Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Pros and Cons to "Baiting" of deer; those that live and hunt where bait is legal

I did not feed this year due to the high price of corn. Worst year have had since the 1980s! At one point I went over one month without seeing a deer in an area where I see deer about 50% of the time when I have corn somehwere on the property. Baiting sucks because of the cost and effort involved but it does work.

Not with ethanol and all those guys feeding deer

We probably do lose an acre or more to deer every year. So I reckon I do condone that feeding stuff. Turkey and beaver take their share too. The beavers will drag it off to the creek, turkeys just knock it down the same way deer do.

Yep.

Some areas deer do more than an acre.

There are five of us who hunt 1st season. We took 11 deer with antlerless tags included in the area we hunt.

For all our "bait" there are more than a few that won't make it through tonight.....

minus 8 right now...

Old Rufus is mighty glad he's got a heat lamp to lounge under out in the shed.

But it's a dry cold...the critters will be okay.

Yep, that dry cold.

Dry cold don't freeze your nostrils, does it?

Don't freeze beer either I hear....

They are good for culling does and trash bucks. I've never seen a mature buck at one. They will filter through looking for does though, but you better be set up to see well behind the feeders and mostly ignore the feeders.

Some places its about the only way to see deer at times. I have to find open bottoms in E Texas to find deer on public land, if not its so thick you can't get through without a racket etc... Clearcuts help with new growth and feed.
Down south on many places that Doug referred to, you either find something open, or put out feed, you'll never crawl through a lot of that stuff.

I don't like feeders that much either, but at home here they seem to have come a long way in helping the herd recover, especially the self feeders that they can eat as much at any time.

Jeff

Baiting is fairly useless but legal where I hunt, in the Ohio Valley. There is way too much better mast available in the Fall.

-42 degrees this morning. a dry cold and yes your nostrils freeze. The wind was fifteen miles per hour and your face skin contracts. I have an outside wood fired boiler and it takes five minutes on the coals for the wood to heat up enough to burn well. Now that is cold. I have not put out feed but wonder how the deer will make it. I have never come accross winter kill on my property, but severe winters seem to keep fawn birthing numbers down. Has any one experienced this?
Randy

-42? Showoff.

At 5:30 this morning the thermometer on the barn read -19 as I was during chores. Waterer froze up....freak!

I live in Northern Wisc, and we have had legal deer baiting for many years. IMO it is an absolute waste of time and has caused many problems, Youper has touched on many of them. The biggest problem I see, is dumping corn has led to an explosion of bears and then they raise hell with the fawns. Studies have shown bears kill 25% to 50% of the fawn crop. In our area the deer kill was down 49% this year. There are no pros to baiting deer. Also our DNR estimated our bear population at 6000-6500 and an independent study proved their are over 26000!!! The study was so good the DNR cannot refute the numbers. Bears eat the corn and have 3 to 5 cubs instead of the normal 1 or 2, and it takes 11 years to get a kill tag for them.

The problems seem to be on Public Land.I think the DNR has no buisness telling Private Landowners ,what they can do on their property.The Wi. DNR cant find their Azz with two hands and a flashlight and are not much better with game management.Many of their laws have nothing to do with Game management or Biological needs.They are now a Political organization and make their decisions based on who screams the loudist.I am not for or against baiting.I am against Goverment Intrusion.They over react to everything.CWD for instance.Yes I live in NE Wi. and for years the DNR has got their estimates of Bear Population from a Computer program.They do very little field work any more and have no idea how many Bears are around.Screw them .Here is the Crux of the matter.If you dont like baiting,dont bait.Dont force your will on people who think other wise.

FYI, DNR wasn't comfortable with the estimate of ~13,000 bears and sponsored the study by Univ Wisc that shows numbers at 35,000 +/- 10,000. In fact, many DNR biologists helped with field work on the study.

I did bait deer - Once. My 84 year old dad wanted to shoot a deer from a particular blind we had built for him. So we put out some oats. I'm kinda glad that the deer ignored the bait. He got a shot later at a different spot anyway. I just don't believe it's necessary to bait deer to have a good hunt. Seems like a short cut to me. I don't have anything against those who do, but it doesn't seem quite like fair chase to me.
Now for some shaky logic, I think that the only viable way to hunt black bears in our area is over bait. I've tried many other ways, never even saw a bear unless bait was involved some how. So I'm OK with baiting bears but not deer. Doesn't make sense but there you are.

Mogwai; I appreciate the post. Their numbers were really off.
Huntz; The question was pros and cons of deer baiting. I gave mine, and I'm sure their differnt from yours and lots of others.

i wonder what if any negative effect on deers teeth hard corn could have.

My grandpa lived by the motto, "Never let the facts get in the way of a good story." But sometimes, they can help.

I doubt it, acorns are pretty hard too.

But I have always wondered if a heavy diet of corn would be kinda hard on the deer's inards. We feed our calves out to fat on a strong corn diet along with some protien and hay. Several months of that will start working on them pretty hard. Granted our calves are eating up to 25lbs or more a day, but they're 4 to 5(maybe more) times heavier than the deer at your feeder.