Proposed Baiting Regulation Changes for ODWC

[dennishoddy]

Food Plots do not help herd health any more than a corn feeder does. They just help concentrate deer to make it easier on hunters.There is nothing that a food plot offers in the way of nourishment that a deer can not find else where. Yes it is an easy food source and more nutritious than a corn pile, but that is it. A deer can get all the nourishment that a winter food plot offers from native vegetation. Not necessarily so. Areas like Kaw Lake that are basically a flood contol lake experience massive flooding in years when rainfall is high. Last two years, the upper end of Kaw looked like a desert. No grass, nothing after months of being under water. Like you said most of the big food plots are lands leased by the COE or the ODW to area farmers. they are required to leave a certain percentage of crop for the wildlife at harvest. With the high waters, they couldn't get in to plant, and if they did, it would be a loss for the farmer. I wouldn't do it, knowing how often Kaw floods even if it was a free deal. Fall/Winter Food plots on Public land are there to please the hunter and nothing more.

Furthermore, do you really want to see your dollars at work by purchasing high priced seeds??? "seed wheat" and other crop seeds are closely regulated. Food plots can be planted by using "feed wheat" or "feed milo", or whatever. Even after the tough summer that we had, all the WMA's I visited had food plots that were viable and would readily draw deer in.

I would rather see my dollars go to work with purchasing new land, purchasing burn equipment to manage land on a large scale, to pay contracts to remove cedars/other invasive, fund another controlled hunt, fund more research. I'd like to see this too.Seed for a "prettier" food plot would be last on my list of desires when it came to budgeting for wildlife management.

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[makeithappen]

I do not have access to any private land, so every animal that I harvest comes from public land. I personally do not bait as I've seen it turn deer nocturnal, but like many have said, if you allow them to take away baiting on public land, private is next, then what? Are they going to tell us we can hunt within 100 yards of water? I just feel like we should all push against it for the sake of hunting's future in Oklahoma. God only knows that with my luck, I'd be deer hunting one of my regular stands, a warden comes in, and some other hunter has laid out corn out of my site, or I didn't see it when I came in pre-dawn, and I get a ticket. Yeah, that'd happen to me.

 

[DEER 24/7]

fishfurlife could you tell me what the stuff is in the first pic with the buck standing in it and what time of year it is,Oh and very good buck in pic,and the last pic was it planted by wma manger or was it planted by someone farming on the wma

 

[fishfurlife]

Milo in all the pictures. Top pictures were taken about a week into archery season. Bottom picture was all the work of the ODWC field staff at that WMA. You won't see any co-op farmers putting a fence up like that. The bottom picture was of a field that was only about 10 acres in size. The milo disappeared in the span of about 10 days when the fence was pulled.

 

[DEER 24/7]

thanks fishfurlife do you lnow if the fence was to keep pigs out or deer i am planning on putting a eletric fence around my food plot but not if is going to keep deer off it.when i was growing up we would put a eletric fence around our watermelons to keep cattle out which it did,but it never kept deer out they would be in there eating watermelons no matter what u would try. at dollar a piece 100 mellons a night back in the 70's was alot of money for a farmer my dad hated deer.

 

[FlyGuyGSP]

thanks fishfurlife do you lnow if the fence was to keep pigs out or deer i am planning on putting a eletric fence around my food plot but not if is going to keep deer off it.when i was growing up we would put a eletric fence around our watermelons to keep cattle out which it did,but it never kept deer out they would be in there eating watermelons no matter what u would try. at dollar a piece 100 mellons a night back in the 70's was alot of money for a farmer my dad hated deer.

I would suggest having your top wire only reach to about 2 1/2 feet. That should be plenty to keep everything out but deer.

 

[fishfurlife]

thanks fishfurlife do you lnow if the fence was to keep pigs out or deer i am planning on putting a eletric fence around my food plot but not if is going to keep deer off it.when i was growing up we would put a eletric fence around our watermelons to keep cattle out which it did,but it never kept deer out they would be in there eating watermelons no matter what u would try. at dollar a piece 100 mellons a night back in the 70's was alot of money for a farmer my dad hated deer.

I don't remember the exact specs on the fence but it was built to keep pigs and deer out. The two fences are set roughly 3 feet apart. The outside fence has a wire that is set 18ish inches off the ground while the inside fence had a wire set 12 inches off the ground and 30 inches I believe. Deer tend to have depth perception issues so when you stack the two fences that close to each other, then the deer can not comprehend jumping that far to clear both fences. Obviously the wires are low enough to get any adult pigs that try and cross under it, which keeps the little ones out as a by product. The picture shows the fence to be working pretty dang good I believe. That milo is at a stage that the deer would typically be mowing it down.

 

[Bowhunter]

The vote for the change is this morning at 9 a.m.

http://newsok.com/oklahoma-wildlife...-to-decide-on-new-regulations/article/3654538

 

[MLR]

When did baiting become legal? I haven't in years but I recall it was illegal to hunt over bait. You could hunt over fields that had natural spillage during harvest but nothing intentionally left for bait.

Michael

 

[Okie4570]

When did baiting become legal? I haven't in years but I recall it was illegal to hunt over bait. You could hunt over fields that had natural spillage during harvest but nothing intentionally left for bait.

Michael

It's illegal to bait migratory birds and illegal to hunt within 100y of bait/feeder for turkeys.