General Hunting Discussion
Baiting Bans
LB, just a few posts down you put down baiting because it spreads disease. Apparently feeding deer has no potential to spread disease, that's a nice tidbit to remember the next time I place some corn.
If the deer herd is low enough to prevent overbrowse, they shouldn't need any extra "feed" in the winter.
You talk in many different directions, please make up your mind.
I do it in Feb - March you clown! When deer actually need the food. I bet you aren't out baiting all winter to actually help the deer. I thought so. Some people place bait to kill. I do it to help the deer after a bit of a thaw, then cold weather locks that snow up hard as a rock and snow is knocked down they can't browse what they were eating....deer aren't equipped to dig through crust, in case you didn't know.
Regardless of land hunted, some people care and others don't. I don't even plant food to necessarily kill animals on it. Majority of baiters place food during the season to attract animals to a certain location to kill them, period. Once the season is over, baiting is done. That's where a food plot trumps a bait pile any day legal or not. Get over yourself.
JC, i'm not calling Public Land hunters lazy because they bait, i'm calling all baiters lazy...not just public. I know more "big hunters" that bait on private land....in Ag country even. Guys that put 5 gallons of corn next to a corn field or beans. it's unfortunate that so many lazy private land baiters ruined it for the hard core Northwoods professional.
No reason to lay down corn. Absolutely zero reason too. Spend more time scouting, find where they live and less time running bait stations.
I hunted public for a LONG time. I still do on occasion. I don't bait, i just hunt differently that most. I do the opposite of what most do, I don't run for the first stand of timber. Hunting the northwoods is just as difficult as any Public. there are obstacles everywhere. Up there it's food I guess. southern WI it's idiots. so you find some food in the northwoods you find deer. In central and southern WI, you look for areas no one is going. Not everyone likes to wear hip boots or go back in kayaks.
"The rich doctor or lawyer or salesman that went to school, busted their azz and in term make a ton of money. Is that their fault???? Just because many people made different decisions, it's not worth making the "rich guy" sound like the rich, lazy azz dumb hunter either. "
Definitely not their fault, but to call public land hunters lazy was over the top. The rich guys are just as, or more, lazy than the guy who scouts public land and hauls bait into the woods.
I should be more specific in my meaning of "rich". The way I mean "rich" are people that are land rich. Sure it means "rich" in the standard regard, but this can also either be those that inherited land from their family, or have had large tracts of land in their family for generations. These are the guys that have it made if they are interested in hunting, and will benefit directly with any baiting ban especially in areas of the northwoods where private property is within a mile of public land.
You may feel like I am picking on these folks, but if you aren't land rich in Europe, Texas, Illinois, etc. good luck to the regular folks going out to hunt. The sport turns more and more into a "rich" guy's sport. To penalize the public land guy by banning him from putting two ice cream pails of a food product in the woods to combat a disease that can't be combatted....horrible move in my opinion. To ban regular Joe from putting out two gallons of corn when the neighbor with 240 acres of land can put in several 1/4 acre turnip plots is just wrong in my opinion.
"If you put on so many miles, and put in so much work and effort to find places that deer use regularly, based on the trails and sign you find, why do you need to haul corn to those spots that deer are already using? "
In the areas I hunt, there is little in the way of natural funnels or areas where deer move naturally along specific trails. The area also has an extremely low deer population. In those areas I use bait. In areas that don't require bait, I don't bait. Unless you have hunted thousands of square miles of County, State, or Federal forest you would understand that a lot of these areas are inherently tough to hunt.
what I despise is people that complain about the "rich guy", the poor ole "public land guy"....stop whining. The rich doctor or lawyer or salesman that went to school, busted their azz and in term make a ton of money. Is that their fault???? Just because many people made different decisions, it's not worth making the "rich guy" sound like the rich, lazy azz dumb hunter either. Although on many occasions i'll agree it's true but i've met a lot of super dumb azz WI bowhunters in my life of all walks of life. (like if you were out this weekend scouting and hanging tree stands, here's your sign!)
So I think everyone needs to worry about themselves. If you don't make a lot of money to buy land it was your decisions that put yourself where you are.
there are lazy baiters, there are lazy food plotters that pay others to improve their land. It's happening all over but to complain what one has and the others do not have is so petty. At the end of the day, you have to look in the mirror and accept choices you've made in your life.
All that said, placing bait on the ground can spread disease more quickly. Period. there is a reason baiting gets banned when disease is found.
The "Lazy azz" comments I despise. I would love for the private land guy that puts in 1/2 acre of food plots every couple of years to do what I do annually. I plant about an acre of food plots every year, and to compare that to hauling in bait to several locations up to 1.5 miles into public land several times a week is no comparison. To initially find my baiting locations, I scout multiple square miles annually to pinpoint locations trying to find any sort of natural pinch points I can. I try to maintain a couple of interesting spots in reserve as the public land I hunt gets logged occasionally which forces me to relocate. I also hunt without bait on public land if I can locate the perfect pinch point or the good oak patch, but that is rare in the locations I hunt.
Then when I hunt the baited spot, I carry a backpack full of clothes strapped to my climbing treestand and carry my bow and bait. I backpack my clothes in as walking that distance carrying that much weight causes severe sweating. It is much easier to drive my wheeler to my food plot and just climb into my box blind, but I don't like hunting one location if a mature buck is not in that area. Sitting my butt on a tractor for a couple of hours every year is pretty easy in comparison.
Lazy? I think not. There are lazy hunters I agree, but to say baiters are lazy is ridiculous. There are thousands of guys like me that hunt public land in a similar way, I am in no way unique. The laziest hunters usually have the most money and land, as they pay someone to put in food plots. Most guys who bait don't have that luxury. The regular Joe gets the short end of the stick if baiting goes away on public land. The rich guys, or the guys with land and equipment, would love for baiting to disappear. The regular Joe that takes simply two gallons of corn into public land is "the bad guy" when the neighboring property owner has installed a plot of turnips and sugar beets and sits with his $1000 crossbow in his $3000 Redneck Blind using Ozonics and filming with expensive equipment. But, don't let Joe carry two gallons of corn into the woods on the next 40 because what Joe is doing is not sporting.
Madforlabs, you are very well spoken.
In layman's terms, you're are saying that baiters are lazy and support a practice that does nothing but hurt hunters and the resources. Potentially fatal if a deer does in fact have CWD and eat from that single bait pile could infect the whole area. People will argue the fact that CWD isn't up there. Well I'm all about being proactive as well.
Deer apples for sale. LOVE those signs. LOL. People the don't hunt think you have to bait to kill deer too.
I totally agree with hunters sticking together and supporting each other. However I believe placing food on the ground for only several months then stopping could potentially hurt. When an animal depends on easy food and is programmed, now it's gone...who knows what could happen. They got half their consumption from a pile, now they have to find it all somewhere else when everything is brown. I'm not buying that there is any upside to baiting whatsoever. I baited too when i was in my teens and early 20's. It took me 10 years to realize I was an lazy azz and needed to figure out how to hunt a different way.
