Baiting Deer in MI

[owlbait]

2.5 gallons, spread in a 10'X10' area. If you  bait legally it really doesn't have a huge impact. Big bucks? Not where I hunt and our buck/doe ratio is so skewed that if baiting helps the doe harvest it probably helps. Without baiting, we had plenty of room in our woods. Now, I expect the guys from out-of-state, and SE Michigan to be back in our woods. Nobody has jobs so if they can gather gas money they will be in the woods. 50# of shelled corn @$8 here. 2.5 gallons a day, it should last???

[kenn1320]

"Now we hunt for meat, first and foremost, but a nice buck sure is pretty exciting to see every once in a while."

 Your in the wrong state for nice bucks. 8^(  Baiting totally changes deer patterns/movements. When I don't put bait out behind my house for viewing, we never see deer. When deer are here in my yard during daylight hours, they are not by the hunter who isn't baiting. It creates huge conflict issues among hunters, they never should have lifted the ban. I think they lifted it, cause they couldnt enforce it anyway. Every gas station had it for sale, some ban.......

[Seeking Trad Deer]

I would be very interested to hear Ron LaClair's thoughts on baiting in Michigan.

[Uncle Buck]

I lived in Michigan for over 40 years and stiil lve the state.  I believe Baiting ruined deer hunting. It resulted in the woods being full of slob hunters many of whom bought their new compound bow a week or two before the season. half ton bait piles of sugar beets were not uncommon and belive me a half ton of rooting beets has an odor you wont forget. Of course the guy who left them there is long gone by the time they start rotting.

To me the effectiveness of baiting is irellevant. Hunting is supposed to be hard, thats what makes it a sport instead of an activity like gardening. .

Baiting has just ben approved fot much of Georgia. Time will tell what effect it has here

[ChuckC]

I agree at least in principal with Jerry (Orion),  if there was no substantial benefit in baiting, nobody would do it.

I am neither vastly for or against, but I won't bait for deer.  I have some story book ideas of what hunting entails, and except for a few (bears, maybe south Texas javelina / hogs) baiting is not a part of the idea.

ChuckC

[Sticks2117]

Originally posted by Orion:
  Baiting is quite effective in the northern part of the state, where deer don't have a lot of alternative field crop food sources.  There's no doubt that baiting  pulls deer from their normal haunts, consolidates them and changes their feeding patterns and the distance they'll travel to feed.  This isn't my opinion, it's fact born out by several scientific studies done by our own DNR and others.  
 

I hunt big woods have been for 20 years 2 years ago this guy shows up puts out  bait piles in 5 different locations, in about a 1/2 square mile area. Up to that point I had been seeing deer moving all day. After the piles of food are dumped the deer disappear. Because the does go in at night to feed and the bucks know the does will be there, and now the deer don't move at all during the day the does lay low eat with their stomachs full and the bucks sleep all day from chasing the does around the food piles. Throws off all natural movement. The funny thing is the no one in the baiters party shot a deer in 9 days 2 years in a row. Hope he goes away soon. I tried baiting for 1 year awhile back and I never saw a deer until it was to dark to shoot.
I wish it were banned!!        

I personally think it just makes hunting one more of those drive up hurry up activities we live for.
My grandpa used to say nothing easy is worth a damn. "Nope boy it won't make you tough like me if ya got it easy".

[Bonebuster]

I live in Michigan, and actually, I live in the area of the northern lower penninsula where the "bait ban" is still in place.

I began my bowhunting career perched in a tree, "guarding" a pile of bait of all sorts.
It was they way everyone "bowhunted". Even as a dumb kid, I learned early that bait piles were NOT everything they were cracked up to be. Deer that experience even moderate hunting pressure at baitpiles react to it by avoiding them during good daylight. I learned early on, that seeing deer show up to eat at a baitpile in the last couple minutes of legal shooting light, OR even AFTER legal time was NOT the best of situations.

Baiting on a large scale as was/IS commonplace on large chunks of private land can and will change deer movements...baiting with two gallons of corn spread out will do less altering of deer movements than a foodplot...IMHO.

