"That's not hunting"
 

Coworker just informed me that shooting a deer over a food plot isn't hunting, it's shooting. I asked how he hunted. He looks for an acorn tree and waits there for a deer to show, usually early morning or late afternoon, or finds a hill overlooking a stream & some green grass. When the deer comes out for a drink, POW! Hmmmm.... I fail to see the difference.

Totally agree.

I guess it's because he's taking the time to locate natural food sources, etc and set up accordingly. Certainly there's more to his game plan that what you stated, but if not, then he just gets lucky once in awhile, because there's a whole lot more to successful hunting than that. To me, it's like playing a game of chess on the deer's chessboard, to which you were not invited. Dumping a pile of food somewhere and waiting for the deer to catch wind of it, find it and regularly feed from it is like the hunter becoming the witch in the story of Hansel and Gretle.

I understand his reasoning for hunting in the woods. Because you need to find the staging area where the deer hang out before they come out to the field at dark. Usually this is by an oak tree because acorns are their favorite food. If a big buck makes it to "dominant" or three and a half years old, it ain't going to be standing out in a field until waaay after shooting hours. Unless it's really old, then they just look for someone to shoot them!

Food plots, baiting, QDM all leaves a bad taste in my mouth. To each his own, but I am not into growing deer to shoot them. I like nature to take its course and hunt around that.

Hunting oak trees when they're dropping acorns is absolutely the same thing as hunting a food plot. Whether it's natural or not is irrelevant. You're only hunting there because there's food there. Same as the food plot hunter.

With that being said, I hunt both. And more often than not I don't see any deer there during daylight hours.

This is the equivalent of politics and religion on these forums, apparently. As I said in another thread, hunting practices, techniques, and laws vary widely between regions and states. Deer in different areas have different behavioral patterns.

IMO, there is no 'right' answer, but plenty of people will tell you what is right for them and some of those will tell you that if you do it differently, you're wrong or worse.

In the end, the only people you have to satisfy are the law, the people you hunt with and near, and yourself.

But with a food plot, you're controlling where the food is, and you can manufacture a hunt based on it. You could, for example, draw deer into an open field with a food plot and, no matter which way the wind is blowing, you could pick a spot in the field that will suit the wind. You also wouldn't have to worry about being intrusive or leaving a scent trail, etc.

Edit: For me, this isn't an issue of right or wrong, so I'm not saying anyone that hunts food plots is wrong. It's just not for me, and I can see how the OP's buddy/coworker/whatever thinks of hunting natural food sources differently than hunting plots.

Take the same acorns that are under the tree and put a large pile right by your stand. Is that baiting? Its a natural food but seeing that it has been moved and placed in a unnatural area it is baiting in some states. So is it no longer hunting by your friends definition.