Depredation permits are necessary in some cases and have a role in balancing the interests of farmers, hunters, and wildlife managers. But if the above story is true, I definitely do not support the use of bait and/or paid hunts in conjunction with a depredation permit.
If a permit allowing out of season and bag limit exceptions is truly needed then the goal should be to keep deer out of your fields, not draw them in with additional bait. If you need bait to kill them, you don't need the permit in the first place. You should only be killing nuisance deer actively damaging your crop, not drawing in deer from a mile away to shoot them over a corn pile. The state already allows 2 does a day for almost 3 months of rifle season per person, allowing a single farmer 100+ does a year without a permit and multiples more for additional hunters on the property. It should be a pretty rare circumstance to need more than that.
And on top of that, depredation permits shouldn't be used for recreational hunting, especially not paid hunts where the farmer or another individual is profiting from being granted a permit not available to the general public. That's wanting cake and eating it too. There is a reason, if I am not mistaken, that depredation permits do not allow you to process or taxidermy deer taken using one. If you want to recreationally hunt or charge others to do so on your land, use the same rules as the rest of us.
