Fair Chase?

Which of these hunters are being more of a sport
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Roy, I guarantee you if high powered rifle was legal in this state, there'd be many more mounts on these walls than there are.
There's one ridge top here I own that I've glassed many B&C bucks cruising the next ridge which is about 300yds out. There would be nothing easier than taking one of these bucks with a rifle. No scent,movement,wind direction etc to worry about. When bow hunting this area, you come back with empty pockets unless you worry about all these things listed. Then you'd better have some luck on your side.

IMO, in your scenario, the scoped rifle hunter has the edge. Believe me, if I had unlimited woods to hunt with a scoped rifle and could go to the deer, I wouldn't be sitting in my stand,calling,rattling and trying to get deer to come to me. I've hunted both ways.
 
Fair Chase Means Hunt the Wind

I am an avid Whitetail and Muledeer hunter and you hit a nerve.

I'd like to get one of those TV bow hunters on my place and set him loose with the usual shooter rules. He have to walk to his blind because his pick-up, that's carrying his ATV would spook the deer. Hell, I'd have to go find him. He'd starve.

My 11 yr old son and I hunt my family ranch of 250 acres. 110 of that is hardwoods with a year-round creek running through the property. If hunting in ground blind, upwind, moving ground blinds when the wind changes, and hunting foggy mornings and days after moonless nights is not fair chase, I don't what is.

My 11 year old took a 16 1/2 inch between the main beams (9) point at 150 yrds as his first buck. (both the taxidermist and I told him is downhill from here, my first buck was a spike) He and I have taken both does and bucks off the property as we "manage" the deer by culling does with hip bones and saggy guts, and scubs (2 or 3 yr old spike or a deer with palmated horns, or older bucks who won't face off with another dominate buck).

We have two dominate bucks that mate up with those does and the hardwoods hold them in the area during the rut. Acorns and the plants they normally eat is the "feeder" we use.

I tried to shoot a 12 point who has been run off by the two larger dominate bucks at 300 yrds and instead of taking the time and doping my scope, he was moving and I just held it over about 2 inches and shot over his shoulder this last season.

We hunt the ridges of the creek bank where they make a (W) and get in the high middle. We don't hunt the pets who have $500 feeders spraying feed twice and day and are fed all year. Then one of those A**holes on TV fakes his stalk as he crashes through the brush and talks to the cameraman in a conversational tone. The show lasts 30 minutes and is just an edit of when they end their season 15 minutes after legal light in those Mid-West counties.

We take big bucks yearly because we let the two big "named" bucks pass those genetics along. I admit it's hard to watch a three year old big 8 walk by. Leave him alone and he'll be a wall hanger at 6 or 7. The only hunting pressure they get if from my son and I and there's not another set of heavy dense cover, or good natural food, for probably ten miles in any direction. The big dominant bucks are a big 140 class four year old name Big Boy, and a big 12 point (not the one I missed) 150 class five year old named Broad Shoulders. T

he buck my son took I first saw five years ago when he was a yearling 6 point. That's our "managment". I already have a blind, a Weatherby and Redfield Sportview that dials out to 1000 yards ( my rule is if you can't see him with the naked eye, you don't need to be glassing him). My scope is set for 500 only because I loaned it to my brother who is a Marine when we went Mule deer hunting in Sanderson, Texas. I'm not shooting that far.

The rifle I missed with was a Savage 270 with a Nikon Monarch. Yea, those bucks of Tecomate hunts are BS. Those deer are bred right here in Brazos County at Texas A&M University. I can buy a 170 class off his place every year, but he'd be the only one enjoying the $10-$15K he charges those city boys who need to hunt for a day or so and take home the buck of their life.

One my fellow attorneys hunts deer and ducks that way. He pays anywhere from $8 to $10k on his buck and waives the does and managment buck they offer for another 2500, and the free hog. He shoot a buck of a lifetime every year, hates venison, which is never offered to the guests at the Cazadores Ranch, and shoots the horns. I took him duck hunting for woodies and he was all complaints about how cold it was and got water in his "hip" waders. I told him we (my son, he and I) are hunting flooder timber, and no, there is no heated blind.

When we hunt the tank, we hunt out of a cammo webbed hole, the same hole we dug and clean out every year. My son usally limits out before I do because I have to call. Yea, fair chase is a sore one for me. It's either got to be one of the real funny hunting shows (Bonecollector) or have a very unique quarry (Africa and New Zealand) for me to stomach that crap.
 
Seems like everyone has some standard that they use to try and make hunting seem like a challenge. I don't know how to make killing a deer hard to do. I really don't need to leave my house, just put the window up. LOL, if you just go for the big bucks trying to add some difficulty to the deal somebody will accuse you of trophy hunting.
 
