On the back of several threads where South Africa is beaten up because we have "small" enclosed, high fenced off areas where we hunt I got thinking - what hunting to me may not be hunting to you. My hunt - Wake up before sunrise drink coffee walk out of my camp with a tracker / PH and then walk slowly through the bush looking for my quarry. This I can do on a 3800ha (as per infinito 60" kudu thread) farm with never seeing a fence. With a fence of 38km by 38km (23.6x23.6 miles) this is a fairly big place for a Kudu to hide.

Or is it more sporting to wake up before sunrise drink coffee walk out of my camp get onto a land cruiser drive around looking for my intended quarry, get out stalk for 5 minutes and shoot?

Before everyone jumps up and down I realise not all hunting in open areas is done this way but is it the majority? I am not sure – I have never been to an unfenced hunting area.

I know the “feeling†of open, unfenced areas gives the true “feeling†of Africa but is it necessary to paint all of RSA farms with the same paint brush accusing us of “breeding 60’ Kudu bulls?â€

Hunting on a farm 2500ha + , to me, is just as challenging as “open†areas, if not more as you are not aided by vehicles, I suppose you could be if you requested it……….

quote:

never seeing a fence.

I submit two points, one within the other:
- Am I engaged in a FAIR CHASE hunt?
- For a FAIR CHASE HUNTER seeing a fence
that the intended game can not instantly
overcome, is truly a 100% destroyer, (psycho-
logically speaking) of the idea of FAIR CHASE.

So your described KUDU hunt sounds legitimate to me.

I hunt here in Texas on my deer lease that is about 3500 acres.

It is low fenced, but I cannot leave our "property".

We do not hunt in a vehicle here. Most hunt from a stand/blind.

A few, like me, hunt many times on foot, walking till we jump or spot game, then shoot or stalk till we have a shot.

This type of hunting is very sporting IMHO.

However, when many people think of African Hunting, they think of UNTAMED WILDERNESS.

These same people do not associate South Africa with UNTAIMED WILDERNESS.

Many SA hunting ranches have high fences. That is a turn off to some people.

However I realize a high fence not only keeps the game in, but is designed to keep stuff OUT.

I have only done one High Fence Hunt.

It was in Texas with the DRSS on a South Texas Ranch. We hunted wild pigs in the low fenced area and cow eland in the high fenced area.

On this particular hunt Rusty and I hunted and bagged cow eland. We used our big bore doubles. We hunted on foot, ie we did not spot the game from a vehicle then stalk.
We hunted several different times before we were succesful.
We worked harder for these eland than I have worked for other game in "wild free range conditions".

The hunt was a blast, we got to use our Big Bore Doubles AND we got to take the eland meat home.

I have never hunted in South Africa. I probably never will, simply because when I go to Africa IT is ALL about ELEPHANTS for ME.

However for a plains game hunt, South Africa has a LOT to offer.

I have never talked to anyone that had a bad hunt in South Africa.

quote:

Originally posted by ghundwan:
On the back of several threads where South Africa is beaten up because we have "small" enclosed, high fenced off areas where we hunt I got thinking - what hunting to me may not be hunting to you. My hunt - Wake up before sunrise drink coffee walk out of my camp with a tracker / PH and then walk slowly through the bush looking for my quarry. This I can do on a 3800ha (as per infinito 60" kudu thread) farm with never seeing a fence. With a fence of 38km by 38km (23.6x23.6 miles) this is a fairly big place for a Kudu to hide.

Or is it more sporting to wake up before sunrise drink coffee walk out of my camp get onto a land cruiser drive around looking for my intended quarry, get out stalk for 5 minutes and shoot?

Before everyone jumps up and down I realise not all hunting in open areas is done this way but is it the majority? I am not sure – I have never been to an unfenced hunting area.

I know the “feeling†of open, unfenced areas gives the true “feeling†of Africa but is it necessary to paint all of RSA farms with the same paint brush accusing us of “breeding 60’ Kudu bulls?â€

Hunting on a farm 2500ha + , to me, is just as challenging as “open†areas, if not more as you are not aided by vehicles, I suppose you could be if you requested it……….

Well since you asked.....

