opinion on high fence hunting

what is Your opinion of high fence hunting? This is mine I think its better than hunting open range. You know the animals are there .If You dont make a good shot they cant go to far .You dont have to wonder where the boundry of the land You are hunting on is .Most of the time there are more animals to pick from. If Im paying to hunt I dont want to go home empty handed, but I have . I think if You havent tried it dont Knock it .

Old bucky, your approach isn't going help you or your operation much.

People either like it or don't.. No changing thier minds. Might just want to leave it at that

Trolling or advertising?

just wanting some opinins

An all out slug fest is likely to follow. Well, a virtual slug fest.

depends on acreage & cover.

Fair enough.. I think it a great place to take young one to keep their interst up and a fair price alternative to a lease. But a smaller HF place is not my cup of tea, but I would not condone those that do it.

i agree with rifleman and jgiles....depends ont he side of the place......10k acres then cool.....but like 100 acres then i say no.

This one could get interesting, so I'll get started on it early on. I have mixed feelings about high fence. In most cases, there is a different skill level required to hunt public land than private land (low or high fence). I think a lot of what I question on a high fenced property is size, cover, and game population. Too many animals on a small piece of property with little cover is just a shooting pen, but larger properties with adequate cover and not too many animals can be fun.

Other than waterfowl, I do not hunt on public land.....but I sure am happy for the hunter that gets that monster hunting public land. In most cases, they did their homework and hunted their butt off to get their deer. These guys get my utmost respect.

I prefer to hunt private land, but most times can not afford to hunt larger tracts of land. If you hunt small pieces of property, sometimes it means sitting a lot of times and not seeing anything. While I enjoy the hunting experience, and the challenge of these hunts, I also recognize the opportunities that a high fence offers.

I have hunted high fence a couple of times and I have always had an absolute blast, and most times came home with whatever I went to hunt. Some of the places I have been the animals were as wild or wilder than some I have seen on private land that was low fence. I have hunted private land that was low fence that deer would be seen just about every sitting, and I have also hunted at high fence operations that I did not see anything during the hunt. I personally do not get the same satisfaction our of a high fence hunt as I would a self guided hunt, but that is just me. I've shot what I consider to be some decent critters in high fence, but some of my most memorable hunts are much smaller racked bucks that I earned on my own.

I like having the option of hunting high fence if I want to. If it's for you, fine, if not, don't go. As long as the hunter doesn't shoot a big deer in a high fence and then try and pass it off as a public land deer or enter it in a big buck contest as low fence, I don't have any problem with it.

I like the ability to introduce someone new to hunting to a successful hunting experience, but I like to be up front with them and let them know that not all hunting is that easy. I think all of the times you come home empty handed just make it that much sweeter when you do have success.

I'm neutral on this subject. For me a hunt needs to be fun and entertaining regardless of the height of the fence. I hunted hogs on small acreage high fence. All spot stalk in the thick and nasty. Worked my but off to finally get a medium sized pig. Of course on the same place if I would have wanted a buffalo, axis, or any of those odd goats, all I would have needed was a 9 iron, well maybe a driver, and I could has easily smacked on in the head.

not my style,but to each his own as long as it is legal.

What, are we playing nice? Good job guys.

What do you guys think the minimum acreage should be for a HF ranch?

humm i would say 1000 plus maybe

ya i gotta agree at least 1,000 if the land has decent cover. If cover is thin than Id say 2,000. Other wise its a canned hunt IMO.

I think it depends on the area. I been on some smaller 300 acre places that the only place with more then a 50 yard shot was the road coming in. Been on 5k places that you could see half the ranch with a spotting scope.

I like what was posted earlier... pressure is the main key. I don't care how big of place you have... If your rolling hunters through it like six flags its going to be a hard hunt HF LF doesn't matter. Yet you could go to a smaller piece of land that barely sees a human and feel like you found the pot of gold under the rainbow.

Very true jgiles.

thin cover..... 10K. Thick to the point you have to crawl though it in most parts... 5K...but if it's legal do it to it.

edit: pressure is what it's about, but given the scenario that "a person" has an entire season to hunt.... they had better be able to find whatever deer they are after on a sub 1k place.

Fixed it

Will if its a 35 acre pig pen, then I'd say it's unethical, but hey maybe thats just me.

Are you paying to hunt or you paying to shoot. Going home empty handed most of the time makes it better when you do harvest an animal and going home empty handed is a big part of hunting. Shooting an animal is a very small part of the deal.

lol...just saying. Find a road and follow it, thats what I'de do.

very true, killing or going home with a cooler with meat is not even what its about IMO, its about getting off work or out of the city, joking with buddys, drinking and actting up and having a good time. if people want to hunt for meat it would be cheaper for them to go to HEB and buy the meat instead of killing a fenced cage

That what both of us would do... but how many might actually think there is a short cut : )

To each his own and I would hunt on a high fenced place but I dont think that a 160" high fenced deer means anywhere near as much as a 160" free range especially when people have breeding pens and are artifically inseminating.

what if a place was about 6000 acres and the ppl actually turned their breeder bucks loose w/ ear tags and a "off-limits" stipulation to hunters?

Thats not the majority of high fences. I have no problem shooting a good deer on a large HF place and look at it as no different then a low fence place. Now if out side / non native genetics where brought in thats not my cup of tea. I have hunted and been on HF places ranging from 3oo to 21k, The largest deer(s) I have ever seen where actually on LF places. I think the HF and LF are virtually the same... Whats the differance in shooting a 190in deer in Amos' place verus the King Ranch? Which one is harder? Probley Amos's place he has more pressure.

I have never hunted HF, never have been very interested and assume i can not afford it.

I think its crazy to say there is no diff between HF and free range. A HF place can be managed so that NO bucks younger than 3.5 are harvested, on LF you ahve to hope everyone has the same views on management, but you can't control anything. and when you bring in foreign deer, breeder bucks ect... of course there will be more bigger bucks. What makes a trophy a trophy? the fact that it is limited supply!! I want to shoot the biggest buck in an area, whether thats a 125 or a 200, (both trophies to me) But if you are on a south texas HF ranch under extreme management and you are passing on 170 class bucks, is a 170 class buck no longer a trophy?

if you catch an 9 pound bass in a 1 acre stock tank, do you mount it? I would not, but if i caught it on Ray Hubbard or Lavon i would.

I think High Fence hunting has made it too easy for shooters to put monster bucks on thier walls, without earning them. There are litterally places you can view photos of deer, price tags and select what you want to Shoot (no hunt).

In a perfect world the best or the luckiest hunter would get the biggest buck, not the hunter with the fattest wallet.

One more point while i'm offering my opinion... how come on the exotic hunts where the animals have ear tags to make it easier for the "hunter" to identify the trophy fee on the animal they are about to kill.... you never see the ear tags in thier trophy photos!! do what you do, but be proud of it. leave the ear tags in your trophy photos, and use the high fence as the back drop for your pictures. If you are ok with it, then why try to remove these factors from the photos and memories?

1 acre!!!

There are several low fence ranches in TX that can offer you a 170 plus deer. 170 inch deer is a huge deer period.

Again don't confuse HF places most don't import genetics

You mean Low fences places like
King Ranch
Cochina Ranch
Chittim Ranch
McAllen
Winniship
Brisco Catarina
Shiner

ect.

Don't discount big deer or the credit of those working thier tails off to produce and hold huge WT's. You can produce and grow them in HF or LF.

No thanks. I don't want to see deer with tags punched through their ears. I'm not interested in High Fence.

Hummm. I know someone that is border line poverty. What money he does have goes to child support(wife left him becuase he hunts his but off year round(scouting, watching, patterning, in the off season)... He has taken 9 bucks that will make P&Y. Three are over 150 and two over 190.

I am neither against or for HF. I have hunted them with mixed results and feelings. My preference is LF. Also, dont think all deer with tags in their ears are from HFs. There are/have been several studies on LFs which capture bucks to take data from them and while they are on the ground tags are put in their ears for future ID. These deer are held down about 5 minutes max after capture and then released on the spot. Still as wild as they ever were but with some earrings. I have hunted a friends ranch that is 3000 acres HF. It is every bit as hard hunting as any ranch I have ever been on. In fact I have never found a deer I wanted to shoot on his place. He sees deer ever year from the helicopter that he never sees during hunting season. I am talking about some really big deer. Regarding the pig hunt. Back in the early 90's before I even know what a high fence really meant I went on a day hog hunt with my bow. My buddy and I arrived at the ranch well before daylight. We left the lodge on foot which I thought was odd. As it began to get daylight we encountered a group of pigs and I thought wow what great luck. I missed so my buddy is up next. Not long afterward we run into another group, we are really lucky, right. My buddy gets his. It is now very daylight I am beginning to realize we are hunting in a zoo/farm whatever. I ask the guy how big the place was and he said about 100 acres. After viewing hogs running around everywhere I asked that we return to the lodge as I had no desire to take one of his animals. Long story short, It is hard to define what fairchase is but I sure know it when I see it. I fully agree with whoever said there is a difference in hunting and shooting and it is going home empty handed a lot of the time that makes us appreciated the time we dont.

Not fenced, except to keep them from playing in oncoming traffic.

the guy you speak of is not spending 10K - 20k to hunt, or that he owns his own high fence operation, so he is probably one of the better hunters out there, he does the work and has access to areas that produce that quality of deer. And those are the guys who should be bragging about thier accomplishments. Not the rich guys that can buy the 190 class buck and be home in time for dinner.

I have become friends with the family that operates the deer barn (processing) in Brady Texas and the stories they can tell about the "hunters" who fly into the brady airport, travel 10 minutes to the high fence ranch and before dinner all have thier trophy bucks on the ground before Hard 8 runs out of bacon wrapped shrimp on a saturday evening, to me is ridiculous. (to each thier own)

At least for now, we all have the rights to make our own decisions in regards to hunting!!

My point is both his deer over 190 he watched and put a lot of time into for many years. Bucks that get that big and then get taken means someone(rancher, manager, hunter, even Guide) put a lot of time into those deer. People drop a lot of cash on bucks that are LF ranches also, look at the ranches I posted. I love big deer, and love even more that someone put a lot of time into watching, patterning ect. Regardless of the shooter give the deer and the work put into them a little credit. Not all HF are the same.




I love their pepper loft!!!! They processed a bunch of deer for us last year. Lots of jap cheese sausage. But I know what your talking about. I walked into the cooler last year and two huge bucks(breeder deer turned loose) with bleach white racks and holes in thier ears,(thats not me or my kind of hunting) but thats not all HF places either.

There are some huge bucks killed that no one will post, every year even on this forum a REALLY GOOD LF buck is shot and posted and immediatley people start yelling must be nice to have that much $$$$$, or breeder buck... and thats not the case.

I'm not trying to be an asre or even mad sounding.. just wish more people will forget about the $$$ or even the HF part of it and give credit to the animal and the work behind it.

HF or Not someone worked the asre off for that deer to be killed.

Case in point the two benson deer killed in Grayson. Two bucks killed on the same ranch by father/son combo both bucks where over 200in. Small LF ranch I think 300 acres.. Point is those bucks didn't just show up one day. They where passed up for many years and patterned until the where mature. They put a lot of work into those deer before they where shot and to get them. Amos on here shot the largest deer ever in TX. He didn't HF his Ranch his niebhors did. He didn't have a choice. All his deer are native not imported and not DMP pens or anything. He put a lot of time into that deer scouting, maintaining herd numbers, finding him (4000 acres) keeping him found... ect I think that deer was over 7 years old. Those three deer are all native TX with a lot of blood sweat and tears.. why discount them

My nomination for post of the year!

I don't care what anyone else does. I choose to hunt low fence. I am blessed and can afford to hunt on the high dollar, big name ranches (low or high fence) but I don't. I couldn't care less about shooting a 200" deer on a high fence place and wouldn't do it if it were free. I would feel like I cheated every time I walked into my trophy room and saw the mount.

