Baiting

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Strap assassin

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Jasper, Alabama
Where I live in Alabama sometimes it seems that the deer completely disappear or become nocturnal and alot of people use bait to lure them into there area. What are your opinions on baiting and do you think it should be legal?
 
No reason it should not be legal. Some folks don't like to sit and hope, day after day. Not all terrain/vegetation is conducive to sneaky-snaking around--and that presumes the skill to do so.

And nobody's forcing anybody to bait. Those who don't want to, don't have to.
 
Baiting is actually part of the American hunting tradition for big game. Now before folks douse me with gas and toss a lighted match..., it's well documented that longhunters, the fellows who went out to hunt deer and bison and elk for leather, and who gave birth to the iconic image of the leather clad frontiersman, regularly staked out salt licks for big game.

[but dude that's a natural geologic land feature, not "baiting"]

It's also documented that the famous hunter, Meshak Browning 1781-1859, author of Forty-Four years in The Life of a Hunter placed salt out to attract deer.

There is really no difference in hunting deer over bait, or hunting the gap between the corn or soybeans and the woodline? Crop or bait, they are both man made.

I don't hunt over bait, as I don't need to, having found an area between food, and water, that the deer bed down inside, so I wait for them to get up in the morning, and take them then..., if they have decided to bed down there the night before..., it doesn't always work. :D

LD
 
Baiting is a touchy subject here in Illinois. The DNR plants sunflowers and hosts a huge dove hunting event here at our local state park. Hunting over bait such as corn, salt, beans,...anything placed for hunting is illegal.
I don't like to sit and hope. In fact, I hate it. What we do isn't hunting...it's waiting. When you only have 10-20-maybe 40 acre woods to hunt...you don't have much choice.
Food plots are ok, we have made some on our property. It is hard for a small 1/2-1 acre food plot to compete with hundreds of acres of shelled corn fields where ears of corn are lying on the ground. You try what you can to keep deer in front of you instead of your neighbor.
 
In many states baiting is legal and practiced by many. But it is not hunting, it is baiting. Hunting is using woodsmanship and other amassed skills. It takes no skill or woodsmanship to sit over a bait pile.
 
It takes no skill or woodsmanship to sit over a bait pile.
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Sitting quietly and learning to use the wind to your advantage and/or masking your scent in natural ways requires skill and patience. I'm not arguing that it's 'hunting', just that not everyone is cut out for it.
 
strap assassin Now you kinow you can not bait in alabama. You do know that right. That why you plant or pay to leave some of the crops standing. Corn and iron peas, work well. But I well say screwing the lid to a can of peanut butter to a tree and then cut the bottom off works really good for preseason training.. When a group of us hunted there we paided a local farmer to plant what was normal crops for deer to eat . Just a couple rows scatterd around the property here and there.
 
I know what Buck 460 means...and I agree to a certain extent.
If you want to slip quietly through the forest in your moccassins around here....you will soon find yourself under someone else's deer stand (unfortunately).
 
Zombiphobia said:
Sitting quietly and learning to use the wind to your advantage and/or masking your scent in natural ways requires skill and patience. I'm not arguing that it's 'hunting', just that not everyone is cut out for it.
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Deer trained to come into bait piles are used to human scent. They have come to associate it with fresh bait. No need really to worry about the wind or cover scent, especially at gun hunting ranges. Most bait pile hunters sit in elevated boxes, so even sitting still isn't necessary. Only skill needed there is carpentry skills when erecting the stand. I have no problem with "sitting on stand" when it consists of scouting an area and waiting in ambush to take an animal that is either trying to escape or using natural game trails to get to and from bedding/feeding areas. Training the local deer to come to a specific spot by dumping a food that is more desirable than locally available, and then shooting them is basically shooting a domesticated animal.

Again. if a person wants to shoot an animal over a pile of bait and it's legal, I have no problem with it. I do have a problem with them calling it a "hunt".
 
