Michigan Hunters Turn To Food To Attract Big Bucks
BAY CITY (AP) - Kawkawlin resident Ryan Albertson is one of a number of area hunters looking to get a leg up this deer hunting season by putting out a bait pile.
Albertson said he plans on baiting "up until season."
"I usually stop baiting around season and work off everybody else's bait piles," Albertson said. "It'll make hunting a little easier."
Up until recently, putting out a bait pile was also illegal. That changed in June. After a three-year ban on bait piles in the Lower Peninsula, the Michigan Natural Resources Commission lifted the block and hunters are once again turning to food to attract big bucks.
Michael Mathie, the owner of Historic Kawkawlin Feed Mill, said that with the ban gone, he is slowly seeing his business come back. Mathie and his wife, Melissa, have owned the mill since 1997, but saw a drop-off in the number of deer feed sales during the three months baiting is allowed in Michigan - October, November and December.
"When (the ban) came in, we dropped almost $300,000 in those three months," Mathie said. "That was the mainstay of the business."
The Department of Natural Resources placed the ban on bait piles in 2008 after a deer in Kent County was found with chronic waste disease.
After three years of testing, no other cases of the disease were found, DNR representative Mary Dettloff said. DNR asked for public comment on the issue, Dettloff said, and reactions to repealing the bait ban have been split.
"It's been mixed. Some people supported repealing the ban, and some didn't," Dettloff said.
She said about two-thirds of the comments the DNR received were in favor of lifting the ban, and that guided the DNR's decision.
Mathie said business is picking up with hunting season around the corner.
"The deer hunters are starting to come in. I would say (recently), we had 15 to 18 customers I wouldn't've had just because of the change in the baiting law," Mathie said.
Despite the increase, Mathie said the state may have scared off some hunters permanently with the ban.
"With the deer baiting ban, many of the people have gone to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky," Mathie said. "They just wouldn't hunt in this state with the regulations enforced on them."
Dettloff said the DNR does not support the practice of bait piles and said it would prefer hunters plant food plots - food planted "as part of normal farming practices," according to the DNR website. Mathie said food plots can be expensive and time consuming, so hunters who only have a weekend to go out would prefer bait piles.
The website also said hunters are allowed to bait from Oct. 1 to Jan. 1 and piles "must be dispersed over a minimum of a 10-foot by 10-foot area," and hunters cannot place more than two gallons worth of food.
Dettloff said the DNR does monitor bait piles, including responding to complaints and aerial surveillance to look for illegal piles. Despite the regulations, Dettloff said, bait piles violating the rules are "fairly common."
There are still some restrictions on bait piles in northeast Michigan counties. Six counties, including Alcona, Alpena and Oscoda, still have a ban on bait piles due to bovine tuberculosis, the DNR website said.
Even with the restrictions, Mathie is hopeful business will grow to pre-ban sales. "Hopefully we'll get it where it's 20, 25 people a day," Mathie said. "That's what it used to be."
Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
