Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #138: Talking Shed Hunting with Joe Shead

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Wired To Hunt Podcast #138: Talking Shed Hunting with Joe Shead · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wire to Hunt Podcast. I'm
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan. This is episode number one eight
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Taylor Show. We're joined by expert shed hunter and author
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Joe shed And as you might have guessed, we're talking
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: shed hunting. All right, welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: brought to you by sit Ka Gear. And today we
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: are talking shed hunting. And we're joined by the man
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: who literally wrote the book on hunting. And and I
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: kid you not, Dan, the guy's name is Joe Shed Right,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: it almost sounds fake. Well what I what I wondered
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: is like, did he go out and change his name
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: because he wanted to be a shed hunting guy? Or
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: was it fate? Did fate destin him to write a
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: book on shed hunting. I don't know which it is,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: but I don't know. But Joe's an average shed hunter.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Is he the first guy to ever go hunting? I
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: doubt that. I doubt that. You don't think so, But
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: you can ask him when we get him on Huh,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: I'll let you ask that question. Okay, sounds good. Okay.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: So Joe Joe is an avid, possibly the first shed hunter.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: He's a past contributor to Deer and Deer Hunting magazine,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: and like I said, he wrote the book on shed
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  Speaker 1: hunting called Shed Hunting A Guy Defining White tailed Deer Antlers.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: So in a few minutes here we're gonna get him
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: on the line and we're gonna go deep into everything
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: he knows about finding antlers. And I'm pretty pumped about that.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know about you, Dan, but this is that
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: time of year where you know, the shed itch is
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  Speaker 1: uh needs to be scratched, right right, amen, Like I
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: need to just go for a long eight hour walk.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: There's something I mean, A it's fun to actually be
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: out there looking for sheds. But then also, at least
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: for me, usually that's the first opportunity I get for
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: some serious outdoor time in like a month or so,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: other than some little scouting trips and stuff. You know,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: a good full day of shed hunting is just like
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: a little bit healing for the soul, right right right,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Just you know, beat cabin fever a little bit and
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: get out there. And um, I remember me and my
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: buddy Ryan. It was in two thousand and twelve. I
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: think we went out on a shed hunt. He had
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: a little girl at home and my wife was just
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: getting ready to uh um have our first child. And
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: we found a day that worked for both of us
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: and we went out and it was like ten degrees
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: that day in February and we still went out and
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: we still pounded the ground. You're doing, Yeah, no matter what?
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: So uh we uh we pound the ground, came away
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: with a couple of sheds, but most importantly, you know,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: we got to go outside. Yeah, much needed at this
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: time of year. I'm definitely I've definitely had Kevin fever. Um,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: have you got out walking at all yet? Come on, Mark,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: what kind of what kind of questions that you're talking
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: to a guy who went hunting one time from November
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: three to January ten? I was trying to give you
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: the benefit of the doubt. We don't do that next time? Alright,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: my bad? What about this? Do you have a game
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: plan for when you will go out for the first time? Yeah,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be. It's gonna be really soon. Um. One
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: of my farms really close to the house this weekend. Um,
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  Speaker 1: I'm actually going to pick up my um pick up
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  Speaker 1: my mount It's done. Yep, it's done already, yep. And um,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: while I'm down in that neck of the woods, I'm
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  Speaker 1: gonna go out near one of my farms that I hunt,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: and I'm gonna be talking to a new landowner to
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: ask permission to shed hunt and turkey hunt the spring,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: and hopefully that might lead into the um the white
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: tail season bow hunting, because that piece of property is
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: next to another awesome piece of property that I know
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  Speaker 1: I can't hunt because the farmer who owns that property
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: is a big time hunter him and his family at
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: bow hunt. But the land next to it, it's kind
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: of some scrub ground. And you know, you know how
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: the rud is man, those those big bucks will take
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: a cruise every once in a while into some of
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  Speaker 1: these not so you know, sought after pieces, and those
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: are the pieces that I like. You know, you bring
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  Speaker 1: up a good point, and I know we've talked about
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  Speaker 1: it in past episodes over the last few years, but
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  Speaker 1: you know, this is such a great time to get
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  Speaker 1: shed hunting permission and a stablish that relationship which can
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: someday lead to hunting permission. Maybe. I mean, even if
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: even if you're not like a shed hunting addict. You
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: should start doing it simply, if for another reason, to
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: try to eventually lead to some possible new hunting spots.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Because it's it's a really really good way to at least,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: you know, introduce yourself to people and and get that
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: conversation started. Amen. Amen, And I'll be doing a lot
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: of it. Yeah. I think this year in particularly, I
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: don't know how much longer I'm gonna have my my
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: main farm. It may only be five years, but I
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: need to start striking some relationships with some new farmers
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  Speaker 1: and this is the time of year to do it.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: So why why do you say that that you're not
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: sure about how long you're ale to hunt the current spot?
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  Speaker 1: Is there something like new information that it's getting to
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: the point where the the landowner is to the age
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  Speaker 1: where she even mentioned she's like, I don't know how
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  Speaker 1: much longer I'm going to do this, or how much
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  Speaker 1: longer it's going to be in the family. Uh, it
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: might be sold within you know, because I'm not really
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  Speaker 1: sure how old she is. I've never asked, but she's
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: in her sixties if I had to guess, and um,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: she you know, she's starting to get rid of some
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  Speaker 1: of her livestock because it's just too much work for her.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: And that kind of leads to, you know, the next step,
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  Speaker 1: which is no livestock and just cash running out the farm.
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  Speaker 1: But she's got like five sisters or five siblings, and
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: you know, when it comes to a kind of a
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  Speaker 1: scenario like that, half of them are a majority of
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: them who don't like to like the farm life. They
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  Speaker 1: just want the money and they're gonna sell it and
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: split up the money, if I had to guess, and
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: uh go from there, and then you know, typically what
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: will happen is some either a rich farmer or I
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: shouldn't say rich, but a farmer will come in and
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: buy the ground for their livestock and they are um
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: and their crops, or it's gonna get purchased by someone
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: who is all about the you know, the hunting, and
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: then they'll cash rent that to the as well, and
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: then audios to me and the other guys that hunt
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: that that piece. Well, what you gotta do is you
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: gotta start saving your pennies, Dan, and then buy that
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: some of a gun. Yep, yep, abracadabra. Yeah, just easy
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: as that, right, Hey, I'm gonna give you fifteen dollars
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: for a cool that it wouldn't it be nice to
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: be independently wealthy? Oh man, I'm trying. Uh maybe you
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: should sell how much do you think you could sell
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Wired to Hunt for right now? Like fifteen mill? Not
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: nearly as much as I wish I could. Not nearly enough,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: that's for sure. Uh. Yeah, that's back to back to
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: shed hunting. Man. I don't know about you, but like
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: you like you're I think you were getting ready to
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: say it's like a mind clens. Yeah, it's just good
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: to get out there. And at least for me, at
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: least for nine percent of the time, there are those
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: times like after you shed hunting for like ten straight
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  Speaker 1: hours and you haven't seen a thing, then you sometimes
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: start to wander. I feel like but lots of times
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: when I'm shed hunting, you know, you're so focused on
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: searching for that bone, just constantly scanning looking. You know,
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  Speaker 1: it takes your mind off of all the other things
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  Speaker 1: going on in your life that maybe could be stressing
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  Speaker 1: you out or worrying you or anything that it's just
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  Speaker 1: a great way to get out there in fresh air
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  Speaker 1: and just be in a zone. And uh, And that's
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: pretty other cool thing about shed hunting is let's say
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: you go out and you do a huge push. That night,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: you're sleeping like a baby. I love. I love just
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: going out and getting exhausted and then going home and crashing. Yeah.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: I agree. I've been holding off on going out too.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: I'm just as bad as you. I haven't really done
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: any shif hunting yet because you know, I don't have
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: a ton of spots here in Michigan that I can ghosts.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: I've been trying to wait till most of those antlers
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: are hopefully on the ground. And with this mild winter
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: we've had, I think, at least in places where they
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: have milder weather, we're probably gonna possibly have a later
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: antler drop for some deer too, or at least more scattered. Um.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: I'm sure. I'm sure Joe will talk about this a
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: little bit. But I don't know what you've seen, Dan,
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  Speaker 1: but from what I've seen, it seems like when you've
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: got those really hard, cold, snowy winters, the antlers tend
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: to fall a little bit earlier, and they tend to
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: be more concentrated, you know, around the couple of core
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: food sources or whatever. But when it's kind of snowless
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: and mild, at least it's been here in Michigan, I
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: kind of where that's gonna make it kind of tough.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Those antlers are gonna be all over the place, and uh,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: you know, it's gonna be hard to know when they've
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: dropped my I've I've lost pretty much all the bucks
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: off of my property, my main Michigan property. Um, there's
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: nothing on trout camera anymore. So all the food sources
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: have dried up in the area. My food plots actually
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: got flooded. We had a ton of rain, and so
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: all the foods covering water. Um it's now cover from snow.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: But I think that definitely hurt the activity. And so
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: I'm actually gonna start driving around the roads here in
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: the evening and try to relocate where some of these
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: bucks might be. Now, you know, this time of year,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: they can move half mile mile mile and a half
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  Speaker 1: away to find where that best food is. So I'm
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: kind of hoping maybe I can relocate some of these
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: bucks and get permission there. Maybe. So that's like my
