if the behavior of these kids is any example of what the future holds for us hunters God Bless us. When they finally get rid of that peach fuzz and start to screw we can only hope attitudes will change. Until then they should be thankfull for us old soldiers. it is because men and women have fought and still fight that they are free to walk down the street with their homosexual butt buddies and swap spit in public.

I noticed no reply from these young pups...must be school time.

As for me I quit being my own defendant years ago, I do not need to prove myself much these days. Think I'll go golfing, maybe kill a goose with a 3 wood on hole 7 of the course, might even get it mounted just to piss of those youngins! BB.

I've hunted Wyoming & Utah, and there were no (high)fences. The game animals could have run all the way to the pacific ocean, Canada or Mexico if they wanted to. They might have had to cross a few hiways, Mt. ranges, rivers , and jump a few small fences, but we are not talking about fences that animals can cross at will. The point of the question ( I belive ) is high fences, ones that are designed to keep aminals in.
Roads make it easier to hunt, but an elk can cross that road if it wants to. Mountians & rivers might restrict game movement, but if the game really wants to, they can cross that range or swim that river.
I have NO problem with people hunting high fence enclosures, just don't call it a "fair chase hunt", and don't think somebodys 400 class fenced bull is as great a trophy as the wild unfenced spike I shot, because it isn't.

Is it possible to have a fenced area large enough for a given species that a hunt there could or should be considered "Fair Chase"?

Put a fence around the continent, throw some elk in and I'd call it fair.

I think a lot depends on the species and the terrain inside the fence. I know they have done some studies with Whitetail deer here in Minnesota where they put whitetail deer in a one mile square fenced area and then had expert hunters go in to see if they could find them. Turned out that the older bucks were never found by the hunters. Elk and Mule deer might be a different story, again, depending on the terrain inside the fence.

Blue

With a large enough area with whitetail deer (or blacktail) it would be possible, but just the thought of that fence being there would ruin it for me. If the animals have good habitat they will have a reason to stay there and a fence won't be needed to keep them there. A fence being necessary to keep some things in and other things out, makes any wildlife inside that fence, less wild, in my mind anyway. With elk it would not be possible at all, unless you did as 43 deer suggested, and fence the entire continent.

I know of a ranch in Sonora that is fenced for a desert bighorn project and it is thick country. The part that is fenced is over 25,000 acres and the deer are as wild inside the fence as they are outside the fence. They have a few small pens and are doing research on mule deer as well as bighorns but the ranchs main purpose is bighorn restoration projects. It borders one of my ranches and I think that it would be as difficult a hunt there as it would be on my ranch. This is probably the only ranch I know of that is fenced and would provide a challenge that would rival any low fenced ranches.

djpaintles: All the talk and vehement and quite nasty posts I have read here, recently and in the distant past, regarding hunting or shooting animals that are behind fences is usually based on a group's defintion of "fenced."

I live in Alaska (590,000 sq miles) and when I go anywhere, for work or on a hunting trip, I have to admit I might fly over an area the size of Wyoming (96,000sq miles) with no roads, two state registered gravel airstrips, and a handful of native villages to get to where I'm going... and that would be somewhere near Anchorage. I have hunted in Wyoming and Idaho and I have traveled many times through Montana, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado and other 'western states' and I have concluded that hunting in these states is no different than hunting in large parks, or well managed fenced game ranches. There are roads everywhere. And fences. And people. And, for the most part, there are lots of animals to shoot.

People on this forum complain about the fairness of hunting elk on ranches owned by people like Ted Turner in Montana or unashamed tall fence hunting properties in Nebraska. In all fairness, I bet the Fish and Game Departments of the western states know exactly how many elk there are and where they are at, and hunting regulations are issued and implemented accordingly. This type of management is nothing but running a well managed park, fence or no fence. The fence is the rule under which people kill the animals. Where there are lots of people, there are lots of rules (and fences). My point is that today most hunting is conducted in a heavily regulated and controlled environment. Very few people have room to critizise others when it comes to the conditions under which animals are shot.

