Summer Preparation
Posted by
Scott Mensing
|
Posted in
Still Imagery
,
Whitetails
|
Posted on
Sunday, June 06, 2010
During the hot, summer months, many hunters have not yet started thinking about the upcoming whitetail season. Bo and I are not like most hunters though and whitetails are on our minds all year long! While fields are sprouting new crops and whitetails are growing their new antlers during the summer, they consume large amounts of minerals that are necessity for them to remain healthy and grow a full rack during the year. Bo and I are adamant about supplementing our deer herds with additional sources of minerals by placing mineral stations and salt licks throughout the property. Mineral supplements come in a variety of forms and it seems that we use a little of everything during the last couple of years. Today, Bo and I had a couple of hours so we decided to freshen up a few existing salt licks on one of our Missouri properties.
These salt licks were started over four years ago and are still going strong. Even without replenishment since early last fall, the deer were still pawing at and eating the mud within the old lick.
One cheap salt lick recipe that Bo and I have had success with over the years is one box of Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda and 40-50lbs of salt. Our local grocery store happened to have a sale on salt pellets most people use for their water softeners.....we had a different use today.
Another great benefit of mineral and salt stations is they provide us with a great place to get an early season inventory check on some of the bucks living on the property. The deer absolutely love these licks and will usually stick around for five to ten minutes to get their picture taken and usually provide a couple of different angles for the camera. Hopefully the first card pull here in three to four weeks will allow us to put a couple new bucks on our 2010 hit list.
After freshening up the licks, we had a little bit of time to double check a stand to make sure it was still safe and secure and do a little bit of visual scouting. We did come across three or four different sets of buck tracks that definitely got us excited for the upcoming season!
Glad to see you find my Arm and Hammer Washing Soda trick so useful. :D
I've been using it for over 10 years now, and it still produces some GREAT results for me. No need to buy anything besides it and salt!
Vince
Vince, I noticed that Bo accidentily deleted your comment when he was trying to erase his triple comment, but yeah, I admit, we have stolen your magical salt lick recipe. I've seen your pictures of licks being the size of a car after five years or so of deer continuously hitting it. Thanks again for the recipe though!!
Sounds and looks like a great thing to try! how big of a bag of salt pellets or whatever is that and whats that cost?
No stealing when its posted on the internet Scott! I'm glad to see others putting it to use! It sure attracts the deer! I can't wait to share some trail camera photos with you guys in the next month!
Vince
Hopefully with all of the rain the KCMO area got in the last few days, we didn't get all of our licks washed away. We always like a little bit of rain to get them going, but not as much as we have seen lately. We'll probably double check them this weekend to get a quick card pull and see how the cameras are operating.
I've got my first set of batteries on charge right now, and I plan on getting the cameras out in the woods in the next two or three days. All this rain, they are going to be hung at about 7 feet or so this year, so I don't have to chance the flood waters taking them away!
I'm guessing the licks I made about a month ago are not doing very well. Not so much the rain, but the flooding down in my hunting spot.
Vince