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: next week, week and a half, that's my project. Awesome,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: So I luck with that. Thank you, Thank you, I
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: want to mention one thing before we get Joe on UM.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: I had a really cool experience this past weekend. We
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: had UM and and as you know, Dan, and I'm
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: sure a lot of people who have been following both
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: you or I on social media or really a lot
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: of people on social media, there's a lot of talk
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: recently about the public lands transfer movement, which we've talked
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: a lot about and how that's a really bad idea. UM. Well,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: this past weekend, our Michigan chapter of back Country Hunters
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: and Anglers of which I'm a board member, we had
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: an event in southwestern Michigan. We had a pint night
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: and we had I don't know somewhe around maybe fifty
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: different guys and girls come down to have some beers
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: and talk about public lands and talk about what we
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: can do to try to protect these places. And it
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: was a really really cool UM opportunity to get to
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: see people railing together like that. And uh, I really
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: enjoyed that. And I got to meet some wire hunt
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: listeners and followers, which was really cool. UM. Lots of people,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: lots of people were wondering why you weren't there, Dan,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Why didn't Dan make the drive from Michigan to Michigan.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: But it was cool. Um, So that was fun. And Um.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: The one other shout out I want to make about
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: that event and about the topic in general, is, right now,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: there is a law, a bill that has been proposed
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: last week was proposed, Dan, you've heard, We've been talking
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: about it. Hr SIXE proposes the sale of three point
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: one million acres I believe, of public lands. Straight up,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: They're not even been talking about transferring. It's just saying
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: we want to sell over three million acres of these
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: public LANs. So if you're not familiar with this whole deal,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: you can go back and listen to our podcast with
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Randy Newburgh about it, or you can go and search
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: on Google or on wired hunt. There's lots of stuff
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: I've written about in the past, um talking about why
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: this whole thing is a really bad idea. Um. But
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: either way, go and send an email or make a
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: phone call to your congressman or a woman. Um. Right, Dan,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: you've done that. You reached out to some of your reps,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: all of them. Yeah, even uh, even the U the
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Utah Senator, the Utah congressman who proposed the bill. I've
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: reached out to that office as well. Yeah, I think
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: that guy has got lit up because a lot of
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: people are sharing his Instagram account and stuff and he's
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: getting Yeah, um, it's funny. I I called my my
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: representative here for our congressional district that I live in.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: I called his office in Washington and his local Michigan
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: office and I sent an email. Uh. And then like
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: the next day I got an email from a guy
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: who says he's a big follower of wire to Hunt,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: and um, he also happens to be the nephew of
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: my representative. Oh nice. So he's like, you probably have
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: been calling my uncle. So I need to respond to
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: that guy and say, yes, I have been calling your uncle. Right.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: So that was kind of a funny, small world type thing.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: So hopefully if you're listening, um, talk to your uncle
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: about how this is is not a good idea. This
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: is not a good idea. So that's that's all for
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: my little uh public land PSA. Unless you've got anything else, Dan,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: I just you know, this is a light hearted conversation
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: between me and you, but the action that needs to
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: be taken on this should not be lighthearted. This is
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: this is a this is a real serious problem because
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: what happens is a law like this is past and yeah, okay,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: so everybody thinks, oh, it's out west, How is this
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: going to affect me, I'm an East coast person. Well,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: if you hunt public and period, this is gonna show
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: other states what they can do and it could snowball
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: and imagine a United States with no public land. Right.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: So this just isn't a Western issue because states like Michigan,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: their representatives and congressmen, they they're going to vote on this.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: So it's very important for every person in every state
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: to take action. And when I mean take action, I
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: don't mean share a Facebook post, I mean call email,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: voice your opinion and and to your point. Damn. You know,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: while this law or this proposal last week that we're
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: talking about six one that specifically mentions a slew of
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Western states, there have been proposals that are applying the
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: same type of logic to all states. There was one
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: that was proposed last summer where they were, um essentially,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: we're asking to give every state permission to sell two
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: million acres of federal public lands, or the maximum amount
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: of public lands they have if it's underneath that limit. Um.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: So there's all sorts of stuff coming out like this.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: It's been happening for a while now, it continues to
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: build steam, and it's just a it's a really bad,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: poorly thought idea that some people with a lot of
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: money and interest in trying to exploit these lands are
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: trying to push through. So hunters, anglers, campers, hikers, rafters,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: wildlife watchers, watchers, we all need to step up on
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: this one because you know, to your point, imagine, imagine
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: this country without public lands, whether it's a spot to
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: deer hunt, or a place to go take your kids
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: to go see wildlife or somewhere to camp some day.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, these things are they don't come back if
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: we if we let them get away, if we let
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: them be developed or sold, we're never getting them back.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: So so that's that we'll definitely be talking more about
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: in the future too. We've got some some episodes where
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: will be solely talking about some things like that. So
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: I think with that said, we'll move on back to
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: shed hunting though, um and uh, well, we'll talk some
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: fun stuff about antlers. So let's take a quick break
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: here to thank our partners that sick to gear and
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: then we will give Joe a call. Alright, Well, some
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: of you might recall us mentioning a few weeks ago
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: that Sick of Gears launching a new line of clothing
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: specifically for female hunters, And so for our Sickest story today,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: I thought we'd bring on Jess de Lorenzo, an avid
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: white tail hunter who was recruited to be a part
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: of that process for the new female specific gear, and
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: hear from her just a bit about what it was
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: like to be a part of that. While when they
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: first approached me about it, I mean I was ecstatic
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: to be involved because, um, that was like my number
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: one wand I just wanted to stick to gear that
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: was made for women as far as the fit and
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: and things like that. So when they told me that
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: they were going to give it a go and we're
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: gonna let me be involved with it, I was super excited.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: And they put myself and a few other female hunters
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: kind of in a room at SICCA headquarters and basically said,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: what do you guys want, What do you need? What
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: kind of um things are missing in your year? And
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: they gave us like full rain. We were able to
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: give them all of our ideas and From there, we
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: started getting our feedback on the designs that they were
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: getting back and testing the prototypes, and we went through
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: several rounds of prototype testing UM and then we all
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: uh did some hunts and things like that as well
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: to make sure it was working out good in the field.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: And I've spent the last two seasons testing UM the
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: white tailed products for women. Now next week we're gonna
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: hear more from Jess about what her and the team
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: were ultimately able to develop for female hunters. But if
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: you'd like to learn more in the meantime, you can
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: visit gear dot com Slash Women's And now we'll get
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: back to the show and give Joe a call. All
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: right with us now on the line is Joe Chad.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us. Joe, We're glad to be there.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: We uh, we were just joking a little bit ago
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: before you get on that we thought it and you
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: probably get this a lot, but it's it's pretty crazy
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: that the guy that wrote the book on shed hunting
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: has a last name Shed. Was it was that fate,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: like we did you know from the moment you were
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: a young child you had to be this guy? How
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: did it happen? No? I guess you know, all my life,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: everybody's called me Joe Sheid and ever since, uh, ever
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: since the book came around and shed hunting got popular,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: then people kind of get to the shed. And I
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: think there's a guy that plays for the Seahawks in
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: the same last names, so that helps too. So is
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: is she the proper pronunciation? Though? Oh? Shed is actually
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: a correct pronunciation? Okay, alright, nice? So have you have
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: you been out shed hunting yet this year? You want
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: to tell you the truth, I really haven't been out
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: too much this year. This this last weekend, I went
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: out and did a little bit of scouting and that's
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: about it. Nice. That's uh, that's the same boat that
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: me and Danner and but I imagine, just like us,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: you're chomping at the bit and you're excited to really
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: get out there and start walking. Well, I really am,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: you know, when the worst thing you can do right
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: now is like a faceboo because it's just blowing up
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: with all these people finding sheds, which is great, you know,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: but it's kind of uh, it is what it is.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Um where I live, you know, in northern Minnesota here
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: county I live in actually borders Canada, so we can't
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: get a lot of snow, although this year has been
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: pretty mild, and I really don't like to bother the
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: deer when there's a lot of snow. And uh, I
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: like the ice fish too, so that kind of gets
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: in the way of things. True, true, I Uh, I've
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: got some buddies of the same way. In most years,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: I'm usually trying to pull them away from ice fishing
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: to try to get them to go walk with me.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: But this year, with the warm temps we've been having,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: it hasn't been an issue. Not expecting it to be
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: an issue probably here in the next few weeks, but
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: we just got a big dump of snow last night.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: So I went from feeling really good about, you know,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: maybe be on to find some mid February antlers, to
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I don't know, So it'll be interesting.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: But I gotta asks Joe, how how long have you
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: been doing this? How did you get into shed hunting?
