Texas Deer Hunting - what went wrong?

Private vs. Public Land - The Texas controversy

This argument about regional hunting techniques is as byzantine as arguing that rice should be eaten only in China and using the sticks.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I still remember that the former U.S.S.R. and the satellite countries walked away from communism over ten years ago, after their economies collapsed. I have known quite a few emigres from those countries, and they all recall the nightmare it was surviving (starving) in the largest experiment of non-private - i.e., public - property of land.

Closer to home, the large influx of immigrants from Mexico - as well as the desperate attempts of Cuban people to leave their "no private property" paradise - are also consequences of an ideological and political commitment against private property of land.

Here in Arizona, over 75% is public land, but the best hunting is precisely in those areas with restricted access: Indian reservations, the few private ranches with large tracts of deeded land, wilderness areas where no vehicles are allowed and public lands with access controlled by private landowners,.

Hunting is NOT for bringing food to the table anymore. Nowadays, there are cheaper foods than venison, so nobody has to hunt to feed a family; worst case, Uncle Sam will provide food stamps and charitable organizations will take care of those unable - or unwilling - to work.

Absolutely nobody has to travel to hunt in Texas - or in any other particular State. Let the Texas people do things their way and those who don't like it, go - or move - elsewhere
 
Hunting is NOT for bringing food to the table anymore. Nowadays, there are cheaper foods than venison, so nobody has to hunt to feed a family;
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For 99.99999999% of us that is true, although there are still some few people who hunt for food. For food hunting anything goes in my opinion.

For sport hunting though: It doesn't matter if you are on public or private property - shooting deer that you have trained to show up at a specific spot at a specific time isn't hunting - Hell just think of the definition of Hunt - it means to look for something that you don't know where it is -

If the folks who shoot deer over a mechanized timed feeder would call it deer shooting instead I would leave it alone.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I still remember that the former U.S.S.R. and the satellite countries walked away from communism over ten years ago, after their economies collapsed. I have known quite a few emigres from those countries, and they all recall the nightmare it was surviving (starving) in the largest experiment of non-private - i.e., public - property of land.
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Never once have I suggested that we change the method of land ownership in Texas - why did you throw this out then?
 
Because deer - and other wildlife - do not live in an abstract realm. They are to be found either on government-owned land or in private property.

Just for the sake of the analogy, let's assume that instead of deer we were talking about a feral dog that went away from home. This dog gets killed after eating deer, rabbits, javelinas, chicken, calves, goats, etc. Through the tag we can trace back who the owner is. It is only fair that the dog owner reimburses the livestock owner for the livestock killed. Should the owner of the game species look the other way and not demand a monetary compensation for the wildlife the dog ate?

From a different perspective, let's agree that animals - livestock and wildlife - sharing the open range harvest the regrowth of vegetation and drink the same water. Cattle produce steaks and deer produce antlers; both steaks and antlers are goods sought by consumers in a free market economy.

If the cattle is pushed or lured into a neighbor's pasture - and even if they went there by themselves - to eat the grass and drink the water, it is an accepted legal and commercial practice to make the cattle owner pay for his/her livestock helping themselves to the neighbor's resources. Uncle Sam charges for grazing livestock in public lands, the same way that a private rancher would charge you to keep a cow or a horse in his/her ranch.

Then, reason dictates that the only logical conclusion is that it is only fair that the owner of the wildlife - i.e., the public at large - reimburses the landowner for the very same resources - water and the regrowth of vegetation - consumed by the both game and non-game species.
 
My .02: It (hunting with feeders) is no less ethical than paying someone else to kill for us. I go to the store and buy meat. Someone else has killed that meat. People claim such is unethical. I say the animal is going to die, anyway. Who cares who does the killing.

Same with the above. If hunting with feeders floats your boat then fine. It's not like hunting in the old days but who has time for that?

If ethics is an issue in killing animals then to be consistent we all should go vegetarian. I doubt we're going vegetarian so the issue of hunting over feeders becomes moot. As long as the animal is harvested in the most humane fashion possible I don't see the problem.

I wonder what the bow and arrow crowd said when hunters showed up with guns? I wonder what the iron sight crowd said when hunters showed up with scopes? It becomes a never-ending conundrum.

However, given the above parameters, viz., avg. shot within 50 yards, my guess is the animal is harvested cleanly, quickly, and relatively painlessly.
I probably wouldn't do it but have no objection to those who do.

But then again, that's just my .02.
 
I go to the store and buy meat. Someone else has killed that meat. People claim such is unethical. I say the animal is going to die, anyway. Who cares who does the killing.
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My point is not that it is more humane or inhumane to hunt over a feeder. It's that you are training wild animals to arrive at a specific place at a specific time so that you don't have to bother going looking for them.

What I am saying is that the timed feeder takes something vital and important away from the sport of hunting. It relegates hunting down to something far less.
 
