Baiting on the chopping block

[WARHORSE]

The problem is in the okanogan area. A lot of our public land has some private pieces mixed in. This is where the guides dump the dump truck loads of apples. The deer are drawn to their location. Less deer for the public to hunt.  Then on public land I was walking with my son through the woods and stumbled upon a bait pile. The guy in the blind was not happy.  It happens all the time. They take ownership over that location.  I guess that's Hunting on public land now.  But by all means let's listen to the hunting guides that make the money of our animals and the people who use them to buy our animals.  Its unique to this area from what I've seen so why not just stop it in the 3 gmus it affects. The three guides will get upset?


Yes i agree! I have no problem with disabled, senoir and even some youth hunters hunting over bait in modern season. Heck bait whitetail great if thats what yer into but  the late archery mule deer baiting in okanogan county is rediculas. I have seen first hand how many people bait, and how much bait is out and about. I have seen the quality of deer decline as more and more people bait. If you dont believe me look at the guides web sites compair the deer they killed 3 and 4 years ago when baiting got big to this year. Yet still great bucks not near the quality. Also  look at it this way... Each guide has 20ish clients. These guides are" 100% opportunity" 99.9% success or however they advertise themselves. Thats 60ish decent bucks out of three gmu's! Not Including the rest of the 6 million people that hunt  these three units in November. Baiting in the okanogan isnt helping anything........maybe the guides pocket books. And before yall pop off about being jeliouse of the guides blah blah  i worked for one i no longer do as it became more about how many clients could be thrown in blinds over bait and how much money could be made. Cant blame a guy for tryin to earn a dollar but i guess i hold the animals i hunt and the sport i love higher then $$.


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[zike]

Email sent
No change !     

Dec 15-April 1 is when they could use the extra food. I feed year round and from dec-march I have alfalfa out

That's great. I think it will still be legal to feed if baiting is banned as long as you don't hunt over it. The question is are you still going to feed if you can't hunt there?
Washington is one of the few states that allow baiting. The rest of the hunters in the country  survive without luring there deer in with a pile of apples.  The baiters on here are running around like chicken little, crying the sky is falling. It will be all right if its banned, you'll just have to adept and hunt harder.

[NWWABOWHNTR]

Email sent
No change !     

Dec 15-April 1 is when they could use the extra food. I feed year round and from dec-march I have alfalfa out

That's great. I think it will still be legal to feed if baiting is banned as long as you don't hunt over it. The question is are you still going to feed if you can't hunt there?
Washington is one of the few states that allow baiting. The rest of the hunters in the country  survive without luring there deer in with a pile of apples.  The baiters on here are running around like chicken little, crying the sky is falling. It will be all right if its banned, you'll just have to adept and hunt harder.

I beg to disagree with your statement, can you back up the no baiting at all in the majority of States? Most allow some form of baiting ( or better stated, many do, but they also have restrictions)  I already know the number.  I have had a long absence from this site, for many reasons.  However, my name is mentioned on or in this thread quite a bit.  Thankfully not many bad names.. :-)  Appreciate the input, and welcome any via messages or emails,

Ren

[Stein]

Email sent
No change !     

Dec 15-April 1 is when they could use the extra food. I feed year round and from dec-march I have alfalfa out

Washington is one of the few states that allow baiting. The rest of the hunters in the country  survive without luring there deer in with a pile of apples.  The baiters on here are running around like chicken little, crying the sky is falling. It will be all right if its banned, you'll just have to adept and hunt harder.

Yeah, there are also states that where you can only use a shotgun and states where 97% of the land is private.  If you don't care about diy public land hunting, go ahead and piss away your hunting privileges one step at a time.

[DUGANDEER]

Email sent
No change !     

Dec 15-April 1 is when they could use the extra food. I feed year round and from dec-march I have alfalfa out

That's great. I think it will still be legal to feed if baiting is banned as long as you don't hunt over it. The question is are you still going to feed if you can't hunt there?
Washington is one of the few states that allow baiting. The rest of the hunters in the country  survive without luring there deer in with a pile of apples.  The baiters on here are running around like chicken little, crying the sky is falling. It will be all right if its banned, you'll just have to adept and hunt harder.


