Whats with deer feeders?
 

I see all you guys posting picture of deer at deer feeders and talking baout deer feeders. What is the point of these? Do you hunt over them or what? If so I wouldn't be to proud of that if I where you. Not very sportsmen like.

Guns cause crime, like flies cause garbage.

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

I use my feeder mainly for pictures, and to hold game around the area, but if it was legal to hunt a feeder here in Mo. I sure would. Whats the difference between hunting a feeder or food plot, or pond in dry weather. Have you ever made a mock scrape, you know that is about the same.

THE NRA, WHERE WOULD YOU AS A GUN-OWNER BE WITHOUT THEM.
GUN-OWNERS, UNITED WE STAND DIVIDED WE FALL.

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

Oh excuse me i wouldn't want to be unsportsmanlike!!!!!!!
Maybe my food plots are unsportsmanlike also?
Strut basically said others that i could think about falling into the unsportsmanlike criteria.
And just for your information in my area deer pay little attention to corn or anything else if there are acorns on the ground. i guess huntin natural feeders would also be unsportsmanlike.
Got to get out the loin clothe and try and run them suckers down! WHEW thats rough not very successful but good exercise!!!!!!!!

SOUTH ARKANSAS REBEL

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

3030, just what do you consider acceptable methods of hunting?

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

maybe we should all go back to barefoot with spears and digging pits for the animals to fall into also.
If it is a legal method,I don't see anything wrong with it.

3030; I guess you don't like to see disable persons hunting with crossbows,or hunting with rifles where you can shoot one at 300 to 400 yards.howbout decoys for turkeys,or ground blinds,they are all legal methods to take game.
tell us what you consider the methods of "Sportsmanship" hunting.

just had to vent. just my 2 cents,there are 98 more!!!
<img src=icon_smile_wink.gif border=0 align=middle><img src=icon_smile_blackeye.gif border=0 align=middle>

I am not a hunter I am a whitetail population reduction specialest

remember keep your back to the sun, your knife sharp, and your powder dry.

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

Fair chase. Baiting is not fair chase. Making an animal dependant on food then shoting it, you guys must have poorer ethics than I.

Guns cause crime, like flies cause garbage.

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

If you believe that deer become dependant on feeders when there
is some other sort of food source than you are incorrect.
Its been my experience with feeders that in areas with alot of
choices for the deer like acorns or wheat that the deer will
choose the other stuff more often than not. I think you
would find if you did a poll, and not come on here calling
people unethical, that most of US that use feeders don't
normally hunt over them. Sure we might put a
youngster or a newcomer over one or we might have a game cam
set up next to one. As far as fair chase it seems like
you might be more worried about the poachers that do so
much damage to the deer populations.

trollers give me headaches.

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

Would chasing rabbits with beagle dogs be fair chase, or do we need to just be able to shoot them on the jump?


THE NRA, WHERE WOULD YOU AS A GUN-OWNER BE WITHOUT THEM.
GUN-OWNERS, UNITED WE STAND DIVIDED WE FALL.

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

I mean a truly fair chase between a deer and a
man! Would have to refer back to soarkrebel
and his comment about the loin cloth.

trollers give me hangovers!

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

Feeding deer with feeders or bait piles is legal, outside the season, in NY . . . or it was. Seems that DEC doesn't want any chance of CWD showing up in NY, so they have banned the practice.

Besides, deer tend to show up at feeders at night, when it's rather illegal to hunt them.

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

You guys can take it out of contrast all you want. But you still know what I mean. I am sure you guys could justify road hunting too, but does that make it right?

Guns cause crime, like flies cause garbage.

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

3030, I have never hunted around a feeder but if it were legal in Mo. I would sure like to, I could kill a deer without a feeder about any day I want to, in season or out, I would like to have the opportunity to hunt a feeder just to be able to pick the one I wanted and maybe have a better shot, you can call that unethical if you want but I don't. Just how do you feel about trapping, I suppose you feel that that is unethical also. Do you feel that it is taking an unfair advantage over them or what. Do you wear camo while bow hunting? that could be unfair also, do you use scent blockers, do you sit in a stand.
I kind of understand what you are saying but what seems wrong to you may not seem wrong to everyone.

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

I live in Missouri too. So I grew up being told that baiting was illegal/wrong. So maybe that is why I don't agree with it.

Guns cause crime, like flies cause garbage.

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

3030win, you ever hunt a field or food source before....isn't that kind of the same thing? You waiting for them to come out and feed.

