Baiting vs planting green fields

https://www.qdma.com/6-ways-food-plots-not-baiting/

Thought I'd share.
I apologize if this has already been posted.

Pretty good article but your never going to convince the corn crowd of anything.

Those are benefits of plots, but they are still designed to draw and hold deer on the property.

It is a bait.

I just don’t see how any rational person would argue that point.

We can all agree that plots offer benefits over corn.

Yep. You can say a food plot is more than JUST a bait, but it's dang sure a bait. And we've got a wall of deer heads to prove it.

Yes, food plots are a attractant and therefore bait but they offer nutritional value to deer and other wildlife. What nutritional value does corn offer?

Baiting doesn't have to be just corn. There are several supplemental feeds out there that offer much higher nutrition than corn

We plant corn. We pick it, eat it, and grind our own grits.
Of course we share it with the deer.
We also share turnip greens, peas and butter beans.
But I never have tried to eat a bag of shelled corn.

Low on protein , high on carbs. Carbs are good for packing on fat in winter.

I plant acres of corn, soybeans, clover and other things to bait deer. But I also have some areas that I really can't plant and would love to be able to feed them and not worry about the law. As for any good for the deer, I guess we could ask the guys that hunt the Midwest, those deer seem to be healthy from eating mostly corn.

bait
bāt/Submit
noun
1.
food used to entice fish or other animals as prey.
Argue with mr webster
I plant greenfields, corn, and anything else to draw deer in and keep them there. I have and will again have a feeder up during season, within the law of course. I have a mineral site. If it got dry enough, id keep a water bucket full so they could get a drink.
By definition all of this is baiting.

To me the method of distribution is the difference. A food plot is planted once and grows on its own somewhat naturally. Bait is distributed by hand numerous times in an unnatural manner. My experiences with both have been that the constant dumping of bait tends to make deer and especially big bucks nocturnal because of the human scent being repeatedly introduced to the area every time it is baited. Also, a food plot is limited to what will grow in that area versus bait or attractants of any alien variety can simply be dumped and be effective. Baiting is legal here in Michigan where i now live and oddly enough most of the mature bucks I have taken had little or no bait in their stomachs even though they were taken on public land that is heavily baited...........so I have unscientifically deduced that the mature bucks are less likely to hit bait piles due to constant human scent maybe?

10 pages at least....Lemme grab a beer....

Well said Bigfoot. Corn sucks.
But when the nieghbors pour it to em youve got to keep some out. I could do without it,
food plots are not the same. Most of those that disagree are sitting over a pile.

Poor assumption on your part! Putting out corn or planting food plots produce the same effect, To draw the deer to a desired location. Both are a form of baiting, like it or not!

You goobers that don't think a plot with a quality mix surrounded by hundreds of acres of thick, hardwood cutover isn't bait are delusional.

If baiting doesn't attract bucks, why worry about the neighbor baiting. With that logic, seems it would push 'em your way.

There you go bringing logic into this.

Oh boy this should be good.

2dogs hit the nail on the head. Everything we do as hunters and habitat managers has one sole purpose in mind. To attract and hold game on our property. Many ways to do it, plots,bait,clear cutting,hinging,planting hardwood and soft mast tree's, and also fertilizing native browse. To me, it's all the same. The elitist's out there want to believe that what their doing is more ethical. I had one guy tell me that his plots weren't bait because they were 5 acres in size and the deer could come out anywhere and not just at one place.

plots ain't bait because the state sez they ain't bait. Corn, on the other hand, is bait. I like being delusional me.

Good article.

I guess my cornfields are just huge baiting sites. Cool!

I have a large plot on top of the plateau , it's surrounded by several hundred acres of hardwood clear cut and select cut. When ever I give a property tour I always say, " this is what legal bait looks like."

I think Troy gave the right answer. These threads pop up often, and it's really just an argument over semantics. Words can be redefined to mean anything you want them to mean, but on a question like this it is the state government that must provide the legal definition of a word. I don't think that our state government has done a good job defining this one, but it is what it is. You can come up with your own definition of a word if you want, but I doubt the GW is gonna agree.

