Ok Dep: You have just inherited a 10,000 acre ranch and a $1 million bank account from your rich uncle. You go down and check out your new ranch. You find that on 2 sides of your ranch the land has been bought and subdivided into 10 acre "ranchettes" and most of them have a deer blind and a couple of feeders on them. The ranch foreman says that very seldom does anyone see or kill anything bigger than a forkhorn on your ranch. You know for a fact that some of the little "ranchers" take 10 deer/year off their 10 acres. Your ranch supplies feed, cover, etc all year for the deer and some guy with 10 acres calls them across the fence and shoots them. Decisions, decisions: if you continue as is, the herd is unbalanced with very few mature bucks to breed the does, and no good antlers. OR you could consider putting up a deer proof fence and manage your deer numbers for a healthy herd with good numbers of mature bucks. If the deer had a choice, which do you think they would vote for?

You can say that "trophy" hunters are bad, but one of the reasons I hold out for a trophy is that I know I have really triumphed as a hunter when I kill a "big-un". Those guys don't get really big by being stupid and it takes a really good "hunter" to bag one, even on a ranch with a high fence. I may only shoot a buck every 3-4 years. I do kill 2-3 does/year for meat. If horns aren't important, why don't you just shoot a doe. That may not be an option where you are, but here in the Texas hill country we try to shoot twice as many does as bucks due to the large number of deer.

What? It was my uncle that left the ranch to me? I am calling the fencing crew as we speak!

Edited by - txhunter58 on 11/08/2002 13:20:29