Water hole - what am I doing wrong

[Jeff Holley]

Last year I installed a water hole using a 275 gallon plastic tote. I run a flexible metal hose to a small cooler I buried in the ground. Inside of the cooler I have a float valve that keeps the water from flowing over the cooler. It stays full, but does not overfill. There is a creek to the west by 1/4 mile and a small pond to the east 1/4 mile but no water on my 100 acres. I have a camera on it and get deer on camera all the time but have not had 1 picture of a deer using the water hole. I did get 1 raccoon using it one night, but that's it. What am I doing wrong ?

 

[Bill]

Maybe it's to small and they don't like the looks of the cooler.
Can't think of any other reason they wouldn't use it. Sheer guess on my part.

 

[Tree Spud]

Size matters ... ;)

Too much mechanical stuff, constrained cooler opening, possible odors from those items, multiple nearby competing fresh water sources ...

 

[H20fwler]

I think the tote itself may be spooking stuff, maybe if it blended in more? Purely speculation on my part.

 

[wiscwhip]

Similarly to Tree Spud, I feel it may be a combination of the large tote being so close to the cooler and the fact the cooler is so small. Get a WAYYYY longer hose, move that tote back and cover it with some brush on the side facing the cooler, then get that cooler out of there and replace it with a 5 ft kiddy pool.

 

[WTNUT]

They are not drinking out of that - too much stuff too close together and they probably aren't liking that cooler. That system would probably work if the tote was much further from a plastic Koi pond, the line was buried and the tote was brushed in.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[bueller]

Bury a kiddie pool or a small plastic form pond and use the tote for something else. It should stay near full just with rainfalls.

 

[JFK52]

I got a free kiddie pool from the town dump. I did not even bother to bury it. I just stuck a large rock in it to keep it from blowing away and bent over piece of chicken wire for the mice to crawl out of it. It is in an area that already has a small scooped out catch basin pond and 55 gallon barrels cut in half. All catch rain water and get a lot of deer activity. As others have mentioned, your set up is just "too busy" for the deer.

 

[Jeff Holley]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I think I'm going to extend the area from the tote to the cooler using pvc.
I have a couple kiddie pools at the house for the dogs to stay cool in. I think I can place the cooler inside the pool and still get usage of the float valve.
The tote is definitely overkill as far as size goes. If I have a clean 55 gallon container I may use that as well instead of the tote.

Thanks again for the suggestions,
Jeff

 

[Jeff Holley]

ok, I re-worked my watering hole. I used a kiddie pool and placed it about 20 ft away from the tote. I used 1" pvc to reroute it from it's previous spot. There is gravel and big rocks in it and I utilized the top of the cooler to conceal the float valve. I've heard that raccoons will rip it out if you don't keep it covered.
There is a camera on it so I'll be able to tell if there is any utilization. I'll pull the card next week and we'll see.

 

[bueller]

Looks a lot better. Hope you get some pics of deer using it.