OT {feeding deer}

{OT} I believe in fare chase when hunting DEER , but for many years I never could understand
What the difference was between a food plot and hand feeding DEER.
The way I see it, it is still baiting, You are still brining the deer to your hunt area.
Now a friend of mine was told by a game warden, if you hand feed deer you creating a possible sickness ,and he said your not creating problem in a food plot ,RIGHT, that’s not true, The game warden all so stated that Deer will P—P in the hand feed area, causing cwd chronic waste disease. Are you confused yet ? well I am.
So having said this what is the difference between the two other than you plant one and hand feed the other, you are still bringing the deer to your hunting area
Jr frye 88
MANY THANKS HAVE A GREAT DAY

Any situation where the deer can touch nose to nose,you're inviting big problems. Be that bait piles,self feeders,whatever.

I plant a five acre plot every year, dozens of deer feast off of it through the fall and into winter until the snow gets too deep. Is it unfair? I can't really say, in all the years I've had plots I've maybe harvested a fourth of my deer off there or close to it. Most of the ones I've harvested have been standing in fields or came from a push through the woods. Deer in our area travel a lot through the fall especially during the rutt.

We have about 6 miles of river bottom land we hunt and it's interesting to see how deer migrate, we will see a deer on a game camera one night and won't see him off a few nights after then he'll show up on a camera 2-3 miles from the first camera we saw him on.

If nothing else I look at it as a little boost for the deer to help them to get through the winter, a lot of the plot mixes you buy have high protein plants in them as well as turnips they can dig through the snow to find in winter.

The difference is about $250 in my area but with food plots how would you decide what is a plot and what is a planted farm crop?My truck patches apparently are deer plots as they come from all over to eat there.

You should try farming a federal wildlife reserve . The eat the outside three or four rows of ever corn field. We just have too many deer period here in Tennessee.

Randy has it right! A food plot, especially standing corn, offers cover/travel lanes as well as food. I plant my corn plots on a curve so you can't get a look straight down the row. I also plant very close to cover. Baiters prefer to have the food out in the open where they get a clear shot. I don't use bait and I don't let anyone who does hunt my land. There's enough natural food around, but I agree a food plot helps deer and other critters get through the winter.

Larry

I personally dont have a problem with food plots and feeders. I believe in fair chace also. I dont have fences up so they can come and go as they want to and they do. I dont believe in feeders and the animal being fenced in. Thats not hunting thats just killing.

I think it's OK to put food out if you have a sign saying any animal caught eating it will be shot.

The craze of food plots is the same as baiting to me.

You plant crops known to attract Deer. So your training them to come to a certain area. You fatten them up with these same areas. Then you hunt in that area. Sure sounds just like baiting to me. Your just growing the bait rather than bringing it in from some where else.

Very few deer are killed by TRUE hunting any more. It is more Deer slaughter called deer hunting.

Here is how they do it around here. You line up a bunch of guys and they walk up a timber or draw. They have 2-4 guys at the other end of that area to "shoot" the deer that the others DRIVE to them.

Hunting to me is tracking and locating an animal. Not herding it to a shooting gallery.

Most should just mount a gun with a carrot hanging on the trigger. That would be as close to hunting as what they are doing now. They could just set back at their "hunting cabin" drinking BEER until they hear a gun go off. Then go drag the deer in and act all manly for their fellow beer drinkers.

I know that these comments will PO a bunch of "Deer Hunters". I hate the damage that Deer do to crops and property. I hate most deer hunting slobs more than the deer. The deer at least don't leave garbage behind themselves. Rarely does a DEER shoot a cow or calf either. The same can't be said about many of the "deer hunters" these days.

Randy:

You're going nose-to-nose with the deer? Either you've gotten awfully wild in your old age or those are VERY tame deer. Oh dear, ER deer.

LOL! snicker, snicker

:>)

You just have the wrong hunters coming around.

I'm sure there is something you enjoy doing JD, something that doesn't harm anyone else or cost them anything.
Perhaps someday you will post about it and others here will badmouth you for it, say
how slovenly you are because you do it or you don't do it their way.
When it happens, don't get angry with them.
Just figure they don't understand.

Yep.


I think it is crazy, also. I had my seed guy come out to look at my soybeans, to give me his opinion on my yields and to check on some rust problems. He found about 8 acres that he thinks I should just chisel plow under for green manure. The deer ate an entire 4 acre field down to the dirt and all my soybean pods were about an inch off the ground. He doesn't think I will be able to get them into the combine.

