Free Range vs. High Fence
 

Yup, a very controversial issue but I've been thinking about it lately (thinking about the difference between the two). For what it's worth, I've never hunted anything behind a high fence and probably never well. I don't have that much money! Having said that, I'm not against it....to each their own. Mention "High Fence" to a whitetail deer hunter and most of the time you are going to be looked down at like you're lower than whale poo... :party0005: But wait a minute, those same guys who frown on hunting a deer behind a high fence have no problem fishing in a pond stocked with fish. Ditto for hunting birds that are released (many states release pheasants) and many guys hunt shooting preserves for pheasants and other birds. Pretty much all of the hunting you see on tv in New Zealand is behind a high fence and many of the "Safari's" in Africa are on game farms. But mention a high fence hunt for a whitetail deer and suddenly everyone has an opinion. I just watched a show where Jim Shockey was hunting elk in New Zealand... Behind a high fence. I think he made a good point on this show...he said sometimes you hunt for the challenge and sometimes you hunt just because it's fun and this hunt was a lot of fun.

So, what is it about whitetails that people see differently? I suppose (for me anyway) a lot would depend on the size of the area fenced in. Is a deer in a 5,000 acre preserve (just throwing out a number there) less of a challenge than a deer on a 200 acre lease where food plots are used to keep the deer home, no one else can hunt, etc.? Just tossing out some food for thought.

If I had an extra $15,000 burning a hole in my pocket (or whatever it is one of these hunts cost), I'm probably going to go chase a moose or a caribou somewhere! But that's just me....

Fish are not deer. Just fish. Also the game clubs with birds, are just an easter egg hunt to work the dogs. I have done it. I had fun. But I know what it is. It was not one of these that tie them up. It was still a challenge,

Funny thing, lots of SD pheasants come from WI. Its a big tourist draw they need birds.

Texans hunt game ranches a bit I think. I suppose if big enough. I don't know if you brag quite as much about it, atleast I probably wouldn't.

As far as 200 acre lease verus ranch. The lease isn't fenced in. Are the ranches using bait too? Not quite same I am thinking. Cause someone else can shoot from the neighbors. Not saying I wouldn't do it. But I am not making an effort to do it. I can hunt deer, so why bother? Not trophys. But I am not going to bother going ranch for trophy. I would rather go Canada or farm country.

But I do realize there is still aspect of hunting. Got get deer to come in, without knowing you are there, and such. Just not making an effort to do it. If buddy called and said hey want to go next weekend we got an opening, and wasn't to expensive. I probably would.

Yup...there are a lot of factors and opinions on issues like this. Yes, deer can leave a 200 acre lease (or land you might own), but except for the rut why would they if they have good cover, food plots, and zilch for pressure? In my mind I don't see a high fence hunt a whole lot different than a piece of leased ground where the deer are not pressured and are allowed to grow old. I think we've all seen the hunting shows where multiple large bucks come into a food plot on a lease. Most of us who hunt public land or have to knock on doors never will experience hunting like that. I'm not knocking those who have the money and put in the work to get a lease, put in the food plots, etc.. I know it's a lot of work. I'm just saying that in my mind it's not a whole lot different than hunting a high fence operation. Now, I'm sure those who have a lease, put in food plots, etc. are going to rake me over the coal but that's just my humble opinion. Like they say, that in a buck might get you a cup of coffee.

Of course baiting is a whole other topic... Some people get irate when they watch a tv show with a pile of corn sitting in front of blind, but then grab their coat and go and sit over their food plot.... Isn't a food plot just a really big bait pile? :confused0024: Again, I really have no problem with baiting... Can't do it here in Montana, but might if it were legal.

I think the bottom line is if people enjoy something and have fun and it's legal, go for it. If someone enjoys their lease, putting in the food plots, baiting (where legal), hunting a high fence operation, etc. who am I (or anyone else) to judge them? Same goes for using technology (another debate).. If someone enjoys all the bells and whistles and someone else prefers going "Old school", who are we to judge either of them? It's all about having fun and getting outside (and away from the video games, cell phones, etc.)....

