Fair Chase?

[roy reali]

I spent most of this afternoon in the house. It is just too hot to go outside. I decided to watch some hunting shows.

I watched a few minutes of one show. They were bow hunting somewhere in the midwest. They kept talking about how all their hunts are fair chase. Then I saw the hunters in tree stands next to a planted food plot.

I ask, is that the definition of fair chase hunting?

How do you define fair chase hunting?

[lockedcj7]

Fair chase typically just means that there isn't a high fence keeping animals on the property. A ranch in TX might have 10,000 acres under lease, intensively manage for huge deer and still call their hunts "fair chase" as long as they don't have a high fence.

I don't consider a hunt to be "fair chase" unless the hunters are appropriately licensed and abide by all of the hunting seasons and regulations of the state and region they are in. They must be hunting wild animals that are free to roam on or off of the property. Pen-raised animals that are imported for the purpose of enhancing the genetics would need a few generations to be considered "wild" in my book.

If planting food plots and hunting from an elevated stand is legal in a particular area, why shouldn't a hunter use those techniques? Hunter success (and the number of licensed hunters) would drop like a rock if everyone was required to stalk or still hunt. As long as a technique is legal and accepted in a given region, I don't have a problem with it.

[TX Hunter]

If you want to find out who the real hunters are, go to the National Forrest, where you cant bait, and you have competition.
That to me is fair chase.

[roy reali]

As long as a technique is legal and accepted in a given region, I don't have a problem with it.

Legal and fair are not always the same thing. The way a mountain lion hunts is legal. But, they don't bait an area and hide in portable blinds.

Many states have special "muzzleloader" seasons. Some states allow scoped, in-line ignition rifles. Legal, but fair?

Then there is the word "chase". What sort of chase is there to hunting over bait from a tree stand?

[jgcoastie]

Anything that's legal and widely accepted to be "fair" in the locality, I'm all for it.

We need more younger kids in the woods hunting. I don't want to be the one that tells some 19 year-old that they're a horrible specimen of a human being if they don't stalk the deer to within 15 ft and put a hand-carved wooden arrow through the deer's heart with a longbow. Do you really think they'll pass down the tradition to their kids if you do that?

Using rifles is cheating is it not? If you really want to endorse "fair chase" then run the deer down on foot and beat it to death with a rock.

Anything more advanced than that is some form of "cheating"...

[sc928porsche]

Just make sure that the rock you use isnt too big, or that would be overkill and therefore not fair! NO MAGNUM ROCKS.

[Dannyl]

Hi,
This is what we consider fairchase hunting.
1. you hunt on foot.
2. no shooting on regular paths leading to water holes, and never within less than 500M of a water hole, preferably much further.
3. once you spot your quarry, stalk it and get close - to 100Meters or less. (giving it a chance to detect you), not just shooting from long distances.

Abiding by the laws it's just that, and sometimes it is not enough to make it fair-chase.

Brgds,

Danny

[Wisent]

Hello out there
in Germany we have two main rules guiding our way of hunting:

1.) The law

2.) The "Grundsätze der deutschen Waidgerechtigkeit" - which is rather difficult to translate. It means the principles of the rules that have been handed down from generation to generation building a code of ethics towards any animal resp. game.

Since Germany is a rather small country we very often hunt from tree stands because stalking is quite impossible. Land owners build communities and these communities lease the right to hunt to one or more hunters. In the majority of those leasing contracts it is fixed that the hunters have to pay for game bite, especially when it comes to hogs and roes but above all red deer and rabbits.

Hunting authorities fix a plan every year how many red deers and roes are to be hunted and so they try to achieve a kind of "game and wildlife management".

My father and I rented a hunting ground of 420 hectares, within 30 ha of wood, others were fallow lands and farm lands. On average we had to shoot 15 to 18 roes every season, hogs without any restriction, birds and hares according to the rules of Waidgerechtigkeit. We did not have red deers in our region.

Roe bucks' season is from May 1st to October 15th, does' season from September 1st, to January 31st. Fawns and yearlings have to make the majority in a hunting grounds shooting plan and if a hunting ground does not fulfill the shooting quote a the hunting authority imposes a rather high fine on the leaseholder.

The whole thing is a lot more complicated than I am able to explain; perhaps it is interesting that - before someone is allowed to hunt and own firearms he has to pass an examination which lasts three or four days and one has to be a hunter for at least three years before he is allowed to lease a hunting ground.

