There was this 350 acre or so dry land basin on a ranch of ours. Views were magnificent, and it tucked to the folds of the Tobacco Root foothills, majestic eleven and twelve thousand foot peaks framing the high desert scene. Two small creeks, seasonal and intermittent, flowed through the gentle swells of the basin. An old trapper’s cabin and remnants of his corral perched with an ageless gray and weathered tilt next to two huge cottonwoods, their limbs reaching for the sun, and their roots desperately searching for water in the summer dry cobble of the tiny creek bed.

The occasional antelope and mule deer wandered here, particularly in the winter. But the whitetail deer, lovers of water and cover, and the elk further up on the remaining 15,000 surface acres of the ranch disdained the dry hollow cradled in the foothills just above the valley.

It struck me that, as on numerous other ranches, changing the feed, introducing a reliable water supply, and creating a tad of cover that would expand as the other improvements took hold might just draw the more coveted elk, and stealthy whitetail.

We built a pond, fed by a ditch stretching two miles across the face of the mountains from a small perennial (year around) creek in which we owned all the water rights. Plans were made for that first pond of about an acre. This pond would then feed several others. We killed off the brome grass planted decades before, and replaced it with higher quality, protein intense forage including dry land alfalfa, wild Russian, and basin rye, with about 100 acres of crested wheat for spring feed.   A few fast growing, fast spreading stands of cottonwoods and aspens were carefully located. The cattle were removed.

That was three years ago. The basin is now home to a year round resident herd of about 40 elk. The cows of the bunch are calving just above the golden folds of the new seeding. The elk numbers, including some mighty fine looking big bulls, swell to several hundred from November to May, as seasonal conditions make the basin magically attractive as winter range. Whitetails are now abundant; in fact, they run helter-skelter, tails waiving back and forth in alarm as we approach. Many of them sport antlers that would make the most ardent of whitetail hunters proud. The antelope numbers have tripled, as have the Mule Deer.

A day after the machines left the new pond this year there were elk and deer tracks. Although this doesn’t always happen with such speed, I smiled with the instant gratification of it all.

Build it and they will come.

Photo by Reid L Rosenthal Copyright 2008