Baiting

[Jameson]

Some of the public lands I have visited have corn food plots. If I was hunting public land that I thought needed a food plot I would ask the appropriate people if I could help install the food plot.

Just the way I might combat it.

[Big Dave2]

Some of the public lands I have visited have corn food plots. If I was hunting public land that I thought needed a food plot I would ask the appropriate people if I could help install the food plot.

Just the way I might combat it.

I could be wrong here but I don't think you would be allowed to plant a food plot on public land.

[Jameson]

Someone must be allowed to. One voice likely isn't very convincing to a public land manager, but form a group (like Pheasants Forever) and your voice is more likely heard.

I know of three public hunting areas with corn food plots. The only one I'll out on the web is Carlos Avery WMA.

[Musky Buck]

I know some more, Rum River State Forest, there are at least 3 large cornfields you can easily see from the road, maybe more planted every year near the Mille Lacs WMA south and east of Onamia, all on public land. My last baiting bit I was wondering about..... I live right where I hunt so baiting would be easy. What about the guys that have a few hours drive or more, how are they planning to keep up baiting when they live so far away ? It would be a big sacrifice to keep rotating your hunting party to keep bait up until rifle opener if you live a long ways away and if you don't freshen the piles, others might be drawing deer away from where you hunt and even tagged out hunters could keep baiting to try to prevent more deer from being shot, once season(s) end the piles will dry up quickly. I hope it wouldn't be to late for the deer to find a good wintering area with quality food and browse.

[UdeLakeTom]

Taken from a popular outdoors type magazine....just to offer some input. Think what you may about the article.

I think baiting for whitetails has to stop. Now.

Okay, okay, before you peg me as a purist who thinks all baiters are slobs, hear me out. If you watch a spin feeder or camp near a pile of sugar beets, I’m not going to attack your character or question your allegiance to the flag. But I do think that if you gave up the bait, we’d all be better off.

Baiting divides us. Nationally, 28 states ban the practice in any form, while 22 allow it (eight with significant restrictions). And recent headlines point to deep divisions within individual states. Last spring, legislation passed by the Mississippi House and Senate would have allowed baiting in the Magnolia State for the first time had Gov. Haley Barbour not vetoed the bill. In Michigan, a state long synonymous with baiting, officials shocked the deer hunting community by abruptly banning the practice in the entire Lower Peninsula after a single game-farm doe tested positive for chronic wasting disease. In the Upper Peninsula, however, baiting remains legal.

What we need is to unify—against baiting. Not because it’s unethical (that’s a complicated argument and an ugly fight), but because deer hunters, deer hunting, and deer would all benefit. Here’s why:

1 | We’d see more deer during daylight. It doesn’t take whitetails long to associate bait piles with humans, and when deer know people are around, they wait for dark to feed. Studies from Texas, Michigan, and Mississippi all show that daylight buck visits to bait sites range from rare to virtually nonexistent. Whitetails already restrict their daytime movements. Why make it worse?

2 | Deer would generally be more active. Foraging whitetails must travel to find food. Bait reduces the need for this movement, creating not only a nocturnal buck but a lazy one.

3 | Deer would be healthier. Researchers have proved a link between baiting and bovine tuberculosis in whitetails. The CWD connection is shakier, but find me a biologist who thinks concentrating deer near a pinpoint food source is a good thing. Besides, baited deer in nonagricultural areas can get sick from eating too much grain. The disease is called lactic acidosis, and it can kill a whitetail.

4 | We’d be better managers. Baiting can lead to unnaturally high survival and birth rates, particularly in northern deer. It also concentrates whitetails, which eat more than just what we put out for them. That densely packed herd can wipe out native plant species and retard forest regeneration. We’ve long told the public, “We’re the managers who keep whitetail numbers in tune with their habitat.” Well, are we?

5 | We’d fight less with one another. We’re all aware of the battle lines drawn over the ethics of baiting. But beyond that, once a hunter puts out a pile of corn, his neighbors feel obliged to follow suit. Soon, a seemingly benign activity turns ultracompetitive. In 1984, only 29 percent of Michigan hunters reported using bait. Just nine years later, the figure had risen to 56 percent, and more than one in five hunters told the Department of Natural Resources that baiting to compete with other hunters was “very important” to them. Wisconsin DNR researcher Mark Toso estimates that Badger State gun hunters alone place 4.5 million pounds of corn on the ground each day—enough to feed the state’s entire herd of 1.8 million deer—during the firearms season.

Baiting is especially troubling on public lands, where hunters who place bait often claim ownership for their sites and a considerable territory around them. This practice—known as “homesteading”—ruins the hunting experience for everyone.

6 | We’d improve our public image. Surveys reveal that most of the nonhunting public supports our tradition as long as hunting remains a fair-chase, ethical endeavor. If the ethics of baiting is controversial among hunters, what must the general populace think? And make no mistake; what they think is critical to deer hunting’s future.

7 | We’d tag just as many deer. Baiting proponents argue they’d kill significantly fewer deer without the bait, but only one Texas study supports that. Other research reveals equal or near equal success. Just this past fall, Michigan hunters—despite complaints that the bait ban would slash their harvest—bagged nearly the same number of deer as they did during the previous season.