All game belongs to the people of a state, and through state government the people have agreed on acceptable methods of harvesting game, and unacceptable methods. Right now in AL, growing something is not considered bait, but dumping out corn is. At least, it is if you are hunting within 100 yds or within sight of it. You can redefine bait to mean any source of food if you want to, but that isn't the legal definition until it is changed by the state.

Is a rose still a rose by any other name? State and QDMA can call it what they want, results are the same. Plots = Bait.

I am in Indiana. I have the farmer that farms my land leave some standing corn and soybeans as part of our lease agreement. I take some money off the cash rent. That's legal but me throwing out corn is not.

For the record, I wouldn’t “bait” even if legal. Just not my thing. That said, I think QDMA makes some really good points about why baiting/food plots are different and how baiting provides no benefit to the herd. Don’t get me wrong, plots are just another form of baiting. I just think when you compare dumping corn on the ground to producing year around forage, plots are hands down the better choice.

The State doesn't believe that all game belongs to the people of the State. If they truly did, then why did they allow folks to fence them in and take ownership of them? They don't have a problem with supplemental feeding, but add the presence of hunting and it's the devil. Seems like a lot of double talk to me. They say one thing, but the actions say something else.

if the hunters want it to be legalized we should ban together and tell them we aint buying hunting license until the baiting bill is passed. Hit em in the pocket book.

So what some of you are saying, if I understand this right, is that if I will admit that my greenfield is bait, you will feel better about yourself for pouring out corn in the woods. That, in your mind, justifies your thinking?

The state defines it , correct. This is the same state that says opening up the combine throat to let their share of grain on WMAs go out on the ground , or bush hogging standing corn isn't bait. But let some old guy go out in his cut cornfield and sweeten it a little with corn from the bin for his grandson to hunt over and he's baiting. Yeah right.

Same state who's Commish just decided it was legal to hunt over Trophy Rocks, when such as that has been illegal for years , Yeah Right.

The definition changes as needed.

Sounds like y'all are master baiters.


Corn tossed out from a bag and a food plot are designed to do the same thing - bring in a deer so you can watch it and decide if you want to shoot it. Period.

Justify it any way possible. Try to explain benefits, pros and cons, whatever. But the bottom line is they're both a form of baiting. One's legal and gets the big Attaboy back-pats for "conservation." The other is said to be the tool of lazy POS horrible people not worth anyone's time.

Fred Bear used bait.

Also, "conservation" isn't planting something for 3 months out of the year and then letting it die so you can go back nine months later and do it again. "Conservation" is maintaining something year-round, truly enhancing something, making habitat better. Not planting a half-acre field to be able to shoot a deer.

They're both baiting.

If Parrot Head were in Alabama he could take it a step farther . He could have the farmer shell his part out on the ground , or bush hog a little at a time and still be perfectly legal. But, that's not baiting.

Also, I've sat over food plots and feeders or corn (Kansas, Florida, South Carolina, Texas). It's fun seeing deer on both. But to me it's killing, not hunting. I prefer the woods.

But my bottom line is to kill a deer. If I wanted to take some high moral ground I'd go volunteer at the church soup kitchen and give alms to the poor.

Clem, I have taken master baiting to the next level.

Now if I go out and alter the corn or beans from normal ag practices that would be illegal. Say disk it under or bush hog it.

Exactly.

Plant a giant field of corn, harvest it, leave a little extra by opening the tractor thingy = Agriculture

Cut the gorgeous corn it with a Bush Hog but not harvest it = Hey, hey, wha'cha doing?

Throw out a sack of corn = You're an illegal horrible terrible lazy "hunter" and need to be excoriated!