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: How long ago did this all begin for you? Well,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: I guess I guess the scrowler had been around swlenty years. Um.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: You know, when I look back, you know, the deer
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: hunting itself has really changed. I remember when I was
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: a kid, you know, back in the eighties, you know,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: you know, going along with my dad, you know, you
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: sat at the first buck he saw. You know, there
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: was never talk about, you know, passing up a deer
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: or anything like that. It was just different. I mean,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: there were guys doing that obviously, but it's different than
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: it is now. And back then, it just seemed kind
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: of crazy that a deer could live through the hunting season.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: And where I grew up in Wisconsin, it's like a
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: war zone out there and opening day and I know
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: that's the same way in a lot of areas, and
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: rebucta survived long enough the girl outstead of antlers and
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: drop them and grow and others. That just seemed improbable
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: back then. So you know, as mentalities changed, people passed
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: up bucks and and you know, in deer hunting has
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: gotten so incredibly popular, you know, just you guys are
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: into it year round on and uh, I mean it
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: wasn't even on the radar back then, and now it's
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: just kind of gotten to be a a major thing
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: where everybody's doing it. Yeah, how do you have any
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: idea how many antlers you've found? You keep track with
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: that at all or do you know how many you
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: typically find a year or anything along those lines. You know,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: I do keep track pretty good of as far as
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: I like to put a tag on everyone. And uh,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: what's really crazy is I can remember I have a
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: room in my basements that I'm started, and how long
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: ways to go on it. But I've been trying to
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: put them on shelves and organize them, and I have
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: people come over and I'm like pulling off the shelf,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: cover the tag, and I'll tell you where I found
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: it and what you know, almost sometimes what day I
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: found it in, what year? And uh, I'm pretty good
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: about the old stuff, you know. The newer stuff I
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: can't remember as well. But as far as I count,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: I really I really don't know. It's hard to say.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty decent when it comes to like the bigger
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: shed that I have. I can remember those well. But
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: like a Spike Antler or like a little four key,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: those I feel like get all mixed up in my
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: head and I can't keep track of those. What about you, Dan?
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Can you do you have a mind for remembering? Yeah,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: I can check out some characteristics on the Antler and uh,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: and have a pretty good idea where I found them.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Maybe not for me, it's not the year, but I
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: can tell you exactly where I found the antler, Probably
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: not what year though. Um. However, I have a bunch
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: of those little four point you know, four point sides
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: that they all kind of look the same. They're probably
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: from a you know, a two year old that I
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: probably couldn't tell you where where it's from unless it
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: has some noticeable characteristics to it, right, your typical generic
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: four point two year old, those do tender all mixed together. UM. So, Joe,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: where all you shed hunter? Just if you hunted other
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: places other than your home state? Yeah. Um, I've done
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: quite a bit of traveling. UM. I had several years
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: there where I was just able to, um, you know,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: be self employed to um have some a lot of
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: flexibility as far as travel went. In the spring. I
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: don't have that anymore, and I kind of missed that.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: But um, mostly across the Midwest. UM. I've been to
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Saskatchewan a few times. I've been up in Alaska, UM rockies. UM.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: I went on a deer hunts in Alabama once on
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: the company's dime, and I kind of got gar hold.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: I was in a bad spot. I hadn't seen anything
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: bigger than the spike in three days. So the last
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: morning I climbed down early and poked around and I
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: managed to find a drop time and shed down in
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: Alabama's That was kind of cool. That's awesome. Where's your
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: favorite place to shed on? What's what's the best state?
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: You think? You know? I really don't know. There's so
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: many good areas. I mean, you look at you know,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: areas like Iowa and Illinois are obviously famous. They have
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: a lot of deer and a lot of big antlers um.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Saskatchewan is incredible as far as you know, just the
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: trophy class and the amount of antlers um. But to
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: be honest with you, the stuff I really like the
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: best is the stuff right around home, because you know,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: those are the deer I know, and maybe I have
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: a history with. And you know, you gotta understand, I
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: go out of my own and my my own turf,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: and if I find one shed a day, that's a
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: good day for me. Because the areas I live and
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: don't have exceptional deer numbers, they don't have exceptional trophy
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: um potential. But you know, it's a deer I'm familiar
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: with the dry hunt, and that kind of makes it
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: special to me. Yeah, so when it when it really
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: starts getting good, uh you know that late February early March,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: where for me historically is when I have found the
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: most antlers. Are you pounding ground eight hours a day
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: or are you you know, poking in for a one
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: like a one or two hour walk here? You know,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: next day you go out for a couple hours or
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: or do you hit it hard for like four weeks? Yes,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: it it's kind depends on the situation. Back in the
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: day when I had a lot more free time, when
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: I didn't have a real job. Um, I'd got pretty
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: much every day and uh um, I looked in some
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: urban areas where you know, the deer are very visible
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: and they're relatively tame. You know, they see people on
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: a daily basis or in city parks and stuff, and
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: and kind of the name of the game with that
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: was you got to be the first guy down the
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: trail and the day it drops and get lucky because
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: you know some of those areas I go in three
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: times a week and uh, just a small area that
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: you know, it took me a half harder cover, but
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: I just get burned. Out doing that over and over,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: and you'd go in there and you can see the deer.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: I mean a lot of times they get pictures of
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: them or videos because they're they're relatively tolerant people, and
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: that stuff just burned me out. Um, what I really
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: like to do when it's when it's a game on time,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go all day every day. Um, you know,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: I'm a weekend warrior again. But um, you know, we'll
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: do Buddy and I'll do trips, will go to Montana
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: for a week or Idaho or something and and found
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: it pretty hard. And that's always a lot of fun
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: when you do those western trips. Are you looking for
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: white tailing owns or elk and mule is up in
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: the a little farther up in the country, Well, it
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: depends where we go. Um out in Montana, Well, we'll
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: do the river bottoms in the eastern part of the
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: state and then it's you know, it's white tails down
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: the river bottoms. And then you kind of get up
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: in the foothills a little bit in just a little
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: bit of elevation, you'll get in some mule deer. Um
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: we've gone higher elevation out and um Idaho where we're
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: you know, each day will start like maybe say, roughly
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: five thousand feet and will end up at eight thousand
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: and uh, then it's mule deer and elk and that's
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of fun. But man, that's a that's a
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: pound there. I bet this is something I'm I'm particularly
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: intrigued with because I think I'm gonna try to do
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: some rocky mountain shed hunting for the first time this year.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Um is it? Is it at least on the White
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Tail front when you're searching the river bottoms and stuff,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Is it dramatically different than shed hunting in the Midwest
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: or something? Or you just basically trying to find the
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: good in her food source and betting and walking those bottoms. Well,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: you know, I've I've done the Montana river bottom thing
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: a couple of times, and um, you know, I don't
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: want to say it's easy, but I think it's kind
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: of easy compared to what I'm used to um out there.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: You know, it's it's so much wide open spaces. It's
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: you know, there's gonna be fields and stuff, but really
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: the only cover around is gonna be caught and with
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: down the river bottoms and it's pretty easy to figure
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: out where they're where they're spending their time. You know,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: that's the only cover available, so that's where we shed hunts.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: You just follow the river corridor, which makes it pretty easy.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: I like the idea of easy shed hunting. I do too.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: That sounds right up my alley. The problem is we
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: run into a lot of competition doing that too. You know,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: we're not the only guys going out there. And we'll
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: talk to a rancher and he'll say, yeah, we had
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: you know, two groups come through here already. But you
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: know we still find sheds too, so not really interesting.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: So rewinding just a little bit, Um, how did a
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: book come to me? How do you end up getting
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: the idea and the desire to write a book on
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: shed hunting? Well, I guess it was kind of a
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: a long process. Um. You know, by trade, I'm a
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: outdoor writer. I worked for doing deer hunting magazines for
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: a few years and um that was my full time job,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: and um, I was kind of immersed in everything. Dear
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: at that point, you're working on the magazine and you know,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: I'm a writer, and uh, I kinda well, I really
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: got into shed hunting. You know when I really really
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: started getting into it was the early two thousand's. Um
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: I've tried, you know, back in the nineties and stuff,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: and back in the good old days before everybody else
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: was doing it. I wish I could go back, But
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: um I started kicking around the idea. You know, it
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: was just a really starting game popularity in the early
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: two thousand's, and I'm like, you know, there's no book
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: on this, I should write a book. And uh I
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: kind of toyed with the idea for a while, and
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: I knew, you know, you started writing a book, you
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: start publicizing it, you're kind of cutting your own throat
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: because the next thing, you know, you're gonna find footprints
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: where you'd like to shed hunting. And that really kind
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: of made me balk for a while. And I probably
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: sat on the idea for about a year, and uh
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: I finally got to the point where I kind of was,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: you know, doing a pro and con thing and realized that,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: you know, it's something I really enjoy it. And the
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: first thing that I like to do when I when
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: I find a good fishing spot or when I find
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: a good shuttingting spot, I always want to bring a friend.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: You know, you know, not not something that's gonna you know,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: mess me up and come back without me, but a
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: good friend and and share that experience. You gotta pick
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: and choose. I know I've been burned before, but uh,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: you know, I come back there. It's it's more enjoyable
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: with a friend and or just to see the look
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: on somebody's face when they find the shedding. And uh,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: I kind of realized as well. You know, I figured
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: if I didn't, somebody would at some point anyway. Um,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: And looking back over the you know, the last decade
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: or so, there's just been it's just gained so much popularity.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: You look at the Facebook pages, there's a bunch of
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: different Facebook pages dedicated to it that that weren't around
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: back in the day. And um, it's just it's on
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: some mainstream you know. Yeah, like you said, it's probably inevitable.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: There's so much momentum building up, regardless of if you
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: put a book out or not. Probably, like you said,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: someone would be putting out at that information. Um, but
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: do your friends ever give you crap? When you're good?
