In the late 1990's my family fenced in 600 acres of Pennsylvania forest. For awhile it was used to take my father through his retirement, but he has since passed. This property is amazing and while you may not like the idea of fenced hunting, this place has been a joy to be part of. The elk on it have been born without contact with man for many, many generations and are extremely elusive. This is not like the places that stock elk that were raised in a pen and then hunt them. The fact is,
while they may not be able to migrate to the next county, if you kick one up and don't get it, you will likely not see it again in the cover of the thick forests. The property has a 5 mile long perimeter fence 10' tall, only. No smaller fenced areas. I know of no other place on the eastern half of the USA where someone can hunt elk that are not tame, or require a lottery to get the chance at one.
Listed here is our website. Should you know of any interested people or even groups, please connect them with our website. The lodge has 7 small bedrooms.
Thank you for looking!
www.highlandranchusa.com

GLWYS........

High fence hunts/property wouldn't interest me

Or many others here on the Fire.......600 acres or 6K acres

I grew up in west PA.....been around central PA too

That's why I live in Public Land USA....Utah (pic)

Again......GLWYS

I let the taxpaying public in the other 49 states fund my hunting.

Good Luck.

Do you get to pick your "trophy" ahead of time?

Thank you for the snarky reply Bluefish but if you read (or understood) my post you would already have known otherwise. Our place has been for MY hunting for the past many years with few exceptions. The elk live with little contact with mankind and are born here like the past many generations. They were not put in for a hunt after being raised in a pen. Its actually a pretty nice setup for someone who wants their own wild elk hunting in the eastern USA and can afford it. I know of many places like you describe. This is not that.

As you see no buddy has interest in a high dollar fenced property to 'hunt Elk'

Maybe some rich liberaL from Philly or NYC will bite to entertain their clients

Not happening here.......

Again too much public land in the western USA to have a real Elk hunt

Move on..........

And hunt that taxpayer-subsidized public land out there.

Somebody die and appoint you as moderator?

Ahhhh, let’s pile on the guy who manages his land different from the way you would do it. Crucify the bastid. He can’t be worthy to post here.

Welcome to the campfire!

Beautiful set up and pretty country. Not the way I hunt, but to each their own path. Sounds like an ethical owner/hunter.
Good luck with your sale
Lj

Nice place but out of my price range. But….. if it was mine, I would certainly hunt it and not apologize for doing it either.

You have some really nice bulls there.

Its simply wishfull thinking to think that place will bring anywhere near that price.
Ive been hunting in that part of Pa since 1947.
600 acres is just a small patch in that area.
A couple of years ago i wanted to go back to the place i hunted my first day of the buck season 75 years earlier.
As the crow flies it would be maybe 40 miles from this place, just a bit north of Trout Run.
I drove from Liberty to Slate run on rt. 414, and found that at least 75 percent of the camps along the road to be closed up.
The Slate Run Hotel had one hunter, who happens to be a close friend.
Along the way i stopped at Wolfes store for gas and some lunch, i was the only customer for about the hour i spent there, on the first day of buck mind you.
I had dinner at the Black Forest Inn on Rt 44, and again the place was almost deserted.
Our present camp is very near Driftwood, which is about 20 miles from Benezette, the epicenter of the Pa elk area.
We are also bordering the 50.000 acre Quehanna wild life area.
Point is that there are millions of acres of land open for hunting in that region.
The only thing lacking is hunters.

I'm sure the lack of hunters in that area is due to the lack of deer in many areas in PA. The dramatic reduction in the deer herd is the result of our Game Commission's slaughter the does policy.

Shure as hell ain't burning the ammo that used to be used.

More shots fired by lunchtime on the first day of buck 35 years ago than
you hear all season now.

Hit the Gamelands to see how many vehicles.
Almost none.

Nice place!

no kidding. Who the hell does he think he is? I enjoyed the pictures

[quote=1899guy]Thank you for the snarky reply Bluefish but if you read (or understood) my post you would already have known otherwise. Our place has been for MY hunting for the past many years with few exceptions. The elk live with little contact with mankind and are born here like the past many generations. They were not put in for a hunt after being raised in a pen. Its actually a pretty nice setup for someone who wants their own wild elk hunting in the eastern USA and can afford it. I know of many places like you describe. This is not that.[/quot[b][/b]e.