In 1985 the rent for our hunting ground was 10000,-- Deutsche Mark (about 5000.-- EURO) a year and you have to add the losses of game bite and the costs for feeding in hard winters and special fields hunters lease in addition where feeding plants and vegetables are cultivated to keep the game - especially roes and hogs - away from the farmland.

In Germany it is not allowed to hunt during the night (except hogs), using lamps and supressors and we must not use self loading rifles and shotguns with a capacity of more than two rounds.

It is not allowed to hunt with bows and it is very easy to lose the hunting license , e.g. a driving while under the influence of alcohol offense (over 0,8 %) - and if you lose your hunting license you lose the gun permit automatically. So you can very well imagine that only a very small number of hunters in Germany get in conflict with the said rules.

I know that in France and GB there are rules which are extremely different to the German ones but I think this is caused by history and culture.

The more or less silly gun laws in Germany are another subject with which one can fill pages of pages.....

Hope this was interesting for you and apologize for my English, but I think it is more than three years I tired to explain hunting in Germany using the English tongue.

Best respects

Wisent

[jmr40]

What is fair to you?

Hunting with dogs, using bait, hunting over food plots are all legal in some places and not in others. I don't care to hunt in any of those situations and choose not to do so.

I don't care for crossbows during archery season, but as long as it is legal, I won't be critical of others who choose to hunt differently than me.

[roy reali]

I have absolutely no problem with any type of legal hunting. It is of supernatural indifference to me as to which method is employed. I have hunted "pheasant clubs". I use the term hunt loosely in this situation.

These clubs are good to get practice for a rookie dog. Also, there are places in this country that the only way locals can hunt pheasants is at a club. But, I refuse to add the term "fair chase" to hunting planted birds that have to sometimes be kicked to take flight. This type of huntng is legal, but hardly fair.

I don't care if someone wants to place bait out and from a man-made cover shoot a large mammal. Just don't call it a fair chase hunt. That isn't fair.

[hardluk1]

No high fence, free to roam deer. Thats fair chase. People that get all worked up by putting out corn or planting special crops or even scents better think again . There's more wild game to be hunted now than even ten years ago and if you don't take advantage of a states laws completely, then you are missing out.

[shortwave]

What is fair to you?

FOOD PLOTS:
I hunt food plots: alfalfa,corn,clover,winter wheat,etc.(all farm fields).
Also when in the woods my food plot areas would be stands of oaks,beechs,hedgeapple(most hardwoods), honeysuckle, watering holes etc.

Guess my point is, there's 'food plots' that any successful hunter hunts whether the plot is in farmland or the big woods. We naturally want to hunt where the deer are going to be. That would be where game eats,drinks,beds and travel rts. to and from.

Soooo... if I hunt these natural food plots how can I look down my nose for someone hunting a trail leading to a corn pile or feeder?

HIGH FENCE:
I've never hunted high fence. Don't think it's for me.

I do know of a group of physically challenged people that are taken to a high fenced farm to hunt and I think thats just great.

HUNTING TOOLS:
Whats legal in your state.
Hunting deer/turkey with a bow has always been my fav. forms of hunting.
I'm thankful crossbow hunting is legal in Ohio since a spine injury some years ago enables me from pulling a bow.

These are a few of my opinions on 'fair chase' hunting. I think its important in a thread like this that we consider alot of things before answering, i.e. (again) physically challenged people, animals that may be causing severe distruction in different regions(hogs,wild dogs,anaconda's,python's, etc).

We may think hunting hogs with dog's is a terrible thing unless we're facing bankruptcy on our farm caused by massive distruction by hogs.

Problem's in my 'neck of the wood's' may be different than your's.

[roy reali]

Again, I have no problem with any hunting method. The term fair chase is what seems to be the problem. I have shot planted pheasants. I hate to use the term hunt with that, let alone adding the words fair chase.

I guess the term fair chase helps soothe some folks consciences.

[lockedcj7]

The problem is that you want the term "fair chase" to accurately describe what is happening and it doesn't. "Fair" is a subjective term and what's fair to one person is often shady to another. "Chase" is used here in a much broader sense. In the pursuit of happiness, we aren't physically running after something just like we aren't physically chasing game.

You might as well complain that "still hunting" isn't an accurate description either. "Fair chase" is the accepted term for a widely accepted set of practices but it doesn't precisely describe the situation.

[Art Eatman]

Thanks, Wisent. For sure, your English is far better than my German.

