Well, the baiting is necessary on small acreages which is what we have around here considering the land prices are $10,000 an acrre. Heck, there's a choice 34 acres down the road went up for sail, an older brick home on it that's nothing special, sold for $800,000. Yeah, it's nuts, but we got this place, just 3 acres long and skinny, for 50K with house, water well, septic. It was a HUD repo. So, we're the poor rednecks on the road, but we haven't run property values down. ROFL
I have permission to hunt the 7 acres on one side of me, the 17 acres on the other, for all, but deer. Well, that's handy for squirrel which I enjoy hunting, but it really doesn't help much for deer and hog without baiting since the woods are so thick around here. I jumped a hog the other day in thick cover and never got a bead on him due to the cover he was in. I don't much like sitting up all night on a stand and don't have night vision and it's DARK in those woods, so I let my trap (baited with corn) do the hog hunting. I buy a lot of corn.
Turkeys are a rare treat and, honestly, I've never seen 'em at the feeder, though I have pix of 'em there on the game camera. The ONLY way to hunt turkey here IMHO is to call 'em during spring. Now, if I just happened on one at the corn and needed a turkey, I'd take him, but I do agree that calling is more exciting. That's how I got the one I got last year. I can't stand those mouth call things, though, make me gag. So, in the past, I've used one of those push button box calls to take a tom. That one was shotgun only rules on the lease.
That call long sense bit the dust, so I was shopping one day in a hardware store in Hallettsville and they had an electronic call. I bought it not knowing if I'd ever get to use it. One day last spring I was out back working on my chicken pen when I heard gobbles. It was WAY out back. Knowing it might be 4 years before I got the chance again, I came inside, put on my leafy wear camo, got the box call and my .22 mag, and started back after that feathered beast. I got part way back to the back fence to my box blind, figured that was good enough, sat in the blind and pushed the "yelp" button. I immediately got a gobble back over the back fence on another property. I called again, got another gobble. I started getting excited, started pushing every button on that danged call, LOL! He finally came and stopped about 70 yards away where I nailed him. It was just like on TV, but with a rifle and a little longer range.
Yeah, the calling, even though I can't use mouth calls (glad there's no law mandating those danged mouth reeds) was exciting. Shooting 'em over the corn would be less exciting.
Now, if I tried to hunt the abundant deer out here without a feeder, it'd be 10 years or more between kills. I'd just have to get lucky and stumble on a legal deer. With my crossbow, forget it. I prefer using the crossbow now days as in bow season we can shoot doe (they need thinning out here) without a special permit and the deer rut during bow season which is always preferred.
Hogs, well, bait is the only way. Turkey, I agree, calling is WAY more fun. If one stumbled into my feeder in fall when I was deer hunting, as is the way many turkey get shot in Texas, and it was legal to shoot one in the fall (it's not in this county), andI hadn't taken one in the spring, I'd do it. I followed directions off the net for brine soaking that bird last spring in preparation for smoking. MAN, that bird was delicious!