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Joined: Dec 2006
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Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 24,851 |
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Joined: Jun 2009
Posts: 135
Campfire Member
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Campfire Member
Joined: Jun 2009
Posts: 135 |
try canned cat food you will be surprised
the early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese
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Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 57,494
Campfire Kahuna
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Campfire Kahuna
Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 57,494 |
Thanks, all.
Alfalfa seems to get the majority of votes, and I intend to buy a couple of bales this week.
Problem is, we can expect to be deluged with rain during July, August and September here in Arizona's high country, some days as much as an inch in an hour.
Wouldn't that sour alfalfa quickly? Any suggestions on how to keep it dry?
As for rose bushes, our property is covered with wild rose plants, but the mule deer cropped them to ground level and are working on our aspens.
Early Arizonans grew lots of potatoes 80-100 years ago in our little valley so it could be done today, but someone else would have to do it. I'm a hunter/gatherer not a farmer.
Same applies to lawns, decorative plants and gardens. I prefer to simply watch our aspens, ponderosas and firs grow.
Bill Quimby They make a bale feeder. Some various versions but basically a 55 gallon barrel with the bottom out, elevated of the ground, and the bottom more or less wire mesh, IE cattle panels welded to just let the bottom stick out but the animals can pull hay out between....
We can keep Larry Root and all his idiotic blabber and user names on here, but we can't get Ralph back..... Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over....
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Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 393
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OP
Campfire Member
Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 393 |
It seems several of you don't realize that at least a third of Arizona is forested and that only a third of our state's terrain is "desert."
The elevation at our cabin is 8,900 feet, and the nearest cactus is at least a 2 1/2-hour drive south. Our cabin is on two acres surrounded on two sides by the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. Our land has maybe 200 aspens, 100 big ponderosas, and a half dozen firs and two or three blue spruce.
In many ways, our high country is a lot like Colorado's. Temps may reach 70 degrees during the hottest summer days; summer nights will range from about 35 to no more than about 45 degrees. After about September 15, it will freeze every night. I have seen it snow briefly in July. We will have nine feet of it in an average winter.
Flies at our elevation aren't a problem, nor is water. The Little Colorado River is about 250 yards away, and there are at least 30 trout-stocked lakes within a 45-minute drive on the A-S national forest and the White Mountain Apache Reservation. A year-around creek runs through our place, and there is no shortage of green, riparian growth.
About 30 elk cows and calves walk across our two acre parcel at dark thirty, following the stream, to reach a 25-acre meadow across the road in front of our place. (The bulls won't begin to appear until mid August.) The herd heads back to heavy timber about 1/2 mile up the canyon above us before first light, again crossing our place.
I hope to get a few elk addicted to bait so we can see them regularly in daylight. If they hit the bait only after dark, I'll put the bait where we can see it from inside and put up a motion-sensor light.
Bill Quimby
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Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 24,386
Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 24,386 |
Be waiting where they spend the day or along the route back. Be there every morning as every once in awhile they will go home late.
The elk I mentioned earlier was the same as yours bunch. In the ranchers field every night without fail, but gone well before daylight. We were there every morning as it became light enough to see and it took awhile, but we finally caught them going home late.
We had to, they spent the day on hill tops over looking the valley on private posted land that permission to hunt was impossible to get. A guy could watch them all day with binoculars, if you wanted too, but they might as well have been in another state.
Far as I know that herd is still there but just a fraction of what it was. Thank you Mr Wolf, and all the Greenie SOB's that helped it to happen, as no one even gets permission to hunt on the lower land until the herd recoups, if ever. Even though I lived there long enough I know where I still have a very good chance of catching one where they can be shot, I don't hunt that bunch anymore. Let them recoup, hopefully.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 29,882 Likes: 6
Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 29,882 Likes: 6 |
When mother nature is providing really good groceries, it's hard to bait anything in. One has much better luck when food is limited or of poor quality. Depending on your local conditions, a water trough might be really appealing in the spring and fall.
