Bols- I am going to be down shed hunting by you in a few weeks. I left you a vm earlier today. Give me a ring when you get a chance.
Duke, Tell me about it with the dead bucks!! I've found 13 dead bucks this year, with 10 of them 8 points or bigger! Really sucks!
Another quick walk after work reveals these 2 pieces of bone bringing my total to 9 on the year. This nice 5 point side in a CRP field likely belongs to a stud of a 2 yr old.(my opinion at this time.) And a much anticipated find. I actually have this buck's same side from 2006 at 2 yrs of age. This shed would be him at 4 yrs... and it's likely he will never even make P&Y. That's swamp whitetail for ya.
Thatta' boy Mike. How much rain did you guys get up there? We got absolutely pounded last night and most of today. I think I am pretty well shut out of the standing corn stalks for a while. It really bites too, I had high hopes of finding the sheds of the bucks that were holding late into February. I'll most likely hit the primary travel corridors from the fields back to bedding until it dries up or temps plummet again so I can hit the food. They were hammering the field the other evening. The rain really foiled my plan.
Congrats on the recent sheds !! I'll take the rain... they are talking a winter storm here in the next few days. We don't need more snow!! Tim
Awesome work Mike! Some awfully nice antlers you got there. Definitely an inordinate amount of dead heads, too. We have a higher hunter density around here, so a good dead head won't lay very long before somebody walks into it - so we tend to find more bone piles with AWOL heads or sawed-off pedicles. Tell me how to shed hunt a cattail swamp. I've got lots of swamps with lots of deer in them. I just don't know how to go about the business of finding sheds in there. I've been doing all my damage in the grassy areas, but I feel like I'm overlooking what might be some good picking in the swampy areas. Any/all advice would be much appreciated. Rock on Dukie.
Here's my advice on swamps.. hunt them hard.. shed them little. :d Honestly.. you likely won't find to many sheds in a swamp.. but the ones you will are usually good sized. Not that they can't be great Fran.. but they suck to walk through. And I should know.. since its usually where I look. Basically look for islands.. and they don't have to be very big either. The best islands look more like CRP in the swamp than an actual islands where trees exist on. Bucks love these grassy areas.. because they love to bask in the warm sun and they're easy to escape from for them. These are where I find the most sheds in swamps. (and yes.. they're ontop of the ice alot). But like anything.. it's all about the food. So get to the side of the swamp closest to a food source and start on those islands first. Those swamp edges first too. Although usually this is where mostly the does bed. I've found that bucks really don't like to meander through the REALLY thick stuff in swamps to much when snow has been covering the earth much of winter. It's likely just because they're getting lazier and tired from the long winter and maneuvering their racks around in these thickets is just a pain at this point. So hit the edges of these thickets that surround a swamp.. they tend to produce better. The thing about swamps.. you really have to think about water and what was once ice. Because.. like now.. when the ice is gone.. bucks DON'T EVER want to bed where they're gonna get WET. They'll walk through mud and water.. no prob.. but they won't hardly bet in it. Remember that one.. it will save you miles. Oh.. one more tidbit.. a small CRP ground or like area near a swamp edge will produce VERY well usually.
My last 3.5 hours of sheddin' have been very successful.. 2 match sets. Including an anticipated set of a buck I now have the last 3 years from. Although extremely disappointed about his size at this set (age 4) where he actually lost inches. Although added mass.. but still lost inches on main beam length and tine length. Freakin' swamp whitetail! He'll barely gross P&Y at age 4. How's that for genetics. Enjoy. And the other days match set.. although I never took a pic of the other half.
