Thoughts on baiting

[grizzly63]

What irritates me is the inability of people to play by the rules. In areas where baiting is prohibited, it only takes one jackwad cheating every two miles or so to ruin the public hunting of the people who really try to do things right. Places like National forest interspaced with houses. Most people are good and for some reason the bad ones do not have a conscious or they just look for the easy way. Sorry, just a pet peeve of mine. If you cant put in the time and effort to do it right, stay home.

 

[LaSportsman]

I've hunted out West and in the South. For the spot and stalk crowd, that is never going to work as a method for whitetail in piney woods or oak bottoms so you can't compare. You need to hunt a stand or do a drive with people or dogs.

I prefer Western hunting and doubt I'll ever do much stand hunting again but that doesn't mean it's not the primary method for whitetail in parts of the country.

I'm against bait for CWD reasons but it's far from the slam dunk, not hunting portrayed here. Hunting high fence is a separate issue from hunting a baited area that isn't a ranch.

With hunting pressure, deer are still more likely to move at night regardless of when a feeder might broadcast corn.

 

[Mosquito]

Im kind of torn on the subject. When i first started my daughter i always had corn in the feeder . It was a great way to get a kid started , not only because of the deer but the Turkey's would always come in not to mention the squirrels birds . It was very rare not to have something around to look at. I once asked the game warden why the would allow baiting to be legal. His response is if you want to put all that money into harvesting a deer have at it .... he said your not only feeding deer but all the wildlife and the pros outweighed the cons. At about the age of 13 or 14 she really had it down and filled the freezer every year and was hooked. At that point she was able to use mobile treestands ( with me ) and there hasn't been corn in the feeder since.

 

[HighDesertSage]

We don’t bait deer in Iowa, we do deer drives. Lol!

And fill grandpa's tag, and grandma's tag, and the wife's tag, and the kid's tag, etc. lol

 

[noharleyyet]

 

[BirdManMike]

Not legal for me.

I have permission on a permanent tree stand overlooking a cut hay field that is a parade of both whitetail and mule deer every morning and evening the second half of the season - they come into the field at dusk and leave at day break. Nothing is ever a guarantee - if its too windy in the evening they may not come, or if there is a full moon over snow they may come before legal shooting light or leave after - but it is pretty dang close. Its possible to fill mutliple tags for multiple people in a single day quite easily - little difference from a pile of corn. I am 1 of 3 whitetail tags filled on my own property this season, but if I don't fill another (or 2) and am still elk-less the last week of the season, I wont feel bad in the least about sitting up in the stand for a morning or two.

 

[Bambistew]

Whatever makes you happy... All I can say, is if your conscience makes you feel ashamed, and you have to ask for justification... maybe follow your conscience?

What's legal and ethical is up to you. Personally I think spotting animals from the air is chickenshit, but Boone and Crockett thinks its ok as long as you don't target a specific animal. You have guys spotting a group of big rams (bulls etc) and then the biggest one dies... totally ethical and legal.

 

[tzone]

If you get real good at it.

You get a patch for your hunting coat. "Master-Baiter"

 

[tzone]

I don't have a problem with it if it's legal where you hunt.

I'd take that over having a dozen guys looking scouting for a "governors tag" or something like that.

 

[noharleyyet]

What’s the matter with baiting a couple hundred grand check with a gov tag? Dark green pickups with scary door emblems don’t buy themselves.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Are food plots baiting?

Kinda seems like it to me. Although, if spreading clover or rye seed over an acre of open ground creates better habitat, is that habitat improvement?

I'd likely never sit a bait pile. The disease issue as well as the ethical issues raised mean for me it's not a viable form of hunting. Can't stomach the thought of bear baiting, though some of the best sportsmen I know do it and love it. The issue of creating human food conditioned bears is too much for me to want to go down that route and it really doesn't seem like fair chase.

 

[Gellar]

And fill grandpa's tag, and grandma's tag, and the wife's tag, and the kid's tag, etc. lol

True story. It’s a party!

