How many acres you need for good deer hunting depends on a lot of factors. A lone hunter can have great success with as few as 10-20 acres in the right location. At the opposite end of the spectrum, a deer camp will likely need 100-200 acres per hunter to keep everyone happy. Falling somewhere in the middle, a small group of close-knit gun hunters can have good success with 40-50 acres per hunter.
Among other things, the makeup of your hunting group will have a huge impact on how low you can go with your acres per deer hunter ratio without sacrificing the experience. Below are some factors you should consider when searching for the right sized deer parcel.
9 things that determine how many acres you need per hunter
- Makeup of your hunting group
- How big is your hunting group?
- How disciplined is your group?
- Any hotheads?
- How many people will actually hunt regularly?
- Will you be riding atv’s during the season?
- Shape of parcel and access to it
- Scent free access
- Scent dispersal on stand
- Quality of the habitat
- Cover
- Food
- Neighboring property
- Crop stage
- Timber stage
- Clearcut
- Cutover
- Thickets
- “Hunting Camp” vs a place just for you
- Scattered acreage vs. one large block
- Presence of dog hunting in the area
1. Makeup Of Your Hunting Group?
Will it be just you, a small group of close friends, or a full blown hunting camp? Will you be riding atv’s? Do you have any hotheads in your group? Are all of the members in your group disciplined when hunting wind conditions? These are the sorts of things to consider when settling on a deer property.
Lone Hunters vs. A Group
Generally speaking, individual hunters can have success on small parcels. As you add more people, you’ll need more space for each person. A single person can hunt shockingly small parcels, down to 5 acres, whereas if you add even just 1 more person, the pressure is just too much for smaller parcels.
Disciplined Deer Hunters = Success On Fewer Acres
With a disciplined approach by ALL members, you can stretch smaller acreage a long way. If all members use scent control measures, a stealthy approach, and stay out of areas until the wind is right, you won’t need as many acres. With that said, I’ve never been in a deer camp where all members abided by such disciplines, therefore a huge amount of land was needed.
More disciplined hunters can get away with a much smaller acreage than those that throw (scent) caution to the wind.
Temperament Of Your Buddies
The right group of guys or girls can hunt a small 50 acre piece of land safely and peacefully. However, if you have a couple hotheads in the group almost no amount of acreage will be enough to prevent conflicts. Keep in mind the various personalities of your group when deciding how many acres you need in order to accommodate everyone.
The more people you add to your group, the higher the number of acres per hunter you need to go. Larger tracts result in fewer arguments and a less pressured deer herd.
How Many Members Actually Hunt?
I have been in a handful of deer clubs that went far below the ideal acres per member, but that was because they knew many members would barely hunt at all. This is often the case in more established clubs. People “get it out of their system” in their younger years, but continue to be paying members, mainly for the camaraderie.
The more disciplined you and your partners are, the fewer acres per hunter you can get away with. In contrast, haphazard deer hunters are going to need a lot more acreage in order to not over-pressure the deer herd.
Does ATV Riding Pressure Deer?
While atv’s don’t seem to impact younger deer as much, they definitely have a negative impact on mature deer. You would be best served to park the atv’s during season, unless there is a deer on the ground. If you intend to frequently use atv’s during deer season, you best crank up the acres per hunter to 100 or even 150 acres each.
| Acres | Parcel Size For Deer Hunting |
|---|---|
| 5-20 | Tiny, but hunt-able |
| 21-40 | Small |
| 41-120 | Medium |
| 121-640 | Large |
| 640+ | Huge (square mile) |
2. Hunting Parcel Shape Matters
I find that “long” parcels can usually support more hunters per a given acreage. This is obviously dependent upon the quality of access to it, as well as the quality of the neighboring properties.
Scent Free Access Is Key
Regardless of the shape of your lot, what you want is plenty of good access without having to spread your scent over the entire property each time you step foot on it. If you have access along the length, longer parcels are more likely to provide more scent free access points. However, if you only have access from one end, well, that’s a different story entirely.
Really deep and narrow parcels with access only from one end are not as desirable, especially with more than 1 hunter.
Scent Has To Blow Somewhere!
A lot of things can be added to a property to help make it more hunt-able, but distance cannot be added so easily. Make sure you have enough depth in, or around your parcel for your scent to blow somewhere without spooking deer.
The more stealthy scent-free access a property offers, the less overall acreage you’ll need per hunter.
3. Quality Habitat Supports More Hunters
The reality is that, much like fishing, the majority of deer spend the majority of their time using only certain parts of a property. They may wander into an open pasture on occasion, but you shouldn’t rely on that.
Not all 40 acre parcels are created equal. An 80 acre parcel in West Texas may not accommodate even a single hunter very well, whereas 40 acres might be a nice hunting parcel in much of the Southeast.
Below is a chart of lesser quality hunting land (on the left) compared to higher quality deer land (on the right). You’ll obviously need more acres of lesser land to equal the same hunting opportunities provided by better land.
Strive to attain the types of land on the right when possible
| Requires More Acres Per Hunter | Requires Fewer Acres Per Hunter (i.e. better hunting) |
|---|---|
| fresh wide open clearcut | hilly terrain |
| cow pasture | 2-5 year old clearcut |
| closed canopy pine forest | swampy bottomland* |
| open old growth oak forest | mixed cover with lots of edges |
| hay fields | thickets containing attractive food |
| harvested crop fields | recently thinned pine plantation |
| parcels with little food | standing corn fields |
| land with "bad" neighbors | parcels with good food to cover ratio |
| low quality soil regions | land adjacent to "good" neighbors |
| total lack of food plots | river or creek bottom land |
| parcels with little cover | brushy areas |
| land with little deer sign | land in high quality soil regions |
| dog hunting nearby | young oak forests |
| parcels with lots of food plots | |
| land with lots of deer sign | |
| where dog hunting is not present |
More Hunters Equal More Cover Needed
If you intend to hunt with more than 1 hunter, you’ll want lots of ground cover. The more hunters you have, the more cover and trees you’ll need. Of course not all cover is created equal.
