Nice pix, Grizz. Looks like that buck died before he had much time to work those burrs down. Maybe tagged by a car or something? Either way, he would've looked nice with an arrow in him. Big deadheads like that are just such a waste. Frustrating for sure. I took the pup for a walk today for a couple hours. No sheds, 2 ticks, and a good sweat. I wasn't really expecting to find anything, so it was no shocker when I came back empty-handed. The ticks, however, were a fun bonus. It's getting hot out there, fellas. The sun is setting on shed season 2011, and I'm a good 15 sheds shy of where I wanted to be... I'll make one or two more shots at it.
Good job Ryan and quick,,,Man that big dead head was a stud! Im headed to KY in the morning to meet up with Gri22ly for a Shed hunt. I will have some pics sheds or no sheds :D Its gettting hot here to 78 degrees today!
I have 7 more since my last post. I will try to get pics up tomorrow. That is probably going to be about it for me. I will keep my eyes open while turkey hunting but will do well to find a couple more. I have one old growth field of about 20 acres that I am going to burn off and plant to soybeans. I hope there might be a few sheds there. Right now the grass and weeds are head high and I rode through it with the 4wheeler but it was nearly impossible to see sheds. They may be a bit blackened but at least they will count.
Sorry this has taken forever. I havent had the camera and sheds in the same place yet. Here are 6 of the 7. I had them at work to show my business partner. The 7th is just a little one that I must have left in my garage. I can get a pic of it later. Anyway, the front pair is a set off an old buck that I had come in one evening and lay down 12 yards from the tree during the rut. He had been running hard and was exhausted. I kind of wish I had shot him because he is an old deer. Kind of neat for just being a 7 point. The sheds were laying on top of each other in a picked bean field.
Thanks. He really is pretty cool. Next year I may not give him a free pass. I can get two bow tags, so really might consider taking him.
I picked up two more this evening. I hauled my tractor to a buddys so he could mow off a corn food plot. When I took the tractor back to the farm tonight I picked up a small 5 pt. shed laying in the picked corn that I was driving through. So after I put the tractor in the shed and unhooked the trailer, I went for a 5 minute walk in the timber and found a small 4 pt. side also. I will post up pics for the contest in a day or two. That brings me to 28.
Great sheds, Fletch. You're having a hell of a year, bro. Congrats. There are going to be some great bucks in 2011, from the looks of that shed pile. I lucked into a bleached-out little five pointer this weekend. Another deer I've never seen before. I've just about struck out this year matching sheds to deer that I know/watched/saw/cammed over the past season. I guess I don't know the deer herd in the area as well as I "thought" I did. Ugh! It will take a miracle to find any more. Apparently, the local yocals schooled my ass in the shed hunt this year! Time to hang up the shed boots and start prepping my stand sites. . . Shedometer = 22
Thanks King. I just wish they were 5 pt sides instead of so many 4 pt sides. I know thats greedy, but it seems that the 8 pt genetics are really strong and thats not really what I am after. The little 5 pt side I found last evening is great for a baby deer. If he can make it another 4 or 5 years he will be a slammer.
Genes are all over the place in my area. Going over all of the local guys' trophy pics for the past 10-12 years, the area used to be populated by deer with MEGA brow tines, weak beams, stubby tines, and above average mass. Counting the abnormals, average brows were 7+". That trait has definitely gone the way of the dinosaur. Over the past couple years, there's been a big run of tall-tined, weak-browed 4x4's, but I think there were a few new matriarchs that cranked out a nice fresh crop of 5x's, and pushed them into my area. The 3+ year old 4x's seem to be petering out. Somebody finally may have picked-off the matriarch or patriarch responsible for that. Things are cyclical, I guess. While he was eliminated from the gene pool before he had a chance to really partake in the breeding (this year), my buck was a mainframe 5x7, and I got the inside track on a load of other bucks with 5+ typical per side. More big scorers than last year, for sure. Hell, I grabbed an old shed earlier this spring that put 8 scorable up off the beam, no drops. Word on the street is that a guy hunting in that same area whiffed on a buck that had "points everywhere" near the end of gun season. Sounds like he might still be on the hoof. 5x+ typicals, all of a sudden, seem to be coming out of the woodwork here. The thing here is age. The hunting pressure is just enough to really hurt these deer once they hit 3.5 (even strong 2.5's). The hunter per acre saturation isn't unmanageably bad, but there's a lot of what I'd call "wasted acreage" - hayfields and massive high-canopy timber with low carrying capacity, which concentrates the shooters in smaller areas where they get picked-off one by one. One of the big problems is that you can identify the 4x4's and eliminate them from the pool, but the thing is - it takes two to tango. Somewhere, you've got a doe family that's genetically predisposed to stocking your deerwoods with lower-scoring 4x bucks. A complicating factor is that if their offspring bucks are on your property, that doe family is probably NOT living on your property. So even if you could identify them, you still couldn't hunt them. Such is life in the deerwoods. . . No matter how frustrating it is . . . it's still better than work! Keep after it, Chief.
Good job guys!! Quick you sure your at 22? I already had you down for that # previously. Gri22ly,,,oh yeah find a point after im gone Thats a good one bud,,and not grey! Im going to try and get out a couple more times,,ball season is in for 2 of my kids so im hoping all over the place!
Went out 2x this weekend for 2 short hunts. I got skunked on the first run, but my bud found 3 sheds in a 2-yard circle, and one more laying 40 yards away. Pretty uneventful day aside from that. I found what looked like a good buck dead, but somebody had already skullcapped him out. I scored a chewed-up oldie today, bringing me up to 23 for the year. Just a little 3 point. The real find of the day was a set of two deadheads that were laying 10 yards apart. Both bucks were pretty solid deer for the area (found them right around home in PA). Lots of slob hunters around here, so seeing this sorta thing is really no surprise. Whoever shot them couldn't have made much effort to recover, because they were laying in a pretty obvious location, on a bench overlooking a steep ravine. Unreal. Here's the bigger of the two - probably scores around 115". The smaller one would've probably scored 100-105". I'm quietly putting together one of my "best" years for finding deadheads. I think I'm up to 5 now. All scrubracks except for these two. I took a pic of the other guy, but forgot to save it on my phone. Ugh. SHEDOMETER = 23
I picked up a spike today while mowing some fire break strips. I spotted it from the tractor. It was laying in a winter wheat field. It's not much but counts! That brings me to 29. I will post a picture this week of this one with the two that I picked up Monday.
Accidented on another Shed this weekend while Schroomin. Its just a little old forky. Only pic I had.
I wish we grew those mushrooms up here. We only grow the poisonous ones in my area. Congrats on the old shed. Tim
