Killing a 14 pt. buck near a feeder would be just as rewarding as taking one elsewhere. How did those food plots do without rainfall...200 acres are 2000, too many variables.

Rattling was always my main hunt method and it was as always a timing thing....NOTHING more blood pumping than rattling when bucks are really juiced...plus I loved fence crossings, just sit n watch an hour then move on....
I don’t shoot anymore but love teaming up with teenage grandson. I rattle he watches.
I must say I have access to our family property plus other large parcels....I understand the feed hunting on small acreage without the freedom of lotsa roaming country...
As always, size matters I reckon

So, you folks that sit on feeders, do you put a chair on top or just sit on the feeder lid. Seems kind of a strange way to do it.

I assume you wear full camo hoping the deer don't notice.

Here I thought most people liked sitting in a box with windows or cut outs so they could see a feeder 80 - 200 yards away.

I often wonder if all the corn being scattered each year is benefiting feral hogs a lot more than it is deer.

Biologists will tell you corn really doesn't impact deer OR hog numbers near as much as the availability of natural browse. Still, my common sense tells me an animal capable of producing multiple litters of six to eight (with 10 making it) benefits more greatly from supplemental feeding than one that produces no more than one or two (on average) in that same time frame. I also strongly suspect the mortality rate for feral hogs is a fraction of that for deer.

Well...I guess I technically sit "in" the feeder...then when the deer get close to the corn I jump out with a knife. Harvesting them with a knife is the only way I can live with myself as I'm attracting them with bait.

Very little, honestly. You're trading one food source for another. If they're eating corn they're not eating other browse. Corn is not a great food source. It's low on nutrients and protein. Also, selling 500 MM pounds doesn't mean it was all fed to deer.

However, you remove 5 million mouths that eat ~3lbs of forage a day, and you increase the available forage by 5.5 billion pounds per year. Most of those mouths were goats which ate many of the same things as deer.

Funny, but on a serious note I bet I could have gotten away with sitting on top of the feeder before Anthrax hit our place. It was damn near a petting zoo

Me and my BIL just got access to a 200 acre place about 5 minutes from the house. Owner has owned it for 30 years and it has never been hunted. Surrounding properties don't hunt and there's about 4 high fence places within a mile or two. Main goal for us was to shoot/trap pigs for the LO, but he said we are absolutely expected to shoot some deer since they've been tearing up his garden as well. His only requirement was that we cannot use feeders because he doesn't want to attract any more pigs since he's covered up.

I didn't get to go scout it, but my BIL did briefly. He saw 15 does in an hour - which is a bunch for our part of VZ county. Too bad doe season is closed. I'm guessing the rut is all but over, so I figure we'll set up on a high spot overlooking a highline where there is kind of a pinch point with a ton of trails converging around a small mud hole of a pond. If that doesn't work we'll probably set up on a little ridge that looks down into about a 2 acre oak bottom that my BIL said was loaded up with acorns. There are almost too many good looking spots - mainly funnels - on this property to make a choice. Could be great or could be just a pig shoot.

I don't hunt a feeder when I rattle.

I dont use feeders, I'm not a huge beleiver in them as I've saw more mature bucks away from them than I ever have at one and really don't want to deal with the hassle of keeping one filled. Our place is about 400 acres in east texas. Deer will use the same trails and travel corridors year after year, find a good pinch point and set up on it just like you would a feeder.

My favorite way to hunt them is to still hunt them though, I dont' do it often as I don't want to leave scent around but If I know I'm not going to be at the place for several weeks after a hunt i'll do it.

Most of my hunting was done in the national forest so that translates to me picking a tree and hoping it is the right tree. I have also hunted private lands over the years in blinds with a feeder, but many times I've hunted similarly to my national forest hunts - finding a tree. I don't really have to spell it out, but i will I was way more successful hunting a blind/feeder than ambush hunting while sitting at the base of a tree in the forest.

Again, this is my first year back after a 30 year hiatus so I will be looking for private lands in addition to putting in for drawn hunts next season. I am hunting tomorrow in the national forest my last time this season, but i don't expect a kill due it being late in the season and the moon phase. However, if 'Mr. Big' doesn't show his face again like he did earlier in the season, hopefully a nice sized spike pops up. To add, I wouldn't mind the pigs from my last hunt to show themselves during the day so I can get them back for their attack on me a few weeks ago.

