wooly

Couple vid clips of the first critter to show up at my carcass set.

Where's that Wallenda guy now? A frozen rope sure would make things a little more interesting!

All of the above! This early in the season, just follow the deer sign around all those areas and maybe you'll get lucky. I don't know how far along deer on the island are in shedding right now, but it may still be pretty early like it seems to be here. If I had to pick just one place to look right now it would be the fields and plots.

It's never too early to shed hunt Deerthug! You can find antlers 365 days a year. I'll bet you got a few laying around camp as we speak! Good luck and enjoy the weekend!

Take care of yourself Red! One time I didn't clean the litter box for like a week and got amonia too! Nasty stuff!

I finaly managed to get across the flooded creek to check my cams today. On my way I stumbled upon yet another dead doe fawn. This one wasn't here a week ago. If it was, I would have tripped over it as I walked right over this spot. I dragged her out into the open and set my Moultrie up in video mode over the carcass to see what I get. I've been meaning to do this for a while now, but I never had a camera with me when I find one close to home. A couple young bucks on one of the cams the past week. Both still packing. Got a lot of doe and fawns also. I went home with no antlers again today. This is getting aggrevating! Antlers- 0 Sets- 0 Dead bucks- 3 Dead doe/fawns- 3

Maybe leave the grunt tube and bleat calls home this fall. C'mwon....c'mwon..., c'mwon..,lol

It was a gift, so regaurdless of any pending deer seasons in the future, I'm still gonna have some fun with this thing! I'd like to do a pig hunt with it, but no real plans as of yet. I haven't even shot it yet. Now that made me laugh! I hope so, or somebody got suckered,lol

Who wants to hold the apple on their head? I'll bet I can hit it by my 3'rd bolt!

Nice eye Shawn ... but a "rib man" like yourself probably would have enjoyed the pike more,lol!

Where's my donut?

Sure, I'll take a large black, with an apple fritter, and a BLT on toasted wheat if you're going to Timmy Ho's! I'll tell you all about the weather when you get here!

yeah, we just call it January here!

At least you know nobody else has scooped any of them up yet. I can't think of a safer place for them antlers to be right now..... other than on your pile! That's quite a few bucks to have running around one farm. Your antlers could add up quick this season!

Thanks guys! They're calling for 3-4 FEET of snow for my area the next few days. This will be the second time this winter we're going to get blasted with ridiculous amounts. Shed season may be on hold for a while if the forecast holds true.

Here in NY, it's not uncommon (also read as: "not common") to start finding early dropped antlers any time in December. This is still typically considered a very poor time to start searching for them as there are generally not that many fresh antlers laying around at this time, but a few bucks tend to drop at this time every year. There's many theories, and even more variables that determine annual shedding dates that will make you crazy if you're trying to plan your early season shed hunt around when most bucks have dropped. After the rut, testosterone levels in bucks drop, which triggers other chemical changes in a whitetail, that eventually lead to his pedicals deteriorating and his horns falling off. That's the most basic explanation I can come up with from a non-scientific stand point. What I do have a better understanding of is other environmental influences that also have an affect on shedding. A few examples include, extreme or abnormal weather for the area.. quality and abundance of food.., a bucks physical condition.., intensity of the rut., and even out of whack buck to doe ratios. Basicaly, any one of these, or any combination, or most likely all of the above play a role in when your bucks will shed. The more stressers you add to the equation, the more likely it will affect drop time. Unfortunately there's still no hard fast rule bucks will all shed at the same time. Even with all these influences being equal, some bucks will still hold onto this years antlers well into March or April on the late side of the spectrum. Finding these late drop antlers before spring green up becomes the biggest challenge, and it's sad for me to say, but some antlers will be left behind for another year. These are the horns I'm really looking for when I start my early season shed hunting trips into areas I didn't get the chance to cover thoroughly where bucks were still packing. In a nutshell, there's no better indicator than first hand sightings of bucks who have lost one or both antlers. Do your best to observe your resident bucks via trail cams, night time spotlighting fields around the block, or any other encounters you have this time of year while in the deer woods.

