outdoorslover

[blockquote]quote:

ORIGINAL: outdoorslover

I consider fair chase a hunt without ANY fences, without high powered rifles that shoot past 200 yards, without bait, on wild, untamed deer, and if it's completely legal.[/blockquote]


An honest answer............how interesting.

For clarity........ANY fences means what? enclosures or ANY fence at all? (park, house, cow fences, highway fences)

Is it the rifle or the distance of the shot?

Do you consider food plots and scents as "bait"?

What is your definition of "tame" deer?




[blockquote]quote:

If I could shoot 400 yards, it would be ridiculous. I would just be pulling a trigger. I'd have a hundred deer to my name. It's all about outsmarting them and giving them a perfectly unaltered chance to get away. It's no fun to me if it's easy. Furthermore, as of now,I won't use a scope. I hunt with bow and ML exclusively for deer.

It's no fun unless it's a challenge. [/blockquote]

That seems to be a common theme in most opinions.




[blockquote]quote:

This is a place for peoples opinions. Those are mine. I respect everyones.[/blockquote]


Exactly.



First off, I have to draw the line with those fences. If they have wild deer and are humongous in size, then I guessI can't be against them. On the other hand, if they are small(lets say 1000 acres or less) or have pen raised deer you will never hear me approve of them. I really don't like any fences with the intent of keeping the deer in butI have to draw the line at 1000 acres because I don't even hunt an area that big. I don't care if the deer are acclimated to human life in their area as long as they were born wild and still have natural survival instinct. I WON'T condone hunting any pen raised deer. I am not against the killing of it but simply the attitude of the hunter.

So, my approval stretches to places over 1000 acres that are fenced and contain wild deer. If a farmer puts up a cattle fence it is not meant for the same intent as one in a game ranch.

I am not against rifle hunting. I am simply not into it PERSONALLY. I don't see the fun in picking off whitetails from 300 yards. That is no challenge in my mind. If you want to hunt with a rifle, go ahead, as long as it's legal, butI won't consider it as much of a fair chase.

I don't like to hunt with food plots or scents, or calls myself. It takes away from the natural movements of the deer and gives you a cheap advantage. Again, I don't like hunting that way but I'm not against it. If you are happy with that method then fine. I think it takes away from the true nature of stalking them while they're doing their natural things.


I have many methods of hunting that don't feel right to me. To try and name them all would be ridiculous. If the hunt doesn't seem fair chase I won't do it.

Basically, I like to give the deer as much ofa chance for survival asI can. I like the more primitive weapons, catching them in NATURAL patterns, and having as much of a challenge as I can. I do hunt from treestands and use scent elimination and camoflauge so I'm not intolerant of everythingI just don't like to alter a deers natural activities nor attract them nor have any distinct advantage in my weaponry. If it is a truly wild deer and not kept from escape, I will, however, accept anyones methods of hunting to a point. Just because I don't like it for myself doesn't mean I'm always against it. I shared MY IDEAS of fair chase and I hope I don't bother anyone by them. If I do, then learn to be more tolerant.

Good hunting to all. God bless you.

outdoorslover

By the way. The reason I'm against baiting is simple. If you know exactly where the deer will stand, then you obviously do not havemany skills. All you can do is shoot a gun. If I watched a bait pile all day, I would have many, many more deer than I already do. I would simply point my gun at it and shootthe first decent deer thatstood there. It would be target practice. It's honestly like shooting a 3D target. Placing a pile of corn in ONE pile does honestly not qualify as hunting. In a large field of corn, you do not know exactly where the deer will come from. It's a lot of luck. With bait, they stand in the exact same spot as you shoot them.

You cannot even argue the issue of baiting with me. It's not as challenging as other hunting. If you argue it is, you are not very wise. Anyone with a logical brain can figure that out.

That and game farms are the issues that I am most against. I do not condone either. But if it's legal, go ahead. My opinion shouldn't matter to you.

atlasman

That was cool..........being out west he hasn't experienced drives.......I didn't even think of that. Judging strictly by what I know of shed from reading his posts online for a few years I am inclined to believe he would not be a fan (just a guess). His comments about predators not being inside of fences was something I hadn't considered either.........simply because predators are not an issue where I hunt. Different perspective I guess.


I would say few.......if any.


Very true..........I am guilty of this as well. When I hear fence I immediately think of deer just standing there with no where to hide and someone just picking out which one they want to shoot. I don't know how large a place has to be for deer to begin to act normal but I am realistic enough to know that being inside 100 acres is no where near the same as being inside 10,000 acres.


In reality, very few deer hunts are fair............this is one of those areas where you have to find the sweet spot that YOU are comfortable in.


There would be no elk left if they were as easy to shoot as park deer


It's easy to see how an experience that is new to you can overwhelm you and make you not care how easy or difficult it really is. If you are just starting out you don't have anything to compare it to.


Long shots are as foreign to me as drives are to shed. Most of my gun kills have been in bow range and with a short smooth bore slug gun (grew up on open sights, now have it scoped 4x)..........most of my spots I am lucky if I can SEE 100 yards. My longest gun kill was about 65-70 yards and when I think back on that day the only thing that really comes to mind was how good of a "shot" I made.


No doubt.

atlasman

Of course, the less room deer have to roam, the easier they are to kill. I don't know where that line is inside a fence but I do know there are many situations outside of them that many people take advantage of how they effect deer movement........cow fences, rivers, a gorge, highways, etc can all be barriers to deer movement and make their patterns more predictable.


I believe that "picking off whitetails at 300 yards" requires more shooting skill then hunting skill.........I also believe there is no shame in being a good shot


Well said.

petasux

Some interesting posts in here.Ill share my opinion on a few of them.Outdoorlover, not arguing with you, just borrowing a few of your quotes as they cover the topics very well.