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: Shut outing spots get picked up by other people. Well,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: you know, I know there's people that I'm sure wouldn't.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't appreciate me publicizing the sport. But you know,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: there's there's been so many people doing it over the
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: last few years, and it's it's really getting hard. I
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: got it. I have a couple of spots I will
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: not go to in the wintertime when there's snow on
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: the ground, because I won't really leave a track. And
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: you know, I've I've gotten burned a pull a couple
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: of people and brought them in there, and the next
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: thing you know, they're bringing their friends and without you.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: And that kind of made me mad a little bit.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: And you just gotta kind of pick and choose. And
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: I I tend to be willing to show people's stuff
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: if the're good friends of mine. But I got a
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: couple of spots I won't take anybody. I got a
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: question for you, now, I like to I'd like to
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: shed hunt a lot, but I I really only like
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: to shed hunt pieces of property where I can keep
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: the sheds now. I've been invited to several other farms
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: where the guys like, hey, um, you want to come
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: shed hunting with me? And uh, but but at the
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: end of the day, I'd like to have those sheds. Well.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: For me, that just seems like a waste of time
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: because I feel that I have enough ground to pound
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: on my end, you know, two to uh, you know,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: go and keep that sheds, which which kind of leads
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: me to this these set of rules that I was
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: taught by another group of guys that I used to
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: shed hunt, and and uh, Mark shed it hunted with
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: me before and so he kind of knows them. But
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: the rules are um Number one, if you find it,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: you know, you get to keep it. Number two, if
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: let's say I find the first shed and Mark finds
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: the matching set, Mark gives up that that side so
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: the set can stay together. And then the other rule,
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: the very last rule is if somebody kills that deer.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: So let's say Mark has the matching said or just
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: one of the antlers, and I killed the deer, he
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: gives them up, so the all the antlers are with,
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: you know, with the deer. Do you have any type
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: of unwritten rules that you live by when it comes
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: to shed hunting. I guess I don't, dan Um. That's
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: kind of what exactly what you said is basically kind
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: of the unwritten rule that I have heard and usually
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: go by um, I don't end up in that situation
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: a lot. Um. I have a good friend named dan
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: Hess who I said, hunt with him. I know that
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: we've found in the past one one of us will
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: find one antland the the guy to get the match,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: and then we usually do give it up. Um. So
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: I think that what you said is pretty much right.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: But you know, it depends on the given circumstances. And
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: you know, you start to get a really special shed,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe it's a eighty or ninety and shed
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: it's it's awful hard for that second guy that to
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: give it up when you know it's a m the
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: first guy's got, especially if if they don't know each other.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you're helping a guy look specifically look
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: to match that deer up, that's one thing. But if
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: you just find it, you know, on your own, then
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: it's a little sticky, right. And I guess all those
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: rules are you know, addressed up front. When you know,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: either I go hunting, you know, shed hunting with somebody,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: or somebody comes shed hunting with me. Yeah, you know,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: And I don't I don't ask people to to give
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: it up to me. It's their choice. It doesn't mean
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: that much unless I say, hey, we're specifically looking for
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: this dear. You know, if they find something else that
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: I have the match too and they want to keep it,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: you know, I've I've got enough shot this maybe, but
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: you know, I just I feel bad about asking. You know.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: It's like if if it was something where I said, hey,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: I'm specifically looking for this deer, then it's kind of understood.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: But otherwise, you know, I'm pretty leaning to me and
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: that I hate to take a shed from somebody. Yeah.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: We we've actually started mixing that rule with some of
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: my buddies this past year. Um, just because especially if
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: you like, if you don't you know, like you said, Joe,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: if it's a buck, you know, when you really want
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: to find those antlers, you know, we're all about giving
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: those antlers to that guy if it's his property or something.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: But but otherwise, like I don't know, I get I know, Dan,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: you're really big on the antlers should be together and
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: the match that belongs to match set. I get that,
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: and that's cool, But at the same time, I also know, like,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: if it's random antlers and the only antler you find
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: one day or that day, if such and such fines
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: and antler. He's super pumped about it. And then a
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: minute later such and such finds that one antler and
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: that's the only anler he finds that day. And you
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: were both really pumped to find this antler, and then
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden you have to give it up.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of like, at least for me now, I
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: think I've decided that, you know, unless it's like a deer,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: I'm personally after If it's just just a random match,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: I'm like, you know what, just keep it um, because gosh,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: you spend so much time out there walking and you
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: get that little burst of excitement. It's kind of a
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: major bummer to then take that little burst of excitement away.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: But you know, to your point, I think it's just
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: a good idea to have that conversation up front and
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: make sure everyone's on the same page. And um, you know,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: as long as there's not this like presumption and then
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden someone's got an antler in the
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: hand and you go walk up to and say, hey,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: give it to me, that's when things get a little ugly.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: So it's good to have those conversations earlier. Um, Joe,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: I want to UM, take a step back again, and
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: I'm curious, can you tell us a little bit about
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: the antler shedding process. UM, I know you mentioned that
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: in your book a little bit, and that's something we
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: haven't talked about before here. Can you just talk a
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: little bit about how that happens, when that happens, specifically,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: like why that happens? Sure, UM, I did a lot
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: of research on that, you know, when I was writing
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: the book, and UM, basically kind of it comes down
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: to UM as Uh, the light levels decrease in the fall,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: UM going into midwinter, bucks testosterone levels start to drop
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: and that's kind of what puts everything in motion. UM.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: And those those testosterone levels dropped. UM, these cells called
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: osteo classics, you want to really get technical, start forming
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: at the base of the pedicle where the antler attaches
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: to the head. And what happens eventually, UM, they kind
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: of um devour that calcium that UM and the antlers
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: mostly made of calcium and phosphorus. And what happens is
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: the kelsium kind of starts to get reabsorbed into the skull.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: And uh, so that's why you get why the base
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: of a shed is kind of rough. That sandpaper retexture,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: that's little. They call them spicules of calcium getting pulled
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: back into the skull. And eventually, when the strands get
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: too weak, um, the antlers just drops off and is
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: there and sorry continue, Oh yeah, I was just gonna add.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: You know, it's what's kind of baffling though. I mean,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: you know, bucks can start dropping as late as or
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: as early as late November and as late as May. Um,
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: so it's a long drawn out process. Um. You know,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: generally most bucks are gonna shay between probably December and March.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: And it seems to be a seasonal or um an
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: area specific thing to some extent, some areas that drop
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: earlier than later. Um. But it's kind of baffling. You know,
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: if testosterone levels are the root cause that, why why
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: do some antlers drop you know, so early, and why
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: are some so so late? I mean, there's a lot
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: of mysteries we really don't know about it yet. And
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: are there any other like external factors I've I've heard
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: of some different external factors, but do you know of
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: any that can cause antlers to drop earlier or later? Um,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: whether or health or anything like that that you've you've
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: seen a researched. Yeah, well, health definitely can play a
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: role to uh. A lot of times. I know, if
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: you know, if a buck is injured or you know,
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: gets shot or hit by a car or something. Um,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: a lot of times those bucks will drop early. Um. Um.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: You know, if he's if he's not getting enough food,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: he might be a little bit stressed. Um. Whether people
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: always talk about whether stressing deer and and you know,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: there's probably some truth to that, but we've seen some
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: awful severe winters where and it's prolong the low zero
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: temperatures and deep snow, and I'll still see dear carrying
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: in the march. So I'm not really sure about that.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: And you know, the question as comes up to the
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: big bucks drop first a little bucks, and you know,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: I think to some extent, maybe the big bucks do
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: drop first, But you know, there's so many exceptions that
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: you really can't get a hard and fast rule out
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: of any of it. Yeah, sorry, damn, where you say something. Yeah,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: I talked to um one of my buddies who's a
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: deer farmer, Sam Clora, and he told me that I
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: think in February, I think it's February, he will feed,
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: you know, he has his deer and he feeds them
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: and then for I think he said this, don't quote me,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: but come late February or early March, he will starve
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: them for like like remove food for I think four
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: or five days, and he's he says, without a doubt,
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: most of the antlers fall off in that time period
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: because of what I'm assuming is the stress from being hungry.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: So I don't know if you know that's just repeated,
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: you know, basically regurgitated information. Um, don't quote me on that,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: but I wonder how much winter stress is the actual
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: cause of the shedding process. It's a fascinating story. It's