I can understand someone wanting to KILL a "X" animal or??
but when your in a HIGH fence its NOT hunting to me, as the cards are stacked in your favor,
you KNOW what is there, how many, and odds are if its a long time running operation, you have them patterned to a science!
all factors minus weather are pretty much in control of the operation and those that run it
YES very large fenced in places are more wild LIKE< but there still fenced in, push things towards a fence and 2ell, sooner or later they have NO where to go
try that on wild animals that have NO fence to stop them!

so, if you want to SHOOT things in a fenced in area, I would never call it HUNTING
but to also be honest, I think a lot of modern ways, folks CLAIM they are hunting, is far from what HUNTING really is
folks (and NOT bashing, just saying)
that have there own land, plant food that draws animals, and then hunt out of almost HOUSE like enclosures, playing video games or surfing the web while they wait to SHOOT something, in the comforts of home)
or honestly folks shooting animals are super far distances
the skills to HUNT, have been lost by far too many IMO
I seldom watch hunting shows as I find them piss poor examples of hunting
I see them over joyed about killing, lie thru there teeth as almost anything they shoot is a MATURE""" what ever
they shoot things in poor angles and poorly decisions to MAKE a kill happen on a hunt on film
they many time whine about hunting 4 days or so and STILL DIDN"T kill anything? as if they entitled to kill something every time they enter the woods!
pretty much ONLY hunt prime private lands catered to killing animals
they are driven next to the tree or blind they will hunt out out??
they WAY too often show terrible gun and archery safety, constantly showing video of them pointing guns and drawn bows at the camera?
what ever happen to never point a gun or bow at something your NOT planning to shoot? all the more so if a camera man is behind that camera??

I see NO skills as far as HUNTING goes anymore
no one seems to FIND there own lands and track deer, they all rely on modern equipment way more than pure hunting skills(game camera's google earth, drones, or others to to the leg work!)
yet they all CLAIM to be TRUE Hunter
yet all they do is push products and well, SHOOT things on camera?
like used car salesmen more than hunters IMO
but I am old I guess and grew up in a different time when hunting just meant something else than what it is today!
SO< high fence? IMO< is NOT hunting period
you might be chasing animals, but HUNTING, I call it that at all!

I would never pollute either my game pole or my wall with a deer taken behind a high fence. If it comes down to having to hunt that way I'll sell all my rifles and go fishing.

So, when you sell your rifles and go fishing will it be in a stocked pond? :sign0004:

More seriously, I hear you but I'm old and grew up when hunting was pretty much entirely about the hunt, putting meat on the table, etc. People counted points, but all of the big buck contests were based on a deer's field dressed weight. I'd never heard of B&C until I read a story in Outdoor Life about a father and son who killed a 160 and a 180 buck. I thought they were taking about the deer's weight and couldn't figure out why the story was in a magazine. People had bucks mounted back then but not just based on how big they were. I can recall many small forkhorns and basket racked bucks that were someone's first buck. Now I love a big old rack as much as the next guy...for sure, for sure. If you love deer hunting, who doesn't? If I went out and shot the first legal deer I saw my hunting season would last about one hour. So, I do hold out for a nice buck.

Game farms aren't legal in Montana anymore. They outlawed them several years back. There might be a couple around that were grandfathered in, but other than that there aren't any. We do have some pheasant shooting preserves. I have never been to one but I'm guessing the birds don't fly too well from what I've heard. I don't know if people pollute their walls and freezer with birds they shoot on preserves or not. But I know guys who have polluted their wall and freezer with stocked fish. :poke:

We have game lands in PA smaller than some High fence operations in the west, specifically Texas. When there are thousands of acres to hunt and baiting is not allowed or done and the herd is not supplemented by pen raised deer and the reproduction is inside thousands of acres, there is very little difference from a public hunting ground or any other private ground,except you must pay to hunt there. There is very little difference between leased land for deer hunting and managing the buck harvest and hunting a high or low fenced operation that is comprised of a huge amount of land so long as the reproduction is natural. I am not talking about a couple of hundred acres that that have pen raised deer put in for a client. Some of the high fence operations in Texas have more exotic animals than the country the animals came from and some of those animals are being shipped back to where they came from to restore the populations in those countries. The Black buck from India is an example. There are more Black buck in Texas than in India and they are sending Texas Black bucks to India to supplement the population and restore the population. This is just one example. You need to learn how beneficial some of the high fence operations are to some species of wildlife.

For what it is worth I have taken both blackbuck and auodad here in TX many years ago. But they were free range on a ranch that didn't have any fence more substantial the 3 strand barbed wire.




And I have shot bison in MT that were not fenced after they left Yellowstone and were hitting a ranchers hay supply for the winter.



You can get game without it being fenced in.

Splitting hairs a little are you not?

