Marc from Minnesota asks,
Hey Bill, I am a long time follower of yours and value your opinion and have learned a lot about archery and archery hunting from you!! I own 76 acres in west central Minnesota. The property is mostly timber, with about 8 acres of food plots near the center of the property. We have a healthy deer population and good deer hunting in our area for Minnesota standards. I am in a decent neighborhood where most everyone passes young bucks (1-2 year olds anyway) and usually have a few 3 and maybe a 4+ year old class buck around every year. I live about 40 minutes from my land and haul all of my equipment to and from my land when I am up there doing food plot or habitat work; which in the spring and good portion of the summer is once a week or more. The older I get, the less I like the drive, as well as having to load and haul all of my equipment to do work up there. I am thinking about building a 30'x50' shop/house on my hunting property. Most (30x30) of it would be garage/storage space where I can store my tractor, 4 wheeler, sprayer, stands, etc., and then about 600 square feet of cabin, so I can spend the night up there on weekends during hunting season and a warm spot to go in the winter when I am up there doing habitat work or trapping. I have kind of determined that the SE corner of the property that butts up to the neighbors large barren pasture to be the best spot for this (least amount of deer activity, right off the road, the cabin would be in the timber surrounded by trees, and in the SE corner which avoids prevailing NW winds). What are your thoughts on building cabins or shacks on hunting properties? Do you see negative impacts of this? I don't want to completely mess up my hunting by building a cabin/garage though. I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on this. Thanks!!!
Bill responds,
Topic: How Cabins Impact Hunting Properties:
Building a shop/cabin on your own hunting property is a dream of many deer hunters. If the location of the build is on the fringe, well away from the main areas of deer activity, it won’t affect your hunting success on the property.
Marc,
In your situation, I think the positives outweigh the negatives. You won’t impact the deer much by selecting a spot way on the edge of the property near the road where the deer are already used to some human activity.
The real problems occur when you decide to build the cabin the prettiest spot and that just happens to be in the middle of the property. That would definitely change the potential of the property to produce good hunting.
But, again, the tradeoff in your case is a good one. I would definitely go for it. Congrats on a great property and I hope you enjoy it even more when you can stay there. (1/12/22)