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: you know, and I could see that being true. But yeah, um,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: it's hard to say, but that it would certainly makes sense. Hmm. Yeah. Interesting. Um.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: Another thing I saw you had written, Joe that related
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: to this issue of timing that was I found pretty
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: interesting is that you had mentioned that you've heard somewhere
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: or write something or something on the lines of that
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: many bucks tend to drop their anglers at the same
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: time of year every year, like within a few days.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: Is that the case? Yeah, I ran across something in
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: the scientific research. Um, I was going through a lot
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: of scientific stuff when I wrote it, and uh, yeah,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: there was you know cases where you know it's you know,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Penn DearS, so they could study them closely, and uh
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: it seemed to be pretty much, you know, basically the
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: same day that they would shed each year, you know,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: within a few days. That yeah, that's that's there's all
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: these weird factors, like to your point, Dan, there there
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: could be like this external stress factor, but then there's
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: also like this what should be consistent to stosterone relationship
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: to daylight factor? And then there's also like is there
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: some kind of genetic factor because if there's like a
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: consistent unique date for an individual buck like man, I think,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: like you said earlier, Joe, there's lots of mysteries here. Um,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: And I guess that we all talk about. We always
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: talk about, you know, you know, an annual pattern for
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: dear movement. So one could assume that, you know, if
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: they're on a pattern like Okay, this buck leaves my
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: farm in September but comes back the last week of
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: October every year, I would I would think that shedding
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: could be part of that annual pattern as well. Yeah, sense, Yeah,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: So with all this kind of um, with all these
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: questions around the timing of drop of antler drop? Do
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: you have a consistent date or time frame Joe, when
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: you think it is the best time to start shed
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: hunting or does it depend you know, based on some
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: of these different conditions for you when you start. Well,
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: for me, you know, I prefer to actually go after
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: the snow's melted. I just I like looking on the
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: bare ground better than in the snow. UM. So if
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: I can't, I usually try to time it after after
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: the fact. Um. You know, I started chopping at the bit,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: you know, I started kind of getting that edge to um.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: Weather patterns take a difference to you know, we had
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: a kind of a January thaw here where we lost
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: you know, a lot of the snow that we did have,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: and then we just got three inches of snow yesterday,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: so that kind of affects things. Um. But you know,
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: usually I don't usually get out until you know, I
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: don't usually start hitting it pretty hard till March. And
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: that's just my personal preference. And you know, not that
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: there's not antlers to be thrown right now, and you
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: know some guys might prefer walking in the snow, you know,
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: if there's a lot of snow. They're either going to
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: be right on the trails or they're going to be
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: in a bed, or they might be out on the
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: field someplace. But it kind of narrows it down. I
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: find when I'm walking on snow, where I'm going down
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: a heavy deer trail, it's like you can really fly
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: because they're they're right there, you know there. You don't
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: have to be scanning so much to the side. You
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: know they're either gonna be right there or not. So,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: you know, I guess it just kind of depends on
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: the individual and and what you're seeing in your area.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: You know, I talked to people in different areas. You know,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: some a guy told me in northern Illinois or northern Iowa,
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: you know, the deer already shed um early, you know, December.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Same thing out in Montana they dropped early. And then
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: I talked to some guys in different areas and everything's
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: holding tight until the end of February early March. So
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: you know, if if you're seeing bucks as you're driving
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: around or you got trail cam images, if they're still
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: holding I mean, it doesn't really pay to to get out.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: You mentioned that you do some scouting What does that
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: entell like your pre shed hunting scouting. Is it just
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: doing a quick walk or is it glassing or what
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: are you doing there? And why? Well? UM, a lot
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: of times it's you know, I don't really do a
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: whole lot of scouting for deer anymore. UM. What I
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: would do is, you know, if the fields vailable, I
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: drive around the fields at night and and try to
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: see where the deer are, what they're doing. Um scouting
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: I was talking about. Um actually really gotten looking for
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: moose sheds in the last couple of years. It's kind
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: of really been where I've been putting my effort. And
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: I was out this weekend hiking around trying to just
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: figure out establish where they're at so that I can
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: come back in the spring. Because um, where I was looking,
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: the snow was beyond my knees. Um, so it's gonna
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: be pretty hard to find sheds that was on snow shoes.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: I was able to stay on top of it. But
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: you know, moose drop earlier usually December, a lot of them,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: and so most of those scheds are gonna be buried.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: I didn't find any, so I just I said I
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: was scouting, But um, it helps you to have a
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: good starting point. You know, when in our area where
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: there is snow, you know whether those antlers are going
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: to be buried. You know, we can come in there
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: in the spring and then you'll have a good idea
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: where you should begin. Do you get a lot of
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: roadent to so everybody wants to find the perfect shed.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: You know it's hasn't been chewed on by mice or
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: squirrels or anything like that. Are you ever if you're
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: looking for a particular buck, are you ever worried about
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: like rodent rodents chewing on them? Or is that a
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: problem up there in Minnesota? Well, it's it's certainly not
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: a huge problem here compared to areas. I know areas
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: that have a lot of oak trees and a lot
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: of squirrels. Um, you know where they got gray squirrels
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: and fox squirrels. That's that's where you really get your damage,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: I think. Um, so, if if you've got oak woods
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: on your property, you know you're gonna want to hit
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: those early and off. And and why I always tell people,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: if if that's the situation, hit the oak woods repeatedly,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: hit them early, and then the field you can you
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: can leave till later, because you know, nothing should bother
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: them out there. Um. Here we have red squirrels and
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: they do chew on antlers, but not really to the
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: extent that the fox squirrels and gray squirrels will. So
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: I do find choose, Um, I'll find naws on antlers
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: from kyotes or wolves. And uh I got one that
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: was just a beautiful shed a few years ago that
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: had like six inch mass measurements that was just chopped
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: and half by either a bear or wolf. That's all
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: I can figure it was. It wasn't shoot by a squirrel,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: it was it was chomped. That's crazy. Um. This whole
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: issue of like when you get out there is always
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: one that I'm always struggling with because they feel like
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: it's a balancing act between you know, if you go
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: too late, you risk you know this thing we just
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: talked about. You know, you risk anilers getting chewed on,
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: or you risk other people getting out there and scooping
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: up the sheds first. But if you go too early,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: you could be out there in the snow and have
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: buried sheds, or you could you know, if you go
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: on there too much, you could end up spooking bucks away.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: From these areas and then you know they dropped the
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: antlers on your neighbor. Um, So that's always like this
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: weird balancing act I find myself trying to play. Is
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: like figure out when's like the best time where most
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: antlers are on the ground, but I'm not so late
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: that I'm going to be missing out on them. Um.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: That seems to require a certain level of scouting, whether
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: it be the trail cameras or like you said, glass
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: and fields and st have to try to figure out
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: right when the buck you're after most of the bucks
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: are dropping. But like you said, it's always different. So
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: I don't I don't have a good answer for that either. Yeah, no,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: you're exactly right. You know, people ask and they want
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: to want you to point to a day on the calendar,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: and you you kind of got to be like a politician.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: You've gotta kind of give him a money answer because
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: there is no absolutely answer all those factors you mentioned.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: You know, um, is a public ground or private ground,
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: is there snows or not snow, or they're squirrels or
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: they're not squirrels, and at all kind of comes into play.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: Have they dropped or are they still caring? You know,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: you gotta kind of weigh all those factors, like you said,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: and to make your decision based on that. So for
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: someone who hasn't gone she hunting before, I don't know
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: if there's any of those types of people listening to
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: this podcast. But but if there is, if there is, Joe,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: what kind of like equipment or things that they need
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: to think about bringing with them or thinking about before
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: going shed hunting? You know, do you have some basic
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: stuff that you always prepare before I shed on it? Well,
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: my friends, you know me, didn't know that. I'm notoriously
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: light time here. Um. I usually just go for a
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: walk with flips in my pocket, my cell phone and
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: that's about it. And about two hours into it, I'm
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: wishing I would have brought some food or something. Um,
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: you know, really just a good payer of hiking boots
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: is you know, all I really need? And then you
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: can go from there, you know, GPS or um? Are
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: you gonna need a backpack? Are you gonna find a
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: bunch of sheds? You know? Are you gonna need food
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: and water? Um? That's always usually a good thing to bring,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: you know, depending on how long you're gonna be out there. Um,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: But then it just depends on your situation, you know.
