Just curious... I've seen people put a high fence around one section before. Seems that's not a whole lot of room to grow a decent deer herd.

I think I would have to have at least 2-3 sections before I'd consider high fencing it.

We have 2 sections, and I know a lot of our deer come from adjacent properties.

300-400 Acers. Also depends alot on your natural food source and how many hunters you would plan on having. Ive hunted small fenced in properties before and I felt like the deer werent afraid at all. Took the sport out of it.

To me it all depends on the conditions. We only have a little more than 300 acres, and would probably consider HF if we were put in the position. If every deer that jumped the fence got shot and none of the deer we passed came back then we would probably start a pretty strict management and feeding program and build a fence. Currently we are low fence and get along just fine and are happy with it.

Personaly I think 300 acres is on the small side to fence, but we couldnt aford 5K acres.

matt

depends on what you want to do with the property but for discussion sake:

for hunting whitetail deer I would not go less than 1000 acres. This should keep genetic diversity at health levels and I'm not just talking antler development. Also give you enough deer per age class so you can shoot more than one trophy per year.

of course where in the state you are and if you are going to feed or have food plots is going to make some difference

I think this is the minimum with out the perception of being in a pen, but that's just me.

Minimum would 3-4 sections. Anything less is too small.

I really agree with this, but we cant afford to buy another place if our neighbors somehow turn into something we dont want so we will make do with what we have if put in that situation.

I havent looked into it long term, but a biologist we talked to said it would take 25 to 30 years before we had even anything to wory about on our place if we fenced it.

matt

The thing is at 400 acres and 1 adult deer per 15 acres that 26.6 deer. "IF" you were at a 1:1 that 13 bucks, break that down in to 5 age classes now your at 2 possible shooter bucks per year barring they don't die of natural causes.

Thats running pretty lean and it only gets "worse" if you run more acreage per deer.

I would say 1,000 acres minimum. If you went smaller then it would probably be hard to have a big healthy herd. I have hunted on a 300 acre HF, and it was by no means ethical. Once you get that small it feels like a petting zoo to me.

i used to think that high fencing was unsporting. we had 1200 acres low fence, and that had pretty good hunting. our neighbors around us started highfencing and eventually we were all high fence, except for the highway, and the neighbor across the road was high fence, so we fenced the remaining 2 miles and called it good.

hunting got better, we started to feed, improve the ranch and we were happy.

few years later, family decided to sell 300 acres...we are now left with 900 acres (i was always under the "rule" that anything less than 1k acres was "unsporting", mainly because of what I read in magizines) I was upset but carried on. nothing changed in the aspect of deer hunting.

few more years go by and family decideds to sell the ranch and buy a smaller one, after looking around and deciding that there wasn't anything better out there than what we already had, we sold 600 acres to each neighbor and kept the back 300.

I was very upset now because I didn't want to hunt on this tiny ranch, which was like a pen. didn't hunt till i could't take it anymore.

first time i got in the blind, was the second week of december, and was shocked and amazed at my discovery........NOTHING CHANGED! Deer didn't act any different, saw the same number of deer at the feeder, wasn't any differnt hunting over a feeder on 300 acres than it was hunting 1200 acres over a feeder.

Only two things have changed:

1. It is now alot cheaper to operate the ranch. instead of a 50k operating cost per year and having to lease out to hunters to be able to afford the ranch, we can keep it for ourselves without having to lease

2. We can enjoy the ranch alot more now than before, because we don't have to work the ranch nearly as much as we did before.
We had a nicely improved ranch, it took a lot of effort to maintain it, almost to the point of literally killing my uncle. Smaller place, less work=more fun. I've haven't seen my uncle shoot a deer in the last 10 years, last year he shot 3, including an 30 in axis. he enjoys the ranch more now than he ever has. It is sad that we don't have the large amount of acres to ride around on like we used to, but there is a trade-off in that.

as far as the hunting goes......

deer don't know they are in a pen....they don't act any differnt now than they did when it was lowfence, a high fenced 1200 acres or a high fenced 900 acres. We don't shoot at the deer all the time, they aren't scared of a truck or haul butt if they see someone walking down the road. this is how deer act when they aren't getting shot at all the time....THIS is natural, not a deer that runs to the next county if he sees a person walking a 1/2 mile away.

We have probably 40-50 deer on the ranch, 1:1 ratio, the herd is healthy, bucks have good antlers and there are plenty of deer to shoot at. i hunted very hard last year and only saw about 2/3rds of the bucks that I had caught on game came.

why would you want the deer to be afraid of you???? lets call a spade a spade, if your sitting in a blind watching a corn feeder, your ambushing them, not one-uping them in terms of being stealthy.

you could be the baddest dude in the planet but if I hide in your closet and knock you out when your getting dressed, I am really the better fighter?

I think a lot of why most people H. F. is because of neighbors. If you are going to spend a lot of time and money trying to improve your herd you don't want others reaping the profit from your work. The reason we high fenced years ago was for that reason. We had one neighbor who had 3 sons who used to shoot any and every buck they saw. Their philosophy was that if they shot every buck, then bucks from all the neighbors would come to their place for the does. Back in those days if you saw a 6 point buck during the season you were lucky. Unless you are in deep south or west Texas it's hard to have quality deer without a H F. I am sure there are areas where some of you are that don't have that type of neighbors but you are probably in the minority.

I would say yes, you were the better fighter.

More clever, if nothing else

Wow.. I think the topic was, "what is the smallest area you would high fence?" I am pretty sure the OP did not ask whether anyone felt hunting from a stand was tantamount to murder.

Me..I hunt from a stand because I like to sleep late and a box stand with nice peaceful morning is the best place to do it (lol)

R

WOW!! 40-50 deer on 300 acres, you must have some magical dirt to support such quality animals. 6-7.5 acres per adult deer that's efficient, we should all be so lucky.........

Ninja?

Our neighbor (who is related to our landowner being his child) just HFed part of our south boundary. This is in a non-HF county so kinda weird. Only 300 or 400 acres I think. At least we have water! We'll see what happens.

My honest answer is......I wouldnt. If it was big enough to make me feel like it is alright then it is big enough to not worry about neighbors. Just sayin....

Maybe some...put 95% is all about the money.

100% of people I know have HF'ed b/c of the neighbors. They don't sell hunts.

All 3 of them?

We high fenced because of the neighbors. You want to talk about money....what money? We loose money every year. We sell a few hunts to offset the annual cost of owning a ranch. The only time we would see a profit is when we sell it.

Our place is 670 acres and harder to hunt now then when it was low fenced. Yes, we will see more and bigger bucks through out the year. Because they aren't shot as 2.5 year olds. The "hunt" is looking for a particular buck not just any buck. Sometimes we sit out and see 8-10 different bucks while other times you don't see squat. Isn't that hunting...

I think it is very complicated when trying to answer this question. I do not think it is an acreage answer but more of a cover/forage answer. I have seen 170 acres with more cover and browse than 1500 acres and the smaller ranch hunted much harder than the larger ranch. Both were HF. I am not one to tell someone that if they can only afford x amount of acres in z county that it is to small or not enough cover to HF. They have to weigh their morals and ethics. If the situation led them to HF then it was their decision and I am fine with what their decision. Once you HF, you are commited to management of the animals for the most part as they can not manage themselves and the habitat very well. Most if not all landowners who HF want one thing- older deer on their ranch. HF will get them that, a LF probably won't on smaller acreage. They might only be able to afford 250 acres of mediocre habitat with adequate cover and not be blessed with 1,000's of perfect cover and habitat. Their decision to make and live with. If it keeps people hunting then I am for it.

Just 2. I don't hang around those types much.