You can yell at me if you want, but I agree with JDseller.

No matter what I do, I end up with some bad hunters. They do leave garbage laying around, they put up game cameras everywhere now. A land clearing company messed up their half million dollar wood chipper because a camouflage colored metal tree stand got sucked in. It did a bunch of damage. It made me feel bad. We had a dog that lived the last 10 years of it's life with 3 legs because a hunter shot one of the front legs off. Apparently, if a dog is interfering with wild game, hunters are allowed to shoot them. It's some sort of game commission rule.

Now, the rule in my state is that you can't "harvest" a buck unless it has 4 points on at least one side of it's rack. That is supposed to "enhance" the deer. It is a joke.

This is what it comes down to- The Pennsylvania Game Commission is the biggest waste of money and time that exists. The people who make these rules are complete idiots. Not one person in the Game Commission will ever get my respect. The main focus of the commission has shifted to a place that is obscene. They went from managing the hunting to becoming farmers with livestock.

Planting food plots, changing regulations to limit the size of a harvestable deer, and putting out food piles and salt blocks is what a cattle farmer would do. It's called farming. The only difference is that the livestock are the property of the commonwealth, and if you want to protect yourself, the only thing you can do is put up a fence to keep them out. That, in itself, is an absurdly cost prohibitive proposition. Heaven forbid you have a state road running through your farm and challenging topography like me, which makes it impossible.

I don't care if you or anyone likes to hunt. I am not bashing anyone who enjoys it, for enjoying it. However, common courtesy and more realistic expectations of what hunting should be are definitely lacking around here. It's called hunting, not slaughtering. I go fishing all the time. Some days, I don't come home with any fish. I don't expect every cast to yield a fish. I don't expect every fish to be a record breaker. I also don't enjoy catching fish that are considered too small for keeping... I think it is crazy they are doing the same thing with deer now.

What makes me sick is that the population of deer has exploded beyond what it ever was. The reason is the restrictions on hunting, and the large amounts of food that are available from farmers and now, people purposely planting fields of crops to let deer graze on. I know the hunters call it "browsing" and not grazing, but seriously? Shut up you dum-dum! It's grazing on food you planted for your LIVESTOCK. It's the closest legal way to domesticate wild animals that I have ever seen. I can't wait for the next bright idea to come out. Will hunters of the future start building barns to house their deer? Oh, but I'm sure they will not call them barns. Instead, they will be called "woodland structure" for protection. That'll be the day...



btw, 8 acres of 45 bpa beans at $9 a bushel equals a $3240 loss of income for me. and no, I cannot have red tags for deer control unless I re-enroll in the farm program that allows any tom DICK or harry to come hunt on my farm without my permission. no! to heck with that!

Ultradog MN:

I would say the local hunters are mostly good about respecting personal property but still about 50/50 on doing it. The ones not local are about 25/75 about doing that.

As for not harming me??? Well I get cut fences EVERY SINGLE deer season. Hunters too lazy or weak to throw their deer over the fence. So they cut the fence to either drag the deer through or even better drive their 4 wheeler to get their deer.

Then the JOY of walking around my property having to pickup garbage left by hunters. This includes but is not limited to: deer slugs (yes I find some live rounds laying around just about every year), Beer cans, and the lovely plastic bottles filled with your know what from the guys in the tree stands. This is with no one legally allowed to hunt on my ground but there are always hunters on it.

Then the added work keeping my cattle pastured close to the house for two weeks that gun season is in. The reason; two dead cows and several wounded animals over the years.

So I will admit I have a very poor opinion of DEER HUNTERS. That is why there are NONE allowed on the ground I fully own. I do not have that privilege on the rented ground so I have to put up with the hunters there.

Back to the original post. Food plots are just a fancy way around the baiting laws. Your are still providing an artificial food/cover source. For the purpose of attracting/growing deer. Thus making them easier to hunt. Sound like baiting to me.

The plots do this in several ways:

1) A additional food source so they either grow larger or maintain larger body weights.

2) Acclimatizing the deer to a certain area so hunting them is much easier.

The long and short of it is the entire DEER herd issue is getting out of hand. The deer herd is much larger than it was 30-40 years ago. I think that the food plots are part of this.

PS: Mixing alcohol and weapons just seems like a bad idea to me. I wonder how many deer hunters would fail a blood alcohol test when they are hunting???

You wouldn't have so many deer if guys would realize they can't eat the calcium deposits on the deer's head.
Require anyone who hunts your ground to take a doe first.

