WNY Bowhunter

Both of mine were banded on the same farm and were later harvested on another farm about a mile up the road. There have been some birds that have gone 30+ miles.

Yep, I'd guess we would have been going on 3 or possibly even years old back in the spring of 2007...making him 8 or 9 when I busted him last spring. He is the oldest bird reported in the tri-state study and possibly the oldest on record in NYS. The old boy was in great shape and by all indications still had a few good years left in him.

I was just going through some old threads and thought that I'd update this post with a copy of the letter that I was sent by Penn State:

Wing Suppy had a great deal on them...

I have both a Black 60 and the MP6 model. Correct, most of my summertime pics are open field sets. I am perfectly happy with getting 10-15K pics on a set of batteries...

Yeah, but I had 10,000 - 12,000 pics from mine this summer before I changed them and I stil had one bar showing!!! Try that with a Moultrie!!! Great cam, you'll love it. I'll only buy Covert cams from now on...

In a few weeks...

Nice one. Seems like I've only picked up one half to most of my bigger sheds.

I too am waiting on the friggen snow to melt before I really get rolling again...

Finally, the February slump is over!!! I took a little stroll around a couple of properties near Keuka Lake where the snow is mostly gone. The first spot yielded shed #13 for the season. I actually stepped on it while busting my way through a nasty multiflora rose choked thicket. I decided to take a really quick walk around a buddy of mine's hayfield on the way home just to scout it out and see if it was gonna be worth my time to look here. I wasn't out of the truck from more than three minutes and spotted #14, a decent little 5-pt side... Looks like a 2.5 year old that has some potential to be a nice one in another year or two...

It works out to be about $5-$6 per shell for the Hevi Mag Blends that I shoot. I'll gladly pay that to knock down a longbeard!!! They tore this dude's face up @ 40+ yds. this past spring...

The mass measurements at the narrowest point between the burr and browtine on my sheds are 6 inches each, the circumference around the burr/corona of each antler is close to 8 inches. I guess he was genetically programmed to put more growth into his basal area than in his tines...

He's doesn't have the greatest genetics scorewise...probably lower 150's typical gross this year (plus trash) assuming that the other side resembles this one. The trophy status of this deer is in the fact that he must have been 7.5 or 8.5 years old this past season. He's an old warrior of the whitetail world!!!

Here are a few pics from 2011...

A buddy of mine picked up the current year's shed from the heavy base buck saturday afternoon laying in his backyard. I was checking a picked cornfield at the time literally right across the road. Just my luck. They had no sightings of this deer all year. The new shed has 8-pts... The current year's antler is in the middle...2011 antler is on the left and 2010 on the right:

I asked one of my uncles about this and he said that what you stated is true...

I shed hunt several different properties in the area...

Dang, 10 hours is a LONG hike!!! I wonder where all of the fresh sheds are hiding at?

Man, I need to get me a couple of shed hunting dogs...I'm in a slump at the moment.

Nope...it's in Hammondsport/Urbana.

Prattsburgh is my hometown. There aren't any wineries here but there are a lot of grapes grown around Hammondsport/Urbana, Pulteney and Branchport. The habitat for deer varies across the region from hilly with no cropfields to flatter with abundant agriculture. Some areas definately produce better deer than others.

Can't wait to get of after those devil birds again!!!

I forgot how to find them too...my last 4 trips out have been pretty uneventful.

That's exactly what happened in this case. The property owner didn't even know what a shed antler was until I explained it him a couple of years back. However, he and his wife are anti-hunters and are very suspicious about letting people on to their land. This deer was just so visible in their cloverfields during daylight hours during november/decemeber that it ultimately ended up screwing me over big time...