I would love to have 3-5000 acres high fence somewhere in Alabama just to see what could grow here with native genetics.

Maybe not, but the vast majority of fenced in properties are much smaller than 10,000 contiguous acres. I've hunted a 1,600 acre property that was a petting zoo. Never seen that in the wild...

only way deer on 1600 acres were tame was they were bottle raised in small pens and released on the 1600.

My opinion is you would be very dissapointed

You might grow some decent 8 pointers. I think Alabama deer have a lot more potential than we give them credit for but nothing like what you would want if you went to the expense to high fence a place.


1600 acres ain't crap. I've seen cow pastures that were 2 squares with no cross fence. I could run around that for my morning workout. It's a big pen but it's still a pen at that size. Having been on several places I would say you need 3,000+ before the deer are skittish of human scent scared of the truck and/or run from humans snorting and carrying on. Minimum.

I'm not knocking it there are just not many operations that big... and why I have no interest in hunting on a smaller one.

I would say the vast majority of the high fenced areas I've seen in Alabama are 300-600 acres. Some as small as 40 acres and a few that were over a 1000 acres.

I disagree. I mean yeah you wouldn't get the 200+" freaks that you see advertised on the fenced hunts. But a lot of Alabama deer could be pretty nice if they weren't gunned down as 2 year olds and had access to decent nutrition.

You're right.

Southern Falls (Peavy's place) is a good example of native AL deer fenced in and allowed to grow. They kill some really nice deer, but nothing I've seen would I call "monsters."

Theys a difference between deer breeders high fence operation and extreme wildlife and or trophy management...most folks cant afford the fence much less the land to put it around...if you could afford 10k acres...and a high fence around it...and you could afford to control most all property and wildlife management aspects to keep the land in pristine condition...you could slowly control invasive species, reestablish native grasses, have an effective burn rotation with well maintained fire breaks...i mean,..why not? Grid the property off and really focus and take time to improve the animals social structure and give them what they need to flourish...and not to mention serious high volume predator control...and attempt to stand a decent chance of keepin douche bags from raping and pillaging land illegally. Yes you could do all this without a fence but after you spent all that time and money...why would you want to throw it all away so your redkneck neighbor billy joe bob shoot the first spike i see guy...SHOOTS THE FIRST SPIKE HE SEES!!....im poh tho...so my argument is worthless....i will say that ive seent the above work extremely well in texas...and by george them deer was wild down there...they just really like corn....you better have some deep pockets tho..and a few millyuns want cut it...you gon need lotsa millyuns..dilly dilly

I read an article years ago about Texas deer management. One of the owners said their operating costs were $75-85 per acre. This was several years ago...

I get to hunt a 5000 acre low fence place near Laredo and a 2700 acre high fence near Freer. Neither is a guarantee, but I get an invite most years to one or the other.

Neither have stocked deer, just supplemental protein and corn for the natives.

I have not seen any variance in the behavior of the deer between the high and low fence places. If you make noise, they haul boogie away from you, and you hunt with the blind windows closed if temps will allow. Both try to have the blinds at least 150 yards from the feeder pen, further if possible.

that number would be low for most places now i think...its rediculous what some people are willing to pay for pine goats an them squigly things comin outah their head...id personally rather live like a pirate in the carribean an catch yahoos an melrlins

I hunted a lot in the midwest and Canada earlier in my life, and have some really big bucks on the wall as a result. I now have zero interest in doing it anymore.

I get a lot more satisfaction in killing good bucks off of and managing my own property, or our club's property...something I had a hand in.

Agree with your disagreement, a lot of no fence large acreage places kill 150”+ deer every year, just from low pressure and selective shooting

Of course there are going to be a few deer that would be decent, thats not really what I meant. We have some pretty decent deer on our lease with very little pressure but have a the few that are killed that barely make our minimum but are aged at 4 to 5 years old. I guess it would be interesting if the money were no issue. If I had that kind of money I would buy a couple of farms in Kansas and Iowa though.

This is why I have my 5000 acres high fenced in.
Killed off half the native deer then imported 100 deer from Iowa, 100 from Illinois, 100 from Kansas and 100 from Alberta.