WNY Bowhunter

I stopped by my uncle's bro-in-law's farm (900+ acres) this morning to do some turkey scouting. I'm taking his kids out for next weekends youth hunt and wanted to find a good spot to set-up. Of course, I was keeping an eye out for sheds as I went along. Sure enough, I hadn't been out of the truck for 5 minutes when I spotted tines sticking up out of a CRP field. This oldie is #30 for me for the year... !!! Not too long afterwards I spied shed #31, another oldie. The tips of all the tines appeared to have been chewed on by a dog. I spent a couple more hours actually looking for sheds but couldn't locate any more. I'm gonna head back up there tomorrow to do some more walking around. Maybe, I can find my truck keys that I lost today...

My buddy at work showed me this pic on his phone on 4/1. The message with it said that it was found today in Letchworth...

Here's #28 for the season. This would have been one of my better ones for the year if not for broken tines... Shed #29 was a little dinker... I've found around 15 dead deer so far, but this is the first antlered buck. He's a decent 6-pt (no brows). I found 3 other dead deer today, a pile of feathers from a turkey and a dead dog.

Just got in from covering the new property that I mentioned in my last post. I ended up walking for 4 hours and came up with two decent sheds. I'm certainly glad to have found them but thought that I would have had more luck here. Oh well, that's shed hunting. I'm down to only a few spots left to check, hopefully I can add a few more to the collection. Shed #26... Shed #27... The dang treerats started snacking on this one. It ended up being a match to one I found a month ago in a neighbors field several hundred yards away. I also found an arrow/broadhead, an old shed-out buck skull and two dead deer (a doe and a buttonbuck).

Despite checking out several great looking properties full of deer sign...I've hit a dry spell over the past few days. My luck finally changed today with shed #25 for the season. Right after late muzzleloader season (a few days before x-mas), I was spotlighting and saw a buck with a decent spread but short tines bedded out in my aunt's alfalfa field across the road. The next night he was out there again but was missing his left antler already. I looked for it the next day but came up empty. Today, I decided to try again and lo and behold there it was...laying right out in the field not far from where he was bedded that night. Not a monster by any means, but it was kinda cool to actually find a specific shed that I was looking for. Didn't take my camera again as I wasn't really expecting to find anything. I don't know how I missed this one the first time that I looked? Hopefully, he'll add some inches this year. The other oldie shed was found yesterday by my cousin (scored 62 4/8). I obtained permission today to look on some property that boarders my main shed hunting farm. The owner is kind of an anti-hunter and his property is like a deer sanctuary. There were somebig bucks spotted out in his combined cornfields after season this year. Hopefully, there are some big bones laying around waiting to get picked up. I also got permission to look on another farm that is home to some monsters. Needless to say, I'm pumped to get out there this weekend. I need 5 more to hit the 30 mark...

Didn't make it out shedding this weekend as my new bow finally arrived on saturday and I had to get her all set up. Today, I decided to check the back of a field that was snowed in the last time that I was here. I wasn't there for 5 minutes and spotted #24 for the year, a nice 55 incher laying at the edge of the woods on a heavily used trail. Ended up looking for another hour with no luck. Sorry, no ATL's because it was raining and I decided to leave the camera in my truck.

Are you done for the season now? I think I may head out here in a few minutes to see if I can't snag a few more...

Those are some good tips. You certainly do seem to have a knack for shed hunting. One thing I noticed though, by the looks of some of those old sheds, you seem to have missed a couple last year... . Congrats on hitting your goal!

mbucks27, Congrats on the finds! I'm trying to patiently wait for the rest of the snow to go so I can get back out there. I'm @ 23 right now but would like to hit the 30 mark before turkey season rolls around.

Well, I stopped to see the kid who found the other half today and he offered me $50 for mine but I turned him down. Originally, he was supposed to sell me his, but apparently has changed his mind. Reguardless, its a pretty cool looking set with a lot of character. Hopefully, he'll need some money sometime and will want to part with it...

Can't wait for this snow to melt off so I can resume my shedding!!!

Congrats. You should be able hit 20 (once this friggen new snow we're getting melts off... > ).

I have heard of deer in TX eating their sheds, but I don't think a deer's teeth would be very efficient at chewing off pieces of bone. IMHO, this theory doesn't hold much water. I have found sheds from previous seasons that were chewed by rodents and others that weren't chewed at all. Not one of the sheds I picked up this year, other than a decent 4-pt that is at least a couple of years old, has so much as a gnaw mark. We are pretty luck here in NY when you look at the condition of some of the sheds found in the midwest...they'll literally get their tines chewed off by treerats within a couple of weeks of being on the ground. Sickening!!! I believe that most people who don't find sheds simply because they aren't looking where the bucks were bedding and feeding during the shedding months of Jan./Feb...

