Gentlemen,
I am interested to hear what all ya'll think of Jack Brittingham and his hunting adventures on video. I have 6-8 videos, and I find them very well done. Having watched most of them at least 3 times, I am starting to see camera and filming tricks that are probably edited in after the actual hunt, but otherwise, they seem quite realistic. What are your thoughts?
Good shooting,
Graham

he is the son of the man that owned one of the largest tile businesses in the world. the man can pay for and hunt anything he wants. not to say he isn't a good hunter, and if i had that kind of cash i'd probably do the same thing he's doing. i like his videos too, but like most of them they are for entertainment, so stuff will be edited. jmo.

I like his shows as well, but most are canned high fenced hunts. Not to say all HF hunts are canned, but it is good entertainment. It's just not hard core hunting IMO.....

OTOH, if you were to film real hunting, you probably wouldn't get enough footage for a season of episodes

Reloader

I have a couple of his African DVD's and am a bit disappointed in them. One is a family hunt with his kids and lot of high fives and fake reactions to shots or animals. His DVD on Mountain Nyala hunting is very weak as well. He acted as if he was really working hard in it. His Lord Derby Eland dvd was the worst of the lot. I will not buy any of his work again nor would I book with his booking agency due to the "feel" I got from his DVD's.

Reloader,
How can you tell they are high-fence hunts? I have seen a fence in one of the "bonus hunts" that he occasionally uses to introduce the main hunts, but I don't know if I have seen any others. Not challenging you, just wondering.

Dogcat, I agree that the African video with the Eland is the worst I had seen. I have one of the whole family, and the whole "Ultimate hunting in Africa" series, and if they had all been that bad, I would have been turned off, too. I really like his latest North American DVD, though. It may be canned, but there is a lot of good footage of some nice elk and sheep.
Just my thoughts.
Thanks for the replys
Good shooting,
Graham

Brittingham has hunted at least one high-fenced operation.

How do I know? A relative works there...

Ted Nugent has hunted the same operation a couple of times that I am aware of.

Many of the hunting shows are filmed under similar conditions. I have no problem with that as I consider it purely entertainment and nothing more.

Graham,

This is a quote directly from Jack on his website: "All of my whitetail properties that I own are high fenced."

He films alot of hunts on those ranches and kills some amazing deer. When you purchase top quality animals, feed them the best feed available, and place them in an enclosure where noone else can pursue them, you can grow some amazing animals.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing, I honestly feel that most of the popular videos on the market today are filmed in similar areas. It's entertainment and they must kill huge bucks on camera to be successful in the business.

Just think of how hard it would be to get dozens of quality episodes a year while hunting free chase animals as the majority of us do. It would be very hard for sure and there are few that do it successfully.

Speaking from my own experience at being a successful hunter(I hunt quite a bit in several states), I may have a hunt or two occasionally that would make an awesome hunting show episode, but they are few and far between. Same goes for all of the serious hunters I know.

It's good entertainment though, I'd rather watch someone hunting in a high fence than the bs that's on today's tv stations.

Have a good one,

Reloader

the hunting shows on tv are for entertainment.

no one, particularly advertisers, want to see a hunt where an old boys hunts without making a kill MOST of the time. high fenced hunts almost always guarantee a kill, thus their usage.

also, the vast majority of hunting shows not filmed within an enclosure of some type are filmed on private land with restriced access.

it's all about the kill because the kill spells success to the advertisers. again, just entertainment - take it for what it is worth.

i've hunted the lodge at chama at least 6 times. even met a couple "tv stars" filming their elk hunts in the process. great elk and great facilities, but it is high fenced.

I only have his Mongolia Argali DVD, and think it is very good. Especially the footage of his father and uncle hunting there when Mongolia first opened.

I have all of Jack's whitetail DVDs and, in my opinion, they are the best. I also have 6 of his African DVD's and several of his others on North America. I haven't seen any that I don't like. He has top quality products.

Regarding the high fence subject: yes, all of his Whitetail properties are high fenced. However, they are far from being canned. His smallest whitetail property (as far as I know) is 1,400 acres (Briarwood Whitetails in Illinois). His ranch in East Texas is 1,800 acres (Briar Lakes Ranch) and his ranch in South Texas is 3,500 acres I believe (Rancho Encantado). The highest deer density of any of his properties is on Briar Lakes Ranch with one deer per 8 acres. I remember on one of his earlier whitetail videos (I think it was Buck Fever 2) that he hunted a specific buck for 84 days and only saw him twice and he never got within bow range of the deer. He is a die-hard hunter and I would love to be in the financial position he is in. When Jack and his uncle sold the tile business years ago, they got a very nice $650 million for it.

