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Baiting For Deer, Do you do Bait?

In PA it is illegal to bait deer. Would I do it if it was legal no just because I like to figure out how to hunt deer on my own without me trying to lure them in with bait. I'm not against it and if it's legal where you hunt than go for it.
 
Here in Tennessee you can bait deer as long as you don’t hunt over it. Funny I know. All evidence of the bait has to be gone at least 10 days prior to you hunting, or you have to hunt something like 200 yards from the bait. It’s actually a big topic of debate here as many of our neighboring states now allow it. At the same time we have had CWD come up in the wester part of the state and it seems to be spreading. The state biologists claim that baiting, such as corn piles, can be a bit spreader of the disease due to it being carried in the saliva so they adamant against it. Which causes me to question then why can we bait at all then if that is a likely way that CWD is spread?

Anyway, it is amusing to me each year watching all of these hunters buy bags and bags of corn from Walmart and other stores, knowing it’s illegal.

As for my opinion, if it is in fact a major way that CWD is spread then I would be against it. Other than that I’m neutral. It does change hunting considerably, but so do cellular train cameras.
 
I've never baited since it's illegal in my state. I have however started to manage the private 10 acres I hunt using QDMA techniques, including food plots.

I'm in the same boat as you described in your initial post - food plots have made me more successful - I can sit over a plot and see deer almost every night and that is fun. But I recognize that they don't necessarily make me a more skilled hunter. This year I plan to hunt public for the first time. I want to expand my knowledge and skills and I feel just hunting over the same food plot every year won't do that for me, although it can be fun.

Now more than ever I am craving the adventure of getting to hunt new places and terrains using new methods. However, I know I always have my honey hole as a fall back option.
 
My problem with baiting is that a person can create a very attractive bait pile and lure deer from your property unto theirs. You may be trying to hunt deer in a fair chase method but loose out to your neighbor's bait pile. In places where baiting is legal and most people do it, then those who don't are left having to compete against an unfair advantage.

In most states that baiting is legal, I think a good alternative would be to wait until late season to allow baiting and let early season be fair chase. That way, those who didn't have any success during early season hunting under fair chase can then create some opportunities for success with baiting in late season.
 
Halfstep said:
My problem with baiting is that a person can create a very attractive bait pile and lure deer from your property unto theirs. You may be trying to hunt deer in a fair chase method but loose out to your neighbor's bait pile. In places where baiting is legal and most people do it, then those who don't are left having to compete against an unfair advantage.

In most states that baiting is legal, I think a good alternative would be to wait until late season to allow baiting and let early season be fair chase. That way, those who didn't have any success during early season hunting under fair chase can then create some opportunities for success with baiting in late season.
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Actually the split season idea isn’t a bad one at all.

Here in TN because of the 200 yards rule, we’ve had instances where neighbors would bait right on the property line in an attempt to prevent someone with access to hunt the adjacent property from hunting. I’ve never heard the resolution on that from TWRA so I’m not sure how it would be handled.
 
Halfstep said:
My problem with baiting is that a person can create a very attractive bait pile and lure deer from your property unto theirs. You may be trying to hunt deer in a fair chase method but loose out to your neighbor's bait

In most states that baiting is legal, I think a good alternative would be to wait until late season to allow baiting and let early season be fair chase. That way, those who didn't have any success during early season hunting under fair chase can then create some opportunities for success with baiting in late season.
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I grew up hunting in south Louisiana where corn is king, and can tell you that bait isn’t some magical key to killing every deer in a square mile like some of y’all think. Those deer know that corn on the ground means humans near by, except for the random young does and bucks. I don’t bait anymore, but can tell you bait is still a fair chase method. Nothing is forcing those deer to come to the bait during shooting hours. If I remember right there’s several studies saying baiting is a hindrance to deer movement and mature bucks actually will go out of their way to avoid bait sites. I’ve actually seen that first hand
 