Scored this shed @ 68 4/8" typical or 70 2/8" non-typical. Really don't know if the G2 & G3 would be ruled as common-base tines? I hope that my uncle can talk the guy who has the 7-pt. match into selling it to me. This deer would gross 150+ if the other side is similar with is pretty amazing considering the tines only range from 6 1/8 to 7 2/8 in length. From the description that my buddies dad gave me of it, it sounds to be just like the one I have. Man, this dude has to be 6-7-8 years old? The other big one from the weekend scores 62 but looks to be a young deer and should be a monster this year...

Here's the set that the other kid found that I mentioned earlier...officially gross 153 with an 18" spread credit (I think it was probably closer to 20). My two big ones and this set were all found within several hundred yards of each other...

Tried to match up the big one from yesterday so I checked a little brush strip on the other side of the creek (really a small river) and found these two after only a couple minutes of looking. Sorry, no ATL's, I forgot my camera in the truck. I stopped by at the next door neighbors to ask for permission and he said that the kids of the guy who works for him have been out looking around and found some nice ones including a massive chocolate colored 7-pt. side...my heart sank!!! I'm gonna have to stop by and see them I guess. Can't find the measuring tape I use for scoring but I came up with a 6.5" base and 8.5" right below the base of the browtine!!! It's the most massive base that I've ever seen around here... Comparision with yesterdays's mid-60's shed:

Found a MASSIVE 6-pt. side today. Pics up shortly!!!

On a sour note, I learned yesterday that someone found a monster 9-pt set grossing in the upper 150's to 160 (depending on spread) earlier in the week on another one of the farms that I shed hunt. I actually did some walking around here last weekend (picked up 3 sheds) but never made it to the back end of the huge field. He found 5 sheds, including the big set in the back left corner of this pic. Dang it, I was gonna finish it up this weekend. I'm SICK!!! I hope to snap a few pics of this set tomorrow if I can get a hold of the kid who found them...

Congrats!!!

Hit up a new farm today and added 4 more sheds to my talley. I really thought that I would have found a few more with the amount of ground that I covered, but no complaints here. Hopefully, I can find a few more tomorrow too. #18 was actually a nice broken mainbeam, but I'm counting it as a shed... #19 was an oldie... #20 was a long-tined beauty and my new largest shed to date!!! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D Snagged #21 out in a cornfield while trying to match up #20...

This is my forth year of shed hunting with 44 sheds to my credit (I have found more when I wasn't actually searching for them). I ended up finding 8 each of the first two years back in '04 and '05...took a several year hiatus and then got back into it last spring finding 11. I'm thinking that I might have to bump this year's goal up to 25. Good luck!

Wooly, I here ya man...I'm getting a bit discouraged too at the overall lack of size of my finds thus far. I've got a few pretty decent ones but I know that there are bigger out there. Maybe they're in the woods or cornfields that I'm holding off on checking until the snow is melted off? Anyways, I heading out for a couple of hours this AM back to the farm where I've spent most of my time at this point. Ended up finding 3 more "pocket sheds" (sheds small enough to stick in your pockets while you're walking around) in a corner of one field that has been snowed in on my previous trips through. These new additions put me @17 which surpasses by goal of 15. With several weeks and lots of ground to check yet, I'm hoping I can find a few big ones. Heading out to try to get permission to look on another farm tomorrow that I feel has the potential of being a real producer...

Added 4 more today, bringing my total thus far to 14, just one short of my 15 shed goal. Lots of ground to cover yet but I gotta wait for some more snow to melt first. #11 was a pretty nice one. Sheds #12 & 13 were a matched set from last year that were laying 20 yds apart in a cut beanfield. Too bad they got busted up by the tractor disc. At least they weren't big ones... #14 was found on the edge of a combined cornfield while scouting out another new spot. I know that there's more sheds out here, but man, I hate walking cornfields!!!

Managed to snag #9 and #10 this afternoon. Here's #10 with its tines buried in the mud... I was going over to check out some big rubs on the field edge when I nearly stepped on this one (right side). I found the match across the road back at the end of January. Was so shocked to see it laying there that I scooped it up before thinking about snapping a pic. Oops... : .

I made it out to check a few fields today that have melted off. Found #8, a respectable 2.5 year old 4-pt. side. The bigger bucks seem to have hidden their antlers from me pretty well. Still too much snow in the woods to look. Hopefully, I can add to the count over the weekend...