No axe to grind here. Just an interesting thought experiment. I'm not trying to start anything, but am sincerely interested in the discussion.

There is a seething vitriol amongst many outdoorsman against high fences, bringing in non-native genetics, and breeding deer (among other things).
I'm guessing that the vast majority of people who hold to that opinion wouldn't have a second thought fishing a private pond and catching giant bass that were raised somewhere and stocked (if they were being totally honest).

My question is why? Why is it THAT different? I understand that a pond is a mostly closed system, but so is a proper high fence. So- why is hunting a deer in a high fence that has Kansas or Canadian genes any different from catching a fish in a private pond that has Florida genes?

I guess some could say that catching a double digit bass in public waters is like killing a B&C low fence buck. But even then, is it really the same unless you kill that buck on public lands? Most of us still hunt "private waters"- which would be like catching trout on a private stretch of a river that not everyone has access too. It's almost always going to produce bigger and more fish than the public stretches. So, is that "cheating" too? I know plenty of flu fishermen that would say it is.

You still got to trick em and make em eat! There's still some art to fishing private waters. Also, you aren't coralling the bass, ear tagging em and have them in your sight regularly.

Sure you might have to put in a little bit of work but shooting a high fence deer at a feeder inside 1,000 acre HF isn't exactly sporty. Now say it's 10,000 acre HF and you have a bow, pretty sporty.

My only dispute with your logic is that the pond likely didn't start out with state-owned wildlife in it, whereas the high fence ranch prolly did.

All I ask is that the landowner pay a reasonable price for removing that wildlife resource from the public domain. Just simply convert them into privately owned animals. I realize that's a complex idea in practice.

But I'd even go so far as to grant high fence ranches the right to harvest their animals whenever and however they'd like to. Just like a cattle ranching operation.

You see, it's just different.


Doesn't bother me if people hunt high fences or stocked ponds. Fished many a stocked ponds and would hunt high fence ranches(if not for the cost).

Fair enough.

I always thought HF places were easy as well. Until I was invited to help clear out a couple fallow deer off of a 2,000 acre HF place. It was NOT easy, certainly not as easy as I had imagined. Granted, there were no feeders. But the was still only a limited number of fields they could feed in. We had to spot and stalk, and only managed to kill 1 fallow over 3 stalks.

The most incredible part was that normally there are all on this place. The guys who run in (who are literally inside the fence daily) said that every elk was gone. Well- as we were trying to get a better angle on the fallow, we cut through a tiny but dark canyon. We busted 2 cow elk out. When I told the manager, he almost didn't believe me. He said it had been 2 years since anyone had seen that cow. They thought she was dead and long gone.

All that to say- if you let them be wild, they will be as wild as you could ever want.

That expedite changed my stigma for high fences. I'm not saying it's the same as chasing down a bull in the mountains. All I'm saying is that it isn't all just sitting in a blind and ringing a dinner bell (which is what most low fence hunters do, too).

Todd 02 said:

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My only dispute with your logic is that the pond likely didn't start out with state-owned wildlife in it, whereas the high fence ranch prolly did.

All I ask is that the landowner pay a reasonable price for removing that wildlife resource from the public domain. Just simply convert them into privately owned animals. I realize that's a complex idea in practice.

But I'd even go so far as to grant high fence ranches the right to harvest their animals whenever and however they'd like to. Just like a cattle ranching operation.

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I get that, and generally agree.

So let's make it apples to apples. A HF place kills off all native deer, and introduces its own stock (which I've known several places to do). Would you view that in the same lens as a large private pond stocked with bass? Is one more sporting than the other?

RCR06 said:

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You see, it's just different.

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I agree with this. To totally understand what you are saying here.

And like you, I guess what perplexed me is the sheer hatred some seem to have at the very idea of hunting a HF, while they wouldn't bat an eye at fishing a stocked pond.

You can enjoy the "sport" in fishing without killing the animal.

I guess you could tranq, picture, and release too…

cupofjoe04 said:

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RCR06 said:

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You see, it's just different.

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I agree with this. To totally understand what you are saying here.

And like you, I guess what perplexed me is the sheer hatred some seem to have at the very idea of hunting a HF, while they wouldn't bat an eye at fishing a stocked pond.

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You brought up a good point in your OP. I just couldn't help being a bit of a smartass which I think you picked up on.

It is the same thing in may ways, but people don't look at it like that. I think a big part is access to the two activities. Many people have had the opportunity to fish a stocked pond and probably did it growing up at times. Far fewer people have had opportunities to hunt high fence ranches and if they did it was probably not often. Sure these are generalities, but that's my theory.

RCR06 said:

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You see, it's just different.

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I'll play...
Point number one is that ponds and lakes don't really occur naturally in TX, so you had to build that habitat yourself. Contrast that with deer and such, which roam dang near everywhere these days. A more apt analogy would be someone 'fencing off' a segment of river that runs through their property, capturing all the naturally occurring fish and game in the process, then stopping anyone else from traversing that segment of the river. I know this analogy is somewhat preposterous, but somebody was asking about this very thing on this board some years ago. So, if you created the habitat and bought the inhabitants inside, it seems like you should be able to do what you want.

Second point is just jealousy. Most any person can have a pond dug, but it takes some serious coin to put together a high fence ranch big enough to hold some nice animals. People can say that they don't enjoy the idea of hunting 'livestock' but it seems to me that the vitriol mostly comes from deep seated jealousy.

Finally, the disease element that comes from moving animals around the country and around the globe can be a real turnoff. If your stocked pond turned out to be a point source for some kind of fish disease that was being spread via overflow into natural watersheds and bird movement or led to some kind of escaped exotic species (snakehead), I think most people would be a lot more negative about stocked ponds.