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: But ooculers canna be good if you're in uh say
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: your glass and out in a Sybian field or lf
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: delfa field or something like that. Um, if you're in
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: a wooded area where I do a lot of my
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: shed hunting, I never used my noculers or because it's
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: just they're not practical. Um, cameras, but everybody's got a
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: phone these days because everybody wants to take a picture
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: of the shed as they found it, which is cool. Um.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: And then it just depends from there. You know, you
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: might be riding an a TV across a Swabian field
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: or something, or it just kind of gets into a
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: specialized situations. But you really don't need a lot of gear,
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: but um, you may do with what you need. Yeah,
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: I'll add toilet paper. Yeah, forget that where you walk
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: out of the woods with one sleeve on your shop
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: exactly how would I forget that? Yeah? I forgot that
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: when we're talking. It means I forget it when we're
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: when I'm shut hunting too. Yeah, you never want to
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: be in that position, all right, So we're ready to
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: go shed hunting. We brought our TP and our boots. Um.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: I'm curious, Joe, when you start out on a property,
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: do you have like a plan in place to attack
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: that property on that day? Like do you know, Okay,
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to a spot and be that spot
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: and see this spot or do you just start walking
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: Willie Neely? Like, what's your process of breaking down a property? Well,
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: you know some of that where you're scouting comes into play.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: If you've been driving around and seeing deer at night
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: and fields or have trail camera picks, you know, you
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: kind of know where the deer are were wintering and uh,
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: you know that can change seasonally. They might be in
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: a different spot in in January than they were during
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: a hunting season. You need to remember that. Um. But
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: as far as that um, it comes down to one
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: figuring out, you know, the productive ground and to trying
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: to eliminate the unproductive ground. Um. You know there's gonna
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: just be areas of of a property that aren't really
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: gonna hold deer. Um. I always think about a spotlight
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: the shed hunt and there's a little ash forest in there,
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: and they just don't seem to spend any time in there.
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: And so if I can eliminate that ground. I can
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: kind of say, Okay, I'm gonna focus most of my
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: time on the more productive ground. Um, so I'll just
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: try to hit the you know, it depends on how
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: much time you have to who I mean, if I've
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: got all day to dedicate to it, you know, I
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: can take the liberty to you know, hit the best
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: spots first and then kind of just go down the
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: list from there. Becau if I've only got a couple
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: of hours, I'm going to try to go right to
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: the very best spot I've got and excellentze my time. Yeah, yeah,
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: definitely that That seems to be what a lot of
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: the best shut hunters I know do. It's it's really
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: prioritize those best spots, spend the majority of your time there,
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: and um, you know, if you can focus more time
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: in the good spots, then you're definitely gonna have a
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: higher percentage of success. But then that natural leads to
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: the question of what are the best spots? So what
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: do you view as as productive ground? What kind of
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: things are you looking for? Well, you know, in the
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: simplest terms, I mean, you are going to be either betting, feeding,
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: or traveling between those two areas in the wintertime, so
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: you can kind of narrow down to those three types
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: of things. You know, it might be farm fields, it
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: might be uh, haystacks. It could be you know, just
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: um forest brows, could be the feeding areas, UM, betting areas. UM.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: It could be a good thick cover. It could be
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: some conifers, you know, some pine trees or something that
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: provides some shelter from the wind catches the snow holds
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: it up in the branches. UM. But a lot of
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: people don't realize too, is that sometimes the best bedding
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: cover is a lack of cover. UM. And that's where
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: the south facing hillsides come into play. UM. That's always
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: a really good spot to look for shed because that's
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: the area that gets the most direct sunlight in the winter.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: And you'll find if if you're in a snowy region
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: like I live, UM, the north slope will have a
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: lot more snow than the south side because the sun's
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: beaten down and melting it. And a deer is a
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: lot like a cat. Like there's you know, like a
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: cat sit in a window soaking up that sunlight. A
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: deer is going to do the same thing. It's it's
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: trying to survive. It's you know, it's trying to conserve
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: body heat and and a lot of times little bet
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: on that self slope and sometimes east slope as well,
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: trying to take advantage of that morning sun too. Um.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: So those are things that looked or I guess in general, um,
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: you know good feeding, good food sources, um, south slope
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: of hills. Um, you know betting areas that might be
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: you know, thick cover like pine trees like I said,
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: or a thick brush. It just kinda depends you focus
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: ever on, like fence crossings or creep crossings or I
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: guess where do you typically find a majority of your sheds. Yeah,
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: well the fence and creek thing as you mentioned, I'm
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: sure you know is um they're jumping that obstacle offense
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: or the creek and and on impact they can lose
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: on the antler um. And I have found sheds lane
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: right and creeks before. Um. Everybody talks about the fence crossing.
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: The actually only found very few sheds a fence crossings,
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: but they do occur. Um. I guess I don't look
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: a lot of along a lot of fence lines. Sorry,
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: fence lines either. But you know, most of my sheds um,
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: and it comes into areas I searched to where I live,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: we don't have agricultural fields, so everything is looking in
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: the forest. Um. So then you know your your food
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: source really can be pretty much anywhere. It's not a
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: really defined area. So as a shed hunter, I kind
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: of I am a bed oriented UM person. I look
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: for dear beds. I look for areas where they're you know,
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: either defined bed in one particular spot or maybe like
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: a ridge line where they're going to bed all along
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: that ridge. That's kind of how I look. And I
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: know I've shed hunter with other people and we have
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: we have different styles and it kind of comes down
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: to what we're used to. Guys are more agricultural areas
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: are going to be more likely to you know, look
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: those field edges or whatever. And you know, you kind
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: of start with what you know, but you should be
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: willing to adapt to different situations as well, right, Yeah,
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: speaking of like locations one um on the on the
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: bedding area set of things, one kind of randomly popped
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: in my head that UM and I gotta say, Joe, UM,
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: taking a step back here, When I first got into
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: shed hunting. Um, I don't know eight years ago or
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: nine years ago or whatever it was. Now, Um, I
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: did pick up your book and I read it and
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: it definitely helped me. And I think I read this
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: in your book originally, and now I've seen it play
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: out in my own lifetime and time again. When you're
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: on a hillside or in a forest or something and
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: you have like an individual conifer tree, an evergreen tree
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: by itself, I've seen so many times that those are
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: the spots where a buckle bed and you find a
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: shed there, you know, that little cedar tree or something
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: by itself and some tall grass or something. I always
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: zoom over to those locations if ever I see one,
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: because that seems to be like one of those little
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: wild card spots kind of where um, you know, it's
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: like the spot within the spot, like it's a betting area.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: But then that specific spot within the betting you tamp
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: tends to be that isolated bedding tree or something. Um,
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: do you find that kind of thing still too? Yeah?
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: You you definitely nail it right on the head. Um.
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: If I could pick out like my ideal spot to
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: find a ship, it would be like a one lone conference.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: You know, hardwood forest on a south slope of a hill.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: You know it's and if you think about it, um,
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: if you know trappers are really good at reading the landscape,
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: you think about your own hunting situation. How many times
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: have you've been walking through the woods where it's maybe
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: hardwood or something. There's one big tall white pine in
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: that hardwoods and I guess what somebody's gonna stand hanging
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: in that tree. You know, it stands out. I mean
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: people relate to it, animals relate to it. You know,
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: you'll find bones underneath these trees where a fox or
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: a coyote is sat there and just chewed on a bone.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's something that sticks out from the landscape.
