Buck Hollow Sporting Goods - click or touch to visit their website Midwest Habitat Company

Best Tree's to hinge cut

Alright guys, looking at starting my hinge cutting this weekend.. And I have a ton of it to do.. I know Hickory's and Sweet Gum's are both good trees to hinge cut, what others should I be taking down for cover? I'm not a tree expert by any means, and I plan on doing quite a bit of studying before I walk into the woods and turn on the chain saw.
 
Go hard on Bitternut Hickory, essentially worthless. Reasonably hard on Shagbark hickory where there are groves and you are essentially thinning them, leaving some premium, straight well formed shagbark hickories for future harvest.
I'd hinge elm all day long. Doesn't hinge quite as well but can work just fine and for sure decent for hinge. Elm rarely reaches maturity due to disease, competes with many desirable trees and has little to no value to deer and many other critters.
Ash - doesn't hing particularly well but I'd thin these out. Often they "crack" right off so be careful (be careful with ANY tree with any decent size period).
If you're oaks are crowded and really know your trees, you can hinge some oaks to keep the best ones there, essentially freeing up the best ones by taking an inferior one next to it out. You really gotta know your stuff though or otherwise wait on oaks and get a professional to help.
 
I also like to hinge Hackberry

Agree'd. We have a lot of hackberry and they make up the majority of our understory (and block lots of light from getting to the forest floor). Since we have a lot of them and they hinge well, they are our most desirable hinge tree. Mullberries also hinge well for us, some even live and produce berries on the hinged top for a few years! That's easy pickings for some fruit.
 
2 years ago I went in and hinged or killed everything accept for oaks and walnut. Also left some hickory if it wasn't competing with the others. This year most deer and bucks I have ever had on this farm.
 
2 years ago I went in and hinged or killed everything accept for oaks and walnut. Also left some hickory if it wasn't competing with the others. This year most deer and bucks I have ever had on this farm.


Yep. If it doesn't produce food or have treestand potential then I'd cut it.
 
We did 39 acres of TSI in December under a state contract. We couldn't hinge much but we did as many as they would permit. Mostly hickories were hinged. Most of our trees are oak and hickory. As previously mentioned, do be careful in hinging, it's dangerous work.
 
I've done elm since there are a lot and they are going to die before maturity anyways, sometimes just cut them off, too, new regrowth is browsed heavy by deer. I've planted some of the dutch elm disease resistant elms on my place, browsed heavy, too, deer are loving their elm.

in the image you can see the bush forming on the trunk from constant browsing, this tree out in the open where I will plant fruit trees sometime in near future
Hinge-Cutting-Trees.jpg
 
Top Bottom