As most of our members know, I have been in the no high fence camp. Last year, I did a hunt for Fallow Deer behind a high fence of a very large property that had a lot of Fallow Deer. That report is in the Euro-Sub Forum.

I did it because the price offered in Country was better than setting in Sophia. I had an enjoyable time. Still, I do not prefer it.

Last night I read a chapter of Kambaku? (Harry Manners) and was going trough the DVR. The machine had recorded an episode of Sports Afield.

Everyone's hunts were not being conducted due to Covid in the areas Sporting Classics would normally be filming. So, to make a show the hunting was done for exotics at the YO Ranch.

I know nothing about the details of YO Ranch other that they sell and breed exotic animals.

The hunting was done on foot. The viewer sees a whole herd of male and female Nilgi. The hunters fail to take a Nilgi on the days they had available.

However, one of the hunters does take an animal that looks like a cross between a springbok(in the horns), an impala in the body, and a scimitar Oryx in color. This animal was explained to come from Chad where it was nearly brought to extinction like the scimitar Orx. Dave Fulson added that animals ranched in Texas,implying YO, were being used to reintroduce these near brink species to their natural habituates.

In various discussion on here, I have said I am not afraid of nuance in arguing we need a unified platform defining hunting and restricting certain practices (see the documentary Trophy for a visual of those practices).

We cannot doubt that these unsavory practices that are used to galvanize public support against hunting come from the high fenced hunting industry. However, unethical behavior can and does exist regardless of behavior. There is not an Outfitter or Professional Hunter worth their names operating in the Marrouma who would drive down a herd of buffalo, jump out, and start shooting bulls on the run. Yet, in times gone by for meat supplying these behaviors happened.

Those Fallow I saw, were rutting, fighting, breading, feeding themselves as they would. There was just a lot of them. The place was over 40,000 acres. We hunted them on foot over hill and dale.

Now, High Fence Hunting is not something I would generally seek out. I fully believe we most hold to the hunting-conservation model that we are what keeps wild places, more or less, wild providing habituate for not just game, but all species that are maintained in the ecosystem. Hunting first and foremost should provide some part of the world not caged in.

I will say large ranches that I am describing from all sides of the world are providing habitat/ A place where game feeds, breads, and fights for itself under the watchful eyes of game managers. Similar, to the non-fenced counter parts. The fact that without these programs game and other species would be expatriated from traditional areas if not extinct all together.

Does this mean I have abandon the hope that some day DSC, SCI on the international side RM Elk Foundation, Boone and Crockett, Club, and Orvis International will come together and set in stone what equates good practices and what are bad practices? Absolutely not. Not only does the need for such regulation exist, but these organizations should strive to strictly enforce among all those who display their insignia or sell under their shows such standards.

Yet,in the interest of intellectual honesty. I can no longer damn outright "High Fence Hunting" as an objectionable practice of the hunting industry that serves no benefit to game, non-hunted species, and habituate preservation or expansion.

Make no mistake I will state with specificity bad action when I see it or read of it. The farming industry of Whitetail in carols and pastures for the benefit of genetic racks, the scent industry, and I am convinced contributes to the spread of CWD, are not acceptable.

I am not afraid of nuance discussion and answers. Therefore, I withdraw my blanket objection to High Fences. I am going to raise a pour of 12 year straight Rum to all of you who are ranching for game right high fence or no high fence.

Thank you Safari Classics and World of Sports Afield for depicting true hunting however it may be found.

Thoughtful with an open mind. Well said.

Having hunted the YO and several other high fenced and low fenced ranches in Texas, this is not news to me - Ho Hum,.
I am glad you are beginning to get out and about and see the variety of Texas hunting and that there are many styles and flavors thereof.

I prefer not to hunt with high fences. However, when my sons were going to out-of-state college their schedules with school/sports did not allow for any 'hunting trips' during traditional hunting seasons. When they did have time to get away I took each to a high fence operation and shot fallow deer - hogs. We had a great time and it was certainly better than not getting to hunt with them. Since then we try to do a pheasant or quail hunt together and go to shooting preserves. Since they live in different states, have families, and careers including military deployments, it works out just fine.

