Pen Raised Deer
 

Went to lunch with a group from the office. Woman who I knew for years says to me she is going hunting for the first time this fall. Her new husband, who I met a couple times is taking her. I thought that was cool. She tells me about his two brothers operation they have in NE Kansas that she will be hunting on. One brother pen raises the deer and then turns him loose on on the other brothers ranch, which is of course is fenced and people pay big bucks to hunt there. She is going to hunt in the late season after all the clients are gone and they hunt the ranch. I told her that is fine and it sounds like a great business but she is not really hunting. She did not know any different and just asked why and I said that they are in a huge inclosure and can't excape, like shooting fish in a barrel. So week goes by and the husband calls me to tell me how wrong I am. He says there is nothing wrong with it. I tell him that it is a great money maker and he has broken no laws but when he takes time out to hunt this property he is not hunting. Not sure what I would call it he is doing but it is not hunting. He has called me several times with fact and figures and things. I told him you can send me all you want but I am not going to call that or you a hunter. Maybe I am the ignorant one here but how does anyone else feel. I think hunting in a high fence ranch is weak.

"High fence hunting" has been hammered for years. Maybe rightfully so. I am not sure. If it is a "small" place, certainly. But how large is large enough. I can buy into being inside a super large high fence area could be a "hunt", but in my opinion it would have to be 10's of thousands acres. And even then I think it would be possible to condition the deer .... loose feed stations, intentionally left standing ag, or manicured food plots , artificial watering holes .... and to more or less create a seriously "unnatural" make up of the deer herd's doe to buck ratio. I think that if you can drop the ratio of does to bucks down to 1 - 1 or even less ... 1 - 2, you create super breeding-rights competiton, resulting in a group of bucks that are very prone to responding to rattling or grunt-calls. I suspect that you NE Kansas buddy's high fence does not even approach something of this size. Which would make it a "shooting in a barrel" situation to me. And "pen raised" ? How wild are they ? I am not sure.

lots of factors to consider,
like other poster mentioned,
size of ranch,
pen raised? how conditioned to people are they?
i wouldnt bash others for what they consider or dont consider hunting,
i bow hunt, should i call all gun hunters cheaters?
if you look for natural pinch points such as water , and various other borders that can act as a fence,
is that cheating?
food plots/feeders?

as for guided hunts,
is it hunting to have some one else take you to a spot where THEY know the animals will be,
tell you where to set up,
and then tell you to shoot, shoot, take the shot!!!.

Points well taken. I believe it just a section, maybe a little more. Not thousands of acres. Ok, it could be harsh to call it not hunting. Maybe not my brand of hunting. I want to here other opinions whether they or in agreement with me or not and I respect them. Maybe I was a little smug to belittle the guy. It would probably be fun to see all those deer but I am against it.

Terasec - you are right, it is a slippery slope. I am sure other people say I am not hunting when it is gun season. I guess it is all point of view. I just wanted to check others point of view. Maybe I should not be so judgemental but some of the things he said we a little ridiculous and got me hot under the collar. He saw pen raised deer no different than wild deer, just the way they were raised. Well then that is totally different, raised in a pen and in the wild are different. Go turn a zoo tiger out in africa. He would not do so well. I guess now I am rambling. thanks for the input.

can understand your reaction
have the same reaction when i hear fenced and pen,
not really hunting,
but at the end of the day,
they spent day in the woods, got a deer to fill the freezer,
all legally, didnt take from wild deer population,
is it really that bad?

Pen raised deer that have just been turned loose - I would say that's not real hunting. Still hunting, but not real hunting.

Now, if you had several thousand acres within a fence and the deer were born and raised in the woods (not a pen) then I can see it being more like real hunting.

We have 3500 acres and I really only hunt a couple hundred of it. It would make no difference at all if the borders were fenced or just posted signs.

Depending on the type of terrain and ground cover on a section of land you could walk for days and never see a deer, depending on the deer population. It is her first time attempting to shoot a deer, wish her well and tell her to have a good time. She may enjoy the time and become a open/free lands hunter where all the top hunters go.

It's shooting a deer. A fine activity, nothing wrong with it, but not within my definition of "hunting."

I agree. :)

I guess to each their own. Some people like to shoot deer I'd rather hunt deer.

