Ray,
I have hunted some high-fenced places, both in the U.S. and Africa, though not for whitetails. (I've only hunted whitetails in Texas twice, both times on free-range properties, the King Ranch and another place in the Hill Country.) I decided to try it because I at least play at being a serious journalist, so figured instead of pre-judging fenced hunting I'd find out about it for myself.
I agree that fences don't guarantee anything--as long as the place is big enough and the animals are bred and born there. I also agree that often fenced animals are at least as hard to hunt as are free-range animals, and sometimes even harder, simply because they are hunted more or less constantly and get to know their hiding places VERY well.
Still, I don't go hunting just to get something. I also go hunting to get out amid whatever passes for nature these days, and fenced properties just don't pass that test. Too often the animals are specifically bred for big horns or antlers, or don't even live in anything like their native habitat. In both Africa and Texas they are also often brought to a property specifically to be shot. One of the recent problems in South Africa is that some places in the Eastern Cape are importing kudu from further north, so that hunters can claim to kill a "Cape kudu" with larger horns than any real Cape kudu will ever grow.
I get more out of hunting here in Montana, especially on public land, even if all I'm after is a doe deer or pronghorn, or a cow elk. I don't object to anybody else hunting fenced properties, but I discovered what I wanted to about them and have no more curiousity about them.