Maybe I'm being unreasonable, but in my mind there is a glaring and distinct difference between a corn pile and a greenfield or standing corn. Hunting a planted plot is no different than sitting in hardwoods over acorns. You are using a naturally or agriculturally occuring food source which is consistant with what deer would traditionally feed on without the aid of man, i.e. soft mast and hard mast. Deer naturally browse grasses, forbs, foliage and nuts and berries. They consume and leave as they would wether we were there or not.
But a pile of corn is more like foodstamps. It does not occur naturally. It is not generally spread over an entire field. It is meant to draw a hungry deer to one spot, to the exclusion of other seasonal, natural food sources, and keep the deer coming back to the same spot. They eat what they can and leave some behind, usually, which makes any communicable disease more likely to spread to the next deer to eat from the pile. One could assume that, done long enough, deer in a certain area could come to depend on the corn during a time of year that it isn't giving them the nutrition they need. What happens when you've trained the deer to come to your corn and then stop feeding them?
Clearly, the point of both is to kill a deer, but the methods are very different in practice and the potential for negative unintended consequences would appear to be higher with baiting.
My personal experience is that, where I hunt, bait draws hogs and hogs run deer off. The club next to us were spreading corn over most of their greenfields(winter ryegrass) this season. They killed a bunch of pigs and two deer. We plant wheat and oats and killed a few pigs and a good number of deer.

So a food plot occurs without the aid of man?

Cool. I can just skip planting them next year and wait on them to naturally occur!

Honest question to those who are redefining the word "bait," - when do you think one crosses the line and becomes a baiter? If a planted field is bait, what made it so? Was it putting out the seed, or the fact that a tractor was used?

I can grow far more deer food with a drip torch than a tractor, and without putting out any seed. So am I hunting over bait if I hunt a spot in December that was burned the previous February?

Does any human involvement make it bait? I've got oak trees that are over 60 years old, but the reason they are there is that a guy gave up farming the land in the early 50s and moved to Detroit, so they can't be considered natural. I made the decision to leave them at the last timber cut, so am I hunting over bait if I hunt the area? I really don't understand the new meaning.

If I am understanding the argument, I don't think I have any land to hunt that wouldn't be considered a baited area, and I have probably never killed but one turkey that wasn't over bait. I once killed one that flew down on the asphalt of a rural airport and walked about 500 yds to my calling. Unfortunately, I did let him get onto grass before I shot him, so I guess he wasn't legit either. Might have been a grasshopper in the grass.

You seriously believe sourcing a travel route in the woods where mast trees such as oaks or persimmons are growing and using woodsmanship to figure out how to hunt it is the same as sitting in a shooting house or ladder stand looking at a food plot created by a man with a tractor or ATV, bag of seeds and fertilizer?

AND that they're both "naturally occurring?"

Seriously? C'mon, man. There is no comparison in those two things. None.

It’s not corn that grows big deer in the Midwest. It’s soil. The reason so many crops are grown in the Midwest is because the soil is so much more fertile than other areas. All the nutritious plants growing in that same soil during summer is what grows big racked and big bodied deer.

I never said that planting a field of wheat is natural. What I'm saying is deer naturally eat grasses that spring from the earth with roots attached. Deer naturally eat acorns that fall from trees and land under them. Deer, once accustomed, will kick a turnip out of the ground and eat it after they've consumed the foliage. This is because wild animals, without the involvement of man do these things.
Corn does not magically appear in nature, piled nicely or spread around the forest floor without a cornstalk nearby still rooted in the soil. A truckload of sweetpotatoes does not just unload itself in a clearing.
However a man chooses to hunt is up to them. Wether they choose woodsmanship over watching and hoping over a field doesn't effect the ways in which I choose to hunt. But the semi-annual debate over what is bait and what isn't goes beyond the line of willful ignorance. If a person want to use corn, fine. But it is bait, as defined by law, and will remain bait until the law changes. I'm just opining here are to what I see as obvoius differences between planted crops and piled feed.

IMO anything that you provide (not naturally occurring) for the purpose of drawing deer to a certain area so you can kill them is bait. A greenfield, a cornfield, rice bran, corn pile, etc etc all bait. The only difference between any of this is the process you used to provide it. The purpose is still the same.

I don't think anything growing on my place is naturally occurring; every plant that is on it is due to some human influence. I don't prescribe burn solely for the purpose of growing deer food, but it is a consideration.

So is hunting a place that was burned the winter before the same as hunting over a pile of corn?

I wouldn’t consider timber management in the same category, but they are both essentially the same thing...man made intervention designed to attract game animals.

Guys it's all about the system and all about the money. The government makes money off of each transaction. If you legalize corn well there would no need to pay the man at the co op for feed and fertilizer because you could produce the same results for a whole lot less money. The co op wouldn't have to pay seed company's for their products because everyone would be buying corn and so on and so on.It's all a system and the more the money rotates the better. Corn is too cheap of an efficient alternative. That's why it's illegal.

