Why is baiting illegal here?

[CSTPETER]

The other thing to remember is for the guys that might be trying to manage some acreage for QDM, food plots serve as a great mechanism for holding deer on your property. The intent isn't always to hunt over the food plot but to enhance the entire acreage. That's not the story with a 5 gallon bucket of corn.

I have hunted around food plots and, yes, they have provided me with some advantage, but honestly I consider myself more of a cheater when I sit in a big stand of Oaks around the 1st of October, Now that's just not fair.

[c&amagn]

I think the question should be (Why do you Need to Bait Deer?) Your hunting right????

[BobT]

Quote:

but honestly I consider myself more of a cheater when I sit in a big stand of Oaks around the 1st of October, Now that's just not fair.

Take that to the extreme and anyone hunting in the forest or anywhere a deer is likely to be found is being unfair, right.

I think hunting a food plot is really not much different than hunting a know naturally growing attraction. But for me, I have to draw the line there.

Bob

[cribbageboy]

Minnesotahunter,

Since you didn't read my analagy before in an earlier post, I will restate it. If I plant a "garden" or small food plot with 4 rows of corn, it is legal to hunt in a stand 5 yards from it. If I cut that corn down and place it in the same spot, and hunt in the same spot, it is called a bait pile, and is therefore illegal to hunt by.

This is why the DNR needs to somehow clarify the regulations on baiting. I ALSO stated in my thread titled "Baiting" that the DNR is a very important and wonderful orginazation that doess far more research than I will ever do. I am not bashing the DNR in any way, and would love to work in the DNR after finishing my college studies in wildlife management, and law enforcement.

I am not trying to find loopholes in the regs, but this one seems pretty big and obvious to me. We either need to do away with all forms of feeding deer during the hunting seasons(which I think is the best answer), or make them all legal.

[james_walleye]

Let me restate what i said earlier and go a bit deeper into what i said. I put 100 pounds of corn out on the edge of a 40 acre picked cornfield and put a camera over it. Deer are lazy, very lazy. I had pictures of bucks at the cornpile at sunset and in the background here is a deer coming across the open cornfield from the river bottom which is 200 yards away. This deer is bypassing a whole picked cornfield which has remnants laying all over to come to the easy pickings. The next sequence of pictures is of this deer now at the cornpile. He is a huge 8-pointer. This on a farm in which i've hunted 14 years and never taken a "trophy". He was one of 3 trophys that i have daylight pictures of at this corn and 1 of 13 bucks overall that i had pictures of. So don't tell me that 5 rows of standing corn will attract deer just as a 100 lb pile of corn. They will not come to 5 rows of standing corn like they will a pile of corn laying on the ground.

[cribbageboy]

How is standing corn on the stock, harder to eat than laying corn on the stock? I highly doubt that deer are "lazy" enough to find a difference in the way it is placed on or in the ground. I find your experience more coincidence rather than a reliable pattern, maybe I am looking at it wrong, but if I am, I still feel that a food plot and a bait pile are WAY to similar to constitute different regulations on the two.

[cribbageboy]

After reading your post again, I noticed you said picked cornfield. Meaning that it is laying on the ground as well as the baitpile. There IS no difference, and therefore your example IS coincidence. That or you were using the baitpile in conjunction with sents.

[PerchJrkr]

So i am probably an unethical hunter since i have been hunting next to a 200 acre "food plot" of corn all season

[james_walleye]

its coincidence huh? yeah all 13 bucks that i had on camera over and over. it was just coincidence that they passed by all the remnants laying in the field for the easy pickins day after day. 40 acres of picked corn with remnants all over and these deer found their way to the pile of corn every evening and every morning for 3 weeks. Read my post again, i have pictures of bucks at the pile with deer in the background walking over 200 yards across this field to get to the pile of corn. In the next sequence of pictures these deer are also now at the pile. I guess if you want to call that coincidence when it happened every day....lol. You want to know why i put a camera over a pile of corn? Because a very well known deer hunter told me if i wanted to know what deer are in the area to to do just that and in 2 weeks i'd have a picture of every buck in the area. Its not a secret how a pile of corn laying out will attract deer. Deer are lazy, its not a secret. My guess is that you've never hunted over a foodplot or have never put a camera over a pile of corn to see what the difference is. You find my expierience to be coincidence so it doesnt blow your arguement up.

[jltimm]

I've witnessed this expierience myself this year where a guy was baiting in a picked cornfield. The deer were lined up to eat the piles of corn.If a guy has to dump piles of corn in a field to shoot a deer, he should maybe go bass fishing instead!

