How late can you hinge cut?

[Tap]

Thanks for all the great advice so far guys.

As much as i would like to, being on a small property makes logging a difficult option. I've checked into it and most of the loggers around here don't want to cut less than 20 acres. The cost to move equipment just doesn't work out when they are cutting anything less. 20 acres is almost half my property and since it is long and narrow, it would make getting to stands undetected very difficult. I would always be walking in close proximity to bedded deer. I definitely think small pockets of hinge cuts located toward the center of the property is my best option to provide cover/food. I will be taking progress pics and hopefully will see the results of it next winter.

You are in a similar situation to me. I don't have enough acreage of marketable trees to make logging an option. I'll still be hinging, though.

BTW, for you guys up north like me, it's time to prune some fruit trees. Heading outside right now.

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[Jeff H]

I'd like to share something I found last year while cruising the interweb. I've never liked the idea of pulling on a rope tied to the tree I'm trying to drop since you are pulling it toward you. If the rope is high enough you can put enough distance between yourself and the tree to be felled so that it's not quite so hairy. Using a hook, however you're right under the tree that you are dropping and that can be a dangerous place to be.
I've not used this practice yet but looks like a very solid process for felling a tree safely, especially if you are working alone. It allows you make a minimal cut then pull the tree down all the while standing off to the side of where the tree will be dropping.
Be safe out there guys!

 

[Mennoniteman]

I'd like to share something I found last year while cruising the interweb. I've never liked the idea of pulling on a rope tied to the tree I'm trying to drop since you are pulling it toward you. If the rope is high enough you can put enough distance between yourself and the tree to be felled so that it's not quite so hairy. Using a hook, however you're right under the tree that you are dropping and that can be a dangerous place to be.
I've not used this practice yet but looks like a very solid process for felling a tree safely, especially if you are working alone. It allows you make a minimal cut then pull the tree down all the while standing off to the side of where the tree will be dropping.
Be safe out there guys!
View attachment 11304

At the deer habitat seminars they promote using a fiberglass pushpole with a metal end to push trees away from you as a safe method. The rope method that you are showing looks like a great idea until you consider that the rope always would end up under the tree in an irretrievable tangled mess?

 

[Mennoniteman]

Thanks for all the great advice so far guys.

As much as i would like to, being on a small property makes logging a difficult option. I've checked into it and most of the loggers around here don't want to cut less than 20 acres. The cost to move equipment just doesn't work out when they are cutting anything less. 20 acres is almost half my property and since it is long and narrow, it would make getting to stands undetected very difficult. I would always be walking in close proximity to bedded deer. I definitely think small pockets of hinge cuts located toward the center of the property is my best option to provide cover/food. I will be taking progress pics and hopefully will see the results of it next winter.

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Proper logging in a healthy forest (not including cutting for paper) doesn't result in a clearcut with no cover, a good logger only removes trees ripe for harvest and junk, leaving all of the desirable half grown trees with room to grow, and their growth rate will double, leading to a future harvest where you do it all over again. If you don't follow these proper management practices in timberland you will end up with a woods that is out of balance, with only big trees left, or only junk trees left, which, unfortunately is the condition of way too many acres of woodland in the US, due to highgrading. A TSI cutting can rectify the damage, but it can take many years to restore trash tree forests to quality timber. Make sure that you have a plan before you start randomly cutting. Again, usually what's good for wildlife is good for timber.

 

[pinetag]

Proper logging in a healthy forest (not including cutting for paper) doesn't result in a clearcut with no cover, a good logger only removes trees ripe for harvest and junk, leaving all of the desirable half grown trees with room to grow, and their growth rate will double, leading to a future harvest where you do it all over again. If you don't follow these proper management practices in timberland you will end up with a woods that is out of balance, with only big trees left, or only junk trees left, which, unfortunately is the condition of way too many acres of woodland in the US, due to highgrading. A TSI cutting can rectify the damage, but it can take many years to restore trash tree forests to quality timber. Make sure that you have a plan before you start randomly cutting. Again, usually what's good for wildlife is good for timber.

Turns out i'll have even more time to plan as the PM from the Army Corps is not available to meet until April. That may be a good thing! Trees will be leafing out and easier to identify with flagging tape for cutting. My plan is to start small with maybe 3 or 4 hinge cut pockets (20 x 20 yards) and see what sort of results I get in terms of use. Then maybe next winter go in and expand them if I feel it's beneficial.

 

[Mennoniteman]

Turns out i'll have even more time to plan as the PM from the Army Corps is not available to meet until April. That may be a good thing! Trees will be leafing out and easier to identify with flagging tape for cutting. My plan is to start small with maybe 3 or 4 hinge cut pockets (20 x 20 yards) and see what sort of results I get in terms of use. Then maybe next winter go in and expand them if I feel it's beneficial.

You might not see the results as quickly as one year. The measure of a good hinge cutting project is how much sunshine you let in; as in sunshine hitting the ground. In 2008 I did a four acre severe hinge cut for a friend, in an open, low quality woods, leaving all of the oak trees standing, which was only about twenty, or maybe one every two hundred feet. Five years later it was a jungle that even the deer could barely get through, and they started seeing much greater deer activity around the perimeter. For the past three years it's got a thousand young oak seedlings coming, and they get a P&Y buck out of it every year. The several hundred acres out around it are still junk trees, a barren and open woods. They now realize that I was right in telling them to do a timber stand improvement on the three hundred acres and get a logger to cut the undesirable trees for paper, which would have paid $100 an acre an the hard sweaty habitat work done for free!, leaving the few good oaks stand for seed trees, which would by now have the entire property looking like the four acres. So they are doing it now, after having lost ten years of greatly improved deer hunting. Whether hinging or logging, "timber stand improvement" should always be your goal, and cutting sooner rather than later gets you into better deer hunting sooner.