Thoughts on Baiting

[Swinestalker]

As said earleir, Mississipi has a similar law, basically allows hunting over bait with guns but not bows.    How did this nation allow itself to become so hamstrung with so many stupid laws?

[BearCrkBandit]

I have no experience baiting deer, but it's how we hunt black bear here around Fairbanks, really the only effective way to do so because the flat, thickly vegetated country is impossible to spot & stalk, and the bears move so much, that patterning them otherwise is essentially wasting time. Where I hunt, they legalized shooting grizzlies on bait because of excess numbers. Grizzlies prove to be very difficult to take over bait because of their wariness and roaming nature, and even black bears take a lot more work than most people assume, I imagine deer are the same way.

[Biathlonman]

I don't bait but have hunted with several guys who swear by it.  Around here unless you are religious about baiting a 50 lbs. Bag of corn is gone in 2 maybe 3 days tops.  I'm sure some of it's deer but mostly seems to be turkey and racoon.  Every deer caught on camera was well after dark.  Seemed like a waste of money to me.

[Roger Norris]

Originally posted by Bear Heart:
Natural patterns? Like those around corn and soybean fields?

I'm not going to debate baiting with you, but a field is different than a pile of corn.

[LITTLEBIGMAN]

Sad. Say goodbye to hunting as you knew it. It wont happen over night but just ask any of us who hunted Wisc back in the days when baiting was illegal. Once the corn piles hit the woods it changed everything.

 God I hope it never happens here.

[VictoryHunter]

Don't have problem with it if that is your thing or perhaps you would otherwise be unable to hunt due to a disability or something. Like anything else I believe there is a time and a place. I do believe that it would definitely alter natural deer movement though. I personally wouldn't hunt deer over bait as I like to leave behind as little trace as possible of my ever being in the woods.

[Ibow]

Not wild about baiting deer because I've seen over the years what it's done to northern MI whitetail hunting but on the other hand, bear hunting is far and away my absolute favorite thing to do and I have a hard time condemning a guy who's sitting over a pile of corn or apples for deer while I see nothing at all wrong with sitting over a pile of Ho Ho's and Little Debbies while waiting for a bear. JMO

[Whip]

I've tried to stay away from this one because I know it is controversial. But Littlebigman is right. It has changed deer hunting for the worse here in WI. I don't bait my hunting property but I know my neighbors do. I see loss of deer earlier in the season, but a few weeks before gun season opens the baits go out and deer movement dramatically changes.
I hate it!

[Bjorn]

No problem with folk hunting over bait; I hunted hogs over bait a few years ago............just not my thing. They come to you-I prefer going after them.

[Cyclic-Rivers]

The Largest Problem with Baiting that I have experienced is that animals will turn completely Nocturnal.  They will move only at dark and straight to the food.  If you are happy with yearling deer and are only after meat then there you go.

When they banned baiting in Wisconsin a lot of guys who were against it at first were shocked at how many more deer they were seeing after. It forced animals to travel more to consume the same amount of food.

I have no qualms with baiting and think there is a tactic for any circumstance especially if you are hunting bears or other animals.  I personally wouldn't ever consider baiting deer around here.  

The nice thing you will find about Baiting is seeing where everyone else hunts.  I think the state will have a hard time enforcing the 100 yard rule.

Good Luck.

[Cmane07]

My main problem with baiting down here is that mostly the younger generation such as myself do not know how to go "hunt" deer anymore.  They simply find an open area and start dumping corn or rice bran every couple days and climb up the nearest tree.  In certain areas I'm sure its different but here in Mississippi I feel like you can be just as effective if you actually scout and find trails and hot acorn trees etc. but that's just my 2 cents.

[JamesKerr]

I don't agree that it makes deer nocturnal at all. On my families land we leave our corn feeders out all year and keep up some kind of food plot year round. The deer will come to the corn feeders or food plots usually either in the morning or evening. This concurs to when we get most of our pictures on our game cameras from spring until early into hunting season. Once hunting season has been open a while say a month or so then our deer start to become nocturnal. Not because of the bait but because they know more people are out in the woods either hunting or scouting. Too much hunting pressure is what makes deer go nocturnal not the actual act of putting some kind of bait out.

[Kevin Dill]

I don't pass judgment on those who choose to bait, but it's not for me. I know all the arguments and cultural history of baiting, but I'm just not interested in it. I use the analogy of chumming trout with cheese nibbles, so I can catch one on a dry fly and bamboo rod. I wanted to hunt Africa for a few years, but I eventually wrote it off my list due to the baiting (food & water stations). I can't do it.

Again and for the record; I spend no time worrying about who hunts over bait. I'm good with not using it for my hunts.

[LC]

It's hard to give your "thoughts" on something without giving your opinion which ultimately comes down to the "bait no bait argument"!

I have to be honest I don't understand the folks who do it and say it's a lot harder than you think, it's not a slam dunk, but I have to because my neighbor does or something similar.

