Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Alabama Senate bill would allow hunters to set bait for deer

Looks like hunting deer and hogs over bait may become legal in Alabama.



From whnt.com

The question is why!!!!!!!!!

...survey says! $$$$$

No doubt the prospect of more money greased the skids, but I think there has been a lot of lobbying from some hunters (resident and non-resident) in AL to legalize baiting.

Should be legal for all game species and not have a fee associated with it. Total bs.

It is a road Alabama should not go down. I have seen how it turned hunters that were once very good woodsmen and sportsmen . These guys could scout, hunt and know the lay go the land . Now days in northern WIs. everyone is a lazy assss that can hardly get off their ATV to dump corn at their bait pile. The sit in blinds and wait for deer that they only know are there cause of trail cams. Most now days dont have a clue on how to even use a compass. It takes the hunting out of deer hunting. it turns a deer into a target. Just put the bait where ya want the deer to show up , put a 14" log in front of the bait . When it puts it's head down to eat the log is in the way and you can draw or raise your gun to shoot. It is not even hunting. I used to hunt over bait but have not in about 20 yrs. I dont see as many deer and dont get the easy shots I used to but my skill and woodsman ship came back and I enjoy hunting much more . I just carry my climber , back pack and bow or gun and hunt about 25 stands I scouted out over the years.

Say it ain’t so! Rednecks hunting over bait ! What’s this world coming to ! 😜

There I fixed that for you!

I'm rather intrigued to hear your rationale on why baiting should be legal.

Why? I can guarantee that the 2 guys I know that own a ton of property there will not engage in that BS in any way shape or form. What is wrong with proper deer habitat and a few year round food plots just for deer?

I'm going to mirror what ihookum wrote earlier. Wisconsin has had baiting for years to the absolute detriment of hunting there. It has created such a cottage industry for junk apples and corn that it will be hard to stop now. Some counties have outlawed it because of the CWD outbreak spread by the saliva one deer to another, but people still do it anyway and risk the fine. What it does do is turn the deer nocturnal. I was talking to some baiting guys who put trail timers around their bait piles and they were lamenting that the deer were eating all their stuff between 12 Midnight and 2 a.m. Deer have a 4 chambered stomach just like a cow does and if they can eat at a bait pile in five minutes at midnight instead of spending all afternoon browsing, they will. It promotes poaching after hours. Then it gets to be a contest of who can out bait who to keep "their" deer in their woods. Two gallons of bait is what is legal, but guys were bringing in truck loads. They spend so much for bait that they consider the deer theirs. Years ago I was talking with a warden about my disgust for baiting and he told me that they had flown that area the day before the deer season and counted 23 corn piles within a mile of where we were standing. I drive 350 miles across the state now to gun hunt where the area is too big and rough to be baited. I pass up bucks every year and see them in the daylight by using woodsmanship instead of bait.

Windfall - spot-on.

I often see folks from the Alabama neck-of-the-woods declaring they need bigger/better rifle optics with better light gathering capabilities because much of their hunting is a first/last light affair.

They haven't seen anything yet if they choose to pass that bill.

I was in Walmart yesterday . Sporting goods still carries “deer corn” over three months since season closed. . Salesman says they sell a pallet a week year round.

$$$ deer corn manufacturers love it I bet

What about baiting for pigs, is that legal? It would be hard to trap them without bait.

Everyone already baits in AL, so no change in the process, only in the legalization.

Everyone? Supplemental feeding is allowed but the feeder has to be out of the line of sight of the hunter. It(Baiting or Supplemental) is not allowed on the property we hunt nor surrounding properties. In fact I have hunted several large properties in a 20 year period there and never saw either.

Alabama hunters should oppose this for reasons already posted.

Baiting in Alabama, or the deep southeast in general is different that what a lot of you guys see. In Bama there is green browse year round, everywhere. Hunting season temps can be in the 70's easy. Deer do not travel more than a few hundred yards per day for food. In other words, corn does not have that great of an effect on deer movement here. Sure it may divert a few does and yearlings your way but that's about it. Deer don't hop from corn pile to corn pile.

Exactly. In much of the south, all a deer needs to do to eat is roll over in it's bed and start over.

This is it. In a year where there's a heavy acorn crop, when deer move it's just because they want to move a little. They're essentially the fat kid in a candy store eating pez candy......they're not going to make a habit of leaving the acorn pez for some corn pez much of the time.