This article was originally written as response to a post on an internet message board asking for people's thoughts on canned hunts.  I've expanded on my post a little bit and added it to this section of the website.  Written on 5/17/2004.

"Canned hunts" are an interesting thing to consider.

In general, all of my hunting is as real as it gets, in the unfenced wilderness. This is my preference.

I've taken two canned hunts in my life. The first was a quail/pheasant hunt at a large preserve in South Carolina. Honestly, it was a great hunt, and the only difference from the real thing was that we knew we were going home with birds.

The birds flew well, unlike many pen-raised quail. According to the guides, the birds were "flight trained", and they acted the part. We had to work to get 'em.

I took that hunt with the full knowledge that it was probably the only time I'd ever get to hunt behind dogs. Folks around here don't do much quail hunting any more, but it sure always looked like a lot of fun to me. And now I've got a beautiful pheasant mount on my wall that I'd probably never have had without this trip, and some great memories of my hunt. I'd go back to this preserve in a split second to hunt again.

My boar, shot back in January, was taken in a fenced in area. The place was in Taylorsville, NC, and the fenced in area was over 2 miles of land. It was just as exciting as a "real" hunt would have been, and again, I got a freezer full of delicious meat out of it.

On deer, I'm pretty lucky. I'm in two hunting clubs and get 30 days off of work a year, so I've got plenty of time to go hunting. My wife's father and her uncle each have 125 acres that I also have access to. Given my situation, I wouldn't go on a canned deer hunt. However, I've also thought that if my leases fell through and I had nowhere left to hunt, I'd take a canned deer hunt just to avoid having to go a year without venison.

Ten years ago I would have sneered at the thought of a canned hunt. Today, I'll take the real thing when I can get it, which is most of the time, and will go with the canned when I can't.