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How to Turn Summer Mineral Sites into Attractive Hunting Sites

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Deer Hunting Bait Sites | Transitioning Deer Minerals to Fall Attraction

Most hunters are familiar with the benefits of providing their deer herds with supplemental nutrition. Whether you decide to provide mineral, the benefits range from helping you inventory bucks on your hunting property or collecting scientific data for management purposes to ensuring your herd has their complete nutritional needs in case nutrition is lacking. Although these are great reasons to use mineral sites, you may be wondering how effective they can be to use as an attractant for hunting. Although not all minerals serve as good attractants during the hunting season, GYT90 does. This article will discuss what makes GYT90 different from other minerals on the market and how to use it during the hunting season.

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Why Deer Decrease Mineral Use

If you run trail cameras over your mineral sites for deer, you probably notice some obvious trends. Use of mineral sites generally increases with spring green up and is maintained throughout the summer. This is likely related to deer seeking out sodium to balance all of the water they are consuming that is contained in the new growth of vegetation. And although there isn’t much research out there, providing supplemental minerals likely also provides nutrition needed to both bucks who are growing their antlers and does that are producing milk for their fawns. 

So why do deer decrease their use of these mineral sites in the fall? There are several reasons like alternative food sources such as acorns and supplemental food plots becoming more prevalent on hunting properties. In addition to those things, vegetation no long has the same water content in the fall as it did in early spring and summer. This means that deer no longer need to seek out sodium to balance their diet which ultimately decreases their use of mineral sites. This is where most supplemental minerals fall short, they don’t provide any additional components to continually attract deer throughout the fall, in turn, not making them useful attractants during hunting season. This leaves hunters in states where deer hunting over bait is legal scratching their head. How do you avoid reinvesting time, hunting pressure, and money into your summer mineral sites just to keep the attraction up throughout the hunting season?

PHOTO: Summer mineral sites for deer decrease in use as sodium is no longer needed once vegetation loses its water content, creating the need to provide deer with additional attraction if a bait/hunting site is desired.

If you simply have a mineral lick for deer and fail to add additional attraction, the site will no longer be pulling deer like it was through the summer. You need to be able to provide something that deer associate with quality nutrition in the fall. They concentrate on food sources like standing grain and acorns. Soybeans, corn, and acorns give deer access to fats and calories, preparing their bodies for the winter and rut ahead. Keying in on these attraction points should be the focus on your deer hunting bait sites.

Finding a Product That Doubles as Mineral and Attraction

Arguably the best thing to find in this scenario is something that doubles as providing minerals and attraction. Corn and regular deer feed do not fit the bill by themselves since they do not provide the sodium for the summer. Most mineral blocks and licks do not provide the calories and fats, not to mention the scent of associated quality nutrition like corn, acorns, or soybeans. The trick is finding something that offers sodium, minerals, scent, taste and attraction for both summer and fall.

PHOTO: GYT90 is a product that offers sodium, minerals, scent, taste and attraction for both summer and fall hunting.

GYT90 is one such product. At its core GYT90 is a deer mineral and feed supplement. So what makes GYT90 different from other deer mineral supplements on the market? First, it contains more than 90 minerals that deer can use in addition to unrefined sea salt and natural crude soybean oil. Why is this good? GYT90 has everything a deer could want in both summer and fall…hitting key features hunters should be looking for. It provides them with the sodium they need in the spring and summer time, but also provides them with healthy fats that are provided by the natural crude soybean oil. The soybean oil hits deer with both soybean scent and flavor profiles that they already associate with quality food sources. Long story short, GYT90 always provides something deer need and are attracted to.

PHOTO: With scent and flavor profiles of soybean oil, deer are instinctively attracted to GYT90 mineral and hunting sites.

Another thing that makes GYT90 a great supplement is it comes in a liquid form. This means that you can mix GYT90 with just about anything. For example, you can mix GYT90 with corn and place it out for deer. The corn may serve as an additional attractant to pull deer into an area. You can also mix it with supplemental feed. Deer may be reluctant to start eating supplemental feed when you first start providing it. Mixing an attractant like GYT90 will likely help speed up that process of deer getting used to eating supplemental feed.

 How to Use GYT90 for Hunting

So how do you maximize your use of GYT90 so deer get the supplements they need but you also can take advantage of attracting deer to an area during the hunting season? The first thing to consider is where you are going to establish your mineral site. Some obvious areas are in food plots or agricultural fields where deer are already frequenting. You can also consider using wooded areas to establish sites. It may be easiest to find a staging area going out to a food plot or agricultural field for this. Wherever you decide to establish a mineral site, there are two things to consider. You will want to pick a site that sets you up best to hunt the area. This means you can access the area on multiple wind directions with minimal probability of detection when entering and leaving the stand. The next thing to consider is when to begin establishing the site. You will want to do this as early as possible. The more time you give deer to get used to visiting a site, the better.

PHOTO: Appling GYT90 deer mineral supplement and attractive deer bait in areas of frequent travel like soybean fields make great hunting bait sites.

Now that you’ve picked out your location, how do you use GYT90? That’s easy because you can use GYT90 in several ways. As previously mentioned, you can add it to corn and place it in some type of trough on the ground to attract deer. You can also simply pour it over a stump or on a log if you are in the woods. Again, whenever you are choosing a location to establish a mineral site, be sure it is in an area that you can easily hunt. 

