Alternative Deer Bait

Hunters have different reasons  to take deer, some are after a big rack of antlers so they can have the head stuffed and mounted.  I don't really understand sport hunting, I partially understand bow hunting because of the skill involved, but for me anything I shoot would be about economics and meat. I am usually out of town working during deer season,  but this year I should be home so my goal is to take my limit and fill all my tags.  When everything is finished the meat has to cost me less then it would to buy at the store.  Most deer hunters in East  Texas use a feeder to spray corn once or twice a day for the deer to eat which not only helps bulk them up a little, but conveniently gives the hunter an idea of what the deer are coming to dinner.  I have a small five gallon bucket feeder that takes less then one bag of corn to fill up.  Each bag is around $8 so each fill costs about five bucks.  For a cheap feeder it has worked well and lasted a long time, but I have also had problems with corn.  Once I filled my feeder with a fresh bag and it was swarmed with bees.  They flew into the cone and their movement quickly drew all the corn out and by the next day I had a pile of corn on the ground swarming with bees.  This was later in the winter when there is little pollen and the bee keepers have brought their bee hives down from Wisconsin for the winter.  About a week ago I filled this same feeder with corn and the squirrels went insane.

The corn is funneled through a cone down to the spinner which distributes the corn into the surrounding area once or twice a day.  A couple days ago I went and checked the area to look for tracks only to find the cone was completely gone.  At first I thought some hunter had come onto my land and torn it off, but a closer look revealed the teeth marks.  They had chewed the through the cone and eaten every last kernel of corn.  If I can find a new cone to buy I will fix my feeder, but the drought does provide an easy alternative. Stringing together three hundred feet of hoses, half of which are covered with electrical tape to try and hold them together, I filled this old turtle sand box  with fresh cool water.  The first time I did this everyone goofed on it, but I have seen tons of deer drink from this source.  Everything is bone dry around here creeks, branches, springs. Any animals have to go all the way to Big Cyprus creek to get a drink until now.