Busy Week! -

So on Monday, the 6th, I got permission to look through a grove of trees that I've daydreamed too many times about what I might find out there - either sheds or the remains of Skyscraper. I had an outdoor writer from the Grand Forks paper with me to write an article about shed hunting. We first walked through one of his woods up near the refuge, then we walked through this pasture with high hopes and lastly we walked through a long east and west woods that thought might produce as well. We walked away empty handed! There was one turn of events that was very unexpected, but we'll discuss that in another blog!
Then on Wednesday, I checked on a few things and on a short walk I was able to find a set of spike sheds and a dead buck from several years ago.

The spikes were sheds 20 & 21 for the year. Thursday offered a short amount of time so Zach and I headed up to walk through the ridge and comb through the bowls and see if we couldn't find a little antler or two. We came up empty handed, but we saw lots of good sign and it seemed that the deer were definitely comfortable staging and criss-crossing through the bowls.

We found a good late fall-late rut bow stand site. On Friday I was stopping by my office to get a few things done and I found laying on my desk, two antlers that I couldn't recognize for the life of me. A few minutes later I found a note that read: "We kept the big ones. - Randy". Are you kidding me? I knew that every year the DNR does a dead deer search and they must've finally found some antlers! But bigger ones? How big were they? Where'd they find them? I needed answers!
On Saturday, Zach and I took a 5th grader and a 7th grader out for their first real shed hunting expedition. We hiked a long, long ways and tired those boys right out.

Nearing the end of our walk, the older of the two boys shouted, "There's one! I found one!" I shouted back, "Don't touch it!" Haha. In hindsight, he would've had no idea why in the world I would've ever told him to not touch it. A person's first and only instinct at that age is to scoop it up and celebrate! We got a few pictures of it and then had him tell the story. The shed actually turned out to be a broken part of a yearlings left antler.

I was able to track down a couple pics of what buck I thought it must be. Shortly after we picked up that antler, we continued heading east. We were south of the west slough (near the spring) and all of a sudden several trails began to emerge that I'm not even sure if I've ever been on them before. We didn't spend much time there, but the next time I go check that camera, I'm going to have to walk through that area again. There definitely was good sign and that is very near Pencil's core area.
Earlier that afternoon I called Randy at the Bog and he had to confess that he was pulling my leg. He gave me the only two that they found. That was cool. He did say in church the next day that Stuart Rice may have the other side to the better of the two.
Lastly, Yesterday (Tuesday the 14th) Zach and I tried to walk south around the outside of the stuff the cut south of Steve's stand last winter. We went all the way down to the point where the old stand in the tamarack is. We cut in to the west and then stayed northwest of our track all the way back to the truck. We found good sign, pulled my crazy 8 stand down, but never found any antlers. I dropped him off and mom, dad and I headed right back out. We walked south of the cabin and tucked into the cedars behind dad's stand and walked south - 3 wide. When we got to the south end of the shack field we started to curl south west towards dad's SW ladder stand. Dad found a little 3 point yearling shed right before we got to his ladder.

That was honestly some of the best sign around. It was mostly rut sign, with lots of trails and rubs. It was a very educational trip to say the least. We pulled off about 20 ticks between the three of us and I absolutely destroyed a pair of jeans. It was an exhausting day. I have less than one week to find Pencil's antlers. Down to the wire.