I have not hunted high fence or barb wire, so I can't say for sure. But if the place is big enough, I doubt is picking the one you want, and jus shooting it. I got cameras. I know there are deer here I have not had a chance to shoot.

I also don't get the dis on leased land. I own land, and have hunted public. I suppose for city people they are so used to people all over. But I have hunted plenty of land with no pressure, and deer just bedded down.


I am not going to get to righteous either way. Some people are full of it, in my opinion, and drama queens. I think some people are really splitting hairs, in the direction they prefer,

Guided hunt? Big ranch? Private/lease? All have similar aspects unless a tiny ranch, which I am sure people go to, too. It seems like the more you get to big cities, you have more of it. Where I am from we have lots of public land. But some people don't have that. You hear about TX hunts where you pay based on size of deer. I am glad around here the government stays out of what I shoot, and we don't have those ranches. But I am sure they are fun in their own way.

High Fence operations exist because there are people willing to pay to shoot animals there.. Why? I can't answer that as I'm the last one who will ever figure out human nature and what drives people to do what they do. I read something somewhere or another that talked about why people save antlers. I can't recall if it was an anthropologist or just someone theorizing about it, but humans have been doing it for thousands of years. One theory is that the hunter who killed the biggest, baddest animal was the most desirable to the women...they were seen as the best provider. Don't know if that is true or not, but I guess it kind of makes sense (I'm not sure how women would feel about that theory. :). If it's true, maybe it's in our DNA to seek out the biggest critters and thus, the need/desire for some folks to hunt high fence areas. Shoot, I don't know but I know folks are obsessed with antlers. I used to like hunting shed antlers with my dogs, but it's gotten to the point here where it's more difficult to get permission to hunt for sheds than it is to hunt in the fall.. I kid you not! There is something about antlers that makes some people go to unbelievable extremes to put them on the wall. I''m sure everyone knows poachers who have paid thousands of dollars in fines, lost their hunting licenses for life, etc. just for the sake of a set of antlers.

So, I guess someone paying thousands of dollars to kill something behind a high fence isn't all that bizarre. Of course there are those who will shoot a whopper critter behind a high fence and then pass it off as being free range. I know a fellow who went up to Saskatchewan and killed a whopper bull elk. He showed me the antlers and was bragging it up.............until I happened to ask him how he could go there and hunt elk as elk hunting in Saskatchewan is for residents only....he kind of stammered around a bit and then fessed up that he'd gone to a hunting preserve there. I really didn't care one way or the other, but it was interesting to see his reaction when I called him on it. Kind of ruined his day (and probably his trip). But hey, if you are going to hunt a high fence area and you enjoy doing it, I have no problem with it......just don't make it out as something it wasn't.. Just say, "Ya, I shot this on a preserve"...No problem for me if that's how someone wants to spend their money.

I hunted caribou with a fellow a few years back who had been all over the world hunting. He's in his 80's now and is still hunting. I got to know him pretty well and asked what he thought about high fence hunts. We had a good conversation about them. He said he'd hunted several over the years and that some are a joke and some you wouldn't know you were hunting a high fence area if you didn't know beforehand. I asked him if he'd hunted any whitetails behind a high fence and he said he did one time.. Can't recall where it was, but he said it was several thousand acres and the bucks were released in the winter right they'd shed their antlers.....several months before they were hunted. From what he said, they revert back to their wild state very quickly. Or at least they did where he hunted. He said they had trail cam photos of several bucks that no one ever saw during daylight hours. At any rate, it was interesting... He's the only one I've ever known who hunted a high fence operation for anything...

I'm glad to see this thread has stayed civil so far. Nice job!

as far as high fence hunting..... It's not for me. But I have no problem with it. If it's legal, and you want to do it..... Then I think you should do it.

Reminds me of a conversation I had recently. A young (surprisingly) Harley rider made a comment along the lines of "you can't be a real biker unless you're on a Harley".... Now, things like this don't bother me. But sometimes you feel like picking up the rope and playing tug of war.

So we began to discuss what would make a "real biker." Apparently someone like me.... Who has had 30,000 mile years in the past. Who has had years where ive ridden every single day from Easter until Thanksgiving ( I live up north, I swear there was snow flying some of those mornings!) Who took a 7,000 mile road trip at the age of 16 on a 600 Honda Shadow and saw things like Yellowstone, Rocky Mountain national Park, Rushmore and the black hills, etc for the first time. None of those things make me a "real biker"

​​​​​​To be a real biker I need to own a Harley, join a club and go to poker runs.

