Game ranches & Ethical Hunting - What's your take?

[Art Eatman]

Sorry, but I don't see where a deer in a 10,000-acre high-fence pasture is easier for a hunter than that same deer running around on a gazillion acres of public land.

A spooked whitetail deer is gonna run in a circle in the general area with which he is familiar, and that's rarely more than one or two square miles of land. You spook Ol' Bucky, and he'll generally run upwind and uphill until he's out of sight. After some not-long period of time he will begin a circle back toward where he came from. Ol' Bucky does not want to leave his home turf.

I could high-fence about fifty acres of my southeast pasture and a walking hunter couldn't find a buck in there in a week unless he volunteered for suicide. You can't shoot what you can't find. What with mesquite, greasewood and cactus, you're not even gonna sneaky-snake quietly enough to get a shot. Flat; no trees, no way to look down into any small clear area. One helluva lot of Texas brush country is no different.

For the umpteenth time: A high fence is to keep other deer out, to have a resident population of deer which won't exceed the carrying capacity of the habitat.

 

[jbkebert]

I keep reading the term canned hunt. Well I never once saw a deer, stag, black buck, aoudad, or anything else tied to a tree with a short leash waiting for me to shoot it. Granted stands are generally already set and much of scouting is done for you. There is no assurance you will take a animal on one of these so called canned hunts.

On most of these ranches that get alot of hunting pressure its not like the animals have not been educated to hunters. I would wager that in some cases these animals are harder to kill. A 10,000 acre ranch equals just shy of 15 sq miles. That is alot of ground to cover even on public ground in 4 days.

 

[suzukisam]

I keep reading the term canned hunt. Well I never once saw a deer, stag, black buck, aoudad, or anything else tied to a tree with a short leash waiting for me to shoot it. Granted stands are generally already set and much of scouting is done for you. There is no assurance you will take a animal on one of these so called canned hunts.

this is all true IF your talking about 10,000 acres, however I have a friend that went to hog hunt on about 10 acres... and some other game the same way... if you can walk up and lean your rifle on a fence, and shoot over the entire piece of property it's a canned hunt.. and again it doesn't matter to me either way, but even if it is 10,000 acres, if the dna has been modified, and the deer have braces on their antlers, it isn't a "real" trophy... its doctor Frankenstein's monster... however it is fresher than your local hy-vee!

 

[jbkebert]

Genetic modifications, braces on the antlers???? They must of hidden the test tubes and took the braces off before they tied it to that tree.

 

[Cob]

I've meat hunted for deer in "high-fence" operations before, but at no charge... & on an invitation only basis. In these cases, "cull-deer" need to be removed from the herd on an annual basis within a 2300 acre enclosure. When the enclosure was built, a certain number of white-tails were "captured" within the fence...& the only difference for the "caught" deer was which side of the fence the deer was on.
The fence limits hunter access, by using $ to regulate "hunting", and allows some management strategies that otherwise would be non-existant in terms of trophy potential.
"Culls" are generally bucks with undesirable characteristics such as horn malformities or genetic inbreeding that sometimes occurs within the limited (by fencing) gene-pool, & Does that are beginning to over-populuate the area ... Each year approximately 25-30 "hunts" are sold, and approximately 15-20 deer are culled, by the land manager. In the couple times I did it, I was given a photograph of several deer that needed culling, at the end of the "hunting" season ( carrying capcity of the pen is about 400 deer). When i shoot, i have to be absolutely certain that i am shooting the "right" deer i was given permission to harvet, or the trophy fee could be $10,000-15,000, if a non-management/ or "wrong" trophy buck is taken. ( I have always been absolutely certain of my shot)

It is "high-risk", and i have had to search for days sometimes to find the "right" cull-buck on the 2300 acres. I have never paid a dime to hunt in this manner, and this situation is not one that the "average" guy would ever get a chance at (without paying for it).
I still do not categorize this as typical "hunting" and routinely hunt public & private land that borders public land, in multiple states. (my best was 7 states in 1 year, though only 4 last year)

 

[Art Eatman]

The problem with this subject seems to be more of word usage than of any reality. To me, "Canned hunt" means a deal where the prey cannot avoid being killed by a shooter. But that's not at all what high-fenced ranches are all about.

I don't like "genetic games" and pen-raised deer for the purpose of antler enhancement. But the offspring of such deer, out in a pasture, are just as wild as "natural" deer.

Seems to me that the "fair chase" aspect is controlled by terrain and vegetation more than any other factor. Fair chase in south Texas brush country is a lot different from fair chase in the open plains of Montana or Wyoming--or from other parts of Texas, for that matter.