Thanks all ya'll for the input. I had no idea that that was the case. Thanks for the enlightenment. I have really enjoyed most of the DVDs I have of Brittingham, and just wondered what the rest of you all thought on that. Very interesting. Here raises a Question, though. If you hunt a high fence and take a trophy, is it still called fair chase, or does that depend on the size of the enclosure? I have heard that some of the game that lives in high fence situations can become so familiar with its environment that you end up with a cagier deer than you would in the wild. Just wondering. Thanks again for the replies.
Regards,
Graham

he has a deer sized bow target 110 yds off the front steps of 1 of the ranches he owns in n.mex
for a $5 bet you pick the spot. lost $35
texas ranches are high fenced and heavily managed for trophy/extreme trophy quality.
decent fellow,extremly dedicated hunter 325+ days afield per yr.
wouldn't want him on my backtrail....

quote:

Originally posted by M70classic:
Here raises a Question, though. If you hunt a high fence and take a trophy, is it still called fair chase, or does that depend on the size of the enclosure? I have heard that some of the game that lives in high fence situations can become so familiar with its environment that you end up with a cagier deer than you would in the wild. Just wondering. Thanks again for the replies.
Regards,
Graham

This question will open a can of worms I hope you are ready for. Boone and Crockett records do not recognize any animal taken behind a high fence as fair chase. SCI how ever does recognize these animals taken behind high fence enclosures, I think enclosure has to meet certin requirements IIRC. It is up to you to decide if you find it fair chase or not as well as ethical in your standard. I hunted a high fence operation for feral hogs, only did it once and found it not to my liking. It was a nice vacation but not what I consider my style of hunting.

ravern wrote:

quote:

texas ranches are high fenced and heavily managed for trophy/extreme trophy quality.

The vast majority of Texas ranches are NOT under high fence. The last figure I saw regarding the situation was that right at 1.85% of Texas land was high-fenced.

Nonetheless, there are some very large tracts of land that are, including a few that are in the 10s of thousands of acres. Those animals are as wild as any you will find anywhere, and the fence itself has no bearing on the hunt.

And not all are fenced to manage what's within the enclosure. Some are fenced to manage what is kept OUT.

Taylorce1, Excellent. That is what I wanted to know. Thanks for posting. That makes a lot of sense, since if you just put up a random high-fence, it is not as though you can hand feed the deer or whatever you have got in there. There is no high fence stuff up here except game farms, which is totally different in my estimation. Thanks for the help on this topic to all who posted.
Good hunting,
Graham

jacks' texas ranches are high fenced.....

My thoughts of Jack Brittingham???...I wish I could have done what he's done in his Hunting career, let alone do what he's doing.

I enjoy all of his videos...it pumps me up before I leave for Africa or some other safari....CK

I was able to spend some real quality time in a blind with my Ten year old Daughter while she hunted on Jack's East Texas ranch.In 2006 and 2007 she hunted a total of 16 days before she was succesfull on her first buck. Although the ranch is high fence we were hunting three specific management deer it was very difficult.Jacks management plan is intense it borders on insane .There is great deal of time ,effort and disipline that goes into those monsters on the video's. Jack's family influence on his video's is real he went way above and beyond to make sure my daughter was successful.After all isnt that what we all want to spend time in the wild with our familie's.




Shoot Straight. Woodie

Great lookin' deer......congrats to your daughter!!

Woodie,
Way to get your daughter started off right! Excellent deer. Congrats to you both.
Sounds like Brittingham knows a thing or two about management on his ranches. I have heard little things on the videos that lead me to believe that he is a real conservationist, and not just a shoot-em-up with too much money.
Thanks for the replies,
Graham

Without a doubt the thing I appreciate the most about Jack Brittingham's hunting movies is there isn't a single commercial reference.

You know what I mean... "My Swarovski-Nosler-Remchester-BinoBuddy-Yamaha ATV-Swift bullets" yada, yada, yada...

I hate that commercial BS!

I was watching a TV show last night on Wild TV and one of the producers of Wild TV was advertising a moose call. I nearly choked when he blew on it! It sounded more like someone farting then a moose. But that's what paid advertsing does; it makes people lie and endorse shit at times.

Like when so-and-so says, "I use MegaCharge Black Powder" cuz it's never let me down", you know what the guy really means is, "I use MegaCharge Black Powder cuz I am paid to say so"...

As for his shows I've seen a couple. I own the one where he shot the World Record brown bear with bow & arrow and an African hunting movie and they are both very good.

Personnally I don't like his stuff. I have two of them. To me he is an elitist on guided hunts most on private ranches. It's all about him. I should count how many times in a video his name is mentioned.

I prefer to watch others in fair chase hunts, like Eastmans's, Bart Lancaster, or Jim Shocky.

Just my $.02

I met him in MT when he was there helping a guy on a sheep hunt. He seemed to be a decent enough guy.

I mean heck - he paid for our drinks/meal, and there was about a dozen of us. Although being independently wealthy doesn't hurt either.