Yes, Butch, I understand your concern. It is not a "hunt" in the traditional sense. It's not even a "hunt" since the term itself implies the "hunter" actually goes out into the wilds and finds the game. That's why it's called a "hunt."

But if shooters want to shoot quasi-domesticated game over a feeder, as long as they dispatch the animal humanely, I have no objections. You're right. It is not "hunting." But that's a matter of semantics.

So we maybe need to call it something else. Shooting semi-domesticated animals over a feeder will now be in a whole different category. Maybe we could place it into the same category as a rancher who kills a beef cow with a well-placed 22?

Or, since it's baiting, maybe we should call it "bait." "Where are you going today?" "I'm going baiting." "What's that?" "That's where you bait the deer to come to you. It's easier than hunting."

Then folks have a choice. They can go on a hunt. Or they can go on a bait.
 
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Or, since it's baiting, maybe we should call it "bait." "Where are you going today?" "I'm going baiting." "What's that?" "That's where you bait the deer to come to you. It's easier than hunting."
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That would at least be semantically honest. :)
 
Well, I grew up hunting deer down around San Angelo, Texas. Thicker than rabbits, always have been. Even then, I guess we were to poor to pay to hunt on someone elses land, and we ate deer meat ALL the time! Never have hunted around a feeder though. Hell, I thought the only way to shoot deer was out of the back of a moving '70 F-100 Ford pickup! :p
 
Butch:

Are you familiar with Jack O'Connor's hunting experiences in Southern Arizona and Northern Sonora? Well, the Arizona-Sonora border is where I had the privilege to learn what hunting is from old timers: WWII and Korean War veterans, ranchers, cow-boys, miners, small-town guys who never saw a lightbulb before they were 14, etc. In these semi-desertic areas of uncertain rainfall and wide open spaces you soon learn to hunt the paths leading to the water: a windmill, a seasonal spring, a "tinaja" (a natural water reservoir in solid rock) and, in exceptional years, a running "arroyo" (a stream that may be anything between 2 and 200 feet wide and between 1 inch or 5 feet deep, carrying water between one hour and one week a year).

Do you what the conventional wisdom of the experienced hunters was/is?

"The deer always comes down to the water"

The older, wiser men would send us the young kids up to the hills "to find the nice ones" while they would rest under a mesquite or an oak, because some ailment would keep them from going up and down the thorny hillsides. While we were working up a sweat and straining our eyes to find a fresh track . . . BANG!THUD. When we returned to the camp we would see a beautiful deer that had - yes - come down to the water. I don't recall having seen a scope before the 1970s. Most of the shots were under 100 yards. Later, around the campfire, we would learn that we the kids had driven the deer to the lowest part, where it would have to go anyway, to drink the water they need for the day.

It was not a feeder with a timer, just the closest available water.

Was / is it ethical?
 
I think some people are missing Butch50's point; the difference between hunting animals and shooting animals. And I fully agree. Not that shooting animals over artificially placed food is inherently wrong; only that it is not hunting.

Lt. Col. C. H. Stockley in his work, "Stalking in the Himalayas and Northern India" (1936), opens with a chapter entitled, "What is Stalking?". He covers about all the bases and goes on ....

"What is "stalking"?
Stalking is getting on foot within shooting or photographing distance of an animal first discovered by eye, making use only of natural cover, and without artificial aid. "Shooting distance" meaning such distance that will almost certainly ensure a clean kill.

This, it will be seen, excludes the use of motor car, elephant, cart or boat, or dressing up in native clothes; the employment of such adventitious aids destroying a true conception of sport, as making the approach too easy by abusing the confidence of the game.

Herein lies the essence of sport, in the means employed to gain one's end. It must not be too easy and the game must have a fair chance. Equally, to gain real sport, the vigour, nerve and intelligence used must be one's own: by merely following at the heels of a hired ghillie or shikari no man can experience the joy of achievement which comes from defeating a wary old beast on his own ground. Not that a fair partnership with the ghillie or shikari is to be despised, far from it; for few can learn the lessons of the wild from books, and it is from such men that one aquires the knowledge which eventually leads to sole conquest of a worthy antagonist, by means worthy of the trophy." [he then discusses "trophies"] ......

"I would place tracking on an equal plane of sport with stalking, but beating and sitting-up are not in the same category. To take the analogy of fishing; tracking and stalking may be graded with fair methods of rod and line, while beating is equivalent to netting, and sitting up to night-lining." [he then dissects "beating" or "driving" game] ....

"Sitting-up at night is hardly ever sport: only where a maneater is concerned, and even then it may be mere destruction."

I have used ferret and a shotgun to take rabbits - and I have actually stalked them even with a .22 pistol; but the former could not be accurately described as hunting.

