Whether it is sporting to hunt over baited areas is a personal decision that we each have to answer for ourselves.
The truth is, if we hunt very much in Texas, chances are good we will hunt deer over a corn feeder.
I’ve hunted around ‘corn piles’ up the Dakotas where farmers simply dump a pickup load of shelled corn on the ground to bait deer and hunt them early morning and the hour or so before
By Luke Clayton
As a full-time outdoors writer, outdoor radio show host, elk, and deer hunting outfitter and member of several pro staffs, I often hear hunters discuss hunting high fence deer hunting ranches.
Some, mostly guys that have never hunted a big, well-managed, high fence deer hunting operation, are convinced that all hunting on high fence deer hunting properties, regardless of the size of the ranch, can be classified as a “canned hunt.”
I’ve had the opportunity to do a great deal of hunting during my career in a country that ranged from the wide-open expanses of North Dakota for white-tailed deer to 500 acres of high fence deer hunting, thick, East Texas bottomland for hogs.
I remember a decade or so ago when I hunted a big open ranch down in Schleicher County. The ranch consisted of 6,000 acres of rolling live oak and cedar-covered hills and deer were patterned well to corn feeders.
I remember the outfitter taking me to the spot where I was going to hunt the next morning. He intentionally ground the butt of his cigar into the ground right next to the feeder and scattered a gallon or so of corn around the feeder.
“I have conditioned these deer to the smell of a man. I stop by these feeders every day and we’ll see deer coming into the corn while we are driving away. Sure enough, we drove a couple of hundred yards from the feeder, stopped, and watched several does and a couple of bucks come trotting into the feed.
The next morning I arrowed a nice buck from a ground blind 20 yards from the feeder. Would the challenge of this hunt have been any different had this big ranch been high fence deer hunting? I think not.
I was hunting deer that had been conditioned to the sights, sounds, and smells of man. These deer were totally unpressured.
Because of hunting pressure, I’ve pursued deer on high fence deer hunting properties that were much more difficult to take with a bow than on properties such as the ranch in Schleicher County.
It’s hunting pressure and contact with man, or lack thereof, rather than fences that determines just how ‘wild’ deer are.
Whether it is sporting to hunt over baited areas is a personal decision that we each have to answer for ourselves. The truth is, if we hunt very much in Texas, chances are good we will hunt deer over a corn feeder.
I’ve hunted around ‘corn piles’ up the Dakotas where farmers simply dump a pickup load of shelled corn on the ground to bait deer and hunt them early morning and the hour or so before dark when they feed.
A few years ago, I watched a 240-pound, ten-point ND buck walk a half-mile off the side of a small mountain to a pile of corn I was hunting over. I arrowed him at just over 20 yards.
Up in this big country, the deer had never seen a high fence. Would the hunt still have been challenging if the 10,000-acre ranch I was hunting been enclosed within a game-proof fence?
In contrast, I’ve hunted 600-acre, high fence deer hunting ranches for three days without ever getting within bow range of a buck. With the exception of a muzzleloader hunt on a high fence deer hunting ranch years ago, the vast majority of my hunting has been with my Mathews bows.
To be a successful bow hunter, one has to get close, within 30 yards of deer. Even the novice rife hunter should be proficient in taking game at 100 yards.
Simply because the animals are confined within certain boundaries (a high fence deer hunting), rifle hunting high fence deer hunting ranches have a high percentage for success.
The percentage for success goes up exponentially when rifle hunting simply because the deer cannot walk across a low fence onto a neighboring piece of property, becoming off-limits to the hunter.
A rifle hunter that spends enough time hunting a high fence deer hunting ranch will eventually position himself within the rifle range of the animal he or she is pursing.
Did you ever consider the fact that deer living on big ranches that encompass several thousand acres live out their life on the property, regardless of the height of the fence?
We could go on with this discussion but, ultimately, the decision whether to hunt high fence deer hunting property or not is a personal one. I can state with certainty that I’ve enjoyed some very challenging bow hunts on high fence deer hunting ranches.