Baiting Deer in Michigan: Rules, Penalties, and House Bill 4445

Baiting deer in Michigan is banned across the entire Lower Peninsula and allowed in the Upper Peninsula only under strict limits, including a two-gallon volume cap per hunting site during a defined fall window. The restrictions exist to slow Chronic Wasting Disease, and violating them is a misdemeanor carrying up to 90 days in jail, fines up to $1,000, and loss of hunting privileges for the year of conviction plus the next three calendar years.¹ A bill to lift the Lower Peninsula ban passed the Michigan House in early 2026, but the ban remains in force while the Senate considers it.

The geographic rule is simple. Baiting and feeding are both banned throughout the Lower Peninsula, on public and private land.² The Natural Resources Commission imposed that ban in 2019 after CWD was detected in free-ranging deer across multiple Lower Peninsula counties.³ Baiting is legal in the Upper Peninsula, but only during a defined season and under volume and dispersal rules.

Upper Peninsula Baiting Rules

If you hunt in the UP, you can bait from September 15 through January 1. Hunters eligible for the Liberty Hunt may start baiting five days before that season opens.² Three specific requirements apply:

No more than two gallons of bait at any single hunting site at one time.
Bait must be spread across at least a 10-foot by 10-foot area.
Bait must be scattered directly on the ground. Mechanical spin-cast feeders are allowed, but they cannot distribute more than the two-gallon maximum.

The DNR also recommends against placing bait repeatedly at the exact same spot on the ground and suggests baiting only when you are actively hunting, to reduce disease transmission at concentrated feeding points.²

What Counts as Bait

Michigan defines bait as any substance intended for deer to eat that is composed of grains, minerals (including salt and salt blocks), fruits, vegetables, hay, or other food materials used as an aid in hunting. Feed uses the same list of materials but covers attractants placed for any purpose other than hunting, such as backyard viewing.² Both are banned in the Lower Peninsula.

Food plots, naturally occurring foods, standing agricultural crops, and anything placed through normal farming practices are not considered bait. A cornfield next to your hunting spot is legal. However, constructing or maintaining any food plot or artificial garden to attract wildlife on public land is prohibited.²

Scent-based attractants are still legal in the Lower Peninsula, but they must be placed so deer cannot eat or physically contact them. Urine-based scent products remain legal for mock scrapes, drag ropes, and wicks.²

The Disability Exception in the Lower Peninsula

Michigan carves out a narrow exception for certain hunters with disabilities in the Lower Peninsula. Qualifying hunters may use bait during the Liberty and Independence Hunts only, starting five days before each hunt begins. The same two-gallon and 10-by-10-foot dispersal rules apply.²

To qualify, a hunter must meet one of the following:

A veteran rated at 100-percent disability or individually unemployable by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
A hunter who holds a DNR permit to hunt from a standing vehicle.
A hunter who holds a DNR permit to use a laser-sighting device.
An individual with visual acuity of 20/200 or less in the better eye with correction, or a visual field no wider than 20 degrees.
An individual unable to process information aurally, with or without amplification, whose primary communication is visual.

This is the only legal way to use bait in the Lower Peninsula. There is no general-purpose permit or variance available.²

Feeding Deer in the Upper Peninsula

Feeding for recreational viewing is a separate activity from baiting and follows its own tighter rules in the UP. You may put out no more than two gallons of feed per residence per calendar day, and no more than two gallons may be present at any one time. Feed must be scattered on the ground within 100 yards of your residence on land you own or occupy, and at least 100 yards from any area accessible to livestock or captive deer.²

Supplemental winter feeding has stricter conditions still. It can only occur between January 1 and May 15, feed must be placed at least a quarter mile from the nearest paved public highway and at least one mile from livestock or commercial crop fields, and only certain materials qualify: grains, second-cut alfalfa and clover, and pelletized food with no animal protein. Feed must be scattered on the ground to a depth of no more than three inches, and it cannot double as hunting bait.²

Penalties for Baiting Violations

A baiting violation is a misdemeanor. The size of the penalty depends on whether the offense involved actually taking deer or just placing illegal bait.