I love Wyoming, but it is a small state with a bunch of roads. You drive to the elk. Hunting in Idaho or western Washington is no different. There might be a horse involved, but that might be as much for show as for function. I think it all depends on what a persons means when they say fair chase. When roads come in, true wilderness hunting is displaced with heavy management and sustained yield theories. Alaska is next and that is too bad for all of us. In my view, Wyoming, Montana, Washington, and the rest, are well managed but fenced game parks.

If the fence line follows natural boundries for the animal, you bet. From my experience, fences are more for establishing the human boundaries than the game boundries, as it is very difficult to make a herd of animals obey a fence. Ive seen them (animals) crawl under them, climb them, jump some pretty high fences. Watching a deer climb a fence can be interesting, and yes they can. In reality, if the game animal has sufficient terrain and cover to see and avoid you, the fence may be in your way more than his way. Some of the toughest hunts I have had were in small acreage brushy swamps, no fence involved. Add some fences for you to navigate, and it is harder on you than the game animals.

Put a high enough fence on a small enough parcel of land, and it becomes a shoot, not a hunt. You can get the same effect from natural terrain.

In a real wilderness, no roads within a few miles, no people milling around, you may find an experience not found on the farm, but has little to do with the taste of the meat.

I don't believe we're talking about fences that animals can get over or under. The topic is about game proof fencing.

The problem as I see it is that once you agree that hunting fenced animals is fair chase, then it becomes a debate on how big the fenced area must be. If 100,000 acers is OK then why not 50,000 ? 25,000. How about 10,000 for women & children. What about somebody with a bad nee, is 5,000 OK for him ? The enclosure WILL get smaller and smaller as people argue their cases, and pretty soon, somebody will be shooting a deer or elk in a feed lot with two trees and calling it "fair chase".
So to answer your question NO, if the animal isn't free (from man made obstructions ) to run to the end of the continent, IT ISN'T FAIR CHASE.

I hear ya, but most of the activities I'm talking about I saw in Texas, on "high fenced" acreage. A couple of the ranch managers even admitted to the fact that this (migration from ranch to ranch) was a problem. For them, the ranch folks, that is.

Anaconda: Your point is well taken, but it works the other way too. By my defintion, Wyoming, Utah, Montana, and Washinton are fenced states: all the animals in these states are contained in fences and are heavily managed. So I ask: when does a fenced area become acceptable to you: 2,000,000 acres? 50,000 square miles? If you hunt in any of the four states I mentioned you accept hunting behind fences, you just choose to hunt in a larger fenced area than a smaller fenced area. If you hunted in an area where there are no fences, you would stop worrying about them and whether or not it is a good or bad thing to do. And you would understand the difference between hunting in a place with lots of people and fences, like Montana, and hunting in a place where there is no roads and just you. As I said earlier, roads are really worse than fences themselves. And I bet where you live there are a bunch of roads. So I have to ask, when is a fenced area big enough to satisfy you? If you where genuinely concerned about hunting behind fences, you would not hunt anywhere in the continental United States.

So some states are "heavily managed." The animals are still wild and they are where they are because they choose to be, not because they can't get out of the fence.

rwj,



Your comments are cracking me up. Some of the goofiest I've read here to date. -TONY

djpaintles, to answer your question in my opinion No. If the given animal is high fenced in with no chance of excape then it can not be "fair". This is not to say that with enough ground it might not be a challenge but the end result is that animal has a price on his head and the odds are that he will die from a bullet.

As an example, take the Comstock, now do you really think that any of those 400+ bulls will die from anything other than a bullet. It really makes no differenc wheather it is 2300 acres or 8 miles by 3 miles, when the paying customer pays the set price for the said Elk, he will be going home with what he considers a trophy.

In Pa we have an island in the middle of a river. There were never deer on the island until they were brought in and stocked. The deer can swim but it's too far across open water for them to make the closest shore. The electric company that owns the island offers 50 permits each year to hunters on a draw basis. Just to keep deer numbers in check. Never haven't all 50 deer been tagged. And this is all on an 730 acre island without fences. yet it is considered FAIR CHASE and several of the bucks have made and are listed in P&Y and B&C record books.
I don't see any difference in that and a 730 acre fenced game farm.BB

Ballbuster, I am assuming you meant that never have all 50 deer been taken. You don't say what hunting meathod is used and it really makes no difference.



