00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan. In this episode number nine ten the show, Dan and I are joined by my shed hunting fanatic friend Ross Houseman to discuss strategies for finding more shed andlers. All right, welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Sick of Gear. And today, as I just mentioned, we're talking shed hunting. And it's mid February right now at this moment. If you're at all like me, you're probably dying to get your hands on some antlers. Or maybe you've already had your hands on some antlers this year. I'm not sure. I certainly haven't, but either way, our plan for today is to talk shed hunting strategies and we're going to be joined by one of my good friends and one of the best shed hunters I know, Ross Horsman. So between Ross, Dan and myself, hopefully we'll be able to share a few tips that can help you have your best shed hunting season ever. So, Dan Johnson, are you getting the shed hunting at yet? Oh? Yeah. I let's see. My My plan was to go shed hunting Monday of this week and it's snowed six inches and as we all know, it's hard to go. Hey, it's hard to go while it's snowing, and be it's even harder to go with a lot of snow on the ground. So I didn't get out, and it made me mad. How did you? How are you going to go on a Monday, dude? I work for a multinational court operation. I get every federal holiday off. It was President's Day. Was a President's Day. Yeah, so see my boss as a jerk. He doesn't let me take that day off. I totally forgot about. He's an a hole. Everybody know. Everybody knows it. That's the truth. So you didn't get to go shed hunting. Did you do anything? Did you get to dream about shut hunting or map searching or I did a little bit of podcast stuff. I did a little bit of writing. I did a little bit of um like daydreaming. I you know, you go to Google Maps and you can just spend hours on that. But I did go to Shields, which is the it's like a smaller version of Cabella's and uh, I shot a couple of bows, as in, like just shot for fun or do you think about buying it? Well, I'm not a hunter percent sure yet. Um I went and I there's a couple of bows, you know, on on my podcast, I do kind of a bow review thing, and everybody's given this one bow a lot of props, and I want to go test it out and see what it was like. And I must be the only person in the world who doesn't like that bow, particular bow, because I wasn't a huge fan of of it. And but I shot a couple other ones. And then you walk around and you dream about, oh, man, that tent would be cool, or hey, those paraboots would be cool, or hey, I don't ever use a kayak, but I would. I would that would be cool if I had a kayak. Yeah, I can relate to that. Those stores are dangerous, man, very dangerous. Most of the time. I leave my credit card in the in my car so I don't get tempted to buy to buy his stuff while I'm there. See. My biggest issue right now is, you know, I don't live close to any major stores or anything, and I don't leave the house all that much. But I've got Amazon Prime, and so it's just way too easy for me to buy anything I could possibly think cuff on Amazon. Just like I'll be sitting on my couch and if I pull up that Amazon app, I know I'm in I'm in trouble because it's just right, way too easy, just one button, it's bought, It's to my house in two days. It's it's not a good thing for my checking account. Yeah, I uh, I need to I need to shut it down for a while, you know what I mean. Like, I'm an impulse buyer, so it's it's not even close to season, and usually I try to you know, I do most to my my purchasing closer towards the season, which is dumb because then you're paying more for the product. But you know, here I'm going, man, I really wish I had this grunt call, or I really wish I had this, or I really, man, maybe I should buy another tree stand or you know, it's like one of those you can never it's like those those uh what's that one guy who's like, I'm Larry potter Field, thank you for your business. The Midway and the Midway USA guy, Right, Yeah, the Midway Usa. Yeah. I just every time that commercial comes up, he's like, how many guns do you need? Just one more? That's kind of like kind of like me with archery equipment many tree stands? Do you need just one more? That's a sickness dude. Yeah. So have you been out shed hunting yet? A little bit? Not like really seriously. I've just been walking my my couple of main spots in Michigan, kind of lightly taking taking my dog out for a walk and checking the food plots and stuff like that. Um so far and nothing. Um yeah. But this spot I wasn't really expecting too much. The food plots I thought might pulling some deer. So there's a spot on one of the neighboring properties that usually get permission to shed hunt. So I just got a double check on that and get permission and then I'll be able to walk that. And and that's where a lot of deer that I think that are feeding in these food plots are probably betted. So if I can get permission to shed hunting there, I think I've got a chance. But the rest of the property, as far as food sources is, was all chiseled up. So there's the foods not there like it usually is, so I don't have the highest of hopes for that area. So so really I've got shed hunting plans for this weekend. We'll be hitting a buddies a couple of properties. They're supposed to be pretty good. Um, that'll be fun. And then I have got a couple of long weekend trips planned for the coming weeks and and that will really be probably the extent of of my of my shud hunting season. So, right, how how many times you gonna get to go out? Let's see, the Iowa Deer Classic is March fourth and fifth and sixth or something like that, somewhere that weekend, that first weekend in March. So I'm planning on going the weekend after that. That historically for me has been my the best times to go out as far as finding quantity. Now, the biggest antlers I've ever found have been in mid to late February. I'd go out and you know, you find one or two. But as far as cleaning up shop, my best hunting shed hunting days, and I think I've found eight or nine sheds in one day and that was that was like mid early to mid March. Yeah, hard to beat March, that's for sure. Yeah, Yeah, I got a question. I got a question for you. Of all the people that you've had, this is the kind of the funny question. I'm bringing it back today just for you. Okay, if you could have a beer with any any of the previous Wired to Hunt guests, who would it be? Oh? Man, uh wow, that was much spot you are? Uh uh you know, I guess I would go one of two ways. I think I would either go with and There's pretty much almost anyone we've had in the show. I would love to have a beer with There's I mean, I could pick almost anyone. But if I had to choose people, who I would I would really want to really really really want to pick their brain about some stuff. Probably one would be Donny Vincent, just because he's gone some crazy places, done some crazy things, you know, more non whitetail related, but I would love to pick his brain about some of those adventures he's been on. And then the other guy probably would just have to be the mad scientist mar Jurie. I just love his attention to detail with all the little things. You know. That episode was like so much fun for me