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.