Water holes

[SNEEKEE1]

Be pretty cool to set one up but like said worry about someone else finding it and either destroying it or taking advantage of it.

[elkaholic]

kinda hard to hide the water barrels when you got white feeder tubs in plain site glass them up from miles away

[naturegirl]

Yep being done already. I've heard from more than one person over the years who is doing this.

[gotcoues]

 

 

This was a set up my buddy and I came up with. Worked great and believe or not, between summer and winter rains held water year round. You'll have to forgive the shameless plug for my awesome dog Chloe. Back when she was a spring chicken, there wasn't a "camera run" she didn't go on. Initially, we put 10 or 15 gallons in it and that made it until the monsoons. I did however have to cover the majority of the top to prevent bears from taking a bath and pushing most of the water out of the tub.

[520HUNT]

I built one like AZLance posted. We painted the white water jugs with camouflage paint, then hid them with branches and rocks. It is almost impossible to see. The deer are killing it.

[resolute]

I am lucky enough to live with deer in the backyard....I have a rainwater catchment system 1000 gal. off my roof with a toilet float and it gravity feeds to a horse trough. Have deer hitting it year round about 400 yards from house. I promised the lady I wouldn't arrow them, but there is a 115+ I see quite a but that has been growing a red dot on its vitals ....time will tell

[Thegrayghost]

Good ideas guys, thanks for the pics/videos. The reason I would like to build a water hole is because I don't have the time to continually go out and look for new water sources all the time. One or 2 good sources is all I need, and if I have to build it then I just might.

[az_shooter]

Gotcoues - man that is one sweet set up, the only thing that sucks is that stock tank would be way too heavy to drag up to where I would want to put it.

[have2bhuntn]

I know they are not illegal but if forests service finds them they may consider it littering. I know a ex game warden that liked to collect tree stands and blinds he found because he considered them litter

[Soul Archer]

this is an older thread I found on water tanks. How many of you have improved existing tanks to get them to hold more water through the summer?

[Whitesheep]

Thank you Soul Archer for reigniting this thread.

 

In reading all the posts I wonder if it wouldn't be better to spend time scouting for existing tanks or pot holes and mapping them rather than building and maintaining a tank. As Gray Ghost said there really is a lot of water in the desert, you just have to find it. I am sure many of you have had the same experiences I have of finding water by following bees and other bugs or just stumbling into water sources small and large.

 

Personally I would rather scout my unit than lug water.

[Edge]

Maybe put a couple large rocks in it. I see it has a squirrel egress, but... Was hiking with my dog yesterday, he jumped in an AZGFD water tank and would have drown had I not been there. Their water holes are deep one end, shallow the other, but a panicking animal can't always figure that out.

 

Cinder blocks turned on their side would provide a step up without taking up a large volume of water.