I fertilize my deer crop!

I do. Started because one of my boys is in a wheel chair and it is tough to get him into the really good spots without scaring the deer out. Also do it because most of are hunting spots not that great of spots because all the decent spots are leased by big $$$ and even the mediocre spots. So if we want big bucks on our spots we have to lure them their. But very few of our big deer have actually been shot off of feed. They seem to learn not to come to those spots during daylight or to check them out from down wind before coming in. Our big bucks seem to be as good at patterning the hunter as the hunter is at patterning them.

Have killed deer over corn, have killed deer by hunting trails. Wish they would either open baiting on all the ground or shut it down. Silly to me how a guy can bait on private but not public. Laws for thee....

Not here either but for alot of years game wardens would put out bait piles after the last deer season and shoot deer with high powered rifles. They would leave the bait piles there 24/7 until march.actually they still left the bait just took the blinds down they finally quit doing it this year after enough he** was raised.typical govt BS do as we say not as we do.

I bait in S.D. till July 30th. State law say so baiting after Aug 1st. I will say baiting really works. If you would have told me 2 yrs ago that baiting really worked good. I would have said your crazy. I'm a firm believer in it now days

I do. I'm after meat, not for the sport of it.

You do realize they aren't safe to eat anymore?

Feeding deer and baiting them are two different things. I’ll put out corn in October with a camera on it to take inventory and keep the girls in an area. NEVER HUNTED over a corn pile but never put any out until I bought my farm. 100 percent the big buck I killed last year was because I had 8 does using my feeder every day. Never had a buck eat from a feeder but they certainly cruise by checking out does during the rut. Can’t use my feeder this year unless it slings out the corn on a timer.

Not allowed to bait here in most places.

Same here in PA. There are a few special regulation areas where you can bait but there is no need for it.

I've done this both ways. We still can't bait on public land. But I used to hunt a place at the intersection of 2 logging roads and if one doesn't stop for a moment, you better hope he has a partner because you aren't going to get a shot. So, I put a little corn on the ground in the hopes that one would stop for a minute. The downside is that you are also feeding everything else in the area... squirrels, raccoons, rabbits, hogs and turkeys. I could do something about the hogs but it was a little frustrating to watch a bunch of turkeys eat all of the corn. I tried a couple of spun feeders but I don't know how many years it would take to get one to actually attract deer when it went off. The noise seems to scare them pretty bad though. Feeding will also cause them to only go there at night. I'd love to someday see a feeder go off and deer run to it. I just don't know if they will ever do that here.

Lug, I had to look that up, amazing lol.

Difference is one is grown as a crop the other is dumped same as baiting waterfowl or flooding a Milo field which is ok . Doesn’t matter to me one way or another

Georgia legalized hunting near bait in 2011 in the southern half of the state. Then, statewide in 2018.

I'd venture to say legalized baiting has saved more deer than it has caused to be killed.

A LOT of hunters pick a "pretty" spot to put the corn out...then look around for a tree or a place to put their big stand. No thought as to wind direction, how the deer may approach, the hunter's entry/exit, etc.

Takes deer about 24 hrs to figure out that setup.

Some of the setups I've seen in my GW career were laughable. I've tried to offer advice as to how to enter/exit/wind direction, etc to some of those hunters, but most know all about that....lol

I dont hunt over bait. Its illegal. But in years pasted after season is out I put out salt, corn as well as hay. I figured the pregnant doe's and wore out bucks could use a little help when food is scarce. I can als get a look at what all made it through the season. The salt is gone before season comes in and I stop the corn whine food becomes more available in the spring.

Does it help? maybe maybe not I don't honestly know . Its not a lot different than me enjoying feeding the birds in winter.

I bait on private , but mostly hunt public where baiting is not allowed.

On most private leases here, you pretty much have to bait if you want to see deer.

With being smack dab in the middle of farming country, where there is corn, beans, alfalfa, wheat, and a bunch of other deer vittles growing just about everywhere I see no benefit to bait.... I do however keep a half dozen mineral sites stocked almost year round ( a couple are too close to my tree stands, so those licks have to be clear while hunting) with mineral, salt, trophy rocks, protein blocks in the winter, and calcium/phosphorus mix because I believe I am accomplishing something. Many biologists disagree!

Baiting was unheardof when I was starting out. I honestly remember the first bait I saw in the woods. A buddy and I were working for the USDA Soil Conservation Service and were doing a land/forest inventory project on Federal ground in the northwest part of Montcalm County. It was in an oak forest and we walked up on a pile of carrots about 10 feet across and we just sorta stopped, dumbfounded and wondered what they'd been put there for......then saw the tree stand in a tree and realized what was up. I have no idea who put it out, but for a season or three we made fun of the fellow (?) for being such a city guy! Fast forward a few short years and I had moved to a northern county that was 98% woodland and also popular with downstate deerhunters.......and nearly everyone baited! Except me. I held out for a few more seasons and finally tried it myself. It makes meat making MUCH quicker. When the All Purpose Boy first started deer hunting with a bow at 12, I refused to let him hunt over bait. This was, of course, several years before any "Youth Hunt" and the minimum hunting age was done away with. My reasoning was I wanted him to become a woodsman that learned to read sign, food types deer liked, etc. It worked too, he is a very good deer hunter today. When he was 18 I no longer told him how to hunt and he started using bait off and on. That ended in our area when it was outlawed in the Lower Peninsula because of CWD. I would guess the majority of folks still bait anyway because the stores still sell thousands of bags of corn, apples, sugar beets, etc, and I'm betting most of it isn't being lugged to the U.P. where it's legal. I mellowed out in my old age and no longer care how anyone hunts if legal. If it is made legal again here, I will gladly toss it out to make it easier to make meat. Footnote......the DNR very recently made it legal to feed deer "recreationally" if the pile is within 100 yds of a residence.....but you still can't bait and hunt over it. I guess deer can't spread CWD when eating feed that isn't bait! Who knew?

Footnote......the DNR very recently made it legal to feed deer "recreationally" if the pile is within 100 yds of a residence.....but you still can't bait and hunt over it. I guess deer can't spread CWD when eating feed that isn't bait! Who knew?

Make it make sense but when it comes to the DNR in most states it's not easy to do. When it comes to baiting deer in CWD areas it would equivalent to a super spreader event in the Covid time among people. That is according to the experts.

Not so sure, I believe hunter numbers and deer harvest numbers dropped and deer population increased when Michigan banned baiting. Deer numbers increased despite CWD being the worst thing ever.... Southern lower Michigan does have EHD wiping out a lot of deer right now. But that's a insect spread disease.