I have always hunted feeders in Texas and am looking to hunt Oklahoma next year. I might be forced to hunt hand corn because of black bear. But agree with hunting choke points, acorns, and crossings. I’m prolly gonna get a dose of it next year

Great thread for bringing out the self-righteous, bi-polar and otherwise. I hunt in a box overlooking a feeder. Don't have any qualms about it whatsoever. I've also hunted "free-range", spot and stalk, still-hunting, whatever you want to call it on a million+ acres with no fence beyond that, many more times than once on another continent. I've baited for leopard and hyena (more than once). And hunted inside a 10K acre high-fence "pen" for WT and mule deer. It's all hunting, no matter what these guys compensating for something tell you. And I don't harvest anything. I'm not a farmer. I kill stuff.

LOL I love all these jacks taking offense to people making proper use of words. Words don't mean what you want them to mean just because you want it ....

Cambridge Dictionary:

"Hunt" means "to chase and try to catch and kill an animal or bird for food, sport, or profit"
"Harvest" means "to pick and collect crops, or to collect plants, animals, or fish to eat"

Oxford Dictionary:

"Hunt" means "pursue and kill (a wild animal) for sport or food."
"Harvest" means "a quantity of animals caught or killed for human use."

Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

"Hunt" means " to pursue for food or in sport "
"Harvest" means "to gather, catch, hunt, or kill (salmon, oysters, deer, etc.) for human use, sport, or population control"

Notice the key feature of the word "HUNT" is "pursue" or "chase".

There is no definition of the word "Hunt" that covers sitting in a box and shooting a deer at a feeder... however, that act falls squarely within many of the definitions of "Harvest".

So, this has nothing to do with being " ...self-righteous, bi-polar and otherwise" or "...these guys compensating for something ..." It has to do with using the proper words to describe peoples actions. And you sir, sitting in a blind - which there is nothing wrong with - are harvesting animals, not hunting them. No one here using proper words to describe peoples actions is talking down to anyone and/or acting superior ... that non-sense is all in your head. Now stop being an easily offended snowflake.

You really do have diarrhea of the mouth....I will call my hunting such regardless of your definition....pay attention this is the important part......nobody on this forum gives a sh!t about your definition of hunting......

People use the highest order of thought when speaking of their intentions. They "kill" rats, cockroaches, wasps, and other nuisance critters because they want them dead. They "catch" fish they intend to eat, including those times when they intend to throw them back. They "pick" fruits and vegetables, and "harvest" other food sources from plants that are often killed and destroyed afterwards.

I can't say I ever remember someone saying to be me, "Hey, let's go kill some deer." They have always said something along the lines of "Let's go hunt some deer". Unless you're talking about something you have no intention of eating or just doing it for the thrill, "killing" is never the primary focus.

Of course I could be wrong but suspect hunters began referring to deer they had killed as being their "harvest" to make it more apparent to the non-hunting majority of their true and more ethical intentions.

So guys out for a night on the town would say "Let's go observe some exotic dancers," ?

I don't think so.

No man said "harvest" when I was a kid. It's a word we started using to try and placate the real snowflakes of this world.

If you brought home a dancer would that constitute a harvest? Or would it be nullified because it wasn’t a free range environment?

It would constitute suicide and man-slaughter, given the hostile environment you (or I) would be walking into.

I know guys who have climbed mountains and killed sheep and mountain goats, bugled in bull elk, stalked and shot big mule deer and killed bear and moose on the Alaskan tundra and they still, to this day shoot and kill deer under a feeder.


Guys need to get off their high horse and stop trying to make whitetail hunting something it’s not.

It’s a deer. I’ve killed more than a few deer with no feeders, whooptie doo! Nobody cares.


P.S

I’m typing this while in a pop up looking at a feeder 17 yards away

Problem with this is once you stop moving to take your shot your’e sitting still and no longer pursuing.

In today's world, all you need do is get enough people to agree with you to make anything become a truth. It makes absolutely no difference what has been done, said, written, or agreed upon in the past. It's an approach that has become the mantra of the Democratic Party.

I remember hearing old men say that hunting with a scope “wasn’t real hunting”.

Before that, it was probably smokeless powder that “wasn’t real hunting”.

I guess there’s been self important know-it-alls since the cave man days.

I go to the pasture to KILL something that is in season to fill the freezer and ultimately feed my family.