Fenced in hunting?

[Art Eatman]

Seems like there is some, "What you think I meant is not what I thought I said," going on here.

 

[ZeroJunk]

You see this over and over on forums. Ever see Naked and Afraid ? I guess if you want to take it far enough that is the only pure hunting. Of course they usually have a knife, so I don't guess that is really pure either.

 

[jrdolall]

The implication here is that high fence hunting is not really hunting but rather "gathering".
I can't think of a time or place in history where men did not work to tip the odds of a successful hunt in their favor. Cavemen supposedly used drives to force a herd of animals off a cliff(even if the cliff was only a 4 foot drop)hoping that one or two of the animals would be injured and easier to kill. American Indians sometimes hunted from elevated platforms or even from horseback. In 2014 many people hunt in fenced enclosures. Many use high powered, semi automatic rifles with high power optics. Modern bows are more accurate than many firearms from 150 years ago.
Unless we hunt alone, in a fur outfit and hand sewn boots and chase down animals with a spear or rock, we are not truly hunting but rather "gathering"? I know; Reductio ad absurdum.
Hunting has changed in the past 50 years, in most places, and will continue to change/evolve for more reasons than I can think.

 

[Art Eatman]

Seems to me that too many folks seem to confuse "High Fence" with "Pen". There is a heckuva lot of difference between several thousand acres enclosed by a high fence, and a very few acres (single digit) as a high-fenced pen.

 

[buck460XVR]

Unless we hunt alone, in a fur outfit and hand sewn boots and chase down animals with a spear or rock, we are not truly hunting but rather "gathering"? I know; Reductio ad absurdum.
Hunting has changed in the past 50 years, in most places, and will continue to change/evolve for more reasons than I can think.

Everytime a thread about high fence hunting comes up and someone replies it is not for them, the generic retort by those in favor of high fence hunting is always the same......about hunting naked with spear being the only true form of hunting. No where have I said changes in hunting were bad. No where have I said that I don't hunt using modern methods. I only stated that not all modern hunting methods give a quality hunt, and that a quality hunt had different definitions to different folk.

Seems to me that too many folks seem to confuse "High Fence" with "Pen". There is a heckuva lot of difference between several thousand acres enclosed by a high fence, and a very few acres (single digit) as a high-fenced pen.

I talked earlier about artificially inflated numbers behind high fences as to why, even on large areas of containment, means success is easier than in normal hunting scenarios. ClickClickD'oh says the state of Texas tells him he can only have 1 deer for every tens acres behind the fence. That works out to be 64 deer per square mile. In Wisconsin we have some of the best natural deer habitat in the world and anything over 40-50 deer per square mile is considered heavily over-populated and can not be sustained without supplemental feeding....thus artificially inflated. Don't know how much of Texas is considered prime natural deer habitat, but I suspect that there is little there that could support those kinds of numbers without supplemental feeding.

As I said before, there are exceptions to high fence enclosures, but even ten thousand acres is not really that large. In Wisconsin, we have a wildlife area named Sandhill. The area was home to the last known wild Passenger Pigeon and the preserve consists of about 10,000 acres, all within a 9' high fence. In the late sixties it was the site of the first muzzle loader and trophy only deer hunts in the state. The deer were not fed, and the only real exposure to humans was during the hunting seasons. In 1972 in a experiment to see if all the deer within the enclosure could be killed by hunters, they held a special season. I and my dad participated and killed two does. One was 7 1/2 and the other aged @ 9 1/2. Hunters were allowed in by special permit and in limited numbers. In less than a month not a deer was left. This was using firearms and methods of 42 years ago. This was an area of dense cover and deep swamps with few if any roads and access other than the perimeter. The DNR was surprised by how easily and how quickly the deer were eliminated, just because the fence did not allow them to escape. Thus, even ten thousand acres while a big one, was still just a pen. But then, I enjoyed my participation in the hunt and our family had two bonus antlerless deer in the freezer, which at the time was rare in Wisconsin. I also at no time other than when entering the preserve and leaving our vehicle ever saw the fence. The area is located within a larger area of public land that has no restrictions on hunter numbers and is not fenced in. Still deer numbers there, even with the three month long archery season and three week long firearm seasons, has never came close to having all the deer eliminated. The difference? The pen.

