RE: baiting
My turn to jump in. I bait. I have a feeder on my new lease. It throws corn for five seconds every morning at 7:10. The feeder sits on a logging road half way down a secondary ridge. Thereare a lot of deer tracks under and around the feeder. I don't own a trail camera as I feel they give hunters an unfair advantage and should be illegal,( see tongue in cheek), so the tracks are the only way I know something is feeding there besides hunting there. I watched that feeder out of a pop-up blind several times this season. I saw does, does, fawns, and does. Altough some of the tracks are obviously those of a buck or more than one buck, I have never seen one at the feeder. I don't often hunt at the feeder although I do hunt the area around it. I have several stands in an area that encompasses about 30 acres around the feeder. I see mature buck sign in the area. There are large rubs and scrapes around on various trails. I have seen a couple of mature bucks in the area, however, again, never have I seen one at the feeder.
The woods I hunt are 2000 acres of a mix of hardwoods and pines. I have no earthly idea where the nearest ag field may be. My guess would be that it is measured in miles not yards. Those of you in the midwest that condemn baiting have ag fields that concentrate deer populations. They may not concentrate them to the same pinpoint location that a feeder does but it does concentrate the deer. THATS WHY YOU HUNT THERE NOW ISN'T IT? I don't have a natural food source to concentrate the deer population. There are oaks all over the property. ALL over the property. The deer can and do feed all over the place. I am using a feeder to concentrate the population into a smaller area. In my case the 30 or so acres of woods on the ridge where my feeder is located. How is that different than the hunter sitting at a 30 acre ag field? I hunt trails leading to bedding areas and other travel routes hoping to catch one of the bucks moving around looking for a doe. I know I won't see one of the bucks at the feeder.
So, those of you that have the luxury of hunting ag fields tell me what I can do to stop being a "slob" hunter in your eyes while still giving me the same odds as you to see and kill a mature whitetail buck.
BTW, I also have foodplots planted so I bait in more ways than one. I am also eating tag soup so far this year.