Explain to me the "sport" involved in sitting over a feeder that broadcasts corn at 1/2 hour to sundown.
I'm willing to listen, but dubious.
So....you would feel as well that it was unethical to hunt near an acorn tree dropping acorns, or an apple or persimmon tree, etc. SINCE THE DEER WOULD PROBABLY HAVE THEIR HEAD DOWN FEEDING?! You only hunt by picking up tracks and following them, like the Benoits? Or just wander around hoping to get lucky because, not knowing where a deer might be feeding or when, you also would not know which direction to hunt, just letting any old prevailing wind be your only guide? Balderdash!
Hunters who don't set up the feeders with respect to prevailing winds, or don't refuse to sit in them when the wind is wrong, or don't approach right even if the best approach means crossing a stream (and we know most deer hunters won't do that) don't get the big bucks. IT IS ACTUALLY HARDER TO PATTERN A BIG BUCK AND KEEP HIM FROM PATTERNING YOU if you hunt feeders. Soon they know your habits better than YOU do. They don't get old by being stupid. And if stand hunting was so smart and automatic everyone would have an alpha buck on their wall....but they don't. It is still an even game.
Having feeders up doesn't mean that'a all that hunter knows how to do, either. I have had as much luck hunting TRAILS that went to neighbor's fields and feeders. Will I now have to change my ways, I mean-- pity the little deer who was just on his way to eat somewhere on a trail that wouldn't exist in the first place except for some feeder or farmer.
Just because you have a feeder up doesn't mean you don't hunt the rut--but it just might mean that more does hang around your place, waiting to come into heat. Oh, and should we even use deer calls that trick bucks into thinking there is a receptive doe...that is as natural as putting his little head down to feed, which is now to be considered unsportsmanlike. Maybe we shouldn't even hunt the rut. Just hunt deer after that have fed, bred, and said their prayers. To be really fair, we should anthropomorphise them all we can. They should be killed by noble rules--just like the rules wolves and bears adhere to...
I have heard your kind of argument against feeders for decades, usually from some yankee curmudgeon who thinks that getting a deer only every year or two in the underpopulated northern big woods is OK and even expected, just so long as he wasn't baited. And let's not even talk about running deer with dogs as is still done in the south! (everybody knows you should shoot them on the run when pushed by human drivers, like a driven hunt in Europe) Using dogs instead of humans--inhuman!
Consider as well that "clients" or people with only a week or two to hunt have to do the best they can or plan to fail most of the time. I think most outfitters would do anything they could to reliably put a client on a deer--even feeding?
Should we also take advantage of clear cuts and high line corridors because they are somehow artificial, and man made? We'll all fool around and disqualify everyone except ourselves before we know it. And I hope you don't hunt the winter "deer yards" up north, with the poor little deer stuck there and no where else to go...don't feed them either, that would be an addition to nature's way.
And I hope you don't even own a four wheeler or other "cheating" contrivance, lol. Yeah, tough luck, all you disabled hunters, too, that need a little help. TONGUE FIRMLY IN CHEEK, folks....
You guys crack me up. If you checked the price per bushel at a local grain elevator, corn is 56 pounds per bushel. You are paying a lot for the convenience of those bags!
Put in electric mixers, etc.
