Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Arizona: Bating vs Attractants

So I've been warned that you can't layout bait for hunting in Arizona but some forms of attractant are allowed. That confused the hell of of me. So what is Bating vs Attractants?

I asked some big box outdoor stores. I asked some smaller archery pro shops. I asked my friends and family members on the fire. I've hunters in the field. In all cases, I got different answers. So I thought I would ask the one person who would know for sure or at the very least be the person issuing me the citation if I got it wrong: Arizona Game and Fish Game Manager. I put a huge smile on my face when I posed the question to him and he said "its kind of gray area." In other words, he wasn't sure either. He broke it down this way:

No bating in Arizona but...
Ranchers can put down Salt Licks for cattle
No food like Deer Corn or Dear Cane
Nothing that can be fogged in the air, hung in a tree, or dragged on the ground with either deer or Elk urine in it

In his description above, he pointed out both baits and attractants. So what is allowed?

Scent elimination products that also contain an attractant (like acorn) but no urine.
Also estrus wafer's that you can hang on your hat
Any type of fogger as long as it doesn't contain Deer or Elk urine.

So even at the level of what is allowed, there is still confusion. Estrus wafers are made from urine. WTH?

The conclusion I've come to is this, I've been given a general outline of products that can be used in field. If I want to use a specific product, I should give the game manager in the unit I will be hunting a call first and ask. He or she will more than likely be the person I'm talking to in the field. Also, I would like to see disseminated education. G&F Game Managers talking to the big box stores and pro shops. More literature on the topic both in the hunting regs and as individual documents / pdf's.

Oh and to answer the question I've gotten a few times. Why am I using an attractant to begin with? I should rely on pure hunting skills and hard work. I don't mind the work of scouting; spot and stalk's; or studying patterns. All those things is what makes up a hunt. But we also have an unspoken (most times spoken) want to be successful. I want to squeak out every ounce of an advantage I can muster when hunting on public land with 300 - 800 other hunters in one unit. When I am faced with kinds of numbers, I use every tool available for me to become more successful while still being legal. Last years Cow Elk hunts in units 7E and 7W yielded very low harvest numbers. Now either the resident and non-resident hunters in those units don't know what they are doing (possible, doubtful, but possible) or these animals have just gotten a lot more skidish or they can read the regs. I don't know?

So to my Campfire family I pose to you this question, what other forms of attrant do you see as legal in AZ?

HaYen

PS: On this upcoming OTC Deer season I will also have to contend with a lot of recreational ATV'ers and campers. Hoping all that noise will get the animals moving.

The law is specific. If forbids stuff that can be consumed specifically exempting salt. It also forbids the urine of a cervid. If you want to spray apple scent on a wafer you are legal. If you want to use fox urine, you are legal.

I think the only gray area is WHO is putting the salt down. I think the commission made it pretty clear they didn't want anyone being bothered for using salt.

Thanks Dennis. I think its still an overall gray area if the guy in the field handing out the citations says "Well it think ..." or "That a gray area" He did say you could have estrus wafers, to which I said, "That's urine".

So yes I agree, if the commission says A,B,C then the rules are set. If the guy enforcing the rules isn't sure, then its gray.

The salt issue is probably more like ours. Ranchers can put out salt for cattle as part of a normal agricultural practice. And you can hunt over their salt, but YOU cannot put out salt to attract wildlife.

I just tuned in to see what 'Bating' was...




Love, Spelling Nazi Poobs

Chronic wasting disease is spread through urine. Anything that would allow urine to saturate into the ground is against the rules. A solid wafer made with estrus would not allow urine to soak into the ground. Spraying or soaking with estrus/urine is the issue.

This is the way it has been explained to me a couple of times now.

Anyone can still put out salt, G&F could only push it so far.

Most hunters would shoot a buck anywhere they see one and have no idea if it was next to a man made salt lick or not, No way for G&F to prove who put the salt down. And the initial wording of indigestible could have included water.

High profile baiters screwed their own pooch. Put out to many trailcam pictures of animals eating their bait on local sites, then bragged about killing multiple bucks on some sites.

Got in a pissing match with one warden that moved into Admin that had it out for baiters.

Left the rest of us average hunters fighting to keep salt and water of the banned list. Would make killing any buck questionable without knowing exactly what it was standing by.

Ranchers have put salt out for decades, almost everywhere.

Kent

DOH!!!!!

Thank you everyone. That makes sense, I really wish the Game Manager would have explained it that way.

On a side note, my groups are shrinking and all of the equipment is ready except:

I still need my OTC tag and
I'm looking at a new pair of boots (Danner High Ground)

I'm going to make another post asking folks what stalking boot they like.

So, it could be dangerous to gargle with it, huh? Crap.

Oh, maybe it was scent shield that said not to take orally. It sure tastes like chitt anyway.

Deer and elk commonly sniff and lick urine-stained soil. This is how most of the CWD was originally transmitted from animal to animal in the deer pens at Colorado State before it was ever detected in free-ranging deer. Arizona, like most states, would like to remain CWD-free, and most if not all urine in commercial products is collected from captive deer. Texas has just lost their CWD free status as it has been confirmed in at least two captive breeding operations that I know of.

