Not enough money in it here to deal with buttholishness... (for us anyway)
I have run into some real winners. We had one guy that we asked if we could have a few unmarked trees in the cut area and because of deep snow he said no. So I asked if I marked them if we could have them, which he replied Yes to. So I did. That's not real ambitious. You would think they would give us everything they could because that would increase the probability of a return logger.
Whole clumps of trees dying in hazard removal projects and they would not give them to us because they did not only have 10% canopy left, most were 30% or under left green.
I have also cut blocks of select timber that were marked for cut, not a single straight log in the bunch. Crooked, rotten.... As if to say, these are all the trees we don't want and want removed, good luck selling them, but we got what we want... But you can't leave them either.
I have viewed sales up for bid that were the same thing. How's a guy supposed to make a buck?
Sales of burn areas that they will not allow skidding by tractor, only line machine (or suspended skidding). Of which there are not many around because it costs too much to operate vs what you get from your buyers.
Didn't really matter anyways because it was already slated for law suit before the bids were opened.
Some administrators seem to be so red tape oriented that they don't make it lucrative for the logger.
We had one guy that would not pass our slashing for anything. "has to be 18" or lower" The area we were working in was so windblown and thick with deadfall that it was not uncommon to have 3' - 4' of debris before we even started logging. They even had trail crews that came up and got lost trying to cut out the trails because they could not find them and eventually just said forget it and were told to leave them and not reopen them at all. We had to fight tooth and nail for him to pass us finally he did with two other officials suggesting that he should.
Ridiculous. If they ran it like a business then maybe we all might accomplish something, but as it is, I don't see many people doing much FS sales here anymore because FS doesn't even want us there and it shows.
We had one office tell us that they were trying to get out of anything that has to do with timber.
Some guys bid on FS sales, but I don't know how they survive, or make it happen. I can't wrap my head around it.
Welcome to the "Last Best Place" (not for a Logger)
We just had a deal on the news where two major mills in the state here were interviewed and said that only 5% of their wood comes from FS sales. 10% from state. (our state forester seems very open to getting timber put up btw) 85% from private
Probably me just on a rant... ignore it.
