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JerryBobCo
Posts: 8,227 Senior Member
How much would you pay to shoot (and keep) a red deer hind?
JerryBobCo
Posts: 8,227 Senior Member
For those who don't know, a hind is what they call a female red deer.
I went to a dinner last week. There was a guest speaker who made a presentation about a high fence deer "farm" he has. The farm is not far from here, and has some truly awesome whitetail bucks on it. He had the skull and antlers of one that he found dead. It was amazingly huge. And, according to him, it was the 3rd largest buck on his property.
But, I digress.
He also has some red deer, including at least one really nice stag. He doesn't like them, though, as they eat a lot and are mean. So, I asked him how much he would charge me to shoot one of the hinds. I have been told that red deer meat is excellent, and thought it might be a good way to get reasonably priced meat.
As was the case in my bison adventure, I was wrong. He wanted $1000 to shoot one. A big hind might tip the scales at 400 lbs., if that much, so I lost interest.
FWIW, I don't fault the guy for his asking price. He spends about $5-6K a year in feed and food plots and that will probably double this year. He does sell some of his bucks for a phenomenal fee ($25kish). By sell, I mean lets "hunters" in to shoot them inside a 202 acre high fence property. I think he also said he is trying to sell one of the red deer stags for about $25k.
I went to a dinner last week. There was a guest speaker who made a presentation about a high fence deer "farm" he has. The farm is not far from here, and has some truly awesome whitetail bucks on it. He had the skull and antlers of one that he found dead. It was amazingly huge. And, according to him, it was the 3rd largest buck on his property.
But, I digress.
He also has some red deer, including at least one really nice stag. He doesn't like them, though, as they eat a lot and are mean. So, I asked him how much he would charge me to shoot one of the hinds. I have been told that red deer meat is excellent, and thought it might be a good way to get reasonably priced meat.
As was the case in my bison adventure, I was wrong. He wanted $1000 to shoot one. A big hind might tip the scales at 400 lbs., if that much, so I lost interest.
FWIW, I don't fault the guy for his asking price. He spends about $5-6K a year in feed and food plots and that will probably double this year. He does sell some of his bucks for a phenomenal fee ($25kish). By sell, I mean lets "hunters" in to shoot them inside a 202 acre high fence property. I think he also said he is trying to sell one of the red deer stags for about $25k.
Jerry
Gun control laws make about as much sense as taking ex-lax to cure a cough.
Gun control laws make about as much sense as taking ex-lax to cure a cough.
Replies
Freakin' Greedy A Hole! That's what some of the farmers around here will tell you about hogs. They bitch and complain about hogs but then when you offer to help them with their problem they want you to fork over money.
Son that's somebody with nothing to do with his time but keep me in trouble with mom.
I lived outside of Fort Worth from 1986 to 1994 and hogs were just starting to show up just west around Weatherford and ranchers thought that they could get big bucks for letting people hunt them but they wanted quit a few hundred dollars per pig. They had few takers for that price and now pigs are everywhere around west Fort Worth and rooting up yards and gardens.
There are LOTS of people that have inherited money, not all of them are CEO's or successful business people, and there are plenty of people that have made money and pissed it away, stupidity crosses all cultural and socioeconomic boundaries.
Well said! It's not stupid if you have the means. You're paying for a lot more than just the animal. But of course that's a different case than wanting to shoot a few menacing pestulant pigs while at the same time helping a rancher rid his land of the pests. That shouldn't cost you money, that should be a win-win for both you and the land owner.
Also, in the case Jerry mentioned, the guy said he didn't like the red deer. He sounded as though he viewed them as pests. In that case he IS a greedy A Hole because he wants his cake and eat it too. Screw him. I hope the pigs and red deer take his land over and run all the white tail off.
Son that's somebody with nothing to do with his time but keep me in trouble with mom.
:roll:
Jerry
This is total BS. I don't care how much money you have, there's no way you'll get your trophy mount in a few weeks. :jester:
Gun control laws make about as much sense as taking ex-lax to cure a cough.
The time consuming part of creating a mount is tanning the cape. The only taxidermist I have ever used would prepare the cape, and send it off for tanning. This usually took several months. The taxidermist you have mentioned must have a ready supply of tanned capes, or know of some super fast way to tan them.
The cape on the elk in my avatar came from one that the taxidermist already had. I cut the cape to short, so they had to use a different one. It had been kept frozen, but I don't know if it had already been fleshed, or whatever they call it. It still took about 4 months, and some of the people I knew thought that was a fast turnaround.
And that's about all I know about taxidermy.
Gun control laws make about as much sense as taking ex-lax to cure a cough.
I am am not one of those "some".
I am not even willing to pay $1K for a red deer hind. So, I might screw your results.
There are many varying levels of stupid.
Paying $25K for a Red Deer Stag off of that ranch is likely stupid. Not saying it's wrong. But, it IS stupid.
I looked into this a few years ago, and I believe it is not legal to sell USA elk meat.
