BigBuckZone

Hey Mike: You asked about big sheds and carcasses... I have attached a picture of me holding the head of a buck I found in April 06 in western Wisconsin. I had been shed hunting the weekend before I found it and still had antlers on the brain as I drove home from work one day.

Driving by a low marshy area owned by a utility company, I glanced out to where I have often seen deer crossing and thought I saw a flash of antler in the swamp grass about 75 yards off the road. Long story short – this big rack was lying there. It appeared the buck had been hit by a car and managed to get off the road before he died. His nose was skinned up and the antler on the opposite side had a little road rash. Other than that the antlers are perfect.

Haven’t had the rack officially scored, but 3 different amateurs each come up with mid 170s. Did a European mount with the head, looks great on my wall. Keep up the good work! Thanks, Andy

Lesson: As I said the other day you never know what you'll find in the woods this time of year. The grass and foliage are dead and flat and the new greenery is still weeks away from popping out. Shed antlers and carcasses w/racks stick out better now than at any other time of year, so get out there and look. You might find a giant typical like ZONER Andy did, or maybe gnarly non-typical antlers/rack.

So how's your shedding going? Send more stories and pictures for me to post.

Montana outfitter and ZONE guest blogger Lucas Strommen sent me this:

Hey Boss: Stole away for a couple of hours yesterday and found some sheds and one nice buck.

Too bad, he was a good one with a lot of potential, check out that 7" brow and the split brow. Winter Kill.

The pic of me (below) with all those old white sheds support your book (Bowhunting Mega Bucks) where we talk about hunting for sheds after cattle have grazed down a woodlot.

Some of those sheds were a few years old and had been concealed by the tall grass for the last few seasons till the cows kicked em up. I even found one antler with a big old cow dung next to it, nice effect huh?

And from across the country George asked:

Mike: I live in Pittsburgh, PA (in the city limits) and we have a nice deer population year round. I just saw a video of some of our local bucks that my neighbor took on March 12. There were 4 bucks, one was a half rack 4-point and the other was a nice 10-point. Why would they still be carrying their racks at this time of year? Thanks, George

George: March is late but not unheard of. Biologists say stress, nutrition, weather, etc. can delay shedding from late December to February to even March, as you have seen. It is not an exact science.

BTW, I bet that 4-point has lost his other side by now, and the 10 is likely bald too. They drop em fast. Keep checking with your neighbor; she'll keep seeing those bucks and it will be interesting to learn when they finally go bald for the year.

Anybody looking and finding any big sheds, any carcasses, any cool or weird stuff? You never know what you'll find on a walk in the woods this time of year, so let us know.

I had 6 of the best rack scorers I know send me their very educated guesses as to what these fantastic KS sheds would score if they were still attached to the noggin of the brute that dropped them. I gotta tell you we were all over the board. Some of our scores were close; others were almost 20 points lower or higher. We had some controversy.

Scoring racks from a photo is always subjective because of the camera angle, how far out or back a person is holding them, etc. That’s OK, makes it more fun. We scorers had lots of calls and emails back and forth, arguing as to whether this was a 176, 185 or 195 buck.

Making it doubly tough with these antlers: the thick mass, the 9 visible major points (some scorers knocked off a lot for lack of that 10th point) and spread. Speculation on inside spread ran from 18 to 23 inches, causing 5 points of wiggle room alone. Guesses on main-beam length ran from 27½ to 30”, another possible 5-point margin of error.

In the end I had to make a judgment call, so I threw out the highest and lowest scores, averaged the middle four and came up with 184 3/8 inches gross.

JD won with a super-close guess of 184 2/8. Email me your address JD and I’ll get you out your goody bag right away.

Incredibly, somebody hit it right on the head with a guess of 184 3/8, submitted on August 10. But he or she didn’t leave his email address or handle, so unfortunately he or she had to be disqualified. Also, ZONER Jeff D., who won the first rack-scoring contest we had several months ago, came in with 184 6/8. Jeff, I’m thinking about taking you on the road with me this fall as official rack scorer before I shoot, LOL!

Several people sent interesting information about these sheds. I understand the guy who found them went right into a patch of woods and picked them up 15 minutes later—talk about having a buck patterned at horn-casting time! I also heard his dad went into the same timber on the same day and found the same buck’s previous sheds. Pretty amazing.

