RE: Preserve or free range hunt? White-tails
 

teejarrard,

With all due respect, I think it's you who have it wrong. It's been years since I saw a 130, I can't tell you what the biggest buck I've taken was, nor how I'd go about scoring it. I can tell you it came after a hard morning of brush-busting to find him in his bed on a rimrock at about noon, then a hard, three-mile hike back out with him.

That was almost twenty years ago now. Today, much of the range I used to hunt is closed off - why? Well, because of hunters. We "DEMAND" trophy deer, like the ones in the magazines and on all the TV shows. "130-plus". Gotta have it, or I'm not a good hunter. In response to that, a couple of operators with MONEY showed up on the doorsteps of the privatelandowners where I hunt and bought the hunting rights out from under the rest ofus. Gone are the days of helping a rancher brand or fix fence in the summer in return for a weekend hunt in the fall. Money talks. Worse, these "outfitters" and their "guides" stymie access through that private land to the public land beyond it by throwing up legal challenges to USFS and BLM accesses, effectively locking not only the private land up for their use, but OUR public land for their use as well. They'll sure let the FS or BLM in if there's a fire on the public side threatening their own trees, but not an instance otherwise.

What is their "use"? It's providing 130-plus deer to guys who have $5,000 to spend on a "deer hunt". Thanks to promotion of trophy hunting, not only are we the constant target of the antis, but we're fast pricing the average guy (who has as much right or more to hunt) out of hunting completely - and we have no one to blame but ourselves. Is that what your 130-plus deer is worth?

In the meantime, all the average guys are flocking to what accessible public land is left, which might explain why I haven't seen any deer bigger than 4x4 in the last ten years. If it has horns, it doesn't live very long these days on public land. So, you won't see many "trophy" bucks there - and that's fine by me.

RE: Preserve or free range hunt? White-tails
 

well said, Homersbrother!

RE: Preserve or free range hunt? White-tails
 

[8D]Hello Mr. MichiganWhitail74! I'm Loman owner of Coalfield Outfitters. We are located in Western Ky. We have about 800 acres to hunt. Our deer average 130 to 150 with some 160 class deer. We get $1200 for a three day hunt. This package includes everything except meals. I would be glad to send you a packet with some pictures.
[email protected]
Thanks,Loman

RE: Preserve or free range hunt? White-tails
 

If you really want to experience some fun hunting come down to Florida and i will take you running deer with dogs. You will forget all about trying to kill some giant buck when those hounds jump a deer. Not much for trophies, but its all fair chasebucks on 60,000 continous acres!

RE: Preserve or free range hunt? White-tails
 

Is it a high fence hunt or no fence hunt?

RE: Preserve or free range hunt? White-tails
 

If you want to "hunt", fair-chase is you're only option. If you simply are looking to kill, you should go into the business of being a cattle farmer or something. Hunting isn't and shouldn't be 100% about the kill. If if is, then you're missing the point.

Killing animals inside of an enclosure is not only unfair - but in my opinion, is going to be the demise of our sport. The whole point of hunting is working for it. That is the only reason I get "that feeling" when I kill something - because I've worked my butt off for it. Like anything in-life, the reward is only as great as the effort put forth to accomplish something.

For the record, if you want to kill a 130+ buck, you can do this pretty easily if you do you're homework with an outfitter in Illinois. PM me if you would like a reference for a good one that will put you on a property that can produce this size or bigger for a fraction of the pricing you are talking.