I found an excellent article in Sports Afield written by Craig Boddington concerning the pros and cons about hunting in the wide open or behind a high fence. He makes some great points on both sides. I, for one, prefer the wide open, low fence hunt. As the author stated in the article, some of us consider high fence hunting as “canned” hunts. That’s more or less how I feel about high fences. I also have an opinion that native Texas deer belong to Texans and nobody should have the right to fence them in. Of course, I’ve lost the argument, because there are hundreds of legal high fenced ranches in our State. In a lot of areas, some folks with 500 acres or less are in a bind because they are surrounded by high fences, some on three sides. These poor folks have hunted their land for years with good results until some rich dude came along and bought a large spread next to them and high fenced it, encasing all wild game inside their large place. During these recent economic crisis, a lot of these large high fenced, “hunt for pay entrepreneurs” went broke. I’ve noticed several large high fenced commercial hunting ranches around the Texas hill country displaying “For Sale” signs. Due to some of these guys going out of business and abandoning their stocked “for pay” ranches, we, in turn, now have exotics in our low fenced place. We have a few and growing, unfenced, running wild, as it should be. Around our area, folks were paying from $2,500 to as much as $10,000 or more for an excellent Axis buck. We’ve been hunting my son’s place for about ten years and have harvested some nice white tail and a few exotics. The place is hunted by my son and I and some special friends and family. This past year, my son, through an Army buddy of his, has also been inviting wounded warriors from the Iraq and Afghanistan war to hunt his place at no charge. These guys were stationed at a nearby Army Medical Center recovering from their severe war wounds This year they harvested two Axis, one buck and one doe. I think they also killed a couple of hogs. Sorry, I kind of strayed from the subject. Anyway, please read the Sports Afield article by clicking the link below.
http://www.sportsafield.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=140&Itemid=9