For me personally, any high fence is a bad fence. Its not hunting, it’s killing. Mind you I have never done it. BUT I also never plan on doing it. For me, I want self propagating animals, in their natural home with no fences. I find the minute I start to read about a hunt from S/A or from a "estate" hunt, I immediately tune it out and do not continue the thread. I don’t care if you’re behind 10 acres or 1,000,000. At the end of the day I do not consider it to be hunting.
But to each his/her own. Just because it’s not for me, doesn’t make it wrong. Some people also don’t believe in hunting cougars with dogs or hunting bears over bait.

You should make your way over to Canada someday and see what unfenced hunting is really all about.

Calgary Guy

Rowland Ward's Guild of Field Sportsmen looks at it thus:
That no creature be hunted for sport in an enclosed area of such size that such creature is not self-sufficient. Self-sufficiency includes the ability of the animal to exercise its natural inclination to escape from the hunter as well as catering for all its basic needs such as water, food, shelter and breeding.

And I think that this is a great approach.

For those with the money to do all their hunting in Tanzania's seemingly endless wilderness, great for them. Others might aspire to just one such hunt in a lifetime.

I enjoy hunting too much to put a lifetimes worth of hunting all into one magnificent 3 week safari, and it's the FENCED ranches of SA that give me ongoing QUALITY hunting at rates I can afford. Hooray for the South African model, where "ownership" of land & game has hugely enlarged the area under wildlife, and hooray for the fences that make it viable.

By the way, your 3800ha would only have about 2km borders. A ranch with 38km borders if square would be a staggering 144,400ha, and I think even Calgary Guy would HAVE to considder that HUNTING

quote:

Originally posted by Stephen Palos:
Rowland Ward's Guild of Field Sportsmen looks at it thus:
That no creature be hunted for sport in an enclosed area of such size that such creature is not self-sufficient. Self-sufficiency includes the ability of the animal to exercise its natural inclination to escape from the hunter as well as catering for all its basic needs such as water, food, shelter and breeding.

And I think that this is a great approach.

For those with the money to do all their hunting in Tanzania's seemingly endless wilderness, great for them. Others might aspire to just one such hunt in a lifetime.

I enjoy hunting too much to put a lifetimes worth of hunting all into one magnificent 3 week safari, and it's the FENCED ranches of SA that give me ongoing QUALITY hunting at rates I can afford. Hooray for the South African model, where "ownership" of land & game has hugely enlarged the area under wildlife, and hooray for the fences that make it viable.

By the way, your 3800ha would only have about 2km borders. A ranch with 38km borders if square would be a staggering 144,400ha, and I think even Calgary Guy would HAVE to considder that HUNTING

Thanks for the heads up - I left out the "," should read 3.8 x 3.8 km my conversion to miles was also done on 38km

Stephen hit the nail on the head. It's all about territories, and the animal's ability to avoid the hunter. In the terrain typical to Kudu habitat, the animal has EVERY chance of avoiding the hunter, even if it's 1000ha we're discussing.

An anecdote from a hunt with a young friend a week ago:

I'm getting to the point where I should watch how I exert myself (heart operation). I thus dropped young (32) Nico off on the far side of the 3000ha we were hunting, and drove back to camp. Nico was with a tracker appropriately nicknamed "Bloodhound". When I saw him return to camp some 8hrs later, he was walking like a saddle-sore cowboy who had shat his pants. He never once saw a Kudu bull, but he had a blast of a hunt. He got his bull the next morning, still without having seen a fence. I took my cow and bull from (or near to) the vehicle. Not my preference, but it'll have to do until I recover fully. I'm damn sure not going without biltong just because of a dodgy ticker!

"Untouched" Africa is great - I've done a lot of that myself, but fenced hunting can be equally good. It's what you make of it.

The only fair way to do it is to track the animal yourself and not use any vehicle or trackers. Fences are OK if the animal can easily jump over it. You then need to run the animal down and kill it with either a rock or a knife.

I have hunted both fenced and unfenced areas in SA. I have had good hunts on either type. Suitability of a fenced area to hunting really depends on many factors, including game sought, vegetation, size of area, terrain etc etc.

Every country has its own background. In some countries hunting regulations ensure the survival of game, in others this is not the case. You can't expect to put game on your farm, if you know your neighbour would shoot the game that happened to hop across the fence at every opportunity. In countries such as SA or Namibia, game ranching is widespread, with high costs to stock properties. The up side is that such game ranching has tremendously increased habitat available for game, and thus done a service to all who care about game populations and their future. Like it or not, that would not have been viable without fences.

