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Bait pile cost per year?

giles

Cull buck specialist
Supporting Member
Its more for people spending big money, denny. If you start your live cams it might be worth it. First step is buying an old gravity wagon. Odds are, your local farmer has one he doesn't want/need anymore. Offer to buy it and also offer him to fill it at spot market that day. Just don't fill it with wet corn and you will be good for a while. Create a relationship with that guy. Keep everything local and everyone wins.
 

hickslawns

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
39,721
248
Ohio
Zero on corn. $50 gets me enough minerals for a few years. Think I spent $30-40 on the 55 gal drum with screw on lid to keep them dry.
 
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Wildlife

Denny
Supporting Member
5,248
191
Ross County, Ohio
Its more for people spending big money, denny. If you start your live cams it might be worth it. First step is buying an old gravity wagon. Odds are, your local farmer has one he doesn't want/need anymore. Offer to buy it and also offer him to fill it at spot market that day. Just don't fill it with wet corn and you will be good for a while. Create a relationship with that guy. Keep everything local and everyone wins.

There are two big farms right next door to me. Sure, one of the owners will let me shoot up all their coyotes for'em because he wants the deer healthy and safe for his son, but to hunt that same property to perhaps help him out to minimize deer corp-damage, forget it. I stand a better chance of getting struck by lighting, twice, than to get his permission to hunt his hundreds, if not thousands of acres of prime hunting grounds for deer.

I've offered to help the guy out with other kinds of stuff as well, and not just for an exchange of hunting permission either, but just to be neighborly and nice. I just know the guy could use a little bit of help from time to time because I see'em just about everyday busting his tail off.

Basically, what I am getting at, there are those that either really want the help or simply don't care either way, and then there are those that want you to stay completely the hell away for the most part.

I just happen to have one of each nearby. The one that allows me to hunt, is more a business type of guy than a farmer that truly understands the value of managing wildlife species on his property that he really can not do for himself. The other, well, he's definitely more hard headed, but still a real nice guy, with all that beautiful land that he owns, and he does bitch about all the deer just about every time I've talk to him. He only allows one person to deer hunt it, which is his adult son that lives completely far off someplace else.

Hey, I get it, it's his land, and he can do whatever the hell he wants with it. I do appreciate the fact that he does allow me coyote hunt it because the place is just thick full of'em, but man, he also has a shit ton of some outstanding deer over there too.

IDK, I guess I'll still keep trying to work with the guy and see what happens. It would be convenient and perhaps cheaper for me to see if he's willing to sell me some of his corn too. He sure does harvests hundreds and hundreds of acres of it, every year.

I suppose I'll ask him when I get over there for my next coyote hunt if he's willing to sell me a truck load of his corn because he drives right by my place hundreds of times each fall with that old box truck of his that often breaks down along the side of the road, just full of it.

I always wave 'high' to him each time I see him at the road driving by, usually while I'm heading out for another deer hunt. So, we'll see what happens and I'll report back if I am successful with him in getting some of his corn.

What's also funny, his wife one day offered to me to go ahead and deer hunt the place, but I knew she must have been mistaken because I was telling her that I was there to do a coyote hunt, not to deer hunt. I never mentioned that to her husband either, which I knew better not too.

Anyhow, like I said, we'll see what happens here over the course of the next couple of months. I do have every intensions of taking care of the deer that are closets to my place though, as best as I can. I just know that most, if not all of the mature bucks in the area are right now over on that farmer's property that no one else gets to hunt, but his son, and he does not always hunt it every year either. Oh yeah, life is good!
 
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jagermeister

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
18,060
223
Ohio
I don't really spend any money on corn/bait, aside from a mineral site or two throughout the summer. But around early September I'll kick my cell cam data plans back in, and that costs me $40 per month. This year I killed my buck relatively early, so I didn't have much into it. Other years when I run cams through December, I'll have $200 or more in cell data charges, plus batteries.
 
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giles

Cull buck specialist
Supporting Member
The business guy will sell to you. At spot price, it is fair. He also doesn't have the cost of fuel, elevator isn't going to ding him for damage/infestation or turn him away for VomiToxin. Win/win as a business standpoint.
 

Wildlife

Denny
Supporting Member
5,248
191
Ross County, Ohio
The business guy will sell to you. At spot price, it is fair. He also doesn't have the cost of fuel, elevator isn't going to ding him for damage/infestation or turn him away for VomiToxin. Win/win as a business standpoint.

Next growing season will be nothing but soybeans for the business guy, plus he leases it out to a third parrty that does all the farming.

So, my best chance for convenient corn will be from the local farmer that grows it on a regular/annually basis, would be the farmer that lets me coyote hunt only.

Trust me, I'm gonna ask the guy here soon for corn and I'll find out forsure if he'll sell it to me at a fair price.

As far as storing bulk corn, I'll ask him about that too.

Maybe, just maybe, all I'll have to do is just drive over there with my pickup and he'll let me fill up the bed of the truck with corn, but IDK just yet about that either.

Rest assure though, I'm definitely gonna look into it and find out what's the best option for me.

Right now, it's nothing but store bought bags of corn at what I consider a fair price.
 

giles

Cull buck specialist
Supporting Member
Just to put numbers to it.

I think the radio said corn closed at $4.15 a bushel yesterday (56 pounds). So the store bought bag is 6 pounds short and the bag is $2.
 
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Stressless

Active Member
2,128
85
Keene, OH
@Bowkills - sorry about that lease rabbit hole.

