Ok. So, by the definition that you have chose to support your claim, hunting by pretty much any means is trapping rather than hunting. Even stalking by your definition would not be hunting because you would catch the prey "unaware."

So what exactly is hunting by your hunting? Sitting in a blind over a food plot? Sitting over a trail that leads to/from a bedding or feeding area? Calling deer in or using an attractant?

Not sensitive at all. Just curious how the "other side" thinks.

I would say sitting in a blind over a feeder like most people do is hunting.

Now, the question of if it is hard or not is a another question.

Harvest, hunt...kill, obliterate (for those <5'10" shooting the magnums) doesn't matter

Go to NM or CO and ask where the alafafa field is same difference.

Or soybeans in Ill,Okla, ohio
Or cut corn feild and alafafa in tx, az, okla, Kansas,Nebraska,

Hunting pheasants on crp corners of irrigated Milo, and corn fields

What about hunting white oak trees throughout the us???

so many good sig quotes in here... I just can't decide. I know BuckRage's one about the prison is going to make it, and there was another one if I can find it again.

*edit* dangit, I had to cut them down so they would meet regulations. Still good though.

I'll jump in. Growing up my dad taught me to hunt from feeders (he wasn't keen on it, but that was where the ranchers put us when we were invited out). I have always felt ashamed that I killed something from a blind that came running up to a feeder. The deer never had a chance. Then in my late teens, I worked on a ranch where one of my jobs was clearing shooting lanes and setting up feeders and blinds. The hunters would come in from the city (no offense meant, that's just were they came from) with all their bells, whistles, and gizmos. They would sit in the blind, feeder goes off, shoot their deer, take a picture, and then take their deer to someone else to process. After working on that ranch, I had such a bad taste in my mouth of "hunting" that I wanted nothing to do with it anymore. Then I joined the military, got exposed to northern hunting, and it reignited my desire to hunt. But this time with the desire to learn how to truly hunt. To use and hone my skills. I hunt now to maintain and improve my skills and feed my family. I completely agree with baiting when you are desperate for food and have to do anything to survive. I now want my kids to learn a skill called hunting. I always have this crazy idea that someday society may collapse and I or my kids will have to know how to hunt without having corn laying around, man made callers to trick animals, ozone scent blockers, and whatever other technology we use now. The crap I see people using on the hunting shows makes me wonder! I think as hunters, we should be challenging ourselves more every year. I like to joke around with friends who hunt inside high fences and ask them what color collar did the deer have on this time. (note - I use to have a pet deer with an orange collar and a bell and somebody shot that deer)
I do think it makes sense for people who have limited mobility and enjoy the outdoors to use blinds and I am glad they have that legal option.
I always feel embarrassed when I start comparing my skills to the guys who feed their families all year long with just a pointed stick. I'm sure they would laugh at everyone of us if they had access to the internet.



P.S. I hate the feeling I get when I kill an animal, but I know the skill is necessary and important to pass on to future generations. My kids 7th b-day is 05 Nov and his gift is waking up early and honing his skills in the outdoors.

Stalking is definitely more fun.. but .. lack of land access... limited time to hunt... THICK EAST TEXAS BRUSH etc.... blind hunting is much more productive .. blinds are great for kids... I have watched alot of videos with "Northern Hunting" style... Really doesnt look so incredibly hard to me when you can actually "walk" through the forest or field..

When I was young my father and I used to hunt in the mountains of Pennsylvania. We did the leg work scouting out different areas, and when rifle season opened we walked out in the woods and found what we felt was a good spot and waited, or we just kept walking. This was back in the early 80's when the hunting gadgets were few. Today advances in technology have upped the level of competition between hunters, and even if you don't believe in feeders, you need to put one out because everyone else around you has put one out because we all love game cam pics. Feeders are probably as common as oak trees in some areas. I also imagine the feeders are needed in some areas as the high fenced hunting ranches that seem to be popping up everywhere are cutting off access to food and water supplies for the animals on the outside of the high fences. The corn is actually subsidizing the animals diet. Deer hunting has become very commercialized, very expensive, and access to what was once a food source is slowly being taken away. It would be cheaper to pay a cattle rancher $900, park your truck near a feed trough, wait for the cows to come in for lunch and pop the one you want. Cattle ranchers make money, you get to shoot something at a feeder, you get more meat for the table, and it's alot cheaper than some of the trophy fees I have seen for deer. The only down side I see here is that a cow head wouldn't look very good hanging over the fireplace...

I only wear a loin cloth while I hunt. I use no weapons, only my bare hands. I am the only "hunter" here.

Do you wait in a tree and jump on them, or just chase them down??

oh, and then don't you have to "trap" them with your hands before you choke them or beat them to death??

