shed hunting

[trolloni]

Hey anybody been shed huntin? Been doing alright here in northwest illinois. Seems they been really dropping big time the last two weeks!21 so far , some little guys medium guys and afew bruisers! Seems the last two weeks every time out picked up one at least ,last tuesday was my best ever found 5 with two being a match probably 150 class ! Never thought you could find em but if you put in youre time and presserver at it it can happen!Just like deer hunting, and it is true you learn more spring scouting than the fall , dont have to worry when ya kick em out either . Hey anybody go to the deer show in OWATONNA,how was it?

[LOTWSvirgin]

Sounds like you have had some good luck. There is a thread in the deer hunting forum with a bunch of pics and stuff check it out

[Musky Buck]

trolloni, never had a chance this year. As of last week most of the bucks in my area still had racks, we got a heavy dumping of snow and now it's all water, never had a legit chance, needed a gradual thawing spring, then it's good.

[Gordie]

last week we saw ayoung buck that still had his antlers attached to his head it was a fork horn and man did I have to take a double take.

[icehousebob]

In one of the Minn. sports magazines they had conservation officer reports. One of the DNR guys said he talked to a guy coming out of the woods with his arms full of shed antlers. The guy said he had trained his dog to find them and the dog was very good at it. Anyone ever heard of a dog doing this before??

[Musky Buck]

Yes, unfortunately my cousin trained his dog to do this, but hit on the road recently, it worked.

[onlydrakes4me]

I've read somewhere or heard that you can train a dog to find sheds. I guess that antlers have a unique smell to them just like anything else. So a dog would just use there nose to find them

[SapperACE]

I was just out shed hunting a couple weeks ago, and my pup found one. I don't think it was just a fluke either. She finds where I hide all my shed antlers on my work bench, and steals them. I don't see any reason why a dog couldn't be trained to find sheds consistently.

[BLACKJACK]

I've been trying to train my two labs to hunt sheds without much luck, they seem more interested in eating deer [PoorWordUsage] and rolling in anything dead and smelly. Before I go for a hike, and go shed hunting, I grab an old shed and toss it in the weeds, a couple of retrieves for each one. Then when we get in a hot area I tell them to 'hunt it up' - then they start looking for pheasants!!! Last week I was out walking, I saw a shed, I stopped, and started telling them 'hunt it up' and they ran by it 2-3 times before one of them picked it up.

Still a work in progress!!! I know my next pup will be getting some 'shed training' from the start!

[ac777]

Wow, that would be so awesome to train a dog to find sheds. I am wondering what kind of dog it would take or would be the best? Can you train any dog?

Also last year while turkey hunting in mid April I got to watch a small forkie for a couple days with one of his antlers left, that was kinda cool. I've heard that if they have really good nutrition they sometimes keep there antlers until the new ones push them off. Not sure how true this is though.

[Musky Buck]

I'd believe it ac777, I had 8-10 bucks on my Tcam as of March 7th and between my relatives that shed hunt and I, we can't really start until mid-march because so many bucks carry them very late in our area. A good friend had a 12 pointer on Tuesday night eating out of his mom and dad's bird feeder.