Okay,If I end up buying a 160 acre piece of property, how large of a area would I need to put off limits to set up a "safe haven"?

I was thinking something along the lines of 15 acres of the most heavily wooded area. Would that be enough area for a safe haven? That's about all I could setup on the property I'm looking at buying, there are probably only 50 acres of wooded area withquite a bitbeing relatively open.

Here's a tentative plan I drew up really quickly:



I would probably keep the larger cultivated fields rented out to bring in a tiny bit of income and I'm really not setup to plant 20+ acres fields anyway.

What do you think?

Thanks, Nathan

npaden; I think you need to supply more information:

- where are your main hunting area andstands?
-can your neighbours disturb your sanctuary as it is up against the fence line
- what vegetation is shown on the property (green, brown)
- How mature is the bush and is there cover inside it.
- where do the deer bed now.

Dan O.

I can't answer most of your questions. I haven't bought the property yet and actually haven't even set foot on the place. I'm just going by pictures so far.

Here's a picture along the creek:


Here's a picture of the less wooded area to the west:


The brown areas are cultivated fields and could be planted in whatever we wanted to plant.

I hope there are deer there now and if there would I would think they would bed in the area I circled in yellow.

How about just a general question. In general how large of an undisturbed area would you need to set aside for a safe haven?

Don't buy anything unless you have looked the property over thoroughly.. In looking at the aerial I would want to know what crops are usually planted on the adjacent fields. If they usually have deer prefered crops they could get out of their sanctuary, cross the line and BOOM, you raised another one for the neighbors. Do the neighbors hunt a lot, any? I would think a sanctuary needs to be in the middle of your hunting area so you can catch them crossing shooting lanes to their food sources. Spend at least2 days walking the property, with photo and topo and learn it intimately. There may not be a lot of deer there. Is there any of the contiguous land available for lease?

Ditto what timbercruiser said. The size of a safe haven can vary widely depending on the cover. On my property it can be an acre of tall grass at the top of a hill or the middle of a ten acre swamp. It will be an area that the deer feel comfortable in, where they can monitor their environment (scent, sight, sound), close to food and water AND undisturbed.

Dan O.

I won't be able to spend 2 days walking the land. If I don't pull the trigger on it by the weekend it will probably be gone. With 3 creeks on it and some actual hills it is a rare piece of property in that area.

I'm going to go look at it tomorrow afternoon and if it looks anything like the pictures I will probably buy it. I talked to the neighbor to the east and he seems like a pretty nice guy. He is actually leasing the property I'm looking at buying right now for grazing. He is planting winter wheat on the cultivated areas for winter grazing. He has about 50 cows that he is running on his 1/2 section and the 1/4 section that I would be buying. He leases out his land to hunters so I will see if I can swap out him being able to graze some cows on the land andgive meexclusive hunting on his land.

He said that he has never actually seen deer on the land I'm looking at buying but he has seen them on his property to the east so he assumes there would be deer on the property. He said the property to the north is a hunting ranch and at least part of it is high fenced. He didn't know if there is a high fence running on the north side of the property I'm looking at so there would for sure be a chance of deer moving out of my safe haven there into the hunting ranch but if they put much pressure on them I would think they would prefer to move south unless they really had something to attract them in.

The way the land lays I don't think I could make a safe haven in the middle of the property. I would think the thickest area would naturally be the preferred area for bedding, etc. I doubt I can do a lot of game management with such a small piece of land anyway but it might be fun to try. I will try to get the name of the neighbor to the north that hunts and see if I can talk to them before I put an offer on it.

Thanks for the replies.

I drew up my plan zoomed in a little closer. This area is basically the 40 acres in the northeast corner of the property. Looking at the aerial maps the area I have targeted as the safe haven is the thickest wooded area for at least a mile in any direction. I realize that I would be providing safe haven for deer that may ultimately end up being shot by someone else, but the biggest question I am asking is would that 15 acres of heavily wooded creek bottom be enough safe haven to do any good or the alternative would be to just not have a safe haven and just hunt the entire property?



I'm really getting excited about going and looking at it tomorrow.

Ideally, I would want the sanctuary toward the center of the property to minimize the effects of your neighbors and allow you to hunt your property during any wind direction and not have your scent blowing into the area.

Is that hill natural? It looks awfully out-of-place in the picture on your other thread and the vegetation present is indicative of disturbed soils. I would want a detailed history of the land use if I were you...and if there are any mineral rights reserved on it. You could end up do a lot of work on your property just to have someone come in and excercise their mineral rights and wipe out all of your efforts.

Yes, the hill is natural. There are several hills that look like that around here.

No mineral production on the property now or in the past and nothing in the immediate vicinity. The seller does want to retain mineral rights but I'm going to try to get at least 1/2 of whatever he has (he doesn't actually know if he even has any mineral rights actually)

The topographical map doesn't show any mining activity and they are usually pretty good at that.

I would put a "safe haven" as close to the middle of property as possible, this way adjoining land owners are capitalizing on a place where many deer may congregate.