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Baiting with corn.
- Thread starter Skrause5
- Start date
Deer survive regardless. Corn aids in those crucial times like late winter when food sources are exhausted. Otherwise deer love corn when you put it out. Therefore if you’re supplementing food, late fall early spring is thumbs up, otherwise just spread it when you can as an attractant.
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Gumbymedic
Well-Known Member
Over bait, early season
Over bait, mid season
Over bait, late season
Mature does too
...and this ancient dude
I don't always hunt over bait but I disagree that mature bucks won't come to bait piles or food plots. Notice that all these pictures were taken on the spot with my camera, not a trail cam. Baiting can be effective but it's no guarantee, just like setting up over sign or trails or rubs or bedding.
wannabehunter
Member
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2019
- Messages
- 49
Judging from your weather conditions, we have very different habitat for our deer. So deer in your area may frequent a readily available food source more often because they have too. In SC, not so much. There’s natural browse year round. Can’t equate different regions of the country. That’s why my comment was “In SC” “in my experience” etc.
Patriot
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Feb 10, 2019
- Messages
- 842
I like to bow hunt because it’s hard and I love trying to figure out where a buck is, and then how I can ambush him.
I do not have any issue with people who bait legally but for me it takes the fun out of it because I’m using a magnet to make him come to a spot instead of trying to figure out where he would be naturally.
I also don’t feel good about those cell phone trail cams. If I get a text telling me where a deer is and I go there, that just doesn’t feel right to me.
I do not have any issue with people who bait legally but for me it takes the fun out of it because I’m using a magnet to make him come to a spot instead of trying to figure out where he would be naturally.
I also don’t feel good about those cell phone trail cams. If I get a text telling me where a deer is and I go there, that just doesn’t feel right to me.
I think it’s all about your progression as a hunter. I think sitting on bait where legal is a great way to start. But I guarantee after 2 kills you will lose the thrill and progress to a more difficult style of hunting. As humans we just chase happiness. In hunting it just so happens that means we get more and more sportsman like. Have fun and shoot deer!
kelly.jayp
Well-Known Member
I shot two does in the past two weeks that were full of corn and I hunt in VA where it’s not legal once season starts. Clearly one of the neighbors is sketchy. I’m assuming it’s the ass-hat who has an 8x8 box blind on the property boundary.
The VA regs make no sense. Living in NC and having hunted private for several years where baiting is legal presents an entirely different set of issues. I baited most years. One year I tried not baiting and deer activity and sightings plummeted. Where the property was is all tree farms and big hunt clubs and if you flew a helicopter over the county you would see yellow piles everywhere. If you didn’t bait you didn’t see deer. But given there is a pile every 400 yards makes it not a very natural style of hunting. Just hoping to get lucky really and I wanted to learn and become a better hunter. I did shoot my best buck with a bow in early Sept while he was still on the summer pattern but typically what I learned during baiting was between all the trips in to bait (nearly every 2 weeks to keep it full), check cameras and hunt stands all in the same area I was putting a ridiculous amount of pressure on the place and daylight sightings dropped off quickly except for yearlings. The other issue was with all that corn around hogs were a huge issue. I’d get trail cam pics of 20 hogs wiping out bait in a single night. I switched to a Redneck T post feeder to get it off the ground and then the problem was entire raccoon families hanging off it and cleaning it out. The guy who hunted next to me lived an hour and a half away and when he came to bait he dropped 200# of corn on the ground. It would take a day or two before the 100 acres we had side by side were inundated with hogs. I wanted to strangle him constantly. Lots of work and frustration for small success (bucks-shot plenty of does though), plus wasn’t growing as a hunter. I hunt VA now partly because it’s just better genetics and partly because I have to figure out the way the deer use the area and solve the puzzle.
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The VA regs make no sense. Living in NC and having hunted private for several years where baiting is legal presents an entirely different set of issues. I baited most years. One year I tried not baiting and deer activity and sightings plummeted. Where the property was is all tree farms and big hunt clubs and if you flew a helicopter over the county you would see yellow piles everywhere. If you didn’t bait you didn’t see deer. But given there is a pile every 400 yards makes it not a very natural style of hunting. Just hoping to get lucky really and I wanted to learn and become a better hunter. I did shoot my best buck with a bow in early Sept while he was still on the summer pattern but typically what I learned during baiting was between all the trips in to bait (nearly every 2 weeks to keep it full), check cameras and hunt stands all in the same area I was putting a ridiculous amount of pressure on the place and daylight sightings dropped off quickly except for yearlings. The other issue was with all that corn around hogs were a huge issue. I’d get trail cam pics of 20 hogs wiping out bait in a single night. I switched to a Redneck T post feeder to get it off the ground and then the problem was entire raccoon families hanging off it and cleaning it out. The guy who hunted next to me lived an hour and a half away and when he came to bait he dropped 200# of corn on the ground. It would take a day or two before the 100 acres we had side by side were inundated with hogs. I wanted to strangle him constantly. Lots of work and frustration for small success (bucks-shot plenty of does though), plus wasn’t growing as a hunter. I hunt VA now partly because it’s just better genetics and partly because I have to figure out the way the deer use the area and solve the puzzle.