You say the deer were stocked on the island and they can't swim to shore, so from that stand point I would say no it is not fair chase But if those deer had inhabitnated(sp) that island on their own without being transplanted, I can honestly say I don't know how to answer you.



I will still take a firm stand against man made High fences and a price tag per/SCI score antlers

Outdoor Writer: I was expressing an honest opinion. I was not belittling you or anyone else. And I have never characterized what you say on this forum as being goofy or rediculous, even if I might have privately thought that.

An honest question was asked about "fair chase on a fenced hunt.' And I responded that it depends on what you mean by fenced. I think it is a moving scale: at one end some poor beast with a red cattle tag stapled to its ear is shot on a dairy pasture and at the other end, a park-protected elk wonders on to an adjacent ranch property where it is promptly shot by some dude like me. I have shot those elk just outside Yellowstone in Wyoming and I loved it and I plan on doing it again. But I knew exactly what I was doing.

Elk are free-ranging where we let them range free. There is a whole industry surrounding Yellowstone elk. Most wilderness parks are just that: parks. Is that bad? Of course not. Some of the best elk hunting in the world is done around the edges of Yellowstone.

I was just making a observation. I like hunting in Wyoming and I have a trip planned for Colorado later this year to hunt pronghorn, even if there are lots of roads and people in Colorado. There are probably lots of antelope in Colorado because there are lots of roads and people. But the whole theory of 'free range' animals is an idea that most people don't want to define. When I use the word fence, I mean a physcial barrier and there are all kinds of physical barriers. I think roads are worse than 8 foot high game-fences. Most people, and I bet you are one of them, get used to the places you hunt and the conditions under which you hunt, and you have convenced yourself that your place and method of hunting is the best, hardest, and the most honorble way of hunting. And who am I to say your wrong? My basic point was simply that most of the continental United States has been gridded off in blocks, cut up into parcels, and had major highways built on those gridded blocks and that all that gridding and road making has had a profound effect on wildlife and how it moves across the landscape.

But your unprofessional remarks makes me think that you did not understand what I was saying and that you really have not thought about the issue.

In Pa. "tagged" means shot and the hunting tag placed in the ear of the dead animal before removing the entrails.(....all 50 deer were tagged after they were deader than hell!) and the lucky permit holders can use any weapon that is legal in Pa at the time. That island is in the bow/shotgun/revolver zone of the state.
Wash. : I do not have to make it up the PGC (Pa. Game Commission)says so. That is why they setup the program for the electric company in the first place and do winter deer counts by air each year.
Washington must have some real knowledgeable hunters out that way!

Washington must have some real knowledgeable hunters out that way!



Yes, very Knowledgeable when Fair Chase is involved

rwj,

Never said your opinion was dishonest; I merely said some of your comments were some of the goofiest I have read here to date. That still stands.

BUT...after you explained about hunting elk outside the YNP boundaries, I can see why you formed the opinion and made the comments as you did. In reality, though, if those elk WISHED to, they could certainly cross through several states, regardless of any natural or artificial boundaries. Elk cross roads, including major 4 to 6-lane interstates, all the time, and in some cases their winter and summer ranges are actually in two different states.

And in reality, my comfort level was determined years ago in regards to fences, feeders and such.

As for, "I bet you are one of them, get used to the places you hunt..." nothing could be further from the truth. Actually, over the past 45 years I have hunted in 39 states -- including Alaska 3 times -- 11 Canadian provinces, Mexico and Africa. And I also spent three years guiding folks on pack-in elk and deer hunts in Colorado's Weminuche Wilderness near Durango in the mid-1970s. I guarantee the elk there are not the YNP variety, such as this one.



Now, if you ask me about my hunts in Alaska, be prepared to hear an answer you probaly won't like. That's especially true when it comes to caribou. -TONY

My opinion, if it's high fenced, it ain't fair chase. But I've hunted with people that thought that any time you pay a fee to hunt it's like shooting fish in a barrel. They had never tried it though.

Ballbuster, so what is the name of the river and the island (if it has a name)? I'd like to do a little research.

