ground stays wet and unworkable, but you never know. As a matter of fact they just abadoned the tract because . of rain last week, we will not be able to get back in there for 2-3 weeks. the most popular skidder in these woods is the deere 846G with dual 50" tires front and back. we also have huge pre-haulers that are accompanied by a tracked loader. One pre-hauler can bring 4 loads of logs from the woods to the loader set where it is then merchandised and loaded on to the proper truck. This is some serious power logging. In good weather they will move 50 loads a day of hardwood. This particular job has 5 bell harversters, 7 skidders, 4 loaders, 2 dozers, 1 road grader and 17 trucks. It is a family operation, the dad and his 2 sons. The company works as one but is actually 3 seperate operations. I have been working on my humbolt, but still need some practice to get the tree to do what I want it to when I do it. For the really big ones I use the conventional because I am confident in my ability to get her down with out mishap.


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## sILlogger (May 29, 2007)

kkottemann said:


> SI, I will let you know. these opportunities do not happen often because this is special timber on very wet ground. mostly they use the bell harversters for the smaller stuff. I am not the logging contractor, I am simply a contracted faller for the really big trees. I personnally own a tree service, but used to be a forester for the timber company which bought the timber and they knew I could get them down and bucked up. The winter time is the worst time of the year down here. the ground stays wet and unworkable, but you never know. As a matter of fact they just abadoned the tract because . of rain last week, we will not be able to get back in there for 2-3 weeks. the most popular skidder in these woods is the deere 846G with dual 50" tires front and back. we also have huge pre-haulers that are accompanied by a tracked loader. One pre-hauler can bring 4 loads of logs from the woods to the loader set where it is then merchandised and loaded on to the proper truck. This is some serious power logging. In good weather they will move 50 loads a day of hardwood. This particular job has 5 bell harversters, 7 skidders, 4 loaders, 2 dozers, 1 road grader and 17 trucks. It is a family operation, the dad and his 2 sons. The company works as one but is actually 3 seperate operations. I have been working on my humbolt, but still need some practice to get the tree to do what I want it to when I do it. For the really big ones I use the conventional because I am confident in my ability to get her down with out mishap.




i assume u mean 848G, ive never even seen one in person, no need for anything bigger than a 648 around here. how in the heck do they get an 848 around in the woods??? i was just on a job were the guy had a 525 CAT with 30.5s and it was like a bull in a china shop. i amagine that place looks like an airplane crashed with them bell saws running around. that is a heck of a family logging operation. i don't use a humbolt cut either but i usually cut everything about ankle high. worked on a job today and the guy was running a 440D, steep azz hills-ready for bed. what sort of footage u moving a day?


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## kkottemann (May 29, 2007)

correct, 848G a minor typo..I am not really sure about the footage per day on the job, however I did scale my logs 2 days in a row and it came to 14MBF and 16MBF back to back. What I can say is the mill they are hauling to cuts 1 million feet a week and this crew is one of 9 contractors under contract to cut on timetimber and company land. They bring in about 40% of the volume needed the other 60% comes from local vendors and woodyards as gatewood. Check out www.martco.com

that is the lumber company this sale is going to as well as my former employer.


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## sILlogger (May 29, 2007)

1 million ft a week!!!!that is crazy!!! there is a full time mill that i cut for that only cut 3.3 million last year!! what all do they saw? grade, veneer?


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## kkottemann (May 29, 2007)

different species produce various products there. Red oak, hickory, pecan all to to grade which will end up as flooring, cabinents ect... Hackberry, gum, sycamore, elm, cottonwood and other variours woods runs species end up as ties, pallets, finish lumber ect.. there is really too much to mention. The mill also cuts oversized pine to produce big beams for specality constuction. Ash, is only second in value to redoak for guitar stock, baseball bats. Do not forget about cypress (which is a real pain to log) for finish lumber. The mill runs 100 hours a week. and right next to the sawmill is a hardwood OSB plant which consumes 4000 cords of hardwood pulpwood a week. the wood yard is pretty awsome. Yea, timber is bigger than most people think down here. the industry as a whole produces more value added back to the state of Louisiana than oil. The beautiful thing is it grows really fast here. there are some tracts they cut on every 7 years of so.


