Baiting Regs

[JayRG870]

"What Is Baiting?
You cannot hunt waterfowl by the aid of baiting or on or over any baited area where you know or reasonably should know that the area is or has been baited.
Baiting is the direct or indirect placing, exposing, depositing, distributing, or scattering of salt, grain, or other feed that could lure or attract waterfowl to, on, or over any areas where hunters are attempting to take them.
A baited area is any area on which salt, grain, or other feed has been placed, exposed, deposited, distributed, or scattered, if that salt, grain, or feed could serve as a lure or attraction for waterfowl."

What about plastic corn cobs?  Or yellow painted cans mixed in your spread?  Is this considered bait?  Technically it is not feed, but decoy feed.  Fish and Wildlife says its baiting, but could not point me to a regulation or definition of baiting which covers decoy feed.  Is this in the regs somewhere?  Has anyone done this?  I read the tip in a 1971 Herters Professional Guide Manual.

[h2ofowlr]

I have a few bags of plastic ears of corn.  Never tried them, but I am sure in the right situation birds would lock onto them if they had been feeding in corn.  This should be legal as it is a decoy.

[Bob33]

"Fish and Wildlife says its baiting"

Who from F&W said that?  Yellow cans are not bait.

[JayRG870]

I called the Yakima office today; I believe the mans name was Kevin.  Was told the federal definition of bait includes anything that imitates feed...  I could not find any reg to support that, so I posted here.

[Bob33]

I think he's mistaken.  Ask him to cite the legal reference.

[BOWHUNTER45]

I use fake cobs all the time ....guess I am illegal again ... Dang !

[CP]

How about this - would this be baiting:

[Dhoey07]

How about this - would this be baiting:

I like the sleeper decoy in the front 

I forgot who did it, but one of the decoy companies threw in a couple free fake corn cobs in with their box of decoys

[h2ofowlr]

How about this - would this be baiting:

I like the sleeper decoy in the front 

I forgot who did it, but one of the decoy companies threw in a couple free fake corn cobs in with their box of decoys

I think those used to come in the G & H decoys.

[winshooter88]

Here is the web address for Federal waterfowl regulations.

http://www.fws.gov/le/HuntFish/waterfowl_baiting.htm

From what I read there doesn't appear to be any mention of "fake" corn cobs, yellow cans or any other "fake" bait.

[hdshot]

There is no law against fake bait.  If bait was legal the trick would be to bait the area and let the birds start to use it first.  Keep replacing the eaten bait and then hunt, if legal.  You would not have much luck the first day throwing grain out in the deks.  If fake bait worked the first time seen from the air it still would not keep birds coming back time after time.   

[Ned]

I called the Yakima office today; I believe the mans name was Kevin.  Was told the federal definition of bait includes anything that imitates feed...  I could not find any reg to support that, so I posted here.

Then hunting waterfowl at all would be illegal. We all hunt where birds intend to feed so every field would be considered "Baited" by this idiots(Kevin) logic.

[duckkillerclyde]

I called the Yakima office today; I believe the mans name was Kevin.  Was told the federal definition of bait includes anything that imitates feed...  I could not find any reg to support that, so I posted here.

Then hunting waterfowl at all would be illegal. We all hunt where birds intend to feed so every field would be considered "Baited" by this idiots(Kevin) logic.

Not if you're shooting the roost!   

[Dhoey07]

Got me thinking, do they sell large fake mats of duckweed?

[Ned]

I called the Yakima office today; I believe the mans name was Kevin.  Was told the federal definition of bait includes anything that imitates feed...  I could not find any reg to support that, so I posted here.

Then hunting waterfowl at all would be illegal. We all hunt where birds intend to feed so every field would be considered "Baited" by this idiots(Kevin) logic.

Not if you're shooting the roost!   

Shooting the roost is as stupid as this Kevin fella seems to be