 

[thusby]

After spending years hunting timber country, hunting anywhere in farm country feels like baiting to me.

 

[jabber]

Could you consider hunting the rut, which most every one here would love to do, a form of baiting? Nah, probably not, that's why they give out so many tags for it.

 

[JFish]

Not legal where I’m at, and I’m not into it. My family has a place near a lot of game lands where people put out corn for deer just so they can see the deer, not for hunting. It’s kind of a touristy Air BNB type of devolopement where people from the city go to “be in the woods”. The deer flock to this place and are pretty domesticated. Quite a few big bucks walk around without a care and several will approach you to be fed by hand. I know not quite the same as baiting in the woods, but these deer quickly loose their “wildness” in my opinion. To add insult to injury the little one pictured greets me every time I’m unloading my archery equipment empty handed after hunting the game lands. As you can imagine, the public land surrounding this development is devoid of many deer. In my opinion baiting has a really strong effect on the patterns of wildlife and I’d be disappointed if it was allowed as a method for hunting in my state.

 

[thusby]

Not legal where I’m at, and I’m not into it. My family has a place near a lot of game lands where people put out corn for deer just so they can see the deer, not for hunting. It’s kind of a touristy Air BNB type of devolopement where people from the city go to “be in the woods”. The deer flock to this place and are pretty domesticated. Quite a few big bucks walk around without a care and several will approach you to be fed by hand. I know not quite the same as baiting in the woods, but these deer quickly loose their “wildness” in my opinion. To add insult to injury the little one pictured greets me every time I’m unloading my archery equipment empty handed after hunting the game lands. As you can imagine, the public land surrounding this development is devoid of many deer. In my opinion baiting has a really strong effect on the patterns of wildlife and I’d be disappointed if it was allowed as a method for hunting in my state.View attachment 160650View attachment 160651View attachment 160652

City folk make some sad game refuges wherever they buy property together.

 

[Gellar]

And fill grandpa's tag, and grandma's tag, and the wife's tag, and the kid's tag, etc. lol

I remember many years ago before I could hunt in the early 90s someone in the party would always get 2 or 3 or 4 bucks in a year. Sometimes those bucks would all be in a line going past a stander and he’d drop them all in a pile. Now our group of 15-20 doesn’t party hunt for bucks, but we do deer drives. They are very controlled much like a mooch Doug Duren talks about. If someone wants a doe for the freezer and they give you the ok it’s acceptable in our group to party hunt.

 

[np307]

I wonder how many here have actually hunted over bait. I know several people who only hunt over bait and it's not usually as simple as "harvesting." Sometimes it can be, I'll grant you that.

I've never hunted an area that's really consistently baited. We throw some corn out near stands on a hunting lease I'm on, but it's really more for trying to get the deer to stop in a shooting lane than to draw them into an area. Most of the time I hunt the game lands, which don't allow baiting. I enjoy figuring the deer out on their natural patterns. Plus, I'm way too cheap to put out that much corn.

 

[HighDesertSage]

I remember many years ago before I could hunt in the early 90s someone in the party would always get 2 or 3 or 4 bucks in a year. Sometimes those bucks would all be in a line going past a stander and he’d drop them all in a pile. Now our group of 15-20 doesn’t party hunt for bucks, but we do deer drives. They are very controlled much like a mooch Doug Duren talks about. If someone wants a doe for the freezer and they give you the ok it’s acceptable in our group to party hunt.

Yeah I had to do a double take in the regs when I read that this year. I never realized it was actually a thing.
Good luck to you this season.

 

[Islander]

It's not a coincidence that baiting/feeders are legal in states with flat land and thick forests. In open 3D terrain where spot and stalk works, baiting is generally illegal.

Without dogs or feeders it's tough to shoot deer where I live. Not a fan of dog hunts
(just not my preference; I have no problem with those who hunt this way) , but I'm happy to sit in front of a feeder.