There are multiple benefits to using supplemental minerals on your hunting property. But if you are hoping to find a mineral that also serves as an attractant during the hunting season, then GYT90 is for you. Be sure to give GYT90 a try this fall. You never know, it may just help you harvest your hit list buck or even help to put some meat in the freezer.

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How to Keep Your Mineral Sites from Leaching in the Soil

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Whether you’re using mineral to supplement any potential nutritional deficiencies in your deer herd or are using mineral to help you get pictures and inventory any hit list bucks for the upcoming fall, mineral sites can be highly effective. But what do you do if you hunt in an area where you hunting over a mineral site is considered baiting because of the mineral leaching into the soil? Don’t worry, all hope has not been lost! This article will discuss what you can do to prevent deer minerals from leaching and what you can do if you’re trying to restore an old mineral site so it is legal to hunt over.

How to Prevent Leaching

The easiest way to prevent getting yourself into any type of legal trouble where you are required to remove mineral sites is to prevent leaching from the start. Leaching of mineral sites generally occurs after your mineral gets rained on after sitting in one spot for any length of time. The mineral is still available to deer through the soil and that’s why you tend to see deer continually coming back to a mineral site even after the mineral has been depleted. So what can you do to prevent leaching?

There are a few things you can try to prevent leaching. First, you have to make sure that you are using mineral that can be removed from the site. This means that you shouldn’t be mixing mineral directly into the soil if you hope to hunt there in the fall. The second thing you need to make sure of is you are preventing any mineral contaminated rain water from reaching the soil. That is where most people get themselves into trouble. There are several ways you can do this.

Deer Mineral Site Setups That Prevent Leaching

Tub/Bucket: First, you can simply place your mineral in a shallow bucket or tub. Although this method can be effective, there are a couple of things you want to keep in mind. First, you have to remember to take the handle off the bucket if you choose to use one over a shallow tub. It may seem like a crazy possibility, but a deer might work that handle over its head and get the bucket stuck on its head. The other thing to keep in mind is a bucket on the ground can be easily tipped over. If there is any rain water in the bucket and it gets tipped over, then you will still have leaching issues. Burying the bucket in the ground will help provide stability while also still allowing you to remove the bucket when you’re ready. The same concept applies when using an oil pan but you need to monitor these oil pans because they may break if a deer happens to step in them and again, any break may lead to leaching.

Decaying Wood/Stump: Using an old tree stump that you can easily remove will also work for you. Finding a stump that has a depression where you can pour your mineral in is your best bet. You may want to test your stump by soaking it with water first to see if you’ll have any leaching issues. If you do, then you will need to safeguard by using a stump in conjunction with an oil pan or something that will help prevent the leaching. You can simply bury the oil pan and place the stump in it so everything can be removed.

Combine with Feed: Another not so common way to keep minerals from leaching into the soil is by combining them with feed. Liquid deer mineral supplements and deer attractants that contain minerals can be incorporated into deer feed or corn. Simply mix the mineral with the corn or feed, coating it evenly in a bucket or tub. The feed shouldn’t go directly on the ground but instead into a trough, bucket, tub, or gravity deer feeder that doesn’t distribute the seed on the ground.

Regardless of what method you use, you will want to monitor these sites to ensure that you don’t end up with any leaching issues. You don’t necessarily need to check these sites daily or even weekly, but it isn’t a bad idea to check them after a big rain. Take an extra bucket with you in case you need to dump some rain water out. That way you can take it out of the woods and dump it somewhere safe where nobody will be hunting while still leaving the mineral in the woods. You can also replace any pans or buckets that may have developed a crack.

Reclaiming an Old Mineral Site

What happens if hunting over mineral sites suddenly becomes illegal in your area or what if you’re just trying to restore an old mineral site you’ve used for years but no longer want to maintain? You should first contact your local Conservation Officer to ensure you are doing things legally so you won’t be ticketed in the fall, but here are a couple of methods that generally work.

Whatever you do, don’t simply fill in the depression that’s been created by deer with dirt. Deer will still frequent the area and paw at the ground to get to any residual mineral that is left. Instead, you’ll have to invest a little more time and energy to reclaim your mineral site. The first thing you can do is to remove the soil where the mineral site was. Be sure to also remove soil immediately surrounding the site so you can be certain that you removed any minerals that potentially leached out. Next, it’s a good idea to fill the hole in with some type of gravel. Fill the hole about half- to three-quarters full. Then, if you want to be completely sure deer will not be access any leached minerals if there are any to be found, then place a piece of plywood on top of the gravel and place dirt on top of the plywood. Hopefully, you removed all of the leached mineral when you dug the hole, but if you didn’t then filling the hole in with gravel and plywood will prevent deer from being able to paw at the site to reach the leached minerals. Once deer become used to no longer having the minerals readily available, they will stop visiting the old mineral site.

Using supplemental minerals seems like an easy way to make sure deer are getting all of the nutrition they need and can be a fun way to capture photos and videos of bucks you’ll likely be hunting this fall. Whether you find yourself legally obligated to remove your mineral sites before the season, or would like to keep mineral sites and the ground beneath them intact keep these tips in mind for easy removal of mineral sites. This way you can still enjoy the benefits that supplemental mineral sites can provide throughout the spring and summer!

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