Put in 2 water holes today

I put in my first attempt at 2 waterholes today. The first one is in an area adjacent to a natural runoff that leads to a wet weather creek. I expect it will stay full most of the time just from the rain. It was in a real rocky area, which you'd expect in a natural runoff spot. It took me three hours and I almost called it a day after that one. The second one went in much easier and only took me about an hour. It is about halfway down a ridge adjacent to a very thick area that was timbered about four or five years ago by the previous owner. It's only a couple acres but it's really thick and I believe deer are bedding in there. I used two 50 gallon stock tanks from my local Dickey Bubs. While I maybe could have gone deeper and used a different tank in the second spot I was thankful for the smaller tank in the first area.

I have 36 acres with no water source other than a couple wet weather creeks. My neighbor does have a five acre lake but I wanted my own water sources. I spread them out. One is on my north side and the other is on the south side of my property. I think two is about right. Hopefully they'll influence deer movement a little bit. I think more than two might be counterproductive.

The first tank is about 30 yards from a stand where i took a little buck last archery season. The second one is about 70 yards from another stand where I took another deer with my rifle. We have plans to add a bow stand about 25 yards from the second tank that we'll only hunt in certain wind conditions.
 
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I'm headed back out again tomorrow to put some water in them. One of them got ten gallons today and the other one got five. We've got a serious heat spell coming so hopefully they'll get some early use.
 
Yeah - we're certainly not as bad as other states but MO is gonna be hot and dry for the foreseeable future. This seemed like the time to get this done.
 
My wife went out with me today and helped haul in some water. One of them now has about 20 gallons of water in it and the other one 15. Were supposed to be in the 100's temperature range the last three days this week so I plan to go out early Friday and put another 15-20 in each of them and then hope for rain. All other work plans are off for the weekend. That's too hot to work safely outdoors by myself.
 
Do you have any opportunities on the property to dig into a wet seep area with a backhoe and put in some rock and a pipe so that you don't need to haul in as much water?
 
Mennoniteman - Not that I'm aware of at this point but one of them is in a natural runoff that leads to a wet weather creek. I honestly expect that one to stay full once it gets some rain. The second one is on the side of a ridge where I think there will also be plenty of runoff. I'm not expecting a problem keeping them full long term. We're just in the beginning of a hot dry spell so I'm hauling water just to get them full now. My hope is that it leads to them being used consistently once they find them even after we eventually get some rain.
 
I put in my first attempt at 2 waterholes today. The first one is in an area adjacent to a natural runoff that leads to a wet weather creek. I expect it will stay full most of the time just from the rain. It was in a real rocky area, which you'd expect in a natural runoff spot. It took me three hours and I almost called it a day after that one. The second one went in much easier and only took me about an hour. It is about halfway down a ridge adjacent to a very thick area that was timbered about four or five years ago by the previous owner. It's only a couple acres but it's really thick and I believe deer are bedding in there. I used two 50 gallon stock tanks from my local Dickey Bubs. While I maybe could have gone deeper and used a different tank in the second spot I was thankful for the smaller tank in the first area.

I have 36 acres with no water source other than a couple wet weather creeks. My neighbor does have a five acre lake but I wanted my own water sources. I spread them out. One is on my north side and the other is on the south side of my property. I think two is about right. Hopefully they'll influence deer movement a little bit. I think more than two might be counterproductive.

The first tank is about 30 yards from a stand where i took a little buck last archery season. The second one is about 70 yards from another stand where I took another deer with my rifle. We have plans to add a bow stand about 25 yards from the second tank that we'll only hunt in certain wind conditions.

Those look good! We have put in a few of those over the last 6 or 7 years and have had good use at all of them!!
 
Something I ran into and I will suggest here is adding a piece of hardware cloth or chicken-wire to the side. For some reason mice will swim around the edge of the tub and not to the center where they can reach the branch. If the water level is low they can't reach the branch at the edge. Maybe I just have stupid mice.....but my water hole turned into a water based mouse trap. As soon as I added the wire at the edge - problem solved. Otherwise it looks real good.
 
Lol - We carried in twenty gallons for one of them and fifteen for the other. I'm hoping to put out twenty more in each one this weekend. We've got 100 degree plus temps coming this week so hopefully they'll get some use and I can keep some water in them until it eventually rains.

Honestly I feel like we've spent so much time working that I'm getting antsy to just sit in a tree. It's certainly all been worth it.
Looks like you have everything's for those waterholes.....but water! Seriously great job.
 
Lol - We carried in twenty gallons for one of them and fifteen for the other. I'm hoping to put out twenty more in each one this weekend. We've got 100 degree plus temps coming this week so hopefully they'll get some use and I can keep some water in them until it eventually rains.

Honestly I feel like we've spent so much time working that I'm getting antsy to just sit in a tree. It's certainly all been worth it.

IF you have a large tank sprayer - clean it out real good and use it as a water truck. I do this with my 55 gallon 3 point hitch sprayer - I just take the filter/trainer cover off and let gravity do the rest - easy way to transport 55 to 60 gallon of water!
 
Great job on the water holes. They are a magnet for so many different kinds of wildlife I'd say that water, when you don't have it, is one of the best improvements you can make.

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It doesn't look like the deer have found my water holes yet. I put another 10 gallons in each one again today. They're getting more full a little at a time that way. We have lots of rain expected tonight and tomorrow so hopefully they'll fill up a little but naturally now too. We haven't had any rain out there since I put them in so it's been me filling them up by carrying 10 gallons of water out every week.
 
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