I have cameras on heavy used trails as well as feeders and have found that there are deer that never go to the feeders, most of these deer are nice bucks.

thats an easy fix....take down the cameras.

high or low fence, constant surviellance takes away the suprise factor from any type of hunting.

I put them up a few weeks ago to see what kind of deer we have since downsizing, not to track the patterns of certain bucks.

come october, there comming down.

My dream in life is to buy 500-600 acres, build a decent sized cabin, kill all the coyotes and have myself and close family enjoy the deer herd and some hogs. It will be like my own personal fiefdom. With a venison supply all year round.

Well you accomplished both

Fun reading these old threads, you guys were nicer to each other back then.

If i thought high fencing 200 acres was the only way i could enjoy hunting the land, i think i would look for a different tract to buy, perhaps in a different, more affordable area. If i couldnt find something else, id probably spend my money and time leasing, hunting public land out of state or booking a couple trips a year with an outfitter. But its all about personal preferences.

x2 You are right. Now the posts sound like our politicians in Washington! Sometimes the old days were better in some ways.

Doesn't it cost about $20/ft to high fence? If so, I'd take the $150k or more in fencing costs and just by a larger tract of land.

Adding 50 acres to 1000 isn't going to have the impact of adding a HF, like them or hate them.

It's more like $3.50 to $4.00 a foot. The funny thing is the bigger you go the lower the per acre cost. A quarter section (160 ac) that's square needs 2 miles of fence. A full section (640 acres) that's also square requires 4 miles.

Personally have seen a 300 acre high fence operation from a couple years after the start to about 10 years into in N. Texas. Heavily wooded and all the right predator control and supplemental feeding and vaccinating etc. The owner said at about year five if i remember correctly it started to get to where no deer could hide anymore and with game cams and weekend outings year around it was never a surprise as to what was on the property.

Now the flip side he had a complete hunting resort all to his own. A place where his children grew up from shooting there first doe to hunting 160" deer. All MLD, all controlled, ALL HIS, 30 min. from their house in town!!! His children did not have to suffer the pains of public hunting as I did, not saying it is wrong at all to raise a kid hunting public lands at all. I my self am doing now with my 9 yr old. Although being able for your kiddos not to have to get up at 5am walk 1/2 mile in the cold only to have to pack up at daybreak cause some kids had a bonfire and beer bash at your stand the night before. (End of a logging rd.) In this respect he was king of the universe and well earned!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Never was there any kind of zoo factor and it was truly hunting. Put it this way we had a Boy Scout camp out there one fall and with a heard of Im shooting from the hip 80 deer we only saw maybe 10 the whole weekend everybody combined.

Since he has purchased 2500 acres in Oklahoma and moved the operation to expand and bring back the surprise element a little.