Why hunt high fence?

Roger, I am sorry for friend and I will say a prayer for him for healing and also a pray for you and the hunting party because of this experience. You are correct on the safety issue. I myself had to lay flat to the ground one year due to a hunter close by me opening up on a running deer which ran towrds me. Once he emptied his rifle, the deer slowed down by me and I took him. The other hunter hit him in both back legs, butt, mouth, 1 front leg and the stomach. I had seen the blood on his mouth before I spotted the antlers.

GOOD POINT ROGER

There will never be common ground for this discussion. Just this last week at work I invited (I've never sold a hunt) a friend to come hunt. This is sort of an unusual situation. This guy, named Mike is a good Christian. He co-owns 400 acres in good deer country in the north-western part of the hill country of Texas. Mike actually lives 120 miles from work and only goes home on Wednesdays and week-ends. In less than an hour I had three guys come to me and remark" if you need help culling some deer , I'd be glad to help". These guys (who soundly reject the idea of hunting behind high fence) must not consider culling animals "hunting behind high fence". This is a repeat senario for me. I'm asked all of the time if I need help thinning the doe population down or culling anything. So, I surmise...if it didn't cost anything to hunt one of our ranches (any of us) we would change the concept of hunting high fence overnite for a great percentage of those who "detest" the idea. Not an opinion, an observation, which is part of science??? Everyone have a blessed Thanksgiving. I've met some of the most incredible folks I've ever met on this site. God Bless one and all, Ol' Scrape.

Robert, while you may not want to hunt high fence if you are a deerfarmer you need to support high fence hunting - whether you want to believe it or not it is the reason you are raising deer - unless you never sell one and keep them until they die of old age. Nearly every hunter that hunts high fence feels pretty confident they are going to get a deer, but it is still every bit as exciting for them. We have seen it over and over - when it comes time to pull the trigger they have to calm themselves and are shaking like a leaf after the shot. They have never seen deer that big before and the idea that they may have actually shot one is pretty overwhelming sometimes. Even the guys guiding get excited - they all say when they know the hunter is going to shoot their heart starts beating faster.



So if you haven't actually tried it - you can't be sure it isn't as exciting - we have literally hundreds of customers that would say the opposite. Now if you don't want to try it that is your choice - but you still need to support it as an alternate choice since you are in the business.

Culling does in your breeding pens IS NOT high fence hunting - the two are entirely different!!! When you need to sit in your stand and wait to see what comes out and if it comes close enough and if they don't wind you etc. etc. - that is what we call high fence hunting. Not a lot different than hunting anywhere except there are more deer and bigger ones.

To each their own - but that is not how we do it. If people want to pay for that sort of hunt then they have the right to - free choice on a few things yet in this country.

Wild Rivers, maybe you're not referring to me. My place is very small by Texas standards but I hunt on 300 acres high fenced which is not part of my pen. There are "purist" in every area of man kind. It could be argued that man has created God in their own image.

Robert Bittinger said:

iv`e raised whitetail deer since 1982. not many deer farmers can say that .

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Robert I started raising deer in 1989. And I would not hunt know where but high fence. The quality of deer that I want to take just or not on the outside any more. If you dont have the fence for a management tool you just can not grow them. The fence is a management tool nothing more. When the hunters that dont hunt high fence figures this out we all will be so much better off. Sad to say they probably never will.

I agree with you Headley about the management tool aspect. I can't critisize anyone who hunts the way they want to as long as it's legal, and I wasn't directing any remarks to Mr. Bittenger. The remark about the purist is kind of like flipping a coin and having it roll in the gutter before anyone wins or loses except who ever's coin it is. Wild Rivers would have to be an authority on the subject of promoting high fence hunts. Many of you are authorities in this matter. Somewhere in all of this is a belief system and my hat is off to all of you who endeaver to follow that dream.

That is exactly what we tell people, that the fence is a management tool. There is no way to manage the herd and produce what we have without it.



Our breeding farm is several miles away from the hunting preserve but most of our hunters are very interested in it and ask to see it. By the way, we have two properties we hunt on and one is 250 acres and the other is 400 acres. Sounds small in Texas but you have to realize the lay of the land and the thickness of the underbrush and trees. We shot one deer this year in November that none of the guides had seen this year on the 250 acre ranch. We had a photographer that was out there nearly the entire month of October and he hadn't seen this guy either. Turns out he was 8-1/2 years old and had been there for 4 years! Believe me, they can hide when they want to!