true that^

Because when done right they will come back and search the shallows for it. Shhhh its a secret!This comment was never made.And will self edit it 1 hr.

Just have the GW come take a look and clear the field to hunt.

Got a $250 ticket from the feds once for hunting over an illegal (baited) dove field.
It was a pay shoot and about 200 of us thought everything was legit.
No visible grain on the freshly disced field.
Birds poooouuuurrrreeed into the field. Shot a 15 bird limit in ten minutes.
Looked like Argentina.

As I'm packing up, a dozen black SUVs pull up around the field blocking all the gates.
Told us all to unload and meet in the barn. Feds had helicopter pics of piles of cracked corn in the fields taken three days earlier. Land owner had plowed it all under the day before the shoot.
Land owner didn't get a ticket. He didn't shoot.

I think you are just asking for trouble. If possible, you might be better off if you can plant crops, etc that are meant for the wildlife (rice, etc). As I understand it, that's ok.

The key words in that law are "10 days after the bait is removed". Who starts the clock on the 10 days? Way to risky of a deal there for me.

Most states (and maybe the feds ?) have or use to have restrictions on how far you had to be from a baited field. . . meaning the bait didn't have to be on the field or pond you were hunting to get you in trouble.
Example: if your neighbor has put a feeder beside his tank because he likes watching the ducks feed, you can't legally hunt your tank if it's within 800yds (?) of his.

Not sure anymore if this still applies or what the distances might be.

Distance doesn't matter, what matters is if the bait has any "effect" on the birds. Could be a mile if you are pass shooting birds on a beeline to the bait pile, you're still toast.

On my deer lease my stand is next to a wide creek. I had a fish feeder within view and a deer feeder about 30 yards from the water. I fed year round. The wood ducks got so bad raiding them every morning that I had to move my deer feeder 100 yards away from the creek and take down the fish feeder. Every morning I deer hunted out of that stand during the following two seasons, the wood ducks staged where the fish feeder and deer feeder had once been. They would hang around waiting for a feeder to go off that was not there and walk around on the ground where the feeders had been. It was not until the third deer season that they stopped coming.

You do, of course. That is why I said it is only there to keep you honest.

You can, how ever, set up a meeting with the gw and if he clears the area then the 10 days would start that day.

Them suckers are smarter than some givem credit for. They have a good memory.I knew at least two years.

the thing about baiting is, even a rookie hunter could have a 170 bird season if they bait holes

I would think as long as the bait was completely gone by the 2nd day, yes

What would you use for bait?

Ok next season 1 day before opening day I'll lightly scatter grain around all the decent spots. That way nobody can hunt them. It will be a quiet day on public.

I don't understand what all the fuss is about. Those guys in Missouri have been baiting for years...

actually all these Hollywood people that have moved to Montana are doing just that to keep hunters from being able to hunt by their weekend houses

and the ole salts sing the blues...thing about doing well, the naysayers and lazy pond hunters always cry foul if they fail and others come out.

Somebody actually did this on a well know "honey hole" in the DFW area. We went and saw the grain and then left. Another group came and said they didn't care and went ahead and hunted it. Don't know if the GW knew and did anything about it. They sure kept me away.

I have been thinking this would be the next PETA tool

Would that be a form of hunter harassment.

Idk cuz they have just as much of a right to be there as we do, and have just as much of a right to spread grain as we do (assuming the authorities allowed it on that body of water).

Article from the 2005 hoiston chronicle


DALLAS - Federal authorities levied a $120,000 fine against an East Texas ranch for hunting ducks over a baited area in violation of federal laws.

The Lockridge Ranch in Anderson County is owned by the family trust of Edwin L. Cox Sr., after whom the business school at Southern Methodist University is named and whose son, Edwin L. Cox Jr., was chairman of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission in the 1980s.

In addition to the fine, the Cox family trust agreed that waterfowl hunting would be prohibited on the property through the end of 2007.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Tyler agreed not to prosecute any Cox family members or ranch employees.

Federal law enforcement officers with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service raided the ranch in November after receiving information from a former employee. The baiting appears to have gone on for at least the past five years, authorities said.

Prosecutors said they had evidence the ranch bought 95,000 pounds of grain sorghum from 1999 though late 2004.

A few years ago there was an outfitter NE of Dallas that used to be on this forum that had clients fined for duck hunting a baited area on private land. The outfitter paid the fines if I remember.

Also around that same time I remember the Forest Service closed to duck hunting a public lake NE of Dallas when an area on the lake was found to have been baited. Thus for that season ruining it for everyone that hunts that lake.

I am pretty sure there is no public water in Texas where baiting, even out of season will be legal.