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: It's it's not just dear to pick up. But yeah,
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: you're absolutely right. Those those bucks with a lot of
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: their way to better than the nast that lone tree
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: or just a few scattered pines here and there in
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: an otherwise hardwood forest. Yeah. The issue of those spots
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: is that they really stand out visually. So like when
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: there's a group of like three or four of us
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: walking through the woods, we all see that little cluster
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: or seeds or something. You can tell, everyone's pace picks
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: up and everyone wants to get there first. I wish
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: that that wasn't so well known now. But it's funny
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: how so many times, like you can, at least obviously
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: it's the the vast minority of the time, but lots
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: of times you can call it. You can see these
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: spots coming up and like, Okay, if we're going to
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: find a shed on this property, it's probably going to
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: be in this little patch or underneath these couple of
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: trees or something. And so many times, I mean, it
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: does happen. So it's it's interesting how these patterns emerged.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: Like you said, it's just like understanding how deer relate
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: to cover from hunting standpoint, they relate to these certain
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: things and features, you know, when we're trying to look
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: for the anglers, because it's it's just basically where do
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: they bed, where they spending their time, because that's where
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: they end up dropping these So it's interesting to see.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: You know, one thing too, one thing I was gonna
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: say too, is like it kind of goes in uh
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: in line with your deer hunting to um. You know,
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: when I started deer hunting, you know, I learned what
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: I could, and and I did what I you know,
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: I just thought was natural and read books and magazines
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: and watch shows and stuff. But you start shed hunting,
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: and in order to be successful at shed hunting, it
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: really forces you to understand how these deer relate to
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: the landscape, how they travel, and why they travel where
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: they're at. And uh, the more she hunting you do,
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: the more you'll become a better deer hunter. And nowadays,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: you know, when I walk in the woods, I can
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: just kind of look in some areas and and say
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: they're going to be here, and they're not gonna be there,
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: you know. And I can come in there in the
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: springtime and I know that without seeing tracks in the
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: snow or anything, because you just kind of develop a
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: feel for it. I'm not saying I'm right all the time.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: I've certainly been wrong before, but you really develop a
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: feel for how dear travel and it's really gonna benefit
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: you during hunting season as well. Yeah, I was gonna
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: ask how much you know, how much do you think
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: shed hunting helps with your actual hunting. Is there anything
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: else that you pay attention to while you shed hunt
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: that you try to apply back to the hunting season, Like,
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: are you do you take let's say you find the
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: antlers of a buck that you be interested and hunting
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: the next year, do you take that into account the
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: next year when hunting him. Do you think that's applicable
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: at all or anything like that? Oh? Absolutely, you know,
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: it depends on your area. UM where I live, a
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: lot of the deer will will shift a round seasonally
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: between fall and in winter, so they're not necessarily going
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: to be in the same spot. But depending on your
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: dear graphic region, I mean absolutely it plays into account. Yeah,
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: it's I think to your point, it just depends on
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: if that dear behavior changes dramatically postseason or from the
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: season to post season. But but yeah, I've seen some
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: situations where you find sheds and you get a good
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: idea of where they're spending their time in the late season,
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: and you know, that's definitely applicable if you've got a
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: hunting season that goes into late December early January. UM,
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: that kind of thing so definitely helpful. When so we
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: know to focus on these types of spots, you know,
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: focus on the productive regions, betting areas, feeding areas, travel
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: corridors between to UM. But when you're actually out there walking.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: What kind of advice do you have for people to
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: actually help you see more sheds and actually spot more sheds,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: Because it's one thing to know where you should be looking,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: it's another thing to actually find them. How do you
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: how do you get better at that? Okay, that's a
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: good questions. Uh. Well, the first thing, and it sounds simple,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: but I always tell people to keep their eyes on
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: the ground because the first couple of times that I
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: go out for the year, I'll be seeing deer. You know,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: I'll be I'll be in deer hunting moment. I'll be looking,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: you know, three ft off the ground trying to see
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: a deer when I need to keep my eyes on
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: the ground. And it's something you really have to consciously
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: tell yourself. I'll go with a budding and he'll be like,
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: did you see that rub? And I'll be like, what rubbed?
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: Because I wasn't looking at you know. Um, it's not
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: that extreme all the time. I mean, I certainly rubs
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: and stuff, but you really need to be looking at
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: the ground. Um, and that's where they're gonna be. Um.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: And it sounds simple, but until you you know what
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: people always talk about throwing an antler out and and
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: looking for or if you're with a buddy and he
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: finds a shed, maybe he doesn't touch it, and you
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: come and find it. And until you kind of get
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: in that situation, it's it's kind of like catching a fish.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: Until you feel that how a wal I bite, then
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: you kind of understand it. And once you find that
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: first shed, then something seemed to click, and all of
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: a sudden, after that it becomes easier. You know, the
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: same thing. The first set of the years, it always
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: seems to be hard because you're just not in that zone.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: And once once you see it, it clicks in your
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: mind and then you start realizing he's like, okay, I'm
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: looking for times sticking up out of the grass, and
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: you know it might not be a whole antler, it
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: might be something behind the log or bury in grass
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: or something, and maybe just looking for a couple of
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: inches of that time sticking out, and you start to
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: kind of train your eye to see it and develop
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: a feel for what you you should really be looking for.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: Do you other weather condition that you really like to
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: hunt in? She hunting well, you know, but everybody else
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: says the cloudy days are best because you're not squinting.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: And and after a rain, because the mats down the
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: grass and the leaves and and uh makes a little
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: bit of a shine on the amph. Everybody talks about that,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: but it is hard to look into a in the sunshine.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: You certainly want to keep your the sun at your
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: back if you can. Um, I guess I I go
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: whenever I can, But ideally, you know, a cloudy day
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: after a rain would be the best conditions, alright, Joe,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: sunglasses or no sunglasses. I don't really wear sunglasses very
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: often when I'm shed hunting. And it's just a totally
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: matter of personal preference. You know, everybody's got their own, uh,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: you know, opinions of what's best for them. Um. And
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: one thing about the sunglasses, when you're in a brush
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: the area, it's probably not a bad idea to be
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: wearing it, because I know I've had so many sticks
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: jabbed in my face before that. You know, I'm just
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: lucky that I hadn't poked my eye or something. But
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: it's just all on personal preference. Yeah, I struggle with
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: because I like on those bright days where you know
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: you're squinting, your eyes hurt. I want to put sunglasses on.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: But I have this like voice in the back of
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: my head that says, like something with like the lens
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: is tinting your ability to see the sheds, They're not
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: going to pop out to you as much. So I
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: start wondering, like, am I hurting my ability to see
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: these things? So I'm trying them on, trying them off,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: squinting not squinting, what's worse? Um, I find myself getting
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: crazy sometimes. Well, you know you can find them whistlunglasses.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: You can find them without sunglasses. So I guess it's
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: just whatever you like that maybe I should wear sunglasses.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: Then I just have something to blame for why I
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: don't find sheds and I'll feel better about it. Are
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: always good? Yeah? Um what about like do you do
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: you have any like specific And I know this is
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: going to depend on like the amount of cover or terrain,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: but like if you're walking up property by yourself, let's say,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: like how much what's the spacing? Like how many times
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: do you need to walk through an area? Is like
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: three ten yards? Is every fourty or fifty yards that
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: you need a space to try to say like to
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: know that you covered a spout well do you have
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: any like generic typical gaps that you tend to walk
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: in area to cover it? Well, I guess it really
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: depends on you know that I feel like a broken record.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: It depends on so many things. You know, every situation depends. Um.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: You know, if you're walking out in a picked corn
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: field or something like that, you might be taking a
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: you know, just a few rows at the time, and
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: you know, the thicker the cover, the tight of the
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: pass is. Um. You know, if I'm in the woods
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: or something, or or walk on a ridge line, I'm
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: probably just gonna walk that ridge line once, maybe maybe
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: a couple of times. I'll usually walk that south face
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: and sometimes in the north face to um a little
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: bit more towards the top. But yeah, it just depends
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: on the cover, how thick it is. If if you're
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: in oak woods, it's relatively open, you can you can
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: see farther. And if you're in some some real tight brush,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: some dogwood or something like that, you're gonna need to
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: make some tighter passes. So everything depends. Yeah, you know,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: very true. You know. Another thing I've I've sometimes done
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: and heard other people suggest is trying to find like
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: different perspectives, like even if you've walked through an area
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: once and it seems like you saw everything, Like sometimes
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: it's a good idea to stand on top of a
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: stump or kneel down and look around. Do you ever
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: do that kind of thing just to try to see
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: things at a different angle or anything? Um? Yeah, you
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: know a lot of guys talk about walking behind or
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: looking behind him once in a while as well. And
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: and sometimes you'll see a shed that you walk right
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: by him. Maybe the sun was in your eyes, or
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: there's a branch in your way or something that caused
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: you to not be able to see it. Um. But
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: sometimes you know, I've certainly found sheds that I've walked
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: within feet of and uh I came back you know,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: on another path through there, just you know, by a
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: chance or whatever, and and hear that antler's lane right there?
