Why is baiting illegal here?

[Big Dave2]

Actually there are plenty of good food sources in the wild on public land.

Locate them and you have a natural food plot.

Bob

[BobT]

Maybe their not putting out food plots to "lure" deer. Maybe they are putting out food plots to provide a better food supply. Perhaps there just aren't enough natural food sources to support the herd, which is at all-time highs. Nature can only support so much on her own. We could just outlaw the food plots and allow them to thin out naturally I suppose.

Granted, one can't deny that there are probably those that do it primarily for the purpose of drawing attention but I would venture to guess that many do it for the benefit of the deer and not for the benefit of the deer hunter.

Heck, find an area that has been logged if in the last 10 years and you've found yourself a wonderful food plot.

Bob

[Big Dave2]

Quote:

Actually there are plenty of good food sources in the wild on public land.

Locate them and you have a natural food plot.

Bob

Quote:

Perhaps there just aren't enough natural food sources to support the herd, which is at all-time highs. Nature can only support so much on her own. We could just outlaw the food plots and allow them to thin out naturally I suppose.

I know this thread has run it's course and I will try to leave it alone after this, but I am confused after reading your last post. I don't know if the deer have plenty of food sources or if they don't have enough.

You know as well as I do the reason why 90% of all deer food plots exist. It is to attract and hold deer onto a specific piece of land. The area around where I hunt up north has nothing do draw deer in or hold them. Thats why when I was up there on third weekend walking logging roads all day long looking for fresh tracks in the snow I found almost none? If this were my own land, sure then I could just plant a food plot and at least hold a few deer on this land by giving them a good reason to be there. But since it is mostly public land there is nothing I can do, which is fine I have learned a long time ago that I just go to this shack for the experience not the deer. This is the way it has been for 30 years in that area. Very few people bother to plant a food plot if they are not going to at least hunt the adjoining land if not hunt directly over the top of it.

[BobT]

Quote:

You know as well as I do the reason why 90% of all deer food plots exist.

I don't know if I'd go that far. That sounds more like your opinion and whether correct or not, you are entitled. I could just as easily suggest that 90% of the food plots out there are there for the purpose of improving the health of the deer herd. Would I be correct? Probably not but again, it would be my opinion and I too would be entitled.

The truth lies somewhere in between I guess.

Bob

[harvey lee]

Why not let each person hunt as they wish and go and have fun instead of always thinking our way is the best.

There are many legal ways to hunt and as long as each person stays within those laws, then there should be no issues. It's when we belive our way is the only way that we run into these issues.

[Jim Uran]

I give up, I was asking for the conceptual difference.

[Big Dave2]

Quote:

You know as well as I do the reason why 90% of all deer food plots exist.

I don't know if I'd go that far. That sounds more like your opinion and whether correct or not, you are entitled. I could just as easily suggest that 90% of the food plots out there are there for the purpose of improving the health of the deer herd. Would I be correct? Probably not but again, it would be my opinion and I too would be entitled.

The truth lies somewhere in between I guess.

Bob

You are absolutely right. I should not have used a number like "90%" but would you not agree that the vast majority of food plots are there for hunting purposes? What I mean by that is, either the food plot owner will hunt over it directly or on the land that the food plot is on. Also if it is there for the "health of the deer herd", that usually means "so the deer will be healthy and have large antlers when I shoot it."

I tend to agree with Harvey lee's post. Baiting will never again be legal in my lifetime unless there gets to a point where there are so few deer hunters and so many deer that they cannot be managed effectively. I doubt that will happen so I guess there is no point in discussing this further. I'll always be jealous of those with their own hunting land no matter what anyway

[Musky Buck]

I'm simply thankful baiting is illegal in MN. I don't want to walk into Fleet farm or Gander Mt. and have the first hunting display I walk by be deer feeding systems and shell corn.

[c&amagn]

Why does a hunter/person need to bait deer???????????????????????????????????????????? Are they not a hunter, why do you need to bait? Must not be a good hunter, just like to shoot huh?

[Bear55]

Originally Posted By: Bear55

Brule

Just this fall I planted several hunred acorns on some land we own. In 20-25 years I plan to hunt over them, so by your logic am I baiting?

Maybe is jealously or something else but its kind of sad that someone who is trying to improve their habitat is labled a baiter by some.

Ok, Bear, you're getting pretty nit-picky here in interpreting what I said. In the long term, yes you are baiting, however, there is a HUGE difference in throwing out a pile of apples, or planting a food plot vs. planting some oak trees. I see little wrong with planting some trees, because a tree is not an immediate food source that will habituate and re-pattern the local herd in a short period of time. I mean, give me a break, you may not even be around in 25 years to hunt those, or they may not take, ect... You're getting a little too offended with MY OPINION!

Do what you like, as long as you are w/in the law. I don't agree w/ it, but who cares, right?

