Some deer will avoid the new traffic like the plague, other's won't care. My main trail I hunt over comes off the back edge of a well pad.

A buddy that works on a drilling rig said one site he was on, they always saw pigs around the adjacent pump jacks in the mornings and evenings. Does crude attract hogs like diesel? Or did they just happen to put pumps in a pig city?

I work in the oilfield servicing wells. I see deer almost every day. About 90% of the pads we go on have deer and hog tracks all over them. Some land owners even put their stands and feeders on the edge of locations. When they are drilling it can be really loud and annoying, but the animals seem to get used to it pretty quick.

Hog's and Javalina's will rub up against the wellheads to get oil on them, if theres any on the ground they'll roll in it. Keeps the bugs off them. Years ago we bought some wells over in Westbrook, one of them had had a flow line leak that had created a nice little puddle of oil and the hogs had turned that place into a spa. There were trails going to and from that spot in every direction.

I didn't bother hunting my place last year-I'm in the EFS zone. For 1 1/2 years there was LOTS of activity around me. 24/7 activity at times, lots of lights and random activity. People driving really fast on gravel roads and rattling trailers. And just when you thought it was over, here comes another pipeline or well...

Yeah, it does disrupt activity/patterns, short-term. Like others mentioned, animals will adapt when the activity moderates/ceases.

I used to find leaks in old pipelines where the pigs had rooted up the ground to get to the smell of natural gas.

Thanks Hwy Man and Sneaky, that's odd, but very cool that pigs, and deer, do that kind of stuff.

I don't think you have anything worry about. Shoot I watch hundreds of soldiers fire on active shooting ranges during the day and in the late afternoon the deer are feeding in the ranges that were fired on all day long. They get used to working around obstacles pretty quick.

had a well drilled on my lease in gaines county this year, the deer definitely were shying away from it during drilling, but within 10 days after the drilling was done, they were back to normal, spotted a couple nice 180"ers within 100 yards of the pad just a few days after drilling was done

At least they waited til after the season, you should be fine by October.

I work/hunt on two high fence ranches south of Abilene. Both have at least 10 wind turbines. I have killed deer directly under the turbines so it shouldn't matter.

I'm looking for a place to lease in the Seguin area. If you can't stand the traffic let me know. As long as the price is good I'll lease it.

We have been looking around Abilene for some property and we are concerned that all of the drilling will mess up the well water and such. What kind of "after effects" can we expect? We have also been considering the area around Brownwood and Coleman. We want enough property so we can hunt on it. One place that I thought we had lined up was taken off the market by the seller so now we are looking again.

Wells have surface casing to protect the ground water sources. This can fail, of course, but it doesn't happen often.

Partner, Don't even worry about it...Being born on Laird Hill in Kilgore Tx during the oil boom and having been pretty much been reared in it and lived in So. Louisana, ect..I can tell you that the animals get used to all of it and ignore it..We humans overthink about everything. My friend that I used to cull shoot his ranch in Fowlerton has over 13 miles of 150yd by 400yd long senderos in dog legs all over his 3 sections of land. They have 2 wells in, and a 2 acre lake, water wells ect. and are in process of drilling a well about every 500 yds..and you see deer,
hogs, quail and coyotes everywhere..Most people are sensitive to the Oil Business..which is much cleaner than ever..animals don't care..DD

The deer don't care after a short period. Same as urban deer get used to the traffic. About the only way it will mess up your season is your about to pull the trigger and a truck drives by. But more than likely, give it 5-10 min and they will come right back. I wouldn't worry about it. Plus, most of the O&G people have good jobs they don't want to lose, so they won't steal your stuff. So all the traffic will help keep thieves away.

IMO that traffic actually helps hunting. If there is constant traffic on the property, the deer get used to it, so when you show up with YOUR truck, it does not seem so out of place to them. They are used to trucks being there all the time.

Just make sure you have the same make and model of truck as the oil company men do and you are in great shape.

My Brother in law used to have the same make, model, and color as the rancher. The cattle would follow us all over the ranch! Had to stop driving that truck.

Had a guy on the lease one year that came up with the bright idea he would feed the range cubes near the gate so that the cows would stay there instead of in the pasture when we hunted.
Needless to say they followed and looked for his truck and wouldn't leave him alone.
They never bothered me because they saw my Jeep they knew they weren't going to get anything but chased! LOL!

lmao

Eagle Ford wells haven't offended any of my deer on any of my ranches.

But one of the flowback crews fishing in one of my ponds pissed me off big time. They had throw lines in the pond and my hog hunting outfitter couldn't find one of his dogs one night. He found him with the location collar tracker. The dog was hooked on one of their throw lines. The next morning the shat hit the fan.

I'm a pumper in west texas. I took this picture through my binos off of a well pad and you can see another pump jack behind her. I know muledeer act different than whitetail, but I don't think it should bother em.

Our experience in South Texas is that the first couple of months after a new well can be a little slow but after that, no big deal..