Shed season 2010 - 2011

[erussell]

Checked a section of the creek today for about 3 hours. Tons of droppings, zero antlers.  >  Stupid deer, Guess I'll just have to get them the old fashion way and shoot them in the fall 

[CantrellTaxidermy]

Here are todays finds the big one was 20 yds in front of my stand lol.

[G-Man]

never like to find em withthe skulls attached...but looks like a few made it thru!

[archerforever]

Wrapping up a long shed season for myself- I easily walked over a 100 miles this season alone. Here are some of my latest finds. I collected almost 30 this season, not too bad for having a one year old and having school and work!

[mbucks27]

Cool Sheds guys!!! I went out this weekend but i didnt find any.  Bad weekend of shed hunting for me .  Oh well there is always next weekend lol.

John

[WNY Bowhunter]

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.

[First-light]

Nice, going to give it a go this Saturday. Hope is doesn't rain that much.

[First-light]

Wooly, do you think it's the time you put in or your knowledge of where to look that makes you a pro at this? Probably go hand and hand. I'm going up next weekend I have some nice bedding areas a north facing slope and a field to check, what would you do?

Thanks guys.

Burt- I'm no pro by any means. If I had to pick one of the two that makes me sucessfull at it.....I can't... it is both!

As for your predicament, here's what I'd do. Cover the fields first. They will stand out here most obvious. I don't put to much faith in them because they are the areas covered first by any and all looking for antlers. If you keep tabs on the fields throughout the shedding season and don't have much competition, you can bring home a mess of horns if that's where they were.

From here I'd move along to your bedding areas. Try to cover as many trails as you can leading into these spots. You'll never accomplish it thouroughly enough in a day so sometimes you just need to go back and follow a different path. The terrain will tell you how fast or slow you need to move. Most of my sheds are spotted within feet of me so don't expect tall tines to jump out at you like a neon sign. One pass through an area that turns up nothing might turn up a few next hike. We never rescue them all. :'(

North facing slope, south facing slope, east and west. Cover them all in the same fashion. Obviously your souths are gonna melt out first and like I've said before, they are hot spots...but deer are free and travel where they desire so you can't rule out any other slope directions.

Once you get on some antlers, you start to put the pieces of the puzzle together. I've been hauling in a mess of oldies this year in one location and never found a freshy. Now that a few freshys are showing up at a different spot not far from here tells me where they've been spending their time doing daily things. My search expands now around this area untill I think I've covered it good enough before I move on to the next. You just gotta keep doing that untill greenup or when you run out of time or propperty to hunt. Heck even durring the dawg days of summer I've caught a few. If you're not looking you wont find them no matter what time of year or how good a spot.

Staying focused on picking out any piece of an antler or anything that looks like one I'd have to say will be your best bet.

Good luck!

Thanks! I report back on Sunday.

[erussell]

Have been bugging my friend the last couple of weeks to go over to the land he hunts and check for sheds. We'll he went over to a NYBB scorers house that boarders the land to see if he knew if the big boy he has been seeing up there was shot and the guy said he didn't think so but there were no sheds on the land because he already got permission from the land owner and looked. But he wanted to see the video of the buck so he could compare it to his trail came photos. And boy does he have some nice bucks on cam. He did say he scored 2 bucks that came of the hill and both were in the 140's.

[wooly]

Got onto a new chunk o' land today. No sheds but did turn up these 3 old deadheads.

.....here's a few shots that got the imagination going. I was just thinking to myself that I haven't really found anything strange as I usually do yet this year durring my hikes.

I came across this old barn today. Seemed innocent enough, so I poked my face inside to take a look around.

Nothing really jumped out at me out of the ordinary at first. Pretty empty except for a mess of empty beer cans and a few liquor bottles, and 2 chairs....

Oh yeah, then I looked up above where one of the chairs was tipped over.

The bigger picture...

I can only speculate what may or may not have happened in here....but I think it's plain to see the writing is on the wall......litteraly.

It was kinda creepy once you put all the pieces together. Check out the last shot....kinda paints a picture,no?  ??? ??? ???

[nyantler]

Yeah.. that is definitely fishy... seems pretty obvious whats going on there.. sad

[WNYBuckHunter]

Yikes!

[WNY Bowhunter]

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...

[WNY Bowhunter]

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).

[WNY Bowhunter]

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.

[First-light]

Hey, Finally found one. Found it in a hedge row bordering my pines. Followed Wooly's advice and worked the trails!

[mbucks27]

Congrats on some great finds guys.  Burt congrats on your first of the season.  Hope you can get some more before things get too green.

JOhn

[G-Man]

Congrats Burt!  more to come now you've broken the ice!

[First-light]

Thanks guys, have to say that the vertical points coming out of the ground caught my eye. I had a great time looking!

[wooly]

Good to see some of yas still on some good horns. Keep after them fellas. I've only got a few more serious hikes left in me for the season.

BURT!!!!... Woooohooo!!!!  ;D

Nice one pardner- glad you broke out of your slump.

[Localqdm]

I saw a nice 2 yr old? yesterday still carrying BOTH sides!!!  April 10th!

[First-light]

Good to see some of yas still on some good horns. Keep after them fellas. I've only got a few more serious hikes left in me for the season.

BURT!!!!... Woooohooo!!!!  ;D

Nice one pardner- glad you broke out of your slump.

Thanks Wolly, I hit the field first then went to the trails. Looked on the trails that came from a thick bedding area, that's where I found this one!

[mbucks27]

I went out for a few hours with my friend charlie and i was able to get one more to add to the collection.  Not a big one but after 4 hours of walking i was happy to have something to bring home

John

[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...

[erussell]

Spent 4 hours friday and  5 hours in the pouring rain Saturday walking trails, digging through thick bedding areas, walking fields and skirting fencelines. Was completely soaked from head to toe. And do you think I could have atleast found a spiker. No!!!!  >  Lots of manure, tracks, and deer running everywhere. Got excited a few times when I saw white up ahead only to find pcs of bone. Stupid shed's  ;D