I can appreciate the size of a big deer off of a high fence place. I can appreciate the hard work of the ranch owner/manager and the size of a big deer off of a low fence ranch such as the King Ranch. I don't disrespect the guy who shoots a deer off of either place. Just don't act like he/she is some great hunter and has accomplished some great feat. That just isn't the case.

its not a sin to hunt in a game fence. too much variation on ranches, terrain, brush, etc to be discussed about every ranch. but, if your buddy kills a 160 low fence, and you kill a 165 high fence, he's gonna have the better trophy in most peoples book. on the other hand, the buying and selling of exotics, whitetail, or any animal solely for the use of harvest should be outlawed. another thing about game fences people forget is on well managed places the fence is not to keep deer in, but to keep the neighbors unmanaged deer out. if you spent ten years gettin doe to buck ratio correct, and killing the undesirables out of the herd, ya might not want all ur neighbors spikes eatin ur protein!!!

I do not like high fences. They are management intentive and high maintenance.
That said, I have a high fence operation (over 1000 acres with dense cover and lots of canyons).
I tried for too many years to manage a low fence ranch but lease hunting pressure on all sides was unbearable. I am originally a south Texan and lease hunter but conditions were nowhere near what they are within 2 hours of DFW.
If your fence is lined with blinds and fresh tags coming in daily it is impossible to have quality deer that will be able to mature.
High fencing comes with the price of having to intensely manage the herd so that age, nutrition and genetics are in balance. New genetics have to be introduced periodically to keep diversity in your herd. And if you are bringing them in it would be foolish not to bring in the best.
I think that you would have to experience the hunt on a well managed large HF operation to be able to knowledgable comment on this thead.
It is all about the hunting experience and not about the fence.

I wouldn't have either of them mounted, but there would be fried fish for dinner.

High feence is = deer breeding. If deer has been handled, in a pen or enclosure then not wild imo. Enclosing a natural resource that doesnt belong to the landowner and making it his by "capture".

However, to each his own and I certainly understand the arguments on both sides of the fence.

It doesn't seem to me like deer breeding if you don't do any of those things. Some people high fence just to keep the small landowners around them from killing so many of "their" deer.

this

Did I read this right. You say the buying of any animal for the sole purpose of harvest should be outlawed. What country do people like yourself grow up in. Not the same USA I did. Cattle are bought for the sole purpose of harvest are you a veggie.

It would help if you put the details in your question -
you failed to mention 35 Acreshighfence, Bowhunting, and Hogs, all of which are pretty important for a reasonable answer.

BTW, I found these 'details' by looking at your other post:

My opinion? - it is what it is, as long as you state the facts upfront.
For hogs with a bow, sounds like fun and price on your website is very reasonable. Not too far from DFW either.

.

I've got a friend that has a very similar type operation.

Is it a super challenging hunt? NO
Would I consider anything shot there a "Trophy"? NO
Is it a lot of fun? YEP
Is it a great deal to fill up your freezer with pork? YEP

I agree with oldoak, as long as everyone knows up front what's going on and you don't try to pass yourself off as a highly skilled hunter because you shot something there.

I took several other very experienced hunters with me to my friend's place and was a little concerned they would not like the set up. When the weekend was finished, all of them told me that it was one of the most fun weekends that they had ever had, and all of them went home with some tasty pork.

oh we're talking hogs... hi-fence, low fence, no fence.... fun, not fun experience..... they need to die. Many thanks to those that keep them behind a fence.

Who are we to tell the landowners what to do with their land?

QUOTE: "Enclosing a natural resource that doesnt belong to the landowner and making it his by "capture".
The above statement explains my one and only complaint against high fencing. I was under the opinion that the wildlife, excluding exotics, belong to all the people of the state. What gives someone the right to fence in wildlife resources that belong to all of us. Understadably a landowner has the right to fence his property but I believe he should have to pay for each whitetail he "captures". That money could be used to enhance public hunting oportunities

As far as deer goes IMO, the guys with the trophy rooms full of huge bucks in not that impressive to me if they were taken from a high fence as if they were low fence, and if that same guy had all those bucks from public land then I hunt my butt off and I havent been able to bag a "trophy" buck. To the guy that forks over $5k and picks out a monster from a bunch of bred deer, good for him but that does not make him any better of a hunter than me. As for hogs, kill em all

Has the state ever paid the landowner for the loss of feed the deer eat? Nope, the state may own the animals, but they also fail to care for them. When the landowner fences the property he is only recovering his loss from feeding the animals that the state never has paid him. The deer according to law still belong to the state so the landowner is still feeding the state's deer.

This is something that I don't think has ever really faced a serious legal challenge. And don't get me wrong, I'm not against landowners being allowed to high fence their property, but it wouldn't surprise me if at some time in the future, they are required to either reimburse the state for the value of the resources (game) or release those resources from captivity. Either way, it may prove to be an interesting situation.

As a land owner that neighbors a new high fence ranch, I can honestly say that I hate high fences. There's nothing like managing a herd for years just to have them fenced in on the other side.

Prior to completing a high fence, most landowners try to purge the property of the existing deer. If the property is large and dense trying is of little use.
Far south Texas may be the exception.

X2......This happened to us in Meridian on a family farm, the place used to be a honey hole no 150's but numerous 130's and all of a sudden the old man died next door and somebody bought it and fenced it then the following year the opposite side sold his and fenced it. Now all of a sudden we have high fences and 3 sides! It went from honey hole to crap hole in the matter of a year!!! I hate em I don't care who hunts em I just hate them and would never steal god's creation and put em behind a fence for my taking only.

Run all the deer off and start with your own herd, otherwise I think your stealing from the state and the guy next door and even God. Anybody who makes a profit off an animal that is natural to the state and that you did not pay for yourself is crap, I hate it.

Sorry for rant I hate it when this topics comes up!! It always divides us..... Bottom line is we all hunt so who cares really. I can't say that if the opportunity presented itself that I wouldn't take a 130 cull for free!!

Before you read the remainder of my post please take the time to read my original post on this thread so you know that I am not a fan of high fences.

Your post makes no sense. Unless they high fenced their place and trespassed on your place to get the deer off of it then they didn't hurt your herd. If your herd went down hill then it sounds like your management practices may be to blame for the smaller deer. Think of it this way, you now have a ranch that is basically high fenced........if the deer are getting smaller then it can be nothing but poor herd management on your place.

I would guess that the previous owner of the ranch next door did a good job of management and you were reaping the rewards of his work but I have no way to verify it. Can't get mad at the new guy for shutting off the flow of good bucks on his place to yours if he is the one managing the herd for bigger deer.

Just my opinion. Fire away.

I get to go to my buddys high fence place after Christmas. I can't wait! They have some awesome deer there, but Im really not concerned about shooting a trophy. Me being primarily a duck hunter, it's a vacation for me. I get to hang out, eat good food, see lots of deer, and sleep in till like 6 am. So its pretty sweet. I know that hunting low fence, especially public is a huge challenge, but I really like it at my buddys place. In my opinion they are doing nothing running their place like they do. Its a really nice set up and the coolest thing is that they don't charge people to hunt there, its just for friends and family.

I don't understand why if I want to go home with meat in the ice chest I'm a "shooter" but if I go home empty handed I'm a "hunter". I hunt on my own land, land I lease and public land. I always want to get what I went for but it doesn't always happen. If I hunt some place it is because it has a reasonable chance of success. If I pay for a hunt for something out of the ordinary and spend extra cash on it I would like a reasonable chance of success. One statement was that "Anybody who makes a profit off an animal that is natural to the state and that you did not pay for yourself is crap, I hate it. bang " Anytime you lease land to hunt on that occurs.

Wished my neighbors would have helped pay for mine.

quit it

Quailhunter-

Our farm is 89 acres so before you tell me that my post my no sense and assume that we have bad management going on shouldnt you ask me some details? Like I said our nieghbor died and the place was sold we had a program with him that was working great. Now what doesn't make sense about being blocked out from 3 sides saying it has affected our herd, how does that not make sense? There is no travel! We have some house does and a few bucks but other than it sucks man. They have to cross a county road to get to the feeder or live underneath it for us to see deer. Does this make more sense?

Makes a lot of sense, the management of the deer herd was taking place on the neighbors ranches. If this place was in an area of a bunch of 100 acre places the deer would not be as good.

Your situation does stink. Bout all you can do at this point is put up the fourth side, bring in some bruiser genetics and get that 89 acres producing to it's potential.

+1

I understand and that suxs. But at the same time. Do you want someone telling you what you can and can not do with your own land? Or house, or Car.

There are some bright side to your niebhors building you such a great fence!!! You just have to be creative

That sucks, do you think you could talk to him and get him to take in your 89 acres under HF to hunt and help with the costs?

If I had enough land and money I would high fence my place. Only so I could control what was killed and I would not have to worry about the nice 2.5 year old 8 point that I passed got killed by someone else.

helomech that nice young buck youve got running around is haunting you isnt he?

helo can i get your neighbors phone number?

There are quite a few that are haunting me.

LMAO, what for?

so i can come hunt some "pigs" on his/your fence line in november

High fences are a tool...

I don't like them in africa...

I don't like them holding in migratory game animals (like elk and mule deer)

That being said... the range of a whitetail lends itself to a perfectly fair chase hunt under a certain sized high fence area...

Now... Fair chase to me has to do with the ability of that animal to evade...

it doesn't have anything to do with other hunters having opportunities to harvest that animal...

People forget that fair chase has nothing to do with hunting pressure...

if it did... a deer killed on the king ranch that stands there and looks at you 7 yards from your tricked out quail rig with the Ipod on Freebird would not be admitted like some New Jersey public land buck.

I have to disagree on just this statement. I have seen many small acreage places and their neighbors places ruined because someone got greedy and wanted to shoot "their" deer. Just sayin. I know that is not what you use them for. But lots of people do.

I agree with helomech. It is very difficult to manage lf when the neighbors have different standards or no standards. You don't have to worry about the neighbors when the property is hf. No one can shoot "your" trophy but you or someone you let hunt (excluding poachers). I'm sure there are many hf ranches that have deer that are just as wild as lf, but Joe next door will not get a crack at them.

I'm not against hf hunting, but a lf 4.5 yr old buck beats (meaning is harder to acheive) any hf buck regardless of score.

Well folks this may come as a surprise to some of you younger hunters here in Texas, but Texas has ruined deer hunting in fact all hunting in my opinion. It has nothing to do with the height of the fence either! It has to do with the oil companies, back just after WWII, started paying farmers, and ranchers to buy all the hunting rights to their property so they could entertain investors. This unlimited money priced the citizens of Texas right out of the game. By the 1950s nobody could afford to hunt deer in Texas! Today about the cheapest one can buy a deer lease “JUST FOR THE DEER SEASON” is about $1000 per gun. That, my friend, is just plain silly. However if you hunt deer in Texas it is almost the only way you will do it.

HF or LF no deer that ever lived is worth $1000 much less the thousands they charge the DUDEs they let SHOOT on their DUDE RANCHES today. I’d rather spend the $1000 traveling, and hunting wild mountains in wilderness areas, and national forests of the Southwest even paying out of state license, and come home eating tag soup than to pay one dime to shoot a deer that belongs to me anyway.
I happen to be old enough to remember hunting any ranch in the county simply by walking up to the front door of the rancher’s home and asking for permission to hunt! Giving him my word that I wouldn’t shoot his cows or horses, leave gates open, or leave trash on his place. You always shared the meat with the landowner if he wanted it, and most times he didn’t take it. If your word turned out to be good, you were invited back next year.

