I have to put in a new gate at my ranch. I have always had it blocked by a barbwire fence that I took up and down as needed and it has never been a problem. Last weekend when I went out, I found that someone had completely removed the barbwire and there were lots of fresh atv tracks going into it. Furthemore, I followed the tracks and found a hunting blind, a feeder and a motion camera next to one of my tanks along a game trail. The blind had cement posts in the ground so someone was pretty comfortable there. I pulled down the blind and burned it. I took the feeder and camera home with me and let the local Game Warden know. The feeder and camera are going on Craigslist as soon as I hear back from the Game Warden.

I do have purple paint and no trespassing signs that are clearly visible.

Anyway, I need to put in a gate where they were coming in. I would like to maintain my access as it leads to our River access. I would like to put in a gate that would be wide enough for a SxS should I ever decide to get one. I don't have much room so I want to put in the smallest gate possible for ATV's and SxS's, both now and twenty years from now.

Looking for input.

Thanks.

 

Most ATV's are under 50" wide. The standard Polaris RZR is 50" & the Polaris Ranger is 60" wide with OEM wheels.

 

Thor got the dimension right. The Polaris RZR (sporty 2 side by side, not much on utility) is 50" wide and the full size Ranger is 60". The widest in the industry, I think, is the Honda Big Red at around 65".

 

PS I like the actions you took to protect your property. Not only does it irritate me that someone in the ATV community thought they were just fine doing this, it irritates me when anyone just thinks they can go ahead and setup on someone elses private property like that. Especially when it's clearly posted.

 

Sorry to hear someone thinks your property is theirs. You might want to hang on to that camera. Be useful in finding out who is coming on to your property.

There may be a chance that whoever was trespassing might find the camera and take it back. So if it were me, I'd take a picture of the game warden and leave it on there for them to see.

 

Thanks for the specs. I thought about hanging the camera by the gate when I put it up. That way I can see who it is. It is just dumb luck that I found it. It was hung in a tree and camouflaged pretty well. It is a pretty nice camera, I think this one.

Stealth Cam® Archer's Choice 8.0 Megapixel Infrared Digital Game Scouting Camera | Bass Pro Shops

I was curious so I plugged it in. There are some pictures of a couple guys, but you cannot see their faces or atv's in any of the pictures. The pictures go back about a month and it shows the hunters coming out a couple times a week. I sent the pics to the game warden with the time date stamps hoping he may catch them on their next trip out.

As far as the gate goes, I think I will go with a 6' galvanized pipe gate. That should cover everything including The Honda mentioned and keep out all but the most determined motorized traffic. It is also cheap.

My Ranch is a 2 hour drive so I don't get out there to often, about 4 or 5 times a year. If the problem persist, I thought about setting up an android phone with a solar charger setup as a motion camera that emails me the pics. The biggest problem I can think of is rain.

Anyway, I am going back out there after Thanksgiving. We have a mining company on the property and they are going to drill post holes for us. That should be 90% of the work so I am hoping to get the entire project done in a single day.

Thanks for the info.

 

6' gate should cover everything in the ATV/UTV range. At least you got a good stealth cam out of it!

 

Turns out the mining company went ahead and installed the entire gate for us. I guess they weren't to keen on the idea of people shooting high power rifles around their employees or multi-million dollar equipment, lol.

They did a nice job on it. They took one of their bulldozers and leveled the entire area, then sunk the post and hung the gate. It only took them about an hour. I guess the right heavy equipment helps.

 

Wow, that's cool. Miners aren't the evil folks that the Occupy Wall Street crowd makes any business person to be afterall.