You are in a tough spot when your own place can’t hold enough deer for two hunters and some of your borders get HF. Said HF will change deer movement and it takes awhile to figure it out.

Thanks Hud, new world around us for sure. We will try to adapt and proceed forward, thanks to all for the input. First time in my 45+ years of hunting to hunt next to or have HF go up next to me.

Ruined my little farm. for sure, my large neighbor in Stephens County offered 2x to buy us out, family owned for almost 100 years and not for sale. They knew it's a recreation property only so they high fenced us out, our hunting almost completely went away, I have 3 resident bucks but not much else comes and goes. I figure I can pay the taxes for around 400 more years, so they can stick it way up their A$$, but they will never own it.

If you have food, water, cover and predator control you will have deer.

Depending on your neighbors property for nice bucks or consistent hunting is a fool’s errand…..

Tell me how you really feel, lol..For the record, this thread in no way is meant to stir up LF vs HF hunting sentiments, just purely asking what others have experienced and seen hunting LF next to recently constructed HF and how it affects things. Obviously whether one builds HF is 100% at one's prerogative and election.

I'm pleasantly surprised this has remained civil. 'Might just be due to a lot fewer folks on here though.

Sometimes it's time to sell, or look for another lease. It's just a piece of dirt and shouldn't define you. Some guys tell their kids to "never sell, no matter what." It's your land and you can do what you want, but that's just silly.

In my case. it will just sit there and be a proving ground for my brother to play cowboy and farm a little, I upped the ante and bought access to the biggest place I could afford with some of the very best hunting around, but I mostly agree with you that there is always a time to sell.

When my brother HFed part of his place the LF part has seen more deer. It is like the density of deer on the HF is some sort of attractant, especially to exotics. When LF exotics come around they will walk the HF looking for a way in. We shoot them as the walk around.
We also continue to shoot bigger LF whitetail bucks just outside of the HF. The neighboring ranch has learned this and they now hunt closer to the my brothers LF property.

In this case it’s possible that the property owners who high fenced their place fed like crazy on their side to draw deer of the OP’s place. Then erected the fence.

Over time it shouldn’t matter though. Lots of deer in Texas and if the habitat is favorable, numbers will bounce back.

My place in Young County was HF by my West neighbor. It was around 2.5 miles in length. There were plenty of bedding areas and water on both sides, I farmed my place, they did not farm theirs. What I did notice was that the deer adapted within a few months, and their travel habits changed. Most of my neighbors hunt on their places trying to catch deer headed to and from my wheat fields. When the travel habits changed, the deer basically routed around my South neighbors place and he was essentially out of the deer business at that point, which helped me a lot, he would shoot anything brown. I had one very nice deer, a 165 ish 12 pt that I never saw again after they put the fence up. I assume he was trapped in the HF. That was the only negative I got out of it in the long run.

This isn’t for anyone in particular but when yall say you have a neighbor that’s put up a high fence bordering you, it would help to elaborate a little. Is the fence just along your border or is it a complete HF enclosure? There are many times where just a section of HF will go up because of a particular neighbor but it will not be a completely enclosed pasture/ranch. Knowing that may help to answer some of these questions.

On the way to our ranch I noticed that one of the low fence ranches has erected high fence along two miles of another ranch that is 'leased' that borders his property. The first ranch has been around 100 yrs (family ranch) manages stock and wildlife and I will presume was tired of watching their deer that they feed all summer jump the fence during the rut and get whacked so they fixed the problem. A lot less gunshots these days during the season. Just sayin.....

Personally, I got tired of trying to feed deer year round (low fence) only to watch them jump a neighbor's fence and listen to a boom. So, we bought a high fenced place and manage the hell out of it and grow nice deer for the family to enjoy and sell one or two hunts a year to cut down on the feed bill.

If your hunting has radically changed because a HF went up I can think of a number of reasons to ponder. Maybe you were sucking deer off your neighbors place for years. Is your property a deer magnet? Do you have water , cover, food? More than 50 acres? As an example, etc..... Have you provided everything a deer needs to grow and flourish on your property or was it just traveling through and now the travel corridors have been manipulated.... Lots of things to consider, not saying what's right or wrong. If you have the essential's then the deer will make a comeback.

Good words.

I like to believe and feel we've fostered a nice habitat, conducive for deer and their needs, food, water, ample cover, minimal noise interference, game mgmt., etc.etc.

Just my experience of working 35 years at a place that had a 8 foot chain link fence around the 600 acres. We had about 10 acres of grass in front of the main office that we kept mowed. You could shine a light on the 10 any time at night and see 20 or more deer. I have seen numerous deer jump that fence. Not run but standing flat footed and clear it. So I just don’t see how a HFcould be much of a deterrent if the deer wanted on the other side.

A good friend's ranch got high fenced by neighbors on 2 sides several years ago (north and west) east and south are bordered by county roads. East is land lived on year round and hunted hard. We've seen a huge drop in the amount of bucks we see in person or on camera. We feed year round, have water year round, have a lot of bedding areas and don't do a lot of shooting. We've seen 3 bucks on camera the last 2 years one of which we know was shot by the neighbor to the East this year.

Machinist, my neighbors fence is 8-9 ft tall. Nothing jumps it.