General Violations

A person who violates any provision of the wildlife conservation law, including baiting and feeding orders, faces up to 90 days in jail, a fine between $50 and $500, court costs, and revocation of any DNR permit.¹

Violations Involving Deer

When the violation involves possessing or taking deer, the penalties climb. The minimum jail term is five days, the maximum is 90 days, and the fine ranges from $200 to $1,000 plus court costs. The convicted person also loses all hunting privileges for the remainder of the year of conviction and the following three calendar years.¹ If you bait illegally and harvest a deer over that bait, mandatory jail time, a stiffer fine, and years without a hunting license all follow.

Extra Time for Antlered Bucks

Illegally killing an antlered white-tailed deer adds revocation periods on top of the base three-year ban. A first offense adds two more calendar years (five total), and a second offense adds seven more years (ten total).⁴

Restitution

Beyond fines, Michigan requires convicted poachers to pay restitution based on the animal taken. Base restitution for a white-tailed deer is $1,000. For an antlered buck with 8 to 10 points, add $500 per point on top of an additional $1,000. For a buck with 11 or more points, add $750 per point. A 12-point buck could carry restitution of $11,000 before fines and court costs.⁴

Federal Exposure Under the Lacey Act

Hunters who transport deer taken in violation of Michigan’s baiting laws across state lines face a second layer of liability under the federal Lacey Act, which prohibits trafficking in wildlife taken in violation of any state law. Driving a deer killed over illegal bait into another state can trigger federal charges even without intent to sell.

The penalties scale with intent. A knowing violation involving sale, purchase, or import/export of wildlife worth more than $350 is a felony punishable by up to $20,000 in fines and five years in prison. A violation where the person should have known the wildlife was taken illegally is a misdemeanor with up to $10,000 in fines and one year in prison. Civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation can apply even to negligent conduct, and the government can seize equipment used in the violation.⁵

Carcass transport rules add another layer. Many states prohibit importing whole deer carcasses or brain and spinal column tissue from areas where CWD has been detected. If you hunt in Michigan and plan to bring meat home to another state, most jurisdictions only allow boned-out meat, quarters with no spinal column attached, cleaned skull plates, and finished taxidermy. Check the import rules for every state you plan to cross.

Why the Ban Exists

CWD is the reason for the restrictions. It is a fatal neurological disease caused by misfolded proteins called prions that attack the brain and spinal cord of deer, elk, and moose. Infected animals lose weight, behave abnormally, and eventually die. There is no treatment and no vaccine. The prions concentrate in brain, spinal cord, and lymph tissue, and they persist in soil for years.

Bait piles multiply disease risk because they draw deer into unnaturally close contact. A group of deer feeding nose-to-nose at a two-gallon corn pile share saliva and nasal secretions far more intensely than they would while browsing naturally across a woodlot. Concentrated feeding sites also attract non-target wildlife like raccoons and turkeys, which can increase predation on ground-nesting birds and expose turkeys to aflatoxicosis, a potentially fatal poisoning caused by fungi that grow on corn and other grains used as bait. CWD has been confirmed in free-ranging white-tailed deer across multiple Michigan counties, concentrated in the Lower Peninsula.

Where House Bill 4445 Stands

House Bill 4445 would amend the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act to allow deer baiting during hunting season statewide, effectively overriding the Natural Resources Commission’s ban. It would formally define “deer or elk baiting” as a legal category separate from feeding and set conditions under which baiting could occur.³

The bill passed the Michigan House in early 2026 and moved to the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Agriculture, where it remained pending as of the most recent reports. Governor Whitmer has not publicly taken a position. Until the bill clears the Senate and is signed into law, the Lower Peninsula ban is fully in effect, and hunting over bait in reliance on future passage exposes you to the misdemeanor penalties above.

1
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Code 324.40118 – Violation as Misdemeanor; Penalty
2
Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Baiting and Feeding Regulations
3
Michigan Legislature. House Bill 4445 Legislative Analysis
4
Michigan Courts. DNR Penalties
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 16 USC 3373 – Penalties