I would love a couple of hundred acres of mixed woodland here in the UK. I would ensure that the undergrowth was thick but that it had a decent network of rides and paths through it and I would introduce some Muntjac.

There would be no shooting within 50 yards of the boundry fence and I would set up a couple of sanctuary areas inside too. If feeders were required, there would be no shooting over them and they would be placed to be unusable to the stalker and moved now and again.

Finnally, I would not advertise my stocking densisty nor make any claims to quality of the heads present. Neither would I give away the locations or even the presence of feeders (if used). Any guest I invited would be effectively stalking blind and may be required to shoot management/cull animals first before trying for a wall hanger. The idea would be to keep the population at a fairly low level so the place was not stuffed with deer.

While not wild, I could spend a pleasant evening or morning walking around such a wood. Pulling the trigger would be very secondary to managing a small bit of heaven...

Regards,

Pete

RWJ makes some excellent points. Anaconda's comments are certainly a dip into the reality of life and human logic. Like so many issues we see in this room, I don't think there is a single "final" answer except folks are gonna do what they want to do and they will figure out a way to justify it.

Size can't be the only criteria. Fence in 100 acres in my locale in WV and hunting a whitetail could be a pretty sporting proposition UNLESS YOU LIVED ON THE PROPERTY AND KNEW THE HABITS AND FEED AREAS OF THE DEER. Fence in 100 acres in say Kansas and you could see acrost it as well as anything larger than a rabbit. Hunting would be more a display of marksmanship. Give an outfitter a sack of gold and he will take you into the wilderness area of a National Forest where he has been running cattle, sit you on a rock and at 9:17am, you will get a shot at a nice ......(fill in the blank) that the rancher/outfitter has been watching all summer. No fence; is it fair chase? Each person has to decide for himself. Thus, its pointless to trash the other fellow's decisions 'cause it doesn't match yours.

Please don't bore me with YOUR exact discription of what "fair chase" means to you. Your definition is no more right nor wrong than someone else's. But do yourself a favor and strip away all of the jealousy and envy and make sure its something YOU can live with. Remember, shrillness and volume does not replace truth. And leave yourself some latitude for change. It seems the bolder the statement I made as a young man the harder has been its bite on my ass as I've gotten older.



smoke 'em if you've got 'em.







fyi: deer often swim the Mississippi above Memphis and I've seen them in reservoirs a lot further from shore than I could swim.

I've walked the shoreline of that river myself many a time fishing, finding deer that I presume drown while trying the crossing. I have a friend from work that lives just across the open channel from that island and he claims that while sitting on his dock he witnessed a bear swim it, ran for his binos and watched as it made the far shore. But he has never seen a deer make the trip either way, sure he and everyone else around there have seen them there on the ice and each winter the local paper features a front page story of " deer trapped on the ice with local fire depts. in boats rescuing them". All I can say is when I was younger and the gas tank was part of an outboard you had better have an extra can with you if you wanted to sneak over there and do some duck hunting cause you sure as hell couldn't make it there and back on one tank. BB

Without getting into the fence non fenced thing, I think fair chase is about how you conduct the hunt.

So you're keeping the name of the river a secret...well all I can say is those deer could swim that river if they chose to do so. If they don't, then apparently they are staying on the island because it meets their needs and they have no reason to leave. You just can't compare it to a fence in which it is not possible for a deer to cross.

BTW, if I haven't already said so, my definition of "fair chase" is simple: public-owned animals=fair chase....privately owned animals=CANNED HUNT.

I have to disagree with you. Ownership either public or private has nothing to do with the principles of fair chase. It does however have to do with who has access to hunt the animals. That is an economic issue not an ethical one. You or I may not have the ability to afford the hunt. Am I little jealous at times? Yes. Does it make it an unfair hunt? Only in that not everyone has equal acces to it. A canned hunt is one in which the animals do not have a fair chance to escape the hunter period. It also has to do with the manner in which the animals are hunted.

Mike, I have to agree with this statement : A canned hunt is one in which the animals do not have a fair chance to escape the hunter period.
Apply's to high fence or in this case the island BB has described.

