What is the difference? You are using food to attract deer. Why is one legal and the other isn't?

Baiting almost comes with a guarantee! I don't believe in baiting just my opinion. I have food plots but do not hunt over them. I hunt their travel routes to & from their bedding area and the food plots.

I cannot even see a comparison.

I'm not against baiting, but I feel a good food plot offer's a much better chance at harvesting a quality animal - even if you never hunt near it.

Plant and tend to a few year round food plots - and you will become a much better hunter.

I want to use a plot because I want to get a deer. I haven't seen any deer around here yet. I just think that having a plot is the same as baiting. I know it isn't but you provide food for the animal in both circumstances. Should I look at it as a way of feeding the young and taking a nice buck just to make room?

Really?

I once thought food plots were considered baiting but I was wrong. They are considered "habitat improvement" which makes them legal.

A food plot doesn't have to be "habitat improvement" - but it can be. Food plots can be for the benefit of wildlife only, or for human benefit, (and the deer benefit too) - like a hay field, or a farmer's corn field.

I look at our fields as a way to keep the land "in shape", and to maintain the fileds of the old farm, for the future - rather than to let them go to woods.

I've said for years, that if your going to brush-hog an old field to keep it open - you might as well plant it to something that benefits your wallet, and/or the wildlife on your property.

zak123 - as far as seeing deer, - if you are not seeing many, its not likely that baiting will draw them in in legal hunting hours. It could be your not looking in the right places, there aren't many, or that they are pressured and possibly nocturnal.

I just worry about the young hunters that have trouble matching up with a deer - and look to baiting as a "quick fix". It just is not. Baiting can be productive - if the area is not pressured - and food sources are low. If anything other than this - you are VERY unlikely to find a deer on an apple pile at 4:00pm. You'd be FAR better off, trying to locate which terrain feature tends to funnel deer toward a food source - whether its an oak grove, clover plot, cutover, apple orchard etc.

I just had this spot bulldozed so it's just dirt. I guess the clover will hold the dirt in place. I will also plant it so the deer get the nutrients.

Zak,

The way I understand it, a field plot of clover is not baiting. It is a beneficial food source for all wild animals.

THIS is an example of what would be considered baiting:
http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/te...&cm_ite=srchdx

Butch A.

Do you guys hunt over the plot or on a trail leading to it?