Again, I have no problem with the fence and the hunting opportunities it presents. You know as well as I do that those areas with hundreds of thousands of acres behind fence, in America, is not the norm, but the exception. The norm is a reasonable amount of area managed to make the most profit per acre, like any other ag crop. It also is designed for high hunter success in order to get the desired trophy fees and tips for the guides and meat handlers, along with getting the client to return. It is what it is.

 

[AKElroy]

I have a business associate with a 500 acre managed property in the hill country of central Texas. Lots of rolling hills, streams, and views. He purposely meandered roads throughout the property to give the illusion of distance for paying hunters,there to shoot either a trophy whitetail, elk, other exotics. Most are segregated into 5-20 acre pens. Inventory control is critical for charging for a particular animal. Some might be a $3000 shoot, some $25,000. Can't have the prize animal meandering in front of the budget hunter.

The visitors don't apparently notice they are in a pen; they just assume they are crossing a cross-fenced property with numerous gates. The property is so heavily treed, you cannot see across even the 5 acre pens to spoil the illusion.

It is not what I would call challenging for the paying hunters, but he has them lined up, paying heavily for a big-inch deer.

My role was to help him clear off the domestic whitetail when he first acquired the place so that his breeder stock would not be polluted. That involved numerous weekends harvesting dozens of animals, and the worst back ache I've ever had from field dressing all of them for donation to the kid's home.

Heaven help me if I accidentally dropped one of those green-tagged does......

 

[Art Eatman]

West of the Pecos River and south of I-10, the mule deer density is probably no more than four to eight per 640-acre section, depending on the wet/dry cycle. That's averaged across an area, of course, but based on helicopter surveys by well-experienced wildlife biologists.

Finding the numbers for high-fence, large-pasture whitetail populations would be good. I've not looked for an on-line source, though. I'd bet that it's less than the carrying capacity for what would be considered an average-rainfall year.

1963 was a drouth year in Texas. The kill during the hunt season in Llano, Mason and Brady counties was around 17,000 bucks. (Negligible doe hunting allowed, back then.) Winter kill in those counties was claimed by TP&WD to be around 15,000 deer, both sexes. The game ranch people are fully aware of this sort of problem.

Edit-add: I found a study from Texas A&M concluding that for the hill country of central Texas, around 25 acres per whitetail deer is right at the average carrying capacity. Round numbers, 25 deer per section.

 

[jrdolall]

Everytime a thread about high fence hunting comes up and someone replies it is not for them, the generic retort by those in favor of high fence hunting is always the same......about hunting naked with spear being the only true form of hunting. No where have I said changes in hunting were bad. No where have I said that I don't hunt using modern methods. I only stated that not all modern hunting methods give a quality hunt, and that a quality hunt had different definitions to different folk.

But you are the one that called high fence hunting a "shoot" and not a hunt so your implication was that it wasn't really hunting if you hunt an enclosure. You may not SAY that you think less of people that hunt high fences but your early remarks certainly seemed disparaging towards fences and guided hunts.

 

[eastbank]

no ones mind will be changed with the posts put up here, just let it go and go hunt where you like. no matter where you hunt if you walk far enough you will run into a fence. eastbank.

 

[ZeroJunk]

someone replies it is not for them, the generic retort by those in favor of high fence hunting is always the same......about hunting naked with spear being the only true form of hunting. No where have I said changes in hunting were bad. No where have I said that I don't hunt using modern methods. I only stated that not all modern hunting methods give a quality hunt, and that a quality hunt had different definitions to different folk.

I am not for or against fence hunting. Never done it or even seen one.

The point is that wherever one draws the line is arbitrary. And, when you call whoever hunts on the other side of where you draw the line just a shooter it is a derogatory comment.

 

[Art Eatman]

This go-round is sorta drifting down as previous threads on this subject have done. Sorta desultory, and not particularly informative...

I'll close it tomorrow sometime...

 

[ljnowell]

As the common phrase goes "we're still fighting the war" huh?

 

[ZeroJunk]

I remember hunting on Anticosti Island and seeing a nice buck walk toward me down a logging road from a few hundred yards. I had the cross hairs on him as he continued to come and when he got about ten yards away he detoured around me and continued down the road looking at me like why are you here. No natural predators and never seen a man. My hunting buddy and I had no interest in killing any of those deer. But, there were guys in camp who were thrilled to kill a deer.

Why rain on somebody else's parade.

 

[eastbank]

not worth posting. eastbank.