Thanks to everybody for taking part in the contest, we’ll do it again soon.

Awhile back a ZONER sent me this photo of some huge sheds suppposedly picked up in Kansas. Heck of a 9-pointer, even if the pic was snapped close up with a wide-angle lens.

If that rack were still attached to the deer's head, what would it green score? Send me your best guess to the closest eighth of an inch. Closest to the score that my experts and I came up with wins a goody bag just in time for bow season (camo cap, wind checker and grunt call). Contest runs for a week or so.

CLUE: The sheds score more than 150 3/8" and less than 205 7/8". Good luck!

Get out there and do one more good round of shedding this weekend (well, take Easter morning off, but an afternoon hike to burn off the ham might work). As I pointed out in a post a couple of weeks ago, a lot of bucks from Canada to Iowa to Arkansas seem to be carrying their 2005 antlers well into 06.

Still are in places. Joe, a Zoner from New Jersey, reports that on the drive home from work last Friday he spotted a big 8-pointer in his neighbor’s backyard. April 7 is late, but not unheard of in the East, where most racks drop January through March. What’s the latest you’ve ever seen a buck with one or both horns still up?

When you’re out there, here are 2 new tricks to try.

My buddy Luke Strommen is a shed-hunting super freak. He starts scouring the shores of the Milk River (MT) in December (some bucks drop early out there) and he’s still going strong. Last week, Luke and his cousin Dave went out with their longbows and some wooden arrows.

“We bring our bows and do a little stump shooting to get some practice in,” Luke wrote in his field journal over at Hunting Net. “But that day we didn’t shoot at stumps because there were a lot of old cow pies around. A cow pie makes a great target. When you hit one with a rubber blunt or judo point, the prairie muffin explodes, confirming a direct hit.”

I got to thinking that back East where there are zillions of people somebody might hassle you or even call the cops if they see you wandering around with your Hoyt or Mathews in April, but to hell with them. Shoot all the stumps and cow dung you want, so long as you're safe. 

Dave hollered for Luke come and check out a nice set of antlers. The bad news, they were attached to a skull and carcass. Shedders across the country are finding a lot of dead bucks. Sad, but that’s how Ma Nature works. 

Another friend, Don Kisky, uses his March/April shed hunts to do one thing: learn every main and secondary deer trail on his property; where those paths come and go; where they crisscross; how and where they turn... That helps the Iowa boy kill giants.

One day Kisky was walking along and spotted this monster boring straight at him. He scanned the area and knew exactly which trail the buck was on, and where it curved. Old Don ducked behind a tree, drew his bow and killed the 177-incher when it was broadside in the bend.

So get your butt back out there, you can never shoot your bow or learn too much.

Outdoor Channel TV host and whitetail fanatic Terry Drury reports that as of 4/1/06, he and his buddies have found 45 sheds on his Missouri farm, along with a perfect arrowhead, a rusty butter knife and an 1892 penny. NOTE: Found some big or unusual sheds, or maybe something really cool, like a 100-plus-year-old coin? Click comments below and tell us.

Terry and the boys marched north to Brother Mark Drury’s farm and have picked up 125 antlers so far, including a matching 180-inch pair. If that buck makes it, he’ll push 200 this fall.

But a find one day last week blew their minds, and made them more than a little sad.

Walking a gully 80 yards off a state gravel road, one of the hunters about stepped on the remains of “Heart Attack,” a legendary beast that had roamed the area for years. A few guys had had heart-stopping close calls with the mythical monster over the years, but nobody could get him. In his last years, Heart Attack had lived in a thick core area of only about 200 acres, and he moved almost exclusively at night in hunting season.

Several dark nights last fall, the Drurys got some Wildlife Eye surveillance video footage of Heart Attack. Terry thinks he might have encountered him one cold morning, but he can’t say for sure. “A huge deer was bedded 25 yards from my stand; as I climbed the tree, he blew out there, blowing and sounding huge and heavy,” he says. “I’d like to think it was Heart Attack, especially now that he’s gone.”

The 5x5 gross-scores 199 5/8. The rack is an astounding 30 inches wide. The Drurys checked w/B&C, and they believe it is one of the top 5 widest whitetails of all time!

What happened to Heart Attack? Poached? Hit by a car? Horned to death by a rival? His remains were too decomposed, so we’ll never know.