il coyote

OK ya got me. let me edit and say that planted crop fields can be excluded from the list. I didn'tthink we were talking about agriculture and farmers making a living from it, did you? I did hear, however, that since IL is a non baiting state that planting any cornor soybeans for agricultural purposes is soon to be illegal to stop the spread of CWD.

I didn't make my first reply even thinking about farmers, i was thinking about baiting animals, that's what this was started for , anyway. and I still have my belief that doing anything unnatural for the purpose of attracting, holding, or supplementing wildlife is wrong.

petasux

Sounds like reasonable question to me.I think some states view baiting more as a means of keeping animal populations under control then they doas being ethical/unethical.And they should, theyre jobs to manage the wildlife, not dictate ethics.

Bears as far as I know {never hunted them}would be much harder to control numbers on without the use of baiting.I cant remember where but a few years back I read an artical where baiting was banned somewhere for bears, hunting license sales dropped, kill numbers dropped way way down and they were worried about the long term affects it would have on the bear population.Never heard a follow up story so I cant say if the fears were justified.Kinda like banning cougar hunting with dogs then whining the mountain lions are eating the joggers, it dont make sense.

Bears also have laws pertaining to shooting sows and cubs I believe.A lotta the shows I see stress the fact that bears hanging around a bait pile are much easier to gauge the sex and size of then they would be otherwise.Deer either have antlers or they dont but its usually pretty obvious at a glance if its a legalbuck or not.

Same thing with a lot of hunting regs if you think about it.Why is it legal to hunt coon with dogs but not deer in many areas?Matter of fact taking a spotlight out and shooting a coon thats moving naturaly without dogs is illegal.Go figure

huntingson

I see. Opinion respected but disagreed with.

I have really enjoyed working on increasing the habitat and setting upfood plots and supplementing the deer and other wildlife. I get to watch a lot more deer and quailnow anddoing the work is a big part of my hobby. Saying that it has drastically altered my success rate would be a lie, but instead of seeing deer from the stand 1:3 times out it is close to every time out. Just nice to have them around.

Red Lion

Baiting and using dogs are both illegal in Minnesota. In my opinion, andI bet others as well, the use ofdogs does not lend itself to "fairchase" hunting. I guess youcould also make a case that baiting interfers with fair chase as well.

YooperMike

We bait in the UP, just kinda always have. I enjoy watching the deer . I now hunt IL as well, there is no real difference between the cut corn and my corn pile at home. We can also bait bears in MI, which I think makes sense, because I'm with GMMAT, why one and not the other. We see more bears than deer in early bow with the bait anyway.I also do not care if someone baits or doesn't, especially in the woods of the UP, where baiting is pretty much the way it's done, if you don't bait you are in the minority. I will say though that no matter how much corn I put out at home, I've never seen the number of deer I will see in a cut corn field down here, regardless of densities or deer.

GR8atta2d

But the question was why one and not the other?? Rabbit and bird hunters use dogs. Waterfowlers use dogs..do you see where i'm going? You can't compare everything to everything else. Each is an individual case.

Red Lion

I get you. I agree that you can make a case the using dogs for rabbit and bird such as pheasants is the same, but the waterfowlers that I know only use dogs to retrieve and not chase.

tsoc

This is a great topic! And A very difficult one to get a true answer about.Unless it can be justified biologically from a perspective of population control than it is most likely tradition or politically motivated.It is the way it has always be done and as a result of it there is political pressure to keep it that way.
The use of an attractant is the use of an attractant.WIth Bears my understanding is that in area's that are dense that is the only way (baiting) that you can draw them out sufficiently to have them be huntable.
It does not appeal to me from a challenge point of view,but I have no problem with folks who do it.There are some definite benefits,such as the ability to judge an animal more sufficiently,the ability to put a better shot on an animal because it is occupied and stationary etc.
Having said it doesn't appeal to me,I don't know that I can explain how my use of lures to take game,which I have done with deer and bear is any different.

_Dan

Jeff, I realize that and was reading nothing into your post. I also have no problem with people baiting. It is my opinion that even if you are not hunting over your feeder, you are still baiting. That feeder is altering the deers pattern unnaturally. Hence feeding is baiting.

Understand?

GMMAT

Sure. What's your point, though???