Most of you guys are much younger, some younger than my grand kids. I was born on my grandfather’s ranch in the North end of the Texas hill country, back in the 1930s, and while all the young men in our family were over seas fighting WWII I was the oldest boy in my family, and with meat rationing, along with rationing of everything else almost, My job was to hunt, and fish for fish, and meat to feed four families who moved onto our ranch while their men were at war. Consequently I shot a lot of deer during the whole war to feed the kin. There were few game wardens, and the ones that were there didn’t say a word as long as you weren’t selling deer, and just feeding your family. That was a sign of the times (shortly after the great depression) so to speak.

IMO the fence has nothing to do with this, it is the greed that turns me off hunting in my home state. It seems nobody cares about real hunting anymore. I hear complaints about the fence, making a hunt unethical, no matter how large, or how much cover and escape routes the deer have, from a guy who doesn’t hunt but sits in a tower blind over a feeder that sounds like a dinner bell when dumps. He says anyone who doesn’t hunt the way he hunts is automatically wrong. If it isn’t the fence, it is because he has money, if it isn’t the money, it is because he uses the wrong caliber rifle, and the list goes on!

I say get yourself a life, and as long as the other hunter is not breaking the game laws, then you hunt your way and let him hunt his way! None of us are kings here, and simply do not have the right to tell other haw to hunt. My preference has no bearing on how you choose to hunt, or how high your fence is!
....................

They would not allow it.

I could type 10 pages on this topic since I have a lot of experience on both sides of the fence.

Lets state the facts about Most high fences(deer related):

1. not all have breeding pens
2. not all buy bucks to be released for hunting(ear tagged bucks)
3. Deer don't become "tame" when a fence is erected
4. Is it easier to kill a mature deer? Yes, because they aren't shot as young bucks
5. If you wound a deer it is not a guarantee to find him/her. We have lost over 6 that couldn't be found
6. Yes the fence "traps" native deer, but now the fenced out neighbor doesn't have to worry about the HF neighbor shooting his deer(now he can manage the deer on his property.
7. There is very little if any "profit" from HFing a ranch
8. The deer are just as hard or harder to hunt because they know every inch of the property and they are mature.
9. there is no guarantee of a harvest
10. They are not hog proof or deer proof
11. They might affect the neighbor if he has small acreage.
12.They are just one tool used to manage the herd.
13.Not all HF places have 170's running around.(I have only produced two over 160 in 13 years.
14.Most keep the deer below the carrying capacity
15.Alot of money is spent to feed these animals(protein or food plots)
16. Most are erected to protect the young bucks while reducing doe numbers
17. Can be expensive to hunt, but it isn't cheap to take the family to Walt Disney World either.
18. The deer still go noctural too
19. Its not for everyone
20. HF don't equal deer pens

Facts about most low fenced places:

1. can be challenging or easy depending on area and deer density
2. can be cheap or expensive(see #1)
3. Deer can go "book"
4. Fewer numbers of mature bucks but they might exist
5.Always worried about the neighbor shooting "my" buck
6. You never know what might show up(element of surprise)
7. Its a year round hunt...not 4 days
8. Can shoot as many deer as the law allow
9. Can usually take guest and they might be able to shoot for free
10. Deer can go noctural with pressure
11.Cost money to build blinds,buy feeders etc and you don't know if you will be there next year
12. Hard to manage if you own a business and can't get away from work to set up the place
13. Never know if the place is going to sell and you have to move on after managing the herd for several years
14. Don't know exactly what its going to cost over the year.
15. Better have a 4x4 truck or 4 wheeler
16. can shoot any buck that is legal

These are just a few I came up with.

High fences are not for everyone. Some like the chance of seeing a mature buck that a lot of LF places don't have. Most of our hunters had leases and still boughts hunts because of the above.Most look at the hunt like you would a vacation. They don't have to do anything once they get there. Food is cooked, blinds are in place, feeders are filled, animals are cleaned etc. I have been on low fenced places that were pretty easy to hunt but you never saw a deer over 5.5 to 6.5 years of age. Some people like them some hate them. to each their own.

Tye, I think a HF is great if its in the right hands. Someone that grows trophy bucks and maintains the habitat for the deer to thrive are ok by me. Its the doctors and lawyers that have no idea what they are doing that sicken me. They throw up the fence and dont know how to manage the habitat they have just created. just my .02 cents.

I am blessed to be able to hunt both. They are both well managed and neither one is easy. I enjoy the who I get to hunt with as much as the what I get to hunt for...My opinion!

MacD37 so are you for or against a HF?

if that is so then you they wont shoot your 2.5 right...by the looks of your deer your in kahoots with them anyway...you prolly have lasers to keep your deer in like 35 acres and you inject deer growth hormone and feed them 99% protein....thats why your not against HF

As I said the fence has nothing to do with anything! If you are a hunter, you can hunt anyplace, as long as you get off your butt, and hunt!

I can agree with that. I love old school hunters like yourself. I respect your values.

X2...Anytime an oldtimer starts to speak I make it a point to listen I love listening to you guys. You made a bunch of valid points that people need to listen to. Thanks for posting!!

As a sixteen year old i believe that i am the next generation of hunters. I cant stand high fench hunting, it makes me sick to my stomache. It is not hunting, you are going out with the postitive knowledge that animals are in your location and thats simply not hunting. I believe that while high fence hunting does take some skill, a real hunter is a man or women that can go out on a free range tract of land and harvest an animal. Another thing that grinds my gears is the practice of penning, breeding, and then selling deer with loaded genetics to so called "game ranches" for some guy who has a huge amount of money to spend can go shot a monster, but yet altered deer. All in all i hate both things and am a firm beleiver of fair chase, and unaltered genetics. I will now take a step down off my soapbox.

LMAO, no they lease and are not allowed to have guests. And they sure would not let someone come and shoot hogs during deer season. I am hoping they won't shoot them, I will continue to talk with them.

What do you think of the people that go the King Ranch and drive up to a 160 class deer in a truck(which is low fenced) role down the window and pull the trigger? Is this hunting in your views. What about guided hunts on Free Range Elk and Mule deer. Alot to outfitters scout the "low fenced" public property and know exactly where the deer/elk are. The hunter shows up, goes to where the mule deer/elk are and pull the trigger. It's low fenced but the hunter didn't scout the property prior to the hunt. He showed up and killed an animal. Is he a hunter because he didn't scout the property him/herself?

You have every right to feel the way you feel. Don't worry about a person that shoots the deer you spoke of to compare his kill to the kill you make on your lease/property. Put and take hunting is one thing, but a high fenced doesn't mean put and take hunting. Most work with the native deer that are on the place when the fence is erected.

Just because deer are known to be behind the fence, doesn't mean they are going to show up when the feeder goes off or when you blow the grunt call or rattle the antlers. You still have to hunt them just like outside the fence. I know what I type won't ever change your mind or give you any insight.Have you ever been on a HF ranch? Or are you speculating on how it would be. You have the right to hate them just like I have the right to like them. You don't ever have to go to a HF place. It's not going to be forced on you.

MacD37 I've said it before and I'll say it again. I'll pay that $1000 a year for the next thirty and still not pay what it would cost me to buy the land. I pay for year round access. I fish, hunt, camp, drink beer, sleep, enjoy my best friends in this world and work there. A little expensive, yes. The cost of my lease is $1100 a year. The piece of mind I get from having it is priceless.

I've hunted the Rockies for elk and mule deer. As much or more money for 10 days for my own enjoyment. The lease is something I enjoy anytime with my son. I love elk hunting but with the price of tags now it isn't worth the elk if you get one. I hunt out of state and enjoy it. Hunting here at home is something I'll afford as long as I can.

your right, owning land is expensive, first you have to pay for the land
what 100k+ for 80 acres
need house built or trailer 100k or 30k
water hooked up and power maybe free or to have it dont very costly
mainting the land every month or so $$$$
alot more $$$ goes into owning the land than just leasing, plus taxes


the list goes on and on.
to me to cheaper in the long run to just lease, if you get bored of the lease just get another one.

That does suck for you and I do understand what you are saying. To me, this just continues to prove that the management was done primarily on the other properties. You were benefiting primarily from their work. Nothing wrong with that. Just don't get mad when they want to manage for their own benefit as opposed to the benefit of their neighbor (you).

Those of you who are high fence supporters can spin it any way you want to. But, the bottom line for me is that high fence hunting is unnatural. It is unnatural for a game animal to be contained, unable to escape the enclosure.

I drew a line in the sand on this issue a long time ago and will not change my mind. This topic has been discussed ad nauseum in the past on this forum and I think virtually every argument, pro and con, has already been made.

I support the rights of others to raise and hunt deer in a container if that is what they want to do. It is just not something that I have even the most remote interest in myself.

I would like to see a low fence and high fence forum.

I've said before that when someone posts pictures of their "trophy" everyone says "nice buck" until they find out it was shot behind a high fence. We have to agree to disagree. I personally would like to see photos of low fenced, wild, free ranging, natural deer.

I wouldn't give my .02 to even hear about what you do on your high fenced property, it doesn't interest me, and i just don't care.

I do believe the right to do what you want on your land goes far beyond hunting, so I will stand next to the high fencers and fight for that right anytime.

TX Whitetails don't migrate. Thats why even on smaller ranches you have the ability to see the same deer year after year.

I hope there are very few folks on this forum who are under the impression that whitetail deer migrate. The migration issue is simply a straw man that some high fence supporters set up so they can promptly knock it down.

The primary reason that most high fences are in place is to keep the animals from ranging onto adjoining properties.

I believe in fair chase hunting. Sitting on a feeder is OK, I've done a lot of it, but I will teach my grandson to hunt without the feeder and stand first. He will sit in the stand enough to keep his interest up, (kid needs to see what he's after) but there's a lot to learn about signs such as tracks, rubs, scrapes, food sources, water, and bedding habitat. Safety, of course, is most important. Staying in your area away from other hunters, etc.

no opinion...I just wanted to be the 100th post! hahaha

IMO...

low fence = hunting
high fence = shooting

Most high fence ranches advertise guaranteed success rates.
THERE ARE NO GUARENTEES IN HUNTING.

What about

King Ranch
Cochina Ranch
Chittim Ranch
McAllen
Winniship
Brisco Catarina
Shiner

I'm not against high fences but in a lot of cases they really impact the deer that surrounding smaller ranches see. I really beleive that if a man wants to high fence his ranch then he should do his best to run every native whitetail out of the fence before he closes off the last side. Most of the high fence ranches dont want the genetics of the native deer in the area. They usually want to breed the big boys!!

I do not think that the whitetail belong to any particular ranch. They belong to the great state of TEXAS!

I'm honestly sick of this debate.

There is very little difference between a large low fenced well protein fed pasture with good neighbors and a high fenced place of equal size...

There is NO difference in the ability of the animal to evade on these properties... most times a deer is about 10 yards from cover regardless...

People that dispute Highfences use arguments like Density, tameness, bait, deer age, hunting pressure, other hunter opportunities, etc to further their cause... and they are irrelevant to the fair chase statement...

Fair chase according to B&C (who died and made them the end all be all of hunter ethics?) precludes the use of "escape proof" fencing... well... that doesn't exist.

There is no such thing... I have seen deer come IN and GO OUT of my ranch...


You can not like it... fine... I wouldn't hunt most high fence places... especially put and take operations... but that is a choice...

When you start telling me that I am unethical... that I am lazy or can't hunt... when you say that I'm a thief or a slob or ruining hunting...

That's when I wish there was a smiley with a middle finger.

High fences are all about how they effect the individual hunter.

If you are hunting a large ranch and have the ability to cover several large areas and move around and hunt different deer then I would imagine you wouldn't mind high fences.

If you are a hunter that is limited to say 100 acres or less and you are surrounded on three to four sides of your property with a high fence then I'd suspect you'd not like them.

It's true they don't completely restrict the deer from getting in or out, but they discourage a majority of the deer from doing so, and if you have a small place mentioned above you are hosed when it comes to seeing many if any deer.

