2009 Lucky buck Mineral Attractant Review

Lucky Buck Mineral Attractant - Review 03/09/2009

Wow, the taste of salt is all it takes and they will come a running. Well yes that is true, which is what managers have used for years. Then they found that there was more to just the need for salt to make that animal grow into a better specimen. Those old brown blocks that when hauled around on the ATV makes everything rust unless cleaned off. We have been using them for years and have been well satisfied but the rumble that is being generated on the out door forums and the out door magazines has proven that if you are going to use an attractant then use something that is a strong attractant and also contain some of the minerals that will give some very positive results. On top of the bucket is a big orange sine and it states “If the whitetails on and around your property don’t have bigger racks (and you be the judge) after feeding Lucky Buck for 2 years year around, we will give your money back". This is based on usage of at least 5 $20 buckets per year, per household. We, at Chasingame have the people that love to hunt but can never find enough time to get our needs satisfied. We do though have a special need to draw as many deer in front of cameras as we can possibly manage.

We have done a number of these types of tests in the past and some were positive. During my daily scan the hundred or so forums I happened across this product as being one of the favorable draws to get deer in front of cameras. We made the effort and the good people at Mar-Vo minerals sent us some to review and post the results. The truck arrived today and off loaded the buckets and now I have to go to work. The buckets are 20 lbs and have a pull tab to open. This task is not as easy as I thought. I had to swallow the contents of a couple of those special ice cold brown bottles in order to get the tab off. When the lid came off I was immediately hit with the aroma of apples. Now who would think deer would come to apples? It is a rust colored powder about the same consistency as table salt. This powder contains the calcium, salt, iodine and selenium in portions to promote good antler growth. This company tells stories about finding some unbelievable sheds as proof of the results that Lucky buck can produce. Well we are hoping that we will not have to wait until the horns to fall off to see the results. We intend to get a history as the horns grow through the use of one of the new 09 trail cameras that are getting ready to be released. The stories told on a couple of the forums talked about some large holes dug in the ground where the product had been dumped and even though these holes had not been refreshed the animals still visited the holes for more. This was some pretty strong evidence as to whether we would take the time to try this in the field. We have an area away from our feeders and licks that I have cleaned up and got ready for this test. This area has been where we have seen the most bob cat action and raccoon/rabbit presents on the property. We feel that because of the odor the deer should not have any problem finding it and moving in fairly fast. We are waiting for some last minute instructions from the company and we will be moving to the field to get this test started.

03-15-2009 update: Truck loaded, cameras ready, scent control taken care of, Rain started, and here I set on my duff waiting watching the weather channel. Looks like we will be into next week before we get a break in the weather where we can get out to finish the setup for this product. Just keep watching because it is going to happen as soon as things clear up.

Ingredients on container:

3-20-2009 update: We managed to arrange things so we could get down south a day early. We have very pretty weather right now so we were able to make it down to our southern testing area and checked all field equipment and feeders. We ran a GPS track on the whole property and then marked all feeders and licks that are presently in operation. We then measured out and picked the point as far away from all licks and feeders. This area is on a slight hillside above a thick bottom that has water in it. We cleaned back the leaves and pine straws so we had fairly clean clay like soil showing. I applied about a little less than a half a bucket to the area (see pictures) and hung the camera about 18 feet away. We had originally planed this setup to be used with the new Bushnell Trophy camera, but they failed to show up this week so we pulled one of our RC-60’s (Reconyx black flash) from another area and set up on this site. I want to tell you that this stuff has a smell, a very strong smell that is very hard to ignore. It is very much like apple but very strong version. Do not do like I did and open the bucket in the house unless you want the whole house to smell like apples. It is not an unpleasant smell but it is a strong smell. With a little breeze I would think it should draw critters from way down wind pretty fast. Should the Trophy cams arrive I will run down and switch out the cameras so we can be doing two 09 reviews together at the same time. I am going to leave the area alone for at least a week and go back and check for initial results.

Pics of the setup:

03-28-2009 update: This past week has been very rainy and this has kept us from getting to some of the things we needed to do. This morning I started about 4:30 AM looking at the weather to decide whether or not to take the boat or truck to go check cams and this product. There was a hole in the radar that said we were going to have plenty of time to make it down country and collect cards and gather some data. We arrived at the testing site and managed to get one feeder filled up before the down pour started. We decided that at least we would go ahead and get wet and check the Lucky Buck site. As you can see by the two pictures we felt that nothing had touched the area because it looked undisturbed. The product was still on the ground but rained down a bit. We pulled the Python and got the cover off the Reconyx just long enough to change the card and fire it back up. With everything locked up the bottom dropped out and the rain started to pour. We headed to the truck and loaded up and headed back to the shop. Thinking we only had one card to look at because with all the rain the other 12 cams would have to wait until next week. Into the card reader went the card and the screen popped up the indication that there was at least one picture on the card. To our surprise, there was actually a bunch. It took 4 days for the deer to find the product and there after we had both day and night visitors. This is a good sign that the rain did not kill what ever it is that causes the animals to come around. We have had a very heavy rain all day today and next week we will see if we are still getting the same results. We are impressed so far, but we will have a better idea as to the longevity and if weather kills the effect. The product hit the ground on 20 March and we had visitors on the 24^thproving that anyone can expect some lag time to begin to see results. So far it is doing an excellent job.