- mike

Let me add some additional precision to the calculations on the ranch size: 3800 hectares (if a square) would have sides of 6.164 km, or around 3.83 miles. While big, this is not huge. My father-in-law's ranch in Argentina is a square, ten kilometers per side for 10,000 hectares and hunting on it wouldn't really feel like free range if you were tracking any kind of herd.

Came back to edit and add, for the metric challenged, 3800 hectares is around 9,390 acres and 1000 hectares is around 2471 acres.

My dear fellow countrymen ghundwan & Stephen Palos, were you studying the Magnum or the Scope in the maths class?

A square 3800 ha piece would have 6.164 km x 6.164 km borders. In miles it should be about 3.83 miles x 3.83 miles.

You're likely to get some heated debate with this topic. Some may purely say fences are not for them - but start loosening your neck muscles - others here love to mount high horses.

Riaan, thanks for confirming, they might not believe an American living in France.

Sorry Wink! I did not intend to "confirm" your reply. I had written my response and something came up before I posted it. By the time I hit the "post now" your reply was already there, but not visible to me.

No bad intentions on my side.

Somehow I need to put my two cents in here.

Quit knocking the "fences", if it were not for them, there would be no RSA hunting.

I've hunted far more days in RSA than most folks will ever dream of doing, and assure you, 99% of the time, we seldom ever even see a fence all day. The game has plenty of room to roam.

My maths teachers would all be nodding their heads with their "I told you so" looks on their faces right now..........

Thanks Wink, Riaan et al.

As for fences not being for some...does the ocean not eventually form a boundry? Is hunting an island (Australia) not a "limited" space?

Thanks for the invite CG but I'd certainly rather be chasing the plethora of African plains game on a fenced chunk of Africa than settling for Canada's limited species even with all the space in the world, thanks

I agree with Terry B.

However, I saw abuses at one place I hunted in RSA. This guy had 200 Red Lechwe in an 800 acre area. He fed them. We went to "hunt" them and seeing about 50 at all times, we turned around and drove out without a word to the guy. It was a joke.

We also hunting a 25000 acre area that had white rhino behind a 20' tall electric fence. Lots of other critters that we hunted and all acted free range.

Those who appreciate the hunt, will want the hunting to be difficult. As difficult as if there were no fence.

Real hunters typically do not enjoy situations where the fence changes the outcome of the hunt, or a situation where the hunting conditions have been altered drastically with a fence to insure success with little effort, such as an artificially, un-naturally high population of animals.

In other words, as long as the fence is not playing a role in the outcome of the hunt, and the property is of acceptable size for the terrain, most reasonable hunters will not take issue with it.

Take dogcats experience, 800 acres of open terrain with a very high population of animals, is not what any reasonable hunter would call fair chase. There was no challenge there, there can be little reward where there is little challenge.

With all kinds of terrain, there reaches a point that the size of the ranch does not have an effect on the outcome of the hunt provided the population is of a reasonable size.

My first safari was to S. Africa and I hunted a ranch which was 175,000 acres. His hunting preserve was 35,000 acres which is 54 sq miles of 3 strand barbed wire for cattle movement and control.. This was in Kwazulu Natal south of Durban... There was water tanks for cattle to drink and the animals and also a stream which ran thru its entire length.. Talk about mountainous and deep valleys, saw a herd of kudu would have taken us 20 minutes to get around to the other side of the valley...
Why did the animals like it? It had the habitat that supported the animals that lived there... Great nyala, kudu, super bushbuck..
For 7 days of hard hunting I did get a 53 inch gray ghostwith massive bases , and a 16.5 inch cape bushbuck...
We would park the truck in the morning and glass and take off and not be back to the truck till 4 and 5 hours later...

Mike

quote:

In other words, as long as the fence is not playing a role in the outcome of the hunt,

Hell Wendell, that line has really put it in a nutshell! Mind if I quote you every time this topic come round......

