Need imput from Ala hunting clubs

With the new bait law in Alabama, our club is torn between how we need to use this law to better the club. Some are for feeding in green fields only. Some want to be able to have secret spots. How are other clubs handling this. Give us some input before we have a fist fight. LOL

not allowed in view of club owned stands to avoid conflict if someone dumps corn out for months then another member kills a deer on it people tend to claim the spots they corn as their own. if you corn you corn in view of your private stand away from everyone else.

I asked a friend about this yesterday, and he told me his club has no feeding within 400 yards of food plots, because they don't want to attract the hogs and have hogs tearing up the plots. Individuals can have their own feeders out if they choose to anywhere away from the plots.

My question is, if everyone has a secret spot, where they are pouring corn out everywhere, wont that hinder the deer from coming in the fields. They will go to those spots and never have to come into the field. We dont have a hog problem yet so feeding in the field doesnt effect us.

Case and point as to why we adopted the no baiting allowed policy.

Ours are simple. Put corn anywhere you want as long it is in gravity, spin, tube, or covered feeder. First come can hunt it. Most have put feeders in plots.

Our club will not bait for two reasons (1) not in favor of hunting over corn pile (2) don't want to attract hogs.

I don't think you'll find the corn piles to be the magic bullet that some think it is.
Deer are wild creatures and still live on wild instinct. They presence of bait won't change their habits nearly as much as the influx of human traffic.

so true.

We are baiting in certain locations away from fields with stands overlooking the bait sites. The bait site itself is mainly an inventory location to keep up with what deer are on the property during the season but if someone wants to hunt over them thats fine too.

I actually think that this could HELP some of the food plot hunting by taking some of he major pressure off the plots. In years past with only 11 food plots on 1,000 acres some of our guys who aren't as gungho about getting out and finding acorns and what not would hunt the crapp out of the food plots every time they were down there; thus over pressuring a lot of the plots. Now with bait sites we are able to Double the number of stand locations those guys will hunt, hopefully reducing the amount of pressure on ALL the stands.

True - we are also a no baiting club, first come first serve, no private areas. We sign out a whole area for the hunt around 200 - 300 acres each area and there is usually a big club foodplot and shooting house in each area. Members can plant small secondary foodplots and put up stands anywhere but its understood that when you sign out an area you can hunt anything you find in that area - I feel like baiting could be the same - we also have some bears and a few hogs and we aren't interested in attracting them further and this is important.

A buddy of mines club has feeders in 20 of the 50 or so plots they have. Everybody paid an extra $100 towards the membership that is earmarked for corn for the feeders. No does can be killed on the plots with feeders. Bucks only. Their feeders are set to go off @ 7am and 5pm. Anyone can hunt them. It's first come first served. There is no corn allowed elsewhere. So far they have killed a handful of bucks going to feeders. They're strict on bucks too. 14" inside with minimum of 3 points on one side. They have around 9000 acres with 36 members.

One of the guys on our lease built 12 trough feeders we put one at each of greenfield (6) we then put a few at some of the stands not at green fields where its easy to drive up with an atv and dump a bag of corn real quick. We are not filling all of them up at once we plan on rotating which feeders we fill. We all pitched in and bought 2 pallets of bagged corn.

Our club put out feeders around the property (mostly off the side interior roads). All are marked on the sighn in board. No other corn is allowed. Hunt them if you want or not.

I run our club and my first response to the new law was that we will continue to have designated feeding stations as before. But after some thought, decided to let them try it for a season, provided everyone bought the permit and was prepared to show it to me if asked. Any method of baiting is permitted, but all sections are available to all members, first come first serve. Made it real clear that the first problem I hear About and we will pull plug on baiting. So far so good.

We have hogs on our south tract and folks have figured out that they are just throwing $$$ away trying to bait that area so most have pulled out there. I just hope they don’t move to our north tract where baiting is plentiful.

If you have good well fertilized grass they will walk by the corn. We dont have a rule as of yet, but if you feed it's fair game for all to hunt. Plus we have a bad hog problem which most are finding out will get a plot destroyed if you put it around or in the plot.

Everyone in our club gets their own two spots that have a 600 yard diameter. There are other spots available as well. You can do what you want to in your own private spots. I've been hunting in clubs since the early 1970's and this is the best method yet for us. (especially since we have been able to corn in Florida for so long). When you go into your area, you can be assured that no one else has set foot in there.

I don’t like the idea of placing feeders on food plots for a few reasons. The first reason is the intrusion into the plot every time you fill the feeder and adding your human scent to the area. Then you are going to have members wanting to place cameras on the feeders which will also add to the human traffic and scent to the area. We go through a lot of trouble placing our shooting houses off the plots with a hidden egress so not to spook the deer by coming and going. If someone wants to put one in the woods and hunt over it, by all means get after it.

We voted to keep club 5 club feeders place in strategic locations (not on plots). No hunting over them. No baiting by members. I think most members realized the all out baiting would cause conflict.

I'm in two clubs and we have two totally different policies. In one club, we're not feeding because we don't want to attract hogs - which are prevalent in the area. Hopefully, the clubs around us feeding corn will pull them off of us and it doesn't hurt that we have enough food on the land to support a good deer herd without feeding. In the other club, we're allowing people to feed. The only restriction we have right now is that you can't put a timed feeder in a food plot. Of course, no one has to announce where they feed and no one has any personal areas - if someone wants to hunt over someone else's bait site that's just part of it. Also, every member/guest has to have the $15 baiting permit - just to be sure we don't become targets for the game wardens.

I believe this is an accurate take. Not only will the baiting lessen pressure on the plots themselves, but the deer won't graze them as often either. Every year, we run into the issue of overgrazed plots and to give them some relief should be helpful this year.

Well, first of all, y'all should've probably ironed out those details 2 months ago.....

If you’re the president you got two options.

1. Make a decision to allow or not and stick to it with an iron fist.

2. Let the club vote and majority wins, then stick to this with an iron fist.

Our club has feeders on every plot. 6 plots planted this year. Since we only have 2 members it’s not been an issue 😂😂👍

We just take turns buying corn. But....we only feed 3 seconds twice a day so we are not having to fill feeders every week. We will up
It to 6 seconds in another month.

I'd say bait on established plots or in the woods at a club set location. No baiting secret spots.

You can keep hogs away from feed stations. Just takes a little effort.

We decided no feeders on food plots and had to be at least 100 yards off plots. All feeders had to be marked on sign in board mainly to keep folks from putting out a feeders too close together. Club will not pay to fill feeders. If you want to hunt by a feeder, go ahead but don’t expect your feeder not to be hunted by other club members.

Dr. B