Designating and building sanctuaries is an important part of small-land management. Most long-term habitat plans include them.
Interesting. Care to share what you have done and share some pics if you have any.
Tired of trolling on aldeer?
BSK, I want to buy some land in the next couple of years. 50-100 acres, hopefully nearer 100. Is it possible to have a sanctuary for a parcel that size or is it just too small? If possible, approximately how big do you think that sanctuary should be? Likewise, I'm thinking for a property that size, a sanctuary should be place within the interior rather than on the border. Any such parcel that I would consider purchasing would have to be surrounded by other undeveloped land and I'm thinking hunted fairly heavily by my neighbors.
Actually, the smaller the land, the more critical sanctuaries become. On small lands, it's very easy to pressure deer right of the property if they don't have places to feel safe from hunters. ANY amount of land in the interior of a smaller property where hunters do not go, and can be managed to produce high-quality cover, is going to be a bonus. But honestly, terrain and current habitat would dictate the size of the sanctuary.
That's how my dad has set up our 40 acres. 50% is overgrown CRP. He doesn't really leave the back yard to hunt. I rarely ever get a big buck on camera on our land during summer. The bucks don't really care about it. They're all hanging out near the neighbors beans, but come season he sees a ton of bucks
Well said Mike. My sanctuary is maybe 4 acres that is an overgrown white pine forest with open pockets of swamp and underbrush. It has a 15 acre swamp along east side, owners grass field to the south, one lone house to north w ag field, and road along west side. No one hunts it except me and i only hunt it when conditions are perfect by entering from south and walking in on east side when wind is from west. I also wont hunt until cell cam shows that shooter buck has made it his sanctuary...... this usually occurs after shooter bucks are pressured out of neighboring woods.From what I have understood for a lot of years is you don't build sanctuary's you leave them alone and don't trespass into them . Maybe I missed something
That's a bruiser!
And now you understand the Catch 22 of sanctuaries. The larger the sanctuary, the better it works, but the harder it is to hunt. I suggest to my clients more smaller sanctuaries on their property instead of a few large ones. I find that once a patch of sanctuary cover gets in the 20 acre range, it becomes much harder to hunt. Too many entrance and exit routes exist. But those larger sanctuaries DO work, just a little too well!
