Hinge cutting advice for logging road trails?

[Someday isle]

I have four primary goals for this winter. I've prioritized them in the following order. 1.) Get soil tests and appropriate soil amendments on my food plot trails. 2.) Hinge cut alongside some of my logging road food plot trails to increase both light and browse. 3.) Create 4-6 hinge cut bedding areas 4.) Clear a new area for a more traditional sized food plot. Maybe not a full destination plot but an area between 1/2 acre to an acre to complement the food plot trails and bedding areas.

I'll post pictures of my trails on the following posts in order to solicit suggestions. My questions would be primarily how much hinging would you do along the trails? Would you even do it? And then more specifically HOW would you do it? How high would you hinge the tree? I don't necessarily want the deer to bed right on the trails but if they chose to that'd be okay too as long as at wasn't in an area where I'd be accessing a stand.

I have many trees, which you'll see in the pictures, that are only four or five inches in diameter, or less. These will hinge more safely as opposed to some of the larger trees, which I'm frankly not confident in messing with myself. I plan to do most of my hinging with a silky zubat hand saw and will only attempt smaller trees that I can control better.

The plan is to hinge them perpendicular to the trails allowing the deer to easily get on and off the trail as they wish and also to then add cover by utilizing the hinged tree itself along with new growth in the resulting more open canopy.

Please feel free to offer opinions and critiques of the plan.

 

[Someday isle]

 

[MoBuckChaser]

Be prepared to have deer bed and or feed next to your trail if you hinge to much along them.

 

[Someday isle]

 

[Someday isle]

MoBuckChaser, that's definitely one of my questions or concerns. I have no problem with deer bedding along the trails in areas where I won't be accessing stands or where they can't see me accessing stands. In fact creating good bedding cover is a priority for me on a small property. I guess it's a catch 22. I want to provide better cover and get more light in. Maybe I need to be very selective in where I hinge heavily and where I maybe don't do anything at all.

How high would you hinge the trees? Or would you vary the height?

 

[MoBuckChaser]

MoBuckChaser, that's definitely one of my questions or concerns. I have no problem with deer bedding along the trails in areas where I won't be accessing stands or where they can't see me accessing stands. In fact creating good bedding cover is a priority for me on a small property. I guess it's a catch 22. I want to provide better cover and get more light in. Maybe I need to be very selective in where I hinge heavily and where I maybe don't do anything at all.

How high would you hinge the trees? Or would you vary the height?

How big is your property?

 

[Someday isle]

36 acres - I'm in Crawford County, Missouri. It lays very well too. I'd call it gently rolling. The pictures are a good depiction of the terrain features. It was timbered probably 15 years ago and then the previous owner did what he called a select harvest 4 years ago. I have some thicker areas but also a lot of what you see in the pictures, with bunches of small trees and the occasional bigger ones. Lots of oak and hickory. Initially I didn't think too many cedars but since the leaves have fallen I do have quite a few in some areas. It's all wooded except for the trails that I cleared and one overgrown briar patch of a little over an acre.

 

[MoBuckChaser]

36 acres is not a lot to work with, but can be enough and very rewarding. Draw up some kind of plan in your head or on paper. One thing we do is split the areas you want to hinge into 5 areas. Do one section each year. then after 5 years start over again on the first section. You will always have food and bedding that way. keeping the deer on your property. And after 5 years, there are always plenty more trees to hinge again. Never try and do everything at once. JMO!

 

[chummer]

I just did this. I tried to hinge evrything that was leaning away from the trail. I mostly hinged what was bordering the trail. I did go a few yards deep to cut some giant birch but I opened the trail up pretty good by just cutting what I could reach from the trail.

 

[Someday isle]

How high did you cut your hinge? I was thinking about my chest height. I'm 6'4" so that'd be about 5 feet high.

 

[Bill]

Good questions. If you hinge "A" tree a deer could lay by it, so keep that in mind. If you hinge the length of that trail open up the light and get clover in there the lazy does will bed there. Also the deer will walk those trails regularly.

A hinge cut 4 foot and higher will produce bedding cover. Knee high will produce a blockade. Very different uses. I used blockades to determine where deer enter a plot.

