Texas Deer Hunting - what went wrong?

As I read over these posts I get the disinct impression that some people like games with standardized "rules." They want us to use the same play book they use and all follow the rules as they know them. (Can you imagine a national game warden as the play official, blowing a whistle and assessing a 100 yard penalty for setting up too close to the water hole?)

Hunting is more like poker. House rules and many ways to play the game, but all with the same ultimate goal. If you're more comfortable with your rules, fine, play your game. Just don't belittle someone else that had a different daddy, grew up in a different part of the country, has a completely different set of field conditions and a different set of game laws.

(I still think having to stalk a deer through 200 yards of broken cover is hunting and not CHEATING. Are you saying it doesn't count because I wasn't in the field for two hours and freezing my tail off prior to making the shoot?)
 
20cows, no I am saying it definitely "doesn't count" if you train the deer to arrive at specific spot at a specific time and you are there in a blind to shoot them when they show up as trained. Deer can resist corn about the way a junkie can resist his next fix. It especially "doesn't count" if the deer are captive inside a pen, regardless of how many acres in size the pen is, they are no longer free to leave the entire area if and when the hunting pressure becomes intense. One of the deers most effective and natural defenses is to move away from hunting pressure to areas with less pressure. That makes it more of a fair chase because the hunter knows that and does everything he can to minimize his "presence" in the area. When the deer can't leave then you have a herd of livestock.

The tall fence leases generally try to place as many hunters on stands as possible, it is about money after all. That means that the deer can not find a place of lower pressure to move to, not the way they could before the tall fencers "legally" stole public property.

Stalking a deer through 200 yards of broken cover is fair chase, if you found the deer by scouting and understanding his habitat and habits. Anyone who has tried it knows that stalking a deer on his turf is a very difficult thing that takes a lot of skill and a good measure of luck. If you stalk a deer through 200 yards of broken cover because it was eating corn at a mechanical feeder though, that isn't fair chase.

It isn't about rules and umpires, it is about using your brain and skill against the deers senses and awareness; to get close enough to the deer, on its own ground, to make a clean one shot kill. But it is not about turning wild deer into junkies so that they can be trained to conveniently appear for you at a specific time and place. It isn't about rules so much as it is about ethics and respect.
 
As per my original post, there was no feeder. I spotted the herd about 400 yds from the road in a wheat field, where I had seen them on previous occasions (Oh, no! Scouting from a VEHICLE!). They were between 25 and 100 yards from the brush line and escape. There are no game fences, just grass, mesquite, cattle and regular stock fences.

I'm sorry this does not come up to some folk's standards of "fair chase," but for me, it's the only game in town.

It isn't about rules and umpires, it is about using your brain and skill against the deers senses and awareness; to get close enough to the deer, on its own ground, to make a clean one shot kill.
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Yeah, I did that too.
 
i dont see it like some

we may consider hunting feeders unethical or not sporting but at the same time its how its done. With little public land you have to adapt to whats available to you.

We can bash these hunters for the way they hunt or we can be happy that theyre not out there with the brady bunch trying to ban guns. It seems to me that Texas isnt about to run out of white tails either.
 
We can bash these hunters for the way they hunt or we can be happy that theyre not out there with the brady bunch trying to ban guns.
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......My next door neighbors your talking about. An open minded post from a true still hunting region..Refreshing!
 
We can bash these hunters for the way they hunt or we can be happy that theyre not out there with the brady bunch trying to ban guns. It seems to me that Texas isnt about to run out of white tails either.
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I guess that I am bashing at them. They are doing what they were taught and what they think is normal, and what danger is there in that?

How about the danger of not thinking for yourself and acting in an unethical manner because it is the norm? There is public land in Texas, lots of it. If people realized that training deer to come to the gun isn't right, then maybe they would quit doing it and find a better way.

Texas is in absolutely no danger of running out of deer, but this isn't about deer population, it is about men and ethics.
 
Butch from your post I get the idea that you have not hunted texas very long?

The people I know that hunt the national forest get around on mountain bikes. hard for me to belive you can outwalk a mountain bike!

