Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The fight has begun..........

Hindsite - Good Luck with your fight! Is that farm in Northern Maine around Houlton? If it is I got a tour of it from by the owner several years ago, it was a fine operation! Friend's of mine used to have a red deer farm in Linneus but got out of it a while ago. I go past your town at least 3 times a year on my way up to camp. Maine has certainly changed for the worse in the 30+ years I've been going there!

When I was a teenager, I went with my best friend to Chestnut Hunting Lodge in North Carolina. Jerry Rushing the guy who wrote the Dukes of Hazard owns the place. I went through the Jurassic Park size gate into his property, a high fence operation two miles long. There were deer on the lawn he bought from Canada. One was a tame doe called "Doodles" who would pose with you for pics and wore an orange collar to distinguish her from the dead deer walking. I stalked up to a Russian boar with a metal tag in it's ear and shot it with my bow at 10 yards pawing the ground and looking very mean and angry towards me for being there. My friend shot his with my 54 caliber Renegade. We then proceeded to help the older out of shape hunters locate, shoot, and drag their pigs and one sheep to the trailhead. I had a good time.

It took me 11 years to kill my first deer on public land in RI with a bow (and I have a degree in wildlife biology). This year, I took 3 with the bow and for the first time in my life decided to forgo the gun and stuck with the bow all season long. I blew a shot at a nice eight point and killed another whose teeth were worn down to his gums. 23 years of bow hunting. I've spent thousands of hours in the woods scouting, stand sitting, and yes, taking the occasional deer. My first buck (a six) is on my wall. I've taken better but none was as great a trophy. At my club, there are maybe 4 or 5 of us that sit together and talk strategy. Go over what we did right and wrong, and how we are going to do it all again next year. I enjoy both versions of taking animals, but I would never equate taking an animal from a preserve with hunting.

By the way, here's an exert from a 2007 review of Jerry's place because it has CWD info....

"Due to CWD the state of North Carolina has banned the import of deer species into the state which reduces Chestnuts huntable species to rams, sheep, goat and hogs."

The anti's have been useing this as a point of attack since the 1970's and before I just remember that CBS special "The Guns of Autum." In it, it predicted that by now all "hunting" would be like this. I have no problem with it, I have never tried it and doubt I ever will. But for some it is what works and is needed.

Thank you.

The NRA tried that argument in the 70's and 80's, and it kind've backfired on them--it is dangerous to confuse the 2nd Amendment with hunting--two entirely different subjects.

Private property rights on the other hand......are as about as fundemental as it gets.....


Casey

I look at this subject from a few different angles. Some folks just plain think hunting inside a fence is unethical, or not sporting or easy , or whatever. I have a hard time with this subject because its a double edged sword. For example, I hunt black bears over bait, and know that in the country I live in , thats about the only effective way of killing em and they need killed, theres lots of em. Many folks think bear baiting isn't sporting and dont really understand the circumstances of how we bait em and the fact that we need to bait em in order to kill em. So me not supprting high fence hunting, is kinda like guys not supporting bear baiting. But to me high fence hunting, hunting preserves, game management ranches, whatever you want to call em, IMO have hurt hunting in a different way than just ethically. My view of these high $$$ ranches, preserves, etc is that they are causing most American hunters to lose tons of precious land that they once shared with their fellow statesmen to hunt on, in the name of free enterprise. I will never spend thousands of dollars to hunt on any of the above described places, whether I can afford it or not, thats just me. But while I dont neccessarily support high fence hunting/farming, I am more concerned with this free enterprise ideology and its affect on the average American hunter and the generations of young hunters to come, that will one day not be able to hunt, because they will be outpriced in the name of Free Enterprise hunting. Dont know if I explained this as well as I could in person, but its a sore subject with me on many fronts. The free enterprise, commercial hunting industry, IMO is what is destroying hunting in many places in this nation, not the anti's.

I understand what the Bill Of Rights does. But I also understand that the Constitution does not provide for the "right" to hunt. One could make an argument that hunting is a vested interest that carries a liberty to hunt, but one would have to undo about a hundred years of legislation to make it work.

The problem is, that there is an ethical question by most standards and values in America. And there is the risk question of disease to the public's wildlife.

Either one of those questions can be part of the public domain/debate.

Casey

I have killed blackies over bait and with hounds, and would consider doing it again.....but Colorado prohibited baiting for bears in 1992--at the same time hound hunting and spring bear hunting were prohibited--by citizens ballot initiative--and that's part of my point.....