I think every one should stop and think about what baiting is, a lure is a lure weather you use a natural water hole and ambush the animal or wait near a trail crossing, you are using some means of attracting that animal for the purpose of killing it. Un less you go out into the woods and look for tracks and then follow them till you find said critter you are the same as the rest of us. any thing you do other than that is baiting INMHO.

As far as the high fence goes, why should I care what some one does with an animal they bought. It is none of my concern.
 
I dunno. If a deer has several thousand acres in which to roam freely, I don't see what difference the height of the fence makes.

In brushy country like central Texas or the area generally south and southwest of San Antonio, a spooked buck isn't going to go more than a few hundred yards, even if there's no fence at all. For one thing, he doesn't have to. Again: Even with no fence at all, a whitetail is going to generally stay within a section, give or take a little.

Just for exaggeration and giggles, I'd hate to see the west pasture of the 02 Ranch called a "pen", if it were high fenced. Hwy 118 road frontage is 28 miles, and it's 17 miles deep.

To get away from deer, what about antelope? Are all antelope on fenced ranches penned? Antelope won't jump fences.

I dunno. I've just made bunches of several-mile walking-hunting circles inside of fenced pastures without ever seeing the fence. I figured the deer had more chance to get away than I had of killing him, pretty much. Wouldn't have mattered how high was the fence.

Now, LBJ's oat patch is another story for another time. :D
 
Art
You are mostly right about antelope not jumping fences. 99% go under or thru a gate, but I have personally seen maybe a 1/2 dozen jump a fence. It is a rarety.:)
 
Fair chase?

I really don't know what is or isn't fair chase. I used to trap when I was a kid, so I can't say a lot about it. The people to ask is the non-hunters out there. There are really a lot of people that do not hunt, but have nothing against hunting, until they see some of those T.V. shows. I definitely got an ear-full from some of them until I explained that I don't shoot half-tame deer out on a clover field.
 
Yeah, fair chase is a misnomer. Few of us want to give notice to the animals we are about to kill and to give them a fair chance to fight or a fair chance to get away. And then if we do want to give fair notice, we aren't going to fight fairly.
 
To get away from deer, what about antelope? Are all antelope on fenced ranches penned? Antelope won't jump fences.
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This is not applicable to hunters that are not in Africa, but Kudu can clear a
6' fence from a standstill, they do it gracefully without needing to take a run.

Brgds,
Danny
 
I'm fairly certain that if you put a couple dozen deer, in a hundred acres of fenced in woods. Then let a hunter walk hunt, still hunt whatever you want to call it; the odds are good on him never seeing one of them.

The whole idea that hunting thousands, or often times tens of thousands of acres that are high fenced is unfair; is in my opinion an odd notion.

I here by decree that all deer hunting, that is not done on free range, open land, utilizing only a long bow, is unfair. :rolleyes:
 
How do you define fair chase hunting?
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Well the generally accepted meaning of the term is hunting animals that are truely wild and not in a pen. Some would expand that to say no high fence at all. But I agree with Art that a high fence around 1000's of acres is a totally different situation than one around 30 acres.

I do not advocate making high fence hunting illegal anymore than I'd want it made illegal for a farmer to slaughter a domesticated pig or chicken in a pen on his farm. I simply have a problem with some of what I see on some of these TV shows being called hunting. Call it what it is, "paying to be the one who gets to slaughter a prize animal raised in captivity for that specific purpose". Cause that's what it is at some of these places.

How can you tell when what you are doing has ceased to be hunting? Here are a few tips.

1. If you see a huge buck but cannot shoot him, not because you didn't have a clear shot, but because you can't afford the trophy fee on one his size, you may not actually be hunting.

2. If you are in North America and see a big buck you want to shoot but have to wait for a orynx, a kudu and a nubian ibex to get out of the way before you have a clear shot, you might not actually be hunting.

3. If the outfitter insists that a guide sit in the shooting house with you to make sure you shoot the "right" buck, you might not actually be hunting.

4. If the ranch you are own has every years shed antlers from every buck, a yearly photgraph of every buck, and has named every shooter buck on the place, you might not actually be hunting.

5. And finally, if you pull in to the lodges parking lot and spot Alan Warren AKA: "the Chevy Sportsman", let all doubt fade from your mind, no type of real hunting has ever occured at that place or he would not be there.
 
:D Thanks, Todd.

Naw, there are parts of my south pasture where the mesquite brush is so thick that you couldn't find Bucky in just one acre, much less several. All he'd have to do to escape would be to lower his head. Parts of it, he'd have to stand on his hind legs and bellow at you or you'd never know he was there.

Best to watch hunting shows on TV with the sound off. Your ears are less offended by inanities, that way. Just enjoy the pictures of critters. :)
 
I would hate to guess how many deer I have had within 30 yards bow hunting and could not get a shot. Elk also for that matter.
 
