There is no doubt that a well-managed deer sanctuary is one of the best ways to get mature bucks to bed down on your property and increase odds of seeing them during daylight hours. The last thing you want to do is spook those bucks off your property and ruin your chances of killing them. You might be wondering if you should enter a deer sanctuary because of the fear of bucks leaving your property if you do. Well, you might be surprised by my answer.
Yes, you should enter a deer sanctuary on rare occasions to improve the habitat, scout, recover a shot deer, and to hunt for deer or shed antlers. Many of these activities can be accomplished together at the same time to minimize your intrusion inside the sanctuary. You should try to limit the number of times you enter a sanctuary so it continues to be a place that deer associate with safety. Additionally, most intrusions inside a sanctuary should happen outside the months of hunting season to maintain the quality of your hunts on the property throughout the hunting season.
As landowners and hunters, we all have different goals and things we like to do with our properties. Not everyone is going to treat their sanctuary the same way. It’s your property so do whatever you want with it. However, if killing mature bucks is your primary goal, then keep reading along.
What is a deer sanctuary?
Before I tell you about my approach on when to enter a deer sanctuary, I think it’s important to point out that there are several definitions of what a deer sanctuary is. Some people think a sanctuary is a place that humans never enter. Others might say it’s a place where deer feel safe. Perhaps you are thinking that both definitions mean the same thing. Well, let me tell you what my definition of a deer sanctuary is.
First off, a deer sanctuary a place where deer will rarely see, smell, or hear a human, especially during the months of hunting season. Secondly, a sanctuary must offer sufficient cover for deer to safely hide from predators. Lastly, a deer sanctuary must be managed to reduce the stress of the deer herd and increase their feeling of safety.
When to enter a deer sanctuary
Now that you know what a deer sanctuary is, let’s talk about the various reasons why you should enter a deer sanctuary and when to enter it.
During hunting season
1. To hunt
If you have a buck that you believe is living in your sanctuary, but you think he isn’t coming out of it until after dark, you might want to move in closer on his position. If you move in closer, be very tactical in your strategy for when you hunt. For example, try to stay on the outside edge of the sanctuary. Perhaps you should wait until the rut is in full swing to increase your odds of that buck being on his feet. When entering and exiting a sanctuary, make sure you are playing the wind and avoiding deer from seeing or hearing you.
If you plan on hunting in the middle of a sanctuary area, you should only do it one or two times in most cases. It only takes one or two intrusions for mature bucks to get spooked out of your sanctuary for several months or more. Even if you don’t plan on hunting that area the rest of deer season, you could be spooking those bucks off your property to get shot by the neighbors. If you don’t spook him out of your sanctuary then he could be there next year and odds are he might have grown a bigger rack.
2. To recover a deer
Even if you are one of those guys that has a zero human intrusion policy for your sanctuary, you should still recover a deer that got shot and ran into your sanctuary. As hunters we need to respect these animals and not let them go to waste. Even if your neighbor shoots a deer and it runs into your sanctuary you should let him recover it and even offer to help him. Respect your neighbor and his deer if you want him to respect you back and return the favor someday.
When looking for a shot deer that ran into a sanctuary, be sure you give that deer plenty of time to die. If you don’t see the deer die from your stand wait at least four hours before beginning to track. I will wait this long even if I thought I made a perfect shot. The last thing you want to do is start tracking a deer through a sanctuary before it’s dead. If you jump a wounded deer, you will likely put more pressure on your property in order to continue the search for it.
I like to look for deer that died in a sanctuary during the middle of the night. Deer are more likely to be feeding in open fields and are less likely to be in bedding cover at that time. Regardless of the time of day you shot a deer, I recommend tracking it around midnight. If the deer is not dead yet, come back around noon or wait another 24 hours before you come back and look.
Once you intrude on a sanctuary to look for a shot deer, it’s going to have the same effect as you hunting it. Actually, the effect is probably going to be worse. Therefore, you should try to stay away from that sanctuary for several weeks to give the area time to settle back down. That can be a difficult thing to do during the hunting season but it can also make a big difference on the quality of your hunts for the rest of the season, especially if you are targeting a specific buck.
After hunting season
1. To make habitat improvements
If you are like me then you want to do everything you can to maximize the potential of your property to produce a mature buck. I recommend entering a sanctuary once a year to do a health check on the habitat. I will look for opportunities where I can improve the sanctuary or improve my access for hunting it. This one trip though the sanctuary is very important for me to see how I can improve it and increase the frequency of mature bucks using it.
I suggest doing a health check on your sanctuary on the same day that you plan to shed hunt, scout, or do tree stand work within that sanctuary. This helps to reduce the amount of human intrusion you put on the sanctuary and helps you be more efficient with your time.
Try to make improvements to your sanctuary before spring is in full effect. I try to get everything completed between late April and early May. If you have a lot of work to do that will take many days or weeks to complete, try to get it all done in a short window. Ideally, you should try to give your sanctuary back to the deer as soon as possible so it can be used as fawning cover.
2. To look for shed antlers
I will only enter a deer sanctuary one time per year to look for shed antlers. I will wait until April to start looking for sheds because most antlers have hit the ground by then. If you start shed hunting too early you might spook bucks away that are still holding antlers and they could end up dropping them on your neighbor’s property.
3. To scout
It’s helpful to know how deer use a sanctuary if you plan on hunting it once or twice during the season. You should know how deer typically enter, exit, and move through that sanctuary. This can be a critical piece for figuring out how to set up a property for deer hunting. Being able to see deer sign like trails, beds, scrapes, and rubs will all help you gain a better understanding of how to hunt and manage your land. Scouting during April, while looking for sheds, is an ideal time to see deer sign from the previous hunting season.
How often should I enter a deer sanctuary to hunt
During the hunting season, and several months leading up to it, you should limit your intrusions into a sanctuary as much as possible. You can usually get away with hunting a sanctuary once or twice without impacting how deer use that sanctuary. However, some mature bucks won’t tolerate any human intrusion, and you could spook him away from the sanctuary for several months or longer.
Hunting within a sanctuary also has the potential to negatively impact the quality of your hunts for the near future. Therefore, you should pick your timing wisely. Consider hunting during the middle of the rut when bucks are likely to be walking around during daylight hours. I encourage you to hunt all day so that you are entering and exiting under the cover of darkness and at a time when deer are likely to be feeding in open fields. Lastly, always play the wind.
Conclusion
Should you enter a deer sanctuary? Absolutely! However, you need to make calculated moves on how you enter it and when you enter it. There are many definitions of what a sanctuary is and you will have to define that for yourself. However, if you want to kill big bucks then you need to encourage them to spend the majority of daylight hours on your property. The way you do that is by providing him with the safest sanctuary in the neighborhood.