Feeders VS Plots

We’re in the hot zone. I attribute more buck sightings, and deer sightings overall, to the drought. The deer need to move more to find food.

A property I’m invited to hunt in Natchez doesn’t bait due to hogs. The deer come out at 7:00am and 4:30pm like clockwork. It feels more natural with diurnal movement but it doesn’t feel any less like baiting. They come to the plots to eat something that wouldn’t be there otherwise, they just have to work a little longer to gather it up.

We bait heavily in Kemper, like every other neighbor. We see bucks in daylight during the rut and for most of January when they’re hard on feed. Put in some time and you’ll see a shooter. I would be perfectly fine if baiting were banned tomorrow if it was actually enforced, but only because that would save me $2K a year on corn, not because I think it would improve my odds of killing a deer or feel better about how it happened.

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food plots were more of a natural feeding environment. Deer being grazers and having the desire to move as they feed.

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I get what you mean, but they aren’t grazers, they’re concentrate selectors. It’s not natural for them to put their head down and feed on the same thing over a large area like a cow. What they’d naturally do is walk a very large area looking for new growth on a bunch of different things, half of them probably extirpated.

There’s nothing natural about how any of us hunt deer anymore, even if you walk 10 miles into public land. There’s nothing really wild anymore, but that doesn’t mean it can’t still be fun and sustainable.

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If this means sit in a shooting house on a feeder, I'm out. I want to find where they are coming and going and sit in a tree and hope it works out.

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Cool. What you catching them heading towards, a white oak dropping acorns? The last water source when it hasn’t rained in two months? Someone else’s foodplot or feeder?

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The last water source when it hasn’t rained in two months? Someone else’s foodplot or feeder?

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If you want to make it more of a challenge, go on foot and stalk them. Don’t sit in a $500 climber in Sitka gear


Use a bow and feel the primal rage exit your body as you strike down a fawn.


Some of yall take this way too seriously. Why not just enjoy nature with your family and friends? Why not have food plots with box stands for easy hunts AND climbing stands in the garage for when you’re feeling like a challenge?

The pissing match is useless. We should all be focusing our attacks on dog hunters, corn pilers, hog breeders, green jeans, thieves, and poachers.

During the rut I see bucks in open areas such as secluded pastures trying to see and wind does, food plots have a similar effect. That being said one of main hunting spots has a five acre thicket with planted shooting lanes and feeder between crp loaded with acorns and a five acre food plot. The deer walk right past the feeder to hang out in the shooting lanes for a good two hours before moving into the food plot. Last year we had less acorns they concentrated on the corn more but still grazed a lot. I’m a firm believer in spreading food out and diversity for deer, they don’t like to stay in one place for very long. Corn is not the end all be all, been many weeks we didn’t feed corn or refill feeders and saw the same amount of deer.

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But they aren’t grazers.

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I was falling back on what Charlie Alshiemer had once told me. He said deer like to be able to feed, move, feed, move. I guess he had done so much research with his captive deer that he believed they wanted to move for safety reasons.

Don’t you think your post then subsequent comment towards dog hunters and “corn pilers” is a bit hypocritical?

I say this as a bow hunter that primarily hunts oaks along a river, but the generalized shite talk towards guys that use bait to hunt is dumb and completely over simplified. It totally ignores the differences in deer habitat across the state/country.

We have a work lease in Texas and if you didn’t feed the deer, you’d never see them. Outside the roads, the property is cactus. I totally agree that targeting a specific buck, trying to figure out his movement habits, and killing him with a bow on a travel route is an entirely different pursuit and experience, but is the guy that hunts over a thoughtfully-placed food plot or feeder in the middle of a young pine thicket less of an outdoorsman? He’d never see deer if he didn’t bait them.

You could easily argue that with the way deer get around feeders, it’s equally as hard to kill a mature buck (maybe even harder) by a feeder in certain areas than in a bottom or near his bed. One may involve more “right place, right time” luck than the other, but it’s still deer hunting. You’ve tricked the deer into coming to a spot and you kill it. Is hunting ducks over decoys not duck hunting?

We can debate the nuances of deer hunting all day, but it’s still deer hunting. I just feel like there are enough people out there with negative attitudes towards hunters. We don’t really need to have unnecessarily negative attitudes towards each other.

I’d love to see some of these guys with big egos that travel out of state to hunt prime areas loaded with huge deer, or hunt great habitat along the river in Louisiana, be turned loose on on Weyerhaeuser land in southeast Louisiana. I have a feeling they’d get humbled quickly.

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I'm just saying it isn't mine. I'm no expert in anything, just saying how I prefer to mostly fail and sometimes get lucky

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I agree. That’s why I punish myself by bowhunting ha. It’s personal to me though. I can track with your fishing comparison too. I just think there are creative ways to use feed that shouldn’t be frowned upon in the hunting community.

I have a small piece of property by my house (60 acres) and I feed deer there during the off season along known travel routes to try to keep deer in the area. I’ve also used bait in the past to try to create a spot for deer to stop because of limited shooting lanes. My experience in season has always been that deer are less skittish and aware around natural feed sources though, so that’s generally how I choose to hunt. I can also recognize that I’m fortunate to have a place in south Louisiana where hunting like that is possible though.

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We have a work lease in Texas and if you didn’t feed the deer, you’d never see them. Outside the roads, the property is cactus.

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That’s because it’s not native habitat for whitetail…….