Due to the rain this weekend, I decided to stay close to home and try to get a few things taken care that I've been procrastinating on for some time now..... like cleaning up the Lopsided 9 that I found dead nearly two months ago (see the archived post from February).

Here's a little hint....if you find a deadhead, let it soak in water for a week or so, but don't wait two months.  Lets just say the skull skinned out pretty easy, but I nearly skinned out the inside of my stomach at the same time.  And we also had a little bit of bad luck and while the skull was soaking, the water turned jet black and ended up staining the antlers.  I've never seen this before, but lessoned learned I guess.   But it looks like the antlers ended up getting cleaned up pretty well.




































And the finished product.  I still have a little bit of cleanup work and need to get him mounted to a plaque, but the tough stuff is done.  He ended up scoring right around 115", not too bad for a 2.5 year old.  After getting so many trail cam pics of him, we really hoped that he would make it another two years.  Unfortunately he gets added to the "man cave" just a little too early.

Only four more weeks until the opener for of the 2010 Missouri spring turkey hunting season.  Even though many hunters, such as ourselves, are just starting to dust off the bows from the late season, the birds are all ready getting ready for the action.  In the last few weeks we have started to see an increase in the number of toms strutting in the open fields, but I'd never been able to catch this on trail cam....until the last pull this morning.  It sure does get the blood pumping though in anticipation of the upcoming season...only four more weeks....

In addition to the long beards, we also caught a couple shed bucks that will hopefully stick around until next fall.  I really liked the second picture with the cardinal in full flight.  It really goes to show you just how quick the trigger speed is on the Bushnell Trophy Cams.

I got home and checked the mail only to find that the mailman had delivered a special gift for me to help us through this years spring turkey season, which will be starting in just four weeks.  I ordered a custom, handmade VECtor slate to help me bring those big, struttin' toms in a little closer this spring and hopefully close enough to stick one of them with the bow and arrow.  Vince Crawford (owner of VECtor Custom Calls - www.vectorcalls.com) is a local entrepreneur in NW Missouri that creates some of the best handmade wood calls available.  His attention to detail and customer service is simply awesome!  This is the first turkey call that I've purchased from Vince and I know Bo owns at least one or two VECtor turkey calls, but I've also bought four or five of his custom deer grunters.  With the help of his deer grunters, Bo and I were able to harvest three bucks during this past bow season that totalled nearly 450 inches of antler.  We hope that his turkey calls will bring us just as much luck during this years turkey season.  Thanks again Vince for making some of the best calls on the market!!  Hopefully Bo and I will be included in the 2010 VECtor Turkey Harvest Poster!

On Saturday Michelle and I took the dogs up to a new property that we were just granted permission to shed hunt on this year in southwestern Iowa.  It's my understanding that this property does not get hunted at all - sometimes I really wish Iowa nonresident tags weren't so expensive and hard to come by.  The property does not have much timber on it as it's mainly row crop with two draws that cross the property.  However, the land owner has installed filter strips to not only keep erosion down, but also provide a great deer santuary. 

But the deer sign on the property was simply amazing.  I can't remember a property that has had so many big rubs and wide trails.  This property would truely be a bowhunter's paradise. 


Not too long into the search, Michelle found her very first shed.  It's not the biggest in the world, but those smalller ones are always much harder to find than the big boys.

After we started out with two quick ones, we ended up finding four more in the following two hours.  This was one of my personnel best days shed hunting with us coming home with six.  The biggest antler was a six point side with a split brow that measured 63 inches.  Unfortunately the main beam had probably around four to five inches broke off. 




Here is a shot of the days catch.  I really can't believe how much my shed hunting year changed in the matter of two days.  I had started out on the first trip with Bo and found a small matched set, then went for 33 hours before finding the one matched set I'd hoped for all year, and then to finish up with six more and Michelle finding her first.  Turned out to be a pretty good year!

As Bo mentioned below, we were able to get down to our Kansas lease on Friday for one last shed hunting trip before the prescriped burn that will be happening in the next couple of weeks. Upon stepping foot on the property that morning I started my 32nd hour of shed hunting without a find. I had high hopes for this trip since we've only been skunked once while shed hunting this property in previous years, which just happened to be the last time I was on the property just a month or so ago. Well about an hour or so into the search, I finally had a change of luck. I was walking the edge of a large CRP field when I noticed what appeared to be two tines sticking up along the hedge row that bordered the CRP field. The antler appeared to be of good size, but little did I know what I'd found.

There is a buck on the property that we nicknamed Potato Digger during the '08 season. We had numerous trail camera videos and pictures of this buck and Bo and I actually had this buck at 35 yards during our first sit on the property back in September but was unable to get a quality shot at this buck. Well after I took a couple of more steps closer, I realized I'd just found one side of Potato Digger. I yelled over to Bo and as he was coming up I turned around and there was the match laying just 10 yards away. If there was one buck on the property whose sheds I wanted to find more than any other, it was Potato Digger and I was looking at both of them. It is a great relief to know this buck is still alive and living on the property. Both sheds measured right around 64" and with an estimated 19" spread (might be conservative), this buck would have scored 147" this past year as a typical 8 point. Talk about a great way to break a 33 hour streak of not finding a shed. Unfortunately we didn't find anymore sheds, but we did find one dead shed buck. But we're hopeful that many more antlers will appear after the burn this spring.

Here are a few trail camera pictures we've gotten of Potato Digger as a 4.5 year old during the 2009 season and a few pics of his sheds. I also have his right side from the '08 season so we are really writing a great history with this buck. Hopefully we'll be able to display his sheds with his shoulder mount after the '10 season.

Here is a picture of Potato Digger's right side from 2008.


ATL (as they lay) photos of the sheds as I found them.  You can see the match in the background of the first picture.  The interesting thing is that all three of his sheds were found within 80 yards of each other.

Scott and I, along with our buddy Jeff, had a chance to hit our Kansas lease for a little shed hunting yesterday. Our property is very difficult to shed hunt as it is enrolled in a CRP program and consists of mostly warm season native grasses. Sheds really blend in with all of that grass. However, we always seem to bring something back with us whenever we go down. There truly is some magic in those Kansas hills!

Grumpy (my Dad), Scott, and I hit a couple of our hunting properties on February 20th to do a little shedding/post season scouting. The deer are really hitting the grain fields hard! We're hoping to leave a few acres of standing soybeans in our foodplots next year for some dynamite post season hunting. Grumpy was lucky enough to find his first Missouri shed after a few hours of walking. It is the right side off of a young (2.5 year old) 6 x 4 ten point. We're really happy to see that he made it through the season ok because he has the potential to be a stud by the time he reaches 4.5-5.5. Here's a few pictures of the shed and the buck. Nice first find, Grumpy!