Land owners are about to begin a complete fence replacement project. Which will include bulldozing a road around the property. ~600 acres split into two pieces. Having a discussion with the landowner about how affected the hunting will be this year. Any experience/advice with this situation?

Most times I have worked on fence line, having areas dozed ect tra, the deer seem to come investigate the same night. May disturb then for a few days, but they will be back and wont pick up and leave. The sooner they start, the less impact it will have by November.

The deer are a lot more used to equipment moving around on places than they are people walking around or 4 wheelers running around the property. If the rancher uses 4 wheelers, then they also get used to them.

From what I have seen, as long as its not being done while you are trying to hunt, I think it will help the deer. They will come and eat all the tender browse that is knocked down by the dozer and will then use the roads for travel ways.

The problem is, they will likely want to work on no the fence early in the morning when you will be hunting
If they can let you know what section they will be working on you can always hunt on the other side, as long as they don't have to travel past your hunting spot should be ok.

Unless this is a high fence project I don't see any reason for concern in the least. It should be fine and I don't think its anything to get all twisted up about. The neighbors next to my grandmothers farm have a oil well and with all of the coming and going with the road they made going through her place to get to it, the deer are still abundant and in the area. They are still hitting a feeder only 400 yards from the site.


Do you dove hunt the place too? If so, how much and does that effect your deer hunting, if any? What I'm getting at is that I think if you know they are not effected too much by dove hunting, why would you think building a fence for a while would? In my experiences I haven't had that problem. It usually does not take long to get a fence up if the crew knows what they are doing they can have that divided up in about a week or two. That is not enough to push your deer off the property or be worried about. You have more than an entire month before the deer season opens if they start now. Even longer if your not under MLDP or bowhunting. Don't stress out.

Depends on how long it will take them to do the fences. Dozer running will not effect the deer at all. They will be in the freshly bladed areas that same day. Fence builders might be a slight issue in the exact area they are working at a particular time. I had fence built this spring and it did not effect the deer movement. Same thing 2 years ago.

Go throw wheat seed out on the fresh dozed ground it will sprout in the fall and deer will be all over it.