I don't know what "bating" is either, but if its anything like carrying your rifle around by the scope, you can expect that an azz whoppin is heading your way, and soon!

LMAO!!! Yes sir! Message received loud and clear!!!

I know squat about Arizona's law, but I do know a bit about baiting and such. Ohio used to draw the line between bait and attractants, though it was before CWD. Salt was okay. Putting out any foodstuff was illegal, but you could squirt bottled apple or acorn scent. I moved my hunting to Kentucky over a decade ago, and nearly everything goes there.

http://www.azgfd.gov/inside_azgfd/rules/rulemaking_baitingProhibit.shtml

I went and read AZ's rule change, it does not look like salt is banned, as long as you are using the stuff meant for agricultural purposes. If you put out mixing salt, that would probably be okay. However, this is not the time of year to be putting out salt. The better time to do it from about March 1 to about July 1. By the time season rolls around, deer are not concerned with salt all that much. Here in the Ohio Valley, salt usage peaks in June and July. If you are going to use it, dig a hole, pour in mixing salt, and then mix it with the dirt. Do it early in Spring.

Here's a few things I've written about it:

Salt Licks

I can only talk about Whitetails, but my guess is that other Cervids may be similar. With Whitetails, the best use of salt is as a way to habituate the doe. They get used to using certain trails to hit the salt, and then they keep using those trails after their interest in salt dies down. Since the salt is not going to hold their interest, it has to be placed somewhere between a known bedding area and a known feeding area that are both going to be used during season. The point here is to bend their movements, not dramatically change them.

In regards to urine products, think seriously about using Good Ol' Number One. Deer really can't tell human urine from their own, at least I have not seen it. Quite to the contrary, I have frequently attracted deer by whizzing off my tree stand. I'm not the only fellow that has seen a deer roll in fresh #1.

I've even gone as far as trying to simulate it:

An Experiment

Truth is, I did not have much luck with it last year, but last year was kind of a bum year overall. I'm going to give it another shot this year. My guess is that the sound works on their curiosity.

#2 works nearly as well, but that is a line of research I'd just as soon leave to others. I can't tell you the number of times I've been busted by deer while trying to cop a squat in the woods. I am convinced that deer are like little kids; they are fascinated by others' bathroom habits. In fact, I was was driving to work yesterday morning and saw a very interesting tableau in the neighbor's front yard. Momma and two fawns were about 10 feet from the sidewalk. One of the fawns was squatting, and Mom and Sis were standing there watching like it was the Superbowl. They all looked up at me, driving by in my Silverado and then went right back to watching the fawn.

I can bait in Kentucky, but I don't; I think it is kind of a waste. There are more cost-effective ways to attract deer. However, I hunt in a very fertile part of the country where any bait I put out would compete with the natural browse. See, that is what I'd be thinking: a food plot will be legal. So would fertilizing existing forage. I've been known to take a bag of 20-20-20 and walk around a freshly mowed pasture and selectively fertilize the forbs. Done this time of year, it can really invigorate those weeds and give them a boost going into the fall.

I don't know about what the rainfall will be like in AZ but some folks use a baby pool sunk in the ground to attract deer. They may augment it with a tarp to catch more water. If available water is scant, this may be a good trick. My neighbors got a Bobcat in a decade ago and made a few small ponds in the middle of their property. It was great for the frogs, but I don't know what it did for the deer. I have several stock ponds on my place, and I never see all that much activity at mine. Deer in my locale get most of their water off the foliage during season.

Rice bran oil in a spray bottle will make anything a food source. It's 100% fat, undetectable by humans but can be smelled by deer.

Thank you Shaman. I did search their website but I couldn't find that page. Wish the Game Manager would have pointed me to that page.

According to the website:
"Scent lures provided they do not contain cervid urine" are allowed. So scent wafers attached to my clothes or smoke sticks.

@ringworm - Thanks for the secret weapon ;-)

Por nada.

I frequently catch flak from both sides of the baiting issue. I generally do not use bait, but I have no moral compunction against it. That gets me in the soup with anti-baiters. A lot of pro-bait folks will tell me that baiting's the only way for them, even some neighbors. So when I say baiting is not the way to go, I raise their hackles.

To me, baiting is an expensive, ineffective way to go about it. Most of it gets eaten by something you don't want to hunt. What does come, often comes at night, and saves the harder-to-find stuff for during the day. If the same money can be spent on other methods, the payoff is much better for both the hunter and the deer.

Our wildlife biologist contributed a lot of the articles to this site:

http://fw.ky.gov/Wildlife/Pages/Habitat-How-To%27s.aspx

When Wes Maddox was out at my place in early 2002. At the time, I really did not have a lot of money to spend on habitat. He said to try the no-cost and low-cost solutions first and see how it went. Simple things like leaving the corners of your pastures unmowed or strip-disking a few rows out in the middle of a pasture, or hinge-cutting a few cedars can do more than $100's of corn piles.

I'm sure Arizona is much different that Kentucky, but the principles are probably the same.

[img:center]http://media.tractorsupply.com/is/image//TractorSupplyCompany/5072468?rect=0,0,480,480&scl=3.125&id=mafdt0[/img]

The real "secret" is this.
Rice bran oil will fullfil the fat portion of the dietary need thus reducing the need for grains.