Why is shed hunting so popular now?

[Shed God]

My thoughts on the further torture of deer and elk during shedding Time? Going to have to impose a “season” for shed hunting on public land. Guys taking sleds out in late February/early March bumping already winter stressed bucks/bulls isn’t cool.

Eric albus curious why only impose a season on public land. I understand fwp or whoever only caters to private. But the most horrendous things I have ever seen, during shed season occur on private lands. Horrendous meaning the ranches closest to the Game ranges scooping up the horns. Before it opens.

 

[Bambistew]

Its popular because people are infatuated with killing big animals, so much that they have lost sense in the essence of the hunt and are totally focused on the outcome. What's amazing is the outcome doesn't really matter to anyone but themselves. People are hung up on how other perceive their outcome. Think I'm wrong? Ask yourself if your kids or grand kids would give 2 shits about the horns/antlers you have when you're dead? They might keep a few, but most would just get sold. They're only sentimental to a select few, and rarely is it generational.

I also think the abundance of large antlers is greater today, especially whitetails and elk, than they were 40 years ago.

It was amazing back in the late 80s early 90s when few people where doing it. I'd say around 1998-2000 is when it really started to take off due to the internet, IMO.

When I was a kid, I had access to a couple ranches in MT that had never been picked before. It was nuts. You could literally pick up an antler and spot the next one from that spot. Took me a couple years to clean them up and toss all the chalk into the bushes. I'll bet some antlers were over 100 years old. A good friend of mine, in the early 80s, used to take a week and walk from one end to the other of a 40 mile long mountain range. He only picked up brown 6pts, sticking the rest in the ground. He'd make a stash at each trail head and keep going all the way to the end of the range. He had a couple of the biggest elk antlers I've ever seen from MT, and I worked for the largest antler exporter in the US for a half a dozen years. One set weighed 19lbs each.

One of about 15 piles boys. Me and my dad, brothers started doing it before it was cool.

Antlers in a glass case? That's next level.

I don't feel bad about picking them up and selling them for dog chews or where ever else they go. I have a few big singles and sets, but after a while they all just collect dust.

Sheep mounts look better on the wall anyway.