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The Kid and a buck

I think sitting in a tree stand observing these giants would help one to overcome buck fever in the real world. :D Genetically enhanced or not I still like looking at them. :way:
 
It's really pretty simple. You keep good breeding does in acre sized pen, and you keep your bruiser bucks separated out in other pens. Come the rut, you breed a certain buck with certain does that produce a certain kind of rack. You then let the bucks with potential, as well as excess does out onto the main property to mature for a few years. You manage both the "wild" doe heard and management bucks to ensure the bruisers live another day. I think the Pursuit channel went to one of these farms in Wisconsin or Michigan. In a certain sense, you manage a game preserve like these, like you would a cattle operation, breeding good genetics with good genetics.
 
i can appreciate the head gear on the deer and enjoy seeing them, but don't have a lot of respect for the "hunters". thanks for sharing tho bruce.
 
i think you hit the nail on the head jmoose, my thoughts exactly! i love looking at big whitetails pics no matter where they come from. good post :way:
 
Someone said it best in one of your other threads.. Genetically enhanced deer racks are like fake boobs.. real or not, I still like looking at them.. ;)
 
If you get really turned around you could just walk to the high fence and circle clockwise or counterclockwise until you came to the gate that you came onto the property on. Just sayin.
 
just curious, how does it work? do they give you pictures of what you can shoot by how much you paid, or is it just an up front fee.
 
I love to see big racks no matter what. And I love to see a smile on a kids face. Raised deer just take the WOW factor out it for me. It serves a purpose though I do agree and am thankful for the research and products it offers. My question is what are we teaching this young man about nature and the hard work that goes into hours and hours of scouting, setting up stands in locations and all the mistakes you can make while hunting. How does he learn? I look at this buck and think nothing special. Just another deer
Money can buy many things and there is a place for this. I worry that this young man only learned how to money can buy you whatever you want no matter how big it is.

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Where does it say anything about the skill or knowledge of this hunter? Just because it is from a preserve does not automatically mean he is ome clueless hunter. How do any of know he is not a very accomplished bow hunter? I have met a few teens that will put others to shame with their knowledge of hunting. Just because he hunted where he did and some have their opinion of it, means noting about the skill or knowledge this hunter poseses. Bruce shared a pic of a brute of a buck and a happy hunter. Take it for that and let it be.
 
Since this thread took this direction...I would think it would be hard for that hunter to go back to hunting wild whitetail. It would be like having your pick of pro football cheerleaders every night for a week then going home to your wife. JMO
 
Every hunter in the preserve has a one on one guide with them at all times. The guide makes the final call on whether the buck is a shooter or not.
Most of the clients that come up are very serious hunters that have taken game all over the world. The preserve is a great place to relax and study tons of big deer being big deer.
 
My only gripe with these preserves is the influx of CWD that has now shown up in Iowa. Again, I have no idea what goes on at the place you have access to nor can I judge the people who own or operate it. Unforuntately, it takes just a couple bad eggs in these high fences to effect the overall herd. It is also bad when it gives a bad rap to every deer preserve like the one you have access to. It is not right for those individuals to be link to those who aren't properly maintaining their farm/preserve. That is the only thing I dislike about deer farms or hunting preserves. If animals are endangered I get the need to have animal preserves, but these things scare me now that CWD has been found at one. All it takes is one hole in a fence or a creek crossing where the fence isn't low enough and we have a deer out who might potentially infect others now.
 
iowabruce said:
Ok, If any more of you guys has any smart comments about highfence, I'll just quit posting any pictures at all in this forum. 99.9% of you don't have a clue when it comes to preserve hunting.....all your opinions are based on some pre-conceived notions or what some so called expert has said about them. There are no doubt pet and shoots out there that give the whole industry a bad name and then there arebig enough areas that make it more of a hunt instead of a shoot. You can thank the preserve industry for most of the research on whitetails that has come down the pike in the last 20 years as well as all the bottled scents you cant live without. Heck 90% of all your favorite whitetail publications have High fenced Dorito eating deer on the covers......I guarantee it! One last thing, I want to thank the few of you that give me the thumbs up when I post something about preserve bucks, I know you appreciate the animals just like I do, if any of you want to see some more awesome bucks this year just drop me a pm and I'll send them out that way.....The rest of you big buck experts will have to find something else on here to bitch about.
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I wasn't going to respond to this post but then you started being classy and making posts about where guys are from, so:

As far as us big buck experts bitching about things you called this "aficionado"
out so now I will lay it out there. I was simply making a statement that despite these deer having cool racks the harvest photos don't do much for me. I enjoy seeing your photos of the deer as they are growing and to see their potential in these environments, and I appreciate the research that these areas have provided, although I don't know how relevant most of the research is since again these are not free ranging animals and their environment protects them from everything until the day they are shot. Howerver, I don't appreciate the harvest photos, that fact that these deer are dead do nothing for hunting, they provide no valuable information about a buck or deer herd that you couldn't obtain by other means, thus I think guys holding a game farm buck up for a hero shot are lame.