Matki15 said:
I grew up hunting in south Louisiana where corn is king, and can tell you that bait isn’t some magical key to killing every deer in a square mile like some of y’all think. Those deer know that corn on the ground means humans near by, except for the random young does and bucks. I don’t bait anymore, but can tell you bait is still a fair chase method. Nothing is forcing those deer to come to the bait during shooting hours. If I remember right there’s several studies saying baiting is a hindrance to deer movement and mature bucks actually will go out of their way to avoid bait sites. I’ve actually seen that first hand
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The reason why baiting hinders deer movement is because deer don't have to move very far to feed. They go from their bedding to the bait pile and back. Whereas if there is no bait pile, the deer has to move more to feed. Baiting is an effective way to pull deer into an area. That is why people do it. If it didn't work, then it wouldn't be illegal in many states. In states where it is legal to bait, lots of people will bait. The more people that have bait piles, the less effective it becomes, taking away the advantage. The less that people bait, the more effective it becomes giving an advantage.
 
I’m against baiting. My theory is it handicaps the hunter. Your not forced to learn your prey. I feel it’s lazy. Learning how deer operate, why they do the things they do. A very intriguing animal to beat at its own game. That’s awesome to me. On the other hand. If you prefer to bait and it’s legal. Have at it.
 
Cajunyankee said:
I never baited but I may have cleaned out the combine hopper 50 yds from my stand. It seemed like every year that dang combine hopper would jam up in that same location.
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I used to have a buddy that always asked me to watch him combine the last pass of corn in a couple fields during pheasant season to make sure he wasn’t leaving money on the ground.
 
Matki15 said:
I grew up hunting in south Louisiana where corn is king, and can tell you that bait isn’t some magical key to killing every deer in a square mile like some of y’all think. Those deer know that corn on the ground means humans near by, except for the random young does and bucks. I don’t bait anymore, but can tell you bait is still a fair chase method. Nothing is forcing those deer to come to the bait during shooting hours. If I remember right there’s several studies saying baiting is a hindrance to deer movement and mature bucks actually will go out of their way to avoid bait sites. I’ve actually seen that first hand
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Couldn’t agree more! I have watched 3.5 year old bucks and mature does walk right under a feeder without stopping (probably on their way to white oaks).
 
Here in MS corn is king. I used it early on in my hunting career since that is what the people who influenced me into hunting were doing. Once I got into bow hunting and more importantly being mobile, I quickly began to see it as a hinderance to my success. I quickly realized I wasn't learning a thing. Here is the problem from a hunting standpoint. Deer are not stupid and know bait sites equal danger. If you see deer walking in the woods, they behave very differently than deer approaching a bait site. Generally, I have observed mature does allow the yearlings to go to the bait first to see if something bad happens to them. The mature does will usually circle the bait downwind also. If the does are doing this, you know the bucks are. I have never seen a mature buck at bait in daylight. I have seen countless pictures my friends have shown me of bucks in the dark at their corn feeders. Rarely do they ever kill any of those deer. This is changing somewhat with cell cameras. The tactic I am seeing adopted more and more is guys using cell cameras at huge corn feeders set up to allow them to shoot from distance after sneaking in to the spot when the camera says the deer is there. I know one guy, a high school coach, who uses this as his primary method now on his lease. He puts a 500 pound capacity feeder up in a spot he can access from the road and puts a cell cam over it. Wherever he is during season, he is ready to stop what he is doing and drive out to the lease (about 5 miles) and sneak in and shoot the buck when his cam says the deer is there. He did this last year. He left school, drove out, shot the deer and was back on campus before anyone noticed he wasn't at the field house. He called his son to go get the deer. He was bragging that he doesn't have to sit in a stand anymore and can save his vacation time for other things. He doesn't want to hunt or be in the woods. He just wants a good buck to post on farcebook, etc.

