True. There is no legitimate reason to high fence 15 acres. I was commenting more on the general high fence debate.

And Money Game hits it out of the park. Without high fencing, there would not be a benefit for anyone to invest in improving the animal condition on a piece of land. I know some family friends in south Texas that spent a lot of money to high fence a large ranch. They then went and started an effective management program ensuring that the deer on their property are well fed, genetically diverse (they introduce outside animals on a controlled basis), and not too young when hunted. It has cost them more than they would get out of it, but it ensures a resource that is enjoyable and will remain viable for decades to come.

I don't understand people that say that think animals should just be able to cross anyone's land. This isn't the 1800s. Not even the 1950's. The population density of rural areas is at the point that there really isn't any more land that is in it's "wild" condition. Certainly not enough that nature can have an effective balance. You don't have to high fence, but those that do should be applauded for taking an active role in land management.

As for the 15 acre arguement, well I don't think that it is the best management of land. But the ultimate decision on that is up to the land owner. Maybe they want to garden, or do something otherwise that they can't have deer running through. Maybe the area really isn't all that "rural" anymore. Either way, the day that anyone can go walking across your land is the day that you can demand change regarding high fences.

Let me put a spin on this, not saying I agree with high fecning large places one way or the other:

I purchase a house on a river. I bought the home for the purpose of fishing and skiing. 2 years after I buy it, someone upstream dams the river. Now, it has decimated the fish population in my part of the river (though there are more fish in the dammed area), as well as made it impossible for me to navigate my boat because the river is to shallow. My house is now worthless, because I no longer have the riverfront appeal I once did. Do I have a beef? If so, what is the difference between someone reducing the deer or the fish population?

I know this would be illegal, as privately damming a public waterway is against the law. But what would be the difference?

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Yeah, I am griping because I do not have the resourced to high fence 15 ACRES?!?!?

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I don't actually think anyone disagrees with you about that. I certainly think it's stupid and certainly does more harm than good. I however don't have a problem with doing it on a reasonable size piece of land.

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I know this would be illegal, as privately damming a public waterway is against the law. But what would be the difference?

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Not to be a smarta$$ but you answered your own question. The fence is legal. But the damming scenario does happen legally to people all the tiem whether I agree with it or not. I do however draw a distinction between the two as damming a river can have a far more negative impact than fencing a piece of land. Hell, think about what impact building roads has. We've suffered a lot of loss since they decided it was inconvenient for people to have to drive a couple of miles north to have access between highways and built on through our place.

The difference is that if he doesn't have any deer inside his high fence...he hasn't reduced the deer population.
It's hard for me to visualize how it could impact you that much. If it was a square 4x4 16 acres you are talking about less than 300 yards per side.

Money Game did hit it on the head in several ways. I do agree that there is a problem with people buying these 20-30 acre tracts, putting up 5 feeders, and mowing down whatever jumps the fence with horns. However, I don't enjoy people coming on boards like this and posting pics of 180 class bucks that they have shot in a 300-700 acre high-fenced place. Don't post pics of your "monster bucks" that your family has raised for the past 7 years. Lots of people hunt 10,000 acre low-fences ranches and only shoot one or two trophies during their lifetime. Those are the deer that I enjoy looking at. Just like you said in your post:

"Yes, some deer would be walking the woods, but not like we have accomplished."

What you have accomplished is basically raising deer in a controlled environment so that you can put larger deer on your walls. I don't have a problem with a high fenced 3,000 acre ranch, but 500 acres? Jeez, that is pretty small to be high fencing.

txaggie02,

not in East Texas, my friend.

And there is a lot more work and money involved in "raising" 180 class bucks than dropping some coin on a hunt where you are guaranteed a trophy.

The difference is that when you have 10,000 acres, it is too expensive to high-fence and besides that you own and control enough range to implement your own management program without worrying about what the neighbors are shooting. Of course, there are very few people alive today who have actually paid for pieces of land that size. It is all inherited and came "free."

(but that is another argument all-together about the "sharing" of the state's resources)

[This message has been edited by Money Game 94 (edited 12/19/2006 4:29p).]

I agree with you on the land part. Neither I, my family, or 99% of the other people in this world can just go out and purchase $10,000 acres at the drop of a hat. Either your grandpa brought the first turkey from Europe or invented the first v*brator to make his millions.

Like you said though, its money and work to get deer that big on your land. It is more trouble to get them that big than to actually shoot them. So all in all, you are more proud of the deer you raised than the deer you "hunted" on your 500 acres. I really am not interested in how long it took or how hard someone worked to get good deer on their ranch. I want to hear the story of a guy hunting land for 10 years and finally killing his B&C buck off a canyon ledge that he was hiking.