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

3030 you just hit bullseye!!
When i was young taking a doe was WRONG!!! boy those old timers just thought that was like killing a nun. now they stress it. the push is on around here to take does. i could if i wanted get like 30 doe tags for my club.
i don't or haven't yet some of my guys want to and i'll probably let someone else work on getting on a management program to do this with the states blessing. i don't know much about it but i know they give them out.
But the feeder issue is a very misunderstood thing. people that can't hunt them usually don't realize they are not like the chuck wagon bell to deer. turkeys yes! deer no!
i would bet you $100.00 turkeys will be at my feeder within 30 minutes after it goes off in the morning.last year i could hear them come off the roost and when that thing went off here they come. that , i think , is why you can't hunt turkeys over corn in arkansas.deer are different i have found. they will walk right by it . i have seen them do it. now in texas it apperently is different.
On the fair chase thing . well....... sitting up a tree out of the line of scent and overlooking a deers natural cover seeing what a perched buzzard would see. is that fair ? kind of like a sniper waiting in silence for the target.
i don't know right now what &quot;fair chase &quot; would really be. i sit in a nice tower stand drinking coffee watching forty acres of pasture. i shoot a deer at 350 yards with my 7mm stw that had no way of smelling me . he was just coming to peak out in the field to see if there are any old lover girls. now was it fair? heck yeah he was fair game and enter cross hair world i just gave him the crappiest deal of the day!
i think you would do the same if you were down here in my world?
anyway i have rambled enough!<img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle>

SOUTH ARKANSAS REBEL

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

There's a feeder not too far from our camp, on another tract of land abutting ours. When the wind is right, you can hear the thing go on. Some of our guys have gone looking for it multiple times, but have never been able to find it. Do they take more deer there? Apparently not. Do we, on that side of our land? No. The swamps that we have on our land are far more productive.

Yeah, I learned the same thing about shooting does, too. Last year, we had two game wardens, and a forest ranger, independantly tell us that we had to start shooting does. Something about balance in the herd. It's legal during muzzleloading season. Will some of the guys complain? Sure.

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

Feeders are OK as long as you don't hunt on em. That is why I depise bear hunting in some states and Canada. Hunting over jelly doughnuts is a wussy method of taking such a majestic amimal.

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

Atleast someone agrees with me.

Guns cause crime, like flies cause garbage.

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

Redman60, how do you hunt bears? I know of many who think the same as you, yet their method is to drive cuts or ridges in quads, feilds border dense bush....or like in BC logging roads. Spot a bear and stock (if necessary)....is this a better way than baiting? I am not saying you do this by any means, I'd like to hear your method?

I hunt bears over &quot;Jelly Doughnuts&quot;, so I am a wuss I guess. However I still have to be their and the animal has to show up in legal. To date I have only arrowed one bear in 8 years of this method. However I have shot 2 in oat fields with the rifle....wow big time fun and 1 ML in a tree, equally specatcular. I place my baits in their territory and while it does attract, many cruise right by, so I don't share the opinion of it being wussy hunting.

As far as huning over bait, yeah you don't want to come to Saskatchewan for Deer or Bear....that is the outfitters main method up here. Why, b/c guys want to see animals and possibly take a shot. It is not gauranteed that a trophy will walk in, but you'll get to see some game and that makes you want to come back.

Have an opinion, will share! I don't believe in critizing any method of hunting where the animals are free and wild...as long as it legal...GO HARD!!!!!

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

I use feeders and food plots as suplemental feeding. I also sprinkle corn down narrow shooting lanes to stop the deer for a good clean shot.
Most posts against feeders come from people from states that do not allow feeders. For the most part, these folks are talking about something they do not know about, or they were &quot;told&quot; about.
I've learned over the years not to lump all situations into one catagory!
Here are a few things I know about baiting:
1. As I said, on narrow lanes, it stops the deer for a clean, ethical shot.
2. Feeders are NOT deer &quot;magnets,&quot; you cannot just put one up anywhere and expect success.
3.Unless they are starving, they will not move far to get to a feeder.
4. In our area, deer do not come running when they hear a feeder go off.
5. You are not going to see many trophys at feeders, so it is best to hunt an area, not a feeder.
6. I do not know of any evidence that feeders do cause the spread of CWD.
7. (this is my favorite!) Get this.........
Most farmland hunters don't think that hunting over a 40 acre grain field is baiting!!!!!My, my, my, I wish I had a grain field within a 50 mile radius of my hunting lease! It would be trampled by deer! But how would you &quot;scout&quot; a square field without getting lost?
Don't like number seven? Then don't spit in the wind! Hunt your way and I'll hunt mine, as long as we are legal, there will be no problems!
Frank

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

If they are not that good, then why do you guys them? You say they like acorns, then why not just plat trees than waste money on a feeder?

Guns cause crime, like flies cause garbage.

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

I don't hunt bears.

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

Why I have one is like I said, mainly for pictures and holding some game around my farm. I have so many oaks that in a good year when there is alot of acorns deer don't have to move far to get a full belly. I enjoy my feeder and camera as much as any rifle I have ever owned, why heck one of these days I might just leave the rifle at home and take a camera, I hope I don't turn into a PETA member LOL.

