Watchingdeer,
Sorry, I could have been more clear:
You wrote:
"FOOD PLOT- Hours of work that have the possibilty of producing nothing.
BAITING- lay down the money then lay down the bait and "ring the dinner bell", gauranteed attractant."
I think most people who actually use bait would argue that it isn't nearly that simple.
Scents and calls? Yes, definitely along the same lines--which goes to my point. From a fair-chase standpoint, I don't see why someone who uses kill plots, scents, calls, decoys (all artificial attractants to lure deer for the shot) should look down their noses at baiters. The fair-chase threshold may come down to how powerful the attractant is, but if so, you'd have to look start looking at it on a case-by-case basis. I'm sure you could find examples of food plots that attract more daylight deer than certain bait piles. Then which is more fair?

Guess I look down at ones who bait in Missouri is because they are breaking the law. As is the case in many other states.

The results are not Baffling! Its awesome to see everyone come around to my way of thinking!!!!! About time! Like I've said all along-- The only reason you plant a food plot is to attract and hold deer so you can kill them, period, theres no difference between them and a bucket of grain scattered on the ground except your effort!! Nothing wrong with either effort, both are fair chase. The only thing that matters is those wonderful lean steaks you feed your family wraped up tight in the freezer!!! Unless you think more about bone than protein!!

You can for sure see a line in the same when it comes to who puts effort forth and who thinks their effort equates to a higher moral ground on this stance, but I tend to see where those folks blur the line. Is hunting over a food plot different than hunting over bait? Nope. Does ones effort change that, nope. Does ones effort make him superior to the next guy who buys a bag of corn, seems to be that way huh?

The two are exactly the same! You are putting corn out to kill a deer. You are planting a kill plot for the exact same thing! It's even called a KILL plot. Baiting isn't any different than putting a climbing stand by an oak tree to catch deer going to the acorns. The purpose for both is to attract deer to a certain area. I don't see anything wrong with either option. If it's legal to do in the state you hunt in, go for it.

I agree with you

I agree with you Dave, I see no real difference in the two. Even a 1/2 acre food plot, it is still there for the same reason.

I agree. I voted in the 28%. It's a stretch to say that a kill plot and bait are different regarding fair chase.

But those hunters that bait and grow kill plots shouldn't be tweaked. Everyone is free to do what they (legally) wish.

So if it's not "fair chase" is it just termed "baiting"?

Proverbs,
Now that, IMO, is a perfectly reasonable conclusion. I happen to disagree with the latter part, but perfectly reasonable nonetheless.

Watchingdeer,
Respectfully, I didn't say anything about "quality" of bait? And I think your "FOOD PLOT" and "BAITING" bottom lines are oversimplications.
But that's okay becauseI actually agree with much of what you just said. Not all (I still think there isn't a significant fair-chase difference between baiting and small plots). I do, however, think they are both just fine and dandy (sort of).
And I think it is critically important that we have fair-chase discussions, even when we disagree--all of which I will talk about in my next post.

Against the law is against the law.

If they make helicopter hunting legal that will be fair chase too. I don't look down my nose at anyone but you don't mind if I laugh do you?

I notice some Field and Stream writers seem to hunt with guides too. Takes all types.

well, generally speaking, a food plot is something you have to put work into, and manage. Any schmuck can go to cabelas and buy a bag of cracked corn, slap on their nascar hat, and sit their fat ass in a double wide ladder stand. Also, theres a huge difference between a food plot and bait. A food plot is nutrition and forage, and pile of bait is a whole different story, its more of a craving for deer, and thats why deer go nuts for them. Watch horses in a field eating grass, then grab a bucket of honey oats, and watch them sprint in

Ripper,
Hey, man, I don't mean to be a smart @$$, but I have to wonder if you are reading the same thing I'm writing. I'm not trying to equate food plots and bait; I've said explicitly and repeatedly that there are many, many practical differences. I'm merely saying that they for all intents and purposes the same fair-chase implications. And in what way could I possibly be trying "narrow" the definition of "fair chase" when I have said, like four times now, that I think both are fair chase?

Walt,
I agree with you that plots and bait are the same from a fair chase perspective. What I said is "baffling" is the fact that so many people voted otherwise.

Ok, now that we have gone from food to attractants, with Dave's last post making me think he might consider the use of doe in estrus urine to be something that would not qualify as "fair chase" - it raises a new point, why should the disqualifying attractant have to appeal to the sense of smell? Why not also auditory attractants - it's only one more small step and we can conclude that if you want to abide by the principles of fair chase you will have to abandon the use of grunt calls and rattle bags.

