I haven't read all the pages yet but has anyone asked if hunting 100acres low fence is more sporting than 5k acres high fenced? Are the animals more tame on one place vs the other?

What about a 20k acre low fence place? Are those deer tame as tame as 20k acre high fenced deer?

Fish in a barrel, fish in the sea. What difference does it make.....a fish is a fish, right? I think that I'm getting it now!
This free range, fair chase thing is over rated. We have guns, feeders, and blinds anyway. Since we have such an unfair advantage, why not high fence them too. We can have total control and congratulate ourselves when we kill a deer we raised. Impressive!

High fenced or not. Deer get tame from no hunting pressure and constant positive human interaction like spreading corn from your truck. On 500 acres hf, when I have to cull 20+ deer in a season, the deer disappear. I've also been on low fence ranches when deer would walk into the road to see if we were spreading corn. It was our first year on the place and it had not been hunted other than the landowner for years. We had a mature 150 class buck that hung out on the road about 400 yards from our cabin. No one wanted to shoot him by the time the season started because he was so tame and they were looking for bigger. The landowner ended up shooting him. He was the 3rd biggest deer out of 6 trophy bucks taken.

If I drove through my place and spread corn everyday from my truck I probably could condition my deer but you can do the same thing everywhere.

re: sporting - lookup P&Y and B&C book qualifications.

I'm sensing sarcasm. It's more like fish in a lake or fish in the sea.

High fence is a management tool just like proteining, culling or letting the population mature. B&C does not let high fence into the record books, because it usually does not represent the quality of deer in the area. It's not because they don't consider it fair chase (I'm not talking about kill pens). They excluded them so they could have a better representation of management practices as a whole in the area. B&C was started for a management tool, not purely for bragging rights.

It's true deer inside a fence are usually better quality than the ones on the outside. Why because we have a better chance of bringing all of the other management tools together.

Dunno, hunted both and enjoyed both. The HF I hunted I picked a deer from tail cams and decided to only harvest that one deer. It took me 2 different trips in the season to find that buck but had chances on what seemed to be every other buck in the county before the last minute of several straight all day hunts in almost every stand location on two different multi day trips. The target buck this year on LF showed up like clockwork on opening weekend of bow season, also hunted 300 acres LF that you could decide the day and sit that you wanted to harvest your target buck......... sooooooooo?

Since you brought up the record books. Have you ever noticed that some of the best elk/mule deer trophy units have ski resorts in them. When I go skiing, I love seeing all of the huge elk and mule deer. Some lucky guy drew the tag to shoot one of those tame monsters. Is it considered fair chase because you waited 20 years for a tag?

Great point. I live to impress people. You should be like me, because my way is right. Everything you do should be directed at impressing people. Do this, then you are a real hunter.

Great point. Good thing he was in a high fence or you might have had to make a few more trips with no guarantee.

Mark: reading your posts:

good thing we have you to educate us on right and wrong

If you don't go after deer with with a sharp stick, wearing a loin cloth, you're a hypocrite and not a real hunter.

Why do you care so much how other people spend their free time?

I'm impressed with your ability to consistently make stupid points.

The height of the fence has nothing to do with how tame a deer is. It is how they are treated all 365 days of the year. If we spend a lot of time at our place all year long, the deer are not as wild acting as most places. If they see the pickup, they know we are corning the road and start lining up like cattle after we drive through to eat the corn. It's proves Pavlov's Theory.

One side of our place has no fence, it is a cotton field, the other 3 sides are 4 foot goat wire and 2 strands of barbwire. Low fence and no fence, it makes no difference as to how wild or tame the deer are.

Man regurgitating this topic over and over gets old - same ole stuff

Hunt how and where you want as long as it is within the game laws and makes you happy

Forum needs to add a new topic - "LF vs HF"

.270

When road hunting, I would prefer the 22 short, quiet enough it doesn't waken the area landowners.

HF's matter to people who believe that a basic, fundamental, undeniable tenet of fair chase hunting is that the animals being pursued are not confined within a fence. For those of us who share this viewpoint, most of the stuff brought up by HF proponents (feeders, tameness, hunting with sharp sticks, etc.) is simply irrelevant noise.

Sounds like: "don't confuse me with facts, my mind's made up"

You're saying the only thing that matters for fair chase is that the deer could leave and be shot by your neighbor? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds. What about a high fenced ranch leased by 10 different hunters. If there is 1 trophy buck on the ranch, only one hunter gets him. I don't see how that is any different.

I bet you are. With over 11,000 posts in 4 years, I can tell you must read them all. I'm impressed that you have such an exuberant amount of spare time to kill.

YES, fair chase means the deer can leave; it's not captive. Yes, it means you don't have 100% control.

Free range and fair chase are different. You are confusing them.

FAIR CHASE, as defined by the Boone and Crockett Club, is the ethical, sportsmanlike, and lawful pursuit and taking of any free-ranging wild, native North American big game animal in a manner that does not give the hunter an improper advantage over such animals. HUNTER ETHICS."

Fixed it. At this point, this and some of the other hot button topics serve only one purpose - to get people at each other's throats. Very counterproductive when we have so many other groups who would love nothing more than to see the pastime we love so much disappear. But, it sucks people in every time.

Is hiding in an elevated blind over a pile of corn that the deer have been trained to come to on a timer fair chase? Just want to clarify, you seem to be hunter supreme on here so I want to make sure I am doing whatever it you say I should do to be a real hunter. To me a timed feeder would be an improper advantage, but again, you tell me and I'll go with it.

Nothing compares to captivity. That defines unfair advantage. It is what it is any which way you slice it. A huge majority agrees with this.