Question for High Fence Owners (long read)

[tnwilliams]

I know this is a heated subject, but looking for wisdom from personal owners or managers and not really the “ethics” comments or condemnation that usually comes with these posts.

A little context: I own just under a thousand acres in Mills County and have owned and managed for ten years. Basically only bow hunt other than kids shooting does and such.

Was originally 1800 but sold 800 about 5 years ago. (Yes huge mistake I know). Biggest we have killed to date is 130. Have had a few140 ish but they end up dead. But not on our place.

Neighbor I sold to fenced my west side. Neighbor to the north across the RR tracks is 4000 fenced. I basically have two sides open. Neighbors on those two sides are smaller and lease hunting. I have tried to lease and propose management plans but with no success. Thinking about fencing in.

Not looking to do a commercial deer hunting operation, just want to manage what we have.

Wisdom from those with similar experience:

1. Do you enjoy your place like you did before fencing or too much work and money?

2 I have a granddaughter that loves to be out there. Seems like seeing exotics would make a place more enjoyable and useful. Your thoughts.

3. Really just wanted to keep nothing but native deer and let them get to an old age and see what they could do. Is that a waste of money to try that?

4. Can you do it without spending $$$ a year on feed by controlling population? Don’t want to create a monster.

My deer are extremely leery and wild so I don’t think it would be like the proverbial fish in a barrel scenario.

Any constructive info would be appreciated. I hope asking this was not a mistake.


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[DedDuk]

I think you you fenced in 1000 acres, your biggest issue would be food supply. Other than that, do what you think you and your family would enjoy.

[HTOWN]

Fence it. Watch the head count. Bring in a few exotics for year round hunting. Supplement the feeding alittle and you should be fine. Enjoy it with the family.

[elgato]

1) I wish I would have fenced my 1300 acres from the beginning. Best thing I ever did for my property
2)I have no interest in exotics
3)I've taken our native genetic deer from the 130's-140's pre fence to growing 200" bucks every year now. Its a blast. Mostly with food plots though I do supplemental feed
4) Population control becomes critical. In fact all aspects of management become more important after fencing. As many people have screwed up property by fencing as have improved them.
5) Deer on my farm are as wild as ever if not more so. I'm on the farm every day. The deer know me and my habits as well as I know them.Habitat and habitat mgt are an important key correlated to the deer, deer hunting, escape etc. Dig deeply into learning about habitat mgt.

I've been hunting all my life and its never been more fun than now hunting a balanced herd with great ratio, age structure , watching bachelor groups in the summer, knowing if I give a buck another year there is a good chance he will survive till next year, rattling bucks and knowing at any given hunt a real thumper could walk by. That said, it took me several years hunting a specific buck before I was able to get em. Hunting a specific buck can be as hard as anything! I could go on......

[BowSlayer]

Nothing you want to do is a waste of money. You only get one ride on this earth. If you have the means I’d go for it.

[PYBUCK]

Fence it. If you are not already a MLD, get it in the program whether you high fence it or not., If you bring in exotics watch them closely, some of them multiply like weeds, NO Aoudad. Axis do well but they can be aggressive and push whitetail away from feeders. Fallows stay at the feeders constantly so if you get any of them your WT will not do well. Supplemental feed protein & cottonseed.

[S-3 Ranch]

Fence it ASAP
Nothing worse then having small uncooperative neighbors, feed some cotton seed every 300 acres for some extra grub
Maybe buy a bred doe every couple years to keep some diversity
And enjoy not dealing with the other hunters next door

[MIHunter]

Following

[MarkV]

Make sure to put predator fencing down with the fence to help keep coyotes out. But I would highly recommend fencing if you can. Not only being able to better manage your herd and grow bigger deer without having to worry about neighbors. Then the bonus of being able to add exotics if not to hunt but just watch is also great.

[tnwilliams]

Thanks for all the replies to date. Exotics would be very very limited as the research I have done confirms some of your thoughts.

And thanks for keeping the comments on point. Look forward to hearing from others interested in commenting.


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[Sika]

Do it.

1. Do you enjoy your place like you did before fencing or too much work and money?

Yes, having more control over the management of your deer herd is huge.

2 I have a granddaughter that loves to be out there. Seems like seeing exotics would make a place more enjoyable and useful. Your thoughts.

Yes, and create year round hunting opportunities. Just know going in that exotics can be expensive to purchase.

3. Really just wanted to keep nothing but native deer and let them get to an old age and see what they could do. Is that a waste of money to try that?

Do you value caring for wildlife and watching deer grow?

