I have a pretty large tract that I hunt that is all old hardwood. I prefer to hinge undesirable trees for bedding cover. Its not a bad thing to hinge a few oaks here and there. The tree will continue to grow for several years if you hinge it right and will provide deer with both cover and food at ground level. As 2dogs said, if you have cutovers on your property hinging is not very important except for funneling deer travel, which can work very well.

CNC, you ever have a tree "barber chair"?

Hinge cutting is a management tool that can serve several different functions and be used in multiple scenarios. It can be used to:

1) Provide instant cover in the understory
2) Increase woody browse
3) Create a bedding area
4) Manipulate deer movement
5) Provide visual barriers
6) Edge feathering

Any number of different species of trees can be used depending on the scenario and the desired goals that one is trying to achieve. However, some species do better than others depending on what your individual goals may be for an area. Sometime you have no choice but to use what is present.

Each specie of tree has its own individual characteristics that may or may not be able to achieve some of our goals listed. Sweetgums hinge well and can offer good instant cover but offer very little in the way of adding woody browse. Oak species like water oak are great for hinge cutting because they create an instant feeding station. Every single water oak I�ve hinged has been heavily browsed. However, they can be a little more finicky about breaking off when trying to hinge as compare to sweetgum, Species like pine will not hinge at all and will only snap 95% of the time. The tops can still be used for other goals though like numbers 3,4,5 on our list.

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CNC, do you still have these pictures anywhere?