 

[Cob]

Here's a pic of a doe, that was taken within a high fence operation. It was just as wild as any other doe i've seen, and disappeared within thick FL vegetation about as soon as i saw her. I often work with landowners with timber mgt, as was the case with this place.

This place has generated much interest with me, as i like to hunt, and often hear that "you can pet the deer in those places".... I sure couldn't pet this one...

 

[Cob]

Breeding Operation Described


Visited another "new" game ranch in North FL last friday... This guy has 221 acres, with an 8' 6" perimeter fence on property boundary. He then has a number of smaller fences further divided into smaller pens, approximately 2 - 4acres each. A high number of deer are housed in each "breeder pen". I snapped this picture of the breeder pen, & will guess no less than 25 whitetail deer were located on the 2-3 acres, and it was repeated multiple times... maybe 300 deer on 20 acres, with 5-6 breeder pens? The does can be directed into a funnel, where they are grouped into a single file line.... and then directed towards a chute... the does then walk down a series of 2' wide "walks"(like the lines at disney world/ burger king/ etc... where they eventually end up in an enclosed barn. Once in the barn, they are squeezed into a chute, and held where they can be AI'd with semen of "superior" genetics/ quality/ etc... from other pen raised bucks with huge antler characteristics....

Sort of a neat set-up, and a lot of capital invested in the operation... For this specific visit, the landowenr was certified as a Tree Farmer...This will be the 6th actual "high fence" operation i have visited, & scheduled to go to another tomorrow morning...

 

[Art Eatman]

I see ads on those bucks from breeding programs. I find that whole deal offensive. "It ain't natural!"

High fences around big pastures is a whole different deal, and I just don't have a problem with that. But messing with the genetics of what are supposed to be natural wild animals is something else.

But, there's a bunch of money in all that. It's the usual thing: If there's a demand, somebody is gonna fill it.

I dunno. I can sleep in my own bed at home. Get up early, walk up the mountain and hunt over a few thousand acres of land to which I have access. But I'd rather go back to hunt camp, twenty miles of bad road back in the mountains and make do as best I can and hunt rougher country. I'm probably less likely to find a deer back there than if I hunt from my house. Go figure. I guess it just doesn't seem righteous to build a campfire in my front yard.

But no way do I want to pay a ton of money to hunt from a full-service motel-type lodge, with somebody telling me what I can or can't shoot, at something that's been all bred up for "pretty".

Different strokes for different folks, I reckon.

Which has little to do with high fences, really.

 

[Cob]

I find that whole deal offensive. "It ain't natural!"

something that's been all bred up for "pretty

One place i visited, had just the opposite effect... it had a plan of breeding up for "pretty", but "Ugly" was crashing down all around... The place was a 2.5 acre "deer pen", with 24 deer in it. 5 bucks, and 19 does in 2008. It was aquired from a man getting "out of the business". The first year of operation, the breeding worked so well, that the does more than doubled their population, with 27 fawns born in 2009. (about 1.5fawns per doe). The second year, he had about the same results... with close to 60 deer in this 2.5 acre enclosure...at the end of 2010... FL FWC regulations have a "strict" code about permitting and checking theses places, but he went unchecked for a while...

The deer were so crowded that they started eating hair off of each other, and large bald spots were common on the deer inside the pen. Also genetic inbreeding started occuring, with deer that had such a limited gene pool. Some deer were observed that were crippled, and had trouble walking, with severe gait problems, much worse than a normal limp. "Floppy" ears were common as well...Other weird types of stuff was notd, i can't describe it other than the deer were not "pretty" in this hell of a high fence.

He was trying to sell deer at very cheap prices ($50 - $250 to get rid of them, ALIVE only).
He is now expanding his fence area, but i bet his operation stays in repetitive motion...

 

[wombat13]

That's true Lizzie I just got back from the range - man I'm luvin this new 257 weatherby. I was also thinking, for those who put down the 'suits' who live in an urban area and book a hunt at the high fence place...these guys also vote to preserve hunting rights come election days. Their urban areas may limit them to limited guided hunts, but that satisfies them and lends itself to being part of the hunting brotherhood.

Let's face it, if everyone could only hunt near their neighborhoods then the most harvested animal would probably be pigeons.

I'm glad someone finally made this point. Anti-hunters and anti-gunners are never going to like what we do, so let's stop worrying about them. We need more people who enjoy shooting, archery, and hunting, in whatever legal form they prefer. Let's stop knocking each other down and try to build support for all the varieties or our past time.

I'd like to go on a guided hunt for elk or moose. There aren't any in the part of the country I live in. With two kids, a job, and a wife I actually enjoy spending time with, I don't have the time to plan a hunt in a part of the country I don't know and is several hours or days away.

