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Food Plots or Baiting?

Hmmm. I've seen quite a few post on here about people planting turnips, clover, etc. and not harvesting it. They do it to attract deer. They are breaking the law?


Ive seen farmers who hunt that load one of their grain cars full of corn. Park it along the side of a field. Accidently spill a pile of corn off the side of the car. And hunt by it.
 
archery95 said:
Bowmaker you are missing the key words in the law..it says materials TRANSPORTED TO OR PLACED IN AN AREA FOR THE PURPOSE OF ATTRACTING WILDLIFE.To me that means you CAN NOT take something into an area to attract wildlife..It says nothing about planting something.You are from Floris.I am sure you know some of the public hunting areas around Unionville?The DNR has food plots in those places.
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Did you not see this part of it? If a person plants an acre of beans, corn, turnips, or special clover in a remote timber area with no intentions of harvest and for the purpose of attracting wildlife, that has to fit the definition of "BAITING" set forth in the reg.

How do you think your gonna plant something? You have to TRANSPORT the seeds to the area to plant them!:drink1:
 
That DOES NOT fit the difinition of baiting.Planting ANYTHING OF ANY SIZE is legal.To transport a bucket of corn or apples to your stand and dump them on the ground and hunt over it is illegal.So is the C'mere Deer and Acorn Rage type products.Those are the things the regs is referring to.
I am not saying that food plots isn't a form of baiting I am just saying food plots are legal.The DNR plants food plots in a lot of the public hunting areas.
Its all a form of baiting.Decoys is baiting.Calls are baiting.Does in estrus scent is baiting.If I owned a farm I definately would plant food plots to attract wildlife.Not only to hunt on but to support the wildlife in the winter.Turkeys,deer,pheasants and anything else.I don't even hunt turkey and pheasants.I am not disagreeing on whats baiting or not baiting..I am just stateing whats legal and not legal.
 
Then what kinda scenario would this fit in?



If a person plants an acre of beans, corn, turnips, or special clover in a remote timber area with no intentions of harvest and for the purpose of attracting wildlife, that has to fit the definition of "BAITING" set forth in the reg.



From what I'm seeing. If you harvest it then you are legal. But if you plant a food plot to attract deer and don't harvest it. You are hunting illegally.
 
I cant see where i'm "spinning" or "misreading" anything? Just trying to find out if It's legal or not.


You guys say the DNR plants food plots. Do they harvest them?
 
Thomas,
I'll play Devil's advocate even though I do not bait. Just curious as to what you feel to be the major differences b/w hunting a bait and say a 1/2 acre food plot, maybe standing beans or turnips that have been strategically located to "draw" deer. Honestly, a big field of planted crop or alfalfa etc is far different, but I truthfully don't see a huge difference in someone tossing a pail of cornor whatever in a spot much different than planting a small field of "deer food".
 
Sask,
The biggest difference is a bait pile can be renewed, while a small plot cannot. Once the deer hammer it, its over. Plus, its almost impossible to get away clean. Food plots are fun and a great place to hunt, but they dont always equal sucess.
 
Jason, I hear what you're saying in regards to the renewing of food. Let's take it a bit larger then, say 20 acres of say standing beans for a late season smokepole hunt.

Also, based on what I've witnessed with friends, a baitpile doesn't equal success either, nor does it equal a clean get away. I've used grain for trail cams before, the pictures usually start right as dark is setting in and continue until daylight so I'd have to assume had I been sitting there hunting I'd have had a tough time getting away undetected.
 
Food plots are literally "baiting" but not in a legal sence. If you don't understand the distinction right now, you probably never will. It's pretty obvious. :thrwrck:

I think most bow hunters in Iowa feel the way I do:

Food plots are cool, while baiting (dumping corn, apples, whatever under your stand) is crap and would cause a massive uproar if it was attempted to be allowed in Iowa.

I'm not sure that it would go over very well telling land owners what they can and can't plant (and harvest or leave) on their land... other than maybe Mary Jane.

Oh also, crossbows are not bows and they suck too. :drink1:
 
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Sask,
20 wouldbe too big, most bucks like and will stick to the edges. If you guess right, it can be good. I think they work best around 3-5. The biggest key is getting in and getting out.
 
Sooooo, THA4. Nanny. You both said baiting and food plots are 2 different things. So, can you tell me when this law comes in to play? Youre saying this actually isn't a law. Just a misprint? Im confused.


If a person plants an acre of beans, corn, turnips, or special clover in a remote timber area with no intentions of harvest and for the purpose of attracting wildlife, that has to fit the definition of "BAITING" set forth in the reg.
 