Look, folks, don't get hung up on this high fence stuff. A whitetail deer's normal life happens within about a section of land. 640 acres. A high-fenced pasture of several thousand acres is plenty of elbow room for any deer. And I don't know why it's so hard to understand that the purpose of the fence is to keep other deer OUT, not keep the managed deer IN. Improved pasture is an attractant in and of itself, and in a way you could call it baiting.

I have read reports from wildlife biologists of Texas Parks & Wildlife that deer have been found dead of thirst or starvation within a home area, when all that the deer needed to do to survive was travel a half-mile to a mile and find sustainable habitat.

Another thing: "Fair chase" derives in large part from local custom over time, and is influenced in large part by the game laws with which a person has become accustomed. Different places have different customs, and those may be in conflict with what you're used to. You're comfortable with your home turf's ways--but does that qualify you to judge how others do within their own legal structure? Remember, opinions are a two-way street. You may cling to some cherished opinion, while somebody else might think you're covered all over with stupid.

In nature, a wolf is a chasing killer. A panther is an ambush killer. Is the panther evil? "Unfair"? Does the fact that my preference for decades has been as a walking hunter mean I was then more noble and fair than nowadays when I can no longer walk and must play the sit-and-wait game? Should I quit hunting out of some issue of "fairness"?

IMO, there is no such thing as "One size fits all."

[TX Hunter]

Mr Eatman,
I do not feel like a Tall Fence is fair chase.
I refer to them as Penned Hunts.
And also, If I am not mistaken, a White Tail Deer taken from a Tall fence hunting area is not elgible for the Boone and Crocket record books.

[shortwave]

I guess the term fair chasehelps soothe some folks consciences

Where do we draw the line when talking about fairchase???

Is it 'fair' to use ANY KIND OF WEAPON?

Technically, a knife or spear give human's an 'unfair' advantage. Let alone a 50cal. Hawkin's capable of killing a deer at 100yds using a patched roundball OR a scoped high powered rifle capable of the same killing shot at say 800yds.
Is this 'unfair'?

Also, since we weren't born with camo, scentblocker, visual and hearing aids, deer scents etc., is using these devices 'unfair'?

Is climbing a tree,sitting on a natural limb versus attaching a man-made tree stand to the same tree cheating?

Is hunting a stand of hardwood's in a natural forest cheating?
We know wildlife has to eat and one of the main staples of wildlife is acorn's,beechnut's etc.

Is hunting farmland cheating(planted with alfalfa,soybean,turnips,corn,tobacco or whatever the fav. crop of a particular region is that wildlife love)?

Is hunting a small pond in a remote area of a deep woods during a drout with a long/compound bow and arrow's tipped with the latest, greatest razor broadheads cheating?
We know where the wildlife's going to be.


Do we have the right to chastise another hunter style of legal hunting when we go out with our camo,scents and use weapon's(of any kind other than our minds/ hands) to take wildlife?

Again,WHERE DO WE DRAW THE LINE???


This topic comes up from time to time and since it's 'an opinion' thread, always ends up having mixed replies and many times the thread gets locked due to alot of responders not thinking passed their own little world. Not considering,for instance, in some area's throughout the country, Dept. of Natural Resource's actually plant 'food plot's' for wildlife cause there's not enough natural forage to eat. This is state owned property and hunters are encouraged to hunt these area's. This has been done for the last 40yrs that I know of.

[roy reali]

Again, I have no problem with any kind of hunting with any type of weapon as long as it is legal. If I paid an outfitter to go on a fair chase hunt and he placed me in a blind near a "baited" area, I would be disappointed. If he sold me a baited hunt, then I would be fine.

I use every advantage I can when I hunt. I use rifles with scopes. If I do my part, I should be able to hit a deer-sze creature at least a couple of football fields away. Fair? Maybe!

Which of these two hunts would you consider more fair, more sporting if you will?

One guy uses a scoped rifle. He hunts by walking around the woods to find a deer and get into range.

Another guy uses a bow. He positions himself into a tree. Below him, at twenty yards is a pile of deer food. He waits until a deer gets the munchies to deliver his arrow.

Which one of those hunters is being more of a sport?

[shortwave]

One more thought:

Ohio is a 'non high power rifle' hunting state when it comes to deer hunting. For many years I often thought of the number of very large bucks I could have harvested had I had a weapon in my hands capable of a 300-400yd shot. Most shots in the area of Ohio I live and predominately hunt are a max. yardage of about 150yds(thats pushing it) due to the hilly terrain.

