I just recently bought  a 5 acre parcel(long rectangle) of land in west texas (ward county) about 100 feet away from the pecos river(north of pecos). My fiance and I wanted a place to call home base away from home, so if we hike scout hunt etc we have a place to shower sleep camp,  basically just enjoy the outdoors and get away from big city living.

With the 5 acres of land I was reading in this site others ideas and suggestions for small acre food plots feeders and water guzzlers.

Currenty we have a plan to plant buffalo grass on the far end roughly 3/4 an acre and put a few 250lb capacity ground feeders that we will stock with corn. Also we plan to put in a few salt licks or mineral licks in that are.

I'm not really to sure if we will need water guzzlers that close to the river but the budget will allow if it actually helps the wildlife.

I'm new to all of this and need some help or suggestions to get this area more deer friendly for hunting and wildlife photos(her hobby).

I really don't know the population density of deer in the area but with close proximity to the river I'm hoping that it will bring in some wildlife for some photography for her.

Besides buffalo grass are there any other grasses or plants that we could plant for deer cover that don't need watering and can survive in that dry envirnment. The reason i ask is because we will only be in texas 4-5 times a year and I wont be able to setup a complete gravity drip watering setup till 2011.

Any advice on what do with this land to make it more animal friendly would be greatly appreciated.

I don't want to dump too much money into this all at once but would rather do a bit at a time and enjoy the process.

Thank you much for your time

Klaus