I generally see this whole thing as a battle over semantics and as somethingclever writes, it really is nothing more than an argument of definition.

What concerns me, however, is that this argument of definition leads to statements like Dave's where raises teh issue of whether the lure the lure in question is so effective as to be "unfair." When we start talking about legal hunting as being "unfair" we are playing right into the anti-hunting crowd's game of divide and conquer.

Whackdaddy,
All we can do is fight the good fight.

Ripper,
Respectfully, in the very first post I made clear that I'm talking specifically of very small kill plots, not nutrition plots. And I'm not trying to equate them in all respects--just one respect.

How big does that food plot need to be to be considered fair chase?

WatchingDeer,
Those are interesting points. And I agree, there are differences. But not a significant diference in fair chase, IMO.
You say "I believe when a hunter has to rely on other factors out of his control to attract deer to a certain area, that is where the difference in the 2 polls lie."
But someone who baits absolutely relies on factors out of his control: other hunters' bait piles, quality of the acorn drop, other hunters food plots, deer choosing to show up only at night, other critters eating the bait.....
Don't get me wrong, I've never hunted over bait and don't intend to. Not my cup of tea. But I still don't see a significant difference.

Dave,
Oops I misread "quality acorn drop", sorry.
Oversimplications???? I don't follow.

I replied yes in both cases. And don't quite understand why people see a difference in baiting and planting a small food plot? Baiting is baiting is baiting. Period dot. I'm grasping at straws here, but maybe the food plot planter thinks because they put more effort into setting their bait it's more legit than dumping a pile of corn out somewhere? like they are more dignified because of that action or lack thereof. I think that whatever a person deems necessary to hunt and so long as it is legal, should be fine with the rest of the hunting community. Or as a second thought maybe those who can afford to plant a food plot rather then buying $50 in grain, don't think its fair that the small guy with a very limited area to hunt can have any of the advantages they do. All the while spending less time and money. Whatever the case we all need to work together and quit squabbling amongst ourselves over such pathetic issues such as these.

Now maybe Hurteau will ask the next question. Is using scents as "bait" or lures fair chase?

It all comes down to how you want to define the term "fair chase" and who gets to make the final call. If you want to define it as excluding hunting over "kill plots", whatever, I can see your logic.

But, if you are going to define it that way, do you also see hunting a deer trail leading to a 60 acre cornfield as falling outside the bounds of "fair chase"? And if that is fair chase but hunting near a kill plot isn't fair chase - where, and how, do you draw the line between the two?

i don't hunt over either.

How is hunting over a plot any different than hunting next to an oak tree or other food source? We out smart the deer either way- that's the whole idea.

@somethingclever, if you are going to consider "fair chase" to be the equivalent of "ethical hunting" as opposed to a more traditional definition of "fair chase", then I think it must consider a greater number factors, including the effort put forth by the hunter.

If you want to go with the Pope and Young definition of fair chase, then puting a luminock on your arrow is forbidden - but hunting over a food plot is just fine.

I see the "fair chase" and "ethical hunting" questions as having substantial overlap but being entirely different questions.

@Bryan01- You might personally believe that 'fairness' has nothing to do with ethics, but all ethicists would disagree with you. For instance, you mentioned the Pope and Young definition of fair chase as an example. I quote from their webpage "A specific subset of Ethics has to do with the manner in which the Hunt is conducted. From its beginnings, the Pope and Young Club established, defined and maintains an ethical code of hunting referred to as FAIR CHASE." In fact, pretty much any organization that tries to define 'fair chase' will have, by default, included a term from ethics. 'Fair' is a concept that is squarely in the field of ethics. You cannot talk about 'fair' without talking about ethics. You can do it well, or you can do it poorly, but 'fair' as an ethically driven value judgment, always has to do with ethics.