High fences are a tool, but just like any tool, there are those who abuse it.

Personally I've hunted on both sides of high fences and I really wish they were not allowed, but that would be taking away the rights of a landowner which I don't agree with, so it looks like this topic is a moot point, and they are here to stay!

If you're hunting 5000 acres of HF property, no one can make the argument that "fair chase" isn't in place. That's bigger than most deer range, fence or no fence. Obviously you can manipulate the population to excessive numbers, but I think there's an in-place discouragement from doing so if you're really trying to grow some big deer.

I don't really agree with putting a high fence on smaller properties (1000 acres should be the min, in my opinion), but there are circumstances in which I can see the argument. Case in point:

Have a buddy that owns about 300 acres right outside of Fredericksburg. Somebody sold 50 acres that is a long, thin tract that borders his land. The buyer sub-divided it into 5 10-acre tracts, and the buyers of these "ranchitos" all set feeders on his fenceline. His property holds deer, but not enough to support 6 groups of people trying to take several deer a year. He and the other neighbor who owned land bordering put up HFs on that 1 side only, and I fully agree that they should have.

Wonder what the origin of "shooting fish in a barrel" is?

I guess it is a little more difficult if you have a larger barrel or dirty water.... but still just a barrel!

I believe land owners should do whatever they want with thier land, and if producing large genetically altered overly fed deer is how they put food on the table more power to them... I have a problem with the demand for this product!

Not texas ranches but do you HF guys not have a problem with this?
http://www.samsonswhitetailmountain.com/Pricing.html
http://www.whitetailhavenofohio.com/rates.htm

Which brings me back to my point, ANYBODY can kill a monster buck on one of these HF ranches if they have the $ to do so. maybe i'm just jealous of the guy with more money than sense, but I work my butt off for everything I have ever harvested.

Right so you should not be jealous, those guys who show up to shoot a monter for $15K should be jealous of you and your hard work and free time you had to do it your way.

What is on our walls should never be the center of what makes us happy, just having the privliege to hunt in Gods creation makes me happy whether it is on a HF or LF to me.

My vote for post of the year!

the reason that the hunts are so expensive compared to public for the most part is because the larger bucks are actually THERE... Low fence that have large deer charge as much or more. ANYONE can kill a deer that is actually there...

Fair chase has nothing to do with deer not being there.

It sucks that all parcels have young deer herds with small racks with little opportunity to harvest a mature buck... But that's not the larger landowners fault... High fence or low.

I don't have a problem but wouldn't hunt them. They are not the same as say Amos place. They introduce from breeder pens

But what about these links- would you be proud of a deer from either of these places?

Ranch 1

Ranch 2

Thats quite the opposite in West Texas where saw rich aZZ landowner next to our property, high fence his land and then on the last day before the fence was completed, he used his fancy private helicopter to run all our mule deer and whitetails inside his fence. Whats really interesting is that people reported the activity and nothing was done about it.His fence disturbed the natural movement and migration on the deer and return effected our hunting. Luckly, some mule deer we managed to stop in there tracks by getting in between them and the fence while the helicopter was pushing them. Oh and we were armed with AR-15's if they tryied to stop us. I'm just glad we save the ones we could. We have now recovered a herd by not harvesting until this next season.

Passthrou, you are absolutely correct that in your case the cost is justified. However I posted the lease that was for deer only, and only for the deer season, not a year round lease that is all inclusive, for what ever is open at what ever time of year, and fishing as well. Your lease lets your family hunt, fish, or just hang out there as well! When you break your lease down to the number of people who use it, and the amount of things they are allowed to do there you are discribing the price of watermellons for everyone, when I was discussing the cost of "A" small apple for one person. I'd say that is a sizeable difference. DONT CHA THANK?

I think you missunderstand my post all together. Not just the length of the lease, but what it buys for that $1000 and in your case it is not buying hunting but what ever the land has to offer for your FAMILY.

Still even if they were the same I have no problem with you are anyone else paying several thousand dollars for a so-called trophy deer, it just isn't for me. In my day it would have been an insult to offer a rancher money to hunt on his place. However, and John Wayne was fond of saying "THINGS CHANGE", but my take is the change is not allways for the better. We have a guy in the White house that is into that smoke and mirrors!

As I said in my post above it is the greed that bothers me, not the fence, high or low!

That’s a misconception in my opinion, I know of no one who grows trophy buck's but I know many who allow them the time to mature and try to provide the nutrition/food source to become trophy's.

technically that's right..... but sometimes it ends up being more profitable to buy.

Let me guess? Timber??? If those places were a dime a dozen we would all own though. Find me a place like that and I'll give you a finder fee but I better make a profit.

Not always timber.. any where you find a land price explosion.

Say you bought in Brown, Brady, Fredricksberg, Mason.. ect 10 years ago. You would of more then doubled or tripled your money if you sold last year

Wow. I'm surprised he could legally get away with that. What an [censored].

LMAO.... finding them is the problem, but sometimes when you find 1, you find the owner to several.

Sure and you are now sitting there wondering why you didn't sell last year. That is from appreciation, not actual profiting from the land making cash and still owning it. Appreciation is never guarenteed and once you sell, you own nothing and need to put that money somewhere if you made some. You have to wait until the next downturn to make a move into land or find the poor soul in trouble that needs to sell. I know several people very underwater b/c they didn't sell last year and it is about to kill them. Actually one did kill himself when the bank came a knocking and forced bankruptcy.

It does sound to me like several laws were being broken. What happened? Local authorities weren't interested or not enough evidence?

found some.... thats about 400acres... 398.38 to be exact, that those deer are about to walk into.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

There are high fence, and then there are other high fence places! Like books you can judge the content by the cover or the size of the book!

I hear guys who hate High fence try to make their case by claiming first the hunting inside a high fence place is not fair chasse. Secondly they say if the place is smaller than the state of Texas it is canned. Thirdly, the animals are tame if they are fenced in. Then sixth they come up with the animals are fed high protein food from feeders. And finally the fence restricts the MIGRATION OF THE DEER!

All those things can be true, but the fence is not the cause of any of them.

First the high fence may have been needed because they have privately owned exotics that must be fenced onto the property, just like his cattle. That is a perfectly justified reason for the high fence. The fact that there are deer in there as well is no reason to deny the landowner the right to secure his property. The fence makes no difference to the public anyway, because he doesn’t have to let anyone hunt his property unless he wants to even if he ad no fence at all. If you had permission to hunt his property, but none of the surrounding property, then what difference does the fence make you are only allowed to shoot on his property.

The size of the high fenced property behind high fence can be a shoot, or it can be a hunt, and the size is not the deciding factor. That size thing comes from the Animal rights folks, who say if there is a fence it is CANNED! BS.>>>>>>>>>>>>

Lets look at this size thing from a little different line of sight! Lets take a a sample of land, say one section (one square mile ie: 640 acres) that is perfectly square, and flat at a table top, with only 1 foot high grass, and is behind high fence! You hunt this on foot, and can move in any direction you choose. You are using a flat shooting rifle with a scope, and a bi-pod for a rest. Is this canned? My opinion is YES it is!

Now lets take a property that is the same acreage that is again perfectly square this means in the perfect square all property lines are exactly the same length. However in this case the terrain encompasses trees, under brush hills, gullies, rock outcroppings. The number of animals enclosed in this property doesn’t exceed the carrying capacity of the land behind the fence.

Both sections are exactly the same amount of acreage right? Now lets look at this!

In the first property the land is exactly 640 cares in reality, because the land is flat! Top that off with because there is not hiding places, or escape routes so that you could stand in the center of this place and hit any animal on the property for all practical purposes. That is a canned property.

In the second property, if ironed out flat this property could be as much as twice the size of the first one, in surface area. When you add in the fact that in most cases an animal has only to take few steps and he is out of sight. If you can’t see him you can’t shoot him, no matter how close he is. If he as all the escape routes, and hiding places to bed, and food and water is available in more than one place, you could hunt till you are blue in the face an never find a smart old whitetail. Is this place canned because it is also 640 acres? The animal rights folks, and many hunters who decide the value of a thing by size, are both wrong. I say you can’t judge a property by size only.

We had a place on our ranch where an elephant could have avoided you for a week if he wanted to.

Now the last thing is the mistake people site is MIGRATION restriction. In the first place whitetail deer do not migrate. A whitetail deer live and die with in one mile of the spot where he was born, but in that RANGE the birth spot is the center of a ragged circle, so from one side through the center that range is two miles wide. Mule deer only migrate in mountain country where the winter drive them down in altitude, and the warming weather in spring lets them climb high, but they only migrate up, and down in altitude. The only legitimate accusation in regard to migration is with elk who do migrate long distances both in altitude and in distance. This bucket hold some water, but not with deer. Many of the exotics on ranches in the USA do not migrate in the wild either. But like deer have ranges where the males range through the female’s smaller ranges. So if the property is as large or larger that their natural range, they are no effected by a fence of any height!

Discussions like this one unfortunately because of many not really knowing anything about the properties they are condemning, or in many cases do not know any more that the Animal rights people about the animals there, give ammo to the antis to use against hunting. Sometimes we are our worst enemies!

...................... BYE!

Roy Yoder of whitetailhavenofohio has worked for over 20 years to get the herd that is on his preserve as have the Flees of wildernesswhitetails and many others.
I don't think that there are many of us here that wouldn't be elated at having an opportunity to hunt their best bucks if money were not a factor.
This thread is about high fence hunting and not on the distribution of wealth within our society.

PM me the real estate listing.

I dont agree with this either, but i was simply keeping my statments on the high fence hunting contoversy. It doesnt matter what way you spin it to me or what you compare it to, High fence hunting is not hunting in my eyes. But i respect your opionion, i am simply voicing mine.

I would get Zero enjoyment out of killing a deer that had been released for me to shoot... and the sooner before the shooting the animal is released the worse it is... I see why other people do it... It's not some ethical thing for me... they are animals after all...

Those deer have a lot of things going against them IMO... though they are certainly amazing creatures to look at...

I just booked a hunt at the Dallas Zoo. I am really looking forward to it. The Buck to Doe ratio is awesome. They are native animals and have no genetic manipulation. I scheduled it early. I have always wanted a buck in velvet. They told me the whitetail doesn't migrate but they said the fence was well hidden. I have ordered me a 500/450 BP Express Double Rifle. I just know the mount will look awesome on my wall. OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH! I just love hunting?

LOL I LOVE IT MAN!!!!!

i'm just gonna state my opinion this way: 100% wild...100% fair chase. you MIGHT be able to do that inside a high fence on a really huge place like the king ranch.

on the other hand, the exotic thing is getting so bad that a guy might have to high fence his place to keep the freaking zoo escapees OUT!

I'm doing the same thing at the King Ranch and its LOW FENCED. They are going to drive me around in a truck and I can pick out which one I like! Bet I have the same or better results than you. LOL

Ole Sasquatch1 just about covered everything ever said about the high fence ranches!

Gentlemen, there will never be an end to this conflict between people on either side of this thing. I have seen hundreds of these threads, and nothing ever comes of them other than to make passive internet enemies. That is unfortunate because we have strenght in mass, and as the old saying goes "Devided we fall!"

As I said much of the rhetoric offered by many are right out of the Animal rights play book. Most repeated from news media, who are biased against hunting in any form. The AR folks, and the media are not the only folks who are ignorant enough to make damageing statements publiclly. Once Old Gritts Gressum made the statment in a TV interview with a reporter who was asking questions about gun control. When Gritts said that hand guns were not hunting guns, and that regulating them had nothing to do with the hunter. NOW, if there was ever a man who should have known better than to decry ANY firearm being legitimate to the hunter, it should have been Gritts.

Most forms of hunting other than open range, free to walk to where ever game goes, will draw some flack from someone, and even the open range draws flack from the PeTA people.