Like MO said put it on paper, think it over and try to visualize what the deer will do. Here is a sample plan Steve Bartylla was gracious enough to post. http://www.habitat-talk.com/index.php?threads/sample-plan.355/

For small bedding areas in rolling timber look for south facing slopes. If you have one with a flat spot 1/3 to half way down the slope you found an area to hinge. 1/3 is ideal.

Make a drawing an post up your ideas. We'll jump in and really screw you up. :D

 

[Bill]

Also remember safety. Wear a hard hat. If you do go the chainsaw route add chaps and a face shield.

 

[chummer]

How high did you cut your hinge? I was thinking about my chest height. I'm 6'4" so that'd be about 5 feet high.

3-4' on average.

 

[Bigshooter19]

I did a bunch of this a year ago and worked great. All my woods are mostly small blocks. I hinge cut a bunch on the back side of my food plot cutting all the bad trees out like boxelder. The deer started bedding in there like crazy just like mo is tell you and warning you. Some I cut as high as I could reach some cut around 3'. I recommend not doing it alone have a buddy come with or something because it is very dangerous. Creating cover and food is always good but plan ahead and you will be good.

 

[Someday isle]

I did a bunch of this a year ago and worked great. All my woods are mostly small blocks. I hinge cut a bunch on the back side of my food plot cutting all the bad trees out like boxelder. The deer started bedding in there like crazy just like mo is tell you and warning you. Some I cut as high as I could reach some cut around 3'. I recommend not doing it alone have a buddy come with or something because it is very dangerous. Creating cover and food is always good but plan ahead and you will be good.

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[Someday isle]

Here's what I'm thinking based on the above picture. Sorry about my poor drawing skills. The light green lines are my existing food plot trails. The light blue is my campground/parking area. Red boundary lines are fenced and cleared. Grey boundary is my north side. It is clearly marked but needs a better path cleared. Light brown are my existing stands (we took one deer from each of these stands this year). Dark blue is where I'd like to dig a couple small water holes. The green circle with the 1 inside of it is where I hope to clear a food plot area this winter. Areas numbered 1-6 are where I thought I'd like to hinge cut to open up the canopy to put more light on the trails and create some cover. Red dots are potential additional stand sights. The big red X is where there's an old box blind - I haven't decided if it's useful or not.

The entire east border is full access although there's lots of blockades from trees all along that boundary. There's also easy acces at the southeast and northeast corners.

Property owners to the north and northeast do not hunt. Owner to the east hunt sparingly during rifle season but not too serious (he's also a really solid neighbor). Property owners to the south and west both hunt rifle and the guy on the west side bowhunts and has cows.

Please feel free to offer any and all suggestions. Based on MoBuckChasers suggestion from yesterday I'm thinking I'll hinge section 1 and maybe section 5 this year (including some lower hinging on 5 to kind of screen the campground area).

 

[Bigshooter19]

Just by taking a quick look. I'm guessing major wind direction is west north west like they are around here. By the second waterhole between 3 and 4 could be a good spot for you to do a bunch or hinge cutting/ sanctuary also between 2 and 4. If you put the food plot where you are thinking you can pull them out of there to grab a bite to eat also with your tower stand being there can catch them coming out the back door. What did last year deer started a new trail so might have to adjust but the deer use my logging roads as well. If there is easy way to get into your new food plot from the north east corner that be awesome for west or south wind. We had a ton of south winds by me this year.

 

[MoBuckChaser]

First thing is don't make your small property too busy. That is what we TRY and not do. Sometimes less is more with small properties. Bedding near the middle is good if possible. Try not to have to many stands in the middle.

 

[Someday isle]

Thanks - predominant wind in this area is west/southwest, but this year's weather was so funny that we actually had a little bit of everything all fall. A wind rose for this part of the state historically confirms west/southwest but also we can get a lot of swirling winds and currents throughout. I think it'll take us a couple years to find air current trends on this piece of property. When looking for property an east side access was very important for just that reason because I knew I was buying a smaller parcel.

 

[Bigshooter19]

Just like mo said don't hang 100 stands hang 3-4 good ones with good access and hunting each one with good wind. My biggest woods is 32 ac.w with most being 10-20ac blocks.I think if u can set aside 5 or so ac for bedding area that you never go into unless getting a deer will help. Making a awesome food plot will pull deer out and food plot will make bucks check it all the time during rut. I could be wrong tho. Most of these guys be hunting longer than I been alive.

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