Elk are smart though, and their decisions in most instances weigh two factors. 1) Security or the risk of predation and 2) food. When times are tough, the need for food can bring them into our back yards and they'll run some risk of predation. The alternative then is starving.
Typically though they view humans as predators, and if those predators run on a clock, they can figure that out too and come in when we are asleep.
Excessive predation risks on the range can also bring deer/elk into urban settings. With the wolves running Yellowstone now, the elk are coming into areas around the large lodges to breed and calve. Large elk concentrations out on the range will attract the wolves that typically won't venture near the lodges. Bear, however, will occasionally come to the lodges to hunt elk.
Our small community now has an urban mule deer population. In late fall and winter the draw is food and they run throughout the entire town at night. Now they are having fawns in our back yards because any coyote that comes to town gets shot. They are doing most of their foraging out in the sagebrush where everything is still green.
1Minute
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Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 35,293
Campfire 'Bwana
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Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 35,293 |
I use hoppes number 9 for scent attractant & 180 grain rem core lokt in .300 WBY for bait.
It's dangerous though, they come running & you have to shoot them in self defense or you'll get run over.
Something clever here.
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Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 24,851
Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 24,851 |
It seems several of you don't realize that at least a third of Arizona is forested and that only a third of our state's terrain is "desert."
Well for your information I used to live there for several years and I know what the terrain is. Fact of the matter is all animals need water!
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Joined: Jun 2004
Posts: 3,123 Likes: 1
Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
Joined: Jun 2004
Posts: 3,123 Likes: 1 |
Bill,
I would try both sweet oats and alfalfa up near Badger Pond. The elk liked the tulips on our neighborhood in the spring.
Doug~RR
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Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 86,252 Likes: 25
Campfire Oracle
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Campfire Oracle
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 86,252 Likes: 25 |
If their taste buds are at all like moose, they will love cabbage.
If you take the time it takes, it takes less time. --Pat Parelli
American by birth; Alaskan by choice. --ironbender
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Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 393
Campfire Member
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OP
Campfire Member
Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 393 |
It seems several of you don't realize that at least a third of Arizona is forested and that only a third of our state's terrain is "desert."
Well for your information I used to live there for several years and I know what the terrain is. Fact of the matter is all animals need water! Tom: I didn't mean to get your dander up, and I apologize. Yes, all animals need water, especially in the summer. However, there is a year-around creek that runs through my property, the Little Colorado River is 250 yards away, there is a pond a 1/4 mile away in the canyon above my place, and there are three trout lakes a mile downstream. On top of that, it rains nearly every day during spring and summer up here, and there are pools of water standing in every low place. Our local elk do not have to go far to get a drink. We want to watch elk from our windows in the daytime, but baiting them with water simply wouldn't work. Red Rabbit: "Our" little herd hangs out in the timber around Badger Pond during the day and crosses our land to reach a meadow across the road where they spend the night along the river. I want them to spend more time on our place during daylight. Give me a call next time you head up to our village, and I'll buy lunch. All: Thanks for the suggestions. I put out a bale of alfalfa today. If it doesn't work, I'll try molasses and oats. I'll wait a couple of weeks and let you know what happens. Thanks again. Bill Quimby
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Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 26,264
Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 26,264 |
Our summer home is in the middle of Arizona's best elk country. We have elk in our yard frequently, but mostly it's in the middle of the night and we only see their tracks and scat. So far, baiting to view wildlife is still legal in our county. (We can't hunt near the cabin.)
I've tried salt and mineral blocks and "deer blocks", but so far they have ignored my offerings. Any suggestions as to what I should put out for them? Has anyone had any luck with alfalfa pellets?
Bill Quimby Plant roses--the more rare and expensive the better........ Be careful with alfalfa pellets during the growing season--it can actually make elk/deer gain too much wieght, and may be too rich for them also. CDOW developed an alfalfa pellet specifically for mule deer to be used for winter emergnecy feeding, and all the other western states use that pellet too.--but it's different than alfalfa pellets for livestock. Casey
Casey
Not being married to any particular political party sure makes it a lot easier to look at the world more objectively... Having said that, MAGA.
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