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My new stand and fill deer feeder

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    My new stand and fill deer feeder

    I got permission to hunt a small tract of rural land several years ago. This place is riddled with deer and hogs. There are a couple sure enough good deer, but for the most part a lot of the little bucks need to be culled. The first year that I hunted it I thought that it would be a slam dunk. I thought I would be tagged out opening weekend and that would be that. Well as the old adage goes,” you get what you put in” and that is what I got… It seemed like everything had read the script. No matter what the conditions were these are still wild animals. I would see animals by chance, with no real rhyme or reason. These deer and hogs were not on any sort of true daytime schedule. In fact once I put out cameras I noticed that the majority of the activity took place at night. Year 2 I knew I needed to make a change. I was working out of town and did not have a whole lot of time to sit in the stand. A feeder was in order so I could get the wildlife on my schedule. I bought an inexpensive feeder that went on sale one weekend. It was nothing special. This feeder checked the box, it feed animals at a certain time for about 3 weeks at a time. Then I would have to go back out and recharge the battery and fill the feeder back up. Opening morning my son and I had success. A small 8 point walked out and we stuck a well-placed arrow through the vitals. I kept the feeder going just to see what else was coming around. It became very obvious that raccoons and squirrels were really hitting this feeder hard. I decided to buy a varmint guard and a solar panel. Do you think that slowed them down? These animals decided they did not like the 6volt shock they got when they played with timer. So what do they do, they go through the side of the barrel.



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    #2



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      #3
      At this point something had to be done. The hassle of balancing on the back of a 4 wheeler ever 3 weeks to fill the feeder and charge the battery was becoming a bourdon. The only logical solution would be to upgrade. I started doing some research. A stand and fill with a 12 volt system and a varmint cage seemed like the only way to go. I began tinkering with the design here and there and this is what I came up with.


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        #4



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          #5
          A steel barrel, 2 inch carbon conduit, and some angle iron and I was in business. The fact that I was going to be my own fitter and welder I had to get creative.


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            #6



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              #7
              That will work, looks good!!

              I have hunted neighborhood bucks a lot and I think they are harder to hunt than the big ranches.

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                #8
                I built a jig so that all of my angles would be typical. I watched a few videos on how to cut saddles on youtube and I was on my way. All 4 four of the legs were cut and trimmed out so that they were identical. Another jig was built so that the skids for both sides would match.


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                  #9



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                    #10
                    I tacked up all four of the legs, and set them aside. I had a piece of 4x4 square tubing that I split into 4 pieces length wise making 2x2 angle. With the 55 gallon drum upside down I fit and welded the angle iron up in place.


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                      #11



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                        #12
                        Lots of good feeders out there without needing to build. How big is the place you’re hunting? Curious because you say it’s small but has a lot of young bucks that need culling.

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                          #13
                          Once that was done I started trying to figure out how to fit all of it together and make it look descent. My first attempt was to balance the legs just by leaning them up against my fab table. This is what I got for that effort.


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                            #14
                            It all came crashing down and cut the crap out of my thumb. So we have all heard that if something is not broke do not fix it. That’s right build another jig.


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                              #15
                              That was just the ticket. I was able to get the legs positioned just right and clamped down. I was able to add the top square piece, the toes for the sled, and the 2 mid horizontal pieces. It was time to get to welding.


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