My Take On Baiting

If you go out and ask 10 hunters their opinion on baiting. I'm sure you will get 10 different opinions. I have been hunting for over 30 years and I can tell you that times and how you see deer have changed dramatically during those years.

When someone ask me what I think about baiting my answer is, I don't like it all but I wish they would pass it. I get a dazed and confused look when I give them that answer. Let me explain.

If you hunt in the northern zone, how many times during deer season do you see empty bags of corn lying on the side of the road in a ditch. Well, I see it all the time. Now granted some will argue that it is over 200 yards away and out of sight, and it may be. However, I'll bet a majority is hunting over it in some kind of way.

I have numerous land owners that surrounds my property. Some of them I know very well and are great people. When we talk during deer season, they will normally say something about corn being put out and hunting over it. Oh, and they feed all summer, which I do as well, except I stop feeding before hunting season and don't start back until the season has ended.

So for me, a law bidding hunter, am at a disadvantage. While I try to hunt ethically and lawfully, my neighbors are not and are holding deer on their properties more so than I am while depending on natural browse which is lacking around late November and hopefully my plots did well to help some.

People around the state whether legal or not will always hunt over bait. I don't believe in hunting over bait, just my opinion, but wish they would legalize it so I can compete with the neighbors. I can tell you, that it does make a big difference. I have a pipeline that I can see 2 other property owners land with deer always in it. Sometimes 10-20 in a sitting. They have feeders placed along the pipeline and keep feed in them all the time, with tripods set up on the pipeline as well. I'm sitting in a ground blind with a food plot with me sparingly seeing deer. So do deer prefer corn over plots. I believe that is a yes to me due to my observations on the stand. I have had awesome plots but noticed a lot more deer on the neighbors around the feeders.

If baiting is legal, I can then place bait out to allow deer to feed on what they want with out fear of being caught by DNR while hunting my property whether I hunt over it or not.

So that is why I say I wish they would pass it. Laws will be broken, and people out there will do it without hesitation. If legal, then everyone benefits.

You would think somebody would have jumped all over this one by now.

The Walmarts in McDonough,Stockbridge and the Academy in Mcdonough and other Northern Zone locations go through pallet after pallet of corn during hunting season.
It can't be all hunters who live here and hunt in the Southern Zone!

Why put bait out? As you can see all the deer are on neighbors property eating their bait. So now that they are over there and have food they have no reason to come back to you for food. They have all they need on neighbors property.

nobody is baiting in the northern zone

It would not be legal and all the deer would have bad feet.


Roll Tide!

s&r

You can still keep the feeders full and not hunt over it as you said.
I keep corn out all season just to try to get pictures so I know
What’s there, but I’m still legal. Had a real good one show up for the first time
Almost at the end of the season. Defiantly made me get my butt out of bed for
Those last few days.

Hog hunting

so what do you mean by not believing in hunting over bait? im confused because you go on to say you would hunt over bait if it was legal

elfiii said:

You would think somebody would have jumped all over this one by now.

Click to expand...

If your feeling froggy.

I've hunted for 35+ years, all my life in the northern zone, and half my life in both zones. I've seen a good deal in regards to baiting, and in my experience it doesn't make much difference when everyone is doing it. Deer prefer acorns, anyway, and will walk right past a corn pile when acorns are on the ground. Late season is the only time I may throw some corn out in south Ga., when acorns are gone. It is almost exclusively the only time I see deer hitting the corn with any regularity. YMMV.

My opinions on one more baiting thread are much more emotional than they are about the act of actual baiting. Dead horse reincarnated 10K times.

Deer come to corn from somewhere so find somewhere and find the deer!