I guess my point is..... To each their own. I'm not going to look down on someone who chooses to hunt a high fence operation. Heck, if I had a bunch of money I'd love to hunt some of those huge ranches in Texas.

My only issue is when someone lies about it and tries to pass it off as free range.
​​​​​​Other than that.... Enjoy yourself . That's what hunting is about

-Jake

You make some good points... Few things are more controversial than the different aspects of hunting. Start talking to most any hunter (or non-hunter) and your going to get opinions on what constitutes hunting and what doesn't.. You'll have those who have their opinions on what equipment should be used and what shouldn't. There will be opinions on baiting, use of dogs, and on and on. High fence vs. free range is just one issue.

I can remember when slow pitch softball first became popular. Prior to that most towns had a town baseball team where I grew up. The men played every Sunday afternoon in the summer. Then fast pitch softball became popular. A few years later slow pitch became extremely popular, but the "Old School" guys thought it was a joke. Many refused to play. The town baseball teams died out, but a few guys got a small league up and going and revived it. I don't know if it's still going or not. I played a lot of baseball in my younger years.... hight school baseball, legion ball, fast pitch in the service, and eventually slow pitch. Slow pitch was pretty easy and pretty much anyone could play and have fun. Slow pitch was a lot of fun but It's about as close to baseball as free range is to hunting a high fence area... So, for some maybe it's not so much about the challenge and difficulty as it is to relax and have fun.

I think high fence operations maybe have their place. Maybe for the elderly who just can't get out and hunt like they did in their younger day or maybe for the disabled? I don't know. Most of us will never do it so all we can do is guess about what it is like. Like the old saying goes, "If you haven't tried it, don't knock it". I personally like roughing it and doing things "Old School" to a certain degree. Maybe when I'm old and feeble (I'm not that far away!!), I'll reconsider a high fence hunt.. I doubt it, but you never know... my checkbook says that won't happen!

So, what is it about whitetails that people see differently? I suppose (for me anyway) a lot would depend on the size of the area fenced in. Is a deer in a 5,000 acre preserve (just throwing out a number there) less of a challenge than a deer on a 200 acre lease where food plots are used to keep the deer home, no one else can hunt, etc.? Just tossing out some food for thought.

YES !

I agree... I think the preserve deer would be less of a challenge but I've never done a preserve hunt so I'm just guessing.

Thinking about these high fence operations, deer farms, etc. I've often wondered if releasing some of those big bucks in the wild would help improve the genetics in some states. I say that because of what I see in Vermont where I grew up. Very, very few big bucks come out of Vermont but that hasn't always been the case. My Dad had some old photos of some giant bucks killed in the early 1900's. My Dad bought an old 1937 Chevy one time to restore. I went with him to load it up and noticed a basket of shed antlers in the barn (this was back in the 1960's). The old fellow said he had picked them up from his apple orchard over the years and had thrown them in the basket. I was flabbergasted...there were some huge sheds in that basket. He sold me the whole basket of antlers for a dollar. I gave most of those away over the years, but one 5 point antler scored 78 points if I remember right. I gave it to a good friend of mine. Double that and add in a 20" spread and you're talking a 176" buck. I still have 3 that I kept and they are bigger than 99% of the bucks you'll see come out of Vermont these days. Years and years and years of bucks only hunting decimated the deer herd in Vermont. At any rate, would releasing a bunch of deer farm deer in a state like that be beneficial? I have no idea....a biologist I'm not, but it would be interesting to see.

I think for whitetail isit just because that's the number 1 hunted and available big game in the states. So many people are passionate about deer hunting, we hear allot about it.

For high fence ... Again, deer are available to hunt almost anywhere. So there really no "reason" to go the high fence route . If people are doing that they're usually looking for a "trophy" and that rubs some the wrong way.

As opposed to some of the exotics that are available. That aren't generally available anywhere else. I can't walk out my door and hunt some of these exotics. If I wanted to do that the cheapest option is a ranch.

-Jake

An apology if I overlooked this when scanning the above posts: A high fence hems in native game that belong to the public, effectively making the animals private property.

This is one reason I have little esteem for high fence operations. Some of my other reasons are that they seem to compromise fair chase principles, can be associated with transmitting CWD and other diseases, and they are associated with species that would be considered invasive in the wild.

I read some states have to drive out all native game first, or pay a fine or such. Government is not giving up anything.

I am not sure if the fence is big enough, how this is much different than hunting large private land. At some point having so many acres and keeping people out is the same.