Agreed, shooting deer over bait is not hunting. Shooting deer in a cornfield or beanfield is not hunting. Shooting deer over a salt lick, or at a water hole is not hunting, either. In fact, shooting a deer any place it naturally might want to be -- or that you can induce it to THINK it wants to be -- is not "hunting." That's just shooting. Not sporting at all.

It's only really HUNTING if you manage to shoot a deer somewhere where it has NO natural or man-made desire to be. So, because I am a true hunter, not just a shooter, I only hunt sitting in my living room, while playing Wagner at full volume. I figure if a deer can pick my locked door and navigate down my hallways, and present itself naturally in front of my chair, THEN and only then is it truly a fair chase, because I've not exerted any pressure or influence on that animal to be in that location.

(I will also accept as the true sport of hunting: any deer shot at depths greater than one fathom of water, in an executive washroom of a Fortune 500 corporate office located on any level exceeding the 10th floor of a downtown office building, on board a commercial airliner that has achieved full cruising altitude and speed, within the confines of the debris reservoir of a Dyson brand household vacuum cleaner, or in outer space.)
 
Baiting is not legal in Wyoming. Apparently it isn't considered "fair chase". That said, I know there are certain parts of the country where the vegetation is so thick that spot and stalk is impossible. If faced with the choice of staying at home or sitting in a stand next to a feeder, I would load up the bin with some corn and grab my rifle. :D
 
Now we have hunting snobs!!! If it legal in the states laws I will sit in a stand and kill deer off under apple tree or pile of apple or corn feid or pile of corn I will do that so I can have deer to eat. When you have to plan time to hunt and travel some distance to hunt what ever is legal works for me.
 
Wagner ? Now thats some fancy hunting pard! I like your style, no clumsy, mud covered boots to deal with either. I'd never get to shoot much, but never heard it put the way you've done ! Might join you some season.
 
I see we have a few hypocrites in this thread. Basically, as a couple of others have kind of danced around in saying, If you hunt ANY known food source, I.E. next to or in between a corn field, soybean field, clover field, alfalfa field, OR if you hunt in, or close to, a stand of Oak trees with acorn mast falling, then guess what,,, You are hunting over BAIT! Period. No if's and's or but's about it. If you are smart enough to figure out that a deer eats a certain type of food in a certain area and at a certain time, you are hunting over bait.

While the TRUE definition of bait is using a certain food or lure to entice an animal or fish to come to a certain location, one may also discern the definition to be, using a natural food source to pattern the movements of a specific game animal. If you hunt a water source, you are hunting over bait as well. If you are hunting over ANY natural source that has caused a specific pattern of a game animal, you are hunting over bait. Say what you wish, but before you go saying there is no skill needed when hunting over bait, try hunting in South Texas for white tail without cutting a scendaro or putting out a feeder. Cudos to anyone that can successfully tag out deer without them. Same goes for MANY locations in the US. I'll bet the hypocrites are the ones hunting in places like South Central PA where the deer damn near jump into the back of your truck and slit their own throats. (I've hunted that area many years so yes I know how they are)
 
Agreed, shooting deer over bait is not hunting. Shooting deer in a cornfield or beanfield is not hunting. Shooting deer over a salt lick, or at a water hole is not hunting, either. In fact, shooting a deer any place it naturally might want to be -- or that you can induce it to THINK it wants to be -- is not "hunting." That's just shooting. Not sporting at all.
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Those are all methods of hunting.
 
Somebody persuade me that a cougar waiting in ambush isn't hunting.

And all that "sport" hunting means is that you don't really have to get your meat by hunting. IOW it's not subsistence or survival hunting.

