re: Your Opinion on High Fenced Hunts

I have mixed feelings about high fences. I decided back in the late 90's that I wanted to harvest a big whitetail. I traveled extensively and hunted Saskatchewan and Alberta among others. I finally harvested a legit 140+ free range whitetail a few years later. In its time a 140 was by most measures an outstanding trophy. I put a lot of money, time and sweat equity into getting those deer.

I look at whitetail hunting now and I see many 150+ to 180+ killed each year. A good number of those deer are killed by novices or nonhunters that do it for the social interaction with friends. Many of the hunts are held in high fenced preserves(game farms) that are either quite small(sub 100 acres) or in many cases that have killed off every doe on the property so as to ensure that the bucks dont fight and break off antler tines. It seems to me like the trophy whitetail deer has turned into a commodity that can be bought and sold like shares of stocks or traded like baseball cards. I do hate that. I feel the high fences have reduced the accomplishment of those hunters who tagged a rare and great free range whitetail..

Now, for the hypocrite in me.

If I had a piece of property of less than a few hundred acres and I wanted to manage it, what would I do first? I'd put a fence on it...

I know, I know...