I am also in agreement on the issue of game fenced in on private land. Unless it is a truly expansive piece of real estate. But a few hundred - or even thousand - acres of fenced in land with deer or other large game becomes a safari park and they can not be accurately described as unconfined.

On the issue of ownership (and hence regulation) there are two cases in Texas that directly apply. According to Jones v. State, 45 SW2d 612, as long as indigenous wild animals remain wild and unconfined in their natural setting they are the property of the State. However, a legally captured wild animal becomes the private property of the individual, according to State v. Bartee, 894 SW2d 34, and it looks like that might at some time include those "captured" by fencing on private land.
 
Are you familiar with Jack O'Connor's hunting experiences in Southern Arizona and Northern Sonora?
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No, but it sounds like it was a great time and place to be at. I envy your memories and experiences, they sound great and you should write them up as short stories, I would love to read them. The brief description you provided shows that you have no small talent for story telling.

In my mind what you describe - hunting over a well traveled pathway is hunting. It is basically stand hunting that you describe.

Let me ask you this, did any of those gentlemen take a stand over a mechanized feeder and shoot deer that had become trained to come to it? If so then I would say that at that time and place they weren't hunting. Just my humble opinion.

I am also in agreement on the issue of game fenced in on private land. Unless it is a truly expansive piece of real estate. But a few hundred - or even thousand - acres of fenced in land with deer or other large game becomes a safari park and they can not be accurately described as unconfined.
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Lak: I think Stockley was dead spot on. I am going to buy and read that book, it sounds terrific.

I had not given much thought to high fencing until this thread. But it does occur to me that if you high fence an area that you are creating nothing more than an amusement park for the wealthy. I just don't see it as being anything more than that. I don't even think it should fall under the normal hunting regulations - since it is a commercial enterprise they should be able to set their own seasons and limits. Nothing that happens inside the high fence is going to affect the wild herd anyway.

In fact, maybe I should start up a business selling artifical trophy deer heads for the elite that just want a big rack on the wall. With todays technology a really fine artificial deer head could be made that would look 100% real.

Let me throw out this idea. In my mind a "Trophy" deer taken inside a high fence doesn't count. It should never be compared to a trophy wild deer. They are not the same animals and they are not taken under comparable conditions.
 
Butch50,

Author: Stockley
Title: Stalking in the Himalayas and Northern India
on .....
http://www.bookfinder.com
... shows a number of copies from $75 to about $250 depending on condition. You might find a satisfactory copy cheaper using other book searches. I bought mine a couple of years ago for about £50 (A "very good" reading copy) from a seller in the U.K. I really like these early 20th century works; I'd have a whole library of them if I had the room and wallet!
Let me throw out this idea. In my mind a "Trophy" deer taken inside a high fence doesn't count. It should never be compared to a trophy wild deer. They are not the same animals and they are not taken under comparable conditions.
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I agree; depending on the size of the piece of land in question. It would be difficult however to establish just how extensive a tract of land should be to be considered equal to the "normal" free range of any particular species of big game animal, and that is probably fuel for a separate topic in itself.
 
I hadn't really thought about this before but a managed herd vs wild animals would seem be the deviding line. Comparing the take from a managed herd against the take from a wild herd doesn't seem to me to be apples to apples.
 
Butch-50,

Thanks. Whatever story-telling talent I may have is the result of sitting around ranch house tables and around campfires. I only wish that my children had the same opportunity.

In these corner of the world (Southern Arizona / Northern Sonora) we have two kinds of deer: "Coues" whitetail (max. 100 pounds, 3 1/2 ft. tall and O'Connor's favorite game) and mulies (max. 300 pounds, 4 1/2 ft tall). They are found in three different kinds of habitat: desert mule deer mostly in the plains not unlike those just around Van Horn, whitetails primarily in rolling hills areas like those around Alpine, and both, though in lower densities, in areas like those around Uvalde, Del Rio and Laredo.

In Sonora, the typical ranch is a cow-and-calf operation between 5,000 and 50,000 acres. In Arizona, the rancher more often than not only owns a few hundred acres and leases as much public land as available. In hundreds of square miles the "desert" the cover is a continuum of thorny plants of any kind (about 10 feet high), thick enough that not even from horseback you see farther than 50 yards. In more open areas the deer hide in the mezquite, paloverde and ironwood thickets along the washes. The ground is often so hard that tracks are hard to follow. If the rancher has put some salt blocks, deer will lick them too.

Here comes the issue: any livestock operation results in game herd management, and in these deserts, water is ranching, because it is WATER, not food what defines survival of both game and cattle. Whether it is a spring or a depression on the ground holding rainfall or a windmill, it is around the watering hole (the same that with cowboys, hunters and golfers) where eventually everyone gathers, mingles and fights.

