Just got back from my 2-3 week annual end of the year trip to my farm in SE Bama and I will say you guys have been busy on the baiting/February season extension topics.Everyone has opinions but I believe I have truly seen the effects of the feeding/baiting thing. I have never supplemented or baited, never had any interest in it until the last 2 years.I have 320 acres of good mixed habitat that is hunted lightly Thanksgiving and Christmas and then hunted hard the last of season.A very limited number of does, maybe 1 or 2 a year, get killed as does a 1/2 decent buck or two a year, so I ain't wiping them out. I have been keeping pretty detailed records of sightings by myself and my guests for the last 6 years. For the first four years sightings were pretty consistent at roughly 2.25 deer seen per sit.Like anywhere else there were bad days when they did not move but those days were made up for when the days when they were.My south neighbor, who is a good friend, has the adjoining south 300 or so acres and has supplementary fed during non-season since he bought it. He is only interested in shooting deer which are few and far between in my location and consequently he has not shot anything, including does for, for years , so he is not pounding them.Two years ago he started feeding during season, 250-300 lbs of corn/protein a frickin week and the effects on me are clear.Last year sightings dropped to less than 1.5 per sit and the make-up changed with more small bucks showing up than does in the fields. This year was absolutely horrible.Sightings dropped to less than 1 per sit and the deer were almost entirely small bucks.My does are GONE.In 3 weeks of daily hunting I had does in plots eating 4 times. This on plots which for years were sure bets for small doe groups of 2-4 which arrived pretty much daily like clockwork. We saw twice as many small bucks this year as does which is bizarre for my property.All this while my buddy is sending me clips of 6-8 does grazing his plots.

My conclusion is he has very effectively moved a pretty substantial percentage of the does in the area to his property, along with the more dominant bucks. The displaced spikes and little bucks get there butts kicked across the line by the does and mature bucks which have so much available food there is little reason for any of them to move around much in daylight. Of course we usually only get a shot at them when they are moving in daylight.

So now I got a dilemma. I have neither time, money or inclination to year round feed and the main reason I hunt is I just like seeing them doing their thing, which hopefully involves a shooter buck wandering by every year or so.I am gonna talk to my neighbor and point out that not only is he just killing my hunting, he is also hurting himself. Its not like he is seeing any really mature bucks so I have no clue why he started it.The only bright spot about it was the 9 point I shot this year was slam full of corn and protein feed so he ought to eat good. If he keeps feeding in season I am gonna give it one more year and see if this trend continues. If so I will have a big decision to make as far as how I manage my place. It may come to large strategically placed corn piles and shooting every darn deer that crosses my line for a year and sending him a pic. Which sux because I really like the guy and have no desire to have bad relations with a neighbor. I guess time will tell, but these facts are my observations not opinion. My opinion is that in season feeding by a neighbor can be a real negative factor for anyone who does not have the ability or inclination to do it.

What do the soil tests show on his plots and on your place in food plots? What does he plant what do you plant? Does he plant year round plots do you? Has his habitat/bedding areas improved has yours improved/changed? Has another neighbors habitat changed (clear cut etc) I would bet a habitat change has changed the deers behavior more so than his feeding. I feed year round and have lost probably half our heard in the past five years because of maturation of bedding areas the deer move to where they are more secure not where they can eat more in my opinion. Once we thin pines again and create some dense dry bedding area deer sightings will go up again. IMO

Good comments and things I also considered. However there have been no significant habitat changes on adjoinng properties and the only recent change on mine was clear cutting 20 ac of 30 yr old pines that got beetles two years ago . Which should have been a positive for sightings. One reason I thought this was a pretty good example of the impact of in season feeding is that there have not been any real changes in either of our habitat or hunting pressure. Only real difference I can see is the in season feeding.

How sure are you that someone isnt hunting your land when you arent there?

BradB,
I hunt about twenty miles from your property. This year was a bit unusual here too. The food plots that I plant on private property were virtually unused by deer. Normally by mid-January one of them is eaten to the ground. This year the grass has grown enough to fall over ,very few deer tracks in any of them. I am part of a club that leases the adjacent property and have rights on an additional 200 acres. No one nearby is doing a significant amount of supplemental feeding or baiting. I think that the overall population is down. There were a few decent deer taken from the club property and only five does off 1200 acres. Sightings have been down in this area for the past two years. The usual December lull was particularly bad on this property, you would have thought that there were no deer at all.

BradB, you have described my setup and season results exactly the same! This baiting bullshit is ruining deer hunting!!

I have been on the same ground in South Ala. for 25 years. when the state went to 2 does a day ,it sounded like a war zone until about 5 years ago when the doe kill started dropping off. Now you can sit all day and hear very few shots. I spoke with our game warden last month and was told the reason this season is so bad was because so many were baiting. I guess it doesn't have anything to do with killing all the baby makers. It has to be corn...

Well the problem in my immediate area is not to much doe shooting. In the 1000 acres around me there have not been more than 2-4 does a year shot. In 21 days of hunting I heard a grand total of 4 rifle shots.There is a decent number of deer in my area based on tracks and plot usage, they are simply not moving because they don't have too. The two plots I have near my south neighbor were ate to the ground, but not a single doe was seen actually eating in them this year during hunting hours. And these are very lightly pressured plots that have historically been almost sure bets for seeing deer.My plots in the north end of the property were almost untouched and again virtually every deer seen in them was a small buck.

It was define fly a weird year around my place also. I've been feeding the deer the last three years and the previous two years was covered up with deer. I could go to my best field and see 3-10 deer every afternoon. The deer very rarely went to my feeding location in daylight hrs. This year I had more pics in daylight where I feed them than ever. But I lost my plot usage for some reason. We saw only 1 small buck in my field this year and very few pics at all on it. I still have plenty of deer using the property but something changed. I can tell you I had way more bucks on cam this year then does which is normally a 50/50 split. Hopefully things change next year for sure.