just because I geek out about all that stuff. So I think I would love to sit and have a beer and dive into more of that stuff. So that's me. What about you, dude, I'll tell you what. After listening to Randy Newberg and then listening to his podcast, I think that dude would just be awesome to hang out with. You're right, I totally forgot about that he was he just he was just on the show and I already didn't even think about him. But you're right, Randy would be a good guy talked to and not even talk about no necessarily hunting per se, just hanging out with the dude. Maybe maybe eight hour car ride type deal. Yeah, he does seem like a fun guy to talk to, and he's got, you know, a great perspective on a lot of stuff too. Um got good the good old Minnesota accents still too. Hey, would you rather hang out with Randy Newburgh or Ross Hoffman? Well, I gotta I gotta pick. I gotta pick Ross because he's on that because I don't want to offend him on this episode. I actually will be hanging out with Ross here in a couple of weeks, which is always good time. So so yeah, our guests. Ross Hossman, he is, like I mentioned, he's one of my good friends, one of my good hunting buddies. Um. He's been a serious deer hunter for as long as I've known him, and he moved to Iowa, I don't know, maybe a decade ago or something like that, and he's been pie end up really nice to hear and and films for Wire to Hunt for a number of years. So so some of you guys and girls listening might recognize him from some of our past video episodes. Um, but he is just a shed hunting fanatic. Like as soon as January hits, it seems like I'm just getting pictures texted to my phone every other day. It seems like if some other chetty phone, he's got a new pile of sheds. So he's Uh, He's someone I usually really hate at this time of the year because I'm really jealous if everything he's doing. But he's got a lot of experience with this stuff, so I think he'll he'll be able to share some good insight in some of his experiences I think will be helpful. So you excited to maybe learn a thing or two from Mr Ross hass I'm ready, all right, let's take a quick break then to hear from our sponsors of this podcast, Sick a Gear, and then we will give Ross a call. Alright, So as we do every week, we're joined now by Sick of Product category leader Dennis's Zuck and today I want to Dennis talk a little bit about the importance of keeping our hands warm during a hunt and how gloves or other apparel can help. Here's done us. Yeah, and the importance I mean, if you think about it, that last thing that makes that hunt come together is you being able to make a shot, you know, and use your you know, your hands are all part of that, you know, and when you know, if you think about blood flow in your body, you know, the your hands are the furthest from your heart. So there's a little you know, the technical term is vase of constriction, but it's basically your body protecting itself and it will start stopping blood to your fingers, which is when that numbness sets in. And the longer that happens, you know, the harder it is to recover. So even if you start to get warm, it still keeps you cold, you know. So as hunters, we we roll in this world of a paradox between how do I keep myself warm yet how do I keep the tactility and the dexterity in place to be able to make that critical shot when I need to. You know, so we spend a lot of time in our peril development to thinking about you know, maybe a glove isn't always the right answer, or maybe it's some hybrid between the pouch we put in a product and then the flipments that we have in our fanatic city. Um, so we're always trying to think about how to wear in that paradox, but manage managing the fact that you have to keep your hand warm is and who who hasn't had a gear come in and grabbed their bow and had that really cold metal conduct into their hand for thirty minutes, you know, so thinking about that that contact point. You know, but your hands are absolutely a critical part of the equation, so important in fact, it was the foundation of our fanatic series. All right, Well, if you'd like to learn more about Sick of Gears fanatic series or their gloves or other handwarming options, visit sick of gear dot com. And now let's give Ross a call. All right with us now? On the show. Is Ross Hossman. Welcome the show, Bud, Hey, good to be here. It's Helston. By the way, all these years, they still get it wrong. Are serious? I've always I like the way rhymes. Yeah, I know it's probably Peter says that. Still, so that that's funny. I want to call you Hoss Rossman. Yeah, that's all right, be glad I didn't do that. Still still getting wrong. I'll be completely honest with you. Ross. I when I when he said Ross hass like, I didn't know your last name was Hassman. If your name was Ross Hass I closed my eyes and I picture a competitive eater. Oh yeah, yeah, I don't know if that's what it looks like. I guess there's the I mean, you definitely aren't the the Asian competitive eater type. Yeah. Yeah, so we're we're doing a very good job of dressing. Yeah, that's it's for today. What we're trying to talk about is shed hunting today. Um, And before you got on, Ross, we were talking about a little bit about you and how I you know, we think you're a shed uting fanatic, one of the guys that I know that shed hunts the post um. But I want to try to see just how much of a ship anything like you are before we really dive into thing. So I want to bring up a story from last November. I was down in Iowa and we were at your campground before heading out to hunt one day at lunch, and we're sitting around there talking about how stressed we were about this and that and everything, and you said, I believe that you actually prefer shed hunting over hunting. Is that true? Yeah? I did say that, but I was thinking about that too afterwards. And did I shoot my DearS when I said that? Or was did I not have a deer? Then you had not shot your deer by then you shut your buck like two or three days later. Yeah, then it's pretty crazy. And then I was thinking I said that after I shot my deer, which would makes sense. But but I think the theories. And I like shed hunting so much is because I just get so sneak, like, you know, I get so stressed out when I'm bow hunting and during the season, and I just like shed hunting so much more because so much more laid back, and the weather is nice and it's just a good time to be out in the woods. But I don't know that I could pick shed hunting over over bull hunting. Would be pretty tough. I know I said that, but I think it's I think it's pretty it's pretty tough to pick one over the other. They all have there, they're pros and cons. But I would I would say I love shed anything pretty much because it's good time to get get together with a bunch of buddies, have a good time and scout and then also of course Finne sheds. Yeah, yeah, I agree with you that I I definitely couldn't take shedding over regular bow hunting or deer hunting. But to your point, it's a lot of fun just from like the camaraderie standpoint, and it's a lot more relaxed, although sometimes I feel like it gets pretty intense when we're especially like towards the end of my towards the end of my trip, if I haven't found anything, I get get a little of that bow