Here in New Zealand I once hunted Fallow buck on a high country station in the South Island. It was my first time on that particular station. The station runs Red Stags behind wire for tourist hunters and also offers Fallow and Chamois, mostly as free range trophies. We drove through several gates / fences, seeing Reds and Fallow in the same paddocks before reaching an area I presumed was the free range zone. I was not informed otherwise but neither did I think to ask. I shot a nice Fallow buck thinking it a decent free range trophy. Only much later I learned I had actually hunted within a high fenced paddock so large that the wire was not obvious. Now I don't regard that buck as a free range trophy but the buck was probably as wild as any other unrestrained Fallow on that property. Much more so than Red Deer, Fallow will readily go through ( under ) fences at will to access favourite feed. I have often seen on deer farms when entering a paddock holding farmed Red Deer and wild Fallow that the Red Deer just move away to maintain separation while the wild Fallow bolt under or through fences making a proper escape.
My personal hunting ethic is to hunt only free range game as in my mind this constitutes ethical hunting. I was strongly against high wire hunting but my attitude on this has softened. I think in my older, and hopefully wiser years, I can see there is a place for this, provided certain standards are followed.

All high fences are not the same just as all people are not the same, all cars are not the same, etc.

I hate the places where there is simply an execution. No hunt to it. I won't go.

I used to be on a deer lease that was 7,500 acres and all high fenced. They fenced it for two reasons. One was to keep poachers out. The other was to improve the quality of the deer herd. There only internal fences were around the homestead and the ranching areas such as the barn. This was the thickest, nastiest terrain one can imagine.

Were there big bucks there? Absolutely. Was it easy to kill one. Absolutely not. In fact, there were years when I didn't kill a buck. It was as challenging as any "free range" hunt.

Never bothered me at all.

I have no issues with high fence operations as long as it’s fair chase.

I’ve hunted in wild areas that the game is so tame that it’s not a challenge to get something, and hunted a high fence area where I did not get the animals I was trying for.

I don’t consider the lack of fair chase an ethical problem overall; it’s just not a hunt- more like a trip to the store. It’s probably fairer to the animal than an abattoir, but it’s not hunting either.

Projected population for the US in 2050 is 438 million people. It may be the only place to hunt in a few decades. Why we allow any immigration is beyond me.

All things must have a worth. No worth, no thing! That especially applies to animals. The worth can be real as in cattle for food or as obituary as a trophy! Hunting gives animals a worth. Trophy hunting raises the value or it becomes just a pile of meat. With property rights ownership comes in to play. Ownership can be as easy as a dog or as difficult as an elephant! High fences just provide ownership to some fairly difficult animals. High fences provide more opportunities for more people to have access to hunting animals they never could other wise! It also benefits animals that have been reduced to a pile of meat in it's native habitat. Fair chase is too random for me. Shooting a elk at a thousand yards is not fair chase to me! Shooting a deer in a 5 acre pen by some one who has to use their mouth to pull the trigger off a wheel chair is very fair chase to me! Love em or hate em it all in your mind anyway! By the way I hunt low fence!! Ha Ha!

LHeym500,

Well said and I agree with you.

We breed, and send out, several nearly extinct animals.

These include Scimitar Horned Oryx, Adax, Arabiuan Oryx, Dama gazelles etc.

It is done here in our backyard, we feed them, look after them medically, by catching them twice a year, testing every single one of them, vaccinate them, and generally keep them in top condition.

We catch and swap animals with similar reserves as ours, to keep the blood line mixed.

I have hunted on fenced farms near San Antonio, and Brownsville.

Enjoy it for what it was, as I was invited by friends.

I have also hunted fenced farms in South Africa.

Again, enjoyed it very much, fully knowing that these were animals in a fenced area.

Nothing wrong with that as far as it goes.

But, as mentioned above, breeding specific class animals to be shot and entered in a record book is just plain sick.

Bottom line is that if one accepts that he is hunting on a fenced farm, and he does not mind, that is his business.

Shooting farm bred animals, and then pretending that they are wild, and entering them in a contest is not on.

quote:

However, one of the hunters does take an animal that looks like a cross between a springbok(in the horns) an impala in the body, and a scimitar Oryx in color. This animal was explained to come from Chad where it was nearly brought to extinction like the scimitar Orx. Dave Fulson added that animals ranched in Texas,implying YO, were being used to reintroduce these near brink species to their natural habituates.

Dama gazelle is the creature you’re describing. It, along with the scimitar oryx and addax, are prime example of how putting a value on something will keep it around. Plenty of them here in Texas, not many in their home range in Africa.

Dama, Scimitar, axis, blackbuck, aoudad.......we have more in Texas than there are in their home countries.....because they have value!

Have any of you ever heard of any animal going extinct due to sport hunting? Not market hunting or poaching, but sport hunting.

I can think of a few that have been saved from extinction for sport hunting.