 
Agreed!

[2labs]

Email sent
No change !     

Dec 15-April 1 is when they could use the extra food. I feed year round and from dec-march I have alfalfa out

Washington is one of the few states that allow baiting. The rest of the hunters in the country  survive without luring there deer in with a pile of apples.  The baiters on here are running around like chicken little, crying the sky is falling. It will be all right if its banned, you'll just have to adept and hunt harder.

Yeah, there are also states that where you can only use a shotgun and states where 97% of the land is private.  If you don't care about diy public land hunting, go ahead and piss away your hunting privileges one step at a time.

Death by a thousand paper cuts! I feel the same way about people who buy passes to timber companies that are getting Redonkulas tax breaks.
Lets have some elected folk with some ---- ----!

[jasnt]

Email sent
No change !     

Dec 15-April 1 is when they could use the extra food. I feed year round and from dec-march I have alfalfa out

That's great. I think it will still be legal to feed if baiting is banned as long as you don't hunt over it. The question is are you still going to feed if you can't hunt there?
Washington is one of the few states that allow baiting. The rest of the hunters in the country  survive without luring there deer in with a pile of apples.  The baiters on here are running around like chicken little, crying the sky is falling. It will be all right if its banned, you'll just have to adept and hunt harder.

ive taken many deer with out baiting and I don't need to bait where I do. I have an acre food plot and mineral sights and a fresh water source. My food plot in irrigated and the deer feed heavily on it when everything around us is dry and dead.  But like stated I like having the option. I like feeding the deer because I want the healthiest deer I can. I want big mature bucks and fat healthy doe's. I like seeing the fawns that are 50% larger than fawns on public land.  I enjoy all of our opertunetys we have in Washington and miss the ones we have lost. I'm not ok with loosing one more opertunety here!!! Dosent matter if it's somthing that I do. I stand with all my hunting brothers and sisters and don't want any of us to loose a single opertunety!!!!!

[zike]

Email sent
No change !     

Dec 15-April 1 is when they could use the extra food. I feed year round and from dec-march I have alfalfa out

That's great. I think it will still be legal to feed if baiting is banned as long as you don't hunt over it. The question is are you still going to feed if you can't hunt there?
Washington is one of the few states that allow baiting. The rest of the hunters in the country  survive without luring there deer in with a pile of apples.  The baiters on here are running around like chicken little, crying the sky is falling. It will be all right if its banned, you'll just have to adept and hunt harder.

I beg to disagree with your statement, can you back up the no baiting at all in the majority of States? Most allow some form of baiting ( or better stated, many do, but they also have restrictions)  I already know the number.  I have had a long absence from this site, for many reasons.  However, my name is mentioned on or in this thread quite a bit.  Thankfully not many bad names.. :-)  Appreciate the input, and welcome any via messages or emails,

Ren

I found this article from Field and stream that states 28 states ban baiting, thats a majority. It also gives some good reasons for a baiting ban. Really bad a hunting mag calling for a baiting ban.

"
Seven Reasons to Stop Baiting Whitetails Now
by Scott Bestul
49


Photo: Charles Alsheimer

I think baiting for whitetails has to stop. Now.

Okay, okay, before you peg me as a purist who thinks all baiters are slobs, hear me out. If you watch a spin feeder or camp near a pile of sugar beets, I’m not going to attack your character or question your allegiance to the flag. But I do think that if you gave up the bait, we’d all be better off.

Baiting divides us. Nationally, 28 states ban the practice in any form, while 22 allow it (eight with significant restrictions). And recent headlines point to deep divisions within individual states. Last spring, legislation passed by the Mississippi House and Senate would have allowed baiting in the Magnolia State for the first time had Gov. Haley Barbour not vetoed the bill. In Michigan, a state long synonymous with baiting, officials shocked the deer hunting community by abruptly banning the practice in the entire Lower Peninsula after a single game-farm doe tested positive for chronic wasting disease. In the Upper Peninsula, however, baiting remains legal.

