Hunting over salt/mineral sites

Didn’t want to hijack the other thread(s) but the itch is starting to hit and I wanted to get some chatter going

How many of you (if any) actual hunt over a mineral site?

I rarely do, because usually by 10/15 the deer aren’t hitting the licks as much and have moved on to acorns. I’ve got a couple licks that are currently getting hammered, and I’m tempted to put a stand overlooking, but I know if I sit there in October I’ll be wondering what the hell I was thinking putting a stand here. (Luckily one is on an oak ridge so that particular spot wouldn’t be a total waste).

The licks are beneficial to the deer and probably hold a few in the area that may not otherwise stick around, but curious as far as what value they hold in hunting them.

Thoughts?

We try to have a mineral site on all our green fields, and to be honest, I have never seen a deer use one during hunting season. The main reason they use them is to get salt to regulate all the water they ingest by eating browse in the spring and summer.

So if you had deer using mineral licks during the fall and winter then that would likely mean that they still had a good amount of green leafy vegetation in their diets during that time period, right?

The way I understand it from my research is deer switch to mast and woody browse in the fall. The greens they injest are required for digestion of the change in diet in the fall. I guess its possible they have a source of green leafy vegetation in the fall, but where I am now, I haven't seen a deer hit a mineral site much in the winter. In college, in Lee County, they would get into our salt/mineral sites hard, but i still never saw a deer in one while hunting near them.

I have a field I keep a camera on pretty much year round, and I put mineral mix on a stump in front of it. I will have almost daily use during the late spring and summer and then it falls off to pretty much nothing in the winter. Field is whitetail clover. On other fields where I have mineral, I see alot of use but once hunting season starts then I don't see evidence of use like I do during the summer. I am in Shelby Co now.

Also, from what I understand, the minerals don't taste good. Salt is the delivery system to get deer to injest them. They could also be draw to other ingredients in the mix, say a flavoring?

I set my mineral blocks up at the top end of a small slope and allow it to wash down about 15 ft through clay soil and into a pool of water I dug with my tractor’s front end loader ……What I think this does is lets the mineral seep into the soil at lesser concentrations as it washes down the and allows the deer to ingest it at more tolerable levels or one they prefer. I find that they like to drink the water in the pool as well as dig and paw at the gulley…….

They use this lick pretty much year round now and I think part of it is due to the amount of understory vegetation still available on my place during the winter. There’s still a lot of things available for them to feed on during that time of year…….dewberry for example is one I’ve seen them key in on pretty hard. My point of the original question was that this might be something you can use as a measuring stick to how many groceries you have available to your deer during the lean months…..If what we are saying is true about using the licks to help get rid of water during the summer then the same reasoning would hold true during the winter too……If your deer are not using mineral licks during certain times of the year then that ought to be a direct reflection on the amount of vegetation they are or are not consuming……rainfall could have an impact on usage too I imagine

You maybe right, and it might be different depending on deer densities and where they bed down. We have some pines that need to be thinned and that would help with foilage production. The main green thing I see them eating in the winter is green briar. That certainly isn't what I would think as a lush plant. They seem to like brassica's at our club. And to a certain degree cereal grains. The field I saw the most deer on last year was the one I planted fusion, clover and alfa rack on, and then came back in and added some feed wheat to fill it in. I even had a deer walk right past a small green field to go feed in that field. I have not seen them really key in on honeysuckle and saw something that said that wasn't one of a deers preferred browse plants.

My main just clover field is down in a creek bottom, surrounded by 5 year old cutover on our side, they just clear cut on the property across the creek. The deer there wear that clover out. It will be a foot tall going into late summer and by the time bow season starts, it looks mowed.

This year was the first year I had multiple fields with the clover/fusion mix in them, and I have to say, I like dealing with that better than trying to plant new stuff. Just mow it and fertilize it and go. I am seriously considering planting my biggest green field in it. If I do I will have to get out there in August and spray it, then disk it, and spray it again before I plant. There isn't a stand on the field, and I am told deer don't come out on it during the day. I have mineral out on the side of that field too, and the deer don't seem to mess with it. I probably have about 3 hot mineral/salt sites on 1100 acres. Maybe 4.

I don't think we have the highest deer density either. Shelby county is something like 30 deer a square mile. We have basically 2 square miles, and kill less than 10 deer a year. I expect this season we will do a little better.

I think the low deer denisity is part of our issue. We don't have the food on the property to support a big herd, which is why I try to plant every spot I can. More food, more deer.

