2020 sheds

I’m on the board for the year! I jumped one other group of 3 bucks one of which was missing both sides, and I don’t think the one I found belonged to him judging by the size of his bases. Not bad for a quick lunch break walk.

Wow that’s quick!

One in the bag, good start!!!

Nice find for an early drop. Probably would have been eaten in a couple months.
I haven’t found any yet but have seen a couple close up that 1 side left and a scab on the other side.

My office bucks are still holding on.

Picked up a couple more this afternoon on a quick walk. I also saw another very nice buck with a single 5 point side. I barely got them set down on my steps, and the pup claimed his new chew toy! It’s funny he try’s to hide them in the back yard. He’s got them stashed all over inside the house as well.

RIGHTEOUS!!!!

Here’s number four for the year from this afternoon. Pretty positive this is the missing side from the buck I saw a couple days ago. This is one I’d sure like to match up before all of the other shed hunters get out.

Nice! All the resident bucks here by my job site are still strutting their stuff. Possibly another week or so and they should drop

This praticular small piece of public is sort of my early season honey hole. The valley pulls in a lot of deer during winter since there is so much food in the immediate area. You get that many deer including a LOT of bucks in a area and you’re bound to find a few. The only issue is by mid February it starts getting walked a lot by other shed hunters.

Not a bad hour walk. 2 matched sets.
DT

Well done deertracker!

Nice work DT!!!

You guys are killin me!
Most here in SE MN are still hanging on but just in the last few days have seen a couple with 1 side and 2 with scabs so they are starting to drop.
Hopefully make it out this weekend and see what the pup can find for me. She’s much better at it than I am!

I’m one proud dog owner today! After close to 2 hours of walking bean fields this morning, all of a sudden I hear barking down in a low spot. I hurried over to the pup to see what was up, and to my surprise he had found two antlers. One of which was a deer I was hoping to find this year. The long hours of training are paying off!

That’s AWESOME!!!

Dang, I need to try this. Looks like a great activity.

Even if he doesn’t find many it’s fun watching him work. It’s pretty obvious he’s having fun to. The only thing I can’t seem to get him past is holding onto something that’s cold. He just picks them up and drops them over and over again. I guess I can’t complain to much though, for not even being 4 months old he stays with them and barks until I show up.

Saw 3 smaller bucks with antlers yet in Todd county near the hunting land. Not sure how many have dropped yet. I usually get pics into Feb with antlers.

Decided to get the dog out for a quick lunch break walk before the cold moves in. Out of no where he took off down a trail with his nose to the ground. After about hundred yards I started noticing a couple drops of blood in the snow. Another couple hundred yards of following the dog I finally caught up to him standing over his newest chew toy!

Yesterday 3/1/20 I found a couple. Last year 2 nice sheds were found about 10 yards from each other. The first one yesterday was about 20 yards from where the pair from last year were. I followed every trail in that area and thought I’d found the other one in a nearby bedding area, but it was a different deer a smaller 10 point. I believe it’s probably out in a huge corn stubble field. I’ll try to find it the next sunny days. It has fresh bright red blood on the burl so it must have been dropped in the last couple of days.

a shed from the same deer that both sheds were found last year.

I picked up a couple on Saturday. They were both pretty fresh drops too. Was nice to get on the board this year.

Found another shed last evening. Unfortunately it wasn’t the one I’m looking for. I have walked right past where this one was at least twice within 5-10 yards of it without seeing it. It’a a year old shed that was smashed into the ground by a tractor. The side in contact with the ground was green. It’s basically an 18″ main beam with 4.5″ base and 3 busted tines.

I saw several trees with buds on them. So the window to find the one I’m after is starting to close.

No traveling for work now days so I could finally get out this afternoon. By the numbers of people tracks I would guess I missed out on a few on that piece of public, but a few miles in I stumbled into this set. The dog had to make a few passes in the tall grass, but he eventually found them to! Second pic is last years shed from the same deer.

Nice finds! Pic with the dog has an antler 20 feet away too!!!

Walked half our woods today. No sheds found. Looking through trail cam pics. Found atleast one still carrying.

Up to 6 for the year so far. Haven’t been out much though and with the milder winter out here in ND, I think a lot of spots got walked through March.

It is really wild to me how popular shed hunting has gotten. 2009-2010 we worked over a huge section of river bottoms west of Grand Forks. Most of the farmers we talked to for permission said something along the lines of “Why would you want those?”.
We actually had to change how we asked from “shed hunting” to “looking for deer antler sheds”, because a few people thought we were bringing guns into the woods.

Now it seems like a guy has to be very aware of how early he has to get into spots. Gone are the days of waiting til the snow melts to hit all the spots.

Got out for about an hour yesterday. Found just one but it was the 2nd half to a matched set!

Unfortunately the first antler was found a month ago about 30 yards away from what I presume was his dead body. Ended up dying about 5 ft from the house. Winter man…

Oops. Sorry about the duplicates!

I don’t know about everyone else, but I’ve been enjoying my social distancing! It’s been slow for me and the dog but we’re adding to the pile. There’s been a lot of people in the woods, but if you get into the steep stuff you can get away from them. I decided to take next week off since works been slow anyway. I plan to get out a couple more times between fishing and house projects. With any luck I’ll get a few more before calling the season a wrap.