Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Lucky, Good, or Cheating?

The question of hunting over bait or food plots right now is tough for our laws to clearly define. Throwing bait or chum is nothing but an attractant trying to draw in and concentrate game away from their normal feeding habits. It’s artificial plain and simple. The fact that it’s questionable is obvious if you pose the question state by state. Food plots are a bit more tricky as on one hand they benefit an animal’s diet where there may be a shortage of natural nutrients. The tricky part is that growing a crop like corn or beans is farming, the size is arbitrary but regardless the presence of opportunistic game is not the goal of the farmer but instead a bi-product thief and pest in most states. Whether they are pests or a hunter’s bonus is almost irrelevant. Wild game taking advantage of field crops is a perfect example of the prey playing the same game as the feeder hunter, and as most laws are drawn they considered a destructive crop pest so no different than spraying for insects. Hunting in such circumstances with farmers permission is essentially a unintentional opportunity and therefore cannot be termed a baiting scheme. Shooting deer off a bean field seems to me a winner either way. But despite the legality, bait stations and licks are a much different notion. Just the word ‘ bait ‘ says it all. You can call it feeders but then what are you trying to feed and why ? The biggest concern about bait at concentrated feeder stations and licks that I’ve heard from CO’s and wildlife biologists is that it creates a communal source for spreading disease amongst wild game. My ex-neighbor in NH was a big animal vet and his two sons were fish and game cops that made the analogy that dogs catching kennel cough is very similar to feeders or bait stations.

Technology is unavoidable and it’s certainly spilling over to hunting and fishing. To many sport hunters and fisherman any technological advantage is worth using. But shouldn’t we consider that technology is a double edged sword. Without controls it can decimate our game by destroying or buying up the land they/we need. Big foreign mining operations that can legally lay waste to the land and tributary waters on BLM and state lands. Or large foreign flag offshore fishing fleets capable of scooping up our fish where no laws apply. I am referring to international waters. When this happens everybody on our shores is getting robbed as the cycle of migration is being broken. Loss of returning schools are not just stealing fish for the coastal fleets but robbing food for animal species that regulate their lives on spawning salmon and the fat to survive Winter. Lost fish for families and tribes who depend on their return as a farmer depends on crops, and the loss of fertilized eggs and the future runs.

As I recall about twenty- five years ago + -, millions of tons of salmon never showed up in parts of Alaska and the PNW but coincidentally fresh salmon was flooding the markets of Southeast Asia. Observers found many of those fish had net scars on them ? Somebody or something was intercepting these big schools offshore in international waters. There is some satellite evidence that giant midwater trawlers flying Chinese, Korean, Malaysia, and Russian flags may/probably were involved. These vessels work in fleets where large trawl nets ( some 700-900’ or more ) are towed sometimes between two vessels. With very sophisticated electronics, aircraft, etc. schools are located, the nets dive or rise in the water column using sonar tracking and cameras to fine tune the mouth of the net. I’ve seen photos of six or three pairs of midwater trawlers netting giant schools of fish. Once the net is hauled back the big processor ships take over landing the catch, dressing, filleting and flash freezing or cooking and canning up to 1500-2000 tons a fish per day. It’s just technology and guess what it’s not illegal, nope it’s profitable.

Rick

Just be glad he's not a twat like Steelhead. LOLOLOLOLOL

Sometimes you have to do the best you can with what you have access to. It can be hard for western hunters who hunt 100s of thousands of acres of public land that is largely open, to understand what it's like for southern hunters who may only have access to 20-40 acre parcels. Even larger parcels of a couple hundred acres are often paper company leases with vegetation so thick between the trees that you can't see 20 feet in front of you. You don't stalk in this kind of habitat.

States have allowed cameras, plots and feeders because the herds can easily sustain it. I dare say that were it not for allowing feeders, cameras and plots, there wouldn't be enough deer removed from the population each year to keep it healthy.

I'd much rather hunt wide open spaces or places where I could hunt slowly moving through the woods. That's not an option.

Hunt whats legal..

I own 20 acres..

Prolly 16yr old ( give or take ) pine plantation.

2 oak trees on my place. Previous owner cut all the rest…

When i bought the place, it was thick cutovers.
Now The woods are open. No briars, no undergrowth…

Time to thin… but thats anotHer story… find someone that will thin 20 acre…..

I feed…

Corn and sweet feed…

Fuggers will eat 100# pf 10% sweet feed a week..