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: It was, you know it is maybe you know, behind
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: a fallen log or something like that. Um. Or maybe
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: sometimes you just were looking left when you should have
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: been looking right, you know. Um, that's another consideration. It's
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: how fast you walk. Um. I was trying to not
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: walk faster than my eyes can see. You know, if
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: you're sweeping back and forth left and right with your eyes.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: If you're looking left, you got to make sure that
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: you're you're not walking so fast that you haven't had
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: a time to bring that vision back to the right
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: before you keep moving. And again, if it's real open terrain,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: you can walk a little faster, and if it's tight
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: woods you cover, then you can need to walk a
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: little slower. Yeah, that's a good point. Do you ever
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: do you ever walk a whole property or whole section
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: twice or like come back a week later, specifically because
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: of this fact that you know you're inevitably probably going
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: to miss some definitely, um you know, especially if you're
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: really looking for a particular shed. Um you know, sometimes
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: you just flat out and miss him, and and you'll
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: find a shed that you know, we were within a
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: few feet of it before and somehow you just missed it.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: Or I mean I've even you know, people, it sounds ridiculous,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: but I'm out there looking for sheds. I've stepped on
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: shed that I've kicked sheds and you'd think you'd see it.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: But uh, yeah, I'll definitely come back, especially if there's
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: something I'm really looking for, um, you know, and like
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: you were saying earlier. Sometimes it's a good idea to
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: come from a different angle and see things from a
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: different perspective too, so um, or you know, bring a
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: buddy along and maybe they'll see something in a different
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: way that you. You know, something that you missed. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: very true. Well, Dan, what's the biggest Yeah, I got
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: a question, what's the biggest shed you ever found? Well,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: you know, I haven't really found a whole lot of
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: real big sheds, Delia. True. Um. Most of the bulkal
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: of sheds I find are from you know, dealing box
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: or two year old bucks, just because that's mostly what's around. Um.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: The biggest one I've ever got was a seventy eight
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: in shed I've fallen up in sasketchwanted Danny Coban's um
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: and that's the one that time to cover my book,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: And that was two thousand six and I haven't beaten it. Well,
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: that's a heck of a shed. That's awesome. What's your
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: book mine? I think I it's sitting right above me
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: in my office. I can't remember if it's seventy seven
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: or seventy four inches. It's a good shed. What was
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: that one you found on the proper the property that
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: one day when we were hunting. Yeah, that's still my biggest.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: I think that was sixty four and a half inches.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: Is that right? Sounds like it sounds like I think
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: that's what it was, right, So what we're gonna ask that? Dude?
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: Uh so that was your biggest? Now, how what's the
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: most you found in one day? The most I've ever
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: found one day? It was twenty. The sad part is
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: the guy was I've only had one day of shed
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: hunting and it was a day I didn't bring a
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: backpack where I had to leave a pile. I found eleven.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: I think that was my best day, and they nothing
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: worth bragging about from a size standpoint, but I remember
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: having to make a pile at a fence opening and
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: then continue the walk and then hopefully uh all my
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: way back. I had to stop at the truck and
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: then go all the way back because it was just
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: kind of it was just awkward to carry them all.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: It's a good problem to have, I know, it wasn't. No,
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I'd like have a heart attack. I
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: think if I ended a day with twenty sheds, that's insane.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: Are you willing to share what state that was. Yeah,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: that was that was a Saskatchewan. Yeah. The kicker was
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: that day. Um, I had found six all day and
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: we were we just got into another area where the
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: guy was with it sound some sheds. He said, let's
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: go over there for the last last hour of the day.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: And I didn't have a backpacker. Only at the out
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: for an hour. I found fourteen in an hour I had.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: I had three mulder SAIDs that were actually off from
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: the same buck. I had a set from the mule
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: deer and then a previous side for that buck. And
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: he was about a seventy in you know, they were
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: about seventy inch sides. And I had I had a
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: spike shoved in my pocket. I had a couple of
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: you know, reeling buck antlers in my pockets. I had
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: browton you know antlers hanging from the brown tigns on
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: my pockets and my belt loops and and uh and
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: I had them all carried in front of me because
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: I didn't have a backpack and there was a sight
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: to see it was. It was a fun hour. Have
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: you hunted it? Shed hunted in Saskatchewan a lot. I've
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: been up there three times, Um, I'm also done with
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: Bentley Coben and uh, you know, it's it's amazing, like
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: the the number of sheds and the trophy potentially you know,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: that's where the handsome buck came from. And um, it's
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: just tremendous pencil up there for trophy size and numbers
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: and uh, it's it's really something. Now I've heard this
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: from some of my buddies who are they they travel
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: to go shed hunting, but they don't necessarily have the
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: rodent problem up in certain parts of Canada, so they're
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: they're not gonna get chewed on. And they were telling
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: me that they went on like a four day shed
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: hunt once and they stumbled across this old alf alpha
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: field and they found I think it was like thirty
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: two sheds. Like no one had shed hunted this area
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: for several several years, and they found like thirty two
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: sheds on this uh on on this one field, and
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: they found multiple years of the same bucks. So I
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: think they said they found three matching deer and then
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: you know, you look at him, you see the characteristics,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: and they believe that to be the same buck for
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: three years in a row, all dropped in this field
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: have you ever ran into a scenario like that. What
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: did you say that still was? I think I think
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: it what they think they said it was. It was
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: either in Saskatchewana or Alberta. That's pretty awesome, really, um
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: found Yeah, like I was saying earlier, when I found
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: out at the big young their mats sets, um, they
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: were tending to apart and the one side from the
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: previous years a hundred yards away. UM. I found buddy
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: of mine, Dan Hess, when you're out in Montana one year,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: he found three years in a row on the same
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: three left sides in a row on the same walk,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: all within like a hundred or two hundred yards. Um.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: I found uh, one bucket shed under the same tree,
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: two years in a row, so it certainly had UM.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's commoner or not, but yeah,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: it certainly does happen. That would be pretty awesome to find.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: I n one last question about like the crazy things. UM,
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: how how often have you let's say you scoured an
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: area right and you're like, okay, I've I'm sure I
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: have found a shed, every shed off this property. It's
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: it's maybe March, even late March, and then the next
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: year you come back and you find a year old shed. Yeah,
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: it definitely happens. Um sometimes it's it seems unbelievable that
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: you could spend that much time looking and and not
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: find them, but it certainly happens, and you know the
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: saving graces. Following year, they start to bleach out in
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: the sun a little bit, so they do get whiter
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: and they do get a little bit easier to see.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: But it is amazing how how hard you can look
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: when not find an antler. I hate that. It's like,
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: how how is this possible that we didn't find this handler?
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: There's a there's a man. She hunning is like I
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: have a love hate relationship with it, Like there's so
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: much exciting and awesome about it, but then there's so
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: many things that can be frustrating about it. And you're like,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I've walked for twenty hours, my feet
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: are bleeding. How come I haven't seen a single shed?
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: And then my buddy who's like thirty yards away has
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: found like ten of them. Like I feel like it's
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: one of those weird things where even if you're doing
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: everything right, sometimes there's definitely a big piece of luck
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: involved that it's sometimes gonna be going in your favor,
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: and sometimes it's just not gonna happen. Absolutely. You know,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: when I've gone out, you know with guys are good
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: shed hunters, and you know a couple of guys will
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: have a really good day and one guy get skunked,
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: and I know that guy's a good shed hunter, and
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: sometimes that guys me. But yeah, there's definitely a luck factor.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah that's the truth. So Joe, we're wrapping up on
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: time here. But if there's one single thing that want
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: to either add that we haven't talked about yet or
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: that you want to reiterate for our listeners, like the
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: single most important thing to help people find more sheds.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: What with that one thing you'd want to leave people with, Well,
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: I think you know, do some scoutings, find out where
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: the bucks are hanging and and make sure you're in
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: an area with bucks. You know, if you're looking on
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: public ground, it's heavily hunted. It's it's an an uphill
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: battle because there's just not going to be a lot
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: of bucks. And then when you get on that good
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: piece of ground, look for those loan evergreen trees, look
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: for south facing hillsides, and and that's a real good
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: start to find some sheds. I certainly agree. So if
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: people want to pick up your book or learn more
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: about what you've got going on, is there anywhere they
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: can find that online? Yeah, they can go to my
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: website go shud hunting dot com, or they can like
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: go shut hunting on Facebook. Perfect. We will make sure
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: to link that, and uh, I think on that note,
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm about ready to go shed hunting myself. So
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: thank you Joe for taking this time with us and
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: sharing everything you've learned. Yeah, well, thanks for having me, guys,
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: and that will be it first today. Real quick though,
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: I want to give you all a little update. We
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: record this original interview a few days ago, but last night,
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: that bill we talked about in the beginning to sell
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: off three point three million acres of public lands, it
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: was taken out of consideration and killed. And it happened
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: because of you guys, hunters and anglers and climbers and
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: campers and all sorts of other outdoor enthusiasts. We all
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: rallied together on this one, and all those emails and
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: phone calls and social media posts, it all made a difference.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: And I'm really encouraged by this. I think it's a
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: great example of what we can do in the outdoor
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: community when we come together and let our voice be
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: heard for the good of our wild life and our
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: wild places. But I also just want to remind you
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: too that this is just a small battle in a
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: much bigger war against our public lands. There are going
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: to be many, many more bills and proposals like this
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: coming down the pipeline, you know, as our current sitting
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: Congress has it in their public list of priorities to
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: sell off our public lands. So be sure to keep
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: your ear to the ground, and when you hear more
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: attempts like this, give them hell and let these politicians
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: know that public lands belong in public hands. And with
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: that we will now officially wrap it up by thinking
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: our partners to help keep this podcast on the air.
• 1:17:15
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• 1:17:20
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• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: and huntera Maps. And finally, thank you for being with
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: us today, Thanks for giving a damn about hunting and
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: our wild life and our wild places, and thank you
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: for staying wired to hunt