Finally...I got a thread to reach 2 pages. Damn. But I am still pissed about the 15 acres this guy high fenced. My original opinion stands.

Quite honestly I'm not surprised that the accusation of 'griping due to jealousy', of all things, has been levied.

Trust me, if I wanted to dump the cash to kill a sure fire 170+ B&C I could do that. So jealousy isn't the issue.

I get more fired up about personal claims on community property if you want to know the truth. I realize the claim that one owns the deer should not be taken literally, but its the mentality behind it that unnerves me. If you want put out protein, corn, food blocks, etc. go ahead. I do that too. Would the deer survive without my intervention. Yep. Do I feel I need to reign them in. Nope. That and I find high fences unsightly. Personal opinion there.

I know what I hunt for and I try to suggest to others to discover why they hunt too. Some people don't value the same things I do and you know what? That's ok.

What I will say is that I believe a level of standards should be implemented for harvesting bucks IF the majority of people in this state believe it should be done.

Case in point - antler restrictions.

Quite honestly I'd be completely in favor of making it illegal to kill any buck who is less than three years old or less than 150 B&C (gross). As part of that recommendation the state would grant each hunter 1 cull tag (in place of one of the three buck tags currently available for each license) that could be used in the event that he/she could use on any antlered deer not meeting the above criteria as a legal buck.

See a spike and kill it...use the cull tag. See a buck you think is 5, but he's only 2...cull tag, but now you can't make the same mistake 2 more times in the same year. At least that is how I'd try and play Solomon to this whole high-fence, free range, my deer, state deer, issue.

If that system is in play, then I see no need for a high fence management program.

Say high fencing was made illegal, what program would you come up with to deer hunt?

Better yet, I know I've read a lot of remarks about walling off the border. I say we just continue the wall around the entire state, let biologists do what they do, follow feeding / management instructions, and tear down our internal high fences. <--- last paragraph is tounge and cheek, cuz I don't like the way high fence looks. ;-)

[This message has been edited by pedro_martinez (edited 12/19/2006 6:07p).]

Screw it. I'm buying a chunk of land in Oklahoma where after I high fence the place, I own the deer. That way I can hunt them in July by spotlight with a hand grenade. Maybe I'll set up a meth lab too, after all, it is Okla-freakin-homa!

RoperJoe, sorry you didn't get the support you hoped for.

As Texas population increases, the price of deer hunting goes up and land values increase, I believe we will see more state regulations concering our favorite pasttime. Or more accuratley, I bet we see more attempts to regulate what we can and can't do with private land, i.e. the proposed legislation prohibiting the placement of hunting blinds within so many feet of perimeter fences. Hell, maybe one of these day high-fencing will be prohibited on private land to facilitae the natural movement of wildlife. All this results from diminishing size of rural property. Some of us will find out how Geronimo felt when white men came to his land.

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If that system is in play, then I see no need for a high fence management program.

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Agree completely! But if that were implemented, you would hear a public outcry unlike any in public hunting history. But, short of a stringent state-mandated management system, I suspect high fences will continue to gain in popularity.

The land in texas has always been mostly private. This is nothing new. Private landowners should do as they please within the law.

If you want more opportunity for cheap or free hunting, move to a state with lots of govt land.

Honestly, I have never seen more whining and crying about what private citizens do with their private land than among the anti high fence crowd.

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But if that were implemented, you would hear a public outcry unlike any in public hunting history.

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Isn't this already being done with antler restrictions? It either has to have one side with 1 point or a 13" spread.

If I misunderstand, let me know, but it sounds like that's a pretty stringent management program. I'm not being a smart-mouth asking that. I really want to know if I misunderstand.

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Quite honestly I'd be completely in favor of making it illegal to kill any buck who is less than three years old or less than 150 B&C (gross). As part of that recommendation the state would grant each hunter 1 cull tag (in place of one of the three buck tags currently available for each license) that could be used in the event that he/she could use on any antlered deer not meeting the above criteria as a legal buck.

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Antler restrictions have been implemented in some areas, but nothing like the above.

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Antler restrictions have been implemented in some areas, but nothing like the above.

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And so far the results have been good from what has been posted on this board and from what I've heard from friends / family that hunt in those counties.

I'm anxiously looking forward to what the reports will be like next year and I currently don't even hunt in those areas.

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Honestly, I have never seen more whining and crying about what private citizens do with their private land than among the anti high fence crowd.

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I agree, if you buy it, you own it, it's yours, treat it as such.