My personal preference is places like Alaska where you can get in a jet plane and fly in a straight line for two hours without flying over a town or road. That to me is hunting the way it was meant to be. I'm under no illusion that there will ever be anything like that in the lower 48 states, and especially in Texas. In North America, and more so in Europe, those days are gone forever. In Texas some counties are bigger than some countries, but there is no open land where you don't either have to have a permit from the state, or pay a land owner to be able to hunt anything.

As In Europe, the hunting ranches are the way it is in Texas, and there are as many different types of ranches as there are hunters. All have some redeeming facets, but none are even close to the open range hunting of old, or of the last wilderness of North America in Canada, and Alaska.

Even Africa is going the same way. When I first hunted Africa, you could walk 300 miles in a straight line and never see a fence of any kind. That is not the case today, especially in RSA,where the fences have gone up all over the country. Not because the land owner wanted to fence his property, but because the law demanded it. If he doesn't fence his property, then it is illegal to allow hunting on his proterty. Many of those ranches in RSA are over 1,000,000 hectaris (not acres) in size, but by some folks here that is a canned hunt. Admittedly I don't hunt them either,but not because I don't think it is fair chase, they just don't have the animals I want to hunt, or if they do they are too expensive there.

Texas is the same way but for a different reason, that goes along with strong landowner laws to protect the land owner's right to total domain over his property. That is a good way to have the law, eventhough it really hurts the hunting public, who, on paper at least, own the wildlife of Texas. This is like haveing a million dollars that is locked in someone else's safe, and you have to pay him to get a little of it out so you can use it.

Gentlemen, and women, The only thing I hunt in Texas are doves, and hogs, on a 96,000 acre low fence ranch near Brady,Texas twenty miles as the crow flies from where I was born, and three miles from where my father was born. All other hunting is either in Alaska, Canada, or Africa. I'm getting old, and lately I haven't even done that.

I look at it this way, if I'm going to have to spend a lot of money to hunt, then it will be where there is something to hunt that is not within 30 yds of some tower blind,feeder, ranch house, or his yard fence!

So what I'm saying is The BS that goes with hunting in Texas is what it is, and you better get used to it because it is not going to get better, only more restrictive than it is today. I see a "SIGN" in the future that says if you hunt anything in Texas,it will be behind high fence, or you won't hunt in Texas!
....................

This topic can be an emotionaly charged one. I guess if you are rich and have several thousand acres that you want to high fence and breed your deer herd. Go ahead. Sounds a lot like animal husbandry to me. But to each their own. Don't mistake Texas Blind/feeder hunting whether it's high fenced or not with "real" spot and stalk hunting. But the reality is most deer and exotic hunts in Texas are going to fall somewhere in those catagories.

You bring up a point that should be addressed. If high fence is a canned hunt what is sitting in blind and waiting for the feeder to go off? As I see it, it is the same as for as sportsmanship and real hunting.

Why spend dollars on protein and feed on a low fence if you want a "natural" trophy? As already defined in the previous posts a real trophy is a free range deer, if you have a feeder the deer no longer is dependent on being free range, it slowly becomes dependent on the feeders for food. Sounds kind of like a Democrat on welfare deer to me.

I really think most of you need to venture out a little more. I have been on a couple high fenced ranches and seen ZERO deer in THREE DAYS in the spring while fishing and hanging out!! Sorry but that is how it is. Deal with it. Deer just don't jump at you unless it is managed for the hunter to kill deer every chance they get which must be the tiny tiny minority of ranches you hear about since no one seems to have first hand experience on here except JCB. My buddy hunts a place high fenced on three sides and virtually on the one other and going out in Oct and sitting in the stand will result in normally little to no deer. They also make sure they kill plenty of deer themselves and not expect others to do it for them during the rut.

TX duckman said..."My buddy hunts a place high fenced on three sides and virtually on the one other...."

Where can I get me one of those virtual fences? I hate running the auger, pouring Sakcrete, and stretching wire.
And how do you train livestock (much less deer) to recognize a virtual fence?

Having hunted inside one for three years now, i have come to this stance on high fences. Unless they are 10 feet or more high, they aint high enough. If theres a hot doe on the other side, a buck will jump a standard 8 foot high fence flat footed with no running start. Ive seen it with does as well, leaving there fawns on the other side freaking out trying to get to her, and eventually trying to jump it like she did and getting hung up. High fences for the most part will keep things in, but i feel they ultimatly are nothing more than a fancy way to keep PEOPLE out, not deer in. I think we should spend as much time and energy introducing new hunters to the sport as we do bickering about whether high fencing is ethical, right, wrong, or a waist of time. JMO Skinner

Shooters like high fence hunts, Hunters prefer fair chase. Sure if a place is big enough it can be like fair chase, but most are not like that. These places represent hunting the business, not hunting the sport. The emphasis is on size and sucess. The bigger they are and the more you kill the more you make. In this day and age there is a line of people 10 miles long that want a trophy deer, but don't have the skills, patience, or work ethic required to kill one in a fair chase situation. But they do have money, and behind the right high fence that is all it takes. So happy hunting, I hope you get a big one, I'm sure you will.

Question, do hunters use feeders, blind etc.? If they do then I think they are more shooter than hunter. It is pretty easy to sit in a blind and wait for the feeder to go off.

I'll agree that different hunting methods require varying levels of skill. Sitting in a blind over corn is not particularly challenging, but lord knows I have spent many a day in a stand and not seen a deer. I don't here that from the guys that I know that spend thousands to hunt behind fences. I have never hunted behind a high fence, but I know alot of people who have. These are guys who have never killed a big buck and then, with the stroke of a pen through a check book, they become trophy hunters with 150+ class ( depends on amount check was made out for ) mounts on the wall to prove it. I know a guy last year that was sitting in a stand watching buck after buck come out. Behind him siting in his truck on a hill was his guide radioing him to let him know how much each buck would cost. All I am saying is that the amount you have to spend should not determine the level of sucess you have.

Your example is a good one but not a true representation of most HF operations. A lot of the HF you see do not even allow guests much less paying hunters. They are what they call in England private reserves solely for the landowner's benefit. Then there are the commercial operations, a very few as you described and then some that you will sit in a blind and may never see anything, and then the ones that you will see a lot but choices and pocket book limit your shots. Most are challenging enough that if I had the money and ability to walk I would hunt them and call it a real hunt. Unfortunately walking is my major issue, so the fortunately for the pocketbook and the deer they are both safe.

Since my lathe is broke and I waiting on the repair part and I am retired I have a lot of free time. I went through and looked how many of the people that spoke against the HF had old posts about feeders. Most of the ones against the HF called it shooting or killing and not hunting. I did not check everyone's post, but overall I would say 99% of the ones against the HF use feeders.

My pennies worth of thoughts is that is the pot calling the kettle black.

One last post on this thread and it will be put to bed for me!

There was a controversy back in the early 1960s when high fence was just getting a foothold in Texas, by the YO ranch! Several of the magazines were simply buzzing with hot language for, and against the fence. After this went on for a couple years. One of the hunting groups in conjunction with game departments decided to do an experiment. It went this way.

On one of the military bases they fenced off 18 acres of deep woods, and placed 18 male whitetails in the enclosure. That is one buck deer for every acre, which is far above average. The deer were not fed or watered but were simply left to their own devices, for one month, with no human inside the fence.

At the end of the month 10 well respected hunters who were opponents of the high fence as canned (a word that had not been coined yet at that time) and unethical. In that month the deer learned where every food source, water seep, and escape route to cover in that 18 acres. These 10 hunters were each given a camera, and had three days to take as many pictures of as many bucks as they could. The pictures only counted if they offered a clear shot, if they had had a rifle.

At the end of that three days only five of the ten hunters had any clear pictures at all, and of the ones that offered shots, there were six pictures of bucks, and three of those were of the same deer. SO! What that told us was in 18 acres 10 top hunters only saw four of the 18 bucks in that 18 acres that could have been harvested in three days.

I don’t know about you but that doesn’t sound like much of a CAN to me! Of course, if the deer have been handled, and lost their fear of man, and are turned out into an 18 acre enclosure where he isn’t scared of his shadow, as all wild whitetail are, and into 18 acres where they have never been, then sure THAT would be a CAN with a lid on it! As long as the deer in a real high fence enclosure are allowed to live there,( and a lot more than 18 acres) and are hunted regularly, with cover, and food and water has learned the escape routes, he is not a slam dunk, unless he has been listening to feeders go off every 30 minutes, he’s going to be a tuff target!

Still, like most on this website the high fence is not for me, but there are many things folks here consider ethical that I personally do not agree with, but as long as the hunters who use those things that are legal, and do not take more than they are allowed, I say go for it, if that is what you like! I don’t have to like what anyone else does, as long as it is legal, but if he breaks the law, he should not let me see him do it, because the GAME THIEF phone number is listed on my cell phone!

I would love to see a link to this story or a copy of it. No offense but I have to call BS. 10 people who have no experience hunting whatsoever can go into an 18 acre pen and get more pictures than that if there are 18 deer in there. They could get it done in an afternoon much less 3 days. I will be happy to eat my words if I am wrong and you can provide a copy of the study.

Happens to me a lot behind the HF. Sat out yesterday afternoon from 5:30 to dark. I saw 3 does at 7:08 and had one 2.5 year old 8 pointer show up at 7:45. That is all I saw. I have sat out 3 other times this summer and saw nada. It happens to us also.

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no really, my butt get numm and it somtimes get cold when i forget to bring my heater into the blind, also it hard when the feeder sint set right or has a dead battery, then its a waste of time sitting in the box.

a lot of ppl don't see that over the course of a weekend.

Not in South Texas

x2

I hunt a ranch in Webb County. If you can sit through a morning or evening hunt without seeing anything, you must be blaring a radio, or running around. A slow hunt is not seeing at least 10 different deer. Many times it is many more than that. By the way, it is a large low fence ranch with no feeders. I will hunt high fence, low fence, or no fence. The true HUNT is what matters to me. I have been on HF ranches where the deer were harder to hunt than many low fence places I have hunted. I believe most of the arguments people throw out against HF hunting are not valid.

Just FYI, high fence hunting is banned in Montana and Wyoming and will likely be on the ballot and pass in North Dakota. Manitoba is the latest Canadian province to restict it and follows most other provinces.

This is interesting about Montana and Wyoming, wonder if this means they are are going to take down some of their ownstate owned high fence along hwys?

Manitoba's ban was considered a victory by animal rights groups, strike one against hunters that fight between themselves.

If its game fence it comes down. You can look it up if you don't believe me.

They were effective using the disease prevention argument. BTW Boone and Crocket does not consider high fence fair chase. The deer can never be booked.

Didn't say I didn't, just curious if the state will also remove all fences along hwys. I'm not a big fan of HFing true migatory big game animals, but at the same time I support proportey owner rights, whether it be land, house, car, ect.

But then again I also haven't seen to many fences that most big game animals couldn't go over or through if they wanted.

I already knew about it, I said the animal rights groups got there way because of hunters fighting between each other. They claimed a victory whnen the law was passed.

Depends on the property.. It can be fenced on three side or..... The funnier part of that what hieght is escape proof???? I don't believe they even state a height.

Then you'll find some of the "Open Fields" laws and "State Walk in" suggestions interesting. It will also show you what the state thinks about ownership rights when it comes to game animals. These are coming down the pike.

Montana's is not suprising at all.. That Animal Rights extremest started there many many years ago... going after the state largest land owner and his high buffalo fences.

I strongely disagree with you do to the fact the majority of the states are strenghting their tresspass laws. Most states have already done a way with the old school property has to be posted and that trend will continue.

well, i really wasn't going to "get into" this, but i've decided i don't want assumptions made about where i stand on this issue. so i'll make a few clear, concise statements that apply to ME:

1. when it comes to big game, i am a still hunter. that means no feeders, no stands, 100% fair chase and wild game.

