Salt lick questions?

What's your favorite? Use year round or when is best time to put out? Any placement suggestions?

There is a real good post in this section if you want more info on this topic I start making or refreshing my licks in Feb and keep them freshened up to bow season I like finding a stump or level ground fairly close to a heavily used deer trail

A lot of people like trophy rocks but they leave a bad after taste on the margaritas if you ask me. I always placed mine on the rim of the glass.

Josh you better watch out when hunting theirs a lot of spike killers in this state. On second thought the trophy rock usually helps the rack may wind up a 4 pt.

Nows the time. Deer seem to hit ours hard from March til Oct. I've placed mine over the years in all different types of places. In stumps, sandy bottoms, clay hills, etc. they hit the ones in the clay soils much better than the sandy bottom soil. They'll dissolve and seep into the soil. They've hit the ones in the sand but they dig huge holes for the ones in the clay. I imagine its better on their teeth, stomach and pucker. Try to find a good trail that's somewhat easily accessible so they can be replaced. I break the place down into 100 acre blocks and put one out for every hundred acres. They are all heavily used.

I've observed so many different usage patterns of salt-licks and/or Trophy Rocks that I can't tell you "what is best." I've seen locations where deer use salt-licks year round, and then I've seen areas where deer only use them during the summer months. The most common pattern is peak usage March through September (or through October in hotter climates). As for placement, I've seen great results from placing Trophy Rocks on stumps. In fact, the rocks appear to last longer with that placement. Personally, I've always placed mine on root wads--the big mounds of dirt that are formed when a tree tips over by the roots. In addition, I seek out root-wads that contain red clay. For whatever reason, red clay (high iron content) seems to make the salt-lick more attractive to deer over other types of clay soil. I have had poor results creating salt-licks in sandy soil.

As for a recommended density of licks, some suggest one per 100 acres, but I think one per every quarter square mile (160 acres) would be sufficient. I've tried everything from one per 60 acres to one per 160 acres, and even at the lower density, I still see individual deer using multiple sites. On my personal 500-acre property, I have 7 established salt-licks, and I've photographed individual bucks using all 7 sites over the course of a week or two.

My best ones are in hard red clay that holds rain water. I use the brown mineral blocks that weigh 50# and cost about $6.00 each on sale.

50 lbs bag of plain white salt per site. Place anywhere you want, as long as it's on the ground. I've never had any luck with it on stumps or logs. Deer Cocaine is also a great additive. I've started spots using only the deer cocaine. Just pour it on the ground and the rain will melt it into the ground.

Clorox....Somebody had to say it!

If finding red clay on your property is difficult, I like to dig out a good sized hole and fill it with the thickest clay I can find. This way you can create a lick anywhere you want and see good results. I like to overdo it a bit and have one lick per 100 acres. This is also the same place I use as my bait site for camera surveys.

Because I get better results over salt than food-based bait, I use my salt-licks as my camera census bait.

Can you expand on why you get better results over salt vs bait?

I think it's because virtually all deer will come to a lick but some deer will never come to bait, whether it's a feed trough or a pile of apples. It's like they sense something isn't quite right. I've seen mature bucks over a lick that were never seen anywhere else.

That is just the case for my property. I have seen very different results from food-bait versus salt from property to property, as well as some regional patterns.

Several years ago I began questioning the results of my late summer baited photo censuses (I wasn't seeing the mature bucks I was sure existed at the time of the census). So I set up an experiment where I ran concurrent dual photo-censuses, one with food-bait and the other with salt as the attractant. I got every age buck at the salt, with many, many repeat visits. Yet over food (corn), I could rarely if ever get the oldest bucks. Since that experiment, I only run my late summer photo censuses over salt-licks.

I have seen this pattern repeated on other properties, especially in areas with agriculture present in summer. On the other hand, I've also seen situations where deer ignored salt, but corn would draw them like it was crack. And I tend to see this heavy preference for food over salt in areas with the sandiest soils.

I use salt based (Trophy Rocks) only too...I haven't seen better results necessarily, but just as good...and with the ever increasing price of corn, salt based is much, much more affordable!

And safer. Corn can develop deadly levels of aflatoxin in just a few days of exposure to our summer humidity.

I'd think in Summer they prefer browse which is very abundant in most areas except closed canopy, mature forest. Combine browse with some ag crops, if available and a pile of corn probably isn't very appealing.
I've never had a problem getting plenty of pics using my di-cal and red trace mineral mix.

If you have a sandy loam- less than efficient clay- red clay base... Line your hole perfectly dug to burlap bag dimensions- about 3 feet deep sloping along perimeter with overhang alliwance....

Lay 2 burlap bags one top of each other.... Place about 1-2 feet of soil on top - pack down- throw down 50-100 lbs of deer minerals(tractor supply is my choice-- bury with remaining soil- add more minerals on top- place cattle protein block and trophy rock- water with 2-5 gallons of water.....place cameras - check 30-60 days later(this is a february 1st strategy that today would be a force multiplier for velvet and womb issues