I've also watched the hunting shows filmed in mostly flatlands out West where high powered rifle's are a necessity. Watched one out of Texas where the people rode out in a pickup that had a platform in the truck bed that rose up by remote. Lady shot a nice buck at about 350yds. She was dressed in jeans and casual shirt, had about $10,000 worth of 'bling' on her fingers and around her neck, lipstick,make-up and no doubt her fav. perfume.

Having hunted both Eastern and Western types of terrain, I can understand both styles of hunting.

Don't come to Ohio ,dressed in all that bling/streetcloth's and expect to shoot deer during our bow season and don't go to Wyoming and expect to shoot deer in the flatlands with a smoothbore shotgun.

Different style's of hunting acceptable to those regions and neither is cheating.

I,ve also killed pheasant at a local game club where the pheasant's are released. Not my type of pheasant hunting but Ohio just can't seem to successfully re-establish our pheasant population due to not enough cover.
Shame cause years ago, as a kid, we would go rabbit hunting and usually limit out on pheasant also. Nothing I'd rather hunt anymore than birds. Bet some people out in the Dakota's/Iowa think this is horrible. That's ok. One day I'll take a trip out there where pheasants are plentiful.

[Dannyl]

Hi Roy,

I guess it must be really hot out there, to judge from your comments. you sound irritable and argumentative. you criticize other's opinions but do not give your view on the subject you raised.

I did not add to my list of "fair chase" rules that one must not bait animals in any manner, simply because we are discussing hunting, not plain shooting of animals.

A comment has been made about hunting within fenced areas and calling it "penned hunting". my answer is that to understand it you need to come to Africa.
As result of agricultural and urban development there are no significant quantities of animals that roam free to start with, and hunting (or any other shooting) on Government land will get you in jail for poaching.

Unfortunately there are places that do "canned hunting", particularly of Lions. (BTW, the clients who come to shoot at this places are all from places out of Africa...) the hunting and conservation bodies are doing our best to close these operations down through court action. I, and many otheres here support this financially, so I also put my money where my mouth is. we would probably be more succesfful if there were less wealthy people that would stoop down to shooting these lions just so that they can later lie to their friends and brag about it (sorry about the rant, but I feel very strongly about this issue).

The majority of game farms are well over 10000 Hectares, some are MUCH bigger (I hunt regularly in one that is over 27000 Hectares), and yes, they are fenced. Fencing of farms help keep the animals in, poachers out and in instances of outbreak of desease (right now Namibia is going through a bout of RIFT VALLEY FEVER) it makes it possible to isolate affected game.

While this may not sound as romantic as the stories from 150 years ago, this is Africa today, and when you pitch your skills against animals in such a vast area, the walking is as gruelling as it gets, and if you are determined to be fair then you stalk to 100M or less. should the animal spook, he has got several miles of bush to run in any direction.

IMO, (in addition to my previous post) being fair to the game also means practicing enough with whatever you are going to hunt with so that you are consitently proficient, learning enough anatomy to know how to reach the vitals from different angles, and being self-disciplined enough to hold back and not shoot unless you are confident that you will be able to hit the animal properly and ensure a swift death.
Being fair also means not shooting so late in the day that should you wound an animal you won't have enough time to track it.

And last, it also means using enough of whatever weapon you choose to snsure a swift death of your quarry; if it's a rifle or handgun the caliber and load should be suitable and if it's a bow then the power of the bow, weight of your arrows and quality of your tips should be adequate.

As for local laws, if you are breaking any of them then it is not hunting to begin with, more likely poaching.


In all your posts you pass a lot of criticism and sound very critical, could you perhaps tell us what you consider a fair-chase hunt?


Brgds,

Danny

[shortwave]

Which of these hunters are being more of a sport

Roy, I guarantee you if high powered rifle was legal in this state, there'd be many more mounts on these walls than there are.
There's one ridge top here I own that I've glassed many B&C bucks cruising the next ridge which is about 300yds out. There would be nothing easier than taking one of these bucks with a rifle. No scent,movement,wind direction etc to worry about. When bow hunting this area, you come back with empty pockets unless you worry about all these things listed. Then you'd better have some luck on your side.

IMO, in your scenario, the scoped rifle hunter has the edge. Believe me, if I had unlimited woods to hunt with a scoped rifle and could go to the deer, I wouldn't be sitting in my stand,calling,rattling and trying to get deer to come to me. I've hunted both ways.

[TX Hunter]

I stated that I didnt think a High Fence was fair chase.
I never said I wouldnt hunt behind one.

