Deer Baiting

[Fakihm]

Wondering what everyone's thoughts on baiting are for this season. I was thinking of getting some bait out there (apples/corn/etc) within the next few days or so. Some say its a bit early, others say its late?

[MikePal]

Welcome to the forum...

You may need to clarify..are you talking about the Rifle season in Nov or the Bow season in Oct...tree stand/blind over a bait pile ?

Do you have a trail cam so see the results ?

[JUDGE]

Can't hurt.

[MikePal]

Can't hurt.

At close to $20 a bag for whole corn...you don't want to start to early...

[machron]

thats expensive coon bait lol

[GW11]

Baiting deer is a little more tricky of a game than most would think. The usual assumption is, throw some corn or apples on the ground and shoot a deer shortly thereafter. That's not exactly the case.

I've had success and failure with baiting in the past and in my experience, prolonged cold and snow on the ground makes for the best baiting conditions. Deer just have to get up and feed during daylight hours. The other trick is not to put too much bait down. Put enough down to last for a few days, let it run out for a day or two, then put more down. Deer will check the site more often to see if there's food. It they know that there's always a huge pile of bait waiting for them, they'll wait until dark to hit it. Unless cold is getting the deer up and moving during daylight hours, baiting can turn deer even more nocturnal than they already are.

Of course, things work differently in different parts of the province. I got lucky last year in mid-October and shot a doe with the muzzle-loader over a pile of corn that I put down only two days before. This was in WMU 8 where deer don't really even know what corn is and it was around 18 degrees C outside. After that, the deer didn't touch that bait during daylight hours for the remainder of the time we were there.

Give it a try and see what happens. After a bit of trial and error you'll figure out what works in your area.

[pbonura]

Baiting works at different times. Right now i am hunting a bean field and some apple trees. It is southern ontario and their are apples trees around so apples which are free work. If i place corn on the ground at 11 bucks a bag i will be poor quick. Try building a pvc feeder. Or buy a speed feeder. If i was baiting with corn on the ground i would be wasting my time.

[dutchhunter]

I find Bair for deer is good in front of s game camera to see what's around the area.but you waste to much corn on little critters to be worth putting out lots of corn to hunt over. A camera will catch the deer at night when you are not around

[Bigbear]

Off the subject a bit, but how long do you think we'll have to wait till a homemade video goes viral showing some idiot putting an arrow through a deer chewing apples/corn on a bait pile?

[mans9110]

I'm up north in WMU 60. I started baiting late this summer and it has totally backfired. I put up spinning feeders with corn. The deer liked it at first, but then the bears moved in. I have now turned two good stands into a lunch buffet for the bears and they have completely run the deer away. Good news is bear season opens in a week From now on i'm going to focus on mineral sites for deer and hope that the bears aren't attracted to that. I will still put some attractant out for the deer to hunt over, but I'm done with throwing money into feeding the bears.