At some point a place is so big that the property fenced doesn't matter, and at some point the fenced property is so small that it is fish in the barrel.

A long time ago in Maine, I called an outfitter advertising wild boar hunts. We were between deployments (we had 3 week home on trips back from Afghanistan), and a buddy and I wanted to kill something. So we drove up to the place and we jumped into the back of his truck and drove about 3 miles along the side of a high fenced property to a another couple of gates. He told us we could hunt both properties that one was bigger than the other one.

We spent 3 hours hiking through the first one and it's really thick timber and alders and then switched to the other one without seeing pigs.

The 2nd place we walked about 60 yards into and pigs exploded from everywhere. So I shot one, and a friend shot one and started dragging them near one another. After the dust settled we realized that we were in a very small fenced area, maybe 20-30 acres.

I dropped the meat off at a soup kitchen, and put the head in my freezer with the intent of boiling it down for a trophy. 5 months later when I got back from deployment, I threw in it in the trash.

Must not have thought that much of it. Kind of feel like a ill gotten trophy from a small place, isn't much of a trophy.

Kind of like an award for attendance in school. Or a participation trophy that all the millenials got in school sports.

A friend of mine likes to mess around with hookers, for a long time I thought it was a stupid thing to pay for. The longer I have been married I realize he is getting a better deal as he is assured to get laid. I just keep paying in hopes of a good deal.

Many people have compared high fence hunting to hookers before.

Live Oak,
As I read your post, I thought, "This guy is from Texas."

Darned if I was not right!

Thanks to gross mismanagement and family issues, the YO has been split several times (3 that I know of) and is a shadow of its former self.
They were very instrumental in the early days of game ranching though. Charlie III was in many ways a visionary and made the most of 50,000 acres with no oil that was not that great for cattle and an unfavorable hair goat market.

The YO was a joke when we went there in 2014. We had a great time because of the guide. But everything was broken and run down. I took the family over there for an overnight package including a wildlife safari and a stay at the YO Hilton or whatever the hotel in Kerrville was called back then.

I don't remember the name of the lady that was our guide, but she gave us the low down on it. They had not really remembered to pay the staff, it was rough. Poor gal, she was even driving her own truck to guide us.

Do you really think they had 50,000 acres? I have heard all kinds of BS numbers from the Schrieners over the years, like; 100,000 and even bigger.

It could have been amazing but they didn't have their estate management planning set up worth a damn. Too many kids and grandkids with their hands out, and money tied up in land.

They are not alone, the King ranch has similar issues. Tio Klieberg got routed from managing the King just about 7 or 8 years ago. He is the last family member shareholder to run the place. But they are a much large billionaire versus millionaire corporation.

My 2nd cousin struck it rich in the oil field about 20 years ago, they have two kids and have chosen to "make" their decendents figure it out. I know it will be a big battle.

quote:

A friend of mine likes to mess around with hookers, for a long time I thought it was a stupid thing to pay for. The longer I have been married I realize he is getting a better deal as he is assured to get laid. I just keep paying in hopes of a good deal.

That's funny, but true.

Dave

BWW and ZZ,
Much of your comments on the YO ring true, but maybe all is not lost.
I too toured the ranch before it went to pieces and it was big , impressive and with lots of exotic and native game. Several friends took trophies off the YO back then, but I had an excellent hunting lease with deer, turkey, quail, and no trespassers; after 18 years I dropped off so have time to keep up my little horse place and I no longer improve and maintain other folks properties.

But, now I have to pay for access and that usually includes guides, game retrieval and field dressing and at the NEW YO, lodging.

Two young Schriener men have a new lodge on 5,000 high fenced acres carved out of what I think is the north side of the YO property. It has plenty water and is in good shape. Also filled with big game and quail(it is really nice to see wild quail again). A couple of friends and I were the first hunting guests to stay in the lodge and we were guided by the owners. My friends shot what they wanted and I shot a couple of feral hogs and an Axis doe. Because of the heavy cover, we actually had to HUNT - walk and stalk ! This is not another King ranch in size, but it was fun and productive. They did not charge me for helping eradicate the feral hogs and that was fun.

Look up YO Schriener Ranch to contact them. The road in from the I10 frontage road is not paved and not suited for low slung vehicles. We saw game soon after leaving the frontage road - lots of game.

Good luck to you, I hope you have a good time there.

