Hinge Cut Bedding Blocks

[BSK]

I have been considering this for a small parcel. 5-6 acres pasture and about 9 acres of woods. Woods were high graded about 20 years ago so most of the big trees left have marginal timber value. 10 years ago when I first started hunting there was a lot of nickel to half dollar sized regrowth and briars near the edges of the woods. Does normally bedded there and bucks cruised it pretty well during MZ.
Now you can see from one end to the other and most of the small diameter trees are the diameter of a silver dollar ++, and look like a dandelion with the crown starting 15-20' up. Little to no food or cover at ground level
There are enough big trees that I have to leave alone that just cutting/hack squirt the small stuff might not result in much ground level cover/regrowth? OR will all that small stuff re-sprout and make some thick bedding cover?
OR
Should I bend/break/hinge cut this smaller stuff to try and get some cover near ground level?

If hinge-cutting is too labor intensive, you can try hack-and-squirt. I find young trees of the diameter you are taking about are VERY easy to kill with hack-and-squirt. Now mature trees... not so easy.

To answer your question about whether dealing with these younger trees would be any benefit, look up at your more mature trees. Are their canopies touching or is there distance between their canopies? If some distance exists, kill/cutting the younger stuff WILL provide benefit. Just make sure to do it in patches large enough to make a difference. I would much rather produce pockets of thick regrowth rather than moderate regrowth evenly spread around.

 

[hammer33]

Thanks BSK. what I would like to accomplish is to make it attractive to deer again. Ill look at the canopy and see if the big mature trees have it all shaded out or if there are pockets where I can manipulate to get some cover.

 

[BigAl]

Isn't that Leonard & Teresa's son?

Yes

 

[Ski]

I have been considering this for a small parcel. 5-6 acres pasture and about 9 acres of woods. Woods were high graded about 20 years ago so most of the big trees left have marginal timber value. 10 years ago when I first started hunting there was a lot of nickel to half dollar sized regrowth and briars near the edges of the woods. Does normally bedded there and bucks cruised it pretty well during MZ.
Now you can see from one end to the other and most of the small diameter trees are the diameter of a silver dollar ++, and look like a dandelion with the crown starting 15-20' up. Little to no food or cover at ground level
There are enough big trees that I have to leave alone that just cutting/hack squirt the small stuff might not result in much ground level cover/regrowth? OR will all that small stuff re-sprout and make some thick bedding cover?
OR
Should I bend/break/hinge cut this smaller stuff to try and get some cover near ground level?

Sounds like a perfect opportunity to hinge cut, especially if the area you're talking faces south or west. You wouldn't even need a chainsaw. A machete hack and then break the tree over. I do LOTS of these with really good results. Lay them outward into the opening and be sure to leave enough room for trails to meander through and enough room for the deer to slip out into the opening. The idea is to create an environment that makes them feel hidden but not confined. The problem a lot of folks have when hinge cutting is that they go too hard and it quickly makes deer feel confined. It's important for them to feel like they can quickly escape danger, so going too thick defeats the purpose.

If still unsure then try a small stretch and see what happens. That's the best way to learn. If it works well then you have something to start with. If not then you're not out anything.

 

[hammer33]

Thanks Ski ! Did a quick ride through on the 4 wheeler today. I think there is enough space in spots to get some good regeneration if I break over the small stuff and hinge a couple 5" trees. I wonder if I can just run over the skinny stuff with the tractor bucket about 2ft off the ground or if Ill just bust up my tractor.

 

[JCDEERMAN]

Thanks Ski ! Did a quick ride through on the 4 wheeler today. I think there is enough space in spots to get some good regeneration if I break over the small stuff and hinge a couple 5" trees. I wonder if I can just run over the skinny stuff with the tractor bucket about 2ft off the ground or if Ill just bust up my tractor.

Depends on the tractor . I'm creating a 1/2 acre open spot in a bottom to plant chestnut trees. Everything up to 4" in diameter was pushed over from about 2-3' off the ground to expose the root ball. Then back up and lower bucket to the ground and uproot the whole thing

 

[Ski]

Thanks Ski ! Did a quick ride through on the 4 wheeler today. I think there is enough space in spots to get some good regeneration if I break over the small stuff and hinge a couple 5" trees. I wonder if I can just run over the skinny stuff with the tractor bucket about 2ft off the ground or if Ill just bust up my tractor.

A lot of what you push over with the bucket will eventually stand right back up and by June will look like you didn't do anything at all.

With a sharp machete you can hinge a buch of saplings in pretty short order and doing it one at a time allows you to pattern it any way you want, cutting some and leaving some. If I had several acres of saplings I wanted to do I'd probably just bush hog. But if it's just resoftening an edge between timber and open ground I really like a machete and hinges.

Next time I go to collect camera cards I'll snap some pics of some areas I did to create a buffer between timber and a fallow field. Everything in the field had grown to 3"-5" saplings with a 15' canopy. The line between it and the big timber was immediate, no undergrowth. I hinge cut several stretches of roughly 100ft long x 20ft wide along the edge and it responded great with weeds and blackberries. I have stands in the big timber and those hinge areas pull deer right in tight for archery shots. Essentially it's like dropping a Christmas tree to the lake bottom to predictably congregate fish.

 

[hammer33]

Thanks for the help. Thats exactly what I hope to accomplish. Make small patches of cover in the woods so the deer gravitate towards those security spots. Right now they will bed in there occasionally but its so open, they can see most of the block and even out into the field.
Do you just chop off the small stuff, say under 3" then hinge the rest? Or try and hinge everything? even the small stuff. There is a LOT of saplings 1-2" in diameter that are 15-20' tall.

 

[Lt.Dan]

Now to convince my brother to hinge cut a few acres. He want to keep or attract deer on his land. I think this might be a viable way.

 

[Ski]

Do you just chop off the small stuff, say under 3" then hinge the rest? Or try and hinge everything? even the small stuff. There is a LOT of saplings 1-2" in diameter that are 15-20' tall.

Size doesn't matter much. If it's tall enough to pt food out of reach of a deer, then it can be hinged. I do just hack a lot of them down though. I never do all hinges. It's always a mix with the trees getting hinged for the dual purpose of creating some kind of barrier/screen/block. Never a solid wall though. It has to be porous enough for deer to get through in case of emergency. I also stagger hinge height from about knee height to head height and all in between. The trick is to not get so carried away that you lose sight of what you're doing. Be sure to keep an outside looking in perspective, the big picture. It's not complicated but it does have to make sense or else you'll just have a mess.