Charles Kelly said food plots ain't bait. No further discussion is warranted.

Next question please....

Is bush hogging standing corn bait? Is opening the combine and letting the grain go straight out the back to the ground bait?

I see what you did there.

No and no. But it is illegal to do that for waterfowl

No diffrent than pouring corn out of a bag is that baiting.

I'll bet the Pilgrims and Native Americans didn't hunt over bait. Probably didn't show true woodsmanship. Even though it wasn't illegal, they wouldn't want anyone knowing they would stoop that low. Being lazy hunters and all.

Under that assumption there are virtually nothing in the state naturally occurring. Since 99.9% of the land in Alabama has been changed by man in some way. But that is not what I or I would guess other folks consider not naturally occurring.

The law sees it different.

Doesn't the book say something about normal farming practices. Is bush hogging standing corn a normal farming practice.

You're wrong. You can bush hog for dove, deer turkey squirrel rabbit etc. just not waterfowl.

What the hell is the point of this argument? Folks are hell bent on being able to kill deer over corn and the other side hates it. I get it but what is the point your minds are already made up it's like politics. I myself am against the corn masterbaiters but I can also see it from the other side. I can see it from the guy with 40 acres next to a king pin spending every last dime to pay for is property trying to see and kill a deer with his son. My fear is that that guy with the 40 completely stops plating and improving his place and puts that money into corn to keep up with the Jones. If enough folks with 40s and clubs do this it will effect the deer herd. If I completely stoped all the things I do on my property and just put corn out during deer hunting season you can bet your ass over time deer numbers/size would drastically good down and not just on my place but the entire area. I am creating a habitat that supports more deer then mother nature intended and no amount of feeders can produce the tons that planting/burning and good management can period. In the end this comes down to a level paying field mentality and thats BS I work hard year round to have my situation and to say that poor old Joe neighbor can't compete unless he can show up in November and pour out corn is horse sh__. I hate the fact that hunting and especially being an outdoorsman is becoming a rich man's sport but life ain't fair and it will never be an equal playing field anymore.

Actually, under Alabama Code ( the real law) I believe it doesn't and all above examples would be baiting. Any reasonable person would certainly think so as well. However , our DCNR chooses to twist and bend laws and make regs that supersede laws. Actually I think it's supposed to be the other way around, they aren't supposed to make regs that are clearly contradictory to law.

Recent example , Commish says it's legal to hunt over trophy rock. I recon our DCNR as of late has the Obama administration mentality , we make our own laws to suit our agenda .

Alabama code ( the law) does. But I reckon the powers in Montgomery believe farmers routinely bush hog perfectly good corn or open the combine and let grain go straight through to the ground.

it's legal to manipulate a crop like bush hogging corn and hunt everything but migratory game birds while standing in the corn. Period.

Not according to my local guy. Who actually hunts on my place occasionally.

I bet the Pilgrims and Native Americans had to hunt to SURVIVE! I bet they didn't give a rat's rearend about how many inches of bone was on its head! When "hunters" have to eat deer, turkey, possum, coon, blackbirds, crows, rats, etc to survive till the next day and grow their own corn from corn they saved for the purpose of having food, then bait away. UNTIL THEN HUNTING IS A RECREATIONAL PURSUIT AND PARTICIPATION TROPHIES ARE NOT GIVEN, not matter how bad ":hunters" want one so they can move on to the next en vogue RECREATIONAL endeavor.

Just a little food for thought.

Alabama Code 9-11-244 dealing with bait.

http://alisondb.legislature.state.al.us/alison/codeofalabama/1975/9-11-244.htm

Well here... revised by USFWS

Always heard the feller that does the bush hoggin' can't hunt the bush hogged corn but everyone else can. I guess it is baiting for him per DCNR Commish or someone down there, but not everyone else on the planet .

9-11-244 says it's unlawful to scatter grain, bush hog can flat do some scattering.

Well you can be hard headed as you want. I'll keep doing what is been okd over this way.

These baiting laws have to be the most assanine laws ever written. Would have loved to been in on the discussion when they decided bush hoggin a corn field was somehow diffrent than pouring corn out of a bag of the back of a truck for that matter.

