nice bucks

lookin good, that last buck is bad. good luck with them.

STX - We dig a shallow hole about 2-3' in diameter. Pour a little in then mix it with dirt, pour a little more then mix it with dirt, then pour the remaining amount on top. We don't use more than 10lbs at a time. It takes about a year to establish a site in most cases and every lease I've been on I've had to use a different type of mineral. I'm a believer in the stuff though.

Uncle - This is the first time I've posted any pics from this spot on the lease.

When I built my pen I tried leaving out panels but the deer just weren't comfortable. I also used hog panels so that the feeder wasn't too high. Half way through the season I took them all down and immediately had several deer back eating under the feeder. I doubt I try the pen again.

Great bucks Fishenstein. Which part of east Texas?

STX- I've been using that Black Magic deer mineral supplement in Nacogdoches and in Louisiana, and the deer have been making craters trying to get to it. You can ask Classic Rocks, he was there.

I have tried that method with various minerals in the past with little to no success at all. As part of the Wildlife Tax Exempt. I can use minerals and tried some minerals sites like this with the Acco Mineral I could bet locally. No usage I can tell in over a year and even freshened them this May with a new bag and put some corn on top to try to get the deer interest up. There is a Purina Dealer about 20 miles from me so I will see if they have the new Purina Mineral, since I tried 2 different Purina Minerals in the past as a test site guinea pig for Purina. Neither of them worked then with several different delivery styles. I have tried this on ranches with high protein consumption and always felt they were getting all the mineral thru the pellet. This place has limited consumpiton now in almost a year on it. So if the deer need any mineral they would be seeking it out I would think.

I think if they are getting all of the nutrition they need from natural browse then I don't think they are as apt to visit the mineral sites. There are definitely certain types of the year that they hit the minerals harder. If we have a real bad summer and there's not much forage then I will get pics all day long every day, especially from does that are nursing. I've never been on a place that had a protein feeding program but I'm sure that would effect the amount of usage the mineral sites would get.

We also only use it March - August. We don't see much activity once the velvet comes off and the fawns are no longer nursing.

have u guys seen any kind of natural mineral sites in texas? i have a spot on my place that is a little bigger than a backyard swimming pool and it is literally covered in tracks all the time. not just a trail or two through it, literally footprint next to footprint all over it, and the dirt is a lighter cooler, almost has a white or salty look to it, which i always thought it was, some type of natural salt deposit area, if that is even a thing.

i've never put a camera on it, maybe i will today when i get out there, just out of curiosity.

I was at a seminar where a guy had some research started on mineral sites for delivery and usage by deer till they ran out of money . Said in the 2+ years he had TC pics on various sites to test there was no data that was concrete yet. He said on ranch they used it heavy one spring and then never again. One ranch they never used them at all. One ranch the bucks mainly used them in the fall after shedding velvet. Another he had most usage in the summer. No one location had any activity year round on the site. IRRC this test research was being done in western Louisiana at that time.

My guess is that it is a communal scrape. One that every deer uses. Usually on the downwind side of a feeder or foodplot. If you have a prevailing southeast wind it will be about 80-100yds off the northwest side of the food source. I had those around feeders and food plots on a couple of ranches. You could find lots of shed antlers in those locations if you had the scrapes. It is a spot where deer meet up to stage and interact before heading into feed. They can be used year round around feeders or during a time when the food plot is planted.

I think every area will be different. On the three leases that I've been on in the past 13 years I have had to use different types of minerals and some times move the mineral site until I found where they liked it. I have years of pictures that prove to me that they work. I'll dig up some other photos from years past and post them.

I would bet a lot has to do with soil type and Ph levels.

We've had hogs to jump our cattle panels that were cut in half.

Lookin good

Send some of those boys over to my place in Jefferson, would ya?

Dead Eye - I use to hunt in Jefferson. That is where I first started using mineral sites. I used Vita-Rack and they loved it. That was before I started using game cameras so I never knew what was coming to them but there was always a large hole where they had been using it. You may give it a try.

Here are a few bucks from years past. I have several pics over the years but these are a few of the better ones. I ended up killing the big 10 pointer. He scored 150.

And we see does and fawns on a TC's all the time.