Most of the hunters growing up through the depression years were incredible stalkers / drivers. They would locate a deer and, if the location was not an easy one to drag him out of, throw rocks, yell, etc., to make him move out to a more convenient location before shooting. The privileged ones would use a 30-30, a few a 30-06 and many a 22. One guy I hunted with through the 80s dropped even bighorn sheep with an open-sighted 25-20.

Old-timers, some of them who knew O'Connor and guided him through these deserts, would never use a scope but they instead waited around the rancher-made watering facility. They knew that the deer would never be far from the water.

Were they really hunting or just shooting a self-trained managed herd too?
 
That is a really really good question.

Partly it was hunting and partly it was taking advantage. If they were hunting for sport and not so much for subsistence then they were taking advantage of something that probably they shouldn't have taken advantage of - a man made source of water. I have heard of other hunters who hunt in similar circumstances (desert area water) who refuse to hunt within 1/4 mile radius of the water itself.

If they were hunting for subsistence then its all about eating and anything goes.

But perhaps the real distinction is - were they leasing hunting rights over the water hole? And even if they were, was the water dispensed only at certain times of the day?
 
Leasing a waterhole? :confused: This may sound like a WC :barf: answer, but both NO and YES.

NO: With exceptions, there was/is not an exchange of money

YES: The hunter(s) - myself included - depend(ed) on the landowners' goodwill to access the hunting areas; access could / can be gained by
a) marrying the rancher's daughter;
b) being the bank's loan officer;
c) having some skill / virtue / atribute that the rancher perceives as an advantage to his business (attorney, veterinarian, heavy machinery owner/operator, groceries warehouese owner, mechanic, family practice doctor, etc.);
d) being brought in by one of the above; and
e) sheer intimidation ("I have this government-issued hunting permit" and/or "I work for the xyz government agency and you better let me in or else")

It is not my intention bothering you or other participants with multiple examples of the above listed situations. When I began hunting in the mid 60s, many ranchers were thankful to my grandfather (a hunter, too) because he had given then credit for basic stuff (groceries, ranch supplies, etc.) in bad years. So, in a way, my grandfather bought his and my access to the same areas O'Connor liked so much to hunt, in a 50-mile radius around Nogales. Later on, I joined senior hunters from Central Sonora and I also dealt with many cattlemen in the course of my profession. The cattlemen would give me the keys to enter their ranches "but you only bring your buddy, Mr. X's son and nobody else". No money was involved, just the right relation. My buddy - an exrancher - and I had as a rule to give one roll of barbed wire to the rancher each time we went to hunt; that kept many others from joining our team. In Arizona, for several years the Arizona Game & Fish Department has fostered the Adopt-a-Ranch program, to alleviate antagonisms and create lasting relations between hunters and ranchers.

Do these non-monetary leases bother you?

Water: Save for those with sun-powered pumps, I have never been to a ranch where water is turned on/off per a schedule, not the springs, not the windmills, not the water tanks. When no rain is falling, cattle and deer come down to the only available water at about the same time everyday. Actually, in the areas where I have hunted, since mid-October to late February, you'll seldom see a wild animal coming to drink after 9 A.M. or before 4 P.M. Depending on the temperature, cattle tend to come to water later and they return to their current grazing and sleeping spot just before sunset.

Come and see by yourself!
 
Sounds like great country. Right now it is hot enough here to not want to visit a desert. Maybe in the winter though it would be a great experience.

I think I agree with those that will not hunt next to a water hole in the desert. I would want to stay some reasonable distance away from it. When the water source is rare and a requirement for the animals survival - in other words they have not choice but to come to it - then sitting right next to it "sounds" like shooting fish in a barrel. OK for subsistence hunting but not much in the way of "sport".

Or am I missing something?
 
I guess that as far as the high-fence stuff, there's no "one size fits all" in judging. Some of that south Texas brush country, a high fence around very few acres will hold deer that you'll never see. Some of it's just way too thick. Moving east, with the trees and undergrowth in the river bottom behind my wife's house in Georgia, a deer would have to rear up on his hind legs and wave before you could see him. Sit in a stand or else go hungry.

Sorta in the same vein, I know country where a high fence around a couple of thousand acres is a "pen"--little brush, gently rolling, no real concealment for anything bigger than a rabbit. But, add in some brush and have a bit steeper slopes and such and it's hard hunting to stalk, high fence or no.

My legs are about gone for my favorite style: Head out across my desert mule deer country, working ridges. Bucky lays up on the downwind military crest near a saddle, so you go kick him out of bed and if his horns stick out well past his ears, bust him. Or, work a long draw, making lots of racket while staying as best you can where you can see out ahead.

Nowadays, I'm more prone to hang out where I can watch a likely route to water. I gotta admit I'm getting to that stage where I'll see Bucky, think, "Gotcha!" and go on home. I can't really eat a whole deer...

:), Art
 
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