i did a little experiment last year. I put out a 50# salt block ($4), 50# apple/mineral block ($18) and deer cane ($10). I put them a couple feet away from each other and put a camera over them. salt blew the other two away by leaps and bounds. the deer cane was 2nd and would be worth the money. the mineral block was terrible. i got more cow pictures then deerand i never got a cow picture before that in my 8 years of using trail cams! the deer cane worked ok but it wasn't used as much as the salt and needed be refreshed when the salt block had about 20#s left. so, for my money, you can't beat just plain salt.

that said, i'm going to redo my experiment w/ the home brew mineral lick mentioned earlier, trophy rock and salt this year. we'll see which comes out ahead.