Hinge cutting

[metropig]

I am a relatively new land owner having purchased about 40 acres of timber two summers ago. The land butts up to my friend's land and I am able to bow hunt all 220 acres during bow season as he does not bow hunt. On my portion I have a large and long ridge that runs east/west covered in timber. I am considering going on both the north and south side of the ridges and hinge cutting a lot of trees to create thicker bedding areas. The land holds deer and I saw a number of good bucks last year including one that may have broke into the 170s. Deer bed on both ridges but it's larger timber and not very thick. The bigger bucks I saw were all coming or going from the thicket on my neighbor to the west.

I am trying to do two things. One, I want to give the big boys a place on me and not the neighbor to stay. Second I want to be able to get deeper into the woods on an evening hunt without jumping deer on my way in. As it stands right now there is a long field of view because of how open the woods are.

I'll take advice from anyone that knows about land management because I'm new to the game. I was told the land was logged about 20 years ago. Would it better to have a logger come look at the land or will hinge cutting do the trick? If I hinge cut should I do it on both sides of the ridge and how far down the ridge should I do the cut. I'm assuming it would be better to hinge cut on the slope of the ridge where they like to bed anyway?

Just some thought, I'd love to hear some input from landowners who have done some of this.

Thanks

[jlh42581]

Read Jeff Sturgis's blog where he covers lines of movement and take that into consideration before you ever start.

I hinge hunt at the end of winter usually.

[dan]

When you own the land you can always do things to make your entrance less visible, and bedding better... Having worked with a few landowners I can say this, most of the properties I have seen bedding enhancements done on, they could of been done a lot better... Thickening to block view and hinge cutting to create bedding are two separate things. Mature bucks prefer certain characteristics in bedding areas... Random cutting is not going to create that in most cases. The cutting should enhance areas that have the ingredients for mature buck beds.
Can you post a map?

[gjs4]

As a guy who has exhausted his mind dollars and effort on building ground....

Have a plan before you lift a finger. A great plan for the big and small parts.

I would suggest Tony Lapratt or that sniperbowhunting.com website....yup; theyre money....no you will not figure it out scouring the net....but if you want to BUILD your ground to max potential take the plunge. If not youre wasting time effort and worst yet..ground

[metropig]

I will try and get a pic up tomorrow, right now I only have access to my kindle fire and I can't figure out how to copy the pic on this thing. Thanks for the advice. This is not something I was going to attempt this season. I just want to get educated on some good techniques to start implementing after this winter.

[Stanley]

Sounds like you have an overhead canopy shading the ground below thus no undergrowth. Trees are an irreplaceable and valuable resource. The first thing I would do is identify the kind of trees you have growing on your property. I would then determine what trees are undesirable/expendable honeylocust, pin oaks (not much value other than firewood) to mention a couple. You can then girdle the undesirable/expendable trees. This will open up the canopy for some sunlight to get to the timber floor and undergrowth will start to grow. You can often get a state forester to come in for a day and help you develop a plan at no charge. I would not just arbitrarily go in and start hinge cutting trees. I would do like others have suggested, think twice cut once.

[metropig]

Sounds good guys, thanks. I have checked with the Conservation Department in Missouri, where I reside, and they do have a program available where someone will come out to my property and help me develope a plan.

[Stanley]

Sounds good guys, thanks. I have checked with the Conservation Department in Missouri, where I reside, and they do have a program available where someone will come out to my property and help me develope a plan.

Great idea. Pick his brain. Put together a list of questions in a note book to ask him in the field. Tough to remember all the stuff when talking face to face.

[Mike]

Whats on top of the ridge? Whether you should hinge or log depends on what you have for trees and what you want to do with the property. If you have some good (mature) trees ready to harvest that should be done first, if they are smaller tree or "trash" trees those could be hinged right away. How far down doesn't matter IMO, just make sure that its flat enough for them to lay and it makes sense with how you want the flow of your land to be. I have hinged areas that hold deer on the ridge top, on points, flat area between points, and the lower edge of the wood edge next to a field(but not the bottom of the hill, just the woods). I think ridge top is a great spot to do it if you can, those seem to be some of my better areas.

The nice thing about creating the bedding is that there is less random bedding so you will be able to sneak into areas better like you want.

Some switchgrass would be great too if you have room for it.

[Mike]

When you own the land you can always do things to make your entrance less visible, and bedding better... Having worked with a few landowners I can say this, most of the properties I have seen bedding enhancements done on, they could of been done a lot better... Thickening to block view and hinge cutting to create bedding are two separate things. Mature bucks prefer certain characteristics in bedding areas... Random cutting is not going to create that in most cases. The cutting should enhance areas that have the ingredients for mature buck beds.
Can you post a map?

What characteristics/ingredients do you think are important to try to create?

[dan]

When you own the land you can always do things to make your entrance less visible, and bedding better... Having worked with a few landowners I can say this, most of the properties I have seen bedding enhancements done on, they could of been done a lot better... Thickening to block view and hinge cutting to create bedding are two separate things. Mature bucks prefer certain characteristics in bedding areas... Random cutting is not going to create that in most cases. The cutting should enhance areas that have the ingredients for mature buck beds.
Can you post a map?

What characteristics/ingredients do you think are important to try to create?