I don't see a huge difference. Not sure why it would easier for handicap. Can drive a wheeler or truck to blind here. Can hunt out of truck if handicap with right paperwork. And I don't care. Guy sitting in a stopped truck is no different that a plan. I think blind would have better luck actually. To many laws. You can't hunt out of blind it still attached to vehicle. But take it off and you can hunt out of it. To many laws.


How much they bait and keep them around would be the factor. If they become pets. But you can feed deer in winter here, and a period before season. If you got the time you can feed them every day on public land.

Laugh at the guys who hate bait, but see a difference between that and a food plot. How much different is sitting and waiting by an apple tree, or farm field?

I have a different mind set on the whole thing, basically all game animals are natures bounty. Whether they are full wild, partially cultivated or fully cultivated is largely irrelevant. My only real ethical point is that it be as quick and clean a kill as possible.

IMO a lot of life is substitution for many natural instincts, many thousands of years of mankinds heredity tendencies. Sports are a competition, wasn't too long ago the competition was who got to the food source first. People race, what are they racing for, what are they racing to? First to the kill?

Many people have these natural drives and few ways to scratch the itch. I opt to retrograde my itch scratching and go back to the source, whether that source is full wild, or partially wild, is just a matter of degrees.

What gets me is people with a lower prey drive or little prey drive or no prey drive make moral judgments on people with a strong prey drive. The judgmental ones have little to no empathy IMO and may be the true sociopaths.

Have you ever seen a happier dog than one chasing a Rabbit? Fulfills some sort of basic need or imperative.

People forget we are really a very few generations removed from our hunter gatherer roots. You can either choose to substitute those drives into an approximation of the true imperative or try to fulfill the imperative (as much as possible) and as close to your roots as possible.

A side note, history tells us societies have many ups and downs, they are just as likely to retrograde as improve. IMO some skills sets, while not really relevant at the moment, may just be to important to lose. Hunting comes naturally to me, working with dogs comes naturally, I may be the worlds worst fisherman but I still learned how, spotting and knowing which plants are edible was also learned, just in case. Mechanical things come to me naturally, I can make a bow, I can make arrows, a crossbow, a spear point, a knife. People that live insulated lives are unlikely to be successful if the fit hits the shan.

Famous Country song from long ago----Don,t fence me in !!!

I never hunted behind a fence and don't plan on doing so ever. If it is legal then I could care less what other people do. I will add however that here in Vermont our fish and wildlife people learned early on that having a captive deer facility will increase the odds of CWD showing up. They banned all future facilities and allowed the 2 last grandfathered places to close down. Most modern day spread of CWD to the wild are attributed to captive deer/ elk escaping the enclosure and infecting the wild herd. That fact in itself would make me not like anything to do with a canned hunting operation.

The last lease I hunted, we shared between four of us, was huge 3300 hectares. It had a resident Deer population and there was less crossover at the borders than you'd think. Food was abundant, water was plentiful, snow and or a hard freezes were usually only a problem a few weeks a year. The Deer really didn't migrate much. In fact the Deer population was so stable we could keep the best Bucks or Doe and cull the inferior. We were almost breeding our own stock. The difference between what we had and a fenced operation is pretty minor. We paid some of the lease costs with visiting hunters, we didn't advertise, it was all referrals, we could tell them what to shoot.

The lease I have now is a lot smaller and at a higher altitude, more woods and less agriculture. Much of my hunting is migratory, the resident population is a lot smaller. Much closer to real hunting than what I used to hunt. I still let the best Buck and Doe go their own ways.

I am not as down on high fence operations as I used to be.

I never understood people who fish for stocked trout or hunt farm raised pheasants & chukars, but beat their chest about baiting or high fence. And yes, hunting food plots & apple orchards is no different than baiting, in my eyes.

Most of what you see on the East Coast is canned, I wouldn't pay for that.

SOME of the high fence ranches you see in Texas are quite impressive. I've sat in high fence ranches twice after killing my buck at a low fence ranch. Both times I smelled a setup to "upgrade" once I was there, and neither time I bit. But I did kill a hog once and I did kill an axis doe, I didn't feel bad about it but didn't feel especially proud, the outfitter asked me both times if I didn't mind taking them there. The animals are pretty skittish, and live mostly on the same corn & supplements they were fed on the low fence ranch.

I also killed a bison a number of years ago on a ranch in Wyoming, I wouldn't really consider that a hunt, since they are as big as an auto and travel in groups of 100; it wasn't high fence, but there were cattle grids in the roads, and they weren't getting out. I feel like I got my money's worth on that deal, it was around $1,000 at the time.

