The final phase of my high fence has started. When I started buying land in 1998 I never wanted a HF ranch. But due to bad neighbors years ago I high fenced 2/3rds of my ranch. Now due to two neighboring ranchs (1 due south and 1 due north) being sold and breaking up into 30-80 acre ranchetts I decided to close in the final 1/3rd.

I like big older bucks, very hard to get them to 4yr olds much less 5-6yr olds with the conditions I had. These little ranchetts were going to make it even worse. I've spoken to a couple of biologist and I am keeping my native herd, and not putting any exotics on the ranch. Just going to be a native whitetail ranch for now.

I know some folks are against HF ranches, but I don't want to spend the rest of my days looking at 2-3yr old 15" 8 points. I certainly understand why folks don't like them but I feel I have no choice.

can't blame you under the circumstances you mentioned. Only downfall I can see is if you are looking at getting in the P&Y or B&C books

Sure looks pretty Stompy and I don't blame you at all given your circumstances. Out of curiosity, what is a linear mile of HF going for nowadays, $30K+?

Getting into a book is not important to me. I have a good friend that has hunted with me for over 35 years. He and I will be hunting for the trophy bucks. I plan on selling management, cull and doe hunts to the public. Eventually I hope to sell a trophy buck or two. I'm also signing up for MLD harvest option.

Close, about $34k

Looks good and will make things better for your needs and desires. That makes it all good.

Time to get ready for feed and water.

You'll like the control you'll have over the herd.

That’s a a nice fence. If it aligns to how you want to hunt on your own land then don’t let anyone say anything negative. Four of our neighbors are high fenced and it works well for all of them. As long as you have enough water and forage for the animals on the land it is a great way to manage the herd. Two of those neighbors had to sell off a bunch of animals in this past summer, but that was the first time the had to downsize a herd outside of normal management in 20 years.

Looks good.

16 ponds on the ranch, spent a month this past Summer cleaning out several and digging a couple of new ones. 3 big protein feeders that haven't been empty since 2002. Also about 60 acres of fertilized wheat.

That sounds like some great habitat to grow some studs.

Don't let the shoot what you want crowd and in the same breath wonder why there are no deer left in the area/why are all the deer nocturnal crowd get you down!

I'm in a similar situation. I like where I'm at, but ranches are being subdivided all around me.

Stompy, I can only envy you. If I were doing this I would learn to count deer even if P&W is going to .. To count deer right you will need a camera every 65 acres. Get a good procedure. This should keep you from overpopulating. The deer will be a lot of work but you will love every minute of it, even more than the hunting itself. How many acres did you fence in? You will not be loosing does to your neighbors which will cause you some work harvesting enough to keep from over populating...of course you know that. I wish you luck..

I get it, particularly after the last two years, all I shot buck-wise was 1 cull off 600 acres. My 150 acre neighbor (and guests) took at least 3 older bucks off his place this past year alone. I can't afford to buy him out nor fence him out at this point, so I hope to at least have a real conversation with him this year before it happens again.

I didn't high fence the whole ranch because 117 acres is across the county road, I fenced about 950 acres. I live on the ranch, so I have a pretty good idea of the population. Also right now my ratio is 1 buck-2does.

Gotta do what you gotta do, sir. Congrats and good luck.

I owned 600 acres some time back and did the same thing and never regretted it - I had a blast growing big deer and letting family and friends help me manage it. You will need to do a ton of culling - they multiply pretty quickly in HF - good luck with your project!

Stompy, it's your land so do what is right for you and the deer. I hunt in the Pinewoods of Northeast Texas so our terrain is so much different from what you have, but we still have the same problem with mind set of some neighbors.
On our place we took a mature deer about once every 5 or 6 years working with the large place to the north of us. We took our LAMPS doe quota and a couple of cull bucks each year. It worked really well with 6 landowners all working for the same goal.
Then one of the land owners sold out and the new guy was very impressed with all of the fine bucks in the area. He invited everyone he knew to come shoot them a buck. Our buck numbers dropped like a rock over the first 3 years he was there. No amount of talking to him could convince him he was the problem. He even asked where all of the buck had gone. I wish we could have high fenced around him, just didn't have the extra money.
Good luck and best wishes. Looking forward to seeing pictures of some nice bucks in the next few years.

Good luck Stompy. Looks great.

Keep us informed on your progress it will be interesting to see the project as it develops.

Feel free to do what you want!

I am not trying to be mean with this question at all, but since you posted this I want to ask....why did you post this?

You could have quietly done the HF project with only your close friends knowing, but you chose to come on here and tell us. I am really curious about the reason behind you telling us this. Genuinely curious. So please take this for what it is, a simple question.

Why on God's green earth does it matter? Some questions are much better posed via pm.

I have a lot of friends here on THF that aren't on other sites. Plus this is a hunting forum. Plus even though I didn't ask, I thought there may be some insight from others that have done this, and there was.

Why does anyone post anything on any forum?

Not sure why it riled you up so much that I asked. feel free to PM me if you can figure that out.