2. i don't care which side of what kind of fence that game is on, so long as it has a typical chance of eluding me. if a fence prevents that, then i'm out.

3. i don't think high fencing does that 99% of the time. high fencing does not equal "canned hunt." a canned hunt is livestock harvesting plain and simple: an animal is turned loose in an enclosure that drastically inhibits its chances of eluding a hunter.

4. texas is a "fence out" state. that means that if you have land and want stuff kept off of it, you have to fence that stuff out of your property (primarily livestock law here). high fencing was actually started as a wildlife management tool to reduce the ENCROACHMENT of outside variables into the herd management equation. it's a typical "fence out" strategy of animal husbandry, not a fence IN hunting strategy.

5. however, certain high fence operators started introducing exotic species and it quickly became "fence in," but still for animal husbandry reasons, not hunting tactics in most cases. sure, some few unscrupulous jerks will turn a zebra loose in a 40 acre high fence enclosure and charge another jerk a few thousand dollars to go out there and shoot it. then they'll take pictures and pose and call each other great white hunters. and they make us all look like just as big of jerks as they are. we should figure out a way to make THAT illegal without screwing with what is right and good. they're a SMALL minority, gang.

6. i'm a wingshooter mostly and don't do much big game hunting anymore. i have not figured out how to use high fences effectively in hunting migratory birds and quail yet. i mean...they'd have to be REALLY high!

7. i have shot a few camp deer in the past 15 years or so when guys asked me to because they weren't as confident in their own ability to do so as they were in mine. never did that behind a fence of any kind. i usually hunted for no more than a few hours and had it done. the last camp deer i shot just so happened to be a wild trophy deer taken 100% fair chase less than 1 hour after i started hunting. i was lucky. i'm not telling this to brag. there's a moral to this story:

there is no substitute for TIME AFIELD. that and blind luck are the 2 biggest factors in taking a trophy wild animal of any kind when hunting or fishing. and the more time you spend out there the better luck you'll have. a dry worm won't catch fish. ya know? i got a kick out of the fella who said he sat out there for a whopping 3 hours and only saw a few deer. most deer hunters follow this pattern: a few hours morning and evening. almost every trophy buck i've ever taken or seen moving during legal shooting hours has been around lunchtime! you know why? there's a reason why that buck got older and bigger than the rest: he's smarter! he knows when most hunters are in the woods and he doesn't stick his head up then. he moves to water and food at midday. he does it quickly. he stays near cover and escape routes. and you'll only get one chance. he won't be in the same spot again for quite some time if he sees/smells you.

for all of the reasons stated above, high fences don't bother me. i certainly don't ever plan to hunt behind one. but i don't care how many other people do. but i sure would like to see canned hunts...REAL canned hunts...go away. that's just killin' and calling it hunting.

hunting over bait is illegal in many states. and hunting deer with dogs is legal in some states. it's good to keep an open mind about things, folks. i won't hunt deer near feeders, but i'll hunt doves in a sunflower field. that's just me! and it doesn't bother me if YOU hunt deer at feeders where it's legal. i'd rather you planted food plots and hunted those, but that's just MY sensibilities. and i have no right to impose those upon you or judge you by them.

and here's the kicker: you don't have any right to judge others when their (legal) way of doing things doesn't quite rub you the right way either. it's about respect, gang. we need to respect one another as people first and foremost. then we need to respect the game and land upon which we depend. next, we need to respect the sport and heritage itself.

and i guarantee you 98% of us can agree that turning a striped horse or a goat loose in a 40 acre pasture and then shooting it isn't hunting and shouldn't be called hunting.

but that's a FAR CRY from a 1000 acre high fence ranch with a total quality deer management program in place with no feeders or deer stands where a dad bow hunts with his son and daughter!

I'll look up the rules. BTW Indiana passed a bill in 2006 eliminating further high fence hunting and closing the existing operations in 7 years.

After all these posts I still can't figure out why any of you care is someone put up a high, low, or no fence???????

With respect to animal rights organizations "winning" on regulations against HF hunting, its just a start. They will not stop trying to strip us ALL of ALL our hunting privileges.

Should ALL HFs be deemed the devil and removed, a new fight will begin of a systematic elimination of ALL hunting.

Sometimes you have to back your "hunting brothers" play, even if you don't exactly agree with it.

I promise you this, those slap d**ks won't fight among themselves about how to stop us all from enjoying the outdoor and hunting.

A high fence's main function is to keep deer out, not in.

I could care less about a 100 acre HF exotic hunting operations. You get what you pay for....... a kill, not an experience.

Quailhunter, I too wish I still had the article,but 1960 was 49 years ago,long before Al Gore invented the internet, and I still may have it if I could just remember what book it was in, but if memory serves it was in one of the gun/hunting annuals,or maybe NRA magazine, but I believe it was a Peterson hunting annual, but not sure! I don't think it is a good manors to convene a Kangaroo court and hang the messenger! I didn't write it, I just read it!

It may very well be BS, but there were a lot of pictures in the article, of the Game men, and the pictures the hunters took of the deer, and for sure three of the pictures were of the same deer. They had more pictures but not pictures that would have been clear shots.

I truely can't remember where it was written, but some of the older outdoor writers may know where it can be found! If you find it let me know as well, because it was in responce to, I believe a PeTA member, Cleveland Amory, accusation that any fence constituted a Canned hunt! I read it when it was new, and just before the hunters banned together and got Mr. Amory fired from TV Guaide with over 100,ooo threats to cancle subscritions to TV GUIDE.

Well, as an outdoor writer, I'd love to help. But this one sounds like it's above my pay grade! I was BORN in 1966. And the archives of a lot of this sort of stuff aren't exactly what I would call exhaustive or accessible.

But I will say this: there ain't 18 acres anywhere that you could run that sort of experiment on and could get those sort of results nowadays: scent blockers, better camera equipment, better knowledge of how deer move/smell/see, and much more. On the other hand, I could take you to a lot of places where a "clear" camera shot would be nearly impossible on an 18 acre parcel. I've seen many thickets that were bigger than 18 acres! And you'd have to crawl the whole thing on hands-n-knees.

This whole thing sounds ill-conceived. And in the 60's, a smelly outdoor photographer with a big old clunky camera would have been pretty easy for any whitetail to avoid in close quarters.

I recall one night when I was hunting hogs in an East Texas river bottom during the deer rut. A couple of real bruiser bucks were mixing it up right freaking behind me through a thick line of brush in a bottom pasture for a half hour. I sat and listened. Had my financial planner at the time with me that night. We were having a blast just listening to these big ole bucks fighting. The racket was amazing! It sounded like we could have reached back through the brush and touched them at times. Rob was mobility-impaired, but I wasn't. I eventually decided to sneak through the brush on my belly and try to get a look. I had not moved much more than from a seated position at the base of an old oak tree to lying on my belly when those deer disappeared into the night...during a FIGHT!

On other occassions in thick country, I've been sitting in similar situations in broad daylight and had whitetails walk up right beside me and almost bump me with their noses before detecting me. I've stalked deer inside of 30 yards for up to 30 minutes without spooking them. But if you shift your weight just wrong on a twig or leaf at just the split second when the wind dies or the deer freezes and holds its breath, you're busted. And they can "disappear" like phantoms in the woods and tall grass/crops in ways that the best specops snipers would give up a limb to emulate!

I know a bunch of guys who have stepped within a couple feet of a wounded deer while tracking them without dogs and never knew they were there.

So 10 outdoor writers in 1960 (7 of whom probably smoked, none of whom wore camo, none of whom used scent-reduction tech, and all 10 of whom were toting very smelly photographic equipment) in an 18 acre patch of woods would be up against it big time!

Kenmorrow, That was the whole idea of the experement, to show that the fence is not as limiting to whitetail survival as the animal rights people tried to get law makers to believe. That fact seems also to be lost on many whitetail hunters today as well, if the responses to this discussion are any indication.

There are whitetail, and then there are whitetail! Deer anyplace where they are hunted hard become ghosts, and in most cases become totally nocturnal, and are rarely seen durring legal shooting hours.

A fine example of this is the LBJ grass lands Near Decator, Texas. That area, being so close to the Metroplex, got so mush shooting traffic back in the 1980s that you had to step on a deer before he would move in daylight. You could walk down little hidden seep creek bottoms that were well hidden, and the bottoms looked like a thousand deer had migrated along it from the way the bottom was tracked up every morning. I purposely spent the night in a tree above one of these pathways with a red prediter light, and no firearm. After about 8:30 PM the woods came alive. there were deer, and hogs everywhere,yet as the sun started coming up suddenly as if by electric switch, they were simply gone! I assume tucked away in the briars and under brush for the daylight hours.

In this case you could have fenced this place off with high fence, and it wouldn't have uped your chances of baging a good buck, though it is evident the deer are there in high numbers, but so were hunters, and shooters. The deer simply learned to cope!

Now if you fence that same area, and not allowed anyone in there, for six months, you would, IMO, see deer in the daytime because again, the deer would adapt to the conditions they experience. So Again, IMO, the fence is not the deciding factor, but the lack of pressure on the very expensive ranches that makes it easier. Up that pressure as it is in open land, and I think just like LBJ you would see a far more difficult hunt, that is if you hunt not bait, and hide in a blind.

This pressure, or lack of it, is another reason that you see far better trophies on places that are expensive to hunt. When a man is paying a large sum of funds to hunt a property, that doesn't allow you to shoot immature deer, the deer get older before they are shot. On open land that is near large cities, and get lots of pressure the hunter is more likely to shoot the first legal deer he sees, and so the trophy quality drops dramaticly over time. The fencing,the rules, and the high price allows the the deer to NATURALLY produce better deer, even if they are not fed suplimentally, or use introduced breeding stock form other places.

All I'm saying is the fence is not all bad, nor is it all good, and is not the most important factor in the quality of the deer inside it! Hunting pressure caused by high accesability, and low cost is far more detremental to the quality, and numbers of mature deer in any area.

As I have consistantly said The High fence, and high cost is not for me, but if it floats your canoe, the paddle on down stream, and do your thing. On the other hand, if it doesn't, and it doesn't for me, then don't hunt there, but don't cuss those who do, especially in a public forum! The time may come when the high fence properties may be the only hunting you will have! just ask the hunters in Europe,especially England, who have been doing so for two hundred years. You pay, for private huning places or you do not hunt there!
...........................

I agreed with everything you said down to the very end there about Europe. That's an over-generalization. There is plenty of "public" hunting opportunity in Europe based on the hunting population in Europe and land utilization realities there. But "public" hunting there is more highly regulated in general in Europe than in the US or Canada. It costs considerably more to be a public land hunter in Europe, for example. And you can only hunt with a licensed guide unless you are a licensed guide in much of Europe. (like the German Jaegermiester program, for example) Furthermore, they have forest and riverkeepers from whom you have to secure fairly pricey permits each time you wish to go afield. This is true for camping, hunting, fishing, etc. and in some places goes like this: you want to float a 3 mile section of river through a forest, camp overnight, have a campfire, and fish. You will need a fishing license, and that requires extensive schooling and relatively high fees. Now you need a permit to float the river from the riverkeeper for that 3 mile section. You need another permit to fish that river section. You need a separate permit to camp from the forester. And you need a fire permit if you want to build a campfire. Each of these costs money, are limited in number issued in any given time period (quotas), and can be denied for any number of reasons. So all of your stuff may be in order and you may get permits for everything but the fishing. Sort of kills the whole point of your fishing trip, doesn't it? Furthermore, you can BET you will see the forester and riverkeeper and game warden while you're there. And they will check you. Change it to hunting and you'll have the game warden with you 24/7 and he will tell you which animal...if any...you can shoot.

