My field tech for last summer emailed me yesterday and attached a picture of this shed that he found on Tuesday during summer camp.  Summer camp is an intense 6-week program that is required for the undergraduate wildlife and fisheries students at NC State.  The shed was found at NC State’s Hill Forest near the city of Durham.  He found his first shed ever with me last summer in Maryland and I was proud of him to find this stud!!!  It was laying among some rocks in a creek.  Didn’t get any measurements, but the G2 looks like it could be rendered as a legitimate sword!  Great find Billy!  Sheds are few and far between this time of year and any antler is a great find!

An anonymous reader of The Outdoor Smorgasbord submitted these photos of sheds he has found these year in Kansas. Attached, he submitted a comment saying that these whopper antlers would be a good tease and appetite ‘wetter’ for my upcoming September trip to Kansas for early muzzleloader season. I’d say…that is a PIG set and the single antler is a bona fide STUD!!! I know a lot of shed hunters enjoy this blog, and I guarantee you guys will love these pics! Keep em’ coming!

Well, I’m back from my weekend of shedding in Maryland.  Took my buddy Danny Shanklin and his wife to uncompany us.  Grace and Kara kept each other from being bored out their minds by renting a bunch of movies while Danny and I hit the woods.

The shed hunting was unbelievable!!!  The weather was pretty nasty on Saturday, but we used the 3 breaks in rain to rack up 18 antlers on day 1.  First spot was a long narrow strip of woods between a road and some crop fields.  There is a 3 yr old poplar cut in there too.  Pulled 11 antlers out of there in a little over an hour and a half.  Second spot yielded 5 more sheds, 4 freshies and an oldie.  Third spot we took the girls out and right as we were running full bore out of the woods from a pouring thunderstorm, Kara somehow spotted her first shed ever.  We took a picture back in the safety of the truck.  She looks a tadbit excited!

Still a little disappointing though because we only had about 3 and a half hours of hiking in by dark.  Because the weather was so wet (it was drizzling even when we were out there), I didn’t even get to take the camera to the woods that day, so sorry…no ATL’s for that day.  Here was the day’s take back at the house.

Here is the only ATL I took on Saturday.  It was the last shed of the day.  I found it while driving the truck late in the afternoon.  Doing a little scouting for the ‘morrow and there it was.  Face down in some grass on the edge of a pine cut.

Here is a picture of me holding it.  The rainbows had just showed up as the rain had quit for about the 4th time that day.  You can see that the rainbow actually comes down in the field where I was standing.  No, there wasn’t a wheelbarrow load of sheds where it hit the ground either…lol!  Probably one of my favorite pictures shed hunting all time!

The next day, the rain was gone, but it was freezing cold and the wind was gusting to 40 mph.  We hit a 10 acre greenbriar patch first.  I almost got skunked with only 1 oldie, but Danny yanked 2 skulls.  Here’s a 6 pt. that we taped an 18 1/2″ inside spread on.

Next spot was in a year and a half old pine cut.  The one where I found the rainbow shed yesterday.  I again got skunked, but Danny was walking where they laid.  He nailed a 135″ fresh 8 point set (found them laying about 400 yards apart), 2 more 4 pt. sheds and a spiker.  The set had 23″ beams and 5 1/2″ bases.  Nice buck!

Couple of ATL’s from that spot.  I’ll get more ATL’s up when I get the pictures from Danny’s digital.

We ended up hitting a couple more spots before lunch with limited success, a few small ones but nothing exciting.  Then after lunch, we took the girls back out and Kara found her second shed, a little bladed spike shed.  She’s got decent eyes for sheds, but we couldn’t ever seem to get her in a great spot where she could find some good ones.  The girls tired out quickly though and it was back to the house.  In all fairness though, the woods were really nasty with water laying everywhere from the heavy rains, some sorts were just a giant quagmire.

While the ladies got their stuff pulled together at the house to drive back to North Carolina, Danny and I drove back out and checked one more pine cut.  We were only in there 20 minutes or so, but we pulled 3 fresh sheds and another skull.

Even though we were rushing to get headed back south, we took the time to lay out all the antlers and take a total find pic.  A couple antlers are small and didn’t show up in the grass, but trust me when I say that there are 38 antlers laying there including those attached to the skulls.  30 true sheds.  Right at half were fresh.

We only got to shed hunt for 10 hours over the 2 days because of the weather, but it was AWESOME!!!  Last year, I took my dad up and in the 3 hours we had to look before a snowstorm hit, we picked up 14 with the help of another friend.  But this year’s excursion was definitely the best shed hunting trip I’ve ever been on even though I failed to find any gaggers.  Danny was thrilled, he found the better half of the nice sheds and we can wait until next year.

Sometime this week I’ll lay out some of the better sheds I found and take some close-ups for all to enjoy.  Wow, what a weekend!!

It’s not easy stuffing a bunch of antlers in an already full Honda Accord with 4 people and their bags for a long weekend.