Lots of grey area= more tickets= more revenue. I'm not trying to back y'all down but I've had my practices approved by my local guys. He told me do what I want with the crop. Just don't shoot ducks on it. I hate duck hunting anyway.

Just make sure someone else pours that corn out of a bag and make sure you can't see it from your stand no matter the distance , should be good to go.

That's only good till the new GW comes to town and sees things differently, " by the book".

Well you didnt mind hunting on it

Ahhh, but I didn't know anything about or do the hoggin' , that makes it A-OK in the screwed up world of Montgomery.

Hmm, years of real wet weather, droughts, high winds, or hail during the growing period or getting close to harvest time can render crops unsaleable. Thereby leaving the farmer no other choice than bush hogging the crop to get it back on the ground and decaying so that the fields can be planted the next planting season.

One would think that some believe ag fields just pop up crops like perfect little daisies every year!

I thought it was "normal farming practices". Could be my normal farming practice to bushhog a little corn each week in january. It will be my normal farming practice from now on anyhow.

Been mine for years. My corn has a terrible disease I'd rather not put in a grain bin!

Nothing “grey” or difficult to understand about the baiting law. Goobers just like to argue because they have nothing better to do. Habitat management is not baiting. Keeping legal feeders out is not baiting. Quality habitat management is not the same as baiting

Is planting a food plot in late summer for just 2-4 months of the year so you can see and/or kill deer on it the same as habitat management?

Planting a food plot for the purpose of harvesting deer is part of habitat management plan. Sorta like eggs are part of a cake

Majority of the dumbasses still couldn't kill a deer if baiting was legal from what I've seen on here

Bet folks pouring corn in a pile and hanging off a tree right on top of it to "harvest" a deer never dreamed it was all part of a management plan.

Putting out corn to "harvest" deer or turkeys is part of a habitat management plan. But that's illegal.

Putting out a food plot for 2.5 months to "harvest" a deer or turkey is part of a habitat management plan. But that's legal.

Same things. Same concepts. Same results - for the deer or turkey, but not the hunter if he gets caught.

I believe you have it figured out, Sir.

NOT the "same thing, same concept, same result " (talk about STUPID).

Corn is for losers who can't kill a deer without a pile of corn.

At least a Fall food plot provides deer a 7 to 8 month supply of food.

http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com...season-time-prepare-next-year/110549996/

I’m with you. Apples & oranges

If you reduce the two to just harvesting deer , they are the same concept. I reckon a feller could keep his feeder filled 7-8 months or longer.

Thank you for your post. This thread was needing some comic relief and your post provided that.

A year-round or well-planned and established 7- to 8-month plot could or may provide some extra benefit. Never have disagreed about that.

But a plot created only for 2-3 months at the most to see/shoot deer before a guy lets it go fallow for 9 months is the same as putting out corn to see/shoot deer. There's no difference. Neither create genuine hunting situations - they're only ambushing and killing situations.

It all boils down to how people want to justify things and make themselves feel good.

We all know that quality habitat management provides high quality nutrition for wildlife 12 months a year. Planting food plots is just a tool to fill in seasonal gaps during late summer drought and late winter freezing when native browse is limited. How you can compare year round management to pouring a bag of corn on the ground is beyond me.

[quote=N2TRKYS]


I'll will accept that as your confession that you are incapable of killing a deer or a turkey without using corn.

This isn't hunting:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOaWHHsnYZc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2KVaZDk2jk

Take it how you want, but I know the difference between a whitetail and mule deer.

While we are at it I want to be able to legally shoot a deer from or down a public road or highway. If the point is to just kill a deer, I should be able to just shoot them whenever and whereever I see them, day or night. Also there should be a year-round season with no bag limit.

Deer walk to an oak tree dropping acorns what's the difference? It's shooting a silly goat who cares why they walk up?

The bottom line is the difference is pretty simple. One requires the moral ethics to follow the law, planning, work, and patience. The other requires a lazy ass and willingness to violate the law.

Not much more complicated than that.

Of course high quality , year round plots are a superior management tool compared to just a corn pile in season. Any fool knows that. I have year round, high quality plots , when I hunt over them I view them as B-A-I-T !

