Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Opinions on high fence hunting

Did you try to find out who shot the buck and let them get the rack?

a12, You talk like a Guy that's seen or been on a good high fence ranch,not all high fence ranch's are created equal. Rio7

So, if a ranch has 12,000 acres behind a fence, a whitetal buck can't elude a hunter?

There is a high fence elk hunting operation down the road. If memory serves around 10000-12000 acres which is about 16 square miles. Caters to clients from back East, Texas, California. Big money. Not hunting in my opinion, just paying to slaughter livestock, which is fine but does not in any way compare to free range elk hunting on public land.


To each his own, its a free country and I am a strong believer in private property rights, but the Texas style of high fences, feeders, elevated blinds is not my idea of fair chase.

I have always been impressed reading about the Benoits whitetail hunting skills in New England.

Lots of guys make comments about a high fence. It clear they have no clue. The deer are just as wary inside as they are outside. They aren’t tame, haul as just as fast as a place that’s never been hunted, probably faster, cause they know what a human is, know the sound of Jeeps, 4 wheelers, etc. Not all high fence enclosures are managed, some put up to keep poachers-trespassers out, slow down wetback traffic. Low life’s can get over a low fence, throw a deer over it, not so easy with a high fence. If you make a bad shot, animals ain’t goin over either. I wish the place I hunt had a high fence.

Responding to the forum member above me. Seems we have devolved into an ethical free for all where what is primary is what the individual thinks or "feels". It's pathetic and to me is a microcosm of the larger pathos festering in western culture.

Different rules and laws apply all over and boil down to ethics.

Many states hunting over a bait pile is legal and accepted.
Other states it’s a big Nono..

Some guys think it’s unethical..

Same with the fence deal. I think the small high fence operations like what we have near me the deer are a little different than the big high fence operations in other areas.

150 acre high fence the deer get used to hearing the atv pull up with the feed and loading the feeders. They stand there and watch.

In a place like Texas that may have a several thousand acre or more high fence the deer are likely much less cautious.

It recently got back to me that my neighbor seems to have an issue with my good plots and is hunting near them. Seems he doesn’t like it.. well TFB.. it’s legal, it’s my land, and it’s my money going into them..

Bottom line in my opinion people need to worry about how they view themselves more than how they view what others are doing.

A whitetail buck can elude a hunter on fifty acres. But it won’t likely escape the fence.

A person should hunt as they wish as long as it's in line with what's legal.

The idea of hunting in an area where game is contained so it gives a "sure thing" advantage to the hunter is not attractive to me. In an area large enough that it doesn't limit the game and give an advantage to the hunter, it seems fine to me.

The idea of being able to maintain and develop a property to allow the game in it to grow to their potential by careful management is very attractive to me. I'd love to see that implemented at every place I hunt but that would require every individual that hunts the area, and adjoining areas, to be of the same mindset. A fence to limit who comes in seems as important as limiting what goes out.

I guess most everywhere I hunt could be considered "fenced". I hunt public/WMA land, a hunting club, and private property in 2 states (some years 3 states). In every case it's me that's fenced by WMA boundaries or property lines. We're all hunting behind a fence in some way or another.

We put the old farm into trees. I was told we had to have a high fence due to the river rats trespassing. We border public on two sides. I strongly opposed the fence. We ultimately decided not to build it. Turns out we’ve never had a trespassing problem, though we border public on two sides. That public has very limited gun hunting and we have deer drift in from it. Our deer are able to feed in the corn and bean fields on two sides of us. That wouldn’t have happened with a fence. Sure, we could’ve grown bigger deer with a fence, but we’re doing ok without it. And our friends have just pulled down their fence after 15 years of a failed experiment.
We’ve got great rifles and game cameras. How much more advantage do we need over the deer?

So then, if the fence isn't preventing the deer from eluding the hunter, how does "fair chase" figure in?

You do know that a whitetail's home range is such that many would live on a 12,000 acre ranch and never leave it even without a fence, right?

opinions don't make a flip.

What I don't understand is why people feel the need for validation from other people.

Want to do it? Is it legal? thats about all that matters to us.

Really don't care what others think.

axis coexist with whitetails but they will kill them off too. Axis can eat anything. Axis multiply. They compete with WT for food and when WT food runs out they die. Axis change diets. Have to be very careful with axis.

We prefer axis for eating by far though. FWIW. Shooting them would be boring after some time. Same antler formation for the most part on all of them. Whitetails you never know what they might grow. More interesting on that part at least.

a12, You completely misunderstand why we fence our property with a high fence, go back to the start of this thread and catch up, as for failed experiments, that's a sample of one you know about, many places with low fence or high fence fail, no big surprise there. property size has a great deal to do with how effective high fence is, 99% of our wild critters don't know there's fence. where they live. Rio7

Agree Rost, 100%. What's always interesting to me in these conversations is that people will whine about blinds/feeders/bait, etc while at the same time never think twice about hunting a small property in the Midwest in which deer are ambushed out of tree stands that sit over small food plots and green fields.

Horace Gore and Ernie Davis, retired TP&W biologists, were at the forefront of whitetail deer management, and did more to educate the general public on whitetails and management than anyone else on the planet.

I don't think it has anything to do with "the need for validation." I've never hunted a high fence ranch, I just object when anyone wants to use their own personal preferences or personal ethic (which many people fail to understand does not equal "ethical") to denigrate how others choose to do it.

Yep. Most people on this board only have lipservice and guessing to offer, instead of actual experience.

High fences prevent dispersion, that can affect bucks' home range. If they can't disperse naturally you are affecting their movement across the property, regardless of acreage.
I've hunted high fence and it not for me as too WT hunting but for meat hunts on exotics works very well.
Where legal, no issues.

All they can get. Today every hunter want's their participation trophy. If they can't get one legitimately through skill and perseverence, then by god they'll just raise one or pay somebody else to do it and make it a whole bunch easier. There's always been trophy bucks out there, even on public land. They're just too scarce and difficult to obtain for todays "everybody deserves a trophy" hunter. The fact that a deer can elude a hunter inside a big enough fence isn't the point at all. The point is, the fence contains an unnaturally large number of trophy bucks and the whole point of that is to make one easier to obtain than outside the fence.

It is when someone is complaining about "fair chase" you dolt. Managing genetics and nutrition to produce big antlers is an entirely different subject, and the reason for the B&C and P&Y rules.