I went hunting in West Virginia over the Thanksgiving holiday. My brother-in-law found us a nice place to hunt that I had never been. So the first morning, I got before dawn, took my flash light, and took off from the opposite direction he went. I got to the top of a ridge, jumped some deer, really nice deer trail. (Don’t delete, it ties to turkey sort of). So I found a tree, and went up in my stand. I knew I would need a lot of luck as I have no information on the place. I did see a few deer, but nothing I could get a shot at. At noon, I decided I better get down and look around. I went out the ridge about a hundred yards, and 10 feet over on the adjoining property there was a feeder, and corn everywhere.

Now here is my question. I think this is legal in West Virginia, but I was thinking, as when deer hunting you always have plenty of time to do. If I were in Virginia I would be considered to be hunting over bait because I was not 200 yards from it that morning. But it was on the adjoining property and I did not know it was there. I have small piece of land. If someone wanted to prevent me from legally hunting my land, all they would have to do would place a feeder near the line.

What do you think? Do you think I am correct?

Coach... that would be an interesting scenario. My first reaction would be to call the GW and let him decide what I should/could do. Man, that would stink...

Maybe someone else has an idea about the legalities of it...

Coach, I think that even where baiting is illegal, you would need to be acting in concert with the person who put out the feeder before your actions on YOUR property (seperate property) could be held illegal. Even if you had knowledge of the feeder, I would think that you could cover yourself legally by writing a letter to the owner of the adjacent property requesting the he remove the feeder from within proximity of your property. That's not to say that there aren't GW's who might see the situation differently. But they are not the final say in the justice system. And I'm not sure exactly how the baiting statute is worded in VA. There are several steps before somebody would be convicted of something like that. Of course if you plead guilty you waive your rights, generally without recourse.

Well here is the portion of the VA law dealing with baiting;



The code section can be found here http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+29.1-521

The key parts in regards to your question are,

To knowingly occupy any baited blind or other baited place and There shall be a rebuttable presumption that a person charged with violating this subdivision knows that he is occupying a baited blind or other baited place

I could not find a set distance that you had to be away from a bait/feeding station. This like on almost every misdemeanor, is Officer discretion. It would be very hard to charge someone for baiting if the bait was on anothers man property and you were any distance from that property. Now if you were crowding the property line and could hear the feeder from your stand, you might get in trouble

To place a feeder near the property line to keep you from hunting would be a pretty low down thing to do! I am afraid I would have to try to change it! He might go out one day and find he had no feeder anymore!