Deer hunting is an activity that has been there for a while now. Before it was regulated you could go ahead and hunt anyhowly in whichever way you liked. The reason why people hunt deer is partly because of meat and partly as a sport.
Because of their decreasing population, governments are coming in to regulate. That is why licensing and local authority legislation is done.
However, in order to exploit your local regulations, you need to be first aware of them. Many regulations are not so strict and therefore you can find some loopholes that can be exploited.. Mostly, you will be required to have proper authorization in the form of a permit before you can embark on hunting such regulated animals.
If you have been worrying about how you bait the deer without being caught, then stay tuned. Throughout this article we shall take you through different amazing ways of baiting deers.
So let us get started.
How to bait deer
1. Find The Right Food
Deer are herbivores and most at times you will find them eating fruit, leaves, herbs and berries. This makes their feeding habits more or less seasonal. This therefore means that deers will exhibit one eating behaviour during summer and another in winter seasons. Sorghum, clover, and soybeans are some of the agricultural products that deer feed on especially in the month of September. Farm produce can therefore come in handy when looking to bait some deer in September. Towards October, deer now begin to take foods such as acorns. In this case therefore, baiting with acorns can be a good way to start.
2. Place A Bait
Once you have gathered all the necessary baiting foods to use, then the next challenge to accomplish is finding a perfect place to position your bait. Once you have located a place that deer love going most frequently, set up a bait and place the appropriate food in it. Note that for optimum results, you need to get yourself a bait that has a timer to enable it to dispense small quantities of foods at specific times during the day. This is because you might not be there to always refill the bait.
If you intend to use peanut butter as bait instead, then you are supposed to smear it on trees. Smearing it on pine trees is necessary because it is a rare and natural product. Besides, this attractact is able to easily draw deer by its powerful scent.
3. Strategic Stand Placement
The goal of your baiting is to hopefully capture one deer. That means you have to have a perfect view point from where you can closely time and watch your deer as they approach the bait.A good place to set up your stand should be somewhere where the wind normally blows to. That way, the deer cannot detect your smell when blown by the wind. Do not attempt to fire on the first day. That would be a great mistake. It will make them anxious and they might never come back again. You should leave the bait for a couple of days for deer to get used to it.
4. Using Deer Lures
Given that deer take pride in its sense of smell, which makes it distinct from other animals in the woods, they can easily smell danger so to speak. So while on a hunting mission, you ought to be careful and pray that it is not windy lest you lose that particular hunt.
If you try to fool a deer with a scent, you must first reduce your own smell. What am I going to do? You ask. Find yourself any scent-removing clothes, such as rubber boots, cotton gloves, and Bone Collector Clothing. Besides, you should often wash your hunting clothes to get rid of any smell in them
There are many ways to trick and attract a deer. One of which is using urine besides appetizing food. For this case, deer urine can act as a good place to start. They are mostly available at sporting good sellers.
As proven by research, large male bucks can utilize their amazing sense of smell to recognize urine perfectly well. As soon as they detect the smell of the urine belonging to another deer, they become curious to which deer might be nearby. By therefore spreading urine in the most part of your land, you can easily trick the deer into coming to check if another deer is around. To make sure you reduce your own smell, wear protective clothing and gumboots. That way, you can eliminate the possibility of having to leave your smell as well.
Urine smell does not always work perfectly. Most at times, urine smell strategy is used a few weeks before mid-november when deer are in mating season. By applying urine and molasses on grass and trees, you can easily attract them to a place you want to bait them.This method of hunting would help you to bait your deer without being spotted because they will lead themselves into your trap with no one to chase them down.
5. Use the salt blocks
Given that all hoofed animals love eating salt, then this is the best baiting commodity to use in your bait zone. When you prepare them as licks, deer will be your frequent visitors as it gives them minerals, nutrients and flavours. Once you have purchased block salt, then dig a small hole in the ground and put the salt inside.
Once you’ve fully sealed the hole, sprinkle the salt on top and then leave the area after you’ve ensured that you’ve covered your tracks.It will take some time, but in the long run the deer will detect the smell of the salt and get drawn to that location due to their curiosity about what is in that location.
6. Using a food plot.
Unlike other methods, this is promising to be efficient in helping you bait deer without getting caught. Even though it takes longer, it will eventually lead to positive results.
This is a clever approach that involves taking a piece of land, preparing it and planting crops that are most loved by deer. Planting flowers such as roses is a good starting point before you proceed to vegetables such as beets, lettuce, apples, beans and tomatoes. If your land is close to deer, then be rest assured that they will always pay a visit to your land and feed on your vegetables. From then on, you can be able to time and capture them whenever you need to.
As soon as food becomes short in supply, deer will move around in search for food. If by then whatever you had planted is ready, deer will likely land on them and begin feasting like never before. In that case, you can prepare your weapon and get ready to shoot to kill.
One of the methods you can use to kill a deer is stand-hunting. This involves preparing ahead of time and positioning yourself at a strategic location in your farm. At the appropriate moment as the deer are still feasting, fire on one of the deers and accurately shoot straight to the head or stomach.
Conclusion
Inasmuch as there are many ways of baiting a deer to a specific kill zone, not all strategies are legitimate. With that in mind, it is always helpful to always adhere to all local laws before getting into your baiting endeavors. Failure to do so will obviously land you in prison and that is the least you want to happen to you.
However, this article focused on teaching you some interesting techniques that can help you bait and not get caught at all. Any of the methods I’ve mentioned above would perfectly work well even in areas where baiting deer is prohibited.