Beautiful, for sure and certain

I see a bunch of people who own nothing showed up.

Glwys

So there's a bear in that fence? Or has he found a way through/over/under it?

-Jake

They can climb right up one side and down the other. Basically like a step ladder for them.

Personally, I think you did a great thing understanding that it is Pennsylvania and it was your fathers dream come true. It is your money and your property and it appears you managed it well. Now, if you really want to make a contribution to the State open a gate on the far side of the property and let a few of those elk run. Do that once or twice a year and you and your fathers legacy could go down as local heroes at some point in the future.

kwg

1899guy: I have never participated in a "fenced Big Game Hunt" - but at my age and if I could afford it I would buy that beautiful parcel and enjoy it.
It is sure different than where I grew up Hunting (Okanogan country of eastern Washington and the foothills of the western Cascades) and where I now Hunt (Rocky Mountain west).
Thanks for the link and good luck with the sale.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy
P.S.: Please pass along my standing cash offer to the realtor of $1,000,000.00 (one million dollars).

Falling trees (wind or ice storms) can also wreak havoc on fences. Pretty sure Bob can attest to the continual maintenance necessary to keep a fence of that length functional and intact.

Poconojack, when we built this place we did it right. We cut a 100' + clearcut around the entire perimeter of the property. Nothing reaches it and if it does, its just the gentile tree-tops that do nothing to this high-tensile fence. As far as the time spent, I spend about 5 hours per year on the fence, mostly filling holes that bears dig under the fence, and its usually no big deal. The place is pretty much turn-key and maintenance free. Regarding the bears, they go over or under the fence. They pretty much do whatever they want. To the guy who says its a small piece of property and west of there is full of elk, bla, bla, bla, good luck hunting one of those, in the lottery. Lastly, I would love to let some free to be add to the elk coverage in PA, but thats illegal, as crazy as that sounds. Thank you to those who have made the positive comments. No hurry to sell it. In the meantime, I love the place and will enjoy it until the right person falls in love with it too.

I’d think the 2-legged varmints would be more of a problem!

Looks like a beautiful estate! Congrats to your family for developing and maintaining it!

Oh…by the way…any trades? 😂

I am not a high fence fan, but I am sure I would deeply appreciate owning this property.
But that is not in my future.
Sounds like a great place and a neat place to sneak up on some elk. Keeping the head
count in check really needs to be maintained.
Congrats.

Well this post didn't elicit the response poster hoped.

Maybe you just woke up on the wrong side of the bed but if a guy had 600 acres in PA that's a pretty good way to manage the ground.

I have never killed a bull on private, much less high fenced, but if OP is happy I don't see a thing wrong.

Seems a lot better than subdividing for rich NYC liberals to have a vacation home.

As hunters we might be better sticking together than eating our own.

Well said John. Same as you in regards to hunting but 600 acres in the east is a pretty fair piece of ground to keep natural.

All good points 👍🏻

How many elk are on the property? Bulls? Cows?
Same question for deer?

Mineral rights included?

600 acres doesn't sound like much to someone from out west, but in the eastern hardwoods it's a pretty good spread.

For darn sure.

600 acres is a postage stamp for a few elk. They can walk across that in 10 minutes.

