The Whitetail Baiting Controversy

The debate over baiting has been a long and difficult one which has pitted friends and relatives at each others throats for years.

I first got introduced into the debate over the use of feeders and feeding corn while I was a pro staff member in a predominantly northern wildlife web forum.

When I mentioned baiting, you would have thought I was cussing somebody’s mamma.

I endured dozens of posts aimed at me saying how baiting is not hunting and that anybody can kill deer over bait.

Really?

Obviously these folks are a few bricks shy of full load.

I have hunted East Texas my entire life and had feeders o ut almost all of that time and can tell you it doesn’t work that way.

These folks who have such a problem with the use of a five gallon bucket and a bag of corn are the same guys who have no qualms about setting up stands surrounding a corn or soybean field and shooting deer while they munch on corn.  It’s only when you buy that same corn in a bag and pour it on the ground do they have a problem.

Baiting is defined as when anything is used in an area to purposely draw in an animal. Under this guideline the use of doe in heat and dominant buck scents are bait.

Rattling horns and grunt calls are designed to lure deer from one place to the next so that is bait too..There are just hundreds of commonly used things and techniques that are by definition “BAIT”.

No one has a problem as long as it is “their” stuff or the way “they” do things.  Every part of the country has its own traditions and accepted practices which may seem foreign to people from a thousand or more miles away.

The bottom line is this.  If it’s legal in your area and you personally want and enjoy doing it then do it and if you don’t like it then JUST DON’T DO IT!  Quit worrying about what your neighbor is legally doing in his yard and concern yourself with what’s going on in yours.

Jeff Stewart