That's the reason there's short gun seasons and restrictions on what firearms one can use to hunt with. Before the CRP, pine tree and other farm conservation programs there was virtually no deer once you left the creek swamps in Georgia.

I honestly think the hunting story that started this thread is awesome.

It all came together for him and he got a dandy.

Most of the United States 🇺🇸 is all divyed up and private owned. U can’t trespass, yet deer 🦌 thrive in the area and need to be controlled. Minnesota has at time stated more deer die being hit by car than hunting.

The deer 🦌 are basically feral goats. The hunt described both luck and skill and I thank the author for sharing.I don’t think he “ cheated.”

Well done and Happy Holidays!

Legal dead deer is just that, legal dead deer. Who cares how they die, if you’re happy with it that’s all that matters man. Piss on anyone who tries to take that from you. Nice deer, and I don’t care what anyone says, no matter how u kill a nice buck, someone is gonna be jealous and call you a cheater. F*ck em is what I say.

This is what the thread was initially about, shooting a deer, not being better or worse than anyone. The residue is that RL and Jake are obviously 2 guys that are better on the internet than they are in real life…

I'd shoot him, feeder or not

Scholars have been writing about humans and the need to hunt and kill an animal for centuries. It’s been a subject that is really quite interesting if a person is so inclined to read about. It many ways the pro & cons are somewhat similar to the argument that boxing should be banned along with bullfighting, cock fighting etc. One thought and theory that always comes up is that no matter what science says it seems that humanity sees itself as something that has emerged from animals. That most animals still remain so close to us that we still feel some form of communication with them. Dogs, cats, horses or pets in general seem to enforce this belief. When the Indians, and some hunters today, kill they honor the prey for its life and food. In many societies a valiant warrior that is killed in action is also honored. It’s a very tricky and confusing aspect of our existence but really not so strange if we realize we are still basic predators.

It’s odd that fishing and the killing of fish does not raise these questions ? We catch, fight and kill fish but never a word from the anti-hunt people. Some think the fish is so unlike two or four legged mammals that we can’t have the same feelings for them. They live in an environment cold blooded, underwater, with none of the same physical characteristic as humans. Most people feel the same way about snakes. They again are cold blooded and have nothing remotely similar to legged mammals. So perhaps this means we really do have an affinity for our prey when we hunt and kill them. Now birds is a difficult situation to ponder but once again they are completely different physically and unlike all else in the animal kingdom they can fly above us. Just spitballing but it could just be as simple as they taste good and because they fly and we can’t they deserve it. Anyway food for thought.

“ One does not hunt in order to kill; on the contrary one kills in order to have hunted “ Jose Ortega y Gasset

Rick

Nice

Congrats! Legal is legal. In my mind, I have a line between hunting and what I call grocery shopping.

Sometimes you just have to make a quick trip for groceries. No shame in that. It doesn’t have to be hard. Sure, an animal that I genuinely worked hard for might hold more value in my mind but those deer and “grocery” deer taste the same.

It’s our heritage to be able to hunt, own guns and shoot and that is very strong medicine as the anti gun and anti hunt crowd know all too well. Making the argument that people no longer need to hunt to feed themselves and the consequence that if we don’t need to hunt we don’t need those rifles is what I call classic logic; two premises and a conclusion. So on paper it works but otherwise it doesn’t consider human traits, the genetic code within us that makes us want to hunt. Our natural ability and desire to enjoy sneaking up or watching from a distance, our eyes in the front of our skulls instead of on the sides of our head like our game, canine teeth and digestive systems all which are characteristics of predators. To those who think hunting and killing game is barbaric are actually refusing to acknowledge their inner most human traits by suppressing these feelings under social pressure more than their gut. Tell me the photographer isn’t really a hunter stalking his subject. He uses cover and a degree of stealth to get the shot and though he doesn’t kill and eat his prey the techniques are the same. There are many day to day similarities such as a salesman who must size up a potential customer figuring out how to approach and close a deal, law enforcement hiding and setting traps, it’s fun and it’s ingrained in all of us. There really isn’t anything but socially enforced politically correct acceptance and some regional laws that should prevent the hunter from following their instincts and moral code.

I’m pretty much done on this subject and I apologize if I’ve bored or antagonized some readers. None of my comments and analysis were ever meant to offend the OP since as I read his question he was asking for opinions about his dilemma. As far as I’m concerned, and as he explained it, he took his deer legally and as such is rightfully entitled to his prize. Unless he feels he has run adrift of his own morals he should be content and happy.

Rick

Usually the best answer is within a few of the original post - so it is in this instance.

Jeez, this was something