Personally, I don`t care if a person baits deer with corn or other foods. I don`t haul bait into the woods anymore...and haven`t for years. I DO consider an alfalfa field with worn trails leading to it a "baitpile"...along with a producing oak, or apple tree(s).(or any other natural food source) A cornfield can be a bedding area...but to me, it is a large baitpile that I don`t have to carry. Honestly, a very well kept secret is there is alot less effort into QUALITY scouting, than hauling bait. PLUS, it is MUCH more ENJOYABLE!!!

Nobody can argue about how baiting LOOKS to the non-hunting public. This fact alone makes me think baiting is bad for hunting. I KNOW it is just another way to hunt, and I cannot see much difference between a good seasonal food source and a hauled in baitpile. We are taking advantage of the deer`s need for food.

I also don`t believe baiting "ruined" hunting in Michigan, BUT I DO BELIEVE that much of the behavior and attitudes hunters developed through the OVERUSE of bait DID indeed cause damage to hunting in Michigan.

BTW...the "bait ban" we speak of is just a myth. AT BEST, baiting was reduced during the "ban".
If ANYONE who lives in Michigan can name ONE problem the bait ban solved, I would sure like to hear it.

[Roger Norris]

My hunting spot in southern Michigan is surrounded by cornfields. Baiting there seems pretty silly....

I have killed deer over bait in the past, and it certainly is not true hunting. If it's legal, and a guy needs to put meat in the freezer, have at it. But don't waste your hunting career guarding a pile of corn....

[Roger Norris]

I just wrote my long winded opinion on my blog....

[Turkeys Fear Me]

Originally posted by Seeking Trad Deer:
I would be very interested to hear Ron LaClair's thoughts on baiting in Michigan.

I've read numerous times where they use bait at his camp when they feel they need to. Just another tool in the toolbox.  I have no problem with it if done legally.

[mrjsl]

When I said before that wide spread legal baiting leads to a sad situation here's what I mean:

In Louisiana people are not throwing out a few piles of bait here and there, they are designing large and small tracts of land around food plots, baiting deer with timed automatic feeders, many different kinds of attractants and cameras to tell them where to hunt and when.

This is a process that hunters have been improving on for at least 30 years here, so there are two generations of hunters that know of no other way, the majority of them. The tactics that start with land designed around feeders and food plots, all the way down to high tech tree stands, laser assisted range finders mounted on bows, etc.

To many hunters here, this IS deer hunting, and the idea of going onto public land where there is no bait, and the land is not designed for hunters seems like a crap shoot to them.

Baiting becomes a moral issue when we talk about it, and many people think of it as an individual moral issue. But the big picture is that the majority of hunters here now understand that the deer hunting consists of essentially attracting deer to where you hunt. And that is a sad situation IMO.

Years ago when I started bow hunting I read an article about a guy that hunted in the MS delta who had managed to kill a lot of very nice bucks on public land there with a bow. He was a guy who worked seasonal work, and was off a lot of hunting season. He said in the article there are two approaches to killing big bucks - you could spend a lot of time hunting, or spend a lot of money at it. Today, most people down here only see one way... spend a lot of money - the baiting way.

[rascal]

Im not sure there is specifically a "good" defense against widespread baiting in areas like northern Michigan.  That being said I do know I have managed to distance myself from it by simply distancing myself from it... Now what I mean is I located the bait sites others established and put as much distance as I could between me and those sites.  Granted people have come in late and put new bait sites in that I couldnt have known about but for the most part if you get away from the easy access areas (truck and ATV access) you can find some reasonably undisturbed hunting.

Now to play the devils advocate I must point out a somewhat obvious truth of getting away from all of this "easy hunting".  You simply wont see as many deer as those guys sitting on bait, bait is effective even if it does condition deer to come out later in the day.  Ive heard of a lot of guys that didnt specifically agree with baiting try to go without it only to eat crow and start dumping corn because they werent seeing the quantity of deer they had when baiting for them.

[Lost Arra]

Pardon the interruption but whether it's acorns, apples, wheat or corn feeders the deer around here eat late in the day right around sundown. Dealing with the shot or no shot decision at dusk is just deer hunting not a baiting issue.