There is absolutely NO way that the average AL food plot can provide higher quality food as consistently and efficiently as a gravity feeder.

So, drop the semantics.

I'll buy that . Average plot = a bag of ryegrass and a bag of 13-13-13, done.

I can't wait until my plots start pulling in big mule deer like the one in that picture

That must be the bonus buck that the State was talking about on the WMAs. Lol

No one said anything about average. Deer will walk past your feeder to feed on quality browse. You keep pouring your habitat out of a bag. Healthy wildlife are just one of the many benefits to maintaining quality habitat. I’m sure Dan Moultrie loves your type

How many people are currently or will in the future put anything other than corn it them, though?

*Potentially*, you are 100% correct. But, in reality, 99% of people will just fill them with corn.

I think you are incorrect with your 99%.

But, I can only speak for myself!

And, Mr. Holier than Thou.....you kinda killed the whole anti-baitiing theme with your ‘deer will walk past your feeder to get to my foodplot’ post. LOL

BTW, it is a good thing I do both, huh?

Key word is “your” feeder. My feed is still on a stem. Legal. Keep pouring it out.

I know I’ll never convince someone with 12000 + post of anything. I’m still trying to figure out how in the world it is possible for anyone to post over 10,000 on a deer forum. I get here a few times a year while my wife hauls me on vacation and have managed 470 post in 5 years. Maybe if I were to follow the wisdom, I too would be a follower of Dan Moultrie

You do not follow much at all......

Dan Moultrie sold his company several years back. LOL

Guess I need to stay tuned in more. Honestly I don’t give a rip about feeders or baiting. My personal feeling is that you can attract more deer with fertilizer than you can corn, and stay legal. I do not view that as “baiting”

And, as per the definition of AREA, as per DCNR.....you can plant, fertilize AND supplemental feed.

Everybody loves to use the strawman argument of 'pouring a bag of corn in a pile on the ground' in attempt to discredit the value of Supplemental Feeding based on their own personal morals.

Just quit.....geez....

Green patches and feeders are the same thing, Bait! They are a food source artificially placed in a specific location by man in order to attract a game animal for the purpose of hunting it. It requires no more skill or effort to sit in shooting house over a green field than it does to sit in one facing a corn feeder. All the people trying to claim differently are deluding themselves just to feel superior. I guess their fragile ego's can't handle can't handle being no better than "GASP" a corn hunter. LOL!

They talk about nutritional value. Well first deer also need carbs, especially in the colder months, which corn has plenty of. Second, you can sling more than just corn from a feeder. They make some excellent products you can put in a feeder. But, But, But, most people will just use corn. Yeah well I got another news flash for you Skippy. Most people who plant green patches aren't planting sun hemp, joint vetch, or some 100 dollar a bag Biologic seed blend either. The VAST majority of green patches planted in Alabama are oats, rye grass, winter wheat, or some combination of the three. They provide browse for about 2 or 3 months tops. All of the people I know that use feeders to supplemental feed do it year round.

As for the lazy claim? We plant patches and use feeders to sling both corn and pellets. The patches are far easier to maintain than a bunch of feeders running year round.

I know. I get so sick of hearing that s##t too. Anyone I see parroting that crap instantly loses any respect I could have ever had for their opinion.

Some of these guys think we don't legally know the difference between baiting and not. We know the difference, we just think it's stupid. As I said earlier. Anything, and I mean anything you do to your property to encourage wildlife to use it, falls under baiting them in to me. Some people are elitists. Some guys think unless you kill a deer with traditional archery, your not a REAL hunter. Some people don't gun hunt and think that people who do, are not REAL hunters. Just like some people believe that when they clear an area and put in a food plot, lime it ,fertilize it, plant it, and then hunt it or hunt the trails leading to it, are not baiting. OH no, we're providing a year round food source. Yes, you are, but your also baiting. Not by the definition of the law, but your still baiting. How much money you've invested in the food plot, doesn't change a damn thing.

I don't think that; I just think you ought use a different word to describe it. Baiting has a legal definition, and it doesn't mean anything done to land to improve habitat. Planting a crop and putting out bait are not the "same thing" in a legal sense. They involve completely different actions, so they are not the same thing in a physical sense, so in what sense are they the same thing?

