I have nothing against high fence, have hunted behind two of them!

But why would you give such blatant powers to High Fence only?
I get it that theoretically nothing should come in or out of a HF, so if they shoot everything up their tough chit or they can buy more animals. What if they do not have that kind of money anymore? Lower the fence to let the free range game in for now then raise fence and shoot them up?

Quite a while back my X brother in law who has a HF place bought a bunch of free range doe from the nail ranch that were netted by helicopter. So what's to stop a rich person behind a HF from shooting all of his and continue to buy captured free range deer and deplete the supply of those free range deer in any given area?

I am talking only native (indigenous) game animals like White tail deer, dove ,quail etc.
Exotics, hogs, yotes etc. shoot all you want whenever wherever

The reason it is not popular with many is because it is very self serving.
In particular the "without any regulations whatsoever" is nonsense.

Lol I am always amazed that so many HF proponents accuse others of "jealousy", "wanting what others have", "not willing to work/manage", "elitists" and on and on and on....

When the reality is they want to pen wild animals up so they can have them all to themselves! The "we should own them" deal is just the extension of it. You can cut the irony with a dang knife.

No question, there are those, who for good reason, throw up a high fence to protect their financial investments. Consider the owner of a 500 acre tract who feeds year round and has a neighbor hunting an adjacent 5 acre tract. The neighbor throws up a feeder next to their fence just two weeks before the season opens with obvious intentions of drawing deer from his neighbor's land.

Just another day in the continued evolution of the sport.

Why should anyone care if the 5 acre guy did throw up a feeder? The 500 acre rancher doesn't own those deer.
I have a neighbor that owns one acre and kills his deer out of his kitchen window. Why should I begrudge that man legally killing deer?
I really can't believe all of the whining over someone putting a feeder on a fence line. It's just a deer.

No one owns all the fish in a public lake, but that doesn't make it ethical to throw you hook right next to another fisherman's line.

I guess you never fish any brush piles that you didn't put out yourself, or fish around someone else's dock. Just because someone improves habitat doesn't mean they should own the game.

You need to understand how TTT works. They are not depleting anything they are removing excess animals off the ranch

Look, everyone would like a "level playing field". I get that. Two points:

1)They are wild animals. There is no way to make everybody happy when it comes to wild animals. No way. Period. One man's "level" is another man's "unlevel". Life ain't "fair" in everybody's eyes. Accept it and get over the idea it can/will be.

2)Penning wild animals in for one guy to the exclusion of all others ain't "level". It's taking control of a public resource to the exclusion of everyone else. That ain't "fair". That ain't "leveling the playing field". That's tilting it completely in one guy's favor. Period.

I'm happy to elaborate....and there are perfectly logical answers to all of your questions.

1) Why give these "blatant powers" to high fence only? Simple....because a high fenced property is a closed system (or at least should be for the most part) that requires more control and intensive management to manage properly. In this situation, the landowner usually knows better than anyone, what needs to be done to properly manage the animals on his land. Now in theory, this is why they have the MLD program for Whitetail Deer (to more intensively manage your herd). Unfortunately, there is also a certain level of politics involved....each TPDW biologist basically has full authority over who gets approved for the MLD program in their area, and often times they are EXTREMELY biased and irrational in their implementation of this authority. (A good friend of mine owns a high fenced property with only Whitetails on it....and his biologist flat out told him that if he put one single exotic animal of any kind on it, he would kick him off MLD...which is utter BS)

2) You cannot just "lower the fence and let the free range game in". That's called "trapping" and it's illegal to trap Whitetail Deer without a permit.

3) Similarly to the above point, nobody can just trap or net deer from a helicopter. You must first obtain a TTT permit and those permits are only approved by the state for taking EXCESS deer. In other words, they are not depleting the free range deer, they are taking the extras to an area with fewer deer.

True very redundant. I'd add have the aggregate limit for the group, not per person... if my wife and I are hunting, 30 should be the limit, so she could have her 20 and me have my 10

Numbers, facts, TPWD, regulations, science..... these just never go together. Antler restrictions are a poor solution to a problem based on poor science, that TPWD knows is wrong but can't afford to change now.

My ONE change, check stations for Whitetail Deer. That is the only way to really know what's out there and what's being taken.

The census taking and MLD and other crap is a farce; as is the county based management...

Speaking of facts, you state the rather factually, but it sounds like opinion to me. Can you elaborate further?

ARs have overall been a huge success. Hardly anyone even tries to dispute that anymore. Not perfect, but nothing is.

maybe cormoerants, but absolute not hawks, like snakes they keep the rodent population down. and why for geeze sakes road runners???

Hawks kill too many quail


Roadrunners....just cause

I've looked it up and posted it alot. Don't have the inclination to do so, but there was a TPWD scientific review several years ago that said exactly this... their "data", often relied on 8 deer reported in other crimes by Wardens or highway patrol in some counties; they based it all on counties, ignoring soils, deer populations, sub-species,

I did a FOIA request for their data, it came garbled, had to try again, it was horrific what they were actually using. Even their own sanctioned peer review pointed these things out.

If age alone made for larger healthier deer, they should all be B&C by now.

Genetics play into it.

Some areas won't grow large deer no matter what.

It's about age structure in the herd not antler size

Tpwd doesent profit at all from areas that have big deer or small deer. They are managing a resource

Shooting something just cause is the most stupidest thing I have ever heard. You never shoot something just cause. That's not hunting that's just killing and there is no use for it. Shooting something just cause is just sorriness IMO.

Killing is fun, too. That's a use, wouldn't you say?

I kill a ton of tank turtles every year because I like killing turtles. The sun on my face, a light breeze and a log full of fish eating turtles is my idea of heaven.

I'll x3 that all hawks and roadrunners should be shot on sight. Cormorants should be seasonal entertainment for everyone on the lake. When I lived on lake Palestine my 87 year old neighbor kept a scratch pad on his balcony next to his 10/22. He killed 100's every year and still never made a dent.

I must be sorry then.


Cause a accurate .22, accord beverage and a tank full of turtles is pretty close to heaven


And I didn't say open a hunting season on hawks and roadrunners either, I just said be allowed to shoot them. Hunting for them would be pretty lackluster

That's the reason fish eating turtles. I am a fisherman and I have killed my fair share of turtles because they were over populated in my cove and competing with the fish. Also seen them eating baby bass so that's why I shoot them. But a road runner? What does that do to anything accept worms?

You saw a turtle catch and eat a bass?