Feeders work well out in west Texas. In east Texas they may not work at all and most of the time they don't. If there was a good acorn crop you can forget about a feeder. Seems like there is a good acorn crop every year. Feeders will work in east Texas when the acorns are gone at the end of the year. I have found in east texas that deer don't run to corn like candy. They will only eat corn when there is nothing else to eat and don't come running when they hear the sound of the feeder. I have found that most deer that feed at a feeder feed at night.

All that being said I don't rely on a feeder to get a deer. And all the people that ground hunt north of Texas must not know what fireants are :D

Butch you being from DFW I would think you know this if you hunt much at all. I just hope you are not a troll with some kind of political liberal ajenda
 
Ethics

So to be an ethical hunter, I need to drive to the nearest public land to hunt. The nearest I know about that allows deer hunting is the Black Gap Wildlife Management Area in the Big Bend, 300 miles away where the deer are mule deer and the season is ~2 weeks long and in the middle of the school year - no white tail to speak of, I believe. This is a VERY large area with VERY limited road access and the only supplies available within 100 miles are those you brought. I would probably need 3 or 4 days of scouting to figure out where the deer are moving and all that, then maybe have a chance to take one.

Or I can be unethical and notice the behavior of the white tail deer I see regularly when taking care of my livestock on MY place. Yeah, I live in town and often see them off the county road as I get to MY place. I usually do this after school, you know in the early evening, when the deer are actively moving around. Before the season starts, I kinda' notice a pattern of movement and make sure I've got my rifle with me as soon as the TWO MONTH long white tail season starts in a county in which I can legally take two bucks and four antlerless. Sure enough, some days I see the deer doing what I'm expecting them to do. Sometimes they are out in the field and I have an opportunity to make a stalk. Sometimes they are crossing the road in front of my truck into MY open pasture and give me the chance to get out of the truck, cross the fence (no, I dont shoot from the public road, that's illegal) and take a shot.

Now, am I "road hunting/shooting/spotting/cheating", or have I been hunting by studying the habits of my quarry all season long and put myself in a position to exploit what I have learned (Is this not what ALL hunters do other than just trusting in blind luck)?
 
Hi Impact! I have been hunting in Texas for going on 45 years now. I did quit hunting in the National Forests a long time ago because A: they are bisected at fairly regular intervals by roads and it is hard to get away from the crowd, and B: There are some real nut jobs that hunt in there.

Texas has a program that costs about $40 per year to buy an annual hunting permit that allows you to hunt on a wide variety of lands that the state leases from private land owners. These lands tend to be far less crowded and not bisected by roads the way National Forests or Timber lands are. The places that I have been hunting can not be reached with a dirt bike, you gotta walk/wade/climb/bustbrush to get in there.

You know, if everyone who hunted on leases with feeders listened to me then they would ruin my hunting, but I know they won't listen so I can keep on with my opinions. I have personally seen feeders on four or five occasions and watched how the deer show up, and brother they showed up. As far as feeders go my experience is somewhat limited in scope, but there is no doubt in my mind that training deer to come to your gun is wrong, unsporting and unethical. Fencing in deer that are public property should be criminal, and I do not understand why it is not.

Do I have a trolls political agenda? No, but I do have an opinion, and a very unpopular opinion here at home. So far no one has made a convincing argument (at least to me) why it is sporting and ethical to hunt over bait. I grew up out in the country and was taught to hunt in the old school manner. Taught to be a conservationist. I was a grown man the first time that I saw a game warden in the field, but we obeyed all the laws without being monitored anyway. In fact we didn't hunt at certain times of the year even though it was legal, because it was poor conservation to hunt then. Different world than it is now.

It's all about hunting in a sporting manner. We hunt for sport, we do not hunt for food. We should not hunt just for the killing alone. If all I wanted to accomplish was to kill deer, then I too would hunt over bait. Think about it.

20cows - what you describe is far better than hunting over bait given that you don't have the tall fences to keep the deer in. The land you describe in the Big Bend area really sounds interesting though and I would like to hear more about it.
 