Well there is no doubt that 600 acres is a large parcel for an individual to own.
But in the overall sceme of things it is not in that area of Pa.
Not only that, but how many Elk and Deer will a parcel of that size support?
In the mid 70s, when the Pa Game Commission placed the man they credited with saving the Pa bear population, in the job of now saving the deer herd, his plan was to drastically reduce the herd size.
Especially in the area where they were trying to increase the size of the Elk herd.
There was much outcry over that, and they had a big meeting at a now defunct sportsmans club called Mountain Country sportsman near the Cameron/Potter county line on route 872.
It seemed as though the entire staff of the game commission was present and defending the proposal.
When pressed, they claimed that due to the present size of the trees and lack of browse, the area could only support 2 deer per square mile. At that time, the Elk herd wasent even part of the argument, just the deer herd.
But, is it logical that a say 300# elk would consume twice the amount a 125 pound deer would?
So now were going to put a high fence around 600 acres and expect a huntable size herd to survive there?
Does anybody here have any idea as to how many large food plots the game commission has created in the Elk region over the past dozen years or so?
That in addition to many miles of natural gas pipelines and large power lines thruout that area?
Not to mention all the yards they occupy, and where many end up being shot, during the (ahem) annual hunt.
And their claim at least is that the entire Elk herd is about 1000 animals in the whole region, which is huge.
So id say that somebody is paying to feed the animals in order for them to survive on 600 acres.
Especially in years with a poor mast crop like acorns.

I'd love to own that piece of property with all the amenities if I was lucky in the Lottery. I lived in Wyoming for 25 years and am now back in the midwest. I understand that by western standards 600 acres is just a big lot. However, in the east 600 acres is an estate. High fence hunting is not my thing and I'd remove the fence ( after I removed all the elk of course and as many of the wt's as possible) and develop a free range QDM property. I have only a 160 acres and even that amount can have high productivity back here if managed correctly. I'm even more fortunate as my neighbors are on the same page with QDM. A huge asset.

Yep. If I was interested in it the elk wouldn't be the reason.

Elk are Grazers just like a cow how many cows will the 600 acres support? there's your answer, Deer are Browsers not Grazers and do not compete with Elk for Food. Rio7

Amen to the above.

High fences are definitely Rio's forte.

Leave the OP alone, unless you are interested.

You beef eaters.......be careful on your high perch.

A couple things.
It was much closer to 2000 when Dr Gary Alt was put in charge of PA deer.
As was said, elk and deer eat different stuff. Elk graze. You can feed a couple hundred herefords on 600 acres. I'm sure with "management " you could have quite a few elk on this piece. Certainly enough to keep a family entertained.

If I had the extra change, I'd buy it.

Good spread for an individual owner. However, I do know three people who exceed it here. One with 1200, another with 1000 and a third with fenced 5000. Another has over 5000 in broken up pieces. And that is just a few that I know.

Then there are multiple game lands where 600 is small and they go up to 10,000. There are some big chunks one can wonder around in Pa. Which doesn't include NF's. The ANF is 500,000.

The guy who has the 5000 brought in big Canadian Bucks to mix in with his locals. He had to eventually take them out. They were killing his local Bucks in fighting for Does. One could hunt those 5000 acres of Pa mountains and get lost inside the fence, until you found the fence and walked around. Place makes for great still hunting.

I wont argue over the exact date Ault was placed in charge of the deer other than to say it was much earlier than 2000. As for the Elk eating differant stuff, apparently you havent spent much time where they live in Pa. Because they sure will eat the leaves and branches off the bushes and small trees.
Used to be that people said that deer wouldnt eat grass also, but again thats just as wrong to think that. They all have certain things they prefer, but will also eat a wide variety of things when necessary. As for the 2 deer per square mile, thats not my research, that was the answer to a question by the game commission.
As for the Bears, Dr. Ault didnt save anything, the bears saved the bears, along with some help from nature, with a few back to back poor weather seasons where fewer of them were shot.
We did learn more about them, due to their research and checking dens while they were hibernating.

Well, I guess you've got it all figured out then.

Antler restrictions started in Pa during the 2002 season. Alt couldn't have been in charge much earlier. Alt's main contribution to Pa Deer hunting was his scorch the earth war on Does.

His policy, while it worked in producing bigger Bucks, resulted in more posted land than any other decision ever made by the Pa GC. In that it was the birth of QDM in Pa, and QDM in and of itself means restricted access.

+1

I manage 2-1/2 properties for deer. There are places we never or rarely go on our own land to create a sanctuary.

Dr. Gary Alt took over the Penn deer program in 1999

GLWYS it looks like a really nice property and should sell quickly. I hope someone that allows hunting ends up buying this property.