The problem with the CWD and "Hand Feeding" is that they congregate in a very small area with the hand feeder, i.e. bait piles. The bait piles of corn, salt licks, and anything else that is in such a small area with deer eating at it together is how CWD can spread faster. It is transferred to other deer via saliva. So if multiple deer are eating a bait pile at the same time and one infested with CWD slobers on some corn and another deer ingests it, it can cause CWD in that deer. Now when naturally grazing over a large area such as a corn field there is less of a chance of the deer eating the exact area as one before it. And if the saliva has dried or been exposed to the sun the virus can die before it is spread. Thats why they want to eliminate bait piles, salt licks and the like. They are basically cesspool of CWD for deer in hard hit areas.

Had to do a large research project on CWD a few years ago for my deer management class in college and this was one of the largest contributing factors, along with a poor or non flowing water supply

John I can't agree with you more about the PA game commission. I
use to have to deal with them when I was the PR guy for the
Wildlife society chapter and Cal U and I couldn't stand their
arrogance. I told my advisor if I had to deal with the one jerk
another time I was going to tell him when to shove it. She then
started talking to him and soon shared my frustration.

I know they like red beets,they will eat them down every time I Try to grow some

Alright since we are at confessional… I fed deer for the first time last year. I don't do it mainly because of the reasons listed and typically our winters are mild with plenty of browse. Last year was the exception. It was below zero for a few weeks. The deer were emaciated. After seeing many of the deer with bite marks on their haunches and seeing a deer carcass that the coyotes had gotten to at the bottom of a rock wall, I decided to change the game. I fed them corn and put out a salt block. I hate coyotes more than I fear CWD. You can't hunt here due to the closeness of neighbors so I wasn't baiting, but the 'yotes certainly had their work cut out for 'em. The deer finished winter kinda chubby. None of them fawned. Not sure if that was due to the corn. Anyone know?

Aaron

The same old hunter bashing shows up here every year. The same stereotypes, the same tired old cliches.
I hear the exact same stories of cut fences, trash, dead livestock, tresspassing, drunkenness and inconsiderate behavior every year.
Yet I rarely hear of anyone actually being caught for doing it.
So I don't believe most of it.
Here in MN there about 300K people go deer hunting on any given year.
I suppose there are some who are slobs just like in any group. But I will contend that most of those hunters are conscientious about being good stewards of the land and the herd and are grateful for the opportunity to use other people's property.
Those hunters, slobs or otherwise, take out about 100K deer per year.
Those are animals that are eating away at farm profits on a daily basis.
You would think farmers would welcome a few hunters to thin the herd - even if they had to pick up a bubble gum wrapper once in a while.
But no.
The mentality is "It's mine and you can't use it."
So every year the antis go spouting off the same old litany of belittling, complaints and stereotypes towards us.
And round and round it goes.

Sort of like having 25,000 chickens in one house in a confinement operation?

I view deer as a product of my farming operation,they are about like the cows I feed them all year and the only real difference from the cows is they can go where they want and eat my crops any time they want so it cost more to raise them than a calf.So why not 'harvest' them like any other crop or animal?The best way to keep out the slob hunters is to lease your land to a few good hunters and they'll take care of the slobs. One fellow that hunts here only kills big bucks,pays to hunt and only keeps the head and gives me the rest of the deer.Great deal for me.

(quoted from post at 08:16:20 10/13/14) ........Yet I rarely hear of anyone actually being caught for doing it.
[b:e8c035a90d]So I don't believe most of it.[/b:e8c035a90d]
......

[b:e8c035a90d]The mentality is "It's mine and you can't use it."[/b:e8c035a90d]

Click to expand...

Why wouldn't you believe that it actually does happen from people who see it on THEIR OWN property? I found a cut fence yesterday that wasn't there 3 weeks ago.

Well, what's wrong with that? I really don't care to be walking my property and come across someone with a weapon who I do not know. 2 days ago a neighbor found someone parked their truck just off the road and was entering a wooded area between her house and the next door neighbor's house heading toward my property. When she said "excuse me, can I help you?" his response was "this is public land, I'm just going to do some hunting". She shooed him off politely, explaining it was private property. I've caught guys who say a utility easement on my property is public (it's not) or that they have permission from the owner (me). Some are polite and leave, others get agitated and stomp off. One guy said he'd hunted there for years (I've owned it for 10) and seemed to figure that gave him a lifetime right to it. I know there are a lot of responsible hunters but that doesn't mean the bad apples don't exist. They do.

