You might check some other threads on Bushwheels. I put 31" ABW on my super cub last summer and have babied them, given that I live on asphalt runways. To distill some of what I have learned, amplifying what was said earlier in this thread, here goes...
The most scuffing of tires occurs when taxiing, particularly when turning. I avoid quick turns.
Even though the taxiways are paved, it is fair game to taxi on the grass adjacent to the taxiway provided you know what obstacles exist!
The first long flight I made on the 31" was to meet up with some of the people on sc.org, in Northern WI. I overflew a runway, where I intended to land for fuel, and made sure there were no obstacles hidden in the grass, but it still made me nervous. That went OK. The next one was a disaster waiting to happen...
Rick Papp, Lou Furlong, Steve Lewis, Mike Mitchell, and John Jackson were coming from the East to meet up at the airport, and while you don't know them they are all experienced on big tires. I also know that they go out of their way to land on grass, and are very skilled in doing so. I wasn't. I heard them call in as they approached the airport, recognizing that they would arrive ahead of me. They did, and the flight leader announced their arrival, what runway they would land on and they all landed, without a word. I mistook this as meaning that they landed on the grass adjacent to the asphalt runway.
Bad assumption. Worse yet, I had so convinced myself that they were landing on the grass that I chose to enter the downwind, turn base, calling out those turns, setting up for final. No problem. I knew those knuckleheads were tying down, that they would be watching my landing and I was gonna make this a good one. Well, I made it an interesting one...
On final I decided to land on the grass to the right of the runway, it looked freshly mowed and as I got closer I could see what appeared to be the tire marks where my buddies had landed, so I set up to in line with those tracks. As I got closer I could see that the grass where "they landed", while freshly cut, was not exactly level...it had a bit of an inclination to it. I was a novice to landing on inclined surfaces but I thought what the heck, they did it...ALL of them...so I should have no problem.
Bad assumption. I touched down with my left wheel first and used the rudder to keep it straight, and at first this was no problem. As I slowed down, however, the right wing lowered. And lowered. And lowered and as my airspeed bled off I found it was taking all the rudder I could muster to keep it straight. I ran out of rudder shortly thereafter and I found myself going for a proverbial ride UP the steep incline toward the asphalt. The tail of the aircraft went right while the nose went to the left, despite my best attempt to apply full right rudder and I found myself up on the edge of the runway. At that point I decided to turn around there (I had rudder control at that point, since I was nearly on level ground) and taxi down the incline toward the FBO and my buddies.
That was another bad decision. I still had it in my mind that my buddies had made it, and despite the clear smell of urine from the landing phase, I started down the incline. The incline was much more pronounced than I had thought and it became no big surprise to find a distinct lack of need for throttle to keep the aircraft moving. Moving down a major incline. Fast. Toward the bottom of the ditch where the incline then rose to new heights. Fortunately, I was able to taxi along the bottom of the ditch to the taxiway, then to the ramp, where I found the gang.
They were about as speechless as I have ever seen this robust group of aviators. For those of you who know this group, speechless is not a term often applied to them. They had been watching the whole ordeal from inside the FBO, listening to me on the radio, their aircraft nicely tied down on the ramp where they had taxied AFTER LANDING ON THE ASPHALT!!!
It is only by sheer good fortune that none of these guys had their blasted iPhones shooting video of Randy's Wild Ride, and, to their credit, they have been gracious about not broadcasting this the moment we made it to New Holstein!
I share this with you, Klondiker, so that you might learn from my mistakes.
Randy