I've went on 6 Elk hunts and spent thousands. I went Elk camping, Elk tracking, Elk;You should have been here yesterday, Small 5 x5 and once a nice 6x6 300 bull. Finally I went to Canada on a well managed HF ranch. Had a great time and scored on a 390 bull! I put in my dues. Did I Elk hunt? YES.

After 20 years on deer leases watching my neighbors shoot every buck I passed. Yes, I went HF whitetail hunting. It was the same when I pull the trigger just bigger deer.

Finally after spending a lot of money maintaining a yearly deer lease we added up how much we spent, Gas, Feed, Improvements, Lease fee.... We now take those same funds and go Caribou, Muskox, Black Bear , etc... hunting yearly.

If you speak of your last experience we will just have to agree to disagree. If you are prouder of the 390 than the smaller 6x6 and 5x5-you have missed the entirety of the real hunting experience IMO. You have many "diamonds", yet your quest was for cubic zirconia.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say some folks on the forum may feel there's a little difference between hunting GMUs in the States, that can be almost a million acres, and a pen in Canada. I could be wrong though and they may feel that you did put in your dues.

Never said I was any more proud of one than the other. Don't read anything into a post thats not there!

It is never about success it's the experience. I have been blessed with a lot of different experiences.

Well I'll put it this way then: the twain do not meet.

You paid your dues for the 6x6 and the 5x5.
You paid your dollars for the 390.

It isn't even worth discussing. Fun for the first couple pages and first couple threads, then it gets old. You have to remember especially in the off season there are mostly land owners, game managers, and brokers active on THF. They have a more vested interest in the high fence story line, understandable. Low fence hunters like us are challenged for our beliefs, it is bad for business to have "low fence only" hunters like us expressing personal opinions. Certainly there are plenty of opinions allowed pro-high fence and I think that is perfectly fine. I'm fine with THF if they keep a balanced approach and allow respectful opinions from both sides equally, shouldn't be any preference. You can have an opinion on your own side without being a jerk and expecting everyone else to have your same opinion. I'm fine if others want to hunt HF.

I just jumped in this thread and I am not going to waste time reading the last 3 pages because I already can figure that the arguments are. But I will tell you the facts.....

High fenced ranches = bigger bucks
High fenced ranches = easier to managed b-d ratio

Low fenced ranches= all native genetics
Low fenced ranches = harder to managed and deer take longer to grow


In my humble opinion- I would rather hunt a low fenced ranch, but I have hunted on and still hunt some very large low fence ranches in South Tx. It is a full time job during the season and off season to manage the herd. On a high fence ranch you almost always know what you have and where it is at, way easier to cull deer.

If I spend dollars to sit on the first row on the 50 yards line, or in a suite, is the game any less enjoyable than sitting in the end zone?

Have fun and be blessed.

I agree. And easier to do everything else-including killing the biggun.

If easy is the goal, HF is certainly the answer. But that's kind of the point of why it is not the same.

I only hunt the best fences...the ones that arnt mine

No.

But with HF it is not the same game.More akin to WWE than the NFL as a more appropriate analogy IMO.

Not always. I have done hunts on HF ranches that has been harder hunting than on LF ranches.

Deer are more wary in some places than others. That is not the point. That the HF locks them in is the game-changer.

I only hunt HF because the animals taste better.

I am considering a steer hunt this year. Looking for grass fed and then maybe a couple of months of feed, no hormones or drugs though. More of a custom finishing feed job. Want it to be released from the pen though before the stalk.

I gotcha covered what quality you want...standard, choice, prime?

So I am guessing that all the people who say hunting HF is not giving the deer a fair chance are also the same guys who will not use cover scents, rifles, the latest and greatest bow, game cams, feeders, blinds and the list goes on...
All of those things swing the favor to the hunter and in a lot of the western states the people think that stands and baiting are unfair and not really hunting..
Hunting is about who you spend the time with and what you make of it while you are there.....

To each their own within the laws.

I see no difference.

We have several deer that we have pictures of for 3-4 years straight that come like clock work. I shot one of them last year out of a deer blind. We are low/no fence. I don't think the fence has much to do with it, I think it is management and how the place is treated.

Well played sir.

Yeah because those Hi fence deer are all waiting in line to jump on a plain an fly to Hawaii.. They aint going anywhere anyway

I think we can all agree that HF hunting is better because you get bigger and better deer and that people that don't like HF hunting only have that opinion because they're bitter and petty and can't afford to hunt a HF?

Surely we can all agree on that, right men? I don't see anything work arguing there...

I rather talk about Savage and Remington.

You've been a savage lover from way back right..

Well prime of course. Not interested in an exotic like a Wagyu though.