hunting stress. But uh yeah, yeah, then then you'll pick bow hunting over shed hunting and you can go both. Yeah, that's the truth. I think Corey, our friend Corey, I think he I think he said before that he would almost shed hunt has given the choice. I think you said that in the past, I guess, and that's the only crazy one. Yeah, I've heard him say it too, like we'll be eating breakfast and he'll be gushing on about shed hunting and he'll start talking about it. But I think to your point, Ross, when it comes right down to it, I think, I don't think there's many guys that would actually choose it, but there's certainly some people that really really love it. And I get that. I love shed hunting too. Um. So that said, wanted to pick your brain a little bit, Ross about you know, how you've had so much success shed hunting in the past. But I guess to quantify that a little bit, how, I'm curious. I think I've got an idea of this myself. But how often do you shed on? How many days a year would you say if you had to guess you shed on a year? Oh boy, I don't know how many days. I would say every weekend, um, from probably the second week of January two through March all the way up until Turkey season. Um. I've been I've had the luxury of having the chance to be able to get out every weekend. But now things are going to change because they have a baby on the way. She's here. He I don't know what it is, um just doing April, So things are going to change. But I know my wife loves doing it too. I'm and I know we're still going to try to get out as much as possible. But I would say, I would say every weekend, my wife's Kendall and I are are trying to get out and so for a good good four months. Yeah so what that's almost four months times for weekends a month, so that's all days, that's that's yeah, I would yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a lot of a lot of ships, honey. So how many do you know how many sheds you found last year? Last year we found last year we found fifty eight. I believe every year we need to find a little bit more. Do you have any idea how many total? An anything? Actually, I have no idea, And I used to I used to be able to pick up any of the sheds, tell you exactly where it was from. I could picture where it was laying. But now it's getting to the point where we have so many of that that I don't even remember anything about some of those sheds anymore. So I would that is probably somewhat of a mental mental disease. They're knowing where all the sheds came from and be able to picture it all and stuff like that. But I just getting to the point now where I'm also a hoarder and I have so many sheds that I can't remember where they're even from. So, so, yeah, we found a lot. We've found a lot over they felt over the years, and we started now that we're getting to know the deer better in the area where we said hunting and we know where to focus, it's getting getting to be easier to find them, and then we're just certain find more too. So you found fifty some last year, and I think, if I remember right, the year before that, you found over fifty um. And it seems like every year you're finding somewhere in that ballpark. Um, have you found an yet this year? I know the answer to that. How many of you found? Well, it's been such a mile, it's been such a mile of winter that we've gotten a pretty early start and a lot of places like and I'm in Iowa, so obviously I have an advantage there as far as find sheds. But but where we're at in Iowa, far far Sunday before far far northwest Iowa is where we live where there's tons of bucks, just really really close to the Minnesota border. And uh, there's a there's a lot of deer up there. You're you're so, you're so generous of the information. Rock what county far county is it? What would that be like Floyd or something like that, or you know there's there's like ten guys from Floyd, Iowa right now just cursing at the podcast. Or yeah, I go up we go up there a lot and let me just go to see your you know, your southern Iowa. You know where Dans that we go down there all the time too. Oh yeah, down there huge deer decline. You know what's you know what's funny, Dan, I don't know if I don't know if I told you this or connected the dots, but on one of our past podcast episodes, you had talked about some specifics of some spots that you hunt in the past, um describing some of your dear that you've seen, blah blah blah. So just from the little bit that Ross had heard about you from me and what he heard on the podcast, he pinpointed exactly where your property was, and he texted me a picture and he says, is this dance property? And it was it was. Didn't didnt get up too much info. Sometimes that is for sure out I'm actually gonna make a game out of it too. Whenever whenever people say stuff like that, I can try to find and you got you gotta be more tight lipped in I have since that, since that happened, I have been more tight lipped because I've had people message me going, hey, do you hunt on Zoe and So's property. I'm just like, uh no, And I don't want to be clear. I would never be one of those guys that would just show up and I just I just I'm all around, you know, like Google and all that stuff, and you know, if you know there, maybe I'll I'll swoop in and hunt there fifty fifty fifty sheds a year, and you're not you're not going on your buddies properties behind their back? Yeah right, no, no, no, all permission I find it. Yeah, yeah, I'll be clear that way to no trespassing whatsoever. That's a big problem with that. I definitely don't want people to say that. Although although I do wonder, you know, Dan, we had a rough go at shed hunting your place last year. I wonder if someone might have gotten there before us, Right, yeah, I think I know know what his name is. It does not rhyme with hoss um Man, So Dan. Now that we're on the topic of how many sheds a year, I think the most I've ever found in a year is like twelve or thirteen. But that's because I live in Michigan and I only find sheds when I go to other states for a day or two. What's the most you've ever found in a year? Now, Ross, let me ask you a question real quick. Is that fifty between a group of people or fifty you by yourself? No? No No, uh, my wife and I And then I have a yeah, I got you, I got you, all right. So I think my best year I was unemployed in living with my parents, and I I think I shed hunted thirty days and I found I think thirty two sheds and everything from the big boys to like a little fork four corns, So like thirty two. Did you do you measure your antlers at all? I can't remember. Um, if if they're substantial, yes, but if they're average you now, do you remember the size of your biggest shed? Seventy four and a half inches? Okay, think my biggest was the Mark Kenyon shed that I found in your place. And what was that was that? Is that right? I think it was sixty five on the dot? Yeah? What about you? Ross? Um, I guess one that's seventy one, and then Kendall's got the two big ones that are right nice? Have you any No? Not really? Um, it's on one seven inch and then I guess when she hunting down here at least where we're at, like a six anything over sixty inches are pretty good shed, and you don't find too many of those every year where we're at. Everything else is a lot of