After seing several posts about hunting high fence ranches, I started thinking about my hunting lease. I've had my lease for about 6 years (this yr. will be the 6th) but about 2 years ago, the neighbor to the east of us high fenced his ranch. Our pasture is a bit over 9500 acres. Our neighbor to the north has 6500+ acres (low fence). Our neighbors to the south have about 9000 acres of which 3500 are high fenced. Now our neighbor east of us used to be a ranch that totalled over 17K acres. It was sold into 2 different parcels, one was 9500 acres & that's the one that was high fenced. That new neighbor is going to run a high fence operation. He's already invested & bought some breeder bucks (BIG BUCKS). Ever since he high fenced his parcels, we've seen more deer on our pasture.

Now in my lease, I get to hunt 3 parcels which total about 2500 acres, but they are in the corner adjacent to the new owner's high fence ranch. The lease rules allow you one mature (trophy) buck & one cull or managment buck. We've never had any problems with tagging out & always get to harvest some nice bucks. But ever since that neighbor high fenced his ranch, we've seen & had more deer in our ranch.

The ranch (lease) is not high fenced on all four sides. The lease guys, myself included, have invested alot of time & money in feeding year round for the past several years. Now giving that situation, if some of you were in my shoes, what would you do? Leave, Stay? Please explain.

I would stay...you have some good acreage and if feeding year round.....though the neighbor will fence..you still have what one side or two that are low fence neighbors? Or will it all be fenced and your place be fenced...?IF his breeder bucks are not in a pen or in a high fenced all the way enclosure..in otherwords, if they are free range...you might get some of his offspring.

If you are killing some good deer and given you have 5 years in it...I would stay.

why leave if you have the deer and are seeing what you what. after all the time and getting a place like you want i would not leave right now and start over.

Stay. Sounds like you have a great piece of land with big neighbors meaning it probably will not be overhunted/harvested. The fence probably helps you in that it funnels deer through your property also. Oh, and if B&C scores are important to you as long as one side of your property is not high fenced then the scores of your deer will count in the record book. You only have one fence so you are diffently ok. I also know that mature deer can and will jump that high fence if enticed so if those "Big Bucks" find a hot doe on your side of the fence they are interested in then you might end up with your very own breeder buck and maybe a very expensive mount.

I'd stay. #1. Look at the investment you have there!! You can't just throw that away b/c your neighbors are high fencing their places. Besides if you leave and have to find something comperable for the same money, I bet it will be a hard task to complete!! #2. You have low fence neighbors on two sides. The high fence on the other two sides could definately be a benefit. #3. Those are huge tracts of land. Would be different if you were on 300 acres with high fence almost all the way around you.

Stay where your at. Sounds like you have a good thing there!!

Think I'd stay put and hope for wire eating termites.

I would definatley hunt the property. I think the issue people have with High fence leases are the fact that the animals are shipped in and caged.

I'd stay and invest in exterminators that specialize in wire eating termites.

I would stay. I hunt on a place similar, and you can make the high fence work to your advantage.
Use the high fenced area as a somewhat buffer zone or safe area for your deer. restricted walking and traveling in a wide area of that fence, will give the deer a sanctuary and the deer have a safe area to bed and breed. Traveling only on the fence perimeter would not disturb the deer and like someone said it also acts as a funnel to set up your blinds near the edges where the trails branch out.

Stay. Are you not on MLDP though? For that many acres in brush country, sounds like you could take more deer than that though if you have 2,500 to yourself (if that is what I understand). Maybe you do have extra doe permits though.

I would stay, because it sounds like there is plenty of low fence around, and those high fences will funnel deer thru your property.

Thanks for the input guys. At first we didn't know what would be the effect on the herd after they set up that high fence, but we do agree that we can use it to our benefit. Although I had voted that I would hunt on a high fence ranch on the recent poll by Bradbury (only if it was more that 5000 acres); I do not like the high fencing that's going on now. I've seen that deer like to roam through several hundred acres. We've seen a buck in the morning on one part of the ranch & by the afternoon or the following morning, he's already on another pasture.

We've never had any problems with the other neighbors and most of them are on the same page with us, which is harvesting mature animals. Although the owner & the neighboring owners have the means to high fence their ranch, they said they wouldn't do it. (Some of our lease member have requested it.)

Txduckman, I'm not by myself on those 2500 acres. There's a total of 10 hunters that share that area of the ranch (2500 acres). We've talked to the lease manager about the mldp permits, but he's been hesitant about that. It looks like next coming season we'll be removing alot more does & bucks off the ranch. Hopefully, I'll get to shoot another buck & a black panther msyelf.