Went for a short walk today in the snow to pull a camera and do some late season scouting. I was hopeful I would find a shed or two but no luck with that. Always good to walk in on your spot to see you cameras still there. There were several beds within 30 yards of the camera but no decent bucks on camera. Two smaller bucks lost one side in the last few days. Minutes after getting to the next spot I came across this sweet rub. Thought this was a cool scrape at the bottom of a small laurel ridge. Up on top of that little ridge was this cluster of beds next to a rub from this fall. Next to the highway was the remains of this doe Would be awesome have a few encounters from a ground blind in this spot. Hopeful this area gives up a few sheds this season. This bed had a little bit of blood in it The last spot I walked has a lot of green briar and grassy wooded areas. There isnt a lot of elevation change but this small rise had a number of big beds. The whole area was torn up with sign and loaded with beds. Hopefully the snow sticks around so I can scout out several other spots.
Weekend of Feb 1/2: Saturday, headed to a few new spots to scout in the snow and was able to find that 10% of the property the deer really seem to be using. Even found a few fresh scrapes with I thought was cool.
Sunday, headed back to the general area and put in more time on a few more public places. Found a dead buck, came across a few nice rubs and even saw a snake (btw, I am terrified of snakes).
Weekend of Feb 8/9: Did not make it out. Weekend of Feb 15/16: Went out for a few hours to a new spot but the snow was deep in areas and ended up heading home. Was able to find some good sign and will return to this spot later in March or April.
Weekend of Feb 22/23: Saturday took my son with me. He had a good time but I only made it a few hours with the snow under feet and monster man on my back. Sunday changed out a memory card that still showed a few bucks still packing. Put in a few hours in a spot that was good to me last year and picked up a shed from last season. My first shed of the season, typically have two dozen sheds by March 1st, interesting year. Headed to another new spot and found this dead head after a few hours of walking (its still laying there). Weekend of Mar 1/2: Did not make it out, trying to get my wife some time to herself before I head out to the Midwest for my annual scouting/shed hunting trip. : )
Weekend of Mar Mar 8/9 Did not make it out. March 12th On the way back from Roanoke VA for work, I stopped by a farm I shed hunt each year to say hello. The landowners were happy to see me and said that last year they still picked up 2 sheds in the tires working the fields. Looks like the door is wide open to shed hunt all the farms they plant which is exciting. On the way off the farm, I spotted this little ‘fork horn’ from the driveway.. one less that might get a tire. There was a big rub by the end of the driveway but will have to get a picture next time. Almost packed for my trip to the Midwest for 9 days, super excited! The anticipation is killing my productivity : )
03/15/14 My buddy JayBird and I made it to Illinois today. The first property which usually produces 8-10 sheds each year did not give up any today, Spot number 2 had much better deer sign but didn’t give up any sheds either. Spot #3 was an awesome property with tons of deer sign and terrain I really liked but surprisingly I didn’t pick up any sheds. Here are some pictures from today. Pile of fish in the woods… JayBird saved the day when he found 3 sheds in the last 1.5 hours of light.
03/16/14 With weather rolling in we went to some private ground a buddy granted us access to in Illinois. The landowner knew of a big 8pt that had been running the property with a group of smaller bucks and turned us loose. Jay picked up a medium sized shed and I picked up a side off the huge 8pt (68 inch). Turns out, the trail camera picture captures both bucks we found a shed off of. The property looked great but 3 hours in, the snow got deep, which stopped our shedding. To save the day, we headed north to a piece of public in Illinois. Jay scooped up a 4pt side. 3 antlers total for us
03/17/14 A dream of mine has been to hunt for deer and sheds in Iowa, so there was a lot of anticipation as we started the day on 3 different pieces of public land covering ground, some of it was nice, some of it not so much. Jay found a broken 4pt side before we went south on a recon mission ending up on a property loaded with deer sign. The property had food which we had been struggling to find (standing corn & soybean). Most of the crops we came across were disked in many areas were planted this past year in soybean with no crops left around. I managed to find 3 antlers; one had been broken apart by farm equipment over the years. 4 antlers total for us.
