shed hunting

[Musky Buck]

Pretty cool guys, bucks in my area still with headgear and Fridley friend had 3 at his bird feeder last night. Still waiting.

[scsavre]

That is a cool picture in the water, kind of sad at the same time. That is a real nice trophy.

I have been hitting it pretty hard, a couple hours ever day. I have found nothing. I am finding some good spots where they are tearing up the ground and bedding etc. I think I am going to take a couple day break. I havent seen any bucks that have dropped their gear yet. That i know of at least.

[shedaddict]

[pleasebecomeasponsor], have you found a lot of sheds around the metro? This is my first year looking around here, so not quite sure what to expect. I've only been able to get out about once a week. Found a lot of good sign, but I think most of the antlers are either buried or will start dropping soon.

I'm heading over to my hunting land in WI next week for the entire day; can't wait to walk some familiar ground.

[scsavre]

Shed, I have done pretty good in years past in the north metro, but mainly in march/april.

Last year I saw a couple bucks that had dropped in feb, but no luck yet this year. I have gone almost every day so i am tracking them on fresh snow and still nothing. This makes me think that the majority still has gear on in my woods, and maybe a few that dropped earlier that are buried.

Hopefully Wis will yield a few for ya.

[LOTWSvirgin]

Finally broke the funk I have been in today with a smaller 3 point side. Will post some pics when I finally find more. 6 for the year in SWMN

[jkcmj]

Got out for a few hours yesterday and came up with this nice find. It was the match to the one my friend found back on Jan 16th. Scored just over 90 inches for this half of it!

And a pic of them together.

[certified jumbo]

Congrats!!! Now that is a nice find!!

I've only found one good non typical, its awesome when you get one. Good work man!!

[gonefishing70]

That is a very nice find. I havent been out in a while we have a lot of snow. maby give it a shot this weekend.

[Monkster]

Very nice find. I can feel the warmer weather headed our way!

[Musky Buck]

Just got tcam out since dec.22-feb.27th. still 90% with full racks as of today and this last week, and 3 dandies, roughly 15 different bucks on tape, had 669 photos to wade through. Uncle 6 miles away has 90% shed with large amounts of wolf activity, my dad almost ran one over by his mailbox, all OT and Wad. county. 1 Mountain lion in the mix, no photo, but tracks and it's obvious.

[buglefever]

jkcmj: That is an AWESOME antler and set for that matter! Any antler is a trophy, but the nice ones make it oh so sweet!

I went out for about an hour yesterday and found a nice 5 on top of a beaten deer trail. Since the snow is so deep, you had to be on top to see it. Ironically, it turned out to be the match to an antler I found a couple weeks ago and I found it about half mile away. Considering the area I was surprised. Our snow is sinking more everyday, so I think tomorrow will be an all day search.

Also of interest, about 3 weeks ago a guy I know basically watched an antler fall off a buck. It was an extremely heavy antler. He saw the deer 2 full weeks later still carrying the other side. On a whim he went out the day after he saw the deer and found the other half, about 100 yards from where the first one dropped. The set scores in the 160's. Even big deer with heavy antlers don't always drop both sides within a few days.

[jkcmj]

I went another couple hours today looking for new spots. Found a couple of promising locations, but both had been checked recently and only came up with one very small 3pt.

We took a couple pics with a real camera of the matched big set and thought I would include one.

[certified jumbo]

Dang. All i can say on that 9 point side is F yes man. That is awesome. Great pics in the snow. What are your plans with the big matching set??

[jkcmj]

Since I only found the 9pt side I will have to settle for pics of them together! I tried to buy the half with the broken G3 that my friend found Jan 16th, but no budge as he is like me and doesn't sell any of his antlers.

[Jameson]

ah com' on, if he is your friend ya gotta be able to work out some kind of deal. Beer, steak, other sheds, something in trade.

[certified jumbo]

I understand that. Its always hard to give up a antler. 3 years ago I had a similiar situation. My buddy found a big side and then I found the other half a week later. One half had 3 different, 5 inch stickers coming off of the g2 on one side. one was broke off when it was found, we had lots of trail cam pics of the buck. I offered him money and no dice. We even talked about each one of us getting the antlers for 6 months and trading off. Never worked anything out, he's got one side and i have the other. Which is ok, its always hard to give up a nice find!!

Good work.

[Tim_Anderson]

Well it seems that I have to try just about every sport there is at one time or another, so here I am having a go at shed hunting.

I have never really been a "shed hunter" as many of you are, rather, I tend to find mine incidentally while I am out in the woods doing whatever. I am definitely intrigued though, by the whole sport of trying to find them on purpose. I envision learning alot: from where the deer like to travel, to what survived the winter, and more.

Like most of you, I enjoy finding ANY shed, but what I am looking for is the giant bucks that I tend to hunt for during the deer season. To me, that kind of find, especially if it is a matched pair, is just about as good.

