I'm glad to see I'm not the only one planning while in my tree stand. Chummer, that sounds exactly like what we're doing at my camp, but our trees are red maple, some junky oak and hornbeam, and a few white pines. We're trying to make a thick, secure travel zone between bedding and our plots. We have apples and crabs in and around our plots and we're planting spruce and hawthorn in the cut areas for additional cover. We haven't hinged anything yet, but we're going to this winter. Not a BIG hinging project, but putting some throughout the cut area to add variety to the cover/browse. We sell most of the timber and the $$$ pays for our food & habitat projects.
The cutting we've done at camp wasn't hinging. It was dropping trees entirely to get sunlight to the ground. But the tops from the mature trees made lots of browse and bedding cover. The night after we started cutting, the deer moved in and bedded right in those tops. When we came back in the next morning to continue cutting, we bumped deer out of the tops and could see where they had nipped the young twigs all night and then bedded in them. ( 2" of snow on ground ) Proved the attraction to us.
Sounds like most of us will be in the woods this winter with saws. For the deer and game - that's a GOOD thing. For 8 or 10 of the guys at my camp, it's a reason to head for camp in the winter and the benefits for deer - and future hunting - are enormous.