Personally, I see high fence operations as black eye to the hunting industry. I think it shows laziness and taking the easy way out. You have guys that go there to kill a deer of a lifetime becuase they can't get it done in the wild. These guys put in zero time scouting, patterning deer, hanging stands, basically learning how to hunt. The only thing they have to accomplish is putting an arrow in a target which is going to show up eventually. If you ask me that is lazy, and promotes that if you have a lot of money you can kill a big deer. It is nothing more than a slaughter house, but in this case you are promoting that it is hunting and it brings down what a real hunt is all about.

The high fence operations then allow the so called "pros" to come in and kill deer and pimp products, making it seem like the cruncher was a good idea, further running up the cost of our sport.

I also believe they are a high source for disease and even though people will argue to the death that High Fences haven't been confirmed in the spread of CWD in the whitetail herd, I don't think it is a coincidence that we have seen an increase in CWD correlating with an increase in the number of deer farms, even while wild deer numbers around the US are on the decline.

If you believe that shooting a deer on a 400 acre high fence area is a hunt then I guess your definition of a hunt is different than 99.9% of us. Every animal on that farm has had human interaction, through feeding, supplements etc. Humans are not a threat to those animals as well as other predators. So it really isn't a big deer being a big deer, it is a big deer being a Cocker Spaniel. I have seen guys simply walk around on fairly large tracts of high fence property and shoot a deer, seems more like going to McDonalds to shoot a fat guy then anything else, everntually it is gonna happen and that is not how I like to see hunting portrayed. I would much rather see people read articles and journals etc. from some of the guys on here that poured 100s of hours into prep work, scouting, etc. and reached their goal of harvesting an animal.

I guess what is really pathetic is all the guys who go on these hunts and then post pictures like they shot a free ranging deer. They remove ear tags or hide them with a knee or hand (real proud of that harvest aren't we). If they truly didn't care they would post the animal and say I shot this guy in a high fence, at least then I would have more respect for them as they wouldn't be trying to pull a fast one and make guys think it is a wild buck.

Oh and if you get lost on that 400 acres again you can just walk the nearest deer trail to the feeder and then take the atv trail to the main gate, should get you out of there in less than 5 minutes
 
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:way:
jkratz5 said:
I wasn't going to respond to this post but then you started being classy and making posts about where guys are from, so:

As far as us big buck experts bitching about things you called this "aficionado"
out so now I will lay it out there. I was simply making a statement that despite these deer having cool racks the harvest photos don't do much for me. I enjoy seeing your photos of the deer as they are growing and to see their potential in these environments, and I appreciate the research that these areas have provided, although I don't know how relevant most of the research is since again these are not free ranging animals and their environment protects them from everything until the day they are shot. Howerver, I don't appreciate the harvest photos, that fact that these deer are dead do nothing for hunting, they provide no valuable information about a buck or deer herd that you couldn't obtain by other means, thus I think guys holding a game farm buck up for a hero shot are lame.

Personally, I see high fence operations as black eye to the hunting industry. I think it shows laziness and taking the easy way out. You have guys that go there to kill a deer of a lifetime becuase they can't get it done in the wild. These guys put in zero time scouting, patterning deer, hanging stands, basically learning how to hunt. The only thing they have to accomplish is putting an arrow in a target which is going to show up eventually. If you ask me that is lazy, and promotes that if you have a lot of money you can kill a big deer. It is nothing more than a slaughter house, but in this case you are promoting that it is hunting and it brings down what a real hunt is all about.

The high fence operations then allow the so called "pros" to come in and kill deer and pimp products, making it seem like the cruncher was a good idea, further running up the cost of our sport.

I also believe they are a high source for disease and even though people will argue to the death that High Fences haven't been confirmed in the spread of CWD in the whitetail herd, I don't think it is a coincidence that we have seen an increase in CWD correlating with an increase in the number of deer farms, even while wild deer numbers around the US are on the decline.

If you believe that shooting a deer on a 400 acre high fence area is a hunt then I guess your definition of a hunt is different than 99.9% of us. Every animal on that farm has had human interaction, through feeding, supplements etc. Humans are not a threat to those animals as well as other predators. So it really isn't a big deer being a big deer, it is a big deer being a Cocker Spaniel. I have seen guys simply walk around on fairly large tracts of high fence property and shoot a deer, seems more like going to McDonalds to shoot a fat guy then anything else, everntually it is gonna happen and that is not how I like to see hunting portrayed. I would much rather see people read articles and journals etc. from some of the guys on here that poured 100s of hours into prep work, scouting, etc. and reached their goal of harvesting an animal.

I guess what is really pathetic is all the guys who go on these hunts and then post pictures like they shot a free ranging deer. They remove ear tags or hide them with a knee or hand (real proud of that harvest aren't we). If they truly didn't care they would post the animal and say I shot this guy in a high fence, at least then I would have more respect for them as they wouldn't be trying to pull a fast one and make guys think it is a wild buck.

Oh and if you get lost on that 400 acres again you can just walk the nearest deer trail to the feeder and then take the atv trail to the main gate, should get you out of there in less than 5 minutes
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:way:100% agree. thank you for saying everything i was thinking, even this kid was told to bend the ear back to hide the tag.
 
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