I agree, the North Fork is a pretty stream. Big and pretty country in that area, a good place to have a compass and/or GPS.

I'm experimenting with the salt licks, I'll add more later. But notice how the deer seem a little bit shy? The white stuff on the ground is bone meal.

Above I mentioned the bone meal. Do a search: composition of deer antlers. Antlers are mainly calcium. Antlers are bone. Whatever antlers a deer will grow, all of those nutrients come from it's body.

Just experimenting. I asked a friend of mine that works at the local feed mill to get me a bucket of bone meal. It's expensive stuff. Do a search about bone meal. Folks use it in their garden and all.

Just experimenting, thinking, the more of this stuff a deer would have in it's system, the more antler it will grow.

Long story short, I sprinkled about a quart of bone meal on the ground, at 4 of the salt licks. Deer scratch and paw and lick the ground around the salt licks as much or more than they do lick the actual salt block.

The bone meal that I have, has a very slight smell, it doesn't stink. It's gritty, but about the same texture as something like ground coffee. I mixed up a little bowl full with water and it turned pinkish in color. I guess the bone marrow and blood? I warmed it up in the microwave and more or less forgot about it for a week or so, it crusted over and was still in a paste form, and smelled a lot like canned tuna.

It seems the deer don't like it, but seems like bear do. If you look at the one picture above, that little bear has his back foot in the stuff. They're not eating it, but like I said it's just a dusting on the ground. I had 4 or 5 pictures of crows on the Lower Salt lick camera, just one day or 2. Since then it's rained and more or less dissolved into the ground. The deer are back to working the salt lick, same as before. So, we'll see.

I’ve used bone meal in the garden, but never fed it to deer. We used to put a lot of calcium out though, and the deer ate the heck out of it just like they did the salt licks.

One thing I found out about it and fish emulsion both in the garden though is something seemed to like it. I’m not sure if it was a coon or what it was for sure, but something tried to dig up all of my plants that were fertilized with either one of those.

Checked the camera at Wardney's salt lick yesterday. I have a couple of fawn pictures, not many.

I'm sure calcium is expensive. My buddy Moe just bought some kind of high powered "deer block". He paid $23 for the thing, bear ate it, and it was gone in less than a week. He didn't care for that much.

Here's a picture from the Upper salt lick. I took my camera down, and Moe put his up. That's a pretty decent buck, both of them. I'll probably have them on the Lower camera too.

Checked out the salt lick this past week up at camp. Take a look at what I found. That stump was brought there and anchored so the critters would not tip it over. Didn't want to cut trees on site just to make a stump.

Anyway it was a squared off log with bark on it. Not a trace of bark is left there, and the top edge has been rounded off by something. I realize Ma Nature bathed that stump in salt water, and a lot of living things enjoy that salt. I've even seen where the dirt was consumed by deer exposing the actual roots of a tree stump used for a salt lick. But I've never seen where a stump has been almost machined into a piece of furniture. I know porkies have quite an appetite for salty products. But the small chunk of salt it still on site. Why chew up the stump? Any guesses?

Wood is porous. The salt, dissolved with water, gets absorbed by the wood. I have seen stumps almost completely worn away.

Squirrels gnaw away at my salt lick stumps. The Upper Salt lick stump is pine, it's rounded off nicely.

Here's a picture of stump above, from 3 years ago. I'll tell you what's going on with it, the deer have licked it so many times, they're actually licking away the wood. If you've ever touched and felt the texture of a deer's tongue, just that little bit of rough and scruffy is eating away the stump. But, Wardney started that salt lick 6 or 8 years ago, the deer have the ground pawed down 6 or 8 inches now.

I changed cameras at this salt lick 2 or 3 weeks ago, I thought my camera wasn't working, I was only getting 15 or so pictures per week. The camera was working fine, but that bone meal stuff I mentioned above has really turned off the deer. Eventually it'll soak in or wash away, until then I'm just not getting many pictures.

The stump above was hollow to start with, if I'm not mistaken, Wardney dumped 50 pounds of white salt into the cavity and the rest across the top and on the ground. But you can look at the stump a day or so after a good rain, and it'll look almost like it's frosted. There is that much salt absorbed into the wood.

I haven't checked the mountain cameras for about 5 weeks, just been busy and trying to get stuff squared up here before season. I'll try to do that next week, should have some good pictures.

Here's a picture of the stump up close. The deer have licked away the soft part of the wood.

Checked the camera yesterday, not many pictures, acorns are starting to fall. I do have pictures of a 4 point buck, and a red fox, all night time pictures.

Our early bear season came in today, I'll take my camera to work, I'll probably see a couple.