How can the sheriff dictate that?

GENERALLY SPEAKING. no generalization is worth a damn, including this one.....Ogden Nash

not what I said. if you have 50 acres and in jurisdiction that doesn't allow hunting, you can tell them to stuff it and still hunt it with a rifle because of the state law. if you have less than 50 acres, then you can only hunt it with rifle if no other county/city laws against hunting.

Ok that makes more sense

When a county reaches certain population levels the state allows the county to regulate the behavior of it's citizens. An example is Kaufman County outlawed shooting on private property of 10 ac. or less that is in a subdivision.

You haven't seen the tractor.

The stories "morph" into fact because it was on the Internet. More

From the TP&W manual. There are a lot of 10 acre tracts that are not in subdivisions. The sheriff cannot dictate that, it has to be passed by the county commissioners.

Right. I get that. But how does a complaint combined with a sheriff accomplish that? Maybe I'm missing a detail from the original story, but I got the impression it was strictly a decision made and enforced by the sheriff.

Just bow hunt and then you have no problems to worry about.

Lol!!! Really Dan, that is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard on this forum!!! Those deer belong to the people of TX not you Dan!

Well this got interesting.

Wife and I purchased 21 acres low fence in Adamsville 4 yrs ago. Neighbors around me all have 15 to 54 acres, more or less, all low fence. About a mile from the river, big tanks surrounding it. This year I harvested an 8 pt and 2 doe, and my tenant got 2 spikes and a doe. Now this may sound like overharvest, but still there were guns going off all around us. Not to mention 8 pt and 6 pt deer and numerous nice does still showing up on the gamecams, mostly at night. Oh, and the wall to wall dead deer that litter Hwy 281 all the way from Lampasas. As my neighbor said to me soon after I purchased the place: "There's too damn many deer!" Great problem to have! Before I went into contract I walked all 21 acres several times. It was wall to wall deer poop and hoof prints. I bought what I could afford at the time. But owning hunting land just makes me want to...own more! I heard an old timer say once (and I think he was quoting Abe Lincoln) "I just want to own my own land--and all the land that surrounds it." Ha! Anyway, 21 acres seemed like a lot of land at the time. After a few years I have come to the conclusion: I want all the land that surrounds it. Better buy a lottery ticket.

I know what you mean. There is two other 15 acre tracts on the sides of me for sale also. I wish I could afford to buy all of them. Hopefully someone buys them for hunting and will want to sell in a few years when I am ready again.

If any veterans are looking for land right now there is one of the tracts up for auction through the land board at a very good starting bid and I don't think anyone has even looked at it yet

Take for example, 10 different hunters each hunting their own 10 acre tract within a 100 acre area. With each hunter having a bag limit of four deer, the potential harvest load on that 100 acre area would be 40 deer. Very few, if any areas of Texas can support such a high harvest rate per acre. For now, we'll just ignore how many of the "state's" deer can be supported on such small tracts.

Little wonder how fence line hunting has become all the rage. After all, a small, 20 or 30 acre tract can only support so many deer.

And it will only get worse. They'll keep it up until people finally get tired of the crap and start complaining to their reps and before long you'll see legislation and restrictions to put an end to it. To be honest I would support it since these folks ain't gonna quit and they don't care how it effects others. I never thought there would be AR's in TX but low and behold look what's happening and look what caused it. If we don't police ourselves somebody else is going to.

So I guess shooting a deer on YOUR land should be against the law if some don't approve of where on your land it gets shot at? We have neighbors that feed year round and put in just like we do. We are 650 acres, one neighbor is 100 acres, one is 20, one is 50. We all have blinds on or near fence lines. We work together for the most part on what bucks we give a pass. Deer jump fences all the time, and get shot on fencelines all the time but we don't whine and cry about it. If someone needs to cross a fence to recover an animal a phone call is made, no big deal. I guess we could act like we own the deer and put up a high fence. If you don't like fence line hunting then you won't like hunting most of deep South Texas. Lots of ranchitos and lots of neigbors allmost all of which have at least one blind on a fence line. We had a neigbor on 20 acres that used to shoot everything that jumped the fence, and I mean everything. Ticked me off at first but after a while guess what, the deer stayed on our place and quit jumping that fence at least during the day. The more deer that stay on our land, the better.

Fence line hunting isn't a new thing! It started the moment the first fence went up.

And where do you draw the line on fence line hunting. Do we draw an imaginary 10 yard line around a fence or do we go ahead and make it 100 yards? Some people will never be happy because they feel like they own the deer because they feed them! A lot of people feel "superior" because they "manage" their deer herd for "trophy" deer! News flash!!! Some people just hunt because they love it and could care less about the score of a dang deer. It's just assanine the way folks have become. When you buy land the fence line is included. Sure it's neighborly not to put a feeder on the fence but a blind facing your own property should not be a problem.

I don't think there is a distance you could set away from the fence. As you said you could say at least 10 feet away but then instead of people saying "my neighbors are hunting the fence line" they will be saying " my neighbors are only 10 feet off the fence line" then we will be saying we need to be 20 feet off. Enough people already think a stand I. The middle of my 15 acres is too close.

That's an easy one to answer. IMO, it starts when someone is leveraging their neighbor's resources because they have little or none. One of the best examples is the guy who leases an open pasture that has zero browse and cover, then places his feeder and stand next to his neighbor's fence because he owns the heavily wooded habitat that can hold and sustain deer. When owners on both sides of the fence have good resources, I see no foul with hunters on each side hunting the fence.

Let's be honest here. Everyone knows that small tracts cannot hold and sustain very many deer. Why try to hide the fact, or say that "the deer belong to the state" to rationalize the practice of taking clear advantage of your neighbor's resources when you don't have them.

Hey jsplinter please all or please none! Just don't worry about it. You and your family enjoy that land and make the most of it. Be responsible and let people think what they are going to think. When we got our property the land behind us which is like a section had tripods at the corners of our property right on the fence line. Which is cool. You harvest some wild protein out there and teach your kids good values. The heck with what everyone else thinks. You and your family are going to benefit from that land ownership!

Ahh, I don't care about what others thinks. I grew up hunting public land where you had a 50 ft clearing running a couple hundred yards and people were lined up hunting across from one another. I hunted that for a few years with my dad until we I shot my first deer and by the time we got to it another guy said was standing there and said he shot it. I lost that deer because it isn't worth arguing with a drunk guy with a shotgun in his hand. After that I hunted my stepdads hundred acres. If someone can buy one acre and hunt safely on it then I am one of the guys that says go for it and enjoy every minute of it.

I just like to see what other people's opinions are, won't make me enjoy what I got any less