I'm about obsessed with this enough to have just read the entire 25 pages that have been posted. I had a couple of hours today to look, and though I actually saw 36 different deer, and followed "cow trails" the whole way, I did strike out. Not to worry though, like anything else, I believe you just gotta never give up and things will change.

Anyway, thought I would share with you some of my "finds" from over the years.

This is my best matched pair. Found side by side on a south facing slope near the twin cities.

Here's probably my most impressive antler. It is truly massive, and it is hard to get a picture to do it justice. I found it in the fall, on the border of a crp field and a corn field - found it while pheasant hunting near Starbuck.

view from the back side

My deer hunting partner and I found a skeleton this past season of a big 10 pointer. The antlers were in great shape. He has the skull and antlers, so I will try and get a pic of it to share with you guys. I am most excited to go up to our deer hunting turf in a couple three weeks because I am well aware of what survived this fall!

[shedaddict]

JKCMJ, awesome shed! You're killing me!!! I haven't been able to make it out for awhile. Is this your biggest shed found?

[lungdeflator]

Nice work guys. Does anybody look around the Grand Forks area? When did most drop out there this year?

[Jmnhunter]

i went out around town here this past saturday (bismarck) found tons of sign, trails and where they have been foraging. i dont know if they dropped them already before our last significant snow fall (about a month) or the majority of them havent dropped them? talked to some friends from park rapids and they said they saw a couple bucks with both antlers still on. may have to wait for the snow to melt some

[Monkster]

Tim - very nice sheds. I am curious, for my own sake, you said that you try to hunt the sheds of bigger, trophy deer that you have seen during hunting season. Have you looked for sheds in these same areas that you hunt or do you change your locations specifically for the larger deer?

I have seen some very large, trophy caliber bucks in the metro that I would love to go hunt their sheds, I am just not sure if it would be in the same areas as the 'other' deer are. Maybe others can tell me their method also, but would we find 'trophy' antlers in the same areas as lesser antlers. Yes, I know, all sheds are trophies...I do feel the same way. I just wonder if I should get away from the 'yarding and feeding' areas to find the monster sheds.

[ratherbefishn]

Nice sheds there guys!! I will try to put a few pictures up as well.

Monkster, you have a hard question to answer there. I have not found any monster sheds myself yet but do know of a few and where they were found. I think location is the biggest factor. Up by my inlaws in north central WI the deer herd up pretty heavy and spikes to 170+ inch deer seem to be in the same area but this is more of a survival issue. Here in town the big boys definatly seem to set up there own camp and remain pretty well on there own till they drop. 100-130 inch deer like to hang out together and anytime I jump one of them there seems to be 3 or 4 in that group but the big guys almost seem to always be solo. Might just be what I have seen but usually is the case here in the cities. Private refuge from people is not always the case either. The 2 biggest sheds I have seen were found in peoples back yards where they had been bedding and no body was feeding the deer in the area.

[Tim_Anderson]

Monkster - I was going to pose the very same question.

I live in a neighborhood with tons of deer. The other day when I was looking, I saw 36 different deer. Seemed to me to be mostly does and fawns, and maybe a few real young bucks that had dropped. I was on what looked to be "cow trails" the entire time, and came up with nothing.

It made me start to think, and I'm starting to come up with a theory. My own experience is that the biggest bucks are loners much of the year, or they hang out in bachelor groups with deer of the same basic size. I have not seen a big buck with any of the other deer around here since December.

Having said that, I am going to broaden my search to some of the more "lonely" trails, the spruce swamps, and thicker stuff out away from the rest of the deer herd and see what happens. Headed out right now.

I am just getting into this, so am not an authority by any means. Just running on my deer hunting experience I guess.

Any of you veteran shed hunters want to weigh in on this issue of specifically targeting GIANT sheds?

[Musky Buck]

The biggest bucks in my woods are traveling the same trails as the rest, I just went through 669 trailcam photos from 1 camera, but Tim, when the 2 biggest boys come through they are together, the like 2.5 year old bucks and under are together, then the does and fawns and an occassional buck come through together, makes me wonder if the doe/does tolerate the buck because he's one of hers. They seem to keep their distance from one another. There were 2 bucks fighting on film and that was on Feb.13th, more sparring and a bit of pushing and shoving, lasted about a minute. Out of the roughly 15 bucks, 2 had shed, 2 had 1 horn as long as 3 weeks they kept that 1 horn, the rest had both sides as of yesterday.

[Monkster]

Well, that's good to know about traveling the same trails. When I found the first two sheds this year (two weeks ago) they were in area that the deer come to feed at only. The trails leading to the area are packed down, so at least I know I am on the right trail.

I hunt a completely different area and the deer tend to leave that area in the winter to yard up, so looking for sheds closer to the cities is a different ballgame. I am going to slip out tonight with my two boys and see if we can beat someone to an area before the weekend comes.