Baiting is predictable from the deer's perspective. A mature deer can figure out you have been in a spot regardless of baiting but if you keep going back to the same spot over and over, they will figure you out quickly. Corn is heavy. You have to truck it in. Then you need some sort of small 4x4 vehicle to transport it from your truck to the bait site. It is no coincidence that most guys around here that deer hunt have a big 4x4 pickup with a trailer and a side by side or 4 wheeler. It's not so much to get the deer out, as much as it is the way to get the bait in.

Corn is expensive. I have one friend who I would estimate spends at least $2000 a season on corn alone. I don't think he killed a single deer last year in MS. He did get a couple of nice bucks with outfitters out of state. He is slowly transitioning into the short out of state fully guided type hunts. He just wants to show up and have everything ready to go and pay someone else to do all the prep work.

The one thing I love about the way I hunt now is that most of the folks I know would never even consider hunting public land since it is illegal to bait. They can't picture hunting without it. It means I have a lot of land to myself. So, from that perspective, I don't mind baiting.
 
Growing up in Minnesota, it’s not legal. Family has stated doing some food plots where we rifle hunt but here when rifle season that’s all dead and under snow, so I’m not sure how effective those are. I guess I grew up with the view it wasn’t sporting to bait deer anyway.

I understand why people hunt bears over bait, I’m reading Fred Bear’s Field Notes, he seem to not see anything unsporting about it. But I can’t see hunting deer with bait as fair chase. When I see videos of folks hunting deer and hogs over feeders I move on.

It’s legal on private land where I go in northern Wisconsin, which may be why I don’t run into any bow hunters on public land (or I’m terrible as picking spots). But for a state that has so many issues with Chronic Wasting Disease to continue to allow it anywhere seems absurd to me.
 
After reading the thread I think less than half actually have any clue on what baiting entails, how it works, or why and when it's effective.........yet lots of emotion and strong opinion. Guys send me pics of big bucks on corn every year...one MAY get killed. One gentleman I know has two feeders around his house and shop for the local does. Bucks are there every year on the doe group. I've yet to draw on one despite the opportunities I've had to hunt there. The feeders are making no real difference as the deer want to be there anyway.
I hunt a 400 acre farm right on the marsh these days and we could realistically put a mountain of corn if we wanted. We don't put any. As soon as you do, everything will wait till dark to move. Different area and deer movement is different.
 
I don’t personally believe the “bait piles spread disease too fast” argument and just see it as an excuse to ban baiting. It kind of reminds me of “manatee speed zones” here in FL where they use manatee safety as a way to justify no wake zones when the fact is that most of the year manatees aren’t even in a specific area since the migrate a ton. If it was really about saving manatees wouldn’t the speed zones only be in place during specific times of year? Governments use heart strings to implement rules that make no sense otherwise. Let’s face it, deer are out there sharing food sources, licking branches, sniffing each other, and spreading disease plenty enough on their own. I personally believe that the anti baiting sentiment is kind of an elitist attitude placing judgment on the regular joe trying to put meat on the table. Not everyone wants to or has time to dedicate countless hours scouting and hunting just to kill one deer. Look, hunters need to stick together and need to quit trying to ban types of hunting they don’t personally do. If you don’t bait, don’t dog hunt, don’t deer drive, etc then don’t try and ban it. Just do your own thing. Hunting is going to die as a sport/tradition if we just ban the way people hunt because we don’t like the way they choose to do it.
 
I have baits in the past both for bears, deer and hogs. I was actually quite good at it. It does take some thought but not near as much as without it.
 
There seems to be a strong opposition to baiting, on ethical grounds, because it offers a significant hunter advantage.

There seems to be quite a few folks(myself included) who have ample evidence that baiting doesn’t actually offer an advantage, and in many cases makes it harder to shoot the deer you’re after.