What we need is to unify—against baiting. Not because it’s unethical (that’s a complicated argument and an ugly fight), but because deer hunters, deer hunting, and deer would all benefit. Here’s why:

1 | We’d see more deer during daylight. It doesn’t take whitetails long to associate bait piles with humans, and when deer know people are around, they wait for dark to feed. Studies from Texas, Michigan, and Mississippi all show that daylight buck visits to bait sites range from rare to virtually nonexistent. Whitetails already restrict their daytime movements. Why make it worse?

2 | Deer would generally be more active. Foraging whitetails must travel to find food. Bait reduces the need for this movement, creating not only a nocturnal buck but a lazy one.

3 | Deer would be healthier. Researchers have proved a link between baiting and bovine tuberculosis in whitetails. The CWD connection is shakier, but find me a biologist who thinks concentrating deer near a pinpoint food source is a good thing. Besides, baited deer in nonagricultural areas can get sick from eating too much grain. The disease is called lactic acidosis, and it can kill a whitetail.

4 | We’d be better managers. Baiting can lead to unnaturally high survival and birth rates, particularly in northern deer. It also concentrates whitetails, which eat more than just what we put out for them. That densely packed herd can wipe out native plant species and retard forest regeneration. We’ve long told the public, “We’re the managers who keep whitetail numbers in tune with their habitat.” Well, are we?

5 | We’d fight less with one another. We’re all aware of the battle lines drawn over the ethics of baiting. But beyond that, once a hunter puts out a pile of corn, his neighbors feel obliged to follow suit. Soon, a seemingly benign activity turns ultracompetitive. In 1984, only 29 percent of Michigan hunters reported using bait. Just nine years later, the figure had risen to 56 percent, and more than one in five hunters told the Department of Natural Resources that baiting to compete with other hunters was “very important” to them. Wisconsin DNR researcher Mark Toso estimates that Badger State gun hunters alone place 4.5 million pounds of corn on the ground each day—enough to feed the state’s entire herd of 1.8 million deer—during the firearms season.

Baiting is especially troubling on public lands, where hunters who place bait often claim ownership for their sites and a considerable territory around them. This practice—known as “homesteading”—ruins the hunting experience for everyone.

6 | We’d improve our public image. Surveys reveal that most of the nonhunting public supports our tradition as long as hunting remains a fair-chase, ethical endeavor. If the ethics of baiting is controversial among hunters, what must the general populace think? And make no mistake; what they think is critical to deer hunting’s future.

7 | We’d tag just as many deer. Baiting proponents argue they’d kill significantly fewer deer without the bait, but only one Texas study supports that. Other research reveals equal or near equal success. Just this past fall, Michigan hunters—despite complaints that the bait ban would slash their harvest—bagged nearly the same number of deer as they did during the previous season.

But suppose, just for the sake of argument, that we’d bag slightly fewer deer. So what? I’ll take that—along with better hunting, healthier deer, and one less wedge to divide us—any day of the week. --Scott Bestul

Also this from an article by Rex Rogers "Actually, I think baiting harms hunting because it removes much of the need for hunters to spend time in the craft and improve their hunting skills. To put it bluntly, about anyone can sit with a gun and shoot when a target comes in view. That’s not hunting. It’s a carnival shooting gallery." LOL

[JimmyHoffa]

5 | We'd fight less with one another

HAHAHA!!
No, we'd all move along to the next grave injustice of why other people are killing the animals we wish we were killing. 

[Blacktail Sniper]

 

[Hunting7mm]

Given the issues with leases, permits, discover passes,  plus the new fishing rules for steelhead on our Olympic peninsula rivers.  No more!!!  Enough is Enough!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[lokidog]

Email sent
No change !     