I guess where I draw the line is the "quick fixes" intended to hunt over. This is what I perceive to be the immediate problem and what I consider lazy.

It's obvious you don't and can't see things in my perspective. I'm not by any means trying to change you, all I'm doing is trying to show another perspective and make you all think a little.

Frank said it all in his post. I am officially done with this thread!

Brule

I'm not getting offended, I'm just trying to enlighten you on the finer points of food plots and deer food sources in general. How you can call one natural food source baiting and another be perfectly legal is beyond me but you are entitled to your opinion. Also the last time I checked a food plot is anything but a quick fix or a lazy approach, I find it hard to lable someone a baiter for trying to better their deer habitat and nutrition.

And to compare a pile of apples next to a deer stand and a food plot is just funny, maybe ask the DNR why one is legal and one isn't.

[Musky Buck]

Because it is the easiest way to draw deer into your property to get the desired result. Not all properties are equal, some the carrying capacity to hold deer is almost nill. So if I add 50 pounds of shell corn I might get to bloody my knife.

[Big Dave2]

Why does a hunter/person need to bait deer???????????????????????????????????????????? Are they not a hunter, why do you need to bait? Must not be a good hunter, just like to shoot huh?

Actually if you must know, I'm a terrible hunter

[Musky Buck]

I love this topic, to me it is so simple, baiting is not needed in MN. We get over 100 days to bow hunt, 9-16 days of rifle,shotgun,muzzleloader, another 16 days of Muzzleloader hunting, they have to survive cars,trucks,semi's. Winter is always an ace up the sleeve, we are so do for a bad one, wolves, poaching, fawn mortality, unknown causes, my grandpa's haying equipment have gotten a few, and roughly 1/3 of all of our deer are recycled each season. I think Minnesota is doing fine, about 1 out of 3 tag a deer every year, those are pretty decent odds. If we all got a deer within 2 seasons better check my math but they would all be dead. Is there about 550,000 rifle season hunters ? Roughly 50,000 bow hunters, same about maybe more now for muzzleloader season with rifle hunters able to buy a musket tag if unsuccessful Times 2 just rifle hunters and you get 1.1 million and we have about 1.1 million animals in MN. Of course does would have fawns but I think we better be careful what we wish for, we decimate the herd too much with a nasty winter and ...........oh boy. Sure this is hypothetical, but we better leave well enough alone. When I uncork a bottle of wine grandma comes runnin, when I feed the cows they come a runnin, when some people bait deer they come a runnin, we have enough things helping the average hunter nowaday, lets leave a deer's stomach out of it and show other legal baiting states that we are trying to cling to some form of ethical hunting, if you are a baiter I would guess you cheat at checkers or cards or whatever you can scam away with, it's just the nature of the beast, to illegal MN baiters I bet your deer are wondering hey, what happened to the corn that was surfacing in my woods, now I have to travel great distances to fill my tummy in the cold woods, thanks a lot, and hey why are these gut piles so close to where you used to feed us ? Couldn't you have the decency to drag us off a ways further from the pile ? LOL, Take care all and shoot that smoke pole straight, new forum but I saw a musket hunter coming out to the road and I thought what he just unclipped a scope off his gun, how many are doing that ? How accurate is that gun doing that ?

[Bear55]

Nice post Musky I feel the same way, legalized baiting would only make things worse. I think most of us agree that baiting is not what we want in our state. Some people like to blur the lines between baiting and food plots so part of this thread went in a different direction but I am very happy to know baiting is illegal here and they are starting to crack down on it.

[Musky Buck]

I think a little to has to do with urban sprawl and rural sprawl. In 1983 we hunted many areas, now some of these are homes, black top and asphalt. We all have areas we used to hunt that are no longer huntable, the old school dairy farms many have been busted up into smaller parcels for hunting mainly, everyone is more clustered together and we have 5.2 million people now in our state, wisc. has 5.6, N.Dakota 640,000, S.Dakota has 800,000, Iowa has 3 million people. Now a lot of us have lost grandparents that taught us the ropes and they are being replaced with people that didn't grow up with hunting being the most important time of the year. Of course this isn't true for everyone. Like a deer in 10 feet of snow, they will travel the easiest path, same with some hunters, in our high speed fast easy free world, they want to travel the easiest path and that is called baiting. Forget everything else that goes into hunting, scouting, weather, pruning shooting lanes, setting up an extra stand because once pressured you catch glimpses of deer in the super thick cover, analyzing the section you hunt in for where the likely food source(s) will be once November hits, wind direction and how to approach your stand, analyzing rubs,scrapes,trails, every little trick you can use to increase your chances of success, when I used to hand feed deer at the walker deer park as soon as I turned the crank for corn the animals came a runnin, good luck musket guys !

[PEATMOSS]

To answer the original question, baiting is illegal because of an arbitrary line drawn in the sand by lawmakers and the DNR.