But suppose, just for the sake of argument, that we’d bag slightly fewer deer. So what? I’ll take that—along with better hunting, healthier deer, and one less wedge to divide us—any day of the week. --Scott Bestul

[Bear55]

I think Mr. Bestul's article pretty much nailed it and I have to agree with everything he says.

[Big Dave2]

I think Mr. Bestul's article pretty much nailed it and I have to agree with everything he says.

I agree somewhat with this article also but if you substitute the word bait with the word food plot wouldn't at least 4 of the 5 items he brings up in the article still be true?

[Musky Buck]

All I know is a field or a plot is no guarantee. I have had the chance to hunt corn or alfalfa for 26 years and I don't hunt either field because they just don't produce in my area after opening day of rifle and they border creek bottom and swamp. I'm better off way back in the swamp and creek bottom because the deer aren't coming out during shooting light to any of the corn or alfalfa fields near where I hunt, not until dark, I'm sure here and there a jumpy doe and fawn. My mom always watches the alfalfa field for me and rarely does she see a deer, in the 80's we saw them with way more frequency. They don't enjoy being in the open as pressured as they are. I think the food source(s) do help keep deer on our properties.

[honker23]

You don't have to shoot a deer standing in the food plot or over the bait for "it" to be a factor. Most hunters know if you position yourself between the bed and the food, you'll shoot a deer. Having bait or a food plot just narrows this game down and kind of takes the hunt out of it for me. Just my thoughts on it.

[Musky Buck]

Bingo Honker, and hunting them back in the debris shows me they often times have other things they are up to before they head out to the fields, I'm sure some have better field luck than me it's just fairly rare to see them out there when world war 3 breaks out, meaning opening day, the patterns change quick, bottom line is if you are out anywhere you have a chance.

[UdeLakeTom]

I have had a couple of food plots, they hit them, and then leave...the one defense for food plots is late fall and early spring nutrition. Also, many will feed during the winter. Food plots are just that..for food. Baiting is as the word suggests, for bait.

[Musky Buck]

Right on dude and we should try to keep this on the light side, it is a tough issue and difficult to keep on the lighter side, I wish the people who do bait here in MN illegally could report how it has worked for them vs. before they baited and why they started, although we won't have anyone speak up on it I wouldn't think. You probably wouldn't get many honest answers. I made that case many times dude that food plots provide year round benefits to a lot of wildlife, they can be costly to put in and are far from the slam dunk you might see on TV. I tried 2 food plots, spent a bunch of coin, they both failed to grow. Oh well. I tried but didn't have the right equipment available and couldn't get the equipment where I needed it.

[CodyDawg]

I am totally against baiting. Earn your deer by acquiring good hunting skills and put forth the honest effort.

[Bear55]

Originally Posted By: Bear55

I think Mr. Bestul's article pretty much nailed it and I have to agree with everything he says.

I agree somewhat with this article also but if you substitute the word bait with the word food plot wouldn't at least 4 of the 5 items he brings up in the article still be true?

Maybe, maybe not. Too many people see food plots on TV and see them packed with deer. Its just not reality, these are the highly managed game farms that are loaded with deer and sometimes fenced in so they have no where else to feed. I've got a food plot up in the Northwoods, the only one around for miles as far as I an tell. One would think it would be crawling with deer but its not. I get a few game cam pictured in the summer/fall but its not the deer magnet that everyone thinks it is. In five years we have not shot a single deer on that food plot. Sure the deer use it as a food source but they are like people, they like variety in their diets. I'm starting to think its a waste of my time and I might even just forget about it in the future.

[Musky Buck]

That's just it Bear, same for me, sure I don't have the equipment. It is the "perception" and the "advertising" that they are playing on your emotions. Plant this and you'll shoot this. Give em this rack builder plus and you'll have monsters everywhere. Reality and actuality. Most shows these guys are on large properties in the thousands of acres or high fenced. If we had the same acreage we could make that happen to. I haven't seen a whitetail show yet where I hear gun shots from neighboring parties echoing on tape. I don't see stands on property lines and the like. Most shows are a far cry from what MN deer hunting is all about. Heck I rarely see these guys even tag their deer. I watch these shows like I used to watch AWA wrestling. It's entertainment, pieces of reality.

[Musky Buck]

Maybe this is why to Bear that food plots are ok here, the DNR is aware that food plots aren't a certain deer machine here in MN with so much agriculture around anyway.

[Bear55]

Totally agree Musky, people need to know the difference between the "movies" and real life. I don't watch as many hutning shows as I use to, some of them I even turn off if I know they are hunting some Texas ranch or high fence hunting preserve. However I do watch a few shows from time to time for the entertainment value and I get a chance to see some great deer. You have to remember that maybe 97% of the guys on tv on not great hunters, they just have a great location or opportunity to hunt places we can only dream about.

[sparkydm]

This is always such a fascinating topic to me. Some folks are quite fed up with it, but I'm enjoying the varied opinions and insights. I used to be totally against baiting for a few reasons. Now I'm not nearly as passionate about my stance. We all have our reasons for baiting or not baiting. You hunt your way, I'll hunt my way. My definition of hunting may not be the same as yours. So be it.