When this balllot iniative passed, it passed by the widest margin ever for a citizen's ballot initiative ever in any state! 80% plus voted in favor of banning spring bear hunting, and bear hunting with bait or hounds. In order for this ballot to pass by that wide of a margin, it required a lot of hunters and anglers to vote FOR the initiative. Afterwards, I was a bit surprised by the number of "good 'ol boys" who voted for it--they considered that form of hunting unethical--along with a majority of non-hunters.

And the best way to lose most/all hunting rights is to be seen as defending unethical behavior, or opposing certian species of wildlife (wolves comes to mind).

As an aside note, us folks here in Colorado thought the only way to hunt blackies was with hounds, bait, or by accident during fall rifle seasons--turns out that wasn't true at all--spot and stalk hunting during the September hunt (created by the CDOW after the spring hunting ban ) kills as many bears as the spring hunt did......

Now I find spot and stalk black bear hunting to be a great way to hunt bears--but they already know that in Montana where they've been doing it for decades.

Casey

Some think health care is a right too....

Hunters have had a voice in most hunting legislation ie. limits, times of day etc..

To say there are no qualifications is silly.

I DO feel that the guy doing a high fence operation IS different. That being said, if he paid for the fence and the animals inside he should LEGALLY do as he wishes, period.

If they are animals just trapped in his fence he owes other citizens some money.

Now that I know about the hay bale thing, I think we could do it in half a day.

I'm curious Mark - how many stags do y'all take per year?

jds44,

By your obvious attempt to avoid answering my question, I can only assume that you have NEVER hunted on a game preserve, especially one located in a heavily wooded area in Maine.

Therefore one can only conclude that you don't have the slightest idea of what the [bleep] you're talking about.

I knew you were phony as soon as I read your initial post, but in the interest of fairness (something that you have neglected to show Hindsite) I thought I would give you the opportunity to explain what qualifications you had for making such an unfair and inaccurate assessment of his hunting operation.

Enough said...............I think the Campfire members can make up there own minds about what has transpired here.

The whole point is that the Bill of Rights in no way was meant to list all of our rights yet nearly every day I hear or read things like what you just wrote. Since rights don't stem from the Constitution whether they are listed in it or not is immaterial to their existance.

Looks like some professional buckmaster-baiter came in hear wanting everybody to get all foaming at the mouth to save his pretend hunting business. And everyone was too polite to way in on his ridiculous request....so he gets all crappy. WTF!?? Only a moron would term that sort of disgrace hunting. I could piss across your whole place. Get your shady faux hunting flabby hindsiteparts off this board. YOU SUCK.

Whether it's "real hunting" or not where does the government get off telling a guy what he can do on his own property with animals he owns? It's no different than if you had trout or bass in your own farm pond they told you that it was illegal to catch any.

Property rights aren't contingent on whether you like what the other guy has or not. It would be really cool, and probably a bit unusual if we could keep this conversation on an ADULT level. A lot to hope for I know.

Opinion(s) and belief(s), as strong as they may or may not be toward the issue of fenced harvests, is not an excuse to legistlate morality and ethics on private land.

Slippery slope, I suspect.

JMHO.

100 acres is not even a "fenced harvest". It's a caged whack job. Anybody that supports shooting fish in a barrel in the name of hunting rights makes all hunters look like idiots. No hunter should tolerate these sorts of sham "hunts". It's a disgrace to handicapped people to even drag them through the mud by associating them with this sort of charade. Anybody that patronizes these sorts of slaughter farms needs their ass kicked in public. I can walk across 100 acres in about a half an hour. The sooner we get rid of these pathetic parasites the better. They make a mockery of what is real and true and honorable about hunting just to turn a dollar.

Slippery as greased pig crap.

The hunting part doesn't get me too fired up. When folks think they can tell other folks what to do on their private property, that jerks my chain.

So it's all about calling it hunting then?

What about their rights to own property and use it as they see fit? Are you willing to turn over your rights to people that disagree with what you do in your home?

Yeah, if you want to raise [bleep] as pets on your own property, that should be ok too!

Yes in this case it is all about hunting as far as i'm concerned. This is a hunting board. You can own a home but you can't run a brothel out of it. These cretins aren't running a hunting operation, they are pimping wildlife out to feckless johns under the name of sport. Get them off this board and I'll be glad to go too.

The people down the road from me have bison, people in another direction have alpacas and their neighbors have fallow deer. They're all just livestock. The fallow deer guy will kill one and sell it to you for a price. I suppose he'd let you shoot it if he had more room to do it safely. It's not hunting but why should that be illegal?