you know, like two year olds and then they'll be like the you know, fifty five injured or you know from the three year old and stuff like that. But like getting up over sixty inches is getting it's actually pretty tough to find. And then a seventy inch or bigger side in this and they right, I found it's pretty that's a pretty nice shed. I'd love to find an eight inch or something. That'd be I'd be awesome, that'd be crazy. Yeah, that's that's that's the goal. I think you have a pretty good chance to find and I think both of you too probably have a good chance of finding one. I if I ever hit the seven inch mark, that'll probably the best I could ever do. But if you ever hit the seventy in markets because you cut in front of one of us on the way back to the truck or something, yeah, you're probably right. Seventy inch or last year? I are you talking about the infinite Ohio trip? Yeah, it wasn't. That's where that was. Wasn't that. It was pretty darn close. There's a guy that you know, Dan named h a fellow named Corey who uh we've all three joked about. I think I didn't. Did I tell the story of how Corey shed poached me in Ohio last year? Oh? He oh in Ohio? So that that's the second time he poached you? Yeah? Yeah, you you know the one he said posted me and Iowa. We've we've talked about that. I witnessed it. You called him out to Well, Okay, let's get this straight. I think before we we throw a Corey under the bus, we got to talk a little bit about the rules of shed hunting, right, we we do. We do have to do that. I suppose we we reviewed them last year, I think. But it's always worth tossing out the rules that at least that we generally follow, right right. You want to you want to take take take it away, Mark, I'll say you can. Well, I guess let me. I'll throw out the ones I can think of right now. I think these are pretty well in line with ross what you guys practice. I think every different group of people that shed hunt together have like some unwritten rules of shed hunting, some basic kind of guiding principles UM right to being like a fair shed hunter. So there's kind of this basic thing, you know, you know, if you're hunting, if you're shetting together, typically you'll pick Okay, I'm gonna walk here so and so I was gonna walk there, so and I was gonna walk there, and usually you try to follow that and not you know, too much encroach on your neighbors places, so they have a chance to see something just as much as you do. Um. Another popular rule is if you find one side of an antler and your buddy found the other side of that deer before you, you should give that antler to the first person who found it. Um, so they can have that match set. Um. What else is there any other ones? If you if you end up killing the buck, you gotta give the sheds back. Yeah, somebody kills the buck, you gotta give the sheds back. That's that's an important one. That's a good one for sure. Anything else for your roster you got do we follow any other things that I'm not thinking of? Uh not? Yeah, you don't pick you gotta you don't pick it up until roster can swim over and take a picture of it, different plane on the ground. You gotta do that. That's true. That's that's another point. If if anybody saw the article I posted on wired hunt dot com last week, it was like it was I call it like training for shed hunting, and it was forty pictures of sheds as they lay. Um. Those pictures were yours ross Um. Of course you ask that no one picks up a shed until you get a picture of it where it was. And you've you've saved all those pictures over the years, haven't you. Yeah? Oh yeah, I have. I have tons of pictures. I don't know. This is my favorite, my favorite part about it. When you first see the shed, you know, so I just like takeing a snap of a picture of where it layed. I don't know, it's weird, but it's not weird. It's not weird. I do the same thing. Thanks. Thanks man, It's really appreciate. It makes you feel better. Do you ever do you ever do what I told people doing that blog post? Do you ever look back at them to like just kind of like re like before the shed season starts, just to kind of get your eye it tuned again to picking up the little things, you know. I never like look back purposely, like I just I look at those pictures all your round. I just like, you know, every soft and I'll flip through room and just kind of just remember all the sheds. I mean, I'm always looking at that stuff all the time, always looking to do You're always looking at maths, always looking at sheds. So, yeah, we got the three of us definitely have an issue, that's for sure. So I got a question for your Ross. Since you've got a shed dog, has your shed fine totals gone up drastically? I mean, is this dog helping you pull a lot of bone? Not? I wouldn't say drastically, you know, she she's getting better every year, but I wouldn't say drastically, because most of the sheds A lot of times when we're out, most of the sheds um you know, if you're not in like sick cover like sick, if you're not in like CRP, or if you're not in the cut corn field. A lot of times you're spotting it before the dog or the dogs a lot of times out in the front end picking up before before you do, and you usually would probably pick it up anyways, like the only, the only, I don't know fairies. I think she does really well in our like the grassy areas where you I can't see very well see very far. She needs her nose really well. And then the corn stubble. She does really good in the corn because corn fields can be really tough obviously shed hunting, and they can be a difficult to stay focused and find sheds. She does really well when she she can work back and forth and use your knowls to pick up any of the sheds that you miss. Some corn fools, she's it's probably up to our total from more like the corn fields and the CRP or the grassy areas and stuff like that. But but a lot of the sheds that we find you are they're not like too difficult the spot, I would say, you know, if that makes sense, how how did you go about training your dog? What was your what was your kind of regimen to get her up to doing this? The first just playing such at first, you know, with an antler, and then she only get the antler obviously whenever we were working, and so she um. You know, after that, I just started getting better at that. I mean we just kind of started in the backyard, just hiding the shed, having her look for it and let me just kind of progressed and made harder and harder and harder and harder. I don't know that I did it like you know, exactly how they would recommend. But but she does really well now, and she is a she has a really um um. She gets really excited about sheds. So like yesterday, for example, you get we have some of our sheds that we found us here laying out and the other night she was standing by him, and she'll go over and she'll smell him and she'll lick them, and she'll just stand there and You'll be sitting and maybe sitting on the couch and she'll stand there and look back at you and just stare at you, and then she'll look at the sheds and she'll look back against stare at you. And then she'll lick the sheds and she'll smell them, and she'll look back at you, and she's just like, why are we sitting here when we could be able to Like she's she's so funny. She'll stick