Hillary and Pelosi like stuff like that too.

To me, it seems like corn and food plots serve the same function. Attract and hold deer near or at the location where they will be hunted

So the State allows folks who can afford a tractor, a lease or property, fertilizer, and seed, to plant food plots and then hunt over them. The State also forbids Billy Bob, who works at the paper mill and only has access to public land or small private tracts, to scatter corn and hunt over that.

Years ago, I hunted a mountainside where there were oak trees with very large, sweet acorns. More than once, I saw deer walk past other oaks to crowd at the base of the trees with the sweet acorns. Shot several there. Was I hunting over bait? They were obviously there for the food, and were rejecting other food sources to get to the trees where I was hunting.

Seems to be a little elitist to me, and I own property with food plots on it, and a large amount of oaks, hickories and other food sources.

I also don't understand why anyone would be bothered by other folks hunting over bait/feeders/food plots/big acorn crop. The deer are coming to the food. It shouldn't matter whether the food is natural or introduced, you are still, in effect, hunting over a food source. If you don't want to scatter corn, then don't.

Uncle huck....well said.....ive hunted a place where we weren't allowed to make food plots any larger than what they were and they were tiny! Basically strips between pine rows...it was like plantation and we couldn't damage trees obviously.....so I'm with you what is the difference oh and did I mention we didn't own a tractor and had to pay someone which was fine...but yes they are both meant to hold deer and feed deer and hopefully get them to stop and take a bite...now the argument will come up that a plot is there until the summer etc.....well we keep our feeders full too all year and we abide by the law

If the bill is voted down you can just thank men like senator Paul Bussman who when i asked about this bill said he would vote it down because its not "hunting". He then proceeded to say that the current bill of 100 FEET was considered hunting, I just shook my head and walked away.

I've been hesitant to post this as I didn't want to ruffle too many feathers, but you took the words right out of my mouth.

The corn policy in this state smacks of moneyed elitism to the extreme. And this is coming from someone who has access to a few tractors and nearly every small farm implement you can imagine.

Does that include dove fields, and turkey?

And that doesnt even account for even 1/10th of 1 percent of all the baiting going on in Bama. That's the real problem for the wardens, they've got to actually spend the time at the site to catch them hunting over it. It might take a couple days or more to bust someone on a pile they have found, meanwhile, there are 5,000 other people hunting over bait in that same county. With only 1 or 2 wardens per county, its virtually impossible to even make a dent in it.

Average fine for baiting $196.12 per event. (that's basically the cost of 25 bags of corn) hardly deterrent for most that are buying 3-4 bags a weekend.

Average fine for hunting after dark $1,335.29/incident.

Do wardens have orders that require them to chase down baiting violations when they could be spending time enforcing other laws? I doubt it.

They probably choose to enforce baiting laws because that 's what they like to do and it brings lots of money in for their employer.

So our officers wrote five times more tickets/time chasing corn toters than night hunters. Now a few could have been putting out corn at night I get that, but probably not as many caught at night as hunting during day over corn. Now you know why you couldn't find a game warden at night or day they were tired from chasing corn toters during day and had to take off!

You’re assuming that all the tickets were deer hunting over corn. What about Turkey and Dove tickets. Heck, 1 warden could write multiple tickets on 1 dove field.

The state can't change the baiting illegality for migratory birds as that is federal law. It would just lessen the number of GWs you would have to worry about unless the state guys started taking their cases to federal court instead of district court.

And those same game wardens were writing permits for other people to hunt over corn.

That’s kinda my point. To argue deer baiting you would have to know the number of actual tickets written for hunting deer. It might be 1/3 or 1/2 or 3/4, but it can’t be all 400,000. Or am I wrong in my thinking? Is that 400,000 number just for deer hunting? I would think they lump them all together.

Since this is a report of fines for state offenses of a state law, I would think that fines for federal offenses are not included. Those fines likely go to the federal government.