That would be a geographic thing IMPO.I live in rural Iowa, theres millions of acres of standing corn, beans, hay, alphalfa, etc...I could dump 1000 lbs of corn on the ground at the begining of season and it could very well rot there before anything bigger then a pheasant came into it.If your not in a spot the deer want to be in here theres no reason for em to come in throughout the first 2/3 of deer season, theres just to much food available.Thats not the case everywhere but I dont see baiting here{which is illegal anyway} doing anything to give you an edge.

I dont like high fences, probably one of the few things I dont care for.That said if I was hunting a ranch in lets say texas that was fenced in and contained miles and miles of land Id probably do it.1000 acres dont seem like much but theres a slough here that I hunt, its 1100 acres and holds some of the biggest bucks in our area.If they threw a fence up around it tommorrow many of them deer would die of old age in there.I can cover the majority of it on foot in a day but its a nightmare to hunt and the deer have absolutely no trouble avoiding hunters in there, they just walk around them or lay quietly and let you walk past.Id feel sorry for anyone going in there expecting an easy fenced in hunt.

I think it is what you make of it, if I could shoot 300 or 400 yards accurately Id be much pickier about what I shot I suppose.I like to hunt as much as possible and it usually involves letting many deer walk every year anyway and waiting for a bigger one.With a rifle I could have killed some real monsters over the years.If i could shoot that far Id be much more inclined to wait for those oppurtunities but it would still mean only killing a deer with a gun maybe every 2 or 3 years because I dont find truly big deer that often.The challenge would be in finding these deerand holding out for these rare occasions when a shot presented itself.

I dont use scents or calls myself, mainly because I spend so much time trying to remain quiet and scent free that I find it couter productive to lay down scent and blow noisy calls or bang antlers together.

I have a lot of experience with foodplots though, the state leaves them in every piece of public hunting ground they own almost and its hard to avoid factoring them in.The deer are either coming or going to them in the late season.

I stand hunted near them for years, it was easy to see deer and if you werent picky it was easy to shoot them.I quit hanging stands and started bowhunting from the ground, I find a place and set up, wait for the deer to startcoming in and try to sneak around to get ahead of them and remain hidden till thier in bowrange.I dont know to many people that wouldnt find this as challenging as it gets.Try to remain hidden and get a shot off in a small corn patch with 20 deer feeding around you.

Then I put another twist on it.Some foodplots it was impossible to sit in and have the deer come into them.The wind swirls and is constantly out of the wrong direction and these deer have been hunted hard up till this point so they use it to thier advantage.I sit back and watch them from a half mile off or so.If I see deer heading into the foodplots I let them get in thier then try to use the wind to my advantage and sneak in behind them.Now you have to cover 1/2 mile of open ground jut to get to the foodplot then try sneaking in, locating the deer, and getting a shot .Add in the rare occasion you know a good buck went into the foodplot and you have to do all that plus try to locate a single deer in the herd.All this usually happens with less then an hour of daylight left so the clocks always running.Again, it can be as challenging as you care to make it.

This year I used the second technique and managed to get within 15 ft of a nice 130/140 class buck that was in the corn with 16 does.After all that no shot ever presented itself and at dark I had to sneak back out and leave him be, never saw him again either.

GMMAT

I thinkwe can safely saythis.....

As long as people kill deer....and are succesful at it.....and they obey all the game laws and hunt ethically......there is one constant.....

.....Others WILL feel a need to question/dissect/pass judgement ...for (___________) reason(s).

I have found this to be true.

laxdad

Hmmmmmm. Let me postulate to all with this view..... If I took away your tree stands, eliminated all food plots/baiting, (same thing to me) guides/outfitters, management rules, guns, scents, (keep your camo)and put youin a fenced 1 sq/mi area ( 640 acres) of heavily wooded land, with a deer density of 5 deer per sq/mi, would you still view this environment as shooting,"a herd of beef cows"? Of the 5 deer, perhaps 1 or 2is a buck. Easy hunting??

My opinion, for what it's worth, I abhor managed hunts of any kind. However, I recognize it is every hunters decision as to the degree of difficulty one feels comfortable in assuming for his/her hunts.

I'm a stillhunter plain and simplebut Like the view of most here, to each his own.However, I wouldrecognize anyone who hunts in themanner and environmentoutlined above as "hunting", fence or no fence.

laxdad

laxdad

Talondale

Exactly. There's 1000 acres and then there's 1000 acres. I know some 100 acre swamp areas where you can throw a fence around it and I bet the majority of people here would spend a whole season and not get a shot on a big smart buck. Even skilled hunters can be hard pressed to connect in the right (or wrong) conditions. I've seen bucks lead dogs around in circles in a small swamp and the dogs can smell the deer!! That's why I can't put an arbitrary acreage amount where I draw the line on fencing. Of course it's all an academic exercise since I will never get the opportunity to experience any kind of small fence operation, which is fine by me. I will admit when I was younger I always dreamed of having a ranch of several hundred acres and having it fenced in. My motive wasn't so much to keep the deer in as it was to keep the human poachers out. Now I don't worry about it, I post my land, and on public land I try to figure out where people aren't hunting and go there.

Sounds like fun to me.

Talondale

Apparently comfort is also a factor in what qualifies as "hunting". Just check out this thread:
http://www.huntingnet.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=1969369&mpage=1&key==

I have to say, Atlas pegged it. There's no less than 5 "that's not hunting" statements in that one thread. I guess blinds are ok until they pass a certain sq. footage and are decorated. LOL.

WILKESFASTJAY

Laxdad, 5 deer fenced in 640 acres would definitley be hunting but we know thats never the case. more like 50 deer in that one square mile!!