A closed canopy pine forest isn’t going to hold as many deer as mixed types of cover at different stages of grow. The same goes for old growth oak forest, which may not actually have a lot of cover for deer to hide in.
The more different types of cover in different stages you have, the fewer acres you’ll need. The more edges you have the better.
A good mix of both cover and food tends to give you more quality hunting spots within a given parcel.
Unless The Surrounding Property Is Ag Land, You Need Food
Typically the more hunters you have on a parcel, the more separate food plots you’ll need. It’s better to spread the herd out over more of the property so each hunter has a shot at hunting separate deer.
What you don’t want is only one huge food plot or field right in the center of the property, and have everyone fighting over who gets to hunt there.
4. Neighboring Property Matters, A LOT!
Don’t stop your analysis with just your parcel. You need to also consider the food-water-cover situation on the neighboring properties as well. Also, see if you can determine the level of hunting pressure in the area as a whole. The “neighborhood” you’re in will have a definite impact on how many hunters your property can support.
Small parcels, as small as 5-10 acres, can be outstanding if the neighboring properties are of good quality and are low pressured.
5. Crop Stage Impacts Hunter Density
Crop Fields
If your hunting area includes crop fields, particularly corn fields, the ideal acreage will vary depending on if the corn is standing or not. Crop fields are great for supporting a large deer herd. However, depending on the crop’s stage, it may not necessarily be great for daytime deer sightings.
Crop stage during deer season obviously has a huge impact on how many hunters that acreage supports. A large standing corn field, for example, can perhaps support a handful of hunters, whereas the same field, when cut, may only support 1 hunter.
6. Timber Stage Obviously Affects Hunting Quality
Fresh Clearcut
Clearcut land will eventually become great deer habitat, but fresh clearcut is not very helpful in the short term in supporting a lot of deer hunters.
While it can be nice to sit in an area that provides a long 300-400 shot, you don’t want to have to share such a spot with a lot of other folks. First of all, it can be dangerous, second of all, you don’t want to be in a position where multiple hunters are shooting at the same deer. Just know that you will need a ton of clearcut acreage to support multiple hunters.
New clearcut is far less than ideal for deer hunting. However, once the returning cover reaches the point to where it is just above a deer’s head (2-5 years), that is the sweet spot.
Early Stage Cutovers Are Great
There is a sweet spot with a cutover forest when the timber just begins to grow back and everything thickens up. At about 2 to 5 years, a clearcut becomes a large thicket that can potentially support multiple hunters. Deer move about freely, unaware that hunters perched above can see their every move. A large cutover at this stage can support multiple hunters at a time.
Are Pine Plantations Good For Deer Hunting?
Pine plantations can provide good deer hunting. However, as new pine thickets progress beyond the cutover stage, they won’t support as many hunters.
Since there won’t be as many good spots to hunt within pine plantations, you’ll have to have more acreage per hunter. Once a pine forest has been thinned at around 15 years old, it will then usually support additional deer and additional hunters.
When hunting pines, focus your efforts on the edges, around fire breaks, on cleared log loading areas, on ditches, or around any other “difference” you can find.
7. Deer Camps Require More Acres
While this doesn’t hold true for all deer camps, you’ll usually need a higher number of acres per individual, the larger your group gets. One exception is for older, more established camps, where a lot of the paying members don’t actually hunt much anymore.
For deer camps with more than just a few buddies, especially if you’ll be camping on the property, you’re going to want a lot of acreage. Deer camps should strive to have 100 or more acres per member.
8. Scattered Acreage Can Be A Good Thing
Don’t be scared to piecemeal your hunting land together. From my experience a patchwork of hunting parcels stitched together into a single camp can support more hunters than if all those acres were contiguous. What you usually get is a lot of edge habitat, and usually the more edge the better. You also get to hunt more bucks from different territories – i.e. other people’s bucks 😉
I have been in deer camps where they had smaller tracts scattered about a section of the county, and it worked pretty good. The quality of such a setup obviously depends heavily on the surrounding community.
9. Dog Hunting Requires More Acres
While this may be a foreign concept to some hunters, there are still areas where dog hunting for deer is very popular. I find that in those areas, you’ll want more acreage to account for that additional pressure.
Obviously, if you are a dog hunter yourself, you’ll need a tremendous amount of acreage to accommodate frequent dog hunts. Many hundreds of acres are needed in order to release deer hounds, preferably a thousand acres or more.
As a lone hunter, just hunt whatever property you can get your hands on, even if it’s just 3 acres. It’s when you add additional hunters, that you’ll have to put a little more thought into how many acres you need.
Conclusion
The reality is that you can put however many hunters on your acreage as you want. However, in doing so, you’ll want to consider the safety aspects of too many hunters. You’ll also want to consider how the number of hunters will impact the quality of your sits. The more hunt hours you put onto a given property, the less daylight deer activity you’ll have on that property.
Assuming you can afford it, it’s always best to err on the side of fewer hunters rather than more per given acreage. With that said, I think 40-50 acres per person is a reasonable starting point in thicker areas, and you should go up from there as funds allow. In places like West Texas, you’ll need far more than that.
If you found this article helpful, you might be interested in my post about leasing vs buying deer hunting property.
If you’re looking to purchase land, a good resource for checking hunting land prices is Mossy Oak Properties.
Good luck this season!
Augustus Clay