04-04-2008 update: We have had a gully washer of a week. When we arrived at the site here was no indication of any of the product on the ground. There were no tracks or evidence scraping or digging. (see picture) We swapped out the card on the camera and did not disturb the area at all. Once back at the shop we viewed the card and again we had pictures of deer at the site but so far it appears they are doing a lot of sniffing and just a little licking of the ground. If the area is still undisturbed and tore up by next week we will again re apply more and see if we get a better reaction. We have several well established salt licks and last week I put a Leaf River camera on one of the sites and today we viewed the card and found during that period we had seven visits by deer. This week at this site I moved over six feet and established an area with Lucky Buck side by side with the established lick site. We will now see which area gets the attention. The Lucky Buck is in the area with the square of wood around it as shown in the pictures. This will hopefully show which is a stronger attractant, the salt or the Lucky Buck. Keep in mind that the salt lick is what they have been use to at that particular site, so this is probably not a fair test but should prove to be interesting.

04-13-2009 update: At the original test site we had visits by animals (not all deer) on only 4 days during this 9 day period. We have one strange coyote that seems to think that this is his home away from home and wants to roll around to get some of that stink on his back. We refreshed the area with another third of a bucket and now that a few animals are finding the place maybe we will start to get regular daily visits. Time will tell and so far it seems to be working at the original site. During our last visit we made an application that was beside one of our well established mineral licks. The camera we chose for this was the Leaf River IR 5 because it also has sound with the video. I had sent this camera off to the factory to have the nighttime illumination peaked up so this test would be top notch. Well our pictures show that the video quality coming from this camera is still very lacking and needs a lot of help in the flash department. We had found this out last visit and this week we installed a Leaf River IR-X flash extender to see if we can get some much better night videos. The results of putting the product next to the salt proved to be pretty amazing. During the nine day period the deer that normally visit only one deer went to the original lick and that was on the first night, there after they only visited 5 of the 9 days and hit the Lucky Buck only and did not bother the mineral block. This area was also refreshed today with about two cups of product. It is bad that the camera has such sorry illumination because I also like to see if there is anything passing in the area that did not bother to stop at the test site. The visits are about one third day time and two thirds night time. If we can get these animals hooked it is going to be one he-- of a draw for getting animals in front of a camera.

04-25-2009 update: Another 12 days of monitoring and we are still having visitors to both sites. The pure Lucky Buck original site had five groups of deer that came and took some of the product over that period of time. We also had occasional animal that would walk by and not stop. On the next setup where we put the product up against our established mineral lick. This time we were about divided equal as far as which area the deer decided to visit. Some would do both so it appears they are just getting use to the new stuff in the area and are just hanging around in the area longer. The new extra flash on the Leaf River did cause a problem at first. The deer definitely spooked at the flash and extra flash. They eventually returned and enjoyed wearing their tongues out on the dirt.

05-09-2009 update: We had another two weeks of mostly rain and we finally were able to tip toe through the puddles to check cameras. To date we have just put a thin layer of the product on the ground and we have seen a constant flow of deer and other animals coming to visit. With all the rain the area appears to be totally depleted of any sigh of the product on the ground. Our original site had fewer visits than our second site. The second site that is next to one of our established licks still drew its fair share of visitors. This week we entered stage three where we put five piles of two cups each at each site. This is to see if the amount of application has any barring on the amount of visits. So far it has worked well and we are pleased with the results. On site #2 we had to pull the Leaf River off as our watch dog because we had about a hundred pictures where the deer were spooked by the flash and appeared to be very much on edge about its presents in the area. We are now hooked up with one of our Bushnell Trophy cameras in video mode to do the task now. This was our original plans but the arrival of the Bushnell was delayed so we had to pull a Leaf River to fill in the interim. This is also a test for the camera so both will be running in parallel. The location is in our far country location and the deer are very wild about us being around. This should be a good test for both. There will be more to follow next week.

05-16-2009 update: Very strange, our original site had no deer visitors this whole week. The only thing that paid it any attention was a lone coyote that came several times and rolled in the stuff. Our second site was very active and had visitors several times a day and night. The deer still seem to visit the mineral lick about 25% of the time and 75% of the time on the Lucky Buck. The piles vs spreading the material seemed no make no difference. The amount put out also did not seem to have any bearing as to whether or not the deer would visit. So “more” is not necessarily better. A good even spread every three weeks or so is enough to keep them coming.

08-19-2009 update: We have ran a long time on this material and it has worked well for us. We are just now seeing the horns pop out so it will be a month or so before we get any idea of whether or not we have any improvement. We are going to close this review for now and when the time comes we will re open it when we gather additional data.