I am in your camp. we have not had to feed constantly to hold or grow deer. We "farm" for them and are trying to be selective about shooting bucks. We have as good a deer herd and we are seeing more bucks than ever. big surge in seeing deer and bucks last couple years has been limiting traffic and unnecessarily creating pressure the deer react to.

The bill is popular because the people were presented with the false premise that the only way they could ever be allowed to bait legally was through a permit system. I have no problem with the government asking the citizens to pay for a new service that the people want. If you want more police officers? Pay more taxes to hire more officers. But simply allowing people to do something on their own land isn't a new government service. It doesn't require new revenue. If anything it should require less revenue because you would need fewer game wardens out trying to catch people baiting if you truly legalized baiting. The permit system provides no new service, adds a new hunter tax, and requires as many or possibly more game warden hours to enforce because now there will be even more baiting that still has to be policed.

I mostly agree with your take. Allowing people to do an activity without governmental penalty does not place an additional burden for services on the regulatory structure. In fact it takes the enforcement burden away. I do understand they are probably strapped for cash to run their department, but dang just increase the license cost or campaign your case for extra piece of the state tax income stream pie.

I wish they hadn’t passed this new baiting allowance, but not that it’s here it just irks me they take advantage of the chaos to charge a new fee put of nowhere. I know others on here hold very strong heartfelt beliefs on this subject, but I actually think everyone who “benefits” from the law enforcement and game management state activity should chip in with license fees equally. I’ll admit if I owned land or was a retiree I’d prolly feel a different perspective. Just my take right now.

Our club will allow baiting. Most seem to be in favor.

Baiting only leads to nocturnal behavior, imho, when feed is available through the night. You have to train your deer to eat during daylight hours and they will move more during the day. I'm not talking about does and young buck only, but also mature deer.

All clubs should mandate one member to be the master baiter.

Listening to a podcast with Chuck Sykes now.

He makes no bones about this being all about the money.

If you take your 3 year old son/daughter hunting with you, and you're hunting over bait, you have to purchase a baiting permit for him/her. That's flat-out what he says in the podcast. Doesn't matter if your hunting partner is carrying a gun or not.

Then he goes on to say that people have to have common sense. LOL.

Perch has a hand on it😂

I must truly be a master baiter cause I’ve never experienced any of the “feeding deer makes them more nocturnal”.

🤷‍♂️

Keep the feed hot, keep your ass out of there except to feed until it’s time and the wind is right. Helps with the frequency of the hot doe visits.

Oh, and when you go in to feed, blaring heavy metal seems to put them at ease. Think of it like the ice cream truck music.

Your welcome

I agree. Traffic in and out of areas will increase. It will turn the deer more nocturnal without a doubt.
The club I am in as of now has decided it will not be buying any feeders or corn. We did a quick rough estimate of purchasing 50 feeders with holding 4 bags of corn per feeder and filling them 4 times during season and it was like $10k. Most clubs dont run a surplus of funds and I have yet to hear the first person not just in this club but anywhere online, in person or at all say they want their dues to go up to pay for corn and feeders.
The club will allow members to put up their own feeders and buy their own corn if they wish.
We are taking bets how long it takes before we hear "someone is hunting my feeder" complaints to start coming in.

That plan puts you ahead of schedule for being on the "Florida club" plan.

I'm going to use 55 gallon drums set for about 5 pounds of feed each evening, one fill-up should last close to 70 days.

I am not a big Moultrie fan but...I replaced a couple of my feeder motors with the Pro Magnum Feeder Kit . It uses 2 6v batteries that will last all year. When you fill it and set the timer you program how much corn you put in and it show how many days that will last. It seem to be spot on last year.

I also have the 600 and 1200lb Boss Buck that I only check once or twice a year.

I did the same for our club. Figured it would cost somewhere between 3k and 4K just to get it started on half of our plots. I can see this thing busting up many clubs!!

I wish more of Alabamians had access to private property or not having to deal with club properties. I’ve been blessed my whole life with it and have never had to worry about these sorts of things.

I have struggled with how to approach this new law at our club. But after much thought, I have decided that all members will be required to purchase a permit that will allow them to hunt over bait and any guest that hunts at club will also be required to have a permit. If they don't want to purchase and show me proof of the permit, then they will simply need to find another club to hunt. I don't have the time or desire to be checking on every hunter to make sure they are not hunting over a bait pile if they don't have the required permit. I don't like the law and wish it would have never passed but it did so this is how I am handling it our club and I think all of our members will be in agreement. We will still plant our 30 acres of food plots as well. Should be an interesting year to say the least.

They do have access to it, but instead of saving money and buying their own land they would rather live in a $300,000 house, driving a $40,000 truck, with a $25,000 utv parked out back.

Muzzie, why should you have to worry about your fellow hunters having a bait permit? That's on them. They will have to pay the ticket, not the club.

Avoidance of drama..