Shed Antlers

[PerchJrkr]

More Central. I suppose the squirrels dont fare too well with all the pine trees up there... not a whole lot to eat. Tons of em here and apparently they're hungry. Or bored. Or retarded. or possibly all of the above. Like i said, they gnawed most of the front cover right off my I-40 in december this year..

I do all private, spent alot of time on public land in the last 2-3 years and never found a single antler. I think they claim 8 hours of looking per shed found? I probably had 60+ hours in seemingly prime areas and had ONE up until this year.

We have some family owned land that has never been good before and this year the leasee, out of the goodness of his heart, left over an acre of corn so it kept my deer and a few of the neighbors on the property.

The key is figuring out where to look once i figured out the areas to concentrate on instead of aimlessly walking through the woods, the sheds started to pile up!

[Musky Buck]

Squirrels eh, they chew my garbage can lids, the plastic ones, we don't find too many chewed up horns either but we find many of them in willow so that might be why. It has been a tough year in my area to find them, heck we saw a full racked buck on Sunday. That new snow mess buried everything again.

[Chad711]

I found my first shed today. Looked for about 4 hours before I stumbled onto it.

[Musky Buck]

Bingo Chad !

[shogun]

Is it even worth it looking around duluth anymore? I've put in my fair share of hours over the years and have never found one - plenty of people tracks though! As far as I'm concerned shed hunting in duluth is utterly hopeless seeing as every place you look has already been finely combed over by 80,000 other people on a daily basis. I don't understand how these people make a living? Searching from before dawn until dark 7 days a week 6 months out of the year? Don't you guys get burned out?

[mknolls]

I've been looking for sheds for years now and I've only found one side nice five point. But I have been reading up on how to find them and I'm hoping to increase my collection. Read about a guy that has a dog that smells them out. That sounds like that would be a way to go.

Mike

[shogun]

yeah I believe it - from what I've seen it looks like people use dogs to find them. the deer trails I've walked not only only have people tracks, but dog tracks with the occasional dog bootie left behind.

[walleye365]

heading out in the mornin hopfully we can find a few

[shedfreak]

In response to shoguns post... you are right on the amount of shed hunters in duluth... I personally feel the need to be out as much and as often as I can because it is so competitive.... I have never used a dog, but just got a new puppy that im working with. 3 months old now. its easy to find time. a guy can cover a lot of ground in the early months in just an hour walking heavy trails, so you dont really need to be a dawn til dush shed hunter to find sucess... You just need to study up on it a little bit, and really pay attention to the deer. They tell ya right where they are gonna be for the most part. Duluth is a hard place to shed hunt.. A lot of land and a TON of shed hunters. a goo dnumber of sheds are dropped in yards too, so you lose out there as well.. A lot of dog walkers and nature lovers that hapen to stumble on them too... I would say it has been pretty picked over by now. your best bet is private land.

[shedfreak]

I used to post pics immediately after i found a shed. I even, if you recall, gave out some priceless information on locations a couple years back... I believe it drew even more attention to the area. So this year, i tried my best to avoid it. It takes away from the thread a little bit , but its just like fishing, you dont wanna tell everyone where you are slaughtering walleys and crappie, or youll have 100 boats there the next day, ya know? So this year, i have just been updating my totals, and am posting a year end story when my season wraps up...

[shogun]

sounds like a good plan.

[shedfreak]

Well, here are a few pics from this year, pretty sure im missing some but it is hard to keep track.. nt very good quality as i lost my digital cam in the woods, so most are cell phone pics.. bare with me.

I know not all of them are here as i was keepin track in my head, but i havent put all of them on the computer. I know i posted my first 6 sheds pm here earlier, so i didnt post those either. 23 total for the year, but hoping for some more shortly.

Biggest is 72 and change, with a few others over 60. i dont have a pic of my smallest but its under 2 inches long!!! one of my fav finds of the year.

[shedfreak]

hmm, dont know why some are smaller than others, but im not redoing it, took way too long to do with kids and puppy runnin around wild! you get the idea anyways...

[certified jumbo]

Congrats everyone on the finds, the pics look great!! Keep them coming in. I've been stuck on 18 now since mid february and have been anxiously awaiting the snow to melt. After some unsuccessful steelheading on the north shore we decided to hit up the open fields for some antler hunting. On the last day of bow season I set up over a newly seeded glover field. I had 35 deer come out and only one was a buck. A portly 6 point who i let walk by. They were frantically pawing through the snow to get to the green, it was fun to watch. So I thought it might be a good spot to look. And man it was!!! We looked for about an hour and found 12. Our best day ever and it may not happen again. When the deer were pawing every night in January, they must have fallen off. And man, they stuck out like sore thumbs. That brings the total to 30 antlers on the year and one dead buck. Found my two biggest antlers of the year 54" and 53" matching set. Thanks to my fiance who found about half of the 12 as well. Enjoy!!!

[shedfreak]

makes me jealous seein all those matches! wont get that on public, haha, out of 23 sheds, ive got one match this year. I had my best year last year with 5 matches. How much land does your family own? the sheds in the open field just baffle me, I cant imagine walking into an open field and seeing all those sheds! Ive gotta walk miles and miles! Interesting to see the similarities in all your antlers. You can definitely see the genetics of your herd there. all 4 point sides, with uncanny charachteristics...Congrats on a great year.

[certified jumbo]

we have never found antlers in fields like this before. but in january, the entire field was pawed up everywhere so we thought we had a good chance at finding some and it paid off.

we have a 200 acre chunk of land, then about 2 miles south of that we a 40 acre chunk. but thats surrounded by about 300 acres of land from guys at our hunting shack. we also have a 180 acre potlatch lease and a 80 acre potlatch lease. we have plenty of land to hunt and search for antlers.

the nice thing in our area is the deer yard up a lot if you get more than a foot of snow. you can find groups of 30 - 60 deer. this really helps as well.

i can't wait to get back up their.

