extra traffic to and from to fill and check cameras, the unnatural sound of sheet metal slinging corn, the fact that the food is always there so no need to show up in daylight. mature bucks are strange I've killed 130-140 class deer I've only had one or two pictures of and they were never at a feeder the younger bucks they ran with were all summer but the biguns almost have a 6th sense they were always 50 yards away and never at the feeder.

Sounds no different than too much pressure during season, over hunting plots, ripping and roaring on ATVs , checking cameras every other day. Too much human intrusion of any kind will make some bucks nocturnal. Some may still be on their feet in daylight, they just shy away from the high pressure areas.

The feeder I run holds 300 lbs, and will last 7-8 weeks at 5 seconds, twice a day, at 7:30 AM and 4:30 PM. There is no corn left for the nocturnal deer.

Last filling is 2 weeks before gun season comes in here (Georgia) in mid-October. I don't mess with it again until after Thanksgiving, then not until season closes in January.

I saw deer every time I sat, including a big 8 that I aged at 4.5+, and hoped my wife would get a shot at. She saw the same deer once, but couldn't get on him as he walked through.

I have heard this many times before but still don't get it. I can make a 50 bag of corn go for nearly 2 weeks on my feeder during the off season and still get more pics of deer eating than I care to look at some times. It's corn that folks like 257Weatherby have paid for equipment, fuel, herbicides, fertilizers and prayed for rain(or lack there of) to produce.
I just pay $7 and load that 5 gallon bucket with a spinny thingy up and check batteries on the camera.

What am I missing? If you already have the equipment and don't buy it special to food plotting maybe but most folks don't own a tractor nevermind the accessories.

With all that said, I like growing my own little plots and watching them produce but cheaper...I ain't so sure especially if you figure in time with growing bigger plots.

Is this why mature bucks don't show up at and around feeders in Texas, Kansas, Ohio and other states?

Or is the "big bucks are wary and "nocturnal" because of feeders" only happening in Alabama?

Except for that $15,000 tractor and disc.

Pressure (messing with cameras and looking for tracks) is the main thing that make deer nocturnal.

I think the primary difference between ‘baiting’ and planting a plot is that baiting, generally, creates an unnatural feeding instinct in the deer herd. Supplemental feeding out of troughs is the same thing. You take a wild animal which nature has created to walk around the forest and fields and nip and nibble it’s way through life, making use of what natural forage is appropriate for a given time of year. No where in nature does corn spill regularly from a metal drum. Acorns my fall from trees, for a while, but when they are gone they are gone until next season and the deer finds something else to eat. A planted plot, although man made, planted and maintained, mimics the old fields lost to pine plantation and the like. They certainly aren’t as important in places where large agricultural fields already exist as they are for people hunting thick forest areas. It’s plants growing from the soil, like any number of other growing things deer would normally nibble. Standing corn is also in a more or less natural presentation. Deer find it and feed when the corn is ready until it’s gone. Then move to another browse.
Baiting deer, with a recurring food source presented in a way unknown in the rest of their environment is not unlike encouraging bears to frequent your trash can. It isn’t good for the bears and isn’t really helping the deer.

What's your definition of bush hogged corn?

Bush hogged corn or soybeans or claypeas, etc, would be like any other offal from currently accepted agricultural practices. In my opinion if you planted, grew, and knocked it down in the same place that is no different than when I let winter wheat go the seed before mowing it back down.

Good explanation, sir.

Should the grain from perfectly good standing corn be defined as offal? I believe one should look at why the corn was grown and bush hogged, to entice deer. Is your mowed wheat to entice deer?

"The State" tells us we can clear a spot in the woods , plant a corn patch , bush hog it in fall , hunt over it and it's not bait. I call BS.

And "spillage" from harvesting grain is, well, y'know, "spillage" and that's OK.

But putting corn in a field is baiting.

Well there is a certain amount of spillage and knocked down rows in normal farm practices. Opening up the auger or the screens so perfectly marketable corn goes on the ground isn't normal farm practice, same as bush hogging .

State says opening the screens up on the combine, letting the grain go straight through out the back isn't baiting. They've done it on Skyline / Martin WMA. But that's not bait, I call a big ol' BS!

If the bill passes as it looks like it will, I will continue to plant food plots and put a feeder along the edge of the field. I've hunted with that combination a lot and usually the deer will come in and nibble around, go to the feeder and eat for 30 or so seconds and then go right back to the oats. A feeder by itself isn't a magic bean.

They only do this at night, though, right? Because feeders make deer nocturnal.

Yes

Well, if it does pass I hope all the DAs that put corn out in the woods to get pictures over will just put the damn corn and cameras in the foodplots. They will still get pictures of the same deer at the same time of the night and still wonder why they aren't seeing and killing the ginormous Midwest deer in the piney woods of Alabama. I said DAs didn't I??

Food plots do the same thing!

I believe both are beneficial if used right especially during off season.