+1 Wendell

I think the fence is a non issue if the land is large enough. In Texas there are fenced ranches so large that a whitetail could spend its whole life in there and never see a fence. If the same is true for a kudu or what ever other animal that it can live in a natural size home range without limitation from the fence, it's not put and take, and the animal populations are not artificially high it sounds good to me. Even leopard hunts in these areas don't bother me in the least, but the other dangerous game does. Just doesn't feel right to me no matter how big the enclosure is.

Brett

I am thankful our South African friends have their fenced game ranches where they can protect all the various species. Someday we will be going to them to help repopulate game in previously wild areas of Africa that have been decimated by poaching and human overpopulation.

I agree with Stephen Palos and Rowland Ward. Seems basic common sense to me

My knowledge is limited (only 1 trip to RSA)
but i watched animals jump or go under the fence
everytime we entered the property we were hunting.my impression was the fences were there mainly to keep people out , otherwise there would be no animals left.

Bigborecore and Terry about covered the situation as it is, like it or not, it is a necessary evil in todays world...

High fences are a personal thing, but many make judgements without ever testing the water IMO...I have hunted some high fenced RSA and Texas ranches where the hunting was about as tough as it can get, the area is impenitratable and certainly fair chase...

By the same token I have hunted open land more than fenced and I think I prefer that hunt, but I am not adamit about it...In many cases open range is an easier hunt than high fenced ranches. I hunted an elephant for 3 weeks one time on a 75,000 ac. high fenced ranch before we tagged him with a radio collar.

Much like the canned Lion situation, the more folks shooting canned Lions the better off the wild lions will be. I would not shoot a canned Lion but I am glad some folks do otherwise they would be shooting the wild lions that need less hunting pressure IMO...that said a canned Lion can and will eat you and may in fact be more aggressive under some conditions it seems or so some biologist have informed me.

Bottom line is its like the fuel situation, there is no pat answer on this subject, it takes a intelligent approach to it and the more one has hunted the more one realizes this. Too much of wildlife management is based mostly on emotion, same with many of todays hunters......If a high fenced ranch is large enough for fair chase then that is fair, if its too small then it unfair chase, simple as that. It is the wildlifes salvation of a continent that is prone to self destruction.

quote:

Originally posted by ghundwan:
...With a fence of 38km by 38km (23.6x23.6 miles) this is a fairly big place for a Kudu to hide...

ghundwan, Don't feel bad about your hunting area or take the critisim of others to heart. Quite often here in The States, "fair chase" hunting takes place on properties much, much smaller. While the game may not be fenced in, the neighboring properties are frequently such that the game will not leave even though they can. Similarly I'm sure you've encountered particular animals who only use a small portion of a 3800ha. property totally unaffected by the fence! As you said, what you call hunting may not be what someone else calls hunting. If you're comfortable with it who cares what they think!
on them!

I'm an old school game fence hater, but agree that it is possible to have real hunting behind a fence. Further, some species were saved by and are only huntable behind, game fences. Blesbok and bontebok come to mind. One of these years I'll make it to RSA to take these animals, if only to participate in a great conservation story. But other than special cases like that, why bother?

If you aren't behind a game fence you don't even have to worry about the fence affecting the outcome of the hunt or unknowingly taking part in some put and take scheme. With a minimum of digging you can find unfenced hunts for prices comparable to those on game fenced ranches. You can also find real hunts on game fenced ranches. But it does take some effort and that is too much for many.

The trip reports here on AR can be the most heart breaking things. The ones that make me feel bad go something like this:

Some one who grew up on Ruark and Hemingway has finally scraped together enough cash for a once in a life time hunt in Africa. They've never travelled much, so the ease of getting to a nice lodge in RSA is appealing and the slick website and long list of game available was captivating. That quite a few of those species are far from their original range is only vaguely recognised and not something they thought much about at the time. Once at the ranch, the game density is amazing, with a remarkably high percentage of mature males. Best of all, the PH knew where to look for a particularily big kudu bull which they got the first morning.

The highlite was maybe the eland. They spooked them on the first approach, and it would have been an epic tracking job, but the PH figured the eland would turn and led the party off the tracks at a sharp angle. 15 mins later, they stopped at a spot overlooking an openning that runs along a ridge that marks one end of the property. The herd soon crossed into the openning and a good shot ended the hunt.

