mineral sights for trail cams

[wawhitey]

would plain sea salt attract animals and benefit them as much as the trace mineral bags sold at feed stores?

[ElkNut1]

Yes it would, that is what a lot of the sheepherders use around here & you'll see deer & elk around the remnants. I do prefer the blocks best though from feed stores, I take a skill saw & cut them into 3rds when packing them in over a mile. 1/3 is all one really needs anyway. Check regulations in your area for legal use.

ElkNut1

[wawhitey]

yeah perfectly legal here, and thats what i do is bust a trophy rock into 1/2 or 1/3 with a maul, for all my camera sights out in the woods, but i have a couple hundred pounds of sea salt, and i figured id set up a permanent cam site on the property im about to buy.

[cnelk]

Some feed stores sell 'brick size' salt/mineral blocks.

[wawhitey]

Some feed stores sell 'brick size' salt/mineral blocks.

yeah but my cams are usually on public land, so i prefer the trophy rock, cause people might overloook them. im assuming any thief with half a brain would start scanning trees if they saw a brick shaped mineral lick. i scavenged this salt off of the side of a barge last winter, where it spilled over the fence and was just going to end up washed into the sea. took it to salt my driveway if it iced up but never needed to. fig i may as well dump it for the critters, just wasnt sure if it was as good as the feed store stuff

[Swede]

It is interesting to note that we all prefer to use different salt for different reasons. I prefer the bags of granular salt. I dig a hole and bury it there. The elk will smell it and dig it up. I know it sounds funny, but you will see no salt where I have set it out, but the elk will always find it. I have to admit that by hunting season the elk's salt needs are way down, and so it isn't the attractant it was in the early summer.

[wawhitey]

even if it isnt helpful for hunting, just having the big salt pit to increase the deer and elk presence on my property is good enough for me. like to see em out of season too. and aside from just enjoying seeing them around, im kind of a trail cam junkie. just love looking through an sd card after a month or two to see whats been coming around. all ive used before are trophy rocks, if i dump around 200 pounds of sea salt in a pit how long do you think it would last? im sure a handful of elk will find it, but theres not many in the area. there will certainly be a ton of deer using it. you think maybe throwing a bit more once a year would keep it fresh and active? 200 lbs seems like a lot to me but ive never used loose salt like that before

[Swede]

I don't know how long 200 pounds of salt will last. I have carried in 50 pounds of rock salt, or a 50 pound block, but never any more. It lasts all summer and well past the hunting season. In the Fall the snow comes and blankets the area and when I return the next year the salt needs freshening up. I do not know that 200 lbs. will work better than 50 lbs. I do know places where they can eat several complete bricks in a Summer. Don't worry about getting the salt dirty or covering it with dirt about one inch deep. The elk don't mind at all.