I've been hunting my whole life and been outfitting for 6 yrs and guiding for 10yrs and I still can't wrap brain around the opposition to high fence hunting in MOST cases.

1.) hunting has become a business and an expensive one from both hunter and land owner perspective hunting a high fence offers some certainty to what inherently has luck or chance built into the sport.

2.) from a land owner perspective it's insurance on your investment. We all buy warranties, extended warranties, insurance, etc a high fence serves as such.

3.) Im speaking for South Texas primarily the vegetation is so thick where I'm at that I can't even crawl through much of it. So with that being said we hunt out of a blind like most guys over a feeder just like low fence guys in Texas, which leaves the hunting area to a limited "x" amount of allowable shooting space from a stationary position in a blind. How is it any different?

I understand the smaller ranches having a canned feel but high fence low fence out of a blind it's logically the same taking into consideration surroundings like parts of South Texas.

Not knocking low fence I like fair chase also but I think HF gets demonized and not a fair shake without looking at the big pic. Not trying to start a fight or bring out the pop corn wagon lol.

I'm ok either way, but low fence allows a neighbor to harvest one of the trophy bucks and HF does not. When I hunt (LF) one of my neighbors can kill a buck that I want to shoot - this can greatly reduce my chances for a trophy buck.

JR

Never hunted HF, but no qualms with it. Man penned up and domesticated cattle, pigs, goats, etc, and we kill and eat them, so what's the difference. Just part of free market capitalism.
Hunting didn't use to be a sport, but now that it is, natural competitiveness among hunters, bragging rights, and jealousy tend to get the best of many of us. Pretty silly when you think about it. We got to keep the big picture in mind.

To each his own..

OK - How 'bout this?

Before one puts up a high fence, they will have to ensure that all "state/public owned" deer are removed from the property and start restocking from scratch. That way all those opposed, who also pay for hunting licenses to support TPWD, have a chance to kill a nice "state/publicly owned" buck.

An alternative to removing all deer might be that each HF operator would be required to release a certain number of quality (not necessarily trophy) bucks so that "state/publicly owned" deer are reasonably accessible to all license holders. In this case the HF operator doesn't start from scratch and still has control over genetics on his own property.

I like it

Unless your my neighbor...

If I could hunt high fence I would. The only difference is you know that monster buck won't be shot by the neighbor. You pay to shoot it and you shoot it. Low fence, you pay to shoot it and anyone has the opportunity to. I don't care either way. But when someone shoots a 300" deer and says look at the monster I shot like they did something, thats a little stupid for me. The ranch owner and guides know where the deer was. So really you just paid an [censored] load of money and squeezed the trigger. You didn't have to scout and move around through the woods. No work involved. Id still do it though. Just saying.

HF sounds like people don't want others to play with their toys.

I'd put out a HF for one reason only. To keep the deer on my property from running off. I make more money having more deer on my property. there might be a 12 point running around and I don't want anybody else to shoot but who pays me, or myself.

And if the deer inbreed due to the fact that half the gene pool can't jump the fence to get onto my property, oh well.

The only way to save the planet and the sport is to buy it.

Hold on to your butts cause here we go again...

the state of Texas' position on "Their" bucks is BS to begin with. If a buck hits your car on a public rd or highway since its property of the state technically they should compensate for damages they don't and they won't but that's life. So I don't see the native whitetail as property of the state they are wildlife. They are autonoums beings of the land and that's a big problem with the state and fed they think they own the wildlife this only helps groups like PETA and that other bs group that helped put oryx on CITES permits. So keeping the idea they are property of the state your only helping them. Secondly, when a someone purchases land anything in its metes and bounds is rightfully theirs another way of encroachment of rights put on by fed and state. it's capitalism, which is a good thing and makes the usa a great place. Lastly, people run exotics and those are brought in with the exception of Hill country. Would you spend 10's of thousands of dollars just to have everyone else shoot em even if they are placed not for profit but for family hunting?

That's the problem with HF. The owner of the land believe the deer belong to them, when in fact they belong to the state of Texas if that's where your property is. I don't care if you have a High fence on your property, but if you want to charge a small fortune for someone to shoot a deer just make sure that you run all the governments deer off the place and buy some deer for yourself and start raising them, that way they will belong to you and no will will have to say anything too you about it.

I see things slightly different. I'll never fully understand why people run it as a business for anything other than tax write-offs.

When the state pays the landowner for the food the wildlife eats, then the state could ask for their return. Until then the state cannot enforce their claim. In court the landowner could easily prove their right to "hold" them until the state pays the food and water bill.

Hold on to your butts cause here we go again... [/quote]

Yep, they just went there. AGAIN.

To me I would rather have any rancher in a HF own their deer then say the fed or state owns it. Perfect example look what they did to the oryx those things had great value and were thriving till everyone said screw it I'll get what I can. Any time the state or fed gets involved and claims ownership of things of this nature it just means bad news.

I think HF is for the people that can't hunt real deer, so they have to lock them in so they can't all run off

I expect 4 pages by morning.

The oryx was bought and raised by the ones that brought them in, that's different