When writing the report a month after the trip, the hunter is still elated. Reading between the lines however, you are left with that sinking feeling in the stomach. The hunter is starting to wonder if maybe he wasn't fully aware of what was really going on and maybe he didn't really get what he'd hoped for. That eland bull, of which there never will be another, is maybe just a bit tainted by something being not quite right and the expensive transplanted antelope doesn't really fit in some how. The hunter enjoyed the trip, but after some reflection, the memories of that once in a lifetime trip are a bit disapointing.

Game fenced hunting areas are important to hunting and conservation. They are also a good way to separate semi-informed dreamers from their cash in exchange for something resembling an African hunt. If I were an operator of a good, sustainable hunting ranch with a large game fenced area, I'd be trying to get threads like this started just so potential clients learned to demand more of their outfitters. When more of us clients start demanding only real hunting and stop compromising what we really want for "Well that's just the way it is these days/round here/for the average hunter" the good operators will be rewarded and the others will have to improve to survive.


As for a fenced area 3.8km x 3.8km, well I run my dog in an urban park 3.8km x 3km. My blesbok, bontebok and black wildebeest will need more room than that.

Cheers,
Dean

Also, the idea of "stocking" animals in a fenced in property that may or may not be wild is a turn off.

quote:

My hunt - Wake up before sunrise drink coffee walk out of my camp with a tracker / PH and then walk slowly through the bush looking for my quarry.

seeing how many people say "i have never done it but .... well but nothing ...keep quiet already unless you know !!!

ghundwane , if thats how you hunt , hats off to you , its not pretending to be any different to what you describe .i would like to see someone who thinks any high fence is simply killing hunting lemco or the save conservancy at 1000 000 acres hunt as you do and say that they could simply kill anything ..

in south africa in order to hunt private land , by law it has to be fenced ,...the size is important , but i will say even on areas of 1000 hectares i have hunted nyala , on foot with a bow and spend days doing so before the perfect opportunity presented itself ..

each to his own , if you never want a high fence , thats fine but many great great areas happen to be fenced and the animals are naturally occurring , naturally breeding and there is no way you can know or tell whats around the next corner ..

again hats off to you for doing a real walk and stalk hunt ... you will have excellent experiences and will be able to be all the more proud of your trophies ....

another firm and full agreement to wendell ...if the fence has no direct impact on the outcome of the safari i am all for it ..

size here is the key ....one area i regularly hunt in south africa you can drive all day and not even see the fence ...

quote:

Originally posted by Stephen Palos:


As for fences not being for some...does the ocean not eventually form a boundry? Is hunting an island (Australia) not a "limited" space?

I once had a poster tell me it makes no difference how big the place is, he didn't care if the whole state of Texas was fenced, if it is high fenced, it is not hunting! Australia, like the Texas example, may be a little puffed up example, but lets take it down to an island the size of Kodiak, a place where people come from all over the world to hunt the very large brown bear. The deep, and heavily currented waters around it are more effective than any fence. There are many properties in RSA and othe places that are bigger than Kodiak, and similar Islands, yet the same people who cuss a 1,000,000 acre ranch, with a couple of Kudu on it, in RSA, will jump at the chance to pay $20K to take a 10' brown bear from Kodiak, and think they've done something in a more fair way.

Hi fence hunting is not just killng, yes in tiny paddocks it is, but on large properties it isn't (as Ivan et al were saying).

In addition high fences don't stop all game movement, they retard it, most fences get broken, lifted, sag etc etc

quote:

You should make your way over to Canada someday and see what unfenced hunting is really all about.

I have hunted in Alberta, you have some great areas however most hunters I hunted with there hunt crop fields/paddocks in sight of farmhouses, tractors and roads, in fact I was surprised at how many hunters just road hunt and cruise the logging/trunk roads in trucks or quads and if the engine stops you can hear pmp jacks working all the time, not wilderness at all. Sure some guys do hunt the far back country and you do have some wonderful areas, I am not dissing it, its just not what I saw most of my hunting acquaintances doing (I missed a chance at houseback hunt in Willmore wilderness near Grande Cache unfortunately).

In addition, they may not be fences but things like seismic lines, roads, fields etc can act as effective barriers to game (caribou being a good example). I fact accordng to cumulatve impact specalist Bad Stelfox (who is a very keen hunter too) right now if you were randomly droped in Alberta you would only have a 12% chance of being more that 200m from ANY linear disturbance in the province (roads, pipeline, seismic line, powerline etc). Within the next 2 decades it wil propbably be impossible to be further than 200m from any linear disturbance in Alberta.