Lockjaw.......The biggest bodied buck I’ve ever recovered with my tracking dogs came from a cattle farm in Pike Co…….I don’t know if he was ever put on the scales. Check out how thick his neck and front shoulders are……. Now look close on the ground below the deer and around him in the field……The farmer had a couple hundred acres of hay fields that he top sowed in clover……This has since changed my perspective of what I would do with big hay fields……..top sow clover on ALL OF IT!!......They said this buck was likely 7-8 years old. He had lived on that farm for years.

That is a hoss of a buck. Look at that front shoulder muscle.

If you’ve ever seen the movie Scarface…….The final scene where he’s killed is pretty close to what is was like trying to finish that buck off. If you look you can see several bullet holes in him from my 30-30 and there’s more in the back end……That’s on top of the hunter originally shooting off the lower portion of one his front legs. He was shot in the afternoon and we tracked him the next morning 1000 yards where he jumped up and immediately squared off on Otis. I snuck in and took the only shot I had through the privet. He took off and I think I shot 4 more times with him stopping and squaring off on the dog and I’m pretty sure I hit him every time. This is my example for “you never know what you may have to deal with” when you go tracking for someone. When I turned the dog loose I had no idea of what was about to happen. That son of gun had a dagger on the head of small bull……I found a buck this past season that weighed 242 lbs and the buck in the pic I'm pretty sure was still bigger.

I don’t suppose it matters that I tell this but the hunter in the pic is Hank Jr’s neighbor…..I’ve tracked for him a few times on two different places that bump up to Hank’s place. The deer was killed on a different farm though a good ways south of there…..The farmer that owned the place where the deer was killed and another guy that came out there with him grew up hunting with Hank and sat around telling stories after we got done finding that buck about them going on dog drives together…….It’s one of the all around coolest tracks I’ve got to go on……

That is a stud right there. If I shot one like that, I guarantee you it would run downhill and hide in something and I'd die trying to drag it out of the woods.

That really makes me want to plant my biggest field in clover. Or maybe I will do half of it or something. I really want to have a big field that stays in something year round, so no matter what, the deer have something to eat. What my little ego wants is for these guys to go, dang, he did all that work, and its really made a difference in the quality of our deer. Then we can charge more and have less members, which would make things even better.

One must always have a master plan!!! HAHA

Biggest deer I have ever seen in Alabama crossed the road from a hunting club over onto my old one. I jumped out of the truck and tried to see if I could get a shot at it, but he was going where he was going. No way I could go thru all the briars either. He wasn't running, more like power walking, but man was he covering some ground!

Just my opinion but unless you have a lot of acreage to plant then I would still do a mix of cereal grain and clover......I think you'll get more forage production in the fall and winter than with just clover alone.....It's ideal for a situation like above where a farmer is sowing really large fields.....It changes the scale of the planting. In smaller fields though they can eat clover down in the winter to where its not even really visible anymore

Finally got this pic to load........This is the mineral lick setup I was referring to earlier

I keep 8 salt licks out on 570 acres. They are great for keeping inventory of your bucks in late summer/early fall. The majority of mine are on green fields. The bucks stop using them as much after they drop their velvet. I use a combo of Trophy rocks and dical/red trace. I would not specifically hunt over them if we’re not on a plot.

Last year what I did was plant a mix of whitetail clover, fusion and alfa rack and no plow on 3 fields. They are all small fields, one in particular gets heavy pressure, but its the largest of the 3. I had one established field of plain whitetail clover, and it got hammered. On the largest fields of the 3, I went back in and planted some feed wheat in it, but it looked to me like the deer focused on the brassicas that came up more than anything else in the fall. All the other fields I planted a mix of cereal grains and brassicas. 3 of them I broadcast the mix into standing beans/peas. That work surprisingly well.

So my goal is to make sure I have plots that have good forage in them all the time. This whole come out and plant beans/peas in the spring, then mowing them, disking, spraying, and then planting fall crops 3 weeks later to me is just dumb. Just as you get deer used to coming to the fields good, you get rid of all their food and force them to go someplace else. Then in the spring, the process repeats. You come out, cut, spray, disk, plant and wait. And hope the deer don't mow down your peas/beans before they get tall enough to continue to grow if browsed on. Part of that can be solved by planting buckwheat in the mix, and sunn hemp. Then you basically fertilize it with the same fertilizer you would use for clover. Buckwheat is about 40 bucks a bag, clay peas are about the same, soybeans are 30 and sunn hemp is about 40 for 25 pounds. Kind of makes Whitetail clover seem cheap.

And I can't do tractor work until turkey season ends. So by then cereal grains are 5 feet or taller.