By Gerald Almy
After you’ve solved the food part of the habitat equation by enhancing natural forage and establishing food plots, no project can help your hunting more than creating a sanctuary to help make the property attractive to mature bucks.
As an outdoor writer specializing in deer management, I pour over
every biological paper that might provide insights into mature whitetails. I’ve
seen many great articles and some that mostly cover old ground. But one that
sticks in my mind is a University of Georgia study that monitored the behavior
of several mature bucks during the firearms season. In a nutshell, the study
showed that two 5-year-old bucks survived the season by holing up in a remote
mountain laurel thicket during daylight. If there’s an article that clearly
documents the value of setting aside a sanctuary on your hunting property,
that’s it. I’ve seen the same thing
demonstrated on my land. I’m fortunate to have a little more than 116 acres.
It’s a nice property with varied habitat. But if I did not set aside a portion
of this relatively small tract as a no-entry, no-hunting zone, I would be hard-pressed to attract and hold mature bucks. That was proven a few years ago when an old,
gray-coated buck with brown-stained antlers slipped out of that sanctuary late
one afternoon and eased toward a creek I was watching to hook up with
alate-cycling doe. He was six years old, with multiple kickers and bases just
shy of six inches. I never formally scored him, but those mass and age numbers
proved again the value of sanctuaries. I hadn’t seen him before on trail
cameras or while hunting. Neither had the neighbors.
The Power of Sanctuaries Simply, sanctuaries
attract old, reclusive bucks to your land and help hold them. Security is a
mature buck’s No. 1 priority. A properly laid-out sanctuary gives him that. With
a bit of planning and sometimes a few weekends of work, you can create a
sanctuary that will attract older bucks to your property and hold them there.
And if you don’t offer such a security area for deer, it’s extremely likely
mature bucks will find one elsewhere when hunting pressure builds. They know
their survival depends on it.
Definition We’ll define a sanctuary as an area that’s declared completely off
limits for hunting and other human activities so deer can have a location with
abundant cover and no intrusion where they feel safe. The only exception to the
rule should be when trailing a wounded deer. Refuge is another good word. The
sanctuary will probably encompass one or more prime bedding areas on your
property but not all secondary or satellite bedding areas. You need to be able
to hunt some areas bucks frequent regularly besides feeding spots. At first, glance, creating a sanctuary looks simple. Block off a remote area or section
of your property that has some good cover, and leave it alone. Done. Not so
fast. Although not difficult, setting up a high-quality sanctuary that will
improve the land’s ability to hold mature bucks is a little more involved. It
requires forethought, planning, and careful execution to succeed. But it’s worth
the effort because the result will be far better hunting on the areas you
don’t set aside. The best area to select
and how to lay out the sanctuary usually become clear as you analyze your
hunting setup and neighboring landowner activities and attitudes. Do they hunt?
Bow, gun, drives, weekends, every day? Do they practice quality deer
management? Take one step at a time as you analyze your hunting needs and the
surrounding property owners’ attitudes and behavior. Consider what you have,
which areas older bucks would likely want to hole up in (thick, remote), and what you need to add for habitat
to make the chosen sanctuary the best, most productive one possible.
And what does that mean?
The most productive sanctuary will hold more older-age
bucks and produce
better hunting throughout bow, gun and muzzleloader seasons year after year on areas you hunt.
It might seem puzzling, even illogical, but by not hunting a chunk of your property and managing it as a refuge, you will improve big- buck big-buck opportunities on the remainder of the area you do hunt.
Features of an Ideal Sanctuary When deciding where to establish an area off-limits to hunting, look for
several qualities. You can start now, but the best time to analyze the land and make final decisions is after deer season and before spring
green-up. You won’t
hurt your hunting
then. And during
summer, thick foliage
makes it harder to decide which areas are best to set aside.
Cover: This
is obvious. The area should have lots of cover.
Water: It
can take the form of ponds, springs,
creeks, tanks or pools you’ve
created by damming
small streams.
Seclusion or remoteness: Areas that are steep,
swampy, isolated, remote
or hard to reach always
make the best sanctuaries. They might already
be largely left alone.
Recognizable borders: It’s easier to let other hunters
know the boundaries of the sanctuary if you have
creeks, ridges, fence lines or other features
to mark the edges. Otherwise, use ribbons, paint, or signs to designate the boundaries.
Practicality: Isolation is critical. Create it in a location that’s easy to
avoid. Areas that are difficult to hunt undetected are perfect. Note that I didn’t list food plots. Keep those out of the sanctuary so they
will attract bucks where you can harvest them.
Work required: All these elements affect the desirability of a sanctuary, or its attractiveness to a 3-year-old or older buck. The more of these features you have the better. Some might be there already. If you’re lucky, a perfect sanctuary might already exist and might just need to be put off limits to hunting and other human disturbance, such as scouting, hiking or ATV riding. In most cases, some elements might be present, but you can improve the location with habitat work during the off-season. Basically, you can divide potential sanctuary areas into three work categories: those that require no enhancement and just need to be designated off limits, those that necessitate some extra habitat work to improve, and those that offer good potential because of location, remoteness, neighboring land use or other factors but need to be created with a few weekends of elbow grease and chainsaw or dozer work.