Just some food for thought....

quote:

Originally posted by MacD37:

quote:

Originally posted by Stephen Palos:


As for fences not being for some...does the ocean not eventually form a boundry? Is hunting an island (Australia) not a "limited" space?

I once had a poster tell me it makes no difference how big the place is, he didn't care if the whole state of Texas was fenced, if it is high fenced, it is not hunting! Australia, like the Texas example, may be a little puffed up example, but lets take it down to an island the size of Kodiak, a place where people come from all over the world to hunt the very large brown bear. The deep, and heavily currented waters around it are more effective than any fence. There are many properties in RSA and othe places that are bigger than Kodiak, and similar Islands, yet the same people who cuss a 1,000,000 acre ranch, with a couple of Kudu on it, in RSA, will jump at the chance to pay $20K to take a 10' brown bear from Kodiak, and think they've done something in a more fair way.

I see what you are getting at, but Kodiak is approx 2,296,320 in acres. Is there a place in SA that is bigger than that?
Those bears are in their natural enviroment with all the chalenges that Alaska can throw at a hunter.
Fences may work for some folk, but they just dont do it for me.

As for crop fields in Alberta.. Dont they grow crops in Africa? I see all sorts of storys about PAC hunts.
Cutlines.... Well in my experiance cutlines do nothing to hurt the game and in fact it is seen as a benifit to both the hunter and the prey. Though I am not a expert on Caribou. But to compare high fenced areas to cutlines doesnt seem fair.
I would agree that its getting harder and harder to get away from the roads in Alberta. However it is still very possible depending on the species and area hunted. I guess if a guy really wants to get away in Canada I would suggest the NWT or Yukon. I have hunted the NWT not a bunch of access points where we were.

Also someone mentioned hunting a specific bull in 75,000 acres for a solid 3 weeks... But you still knew that bull was there. Would you have chased a specific bull that long in the wild? Or would mentaly you have given up? Knowing something is there is much different than thinking it is.

Like I said before, differnt strokes for different folks. I wont look down on you for it, but do not expect me to join you. I asked myself this question.. If I cant support it here in Alberta how can I support it any place else? I have been asked a couple of times to go on a pig hunt here in alberta. It will be behind fences. The only way I could look at something like this, is if I got it through my head I was going to kill something, not hunt it. I guess the day I really feel the need to put some bacon in the frezzer, then that will be the day I head up on a pig kill.

Calgary Guy

BTW..Stephen. To bad on missing out on the Willmore hunt. It sounds like a fantastic place. We are in the procces of setting up a 14 day horseback hunt up that way in 2 years. It sounds like it will be a heck of a adventure.

I recently hunted both fenced properties in RSA and unfenced auction areas in Zim. I enjoyed both very much. I rarely saw the fences on either of the RSA properties, and I don't think they made it any easier at all.

Everyone seems to be of the opinion that animals only travel in straight lines and that once confronted with a fence will be stumped. I have hunted my whole life in RSA behind high fences and know all about a fair chase. I have hunted with overseas hunters who are only interested in walking until they realise that the game is not standing around waiting for them, then it's all about fetching the "bakkie" (truck) or "build me a blind".
Not wanting to get anyone hot under the collar just telling you my experiences. I have been after the same Eland on the same farm in the same area for 2 years now and have yet to get a shooting opportunity on him - I know he's there and he never seems bothered about the fences, he decides, left - right - turn around - backtrack etc.

I suppose each to his own, opinions are like arseholes, we all have them. As long as I'm in the bush doing what I love and can return to camp having worked for the animals I've managed to harvest in a manner that I feel was fair then that's all that counts. If sitting in a blind, putting out a decoy or lying near a waterhole is acceptable to you then be my guest.

Often the terrain and conditions will dictate the hunting style required. So go out and do what you love in the manner that best suits you.

Just my 2 cents

Well, there goes fair chase hunting in Australia with that damn Dingo fence that runs across the entire country. I'm sure the Water Buffalo won't cross it - oh well, mark Australia off.

What about New Zealand? Lot's of things are fenced there. Oh, all the game was introduced there as well from select genetics. OK, scratch that on off the list.