4. Can you do it without spending $$$ a year on feed by controlling population? Don’t want to create a monster.

Keeping your herd under the carrying capacity of the land will minimize the amount of supplemental feeding you will have to do. There are things you can do to your habitat to increase carrying capacity but habitat projects cost time and money. Supplemental feeding costs a lot of money. You will have to conduct a proper census to determine how the animals are affecting the habitat.

My deer are extremely leery and wild so I don’t think it would be like the proverbial fish in a barrel scenario.

Deer in a fence can be become pretty elusive. Hunting pressure is the number 1 factor that determines how your deer behave. Don't burn out certain stands, use trail cameras to do a lot of your scouting for you, and start a road feeding route so deer become used to vehicles.

You can enjoy and managing your deer herd on a low fence property as well but it's helpful if you neighbors that are on the same page.

[M16]

The only thing I don't like about my high fence is that I didn't do its several years sooner. I had a large neighbor that constantly corned and hunted the fence line. After seeing pictures of deer I had been passing on a hunting contest website wire got stretched.

[Deerguy]

I know this is a heated subject, but looking for wisdom from personal owners or managers and not really the “ethics” comments or condemnation that usually comes with these posts.

A little context: I own just under a thousand acres in Mills County and have owned and managed for ten years. Basically only bow hunt other than kids shooting does and such.

Was originally 1800 but sold 800 about 5 years ago. (Yes huge mistake I know). Biggest we have killed to date is 130. Have had a few140 ish but they end up dead. But not on our place.

Neighbor I sold to fenced my west side. Neighbor to the north across the RR tracks is 4000 fenced. I basically have two sides open. Neighbors on those two sides are smaller and lease hunting. I have tried to lease and propose management plans but with no success. Thinking about fencing in.

Not looking to do a commercial deer hunting operation, just want to manage what we have.

Wisdom from those with similar experience:

1. Do you enjoy your place like you did before fencing or too much work and money?

2 I have a granddaughter that loves to be out there. Seems like seeing exotics would make a place more enjoyable and useful. Your thoughts.

3. Really just wanted to keep nothing but native deer and let them get to an old age and see what they could do. Is that a waste of money to try that?

4. Can you do it without spending $$$ a year on feed by controlling population? Don’t want to create a monster.

My deer are extremely leery and wild so I don’t think it would be like the proverbial fish in a barrel scenario.

Any constructive info would be appreciated. I hope asking this was not a mistake.


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Very long-winded reply and opinion, but you asked for it:

In my opinion, fencing it is the absolute worst thing you can do, and for several reasons. I have known and worked with/for many, many properties that have fenced smaller places and a common thread among all of them is that they do not enjoy hunting their place any more. There is no suspense or element of surprise any more. Think of it like fishing. When you go, you never really know what you're going to catch. On a low fence place, due to random animal movements, you're never really know what you are going to see (how many times have you had a deer just show up that you've never seen before). But, when you fence it, especially a small place, you're going to know every single buck out there, where you're most likely to see them, what feeder they like the best, how big it is, already know what he's going to score, etc, etc, etc. No question it is the best way to increase your buck age structure (and associated antler development), but by the time you're ready to shoot him, you've already 'known' him for 6 or 7 years. Completely takes away all fun if hunting. The exception to this is if other people are hunting your property (commercially or just friends, etc). They will not be as familiar with the animals and it will still be 'new' and exciting to them. So, it largely depends on what you intend to use the for for.

Another huge, but often overlooked or ignored, factor that comes with fencing a property is the land stewardship involved. Once you fence it, it becomes a closed system, 100% completely dependent on you. These days, a land ethic and concept of stewardship seems greatly diminished compared years past. It is extremely commonplace for folks to feed out of a bag, or plant a foodplot, rather than concentrate on real habitat management. Few seem to care these days if habitat is impacted just as long as they are 'growing big deer'. And most don't cannot determine if habitat changes are occurring or it conditions are bad. Can't tell you how many fenced properties I've been on with horrible habitat, inundated with yaupon, bermuda, cedar, juniper, bufflegrass, sweetgum, mesquite, etc, etc, etc, where the landowner proclaims how good their deer habitat is just because it's 'green'. And make no mistake about it, deer WILL negatively impact the habitat if incorrectly managed (which many places are). And once you educate them, invariably the response is "well, I'm doing what I want with my property." And they are 100% exactly correct. It's yours, you can do with it what you want. Just a shame that many no longer care about sustainability, habitat quality, and non-target species (both plant and animal).

