Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Old school Deer hunting vs. hunting over food plots

I've had this discussion with many people around they country and was just curious to what people think. Lots of people here in WV look down on plot hunters and the debate rages on. I don't use food plots and never will...the biggest thrill to me is taking a respectable buck after having scouting for weeks and set up and taken a nice buck from a tree stand..I really never understood the concept of just putting out a crop and setting up a stand and waiting for a buck to come eat.. to me that's not hunting...there's no skill in it...hunters that have looked over large remote areas and have narrowed down to areas they have seen bucks and set up and take the animal is an awesome feeling..don't get we wrong..others have there way of doing things but i get more out the way i hunt than going to a farm and taking a buck coming into eat....a lot of us have sturred up a lot of debate over this but just wondering how others feel o nthe subject.....remeber...just asking a question and how i due things..if that's the way you hunt..fine..

Everyone can seek deer how they want. I don't see what enjoyment there is in setting up what amounts to a slamdunk either, but it doesn't particularly bother me that others may do it. The fun is the hunt and everything that goes into it, nothing better then a stalk or in the hunt you described.

I can tell ya'll ain't never done it that way. It is not a slam dunk. It is mostly done when you just have a small acreage to hunt on and are trying to lure a big buck from land you can not hunt. Killing does may be a slam dunk but the bucks tend to come at night unless there is a hot doe nearby. If you have a lot of land to hunt you can do things different. miles

Food plots and baiting make the experience feel more like farming to me than hunting. Nothing wrong with them, but they are not my preference.

def old school for me. i like to hunt by tracking when there is snow and still hunting on bare ground in big woods w/ low number of hunters. i do use corn and sweet crimped oats during the summer and corse 20 in the winter to produce cam pics though

Old school for me, but I am not going to knock a guy that chooses another method. I lived down south for a while and loved it, but it took me a long time to come to terms that they run deer with dogs. Again that isn't for me but I am not going to knock it.

Maybe you should tell us how many different areas of the country you've hunted in???
We don't have hills, mountains, or vast forests to hunt here. It's pine, swamps, and agriculture and small heads of woods between fields.
MAYBE you should try hunting the way we do, before you judge someone else's skill level. I think you'll find it's not quite as easy as you think...

I guess the guys out west that scan open country for miles then blast away at long range have no hunting skills either...

My Dad is an "old school" deer hunter....I kill more deer in a year than he has in his life (8) my way.

You shoot 8 deer in a year?

I shot 3 last year and gave an unlucky hunting partner half of one. My wife and I buy zero beef all year. I still have a few steaks/roasts in the freezer and the season is coming soon.

8 to 10 but on bad years 4 to 6 I hunt over water early and food later

Missouri has unlimited doe tags and an archery season that is 4 months long 12 days of rifle 9 days of M/L and a special 9 day rifle doe add in draw hunts and urban hunts and you can kill a truck load of deer in the Show-Me-State.

Our deer had a rough winter. But I have seen some nice bucks this summer when out scouting. We are allowed 4 with bow two antlerless and two either sex. The South part of the state I believe below I-95 has turn in doe tags which gives you two more then a earn a buck after the two doe.

I don't know anyone that doesn't try to find food sources for deer, whether it's natural or man made. Knowing where food sources are, scouting to find bedding areas, and the trails to & from are key to continuing success.

You have to consider the area being hunted when pointing fingers at hunters that put in food plots or supplemental feed. Let's take the South for instance, many areas are composed of dense pine consisting of poor natural food sources. Most hunters in those areas plant food plots and provide supplemental feed. If they don't, their neighbors do and the deer know where easy meals are. That doesn't mean all of those hunters sit over a pile of bait and kill mature deer, hardly the case. If a man wants to kill mature deer, he has to find their bedrooms and their primary travel routines. Now, move to the Midwest where you have abundant man made food sources as far as the eye can see in every direction. How does a man kill mature deer in those areas? Same way, find their bedroom and their travel routine. Any difference? Not hardly.

Most all "baiting" or "food plot" debates I've ever read or heard seemed to me as the pot calling the kettle black more times than not.

The main thing to keep in mind is that we are all hunting and should stick together to fight for that privledge.

loder

You got it. Bedroom_______________________treestand________Food= dead deer. I personally don't sit on the food but don't knock another for doing it. As I don't knock a guy that wants to hunt deer with dogs. I have to deal with just what you said about if you don't plant then the guy next to you will have the deer. I hunt state land and it is hard when there really isn't any food for them on the state land. Lucky for me they like to sleep on state land and I can get my stand between the two areas.

It's funny.....people fish with live bait and there is the group that will say that is taboo also.

You mean it's not???????

soory you guys have to due that....i have thousands of acers to hunt on....i have been asked to hunt down south over plots and i told them no thinks...they tell me a different story......one made refernace to catching fish in a barrell...its not for me....i guess my poor under devloped mountains are good for one thing...tracking an old trophy buck threw some of the thickest country you have ever seen...

Uh-oh...looks like logcutter has spawned....

I never use live bait TED!!! that's boring!!!!

IMHO, its often harder to kill a mature buck off a planted food plot, vs finding a good area of natural food. The deer I've killed off trails or eating acorns in the middle of nowhere are SO much easier to take... but they are edgy around food plots and feeders.

At home here, I have no real option.... we don't have that much habitat on our pasture and no real reason for lots of deer to filter through... so I have had year round food plots and feeders and I have deer that I know since they've been fawns now that hang around. Doesn't bother me one bit to take one now and then either.

And I won't snob around that I did it with a bow, a handgun, an MZ, an atlatl, a spear, or a scoped bolt gun... or whether I did or didn't do it au natural or not...

The problem you get with chit discussions on this, is that it shows and divides further what should never be divided. As i've said I've done it just literally about every way you can, not atlatl or spear yet though.... or with a stone arrow head though I missed one with a stone head once.... But discussions like this should combine forces instead... like nice food plot, good doe you got etc..... Its the division that will kill us, and the snobbery that will help the division.

If its legal, then the rest of the "ethics" are up to the individual. Its why I take a 50 bmg at times, an iron sighted MZ, a smoothbore civil war musket, my 308 with heavy tube, and damn near anything in between... and hunt out of a vehicle, on the ground, in fancy blinds, on foot, and wife and I have even laid up with no other cover around and covered up with some netting and vegetation and almost had deer step on us, LITERALLY, while trying to take one with an OLD 32-20.

So, if its legal, thats good enough and that should be end of discussion. If its not legal it doens't belong here either becuase its poaching and not hunting.

Frankly, old school was hunting over food plots too... just ones you found...

Careful ingwe - he's probably in good enough shape to carry a really heavy rifle....