Fur Flying,
I appreciate your interest in wildlife management. Using that logic then planting green fields year round(warm and cool) is supplemental feeding and planting them in the fall is baiting. Cause your using it as an attractant, right? I been fortunate to learn a lot from a lot of different biologist. Some of the lessons i've learned are that you need a year round approach to land management. Included in that are habitat management, warm and cool seasons plots, and supplemental feeding. The reason the bioloigist give for one of the main benefits is what they call filling in the "nutritional gaps" Nutritional gaps is when the native browse and what you have planted are not sufficient to keep the deer healthy. This can be caused by a lot of factors, one example is a drought that limits your greenfields doing well, along with native browse suffering as well. Another example that is relevant to this bill is the winter months when native browse is mostly gone. These are the times supplemental feeding is beneficial to wildlife and really i would argue they need it during these times. The problem most honest landowners have is they will not feed during hunting season because of a horrible law that doesn't define area, and you could argue this is the time they need it most.

Allen,
We base our management program on 4 cornerstones(Age, nutrition, genetics, and stress) We try to manage all 4 of these well. We have never used steroids, hormones or anything else.
As far as wildlife belonging with the people, i generally agree with you. Since you have an issue with people raising deer, do you have an issue with the 1,000,000 plus released quail in south georgia plantations, or the hundreds of thousands of pheasant released in South Dakota Ranches and Public land, or the bass being raised to be put in ponds, what about ducks, chukar, buffalo, elk, etc. I know great stewards that own high fences and some that don't.
Moral and Ethics do matter, and I'm the one spreading facts about wildlife management, not lies about someone business.

I want to make this clear, their are a lot of people that want this bill to pass(lease holders, hunting clubs, land owners), i am amazed just at the support we have received today from people on this site through emails and phone calls.

First off let me point out to you that I said Might and underlined it because I did not know about Illinois and Iowa, other than the fact that they kill big bucks there like they do in Texas and KY. I have said on here many times that my experience with shooting over bait in KY, over the past 11 year 3 or more trips a year, has shown me that the big bucks do not come to the feeders during the day time(usually). In those 11 years we have killed many large bucks and I don't recall a single one being killed at a feeder.
That being said, if baiting is legalized if one does not wish to one does not have to use it. I doubt that baiting on private property will pull many bucks off the unbaited public property.

I guess I am having a hard time following you. You seem to want the government to keep people from baiting deer on their land, and at the same time you state it is best when government does nothing?

Seem to be contradicting yourself.

Fur Flying,
I appreciate your interest in wildlife management. Using that logic then planting green fields year round(warm and cool) is supplemental feeding and planting them in the fall is baiting. Cause your using it as an attractant, right? I been fortunate to learn a lot from a lot of different biologist. Some of the lessons i've learned are that you need a year round approach to land management. Included in that are habitat management, warm and cool seasons plots, and supplemental feeding. The reason the bioloigist give for one of the main benefits is what
they call filling in the "nutritional gaps" Nutritional gaps is when the native browse and what you have planted are not sufficient to keep the deer healthy. This can be caused by a lot of factors, one example is a drought that limits your greenfields doing well, along with native browse suffering as well. Another example that is relevant to this bill is the winter months when native browse is mostly gone. These are the times supplemental feeding is beneficial to wildlife and really i would argue they need it during these times. The problem most honest landowners have is they will not feed during hunting season because of a horrible law that doesn't define area, and you could argue this is the time they need it most.

Allen,
We base our management program on 4 cornerstones(Age, nutrition, genetics, and stress) We try to manage all 4 of these well. We have never used steroids, hormones or anything else.
As far as wildlife belonging with the people, i generally agree with you. Since you have an issue with people raising deer, do you have an issue with the 1,000,000 plus released quail in south georgia plantations, or the hundreds of thousands of pheasant released in South Dakota Ranches and Public land, or the bass being raised to be put in ponds, what about ducks, chukar, buffalo, elk, etc. I know great stewards that own high fences and some that don't.
Moral and Ethics do matter, and I'm the one spreading facts about wildlife management, not lies about someone business

I want to make this clear, their are a lot of people that want this bill to pass(lease holders, hunting clubs, land owners), i am amazed just at the support we have received today from people on this site through emails and phone calls.

Will, you are doing yourself a disservice by talking, sometimes silence is a useful strategy.

Regardless of the fancy talk ... Is there anyone here that thinks that "Area" ahould not be explicitly defined?

Bear in mind that this amendment only applies to hunting deer.

If you kill a member of any other species, the game warden may call Montgomery and invoke the "square mile" area standard instead of the "out of sight and 100 yds away" standard.

More worthless confusion and added vaguness, IMO.

Repeal the baiting laws and be done with this mess.

Got to agree. Dream, if this was simply an attempt to define area then simply make baiting legal and don't worry about what "area" means. If I can sit in a stand 101 yds from a feeder, hidden behind a tree, filled with corn and/or something else and shoot a deer within 5' of it, it is clearly baiting. Don't hide it behind "defining area" or "supplemental feed". We all know how this will be used. I don't care one way or another but call a spade a spade.

Why would this bill NOT address other species?

Another example that is relevant to this bill is the winter months when native browse is mostly gone. These are the times supplemental feeding is beneficial to wildlife and really i would argue they need it during these times. The problem most honest landowners have is they will not feed during hunting season because of a horrible law that doesn't define area, and you could argue this is the time they need it most.

" About 350 deer roam the ranch's 1,400 fenced acres, drawing hunters from all over in search of the trophy buck of a lifetime "

This quote is from the link on page one of this thread about Dream Bucks High fenced pay hunt operations and is the reason Will wants to be able to bait his property. 350 deer on 1400 acres is a lot of deer and with this many I am sure it is hard to keep them healthy during winter months. Will is averaging almost 175 deer per square mile………..2-3 maybe even more times the norm in Alabama. So he has 2 choices available to deal with the issue.......kill more deer until the land can support the number of deer on the property or try and change the rules to allow baiting. One choice only affects Will and the baiting choice affects everyone and would allow Will to make more money which is the real reason for him pushing SB-346.

Yea, if your for it/against it I'm OK. However, do not hide behind deer nutrition. This is a baiting bill, plain and simple.

And more food helps Will grow bigger deer. That is what this is all about.

High fence guys will never get much sympathy around these parts.

He has the freedom to supplemental feed TODAY.

SECTION 35
Objective of government.

That the sole object and only legitimate end of government is to protect the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property, and when the government assumes other functions it is usurpation and oppression.