Luring deer to a feeder

I am taking care of some deer that are a problem on some private bush blocks. I have successfully got deer to eat daily from feeders I have made and installed. In the feeders is maize. My feeders are installed strategically at spots that have good shooting lanes and cover (bowhunting). To get them to the feeder I have been using a 'cookie trail' of maize, from a nearby deer track. Red and Fallow deer do not seem to smell the maize, rather stumble across it and follow the trail.

Rats and possums however are cleaning out my cookie trails of maize in some places, and deer never seem to find the feeder. I have tried putting a salt block next to one, and used molasses, but no joy. I have filmed deer walking within 20m of a feeder they are yet to discover.

For this reason I would like to add a strong scent to lure in the deer to the feeder. Reading around US material I see that what works for whitetail in some states (like citrus), doesn't work in others. Some regions the deer like cherry or grape, because that's what has grown there for a long time. Other places it actually repels. I have tried raspberry jelly mix here, as some hunters in the US swear by it, but deer here don't seem to care for it. I'm yet to try peanut butter (possums and rats go nuts so to speak for that too - so can't just screw a plastic jar to a tree like they do in the US). Brassica is not an option as I'm bush hunting.

I would like to hear from hunters here (not Oz or anywhere else) with success in using all season home made attractants for Red and Fallow deer.

Depending on what trees are nearby if its just native some pine sap will have them coming for a sniff, in the bush a bit of Broadleaf might get them looking. They love fodder beet if you can chuck some around.

Good suggestions. I'll try the fodder beet as all of the blocks have some self-seeding pine, and one block backs onto a pine crop. All have broadleaf already, or what the deer haven't stripped out already

a couple of smashed up swedes or fodderbeet should add some smell and get then to come for a look...same deal with brassicas...pinch a couple from over the fence and leave by feeder...the possums may beat deer to them....but if the smell brings in a deer..all good. turnips are another crop deer have been known to travel a long way to get into....

Good to read about the turnips. Have a sack of them here, and plenty more on steady supply. Will def give that a go tonight or tomorrow morning. I can probably get my hands on some swedes also. Handy if turnips or swedes could be dried in some way and still work, as feed. Would lace the maize with it. Guess it loses its scent when dry.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 7mmwsm

Deer love the smell of petrol and diesel.
Had a pet red hind who go crazy trying to get a taste when I was filling the bike up.
When I was a kid my dad was cutting bush to supplement the farm income. Deer would often come out on to skid sites at night and play around diesel tanks and oil drums.
Whether it would work as a lure I wouldn't be sure.

---

Cripes that's news to me. Wonder how the heck that works.

hes from south waikato.....lots of petrol sniffers live there LOL....

They were siphoning it off and selling it to buy maize, turnips and salt licks.

yeah..back to PVA glue and each others farts in these trying times LOL....

The farm deer love the smell of Palmolive Dishwash det. If I put a squirt in the knapsack sprayer ( helps the spray penetrate waxy leaves ) and spray a fence line, any deer on the other side of the fence are over really getting off on the smell.

Maple syrup. You might attract a moose with that :-)

The old oil/diesel is similar in scent to their waxy scent glands

Have had deer eat the grease off digger booms in the past

Crush some apples on their trails

Then leave apples at your feeder

Once deer establish apples as food they will go a very very long way to get them

I have tried all sorts in front of trail cameras with very mixed success. Top ones seemed to be: leaves/branches from palatable plants eg mahoe, broad leaf, willows etc. Apples, some cut up for a bit of scent. Feed pellets, ones that had use for deer on the packet. Then maize, some with molasses poured over it. Salt blocks, zero activity on the trail cams for some reason, that was both rock salt and mineral blocks with reds and Sika present.
The branches with leaves on may be easier to spot too and seem more natural to the deer, who knows.

Got to go with the feed crops, swedes, turnips, rape, they will come for miles around to feed on that.

I was told deer like Aniseed too. been meaning to try it. popular in the UK apparently. Lace the corn with aniseed

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HG Man

Got to go with the feed crops, swedes, turnips, rape, they will come for miles around to feed on that.

---

yep deer will rape and pillage to get to a rape crop.bro has got one in at the mo and has had to set up a gas cannon to keep them away.you should have seen it in the roar-unbeleivable.

As a kid, my old man used to take us to a spot to watch the deer feeding out in the open on chestnuts. Both sweet and horse variety.
I guess they need to have these around the territory as a natural food source, but could be worth a try. Plenty on the ground right now, along with acorns

Quote:

---

The farm deer love the smell of Palmolive Dishwash det.

---

Holy sh*t didn't know that one either.

Quote:

---

Then maize, some with molasses poured over it. Salt blocks, zero activity on the trail cams for some reason, that was both rock salt and mineral blocks with reds and Sika present.