Response to the comment on tree stand hunting: Around here (western NY) tree stand hunters put venison in the freezer, stalkers go home with stories. There is no baiting allowed. The trick is to put the stand in the right spot and have enough patience to sit in the stand moving as little as possible for 10 hours a day when the high temperature might be 20F (and a damp 20F). You would be surprised how many hunters can't do that.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Again: Just because something is not my style does not justify my bad-mouthing it.

Agreed.
The problem is not necessarily ethics, as most of the complaints so far on this thread are really about aesthetics.

A "canned hunt" is where the animal cannot escape from the view of the shooter, and therefore cannot avoid being killed. Otherwise, given terrain and vegetation, when the animal can escape when it detects the hunter, it is then a fair chase. Depending on the species, the size of the area needed to accomplish this varies. Fencing off the property at that point becomes a question of aesthetics.

I don't use a stand. I think that folks who sit in towers and snipe bucks with belted magnum cartridges and 10x scopes at ranges of 300+ yards (on TV and whisper while they do this) are not doing more than slaughtering an animal.

I don't use bait. I'd rather figure out the routes the whitetails are using to and from local crops or other veggies, and set up on the ground and wait.

I don't use cover scents, other than a plain lye soap to wash my hunting clothes. In the past I had no appreciable increase in seeing or taking deer when using such scents, so I figured I was waisting money. I also don't use lures.

I don't use fixed ammunition, and I don't use a scope. I use a flintlock rifle. I get from 2-3 deer per year. I hunt near my home and also two hours away in a different state, and don't change how I hunt at either location. Some of the land is public, some is private.

The folks who participate in harvesting animals in a manner or method that I don't care to do, in many cases pay for hunting licenses, keep industries that lobby in favor of hunting alive, and may even vote in favor of hunting, not to mention the preservation of exotic species, and often join associations that deal with the conservation of native species, ..., so they help me some by doing things their way, which allows me to hunt my way. Folks who eat beef, even grass fed free range beef (or chicken) don't help with any of the above.


So I agree, Just because something is not my style does not justify my bad-mouthing it.

LD

 

[Art Eatman]

Cob, that "ugly" deal sounds to me like the guy was covered all over in stupid. Almost anything which could be done in the wrong manner--was done...

 

[T.R.]

Here is another photo from my challenging red stag hunt. This stag had live weight of nearly 400 lbs. I had fun and didn't have to travel to Romania to hunt this amazing animal. Meat was most excellent, indeed!

I'm an ethical hunter and I have no quarrel with hunting exotic animals. Someday, I'd love to take a huge trophy fallow buck.

TR

 

[Cob]

We have some family land in North Florida, and I have had some crazy thoughts about trying to start an operation sort of like what was pictured above from time to time... The crazy thoughts have since past, but i still find the places interesting. Some guys have made some $ by doing it, but i honestly believe more people are losing money this way, as the deer can overpopulate in a hurry, and supplemental feed prices can be crazy.

Thanks for all of the input and comments. I enjoyed reading them.

 

[Bob N. Weave]

canned "hunts"

IT'S NOT HUNTING!!!!! nuff said?

 

[oneounceload]

Thumbs down canned "hunts"
IT'S NOT HUNTING!!!!! nuff said?

Neither is planting a food plot and then sitting in a tree stand..........yet many here think it is

Sorry, an animal roaming 10000 acres where there are no stands has a better chance than an animal who has been fed from a battery-operated feeder twice a day so some "hunter" can sit in a stand 50 yards away and then claim how he was "hunting"

HUNTING means fair chase, not sit and wait

 

[Cob]

Neither is planting a food plot and then sitting in a tree stand..........yet many here think it is

I disagree with this statement on fair chase hunts... On both Public & Private land there are many more things we do to enhance hunting along with Foodplots -In FL, We routinely perform prescribed burns through timber stands to enhance forage for wildlife... We also do something called rotational mowing for quail and turkeys. We create travel corridors for many wildlife species that incorporate edges, native vegetation, and both warm season and cool season food plot/ plantings...We plant native trees that offer optimum mast production for desired species. We try to best manage and manipulate the available habitat in a manner that best meets the needs of the wildlife we are managing for...

In this part of the world, we call people that don't do that sort of thing lazy, (in terms of Wildlife Management), whether on private or public land...
and you can BET $... you want to be hunting the property that is best managed for the species you are after, if you want to be successful

 

[Art Eatman]

And just how many of the "anti-stand" hunters, here, can sneaky-snake well enough to regularly get within twenty to fifty yards of an unsuspecting Bambi? Can in favorable conditions see a deer and sneak to within a very few yards of him?

