Saturday, February 20, 2010

Some Impressive Sheds!

Earlier this week, my friend Justin Berndt made an amazing find! While walking through the woods he happened to stumble across a matching set of antlers that were lying on the ground within four feet of each other. But these weren't your standard, run-of-the-mill antlers. These were BIG!
Justin asked me to put a tape measure to the massive set of antlers to see just how big they were. Since they were not on a skull it was difficult to determine what the inside spread measurement would be, but I conservatively estimated the spread at 17 4/8". After all the measurements were calculated I unofficially scored the antlers at 162 6/8" gross! It is pretty rare to find one antler of this caliber, and to find a matching set is like finding a hidden treasure!

Saturday morning Justin and I decided to go out and do a little shed hunting. Even though I think we were still a little early to find many of this year's sheds, we still managed to find eight that looked like they were from last year.

Justin found five antlers (three of which were non-typical) and I found these three (one of which was non-typical). As you can tell, there must be some freaky genetics among this deer herd.
I had a lot of fun this morning just being able to get outside and explore at my own pace. The weather was great, and it turned out to be a really great day in the woods!

5 comments:

Karen Thomason/Gordon Setter Crossing said...

Nice Pics! I have deer on my place, and a particular buck that has been here for about 5 years now. I would love to have his rack. I read your previous post, with your friend Marc, on where to look, but I've had no luck. Just wondering, how long you spent looking for the 4 you found, or how many acres you walked to find them??

Anonymous said...

I don't know how you do it. I never seem to find that many if any when I go out.

Rob said...

Karen,
We spent about four hours looking for these and covered approximately 100 acres, but that was just casually combing the area. We didn't take a very systematic approach to it, like walking gridlines. That would probably be the most effective way to look. Another avid shed hunter I have talked to said he averages about one shed antler for every 8-9 hours of looking. We just had a really good morning!

Brad said...

I still want to see them in person, you still have them?

Matt Elder said...

Congrats, Those are some really nice sheds. I hope to find some like that this weekend.