[james_walleye]

Deer are absolutely that lazy. Its unreal how they will hit a pile of corn sitting along the edge of a picked cornfield and until you see it firsthand you probably won't believe it.

[Bear55]

james_walleye is right deer are that lazy. cribb have you ever seen a deer try to take the husk off a corn cobb, they have a heck of time, it can be pretty funny to watch. They will always take the easiest meal first so a bag of corn spread out on the ground is going to attract a lot of deer because its the easy meal. Pretty much all baiters are going to use the most attractive bait possible.

[elkrivermn]

All you folks have to remember is that there are deer shooters and deer hunters. I prefer to be a deer hunter!

[cribbageboy]

Then why is it illegal to hunt over a pile of corn (on the stalk and covered in husk), but when it is standing (on the stalk and covered in husk) it is not?

[cribbageboy]

And James_walleye,

Your right, I have never hunted over a food plot, cornfield, or bait pile. I like to think of myself as an ethical hunter, and feel that hunting over any of the three would make me an unethical hunter IMO. Just my viewpoint. I'm not trying to point fingers and say that you should or shouldn't, Im just saying that the DNR needs to clarify the rules, in a way that places a distinct difference on bait piles and food plots. In my mind corn on the stalk laying down, and corn on the stalk standing up are the same thing, however one is illegal and the other is legal.

[BobT]

Then why is it illegal to hunt over a pile of corn (on the stalk and covered in husk), but when it is standing (on the stalk and covered in husk) it is not?

I suppose if you spread your pile of corn over 150 acres it might be more closely representative of a standing field. If the corn is still standing, doesn't it also limit your viewing range?

Bob

[cribbageboy]

I have yet to see a food plot that is 150 acres. That would be a cornfield.

That is exactly my point shouldn't they put a size limit on the food plot? Like 10 acres of bigger? If you have a 1 acre food plot with standing corn, and you are in a raised stand that is 15 feet off the ground, 7 foot cornstocks will not decrease the ammount of shots you would be able to take.

Like I said, as the law states, as long as you call it a food plot it is legal no matter how big it is. From 1/5 acre to 200 acres. It is the planters choice. Maybe I'm wrong but the line between a baitpile and a foodplot seems way too close if you look at it that way.

I personally think that any form of feeding deer during the hunting season should be illegal. Deer have survived thousands of years with us not feeding them before the cold sets in and the snow falls, so I think they can go a few months without our help before winter.

[BobT]

I agree with you but I also have a question. I know you don't mean that these things should be illegal but...if any and all forms of deer feeding should be illegal, then what would you propose regarding gardens and crops?

We feed deer all summer long and sometimes all winter if the weather prevents us from harvesting in the fall. Deer are grazing my alfalfa year-round. They also graze my other crops and raid my garden from time to time.

Guess I'm playing a little devil's advocate.

Bob

[inspec_brad]

Is using something like Acorn Rage considered baiting?

[cribbageboy]

I guess if you feel that we need to feed deer before winter, then I feel that it should be illegal to hunt over it. TOTALLY MY OPINION THOUGH.

BULLMN1,

That would be a matter of opinion. Obviously the DNR doesn't see it as baiting, but that is how I would look at it. I would never use it, but that is just my opinion, and wouldn't look down on anyone for using things like Acorn Rage, and other foods or scents.

[deerminator]

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Acorn rage is blatantly baiting. Anything with food in it is illegal. Acorn rage is basically ground acorns and soybean meal. And I know that because of those Busbice knuckeheads that pitch it on the Outdoors Channel. You know the ones that shoot big bucks over piles of it with their crossbows. Nothing against crossbows BTW if they're used legally. Just saying that's what they use a lot on that show.

[james_walleye]

It would be my guess that its because you could take the corn still on the stalks and covered and husk and place it in a pile 10 yards from your stand perfectly in the clear.

[cribbageboy]

Acorn Rage is illegal in MN? I suppose it is, just figured it wasn't since you can buy it just about anywhere. Then again, you can buy corn just about anywhere. lol.

[Scott Stein]

the way i look at it is if u cant sit in the woods and wait for a deer to come walking/chasing does then u shouldnt hunt.....i dont think it would be much fun to go sit over a bait pile and wait for deer to come in and take my pick of which one i wanna shoot

[FLnick87]

im going to go against what the majority of you are saying. I think hunting over bait has its time and place. Not everyone has the opportunity to hunt large pieces of land with food plots, crops, or countless amounts of deer. I think baitng deer is a great way to make the best of what you got and it is still never a sure thing. In wisc. u can only legally put out a gallon at a time so its not like your feeding a whole heard of deer. And you still have to put in your time scouting, knowing where the deer are going to be coming from, playing the wind, and taking a clean ethical shot.