Is baiting really hunting?

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Septicdeath

Septicdeath

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"Do you consider baiting and shooting hunting? This is a discussion on another forum. I myself hunt and have never done so. In my opinion it not hunting! Its a shooting gallery where you kill.
Do you think shooting over a bait station is true hunting?
Fair chase is the American hunting tradition. Baiting is the tactic too many have resorted to. The hunt is all about the search, chase and stalk. The harvest is the reward for a hunt well done. We have become an impatient performance oriented society. We have let our lives mimic TV. Shooting game over bait is just a short step away from shooting an animal in a pen or tied to a tree. Hone the skills of the hunt and you will find yourself harvesting as much game as the bait shooters. With greater reward.
There's no need to bait, if there aren't enough squirrels around it won't help. To me baiting makes me a shooter not a hunter, this is my opinion. It is more fun and rewarding to hunt them the hard way.
 
I guess I'm not sure if it matters. Ethically, I'm fine with any legal method, as long as a quick kill is the likely outcome. The rest is just semantics, and all my life I've listened to arguments about "Using (or doing) ____ is not real hunting".

Or put another way, I once knew a guy who hunted wild boar by stripping to his skivvies, hiding in a mud wallow, and sticking a pig with a knife he made from a broken piece of sword. Compared with him, none of us are really trying very hard.
 
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Define baiting a bit better would help this discussion. What is bait? A feeder? A pile of food left intentionally? An intentional food plot planted for the game species in question? Hunting a commercial agricultural field known to attract targeted species? Hunting over naturally occurring food sources that the target species frequent?
 
Bait box or intentionally baiting.
mcb said:
Define baiting a bit better would help this discussion. What is bait? A feeder? A pile of food left intentionally? An intentional food plot planted for the game species in question? Hunting a commercial agricultural field known to attract targeted species? Hunting over naturally occurring food sources that the target species frequent?
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Septicdeath said:
"Do you consider baiting and shooting hunting?
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If you leave the house resolved to kill animal if you find one, you're hunting.

Septicdeath said:
To me baiting makes me a shooter not a hunter, this is my opinion. It is more fun and rewarding to hunt them the hard way.
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If you're wearing underwear, there's nothing fair about it. That it is rewarding (or not) to you is all the difference there is, the animal couldn't care less.
 
Neighbors put out a feeder that gives corn at dusk. Easy enough to shoot a deer from their blind 25 yards away. The only hunting is for the best price in cracked corn.

Now, knowing where a grove of walnut trees stand, and waiting their after having seen sign several years in a row, that's hunting.
 
I have had a deer feeder on property I have hunted.

I rarely hunted over it though. I hunted the established pathways deer took to the feeder. I would then hunt over the feeder to fill out my antlerless tags and finish filling my freezer.

Just like the native Americans before us, I use the methods granted to me to gather food from my surroundings. There are many methods. I don’t like buying meat. I use a method that gives me meat for the year.

How does that one work on the scale of hunting to not hunting?
 
Hunting Spring Bear in the Province of New Brunswick is done from tree stands over bait piles.
One must come to their own conclusions.
 
Here in the South besides feeders, food plots, salt licks, tree stands, ground blinds, folks can also use dogs to run the deer. It is legal, but I do not consider any of that hunting; I consider it to be "deer waiting". It is called hunting, not killing, for a reason. That said, if the world collapsed and we are talking purely survival, or talking about severe game management/culling that is needed - that's a different story. Sport hunting is what I am talking about. Same goes for some of these high fence operations where the area involved is not that large and the animals have no chance to escape
 



I have heard people claim to be masters of many things. Master craftsmen, master fisherman, and even master hunter. I have never heard any claims of the other one, but I have heard plenty accusations.
 
mcb said:
So why is a food plot not baiting but if in the middle of the same plot I put a pile of food it is baiting?
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I am not a fan of a deliberate food plot for attracting deer. Different story if you're talking 2000 acres of corn being grown versus a small plot of clover/alfalfa or whatever
 
George P said:
I am not a fan of a deliberate food plot for attracting deer. Different story if you're talking 2000 acres of corn being grown versus a small plot of clover/alfalfa or whatever
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I have been managing a small piece of property with my father and brother for the past 6 years or so. We have less than 2% of the property in small food plots spread out over the property and several well established salt licks. We also feed (corn and protein) when deer and turkey seasons are out. Those small changes since we bought the property have made a very noticeable difference in both the number and health of the animals on the property, deer, turkey, etc. We hunt over the food plots but we also hunt away from them. We have killed a lot of does in/near the food plots but the biggest bucks have all been shot away from the food plots. For me the food plots are not there to bring the deer to my gun but to make sure that when I see a deer on the property I have the best chance of shooting a heathy animal.
 
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In Pa we have to be at least a 100 yards away from any bait or food plots. Including salt licks. If you choose to hunt over where there was food plots or salt licks. They must be removed 30 days prior. If you mistakenly hunt where there is bait or food plots and get caught. You could still face charges. Always good to check the area over the day or 2 before going out. It is allowed to hunt by a corn field though. Now to the OP. I think hunting over bait is cheating.
 
CoalCrackerAl said:
In Pa we have to be at least a 100 yards away from any bait or food plots. Including salt licks. If you choose to hunt over where there was food plots or salt licks. They must be removed 30 days prior. If you mistakenly hunt where there is bait or food plots and get caught. You could still face charges. Always good to check the area over the day or 2 before going out. It is allowed to hunt by a corn field though. Now to the OP. I think hunting over bait is cheating.
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In Tennessee we have to be 250 yards from a feeder or bait pile for it to be legal to hunt. Once the food is removed you can hunt in the area after 10 days. Salt licks/blocks are not considered bait for these regulations.

Interestingly, last year in Alabama (where I live though I do most of my hunting in Tennessee) they have pass a rule change that allows a hunter to pay an extra fee ($15 resident, $50 non-resident) to allow them to hunt over bait (on private land). Seems like an interesting way to deal with the issue.
 
Hunting over bait is ethical in subsistence hunting, culling excess population, or exterminating vermin.
But it is not very sporting.
If you are starving, your crops are being ruined, your livestock killed, native species being driven to extinction by coyotes, feral hogs, domestic/wild boar hybrids, you may not feel like observing the niceties.
 
Carl N. Brown said:
Hunting over bait is ethical in subsistence hunting, culling excess population, or exterminating vermin.
But it is not very sporting.
If you are starving, your crops are being ruined, your livestock killed, native species being driven to extinction by coyotes, feral hogs, domestic/wild boar hybrids, you may not feel like observing the niceties.
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Agreed, my comments earlier were towards those of us who hunt for sporting purposes
 
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