Butch I'm fixen to tell you one of my hunting secrets :D I like to get in a tree with my tree lounge not to far from a oak tree dropping acorns. A oak tree with lots of cover. The deer feel safe with the cover. I think the sound of the falling acorns brings in the deer. Works better than a feeder I think! But in some crazy way is a oak tree that drops it 's acorns is the same thing as a feeder?
 
Impact: Sport hunting is about knowing and understanding the deer so well that you can find them. What you describe is knowing the deer so well that you found them. In some crazy way is the oak tree like a feeder? Only if you planted it and waited 100 years for it to mautre :D

In any sport hunting scenario, other than just luck, you are taking advantage of what nature has to offer, whether it is acorn mast or a downed tree to take cover behind.

I am against two things primarily. Training deer, and fencing them in. Am I that far off base in thinking those two things are wrong? OK three things, I am against laziness too, but then I make my living in the construction world and laziness is just plain not tolerated.
 
20cows don't you need to put in for a permit and hope to get a permit to hunt mule deer at Black Gap
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To be honest, I don't know. It is not even close to being practical enough to look into it in that much detail. It' just too far and at the wrong time for me as a teacher to consider seriously. With what litle I did find out, that if you pay the $40 permit fee you can hunt most any game animal in season or varments year round. There may be a special permit for mule deer there, but if there is I am unaware of it. A special permit is not required for mule deer on the private land in the area.

I know there is other public land in Texas, but not West Texas. Guess where I am. BTW, most of the places that sell hunting liscenses have the brochure with the details on public land available for hunting across the state.

Remember, I HAVE a place of my own to hunt, and until my character has been impugned here, I never realized I had an urgent need. I realize that I am not the subject of the strongest criticism being offered here (I'm not hunting over bait nor from a blind), but, "Well, maybe in Texas it is, but around here we call that "road hunting/shooting/spotting/cheating" is not quite the way I see it.
 
OK, I'll chime in.....

Hunting over feeders......ever have NO DEER show up at sunrise when the feeder goes off? I have more times than not. It is not a sure thing. Wind blows, spreads your sent, spooks the deer. Sounds like hunting to me.

Ever sit at the corner of a pasture and not see deer? I have. The "other" pasture always has the deer.

Ever hunt antelope in Wyoming....most I've seen drive around..jump out and shoot. If you want a bow shot, you sit at a water hole, in a box.

Do you use a depth finder when fishing? I do. Ever bait a catfish hole? Is this different than baiting deer? The fish fillets taste just as sweet don't they :rolleyes:

I'm at the top of the food chain, so I will use any legal means. I enjoy the hunt, whether stalking, sitting in a blind near a feeder, or 20ft up a tree over some acorns and deer sign. Either way, I want to KILL the animal and eat it. Thats the point.

High fence is a money maker, I agree. But if I had a 3-500+ acres and the neighbors shoot anything with 4 legs, I'd put up a fence (after bringing all the deer I could onto the property using feeders, food plots and waterholes) :eek: Of course, after all that work, the deer would probably stay without the fence, but why do the work for the neighbors.

(hiya impact, how've you been)

Ron
 
"We hunt for sport, we do not hunt for food."

Who put you in charge of how people are "supposed" to hunt and where they should hunt, anyway?

I hunt for food. I don't care how big of a rack they sport. In fact, I like shooting does better than bucks. Easier to clean, and because the other folks I hunt with won't take does, I do to help keep some kind of balance.

My lease does not have high fences, nor do any of the properties around it that I have seen. The place is known locally as rattlesnake hill, and you better believe it!

I don't pay high fees-I'll pay more in gasoline and wear/tear on my truck for the round trip this year.

Feeders are generally misunderstood. As some have mentioned, deer are most certainly not "addicted" to corn as you have frequently stated. They will eat it sure enough, but it is not a food source for them. They seem to like grasses/alfalfa and clover much better.

I lease hunt primarily because it is safer-been to the public hunting grounds and there have been too many instances of people taking "sound" shots rather than checking the target.

As for hunting styles, I have still hunted in 20 degree weather in snow, have driven, have stand hunted, and stalked. All of them have their advantages and disadvantages, but to pound on your chest and talk down to people seems rather silly.
 