[shogun]

That's incredible. so how do you keep out trespassers? I've found that deer hunters and shed hunters alike will often ignore private property and go wherever they please. especially if it's not posted.

[certified jumbo]

I guess we've never really had a problem with people trespassing. I don't think there are many shed hunters in our area, I've never see one. All of our land is out in the country, very few houses or people and for the most part its big woods country with lots of big ravines.

Its nice not having to compete with others, but we don't find as many big antlers as the guys in duluth find or down in the SE part of the state.

Never the less its a fun and addicting hobby.

In order to be successful you need to find area's where lots of deer wintered or you will not have great success. Secondly, there has to be a good number of antlered bucks. I had a group of 25 deer winter near my home in cambridge. Only 2 were adult bucks. So there was lots of sign and beds, but obviously there weren't going to be a lot of antlers. Plus down here in cambridge very few bucks live through the season. Up by carlton, most of our deer don't get shot i'm guessing because of the big woods. It seems to take our deer up their an extra year though to grow bigger racks.

Find lots of deer in winter, with lots of bucks = lots of antlers. Sounds easy, but it can be tough certianly. I like to find the groups of deer then come back when the snow melts.

Good luck

[shedfreak]

I wish i could wait out the snow too!!! I start walking religously in mid december. So when there is no snow, im pretty burned out, but i keep on truckin so to speak. I hit a spot at 6 this afternoon where I as well as dozens of others have been pounding all year. I knew of only one matched set though so i figured there had to be some tines pokin up somewhere! Not to mention there were some real nice single pulled out early. not kidding, a minut into the woods i had a WALL of brush 15 feet high and 20 yards by 20 yards, I was like well i guess im going around that! Well on my way around, i noticed tines, and BIG ones gleaming from that forest of thick nasty stuff that a squirrel would have a tough time getting through, not to mention a real mature buck. It happened to be the match to a big 4 point my buddy found in january. his side went 64 and my side went 65 inches. 20 inches of mass, just a hog of an antler, top 3 for me this year for sure! Oh, and i got a new camera a couple days ago too, so my pics will be bigger and far better quality than my cell phone was providing. Ill post it tomorrow if i get a chance. Good info jumbo, gotta say I agree with ya on about everything ya had to say. Who knows, maybe ill catch your 30! at 24 now, did you get all 30 by yourself?

[certified jumbo]

My fiance and I walk together and have found 30 between the two of us. So i'll give you the lead with 24.

Dang, you find some big antlers in duluth. Congrats on those finds.

I'll be up steelheading/looper fishing again this wkd, but i think i will take a short antler walk on the way home.

Good luck.

CJ

[shedfreak]

ok, a little later than planned, but here is the latest shed I picked up a few days ago. 65 inch 4 point.

also included is a group shot, my smallest of the year, and a huge 2 point freak shed I found this year.

[lungdeflator]

awesome pics! we just got back from a weekend of looking up in canada and ended up with 25 after all day saturday and 3 hours this morning. 6 match sets in all. One skull with a 21" inside spread that will probably go close to 150". Our littlest was maybe .5" bigger than shedfreaks small one. We do everything ourselves. We set up camp in a little gravel pit on public land and just drove around and looked in good areas. I can get some pictures up in a couple days.

[slimngrizzly]

What part of Canada do you go? Do you have any trouble getting them across the border? That sounds like fun!

[certified jumbo]

nice pics shed freak. can't wait to see your pics lungdeflator. sounds like you guys had a great time!!

i wish i had some good pics, but no luck this wkd. spent about 5 hours looking with no dice.

next wkd 3 of my buddies are going up with me, hopefully we can find some.

inbetween looking for antlers i did manage to poke this north shore steelhead. it made up for the big goose egg on antlers.

good luck!!

CJ

[shedfreak]

I am curious as well how hard it was getting the antlers across the border. Skulls are a BIG no no too, i know even on guided shed hunts in Canada, you are required to leave the skulls where they are. How far up into canada did ya go? Im planning on a trip some year there, but I dont wanna drive the whole way, find a pile of sheds, only to get to the borderand have them say I can bring like 6 back with me.

[swampbuck]

This is a frustrating deal, I have been told about ten different things by 10 different customs agents, both Us and CA.

Most all say that you can bring back two sheds per person.

I think it depends on if they like deer or not?

I have had friends bring back several dozen and then have had friends hassled about 4 sheds?

A couple buddies went up two years ago and were loaded up with over 190 sheds from several trips, They were checked at the border and said they only had three, well they got pulled over and searched and obviously the agents found the rubber made tubs full of sheds they ended up getting a fine of $10 per shed plus lost all the sheds they had.

[lungdeflator]

Ok heres the deal. You can bring back 2 sets. So 4 antlers total each. We tried to bring back 16 between 3 of us just to see what would happen but they took the extra four. Luckily we were smart and those four where only forks anyways. We go through Baudette and the guys are pretty nice up there. I dont think they are to big on them being 2 match sets. But you can get an export permit for 30$ or some where around there, and bring back all you want.

We went 2 hours north of the border along LOTW. I measured our biggest shed last night and it went 59 and 3/8". Most all the rest of the sheds we brought back will score higher then 30". All in all the trip cost us 20$ each just for gas. We camped and brought all our food from home.

[lungdeflator]

Hopefully this works i have never tried this before...

[lungdeflator]

[lungdeflator]

Sweet that was easier then I thought. The ninth picture down is all of our sheds from this year plus the pile we stashed from last year. the last picture is all match sets. The two on the left where found within 15 yards of one another. The middle set scores 114 7/8" total with both antlers.