Baiting is just one part of management of a property. We dont even hunt our bait sites unless it is one of the grand daughters. I also have around 35 acres of planted food plots. I also have some bedding cover - but bedding cover is overwhelming around my land. I need something to pull deer from others bedding cover onto my land. I live on my property - so I am unconcerned about my activity running the deer off. I use my land for hunting duck, dove, hogs, alligator, deer, squirrel, turkey, and coons. I catch crawdads, bullfrogs, and fish. I have no problem walking, hunting by a feed site at mid night with my coon dog and setting over a food plot a 7 am the next morning 100 yards away. I have over 4000 miles on my 3.5 yr old ranger - all on my 400 acres. That should tell anyone I drive around my property - a lot. My dog has treed a coon at mid night and the biggest buck on the place will be on camera in that food plot 15 minutes after we kill the coon.
I was an absentee landowner the first 8 yrs I owned the property. I made it to the property about every other weekend. I could tell the deer were much more nervous with my presence when they were accustomed to no one being there. Now, they hear or see me every day. Now, they often just stand and watch. I dont want to own a piece of property I think I have to keep off of.
I used to be dead set against baiting - I abhorred it. Then, I had grand daughters - five of them over time. Never baited in my life but we started so we could up the odds for the grand kids and give them a better shot selection. They all start hunting with a crossbow - another bad word. There is actually some science behind baiting. It is more than throwing some corn out on the ground.
In forty years hunting this state, I have never weighed a deer that hit 200 lbs - and I have weighed a lot because I used to help game and fish at their check stations - back when we had them. We started baiting seven years ago. In the last four years, we have killed three deer that weighed 200 plus - and two more in the 190’s. Use the bait to your advantage and grow some bigger deer. We have killed three deer over bait in seven years, one of those killed by an adult. Food plots are where we kill by far the bulk of the deer.
I know - it can be frustrating when your neighbors who do no deer management other than opening a bag of corn are killing all the big deer. I think they are actually more likely to kill a big deer on their 15 acres, because they only have one place to hunt and they are there when the deer shows up. I have dozens of places to hunt - and picking where the big buck will be is a total crapshoot - even if I was hunting over bait. I fought that for 15 years, working my butt off disking, planting, bush hogging, spraying, watering trees, hinge cutting, etc - only for a fifteen acre neighbor to kill the big deer. I finally gave in. Baiting has made our hunting more successful, even though we dont typically hunt over bait. Feeding has also made our deer larger.
Last year was a very typical year for our hunting. Understand the average mature buck here scores about 110. We had three bucks on our target list - not because of antler size - but because they were mature deer. My son killed a 148” buck 1/4 mile from our closest bait site. A next door neighbor killed a 153” buck that was basically living on our place - killed him on his corn pile. And a mid 130’s buck was not killed. I found both of his sheds. He is back this year. Very typical year for us - we kill a third, the neighbors kill a third, and a third get away.
I wish like heck they would ban baiting - but our game and fish believes baiting is necessary to get hunters to kill the harvest goal numbers for the state. It is part of the playing field here - like a bad hop in baseball. I fought it for a long time and then joined the crowd. I think you dont have but two choices - accept your neighbors killing most of the deer you grow, or bait to try to keep the deer on your property as much as you can - and improve your heard while doing it.
