I think it's time for a group hug.

You go hug them out first, I'll watch the door

Most of what takes place in Texas, to an outsider, isn't considered "real hunting". Lets be honest in that 90% of animals killed are killed using the aid of a feeder.

Go talk to hunters in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, etc. and they can't believe that we shoot deer using automated timed feeders. In States like Mississippi timed feeder were just made legal only a few years ago.


A deer is a deer. Its either spooky, or it isn't. I've seen very spooky deer on high fence ranches. I've seen deer that were not spooky at all on low fence ranches. Feeder hogs exist in both enviroments.


If you really want to "hunt" go climb a mountain and kill a stone sheep or mountain goat, or call in an elk in September and shoot it with a bow. Go spot and stalk a giant mule deer in a Sand Dune. Everything we do here whitetail hunting in Texas is weak sauce compared to that.


But that's ok. I enjoy climbing mountains and busting my arse for Elk, Mule Deer and Aoudad sheep. I also enjoy sitting in a pop up watching a feeder waiting for a whitetail to come within bow range.


At the end of the day who really give a rats arse what other people think?

They also don't understand how we can drive around most ranches and fill a seasons tag limit in a day, if we so chooses.

Bobo,

I am presuming that most folks on the THF form their opinions on deer hunting by hunting only a few places in their life. If i had stuck to hunting the same east texas timber country i did as a teenager, then i would think the whitetail deer is among the most challenging animal around to take. But I've seen enough to know that just isnt the case....it may be on a particular property or in a region due to certain factors, but its certainly not a baseline.

I've yet to hunt any kind of NA sheep, but have been around them in limited instances and did not find them to be all that spooky. To me, the most challenging animal to hunt in terms of wariness is an Elk. Everything else I have come across ( native game wise ) , with the exception of Coues deer, have been fairly docile. I've not been exposed to whitetail deer outside of Texas very much so I can't speak to how they act when they arn't getting fed twice a day. The ones i have come across that were in a true environment when supplemental feed of any kind was not in the equation, have ranged from showing no fear to not letting me get within 200 yards of them.

At the end of the day, i guess people just want to believe by killing a deer they are achieving some superhuman feat when most of the time, it just ain't so. Why they feel they need to make it that way, is the real question?

txtrophy85......if you like wary, try hunting and killing a 180"+ mule deer. There are quite a few places (river bed country in Montana) where you can kill big bull elk from a tree stand overlooking alfalfa. Anyone with enough money can kill a giant whitetail.

Well they need to get out more and go on an adventure. Forget comfortable and go explore.

End of the day we almost whipped out all ungulates and game birds off the landscape with market hunting.....
w/non-centerfire rifles.

We should never fault someone for trying to improve herd health and sustainability, and the bye products that come from that work. But obviously some are more concerned about diminishment of their set of antlers on a wall compared to other people antlers.

To each their own, I’m glad overall we have a healthy sustainable model for human use and consumption, in which allows us discretion on how we accomplish or fulfill that usage of that resource.

I know a place.... you can kill a 180 mule deer. It’s Beautiful alfalfa field. I’ve watch a 230 at 15 yards twice as I set there with no mule deer tag

Very well said Bobo.

Not often for me to be impressed by some clown.

To each his own fits many here with so many different opinions.

This is an interesting discussion. I've seen similar discussions on other Forums that turned PG18 i.t.o. threats of violence and use of strong language. From my perspective I think the group hug might not even be necessary here yet.

We all have our own preferences i.t.o. how we hunt. And also different situations in which we kill animals. If my friend who owns a 5,000 acre farm is short of meat, he does not have time to go out walking and stalking. Neither does he have time to sit in the blind for the day. He knows the habits of the animals on his farm so he drives through the likely areas and, if he finds them there, he shoots what he needs from the vehicle. However, he enjoys hunting and when he has time he likes to go out on foot and walk and stalk. That's how he chooses to do things. But everyone is different and that's OK. And when someone gives their account of how they prefer to hunt, it does not mean that they are criticizing other people who do it differently or saying everyone must do it their way.

