If someone asked me if my kills are HF/LF, I wouldn't consider it rude at all, but that is my personal feeling on the subject. It is a detail of the hunt not unlike how long have you hunted this deer, was it during rut, how often has he been seen, was your shot opportunity quick, what was the range, details of the habitat, do you feed protein, etc..........I like to hear, and share hunting stories, every detail, only because I love hunting. Knowing what all went into a hunt allows me to put myself into the kill and share the experience.

You put a lot of yourself into doing what you do well and post pic's of really good shooting. You developed and loaded it yourself spending a lot of time and gaining experience for your craft. If I were to post a pic of a great group, and brag about it (as I often do), would you not be interested in if I loaded it myself, or bought it off the shelf? Just as you are eat up with reloading and developing loads, I am with hunting. That's my only interest in knowing if a kill was HF/LF.

I've enjoyed the civility of this thread.

I never thought about it, because I never thought I'd have the chance. My taxidermist tells me that 170 is the minimum for typical, and that mine is close. It likely won't qualify, I have him at 168-7'8. Either way, I won't enter it in anything. I know, my hunting partners know, my family knows, that's all that matters to me. That said, IF I ever really crush the qualification (200"?) I'd enter it only so that Texas, and my county get recognized. Nobody reading the list would know who I was, but they would definitely recognize the Texas Panhandle.

100% agree with this. I don't care where it come from and I'm happy for most everyone...even folks I don't like LOL! A lot of time and effort goes into killing a big animal, regardless if it's a paid hunt, HF, LF etc. I think asking is rude and appears to be a way to cheapen someone else's accomplishments and my parents taught me a lot better than that.



I'm with you on the lease thing. Paid hunts, I'll post pictures even though I probably shouldn't...but I like the guides/outfitters and figure it will help them. Likely all I'm doing is increasing that price too

Some outfitters have a social media policy. Publicity may cause bigger issues(their leases, or poaching).

I've got a few animals I'd like to harvest.

Not wanting to leave the U.S. to do it, I'm probably going to end up in a high fence, in Texas.

The plan for this year, is one on the list. It will be the first time I've ever hunted inside a high fence. If there are some people that don't look at it as fair chase, they are free to have their own opinion. But I don't have to care about it.

I want no part of a livestock shoot. A friend of mine went to a ranch a few years ago, and he said they had to really hunt. And they got busted three times before a shot was made.

As with anything else, it’s an individuals perception. I have personally “hunted” in a high fence one time and will not go back, and no funding isn’t the issue. Have even passed on work related paid for hunts/trips that were free. Some ranches I think do a great job of making the hunting experience wild and challenging, as a lot probably are. But others have a photo/price list as a means of advertising. That I feel makes the “hunt” seem a lot less like a hunt and more like a shoot. As with my one and only personal experience, sitting in a stand hunting whitetail while emu, ostrich, zebra, and other animals I had no clue what they were piled into the feeding area did not feel like a hunt to me. Putting an acreage number on what is fair chase and what isn’t is impossible. Terrain and other factors play into how far a deer will range in different areas. There have been collared deer in areas that go many more miles than anyone ever believed. I don’t remember exactly, but I think the MS river deer were in the 20-30 mile range. So, how will we ever really know?

Neighbors have HFed 84% of the ranch I have hunted for the past 18 years. Guessing here my worth is down to 16%.

I've told out of staters a section of land around me can be a great big, nice habitat.

A section of land north of Dalhart isn't much. You can see the entire section standing in the bed of your pickup.

I've read that the first time the U.S. Calvary saw the Llano Estacado it scared the crap out of all of 'em. It took Mackenzie to figure out how to stop letting the Comanche lead them out on it to die of thirst.

Yessir. Charles Goodnight also kept a whole lot of people from dying out there.

It was also called "an ocean of grass". And people felt just as intimidated just as much as being stuck in the middle of the ocean.

Funny, I always thought WTX MD where dumb, then tried to stalk one and got busted three times. Next listened to the old man and drove buggy to 250 yards , High shoulder shot and watched his chin hit the ground. In a a buggy they pay little attention. Start walking at them from 400-500 yards, they gone.