I grew up hunting the YO as a kid in the 70's. My father did business with the ranch and soon became friends with Charlie III and IV. It was 75k acres at that time.
It was a pretty fantastic place. The hunters would stay in cabins spread out around a centralized lodge. The lodge had a serve yourself bar, pool tables, couches, fire place, etc. We all ate together at the "chuck wagon", their mess hall down the road from the cabins.
I remember loving to hang out in the lodge in the evenings, hearing all the hunting stories from all the other hunters and guides. The kids would shoot pool, help ourselves to endless sodas and compare knives and cartridges. I was only 7 or 8 at the time. Such good times!
The hunting was safari style, which I loved. Drive, glass, stalk.
They had two high fenced enclosures that did not get hunted by the whitetail hunters. I can not remember the names of those 2 traps but it is where the endangered exotics lived. I got to hand feed giraffe, Nilla wafers of all things. They had to get down on their knees if i remember correctly to reach my hand. I do remember the guides explaining to us that the addax were extinct or close to it at that time.
They had wildebeast, oryx, damas, addax, zebra.
I haven't thought of that place in years. So many memories....

Perry

Wow thank you for sharing that.

We fed the giraffes some kind of oat cookie. They had a couple cases of them.

We stood in the back of the gal's F-150, and our 1 year old got giraffe licked. We have a big print of it hanging above our TV in the living room.

If you had success on your hunt, your name went into a pot and at the end of the season the hunter with the biggest buck got a brand new Klienguether K15. Back before you had bred deer a 140" buck was real monster for the hill country.
I thought that was pretty cool!

Perry

quote:

Originally posted by Big Wonderful Wyoming:
The YO was a joke when we went there in 2014. We had a great time because of the guide. But everything was broken and run down. I took the family over there for an overnight package including a wildlife safari and a stay at the YO Hilton or whatever the hotel in Kerrville was called back then.

I don't remember the name of the lady that was our guide, but she gave us the low down on it. They had not really remembered to pay the staff, it was rough. Poor gal, she was even driving her own truck to guide us.

Do you really think they had 50,000 acres? I have heard all kinds of BS numbers from the Schrieners over the years, like; 100,000 and even bigger.

It could have been amazing but they didn't have their estate management planning set up worth a damn. Too many kids and grandkids with their hands out, and money tied up in land.

They are not alone, the King ranch has similar issues. Tio Klieberg got routed from managing the King just about 7 or 8 years ago. He is the last family member shareholder to run the place. But they are a much large billionaire versus millionaire corporation.

My 2nd cousin struck it rich in the oil field about 20 years ago, they have two kids and have chosen to "make" their decendents figure it out. I know it will be a big battle.

At its peak in the 1800’s it was 500,000 acres. When Charlie 3 took it over for his Mom I’d guess it was 70,000 acres. I got mixed up in a deal to catch some wild cattle off of it in the 90’s as a kid and it was about 40,000 acres then. I knew Walter, he was a nice guy but not a businessman. By the end he was getting arrested for bouncing $5,000 checks to old ladies.
I think the King Ranch is vastly different. I know Tio too. He was the best bet to manage it no doubt. That said, they have a much different management structure and much more valuable entity (as you stated). I was in Kingsville for a cattle shipment last Fall with some of their management team and I feel fairly confident that they are doing okay. That said, they are very far removed from when Uncle Bob ran a world wide sea of grass as it were.

I grew up on a 75.000 acre ranch, leased a 40.000 acre ranch, another about 20.000 none were high fenced and had mule deer, Javalina and antelope. All were in Texas in the Big Bend area, Brewster or Presidio or EL Paso county, so you have the option..I hunted a lot of high fenced ranches, in the trans Pecos and the hill country where my family ranched, and most were fair chase, mostly for whitetail, but Nilgai on the King ranch and the pasture we hunted was larger than a Tanzania concession....all hunt areas have boundries some fenced some are not, but if the animal can escape the hunter, seems to me its a hunt..

this high fenced negative crap is by some who read too much fiction, have a fixed mind and no knowledge of which they speak...There are more fenced ranches in So. Africa than in the US, but to some that's pardonable, go figure, its a mind set with some who have no clue..and yes there are some crap shoot high fenced hunts, but there are as many no fenced hunts that are a total rip off, in that they have no game to speak off and they get big bucks. I have hunted for days on end in Texas and New mexico and not seen a deer, I have hunted on some Texas and New Mexico ranches where one can expect to see 25 or more bucks in a single day..

Everyone should have the option to scout out a lease before they book, if not walk a way there are hundreds of hunts available..


