hinge cutting, regrets?

[bueller]

Has anybody ever had regrets after hinge cutting? I'm not talking about the initial shock felt immediately afterwards. I'm talking real regret years down the road.

 

[wiscwhip]

Unless you are referring to oaks, I don't really know what you would have that you could regret hinging on your place. The only thing I have done as far as hinging that I have any regrets about was a few trees that would have made great stand sites....after the movement changed due to the hinge cutting, so hindsight is 20-20 in that situation. Had I not hinged anything, the movements would not have been directed near those areas in the first place, and there was no way of knowing that before hand.

 

[bueller]

Unless you are referring to oaks, I don't really know what you would have that you could regret hinging on your place. The only thing I have done as far as hinging that I have any regrets about was a few trees that would have made great stand sites....after the movement changed due to the hinge cutting, so hindsight is 20-20 in that situation. Had I not hinged anything, the movements would not have been directed near those areas in the first place, and there was no way of knowing that before hand.

Due to various reasons I have not done any hinge cutting on our properties, nor do I plan to. With hinge cutting growing in popularity all you hear about is the positives. But I'd bet that some who have hinge cut have experienced a negative of some sort.

 

[wiscwhip]

I would agree bueller, it is not the end all to be all that it is made out to be. Heck, most places in Juneau Co are thick enough without hinging, unless you are on a mature oak ridge, an open creek bottom flood plain, or something of that nature. Unless you were doing it to direct movement, it would be pointless in most areas around our old place.

 

[scott44]

I've hinged for bedding and to direct movement, the first year I tried it I was trying for bedding but I didn't hinge high enough so it acted more like directing, it opened up the area to new growth but I had to go back in a year later and make some trails and clean up my mistakes. Now when hinging for bedding I hinge about shoulder high and knee high for directing movement. No regrets so far.

 

[Bill]

The first time I hinge cut about 3 acres I kinda screwed up and cut them to low. I made a three acre blockade. That sucked. But No worries, I went back and cut trails through it. Now enough has decayed that they find their way through it.

In my situation. Our woods was OPEN. When the leaves fell you could see 150 yards or more through it. It made it hard to walk to any stand as the deer saw us coming. Now it's thick with low under brush

The bad I got was MFR when the sun hit the forest floor. Seems like it popped up everywhere. That really put a damper on the fun of hinge cutting for a while. I got over it. I figure the deer use MFR it's great thicket and it's not like I planted it. One other bad thing is the north facing hillside are regenerating at a snails pace.

My only real regret is not doing more and not doing it heavier in the areas I did do.


But I get it, it's not for everyone.

 

[Bucks&Ducks]

Hinge or clear cut a big enough area to have an effect.

If it is a large enough area to have an impact you are going to have an effect travel patterns. So make sure that this fits in your overall plan.

 

[Big Snow Man]

I'm trying to use both hinge cutting and clear cutting. Hinging property lines and bedding areas and clear cutting areas I want to thicken up. The guys doing the huge hinge cutting areas I believe are the managers who don't want to hire a forester and a logger. They just want to open up canopy and elect to use the hinge cutting technique and get it done over a few days.

 

[WTNUT]

Perfect timing - I literally just looked at several hinge cuts we did starting in 2009 and the last being in 2014. To answer your specific question I have had no regrets BUT our cuts are NOT like several I see photos of in states with a lot of crop or CRP land. In those photos it looks like they have very very little cover in term of small new growth timber. In those photos they seem to cut lots of small scrub trees to get anything on the ground. We have a vast range of age on our timber and a lot of it. We only hinge cut trees for crop tree release or to eliminate young low value trees. We also only do it in stands that are
Marketable timber but not fully mature timber. In those stands we are at the point where we need cover. IN EVER INSTANCE during THE YEAR OF THE CUT (1-2 acre cuts) we kill our best bucks at or around those cuts. They are like magnets. I love them. So no regrets with regard to damaging valuable trees or them not working. The bad: as I monitor those cuts I suspect 99 percent of the trees we cut do NOT green up at all the following year and by year 5 they really don't provide much cover due to decay and falling closer to the ground. So there is SOME REGRET that they don't stay green long, don't last long and require A LOT of effort and man hours.