her nose over in those sheds all day long. She can't have them unless she's working for him. But but but that just keeps her. I guess her desire for him pretty strong. I don't know. Yeah, I don't let her. I don't let her chew on sheds or anything like that or have them. I don't let her have them all the time. I don't know if that's something that was gonna do, but but she just seems to want it more than Yeah, it's definitely nice to have that just strong desire from the dog to to find those antlers and just to associate that that thing the antler was like a good time. I know that with Booner. With my dog, whenever I grab an antler in the house, he just gets stoked. He gets psyched out of his mind. He starts bouncing off the walls and he's like, all right, let's go time, and he'll just be as soon as he opened the door, he just tears outside and he thinks that shed hunting time. So it's it's fun to see how excited they get, that's for sure. Oh yeah, she's she's she's pretty awesome. She's a she's a good dog. And the only reason she would be way better if he the guy training, was better at it. So you said that you start you started shedding pretty early this year because of how mild it was, But when do you usually start shed hunting and why do you start that time? Yeah, we gotta I suppose I started talking, you know, he's we started probably the middle January. Every area is a little different one dear shed, but the region kind of where we're at her that that area where we're at, well, it's times you're shedding pretty early. Um, and so we we a lot of times find your best sheds or some of our bigger sheds immediately following kind of the deer season. So like that mill of January, towards the end of January, we always usually pick up some really nice sheds. So we um, we start around then and uh, in the in the early part, we usually just focus more on like the the fields and the edges and all that stuff. You don't really go into the timber or anything like that, but we usually, um, you can pick up some nice sheds pretty early on, at least where I'm at. And then what time of year do you think is this your best time of year in general? Like if you could only pick like one week a year to go shed hunting, what would be your top week on average? Probably just you know, the first what everybody says, the first couple of weeks in March whenever the snow melts pretty much. But this year we've been this year, we found we've we're up to nine now so far this year, but it's been so mild, so we've been able to shed hunt and do a better job because there hasn't been as much snow, um, so they'll been able to cover a lot more ground and in spot more sheds compared to like thoughts last year, years prior. There's a lot more snow in February, so usually we find a bunch of January February starts to slow down a little bit because there's a lot of snow usually and then coursing the snow melt it picks up again. Do you speaking of snow, I'm curious what you think about this too, Dan. But first Ross, I guess do you think there's anything to shed hunting being better on years where there's lots of snow because the deer will be, you know, kind of tighter in a certain areas that won't be roaming as much first as years where there's hardly any snow and then the deer or just everywhere. Have you have you found that to be true? Yeah, let's see, I don't know that two years ago when it was really cold everywhere, like had was two years ago when we had like twenty y as blows of your or something like that for the highest for the day or something like that, I don't know what was in quite a bit snow and the deer were a lot more concentrated. And actually that year the difference from that year For other years, a lot of times we don't find a ton of match sets, but that year we found a lot of match sets. So I just gathered from that that the deer we're spending a lot more time, you know, in a smaller area and not roaming as much. That's kind of what I figured from the ast. But and when it's when winters, yeah, when snows deeper, it's a little bit more predictable. I guess you know, travel as far have you found out to be true? Dame Well, I tell you yeah. Obviously they find the food source and they stick to where it's at. But my my best, my best shed hunting season ever was a mild, a real mild February, not a lot of snow, and then towards the end of February there was just like this giant in it temperature drop and a ton of snow all at one time, and that made a lot of antlers pop off. And I found in a in a three week period is when I found all my sheds all there at the all at the beginning of March, all like the last week of February, in the in the first two weeks in March. Now, as as they started, as uh it started winding down, they started to get chewed on, so I could tell they all dropped roughly at the same time. It's just I didn't find them all at that same time, right right, And I think all that makes sense. I think, like you saw ross that one year that we had the huge snow, huge cold fronts and all that snow, that year was one of the best years I ever. I think that was the year I had my best shed hunting year, excuse me. And I think it was because to your point, when you found one shed, usually you were finding three or four or five six sheds in that same general area, versus some years where it seems there they're just scattered randomly all over the place, and it's you find one and then you won't find another one for five hours, and then you'll find one and it will be then the next day or something like that. While on that year it was like we would find a dozen in or half a dozen in an hour. So I kind of like year when you were down right and we did really well. Wasn't that that year? Yeah? That was the year where Corey Corey left the day before a really good day. Oh, that's too bad more for us. Yes, we never we never told the Ohio shed story, Dan, that we I alluded to it and then we got off topic. Um, if we never did tell that, that was the one where don't Dan, Dad, I tell you this me and Corey were writing with a landowner we've just gotten permission to shed hunt this property. And we were riding in the car with him, passed his property to to drop him back off at his house, and then we're going to go out of shed hunt. Um. And we're in the car and we're driving down the road and I looked to my side out the window and in this on this grassy hillside, on the property we just got permission to shed hunt, I see a giant shed like split split g two split brow time, like awesome shed. And I'm just like oh, and I just stand there and just like staring at you know, usually when you're shed hunting, as you guys know, if you see a shed, you call it out and say, hey, shout out, I got one. But since I was in the car and the landowners there, I didn't want to do that, and I don't know, just figured i'd wait till we got out of the car and me and Corey were on our own, and then said yes, I want to go get it. But like a couple of seconds after I see it, Corey yells up, shut shut shut, he sees it in the landowner season I'm like, oh, man, he turns. Corey turns, it looks at I'm like, yeah, I saw it like two or three seconds ago. Um but right, well, I just wanted to well, that's the thing. I couldn't prove that I saw it before me, and I wasn't gonna make