High fence “private game preserve”!?

[Mike D Texas]

I've been on several high fence ranches eradicating hogs. I don't have a problem with them, have no desire to pay to hunt on one. There would not have been much to any challenge shooting game with a rifle on them.

The fences matter, to pretend they don't is ignorant. If they didn't, matter why build them, they aren't cheap.

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Property size matters, to say otherwise is ignorant. An animal in a high fence ranch over 2000 acres will likely never see more than one fence, especially if the habitat, feed and does are plentiful.


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[jmez]

2000 acres isn't very big.

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[Mike D Texas]

High fence hunting = emotions

I’ve eradicated invasive animals (or I mean killed a bunch with no end in sight) that have escaped from these poorly unregulated facilities and have also dealt with shooting actual wildlife where zoonotic diseases have transferred to wildlife from these facilities for work. I get that Texas and some other states have their gig with large acreage fences but sounds like you still buy and trade animal.

Hard no!

In Texas, yes most high fence ranches buy animals, mostly exotics where they are not regulated as game animals.

Most of the ones that cater to whitetail have also bought the animals but they also typically have Thor own breeding program on the ranch.

The cost for all of that is astronomical and I’m not sure what poorly unregulated facilities you are talking about but here they are heavily regulated by the State.

Are there unscrupulous places? Sure just like there are unscrupulous outfitters out west. But they usually don’t last long between the State and word of mouth.


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[CMP70306]

I’ve done two high fenced hunts, the first was a wild boar when I was 13 that was on a couple hundred acre “ranch” in PA. That place also had a bunch of exotics and while it was fun as a 13 year old looking back as an adult I’d never go back to a place like that. There was really no challenge and the people there “hunting” with us were probably the worst representation of hunters out there. Cops using their duty pistols to hit a boar 12+ times in three mags, a guy shooting multiple shots with shotguns slugs at a herd of rams 250 yards away until he spined one then missing more until he walked up to finish it, the guy letting his 8 year old son shoot a bison multiple times with a 20 gauge who didn’t seem to be fazed by the bullets and the guy who got chased around shooting arrows at a water Buffalo until he happened to hit the femoral artery in the back leg and it bled out is just a brief overview of some of the other groups there.

The second one was a bison hunt I did last year in Nebraska, I wanted to hunt a wild bison but as a non resident my options for drawing a bison tag were slim anywhere and I wanted to do it before I got married and had kids. This place in Nebraska had the bison in a 4,000 acre pasture and they were about as wild as they could be. They had minimal interaction with people other than hunting so they were skittish and we were hard pressed to get within 200 yards without them spooking. I used an 1874 Sharps and it took 7 stalks over a day and a half in sub zero temps to finally get a bull in range to take the shot.

Had I used my scoped .300 Win Mag it would have been substantially easier but I wanted it to be somewhat difficult so that I actually had to hunt them. In the end I got the memory of a hunt I’ll cherish forever, a freezer full of meat (that I paid an obscene amount of money to get shipped back to PA), a trophy for my wall and a blanket for my bed without the decade plus wait time.

 

[The Guide]

2000 acres isn't very big.

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Property size matters, to say otherwise is ignorant. An animal in a high fence ranch over 2000 acres will likely never see more than one fence, especially if the habitat, feed and does are plentiful.


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4 square miles aka 2 miles by 2 miles is 2560 acres. I'm sure that a mature buck has a larger territory than that in a year round senerio.

Jay

 

[WCB]

4 square miles aka 2 miles by 2 miles is 2560 acres. I'm sure that a mature buck has a larger territory than that in a year round senerio.

Jay

Depends on habitat...but there was a study down south somewhere showing average home range of bucks is about 3-400 acres. Largest home range was just over a section.

However out west I have seen WT bucks travek 2+ miles to hit ag fields every night.

 

[CMP70306]

4 square miles aka 2 miles by 2 miles is 2560 acres. I'm sure that a mature buck has a larger territory than that in a year round senerio.

Jay

Depends on habitat...but there was a study down south somewhere showing average home range of bucks is about 3-400 acres. Largest home range was just over a section.

However out west I have seen WT bucks travek 2+ miles to hit ag fields every night.

Almost entirely habitat driven, if the habitat is fragmented they have much smaller ranges as food is more readily available compared to continuous tracks of wide open landscape. When more food is available the deer, specifically the does, stay in a smaller area. As a result even during the rut the bucks don’t have to travel as far to find as many does so they conserve energy and don’t travel as far.

However in the west where food is scarce and they need to travel greater distances for food their core area expands and rutting bucks travel substantially farther as a result.