THE NRA, WHERE WOULD YOU AS A GUN-OWNER BE WITHOUT THEM.
GUN-OWNERS, UNITED WE STAND DIVIDED WE FALL.

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote<font size=1 face='Verdana, Arial, Helvetica' id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote> see all you guys posting picture of deer at deer feeders <hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face='Verdana, Arial, Helvetica' size=2 id=quote>

From that comment I take it you don't like looking at deer pictures especially at a feeder, I bet if you had a feeder and a camera with some nice bucks around that paid it a visit from time to time you would be just like the rest of us and have to use one-hour photo because you could'nt wait to see what you captured on film this time. Have you ever showed one of your buddies a picture of a deer that you have killed, its all the same.


THE NRA, WHERE WOULD YOU AS A GUN-OWNER BE WITHOUT THEM.
GUN-OWNERS, UNITED WE STAND DIVIDED WE FALL.

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

IMO taking game is taking game as long as it is legal, whether you kill one with its head buried in a corn pile that you can drive to or the bottom of a mile long hollar that will take the biggest part of the day to get out, just because it is a little easier sometimes don't make it un-ethical.

THE NRA, WHERE WOULD YOU AS A GUN-OWNER BE WITHOUT THEM.
GUN-OWNERS, UNITED WE STAND DIVIDED WE FALL.

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

There is a feeder where I work. Actually I like seeing the deer there so much, I wouldn't shoot them if I could.

Guns cause crime, like flies cause garbage.

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

Redman60, if you don't hunt bears...sorry for sounding dickish...but really what expertise do you have about wuss techniques, such as baiting? Just because you can't or haven't doesn't mean its not right or ethical. I would suggest the next time you attack someones techniques, you better have a better reason or back up than &quot;Just Because&quot;<img src=icon_smile_sad.gif border=0 align=middle>[V!

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

I'll second that skeeter!!!!

SOUTH ARKANSAS REBEL

[Deleted]
 

[Deleted by Admins]

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

Hunting deer around man-made feeders, with dogs, inside high-fenced-in game compounds, - or taking bears with jelly donuts - might be legal, but it just doesn't fit into my concept of &quot;fair chase&quot;. I prefer applying my woodcraft and hunting skills against the game on their turf without trying to reshape or alter their habit and feeding patterns to suit my advantage. Whenever we introduce artifical feeding devices or patterns or movement constraints upon the wildlife, we have effectively impeded their survival skills and made them into mobile targets on a shooting range.

And like the old CBS news commentator used to say, &quot;And that's one man's opinion.&quot;

Heaven is best viewed from a deer stand at sunrise in the forest

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

I'm no activist - far from it. I've hunted deer for over 30 years. During that time I've witnessed, read, watched many good/bad and sad events in the hunting spectrum. Since I certainly can't change what is happening (fenced enclosures, baiting, etc.) I shouldn't have disparaged anyone personally. I just don't like baiting - my opinion only - nothing more. I do think stalking, still hunting, observing your intended prey in a NATURAL habitat setting is a more ethical method of hunting and certainly requires more skill than sitting above rotten meat thrown in a drum and waiting for a bear to show.

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

woops. double post.

Edited by - kentlyone on 09/23/2002 12:30:29

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

Thank you all for the sarcasium, it saved me the typing. 3030win, what do you find exceptable. If I get you right you prefer the &quot;true method of hunting&quot;. I guess you strip naked and chase the deer down dispatching them with your teeth, hands, or feet. Have you ever ambushed a deer. If so I cant believe you call that hunting, taking advantage of a deers natural path. You should also be apposed to scouting, that is not sportsman like to find the move ments of a deer before hand and setting up to ambush it.

I have lots of land with feeders all over it. I also grow food plots for the winter and summer months. I do so to have healther deer and to hold does on my land. I have even been known to take a good looking buck from a feeder or plot. I guess I am satan when it comes to hunting. If you dont like the term hunting, then I guess you can call it harvesting of my deer. Either way they are going to end up in the frying pan.

If the trueth be known, a feeder attracts the hogs better than it does the deer. Even with all the feeders going I take more deer away from the feeders than at them. I dont even have a blind near a feeder.

I do mostly still hunting. So I guess that makes blind hunting unethical too. Or I use a recurve during bow season, so I guess compounds are unethical. I also use a pitol during gun season, so I guess that makes rifle hunting unethical. Watch out about crapping in your nest, because when the antis come, how can you truely defend your point with out backing.

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

Another post that tries to seperate hunters. Pathetic.