Bait and costs.

Didn't bait for decades, than an outfitter came in and leased about 5,000-6000 acres around me and the two neighbors. (900 acres)

The outfitter makes bait sites for his clients to hunt over, exclusively. Keeps his bait piles running about June to Feb. He cycles hunters through his stands over bait Sep- Jan, killing many more bucks than just regular 'neighboring' hunters would at one buck per licensed hunter. He is very successful in sucking damn near every mature buck off the private 900 acres, his bait sites literally ring the properties.

We've found to keep some good bucks we had to sweeten our lands with corn feeders, not bait piles to get the longest attractiondurationfor the #'s of bait bought. That took about four years to figure out. To defray the costs of bait I've cut about 2 acres of woods down for multiple plots. 2021 will be the experiment to see if I can hold mature deer past bow season without baiting. I'll be following the Whitetail Habitat Solutions 'No Till' formula for maximum food in the Oct-Jan time frame.

In 2021 ill have ~5 acreas in plots that in 2021 should cost about $300 (seed and spray) frost seed, Birdsong Trefoil, clover, chicory, then spray, mow, plant buckwheat, spray and mow, then plant peas, beans, oats, brassica, then plant rye(twice for layers)

Corn goes out in feeders mid Sep as the bucks move to their fall territory about then. '21 will see 8 Boss Buck 350#'s, 1 600# on me and one neighbor. (500 Acres combined).

The other neighbor (400 acres) has no food plots or bait piles/feeders. He does have about 120 acres in low value, unfertilized, poor pH hay. He has had 0, zero, none, not one decent mature buck on camera the entire year. That land gets zero pressure during bow season, he's the only hunter.

I kept track this year and filled the feeders about every 14 days.

For just one less filling, I can recover the costs of seed and spray, for a couple fillings, Mid Nov, Early Dec, late Dec to keep the bucks from going to the outfitters bait sites I can buy couple UTV farm implements, harrow and culitpacker to up the value of each square meter of my plots.

I'm blessed to be in an area with a good number of mature bucks, to have a chance at them based on the local 'environment' I have to bait, but I'm doing everything I can to extend each bait fill for the targeted species and reduce the overall time I 'must' bait with late season food sources.

Last, CWD is in Ohio, personally I believe the game farms are the true spreaders for this horror.

Almost every states DNR has imposed a baiting ban to slow the spread of CWD, but not wildlife food plots. When the baiting ban happens, those with good late season plots will be hedged to have some quality hunting.
 

Wildlife

Denny
Supporting Member
5,248
191
Ross County, Ohio
That's funny cause I don't consider myself to be a big spender either, but I do appreciate what you're suggesting, which is try to do business locally and save money, which I am totally for too. So, thanks again, Dave. (y)
 

bowhunter1023

Owner/Operator
Staff member
48,879
274
Appalachia
If this is any indication of how much corn I buy, here's my Christmas gift from the owner of our local feed mill. 😂 Granted, I also buy a lot of chicken feed, straw, lime, fertilizer, propane, and other stuff here too, but I've spent my share of $ on corn here over the years. 100#s of layer pellets and 150#s of corn ran me $44 today and that'll last 2 weeks for both hobbies.

20201224_135926.jpg
 
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Just my thoughts, but with CWD found now in the wild herd, I will bet that the baiting days in Ohio are probably numbered. I do bait a little bit at our camp. At home in PA it is illegal so I don't do it. In my opinion I think that if baiting was illegal in Ohio that you would see more natural movement of deer. They have to move more to find food instead of waiting until after dark to go from corn pile to corn pile.
 

Iowa_Buckeye

Smartest person here
1,776
85
Linn County Iowa
We buy bulk corn for 2 reasons. Late winter, after season if our food plots don’t get us through. And early summer for feeders to get pics as the antlers are growing.
If you are buying hundreds/thousands of pounds, just go to your local elevator and have them auger a load into your truck at market rate. Then put it in totes or garbage cans until you need it. My buddy also did buy an old 250bu grain wagon we will just pull over to the elevator and fill up.
 

Stressless

Active Member
2,128
85
Keene, OH
Last, CWD is in Ohio, personally I believe the game farms are the true spreaders for this horror.

Almost every states DNR has imposed a baiting ban to slow the spread of CWD, but not wildlife food plots. When the baiting ban happens, those with good late season plots will be hedged to have some quality hunting.

Just my thoughts, but with CWD found now in the wild herd, I will bet that the baiting days in Ohio are probably numbered. I do bait a little bit at our camp. At home in PA it is illegal so I don't do it. In my opinion I think that if baiting was illegal in Ohio that you would see more natural movement of deer. They have to move more to find food instead of waiting until after dark to go from corn pile to corn pile.

Exactly - dunno when but it's "if" anymore.
 

Wildlife

Denny
Supporting Member
5,248
191
Ross County, Ohio
It's not much but, it's seems to be getting better or going in the right direction.

I just placed my regular monthly order for whole corn, which is 20/50#bags/month it was cheaper than what I've paid in quite sometime. I've been purchasing TSC whole corn at a locked in same price for nearly a year. This morning it was $10 bucks cheaper in total cost and I could have gotten even cheaper if I wished to use any of my friendly neighbor program savings, but I didn't use it on this go around. I save those bucks for other unforeseen items that tend to pop up unexpectedly occasionally.

Anyhow, thought I'd share this information just in case you happen to be in the market of purchasing some whole corn in the near future.
 
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