mossbergman11

what is the best substitute for attracting deer besides food plots?
im looking for something that i can use to bring deer in my area without a food plot because i dont have enough time with school andi have no money.....thanks

timbercruiser

Best would be a doe in estrus, but it might be hard to arrange that. Creating a sanctuary with NO intruders is a way, fertilize your native vegetation (honeysuckle, briars, etc), planting stuff like cedars or other vegetation to create a bedding area, mineral licks, a feeder. That's all I can think of right now.

mossbergman11

so just fertilize my land and stuff and have mineral licks and feeder....i already use does in estrus stuff...i actually use wild ife #309 or whatever its called

steve@myranchsite

I like much from the previous post; in this order of importance

1. the absence of human presence / stay out of certain high bedding areas completely
2. food source (a good protein feeder, free choice so you do not put food on the ground (wasteful) allowing the game to have access when they choose
3. shelter / cover / bedding areas.....................

These work well on my smaller properties...............

wahoohunter

Like the guys are already saying, eliminate human presence and a mineral lick will work just fine. Check out 30-06 from the whitetail institute, thats what we use at our mineral licks. Other than that, you can throw out old bread, donuts, etc. and the deer will eat that at your site as well...of course, a mineral lick will lead to a healthier deer herd, but if you just wanna have deer at a certain place and aren't worried about the nutitional side of things you can always use plain old corn

mossbergman11

yeah i just want to bring em in and have them stay there. i might invest in a automated feeder.

TexasBowHunter

Mossberg, the previos posts pretty much covered it all. I want to throw someting out there that we do in the off season that helps the herd and will tend to hold deer. We have 4 1000lb creep style feeder that we put minerals and protein in, we do this in the off season when the deer are growing, you can make a smaller feeder like this fairly inexpensive. Around my hunting area the feed suppliers have mixes already mixed up, but you can get something like split peas and mix it with corn or protein pellets or what ever you choose. Just throwing that out there. We fill these feeders every two months and we dont put them where we hunt, just in the vacinity.....

shamlin

If you have a way to dig up and transplant wild persimon trees, that might help.

3boyshunting

What about opening up a DOE Strip bar................My bad, I have had a few wobbly pops tonight.
Year round feeding, just a spincast feeder throwing corn 6 seconds a day will work during the summer. Closer to hunting season go 2 times, AM/PM then fine tune it to your time zone. If you are on abudget thats the way to go. Go scout your property, look for game trails with alot of deer traffic, setup feeder. Get the does coming in, the bucks will follow. Mix in few bags of protien/mineral feed in with the corn to help the does out in rearing the young. Your feeder is like a night club during RUT. Get the ladies coming in............you get the idea.

mossbergman11

thats a good idea never thought of it like thati might plant a little plot and have a feeder too or maybe both