Dec 15-April 1 is when they could use the extra food. I feed year round and from dec-march I have alfalfa out

That's great. I think it will still be legal to feed if baiting is banned as long as you don't hunt over it. The question is are you still going to feed if you can't hunt there?
Washington is one of the few states that allow baiting. The rest of the hunters in the country  survive without luring there deer in with a pile of apples.  The baiters on here are running around like chicken little, crying the sky is falling. It will be all right if its banned, you'll just have to adept and hunt harder.

ive taken many deer with out baiting and I don't need to bait where I do. I have an acre food plot and mineral sights and a fresh water source. My food plot in irrigated and the deer feed heavily on it when everything around us is dry and dead.  But like stated I like having the option. I like feeding the deer because I want the healthiest deer I can. I want big mature bucks and fat healthy doe's. I like seeing the fawns that are 50% larger than fawns on public land.  I enjoy all of our opertunetys we have in Washington and miss the ones we have lost. I'm not ok with loosing one more opertunety here!!! Dosent matter if it's somthing that I do. I stand with all my hunting brothers and sisters and don't want any of us to loose a single opertunety!!!!!

   A true sportsman that cares about others, not just their own narrow perspective....

Many states have banned baiting for the simple reason that they have CWD and don't want to encourage large groups of deer slobbering on each other, there is no other reason, other than maybe some other selfish hunters didn't like it.   

[grundy53]

Email sent
No change !     

Dec 15-April 1 is when they could use the extra food. I feed year round and from dec-march I have alfalfa out

That's great. I think it will still be legal to feed if baiting is banned as long as you don't hunt over it. The question is are you still going to feed if you can't hunt there?
Washington is one of the few states that allow baiting. The rest of the hunters in the country  survive without luring there deer in with a pile of apples.  The baiters on here are running around like chicken little, crying the sky is falling. It will be all right if its banned, you'll just have to adept and hunt harder.

ive taken many deer with out baiting and I don't need to bait where I do. I have an acre food plot and mineral sights and a fresh water source. My food plot in irrigated and the deer feed heavily on it when everything around us is dry and dead.  But like stated I like having the option. I like feeding the deer because I want the healthiest deer I can. I want big mature bucks and fat healthy doe's. I like seeing the fawns that are 50% larger than fawns on public land.  I enjoy all of our opertunetys we have in Washington and miss the ones we have lost. I'm not ok with loosing one more opertunety here!!! Dosent matter if it's somthing that I do. I stand with all my hunting brothers and sisters and don't want any of us to loose a single opertunety!!!!!

Well said!

[grundy53]

Email sent
No change !     

Dec 15-April 1 is when they could use the extra food. I feed year round and from dec-march I have alfalfa out

That's great. I think it will still be legal to feed if baiting is banned as long as you don't hunt over it. The question is are you still going to feed if you can't hunt there?
Washington is one of the few states that allow baiting. The rest of the hunters in the country  survive without luring there deer in with a pile of apples.  The baiters on here are running around like chicken little, crying the sky is falling. It will be all right if its banned, you'll just have to adept and hunt harder.

I beg to disagree with your statement, can you back up the no baiting at all in the majority of States? Most allow some form of baiting ( or better stated, many do, but they also have restrictions)  I already know the number.  I have had a long absence from this site, for many reasons.  However, my name is mentioned on or in this thread quite a bit.  Thankfully not many bad names.. :-)  Appreciate the input, and welcome any via messages or emails,

Ren

I found this article from Field and stream that states 28 states ban baiting, thats a majority. It also gives some good reasons for a baiting ban. Really bad a hunting mag calling for a baiting ban.

"
Seven Reasons to Stop Baiting Whitetails Now
by Scott Bestul
49


Photo: Charles Alsheimer

I think baiting for whitetails has to stop. Now.

Okay, okay, before you peg me as a purist who thinks all baiters are slobs, hear me out. If you watch a spin feeder or camp near a pile of sugar beets, I’m not going to attack your character or question your allegiance to the flag. But I do think that if you gave up the bait, we’d all be better off.