In Minnesota, you can chop out an acre in the middle of a pine forest, plant corn and put up a fence around it. You can remove the fence a week or two before the season begins and legally hunt over it. But, if you pick a couple ears and take it 100 yards away and drop it on the ground, you're baiting.

IMHO, "hunting" is different for everyone. What is ethical to some, may not be to others. Laws should be grounded in sound biological practices with an emphasis on managing the resource, not dictating ethics. As long as recreational feeding of deer is legal,it's hard to push the idea that baiting for a couple weeks is harming the resource.

Further, I don't think anyone sitting in an enclosed heated stand, over a 1 acre plot of turnips and rapeseed should be pointing fingers at anyone. If the state is not going to legalize baiting, it should be treated as a nuisance with a small fine, not hundreds of bucks and the loss of a thousand dollar rifle.

[vister]

exactly my point peatmoss. The guys who sit in elevated insulated and heated box stands are at a big time advantage to those who hang from a tree in their stand like myself when its frigid out. but they spent the time and money on them, so so be it. just like i spend the time and money on food plots. seems like a lot of people on this thread are ripping guys like myself apart limb by limb for having food plots out there. probably the same ones watching tv, making soup and coffee, or reading a magazine in their heated stand until they have to open a window to take a shot.

[Big Dave2]

Well stated peatmoss.

[UdeLakeTom]

My 75 year old brother uses a heated stand. No TV, and usually only on days like the windy opener this year, or when it is 25 or colder. Does that make him a bad hunter?? In my opinion, only warmer. We have yet to see a deer during the season near the food plots, and they are set up along trails between the woods. 12 deer there all summer long, and then only one even close to the food plot when the season opened. It could be that there are years when some hunters just are not supposed to see deer. Baiting is illegal, just like driving 80 mph is. Some will do it, just because they can.

Does that make it right, not really, but they will get away with it, for awhile.

The next question should be...how much bait would you put down if it was legal??? 10 bushels, a dump truck full?? What if the neighbor puts down oats, do you put down apples and corn?

[Big Dave2]

I'm sure it will never be legal to bait here in MN again but if it were I am sure also that there would be restrictions placed concerning the amount of bait that can be used. So the answer to the above question would be, the most allowed by law.

So, is the answer to the original posters question that baiting works too well and therefore too many deer would then be shot? I could live with that answer.

[Musky Buck]

That is the answer Dave, especially if allowed for bow,gun,musket seasons. Baiting would get ugly and so would the slaughter, especially during a colder than average gun/musket season where they would really be on the pile. Here's all the proof I needed. Neighbors 160 acres, 80 is standing irrigated corn, 80 is woods/willow/swamp. I can rifle/musket hunt the land alone and have for 10 years. A group of 4 guys bow hunt till rifle and then again inbetween and after the musket season. I took a different route from my lone ladder stand in the swamp to look for buck sign around Oct. 15th, found 3 of the bow stands and 10-15 yards from each was about 50 pounds of shell corn within about 50-100 yards from the standing corn field. I thought I'm thankful there were no gut piles. Uptown I saw the one guys wife, I said how are the guys doing bowhunting ? She said excellent like the past few years, she said they have got 9 so far with 11 tags to go, I am aware they have taken more off the corn piles as I saw them 4 wheelering out another deer just after rifle season and how many have they shot so far on the bait ? 10 for sure and maybe more and I bet their rifle stands 10 miles away on their own property are baited as well. Now why did so many deer go to the bait piles over irrigated standing corn ? I guess that's the question at hand. What stunk is my conscience wouldn't let me hunt that baited land so I went elsewhere this year. These baiters are extremely prominent citizens in our community and reveered bow hunters, what do ya do ?

[Musky Buck]

Why no gut piles, they don't want to attract any attention to where they are baiting, they drag them to the gravel road with 4 wheelers and gut them in their closed down garage doors and dump the goods later. These are people that own a meat company, why would they want that many deer ?

[Musky Buck]

Which leads into some would bait for the shooting part of it and others for the meat. It's hard to speculate but I think baiting would still benefit the have's and have nots. If you have quality land with a good deer carrying capacity you'd just be hogging up the deer anyway and they'd travel less off your property to others with average land meaning you know how good some woods look until the leaves fall off, then it's too thin to hold deer. The have's could really control deer movement even more with bait. My previous bow story really opened my eyes to what baiting can do even with a prime standing corn field so close, yet the deer chose the already shelled variety.

[BRULEDRIFTER]

Makes perfect sense.....

Less digestion = less energy used!

[jltimm]

I'am still hearing about people around my property baiting/feeding deer. So far it's been three people that I know of, one of them got caught (thank you game warden) the other two didn't.... YET. Next year I WILL go out of my way to turn in anyone that is using bait or feeding deer.I have hunted this land for 8 years and let every little buck go just so these people could put out their bait and shoot them! I'am so pi$$ed off I would like to put out a steak and shoot the baiters that come into it! Friggin wanta be hunters!