a big deal. But I joke, I don't. I don't really think Corey post a shed for me, but I'd like to give him a hard time about it, and uh, probably he It made for for a good joke, but it also it was a little bit of a bummer because he found that we saw that shed, we went to go grab it, and then not like ten yards on the other side of that hill was the other side. So it was like a really really nice match that um I think it was seventy or right real close to us. So it was a sweet match that that's for sure. And that wasn't Yeah, and then there's another time Corey found that thing was side Oh and uh, you see thing that you were walking and he tripped over it. Yeah, I found my biggest shed ever I stepped on. There definitely are some people who just have the luck, like we're walking through this whole area together that we thought it was me really good, and we didn't find anything, and so we were walking back to the car and we were just about back to the car and we're right next to each other, and it had been one of those days where I hadn't found anything all day and I was kind of bumming about it. We've been walking for eight or nine hours, you know, and at that point it's kind of getting to me, and I think Corey had found you know, several He's had a bunch and it just wasn't my day. As we're walking back, like fifty yards before the car, I just hear his boot hit something and here a big clunk, and then he's like, oh, what's that? And then in my head I just made it was like that, son of a we got a shed and it was a nice one. That's the fun of it, right, Yeah. Yeah, So what about certain types of days or conditions? Are there any types of days or weather conditions or things like that that you have found are the best for shed hunting? Ross? What do you think about that? Well? Yeah, I mean, of course, like cloudier days or days are after a rain and it's cloudy, or when it's let its cloudy, those are the best days. When you can see him the best. I don't I have obviously, I like when sunshine into it's just a nicer day. But but to find shed there, to spot them, it's way more. It's it's just easier to just bottom when it's living cloudy, or if there was just a light rain, or if it's just wet right after snow melts and they really show up good time. Yeah, would would you agree to? Yeah? What when it's wet, it's and they just kind of pop out in the in the timber. Yeah. Now here's a question. I've always wondered about this, you know, on those days, on those sunny days, like you talked about ross, sometimes I'm thinking in my head, i'd like sunglasses because maybe there's a little bit of snow. So there's the bright snow and the bright sun, and it's hurting my eyes a little bit. So I sit there and I think, though, does do the sunglasses impact my ability to spout the shed? So I'll put the glasses on for a while, and then I start getting paranoid about it. I take them off, and then I put them back on and take them off. I haven't decided yet if I think sunglasses are hindrance at all two spotting shows? Do you do either? You guys have an opinion on that. I l or sunglasses and they'll take them off to the mom, will take them off up to the mom. I kind of go back and forth, but I don't know a lot of times I do that which one, which one is better? So I feel the same way that that's a question for the audience. Then maybe some people, some other people can shine in if if anybody else has that dilemma, and be curious to know, because you know, with certain types of you know, when you're fishing and stuff, there's certain types of sunglasses that help you see through water better. I wonder if there's if sunglasses are certain lens will help you will make the color of a shed pop out against you know, against the background a little better. I don't know, there there could be something to that. Maybe someone could create shed hunting sunglasses. That's a product that are right there. Yeah, they'll market right up there with the acorn cruncher. So you're saying, so you're saying you'd buy something right right, So, so Ross, you mentioned that you shed hunt a number of different places, and you mentioned you don't trespass. This all you know, it's all legal. Um you Yeah, how do you get so many different plays? Is the shd up? Um? You know? Over the years, I just got to know people and then just asking permission initially, just as you ask permission from one person, you get to know him a little bit better. Um. Then just by always wanting something a little bit better, just wanting to be able to walk more, you know, and there's always this those fields and those places where you want to walk, and then you know you've got to get permission first. I just grew and grew and grew, and I just I don't know, I just got to know people really well. And now fortunately, um, I have permission on I probably over a thousand acres where I do most of my shed hunting, and and I'm really grateful for that. How many different properties is that? That's I don't know, like three four or five somewhere there. And you assume every Yeah, I was gonna say, it seems like every year I talked to years that you're you're talent us like a permission on this new farm and that new farm and this new farm. Um, you definitely go ahead. Yeah, it's it's good's it's definite getting tougher now too. I'm so I'm so thankful as the places to go now. Um, but yeah, just you know, like the problem is, like, especially this year in February, you're walking some stuff and you're you're trying to get out there and pick up the sheds and kind of beat the competition too. But then you you walk all your stuff and then you run out of ground until you gotta kind of scramble to find some more places to go to. So I guess every year I just kind of add on a place or two and just kind of builds. Do you ever walk any pieces twice? Like you'll walk it in February, then you'll walk it again in March. Yeah, everything walk all geez, the same thing like jeez, for three or four or five times. So for example, how many how many times are you coming back to a place and finding a shed as opposed to like you walk it once, no sheds, you walk it again. That's when you're finding them. I've got a good couple of good examples this year. So I walked let's see, end of January walks Cornfield picked up three and then we just went there last week so that event, it was probably like two weeks later, and then we picked up two more in the same area. Um, and then we'll probably go do that again towards March. And these are areas, like, I'm not walking into areas where I'm gonna be bumping deer or pushing deer out of there. They are all areas where you can walk regularly and not affect the deer movement at all. So that's one thing. But so we'll go back there in March and then we'll walk it again and I'm continent will be able to find another one or two And there's another another quarter Filly did the same thing this year again. Wow, do you think that those are sheds? Do you think that you're actually those sheds weren't there when you went the first time, or do you think it's that just by doing it again you're able to spot some of these that you just missed the last time. Do you have any that Yeah, these were definitely fresh. And then just because the area is walking was pretty a pretty specific area, and and the