Hunting Land and Oil Wells

[snorko]

I don’t deer hunt much and was asked my opinion on the following. A friend is looking at a piece of land about 75-100 acres in size. It is wooded river bottoms and is pretty hard to get to being an oxbow. He is looking at this as a recreational piece of land to have a small deer camp on for personal hunting. The problem is it has a single oil well on it and a couple more in the general area. These are active but not real productive and there is no real traffic or activity. Oil income is not part of the land so no benefit there

He is concerned that the one well on the property will scare the deer away. Anyone have any experience hunting around typical southern Indiana oil wells? My thoughts are as they don’t make a lot of noise and are not uncommon in the area that the deer population would be used to them.

 

[Dirty Steve]

No effect what so ever. Deer, elk and antelope could care less about giant windfarm windmills out west. I have shot antelope virtually underneath them. A friend has some old oil wells on property he hunts and the deer do not pay any attention to them. Likely, they were on the property before the deer where.

dirty Steve

 

[snapping turtle]

If deer do not associate the oil well with danger it will have no effect.

shoot on the farm even a combine harvesting the corn they called home for months gets little more than a walking away from.

 

[snorko]

Excellent point about the combine. Hope to hear from more folks.

 

[Slawburger]

The deer don't care except when someone is actually present.

 

[Mark-DuCo]

If deer do not associate the oil well with danger it will have no effect.

shoot on the farm even a combine harvesting the corn they called home for months gets little more than a walking away from.

I swear the deer in the area I hunt treat the combine as a dinner bell. I always hunt on a field when they are harvesting it in the evening. Usually about 20 minutes after the combine leaves the field the deer head out into the field.

 

[BoilerWes]

Father in law has a lease in Southern IL that has multiple wells on it. You will have no problems with the well itself affecting the deer. Biggest problem they have are the oil well workers who periodically service/manage the wells who think they have deer hunting priviledges as well.

 

[HuntMeister]

Just my opinion and YMMV...
I agree with the thoughts that the wells don't bother the deer however, like BoilerWes has stated, it has been my experience that the constant daily activity by the well workers could have a negative impact. Some Deer will get used to the people activity and some will not tolerate it.
I have seen whitetails bedded very near wells, even ones with the flame burning off the gas.
Ultimately I think it will boil down to each specific property, well locations and the activity on it.

 

[phylodog]

The wells never phased the whitetail in Texas when I hunted down there.

 

[snorko]

The deer don't care except when someone is actually present.

Traffic would be minimal so sounds like the consensus is no to minimal effects.

 

[ModernGunner]

LMAO!

The deer don't 'know' it's an oil well.

 

[Willie]

I hunted the Wabash bottom with a bunch of oil wells on the property. A few deer were killed by hunters sitting on a oil well platform..

 

[snorko]

Thanks everyone for your opinions. This has helped a lot.