Good question Mike... The answer is going to very greatly in differing types of terrain.
I am assuming the o/p is talking about hilley terrain. My cutting would usually put the hinge cuts at the elevation drop off on the points, and along the ridges where bucks either are already bedding, or would be bedding if they had desired cover. Above the hinge cutting I would do more cutting to thicken... They like it thick on the ridge above... And the does and lesser bucks will bed in the thick stuff above the big bucks. I would leave it somewhat open below, but not to much past the valley as to make it easy to see the hunter if he accesses the land below...
I would also remove the oak trees from the bedding spots to get the bucks to travel out to the hunter position even in early season with a good acorn crop... Oak trees are a great resource on your property, but they should be in positions that bucks don't bed right under them and never move away in daylight.

[metropig]

I really appreciate everyone's input. I am having a heck of a time trying to get a map that will show topography on this forum, so far no luck. My friend with land adjacent to mine has owned it for 17 years. He told me both his land and mine was logged about twenty years ago. I will have to have someone from the conservation department come and help me identify my trees because I don't want to knock down something and regret it later. I know I have oaks all over the property. When the acorns start falling they are everywhere. And there were still some on the ground when hunting season was aver last year. I would have just assumed that I would not want to get rid of Oaks but the problem is they are all over the tops of my ridges. The tops of my ridges are flat and wide but deer do not usually bed there because it is mostly large Oaks that are preventing light from gettting to the ground thus there is little undergrowth to hide them. The deer tend to bed off on the sides of the ridges. At the west end of one of my ridges there is a saddle that continues west to the neighbor's ridge. The neighbor's ridge has a lot of smaller saplings and most of the big deer I saw last year was when I hunted the saddle. They would travel from the neighbor's crops to the east of me to the neighbor's ridge to the west to bed and vice-versa.

The land may need to be logged again, I'm not sure. I don't know that the canopy can be opened much without taking Oaks because there are so many of them. I always thought that was a no no but I really don't know. I'm just looking to educate myself before I proceed. I'm not looking to start any of this until next late winter of spring.

[dan]

Metropig,
I am not sure if your aware, but in case your interested I thought I would let you know, I do property evaluations, scouting, and enhancements at a fairly economical rate... Most small properties I can walk in one day and show the land owner what to do.. Or I can do it for them, but most guys want to do the work themselves and save the money. I am not really in it for the money, I really enjoy doing it.
Enhancements can be a great thing, but they can also be something to regret if done wrong.
We might be able to give you free advice if you post a topo... Try pulling one off of acmemapper2.0

[Stanley]

I really appreciate everyone's input. I am having a heck of a time trying to get a map that will show topography on this forum, so far no luck. My friend with land adjacent to mine has owned it for 17 years. He told me both his land and mine was logged about twenty years ago. I will have to have someone from the conservation department come and help me identify my trees because I don't want to knock down something and regret it later. I know I have oaks all over the property. When the acorns start falling they are everywhere. And there were still some on the ground when hunting season was aver last year. I would have just assumed that I would not want to get rid of Oaks but the problem is they are all over the tops of my ridges. The tops of my ridges are flat and wide but deer do not usually bed there because it is mostly large Oaks that are preventing light from gettting to the ground thus there is little undergrowth to hide them. The deer tend to bed off on the sides of the ridges. At the west end of one of my ridges there is a saddle that continues west to the neighbor's ridge. The neighbor's ridge has a lot of smaller saplings and most of the big deer I saw last year was when I hunted the saddle. They would travel from the neighbor's crops to the east of me to the neighbor's ridge to the west to bed and vice-versa.

The land may need to be logged again, I'm not sure. I don't know that the canopy can be opened much without taking Oaks because there are so many of them. I always thought that was a no no but I really don't know. I'm just looking to educate myself before I proceed. I'm not looking to start any of this until next late winter of spring.

Another thing to consider is some states have timber reserve programs where you pay no taxes on land in this program. I know Iowa has these programs. If your timber is in an existing program there are regulations concerning cutting of trees and how many. I would look into this and see if programs like this are available. Those big oaks could be 100 + years old and are irreplaceable in your lifetime for sure. I have a great appreciation for those old trees. There are also share cost programs available in some states to help improve wild life habitat. I would also look into this. You can normally relieve the big oaks by killing the junk trees around the big oaks. This can help open up the canopy and help the big oaks at the same time. I feel to be a good hunter you also need to be a good steward of the land and timber. It would also be nice to get Dan in there and do a walk about for bed evaluation and scouting purposes. That would be a great jump start for hunting purposes.

[kenn1320]

Dont just go hinging tree's. Make a plan and put the deer where you want them within reason. Dont set your place up so that its got more deer, but harder to hunt. Be strategic about how you set it up.

Ill give you a prime example of what not to do. I have been bugging my dad that we need to hinge some bedding areas, but he doesnt want to cut any tree's. Well one day he got a wild hair and grabbed his saw and told my bro to grab his. They went nuts and cut a 50ydsx75yds area, maybe bigger. They had a wind and just hinged every tree in the area with no rhyme or reason. Yes it drew deer like a magnet, why wouldnt it, its the thickest cover on the property now. Here is the real kicker, his woodlot is a perfect square and he owns the whole woodlot. He did this on the NW corner and you guessed it, predominate wind is out of the west. These deer are unapproachable, as they bed with the wind to thier backs and watch for danger downwind. When they want to feed they get up and walk into the wind and into the ag fields. I explained your seeing more deer, but they are harder to hunt. We need to be strategic about this and place more bedding. He has seen it works, but will not commit to cutting anymore tree's. Do as the others have said, make a plan and think twice, cut once.