The time I sneaked up on a fat little buck and tossed a rock onto his rump from ten feet away was as enjoyable a moment of sport hunting as I've ever had. I'd be willing to bet he didn't see it in the same light, however. :D:D:D
 
If it is legal in your state go for it. Since you can only hunt over bait during hunting season it sounds like hunting to me. If you choose to handicap yourself by abstaining my hat is off to you but dont expect me to do the same.
T
 
the best bait i know about are the azaleas planted around our house....no deer in the woods..they are all comfortably in the suburbs.
 
Shoot them from the lounge chair!!! Nope atleast put the climber up a tree in the yard!!

I have a hill side of Honey suckel next to use and a deer trail through it and by our garage down to the creek where they cross but nooo hunting at home. Yet. That would also be baiting right??
 
Baiting, except for turkey, is legal in OK. i do not hunt over bait, feeders or game plots; others may do as they wish with no criticism from me.

We do supplement the deer diet with feeders. Last spring and summer in OK was very hot and dry: The deer suffered greatly; many does lost their fawns to starvation. i'm convinced that our feeders kept some of those deer alive.
 
buck460XVR said:
Deer trained to come into bait piles are used to human scent. They have come to associate it with fresh bait. No need really to worry about the wind or cover scent, especially at gun hunting ranges. Most bait pile hunters sit in elevated boxes, so even sitting still isn't necessary. Only skill needed there is carpentry skills when erecting the stand. I have no problem with "sitting on stand" when it consists of scouting an area and waiting in ambush to take an animal that is either trying to escape or using natural game trails to get to and from bedding/feeding areas. Training the local deer to come to a specific spot by dumping a food that is more desirable than locally available, and then shooting them is basically shooting a domesticated animal.

Again. if a person wants to shoot an animal over a pile of bait and it's legal, I have no problem with it. I do have a problem with them calling it a "hunt".
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I have a problem with Internet warriors being the end all on what IS and what IS NOT. just because it's different doesn't mean it's not hunting.
 
kyle1974 said:
I have a problem with Internet warriors being the end all on what IS and what IS NOT. just because it's different doesn't mean it's not hunting.
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Yep....and just because one shoots an animal with a gun doesn't make it a hunt. As I said in my post that was deleted(your last one containing a personal attack was also) If you prefer to hunt over a bait pile and it is legal in your area so be it. As a fellow outdoorsman I will support your right to do it, but I still don't consider it a hunt. Again as I said in another post, I was just replying to the question asked by the OP.

What are your opinions on baiting
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I did not attack you or any other poster personally or call you names. We are all adults and have a right to our opinion. Name calling, IMHO is not really a debatical tactic used by adults.
 
So, because I am a true hunter, not just a shooter, I only hunt sitting in my living room, while playing Wagner at full volume.
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Now I have visions of helicopters (Apocalypse Now) in my head. :D

Feeders are a way of life in Texas, even out west where i really prefer to spot and stalk. But, on my tiny little plot of heavily brushed up land next to a big ranch, I have 2 feeders and stands and, yeah, I call it hunting. If you don't,. I won't bother to argue with you as you've likely no experience doing it and have no clue. :rolleyes: You have your mind set on the subject ant that's that.

Down here, feeders are a multi million dollar industry and feed corn is sold at convenience stores as well as Walmart and Academy and feed stores. Gas up and buy a hundred pounds of feed. :D When I can, I like to walk and spot and stalk, but I can't around here. As I age, I am getting to the point that I CAN'T walk rough country the way I once could and I rather appreciate a swivel seat on a tripod. :D You folks that think feeders aren't ethical, i guess you're just going to quit hunting when you can't get around like a youngster anymore? You gonna sit at home and talk about how it WAS back when you could go hunting? Not me. So long as I can climb that tripod, I'll be hunting. Duck hunting is getting harder and harder for me now days. There'll come a time, I guess, when I'll have to hire someone to take me out on the bay to a blind in an air boat, but I'm still able to hunt public land on foot, but it's getting harder and harder on me. Every morning when I get up, my knees snap, my back crackles, and my hip pops. Aging ain't for wimps.
 
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