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## sILlogger (May 29, 2007)

cool....yea, we can't cut that often here in southern IL, it just doesn't grow fast enough. is most of the cutting done by machine? around here we cut everything with chainsaws


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## kkottemann (May 29, 2007)

Yea, it is rare to need saw hands. Fellerbunchers cut, skidders skid, and loaders process the logs at the set with delimbers slashers. the big hardwood does need somebody to top the tree in the woods or at the set. see those bell harversters can cut up to a 36" dbh tree, after that it needs to be done by hand. A pine forest will disapear in a day.


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## Buzz 880 (May 29, 2007)

kkottemann said:


> Yea, it is rare to need saw hands. Fellerbunchers cut, skidders skid, and loaders process the logs at the set with delimbers slashers. the big hardwood does need somebody to top the tree in the woods or at the set. see those bell harversters can cut up to a 36" dbh tree, after that it needs to be done by hand. A pine forest will disapear in a day.



What kind of pay do the hand fallers get down there?Do you work alone.


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## moss (May 30, 2007)

kkottemann said:


> I have 212 of these guys to take down. Last week I got 13 of them, then the rain put a stop to everything. I plan on getting many of these guys on camera because there is not too much of this sized stuff around any more.



Are you guys going to leave some big ones here and there on the tract? I know the 18" DBH ones left grow fast but there's no shortage of 18" trees... Would be nice to see what the big ones willl look like in 40-60 years for the next generation, there is a shortage of the super big ones.

I know someone else higher up is likely calling the shots on what gets dropped but maybe a few will somehow get "missed". Maybe it's already in plan.

Overheard between two fallers: "What tree I didn't see any tree, did you see that tree?" "I don't see no tree" (etc.) 

P.S. What's the DBH on the cherrybark oak in the photos, looks close to 50" or maybe over that. Massive freakin' hardwood!
-moss


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## kkottemann (Jun 1, 2007)

Buzz, I am making $250 per day on this job. I usually work it 2 days in a row, by then I catch up with the logging crew cutting out the small stuff. The job just got shut down, the rain won't give up. It is going to take a month of dry weather to dry it up down there.

Moss, I work with the logging crew, but I am the only faller in the woods. The company forester is acting as my spotter while I actually work, because I am a good day behind the crew and pretty much by myself. if I need someone I have to call the loader and get a skidder or dozer sent over. As far as leaving the trees, thats a tough one. i agree, I hate to cut down a big, gun barrel red oak, but the fact is left a few more years they will start to rot and hollow out. and if they did leave say 3 or 4 to the acre, they would surely blow down in the next hurricane or really bad thunder storm with no protection around them (wind throw). As it stands now the forester told me these old tracts are loosing 3-5MBF per year to blow down and bugs, so the other side of me has absoutly no problem with utilizing them. That guy in the picture is 56" in dia, the forester showed me the curise and there is one in there that is 72" dia with 4 sixteen foot logs in her. I have not seen it yet, but I can assure you, she will be well documented when I come across her. I actually cut 2 or 3 short logs out of the limbs of some of them, its been a real treat to be apart of this job, I have also shed about 8 lbs.


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## aggiewoodbutchr (Jun 2, 2007)

72"!!! WOW! 

And it's probably scheduled to be turned into little sticks. Shame if it is. I'd be glad to bring my CSM out there and turn them into valuable table tops, etc... for shares of course.


Nice work on your part.


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## kkottemann (Jun 2, 2007)

probabbly flooring, this stuff has the best color.


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## DarylB (Jun 3, 2007)

Awesome pictures of the big oaks. Wish there were more of these in Southeast Arkansas. I found a 16' section of a tree that size on a clearcut tract near my father-inlaws. Got quite a bit of firewood from that 1 log.


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## sILlogger (Jul 11, 2007)

*progress?*

how is this project coming along?


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## kkottemann (Jul 11, 2007)

I have not been back for a good month now. the rain just keeps coming. I was cruising timber in the general area and went by to check it out, and my 4 wheeler almost did not make it to the tract. Water is about 1 deep and not going anywhere. We figure it will be about september when we can get back on it with good weather. I still got the job, it is just a matter of mother nature letting us back in. Mabe she is pissed off???


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## Buzz 880 (Jul 11, 2007)

kkottemann said:


> I have not been back for a good month now. the rain just keeps coming. I was cruising timber in the general area and went by to check it out, and my 4 wheeler almost did not make it to the tract. Water is about 1 deep and not going anywhere. We figure it will be about september when we can get back on it with good weather. I still got the job, it is just a matter of mother nature letting us back in. Mabe she is pissed off???



