Every year from the middle of January on, I start hearing stories from around the country about people finding shed antlers. It seems like the ones in the Midwest and Northern Midwest start first, and I even get some tales about them finding some in September. In my opinion the stress from brutal winters can make the deer lose their antlers faster than they do here in the South. With my job I am in the woods every day and am always keeping an eye out for sheds whether it is in power line right of ways or in the timber, but the sheds I find are few and far between. When I am in Kansas, whether it be turkey season or deer season, I normally find a couple of sheds out there every year. At home in South Carolina, that is not the case.
Now, according to the pictures I am getting from my game cameras some of the bucks still have their antlers but some of the bucks lost theirs a couple of weeks ago. As I do every year, when my pictures show proof that they have started dropping I hit the woods and food plots looking. For the past couple of weeks my little boy and I have been walking and looking what feels like every inch of our farm and we have yet to find one antler. Part of the problem is that we don’t have what you would call good bucks using our property right now so the antlers we are looking for are of the smaller variety. I understand that this makes our shed hunting a smite tougher than some other guys.
Turkey season opens this week in the lower part of our state and with all of the waking I am going to be doing in those deer infested woods hopefully I will run across something down there. According to our cameras down there we had several good bucks make it through the season so maybe we can find a couple of their sheds.
One thing about hunting sheds this time of year, whether you are finding them or not, it is a great opportunity to scout. There are a lot of fresh deer signs in the woods to make note of for next season. The pattern the deer are using right now can be turned into some late season success this coming fall. Another thing is I also learn a few things about my turkeys when I am hunting around for sheds. I make some notes in the back of my mind where most of the scratching and strutting has been going on. Then come turkey season when I am chasing that hard headed gobbler around I will have some idea of where he may be headed.
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