There is 3 of us on a 416 acre lease in south live oak county outside of george west. The landowner is doing really well in the cattle business and decided to high fence the property. They do all the work themselves and cut down on costs. One side of the property already buts up to high fence so they didnt have to do anything with that side. I spoke with them this weekend and they have half of the remaining fenceline already done. They will do the other half next year and once it is completed they will bring in a few bucks and release them on the property. (before anyone says to get off now cause they will rather do day hunts, we have a 5 year contract with an 5 year extension offer in the contract.) they are really cool people and we knew all of this going in this year. my question is this and it may be a dumb one but until the fence is complete next season will having what is equivalent to 3/4 of the property high fenced have any kind of negative effect on the deer hunting next season? Once they complete the high fence and before they release the bucks on the place they will be doing a survey to find out CC, ratios of the native deer on the property.

If you have cover food and water I doubt it will hurt movement too much. If you rely more on deer moving through the area then it may get a little slower.

I am surprised they didn't do the CC studies prior to a decision to HF I guess if you are going to try and manipulate 400 acres, that wont effect a HF decision IDK. What are they going to do with the native deer? from what I gather from STX and a few other fellas here, the gene pool will revert back to the native genetics?

FWIW, I hunted a HF 3 sided 800 acre place near Laredo as a guest once, the deer had figured out where it was safe to "stay" on that place. Hung out in a back corner. Don't know if they would figure that out in just one season.

Be interesting to see what more knowledgeable HF folks have to say.

we have great cover feed year round as well as good natural forbes with 2 large cement water tanks and they will be putting in a large 1-2 acre pond before the fence is complete. little slower next year is not that big of a deal to us as we just enjoy being there but we are pretty amped up of what will be in 4 years or so with the releasing of the breeder bucks.

there has not been a decision made on the native deer 100% yet. They said they may ask us to go in and shoot it all off but they arent sure yet.

From my understanding brought in genetics, and trying to alter genetics(the expression of genetics) is much more plausible in smaller sample sizes because the culling can be much more meticulous. Not saying it will or wont make a difference, but a few of the recent studies posted on here indicated that culling based on antler characteristics worked on smaller contained(HF) properties where it didn't appear to work on very large properties or low fence properties.

Just my take from a little reading and it seems to make sense.

The results you will see in the next 4 years will vary greatly depending on the decisions that are made concerning the introduced deer. Simply adding a few genetically superior deer into a native herd isn't going to make any great difference in the genetic make up of the herd. Killing off most the native herd and dealing with introduced genetics will make a big difference in the overall quality.

Simply adding the HF isn't going to make the deer all of a sudden bigger in 4 years, but it does allow a more precise and controlled management plan possible, which you could see an improvement in the antler size within the 4 year period if the management is direct and focused.

I don't think you will see any drastic changes in the hunting while the fence is going up.

Good luck. Should be an interesting change

I have seen in many times, if you want better genetics you need to remove ALL of the actual deer.

I have seen people spend to much money and don't get 150's out of a place, even with 200" genetics in it. Bad genes are dominant. The two more common mistakes are not cleaning bad genes and having more deer than you can feed.

If you clean and have enought food or feed protein you can make it happen.

finish the fence and then build a DMP pen and clean out the pasture. quickest way to 200" in my opinion.

Would have to know a lot more to say exactly what the effects might be. Hard to imagine no effect blocking off travel routes on three sides of 416 acres. That's just common sense.

interesting conversation. I do not have experience with HF places, but some good info on here.

I doubt you should have to much trouble with your hunting during the HF construction but I would try and remove as many of the native deer as possible and then you and the landowner decide the type of deer you want to put back on the place such as Northern genetics or Texas genetics..

This property have the LO's cattle on it?

I wish more people would give the native genetics a better shot before they went for imported genetics.

yes there is at any time no more than 25 head of cattle there. They have several properties that they use for cattle and deerhunting however ours will be the first they are going to try this with because in their words we are the only property who went in and shot the kind of animals they were looking to be shot off and were very picking. This year we shot off on decent mature buck as well as 5 spikes 5 does and 2 7's with missing browtines. also we are big on predator control and keeping the hogs in check so they feel management wise we are the ones they want to try this out on.

cattle on property is all 1 year old or younger they bring weened calves to our property until they are 1 then sell and rotate.

Nice to hear of a good relationship between a landowner and lease hunter, pretty much thought that was unheard of these days!

Best of luck on it in the future.

i would be okk with the native genetics without introducing new ones onto the place as we have seen several young bucks with great potential but at the same time if they want to stock it for us we wont say no.

Good luck with that little project. If there's good cover, it's going to be a chore.

we have made vast improvements to the property in the first year we have been there. We payed for all materials and seeds to plant a 30 acre winter oats plot even though they were planning on doing it anyways we felt it would benefit us and we have no problem pitching in whatsoever. so they did the work we bought supplies. We will also go down and help with the pond when that time comes.

If the calves & yearlings are hogging the water sources there's a chance there won't be many bucks to shoot off when the fence is completed if it's not done during rut. Does don't mind them and will just stay out of their way, but it's been my experience that the bucks just avoid them until they get something on their minds.

yes i agree it will be a chore for sure if it is decided we need to clean off all the existing herd. Any sit last season we would easily see between 8-10 deer on each sit at any given stand so there is a good pop around maybe not living there but passing through. Problem is buck to doe is way off from what we can see we really needed to do a better job of getting more does off but with busy work schedules this year it was mostly me down there by my self and i did what i could but still feel wasnt enough on the does aspect.

Seems like it might be easier to hire some day laborers to walk a line and push the deer out of an opening on one side than try to kill them off. Has anyone ever done it this way?

you know that actually sounds like a very feesable plan postoak. trade them a few deer skinned and quartered for their time maybe even then wouldnt cost me anything.

either way we are excited as we are not trophy hunters and the other 2 guys from the lease just enjoy going. but either way we are looking this at a long term positive just to enjoy