You can apply morals to the hunt and then KILL THEM DEAD.. or you can just be clever and use any tactic necessary to bring home food.

Its not a basket ball game, its bringing home food. Otherwise your a sick basket.

My meat doesn't taste better if I give the deer a 15 minute head start.

I do however give the cows a two day vacation and special 5 course last meal. :roll:


Sorry, could not resist. Since I have acreage and have lots of deer, I just harvest as needed. Same with the cattle.

If you find someone parked on your land, just push their vehicle in the ditch with your front end loader. Neighbor took his dozer and pushed up a berm of dirt behind it so they couldn't get out.

Use that big equipment to your advantage.

With my rear bale carrier I can pick up a vehicle and carry it off. :twisted:

Gene

Surrounding farms grow soys and corn. I grow oats alfalfa and grass hay. What good is a feed plot. We have a smorgasbord going here all year around.

Ultradog MN:

The simple FACT is I bought and PAID for my ground. That very simple FACT allows ME to determine who is going to be on my property.

Your statement "The mentality is "It's mine and you can't use it."

I have not seen any Deer hunters help make my PAYMENTS.

The ground just to the south of me has just sold. The 100 acres brought $10,000 per acre. So if the Deer hunters want to have some where to hunt let them BUY that MILLION dollar acreage and hunt to their hearts content.

IF you owned a million dollar house would you let anyone who just stopped there to use the house???? That is what a BIG part of the deer hunters don't get.

Let's not engage in hyperbole JD.
There is a big difference between someone asking to take a crop eating deer off your land and asking to stay in your house.

Wow been awhile since i have heard a conversation like this,which is good.So here,s my take. I have been deer hunting since i was 14 years old 57 now. I have deer hunted in 6 states and 2 provinces. I have sat on stumps,no bait and shot deer.I have been on drives,stander and a driver. I have stalked deer on foot. I have hunted from ladder stands,climbing stands,ground blinds. I have shot deer over bait,corn and apples. I have shot deer over food plots. The reason i hunt is for the venison. I like eating it and i like the the thrill of the hunt.Anyone that says hunting over bait is unsportsmanlike has not sat over bait 3 days and seen only a blue jay.Its not as easy as some would have you believe.Then there is the cwd issue .Which i have followed closely since it made its debut in 2001.Its really problematic when the experts can,t agree on what causes it how its spread etc. For an example in the year 2000 i went to a informational turkey hunt meeting.After the meeting was over a man spoke up and said he was the deer ecologists for the northern part of the state of Wis.He says anyone got any questions on deer hunting?I said yeah are you concerned at all about CWD in WIS? His response was and i quote {I would be more concerned about eating a British Slim Jim than cwd in wisconsin}And further more if it show up here, it most likely would be in the southern part of the state.This guy turned out to be a profit because 2001 cwd was in the state of Wis. Next up were deer meetings about CWD . The state brought in a guy to answer question we had about Cwd.I raised my hand and asked the question.If Cwd is transmitted by close proximity ,how do you explain the article in the PIONEER press about a bull elk found dead,tested positive for CWD.Lived on a game farm in Minnesota with 42 head of elk for 3 years? His response was astounding,he said i quote{that has nothing to do with Wis.Thats in Minn.}Then he admitted he had not heard about it.This was the state guy that was supposed to be in the loop on current CWD . What a joke.I walked out of the meeting early.By the way that elk herd was quarantined and slaughtered ,and the results were, none of the other elk were infected with Cwd ! Now some please explain that to me? Aims IOWA is the home of the research lab that does the testing for cwd,now another problem,false test results,testing positive when negative.Then they had to send test to Cleveland, where testing for the human variant is done which is Jacobs Creutzfeldt disease.Right now this is a frustrating mess.And game dept.s are making decisions based on incomplete science. I could keep going but i think you get my drift,i don,t by into how the disease is transmitted.

You make a good point people that think nothing of going out and shooting a cow or hog in a fenced in lot and then using it for food but then get all riled up about not giving some sort of fair chase to a deer is curious.Because in reality as you pointed out its really no difference as the end result is the same for each animal. Game and livestock laws are kinds crazy anyway as a fellow here was brought up on charges for turning out really wild buck goats on his farm and charging people to come hunt them like everyone hunts deer.OK to shoot a deer that way but not a goat.What's the difference?None I see.Pen raised pheasants and quail are hunted and killed all the time on game preserves BTW.