I have a friend who only "hunts animals that can hunt you back"> wild pigs, bears, mtn. lions--and is saving up for cape buffalo trip.
I wouldn't get into a pen with any of those... I think he wins the fair-chase award.

Here in the rockies, we have enough public land that still hunting is the norm. Fair chase involves, at minimum, no baiting. If I were one of my cousins in the Midwest, you have to find a farmer willing to let you use his back 30; in that case, I would be using a stand and scouting for game trails. Still fair chase in my opinion.

If I were setting up feeders within 75 yards of a blind, that would take most of what I find joyful and fulfilling from hunting. You can debate whether it's fair chase, but I would rather spend the day playing cards with friends.
 
Todd, I disagree with some of what you say

Hi,
I hunt on foot, and stalk close to the game, yet in my last hunt I have had the following:

1. had to wait about 10 minutes for some Black Wildebeest to move, they were behind the springbok that I wanted to shoot. (I was hunting Springbok that afternoon and simply ignoring other species.) Once the BW moved on, I got within less than 80 M and shot the Ram that I wanted.

2. This side of the world all hunting is done on private land, and unlike the US you do not get allocated a certain number of bucks, you have to pay for what you shoot.Thanks to the excessive generotisty of hunters from out-of-Africa(mainly Europe and the USA)prices have escalated incredibley, and as soon as a buck's horns go beyond a certain size his price goes up radically. Since I hunt for meat, I do check the size of the horns and make sure that I do not shoot one of the trophie size bucks. this does not mean that I shoot the smallest, but in the existing circumstances it is (for most of us here) too expensive to shoot the biggest bucks. in a few occassions where I was not going to be ripped off if I shoot a very large buck (horns size) I have shot some Kudu and Oryx that make the Rowland Ward book.

Furthermore, many farmers charge more for bulls, while others charge as much as double for cows (bucks, not cattle) being shot. in some cases it means that you have to examine your quarry carefully to determine the sex and size of horns if you do not want to shoot your budget through the vitals.

May I ask you why you consider a person who does not shoot the first animal he sees (regardless of species and size) as a hunter?

To me it seems as it is more demanding than walking (or ambushing) and shooting the first buck that crosses your path.


Brgds,

Danny

PS, on Wednesday I am off again for a few days of hunting, this time there are Springboks, Kudu and Oryx on my "to do" list :D
 
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I would hate to guess how many deer I have had within 30yds bow hunting and could not get a shot.
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You and me both, ZeroJunk.

I had a 170 class buck 23yds from my tree stand and he just wouldn't present a clean shot. He turned and walked straight away from me with sparse brush and tree limbs in the way.

Guess there is a downside to being up in a tree.:rolleyes:

I often wonder if some of the opinions are coming from hunters that have never bow hunted in a stand before. There's so much more to it than just climbing in a tree and hoping for bambi to come trotting by. The scouting alone is tremendously time consuming.
 
The animal has a chance to get away and the hunter will only take clean shots.

It's been said that high fenced land is measured in sections rather than acres. But the land owners probably know to within an acre where the game is at any time of day and can lead a hunter right to them.
I'm not saying it isn't fair chase, but it isn't the same as wild hunting either.
 
1. had to wait about 10 minutes for some Black Wildebeest to move, they were behind the springbok that I wanted to shoot.
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DannyL, you missed the first part where I said, "If you are in North America and see a big buck you want to shoot but have to wait for a orynx, a kudu and a nubian ibex to get out of the way before you have a clear shot, you might not actually be hunting."

Orynx, kudu and nubian ibex are not indigenous to North America. They exist nowhere in the wild here. Therefore anywhere they are roaming the same land as whitetail deer in the U.S.A they have obviously been shipped in to a high fence operation. My comments (which were intended to be funny) were in no way intended to refer to Africa where these animals naturally exist.
 
Actually, Todd, the oryx of New Mexico are free ranging, on federal land. Same on the 02 Ranch's east pasture. Sheep/goat fence--100,000 acres; seems pretty free to me. :) Sometimes they're as bad as pronghorn antelope, standing by the highway fence, counting cars.

Buzzcook, the fence height makes no nevermind about knowing where Ol' Bucky hangs out. Hunt the same pasture for a few years and you get a pretty good handle in any season about which buck hangs out where. A bunch of us leased a 7,000-acre ranch not far north of Uvalde for a few years, and we darned near got to naming some of the pets. Most of us used the first part of the season for scouting, so by Christmas we pretty much knew who lived where.

My old family place near Austin was regular cow fence. There was one really nice buck back in the woods that played tag with me for about four or five years. He was always in the same place, just inside the edge and near the old haul road. He'd follow me when I was out ambling around checking fence, staying just out of clear sight. I never told any of my friends where to look for him, though...
 
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