Im a QTR HF currently due to large and growing solar farm

Marfa, TX Pronghorn. I asked the guide "what happens if we try to close on foot?"

He asked "do you know how a Pronghorn defends himself?"

"Yessir, with their eyes and their speed."

He said "If you leave the truck on foot, they will haul azz. You've got to shoot from the truck."

Check

Shot one farther than I really wanted to, because I know what can go wrong on that shot. It all worked out fine though.

I killed my WTX MD at 40'...walking. 'Nother at 50 yds....walking.

simple question.
What's the reason for high fence ?

Rich folks have rich ways.

oh TXshter shot one 5x at 50 with a woundmatic, with that said he also couldnt shoot a 30plus in aoudad one time because he couldnt see over the grease wood. Some people have a distinct natural camouflage advantage in certain terrian

Ive taken so many pictures of WTX mulies at under 100 yards, but as soon as you get out of the buggy, bye bye. Weirdest thing ever

How big were they?

Fair chase for what critter?? I think a number of folks in the middle of this thread have highlighted the home range and dispersal size of deer and that within a 25k HF many deer would never even see the fence and natural pattern of life would be observed. I don't have the numbers but for African game and naturally migratory critters a 25K HF could prove disruptive... but maybe no more so than the unnatural flora/fauna and weather that they are introduced into.

Personal context: I've been on a 1500ac place looking for a Kudu (for viewing pleasure) and it was next to impossible to find him from the ground!

To add some context to the size of a 25,000ac place--- as someone said previously that is 40 square miles... which is massive, would cover half of the Fort Knox tank training area where the army trained Tank DIVISIONS.

Perspective depends if you are realistic about it. 25,000 acres is only a little less than 6.3 miles by 6.3 miles. Every year we have bucks with summer and winter ranges that are 3-4 miles apart. That is in the piney woods in exceptional habitat. In big open farm land in the Midwest there are documented cases of GPS collared whitetail bucks annually wintering in excess of 60 miles from their summer range. So yes, if you are honest about your assessment, a game proof fence around 25,000 significantly alters natural dispersion and movement. If that were not the case there would be no logical reason to put the high fence up. Game proof fences are costly. Their purpose is to curtail movement into or out of the fenced property that would otherwise naturally occur.

Smokey, not trying to take your numbers out of context for what they are, but the deer lab at MSU just released some impressive numbers of distances a deer ranges and AVERAGE acreage covered by a buck in the rut was 1600 acres. They had it broken down into 2 week intervals of pre rut, early rut, late rut, post rut, found the distance travelled during the rut was aboyt the same for esrly peak and late, but the daily distance was less in early and late. This data was from the region of MS where there is great mix of ag, forest, and open prairie, so typical of texas for the most part.

The data was interesting to say the least, and while they had exceptions, those averages would suggest 25k acres wpupd certainly be within the realm of never seeing a fence line for a lot of the deer in that enclosure.

Other studies have been done. The home range of a deer throughout it’s lifetime can be far smaller than 1,600 acres. Here is the first thing I found when i googled “size of home range of whitetail deer in lifetime documented”

https://deerassociation.com/new-data-buck-home-range-size-age/

According to this data you could high fence a 1,000 acre spot, manage it well, and most of those deer may never see the fence. So why high fence at all?

The best reason I can think of is to protect the land and the game you invested your hard work and money in, from everything and everybody that is willing to damage it.

As many of you know, I HF'ed 940 acres of my ranch last May. So far I'm very pleased. I signed up for MLD and was able to take out some undesirable deer. No big ones this year because the oldest bucks I have are 3yr olds, and for the first time in 25 years, they're all still here. I want to grow big bucks with big antlers, that's my goal. I tried it for 25 years without a HF, and it just don't work, at least in my area. Just too much hunting pressure. My regret is, I didn't do it sooner.

Good for you! I did it on 600 acres some years ago and enjoyed every minute of it.