Thursday, November 12, 2009

Baiting Deer

Okay, someone dumped a whole slug of pumpkins in the woods just before deer hunting season started. Now this could have been someone with excess pumpkins..and they could have been driving along this road..and the pumpkins could have all rolled out of the back of a pickup.. they could have ended up in a heap next to a deer run....


The fine for baiting deer in Minnesota is 385 dollars. They can also seize your firearm, and if you happen to have gotten a deer at your baiting site they will fine you another 500 dollars. Let's see 385 plus 500 plus a gun..that is pretty expensive bait.

Who exactly are these idiots that bait deer? I refuse to call them hunters..hunters hunt deer, baiters just skip the hunting part. They strew pumpkins, apples, corn, sunflower seeds, or oats next to their deer stands. Baiting is unfair, baiting changes natural movement patterns, baiting is unsportsmanlike, baiting brings the herd close together to share germs.  Of course if you are a baiter..your "hunting experience" can be over in a day or two, you can quickly check it off of your list for yet another year. You sling the deer carcass over the hood of your car and drive off into the sunset, never stopping to think that the deer that you have been baiting could have had Bovine TB..when deer bunch up at baiting sites they can spread germs to each other. But you don't care..you are oblivious to health problems in the herd..you just want to blast a deer, have your photo taken in your orange hunting clothing with a dead deer and be on your merry way. No doubt your deer has been shot someplace else besides the head or neck. You have ruined much of the meat because you were too excited to wait for a good head shot. But it doesn't much matter because you don't butcher your own deer meat anyway it will be thrown in a heap at the local butcher shop, a mass of legs sticking in the air.

Now for the REAL HUNTER, he arrives at his deer stand before daylight and stays until dark. He watches and waits..he waits sometimes for days. Finally a deer wanders in, you take aim, and one clear shot to the head makes the deer drop in just a few steps. You gut the deer, put your tag on it, load it up to register it
and bring it back home to hang it up so the blood drains down..later after the meat has cooled you will skin it and wash out the body cavity..you will then butcher it on the kitchen table..cutting out all fat and bone.

Some hunters grow many rows of corn in the area of their deer stands. This is legal in Minnesota.. in my opinion it borders on baiting or at least unsportsmanlike entrapment. However agricultural crops are allowed.. what do you think?

Don't get me wrong, I support real  Hunters in their quest for meat. I was raised as a hunter, it was one activity that we really enjoyed with our father. I wish that the DNR in Minnesota would have allowed more licenses in our area, from what I saw last week on the deer trails..we have a huge herd. I dislike the deer ticks that we have to fight from April til the snow flies:(
*** Far Guy has written a few blogs recently, go on over and help him fill in the blanks:)

12 comments:

West Side of Straight said...

Yes, that makes me mad too that someone dumped those pumpkins there. Hearing gun shots as I read this - spose someone got their deer. One less for us to watch for on the road! Dislike road hunters too. We have enough of that here too.

Nezzy (Cow Patty Surprise) said...

I don't call this hunting. Now, let's feed 'em and when they come up to dine....POW! No, I don't have a problem with hunting or hunters. It is necessary to help keep disease down and overpopulation of an animal. Some families depend on the hunt to put this winters food on the table. But bait hunting is just wrong.

Have a great day!!!

Anonymous said...

I have to admit; I'm wimpy and know nothing about hunting BUT I am honest to a fault and I think it's horrible for people to bait deer - that's not hunting. Thanks for the link to Far Guy. You guys have a nice night.

Rae said...

I think the baiting is so wrong. I would be turning people in to the DNR if I knew who did it.
I followed the link to Far Guy's blog and went back to read his old posts. It is a great blog and I loved it. You really compliment each other as a couple.

RURAL said...

I can't even think of the words I want to use to describe those idiots. Who would sink so low as to do that?

I practically grew up at the gun club, and many of my family, and friends hunt. We were fed on wild meat, for many years. But my family and friends always followed common sense, and the rules. Don't you find that there are many people now a days that don't?

I hope that they catch them.

Jen

The Retired One said...

Baiting is legal in Michigan but there is a movement to limit this due to the likelihood of spreading disease....but it is so engrained in some of the hunter's here, there would be an awful protest.
But, it has come to bite them in the butt...the deer herd here this year seems very low.
I go out in the woods almost daily for photography and we have seen less and less deer each year.
There simply aren't as many as years past.

Liz in PA said...

Oh Connie I so agree with you. We have a rather large farm acreage and we do allow some
"hunters" to hunt our land providing they ask permission first and BEFORE deer hunting season begins. Some times I wish we had our property posted, but according to various laws that also puts "US" in a precarious situation should a so called hunter get hurt....and litigation is possible. I know.....sounds very strange and bizarre. And many hunters don't even bother to ask permission at all. They just arrive before dawn.....park on the berm of our road any where they want and enter our woods.
....A few years ago while visiting my sister in Michigan......we went to a rural Fruit STand and I saw huge bags of Carrots and bags of Ear Corn for sale.....it was all to bait deer! I could not believe such lunacy.
.....Lots of the TOTAL "HUNTING PHILOSOPHY" I do NOT understand anyway.

Rob said...

Unfortunately baiting has become the norm in many deer hunting circles because it increases the odds in favor of the hunter. However, in my opinion, the hunter is missing something in not learning how to "hunt" to stalk a deer. The old fellow that I grew up hunting with considered even sitting on a trail to be improper because it was an ambush. He believed that a hunter trailed/tracked a deer, and got it by outsmarting the animal. I dunno, there are two sides to every story. Deer hunted over stands are often shot and killed on the first shot, because of the extra time a hunter gets to make the shot a good one. He or she is often sitting, which makes for a steadier aim as well. On the other hand, it can be the most boring of experiences, which may explain why young people are less interested in hunting these days, compared to computers and video games, hunting is work, and it takes a lot of patience, especially if you are sitting staring at a pile of apples or in this case, pumpkins.....

That Janie Girl said...

In Texas, if they're caught baiting, they lose their liscence. For. Ev. Er.

L. D. said...

Thanks for your information on my rose transplant situation. I have an older guy whom I follow that is a rose specialists, but he knows only the south climate and how roses work down there. I am going to get it planted tomorrow now that my outside siding job is done. I knew you would have the best answer. Thanks....

LadyFi said...

Seems very unfair. But then, I'm a bit weedy and don't like hunting anyway...

L. D. said...

The central Iowa zone has such an abundance of deer living inside of the city and the surrounding areas that you see them hit by vehicles every single day. A friend of ours new car had a seven thousand dollar damage to him and he was out in the wide open. We have the bow hunting going on in Des Moines as well as the whole state, but we just can't get ahead of them. I saw a young buck hit the other day with horns, that I had never ever seen before ever in my life.