1-5-14 Well, I gave it heck again today and came home empty handed once again. I left early this morning so I had enough time to check out both the upper and lower section of the park. The deer are in here thick, but they're just not leaving any antlers laying around yet. Down at the big field in the lower section I saw some shed hunter sign. Snowmobile tracks every 8-10ft the entire length of the field all the way across. I've hauled a few antlers out of here in the past, but this is the first time I've ever seen the competition using sleds in here. I won't even waste my time in there any more this season. On a positive note, the woods around the field were loaded with deer sign and not a single boot print in sight! Unfortunately I did find another dead doe today in a little clearing about 75 yds off the road at a heavy crossing. She probably got bounced off a bumper and piled up here. My 5'th dead deer so far and still not a single shed.....not good. The highlight of my day was this rambunctious coon! I saw him walking along so I took off after him and chased him up a tree. He was making noises I never heard a coon make before. He would jump in and out of every hole in the old dead tree and then poke his face out to see if I left yet. He gave me a few good shots so I decided to let him be after harassing him for 1/2 hr. As I was walking away I could hear him screaming the entire time untill I was out of site and hearing range. Some days these little critter encounters are what keeps me coming back, even if the antlers ain't falling yet! Antlers- 0 Sets- 0 Dead bucks- 3 Dead doe/fawns- 2

It's hard to get motivated with all this snow hanging around, but today I gave it another good try, and saw enough incentive to patiently wait out ol' man winter as bucks are still packing! That makes the snow a little easier to tolerate for now, and the big goose egg in the antler count a little easier to swallow. I wasn't seeing squat my last few hikes. No sign, no deer, no tracks, no nothin'! Today that all changed, and the woods around home look like they're infested with deer again! I saw quite a few from a distance, saw a ton of sign, and it just looks like they're hammering the winter places they're supposed to be in right now! No antlers today, but I did get a shot of this buck before he could take off with his partner! They were bedded in the pines off the cornfield as I expected. They'll be back. I'm pretty sure this is the beefy 4pt I got TC pics of this fall durring bow season. Always nice seeing a few farmiliar faces make it through season. Probably go run around the park tomorrow to see what's shakin' there since the bucks around home aren't ready for me yet! The good news is, I haven't found any more dead deer around home! Pretty sure this is him... Quick vid below of some young bucks behind my house tearing up the hickory, or chestnuts, or whatever they are! They're digging these up everywhere I go right now, so I've been combing over these spots as good as I can right now under less than ideal conditions.

My AA Moultrie (M-80black) outlast my D units by a longshot. There's no comparison. Usually have my AA cams set on 30 second video with 5 second delay as well for continous footage. 1000's of video over months with this set up, while my D-cell units(D-55 & D-65) may only get a couple hundred pics in 3 shot burst over weeks before they peter out.

My Energizer re-chargeables have been holding up surprisingly well.... although I did take advantage of this cold snap yesterday to bring all my cams in to thaw out and re-charge.

70 is young in terms of a vampires age! Happy B-day "Doc-ula",lol

Congrats on your first antler of 2014 jgsbucker! Nice to have another shed journal here to follow along with on the site! Good luck to you the rest of the season, and hope to see many more finds from you in the comoing months!

Another scary moment from 2 years ago. Again, I was hiking for antlers in the deep snow, when I got lazy and decided to take a shortcut right up the gut of the creek instead of plowing my way through the timber. The snow wasn't nearly as deep here, and the ice below had been solid to this point so I didn't pay it much attention. I got up to a deeper pool and decided to skirt the edge of it along the side of a log jam when I saw where the ice had changed color ahead. Without warning, the bottom dropped out on me and I fell through up to my tits. My feet never hit bottom, and the only thing stopping me from going through completely was my backpack hung up on the edge of the hole I had just made. I still don't know exactly how I managed to pull myself outta there, but once I got out and the frigid cold hit me, the mad dash was on to make it home before I froze in my tracks! Of course I had to grab a few pics first, or it would just be an exagerated story if I survived,lol

I'm gonna pass on both bucks. Since I started hunting with my ML exclusively durring the regular and late seasons, I've let quite a few deer walk if the oppertunity was not perfect for the first shot to kill clean and possibly require a follow up. Not saying I couldn't make that shot earlier in the vid.., but I'd hate to tarnish my 100% ML sucess rate that I'm pretty proud of to this point. That's what I really like about the front stuffers is they make me very critical of my shot selection, and plenty of deer get a pass.