Hoyt_Viper

Mineral sights for cameras.

I will be the first to admit I may overdo it slightly, but Ive gone through 3 bags of "rack up" mineral attractant in 3 different locations. In each I have various salt/licking blocks with persimmon, apples, and corn compressed into a block. I have a Southern States closeby and have gone through 150#'s spreading deer corn with molasses around these sights, along with buckets of pears from my trees in back yard. I do this where I have cams set up to stop the long enough for a picture, but in some ways all of this food and minerals, out in the forest doesn not look natural, and wondering if it may spook the deer? Other than my possible scent fromclearing the ground.

Any suggestions, or should I continue. Imtrying to get the deer to get used to theselocation for their daily fix...hopefully to have them return regularly. Is it possible to spook the deer with this much "unnatural food sources"?

GMMAT

I live in an area with a lot of deer. But I can tell you that you shouldn't need to put other attractants to get them to frequent your minerals.

I put mine out the first time....and got photos the same night. How they knew it was there.....I don't know (unless they can smell it REALLY well).

Buckmaster (who lives in an area with less deer density) followed my instructions (not mine, really....but consensus instructions) to a T (same method of administering the minerals) and he got the exact same results.

Neither of us used any other form of attractant. We used Dicalcium phosphate, trace minerals and rock salt.....in a 3'x3' hole dug out.....with the mineral mixture and the natural soils mixed back into the "hole".

I think the other attractants likely aren't "hurting"....but I question their necessity.

Good luck.

chrowski

I don't bait at all as I'm on public land most of the time, but how could it be possible to spook deer?

My logic is based on all those TV shows with all out feeder troughs. Does a deer approach that 150lbs of corn raised off the ground 2.5 feet and say "I'd better run away because this doesn't look natural" or look at those giant motion sensor activated things in Texas that drop corn right on top of the deer while they're standing there. They're not saying "it's raining corn I better run"

Moral of my unexperienced, strictly observation story is that once they're used to it I think they'd consider it a gift from the heavens before a threat.

GMMAT

Deer aren't natural "trough" feeders. I've witnessed them walk past a feeder to browse, naturally (if alternatives exist). I've also nevr seen one stand by a corn feeder for more than a minute or two.

It's NOT "natural", to them.

This is another reason I do my mineral site the way I do it (in the ground). THAT is "natural". A block, above gorund, concentrated....is NOT. I feel like I get more "hits" on mine because of the way it's presented.

Hoyt_Viper

I tried the mineralblocks right after turkey season ended and got a ton of oppossum, raccoon, fox, rabbits and turkeys checking it out mostly. I then switched to Rack Up mineral/attractant and put in 3x3 ground turned over and the deer started coming, however it didnt take long for the nutrients to not be visible, whether they soaked into the earth or scavenged by the turkeys, groundhogs, and coons. I got tons of pictures of all the aboove enjoying these minerals.

I found the deer trails and kinda led a line from them a few feet with deer corn to the minerals, as well as a salt block. To me it just looked unnatural. Like a deer would be very cautios coming up to this smorgasborg.

Anyway, I have cams on them now and plan to check the outcome this coming weekend. I will post some pictures of just who on the food chain is using them the most.