Now, it is entire possible to successfully manage a property correctly with a fence, and there are many, many examples of this. But, for every one managed correctly (with regard to habitat quality, species composition, animal densities, etc.), there are 9 that are not. But the term 'correctly' is highly subjective as goals and objectives for every property are different as mentioned above. Again, my opinions are based on stewardship and land ethic.

Above all else, deer density control is paramount, and this is where most people go wrong. In almost every case, the goal of the fence to carry more deer than the habitat can sustain naturally. You hear many other 'reasons', but almost all fenced properties are carrying too many deer because of the lack of ability to emigrate. And, to accomplish this and not negatively affect the deer, just about all feed heavily. By doing this, it is common to see horribly mismanaged properties that still produce big-bodied, and heavy-antlered deer. Think of a deer pen. No vegetation and no real habitat, but you can still grow big deer with feed. Folks have learned that you don't really need 'habitat' any more to grow deer, just nutrition. The offset to that though is a deficiency of true habitat and quality that is needed for all other species besides deer. And again, the deer are 100% completely dependent on the landowner, which becomes expensive.

Even those that have good intentions find that controlling deer numbers is difficult if not impossible. Everybody says they will shoot the number of der required to keep the density down where it needs to be, but few actually accomplish it (again, we'll just feed more). Most fenced places are actively controlling predators on their property, and in the absence of the predators, it becomes even more the responsibility of the landowner to shoot the number of deer needed.

The exotics are another potentially bad idea as is just equates to more mouths on the landscape. There is a huge misconception that exotics don't compete with whitetails and they are 100% incorrect. Certain animals have different food requirements, but ALL exotics compete with whitetails, especially under high-density and questionable nutrition situations (again, most folks just want to feed more, which is expensive and harder on the habitat as you never get an animal to switch completed over to 100% feed). You absolutely can add exotics, but if habitat is a consideration, you would need to adjust your deer density to accommodate them. For example, at 15 acres per deer (a reasonable and desired deer density for your area), that means about 67 animals. If just deer, that means 67 deer (25 bucks, 25 does, and 17 fawns). Now lets say you want to add 10 axis deer. The animal breakdown becomes 10 axis, 22 bucks, 22 does, and 13 fawns, and so on. But remember, the tradeoff for large exotics (like red deer or elk), is more than 1:1.

Relative to your 3rd point, it is absolutely possible to grow outstanding deer with native genetics as there is nothing wrong with the genetics you have now. Currently, the deer are what they are supposed to be, genetically-speaking, following decades of acclimation to your area (the reason they are smaller is simply due to a reduced age structure, not because they are genetically deficient). One one the huge farces you hear now is 'improving' genetics. Completely ridiculous notion. If you bring deer in, you're not improving anything, just changing. An this concept falls right back on land stewardship. Seems utterly ridiculous to me that anyone would shoot out a population of a native wildlife species and bring in deer from another area, just for the sole purpose of trying to grow a bigger-antlered deer. There was a time, and fortunately it still occurs in places, that managers did an outstanding job of managing their deer herd though native habitat management and sound harvest management (promoting a relatively tight sex ratio and even age structure). The grew the biggest deer the land would produce and not be concerned with somebody else down the road that grew a 300" deer in a pen after stuffing it with feed. Most people would be surprised at what their 'inferior' deer would produce if they managed them correctly. But, people now are more interested in immediate gratification and entitlement than trying to do the right thing. Just because you 'can' do it, doesn't necessarily mean that you 'should' do it.

Hope all of this helps, more info is always better than less info. Good luck whichever direction you go.

[SaintBlaise]

Fence it. If you are not already a MLD, get it in the program whether you high fence it or not., If you bring in exotics watch them closely, some of them multiply like weeds, NO Aoudad. Axis do well but they can be aggressive and push whitetail away from feeders. Fallows stay at the feeders constantly so if you get any of them your WT will not do well. Supplemental feed protein & cottonseed.

We are low fence and have a massive Axis population. The Axis don't dominate our feeders, they seem to prefer the acorns but the Axis bucks will come to the feeders for a snack. We have a good WT crowd at the feeders, however, last year I only saw one WT buck over the 4.5 age range. Do you think the Axis bucks are running off our older WT bucks?

For the OP. High fence is your only option.

[HTOWN]

Deerguy, good food for the brain there. I like to think of it this way.

If the state of Texas banned supplemental feeding tomorrow, no protein, corn,, etc...how would your deer herd do. Would there be a massive die off or they keep moving right along. Maybe lose a few inches of horn or lbs on the hoof.

Considering he has 2 sides fenced, it's already impacted his place already.

Fence it and enjoy.