What are you using for Bait

I am heading to Manitoulin Island tomorrow for my second rifle hunt and my experience with apples is this. I usually lay out a dozen or so a few days before the hunt and they usually get hit right away, but for some reason as the week goes on, probably human scent, the activity at the apples slows considerably.
Last year I put out a bunch of apples on the Saturday before the hunt, had trail cam pictures of him at the apples Sunday and then nothing. I ended up harvesting him on Tuesday of the hunt but he was not coming to the bait when I shot him. As mentioned I think they will work better early season

Apples and a grain mix here. They will eat apples all winter long here.

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Red apples worked all year steady.

Alfalfa cubes sound really intriguing. Might try that for the muzzleloader season.

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Originally Posted by marky.mark

Red apples worked all year steady.

Alfalfa cubes sound really intriguing. Might try that for the muzzleloader season.

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Alfalfa is good for properties you manage. Esp. Continuing in winter when food is scarce in late January and Feb. Paired near a cedar brush you'll have them kicking around especially if a stream is near by.

One year I used stabilized rice bran pellets at one stand and the deer devoured it. Quite high in protein and crude fat, specially compared to corn. Only problem is that it's fairly expensive so you have to be careful how you manage it. https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/pr...n-pellet-40-lb

This is a good article on feeding deer. Tons of warning too about feeding deer too much corn, specially later in the season when their stomachs can't handle it.
http://www.deerfriendly.com/feeding-deer

Cheers

Bait. Pffft... hunt the landscape properly and bait is totally useless. If your not seeing deer, baits just going to feed them at night. If they’re there they don’t disappear than suddenly appear because of bait. Your just not hunting the right spots and baiting them won’t help. It’s just a lazy way of hunting imo and isn’t going to get you any trophy’s

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Originally Posted by BuckWisperer

Bait. Pffft... hunt the landscape properly and bait is totally useless. If your not seeing deer, baits just going to feed them at night. If they’re there they don’t disappear than suddenly appear because of bait. Your just not hunting the right spots and baiting them won’t help. It’s just a lazy way of hunting imo and isn’t going to get you any trophy’s

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I don't recall anyone asking for your thoughts on baiting, I believe the question was........... what is a good bait....

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Originally Posted by BuckWisperer

Bait. Pffft... hunt the landscape properly and bait is totally useless. If your not seeing deer, baits just going to feed them at night. If they’re there they don’t disappear than suddenly appear because of bait. Your just not hunting the right spots and baiting them won’t help. It’s just a lazy way of hunting imo and isn’t going to get you any trophy’s

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Not looking for a trophy there buckshot, just meat for the freeezer. But thank you for you participation in the conversation.

To the others on here, I'm using apples and whole corn. cant put out enough and it's gone! Just need bucky to show himself.

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Originally Posted by MikePal

They're pretty much done with apples now....stick with molasses covered feed..

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Never had any luck with molasses. Did side by side testing of plain whole corn and molasses coated whole corn. Deer at my camp ignored the molasses corn until the plain corn was gone. Seems bizarre to me but it is what it is.

As for apples - in many years you could be right but this year the snow has been on the ground for almost 2 weeks at my camp, leaves are long gone and we still have 30+ trees (out of about 300) that are holding some apples. We had more apples this year than i can ever remember in my life. There are still lots on the ground around the trees that aren't holding anymore as well. Based on the tracks around these trees (actually scouted a bunch of them today in advance of the weekend) they are still getting hit hard by the deer in our area (82a).

I have found from watching thru the years that Deer will hit apples hard from Oct to Nov but then as the apples begin to freeze (get hard) they stop eating them. I've actually watched them roll them off the corn with their noses. I was told Deer are pretty good at regulating their diets to local feed supply and that in most years local apples are gone by end Oct early Nov so they naturally don't eat them anymore.

Either case I still have apples laying on the ground at an old bait pile even after the corn is long gone. Only a few chew marks from the rabbits/porcupines/ raccons.

I think the molasses isn't so much for eating as it is for the smell to draw them in...