MacD:


outstanding post. I agree completely. There are many variables that determine the "difficulty" or "challenge" associated with a hunt. High fences are one variable which everyone seems to focus on, perhaps becasue they are so visible and obvious. By on the list of potential varialbe, the type of fence falls way down on the list.

I'm glad to see several of us in agreement on this because this is the RATIONAL position based on empirical evidence. But I suspect a more common reason why the high fence is so popular a whipping boy is because most hunters don't have keys to them. I learned a long time ago that it is very, very attractive to the masses to beat up on what they don't have access to but a few others do. Interestingly, you can make fans out of most of these detractors by giving them a key. I've actually tested this theory a few times and it has never failed. Once, I hired a guy I was having a lot of trouble with regarding hunting access to a certain property and gave him hunting priveleges. He immediately went from bad-mouthing trespasser to fierce guardian of the kingdom! LOL

As I said you pay or you do not hunt in Europe!

Yes, but it varies from country to country and region to region as to whether this is mostly on private or public land. That was my point: public vs. private.

kenmorrow said "But I suspect a more common reason why the high fence is so popular a whipping boy is because most hunters don't have keys to them. I learned a long time ago that it is very, very attractive to the masses to beat up on what they don't have access to but a few others do. Interestingly, you can make fans out of most of these detractors by giving them a key. I've actually tested this theory a few times and it has never failed."

Wow, you think it's all class envy, no ethics, traditions, or morals involved. Quite the pedestal you have put yourself on. What was I thinking when I enjoy myself on a low-class, low fence place.

And what is that you are standing on captain purity? People that hunt HF are immoral? Non-traditional? Unethical?

And you don't so you are all these things?

Wonder why none of th HF haters responded if they would be proud of a low fence deer off these low fence ranches???

King Ranch
Cochina Ranch
Chittim Ranch
McAllen
Winniship
Brisco Catarina
Shiner

I am beginning to agree more and more with the kenmorrow theory on the jealousy issue. My research says those that bark the loudest all use feeders. So what is the big difference between a HF and a feeder? One keeps them inside of a so called pen of large acreage and the feeder keeps them close to the feed source on large acreage.

Or is the kettle calling the pot black?

Never said HF hunters were immoral, non-traditional, or unethical, any more so than some low fence types. But the poster said HE found most objections to HF hunting were based on envy, as if the other mentioned reasons were not sufficient for many hunters.

What research did you conduct? Ya missed me; I don't use a feeder.

Are all HF places "large acreage"? Defined how? Inquiring minds want to know.

I sure don't lump them (HF places) all together as to how they operate.

didn't bother to read the rest of the thread, did ya?

i'm a still hunter and have never nor ever want to hunt a high fence property.

nor did i say it was "all about" anything. i said that i thought ONE major reason was...

and i didn't say a thing about socio-economic status. i don't know where you got class envy from. but if it's about getting the darned jet skis off the lake, you won't find many anti-jet ski folks who own jet skis. and if you suddenly give a bunch of them jet skis, they shut up. heck, i've even seen a few of them openly switch sides!

Since you stated "it is very, very attractive to the masses to beat up on what they don't have access to but a few others do", it sounded like envy of some sort, socio-economic or otherwise.
Maybe lots of folks "have a price" (your jet ski example), but there are those they have genuine reasons for objecting to... <insert your issue here>...

Good `ol Paul Harvey used to say "self-government doesn't work without self-discpline", when citing an example where new government rules were brought on by some self serving types who were doing something legal, but in doing so created an outcry for "more laws". Legal does not always equal ethical or moral, but we all draw our lines at different places.
As it relates to this thread, some (most) HF operations won't draw the attention for "more laws", but to think "it's okay because it's legal", regardless of circumstances, is just asking for regulations.

nope...those are wind up deer on those places as well... I would be very proud of a deer shot out of a place that had 3 sides high fenced, with outlaws all the way around it.

If you read my previous long post on this subject, you will see that you and I agree. My point on ethics is that it isn't the fence, but how it is used. And that creates a much more difficult situation to legislate effectively. When the high fence becomes a way to restrict movement to make them easier to hunt, I have a moral problem with it. When it is a TQDM tool used to fence out variables and doesn't create a fair chase issue, I have no problem with it.

GSS you are correct in the passage above of course where you are, but ETHICS are a subjective matter. What is ethical in one place may be intirely unethical in another.

What I mean by that is, the way some folks think as being ethical is driveing deer with dogs, some places do not allow this, like TEXAS for instance, but Louisianna sees nothing wrong in this activity. That is their ETHICS, and if you don't agree with them, you are not required to hunt that way. In Eastern Europe wild boar are driven from the forest by beaters, and horn blowers, out across open ground for waiting "SHOOTERS" on tower stands at night. There that is considered ethical, in other places not so much.

Here for some reasons ethics goes out the window depending on the animal being hunted. The hogs for instance! Here on this website I have read post after post that said shooting hogs in a trap is ethical. I understand why in this is the case but I assure you the rest of the world would be livid at the thought of such a thing, and the animal rights folks will use posts like those to help stop all hunting.

In Texas most see nothing wrong with shooting a deer from the jeep,and it is legal on private land,Of course what other type land do you have in Texas? So it is litteraly legal all over the state for all practical purposes as a result. In Africa, that is illegal, and considered highly unethical. So my question is why is any method ethical for one animal, and not for another. It seems most of this talk about "ETHICS" is simply a bunch of smoke and mirrors, and changes at the owners whim depending what he WANTS to do, or impose on others!

What I'm trying to convey is, "LEGAL" is like the referee that decides what the most poeple consider Ethical in an area, and what is best management of the game and hunter's activities. No law is perfect, and no ethic is world wide. If a person has ethics IMO, he doesn't do things HE considers unethical, but his freedom to swing ends at the tip of the other mans nose.He can't force his ethics on others, so the law decides.

Ethics are a personal thing! what is ethical to you, may not necessarily be ethical to me, but if I hunt in your area, I have to abide by your game laws, eventhough I may not consider them ethical, That is the way we have to accept the ethics of those we sometimes disagree with, and your option is to not hunt there if you disagree enough.

The one option you have is, anything you consider unethical is something you are not forced to do by game law, but gives you the choice NOT to do it. That choice, however doesn't give you the right to deny another the right to do it if it is legal in the place where you hunt. The game laws there were laid down on the general ethics of the state where you are hunting.

When you get down to brass tacks, you fire one shot, and kill one animal, the result is the same no matter how you went about it, one cartridge was used, and one animal is dead. Is that animal more dead because you shot him at night, or in a cage? Do the steaks taste better if he was shot from a rifle with it's owner standing on his hind legs in open natural woods, or if it was shot over feeder from a heated box stand behind high fence?

SO, if you consider high fence, no matter how large, to be unethical, the game law doesn't force you to hunt behind one, it only makes it legal for those who do consider it ethical on a place by place basis. You are allowed to pick the size, and cover of the high fence you consider an ethical hunting property, and pass those that you don't, and to forego them all if that is your ethical opinion. But it is only YOUR OPINION, and not a requirement for others to follow your lead, as long as you both follow the game laws.

I happen to disagree with a lot of laws, but I'm required by the general public to abide by them, so I do. The law only tells you what you CAN'T DO, not what you must do ethics wise.

.........................

Excellent post, MacD37!

What are wind up deer? They are all native no HFs. Three sides and a river on the fourth I like that place

wind-up deer - kinda like the toys, where all you would have to do is turn the knob on them several times, set them down and they take off walking.

MacD37: great points in your comments. Society does like to keep ethics (and subsequent laws) as a moving target (the line drawing I mentioned).
As you stated, I can choose not pursue game in a locale, setting, or region with different "ethics/laws", but like California krap spreads across our country, being complacent can really result in a "what happened?" feeling.

great post!

if you talk to an ethicist, however, they would gently point out that ethics are pretty universal and don't change while what you are talking about they call morals. morals change based on circumstances, geographical associations, sociological associations, and evolve over time.
for example, your contention that the law should be obeyed is an ethic generally held by all societies down through history. about 99% of humans polled would answer"yes" or "yes, but..." if asked "should the law be obeyed?"

and your examples of driven hunts and hunting with dogs are excellent examples of morals: sentiments, accepted practices, and even laws differ based on geographical boundaries, traditions, and what animals are being hunted.

the most interesting parts of all of this to me in regard to this thread topic is the influence morality has on the law and the morality that our right to exert moral leadership over others may only be exercised through the democratic processes of both politics and free market economics, ie. elections, legislative efforts, boycotts, strikes, demonstrations, etc. a lot of people would assume that even this ideal is an ethic, but it isn't. only a few hundred years ago, most societies believed that "might made right." in other words, it was perfectly moral to force your moral will upon others by violence and intimidation. today, only muslim radicals and dick cheney believe this. so this ideal evolved over time to become pretty universal. thus, it is a moral by definition.

some of you might think i'm prattling on, but this is an important distinction in this debate and in our larger thinking about hunting and fishing as we are confronted by anti-hunters and the non-hunting/fishing public they influence (who vastly outnumber us at the voting booth). the driving force behind the anti's is veganism, a worldview that holds that the inherent and inalienable rights of all sentient beings (animals) are equal to those of humans. therfore, humans have no right to consume other animals for sustenance or even subjugate other animals for our benefit or survival. to them, a pet is the same as a slave. that is their morality. they claim it is an ethic. but it is such a radical viewpoint held by such a tiny minority of the world's people throughout history and even today that the claim to ethical status is absolutely absurd! (this, by the way, is the whole basis of ted nugent's philosophy)

by contrast, i contend that it is an ethical principle that i...as all animals do...have an inalienable right to do whatever is necessary to not only survive but thrive (life), preserve and advance my freedom of choice (liberty), and prosper (pursuit of happiness). this means i have the right to compete against other animals (including humans) to do these things. of course, this ethic is tempered by other ethics and morals, but never negated by any of them...individually or collectively...for it is "the prime directive." (sorry for borrowing the phrase from star trek, but it fits really well)

the guiding ethic in all of this: the supremacy of respect for the dignity of human life! there is only one small subsect of hinduism (buddhism evolved from hinduism) that has not adhered to this ideal throughout human history, so it too is an ethic. vegans (and by proxy all radical animal rights types) want the entire world to adopt this anomolous, abberant, statistically insignificant notion as an ethic. what we should be doing is laughing at them for the kooks and weirdos they are!

What he said......! Either way we feed Indian Corn because the deer really seem to like it and stay at the feeder longer..

gotcha... this is the way I look at it... How many of the same deer do you see year after year... Kind of like you wifey's 10 point last year

What the differance? Both are low fence places.. the LF ranches mentioned abouve are just stricter on thier harvest.

I don't know if I had seen that deer.... we had only hunted the place for 6 days prior to last season. (and those days were opening evening in '07..in which she shot her very own 10pt... and then the last week of season). I will say though that in the week at the end of season I saw 17 different bucks and only 8 does. And it is a low fenced 300acres. Next season I will have a lot better idea of what all is there.

Now the other places that are a hop and a skip down the road... you are absolutely correct.

...... there's really not much of a difference.

dang howd i miss this thread.

well go ahead say what you got to say buddy

not much to say. you either like or you dont and i like it.

Do what you want as long as it's legal. I just can't stomach the folks who act like they are great hunters because they can go behind a high fence and shoot a big deer. Congrats........you can pull a trigger!

You act like killing a deer is hard...

+1

Not really. I grew up hunting with a rifle. When it lost any challenge I switched to a bow and haven't picked up a rifle since. When getting a decent deer with a bow didn't seem like much of a challenge I started picking out one mature deer and hunted and patterned that one animal until I got him. I don't know if that will become "easy" or not. So to answer your statement, killing a deer isn't hard. I'm just not looking for the easiest way to kill the biggest buck.

Do you not think that happens on HF places. Now you are getting close to hunting HF because you start looking for that "one" deer and not just "any" deer. I will pass up 120-130 deer all day long looking for that buck that will score in the 150's.

