Gundigest:
I can understand where you are coming from. But its not like breeding cattle. All your doing is allowing whitetails to reach a mature age and pretty much do what they would if humans werent around (i.e little hunting pressure). The guys that your referring to in your above post are guys who have the land,money, and time to take QDM to the next level. Which is a level that most hunters would love to be at, but cant. And I believe the "cant" is one of the reasons why there is so much resentment and lack of understanding towards high fences.
I do believe that there is a line that takes managing deer to far, and turns it into a livestock kind of deal. But this comes more from the guys who breed bucks, and draw semen, and try to produce a 300" rack. Most high fenced hunting, atleast in Texas, is not like this at all. I have never hunted on a ranch that has imported foriegn genetics. All of the land that I own and hunt on, have the exact same deer that have always been on the ranch. All we have simply done is erect a high fence, plant year around food plots, and try to let all bucks reach a mature age.
When you watch a hunting show on TV and they are sitting in an elivated rifle blind over alush green food plot with 15 deer running around and 8 of them are 8-14 point bucks (take your pick) that is not hunting, that is shooting.
No, thats called good management and the ranch owner and the manager should pat themselves on the back. You know good and well that if you where sitting on a public piece of land and could have an evening hunt like that, then you would see absoluty nothing wrong with it and think you where in heaven, right? Of course you would. So what does it matter if it happens on private land? Why is it ok for public but not private? I think I know why. And another thing, I have been on many, many ranches that did NOT have a high fence yet you would experience the same thing. There are tons of ranches in south Texas that are NOT high fencd yet they produce multiple bucks each and every year that score between 170-200"+ and this is on a consistant basis.
Putting up a chicken fence or cattle fence is nothing like a 10 ft high deer fence around 40-300 acres.
I think this is another major misconception. In Texas you would be hard pressed to find very many high fenced ranches that are that small. I personally have never hunted on a piece of property that was less then 300 acres and this goes for places that do not have a high fence. The smallest high fenced property that I have ever hunted on was 2,200 acres, the largest was 41,000 acres and was completly enclosed by a 7 ft perimeter fence. The largest high fenced ranch that I know of in Texas is 70,000+ acres and also has a 7ft perimeter fence. Most high fenced ranches in south Texas are in the 3,000-10,000 acre ranch with many being much bigger.
It really only benifites one person the guy collecting the check. The guy pulling the trigger would be just fine if he didn't make that hunting trip.
That goes for EVERYTHING in life except for food, water, and shelter. Nobody really needs anything to survive except for the bear essentials. That quote you made could be applied to millions of things. I mean only one person really benifites from a $50,000 car and thats the person who owns it. The guy writing the check would bejust fine if he didnt buy it.