Ok, yall say baiting is different from food plots, well your wrong. What is the difference between planting corn in a plot or dumping 55 gallons in pile. its the same thing and if u believe its not your an idiot there u go
Dave, i helped u make your

@Dave-thanks for taking the time to engage my ideas. I feel like Bryan01, you, and I have misunderstood each other's point somewhere. I'm going to provide my understanding of the conversation so far, and please feel free to correct my understanding as that may clarify. Dave said he found the results of a survey about 'fair chase' baffling. Bryan01 said it came down to how you define 'fair chase'. I agreed. Bryan01 restated in agreement and added that hunters calling legal hunting 'unfair'is divisive and supports anti-hunters. I said that because we were engaging ideas of morality (meaning fairness) we are something more than we are maligned to be. Bryan01 said that bringing morality into 'fair chase' pushes it beyond the original framework of the argument. I asserted that 'fair' is a value judgment of ethics, and ethics is a philosophical approach to morality, suggesting that they cannot be completely divorced. Bryan01 countered that 'fair chase' and 'ethical hunting' are not synonymous, and the conflation of the two is part of the problem. I said again that 'fairness' is a question of ethics, and I provided an example from P&Y that Bryan01 cited. Dave said the 'fair chase' is only a subset of ethics, and most people view 'ethical' as entailing much more than is required in 'fair chase'.

I hope I have summarized accurately. If not, I welcome correction. Assuming I do understand your positions accurately, I have ask if most people really agree with you. B&C, for instance, list ethical as a condition of 'fair chase', and the entire discussion of fair chase comes under the heading of 'hunting ethics'. I'm not trying to say that all of 'ethics' or 'ethical' is covered in the topic of 'fair'. I'm trying to say that by mentioning a term like 'fair' you have already entered the realm of 'ethics' and 'ethical'. By way of analogy, this would be like saying we can talk about squares as a geometric shape without talking about rectangles. Logically, this is impossible. By talking about squares, we are already talking about a type of rectangle, thus rectangles are inherent in the discussion. It doesn't mean that we have to discuss everything about all of the larger category, but the smaller category is entailed in the larger one.

Good question. Seems to be split right down the middle and its hunters answering the question. Is it fair to hunt near an acorn tree dropping nuts? What about a corn field? What about near an apple tree? Over a pile of acorn rage some salt lick and some fresh cut up apples? You have to draw the line somewhere. I think its up to the DEC to write the laws. Here in NY you can only hunt over natural food sources. No "baiting". What about using a doe decoy and doe in heat urine? Is that fair?

Curious, you say that plots and bait piles are the same?
When a food plot is planted, you can't move it. It's there, unlike a bait pile that can be removed and placed in another area in a matter of hours.
Also when a plot is planted alot of variables come into play with relying on the weather to cooperate to make sure that a plot even grows. Bait piles on the other hand are a garunteed to be there.
I believe when a hunter has to rely on other factors out of his control to attract deer to a certain area, that is where the difference in the 2 polls lie. Similar to a hunter creating or knowing of a good oak flat and taking advantage of a good acorn crop. (As we had this year, deer didn't hardly touch the plots)

@Mike Diehl,...are you saying that hunting a corn or bean field, or food plot is ..."slimy,pernicious, and worthy of scorn" ?

somethingclever - you raise a good point. The debate on this blog post, however, is one of definition - how do we define "fair chase" and what activities fall within the bounds of "fair chase" and doesn't explicity address the moral dimension. One bit of confusion driving the debate is that rather than arguing the definition of "fair chase" many people are arguing for what they consider "moral" and that is not how the orignal question was framed - but it is how many people will view it. That also leads me to my biggest concern about all this "fair chase" discussion - it can easily be used to denigrate legitimate and ethical hunting methods that don't necessarily fall within the bounds of a strict interpretaion of "fair chase."

Ill start my comment off by saying that I beleive that a small food plot and baiting are nowhere near the same thing. My reasoing comes mostly from my personal expereince with them. My neighbor in NH has actually contstructed several food plots in the area we hunt (and is generous eneough to let us hunt around them.)The deer in our area use these food plots frequently, and during harsh winters they can be the best food source for the deer. Most of them are small, the smallest being only about 15 yards wide. The total number of deer we have taken out of these "kill plots"? Zero. It's not for lack of trying, in my younger days I would always spend a couple of hunts waiting there eac season. It's not for lack of deer going there either, we see tracks in them all the time, and they even spent an off season bedding near there once. Not one of our roughly 25 deer we have taken was out of one of those plots, and there are several reasons. One is the fact that this in in new england, where every deer from the smallest spiker to the largest monster is as wary as the large buck you see gracing the covers of magazines. Due to all the pressure they receive around here, hardly any of these deer feed during daylight making use of a "kill plot" difficult. Another consideration is the fact that these plots are in areas with heavy cover and varying topography. To see any deer within the vicinity of these plots, you need the deer to get in close, 40 yards at maximum. Now you are playing the deer's game, and the chance that it will see you, hear you, or more likley, smell you just went way up. These are all of course regional considerations, as I do not doubt that these obstacles are not faced in every patch of deer woods in the nation. Even in other areas however, there is a factor that needs to be considered. Effort. How much effort does it take to build and actually maintain these plots? From what I have seen, alot. Put this against how much effort does it take to buy a bag of corn and dump it whereever you please? Not quite as much. Both going out and finding the food source and building a plot entails a good deal of effort. Dumping a bag of deer corn does not. Perhaps the definition of fair chase still sees no distinction, but you can hardly call these two actions the same.

