rwilson

I buy my corn from a pretty big farmer here in Randolph Co., NC.

He gets a depredation permit every year that allows him to kill deer

causing crop damage. He said the wildlife officer that issued him the

permit told him that the NC wildlife people were strongly contemplating

outlawing all deer baiting in NC. Anyone else heard this? This would

have quite an affect on the farm economy in this area, as well as on the

hunting. rwilson

kevin1

A quick visit to your state's F&G website should provide your answer , they post all info about upcoming proposals .

thecontractor

Up here in Pennsylvania it's never been legal to bait but I wish they would legalize it. One thing good on your end of it is atleast you have had the opportunity to hunt that way. It's just a shame that they might be doing away with it.

rwilson

The economic impact has to be significant. The guy I buy from sells thousands of bushels of corn every year for this purpose. And there are dozens if not hundreds of farmers involved in this trade. Gotta affect corn prices in the area.

jason rockwell

im from NC and havent heard anything about it. Ive got a stand in the middle of a cornfield and im gonna hunt it regardless.

lhook7

It's amazing how much corn can be fed each year. I have a 700# and an 800# feeder on my lease and I will feed somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,500# per year. We have 15 hunters total on our lease and all are required to feed year round and have 2 feeders with at lease 700# of capacity. That means, just on my lease, we feed about 67,500# of corn per year.

rwilson

Yeah. it's a bunch. Be interesting to see #'s on this corn usage versus livestock feed, human consumption, etc.

Hawgnman

The corn feed to deer isn't a drop in the bucket. I would be surprised if it's 1/10 of one percent. That one tenth of one percent in the 2004 would equal 650 million pounds fed to deer. I don't think so. This from USDA at http://www.usda.gov/nass/aggraphs/cornprod.htm

Popduction this year is expected to 11.6 billion bushels or 56 X 11.6 billion = ~ 650 billion pounds of corn.

rwilson

Those #'s are impressive but to the guy who plants 75 ac. or so, shells it, and sells it ALL in 50# bags for deer feeding, the impact on him would be significant, at least forcing him to find another market. He's also getting
$4.00/bag for 50#(he must pay for the bag and extra handling) vs. what...
$2.50-$3.00 for 56#. Prob. a different situation in the corn belt where the fields are hundreds of ac. and handling such a volume of corn would not permit the handling required.

timbercruiser

Probably too late this year for the G&F to ban baiting as all of the reg books have already been published.