Bait vs Food plots
- Thread starter 4wanderingeyes
- Start date
Howboutthemdawgs
5 year old buck +
Aren’t the majority of the posts opinions in this thread? How is one more opinionated than another?
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
While supplemental feeding and baiting are different, they both have their own risks that food plots don't have. In many cases, both baiting and supplemental feeding are point sourced based. This encourages a significantly more than a normal amount of fact to face contact between deer. Some amount of face-to-face contact is normal as deer in a family group or even bachelor group groom. Point source food sources cause a much higher degree of face to face contact which, in turn, is a vector for disease transmission for some pathogens. While supplemental feeding has different, and perhaps fewer, ethical concerns, It poses different risks. When food is presented as a food source, rather than just an attractant, it can alter the BCC of the area, especially in a food limited environment. Food plots have this risk, but to a much lesser degree. The risk is that eventually it stops and usually suddenly. That means the BCC drops and the land can carry less deer than population that has been artificially raised.
This is one reason, I've gone to more of a no-till/permaculture approach than a high-input traditional farming approach.
Why do these stop? It could be a variety of causes. It could be cost. Perhaps we sell the land. Maybe the next generation has a different interest if we pass it on. With food plots, we can alter the BCC which is really the objective in a way with QDM. When we stop, the land reverts. Sunlight is the primary driver of deer food, and that remains. With a soil health approach, vs traditional farming, we leave the soil in a great state to produce natural foods. Over time, the field leaves early succession and food is reduced in quantity and quality, but this happens over many years. This allows time for the herd to adjust. When we stop supplemental feeding, the nutrition source is not replaced by nature and the herd goes cold turkey. Natures response is usually starvation and disease.
Everything we do has risks and benefits. We all need to evaluate those, along with our resources and goals, and make our choices. Discussing these, and the related ethics, is good for the hunting community provided it is done civilly. When our practices deviate too far from the sensibilities of the general non-hunting public, we begin to risk the future of hunting.
Thakns,
Jack
This is one reason, I've gone to more of a no-till/permaculture approach than a high-input traditional farming approach.
Why do these stop? It could be a variety of causes. It could be cost. Perhaps we sell the land. Maybe the next generation has a different interest if we pass it on. With food plots, we can alter the BCC which is really the objective in a way with QDM. When we stop, the land reverts. Sunlight is the primary driver of deer food, and that remains. With a soil health approach, vs traditional farming, we leave the soil in a great state to produce natural foods. Over time, the field leaves early succession and food is reduced in quantity and quality, but this happens over many years. This allows time for the herd to adjust. When we stop supplemental feeding, the nutrition source is not replaced by nature and the herd goes cold turkey. Natures response is usually starvation and disease.
Everything we do has risks and benefits. We all need to evaluate those, along with our resources and goals, and make our choices. Discussing these, and the related ethics, is good for the hunting community provided it is done civilly. When our practices deviate too far from the sensibilities of the general non-hunting public, we begin to risk the future of hunting.
Thakns,
Jack
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
I haven't seen any science that suggests that food plots have any relation to CWD spread. Deer naturally spread out in a food plot. I've watched more dominant deer discipline other deer that were feeding too close to them. If Illinois or some other state agency has done research in this area indicating otherwise, please point me to it. I'd be interested.
Thanks,
Jack
Howboutthemdawgs
5 year old buck +
Not to mention how do you regulate crop fields and control their size. To many work arounds to ever see that be an issue…though this is the same state that allowed a city to turn into a war zone while having the strictest firearms laws so nothing would surprise me.
Mortenson
5 year old buck +
I don't have any studies to show. I'll just take my yoderizing. Look when someone does something exceptionally stupid, particularly based on no research or common sense, Illinois says hold my beer.
They wouldn't have to regulate fields or plots, doesn't mean they can't write up the ban in the regs. If it prevented a few plots, they'd probably call it worth it. I'm sure farmers and others could find a loop hole or 2. If 50 deer are feeding in a plot, they are closer together than otherwise, no? Guess it's all relative.
