AxisBluffRanch

Hi All....

I wasn't going to respond to the posts at first (well other than by PM) but feel I need to address a couple of things. First off...DBBLUNG...come down anytime you can, we would love to have you. And thank you for the nice comments. If there is anything we can do to accomodate you, we will certainly do our best. Secondly, BOCAJNALA...it is a shame that you have nothing other to do in your boredom than be so negative towards other people. But hey you can't please everyone and there are just those people in the world who thrive on negativity. Enough said. Next, DRIFTRIDER, I want to thank you as well for your post and would like to clear up a couple of things that you mentioned. The website is still a work in progress and you did make me catch a couple of things that perhaps I need to be more clear about on the website...just part of the process of working out the kinks but I want you and anyone else to be clear on our intentions and how we aim to do things at our ranch. Regarding the trophy fees, no there are normally no trophy fees. We do have a couple of very big blackbucks and a couple of Gold Medal Axis. Those do have a trophy fee and that is stated UP FRONT to anyone who is going to be hunting those species. All Super-Exotics have a trophy fee in addition to a day rate if one is harvested. We do have that any whitetails over 160 will have a trophy fee. All of this will be disclosed up front of anyone hunting those species. There will never be any surprises. We never have any trophy fee on rams, turkeys, or hogs. If someone comes in and kills that 450 pounder (hog) witha bow...right now that will cost them $200 (unless they choose to hunt more than 2 days) and they still get another hog as well. If someone shoots a piggy sow, and we feel it was by accident...we wouldn't enforce that replacement fee. But we do have to have replacement fees. If we do not, there will be hunters who will take advantage of the situation and that is unfortunate. It is up to us how strict we enforce it, but on something like hogs...it would have to be just a blatent disregard for our rules that would make us tack on a replacement fee on a hog. I do think I need to go and clarify some points on our website and will do so the next update I make as soon as possible. So I do again thank you for your statements. The whole point of a replacement fee (to us anyway) is to make sure the hunter can identify what they are shooting at and to discourage them taking a shot at something then cannot actually be sure of but do it anyway just because the animal is there. As for the high fence topic...I know this is a sore subject to some people....and I do understand it and their position. I, myself, at one time always thought of a high-fenced hunt as a canned hunt more or less. I have been on a few high-fence ranches now and I now have a different opinion on that. Most that I have hunted, I quickly learned that it is not an easy hunt (I bowhunt only). And, I have to say our place probably takes that to another level. Our ranch is VERY rugged with an incredible amount of cover. Precisely why we chose this place to purchase. We can have animals 5 yards away andmany people would never see them. This ranch was not previously hunted either, so the animals that were already there were not conditioned already. We have also put a lot of animals on this ranch ourselves. We do want the hunters to be successful, that is why we are here. But, because of the lay of our land and immense cover, the animals are not sitting ducks...which was my biggest fear when we began the search for our own ranch. We want fair hunts...whether it be on the high fence section or the low fence section. I will assure you that I will go back and clarify some points your brought up regarding the website and thank you again for bringing those up. It always helps to have someones outside perspective.

I won't solve the debate of high fence vs. anti high fence in my lifetime...but I will assure you and anyone else that we are hunters ourselves andthe main reason for opening this ranch is to open it up to the working men and women out there, while keeping it family-friendly, so that we can share what we all hopefully have a deep passion for. We looked at a lot of wonderful places and some not-so-wonderful places before settling on this ranch. And the main reason we have a high-fenced section AND a low fence section is so that we can accomodate many different folks...no matter what their taste. Thanks again for your comments.

Sincerely,
Bobbi Kay