Anderson: Whitetail hunters pinched for baiting deer can lose money, licenses and guns

If you’re a farmer, cutting corn is a prelude to taking the crop to market and selling it for cash.

But if you’re a hunter and you cut corn in a way that helps you kill a deer, or might help you kill a deer, the practice doesn’t pay.

It costs.

A lot.

Welcome to modern deer baiting, an illegal practice as old as the hills — and just as dirty.

Reports filed by Minnesota Department of Natural Resources conservation officers (COs) during this fall’s firearms deer season underscore the frequency with which hunters — better known in this case as poachers — attempt to illegally attract deer to within shooting range using bait.

In the old days, which weren’t that long ago, unskilled whitetail hunters attempted to attract deer to within shooting range by dumping apples, pumpkins, corn or other munchables near their stands.

Hunters’ odds of seeing deer increase in the cleared areas. But mowing the lanes also can chop and spread corn cobs, transforming the crop field — for a time, at least — into an illegally baited hunting area.

So common is this practice in Minnesota that DNR conservation officers earlier this fall took the unusual step of clarifying on Facebook that unless the mowing or brush hogging is done well in advance of deer season, and unless all evidence of crop residue is gone at least 10 days before the area is hunted, this practice is baiting — with no gray area.

“There was a lot of misinformation on social media about this,” said DNR Assistant Enforcement Division Director Robert Gorecki. “Mowing through corn, for example, is not considered a ‘normal or accepted’ agricultural practice. If it were, that would be OK. And of course it’s OK to plant corn or another crop and leave it for food for wildlife. But it can’t be cut in ways that distribute the crop, and is also hunted over, unless it’s all gone for 10 days before hunting, or unless it’s part of a ‘normal and accepted’ farming practice.”

DNR conservation officers this season have issued 102 citations and warnings for baiting.

Among the worst outcomes of baiting is that it often pits neighbor against neighbor.

Most DNR baiting citations are the result of tips COs receive ahead of a hunting season — or even during a previous season. Using this information, as an opener approaches, an officer who suspects baiting will inspect a suspicious hunting area on foot or using an ATV.

DNR pilots also are trained to spot baited hunting locations from the air.

“Typically we don’t go in on opening day and disturb someone’s hunt unless we have concrete evidence that people are baiting or will be hunting over bait,” said CO Lt. Dustin Miller, stationed in southwest Minnesota. ”In my district alone last year, we made 10 baiting cases."

Minnesota hunters can also run afoul of baiting laws if they buy certain licking blocks at feed stores and similar locations, and place the attractants near their blinds.

“It can get tricky,” Gorecki said. “In Minnesota, salt and mineral blocks are legal. But similar-looking blocks that have molasses or other food in them and that are designed to attract deer are illegal.”

“The other thing,” Gorecki said, “is that baiting for deer doesn’t always work the way someone might think it will. Corn, for instance, is a high-calorie food. If deer know they can find it and get their fill in 15 minutes or so, they might reduce their movements, thus making them less accessible to hunters. Bait can also make deer more nocturnal than they otherwise might be.”