They wouldn't have to regulate fields or plots, doesn't mean they can't write up the ban in the regs. If it prevented a few plots, they'd probably call it worth it. I'm sure farmers and others could find a loop hole or 2. If 50 deer are feeding in a plot, they are closer together than otherwise, no? Guess it's all relative.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
I haven't seen anything with deer, but after looking at air borne viruses in humans, it looks like 10' is a pretty safe face to face distance. It is not all relative. It is not the number of deer in the plot or using the bait pile. It is the number of deer and the amount of time they have close face to face contact when it comes to airborne disease spread.
By the way, my post was not intended as a criticism. CWD is a prion disease, not a virus. We are still in the nascent learning period when it comes to specifically how this disease is spread among deer. I thought you were serious about Illinois banning food plots. While it seems unlikely that food plots would be factor in CWD spread, if there was data to show it, I'd want to know about it.
When CWD was headed our way, our game department banned feeding deer for a large portion of the year. This is irrespective of baiting which has been been illegal since the beginning. It would not surprise me to see the feeding ban extended now that CWD is here.
Thakns,
Jack
If a DNR's goal is to do everything humanly possible to reduce the chances of CWD spreading, clearly a foodplot ban could be one of those things. So could planting fruit trees in an area not fenced off from deer/wildlife. Foodplots unnaturally congregate deer. I see it on a daily basis. No foodplot, no deer being concentrated in that area.
Banning baiting is simply the government doing something to look like they are doing something. If they wanted to ban foodplots they certainly could. Neither will have any impact on the spread of CWD however.
Banning baiting is simply the government doing something to look like they are doing something. If they wanted to ban foodplots they certainly could. Neither will have any impact on the spread of CWD however.
Exactly how many deer have died from point sourced feeding? If this problem was real there wouldn't be any deer left in La. Texas and Mexico..areas I'm most familiar with though I suspect the area that consistently feeds is dramatically larger than that. Not saying I'm for or against it just trying to get to the facts---{ though admittedly I think it can positively influence better health when done right}
For every biologist that suggests its a problem I can offer some of the top biologist in the country that would commonly propose healthy supplementation as a way to improve deer herds.
Haven't read this thread just saw the last few posts while taking a brief break from all the family running around the house. Apologies if I'm off target
For every biologist that suggests its a problem I can offer some of the top biologist in the country that would commonly propose healthy supplementation as a way to improve deer herds.
Haven't read this thread just saw the last few posts while taking a brief break from all the family running around the house. Apologies if I'm off target
If you are against baiting on public land to keep down conflicts you have a valid point . If you are against baiting on private land where its legal because you believe it is unethical or downright un sportsman like I say don't bait on your private land nor hunt where baiting is legally allowed . Problem solved . If you are against baiting because you believe it spreads cwd or other deseases you are listening to the wildlife biologist equilivent of Fiochi . Blue tounge killed a huge portion of our deer a few years back , not because of baiting but because of a teeny tiny fly that hatches out in water holes and is very prevelent around cattle water holes . The deer on my 320 acres now have to travel to my neighbors farm to get salt because I can't put it out because I don't have cattle . While the deer that spend most of their lives on my property are there they drink from the cow ponds . The deer that live on that property also use those salt licks as does the deer from the farm on the other side of the cattle farm . I'm sure my deer as well as the local herd and the other properties deer take a bite of food from the calf feeders and maybe pick around on the acorns that may drop while they are close all the while spreading what ever virus / germ any of them have . If lock down works for people why doesn't it work for deer ? I would rather put out food plots , deer feeders and salt and keep the deer on my property as much as possible .
Sent from my LM-K920 using Tapatalk
Sent from my LM-K920 using Tapatalk
tlzkaasen
5 year old buck +
OP,
I noticed the same thing with my year 1 food plots in North Central, Wisconsin. 5-10 deer a day in the food plots throughout summer/fall according to my cell cams. About 2 weeks prior to gun all the deer vanished. GONE, POOF - lost 80% of the herd... I discovered hunters on the public land started depositing corn piles and the deer flocked to the corn piles very quickly. I was hoping that deer would find the secure bedding on my place and only visit those corn piles after dark, but deer are generally lazy and food greedy. I'm sure they bedded nice and close and most of them are probably in the freezer by now.