Vurtle, if killing an animal makes you feel bad, you probably shouldn't do it.

I too have hunted all over, and driven aorund in a truck, glassed, and after finding a shootable animal, "stalked" aka walked to the open ridgeline opposite the one the animal is on (or above the animal if it is in the valley), resting rifle on rock/pack/etc. and then shooting it from 300 + yards....NOT any harder than bow hunting(or rifle huniting in alot of cases) here in TX..using corn or not...HECK, we didn't even wear camo to conceal ourselves and the animals just stood there and watched us...

Walking the ridlines of Idaho, CO, etc....yes, it is physically harder, however, when you know where the animals are going to be because of weather/food souce/etc...they are easy to find, and very easy to see(because of the snow and large trees the undergrowth is mucho less thick than here in TX), and therefore kill....agian, skill wise, not harder than hunting(if you scouted/patterned the deer yourself) here in TX.....

Hunting over a food source is just that -- NO MATTER the food source.....hunting over a trail is just that NO MATTER if it's on the way to a feeder or a water hole or a field of soybeans....

I hunt in W TX, so i can do some spot and stalk, and do when time allows. I also watch trails that lead to feeders. I also watch feeders, especially when hunting with kids...so they can see alot of animals...But, if I want to kill the "bull of the woods" I hunt the trails to the feeders, since I have rarely seen a "monster" at the feeder....unless he's "locked up" with one of the ladies!

The skill set is the same whether you use corn or not: tracking, finding bedding areas, finding watering holes, what the rubs and scrapes mean-and how mature the deer is that made them, knowing which trails the mature bucks use vice the ones the does and young deer use. Then, based on the above, knowing where to put a food plot, feeder, brush blind, tripod, etc....

Sorry for the length, but talking down someone on their chosen LEGAL method of hunting tends to get me a bit riled....

Heck, I am such a good hunter that the deer run up to me and kill themselves....:-)

I don't use a feeder, but I hunt in clothes that were soaked in glue and then were rolled in corn. Now when I go hunting or is it baiting, I just lay down and once I feel a nibble or two, I raise up and kill them with my dull letter opener. Now that is true hunting----errrr----baiting.

That cow will cost a lot more then 900. Just FYI

But remember this when deer didn't have value..they where shot onsite by farmers and ranches... To the point 90 % of the US had to have reintroductions of WT's...many from south Texas.

Gripe complain and condemn all you want...but there is a reason why the whitetail deer is not extinct...value is also the reason why here in Texas why some species from around the world have larger numbers here then their native homelands.

BOBO the Clown,

You seem to be as passionate about hunting, and the outdoors as I am. I wasn't griping, complaining , or condemning. I was just pointing out some things. In all fairness, I was out last weekend helping my neighbor put up a feeder at his brother's place down in Malakoff. Will I be sitting in a stand Saturday morning overlooking that feeder? No. Will I be a little further up the trail trying to shoot the monster buck that is headed for my neighbors feeder that my neighbor hopes he will get a shot at? Absoloutely! :-)

As for the whitetail population being decimated at the turn of the century I wasn't aware of that, but it sounds like deer were viewed then the same way ferral hogs are viewed now, so I say to all the hunters on the forum enjoy the pig hunting now because history always repeats itself.

On the exotic species front, maybe the high fenced hunting ranches here will get lucky and the locals will kill off all of the aoudad in North Africa. Then the ranches here can charge $20,000 to go out on the ranch and shoot one without fear that a young aoudad couple might escape and procreate in the dirty public hunting lands and tiny hunting leases that flank them.

This is my favorite part of the entire hunting experience. It's the anticipation. When you hunt one deer and finally kill him, it is over. Nothing else to look forward to. Almost depressing really.

So you don't call sitting on a trail waiting to ambush deer going to a feeder hunting a feeder?
You need to research a little more before you post. Aoudads are free ranging in West Texas and have been for a very long time. They are in the Panhandle and used to have a season on them in the Palo Duro Canyon area if I remember right. Herds of 100's at a time can be seen at times on ranches nowday in some areas. All free range.

you can't hunt deer now if there's a feeder within a mile without patterning their feeder a-goin' or avoiding habits.

This is why we should be more concerned with putting a fence on the northern borders of Texas than the southern border.

At the turn of the century, the reason there were not many deer is that the screwworm had not been eradicated. Once the screw worm was eradicated, the whitetail population took off.

From what I have read, the game populations (not just deer) were down at the turn of the century because there were no closed seasons or limits. Many states implemented controls and the deer populations began increasing. But they really took of in the late 50's and 60's after the screworm problem was "solved"

x2 Populations were at all time lows at the turn of the century due to commercial meat hunting not screw worms.