ORIGINAL: txjourneyman
disease isn't a problem here in Tx. I haven't heard of a single case of CWD or blue tounge. And if you had read all of my posts you would know I don't deer hunt over feeders. I concentrate on oak flats. I do supplemental feeding and I hog hunt over feeders. Because I don't have the luxury of ag crops I do what I can to keep deer on the property I hunt. Feeders are legal in Tx. I will continue to use them and you can continue to condemn me for it. If disease shows up I'll stop but until such a time I won't sweat it. HMMMMMmmmmm.......... I wonder if ya'lls deer are just to weak to stay healthy?
And I understand
THIS, but in Wisconsin, it IS!!! I'm not condemning baiting completely, though I WON'T do it, I understand, that there are places, TX, NC, SC, etc, that baiting/feeders are more or less the "norm." If I'd grown up learning to shoot deer under a feeder, I'd probably have a different opinion, likewise, if I grown up Jewish, I probably wouldn't be a Lutheran.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying "You're a lousy excuse for a hunter because you bait," I have seen some of TX, and there are places down there where I think I'd bait just to get the deer out of the brush, its a whole different type of terrain and vegetation, and I know and understand that. What I AM saying is that there is a HUGE difference between a feeder/bait pile and a corn field. Comparing the two is like comparing apples to bananas, and leaving oranges out of the equation completely.
I think some of the issue with the "diseased" animals was known to come from "Deer farms," with the CWD, but the EHD is a little protazoan that thrives in stagnant water, and with our drought year last year, it reared its ugly head, quite severely in many areas. It's not contagious, from deer to deer, but found in the drinking water.
ORIGINAL: txjourneyman
Doug those reasons are exactly why I don't hunt deer over the feeders. I wouldn't get the same sense of accomplishment or satisfaction that I figured them out. I don't have a lot of bow kills under my belt but I know I do like to make things a bit more challenging. My most exciting hunt so far was a doe killed under an oak tree. I was sitting on the ground with acorns falling all around me. I thought it might be a good place to try.
However I won't condemn a man for whatever legal means he employs.
I agree Greg, like I said, I'm not "condemning it," but the comparison is completely different, that's more of my point I'm trying to make. My most exciting hunt was also a doe, a doe I grown to know intimately, and passed up a couple of times, once she cost me an opportunity at a legitimate 170-180" 12-pt BOONER. From that point, she was my PRIME target. I was lucky enough to arrow her the following year on the day after Christmas with 15 other deer within 50yds of me, she was THE HERD MATRIARCH, and arrowing her was as exciting as any buck I've ever killed. We're not that far apart, on this, it's just some small semantics, that's all.
