Antler Hunting After a Spring Blizzard
Shed hunting after a blizzard presents obvious hurdles, but it can still be done. In fact sometimes it can help concentrate your efforts in the right places.
Our annual antler hunting event at Prairie King Ranches was greeted with a two day spring blizzard. 8 inches of snow and 40 mph winds. But at the end, we were optimistic that this could well be shaping up to be one of those falls that we talk about for years. We found only 1 dead head, where our average is 10, and the average size of the naturally shed antlers was in the top three of our 34 year history.
The one dead head for the week was a dandy heavy horned old buck grossing 160. And my son Cort is carrying a couple of sheds from two different likely 4 year old bucks which we will be looking for in September!
Expert level: When you go out and find two nice lefts buried in the snow!
Resilient Genetics: Having hunted the same location in Nebraska for 40 years now, I’m amazed the common genetics that keep showing up in the herd. The two antlers on the right were picked up by my son Cort this week. The one on the left was from a matched set that sits on my mantle which Cort’s Grandfather and Great Grandfather found together in spring 1986. A buck that just so happens, I missed in the fall of ‘85. We will be looking for both of the bucks on the right this fall!
If you think about it, a blizzard with wind replicates in one day what the entire winter did to the landscape. It fills in some treed areas with snow, forcing deer to not bed there. Other bedding areas that are clear of snow were clear also in the winter and were the likely spots for bedding winter deer during the shedding season. Similarly food plot areas that are blown free of snow in a spring blizzard were likely the spots blown free during winter, thus concentrating the deer. So, many times a spring blizzard can set up a scenario where your efforts are concentrated right where they need to be to find the most antlers with the least amount of hiking.
Toward the end of the week, the sun had come out, melted off much of the landscape, and we had recorded one of our best trips ever.