Think of it as using bait to switch game from their normal home range to a temporary “feed lot” where they are easier to take. It is called baiting, and it uses any kind of feed or grain, including salt. It endeavors to attract game from farther away than they would normally feed. It is legal ? or illegal ? depending upon the game sought.
It is legal for deer (but not on public lands), and also quail and pheasant. It is illegal for bear, waterfowl, and all other upland game and oh, yes, turkey. This year, turkey baiting violations are around 15 for the first few weeks of the season that ended May 23. More reports are still coming in from the field.
That conforms to past figures, which for 2001 through 2005 numbered respectively 18, 19, 13, 4 and 13. We should be around that upper number by the time all 2006 violations are reported. This year, the problem children were turkeyhunting in Washington County, where eight violations have been reported.
“I have no idea why 2004 only had four (violations),” said Sgt. Ken Turner in an e-mail accompanying the above stats. “Maybe a bad season all around, weather, population, birds didn?t want to talk.”
In any case, the penalties can be steep. A typical baiting violation can net a possible maximum penalty of $500 in a citation, up to $1,500 if fighting it in court. It can reach as high as $4,000 and/or one year of jail for a second offense fought in court.
Imagination and creativity does not work for outlaws trying to beat the baiting rules. Sgt. Turner notes past baiting offenses in which dove hunters scattered sunflower seed pods in a sunflower field that had been bush-hogged down. Hunters attempted to increase food and thus interest by doves in the baited field. Pretty clever, those illegal hunters.
But the Maryland Natural Resources Police noted that the seed pods (scattered and bush-hogged) were of two different kinds of sunflower. The sneaky move did not go unpunished. Pretty smart, those NRP officers.
Bait for turkey is usually corn, although acorns are also used in oak forests, where this mast is available. Baiting works for turkey, but only at a high cost. And it is definitely a deliberate violation. What is there about the illegality of bringing feed into a turkey hunting area that some people don?t understand? Apparently, more than a dozen citizens didn?t make the connection this season ? or chose to ignore it.
C. Boyd Pfeiffer is an internationally-known sportsman and award-winning writer on hunting, fishing and the outdoors, and he has more than 20 books to his credit. He can be reached at [email protected]