Thank you all for giving me a little perspective. Even if it is not my cup of tea I should not judge. There are far worse problems in hunting than high fences, poachers to name the biggest one. I will save my energy to argue with those type of people. I e-mailed them both and told them I was wrong to bash what he was doing. It is not my thing but neither is playing the piano but I do not make fun of that. I left it at that. To each his own.

I did not mean to steal your quote, I had not read your post before I posted mine.

A great part of why I like to hunt is spending as much time as is wise and needful to put you where the game is loacated in the hunting area. Scouting,deciding where to place stands or blinds and stalking the game is part of the whole hunting expierence. I'm using trail cams for the first time this year where ever I can to get a better idea of what and where they are at different times of the day. To be led by someone who has done this for me as well as all the hard work of hanging stands or placing blinds would at this time take away from my hunting expierence so it's not for me. Free chase is more exciting to me and if I'm successful I have a sense of accomplisment I think would be missing in the paid hunt situation. But as I age I might have the need to let someone else do all that prep for me and would be glad to get a deer that way,but not at this time.

I am happy you sent them an apology. This has always been a touchy subject and not one to air out with a first timer for sure.

If somebody wants to hunt in a pen, over bait, over an ag field, over sex lures, with a spear, with a crossbow, with a long bow, with a shotgun, with a rifle, with dogs or any other means of LEGAL hunting, I DON"T CARE as long as it doesn't interfere with my hunting. Just don't try to tell me, or anybody else as far as that goes, how to legally hunt. Is that fair enough?

Canned hunts?
 

I've never wanted to, or had to. I pretty much tag out every year prior to firearm season.:party0005:

[quote=Alltlk4;3813622 Go turn a zoo tiger out in africa. He would not do so well.[/quote]


Yeah, especially since tigers don't live in Africa.

i have listened to this arguement for alot of years, and both sids have vary valid points.
i know a man that raises deer to sell to high fence ranches, he has a 31/2 yr old deer that scored 256 off of the shed antlers. now this lady coworker and her husband that you are telling about have a chance to go shoot a large deer for ( probably ) nothing. now i haven't taken a poll but i'm pretty dang sure that every HUNTER that i know would jump at the chance to kill a 170 or bigger buck for free,reguardless of how they argue the point of, is it or aint it considered hunting.
hogshooter

very good point hogshooter. I probably wouldn't ever pay for one but I would take an invite in a second.

Mark that down as something I have learned. Should have said Lions or Tigers in China. Well at least we cleared that up.

cc:cool15:

I'm one of those people that don't believe that is hunting, I've visited a few of these places when I was a kid and was in awe by the deer. One was on a 500 acre spot high fenced and they bragged about having an enormous amount of deer. A number that nature wouldn't able to sustain. It kind of made me wonder.

I guess the thing that did it for me was how are these deer different from cattle? I could raise a calf or fawn for 6 months, let it go with a fence around it and go out and shoot it 2 years later. I wouldn't hunt a cow so why would I hunt a deer that was raised the exact same way. Most of these farmed raised bucks are bottle fed for the first few months of their lives too. That's just my opinion, not trying to convince anyone otherwise. Just thought I voice my thoughts.

Personally I love Hunting Free-Ranging Deer,Fair Chase is the way I enjoy Deer Hunting and that's what I'll probably do til the day I die.


One question I have....when Hunting in a "Fenced Area" are You allowed to enter a large Buck in the "Boone & Crocket" or "Pope & Young" Record Books?

No, you cannot enter a high fenced buck for the record book. There have been many high fenced bucks killed that would have shattered existing records. Even local deer contests will not allow high fenced bucks to be entered. It's just not fair.

If someone wants to pay all that money to shoot a deer in a pen l see nothing wrong with that. It's there money and there bussiness.They aren't taking a animal out of the wild and it is very unlikely you will ever see those people in the woods. So why worry about it.

