Red, that's for the Head Hunters not for the Frezzer Hunters.
If a hunter wants a B&C or P&Y that's his business and I wish
them all the luck in the world. I believe a man has the right to
hunt the way he can afford and the way he wants to. Who are we
to judge how we should hunt or how to do it?

Guys go and do your thing and enjoy yourselves and the creation
God gave you!

Red-You may be right about the record books. But the jist of what Deercorn is saying is pretty right on. Thats what I was trying to say as well. You should have the right to hunt however you see fit as long as it benefits hunting over-all. There is a lot of "trickle down economics" from the armchair types and feed-lot ranches sporting well fed genetically engineered animals for trophies etc. And if you think that's hunting (with or without fences)-God Bless Ya!! Guides are fine. I'd like to be one every now and then. But where I hunt a guide is more like a friend that just happens to hunt a heckuva lot and knows where the game is that particular day-maybe. Someone I'd definitely hire if I went to Montana, Wyoming or Idaho wilderness if I could afford it. But I'd still research the area fully on my own before I went. Interesting though, when my pals and I go hunting we all hunt alone. Sometimes we communicate with walky-talkys, but only at designated times and only if we are not working an animal. Guides are fine, I'm not really harping on the guide thing here at all. Rather, the TV ranches where they drive you out to a blind, drop you off and say good luck......the very word h-u-n-t means to go find,look for something. Kind of like hide and go-seek. Well, if one person in that game always just gets to hide....would it be fair...or fun? To me it was always the most fun to seek rather than hide. Most of the fun of hunting for me is in the preparation and the seeking and finding. And, finding place on public land that are overlooked or thought of as difficult because you might have to walk.I thank God for every type of Law abiding hunter though, for many of the reasons outlined in Deercorns post.

Thanks for the correction Red.
I think my point is clear. I know of 2 individuals who signed up last year for different south Texas trophy whitetail hunts. They both were shown videos and pictures of deer - literally nicknamed - and were asked which one they wanted to chase. Both of them ended up shooting the deer they chose, bowhunting, at feeders.
High fence or not, these are raised deer, watched as they mature, and harvested when ripe.

These guys are what most of the record bookhunters of the future will be.

Suits me, as you noted, I know and care little about the books and will never submit an animal to them. It's just not important to me.

I hunt private land because there is ussually less hunting pressure. This doesn't mean the deer come waltzing right in or that another hunter might not mess up your set-up. It's the same as public land hunting, but you know it's the same few other hunters in the area, and you can coordinate with them. To say it's not hunting is idiotic, and juvinile. As far as guides go, that's hunting too. Maybe some of these guides practices need a little refinement, but that's where each individual hunter has to decide what he will accept. I look at it this way. Scouting is part of hunting, but for whatever reason (ussually distance) one can't get out and scout, so a guide is hired to do it. Now, in some cases the area being hunted is so large that even if you could scout it yourself it would take you a couple months to figure out what the deer are doing. ( I know, one good deer trail is all it takes to fill the freezer. Some people hold out for a racker. It's their choice.)

Now. If I owned 500,000 acres in Texas, or Kansas, and I wanted to shoot a big mature deer, and wanted my guests, and my friends to do the same what would I do? I think I would probably plant some food plots, suplimented with feeders, and make rules about what constituted a mature deer. I wouldn't worry about fences, the deer probably wouldn't leave my propery, it's big. After a couple years I can only imagine that there would be a lot of big, mature bucks on the property. Between me, my father and the handful of deer hunting friends we have( about 5 )the pressure would be minimum. Sound good? It's called managing your land, and this is a very basic look at it. It's also what most South Texas ranches do, but they allow hunters on for a fee, and hire guides to assure that the huntershavegood chance toharvest deer.

Anyway,.....

I think hunting with a guide is still hunting and here's why. Here's a question;If I take a 14 year old kidwho has never hunted in his\her life and I put that kid on a deer and he\she connects did that child go hunting? Finding game is only one aspect of hunting. Just because someone else knows an area better and puts you on game doesn't mean you didn't hunt. Yes maybe you hunted with a handicap but you are still hunting. One aspect of hunting was done for you. Anytime you have to sight in your rifle or tune your bow and you are in the woods, fields, mountains chasing wild animals where there are no fences and you are the one who makes the shot you are hunting.

Private property doesn't even matter. Hunting private property is easier than public ground usually simply because of pressure and/or management practices. But it's still hunting.

YES!!!!! took the words right out of my mouth. it is just plain idiotic to say that hunting on private land in general isn't hunting. in some cases this may be true with high fenced crap but where i hunt in ky there aren't fences other than an old barbed wire fence but it's still private land. by no means is hunting on private land a sure thing. i've been hunting on my family's property in ky for years and i just got my first one last year and i had to work for it to.

bowedark's ideas on guiding may have some good intentions but they are extremely one sided and definately don't look at the big picture or at certain situations where things are different. but that could just be me. but saying that managing land and such on private land should prohibit animals from being entered in a record book is a bad idea unless of course it's the pen raised type stuff. ..... well i'm done for the time being.

There is a VAST array of differences between one end of the spectrum to the other on this subject. From the high fenced game ranch where the owner says shoot that one when he lifts his head out of the grain feeder. To the western rancher who has a few thousand acres bordering several hundred thousand public acres who drives you around the ranch then gives you the keys to the ranch p/u and says we been seein a big un down by that water tank in the north canyon. I had a chance to hunt Bison VERY reasonably and passed because they had gathered the bison into a pasture of about 150acres and you got shoot them based on a size/price basis. It wasnt my thing.

The problem with the most stubborn of posters on this topic is from the minority that equate hunting a quality private "free range" area with a guide is no different than a canned hunt in a 5 acre pen. There is a DISTINCT difference, but for a few who know they will never have that chance yet secretly wish so, they must convince themselves that they are better for dodging the orange army each weekend on public land!

I have never hunted on a high fence area, but have hunted on a large ranch in south TX (large by most standards, but at 50k acres it is small by south TX standards) and the place had one border that was 12 miles long and the average width of the ranch was over 3miles wide. The majority of the deer on that place NEVER would even see a fence if there was one there. Besides, the fence isn't to "contain" the deer as most who have never been there think. It is to keep poor genes out and to be able to keep some sort of semblence of a proper herd number and to also keep poachers/trespassers out.

Anyone who knows anything about REALLY hunting large, quality, free range places in TX and KS know that mature animals are rarely taken around feeders. They are just as smart as bucks anywhere else, does your typical 3 year old 8ptr saunter out onto a foodplot in broad daylight after opening weekend? If the TV shows have done anything, they have given a bad rap too ALL commerical hunting locales on the continent. I agree, a penned animal is NOT hunting, but to equate them with being guided on a quality free range (or even a large high fenced area) is just not the same. But I realize I aint gonna change any opinions for the naysayers anymore than they are gonna change my opinion!
RA

manboy, read your own state laws about non-resident hunting. It is required by Wyoming law to hire a licensed guide, "registered" with the Wyoming outfitters organization to be able to hunt "wilderness areas". I cannot hire a friend to guide! That's what makes it so difficult to hunt Wyoming wilderness areas for a non-resident.

Good old "bowdark" had this very same thread going on a local BB here in WI. He's a pot stirring individual...no doubt. Although he was under a different "alias", as many people like to pound their chests on public forums...must make them feel good I guess?