---

Yep definitely a mystery with the maize. It's like they don't smell it. Molasses they could care less. Possums, rats and pigs get it first. I reckon what I'm seeing with maize (and molasses) and salt blocks is that here you need to educate the deer. It seems different to how many folk in the US and Canada (with corn fields across half the country) talk about deer lure, and where maize is probably something they know and look for as food. Only once I have led a deer to the maize and/or salt lick (my feeders are tree mounted, pigs can't get at them) does it seem to work it out. Then it is back every day, twice a day minimum, rain or shine.

Today I went out and doused two spots with turnip shavings (no leaves unfortunately), and also grated the juicy turnips on pine bark high up to catch the wind. Even I could smell the turnips from 30m away no probs. This is in a spot loaded with Red deer which will walk within meters of a pile of maize not seeing it.

Rather than sprinkling their trail this time, I want to see if the turnip will pull them in by their noses on the wind. Could be the perfect setup, as then I can take my finished feeders into difficult country, install, cover in turnip or swedes, and lure them in from the get go

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by turtle

Saw a young fella carrying carrots to his spot. Told me they indicate to him if the deer are in the area. Sounded reasonable to me

---

Yep if they are gone quick and with no sign of little nibble marks then it's deer or goats and not possums. Possums love carrot too. Don't know how good carrots would lure deer in though, but scattered around all over would def indicate if they are there.

Perhaps I'm too old school but to know if deer are in the area I look for the plants they eat, deer tracks, prints and scat. A good time is after the rain as there are a lot of prints and you can better tell which are fresh.

I made a dedicated licking box for a salt block which I mounted about a meter up a tree but not one deer at it in over two months. Some shots of others mooching nearby but showing zero interest. Salt blocks DEF work in Germany, so a mate told me

I have set up a salt bloc in front of a trail cam and another one hanging from a branch on the edge of a wallow. Set up high enough that they ll have to stand on their back feet to get at it. Hopefully there will be a few foot prints in a few months time

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 6x47

I made a dedicated licking box for a salt block which I mounted about a meter up a tree but not one deer at it in over two months. Some shots of others mooching nearby but showing zero interest. Salt blocks DEF work in Germany, so a mate told me

---

Keep hearing the same thing from abroad. Maybe they get enough salt in their diet here? Any case, bloody weird. I had to paint one block with molasses before the deer would even look at it. And when they did it wasn't like they went bonkers over it. They only had a go at the molasses because it was right there under their nose next to my maize feeder. Just having a lick every once in a while then back into the corn. Just goes to show that hunter's wisdom and pro-tips don't always export well. Got to work and think local to get results

Peanut butter. Drill few holes in bottom and tie to tree so they look up and lick it. Works.

Just want to confirm that red and fallow deer don't seem to give a toss about turnips, at least this time of year. Juicy, huge heads of leaf, and they still just ignore them. This is observed on camera at 3 different feeders. Possums though seem to get a kick out of them, at least the turnips themselves. What don't they eat though.

Like possums, deer do seem to come for my aniseed oil. Just splash it up a bark thick trunk (more resilient to rain) near the feeder and they'll check it out eventually.

Have given up on any further attempts to ground lure with corn and molasses as the possums get it first. I even put heaps of salt in my molasses maize mix to try to put the possums off - twice as salty as salt water sort of thing - but nope - they eat it all. They get through the pile a little slower when overdosed in salt, but it's gone soon enough.

Peanut butter and green apples from a string I will try on the next project. Swedes too, when they are ready.

Red neck Poachers in the USA used to put a nice red apple on the tip of a shark or butcher hook hanging high enough above a deer trail so that the white tail deer ( or mule deer ?) would have to jump to get the apple.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Friwi

Red neck Poachers in the USA used to put a nice red apple on the tip of a shark or butcher hook hanging high enough above a deer trail so that the white tail deer ( or mule deer ?) would have to jump to get the apple.

---

Keen to give apples a try. They may indeed like it from the get-go. What I've found reading around though is that what works on deer in some locations doesn't in others. In some states in the US, citrus is an attractant, others a deterrent. Grapes in some places in the US they're crazy for, others not. Olives the same. It's all based on what they know to be food, as per their region. I guess it's something passed down the generations fading out over time outside of their natural habitats (like here).

Someone in this thread said that once they establish apples as food, they'll keep coming back. I bet it's the same with brassica, turnips. They will even often walk right past maize, because they don't think it's anything they will eat. Deer on my maize feeders are there every day, twice - at least, once I actually get them to take a look!

Seems having to teach them is the ticket. Might be worth using broadleaf as a lure somehow. Mysterious why aniseed of all things 'just works' though. Not like you see wild aniseed growing here.

An exotic flavour maybe? In Tonga they feed pigs with coconuts . In France pigs are attracted by bitumen applied on the lower part of trees.