I do have a problem with a couple of the guys on this thread that said it isn't hunting and I certainly agree with that, but then they say they would do it if somebody offered them a free hunt in one of those places. Seems a little hypocritical to me! I might go in one just to see and take pictures of some great racks, but no way would I ever shoot an animal under canned conditions where the animal didn't have the same chance of survival as if the fence wasn't there. Just MHO!!!

i'm thinking if im standing in the middle of a large or small acerage and i see a deer to shoot as long as i use good hunter skills i have a good chance to kill the buck it dont matter if i m in a hi fence or not. that deer has the chance to escape if i dont do my job.
i highly dought that you will ever find a deer that will NOT take off from the sight or smell of you , high fence or not.
the only place i have ever seen that deer dont get nervous when people are around is when you are in a preserve where there is NO HUNTING and people just drive through and look at the animals
you guys act like as soon as the high fence goes up that deer automaticly get stupid

The big picture is, they are on our side as far as hunting goes. Why get all upset about (their) choice and ways they choose to participate, as long as its LEGAL. EVERYONE HAS A RIGHT TO HUNT AS THEY LIKE, as long as it's legal!!!:)

These are all good points. Yes it is 300+ acres and they can run away and you can miss or they bust you. This is all true, however these deer are raised in a pen. For several years and feed by humans. After 2-3 years of, people = food these deer will not be so cautious when they see a hunter. They have no reason to fear man. Some of these deer a released to the "hunting" area days before the season. I saw a show just 2 days ago, I believe it was Alan Warren outdoors. They were at a deer farm. The deer were in pens no bigger that a football field. They brought them food supplements and such each day. These deer in no way acted like wild deer. I can't quite decripe it but it was like a happy carefree attitude. I have never seen a wild deer act like this before. Once they get out of their pen and moved to be hunted they are not going to all of a sudden gain all these wild instincts.

hogshooter---You obviously aren't familiar with how these types of places operate. Once you habituate a deer to feed and humans it doesn't matter if they are in a bigger area because they have lost their wild instincts. Those places also keep feeders out and it just isn't hunting. I was helping at a "Women in the Outdoors" day that our NWTF turkey chapter sponsors and one of the ladies was showing a couple of us instructors some pictures of a big buck she had shot. She was out with a guide in upper MI as it turns out and they were in a tower blind. The buck came in and she spooked it when she hit her gun barrel on the side of the blind. The guide told her not to worry because the buck would be back. Sure enough, in a few minutes he was back at the feed trough and bang!!! That buck cost $5000 and she thought that was hunting. We just said "nice deer" and shook our heads as we walked away. That place is called "The Sanctuary" and the famous John Wooters who wrote for Petersens Hunting Magazine "hunted " there once and wrote an article with the picture of a 160 class buck he shot and I lost all respect for him as he was supposed to be "the whitetail guru" of his time! The big ranches in Texas where they have thousands of acres and the deer are free ranging and reproduce naturally is a completely different situation than what we are talking about and is pretty much a fair chase hunt.

PS: Alan Warren and his "hunts" both suck and it's a shame that type of stuff is put on TV!!!

its a ruining a great sport. i bet there are more farm raised deer in the record then you think.

Texas is the high fence capital of America. Most of the high fence ranches in Texas are 1000 acres or less.

Ok, let's take this in another direction. I think my intent in this post was to see if I was alone on pen raised deer and fenced hunting. I think I have learned myself that although I may not like it and it is not for me, I don't have any reason to bash it. Just let it role off my back, I will hunt the way I want and they can do what they want to and spend what they want to. But how can the record books be affected. I know that a deer must be fair chase but what if one of these deer escapes. Can they be entered in B&C or P&Y. Is there any way to tell if they were raised in this manor. Does anyone know of a case where a pen rasied deer was entered or attempted to be entered in any book. I would like to hear more about that. That is something that does affect the everyday hunter.

Sorry, but I have to disagree with that stance. IMHO the negative publicity of these places does an awful lot to hurt all of us fair chase hunters because the antis try to make everyone believe that it's the norm, rather than the small percentage it is. P&Y and B&C do not allow anything but fair chase animals into their books, but I believe SCI has a section just for high-fenced animals that are taken. If an animal escapes from an enclosure and is killed by a hunter during what would be considered a normal hunt, as far as I know it would be eligible for entry. I'm sure the hunt would really be scrutinized though before final acceptance.

The "anti's" don't like any form of hunting, regardless of whether it's free-range, a 100,000 acre high fence, or a 500 acre high fence. The PETA types don't want anyone hunting, and this is simply a divide and conquer issue for them. They like seeing the "free rangers" at the throats of the "high fencers."

