Early winter this year, I decided to dig a water hole for the deer (by hand and not fun). I went after a soft spot that was always wet and ended up with an 8x8 water hole that slopes down to 2 feet deep. Through the spring and starting into the summer months, I started to get way more pictures than I had ever had before. 200 a week compared the the regular 30. Never gave it a thought that the water hole had much to do with it. My trail camera isn't even over the water hole (not anything to hang it on and didn't feel like driving a fence post) but about 30 yards down the trail over my homemade mineral site. So it had been a week since I checked it and I'm planning on moving it to a family member's 100 acres to scope it out. I was kinda ticked when I saw last summer's number of 30 pictures on the camera once again. I thought my camera had to to broken. It worked fine. I was walking around wondering what could of possibly happened then I saw it. The watering hole that had been holding water all summer and that had only needed a little water added to it 3 weeks ago was containing nothing but soft clay mud at the bottom covered in deer tracks. Animals really did a good job of sucking it down, but since my camera isn't over the water hole, it could of been a cow that busted through the fence and slurped it all down with my luck. The week before I had noticed the number of pics was down a little from the usual, but never gave it another though, nor did I check the watering hole. So I knew what the problem was and 150 gallons later it's most of the way full. Added a little water to the mineral site too. Anyways the point of it is, if you're thinking about adding a pond, or even just a little water hole like mine, don't hesitate! Deer are lazy when it's this hot and aren't going to stay too far from a water source.
Thanx! I just buried a kiddie pool last week on land that I hunt. Within 5-10 minutes of sitting down to rest after completing it a lone doe came in an sniffed all around it. Then, she proceeded to drink some of the mere 15 gallons of water that I had put in it. It was a cool thing to watch from a very close distance as in I could her her slurping the water. I know where I will be sitting 9/15 in the afternoon if the wind is out of any direction but North!!
Awesome, when it's this hot I don't think I would want to get between a deer and their water lol. The kiddie pool idea has really caught on. I was gonna use one too if this water hole didn't hold but luckily Oklahoma has plenty of clay!
Filled (2) 5 gallon buckets and (5) gallon sized jugs. It took a few trips from the vehicle to get it all to the pool, but I think it was worth it. I wanted to fill it further, but we had a nasty lightning storm coming in that evening so I decided I would allow Mother Nature to assist with the filling The next time I step foot on this property will be opening day of bow season so it will be interesting to see if the deer have any water left to drink just from my filling and the (little amount of) rain.
One thing that could really help you out is getting a 50 gallon drum. They're a life saver when it comes to filling up watering holes! If you ever wanted to get one be sure to get one like this with lids on top so you can just fill it up while it's laying on it's side then open the lid when you want to dump the water out. Filling one up with it standing up straight and trying to slowly dump nearly 50 gallons doesn't work out too well.....gets a little sketchy!
