[quote=iliketohunt]I just don't understand why people will spend 6k or more to hunt a big whitetail with an ear tag when they could go on a big game hunt of a lifetime with that money. I guess it's because that would be a real hunt that would take effort.

When I retired and moved from Dallas back to Tyler in 2011, I dropped my lease out near Ft Griffin. It had been 33 years that I'd been on a lease, but I was now 2 hrs farther away and wasn't getting any younger. My last year there, I was maintaining 2 trailers, 9 protein feeders, 7 stands, and 20 corn feeders. in 2010 alone, I spent out of my own pocket over $8000.

So now I just go on guided hunts. Frankly, I spend even more money these days, but I'm retired now and am determined to squander my childrens' inheritance. I've completed my Grand Slam, the NA 28, and have hunted Argentina and Africa.

Regarding HF, I will say that if the property is huge and the game is wild and free to escape, I'm OK with it. I have personally hunted WTs on such a property in the past. But I see no sport in the current trend of "put and take" shooting whereby a citizen can pick his buck from an on-line roster of mug shots and then stroll into a pen for a 30 minute "hunt" to bag his trophy of a lifetime. B&C has issues with this practice too, and I'm proud to say that I am a life member of such an organization.

Now, if a guy wants to raise whitetails like FFA show stock, I say "to each his own", and if Joe Nimrod wants to shoot left-ear-black-tag-#8, then all power to him.

But I suggest we find another term besides HUNTING to denote such behavior. YMMV, of course.

You can get any type "trophy" you want HF or Low fenced....you just need a big pocket book.

There are crazy amounts of state mandated regulations for pen raised deer......those tags are probably one of them.

When I retired and moved from Dallas back to Tyler in 2011, I dropped my lease out near Ft Griffin. It had been 33 years that I'd been on a lease, but I was now 2 hrs farther away and wasn't getting any younger. My last year there, I was maintaining 2 trailers, 9 protein feeders, 7 stands, and 20 corn feeders. in 2010 alone, I spent out of my own pocket over $8000.

So now I just go on guided hunts. Frankly, I spend even more money these days, but I'm retired now and am determined to squander my childrens' inheritance. I've completed my Grand Slam, the NA 28, and have hunted Argentina and Africa.

Regarding HF, I will say that if the property is huge and the game is wild and free to escape, I'm OK with it. I have personally hunted WTs on such a property in the past. But I see no sport in the current trend of "put and take" shooting whereby a citizen can pick his buck from an on-line roster of mug shots and then stroll into a pen for a 30 minute "hunt" to bag his trophy of a lifetime. B&C has issues with this practice too, and I'm proud to say that I am a life member of such an organization.

Now, if a guy wants to raise whitetails like FFA show stock, I say "to each his own", and if Joe Nimrod wants to shoot left-ear-black-tag-#8, then all power to him.

But I suggest we find another term besides HUNTING to denote such behavior. YMMV, of course.

I agree with that in part.

But it's always about the fence to some degree. Whatever the conditioning is or isn't, the fence is there to keep the deer there. Guaranteed. That's why it was built.

Somehow the most obvious fact of all is the one most often overlooked/not mentioned.

I would agree with that, if your including HF in the equation, I was talking more in general and lf.I will add, all the "tame" deer I have seen in a LF situation, where deer that where not actively hunted, like residential areas, state parks ect tra ,so it is a far stretched parallel to compare them to deer with a tag IMO

The black eye of the hunting industry is when it went to attaching dollars to "shooting a score" . I will not hunt these places.

Blackbuck starting at...
Axis starting at....
Whitetail starting at...140-150 $$ 150-160: $$$.....
Plus $250/inch

I guided once on a ranch and I can tell you the client was more concerned about not going over his budget than enjoying the hunt.
Like a trip to the grocery store.

It's kind of hard to find a place NOT like that today.

If you owned property and were selling hunts(HF or LF), you would charge the same amount of money for a spike as you would a 180" buck?

It's kind of hard to find a place NOT like that today.

If you owned property and were selling hunts(HF or LF), you would charge the same amount of money for a spike as you would a 180" buck?

I absolutely love the tags in the ears, as long as it's a requirement to get it mounted with it on, so everybody that it's shown off to knows how it was took...so yes I like them.

The largest deer you have ever seen walks up broadside to your feeder. This deer is a no brainer. You don't even need to count points. The feeder is in the middle of your 10,000 acre South Texas lease you share with 20 hunters. You drop the giant in his tracks. You walk up shaking, cheering and cannot believe the size. Then you notice an ear tag. The number is 666 color is red. The buck nets 250" Typical.

You trace the buck back to a HF ranch 15 miles away which was last seen 5 years ago.

Would you be:

Proud
Disappointed.
Enter into B&C (free range-fair chase)
Not enter at all.

Disappointed. Even though the deer may have been as wild as a March hare. But disappointed because:
1)I don't know;
2)I do know he was not native; and
3)Sad we live in a world where chit like that can happen.

Had a buddy kill a huge buck with his bow. He was hunting about 2 miles from a HF big buck farm. He has a nagging feeling his deer may have been an escapee. Ticks me off he even has to have that feeling. Just another by-product of game farming.

The largest deer you have ever seen walks up broadside to your feeder. This deer is a no brainer. You don't even need to count points. The feeder is in the middle of your 10,000 acre South Texas lease you share with 20 hunters. You drop the giant in his tracks. You walk up shaking, cheering and cannot believe the size. Then you notice an ear tag. The number is 666 color is red. The buck nets 250" Typical.

You trace the buck back to a HF ranch 15 miles away which was last seen 5 years ago.

Would you be:

Proud
Disappointed.
Enter into B&C (free range-fair chase)
Not enter at all.

Sad story.

What is the definition of a "Big Buck Farm" . Is it all HF ranches that contain whitetail? Breeding facilities that sell deer to HF ranches wanting to reintroduce quality genetics? Put and Take operations? Small enclosures < 100 ac <1000 ac< 10,000 acres.

Now we all know reintroduction programs such as the Texas Bighorn were accomplished in part due to the use of HF pens to raise and release pen raised sheep which later provided some public hunting. I would never associate this with "Trophy Sheep Farming"

Is there any middle ground for Whitetail in Texas short of mowing over every HF ranch?