As far as the antler restrictions go, I think the above proposal is absurd and the state implemented restrictions are in some cases a bit misguided. For example I hunt Brazos county mainly, I have the head of a deer we had on our place that died of old age. He was as wide as he ever was when he died...11 3/4". 11pt, scores right at 130. At 5 1/2 years he was quite a bit bigger but no wider. As I understand, he wouldn't have been legal to shoot yet very few deer are killed in Brazos cty that are this size. The antler restrictions could be a little better thought out.

And your suggestion for antler restriction improvement is?

I'm not here to formulate a solution. We manage our place and shooting deer based on spread is NOT part of that management plan. If it were there would probably be a lot of dead 1 1/2 yo bucks. That was just an example of the spread factor not always an accurate measure of a deer's "quality" or "maturity". My point about your "solution" was that there are a lot of areas that will rarely if ever grow 150+ class deer and having a "cull tag" as you stated would put regulations right back to where they were. People in a one buck county shooting a baby and popping a cull tag on it every year.

Agree Pedro -


One other point, what happens to someone that puts up a high fence on his 500 acres, starts a good management program, and then passes this onto the next generation....


and they don't do anything with it? Now you have free roaming animals that will breed out of control, possibly lose access to essentials like water, and start inbreeding? This is going to be a real problem in the future.

If you are worried about neighbors shooting your deer, lobby for more stringent hunting regulations.

Good fences make good neighbors....always have, always will.

Solution?: Just classify deer the same as exotics, and consider them feral livestock. Then you can own them, sell them, etc, and you don't have to worry about whether or not they are raised or natural or not, and genetics and all.

Only one problem..they're still part of the natural ecosystem. I have no issue with managing them, but it needs to be done wisely. To me, feeding deer, raising them, pulling them into feed sites, and then hunting the feeder area, etc is about like fishing in a catfish farm. There is still some chance to it, but you know your odds of getting a keeper are rediculously higher than fishing a lake or river, and the fish come right in to you instead of you having to learn fishing skills to find them and catch them. A lot less sporting, and not worth the money to me compared to the experience, and the satisfaction of using hard learned field skills and knowledge.

For me, hunting and fishing are an experience and require a set of skills honed over time to truly enjoy that experience to the fullest, not about bringing home the bacon. That's what the supermarket is for. Many times you go out, you only learn what NOT to do. Ranch your deer if you like, because there is no doubt it works, and take em after they build easy to predict habits based around human interference if that works for you, but its not my thing at least. I think that's why I lean to birds over deer anyways: more sport.

Then again, pick up a bow and try to get in bow range of those same deer, and you're talking some sporting skill...

I think the majority of people on here, including myself, just have a problem with people shooting moster bucks on small (1,000 acres or less), high-fenced places and then running their mouth and bragging about how great of a deer they shot, when the hardest part about shooting the deer was actually getting it to be that big. That or paying someone $12,000.00 to kill a monster buck and then posting it on every website. Hunting is called hunting because that is what the sport entails....getting your ace out in the country and HUNTING. Not paying someone craploads of money, sitting in their blind until 15 minutes after sunrise and then blasting your "dream buck". Whenever I see a good buck hung in someone's house, I always ask them to tell me their story. After that, it is either a handshake and congrats, or I puke on their floor.

[This message has been edited by txaggie02 (edited 12/20/2006 9:16p).]

Habitat fragmentation is a long-term concern.

Fifteen years ago, your 200 acre farm in rural Frisco might have supported 5 coveys of quail. Even if you had the same 200 acre farm in suburban Frisco, it won't support 2 coveys.

Fencing off completely rural portions of Texas into dozens of high-fenced 500 acre islands is the same thing. It's not good ecology.

Somebody mentioned the failed law about stands next to property lines. It was a shame that bill didn't pass. That bill was designed to prevent half the problems mentioned on this thread. You've got a nice large hunting place and some moron buys 10 acres next door. He puts up 23 blinds and feeders on property line. Obviously, he's hunting "your deer". You've done the work regarding habitat, food, minerals, water, etc. He's just taking advantage of it. Waaaay too many people put up high-fence as a defense measure. This bill would have helped in that regard.

birdman, while I like neither high fences nor setting up stands on your property line, I will take the landowner's side in both regards.

I really don't want 2 more laws added to the eleventy billion that already encroach on our daily lives.

I think sometimes the price of freedom is that we are free to do things that aren't good in the long run. I don't remember who said, "Freedom isn't the right to do what you want, but the power to do what you ought." And there the debate begins - what you ought.

txaggie ... "punk on their floor"? Does that mean what I think it means?

sorry mark, fixed now.....talking and typing at the same time