Anyone have any before and/or after pictures of your hinge cuttings? I'm planning on doing some next weekend and would love to see what your results look like.
I've got a couple Dan I'll scrounge up. I also have some video before and afters. Part of my plan this year is to put a time lapse camera on a couple of hinge cuts to show the growth that happens if done successfully. Hinging in my own opinion is one of the most valuable things we as hunters can do to the habitat.
That would be great Ty. For years I was always under the impression that our property had tons of bedding and I didn't need to create any, only needed to provide quality food. After starting to hunt it again after my 9 years in Canada, I see that I was wrong. There was some logging done and the big blow down areas where deer used to be a lot have been cleaned up. Not having great bedding on our property really hurt the hunting the last couple years and I need to start changing that. My biggest concern is to do it properly and try to keep the trees alive.
Dan, I did some hinge cutting last year and it was working great. I did it around one of my stands to cause the deer to walk around me instead of straight at me. The brush was growing great but a wind storm blew over another large tree that fell on my hinge cuts and broke the hinges and killed them.
the best tree's I have found to hinge are elm, they seem to stay alive for several years afterwards. I don't have any pictures of before and after though sorry. best thing to do is cut to halfway and push them over if they are small enough. big tree's have a tenancy to snap at the cut when they hit if you cut them to deep. one suggestion you might consider is to go in and spread some switch grass seed where you are going to hinge cut. I have found that the biggest advantage to my hinge cut spots is grass begins to grow around and in them. These grass patches are literally full of deer beds, every spot that i have hinged that got grassy is now a deer bedding magnet! Good luck and have fun!
These are pretty crappy but all I could find on my work pc. For those interested in this, I'm actually going to be doing a video of me hinging some step by step for both large and small trees and explaining how the height of your cut makes the hinge accomplish different things. That video hopefully will be shot this Saturday and posted next week...and yes before anyone says it, you can most definitely hinge right now when it's this cold. We hinged over a couple 1-2foot wide maples just weeks ago with no problem so it can be done when it's this cold even on the larger diameter trees. These picture are of a new plot (1/16th of an acre) put in last year, I wanted to make deer enter it more predominately at certain spots so I hinged around it with three intents; take down canopy, block deer and as all hinging does bring food down to them in the form of the fresh buds. We are doing even more around this plot with hinging and clean cutting.
I really like the idea of hinge cutting. It provides not only a great bedding area, but also a great food source. I wish I had my own piece of property to do this sort of thing at. It would definitely be at the top of my list for attracting and holding deer.
You know, I never even thought about this. We were planning on cutting the first weekend in March, but I wonder if it will be too cold and the trees will be likely to snap. Yes? No? Would it be better to wait until spring? Our land is a mix of poplar, maple, ash and spruce. Most of what I'll be hinge cutting is maple and poplar.
Dan, if done slowly and properly you can hinge year round. I prefer to hinge only during the span of January till the last frost. I don't like doing it when stuff starts warming up as much only because it's harder on the tree to shock it during that time span, but I've hinged trees year round at times with great success. The other reason I only cut during the cold months is that the tree is dormant, so essentially it is for lack of a better term "numb" to what you're doing, then come green up it shoots nutrients up the remaining cambium layer as much as it can and the rest comes shooting out of the remaining stump and the side of the "fallen" tree facing up. These shoots and fresh buds are absolute candy to deer and is one of the reasons depending on the scenario we've just clean cut trees up and left the stumps because some in our area (locust, a type of elm and hackberry) will send up 20-80 seperate fresh shoots of growth from the stump...deer love them. That clean cutting though doesn't provide sight blocking, security or cover that hinging does so we don't do it a lot. Your maple will be the easiest to hing, I've hinged some poplar but not a ton but can't picture it being any harder to hinge than some of the cherry and oaks we have. Cherries are tough to hing and we only have had minimal success but knew that going in. Maples are great at producing for years to come after hinging from it's tops if enough light gets to it and if anything like ours you're likely to have some stump shoots grow upwards of 4-6 feet a year if not browsed to death from deer.