To Sarge01
In my opinion, if you are not hunting over those feeders, then it is not really baiting anymore. At that point it "deer feeding" (which in itself has both positive and negative aspects) as opposed to "deer baiting." As for the amount of effort with a feeder, well I suppose you got me there to a certain point, though I still maintain that a food plot takes more work, I suppose it's not reall "lazy." I usuall think of an activity in it's basest form for an example. For instance when I think of fishing, I do not think of a guy with a $60,000 boat going miles out to catch tuna, I think of a kid on a dock with a bucket of worms. Similarly when I think of baiting, I think of dumping bags of corn and not maintaining a feeder. That's all I have to go on since baiting in these parts is uncommon. In a few states here it's not legal and even where it is few hunters do it, due to the fact that the deer are almost all pressured into nocturnal feeding patterns.

I guess I might as well throw a young person's view in, so here it goes. There are two real sides to this issue with one of them being split into two sub-categories. You have on one hand, people who hunt without any attractant what so ever, relying on hunting by scrapes, water sources, spot-stalk, still hunting,etc... and generally looking away from people who have to attract deer through other means. This opposing hand, as afore mentioned, is split.
When it comes to plots of land that have been worked and practically farmed, it can be said that a great deal of effort has been put in to build this little hotspot for deer. It requires a decent plot of land with quality soil and be relatively easy to access for deer. However, this can (should) only be done in places with land owner permission of some sort. If a land owner doesn't want you tearing up next years swidden ground stealing the nutrients out of the soil, that leaves said person it quite the predicament.

There are many places in wooded areas that can't be plotted. This could be do hunting a neighbors land, not having permission to destroy property, not having arable and open land, simply to little room to hunt, so on and so forth. I personally hunt on land my neighbor has graciously allowed me to hunt on. It would be heinous to potentially destroy his property for my own gain. At the same time, this plot of land I've luckily been given to hunt on is by no means deer central and it simply lacks enough sign for just about anyone to work with in such a small acreage. The noise of my feeder acts as a dinner bell to the animals living off of this plot of land thus attracting them to a place that can't be plotted or hunted in the usual fashion. Such baiting is the most effective way to even have a chance in places where plotting isn't a possibility.

As far As I'm concerned, they are the same principle used in different situations. Whether or not they are "fair chase" should be irrelevant because hunting in my opinion is based on effectively harvesting lean healthy meat. With that in mind, it is still HUNTING not SHOOTING. High fenced, individually named deer that have basically been fed from a trough don't apply to my mindset.

Overview:people who plot hunt are simply blessed with land to use. people who bait one way or another often do so because plotting is not a possibility for what ever reason.
People with masses of easy to plot land that use feeders are arguably not putting the effort forth or lack a greenthumb. We don't all have thousand dollar leases or easy to access public lands, gasoline simply costs too much as I am finding out more and more after just a few months of driving.
There is no reason to look down on someone, as it is the end result that matters. Meat on the table end of story. Boone and Crockett never fed a family. (despite my occasional topic jumps, this will just have to do.)

Having a hard time with seeing how these are the same. If the fact that it is to attact deer to a certain area is the only reason, then scents and calls should be tossed in as the same as well. Would they not?

this is the conclusion i have come to. the type of hunter that lays out a bait pile really doesnt have a clue wtf he is doing (not saying all that lay bait piles are this way, but i think a vast majority are). guarantee if these types couldnt use a bait pile they wouldnt kill another deer the rest of their lives.

hunters that take the time to place food plots, and put in the work, seem to be more serious deer hunters. you cant just put a food plot anywhere, it takes scouting and effort. these guys tend to have a pretty good idea of what they are doing. if you banned them from using food plots, i have a feeling most of them would be just fine.

i dont use either of these, but i kind of take into account the type of people that use each method, and it reflects in my vote.