In north Carolina it is legal to use most any bait for deer. I hunt a farm that plants sunflower fields and then mows them just before opening day of dove season. It seems like illegal baiting but it's not because the planting of the sunflowers was an agricultural process. It just happens that the doves like them. I think in most states a food plot, though intended to attract deer can be considered no more than a normal agricultural process just like planting grass or cotton, etc. I would stick with natural food plots and forget about licks and manmade feeders.