Is baiting / plotting ethical, in your opinion?

It's the determining difference between hunting and harvesting to me.

We'd harvest deer out of the fields when I grew up on the farm. That was simply nothing more than target shooting. It's not meant to give the animals a sporting chance and I don't recall any of us ever calling that hunting. We didn't hunt any of the other farm animals we ate either.

We did plenty of hunting though. This was the active pursuit of wild game through free chase, stalking, or whatever you want to call it. We'd do this for sport because it's fun, exciting, and challenging. It's far from a sure thing and requires one to develop skills beyond punching a hole in a target.

Ethics are in the eye of the beholder. I have some, they are mine, I don't go around imposing them on others and I don't think they make me superior to those who don't share them. To each his own, free country, and all that.
 
i like to hunt

hey when i go out to do me some killin i like to know at the end of the day that i done my best and gave those vermin a run for their money. for me baitting takes all the sport out of it. but then again i like to eat it just as much as i like to hunt it, so maybe i would bait one site just to make sure i stocked the freezer every year. hehehe.
 
ethics

Moral reasoning is always going to be a personal thing. I don't consider myself a sport hunter. I hunt for meat. I like to eat it, its healthier than what I can buy, and with 5 kids, it makes a difference in terms of groceries. Fortunately I also thoroughly enjoy hunting. If I could legally improve my or my kids' chances of getting a deer or elk, I'd do it and not loose any sleep for doing so. Those hunters who want to increase the challenge...I take my hat off to them. To each thier own.

Don't worry too much about an animal becoming "dependent" on an artificial food source. Unless they are migratory and the artificial source keeps them from their migration, they'll do fine. They get around and and still know where to find the "natural" stuff.
 
I guess it depends on what your purpose is for hunting. We bait the hell out of our place to cull deer that the biologist says to cull. I still have a hard time killing all the does he wants taken out. I don't hunt to brag or to hang on a wall. I eat the meat reluctantly, and only hunt to improve the herd.

Now if you go kill a 120+ B&C eating under a feeder, I certainly wouldn't brag about your skill as a hunter. Good luck finding an unbaited deer in Texas though. Even if you don't have a feeder, chances are he's walking from one feeder to another when he crosses your path. Is that ethical? To sit on a path that the deer have beat down going to your neighbors' feeders?
 
How about just stop hunting, let the deer get out of control, then see who comes to who to solve the problem..............nope that wouldn't work...the gov would just send out the National Guard to mow'm down and dump the meat in the Gulf....bad idea....sorry I thought of it. :barf:
 
Deja Vu...

Reading this thread takes me back about 20 years when I was a young hunting guide on the Texas/Mexico border. I have sat and listened to clients vilify everything from timed feeders to smokeless powder.

One gentleman hunted with a single shot, open sighted rifle and was generally derisive of any hunter with a repeating rifle, even a bolt action. Repeaters weren't "fair".

Another refused to let me take him to a draw in the jeep.
Vehicles weren't "fair".

We had no feeders on the property, but sometimes I would bait a road with corn in the morning, hoping to get a shot in the afternoon. My father hated the practice, and said it wasn't "fair".

So here's the deal. Get out of bed in the morning and go hunting naked.
No boots; deer don't have them.
No drawers, not even a jockstrap.
No gun, no rifle, no knife, nothing.

Because the minute you manufacture cloth for those undies, or pick up a rock and start chipping at flint, you are using human intelligence, and beginning the long path up that leads to GPS, night vision, timed feeders, game cameras, and those horrible sacks of corn.

So, skivvies ain't "fair". :p
 
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