As best I can understand, you guys are saying they are the "same thing" in some kind of moral or ethical sense - am I understanding correctly? I would agree that they could be the same from an ethical sense, but the fact is that in AL right now, they are not. One is legal and one is not. A genuine supplemental feeding program is now legal; but if you hunt inside that magical barrier the dcnr has defined, then it becomes bait and in my opinion is not the "same thing" as growing a crop in any sense.

If this is just an argument that the current state policy on feeding is lousy policy, then I agree with you completely. I have often said I'm not buying corn to feed deer, but if someone else does it's not something I care about. I really hope they never legalize feeding turkeys during the season; that would require a much shorter season or we wouldn't have many left.

Good hunting to all.

PCP, for starters, I wasn't referring any one particular person. Guys, all you have to do is to ask yourself this one simple question. Would I be doing any of this if I didn't hunt? If the answer is yes, well then your not baiting, but your still enticing game to come to your property for viewing. If the answer is no, I wouldn't be planting plots, fertilizing native browse, putting out supplemental feeders, whether they have corn or protein pellets, or mineral sites, well, your baiting IMO. The difference is your planning on harvesting the game that you have "ENTICED" to your property. As to the fact that one is legal and the other is not in Alabama, your correct sir. I believe, Alabama has some of the dumbest game laws. We have laws on top of laws to try to accomplish the same thing.

I don’t think baiting rather it be corn or a high protein feed is the equivalent to growing food plots. And I’ll continue to manage my property that way. The end results may be the same when hunting over them if baiting becomes legal without the what if’s and maybes like it is now. And I couldn’t care less what everybody else does on theirs.

Preacher, do you think scattering corn via a bush hog is baiting?

I don't think enticing to your property is baiting , but enticing to your actual hunting spot is if it's something like planting a plot. Sure the law says it isn't, but the result is the same. You've done something to entice him with none native food to a particular spot to kill him. Corn pile, feeder, standing corn, bush hogged corn, green plots all entice them to a particular spot.

I could see how enticing deer to a smaller acreage might be viewed as bait. I was thinking about larger acreages where deer might not leave at all.

ya'll quirt, enuff is enuff

If I understand the law correctly, then it would not be. If that is illegal for the critter you are hunting, then I would say yes. For deer hunting, I can't understand why anyone would wanna bush hog corn. I can promise you the dang pine goats can get every grain of corn out of the field without any help from me. But when I plant corn, I don't want the deer to eat it.

My only disagreement with you on this is the terminology some of you are using. I think you ought to find another word to use besides baiting. If you define it so broadly that it includes anything that isn't natural, then you have made baiting synonymous with hunting, since nothing is left that is truly natural. It doesn't make a whole lot of difference, but I've read poll results that say non-hunters still have a majority support for hunting, but a very strong majority is against baiting. To say that essentially all hunting in AL is done over a baited area is probably not good for the future of hunting, and I don't think the average person understands all habitat improvement to be baiting.

I think a genuine supplemental feeding program can certainly be part of a management plan for wildlife. If I had unlimited resources I would hire a guy to build me a bunch of feeders and keep them full of high protein deer food during the critical times of the year. But I have limited resources, so the deer can scrap for a living like the rest of us. But if I did have out supplemental food, I wouldn't hunt over it, so it wouldn't be bait.

I would agree that planting, burning, and supplemental feeding can all be components of a management plan for deer. None of those things meet the legal definition of baiting. I just think you oughta use a different word.

Ok Troy, I will quit.

Can't believe this thing is still going

This argument comes up like 3 times a year and is the same outcome every single time.

Cause the cornheads just have to try to justify their actions of overcome their guilt I guess.

No, much like a neutered dog, you don't get it.

This argument comes up like 3 times a year and is the same outcome every single time.[/quote]
Cause the cornheads just have to try to justify their actions of overcome their guilt I guess.[/quote]
No, much like a neutered dog, you don't get it.[/quote]

LOL, once hunting becomes a survival endeavor then baiting should be legal, but at that point it will not matter if it is legal or not. Until then it is a recreational sport and participation trophies aren't handed out.

But, continues to carry on in the race to the bottom!