The logic behind opposing it on ethical grounds really starts to fall apart when you consider the gap in cognitive horsepower between a person and a deer, the fact you’re trying to kill them, and the last 50,000 years of tool evolution. No trucks, insulated clothing, camo, wheelie bows, tree stands, stamped or machined broadhead blades, it’s turtles all the way down.

Baiting on public ground selects for a certain type of hunter. I’ll bet the farm they aren’t responsible for significant % of harvest. Baiting on private ground selects for a slightly different type of hunter - but I think the math stays the same.

With One exception. Private ground that has great carrying capacity, and never gets hunted, and that gets baited, likely offers supreme advantage. Guess what? The people who can afford large tracts of prime huntjng land and the “bait” to go along with it, either don’t hunt, or shoot a couple deer a year. It selects for a different type of hunter.

Whether or not it’s “right” or “ethical” seems uninteresting, because it requires ignoring a ton of other tactics or gear that present greater advantages. And it’s like, just your opinion man.

Whether or not baiting is effective though - that’s an interesting topic. The “it depends” line seems to pop up here. I know people who bait and kill big and lots of deer. I know people who bait and don’t kill squat. The bait doesn’t seem to make a material difference.
 
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AL opened baiting to private/leased land legally a couple years ago. You have to pay $15 for a baiting license as well.

I personally don't do it and wouldn't mind if it was outlawed. My reasons for hunting would not include using bait. CWD has come to several AL counties in the last year or so. I also think baiting enhances chances of CWD spreading faster. M2C
 
kyler1945 said:
There seems to be a strong opposition to baiting, on ethical grounds, because it offers a significant hunter advantage.

There seems to be quite a few folks(myself included) who have ample evidence that baiting doesn’t actually offer an advantage, and in many cases makes it harder to shoot the deer you’re after.

The logic behind opposing it on ethical grounds really starts to fall apart when you consider the gap in cognitive horsepower between a person and a deer, the fact you’re trying to kill them, and the last 50,000 years of tool evolution. No trucks, insulated clothing, camo, wheelie bows, tree stands, stamped or machined broadhead blades, it’s turtles all the way down.

Baiting on public ground selects for a certain type of hunter. I’ll bet the farm they aren’t responsible for significant % of harvest. Baiting on private ground selects for a slightly different type of hunter - but I think the math stays the same.

With One exception. Private ground that has great carrying capacity, and never gets hunted, and that gets baited, likely offers supreme advantage. Guess what? The people who can afford large tracts of prime huntjng land and the “bait” to go along with it, either don’t hunt, or shoot a couple deer a year. It selects for a different type of hunter.

Whether or not it’s “right” or “ethical” seems uninteresting, because it requires ignoring a ton of other tactics or gear that present greater advantages. And it’s like, just your opinion man.

Whether or not baiting is effective though - that’s an interesting topic. The “it depends” line seems to pop up here. I know people who bait and kill big and lots of deer. I know people who bait and don’t kill squat. The bait doesn’t seem to make a material difference.
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Well put!
I also think it goes into the whole set up. I have no problem with baiting or hunting over bait. I also, have no problem going into the woods and using Woodman's skills to kill deer. A lot that bait don't worry about scent control, wind, making noise or any other controls. You still need to be on your game. The deer realize that corn doesn't grow in a pile so they are very wary when coming to a pile. I told a story about last year I had lock on and sticks with a camera. Everyday at 4 pm the deer came through, until I was sitting in the stand. I mean every single day. I set up in my saddle one day within 30 yards of that stand. That is when I say it. The deer would come in at an angle and look at the stand , when I wasn't sitting there they came right in. I shot 2 does that evening. We are hunting their bedrooms. Just because you put out bait it doesn't mean you can get rid of all your other skills. It is just one more arrow in the quiver, like a bow, crossbow, shotgun, rifle, saddle, box blind, ground blind, pop up, etc. If it is legal do it.
I pulled 3 deer of off private land last year and 3 off public land I had never stepped foot on, including a very nice 8 off the public.
 
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