What!!!! Ive hunted the YO and bordering ranches as well and the King ranch on many occasions, and both were crawling with big deer and NIlgai. Every hunt was perfect...expensive but perfect in every respect. When I first hunted the King Nilgai were $600 and you had 3 days and bulls were abundant....Every time Ive hunted the YO or Hyde ranch next to it, I saw 15 to 20 nice bucks a day..I hate to hear its gone down the drain, don't see how it could be that bad with so many deer..

Tio was more or less ousted and he was a cattleman and probably the only person that could manage a ranch that big, but he got a lump sum of money and a ranch of his own and is doing well Im told by a very close friend of his and mine...As I recall that was about 20 years ago not 7 or 8..Time does fly.

The fall from grace of the big ranches is a castrofotic shame and the dynastys have gone by the wayside as our country declines and the liberals spred their cancer, and who,s gonna feed the millions? Hells a coming..

Talk about fair chase I sold 30 to 40 Mule deer bucks a year on the rances I had, I put a group of hunters in a pasture and told they they were on their own, and don't cross a fence..The camped out, had great times and came back every year..Sometimes if they killed a deer in a bad spot Id take a horse and pack it out for them, that was the extent of my guide service...Got invited to some real meals and fine wine..They all killed out and never an issue..Still some ranches doing that today..Going price is $3000 to $3500 last I heard..all relitives or friends and good people, deer and wildlife have saved many a rancher from going broke..

I have no difficulty with high fenced hunting areas - as long as the paying customer is fully aware that the animals are inside a fence.

For me it’s not the fence. It’s the fact you are hunting a farmed animal to some degree.

Cowboys said the same thing when barbed wire was invented. The real problem is population which is the worst kind of pollution.

We need to try and keep all that we can wild as long as possible but also have to do what is best for the resource.

What true hunter does not know when he's sinned with a rifle?

quote:

I have no issues with high fence operations as long as it’s fair chase.

+1

I agree with that. About 30 years ago I was invited by a friend who was an editor of the Brenham newspaper to cover a story on a "kid hunt" sponsored by TPWL + on Jim Inks land. The hunters were orphans from a home + the state of texas set this experience up for them shooting wild goats + hogs in a free chase environment. The kids had good guides. We arrived after the hunt was through + the BBQ was starting. Doug got a lot of photos + interviewers. I got to eat lunch with Finn Aagard + I found that along with everything else worth the trip.

I went on a high fenced hunt where I worked very hard for a couple days to kill an Axis, it was sporting. I also got taken on a high fenced whitetail hunt that was shameful.
I have worked very hard for days to kill an elk on a 500,000 acre low fenced ranch and shot one on the same ranch about 50 yards from a ranch road using the hood of the truck as a rest on the first morning. Everything is relative.

I hunted a high fenced ranch in south Monterey county back in the 90s before it was sold. It was if I remember correctly 8,000 acres. The owners at the time had pigs and Corsican sheep. The pigs were like pigs anywhere but the ram hunt was different because the owner had rams and ewes on the property and the rams fought other rams constantly and were pretty wary, much more than I thought they would be. I believe we hunted rams in the second year of hunting rams that were breed and born on the ranch. I remember we had to put down a young ram that we found walking and swinging his head side to side. He got into it with another ram and had his eye ripped out of the socket.

One good thing about high fences is it keeps deer off the highway.

We high fenced our place last year. I hated to do it but we are bordered by 2 properties that lease out and every year they kill several young deer. I ran cameras last week and was amazed at all the 3 and 4 yr old deer we have.

Perry

quote:

We high fenced our place last year. I hated to do it but we are bordered by 2 properties that lease out and every year they kill several young deer.

Oh the horror maybe they just like eating them.

quote:

Originally posted by p dog shooter:

quote:

We high fenced our place last year. I hated to do it but we are bordered by 2 properties that lease out and every year they kill several young deer.

Oh the horror maybe they just like eating them.

Our goal is letting the native deer get to their genetic potential. That's hard to accomplish when that happens at age 7-8 and they're killed 3-4 yrs prior.
I don't besmirch the leasers for it, it's just different goals.
The fence allows everyone to follow their own desires

Perry

quote:

Originally posted by perry:

quote:

Originally posted by p dog shooter:

quote:

We high fenced our place last year. I hated to do it but we are bordered by 2 properties that lease out and every year they kill several young deer.

Oh the horror maybe they just like eating them.

Our goal is letting the native deer get to their genetic potential. That's hard to accomplish when that happens at age 7-8 and they're killed 3-4 yrs prior.
I don't besmirch the leasers for it, it's just different goals.
The fence allows everyone to follow their own desires

Perry

Very well stated.