D
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.... now who's bringing the hot wings? :jester:
I have seen a number of their bucks through the fence and there is nothing normal about them..... they're freaks, monstrous non-typical antlers you would rarely, if ever, see in nature.
The turkeys as far as I know are local birds that fly over the fence to their feeders...that I can shoot outside the fence for a little bit of nothing.
It would be a cold day in hell before I would pay that kind of money for a musty old rutting buck..
I think that's becoming a growing business as two high fence places like that opened up about thirty minutes from my old lease. There's even some places now that sell deer with those kinda genes that you can release on your property or they will capture (dart) a doe from your property and impregnate it with sperm from one of those bucks and release it back on your property.
A lot of truth in this statement. Five years ago my gun collection was over the top with many custom rifles that I didn't mind paying $2500 to $3800 over the years. I've downsized it a lot since then. I can look at some of my friends and FIL's golf clubs and think are you nuts spending that kind of money on those things. Same thing they might think of my rifle collection or my custom turkey call collection...are you nuts Folks who are successful in life enjoy the ability to travel, collect fine wines and what have you and invest their money into things they're passionate about.
There are once in lifetime hunts out there such as one or all of the big 5 in Africa, trophy Red Stag in New Zealand a Grizzly or big horn sheep in hunt in Alaska or some type of mutant whitetail hunt. Some of these critters fetch up to $25K for the hunt. Too much for this poor dumb educated country boy to pay, but lord knows I'd love to go on a couple of them.
I see it as most folks splurge on things they're passionate about that are within their means and budgets rich or poor. We can step back and say that's nuts, just as someone else could say the same about our passions. If you're wealthy and have the the means I say go for it, no different than what I do on my budget!
John 3: 1-21
I've obviously never been on such a hunt, but everything I know about them is that they're truly fair chase. But, the hunters typically have nice living quarters, good food prepared by someone other than themselves, a professional hunter who knows the game and territory, and expert native trackers. Is it stupid to pony up whatever that costs?
I know that some of our members have made such hunts, and might take exception to this response, but there's all levels of what some consider acceptable and not.
The closest I've come to a guided anything is a couple or three guided fishing trips on a local river that last a day or half day. I did it more to learn than anything else. But, I don't consider those who have been on guided hunts of any kind as stupid. I'm not even going to guess as to their penis size. I'll leave that to Chris.
Gun control laws make about as much sense as taking ex-lax to cure a cough.
My buddy has been twice to Africa hunting. Our kids we're younger and I couldn't afford to go. Yes, the airfares can be pricey but the main issue is staying off of the trigger. he said you need to go with X kinds of animals to shoot be it a wildebeest, types of plains antelopes or what have you and stick with it. Most hunts run in the $2K range for a given number of plains animals. But then your guide catches you in the moment where they see a huge wart hog. They say he's only $450, then you see a hyena and they say he's only $400. My buddy said most of the hunters who were planning on $2 or $3K hunts spend $5 to $7k because they couldn't stay off of the trigger. Next is the taxidermy of the animals which isn't that bad price wise. However it will cost you 1.5 to 2 times the cost of the taxidermy animal to ship back to the US. My buddies shipping cost from his last trip exceeded $3K.
His advice for an African plains hunt is to budget $10K and you'll have the time of your life and trophies to bring home. BTW a cape buffalo hunt is around $15K to $20K plus trophy fees for a 10 day hunt. Elephants can fetch $20 to $25K plus trophy fees. It's a rich mans hunt!
John 3: 1-21
That's not as bad as I thought. I know places in Colorado that charge $7500 to $12,500 and up for a guided elk hunt. Plains mule deer hunts can run $8k, and even antelope hunts can cost around $2k. That doesn't cover the cost of non-resident licenses, which can run around $500 per species.
Ever hunt I've ever made has been a DIY affair, even though I've paid what I considered hefty trespass fees (when I lived in Texas years ago). Hunting in Utah and Colorado on public land only cost whatever a license cost, but I usually had to deal with a lot of other hunters. I found that land owners on the eastern plains of Colorado welcomed antelope hunters. The most I ever paid was a bottle of Jack Daniels.
As for the trophy shipping cost, I learned the hard way how much that can be. When we moved from Colorado, and were getting moving quotes, I was getting quotes as high as $2k just to crate the elk mount in my avatar. I ended up building one myself for about 1/10th of that. It also contains my antelope mount and a bunch of antler mounts. Now all I have to do is open the crate and rehang the mounts. Hanging an elk mount is not a 1 man job.
Gun control laws make about as much sense as taking ex-lax to cure a cough.
As to rich people not being stupid? I agree. Contrary to popular opinion a wide majority of rich people didnt inherit their wealth, they worked for it. Though they are as ignorant, sometimes more so, as anyone else about things not in their purview. Sometimes being really good at something makes one think that they are good at everything. In the high fence hunt scenario, it would take that kind of ignorance to even consider a altered buck that was spoon fed to you a trophy to be proud of. Not even the same as being proud of a new Ferrari siting next to a Lamborghini. At least one earns those.
