Long time reader, First time poster.

I am fairly new to deer hunting, and I recently bought 34 acres in Geneva County, AL to hunt on. It is all thick woods, some swampy ground, and has not been touched in years. I have identified 4-5 spots on the property with a lot of deer sign (trails, droppings, rubs, scrapes) that I plan on putting deer stands near. I have used my chainsaw to create trails and a couple of small openings with plans on making some small food plots in the fall. I want to put out mineral salt licks and small deer feeders to attract deer to stand locations.

Question: Should I put a salt lick and/or feeder at each stand location, or try to limit them such as mineral lick at one spot, feeder at another, food plot at another?

Thank you in advance.

Welcome to ALDeer and congrats on your new piece of property.

Congrats on your property. With only 34 acres, I think I'd just try to concentrate all feeding in one place

on a new 175 acre parcel. The first yr put out 10 mineral sites. By end of year 3, we had consolidated them into 3. We let the deer tell us which ones they liked and how many. Some went untouched, or almost untouched. We let those go and just upkept the 3 main ones they were using. Id probably do 3 or 4 and go from there by usage.

I put two new ones out last year on different pieces of the property. Checked one a couple weeks back and could barely tell where it was. Went to the next one and it had grown to the size of a kitchen table with fresh sign. I refreshed the second one and didn’t bother with the first (made a new one elsewhere)

My question is how do you determine a good location for a mineral lick? I have tried to make two and neither on got much use

I want my mineral licks within 50yds of a year round water source and also within 75-100yds of a thick bedding area. It also needs to be in an area that isn’t too sandy or your minerals will leech out.

I own 88 acres. 3 greenfields, 3 feeders, 3 mineral sites.

Same advice I have. If you have areas with clay soil, the lick seems to have more staying power year after year.
Areas that are “too dry” like on ridges with soil that doesn’t hold water, don’t seem to do well to me.

Not an exact science but I have read several things that say need one feeding station for ever 100 acres.

I run a thousand acres and have a mineral site per hundred acres and have 16 food plots and 1 spin broadcast feeder and 5 boss buck gravity feeders across the property . I own 80 acres and have 4 food plots 2 are 2 1/2 acres and 2 are a 1/4 acre . have 2 boss buck feeders and 2 mineral sites .

with a small property like that, i would love to see one long stretch of food plot with small foodplots (less than 1/4 ac) that you dont plan to hunt directly over, rather planning to hunt the travel corridors, look at historical wind data when planning your stands, the last thing you want is to have the wind in your back all season.