Monday, January 26, 2009

10 pointer harvested this weekend!

Eat you heart out MOM! You may have shot a 10 pointer this season but I revel in the fact that you aren't the only one in this family dripping with trophy hunting prowess!

After reading an article on "Finding Sheds" early Sunday morning in this months edition of Field and Stream I got a little bit excited that this might make for a fun and interesting late afternoon snowshoe hike with the dog. The article stressed the importance of training your eye to look for and identify sheds. I had also heard that coyotes tend to find sheds and urinate on them therefore marking their location.

To make things interesting I followed several coyotes hunting in unison out in a remote section of woods. I followed the tracks for about 3 miles in the deep snow and was amazed at the number of partridge (4) and bunny (2) carcasses I uncovered.

As I neared the end of the hike I had to cross the expanse of a small pond. Out of the corner of my eye I noted what looked like a leg bone that a coyote had attempted to dig out of the ice. Upon closer inspection, it was a leg bone and while inspecting I saw something "out of place" off to my left highlighted in the days dying light. Horns (See the photo above for my first glimpse)? As I dug deeper and deeper into the snow I realized that it was the rack of what appeared to be a 10 pointer. Unfortunately, it wasn't a shed it was in fact a deer that through natural or unnatural causes had died . . . thereby escaping the trophy wall.

Through good fortune I had a small pack saw with me and with a little bit of effort I freed the one horn from the icy surface. The other horn is down there in the frozen depths and will be released shortly! Tune in for the literal other half of this story!

2 comments:

  1. That is truly awesome, after I had taken my ten point back in 1993 my father and I took to the woods for some exploration (after all that big buck must have tree rubs somewhere). We found a patch of cedar trees and within 25 feet of one another was the sheds from the year before. Slightly sun bleached and nibbled, they can fit inside of the mount, plus there are features that are unique making it definitely from the same buck.

    Thanks for bringing back that memory, I've forgotten about the sheds as they are currently packed for moving.

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  2. Very Cool, MM would appreciate that.

    ReplyDelete

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