****I'd rather be a fence post in Texas than a corn boy in Ohio****

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

I usually don't reply to this kind of thread but......&quot;I'm a WUS&quot; I hunt deer sitting over food plots (alfalfa fields) bears over bait (berry patches) and elk over hay (mountain meadows) Nuff said bait is bait (food is food)

Since I drive a 70 ford bronco and you probly drive a $44,000 chevy or dodge. Does that mean I shouldn't go hunting because I drive a old ford and you just can't stand fords. I hope it doesn't come to that!

I think you should do things (hunt/drive/camp/dress) your way and let all the others do things their way. As long as it's legal I have no problem with whatever methods some one uses.

I would hope all hunters would &quot;ALLOW&quot; others to hunt the way they want.

BTW: next time I get a grizzly on one of my baits I'll give you a call so you can run him off with a switch so I can go home when it gets dark. You know, me being a wus and all!

for every law thats passed - alittle freedom dies

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

Wyote, oh no you have it all wrong...you don't bait, you hunt food that is natural<img src=icon_smile_wink.gif border=0 align=middle>! That is different or is it? Exactly my point!

I don't see how somebody who has never or knows nothing about a tecnique can make a comment on how ethical or &quot;fair chase&quot; it is? IMO, driving along and seeing an animal than stocking up and shooting the aniumal is not better, just different. I have no problems with the way you all want to hunt, as long it is legal...cool. If I choose to bait, then that is me...don't worry I am not going to ask you to partake anyway.

If I was out just shooting, than why have I only harvested 1 bear in 8 years, I see several every year. The only way I will hunt bears is with a bow now, b/c for me it is challenging. However if you choose to use a rifle, that doesn't make it unfair in my eyes...just different (which is cool).

Makes them lose their survival skills, really? I beg to differ. How come guys that bait or food plot mention of how the big deer or even all deer have gone NOC! Explain this one, if they are so dependant on the food and lost their survival skills, why have they gone NOC?

Uneducation or ignorance does not make it true. If you don't agree with something, that is your right. However to make statements on a subject you better be well versed and able to back up your points. Cause otherwise it's just theories, with no thesis...which equals F<font color=red></font id=red><font size=5></font id=size5><font size=6></font id=size6>!

Good luck everyone and my you be siuccessful in whatever way you choose to hunt!

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

As I relied in an earlier post - I was just stating my opinion and that I shouldn't judge others. I regret that wuss comment. We all aren't the same and I respect your legal rights to hunt anyway you wish. I don't like shotgun hunting for deer either, but most of the fellas around here do - as I have in the past. My preference is slug gun, rifle and muzzleloading - no scatter guns. But just because I don't like something certainly doesn't make it wrong - just an opinion.

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

Redman60, IMO you halfed it. You stated you shouldn't attack personally and didn't agree with the technique personally. I agree that is a ok stance and your opinion. But then you halfed by stating it isn't &quot;ethical&quot; to sit over top of rotting bait waiting for a bear to come!

To me opinions don't include &quot;ethical&quot; or &quot;fair chase&quot; when it comes to hunting, I am sorry. These terms drudge up: frown upon, disrespect, look down your nose, unsportsman, illegal & the list goes on.

I could carry less if you attack me personally and admire different opinions, but when it is stated I am unethical or not fair chase....well lets say I get a little perturbed!

I am sorry if I put the heat on any of you, with my comments. I just think many feel baiting, food plots, etc is different than sitting on a food source...by large volumes. To me it really isn't. Many things we take advantage of now could be considered non fair chase, I guess. (Mock Scrape, Rattling, Calling, Range Finders, game cameras, bullets, guns, scopes and the list goes on) It just seem the food thing always brings up the &quot;ETHICAL&quot; and &quot;FAIR CHASE&quot; debate, all to often on here. It is just another technique and besides bears I don't do it, though it is legal.

It reminds me of the &quot;Meat&quot; vs &quot;Horns&quot; debates. To me I like both and have no problems with either. Personally I am a &quot;Trophy&quot; hunter, I take does for meat when allowed, sit and wait for horns the rest of the year. I will gladly eat tag soup or shoot a doe if I need the meat, before using my tag just to say Filled on the survey. But that's me and I don't expect anybody to jump on my ban wagon or critize me for it.

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

You all want to know what my method is? Well I set up on deer trails. Might not be as effective as baiting, but I've done ok. Like I said before, you guys can take it out of contrast all you want(which you a re). But my point still stands.

Read Chipola Creek's post, he stated exectly how I feel.

Guns cause crime, like flies cause garbage.

RE: Whats with deer feeders?
 

Skeeter - here is what I said as my opinion - observing your intended prey in a NATURAL habitat setting is a more ethical method of hunting - that is my opinion and the state of Virginia's as well. If you want to OK - I'm not frowning on you or losing sleep over it. If it was legal in VA and others did it in my club no biggie. I just couldn't.