Sigh. I find myself in the odd position of defending my state against such a statement.
While I've never hunted within high fences, I understand much of why they're there. In the Hill Country, high fences are put up not so much to keep the deer
in, as to keep the lesser deer [/i]out[/i]. Most ranches with high fences utilize plats of a section (square mile or 640 acres) or better in size. Occasionally some small rancher will put 'em up around half-section pastures, but we're not talking "pasture" in the traditional sense of an open field. We're talking about a rolling piece of land covered with lots of live oak, juniper, mesquite, and prickly pear, where a man can move about for a week and see sign but no deer, if he's not a careful hunter. I don't know what the ratio of deer to acreage on such terrain needs to be to consider it a fair chase. I know it varies with the amount of cover and centralization of nutrition, though.
I don't know of ANY places where a man can pay to shoot caged game. I'd turn 'em in if they did. (Of course, if you're a landowner who's trying to reduce the hog on your property, you're going to eventually build a hog trap, and that does involve putting down a caged animal eventually. But that's trapping, not hunting, and is to a practical end rather than sporting purposes.)
Consider: Any ranch that requires that you shoot a spike or a doe before taking a trophy buck, or which requires that all trophy bucks be 3 years old or better, is practicing scientific game management. Ranch managers have been doing this for decades. Any ranch manager that sees that extra food plots and water is available for wildlife on the property is doing scientific game management. Face it: Scientific game management has found its way into the record books for years. How would you keep 'em out??
A few years ago, I shot the biggest whitetail buck of my life. He was atypical of the region (northern Uvalde County, TX), where most whitetails are only about 100 lbs. This one went 200 lbs on the hoof, and had a nice-sized 8-point rack. I was charmed, and dropped him with my .300 WinMag Sendero. Upon cleaning him, I found that he was well-larded. A couple of weeks later, my step-father-in-law Jim, who owns the ranch, called me up laughing. Seems that he was talking to a neighbor landowner down the road who was bemoaning how the fall rains had washed gullies out under his high-dollar high fences, and he had lost five prize bucks that he had imported from Kansas to improve the genetics! Jim and I had to snigger a little at this, because Jim puts up low fences soley to hold in the cattle he runs on the place. They of course allow deer to move on and off his property, and allowed me to take a Kansas deer by way of Texas.
The other ranchowner can of course lay no claims to the deer, because deer are considered to be owned by the State Of Texas, and anyone legally hunting may take one.
The best-laid plans.