Who put you in charge of how people are "supposed" to hunt and where they should hunt, anyway?
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Hello David, apparently my opnions have caused you offense. The hunters that I have seen hunt over feeders are not sportsmen, they are shooters - not the same thing at all. Fencing in deer on your land, in my humble opinion, is theft of public property regardless of how your neighbors may act. They neither belong to you or your neighbors.



To say that we do hunt for food is an over-generalization. Deer meat is very tasty, and anyone who shoots a deer but doesn't eat it has a lot more problems than we are discussing here.

Deer meat is very good, but that is not to say that we depend on deer meat for our survival is it? Hence we don't hunt for food, we hunt for sport and eat what we kill.

but to pound on your chest and talk down to people seems rather silly.
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Again you are singularly offended to have used these terms; Expressing my opinion on an open forum isn't chest pounding - it is using the forum as it was intended to be used. There is no doubt that my opinion on this subject is unpopular, but so what? It is an opinion and it carries no authority to change your behavior, so why are you upset?

Ever bait a catfish hole? Is this different than baiting deer? The fish fillets taste just as sweet don't they
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Baiting out a catfish hole and setting a timed deer feeder do not strike me as a resonable comparison.

Hunting over feeders......ever have NO DEER show up at sunrise when the feeder goes off? I have more times than not.
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The feeders that I had some limited experience with drew lots of deer and drew them every time. As stated before though I do not have a whole lot of experience with them, but what I did see leads me to believe that the deer consider corn to be a very tasty treat, like candy. My experience with ranch stock also reinforces that, all domestic grazing animals that I have seen absolutely love corn.
 
The hunters that I have seen hunt over feeders are not sportsmen, they are shooters - not the same thing at all.
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...so people that shoot targets are just shooters , not sportsmen?

Deer meat is very good, but that is not to say that we depend on deer meat for our survival is it?
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I have relatives that the only meat they ever have at home is meat from their own kills. (That can be quite alot of meat between 6 deer a year and feral hogs).


Baiting out a catfish hole and setting a timed deer feeder do not strike me as a resonable comparison.
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His analogy is actually quite comparable, virtually the same.

Expressing my opinion on an open forum isn't chest pounding - it is using the forum as it was intended to be used. There is no doubt that my opinion on this subject is unpopular, but so what? It is an opinion and it carries no authority to change your behavior, so why are you upset?
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When stating your opinion in an open forum, you have basically stated the legal means of hunting that others use is morally inferior to what you do. You have place yourself on a high horse, looking down on others. Yeah, the insult is there.

MassHunter2190, so if your driving on your own land and happen upon a deer, you would not get out of your vehicle and take the shot, because that's cheating?
 
20 Cows:

If you have relatives that truly depend upon deer meat for survival, then they should do whatever it takes to survive. But if they can afford a mechanical deer feeder and corn and a lease and a vehicle and gasoline to get there, then maybe it isn't really survival huntig? If it is truly survival hunting then the only rules are, kill to eat any way that you can. No quandries there at all.

Baiting out a catfish hole and mechanically feeding deer are not comparable in my mind. The deer are a vastly higher order of species, and deserve far more respect than the catfish. I just do not see the two as within the same realm of ethics. Are we starting to split some fine hairs here? I hope so, as I am more than willing to talk this idea through... why exactly do you see them as comparable?

Come on 20Cows, People who shoot targets are sportsmen in a different sport - no comparison. You can come up with better ones than that. :) Also when it comes to being insulted, you can't insult someone without their permission, so if someone feels insulted by my opinion, it is because they have allowed themselves to be insulted, which tends to indicate that they are already feeling low about what they do.
 
Also when it comes to being insulted, you can't insult someone without their permission, so if someone feels insulted by my opinion, it is because they have allowed themselves to be insulted, which tends to indicate that they are already feeling low about what they do.
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Nope, sorry, gotta call BS on that one. As a school teacher, I don't recall ever giving a student "permission" to insult me, but as a person in charge of a small portion of their lives pushing them to go in a direction they'd like to avoid (ignorance is bliss, you know), it happens.

Insult ocurrs when someone you respect, or would like to, calls your honor into question. If this goes unchallenged, then one appears to admit truth to the dishonor.
 
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