Many hunters falsely believe in absolutes. Brassicas attract deer on my land, so they work everywhere kind of thing. Deer management and deer hunting wouldnt be as fun if deer always did the same thing everywhere. In my experience, Ben is correct - mature bucks can be very difficult to kill, hunting over a bait pile - on my property. I have right around fifty hunts over the last four years for my same target buck - and have yet to catch a glimpse of him - but have gotten hundreds of pictures of him and he has eaten hundreds of pounds of bait. We have also not seen him in a food plot - where we kill about 75% of our mature bucks.
Dawgs is also correct, mature bucks are not that difficult over bait - on my neighbor’s 1100 acres. My buddy has killed three 140+ inch bucks, in three years - over bait- with a compound bow, hunting less than five days each year.
I usually have around five mature bucks - regularly on my place - each year. I have fourteen adjacent landowners - all who allow hunting on their land - with baiting used on all but one of those lands. They all kill multiple deer each year if they choose to - many of those deer over bait. Most of them do not kill a mature deer.
Oddly enough, the first year I set out to kill a truly big deer over bait - with a crossbow nonetheless - I killed my biggest deer ever - on the first evening I hunted him. In addition, I killed a bear with my compound five days before the deer - on a bait barrel I was running on my lease. That was my week, evidently.
I knew better than to think the bear kill came easy - I had been baiting bears for six years - and that is work with no guarantees. I was inexperienced with hunting a mature buck over bait - and my quick success made me think I had it figured out. I am still waiting to kill my second mature buck over bait - six years later.
In fact, I have only killed one deer since then - by choice. I had purchased a .350 legend rifle for my grand daughters to use in our new straight wall cartridge season - early modern gun season I call it. They failed to kill a deer with it. About halfway through modern gun season, I decided I would hunt with that new rifle - and went to some nearby public land, sat on the ground in a strutter chair near a patch of overcup oaks, and killed a decent mature buck in two hours.
Hunting those oak trees was a lot easier than hunting a bait pile. At least that is how some people think about hunting - because that is how it happened once - it must be like that everywhere, every-time. But, I have spent enough time hunting deer around oak trees on public land to know better. I have probably killed 75 deer - or more - with a compound or recurve doing that - and it is far from easy.
If I had to kill a deer - any deer - I would go to a bait pile. If I had to kill a mature buck from mid oct to the end of Feb, I would go to a food plot. That is on my land - and that may be true no where else on earth - and I would not claim it to be based solely off my experience - like some might claim things based off their experience.
In my area, I would not agree that baiting increases deer density. Maybe on a specific property - but not in general. Our G&F permits baiting in an effort to help reach harvest goals - not to increase deer density. I would agree that supplemental feeding in spring and summer does increase deer density in my area.
