Checking oil wells on opening morning?

Was having a good hunt till the oil field jerk decided to check wells at 9:00am opening morning. Spooked off all the deer I was watching when he drove past my stand and feeder.

Needless to say we will be makin some phone calls Monday morning so this won't happen next weekend too.

At least he didn't drive through at the crack of dawn.

One lease I was on that was covered in wells, it was always 9-9:15am when the O&G trucks showed up, spoke with one of the fellas on his way out and he said he came at 9 to give us time during "glory time"

Honestly, they bothered the deer less than the other fellas (lessees) atv's did.

Who are you going to call?

Talk to them with the attitude you started with and they might tell you to go pound sand.

Good luck with that phone call, let us know how it turns out. My thinking is the oil money will trump your phone call though. How long has your feeder and blind been on the road he uses daily to check the wells?

It's a tough call, that's why I'm glad I have no oil on my lease. That oil is big money and they have to check the wells early for production numbers.

If the oil wells are like gas wells, they check them every day. They have a long list that each guy has to check each day, so it doesn't matter if it is deer season or Christmas, someone will be out there to look at it.

The guy I spoke with, had what looked like a cab full of paper looking "disk", with what looked like sysmic (sp) stuff scribbled on it?? Never met the other younger fella, but assumed he was doing the same thing. Rancher had wells everywhere, I believe it was NG, on 40k acres.

You OG fellas, whats those "discs" for??

They are for recording pressure and flow rates on the wells

Those are for recording gas flow. Ours are all digital meters now.

I've been running a vacuum truck for over 7 years on ranches that are leased to hunters. The wildlife gets used to seeing these trucks on the property everyday,and rarely do they get spooked from us being around.
It seems to bother the hunters a lot more than it does the animals.

If you have a problem with it,I suggest moving your stand and feeders to another area of the property that doesn't have oil field traffic near you.

Thanks, yes, this was in the late 90's, or close to 2000.

Charts. They are changed daily, weekly, or monthly. They record line pressure and differential pressure to calculate production.

Those wells have to be checked every day, regardless. If you're nice to them, they'll usually work around your schedule as much as they can. You can't check forty wells all at noon.

Speaking from personal experience. The guy is trying to make a living. He may not even be aware that you're there. If you get a chance to talk to him, ask if he can work around you. He will most likely do what he can if your not an arse about it.

I talked with the land owner, he left a voicemail with the owner of the oil company. He was already upset with thin because they tore up his road and have not made repairs. Land owner makes more money off us than off these old wells, he said he would take care of the problem. These wells are checked once a week.

HWY_MAN do you work for an oil company? Who would you call?

The pumper who's checking wells and ask if he might can change his route, be nice and they most likely will work with you.

This, if you were leasing from me, I would tell you to either shut up or your stuff packed, and refund you the balance of the of your lease payment.

They are suppose to be checked daily, consider yourself lucky. The landowner may not own the minerals just the surface so he may or may not be able to do anything about it. Make contact with the pumper, he's the one determines when he goes in and will be the most helpful.

I prefer to be civil like you say. I'm letting the land owner handle it, he has called the owner (it's a small local company). If I see the pumper next weekend, I'll offer to take him to town and get breakfast. When you can't hunt, you might as well eat.

Haha good thing I'm not leasing from you! Land owner is a family friend, has been for 20+ years.

If they're being checked once a week, then they're old wells just producing enough to hold lease rights. The charts are probably 7 day charts. Chances are they can work with you easy enough.

Yeah, they are really old wells. I have high hopes that we can come to an agreement, should have addressed it before season. But we have not had this problem before. In years past the wells were checked on Mondays.

That's the way to do!

Remember he has a job to do, so the attitude you bring to the table will last longer than his
at the moment. Hopefully you can come to terms with his sked, if not offer someo of your wifes,
cookies or fresh bake cake or bread! usually would work with me!

Food is a good alternative bribe! and again, the deer ignore those trucks after a while,
they are there....


good luck.....

Years ago on another lease, the driller started Exploratory Well #1 on the ranch, the weekend before opening day. That year we killed more beer than deer.

They check our wells every day. Even though he may be in there once a week, I'm willing to bet he knows more about the deer than you do. What I would do is befriend him and pick his brain a little. The pumpers on our place will tell us what they are seeing and where they see them at. Good info can go a long ways.
Just Sayin!!

Those guys are good to get acquainted with. Years ago I made friends with the guager on our place and he called me up and let me know he observed a large buck rutting a doe on the property. Changed my plans and went hunting and was able to take a nice 11 pointer that afternoon.

Hope u can figure something out, but I wouldn't let it bother you to much. I hunt on and around a dairy and they are constantly in and out of fields doing work on tractors and spraying manure with big trucks and the deer are so used to it that they barely even look up. We have a stand that is so close u can hear the workers hollering and whistling at the cows and we see plenty of deer. I wouldn't stress over it

yep, same goes with ranch hand/cowboys on larger ranches. I have stopped by and introduced myself to several of the NG guys on the place outside of Ozona, exchanged phone numbers, invited them by my makeshift camp for coffee/bite to eat. They are there every day and know a lot more about the game than I could ever do only going out every other month during the off season. They watch out for my stuff (feeders, stands, camp, etc.) in case something were to happen due to weather and I watch out for something gone wrong with one of the well sites, pipes, etc. easy to make friends if they know who you are. Likewise, the game gets used to the vehicles that pass thru the ranch, especially those there all the time, usually anyway.

The deer should be used to the daily oil field traffic. It's "normal" activity in their living room!! I guess all the oil field activity came to that area after you put in your set? Or did you knowingly put a set in next to oil field activity. To me unless you were there before the oil activity, you don't really have a gripe.

I am not set up next to the oil well, the guy just happens to drive past my stand and feeder on the way to check it. It's one old well that is checked once a week. It barely produces enough to justify it being there. Until this year, it was always checked early in the week (Monday or Tuesday). It has not been a problem the last 10 years. The landowner contacted the oil company, and said it should be resolved, the guy will go back to checking them on Mondays. Landowner also said that if the guy comes through again on a weekend he would start parking a tractor in front of the gate on Friday nights. I told him that wasn't necessary, I understand the guy is just doing his job. I will say it's nice when a land owner (who owns all the mineral rights) has your back. It's the difference in just a hunting lease and a hunter/ landowner friendship.

We have a condensing station (or something like that) on our land and they come a couple of times a day. The deer get used to them and they generally don't make much noise. I've talked to most of the guys and they are really nice guys. When I talk to them they always ask how I'm doing and about the activity. The only thing that perplexes me, and maybe some of you pipeline guys can help, is on my neighbors property every few weeks there is something that sounds like it's letting off pressure. Every few minutes it will let off a sound like a pressure cooker letting off steam. This will go on for a couple of hours and then stop. Not sure what that is and I'm sure it messes up the deer, but I just ride it out.

We've also had a rough time getting them to maintain the dam crossing the creek, but we aren't pushing too hard because we understand prices are down and they are just trying to stay afloat right now. So we have been doing most of the maintenance ourselves until times are a little less lean for them. Like most people said, if you treat them with respect and are courteous, they will almost always do the same.

So what's that damn "PSHHHHHHH" sound?

Like most have said, they get used to it.

I drive around my place year round on the ranger. I have pics of deer literally minutes before I show up and after I leave. Drove up on a buck at the feeder this weekend.

My buddies place hardly gets driven around. We have a harder time hunting there because it's so quiet all of time. The deer and pigs know when we get there.

Moonshine distillery haha