Baiting divides us. Nationally, 28 states ban the practice in any form, while 22 allow it (eight with significant restrictions). And recent headlines point to deep divisions within individual states. Last spring, legislation passed by the Mississippi House and Senate would have allowed baiting in the Magnolia State for the first time had Gov. Haley Barbour not vetoed the bill. In Michigan, a state long synonymous with baiting, officials shocked the deer hunting community by abruptly banning the practice in the entire Lower Peninsula after a single game-farm doe tested positive for chronic wasting disease. In the Upper Peninsula, however, baiting remains legal.

What we need is to unify—against baiting. Not because it’s unethical (that’s a complicated argument and an ugly fight), but because deer hunters, deer hunting, and deer would all benefit. Here’s why:

1 | We’d see more deer during daylight. It doesn’t take whitetails long to associate bait piles with humans, and when deer know people are around, they wait for dark to feed. Studies from Texas, Michigan, and Mississippi all show that daylight buck visits to bait sites range from rare to virtually nonexistent. Whitetails already restrict their daytime movements. Why make it worse?

2 | Deer would generally be more active. Foraging whitetails must travel to find food. Bait reduces the need for this movement, creating not only a nocturnal buck but a lazy one.

3 | Deer would be healthier. Researchers have proved a link between baiting and bovine tuberculosis in whitetails. The CWD connection is shakier, but find me a biologist who thinks concentrating deer near a pinpoint food source is a good thing. Besides, baited deer in nonagricultural areas can get sick from eating too much grain. The disease is called lactic acidosis, and it can kill a whitetail.

4 | We’d be better managers. Baiting can lead to unnaturally high survival and birth rates, particularly in northern deer. It also concentrates whitetails, which eat more than just what we put out for them. That densely packed herd can wipe out native plant species and retard forest regeneration. We’ve long told the public, “We’re the managers who keep whitetail numbers in tune with their habitat.” Well, are we?

5 | We’d fight less with one another. We’re all aware of the battle lines drawn over the ethics of baiting. But beyond that, once a hunter puts out a pile of corn, his neighbors feel obliged to follow suit. Soon, a seemingly benign activity turns ultracompetitive. In 1984, only 29 percent of Michigan hunters reported using bait. Just nine years later, the figure had risen to 56 percent, and more than one in five hunters told the Department of Natural Resources that baiting to compete with other hunters was “very important” to them. Wisconsin DNR researcher Mark Toso estimates that Badger State gun hunters alone place 4.5 million pounds of corn on the ground each day—enough to feed the state’s entire herd of 1.8 million deer—during the firearms season.

Baiting is especially troubling on public lands, where hunters who place bait often claim ownership for their sites and a considerable territory around them. This practice—known as “homesteading”—ruins the hunting experience for everyone.

6 | We’d improve our public image. Surveys reveal that most of the nonhunting public supports our tradition as long as hunting remains a fair-chase, ethical endeavor. If the ethics of baiting is controversial among hunters, what must the general populace think? And make no mistake; what they think is critical to deer hunting’s future.

7 | We’d tag just as many deer. Baiting proponents argue they’d kill significantly fewer deer without the bait, but only one Texas study supports that. Other research reveals equal or near equal success. Just this past fall, Michigan hunters—despite complaints that the bait ban would slash their harvest—bagged nearly the same number of deer as they did during the previous season.

But suppose, just for the sake of argument, that we’d bag slightly fewer deer. So what? I’ll take that—along with better hunting, healthier deer, and one less wedge to divide us—any day of the week. --Scott Bestul

Also this from an article by Rex Rogers "Actually, I think baiting harms hunting because it removes much of the need for hunters to spend time in the craft and improve their hunting skills. To put it bluntly, about anyone can sit with a gun and shoot when a target comes in view. That’s not hunting. It’s a carnival shooting gallery." LOL

That is one of the most ignorant articles I've ever read. His reasoning is selfish and poorly thought out /Ignorant. Also, 22 states still allow baiting which is a far cry from " a few states" like you claimed earlier. It's nearly half.

[grundy53]

Also sent an email.