Sort of hunting

[Nehunter88]

A lot of people like to go to the high fence hunting ranches to hunt various animals including rams. I've never really understood wanting to do that, but then I've never lived in the big city with no places to hunt.

Anyway I don't hunt rams, but I do raise them for other people to hunt. These are my breeder rams. The one on the left is 1 1/2 years old, the one in the middle 2 1/2, the one on the right 3 1/2. The one on the left is the fastest grower as far as horns are concerned.

 

[Deer&Ducks]

Those are beautiful animals.

On another front, you raise an interesting philosophical point. I would also never "hunt" an enclosed animal, but like you, I have access. Would I think differently if I had didn't? And, does the size of the enclosure matter? What is fair chase and what's not? Is that also relative? How much different is this than someone who lives in the thick of it, and can simply shoot an animal off their back porch? Countless other questions based on perspective, to which there are probably no solid answers.

 

[Nehunter88]

Those are beautiful animals.

On another front, you raise an interesting philosophical point. I would also never "hunt" an enclosed animal, but like you, I have access. Would I think differently if I had didn't? And, does the size of the enclosure matter? What is fair chase and what's not? Is that also relative? How much different is this than someone who lives in the thick of it, and can simply shoot an animal off their back porch? Countless other questions based on perspective, to which there are probably no solid answers.

It is all in how you look at it. Many years ago each evening the deer would come up out of the river bottom and spread across the field on the bluff. About 30 minutes before sundown I'd take a folding chair and sit behind the snow fence on the north side of my drive. I'd decide which doe I wanted and put some meat in the freezer. To me this was shooting or harvesting, not hunting. A few years later I was given permission to hunt the river bottom and then it became hunting.

I can see someone who grew up hunting, but now lives in the big city. He would love to have his son or daughter get a chance to see what hunting is like, but he has no outlet. Some ranches will buy rams smaller than the ones in the picture for maybe $300, and offer them on a hunt for $500 or $600. Here is where a dad may take a 10 or 12 year old for a hunt. At that age the kid probably wouldn't know if the ram was in 100 acres or 1,000 acres, they'll just know they shot a ram.

As I said it's not something I'd want to do, but I do understand why some do it, and I'm glad to raise the rams for them. There's nothing like this time of year when fall is almost here, we have some cool mornings, and you lay in bed and hear the crack of horns with two rams fighting. Of course then you get worried someone is going to get their neck broke and you're going to lose a high priced ram, lol.

 

[Bean]

 

[Bean]

I elk hunted in Colorado and Nebraska and have never seen a bull of this size (7 x 7)!

 

[Bean]