It is a big deal if all you have acess is small scattered land plots.

Not many 20 acre pcs get sold in my area anymore, even 10 is a find.
No opportunities for the upcoming youth.
Who are beginning to pad the voteing population.
Trust me your gonna see the day you will wish you had those votes.
A youth on a 10-20 acre pc. of land without bait to enhance his chance to interact with everything in nature that uses the bait pile.
Won't return to the outdoors for very long .
Odds are , never again.
Only leaves fishing in lakes and rivers.
Don't need guns for that.

I want every oportunity possible to get the youth interested in the outdoors.
As I feel this is a very big influence in their understanding of the need, respect, and proper use of firearms.
Exactly what I think we all desire.

So to me It Is a very big deal to all sportsman .

The ethics arguments that always arise,
I will leave to the purist, who continue to purify their ranks.
Until they thin their ranks so much they are easilty cut off by the voters they alienate.

We wont even discuss the amount of finacial damage that was done to the smaller farmers in this state.
I live in the apple orchard corner of the state , I see the results all around.

Baiting is a lot deeper issue than many of us sometimes consider.

I do understand how some see no big deal.
But maybe we should not deny those who do it.

Our govener will not sign this,
Too much of a politician to consider it without some type of reward.
Her voter base could care less about the sportsman and their needs.

Calvin in Michigan are deer get enough salt from the main roads

Baiting has always been illegal in PA.

PA hunters kill lots of deer.

Its stupid to limit any way of killing the long legged rats IMO.

I hear ya. They claim CWD as their reasons here. When EHD hits, CWD is nothing. I get they don’t want to transmit it but for those small tracts of land it does make it harder. I belong to a large club back home. Not the place I live currently but back HOME. 56k acres owned by a timber company and leased by the club. Hunt a spot long enough to get comfortable with it then come back to find its all timbered. All I do there now is turkey hunt but that’s nearly impossible since there’s no roost trees left anymore.

I’ll not deny anyone. One place I hunt is only 5 acres. There’s 5 of us hunting it. I’ve killed 3 on it this year. Other guys have done ok too. Just gotta make the best of it sometimes.

I'm glad baiting is still illegal here. There are some trying to change that.
We have some hunters in this who will never find deer hunting easy enough for them, so they keep trying to make every shortcut legal, hoping they get to play hunter too. One group whined that some of the rules for handicapped hunter should be allowed for them. They got their way on some issues.

I'd love to get a lesson on blind sets from you guys that are hating on deer baiters. What do you buy with the money you save on not buying baits and lures for trapping? You must have a good understanding of coyote bedding and feeding areas.

Making sure we’re on the same page, I’ve got no strong feelings one way or the other. I’ve done it and probably still would if it were legal where I’m at. But it no longer is and I’ve had to adapt. It’s unfortunate for some but it is what it is.

Wvmntnhick, that comment wasn't directed to you. More towards gryhkl and others on here intent on putting hunters down for using a legal tactic to put some meat in the freezer because they feel their way of hunting is somehow better than that of others. Surely they dont need to resort to using bait and lure at their sets, that's a lazy man's way of trapping.

tlguy nailed it

I dont think it matters if you bait or not. We cant bait on public land here but can on private. I have probley fed almost 60 sacks of corn so far this year and all that has been killed is my daughter's first deer. The rest has been on public land with no bait. There is plenty of deer. Baiting here is just a better way to watch a good deer grown over the years on a trail camera. The deer stay healthier with all the food and I like running trail Camaras. With all the does that stay around the feed it makes for a interesting year to see how many diffent buck will filter through the year. Killing deer isn't hard with or with out bait.

Interesting how many sports people put down others for the style hunting they prefer. I wonder why all hunters don't drive Chevys and shoot .35 Rem, I mean come on that's how I do it, everyone should do it my way. Michigan hunters are victims of a CWD disease and special interest groups using it to push large antler private land hunting agenda statewide. Our main sportsman advocate group MUCC has sold out totally on this topic.

PA hunters argue a lot about the regulations in their state also. Michigan hunters also kill a lot of deer, so do our vehicles on the roads.

dillrod is right on target ,we have half thee number of hunters as we did I the 90's ,this was just on are local news , an its not just in big city, are local county is down a third of what we were in the 90's, we need to get people involved not drive them away from the outdoors

Amen.I don't bait,but it doesn't bother me that other people do.It was asked if baiting was that big,every gas station up here has bait for sale,along with stores.Its a million dollar seasonal industry,obviously farmers love it.As a kid back in '60's I don't know if baiting was legal or not,I know nobody here did it.It really didn't catch on until the late '80's or early '90's.Then the DNR,apparently not liking what was happening,got involved and the regs went from no limit,to 5 gals,to 21/2,to 2 gallons.All the while different sources within the DNR began whispering getting rid of it altogether.Then a case of CWD hit and viola!,they had a good excuse to get rid of it.Dad said years ago its too late to get rid of it now,its too much of an accepted practice and its big business.The DNR thought it use the CWD thing as a reason to get rid of it,now they have the state legislators involved,and license sales have plummeted to an all time low.Then they try to push APR's and their as controversial here as they are everywhere else.Firearm deer season was as popular as Christmas in this state years ago,not anymore.It seems like its all controversy anymore.

Don't most hunters argue about their state's regs? We kill lots of deer with our vehicles here as well, around 4,000 deer/auto collisions a year according to the Pennsylvania Insurance Department.

My post wasn't intended to put anybody down, it was meant to point out that there are lots of other ways to kill deer without baiting. And that the loss of the ability to legally bait is not the end of the world.

Feedinggrounds I do shoot a .35 Rem and drive a chevy. Dillrod there are other animals to pursue with a firearm to make them necessary for our youth. Buck do you think that if baiting were legal the state would not have lost as many hunters? Baiting was legal last year yet the trend has been a declining number of hunters. I am no biologist but it makes sense to me that some peoples baiting practices could be detrimental to a deer herd. I think that the MI DNR has a difficult job trying to balance what makes sense and what people want. I think that APRs are an example of what people want. We have put way to much emphasis on shooting large bucks, sure who wouldn't want to do that. I am just not sure we need laws everywhere for it, when people are seemingly willing to do it without laws saying they cant. Baiting on the other hand is the unpopular decision (obviously) that was made that many wont follow even with laws prohibiting it. That is evident when you see the feed at the gas stations even though its currently illegal. Plenty of other states prohibit the use of bait, as you can see from others responses, and most state game and fish agencies communicate with each other to see what works, what doesn't, what kind of compliance they see with certain regulations. A quick google search shows that only 22 states allow the use of bait on deer, less than half. Only 14 states allow baiting in the entire state. Seems that knowing that states communicate with each other and share data, and most don't allow it, I have to assume their is something too not baiting.

There are 22 states that allow some type of baiting for deer I do believe. The majority of them aren't liberal states either. Montana is a state that isn't a liberal state but no baiting there.

Until you hunt with a self made long bow, wood arrows you made and fletched , flint arrow head that you knapped, no tree stand and in a loin cloth and moccasins you made, you're using shortcuts to make it easier so you can " play hunter" too. You need to get off your high horse.