Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting MI Bans Baiting!

You tell the farmers to stop growing soybeans, corn, turnips or to pull up their apple trees.

So you think baiting caused this? Nothing to do with animals being bought, trapped, and moved around by the game and fish agencies, and people raising deer for sale without a care where they came from? miles

Don't forget the bottled urine produced and sold, probably by some of those same folks. Those things are the most likely explanation for the pockets of disease that have popped up far from any other posible source, especially the bottled pee. We have CWD in places far from any game farms or known transplant activity.

The ban on baiting is to help contain the spread through saliva and concentrated contact. Whatever works is worth the inconvenience.

I personally don't know how effective different control methods are, but in the one case I am familiar with the Oneida outbreak in NY, NY used the "kill them all" method, followed by significant monitoring and whether it was the cause or not, NY has been CWD free for 12 years,

It is true that prions can survive for years in soil, but in the one study I saw median prion survival was around 7 months and most was gone in 2-3 years, though some small fraction persists for a long time. There were a lot of variables, a big one is moisture and the affected area in NY gets reasonable rain. So kill em all really knocks back the population when there are the most prions in the environment. Is this enough to be successful, don't know, not sure anyone really does.

in NY there baiting and salt have been illegal forever, and feeding has been discouraged for a long time ( of course all three still exist, but what can you do) , Now there are controls on import of live animals as well as rules for bringing meat back into the state. Urine based scents are gone as well.

Back when the outbreak occurred lots of folks didn't like how fast and hard the state reacted, but me I am happy they did.

From what I've read it seems all 3 of those practices bear some culpability.

Here's a pic from Jan 2000. We had an ICE storm on 12/25/99 and THEN snow on TOP of the ice 1/1/2000
This pic is from a 12' tower stand. If I rotate the pic all I get is the link.
I had a feeder in the WOODS 80 yds from this stand. I have pix of the deer sign coming/going/ eating >> photobucket has them seized.




I had 3-4 feeders out on 1400 acres. I was the ONLY one feeding deer during the ice/snow. We lost a lot of deer to starvation. Everything was covered and FROZEN. I P (international paper) lost Millions of acres of timber and SOLD a lot of land after that.


Jerry

ADDENDUM

During a few weeks then I could NOT keep corn in the feeders. Deer were HUNGRY.

Jerry

I'm NOT a game biologist ! I'm NOT in the AG&FC ! Since CWD was discovered here in Ark. I've followed the story and searched the subject on the net PLUS one of our guys - mudhen ? - has contributed info per CWD.

One thing is a fact. Wherever CWD has been,.... it's STILL there. Go online and search CWD, you can find a map of the US where CWD is - was- has been.

It SEEMS ? the best answer is "containment". If it CAN'T be contained then MANY States would be completely COVERED by CWD and where CWD was discovered yrs. ago , those States are NOT consumed.


There are differing OPINIONS, ok, I'm NOT going to argue with anyone. I'm NOT an expert on anything.


Jerry

Here's' a map I got off the Net. I hope photoPUKEIT doesn't seize the pic.

At the time of this map... CWD had not been identified in Ark.
You can also tell the States where CWD has been and it's still there.



Jerry

It’s about time.

Its been banned where I hunt in northern lower peninsula for years, since bovine TB was the big issue. People still do. I do. In the area where I hunt, it's so dense and the lack of big open fields forces many to cut lanes out of the woods and baiting helps bring the deer to them. Otherwise, we'd see no deer. There's tons of food in the woods and water is not scarce.

I haven't heard of any cases of CWD or TB in the deer around us at all. And we're supposedly in the ZONE.

You sir are a dumbass

Do tell me the difference in a bait pile, and a pile of acorns that fell naturally, in the life of CWD. miles

Consider a disease, as you in the woods, needing to take a schidt.

Would you prefer to be able to use any oak tree in the woods,



Or,



Having to squat under the same tree as every other hunter?


Seriously, one sick deer slobbering over a pile of corn is much worse than it slobbering on a few scattered acorns.


PGC has always been aggressively anti-baiting. Anti-mineral. Even anti-scent for bears.

Now, they have totally banned any feeding or use of minerals for deer.
Even the use of pee based scents.


Of course every hardware, Tractor Supply, Wal-Mart, or sporting store still sells the stuff.

