Boy I just love my bowhunting brotherhood. I’ve been in it for over 25 year’s now. Let’s see what I’ve heard in those 25 plus year’s real bowhunter don’t us compound bow’s or aluminum arrow’s, tree stand (in Michigan couldn’t use tree stand until 1976), and release. This list could go on and on. The baiting debate has been go on for that long too.
In state where it legal it used as a tool just as tree stand, scents and calls are used.
Now to those who say at any deer taken with the use of bait is not taken by a real bowhunter, let’s go back 30 years and become real bowhunter.

As for myself do I use bait, yes I do. Unlike a lot of the real bowhunter here who are against the use of bait, I do not have use of privet land to hunt where I could improve the deer habitat. I live in Southeastern Michigan, I get one week to bowhunt so time is a factor here. I hunt in the Western end of the U.P. a little over 600 miles from my home so do I get a chance to do a lot of pre season scouting, I don’t think so. Do I just go out and dump bags and bags of bait in the middle of the woods hang a stand and start hunting. So I guess that I don’t have to rely on my woodsman ship to figure out that the deer have change their pattern from the year before, and the mile walk off the 2 track to be in area that the deer are using, dose not make me a real bowhunter because I use bait. By the way I take a 50-pound bag of corn and a couple bags of apples for myself for a week of hunting and by the end of the week I still have bait left over. Like I said before baiting is a tool to be use, baiting is not a cure all for poor hunting skill. OK if I shoot a Pope & Young buck I can’t put it the book because I’m not a real bowhunter. If I’m correct in the by-laws of Pope & Young there’s nothing in there about the use of bait.

All I'm trying to say we in the bowhunting brotherhood should not point fingers and say you’re not a real bowhunter if you don’t hunt like I do. If we all follow the hunting laws in the state we are hunting in then every one is a real bowhunter