Shedding

[Barnes Ridge Rambler]

Saw 3 bucks in a field off the highway yesterday evening. They were a couple hundred yards out but i could tell they had some decent head gear. Anybody else been seeing any that havent shed yet?

 

[hunter0925]

I saw about 10 different bucks on the way to and from work today. Some had both and some only had one and some you could tell had just dropped.

 

[Shed Hunter]

Most of mine haven't.. which is getting annoying.. I wanna find some more antlers lol

 

[catman529]

yesterday I bumped a lot of deer but did not get a good look at them most of the time. When I did get a good look, I saw at least one buck with full head gear, some does, some unidentified without headgear, and sitting in a parking lot at dusk I had a half rack buck and 2 doe come out into the grass.

 

[Hunter 257W]

I spent most of the day fertilizing my fruit and oak trees but as such was walking through some thick cover and also checked out my most used food plot. I found ZERO sheds. Based on trail camera pictures from years past, many if not most bucks around my area still have their antlers.

Still I was so sure I would find something in that one food plot. IT has tracks and trails all over it.

 

[Hollar Hunter]

I looked at around 4000 pics this weekend and finally there starting to drop. Had several one horn bucks with bloody heads and a couple missing both sides. All my mature bucks still had both sides though...I'd say one or two more weeks and the big boys will have shed for the most part...

 

[danny1975]

Everything I found had been small 7 pt and a spike. Going back to check my cams tomarrow and look some more. Think the bigger deer still hot horns

 

[Good time Charlie]

They are just now starting here,next 2 weeks will be prime time in the woods.

 

[Hunter 257W]

Have any of you tried one of these? I saw this a few eyars ago and just never got around to trying it.

http://www.racktrap.com/

The price is very steep but if you can weld, it wouldn't be nearly so expensive to throw somthing together with a bucket in the bottom for corn and a frame to hold rubber bungees the bucks could poke their heads through. There's still time to put one together this year in fact.

 

[catman529]

Have any of you tried one of these? I saw this a few eyars ago and just never got around to trying it.

http://www.racktrap.com/

The price is very steep but if you can weld, it wouldn't be nearly so expensive to throw somthing together with a bucket in the bottom for corn and a frame to hold rubber bungees the bucks could poke their heads through. There's still time to put one together this year in fact.

people make them with all kind of things - hay bales, pieces of wire fence, old fallen logs, etc. it's been suggested though that knocking off antlers before they are ready can damage the pedicles and the deer will always grow a funny rack after that. My thinking, and I don't have anything to back this, but what I would do is put corn up against a big log so the deer must bump his rack against the log to eat corn. That way, in theory, the antlers would only come off if they were ready and there would be no bungees or fence wires to "snag" off the antlers.

 

[Hunter 257W]

Yeah, any time you try to force an antler to fall off, you have to be careful that you don't trap a buck with solidly attached antlers. That's one plus with using bungee cords. They stretch enough to give unlike a solid steel frame or stiff wire and if the device is designed correctly, the ends will slip off before trapping a buck. You'd have to use some judgement when making the part of the trap that the bungees fasten to to get the right release force. I'd tend to go with a low force that would probably mean the bungees would need to be refastened to the frame frequently. Still, hHarming a buck is the last thing we want to do. I like your idea of corn against a log too since that doesn't take any work and the shape of the log naturally forces a buck to bump his antlers gently.