Jimmy, I am not disagreeing with you. I will only add another wrinkle to the discussion. I am lucky enough to get to hunt on a private island in Hawaii. The island is about 70 square miles in size. It is totally undeveloped and very rough terrain. It goes from sea level up to 1700 feet at the top of the old volcano. This island has been owned by the same family for 150 years. When they first obtained the island feral sheep and pigs were introduced. We hunt them for population control to protect the habitat. It is an extremely tough hunt. However because the animals cant get off the island does that make it canned or not fair chase? I hardly think so.

I cant speak for other parts of the country, but where I live, the problem I have with fences is that private property owners are clearly using their land boundries as "fish traps" to entice free roaming animals onto their land and keep them there. The real pisser here is that the DWR is using taxpayers money to help them accomplish it and rewarding them for doing so by GIVING them free hunting tags for their "cooperation" in game management.



If I were to go onto public land, start herding animals into a pen and brand them and place them in my fence, what would be the difference?



I dont care how small an area another hunter wants to limit himself to. Thats niether here nor there with me and only speaks of the size of the man. But the attitude has become that ANY animals on private property belong to the landowners, this I cant abide. Of corse there are situations where landowners come by the game on their land honestly and/or handle hunting of said animals fairly, which is the way it should be. But those who are taking advantage of fence lines by stealing everyones free roaming wildlife for financial gain or to keep prime hunting in a neat little circle of chums are no better than poachers in my book. Maybe someday the general public will figure this out and set things right, one can only hope so.

Mike, I know what you are saying and we could split hairs over this for years to come. I think the words "Fair Chase" is a very twisted phrase. In everyones mind they have their own feelings on what "Fair Chase" is. We could beat up on the fellows that bait bear and deer with feed, we could beat up on fishermen, using freash eggs and flashy lures.

I am sure without any doubt that if there was say 100,000 high fenced acres in say the Salmon or Selway-Bitteroot area that one could have a very rough hunt and it would be a Challenge but it could not in my mind be Fair Chase as the Game animal has No means of excape.

I guess maybe my thinking comes from having several millon acres of public land to hunt within a few miles of my home.

Jimmy I think you are right we are splitting hairs. That is why I stand by my original statement about the animal having a fair chance to escape the hunter. That is the important thing.



It is the interpretation of what is a fair chance to escape that is subject to discussion. Certainly hunting an elk in a 200 acre fenced pasture is BS. However if you fence the Bitteroot area in the animals have a large enough area they could sure as hell avoid you. Same with hunting on Niihau. I could hunt every day for a month and still not see a trophy boar. Granted I could shoot a lot of sows and piglets. The area is large enough the big ones can avoid me with little trouble. They like any other trophy sized animal dont get that large by being stupid. That is unless it is a canned setup and then they are not a trophy! Just how much area is adequate is subject to lots of interpretation. It will also vary depending on the species hunted and the normal range of the animal. Are they migratory or stay within a few square miles? I understand your dislike for high fences but I dont think the fence is the issue. It is the restriction of adequate movement by the animal. I mean if we fence in the state of Montana is that adequate?

that ranch out in MT is posted solid againt tresspass and those elk that eat there are smart enough to know it too. They come from BLM land to escape the hunting pressure. But it sure makes the hunting good with the NO Tresspass signs up.
My farm in Pa is posted against tresspass too, know why? cause if it wasn't every yahoo in the area would be on there tearing up my fields with their 4x4s and ATV trying to get a deer. Yes the deer are state owned...but what a moot point no body can get at them but the guys I leave on. And that's the way I want it, I have the say cause I own the land,period end of discussion.
Wash. that river empties into lake Erie. I ain't seen a deer yet that could swim one of the Great Lakes, BB.

in other words as you see it it is fine for the man that owns the property to do with it as he see fit as long as he allows YOU on the shoot the KINGS deer. What BS, do what anyone else does. either buy your own property, hunt the public land,or wait till that game walks off the private land. BB

This is what is wrong with any type of landowner tags. All that does is it basically gives the landowner ownership of those animals. I don't have a problem with giving landowners preference so they can acquire tags for family members without going through a draw. But it's not right to give them tags which they can sell to anybody. Wildlife is the property of the states, not the landowners.