She probaly is killing those big tree's what a shame .



It's a dame shame that you get to cut them and not me let us know when you get started again and get some more pic's got love falling that big timber.


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## sILlogger (Jul 11, 2007)

i wish it was me getting to do it 2!!!! i don't even get called in just to cut the big'uns i gotta cut everything, not always bad tho


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## Buzz 880 (Aug 22, 2007)

What happened to the big ones we are weighting for some more pic's.Just wonder if you finshed up cut those tree's yet.


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## kkottemann (Aug 22, 2007)

Still not back on it yet, we figured it would be about september. I am going to Take down a few cypress the week of the first, and we are going to go to the track to check it out. See, these timber sales here are whats called (locally) time timber sales. Which means when the timber deed is drawn up the buyer gets a certain amount of time to cut the tract. Example would be the buyer gets timber rights for 24 months with the right to buy an extention for an additional 6 months for a percentage of the original cost of the sale. The percentage is set at the time of the sale and is included in the deed. this particular sale the buyer has 48 months to cut it, so it could go on for a while. there is several million on this tract, so we are going to wait for perfect conditions (weather and timber price). believe me I cannot wait to get back on it, and i can assure you there will be lots of pics. I have heard there is an 84 incher out there. there is a forester who has a bucnch of pics from when we were first out there, i will contact him and see if I can get a few for arboristsite.


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## sILlogger (Aug 22, 2007)

we do the timed timber sales around here to....but we don't have anything set up for buying extensions....just goes by word of mouth, atleast alot of times anyway


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## Buzz 880 (Aug 23, 2007)

The timber sales here are the same we have a time limit on the contract but if time runs out you can usually get an extension for free or a bit of cash.


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## rb_in_va (Aug 23, 2007)

Subscribed!


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## woodfarmer (Aug 25, 2007)

if your lucky enough to find any oak around here it is usually less than 20", most were logged out over 30 years ago,those are some beautiful trees down there


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## Rcoulas (Sep 3, 2007)

You're lucky to have a big skidder to pull those logs. I'm cutting oaks like that on Walpole Island right now and we are moving them with an old timberjack 230E. We have to do some bucking up in the bush to move them but it's getting done. Nice pics, oaks that big are impressive.


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## sILlogger (Sep 3, 2007)

Rcoulas said:


> You're lucky to have a big skidder to pull those logs. I'm cutting oaks like that on Walpole Island right now and we are moving them with an old timberjack 230E. We have to do some bucking up in the bush to move them but it's getting done. Nice pics, oaks that big are impressive.



welcome to the site...what sort of oak u got up there?


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## Rcoulas (Sep 3, 2007)

On Walpole there's Bur, Pin, White & Red and some swamp white. The oaks are impressive but I've seen poplar that are too wide to get in the bunk on the log truck. We loaded a 16' white oak on Thurs that took the log truck and forwarder to lift it onto the trailer, we figured it to weight about 7 ton. I didn't think we had timber that big in Ontario until I stated logging Walpole in Jan of this year. We'll be there untill Dec.


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## sILlogger (Sep 4, 2007)

how about some pics!!!! i know i know so demanding...ive cut some pretty good sized ones around here...what is your job? u cutting? i sure do like cutting poplar. it is fun stuff


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## Buzz 880 (Sep 4, 2007)

Rcoulas said:


> On Walpole there's Bur, Pin, White & Red and some swamp white. The oaks are impressive but I've seen poplar that are too wide to get in the bunk on the log truck. We loaded a 16' white oak on Thurs that took the log truck and forwarder to lift it onto the trailer, we figured it to weight about 7 ton. I didn't think we had timber that big in Ontario until I stated logging Walpole in Jan of this year. We'll be there untill Dec.



Let's see some pic's of those monsters.I have cut some big poplar here but not that big.The best we have done is eight white pine filled the truck and trailer 10500bdft.Where abouts is Walpole?


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## Rcoulas (Sep 7, 2007)

Don't want to hijack this thread. Walpole is near Wallaceburg. I'd like to get some picks, Don't like taking my camera to the bush. I'll see next time I'm at the mill I'll take my camera and get some pics before the logs are lumber. I'm a cutter but some times skidd if needed.


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