I'm sure the Alaskan pipeline is hindering the movement of animals and confining them in someway. Damn, Alaska is off the list.

Wait till the darn border fence is built along the US Mexico border? North America is no longer fair chase.

I'm not sure how of any of Western Europe is fair chase with the conditions outlined by folks in this thread either.

Get the point? This is pure silliness. Hunt how you want to. If I go to RSA - I know it will be high fenced - as long as its 80K, 100K, 200K acres, I don't care.

And If I ever hunt a Scimitar Horned Oryx or Addax, it will probably be behind a high fence in Texas.

Alaska - I'll get my ass kicked by mother nature.

Etc.

I have hunted fenced areas in South Africa my whole life. I have never once had an animal knowing that it was being pursued get to the fence line and stop avoiding me. The fence is a part of these animals territory and they know its pros and cons. Some will use it to their advantage to cover ground quickly and then duck away into thick bush again when the hunter reaches the site. Anyone who believes that a wild animal that lives within a fenced area of game farm size becomes tame is fooling themselves. If anything I would say that they become more wary of humans as humans are their only predator in most cases, and believe me they know it. Go out for a casual walk and see how the Kudu will observe your behaviour and just mark your progress, go stalking in the same area in front of the same animal and you will see a different side to the animals as they recognise a predator and melt into the bush often without the hunter realising they were ever there.
As was mentioned before a walk and stalk hunt on 2000ha of bushveld is going to take skill perseverance and a bit of luck to deliver a good result, and as things go I would have to say that being asked to hunt from a vehicle would seem far less sporting to me than would hunting in a legitimate game farm with a fence
Hunting in the wide open spaces of East Africa is magical experinece, but for those without the big budget there is a lot of really good hunting to be had in some truly magical fenced reserves. Those of you who support hunting in South Africa are actually ultimately contributing to the expansion of game areas and ultimately will allow more wilderness area to be conserved through joint venture conservation projects.
So to end this topic off I HAVE TO SAY A BIG THANK YOU TO ALL THE FOREIGN AND LOCAL HUNTERS WHOS HUNTING FEES ARE ALLOWING US TO PROTECT WILDERNESS AND KEEP AFRICAS WILDLIFE AND WILDERNESS SAFE FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS.
Thank you.

I wanted an old blue bull eland an hunted near Etosha for 5 days inside a large fenced ranch never seeing an old bull though the owner knew he had about a dozen living in there. Sure I could've killed several younger bulls but not one of the blue bastards. I left with the same feeling of defeat I've known chasing them in the Selous.

Congrats Doc
At the end of the day, only the hunter will truly know when he has hunted. When he has pitted himself against the instinct and cunning of the quarry and done it on equal terms.
Good for you. The most challenging Eland hunting in South Africa is still the migratory herds that exist in the southern drakensberg. These animals feel nothing for even 2m game fences and can cover hundreds of km if they are harrassed. Often running into the mountains where noone can follow. I would have to say that in this case the Eland use the fences to their advantage.
When will you be hunting again?
Best regards
Ian

quote:

Originally posted by Grumulkin:
The only fair way to do it is to track the animal yourself and not use any vehicle or trackers. Fences are OK if the animal can easily jump over it. You then need to run the animal down and kill it with either a rock or a knife.

Grum, I'm sorry, but the rock is cheating-a small stick or your hands is the way of the true purist.

Folks,

Ivan is spot on. If you have not done a fenced hunt how can you say that it is not a hunt? The more I hunt the less clear it is to me what constitutes a real hunt.

I have hunted on properties that felt too small but when the hunting ranches get to 25,000 acres or so the fence to me becomes irrelevant.

To say that all fenced hunting is not hunting is silly. Does anyone really think that on a places with one exterior fence around 150,000, 250,000, upto a 1,000,000 acres that you could not have a hunt? I had several clients hunt leopard, buffalo and plains game on fenced areas last season. I think they might be a little upset if someone suggested their hunts were not real.

Mark

A HUNTER knows the difference between a real and challenging hunt and a stroll to shoot something.

I hunted 18 days, three trips and walked over 60 miles in S Africa behind the fence before I was able to finally connect on an old mature kudu. If anyone tells me that its less of a hunt because of a fence I'll laugh at them and tell them to step up.