Then there is always the crowd who states it's no different than hunting beside a 60 acre corn field or a apple tree. Well lets just say I've waited five years on one apple tree to bear fruit before I got to hunt it because of late frost, drought summers etc. No so with baiting.

For the record I live in a state that baiting is legal. My personal opinion is baiting along with ATV use has ruined hunting that I knew and love. Don't get me wrong I'm still very successful. I just spend more time preseason scouting finding "bait" sites now adays and hunt accordingly. It's actually not hard to find bait sites here as you follow the ATV tracks!

Now with all that said I have hunted over bait for bears and hogs. Killed on both hunts. I understand it would be almost impossible to hunt bears in some locations without bait. And I don't have a problem with those that do it BUT after killing a few bears or hogs over bait I just don't have the desire to do it ever again. I love hog hunting but it's all spot and stalk now adays. Come home empty handed lots of times but never feel defeated or wanting to bait them again.

I can always tell when most folks around here are "gearing" up for bow season. It means level truck loads of ear corn and apples are being hauled in for bow season! JMHO it's not hunting.

[Knawbone]

No baiting here for anything, Deer or Bear. I'm glad for that. The Bucks are pretty much nocturnal as well as the Bear. There are those peak feeding periods when you can sometimes get a jump on where they are feeding ( Bear ) or possibly catch one in a tree if your willing to hunt hard enough and deep enough. There are some good areas with high probubility if you know what to look for. You just have to be willing and able to hunt hard. Every ones hunting turf and situation varies, so I can not comment on baiting from those perspectives. Our Bear season runs consecutive with the Deer archery season, so you can hunt both, just no Baiting except for guides.

[koger]

Here in Ky, baiting only works when the natural food is hard to get, let acorns start falling and bait is left to rot by deer. Hunting fields, food plots, acorn flats is hunting a food source, baiting aint much different.

[pseman]

I live in Alabama as well and I am not a fan of baiting. Not that it is unethical, and I certainly can't fault anyone for doing it since it is now legal, but it just diminishes the thrill of the hunt for me. I think the state legalized it partly because 80-90% of the hunters in Alabama were already doing it. Now the game wardens don't have to worry about enforcing baiting laws.

Look we all have a point at which we have to draw the line on what we enjoy or not(legally). Some  don't hunt with guns, ATV's, over bait, behind high fences, and so on. For me, baiting is over that line.
 
Now I do plant green fields and  occasionally hunt them. I also look for the first white oak that is dropping acorns early in the season. Some would say this is the same as "baiting". For them, that may be true, not for me.

It is all about the "hunting experience" for me.

Mark

[Greybark]

Baiting is "Game Farming " with out the fences.
Cheers from the Westcoast of Canada.....

[Whip]

I should add that generally I don't have a problem with how other people hunt if they are within the law.  The problem with baiting though, at least where I hunt, is that our hunting parcels are small - generally 40-200 acres.  So even though I choose not to bait, if my neighbor baits it does have a major impact on my hunting whether I like it or not.  No, I can't control how they hunt, but they do directly influence my hunting negatively.

Comparing a bait pile to a corn field or even a food plot is apples and oranges.  If a bait pile had to be spread over a 2-20 acre area they would be far less effective.

[jcp161]

I have hunted over bait and killed deer in doing so. It is legal here in Ohio. My attitude towards it has changed over the years.

In the urban/suburban areas I hunt, it is useful in drawing deer to the small parcels I have available to hunt where there is no natural food source but plenty of deer in the surrounding national park.

Where I hunt in southern Ohio, where there are hundreds of acres of huntable National Forest, I would never consider it. Shooting deer over a pile of corn is not the same as taking one moving naturally through the forest. Period. I do it to fill the freezer and accept that. I do not consider it the same as taking a deer down south.

In the end, it is a matter of degree and everyone makes their own choice as to what they can live with. Hunting a natural food source like acorns from a tree stand or ground blind is considered acceptable. Hunting a planted food plot from a tree stand is also ok but borders baiting as the food source is created. Hunting a bait pile from a tree stand is another degree and to some, less acceptable, although it is not that much different from the first two scenarios.

Where the question really comes in is when you take it a little further. If you hunted a bait pile from a heated outbuilding/shed, is it the same as hunting a bait pile from a tree stand? What if you hunt a bait pile from the back deck of your house? Or through the open patio door of your kitchen?

All of the scenarios except the first involve shooting deer over a created food source. Not too many folks would ever think that the last two scenarios would be thought of as ethical hunting. Or any kind of hunting really. But all of them involve shooting deer from a concealed location over a created food source.

I have not found that baiting makes the deer around here go nocturnal. Quite the contrary. Here, they still move early morning and late evening. They will run in to the sound of an electric feeder.

In the end, I would rather shoot a deer, any legal deer, in the woods moving naturally without using bait than shoot a trophy buck over a pile of corn.

Just my opinion.