I did say that every thing is open to interpretation. In many deer hunting states baiting if perfectly legal and traditionally accepted. As just a distinction, the DNR does not plant food plots on public lands for hunters to hunt over. They plant these plots as additional over winter food sources and they leave a certain amount of standing corn in any harvested field for the same purposes. I have never said that it is illegal to hunt food plots, or field edges, or a weed patch in the middle of a corn field. I was merely answering the original question and I don't have any problem with food plots themselves. But in my opinion if a persons hunts over them then they fit the definition of bait as set forth in the regulations. The end run that is used is the last sentence about normal agriculture practices. I contend that if some thing is planted and cultivated with no aspirations of harvest, then that is "PLACED FOR THE PURPOSE OF ATTRACTING WILDLIFE" then that is baiting, and can be viewed no differently than 10 bushels of corn "PLACED FOR THE PURPOSE OF ATTRACTING WILDLIFE". I again am not saying that it illegal or necessarily even that it is immoral because in many state both are legal. I believe that the original question was are food plots baiting, and in my opinion they are and fit the definition. :rolleyes:
 
sofakingfast_1 said:
I cant see where i'm "spinning" or "misreading" anything? Just trying to find out if It's legal or not.


You guys say the DNR plants food plots. Do they harvest them?
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The corn in some of the public land i hunt never gets harvest. I know the farmer that farms it for them. He mows it down in the spring and replants it. They rotate the fields every other year for harvest.
 
It doesn't matter for mature deer, for does and fawns a bait pile is a good place to kill some meat for the freezer. A mature buck knows a bait pile is unnatural and will only visit it at night when he isn't pressured.

I could care less if people bait or not because of this. A food plot IS natural, which is why they don't consider it baiting. A mature deer will use a food plot on a regular basis depending on the time of year and hunting pressure.
 
I shouldnt have to explain myself, this is a simple distinction.

sounds like some people want to justify baiting, lazy in my opinion...

a bait pile is extremely different than a 1/2-20 acre food plot.... but what do i know
 
Sooooo, THA4. Nanny. You both said baiting and food plots are 2 different things. So, can you tell me when this law comes in to play? Youre saying this actually isn't a law. Just a misprint? Im confused.
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Hunting over food plots is completely legal. I called and talked to some DNR officials about baiting a while back because I was using mineral blocks at camera sites and was concerned about the legality of hunting the around the area after the blocks were removed. Long story short without me even asking about food plots they said anything planted is completely legal. However, if an item such as grains, apples, minerals, and their derivatives, etc. is placed in area, unless used for agricultural purposes, it is illegal to hunt over or around any trails or travel routes that may lead to such items. They also went on to say that it is left up to officer discretion on legality of certain situations.

Basically no matter how you interpret the regs, the DNR's stance on food plots is that they are completely legal. Whether one believes hunting food plots is moral or not it is legal in Iowa at least and I will continue to do so as long as I am allowed .


Oh ya and as singlecoyote said. "crossbows are not bows and the suck too":grin:
 
So, you don't want to explain why you feel they are entirely different? Lazy..that's an opinion, not really a factual statement. In many cases it could be not always would it be. I've used grain and alfalfa bales in the winter to help deer out. I wasn't hunting then but personally I didn't feel that carrying each bale or sack of grain a mile on my back through heavy timber was that lazy. Physically it'd be less lazy to take a tractor or a quad in to an tillable area and plant something. Maybe not as mentally rewarding but no more lazy. Many areas of N.A contain areas that simply are not "tillable" therefore a food plot isn't ven an option. Or maybe the soil under the tress is nothing more than rock and sand..or hard clay.

I'm not trying to justify anything, I just think I see the entire situation through something other than rose colored glasses. Being someone that does neither makes me a pretty unbiased opinion really.

I've heard all the arguments for an against both. You know,..providing deer with nutrition to help with their health. I honestly suspect that much of the whitetail world south of MN and ND (excluding ME, NH etc), especially the midwest, that the deer get planty of nutrition yr round without food plots. Some people here could argue that the outfitters who use bait do the very same with their 2 months worth of baiting. They after all are hunting huge timbered areas miles from ANY agriculture and it's almost a given the deer there will endure 4-5 months of constant brutality in terms of weather and have never had access to a kernel of grrain or a leaf of alfalfa outside that 2 month window.

I don't really care what methods hunters use to harvest their deer. But truthfully, in some cases that's the best word used.."harvest", because the bait which has been harvested or the crop left unharvested, basically hold the same purpose. After watching Kim Hicks hunt Sask whitetails over a bait with a gun on the weekend and also watching a couple Whiettail Freaks hunt a standing bean plot in Jan in Iowa I can't say I could really see a difference in the 2. One was a crop planted and left with the purpose of drawing deer to shoot. The other was set in an untillable area, with no agriculture for miles with the purpose of drawing a deer to shoot.

Again, I feel my opinion is unbiased as I don't hunt either way, but I can say that I do agree with someone's earlier post that in some cases, it's almost getting to be like "deer farming".
 
The difference is really simple.If you plant it and it grows..it is legal to hunt over or around.If you put your hunting clothes on and grab your bow or gun and carry something such as a 5 gallon bucket of corn or apples into the woods and dump them in front of your stand it is ILLEGAL.Why is this so hard to understand?One is baiting and one is hunting a food source.
There is standing corn around my area all over.I wish it would get harvested.
 
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