Well, I’m off today at noon to go shedhunting for the weekend in Maryland.  My wife, Kara, along with another couple we are friends with will be heading up.  Unfortunately, there has been talk that a good number of the bucks haven’t shed yet in the area, but I think we’ll do alright if the weather cooperates.  The rain is supposed to hammer the area well into tomorrow.  So if we are going to have good luck, we really need the rain to stop as soon as possible tomorrow because we only have until around 3 or 4 Sunday afternoon to hunt.  Wish us luck!  Will post with pictures when I return to the office Monday morning.  Until then, have a good weekend!

Being how it is spring break, I took off to one of my urban bone spots and spent 3 hours hiking this morning.  I seemingly bounced deer out of every thicket and knew it was only a matter of time.  First, I spotted these gnawed tines sprouting from the ground.  After taking an ATL, I unearthed the 2 yr old 4 pt side.

Not even 3 minutes later, I looked down to see this antler gazing up at me through the honeysuckle vines.  The bone grew a little when I pulled him out of his hiding spot.  Pretty nice 4 pt. side.  Hmmm…wonder if I can find another one in this thicket.

Boom! 2 minutes later I’ve got the match!  Nice 8 pointer.  He’ll really be something in a year.  The sheds were only laying about 25 yards apart, making it the closest match I’ve found so far in my shedding career.  I was tickled to say the least.

After jumping about 20 more deer over the next couple of hours, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t found anything else.  Hunted some really good bedding areas, definitely some buck’s core areas considering some thickets were just destroyed with rubs like these.  The group of trees behind the front rub is just ripped!  Why can’t I hunt here!

Day’s total.  My best haul of the year so far.

Found a big garter snake right before leaving for the office.  First snake of the year for me.  Guess this 70 degree weather is bringing the critters out of the ground.

Had a great time today and my season total is up to 5 sheds.  All from the same property so far.  My goal is 20 this year, so we’ll see if I can make it.

Well, the only kind of luck I have had lately is BAD luck. Not to say I haven’t enjoyed my time outdoors though. Any time alone in God’s Creation is time well spent and much-needed therapy. Last week I took several, hour-long hikes into a couple of my urban shed spots. Though I saw lots of deer and plenty of fresh deer sign, I never found the first piece of bone. In fact, I just found a bunch of crap!

A rather impressive pile of coyote scat beside my 10×42 shed finders…I wish!

Here is the closest thing I found to an antler, this weed sure did trick me.  In fact, I got wet crossing the creek to retrieve my prize.

But seriously, today I took 2 hours between classes and officework and headed up to a bowfishing spot at Jordan Lake.I know that big female bowfin should be making a shallow water appearance shortly, but I never saw the first ripple. I covered plenty of territory around some beaver dams, but they don’t appear to have moved shallow in that spot yet.  The water was plenty clear, but it was empty the whole time I stared into it.

Nice to get out for the first bowfishing excursion of the year though.  What made it worthwhile was that I did get some photographs of the first adult bald eagle I’ve ever seen in North Carolina.  Here’s the best photo that I took before he set sail on the wind, still a little fuzzy, couldn’t get it to focus quite right.

Lastly, here is a photo of my wife Kara that I thought you might get a kick out of.  She is standing beside a tree that has been gnawed by the largest beaver in North America…jk!

I’ve had several encounters with this buck the last 2 summers while trying to put GPS collars on mature bucks for my graduate project in Maryland.  The first picture is a little fuzzy and dark, but I took it through leaves in fading light in June 2006.  I had another encounter during summer 2007 when he snuck up behind me at 30 yards. 

Nicknamed ‘Bo Derek’ because of his perfect 10 frame in 2005, he grew some non-typical character points in 2006.  This fall, he made a fatal mistake and was killed by a hunter at the age of 6.5. 

I found this shed while walking through the woods in October 2007.  It is my personal best and scores a massive 93 1/2″.  Doubled and spread, yep….that’s right…200+” STUD!  He scored 197 and change gross this year when he was killed.  Here’s a couple more pics of the antler. 

Here is my shed alongside one of his sides from 2005.

He scored in the 160-165″ range that year.  Quite a jump, huh?!?! Both his sides from 2005 were laying side by side and someone else found the other 2006 side about 3/4 mile away from mine.  Hope you enjoyed!

Took a stroll with buddy Colter Chitwood (fellow grad student at NC State) to one of my urban shed hunting hotspots. Started out with a slow hour checking a hillside covered in kudzu - a prime winter feeding spot. After giving it a thorough check, we dropped down into a hardwood funnel connecting the kudzu thicket with a lake. We found these 2 massive rubs and also found 2 dead deer, no headgear though.

After bumping into a big group of deer behind a swampy area, I knew it was just a matter of time before we ran into something.  Sure enough,  50 yards down this heavy deer trail, there it laid.  Nice 4 pt. side, never tried to grow an eyeguard, but the G3 was 9 inches long, too bad the G2 was broken up.   Looked for the match for a while but no luck.

Also found a dead 6 pt. that was a little too nasty for a picture.  Here is a picture back at my apartment with the day’s find plus a 4 pt. side I picked up 2 days before on a solo foray into the same area.  It was laying right beside a barbed wire fence crossing.

Hope you enjoyed the update, I enjoyed bringing it to you.  Thanks for posing Colter.

Nice start to the 2008 shedding season.  Hopefully bringing more updates soon from the North Carolina woods.