I've heard the best time to hinge trees is during the winter. We've been hinge cutting in this area the past 2 years now. It sits right on top of a ridge and down below we have 4 acres of standing corn and beans. The deer normally bed right on the edge of the ridge but this year we noticed they were bedding more in the middle which is what we wanted. We are hoping its a killer set up come fall during the rut and when late season comes have the deer pouring into our fields.
Some of the best cuts for me actully leave the tree standing, just weakened. Then with wind and the weight of leaves they slowly lean over with less chance of breaking off in the cold of winter.
What trees are the best to hinge cut and which ones should be left? How big of an area do you guys hinge cut? How many trees in that area?
Thanks again Ty. We had quite a bit of the land select cut a couple different times over the last 10 years and the maple trees did send up tons of shoots. Areas of the woods are pretty open with lots of small maples growing out of the stumps. How big of an area are you guys hinge cutting? This parcel of property is 400 acres and there are definitely 4 spots I want to hinge. I want to do another spot or two on another 120 acre section of property. Though, this one isn't in as bad a need for bedding.
I've read that hinge cutting for deer bedding on slopes is the best. Just because the same reason bucks bed on slopes to use the topography to help with staying safe. What if your property is flat as a pancake? Can hinge cutting still be effective in a flat situation?
Ours land is flat as hell too Brad. Even though I haven't done any hinge cutting, I know it will work. We had a huge wind storm go through our land around 1990 and there were trees laying everywhere. There were more a lot more deer bedding on our property in those down trees than we have now. A LOT more. This hinge cutting will be, in effect, the same thing.
This approach is used by many, it all depends really on how much sculpting you want to do immediately that day. We like to bend small saplings under the bigger cut ones and just make a total mess of thickness at times...but again depends on what purpose our hinging is for; bedding, food, blocking, steering etc... Dan, the size of the area to hinge is gonna depend on what is the reasoning for hinging. If creating bedding areas that can be approached multiple ways. You could design a bedding area with one solid wall of hinging that creates almost a safety wall for the deer than pick so many acre area you want to designate as bedding say 4 acres...you could hinge cut all around the bedding area but unlike that one blockade wall you now leave a bunch of entrances and exits coming and going out of it. Our small 1-2 acre bedding area by our roadside has about 4 maybe 5 designed by us exits and entrances. They do enter and exit other places from time to time but do typically use the ones we made sure to open up. Another way to approach a bedding area is to make many micro hinge cuts for specific bedding spots, this approach involves hinging at a higher level to create some overhead cover (I even use zip ties if needed to just tie saplings together) leaving a little area for about 3-5 deer if you want a doe family or a small area that you as a grown man can crawl in and lay maybe two directions if you are making it hopefully for a buck. (if making it for a buck I'll always add a cut log in it as bucks naturelly like a back rest to lay against) *I've also been known to take straw or white pine needles and lay them down...amazing how they will use the beds quicker. Back to what size of hinging...bedding hinging like above can vary size wise for what you desire. Hinging for a solid natural wall is where you hinge lower and constantly criss cross tree after tree basically making it impenetrateable without a ton of effort for the deer. We've done this all along our Northern border at our homestead property due to neighbor trespassing issues and hunting habits of theirs. Great way to build natural fences and you'll notice some deer love to bed up by these or right on their inside edges. Just like the wall style you can use hinging to steer deer more subtly around your stand or to more consistently use trails, this can be as small as a couple trees behind your stand as to make them bounce out around you or an entire section just blockaded off similar to the fence style. Hinging though bottom line will always do a couple things: it will always provide more light due to less canopy=more understory growth. It will always bring browse down to the deer's level for consumption. It will always help thicken up the woods and form sight line barriers=more secure feeling for the deer and encourages bucks to move more to check out a woods. Those shoots you have from past cuttings on some of the maple stumps don't be afraid to hinge them if their of sapling thickness (like wrist size)...it'll thicken up even more