03/18/14 Started off on some private ground a buddy has to hunt and a block of property that was “new”. We walked all day and managed to each find an antler between the three of us, didn’t make sense but that’s how it goes some times. Not wanting to give up, I broke out the Iowa Atlas and found some public land not far away but in route to where we wanted to be on Wednesday. Shortly after walking Jay started picking up sheds in a small part of the property, ending up with 5 antlers (the 5pt goes 66”). 7 antlers total for us
03/19/14 Iowa public I’d really like to bow hunt on. I am not really sure where to begin or how it all played out but will give this a go.. we walked for 9.5 miles and Jay had a small 4pt side to show for it, we were walking a CRP field together and both spotted a little ‘fork horn’ just in front of us but Jay did a flying squirrel jump and landed on it first.. I hadn’t laughed that hard in a while! We worked a bit more of the fields and a few fingers of woods but were starting to work our way back. Getting closer to the truck (about 3 miles away) I really liked a deer trail that wrapped up a ridge into a north facing slop, the tracks were big and peaked my curiosity. A few short minutes later and we were heading in to give that small section a look but weren’t expecting much. 5 minutes in and I spotted a beautiful 5pt side (the game begins), I called Jay up to see it and after a few photos, he heads down the hill and picks up a medium sized antler. We regrouped and made a quick plan. I would cover the top half and Jay would cover the bottom half.. Ok, lets go. A minute later and Jay spots a big massive 5pt side, I go down to check it out and take a picture. While celebrating he spots an antler over my shoulder, it’s the match to the 5pt side I picked up just a few minutes before. We split up again and I spotted a medium shed which turned out to be the match to the one Jay found. Jay goes back down into the bottom and freaks out, he was acting like a little kid pretty much doing cartwheels. He said.. “its not the match to the big one” and then I saw the matched set from a nice 2.5 year old laying there. We split up again and while covering a fence line, I spotted an old 5pt antler (while typing this up, I actually think its last years antler from Jays big one he found). Jay came up and showed me a chewed one he had found. All of this happened within about an hour. No words can articulate the excitement, joy and thankfulness we both shared finding these sheds. Dream come through for both of us.. the hooting, laughter, smiles, dancing, brow hugs, high fives and magic of that short hour will live on forever. I shared an amazing experience with a great friend today. Here are a few pictures (11 antlers collectively today):
The Rollercoaster ride: Just over 483 inches of antlers and majority were found in just under an hour..
Very nice! What an awesome day! I was gonna text you last night, but got busy and forgot about it. I got out yesterday and found the match to one that I found over a month ago. I also found 2 more, both coming from bucks that I had a bunch of pics of, so I was extremely happy.
03/20/14 Another new spot. Got in early and started to see rubs, fresh tracks and fresh deer crap but wasn’t seeing the bedding cover we were looking for. We split up and about an hour later I jumped two bucks, one with a bad limp that had fresh scabs and the other had about 2” of new growth already. Started working towards them and saw this beautiful 5pt laying there. Called Jay over and we worked that whole bottom without finding another antler. Got back on top of the ridges and my cell phone started to die so I tried my portable battery power but the fall from two days before had busted it up. Tried Jay’s portable power cell and it started charging, turned to walk and BAM right in front of us was a shed (lol). Jay jumped around to get a ATL of it and says “two antlers!”, the match was laying right next to it but the lighting had made it near invisible from the angle we were standing. Worked the ridge a bit more and Jay came up with another beautiful shed. The walked the rest of the morning but didn’t come up with anymore so we headed to another spot. This piece didn’t have a lot of woods so we split up but didn’t find a shed till we started crossing each other’s paths. Jay found an old chewed one and I found an old chewed one. Here are some pictures:
03/20/14 continued.. Feeling great at this time, we decided to head to Kentucky to get on some private ground. No time for a boot dryer, we made some sandwiches and drove from Iowa to Kentucky with boots hanging out the windows (after walking all day). It felt good to settle into soft bed around 4am.
03/21/14 We walked our butts off and Jay came up with a dead head and a shed. We left the dead head. After the drive and walking all day, every day.. we were beat and called it a trip. We layed out all our sheds and took some hero from the trip shots. What a fun trip the Midwest has been over the years. We already have next year planned out and its going to be killer!! I ended up with 11 (left) and Jay 22 (right)
04/05/14 The farm I’ve shed hunted for years has produced nicely and the farmers have been asking me to check the fields out really good because they keep picking sheds up in the tires. Jay came down that morning with his quad and Mary/I rode our quad while my parents watched our kids (good deal). Not sure what’s up this year but we didn’t find any sheds (years past find 20-25 sheds a season on this farm). After lunch, we got off the quads and put some miles on our boots finding several dead heads and I came up with an old shed that I might have the match to (still haven’t compared it to a shed I found close by last year). Also found the remains of a chicken the local foxes or yotes must of stole from the barn. Late in the day we started going to some other spots that have produced a few sheds in the past. Jay was able to find his first MD shed although it was all chewed up. A local guy also shared a shed he recently found that had been sitting out sense last year.