For me personally, the degree of difficulty of the hunt is proportional to the satisfaction I get from it. There is a point at which, if the hunt is too easy, I elect to rather not shoot. I choose to hunt by walk and stalk because it challenges me i.t.o. fitness, coping with the elements and the terrain, the closeness I feel to nature and because it is a good way to pit my skills against the senses and instincts of the animals. I'm not going to go hungry if I don't shoot something as there is a supermarket down the road from my house, so I'm not desperate to kill something. If the game is tame then, for me, there is no point to the exercise. The animals must have a natural fear of humans and the property must be large enough that I must have no guarantees that I will be able to find and take an animal on any given day. It must come down to whether I can find them using my knowledge and skill and whether I am able to stalk close enough for a accurate shot. If you give me a guarantee that I can shoot a 55" kudu on your farm on say a 5 day hunt then I don't want to hunt there. If you say there are kudu in the 55" class on your farm and that there is a reasonable chance I might find one of them on a 5-day hunt then I'm in.

Provided the game is not tame, finding the game is not guaranteed and the property is large enough for the game to act in a natural way (i.t.o. how much distance they would normally put between themselves and a predator on a LF property) then it makes little difference whether I hunt on a HF or LF property. I enjoy hunting on both but my favourite is a LF property because there are no guarantees that the animals will even be on the property.



Given the tools that we now have at our disposal (e.g. modern rifles, bullets, scopes, range finders, automatic feeders, scent blockers, trail cameras, etc) and larger deer populations than there were in decades past, I guess it's not a superhuman feat at all to kill a deer. But you can make the hunt as difficult as you want it to be, if that is what you enjoy, by simply self-imposing certain standards/criteria when you hunt.

"At the end of the day, i guess people just want to believe by killing a deer they are achieving some superhuman feat when most of the time, it just ain't so. Why they feel they need to make it that way, is the real question" I bungled my way to my favorite trophy. Some how, some way and in spite of myself I became fortunate. It's a self deprecating story I lovey to tell. .

IMHO, Unclebubba answered the original question with the first reply - but a lot of good opinions follow.

Every now and then, I pull off some perfectly executed stalk and deftly send a projectile into the target animal and then claim my trophy.


most of the time, however, I stumble-richarded myself into a scenario that despite myself ended up paying off in success.


People ask me if I'm a good hunter, I am quick to tell them no, I am good at shooting from field positions and I get lucky alot. That's the formula that I've been leaning on for many years

Dimitri said about the same thing I said but he did it better. Thats a guy a could hunt with. Everything he said was right on for me but the following quote by him sums it up well for me.

"Provided the game is not tame, finding the game is not guaranteed and the property is large enough for the game to act in a natural way (i.t.o. how much distance they would normally put between themselves and a predator on a LF property) then it makes little difference whether I hunt on a HF or LF property. I enjoy hunting on both but my favourite is a LF property because there are no guarantees that the animals will even be on the property."

It is

I don't. When I can no longer hunt free ranging game I will stop hunting. I grew up hunting elk, mule deer, black bear and pronghorns in my native CO, Y'all do as you want but I have no desire to hunt anything behind a high fence. If that is your thing, then have at it. I'll pass.

So how do you feel about the 1000’s of miles of fence around state high ways in CO?

They do have ramps to let animals back in, so obviously the fences are not erected to 100% keep game off the highways. Plus the occasional rock slide or heavy snow may allow animals to cross the fences.

Hard to argue the presence of the fences though...

You mean they have one way entrances back in for when they get over it or through it and into the road way.

^^^yes, one way entrances that are present on both sides of the road.

Again, the presence of the fences is hard to argue

I feel that you're an idiot if you don't see the difference between highway fencing which runs on one side and is normally a 3 strand wire fence less than 4 ft high and a high fence circling an entire piece of property. And, I don't hunt next to the highway. Maybe you do? I don't. As noted, if you want to hunt behind a high fence, have at it, I have no desire to.

So I'm an idiot for for wondering about your opinion about 1000’s of miles of CO’s state owned and maintained high fencIng that greatly alter migration areas....It’s normally HF both sides, that’s the whole point. Got it

I grew up in CO for a long time too, still hunt there almost every year.

I’ve hunted Wildness that's two miles from a major high way. If I went 5 miles in I'm still 7 from hey, that's a grand 4500acres, away, which is beyond a lot of people’s pack out ability

It’s a very Interesting perspective in my mind, but obviously I’m more open minded.