last two especially where there's no way you would have walked past them, and then just you know, you can see the fresh blood on the pedicle or whatever too. Um And this morning I went out a couple hours before work actually, and uh driving down the driveway to the to the farm, and I saw only enough to off the road in the hayfield that wasn't there. I think it's so this must have fallen Saturday night because it's no Sunday and was just under the snow and a head a bloody basse and stuff like that. So they, I mean, they can fall at any time right now. So so do you check your trail cameras at all this time of year to check for when most of the bucks are dropping? Or do you have most of your cameras pulled now? Yeah? I just pulled the last one day. You know, I have problems getting bocks on camera and winter for some reason. I have no idea. They're all they're around, but I cannot get pictures of bucks. It's weird. I have no idea, but there's there's still a lot of dear holding. But I have troubles even getting pictures of bucks. So I don't really do very well with them in winter for some reason. I don't know why it is. Dan, did you did you do your trail camera thing this year? With the with the putting your corn out and putting a camera on it. Yeah, but then things kind of got busy, so the corn ran out and we just put another bag or two on it this last week. So I've just been so busy this year that i haven't got to do what I typically do, and that's dropped like a thousand pounds of corn over a period of two months, uh in one spot. And you know, you get a lot of deer that come up to him. But you know, just because it's a concentrated pilot corn doesn't mean that the deer are going to visit it. I mean two years ago it was a perfect example. I think I all I did was feed doze. I had one or two trail camera polls where I had a couple a couple of big bucks, but then they were gone. I mean they stayed there for like a week and then they went somewhere else. There was that one year. There's that one year where I came to shed home with you and you found like three sheds right by that pile, right, Yep. I did have a I did have a year where um, well there was a last year or two years ago, I think two years ago and uh, I found two or three sheds in the pile of corn, which makes shed hunting easy. That's awesome, that's what a him off, right. Yeah, it never seems to be that easy for me. I I've I've had food plots. I've been planning food plots for like I don't know, seven years an hour or something like that, and most of the years I've put some kind of good winter food source in there, always hoping that you know, I'd find a shed in one of those food plots someday, and deer are hitting these food plots like crazy all January February, UM, year in and year out. I always have great activity in these food plots. Um, But I have yet to find a single shed in one of my food plots, even though I see these bucks out there every single stupid night, not in the food plot and not next to the food plot. Hasn't happened for me yet, But I swear one of these days, hopefully it'll pay off. But speaking of finding sheds in certain places, UM, I'm curious ross you hunt so many different You shed hunt so many different spots compared to me. Um, do you approach how you shed hunt a new property? For the first time. I'm different than properties that you know. Well, do you have like a special strategy for your first walk on a new property. I don't, you know, probably not, just because it's most times not because if I if there's a new property to get permission on, I already know kind of what the deer doing because I've seen it from my road. Probably, so I would I probably just do the same thing I do with all the other properties in that sense. But if it was something new that I never you know, I don't know what's going on. Usually I just kind of do a walk through first. Um, if it's early in the season, I'll walk the fields and the field edges not to bump the deer and just get an idea where the deer at or where they're coming into the fields. And then you can look at maps and things like that and you can get an idea where the betting areas are based on like maybe um, you know, self facing ridges close to some of the food sources and stuff like that. So maybe what I would probably do is is bring up a map, look at it, guess where the deer are, and then go on foot without trying to bother hear too much and then kind of try to confirm that and then once I know kind of where the deer at, then I go back in when the time's writer and and walkt in that area. That's probably how I approach it. So then then you kind of spoke to a little bit. But then so for the properties that you do, know, what does your typical shed hunt look like? Do you start a certain way and check out certain types of features or do you just walk the entire property front to back or how does that work for you? Usually? First first thing I think I said before too, like we'll walk the will walk the fields first, pretty frequent, so several times from January through through you know up until like the snow melts and uh so fields a lot field wise, we'll we'll focus a lot on from shed hanging. Over the years I wasted I used to waste a lot of time she hunting areas were you know they like there were a lot of deer there, There were deer there, but it ended up just kind of wasting time. And now I've shifted more towards focusing on on the food sources and like so the corn and bean fields and stuff like that, and I'm not shed hunting like food plots or anything like that. They're just like really big agricultural field. So so field wise will focus a lot on like the whenever we have a field focused on like those those grassy areas within the field, or sometimes will be like terraces that farmers will put in the fields and other areas like where a lot of times deer will bed down at night and shoot their cud and for some reason, it seems like that's where deer shed the most. I mean you can have you could have a bean field and then you could have uh in an entire beet field and details really easy to find shed in and you can walk that whole field not find a single shed. But then if you find that one area where the bucks like to lay down at night after feeding, you can just it's unbelievable how many sheds sometimes you can find. UM, So we like to focus on kind of those areas. If you can figure out where the dear bed at night, those areas are awesome. That's what I found. Are you talking like buffer strips and field that hit Yeah, sometimes like buffer strips and stuff like that, and a lot of times will be slightly elevated. Um. Like, for example, there was one the spot where ridge came off. You know, there's just a long draw finger kind of that came into the field and then there was like a little ridge that kind of jutted out. It was just like a little finger of trees that jetted out into the middle of a cornfield and then it kind of made like a grassy little point on the end of it that was slightly elevated from the field. Um, and we walked that and I think was within probably a hundred yards. There was six sheds and that was that was January like five, so that's not early in the year, and there were six sheds later there. This is pretty crazy. And so like if you can find those areas where fear