The ones caught with bait piles or fed like feed lot domesticated bovines?


Acorns....."piles". That's a good one.

Why not just get the dump truck full of apples, build a concrete slab and a roof and get on with it....it is about YOU after all.

As for me , I hunt northern Wisconsin a little bit. I used to hunt it a lot but not much at all anymore. I am so sick of hunters running their ATV's all over public land to bait deer that I hardly hunt at my deer cabin anymore. Here are some points that are all but facts. Not all baiters are violators, but all violators are baiters. It is so easy to poach a deer past dark or out your cabin window with a pile of corn , just for that reason it should be illegal. Baiting for many hunters keeps you on one stand all season. There is a mentality that if you sit somewhere else, that is when the buck is going to come in. A very high percentage of buck shot over bait are 1 1/2 yrs old and puts pressure on young bucks. an old buck shot over bait is very likely poached and there is a lot of poaching going on in Upper Michigan and Wisconsin. I knew a guy who hunted upper Michigan . I asked , how was the deer hunting in " Da U.P.? He said it was ok but it was half over before it started. I said "huh" . He said there was more shooting the night before than opening day. Is this what deer hunting has become? Sure has in many parts. Get that buck at all cost and come hard charging back to the internet to brag you got your buck tag punched. If not , you are a whimp. Many hunters will violate for a while and then give up on the sport and that is fine with me. Also, gun deer season in Wisconsin is 9 days long, although there is 10 day muzzy and a 4 day doe hunt for any unused doe tags.I can guarantee that if you could get all the bait out of the woods you could gun hunt northern Wis. all of November and still not shoot as many bucks if there was no bait. The average buck would be older too. Deer need to browse a lot more if there is no bait to devour. And another thing about baiting. All these guys crying about the wolf. The wolves know where the bait piles are . They can follow deer scent right to them very easily. Deer around bait develop a pattern. At the bait around 4pm or so. When they do this they are easy pickings for wolves. The real reason deer hunting has become so hard is cause the deer dont move much in daytime at all when corn is in the woods. When I baited I never got big bucks on the cam in day light, always night time. They know better than to go there in daytime and at night they can eat all they want . They know very well when human scent was there. Also , another thing is it is hardly hunting . The deer becomes a target instead of a hunt. It takes nothing to shoot a deer with a gun at 20 yds. It's hardly even hunting.

MI banned baiting a few years ago too. Farmers lost their minds. There was bait still being sold at every gas station and you still came across the piles in the woods. The DNR is giving the farmers notice this time and it doesn't take effect statewide until the first of the year (CWD core area ban is immediate as is rifles during ML season). Last time the DNR tried to ban bait after crops were planted/harvested. The ban was lifted not long after.

I should add the caveat that statewide is really the LP. No way will bait be banned in the UP. It's been 50 years at the very least that it's been the preferred method of hunting up there. Some deer camps have special windows overlooking the piles that are able to be raised silently for the shot. No kidding. The sugar beet semi-trucks that head north all fall to cross the bridge on I-75 from the Bay area always come back empty. Dumptruck loads of bait are set out for one blind. There are hunters who have never known any other hunting than watching a bait pile. Wolves and weather have taken such a toll the past few years that bait is the only way hunters see anything. Ban bait up there and there will be anarchy.

When bait was banned in the LP a few years ago we saw way more deer during daylight hours. The deer were always there, but bait made them nocturnal. My camp doesn't bait. We've had to move to different areas because bait contaminates an area making the deer move after dark, which makes it harder to see shooter bucks during daylight hours. We're all for the ban.

CharlieFoxtrot , you noticed that too that the big bucks just dont move much when bait is around huh? The only time I eve saw a big buck over bait is when a hot doe was there. I stopped baiting a long time ago and enjoy hunting much more now.

[quote=milespatton]Do tell me the difference in a bait pile, and a pile of acorns that fell naturally, in the life of CWD. miles[/quote


If I have to tell you, it would be a wast of time!! You wouldn't get anyway!!

[quote=milespatton]Do tell me the difference in a bait pile, and a pile of acorns that fell naturally, in the life of CWD. miles[/quote


If I have to tell you, it would be a wast of time!! You wouldn't get anyway!!