Spring is a great time to set up a mineral site, and you only need a few tools. Several companies sell minerals in bags, blocks, and liquids to meet the needs of lactating does and antler-growing bucks. Also, many rural marketing stores sell “trace minerals” in bags, often cheaper and designed for animals like cows, horses, and goats. The ingredients of each mineral are always posted on the back of the bag or block so it’s easy to make comparisons.
Site Where the Deer Are
I just received a shipment of Big&J mineral and food supplement products, and I knew exactly where to put them. One of the first principles of a successful mineral site is constructing it where deer frequently travel and within lethal range of your tree stand or blind. That’s usually 20 to 30 yards. Posting farther away from the minerals makes a hunter less vulnerable to being spotted or scented by an approaching deer.
Drill Baby Drill
Many hunters prefer to make a mineral site at an old, rotting stump where they pour the minerals over and around it. Deer will actually eat the stump as it becomes saturated by minerals, which has no reported negative effect on deer. One video producer examined a stump site and reported that does and fawns fed exclusively on the stump, while bucks preferred getting minerals from the soil. One experienced West Virginia archer takes the stump tactic further by drilling holes in the dead wood with a portable drill and then filling the holes with minerals.
On the Level
Deer seem to prefer mineral sites on flat ground, which may be where the minerals don’t wash away downhill as they would on a slope. Generally, hunters use a rake and a shovel to scrape leaves and ground litter from a four-foot square and then put minerals in the middle. If baiting is legal, you may want to put a food attractant to lure deer to the spot more quickly.
Is It Bait?
Baiting for deer is illegal in some states, and a mineral site may fall within this definition. Be sure to check if creating a site is legal and whether you can hunt near it. Mineral sites help does, fawns, and bucks with their nutritional intake, and it may be legal to create a site if you don’t hunt over it. Aside from helping deer, posting a camera near a mineral site can reveal the age structure of deer on your property and the number of fawns produced. If you repeatedly see does with one or no fawns by midsummer, there is a good chance you have a predator problem. For the full line of Big&J minerals and food supplements, click here.