Just got an Email from our DNR reminding me that baiting Is Illegal.
My go to stand Is In a 100-tree apple orchard. And that's legal.

Good spot

My wife hunts our apple/pear/plum orchard, all legal. Also, a 10 acre soybean field bordering it. All legal

my opening morning spot is about a 25 tree orchard

Did you WI guys get that same E: mail ?

I got it

Not yet.

I would guess that dumping a bushel of apples under your tree stand is illegal. I would be surprised if hunting in an apple orchard would be illegal.

Planting things is not illegal in Minnesota, but placing food is. I suspect Wisconsin is the same way.

For what it's worth, the MN DNR busted a guy for baiting deer last year by intercepting his cell camera photos.

I've heard they are using drones as well.

Crops and food plots all legal to hunt over.

I had a situation a few years ago where the famers gravity box tipped over and spilled the whole load of corn about 100 yards from my blind. I called the warden, and he said I couldn't hunt out of that blind and the farmer could be sited for not cleaning up that corn. I don't see how that could get the farmer sited. He never cleaned It up and I of course didn't hunt out of that blind.

Here you need to be 200 yards off any bait or 10 days after all bait has been removed.

I asked a warden "what happens if a neighbor puts a bait on his side of the property line within 200 yards of a stand on an adjoining property". He said you cant work with your neighbor to bait. I told him the concern was, the neighbor could bait in order to move people further away from property line. Or have a bait 50 yards off the property line that other property owner is not aware of, what happens then? He said he would get back to us. He called back and said he talked to several other wardens and they wanted to send a couple out to "look over" the situation. I said "no thanks, it was all hypothetical anyway. But I recommend you come up with a way to deal with this issue".

I have not gotten that email yet

What happens if the farmer on adjacent property doesn't want you to hunt near his property, so he spills grain on his side the property line?

His barn get's hit by lightning and burns down!

I got it

Same in Pennsylvania.

Hunting over crops, food plots, orchards, mast, etc. is not illegal.

But placing any type of bait to hunt over is illegal.

You can hunt an apple orchard all day long but you can;t put a pile of apples in front of your stand.

There are exceptions in the southeast and southwest corners of the state.

The corn market would dive if they banned baiting in Oklahoma and Texas.

Sounds crazy to me.Should be all legal

That's the way it's always been here. Of course a lot of guys cheat and hunt over corn piles. A lot get busted too.

the DNR argument is baiting concentrates deer eating from a single spot

an orchard an apple from from trees all over and they slowly clean them up a little at a time

uncut hay they eat from a little here a little there all over the field and not 7 deer with heads down to one bail broken open

if you have a feeder you have deer in the same 10 foot circle every day

if you have a field of corn that was harvested and some edge rows got missed they are spread out.

the DNR actually had planted corn on public hunting in places that they do not harvest , it is just left
another that had gourds and pumpkins and melon's the last few years