I'm pretty good at sneaky-snaking; I ought to be after starting out as a little kid. Grew up doing it, long before I was old enough to join the Boy Scouts.

But I've hunted in country with the sort of undergrowth where if you didn't sit in some sort of blind or stand, you wouldn't ever eat deer meat. If you do walking-hunting, you'd better be darned good at hitting Bambi when he's flat-out in fifth gear--if you see him at all.

 

[suzukisam]

Well as far as stand hunting goes...my favorite hunting is my uncles elevated box blind...heated, insulated, hot pot of coffe brewing and deer roaming the crp fields... a couple high powered rifles, and all you need is some wool socks and long johns..we sleep eat and hunt for three days without leaving... it's pretty cool!

I stalk with a brush rifle, sit on the trails, ect.... but playing deer "sniper" is a lot of fun! And before words like mall ninja, and internet comando start getting thrown around, I can do on paper anything I attempt in the field, and my shooting rest in the blind is nicer than what my local range has...

 

[dogrunner]

D'ffren't strokes surely applies here. Perspective is TRULY the moderator of this exercise in BS......

I for one, differ with an awful lot of you folks and an AWFUL lot of you are gonna do the same with me.

I happen to be one of those low life dog hunters that run deer with high speed hounds...........Frankly, I can't think of a more boring way to hunt than just sitting in a tree, watching the grass grow, listening to the game on my FM/AM earmuffs and occasionally stomping my feet to keep 'em from freezing. Too, the entire concept of hunting on a tightly managed, bred to "spec", we'll TELL you when and IF you can shoot operations flatly turns me off and I would under no circumstances even consider engaging in such an effort that I truly believe is not hunting as I have come to appreciate it in my 70 plus years of life.

ANY deer taken fairly is to me a trophy...........to be savored and appreciated in terms of both the chase the photo and not least of all the table!

That said, my take is that if you truly believe what you're doing is OK, well, have at it. If it's legal where you are then carry on. BUT.........and that's a big one, don't criticize those others amongst the hunting fraternity that differ honestly from what YOU think is ethical. My dog running is most certainly ethical, legal, and mostly the ONLY really realistic approach to deer hunting in my locale. Oh, yeah. The folks from N.Y and N.J...........(and a lotta Texan fenceintreestanders.......kinda krauty...that last) differ, criticise and damn the practice. Mostly, in my take that comes from a near total lack of understanding and experience.

I laugh when I ask my friends from the Appalachian area I grew up in to hunt with me..........I give them an offer of a hundred flat for a legal buck taken in FRONT of dogs..............and double that with a racked specimen.........I still have my money, and the singular commentary has been for over ten years that all they could see were flags and occasionally eyeballs or ears!.


Anyway's fellas........the totality of this argument is a platter serving to the anti crowd..........they disapprove of it all. What you or I do or perceive as fair is All UNETHICAL TO THEM!

We'd all be well served to not criticize each others chosen method.........to me you Texican fencetreestandingbaiter types.....you stalk 'em Penna stump sitters, and all in between need to realize that we are all in danger from the tree huggers...........and they don't give a crap what WE think is OK!

 

[kyle1974]

pretty funny thread.

looking at a lot of the posts... guys from the midwest... the northeast.

I have a question. How large are the "free ranging" places you hunt? Are they bordered by highways, rivers, anything else that might impede the movement of deer?

how many acres per hunter do some of you hunt? 1 guy per 100 acres? 1 per 200? so is it fair to have 5... 10, 15 people on 400 or 500 acres? what chance does a deer have to survive with that volume of hunting pressure?

I hunt on a high fence ranch in south texas. It is approximately 9400 acres. The vast majority of the deer never see a high fence. Does that make it easier to shoot a deer than it does when 15 people are hunting on a few hundred acres? what it does allow is that the deer that live on the fringe of the ranch aren't shot by people that don't have the same goals that we do.... we let deer walk until they reach their potential... it's no big conspiracy theory, it's just how we do it. There are smaller places that are high fenced too. 400 acres.... 500 acres, whatever they may be. personally, if on average a deer lives in an area that is 500 or 600 acres, then how exactly does high fencing a couple thousand acres "can" them?

We also hunt over corn... either stationary feeders, or corn that's thrown out by hand or feeders on the trucks. I've always found it funny that people "don't hunt over bait", but will park themsleves right next to a natural food source, like a corn field....

I'd pay anyone $500 that could come do a "spot and stalk" on my lease and get within 100 yards of a deer in the brush. Kind of hard to do, since you can't see more than 15 or 20 feet into the brush...