I worked for a guy that had a bible under glass in his home. If auctioned, it would likely go for enough to buy and sell everyone here, and he EARNED every dime he had. That didnt make him the be all to end all in decision making in any other aspect except in his business.
You don't know much about game ranching operations if you think that it's shooting animals in a cage. At least on the ones I know about, it's a couple hundred acres to each 'cage' with lots of thick cover and varying terrain inside them- abnd without the guide you won't see jack. My best friend worked as a guide on a few of the really big ranches in Texas (was actually Dale Earnhardt's guide on 3 hunts), and I have been on a doe cull on one of the ranches. When you see one in a real cage, it's usually for breeding purposes, or for selling the animal to another ranch.
And yes- there are big companies that do big hunts and invite clients to go on hunts (with celebrities like the above mentioned stock car driver) where the big company (Budweiser in this case) paid for people to get the chance to hunt once in a lifetime whitetail deer and exotic african animals. It's a big business.
Neat fact- there are more Nilgai antilope in Texas then there are in it's native africa. Before the game ranches in TX got interested in the nilgai, it was endangered, and on its way to extinction. Some ranches bought some breeding stock from zoos, and brought the "turkey bearded devil cows" off the endangered list and made them a huge moneymaker here.
Would I pay to go shoot an animal on a game ranch? Maybe. I don't need to at this point, but I would sure as hell go to one here for exotics before I would go to Africa to shoot a safari animal. Close to home, no weird laws on guns, i actually get the meat off of MY animal, and not leaving the US where the chances of getting thrown in a 3rd world jail or kidnapped for ransom.
-Mikhail Kalashnikov
Oh well, at least you made one post without making a comment about penis size.
Gun control laws make about as much sense as taking ex-lax to cure a cough.
Yep. You don't know how the game ranches work.
-Mikhail Kalashnikov
Like I said earlier, it's a rich mans game to hunt some of these places. Though not all of these ranches are this expensive, there's ranches to fit most every budget out there! i've got a buddy who charges $100 a day to hog hunt on his place, he wants the hogs gone but enjoys making a few bucks out it. Exoctic's can be relatively cheap to hunt depending on the animal. All comes down to wants and needs and if you can afford it.
John 3: 1-21
The only one I have ever been to was the one that had the pigs. The pigs were in a pen, a HUGE pen so the odds were pretty good of getting one, but not 100% and you did work for it. The exotics on the other hand were in a pasture, and it wasnt a huge pasture. The guide said it was pay (a lot), get driven to the critter, shoot, then they take care of the carcass. Drive within 30 yards of a buffalo, shoot it, watch it fall, get driven back to the lodge.
Theres a skeeter on my peter knock it off
Theres a dozen on my cousin you can hear them ......ers buzzin
Theres a skeeter on my peter knock it off
One of those things you learn at 8y/o and never forget.
I grew up in the middle of hundreds of game ranches- some of them world famous (my sister managed part of the YO Ranch in Mountain Home, TX, my buddy worked at a few including the 777 in Hondo, TZ). Never heard of such a thing- what you mentioned is just not done. I'm surprised anyone would pay for such a thing.
Now, I have heard of pig eradication programs where they trap the pigs into a portable corral and then gun them down, donate what meat they can, and feed the buzzards the rest. But that's not something that anyone would pay a guiding fee for.
-Mikhail Kalashnikov
I have never heard of any ranches or outfits like you described in the great state of Texas. My buddy who charges $100 a day to hunt has 515 acres in Palo Pinto county. Lots of thick cedars but some very open areas. He tells folks it's a fair chase hunt and no guarantees to see, shoot or kill anything. He told me he has about a 65% success rate depending on how the weather goes.
Can you name a few of the ones you've been to? I heard horror stories about some of the buffalo hunts in WY that they were a drive up and shoot. My buffalo hunt was on 18000 acres and I worked my rear end off to get my shot. No animals in pens. Not saying those pen hunt places don't exist but I've never heard or seen any of them and never heard of one in Texas.
John 3: 1-21
Linefinder and I did one of those drive up and shoot buffalo outings in southern Colorado. As I've said before, I did it mostly for the meat, and have never made any pretense of it being a hunt. I also wanted to see how my 338x284 performed. At 30 yards on a 600-700 lb. cow, it did ok.
I never had any desire to do another one, though. For one thing, it did not produce cheap meat, and I discovered that eating bison gets olds after a while.
I wouldn't call it a horror story, but I definitely wouldn't call it a hunt, either.
The same landowner who did the shoot had another pasture with some free ranging bulls. He claimed that taking one of those was much more of a challenge, and by no means a sure thing. I wouldn't want to do that, either.
Gun control laws make about as much sense as taking ex-lax to cure a cough.
If I paid $1K, I would want the entire deer, not just the hind.