 

[BJE80]

I have not had good luck with survival rates. They just don't seem to keep and make shoots like they should.

 

[bueller]

You guys touched on some of the things I see as potential risks/negatives:

• attempting to create bedding but instead you got a blockade, or vice versa
• having undesirable species fill in
• lack of or very slow regeneration
• choosing the wrong location to hinge cut
• not doing enough of it to make a difference

It sure would suck to cut the heck out of the woods to look back 5-10 years later and say, damn I shouldn't have done that.

Whip you hit it on the head by saying that most of the woods in our area is already plenty thick without hinge cutting. The loose and non-fertile sand seems to be the cause of that. The younger oaks stay in that "scrubby" stage for many years. The larger oaks tend to snap off or uproot. The pines grow right along with the oaks, and the jacks bend or blow over with heavy winds or snow. It's like nature does the work of hinge cutting on many woodlots around here. I would see farther into most of my woods if I were to hinge cut. Also I don't have anything other than oaks to hinge cut. And with the old ones dying of oak wilt I'm not at all interested in killing off the younger ones.

I'm really surprised nobody mentioned appearance of the woods afterwards and going forward. If I had 100's of acres I'd be much more likely to hinge cut select areas. But having small acreage and using most of our woods with the family year round for more than just deer hunting, hinge cutting just doesn't seem to fit into my plan even if I had the type of trees and areas that would benefit from hinge cutting. I don't think I would want to look at a tangled mess all the time. But I also don't want a park looking woods however I highly doubt that will ever happen due to the reasons described above. I don't like a clean forest floor either so nearly all of the blow downs, snap offs, etc... remain in place.

 

[Big Snow Man]

One more thing that you touched on Bueller is that scrub oak in our area stay the same size for years. Loggers will never want these trees trust me I just did a cut a year ago and almost gave the wood away. So if you hinge cut it it's no big deal because no one wants the wood anyway.

 

[wiscwhip]

One more thing that you touched on Bueller is that scrub oak in our area stay the same size for years. Loggers will never want these trees trust me I just did a cut a year ago and almost gave the wood away. So if you hinge cut it it's no big deal because no one wants the wood anyway.

I think what bueller was getting at is that they provide better long term cover as a standing shrub than they would if you were to hinge them over.

 

[bueller]

^^^ that and as the old ones die off I will need these smaller ones to be the acorn producers.

 

[j-bird]

I had made mistakes with hinging trees, but not regrets. I only hinge trees that have no future value to me as timber anyway and are of minimal value to deer as well. I hinged back when I had a timber harvest a few years back and hinge some every year. In my area it's about getting cover at ground level. You can do that by hinging or simply removing/logging trees. It isn't the answer for everyone and I don't go crazy with it either. The size and species of your trees you are considering hinging make a big difference as well - or if you don't have your invasives under control. Making more light available to invasives is just a real bad idea. I also don't hinge trees that are fairly decent size. I either drop them entirely or allow them to grow to timber harvest size. Lots of options in making your woods better.

 

[hillHuntR]

I am in year 2 of doing some small cuts. Same issue as many others...no cover in mature woodlots and no reason for pressured deer to travel thru in daylight. First season of hunting i had deer using a roughly 50 by 100 yard high hinge cut strip like a highway that connected high ridge cedar bedding to food plots in the valley...that ridge was not worth hunting before. 90% of what i cut are about 6" plus dbh maples. Added 2 more larger areas this winter. Long term happiness is still unknown

 

[WTNUT]

If you could just keep them alive for 3-4 years it would be a game changer.

 

[Booner21]

The only regret I have is not doing a better job controlling invasives prior to cutting. Holy crap did the woods explode with it.