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Gumbymedic
Well-Known Member
I think you're right about weather conditions. It's 28° today but it feels like 20° with the wind chill. Here, you can only bait on private land. I do not always have access to private land so I hunt public as well. Those pictures I posted were taken from several different years also. I really don't see baiting as a huge advantage. I've had plenty of sits, with or without bait, that I saw nothing. I definitely fall into the "if it's legal and you're having fun" group when it comes to baiting.
Honestly that's why I am going to be using bait and follow the trails back to the general area where they came from. So followed it back to a bedding area so I set by there tonight. And shot a doe 150 yards from my baiting area so day 1 of my plan is a success.
Wolverinebuckman
Well-Known Member
What type of terrain are you hunting? I keep seeing you say you are going to follow their trails back to bedding, but that may not be possible given some ground types. I'm hunting heavily wooded hills, and their trails are nearly invisible... even where I know they are traveling.
We just started doing it (became legal) in my part of GA last year. The properties next to us chose to, so we did too. We killed the exact same number of deer at camp last year as we did the year before (before we started baiting). This year it’s like the deer don’t care as much. Corn or pellets are everywhere, so it’s not such a big deal to them I guess. I sat watching a spin feeder last week and had 3 does working the hill behind me rooting up acorns. They didn’t seem to care about the corn.
Art_Vandelay
Active Member
If you wanna hunt over corn then you should hunt over corn. If you don’t want to hunt over corn then you shouldn’t.
One thing you definitely should not do is let a bunch of people on the internet tell you what’s right or wrong or how to hunt “correctly”. Figure it out for yourself. Learning from experience makes hunting fun and rewarding.
One thing you definitely should not do is let a bunch of people on the internet tell you what’s right or wrong or how to hunt “correctly”. Figure it out for yourself. Learning from experience makes hunting fun and rewarding.
I will be honest definitely don't want to hunt over corn. Would must rather be able to look at a property and know what the deer are doing. But I feel that I don't possess that skill at least right now.
Art_Vandelay
Active Member
this is hunting. Nobody knows anything. We’re all just out here making educated guesses based on experience. Good luck!
As soon as the season is over hit the woods taking notes for next year. All your tracks in the snow will be late season sign. As soon as the snow melts scour again to see your rut sign that should be preserved by the snow. Don’t be scared to cover every inch of your land right after season.
jspradley
Active Member
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2019
- Messages
- 186
I live in TX so a bag of corn is just as vital a piece of hunting gear as a bow or a gun...
I've sat in front of feeders and shot deer in various stages of wildness, done the petting-zoo-ram "hunt" thing and none of it even comes close to matching the enjoyment I've gotten from hunting no bait walk-in public land.
I am really torn on the baiting thing...I agree on the public perception front, the folks we rely on to allow us to continue our hunting privileges are overwhelmingly against it and I do think it is a net negative for hunting but it's such an ingrained tradition here it would be WWIII if it was outlawed.
I do wish folks here in TX would be more honest about it though, there's a lot of self delusion about how it doesn't make hunting any easier, but I've never seen an answer as to why anyone would go through the hassle and expense if it doesn't make it any easier.
One thing I never hear anyone talk about is the conditioned response from the sound a feeder makes going off (it's loud if you havent heard it, can be heard by the human ear from a few hundred yards away), it's essentially training deer to come to food in a way that a pile of bait just sitting there wouldn't.
I've sat in front of feeders and shot deer in various stages of wildness, done the petting-zoo-ram "hunt" thing and none of it even comes close to matching the enjoyment I've gotten from hunting no bait walk-in public land.
I am really torn on the baiting thing...I agree on the public perception front, the folks we rely on to allow us to continue our hunting privileges are overwhelmingly against it and I do think it is a net negative for hunting but it's such an ingrained tradition here it would be WWIII if it was outlawed.
I do wish folks here in TX would be more honest about it though, there's a lot of self delusion about how it doesn't make hunting any easier, but I've never seen an answer as to why anyone would go through the hassle and expense if it doesn't make it any easier.
One thing I never hear anyone talk about is the conditioned response from the sound a feeder makes going off (it's loud if you havent heard it, can be heard by the human ear from a few hundred yards away), it's essentially training deer to come to food in a way that a pile of bait just sitting there wouldn't.
What percentage of TX hunting is high fence these days? A little off topic I know but I don’t think baiting would ever be outlawed in a high fenced scenario. States don’t even require a hinting license for that type of “hunt”.
I agree with you on the free range hunting in TX. It would be WWIII if they outlawed baiting. It not only helps hunting but those year round feeding programs down there make a flourishing deer herd possible even when natural range conditions don’t.
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