Big Buck Canned Hunts (2024)

I here people complaining all the time about so called canned hunts on private ranches, where they take you to a feeder and put you in a stand, where you watch Bucks come in and out to a feeder all day until you find the one you want to shoot.

I agree that ,it ain't REALLY hunting, but does ANYONE really pay $1500.00 to $2500.00 with the expectation of stumbling around on a private game ranch HOPING they will see something?

That's what we have to do here in Southeastern Oklahoma. If I really want to just hang a big rack on the wall, then you pay your money and go on a canned hunt right?

is 1500 or 2500 alot of money anymore? have you seen what they want in Manitoba to sit in an unheated box all day?

Tha fact is we as a society of hunters have begun to place a great value on a big horned buck. This great value is reflected by the price people are willing to pay for a big buck.

There are few people that actually know how to hunt a deer. We can sit over feeders, find a rub line, or a funnel. Go out on a ranch and actually find and pursue one buck? No one I know.

The common usage of "canned hunt" is not the same as sitting in a stand near a feeder. A canned hunt is where the animal is so constrained that no element of fair chase is involved. Confinement in a small area that is surrounded by a high fence, for instance.

Hunting from a stand takes less skill than still-hunting on foot through brush or woods, but it's still fair. It's no different from a mountain lion's ambush near food or water...

Art

In most states, hunting from a stand near a feeder is called baiting and is frowned upon. So many people wet themselves over being able to say "I shot a ten pointer" or what ever that this type of shooting is becoming more and more prevalent. I think it stinks.

In my state of Minnesota, if you plant foodplots that will benefit the animals all year long, then you may hunt over it. If you just place food or mineral/salt with the intent of luring a deer, then you are baiting. Shooting over a feeder is not hunting it is culling. big difference.

If I really want to just hang a big rack on the wall, then you pay your money and go on a canned hunt right?

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Don't give in to the ad-man on that one! If you're going to drop that kind of cash get a bow or a muzzleloader, and if you must, out of state lisences. Odds are actually against you that way.

Different states have different rules. And, it's pretty much a deal of, "You hunt your way; I'll hunt my way. If you're happy with your way, I'm happy for you."

Face it: With an urban society, there's no way that all hunters can learn and develop the skills that rural folks have. They don't have the time or opportunity. I'd rather see a guy sitting in a stand than sitting in an office dreaming about being out hunting--regardless of how it's done.

I've always been a long-haul walking hunter in my desert. Ten and more miles a day--but those days are gone. I hurt too bad to do that anymore. While I take pride in the kills I've made, I'm not gonna run my mouth against some guy who's happy that he managed to kill a good buck while sitting in a stand. He's doing the best he can with what he knows how to do. I've never seen the point in raining on some other guy's parade.

Art

There was a thread a week or so ago about what your definition of hunting is. I think the definition came down to pursuing an animal with the intent of bagging it.

I personally find canned hunts disgusting, as there is no skill involved in locating, trailing, or pursuing the game. Therefore, it is not hunting, it is shooting, an execution, or slaughter. Apparently SCI and B&C feel the same way, because they don't allow canned hunt trophies into the books, has to be fair chase (meaning the animal had a chance to escape).

What about stand hunting? While it's not exactly pursuing the animal, there is some level of skill or artifice involved. I'm sure stand hunters don't get one every day, so there is at least the chance for the animal to outwit or outmaneuver the hunter. So I would say it's hunting.

Coursing, trailing with dogs, ambushes, stand, still hunting, etc, all involve some skill, physical prowess, stealth, or whatever outdoor skill is needed to bring the animal down. If you agree with the type of hunting, do it and enjoy it. If you don't agree with it but it still meets the criteria for hunting, let someone else enjoy it. If it isn't hunting, then don't do it.

I once worked with a person who told me the details of his bear hunt.

He sat in his hotel room drinking beer and watching television until about 2 or 3 hours before sunset...he then drove to his tree stand, climbed up to the stand, previously placed there by a hunting guide, and when the bear came by around dusk to eat out of the same bucket that had been baited every day for several weeks...he shot it with a Marlin 444. End of "Bear Hunt".

It was fairly amusing to hear him tell other people about the bear he shot, ie, how big it was, etc. Without saying exactly how it was done. He went into detail with me because we were friends. He had the reputation as a great hunter.

I don't have anything against people that do this type of hunting. It is not something that I would do. You can call it harvesting game or what ever you want...it just does not seem fair to the animal. JMO

"The times, they are a-changing."

I live in a tourism area, but it's way away from most anywhere, there at the west side of Big Bend National Park. What I've regularly heard is complaints about the length of time it takes to drive there, since the nearest air service is 250 miles away: "I just don't have the TIME!"

So it is with many who work long hours in cities. They don't have the time to do the old-days style of getting a season lease and spending several weekends or three- or four-day hunt sessions. But they have money.

So, as ever, where there's a market, somebody's gonna fill that need.

Most of us here at this particular forum aren't of that general group. We spend more time studying the subject of hunting, and make hunting time a priority. We're a whole different deal.

Their style ain't my style, so I just mostly ignore it. As I said before, better they're at least out seeing the "wild" than sitting in that office, dreaming.

Art

I've been told that there's a landowner down in Kiowa or Comanche Co., Okla, that has a big elk herd on his 4500 acres (that escaped from the adjoining wildlife refuge), and he only charges about $4,000 to guarantee a shot at a BIG bull elk, and only about $800 for a shot at a cow. Now it's seeming like a good deal compared to a $6,500 trophy deer.

[P.S. In Okla., it is legal to hunt elk in Kiowa, Comanche, & Caddo Counties provided you have a tag. The only way to get a tag is to get written landowner permission. So the landowners with elk on their land charge whatever the market bears for this permission. But these are true free range elk at this point - now that they have escaped the wildlife refuge. I think there are like 4-6 archery days and 3 or 4 gun days each year, for these 'feral elk'.]

Its simply american capitalism. while i dont think its "sportsmanlike" i guess if you want to blow the dough who cares? here in SD there is onyl one canned hunting ranch and they raise thier own animals and are perodically inspected by anuimal health officals and all shooters are reuired to have a tag.

SW

Trophy hunting has always been a RICH man's sport. In past centuries, the Kings owned ALL the land and would kill anyone found poaching. In the last century, Teddy Roosevelt, hunted all over the world for trophies.

It's still pretty much the same way now, only a little more wide-spread, with more people having enough money to do it.
I'm not someone who cares enough to pay for a big rack, but I don't have a problem with anyone who does. Just not my cup of tea.

Besides, you can't cook the rack long enough to get it tender.

Ah thats not hunting unless you break a sweat or get frost bite on several appendages or both its not really hunting. In my eyes theres a big difference between shooting and hunting and killing something in a fence that it cant jump is shooting.

If youve got money spend it on good hunting accessories and go do it. For the price of one trophy buck on a canned hunt you could go buy an old beater chevy 4X4 and do some real hunting outside the fence.

I think the " no TIME" issue is an excuse. For almost everyone in the USA< with 5 hours of their location there is real wild game hunting. I am positive that within 8 hours there is for all. driving time, not flying.

People are lost without hot showers, motel hunts, just walking out and learning a bit about what is going on.

Any one disagree?