Hi Big Five,
Where do you hunt? If "That's just not hunting" like you said, show me one place without fences in USA, South Africa, Canada, Mexico, Spain, Russia or Namibia? Botswana and Zimbabwe, may be...
Danilo
Gentlemen you are waging a loosing battle here. There’s one thing sure, you will never get through to anyone with facts whose mind is already made up! The boy says he is LEARNING, but his reluctance to see facts here doesn’t bear that idea out to me.
It is my opinion that Danilocf is not only misinformed but is a child as well, and getting through to him is like, as someone said earlier, banging you head against a brick wall. This young man has some citified ideas as to what hunting is all about, and equates hunting with money and shooting. What he is leaving out is the HUNTING part! The concept of HUNTING is as foreign to him as if he were from MARS.
In the first place I have never seen a LODGE in anything but a high fenced game farm hunting area, or a national park, and it is quite evident he has never been in a wild hunting area without a high fence. Has never actually tracked a lion, or he would know that they are not that easy to approach, and can lead you on a merry chase for days, and still out distance you, never giving you a glimpse much less a shot.
There are some things mentioned about high fenced operations that are true and that experienced hunter say is not true! One is the fact that those who choose to TAKE/BUY a lion ( I don’t call it hunting) in a fenced in enclosure are at least not taking wild lions from the bush where proper lion hunting takes place. That much is a plus! Another fact is, because these lions in enclosures have little fear of people, once wounded have no hesitation in charging you because they know that can’t escape. So this lion shooting can be dangerous, and not only because the lion is not afraid of people, but because the people who engage in that type of lion shooting, are generally very inexperienced, and not only the paying client, but the so-called PHs as well.
Some animals are OK in high fenced areas that are larger than their natural range, like Impala or many of the antelope that don’t migrate but live their whole lives in a HOME RANGE. Whitetail deer are an example, of a non-migrating animal. The whitetail deer lives and dies within one mile of his birth place in low land habitat, and only move up and down in altitude in country where the mountains get deep under snow in winter, so they have to go to winter pasture, and back up the mountain in summer!
Animals like lion Cape buffalo, elephant, and the migrating things like zebra, wildebeest, who follow the rains, Or Elk and Moose in North America should never be shot behind fence. Of course there is a case where the fence doesn’t matter as long as it doesn’t hinder the animal’s natural habits at all. A good example of this is hunting on islands where the fence is the shoreline, and is as effective as any man made fence ever built.
Nobody I know thinks coastal Brown bears on off shore islands are not fair chase, while they are as effectively fenced in as if in a very large cage. Everyone always brings up SA and Texas when these things are posted, and as others have said here, if you ain’t hunted the whole place you simply don’t know what you are talking about. The general idea is that TEXAS is nothing but HIGH FENCE HUNTING, and that is certainly not the case. There are a few high fence ranches in Texas, but I would say there is less that 200,000 acres under high fence in Texas out of a state that is larger that than the whole country of Zambia, or Zimbabwe, 252 counties, some of which are bigger than some countries, and a piece of land that is 1000 miles across in any direction you want to cross it, and 92 % of the state is privately owned. I’ve hunted all my life in Texas and I’ve never hunted but one time in a high fenced property, and that was simply a cull meat hunt to fill the freezer not a sport hunt. Almost all private property in Texas and most western states is fenced, but 99% of it is low cattle fencing that doesn’t hinder game animals at all.
So as others have already said if the Money, high fence and guarantees, are what you are about have at it, but if you want to HUNT, especially dangerous game in Africa get the hell out of most of RSA, and get into the large hunting areas where you will get a safari, rather than a drive in a park, and a so-called trophy for your money.
