Got out for a little bit, 3.5 miles, found this one in the same area I found the three yesterday (about 60 yards away) Can't wait for all the snow to go out in this area. Picture doesn't really show it, but it has a 4 3/4" base and the mass holds well out to the end, not real good tine length, but hoping he improves next year.
Killing me seeing all the nice drops everyone has been finding, but with 8" of snow last week, then a weekend where I got to spend time with the family, then another 6-9" of snow predicted for tonite and no warm weather coming up, all adds up to another weekend not tromping around. I would bet most of the antlers have dropped now around here, so they will have a nice blanket of snow, don't even know if it is worth going out right now to sniff around.....
I wouldn't worry too much about it Wi.. as long as you got no trespassers your safe. By me a solid 60% or more are still holding.. saw a small group of 3 last night.. all with both sides. I hate waiting too.
Sitting at work, looking at the weather forecast, (sunny mid 40's predicted) I just couldn't take it, took a half day of vacation, and got out for a bit over 3 1/2 hours. Ended up coming home with 3 antlers, last one was a nice bonus, it is half of a nice sized 8 pointer I had found towards the end of January, guessing at a 3 year old, hoping to see him this fall..... The last set of pictures are ones my dad found the last few weeks since I have been out, we got almost a foot of snow, and I felt it was a good time to spend some time with the family, so he found the 3 smaller ones on 2-16-09, and the largest one he found last weekend 3-1-09.
3 hours, one shed, found the other half of this one on 1-24-09 maybe 200 yards away..... looks like a snow melt exposure but who knows......
Congrats on all your guy's finds !! I wish the snow would leave also so. Winter is starting to get old. Tim
I have been slow on the updating as of late, so instead of a bunch of pictures of a few smaller sheds, I will show a them all in a group. 2 were found by my dad last saturday 7 were found last sunday (I stayed at home with the family)one of the sheds found is not shown, the guy that found it kept it, first shed he found, didn't get a picture 1 found on friday and 2 were found today (sunday)
Wiaxle, do you record all of the information down on the shed using the masking tape? I do the same thing and I was wondering how to make it easier to keep records while having the sheds looking a little more presentable (and natural-looking). I was thinking about taking the sequence number I have when I find them, and putting them onto a tablet of paper or into a spreadsheet. For shed reference, I would use a pencil to mark their number on the base of the shed. This way I don't need to have all of the blue masking tape hanging off the rack when I go to display them (once I get my basement finished). As for the sheds.....they definitely have some character going on. Looks like one has some nice palmation already and that one guy has a serious brow for his actual antler size.
For this year, I have a file on the computer labeled 'sheds 2009' in the main folder I have sub folders for each day that I go out looking, in that sub folder, I have a word document with a brief description in it with the temp/time out/distance/general areas I looked along with all the photos associated with that day out. On the tape on the horns, it is the date, who found it and the general location it was found. I did something similar to this last year (but not as religiously with the diary/notes) I have been debating on marking all the sheds in an ascending number scheme and then plotting the points out on google maps (area I look in you can zoom almost all the way in, can get pretty close, did this for our deer stands) to get an idea on where everything was found, then do this every year to see if there are areas that are actually good compared to areas that you think are good...... I am thinking that for our area we have buck staging areas that they gather in before going out to feed. These areas change from year to year, but when you find one, you we will usually find about a half dozen sheds in a 50 yard circle. Mapping this out may help on targeting areas for closer inspection from year to year, even if we don't find anything during the snow phase. Or maybe I spend to much time thinking about useless things while wandering the woods.....:d
Ya, I was pleasantly surprised when my dad brought that one over, I am pretty sure I got that buck on film 3-4 times this fall while out scouting. Pretty unique buck. So he is a local, as opposed to probably 75% of the sheds we find, the other bucks are ones that come in to winter for the food sources we have. (not baiting, but standing corn and such)
Wow. Thanks for the great tips. I thought I was going to be a little nutty for making the spreadsheet and logging the data there instead on a strip of masking tape wrapped around the main beam. I certainly didn't figure on putting in all of that kind of information, such as weather, temp, distance, etc. :D That info is important enough to certainly start logging though! Right now, each shed has it's own sequential number along with date and where I found it. I have started to plot some points on Google Earth as well. I plotted where I found my first shed of 2008 as well as 2009. I need to start to plot points where I found the rest of my sheds for the past two years. Luckily, I'm not too far into the sheddin' game to get some good data logged from previous sheds. I can easily plot the locations on Google Earth and save a reference copy in the separate folders I have assigned for each year's shedding pictures. Funny, we do things pretty similar. Guess that is a good thing for me as you really have the sheddin' down to a science. Thanks for the extra tips!!
Took a day off from work, got out for about 6.5 hours, almost 12 1/2 miles, snow is going down fast around here, ended up with 5, 3 of them made a nice little snack for something.
Got out into a an area that the snow/ice has finally gone out on. I found the spike and the chewed up horn, and the old man (Dad) found the fork, in an area that I found two last Friday, I had to have walked right by it. It is fun finding the big ones, but I always say that if you are finding the small ones you are doing something right. The 'oldie' that I found was in an area that we have been through literally dozens of times this year and probably an equal amount last year, wondering if it wasn't dragged in there late last fall by some critter, the area it was in, it shouldn't have lasted that long.......
Got out for 2 1/2 hours saturday morning. I found one (the half of the 8 with the broken G3) and my Dad found the other 2. Thinking that the one I found is a match to one of the ones he found, has to be a relatively recent drop (last 2 weeks) found both of them in areas that we both have been through quite often this year, both were pretty obvious. He found the third one in an area I thought would be good, due to the large amount of sign that was present when the snow was still on the ground, but now is bare......last time I send him into an area like that :d