It's not just about the score. Do I enjoy sending in my forms to P&Y to have my deer in "the book" every year? Sure. Who wouldn't take pride in that. I also take pride in the fact that every animal I have taken has been free range and fair chase. To assume that the evolution of every hunter would lead to the holy grail of high fence hunting is both asinine and arrogant. I have worked hard in my life and I am a very blessed individual. I could write a check and go hunt at any commercial hunting operation in Texas. I could pay to shoot a 200" deer. Why don't I do it? Because I have accompanied friends and clients on whitetail hunts on 6 different high fence ranches in Texas and they were all "canned" in my book. Were the animals running free (within the confines of a high fence of course) absolutely. None of those guys walked into a pen to shoot their deer. But driving around on those ranches was like driving through a zoo.

I am by no means trying to tell someone that they can't go or shouldn't go hunt on a high fence place. If you have the opportunity and it is something you want to do then go for it. Hunting a high fence place is like going on a safari to South Africa. "You want a Kudu? Well let's head over to this "pasture" and see what we find..." That pasture just happens to be the high fence area where they keep the Kudu locked up. That is why I will hunt just about anywhere in Africa but will not hunt South Africa. Too canned. For someone who wants to make one trip to Africa and put alot of stuff on the wall then go to South Africa. It's like shopping to furnish your house. Same thing on a high fence place. If it is a virtual guarantee then it is shooting.....not hunting. And yes, that goes for the low fence places with "wind-up" deer as someone so eloquently put it.

As stated previously, do whatever you like as long as it is legal. I could not care less. Just don't act like you are Cameron Haynes because you have a 350" elk or a 170" whitetail on the wall that you shot on a high fence place. It's not the same as taking one fair chase and every last person in this discussion knows it.

One last thing.....

I have a rhetorical question for all of you folks who are big high fence proponents. If you had the opportunity at the same exact 175" buck on a high fence place or a low fence, free range place, which would you choose to hunt? Now ask yourself why.

Notice it is a rhetorical question. No need to answer on the board. Just be honest with yourself on your answer.

All the things you say about HF ranches above can be said about some LF ranches. The fence is just one variable, not the only one. I've been on LF ranches where the deer are as tame as cattle, and one can pick out the deer he wants in the same way that you describe. Also been on HF ranches where I hunted hard for a week and never saw a buck.

Quailhunter - I have a buddy with 5000 acres of high-fenced South Texas land that hunted the same deer for 4 years and never saw him on the hoof. Up there almost every weekend, got him on game camera, but that rascal was slippery when it came to showing his face during shooting hours.

There are also some bucks at his place that show up religiously every time the feeder goes off and are easy kills. But that occurs on LF places too.

If the ranch is big enough, there's really not much difference if the numbers are controlled.

"Congrats....you can pull a trigger" is a huge exaggeration.

The same can be said about using an outfitter on public land. I was lucky enough to draw a Mule Deer tag in Nevada this year. It only took 10 years to do it and $1000 in license fees over the 10 years. The outfitter guided hunters to 2 mulies last year that scored 202 and 206" in the units I drew. I'm using a outfitter to increase the odds of success.

Would you feel the same about a hunt on LF property using an outfitter vs. a do-it-yourself hunt? I personally could care less. Its about the hunt and the experience.

To answer your question, it wouldn't matter to me. Where I hunt, your LUCKY if there is a 140" deer let alone a 175". Some people,such as yourself-as you stated, have money to go on hunts. If they chose to buy a guided hunt vs. having a lease, its their choice. Some people don't have time to hunt every weekend. Besides, why would you compare what one man has on the wall to what you have? Who cares!!!!! The size of the animal doesn't dictate how good the hunter is. How many stories have you seen where a guy goes out for the first time and kills a monster. Does that make him a better hunter than someone who has been hunting for 30 years?

Geronimo used to chase rabbits down on horseback and hit them with his war hammer to kill them. They stalked deer in the desert on foot and shot them with short recurve bows at close range. They had to do this enough to EAT. Never once in all of his personal accounts did he mention the size of the antlers on a deer. But the only thing he said he loved more than hunting game was hunting men...because of the challenge.

Now there was a hunter!

My opinion on a high fence is that they are great. I just high fenced mine 2 years ago not much of a difference from low fence as far as the hunt goes with the exception that you have the piece of mind that those monster bucks are there and should stay there and they have a better chance at reaching an old age which usually means larger antlers. Those mature bucks are gonna stay in the brush execept maybe during the rut but they do the same on a low fence ranch. One reason why we highfenced our ranch was because a hunter on our neighboring ranch shot a nice 160+, 3.5 yo buck. what a waste and they didn't recover it. when we were low fence we would protein feed year round but come during the rut those young nice bucks were too tempting to other hunters. ya thats part of hunting but we didn't want to see young nice deer wasted like that. so pretty much we would feed them and other hunters would shoot them. plus on a high fence its nice to chronicle a bucks life from year to year. of course you can do that with low fence if you have a ton of acreage or disiplined hunters surrounding you.

What's the going rate on high-fencing a place (cost per ft or mile)? What is considered "typical" in height?
I groan just paying for a 6-strand barb-wired fence...but most of the groaning is just me after planting corner posts.

I think is going for around $4.25/foot which equals $22,440 a mile. It all depends on topography,creeks and rock.

You do realize that the larger the deer you are hunting the harder it is... because the numbers you have to choose from get hyperbolicly lower with every inch bigger?

Your arguments really don't make much sense... you call HF a zoo... you are talking about density...

You say that harvest is too easy... you are talking about method...

You ask which you would be prouder of a 175 in HF or low...

Let me ask you this... if you are guided to a 175 HF or guided to one low fence... what have you done differently?

If you are self guided... and killed that 175 the first time you saw him... are you prouder than if you saw him as a 2 year old and had the patience to watch him grow for 5 more years in to that deer?

Who learns more? Who's better? Who's prouder? What's your preference... Don't tell me that the person who saw that deer once when he was 6 and got a shot off is a better hunter than the person who saw that deer 85 times in the same type setting over the course of 5 years and waited...

What about hunting with a camera for 5 years and then taking a rifle? Is a deer tame because he is passed up? Did your bullet save that 175 you shot from being a "tame" deer... he wsan't seen twice...

Is the deer all of a sudden less of a trophy because he is known?

That's a pretty close estimate. A ranch manager at a place we just got back from a few weeks ago was telling me their cost was around $4.40 a foot. That was not including water crossing and custom entrance gate.

I seriously doubt that it could still be that high... ???

Really?

I would think that the materials costs would have gone way down in the last year...

amos,

he's not lying. high fence prices are still around 20k a mile

Wow... pipe has gone way down... I just assumed wire had gone down with it...

Maybe everyone is still trying to sell their inventory at those astronomical prices so they don't eat that loss...

jeez...

Tye and AmoCuernos,

I have put in for YEARS for an Arizona Unit 9 archery elk tag. When I draw I will most certainly hire an outfitter. If I am lucky enough and if my guide is as good as I think he is then I will be in a position to shoot a big bull. Will I be proud of it? Absolutely. Would I have more pride if I were to DIY and get it done? You better believe it. I have no expertise when it comes to elk hunting. I know that so when I draw what is likely a once in a lifetime tag I use an outfitter who has expertise. The big difference is that I don't think that I am some sort of great hunter because a guide can put me on a big bull. I'm not delusional like that. In the same vein, I don't believe that someone who shoots a big deer behind a high fence is a great hunter. Are there great hunters who choose to hunt behind high fence? Sure. Are there folks who don't even know how to gut a deer who will get lucky and kill a big deer on low fence? Of course. Shooting a big, free range deer takes luck or skill. If all you care about is shooting a big deer then you don't need luck or skill......you just need a checkbook.

I'm glad that you guys brought up the guide/no guide question. It makes my point for me. Every single poster on this forum knows that they would take more pride in an animal that they harvest on a DIY hunt as opposed to a guide pointing towards the animal they are to shoot.

So somewhere around $80-100k to do a section (640ac / 1 sq-mile)...and since many places are much larger, that's some serious money, which is why there is typically a long range plan to recoup some of the investment via a stocking and/or intense management program (more $$$).
Another reason to not like the direction that takes deer hunting, but just my opinion. Not envy, or a condemnation of how a hunt is conducted, just trying to be practical. It is often expressed that we need more people to get into hunting, or stay involved, but $$$ can change that.

I will add Texas is one big-azz state, so no shortage of land. Access may be an issue, but plenty of land. God bless TX!

Where I hunt HF LF makes no difference for the ability of the deer to evade... I have taken a big deer before the fence went up and after... exactly the same... but the second one took all kinds of other skills...

The first one took a heck of a lot more luck in the areas where skills used in the second helped...

I think too many people are getting hung up on the "better hunter" bit. It all comes to luck and being in a place that produces the size animal you are looking for. Sure you can increase your odds for a big bull elk or a big Mule deer depending on the unit you hunt in or for big whitetail depending on what part of the State you are hunting.I wouldn't go to the Hill county looking for a 175" buck. I would be wasting my time and money. Now if you high fence a place in the Hill country and allow the bucks to mature, that is a different story. Now you will have a better change of seeing Mr. Big. It still comes to luck even if you have a guide/outfitter.

Look at the guy who shot the 30 pointer. Go watch the video and see what he says. He was sitting on a food plot had some scent stuff on and thats it. No "super human hunting knowledge" was used to kill this monster. Its being in the right place at the right time. Would he had gotten the "spotlight" if he shot a 120" 8 pointer. Nope! Would it take any more skill to kill the deer if it was a 120" 8 pointer? Nope! So size does not dictate how good of a hunter you are. Period!

Don't worry about the guy who hunts behind the HF comparing his kill to what you have killed. Have you noticed the different divisions in Buck contests? If I walked into your house and looked at the deer you have on the wall it would tell me absolutely nothing other than what type deer are in the area you are hunting.

You can't force a deer to come into a feeder,food plot or to any other form of attractant on a HF place. The HF just gives the ranch an ability to put age on a buck. You can drive my place ALL day long and wont see a deer. I only saw 4 last friday(while sitting over a corn feeder for 3 hours) No petting zoo here.

Tye I’ve never hunted deer inside a hi-fence but i have hunted in several Hi-fences that had big buck's. Interestingly enough I never have seen the big bucks. What I've seen in my own experience is big buck's just don't act like 2 1/2 or 3 year old buck's "they don't just step out and say shoot me". I've always got at least 2 big buck's running my place and your lucky if you even get a chance to see them let alone get a shot. Big buck's whether high-fence or low fence are a whole different critter and a whole different set of survival instinct's.

I hear ya HWYMAN. I'll be looking for the buck in the back of the attached picture. We did over 7 blind counts where this picture was taken(From early July till last weekend) and still have not see either of the 3 deer in this picture in person. We have sat in all of our blinds(8)and have only seen one mature buck. Most of the deer we have seen are the 2.5 and 3.5 year olds, some does and pigs. Most people think that you enter through the gate and a 160" deer is saying..."shoot me". Not saying that there isn't places HF or LF that this isn't the case, but most are not. The older the deer gets the smarter he is. Also to note: this is probably the largest deer we have ever had in our 13 years of management under high fence with native deer.

Those are 3 NICE bucks Tye!! I'd be proud of any one of them.

I am too for native deer. Maybe I'll get some better pics if I see any of them this weekend.

I especially like that big 10 on the right.....

Here is my opinion and I see all of your postings. 8 feet is not considered deer proof. I have seen this with my own eyes. Also. To have trophy deer you need nutrition, genetics and age. It is almost impossible for low fence ranches to have mature deer since some land owners shoot everything. The land owner next to you does not have the same management plan as you do.

Its possible on free range, you just have to go into a season knowing there's a good possibilty you won't be pulling the trigger.