My first "hunt" was on a high fenced place that was participating in a TPWD study prior to implementation of antler restrictions in the area. Hunted from a box blind near a food plot. Really wasn't any different from the box blind hunts I've done on "low-fenced" ranches... You sit there and wait for the deer to wander by, and hope that one who meets the ranch standards for a "shooter" shows up. The deer acted exactly the same way as "wild" deer. Only real difference was in the age structure of the herd.

Is it any different than tossing out a salt block, or baiting beer??

I hunt in NY,where it's fair chase, no bait, no fence, and more often than not, Bambi wins. They either sniff me out, or bust me another way, or whatever, but they are very keen.

I know there out there. The rubs are there. The droppings are there. but they are very keen.

I do not advocate making this illegal just as I would not want to see it made illegal for a farmer to slaughter a chicken or a pig. My problem is with it being called hunting. We used to occasionally slaughter a hog on my grandfathers farm. We just didn't call it a hunting trip. And we sure as hell didn't film it and try to act like we had pulled off some great feat of skill.

Let's state our objectives (let's assume we are legally hunting):

1) To make a one shot kill, killing the animal as quickly and humanely as possible with very little room for error.

2) To hunt safely and ethically.

3) To recover that which we take.

4) To have fun.

Would anyone argue? Moreover, isn't this what the public demands from us when they grant us the priviledge to hunt?

If you agree, then what could possibly be better than killing a sitting duck in a pond, ten yards away, with a single shotgun blast, and then wading out in a foot of water to pick it up? From an ethical point of view, isn't this the best way to meet the objectives? The aesthetics of wing/pass shooting the duck may add more fun (try it with a bow), but it does very little to increase implication of the other objectives listed. Think about it guys...

The bottom line, we're arguing over aesthetics. Are you such a purist that you cannot let someone hunt over decoys...what about the use of mojo motion decoys. Should those be banned? If your are a purist, why not hunt the way you like and let other's do what they like. Certainly, we all have varying abilities which we try to use to full potential. The point being, "I'm not you and you're me. Leave me alone and I'll leave you alone." Why does someone else's aesthetics have to be exactly like yours? Get over it!

Fair chase? How many of you hunt the same spot over and over again from year to year? Wouldn't it be more fair if you moved to a new site and actually had to hunt without having the benefit of KNOWING? You see how deep the aesthetic can go?

As hunters our base, less than 10% of the population, is pretty narrow. Let's not chip away at it any further. Employ your ways and let me employ mine. Remember the objectives!

You equate having a working knowledge of deer movements and where best to hunt on your land with shooting a penned semi domesticated animal and acting like it was a hunt? Aaaah, no, I don't see any similarity there.

Define "hunt" Todd. Isn't it the act of conducting a search for something? Would you agree in both cases a "hunt" is being conducted? It's the aspect of "accomplishment" stemming from "Aesthetic" that's giving you the snag . For you, certainly one is easier than the other. However, for the paraplegic/the stroke victim/the amputee (to name a few) one provides a controlled safe degree of success whereas the other doesn't. Are you going to deny that individual because his abilities (or lack thereof) aren't yours? Define "trophy" Todd. I'm sure your definition isn't the same as mine. I'm sure your definition isn't exactly the same as anyone's. Once you accept the fact that hunting is loaded with millions of variables you'll be able to move past the clutter. Hunt for you and only you. Let others do the same for themselves.

Anyone care to analyze the variables? I'll start with "time". I have more time than you...time of year...time of day...all the time in the world...time to observe...

I don't think it's hunting. To me all it is, is target shooting with a live target. In my mind real hunting is something in the wild where you take a chance of finding the animal on your own by reading the land. Sure it's ok to use a few tricks here and there like food plots or salt licks, and apple scent that's fine. But in a high fence enclosure where you're guaranteed to take one? That's just cheating. And it's unfair to the animal.

Now as far as disabled hunters go, like iamyourhuckleberry was saying, I'm ok with it. But I don't think it should be ok for people who are in fine condition. Then they are just lazy. But maybe I just see everything in black and white.

Just my 2 cents.