The price per pound was probably good. I hope it was somewhat tender. I know the flavor must have been good.

It was as good as any grass-fed beef I've ever had, and there was about 200# to take home, I shot a young bull. Along with a nifty hide & bison skull.

Kind of like the OP said--to each their own. Apparently a lot of game hunting in Africa (I've never been) is high fence. But the ranches in Africa are huge, thousands of acres, etc. I don't bag on people who go to Africa and pay the big bucks to do so. I don't bag on people whop go to high fences here in America and pay the big bucks. If you go far enough back (Genesis) the whole world has essentially functioned as a high fence or at least a water fence between continents at times. As long as somebody hunting on a high fence ranch (especially in something televised) doesn't pass it off as free range and it's legal, I guess I don't care much. I'm actually glad that certain Texas ranches are able to restock other countries with game like black buck. Somebody had to pay for that. Like hunters willing to pay the big bucks for high fence hunting.

Maybe hunts on preservers (any preserve....deer, birds, or whatever) might be more accurately described as a "Shoot" rather than a "Hunt". That's what they do in Great Britain with their driven pheasant shoots....they're not called a hunt.

The bottom line is regardless of how we hunt, where we hunt, what equipment we use, etc., we all do it because we enjoy it. We enjoy behind outdoor, being with friends and family, etc. Hunts away from home allow us to meet new people and see new places. The meat is wonderful and the antlers, skulls, hides, etc. are there to remind of us of the fun and the memories. Most of my racks are in my garage... I can look at any rack there and tell you pretty much every detail of the hunt and some of those go back nearly 60 years now. But I can't tell you the score of the football game I watched last week (say nothing about last year or five years ago). We hunt because it's fun. If a person is hunting and sees a deer (whether it's behind a high fence or not), I'm willing to bet they are thinking of nothing else...all their daily problems disappear instantly....

Hunting deer in a fence is nothing like hunting wild deer and not even close to hunting free range private land.

I don't care how big the fence is you have complete control of the effects people have on the land.

People can't get in and deer can't get out. People wouldn't fence in thousands of acres if it didn't make any difference.

I'm not against it and I'm 100% for it when it helps replenish natural/native animals but its just not the same at all.

Even if you fence in 2000 acres your going to have a ton of animals that can't leave your control that otherwise would. Sure there will be some with core areas near the middle that might not ever leave anyway but there will be tons of deer that would leave your control if they could and specially bucks during the rut when hunters are out in full force.

You can makes mistake after mistake after mistake and while a deer might get smarter and harder to hunt he simply cannot get away and he cannot be hunted outside of your property.

Have you ever hunted a high fence operation? Just curious.. I never have and only know one person who has. We can guess and speculate what a high fence "Hunt" or "Shoot" (take your pick) might be like, but if we have never done it we're just guessing. I suspect most of us here don't know anyone who has ever even seen a high fence operation.

Yup...you're absolutely correct....people wouldn't do it if it didn't make a difference (and if it wasn't profitable). Money talks. It would be interesting to know how many people book hunts on these high fence places... I'm guessing a lot as it can't be cheap to raise the deer, etc.. I bet we would be floored if we knew just how many bucks are killed in these places (and the amount of money that is made).

No I have not ever hunted deer in a high fence but I did grow up near one that was probably around 1000 acres and one just needs to drive by to see it is VERY different. I'm also trying to just use common sense facts because Ive never tried it. I mean having 100% control of the age structure outside natural cause is different than not having that control and that is obviously a huge difference. Also they can run and hide but they CANNOT leave or be shot by outside hunters and that is also very different. You just have complete control of the effects of hunting and that makes things very different.

I suppose you could over hunt it and make it worse than free range private land as well.

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 !

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 !!

Well, I think probably the antihunters have more than started seeing animals killed on preserves... Just turn on the tv to any of the hunting/fishing channels and you're going to see animals killed in high fence areas.. If not whitetails, think Red Stag, Fallow Deer, Arapawa Rams, etc. in New Zealand as well as most of the various African animals... A good many of those are killed in high fence operations.

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.

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.

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.

No, I wouldn't expect it to be easy. Just easier. Either way if a good hunter has 1000 acres they should do quite well. I kill many of my mature bucks on farms that are 100 acres of less and a lot of them spent most of there time on someone elses property.

One is hunting. The other is not.

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.

He gets it