Free Range vs. High Fence
#31
Typical Buck
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location:
Posts: 506
I have never hunted one either and I never would but I used to hunt in Texas with a buddy for turkey and he took me around to look at some of the high fence operations. Just amazing the money they must have in fencing alone . I agree with rockport as an outfitter on a free range whitetail hunt wouldn't it be great to guarantee a kill on a huge buck especially since you know the buck or bucks is there and can't leave ever ! I watched a hunting show once where they were hunting a couple huge mature whitetails with a crossbow and they bumped these two bucks several times but still kept seeing them and even in daylight. I thought man those bucks must be different than where I hunt as one bump and I'd never see them again especially in daylight. well at the end of the show they gave the name of the outfitter so I looked it up and guess what high fence. Also there is a good book by a Michigan biologist on a deer study they did over many years where they kept deer in a mile and a half enclosure to study. Well they knew everything about every deer in that enclosure !
#32
Typical Buck
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location:
Posts: 506
Also there is the anti hunting side of this. Most people I know believe that most hunters are fair chase and that hunting is not just walking out and shooting something. They have at least some respect for what we do but if they start to see that hunting is the rich shooting only big animals for trophy that are locked up on a private ranch where they can't escape well !!
#33
Also there is the anti hunting side of this. Most people I know believe that most hunters are fair chase and that hunting is not just walking out and shooting something. They have at least some respect for what we do but if they start to see that hunting is the rich shooting only big animals for trophy that are locked up on a private ranch where they can't escape well !!
#34
I have never hunted one either and I never would but I used to hunt in Texas with a buddy for turkey and he took me around to look at some of the high fence operations. Just amazing the money they must have in fencing alone . I agree with rockport as an outfitter on a free range whitetail hunt wouldn't it be great to guarantee a kill on a huge buck especially since you know the buck or bucks is there and can't leave ever ! I watched a hunting show once where they were hunting a couple huge mature whitetails with a crossbow and they bumped these two bucks several times but still kept seeing them and even in daylight. I thought man those bucks must be different than where I hunt as one bump and I'd never see them again especially in daylight. well at the end of the show they gave the name of the outfitter so I looked it up and guess what high fence. Also there is a good book by a Michigan biologist on a deer study they did over many years where they kept deer in a mile and a half enclosure to study. Well they knew everything about every deer in that enclosure !
I've hunted Northern Alberta twice. Up there the bush is so dense in places you can't see 15 feet and it goes on and on and on for miles and miles. It's hard to envision if you haven't seen it. I've driven through Northern Saskatchewan and Northern Manitoba, and of course, it's the same there. I'm willing to bet if 1,000 acres of that area was fenced off and some deer were turned loose, a hunter would have a very, very tough time killing one of those deer, but from what I've seen on tv most "estate hunts" are conducted in much more open habitat and they are baited.
#35
I've also read about a study where something like a mile square enclosure was fenced off and they collared a buck and turned a hunters loose and it took them hours and hours to even see the deer. It's been a long time ago since I read that article, but if I remember right someone finally did kill the buck but it took a long time. they knew where the buck was at all times and many times the hunters would be within a few yards of the buck and they never saw him.
I've hunted Northern Alberta twice. Up there the bush is so dense in places you can't see 15 feet and it goes on and on and on for miles and miles. It's hard to envision if you haven't seen it. I've driven through Northern Saskatchewan and Northern Manitoba, and of course, it's the same there. I'm willing to bet if 1,000 acres of that area was fenced off and some deer were turned loose, a hunter would have a very, very tough time killing one of those deer, but from what I've seen on tv most "estate hunts" are conducted in much more open habitat and they are baited.
I've hunted Northern Alberta twice. Up there the bush is so dense in places you can't see 15 feet and it goes on and on and on for miles and miles. It's hard to envision if you haven't seen it. I've driven through Northern Saskatchewan and Northern Manitoba, and of course, it's the same there. I'm willing to bet if 1,000 acres of that area was fenced off and some deer were turned loose, a hunter would have a very, very tough time killing one of those deer, but from what I've seen on tv most "estate hunts" are conducted in much more open habitat and they are baited.
#36
At least you are not wasting your time hunting where one of those may not even exist. Thats the thing, it would still be difficult to target a specific buck but being in a fence where 100 of them are known to exist is the difference. There is a difference between going to Saskatchewan and finding where a huge mature buck exist and going to Saskatchewan and paying someone to put you in a fence where 100 are known to exist.
#37
Good point for sure. With today's technology (trail cams), it's a whole lot easier to know where big bucks exist. How many people would hunt as hard as they do on any property if they didn't have pictures of big bucks? Trail cams have changed deer hunting like no other piece of technology that I can think of.......other than compound bows perhaps. But technology is another topic. I was just making the point that someone could hunt 1,000 acres of Canadian bush and know that there are big bucks there via the use of a trail cam... Still not the same as hunting an enclosure though for sure... It would still be interesting to see how many bucks would be killed in a 1,000 acre enclosure in the bush if say 25 were released several months in advance. Probably wouldn't be as difficult as a totally free range hunt, but knowing whitetails and how they adapt I'm guessing it wouldn't be as easy as people might think.
#39
A good friend has a small reservoir he stocked with perch several years back. It is no more than 4 acres or so. To keep the perch population from exploding he also put in a few Northern Pike. The Northern population exploded so he asked me to come out and catch some of the pike as the perch were nearly wiped out. We went out and caught a ton of them...couldn't keep them off the line. I'm not sure how many we caught but they ranged in size from about 8 pounds to 20 pounds or so. Could we have caught this many huge fish in a large lake where anybody could fish? No, we couldn't. People fish small reservoirs stocked with fish all the time.. The fish have nowhere to go. Is this really any different than hunting a high fence area? To me, it's not. It's fun and the fish taste good, but I don't see it as being much of a challenge. I certainly wouldn't put one of those fish on the wall, but people do all the time. For whatever reason in most peoples' minds fishing a stocked reservoir is ok and they have no problem mounting the fish they catch and bragging about them, but shooting a deer in a high fence area is frowned on regardless of how large the fenced in area is. I'm not saying either is right or wrong....Just saying it's interesting how we look at something that is somewhat similar so differently. I don't know of anyone who would consider a high fence operation as hunting, but everyone considers fishing a stocked pond as fishing.