[Hammerstrike44]

I am an avid Whitetail and Muledeer hunter and you hit a nerve.

I'd like to get one of those TV bow hunters on my place and set him loose with the usual shooter rules. He have to walk to his blind because his pick-up, that's carrying his ATV would spook the deer. Hell, I'd have to go find him. He'd starve.

My 11 yr old son and I hunt my family ranch of 250 acres. 110 of that is hardwoods with a year-round creek running through the property. If hunting in ground blind, upwind, moving ground blinds when the wind changes, and hunting foggy mornings and days after moonless nights is not fair chase, I don't what is.

My 11 year old took a 16 1/2 inch between the main beams (9) point at 150 yrds as his first buck. (both the taxidermist and I told him is downhill from here, my first buck was a spike) He and I have taken both does and bucks off the property as we "manage" the deer by culling does with hip bones and saggy guts, and scubs (2 or 3 yr old spike or a deer with palmated horns, or older bucks who won't face off with another dominate buck).

We have two dominate bucks that mate up with those does and the hardwoods hold them in the area during the rut. Acorns and the plants they normally eat is the "feeder" we use.

I tried to shoot a 12 point who has been run off by the two larger dominate bucks at 300 yrds and instead of taking the time and doping my scope, he was moving and I just held it over about 2 inches and shot over his shoulder this last season.

We hunt the ridges of the creek bank where they make a (W) and get in the high middle. We don't hunt the pets who have $500 feeders spraying feed twice and day and are fed all year. Then one of those A**holes on TV fakes his stalk as he crashes through the brush and talks to the cameraman in a conversational tone. The show lasts 30 minutes and is just an edit of when they end their season 15 minutes after legal light in those Mid-West counties.

We take big bucks yearly because we let the two big "named" bucks pass those genetics along. I admit it's hard to watch a three year old big 8 walk by. Leave him alone and he'll be a wall hanger at 6 or 7. The only hunting pressure they get if from my son and I and there's not another set of heavy dense cover, or good natural food, for probably ten miles in any direction. The big dominant bucks are a big 140 class four year old name Big Boy, and a big 12 point (not the one I missed) 150 class five year old named Broad Shoulders. T

he buck my son took I first saw five years ago when he was a yearling 6 point. That's our "managment". I already have a blind, a Weatherby and Redfield Sportview that dials out to 1000 yards ( my rule is if you can't see him with the naked eye, you don't need to be glassing him). My scope is set for 500 only because I loaned it to my brother who is a Marine when we went Mule deer hunting in Sanderson, Texas. I'm not shooting that far.

The rifle I missed with was a Savage 270 with a Nikon Monarch. Yea, those bucks of Tecomate hunts are BS. Those deer are bred right here in Brazos County at Texas A&M University. I can buy a 170 class off his place every year, but he'd be the only one enjoying the $10-$15K he charges those city boys who need to hunt for a day or so and take home the buck of their life.

One my fellow attorneys hunts deer and ducks that way. He pays anywhere from $8 to $10k on his buck and waives the does and managment buck they offer for another 2500, and the free hog. He shoot a buck of a lifetime every year, hates venison, which is never offered to the guests at the Cazadores Ranch, and shoots the horns. I took him duck hunting for woodies and he was all complaints about how cold it was and got water in his "hip" waders. I told him we (my son, he and I) are hunting flooder timber, and no, there is no heated blind.

When we hunt the tank, we hunt out of a cammo webbed hole, the same hole we dug and clean out every year. My son usally limits out before I do because I have to call. Yea, fair chase is a sore one for me. It's either got to be one of the real funny hunting shows (Bonecollector) or have a very unique quarry (Africa and New Zealand) for me to stomach that crap.

[ZeroJunk]

Seems like everyone has some standard that they use to try and make hunting seem like a challenge. I don't know how to make killing a deer hard to do. I really don't need to leave my house, just put the window up. LOL, if you just go for the big bucks trying to add some difficulty to the deal somebody will accuse you of trophy hunting.

[grubbylabs]

I think every one should stop and think about what baiting is, a lure is a lure weather you use a natural water hole and ambush the animal or wait near a trail crossing, you are using some means of attracting that animal for the purpose of killing it. Un less you go out into the woods and look for tracks and then follow them till you find said critter you are the same as the rest of us. any thing you do other than that is baiting INMHO.

As far as the high fence goes, why should I care what some one does with an animal they bought. It is none of my concern.