Hinge cutting is dangerous, add to that large trees, and the risk in my opinion outweighs the reward, especially since the larger trees are more difficult to keep attached to the stump. The areas I currently wish to improve tend to have trees that are larger than I care to hinge cut with hinge cutting methods. Cutting through enough to fall the tree is risky without control of the tree. I ended up in the past traditionally cutting the large trees then hinge cutting smaller trees on top. This spring I decided to try something new, I started cutting these large trees half way through max on calm days thinking about the direction I'd like the trees to fall, then let mother nature take care of the dirty work. Below is an example of some cut trees waiting for the next wind storm. Some pics after mother nature drops the trees with no one around to be injured. These trees being willow and having half the trunk still attacked are almost guaranteed to stay alive for years to come. Now I'll still go into the area and hinge smaller trees, but keeping the large trees alive I believe is going to greatly improve the habitat. Going back in I verify upon entering that all trees previously cut are down, if not I'll take those out, then do the next wave of hinge cutting. Doing this method even with smaller trees, any tree I can't physically push over with half the trunk still attacked, is keeping the habitat improvements alive longer, which is my ultimate goal.
Looks good! I thought of doing that this past winter with the bigger trees in my project, but i was out there every day after work working on the land so it wasn't safe for me to do so! Glad to see it worked, and worked well!!!
I work in the forestry field, I watch some of the info videos for improving you land for hunting and cringe. The smaller trees sure you can get away with it but I wouldn't do it with the larger ones. Cutting trees can be extremely dangerous, they are very unpredictable. If I could give only one word of advice it would be always have an escape route planned before hand incase things don't go as desired. In the pics above it may seem like a safer idea, but hopefully no one is looking for they're lost dog in a wind storm. Maybe your remote enough that no one would ever be out there but to those that would want to do this it could have severe legal repercussions. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Fre
We've had hit or miss success on hinging large trees...certain ones do better and year timing seems to play a role as well. We were in Wisconsin just this past weekend on a gentleman's property and he had so many mature maples in a thin understory that hinging just wasn't working with their size...and logging them is the more obvious chose to get light and understory coming in. Sometimes that is where to start, and then in the 2 or 3 years following the logging you can then begin to hinge all the fresh growth. Like pictured we have cut some trees knowing storms are coming in the next 24-48 hours and had success like you had, primarily with larger maples, hackberries and one large locust.
I've had some success hinging large trees. I use a wedge to help it fall the right way while still leaving enough uncut. Alot of times they hinge good and then the shock of hitting the ground causes the hinge to break. It is just how it goes and it is still better on the ground than blocking sunlight. Sometimes it doesn't go as planned. Sometimes you get lucky. Edit: Oh and I forgot to add. There is no way I would cut trees and leave them. If I start to cut they are coming safety to the ground.
I've done quite a few large trees in my plot. A lot of times I use a cable with a pulley hooked to another tree then use my tractor to pull the tree in the desired direction. Sometimes I just push the tree with the tractor while it is being cut. We always have an escape route planned.
Just notch em and drop em rock your saw if you want them to roll and percent hang ups Of It Grunts Gobbles or Growls it's not gonna have a good day