I noticed the same thing with my year 1 food plots in North Central, Wisconsin. 5-10 deer a day in the food plots throughout summer/fall according to my cell cams. About 2 weeks prior to gun all the deer vanished. GONE, POOF - lost 80% of the herd... I discovered hunters on the public land started depositing corn piles and the deer flocked to the corn piles very quickly. I was hoping that deer would find the secure bedding on my place and only visit those corn piles after dark, but deer are generally lazy and food greedy. I'm sure they bedded nice and close and most of them are probably in the freezer by now.
Bassattackr
5 year old buck +
I haven't seen any science that suggests mineral sites have any relation to CWD spread yet our local DNR thinks they know best..
b116757
5 year old buck +
I sometimes fool with food plots and the deer do use them. I also bait with corn a couple weeks preseason and have feed corn year around in years past. Really I have no issue with any of it all just tools to kill a deer. This year has been interesting on our game cameras my oldest boy set up two cameras one looking over a corn pile and one looking off into some oaks. Cameras 40’ apart. The biggest buck we have had on those cameras has never visited the corn pile I find this interesting. Just to put it into perspective when I dump 50lbs it takes about 1.5- 2 days for the deer, crows, squirrels, and raccoon to clean up the pile. I suspect that old buck has had an educational experience with corn piles in his youth and he has learned to avoid them. I’ve begun to realize the greatest asset my home property has is its mature oaks so in the last several years I’ve released many of them this in turn has increased acorn production. At the farm where I have no oaks I’m planting many of them in a centrally located area along with some other mast trees but mostly oaks that should with any luck produce many tons of food for wildlife for generations with little to no human management beyond the first few years. No buying of corn, no plowing of fields simply let Mother Nature do the rest every year. That’s my reason for planting the trees to avoid the need to fool with managed food plots and/or corn in the future but it’s an heavy investment in time and many folks particularly in todays world need instant gratification. I’m good with playing the long game in game management and not worrying about what the neighbors are doing.
4wanderingeyes
5 year old buck +
My gripe is, it is illegal to bait, but they are doing it anyhow, and they are attracting all the deer to their illegal bait piles. I have planted hundreds of pines, apples, shrubs, and food plots, but they come in with their $8 bag of corn, dump it out illegally and draw all the deer away. I guess the fact I am following the law, and they aren’t is the main problem. If it were legal, and they baited, and I didn’t, that is on me. But for them to tell me that baiting, and a food plot is the same thing, I can’t disagree more. The obvious is one is legal, the other isn’t. But all the other reasons in this thread lay out why they aren’t the same.
I would like nothing better than our state to outlaw baiting. If the neighborhood would obey the law, my muliple ten and fifteen acre neighbors would rarely, if ever kill a deer on their own ground. They would have to travel an hour or more to hunt some public. All those deer they are luring with bait, Would be in my 35 acres of food plots. I would save the thousands of dollars I pay for supplemental feed, and the hundred of hours it takes to put it out. My deer wouldnt be as big, but they lived just fine when they were smaller.
I agree about the food plots - and I plant a lot of them. They are planted basically to kill deer in - just like bait. These southern deer do not need them. My 1200 acre neighbor plants not one acre of ground or puts out a drop of food for deer, and has more deer and bigger deer than anyone in the neighborhood. I think a lot of of food plotters try to justify our efforts that we are benefitting the deer - but really, we are benefitting ourselves. My 35 acres of food plots could go away tomorrow, and not one deer would suffer because of it. Not sure my supplemental feeding is nor more beneficial, healthwise, to the deer.
I agree 100%. My state bans supplemental feeding and minerals for deer. Yet, on the exact same property, the cattle rancher who owns the land has mineral blocks scattered all over the area, feed troughs for cattle the deer use daily, and watering tanks for cattle the deer use daily. How is banning a mineral block or corn pile going to slow the spread of cwd, when the deer can walk fifty yards and eat and drink out of a cattle trough and lick on a cattle mineral block. This stuff just doesnt make any sense. In our cwd areas, we cant put out corn to feed deer, yet we can put out corn to bait and trap hogs. Crazy.
Yep, like most everything our government does at every level.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
I haven't either, but there are other diseases that have been shown to spread with increased face to face contact. Mineral licks and point source food have been shown to increase face to face contact.I haven't seen any science that suggests mineral sites have any relation to CWD spread yet our local DNR thinks they know best..
