Pro baiters claim everything is bait when what their intention is to pour corn out of a bag that they bought at Walmart or the local hunting store. All they have to do is grow corn in their foodplots and voila BAIT without the Walmart "Deer" corn bag!! Not to mention perfectly legal!

Ok i just didnt know what you ment but you are correct plant it and its legal...

While I agree with your premise, the Game and Fish folks will tell you in a hurry the wildlife on your property does not belong to you. That's what kinda makes your argument moot.

Your point is kinda moot.

Explain this law:

(emphasis added)

If you read the law for what it says, you'll find the purpose defined for the state holding title to wildlife:

(emphasis added)

Wildlife is held in trust by the state for use by the people of the state. The people of this state own it's wildlife. Their government does not.

In Alabama, it is not legal to hunt any of your property that has a food source that was not grown there and left standing for the wild life. That's the point, if you have 10 acres with bait on it , you can not hunt it until 10 days after the bait is gone. It's the same if you had 10,000 acres with only one area baited. The game warden is probably going to spend more time trying to catch the guy with 10,000 acres than the guy with 10 acres. There are alot more people with small acreage baiting than those with larger tracts. The law needs to be specific, based on distance and visability, if it is going to be illegal to bait.

Dennis,

You may be right about how the game wardens are currently handling baited property, but the law ceratainly does not require that the whole property to be put off limits to hunting for the 10 day period.

I have found no caselaw to support that interpretation of the law. Vague laws that leave the details up to the enforcement agency have often been struck down once they have been challenged in the appeals courts.

I doubt if the DCNR is willing to risk a challenge to this easy source of revenue by closing down an entire 10,000 acres to hunting because a small portion of the land was baited. An owner of a large tract would probably be more likely to engage in such a challenge due to having more money to spend on a challenge.

When bait was found on our lease, our club's officers decided what the affected area was and that's all we closed for the 10 day period. We decided 80 acres was adequate to comply with the law. The rest of our lease was left open to hunting.

I didn't see any need to notifiy the game warden. A law is required to give adequate notice to those whose activity is being restricted by it. We were ready to defend our decision in court if it came to that.

If the CAB, the Legislature and the DCNR can't agree on what an affected area is, the landowner's decision aught to be as good as anyone else's as long as it is within reason. I consider the officers of our club to be reasonable men of at least average intelligence.



State v. Lupo, 984 So. 2d 395 - Ala: Supreme Court 2007




Connally v. General Constr. Co., 269 US 385 - Supreme Court 1926

Self policing is the right way and I applaud that effort!!!!! If more detailed regulation is put forth then only more arguments will ensue regarding the details of the regulation and in the end nothing changes.

For the "pro baiters" police yourself, if you want to put bait out and have an argument with the State about how you can't comply with the regulations against baiting because they are hard to understand then go right ahead.

I have been on a large scale corp. dove hunt where some idiots put corn out on our spot over night. we were able to move up the hill, out of sight and close to a quarter mile up the dirt road and hunt all day. game warden even sat us up there. So, I have seen both sides of it.

if it's okay for UNCLE TED it must be the right thing to do ! lol

this^^^ is so not true.

if you have 10,000 acres you can definitely get far enough away from the bait to hunt legally on the same tract of land. The law requires that the hunter knew or should of known the existance of the bait to be prosecuted. One cannot be held accountable for bait that is miles away from where you are hunting.

troy

It is at the discretion of the Game Warden!!!

We have some how gotten off track about the bill. It is NOT a Pro-baiting Bill. It is a Pro-feeding bill. People who are baiting will continue to bait. This will let those who would like to FEED quality feed to the deer on their property and continue the practice during deer season without being shut down. It will still be illegal to hunt over the bait. The only people I can possibly see being against this, would be those who are baiting. Those who bait will not be as successful if their neighbors can keep putting feed out, also.

D, there is no discretion involved in making a decision on making an arrest just for being on the same property as bait that is miles away. There is no arrest to be made at that distance.

troy

I agree with Dennis 100%. There is definately a difference between supplrmental feeding and baiting. i have been feeding deer on our lease for over 15 years.They are fed soys and corn out of trough feeders and there is not a feeder within sight or shooting distance of any stand. we were visited 4 years ago by 2 game wardens on a Christmas weekend and with all 9 of my feeders being located on the sides of the dirt roads through my lease [so my lazy arss could load them out of the back of the truck] the only citations written were for no hunter orange on 2 guys. Whether these guys were going by the letter of the law or not, i don't know, but they obviously had run into this enough before that we weren't the first ones they had come across. They haven't been back since. I'm sure they could have tore us a new one and shut us down if they wanted.I think we owe it to the officers to give them the proper laws to determine what is Baiting and what is Feeding.

A person can "feed" now and can't hunt over it, so if that is all that the bill is, then why is it "needed"? Sounds a whole lot more like a "baiting" bill to me or a bill to placate someone that has a monetary interest in "baiting" or "feeding".

It's funny, I am against it and I don't "bait" or "feed" out of a "deer" corn or "deer" feed bag, so that comment may need to be reeled back in.

To sum it up, a person can already do what the bill will allow and not everybody that is against the bill "baits", so I guess there is no justifiable reason for the bill.

I can tell you this for a fact. I have been keeping records on deer sightings and hunter man days on my property for over 10 years. When i stopped supplemental feeding 3 years ago,deer sightings and harvest on the 5 most productive green fields which are located on my north property line dropped by 40%. This property line is adjoined by a commercial hunting lodge.Do the math with that. They got the money and i ain't!

So does this mean you are for the bill or against the bill?

Good post. You are right. You can feed all you want now. A bill like this is nothing less than a bill to bait. It's obvious to everyone. Why not just call it like it is? That is my question. Why not just say, "hey, we want to bait our deer, just make some guidelines for us to do it". Pretty simple.

According to the legislature website, this bill is "Indefinitely Postponed in the House of Origin" which means its dead for this year. So I am going to unstick this post.

Thank you, Skinny.