How Many Sanctuaries, How Big, and Where?
Those are the preliminary questions you should
answer before deciding
how much extra work each area needs to make it appealing. In general, one sanctuary
is good for 40 to 200 acres. For larger parcels, you might want more. A lot depends
on the vegetation and topography. Sometimes, two or even three areas just scream to be placed
off limits, such as a native grass stands bucks flock to when pressure
builds or a remote canyon that’s difficult
to hunt because of shifting winds. You might want one main
sanctuary and one or two smaller satellite ones. Size? Anywhere from five to several
hundred acres might be involved. It depends on topography, prevailing winds, the amount of land available, thickness of the vegetation, surrounding land use, quality
of the habitat and other factors. These need to be considered for each specific property. Some landowners reserve as much
as two-thirds of their hunting area as a sanctuary. That’s extreme, though,
and usually is not necessary
or practical. Often, five to 25 percent
is a good compromise.
Selecting the Site Besides size, you must determine
the location of the refuge. This depends a lot on the location
of areas with good existing
cover. Those are clearly the first spots to look. It’s also vital to consider your neighboring property owners’ land-use habits. If they’re hardcore if-it’s-brown-it’s-down types, you want the sanctuary as far from that border as possible. Conversely, a non-hunting or seldom-hunted property is perfect to abut your sanctuary against because it enlarges and enhances the benefits of your reserve. In my situation, half of my neighboring landowners don’t hunt, but the others hunt virtually every day. Abutting my off-limits area against the non-hunting neighbors’ property almost doubles the size and value of
my sanctuary. Also, think about access to areas you plan to hunt, considering the deer’s senses
of sight, hearing
and smell. You don’t want the sanctuary positioned where you can alert deer as you access your stands by having the sanctuary
immediately downwind. And you don’t want it where deer can see or hear you.
Remoteness, elevation, steepness, boot-grabbing mud or anything else that discourages human entry is also a plus. The most useful
sanctuaries are in hard-to-reach areas where rough habitat already
discourages humans from penetrating.
Studying topographic maps and satellite images, such as those on Google
Earth are a good starting
point for locating
the best sanctuary sites. Then, scout
on foot to get a complete picture,
and make sure an area fits a deer’s needs to escape humans and find security. Although it’s often recommended, unless you have a large
property, putting the sanctuary near the middle
of a tract might not always be the best choice. You’ll
probably want to hunt or otherwise use perimeter areas at various
times. On smaller
properties, that means a lot of human
traffic from every
direction around that center core — perhaps more than a mature buck will be
willing to withstand. For small-tract
landowners, it’s often a better bet to have it adjoin a tract that isn’t hunted,
landowners who practice
quality deer management or a distant corner that’s easy
to stay out of and not circle continuously as you hunt around it. If you’re
surrounded by landowners who shoot any legal buck,
though, a central
location might be the only appropriate choice. Benches, brushy hollows, heads
of draws, wind-damaged tracts, weed-choked conifer
stands, regrowing clear-cuts and overgrown marshes
are prime areas. Beyond remoteness, favorable bordering land use and a setup
that lets you access your hunting areas
without spooking deer in the sanctuary, cover is the most crucial
ingredient. The more natural low-growing cover
it has, the better.
If an area offers a jungle of thick vegetation, it might already
serve as a sanctuary. Sign or trail-camera images will tell you if that’s true. In
that situation, simply
stay out, and delineate the boundaries to create your sanctuary. Chances
are, though, that some habitat
work may make it even better.
Improving and Enhancing
Sanctuaries Felling some low-quality trees
in the area to create
more security is a simple
and productive way to enhance
a potential sanctuary. That gives the deer bedding
cover, protection from wind and tender branch tips they can browse on. Cut some of these only partially through
at waist to chest high.
Sever them just enough
so they fall but remain attached to the stump and roots (hinge-cutting). These
will usually live for another
year or two, providing even more browse and cover. Another way to enhance
a refuge is to plant clusters of conifers. Putting
in some fast-growing pines, cedars or spruce provides
a wind- break
and thermal cover
that offers shelter
from storms during
winter, attracting more bucks
to your sanctuary. They’ll also provide
a cool, shaded
spot where bucks
can escape summer’s
heat. Plant them 10 to 20
feet apart in clusters of one-quarter to one acre. Shrubs offer another ingredient you can add if the sanctuary is still too open.
Finally, if you have lots of open fields but with little cover, these can easily
be converted to terrific sanctuaries by planting native warm-season grasses. These will grow 5 to 7
feet tall, providing superb security cover and protection from cold winter winds, yet they will remain open enough overhead
to allow warming
winter sunlight in.
The Final Step: Do Not Disturb The main thing that makes or breaks
a sanctuary is whether you and others who use the property
respect the meaning
of those words.
Post signs, paint markings or print maps that show the borders and be sure everyone
who uses the property knows
where the boundaries are. Stay out except
to retrieve a wounded deer or to do additional habitat work in spring, if necessary. You want the oldest buck in the area to believe that’s the most secure spot around — the place he needs to be to survive. Give him that and he is more likely
to stay put. Then next fall, when he’s even bigger and you catch him outside
the sanctuary chasing
a doe
or seeking a bite to eat from a lush food plot, you’ll get your chance.
Be ready.
