How to Find a Shed

[EliAGrimmett]

Let's say there's a big buck you're looking for from the previous season - you're hoping he wasn't taken last year and that you'll find him this year and he'll be even bigger than he was last time! You can't find the buck, but what if you found his shed instead? Usually sheds only last about one year before the environment destroys them, one way or another so if you found the buck's shed it would typically mean he made it through the hunting season.

If the buck lives in an area 4 miles wide by 5 miles long it would constitute 20 square miles which equals 12,800 acres which is equivalent to 557,568,000 square feet which is 80,289,792,000 square inches!!!

An antelope's horn, if it were laying on the ground, might equal about 30 square inches.

What are the odds of finding any one particular buck's shed? I'd say pretty close to non-existent!

While we were scouting yesterday we were looking for a particular buck and happened to find it's shed! Needless to say we're pretty excited about it!

I'll post a photo of it shortly.

 

[Muley Crazy]

WOW what's the odds!! I found my frist speed goat shed this year looking for deer sheds I will say it made my day. I have now found sheds from mule deer, whitetail, elk caribou, and pronghorn just needing a moose and blacktail to round out my grand slam of shed hunting

 

[montanadogs]

The only speed goat shed I've ever found was one I stepped on and broke. I would love to find a few, I have a friend who does some amazing engravings on them.

 

[EliAGrimmett]

Here's the shed...



We've actually found a lot of sheds over the years, but they've all been by accident. In the units in AZ where the antelope are sparse finding sheds usually never happens. This shed, surprisingly, was just laying in the road and we almost ran it over. My guess is that it got caught in the 4-inches of rain the ranch got and flowed downhill into the ruts of the road. It definitely made our trip up north worth it! This shed is one of the Top 10 biggest that we've ever found (we've found some giant sheds over the years!)

 

[Moe]

I used to work on a 22,000 acre plantation in the Southeast. We found sheds every turkey season, but rarely did they match up with bucks we'd kill later in year; and instead totally different rack-formations appeared??

About two years after working there I met guy who hunted the 30,000 acre tract next to us and saw some of his sheds (lots). They were 'our deer' as one might say; the ones they found, and vise-versa many of the bcuks our paid-hunters killed were their's or ones they tried to manage for?

Our 'commercial hunting pressure' versus their recreational only; likely had something to do with where bucks spent their rut/off-season time; and from then on I spent a lot less time looking for sheds for our trophy-management purposes.

...and assume they did the same.

Moe

 

[van franke]

Man that is quite the prong. Sweet find, whats it roughly score.

 

[highmountian]

Wow! congrats on a great find.. How big is he?

 

[EliAGrimmett]

The shed tapes out at about 82 if the horn were doubled, but that number, at least with pronghorn, comes with some severe caveats.

For instance -

The prong is broken on this horn and still measures 4 inches "off the horn" with about 2 3/8 - 2 4/8 "behind the horn". With the mass this buck has I'm positive the BTH measurement would have been around 2 5/8 green and, the prong, had it been intact, around 4 2/8 - 4 4/8 OTH. This puts his prong, alive, right at 7 inches.

The bottom two mass measurements are 6 4/8 and 6 7/8, but a large chunk of the horn is missing on the inside and the very bottom is chewed up quite a bit. These two measurements would have easily been 6 6/8 and 7 3/8 and possibly both of them bigger.

Same goes with the top two measurements at around 4 1/8 and 2 7/8 - probably closer to 4 4/8 and 3 1/8 green.

The length is tough to gauge because of the base being chewed up, but the horn is currently 14 inches long. We only had it guessed at around 15 1/8 during our scouting trips so I think that would probably be a fair number.

That would have put the buck at around 87-88 inches green, which is exactly what we were field judging the buck at.

With any luck the buck will grow a bit longer this year and become an auction tag candidate!

 

[Spitz]

Great find Eli! Thanks for sharing.

 

[rosco]

Fence lines are good places to look for pronghorn sheds.

 

[IdahoBugler]

Very nice find. I was surprised at how many horns Big Fin and I found while hunting NM. I think we found around 10-12 horns. I wish they would last a little longer though.

 

[EliAGrimmett]

Very nice find. I was surprised at how many horns Big Fin and I found while hunting NM. I think we found around 10-12 horns. I wish they would last a little longer though.

Yeah, finding sheds isn't quite as difficult as I make it sound in my first post, but it does make you think when you actually figure out the actual land mass versus the horn you're trying to find.

We've found them at particular waterholes in the past and routinely in 19A where the antelope concentration is very high (or at least it was).

We've found over 100 sheds over the years and I think we've only found 3 or 4 sheds of bucks that we had also seen alive.

The area you guys hunted in NM is dense with antelope (compared to what I'm used to) so I imagine a lot of foot time would kick up some sheds. Did you guys find any of decent size?

 

[EliAGrimmett]

Really didn't get many photos (10) during our early trip and they were all very far away - probably over 600 yards with poor lighting conditions.

Here's the best one:

 

[IdahoBugler]

The area you guys hunted in NM is dense with antelope (compared to what I'm used to) so I imagine a lot of foot time would kick up some sheds. Did you guys find any of decent size?

Nothing of any size but then again they also had 5 more months to deteriorate. We did find a dead buck that would have been pretty nice. When you watch the tv episode you will see it in one of the shots of us walking past.