PSE, looks like you are pretty new so you may not have been around last year for the craziness that took place on this topic. I think we made it to 18 pages if I remember correctly.
I Rifle hunt Michigan every year and have hunted over bait and without bait there. Personally, I don't see any difference at all. People think that baiting is like a feeding trough for cattle. In Michigan Ive taken exactly one buck over bait and have only seen VERY few more than that. The majority of bucks that I have seen are traveling and not even going near the bait. I do get a few does but mostly the deer I see are heading to the agricultural fields around me and leave the sugar beats and corn alone.
From what I have heard, it sounds like the Michigan Government has been trying to outlaw bait for a while and was just looking for a reason. Once that single case of CDW came up they found their reason. I know many Michigan people are fighting it since there have been no other recorded cases in Michigan yet.
The problem is people are still baiting. It was a way of life in Michigan for so long and people aren't letting it go. Last year there were still the same number of side-of-the-road places to buy bait on the way up to my deer camp. My guess is that a majority of people are still baiting, just not putting out 50 sugar beets and 50 pds of corn at a time. Personally, I don't need to. Im set up near a bean field and a corn field so it would do no good for me.
The disease is very tough to get rid of. They have been dealing with it in Central WI for a while now and the only answer they have found is to kill every deer possible and start a new herd. They aren't succeeding real well, except for pissing off a lot of hunters from what I hear. I say if they don't find any CDW this year, let the hunting public decide whether to bring back baiting or not.
On another note, for those who think "baiting" isn't hunting it kind of makes me chuckle. These are the same people who plant food plots, place stands next to corn fields and use every sex lure imaginable to get a deer. I won't knock anyone for doing anything that is legal, but if you hunt over ag fields and use sex to attrack deer then you are doing the same thing. IMO, anything that was humanly placed in nature is some form of baiting. Whether it be with sex or food, its the same thing. Heck, you tell me theres food 100 yards to the right and sex 100 yards to the left, I most likely will be going left!
Personally, I don't like hunting over bait but don't mind it. I hunt Illinois a lot where we don't have baiting and find it just as fun as Michigan when baiting was allowed, just bigger bucks in Illinois. As long as your having fun and doing it legal, thats all that matters!