bed at night, I love those areas and so like or like rass stuff like that. I don't know why they shed on those things so easily, seo, but they seem just like the magnets for for sheds. And a lot of farmers will tell you the same thing. Have you found the same thing to be true where you're at doan? Yeah? You know, I'll be honest, I haven't found a lot of sheds in fields. I've found some you know on some buffer straps. I found some ONESO feel that just but a majority of the sheds over the years that I've found have been in the bedding areas or in the transition um pieces between the food and bed Yeah, I've kind of found the same thing. I found handful in fields, but most of them tend to be like you mentioned, and we'll both of you where they're bedded seems you know, And I guess that makes sense because these deer are probably spending the majority of their time bedded. A greater portion of their day is spent embedded than out on a food source or right next to that food source. So it makes sense that these deer finding those betting locations near the food where they're bedded down for those longer periods of time. That's that's where it's most likely. Um. You know. Another another type of spot that lots of people talk about finding sheds are places where deer jump where if they have to jump over fence or jump over creek. Um, have you ever found a shed in a situation like that? Ross? Yeah, senses are great, but that doesn't mean they're like you know, you can check out several hundred fence crossings and not find shed, but a lot of times they do shed that fence jumps and fence crossings, and those are always good places to look, but you got to check a lot of them just to find that one. In most cases. Yeah, oh yeah, those are definitely great places of look. Yeah, it hasn't worked out for me yet, but didn't Wasn't I with you Dan once when you found one like that? Yeah? Um, it was the same day you found your big one, your biggest shed. Yeah, it was like thirty or forty minutes later when we were kind of, you know, saying screw this area because there was still a lot of snow on that north facing slope, Like, let's just get to where this the field the field edges are and we'll go from there. And sure enough, right where we crossed was was it shed? Speaking of that speaking of like, you know, when you start getting like a screw this area. We've been walking forever, haven't seen anything or whatever. One of my biggest challenges when it comes to shed hunting is on those days or those long periods of time where you're not finding anything. So like you've walked ten hours, you've walked from seven in the morning, until five at night or whatever it is, and you've just put miles on the boots and you haven't found a thing. And like, at least for me, after so many I don't know, after a certain period of time, five six, seven hours somewhere around there, I start getting this voice in the back of my head that starts getting me a little frustrated or you know, stressed out that you're not gonna find anything at all. You drove all the way to Iowa and you're not gonna come home with a single antler, blah blah blah. And it gets it's it gets a little bit hard sometimes to focus or stay positive. Um. And I don't think I'm the only one that feels that way. I've seen a lot of my other buddies get frustrated or stressed out if things aren't going their way. Um, Do either one of you guys have any advice for keeping keeping focused and having a positive attitude during shedding, Because if I found anything, it's that one of the most important things to be successful as a shed hunter is to maintain that positive attitude and focus because kind of just like deer hunting, right, it's it always seems to be right when you least expect it, when you've been going forever and haven't found anything and think you'll never find anything. If you end up being paying attention, that will be the chance you have to actually find the big one. I've found that to be true. Have either one of you guys internally developed some kind of way to just stay positive or or do you guys have the same issues I've had in the pastor probably just changing it up if you started getting getting down or having a bad streak. Usually just changing a change of scenery helps tremendously. But there's been times when you can walk certain properties and walcom and walk and walk on the deer side everywhere. It's so discouraging because you're not finding anything. And a lot of times the best thing to do is just change it up instead of, you know, to keep walking and and maybe it starts slacking on, you know, like you're searching and stuff like that, because i know I've I've gotten in, i know I've gotten bummed out and discourage a lot of times, and and I'm sure I've walked past a ton of sheds because of that. So I would always say, just change it up and just go somewhere else and do something different. That's a that's what I would usually do. Yeah, what about your doing? I'm always thinking about I'm I'm It's like in my brains running in at two different speeds. I have my shed hunting speed where I'm looking for the characteristics of an antler the entire time. But then I'm also start, you know, I start to look up in the sky, like I'm looking for trees to potentially if I see like a scraper. U I'm like, okay, well I'm gonna I start looking up and I I switched my focus from shed hunting to deer hunting. And then I got to refocused and be like, okay, well you've walked fifty yards with your head in the sky. You're not gonna find any you know, you're not gonna find anything or um or I you know, life is busy these days. So I start, you know, you're thinking about something that's completely not deer hunting or related. But I mean, that's one reason I really like shed hunting is for the pure fact to get outside, stretch your legs and just lose yourself and you're not you're not really thinking about anything for per se putting a lot of energy and thought process to one particular thing. It's just you're walking and it's almost like your zone and out. It's kind of therapeutic, exactly. Yeah, I you know, to to I number one, I've definitely done the same thing you've done. Dan. I always try to tell myself not to do that, because, like you said, it's it's really easy to walk by a shed if you're staring at rubs and trees for potential tree stands. But it's hard not to given the fact that you know where our brains are always turned to deer hunting mode, trying to think of whorse we hunt, whorse we hang, all that kind of stuff. Um. But another small thing that helps me sometimes is just taking not even necessarily changing scenery, although I agree with you Ross, I think that helps a lot. Also, just like taking a break, like if you're just like bumming out, like say, okay, you know, let's take fifteen minutes, sit on a log, have a snack during some water. Just even a small thing like that has a way of just kind of refocusing and putting a pet back in your step after just taking some time away from constantly scanning for sheds. And just joking with your buddies and stuff. Um, it always seems for me that I end up having that success after a little break like that just kind of gives me that extra burst, I suppose. So what what about you know, tips for just spotting sheds. I've heard a lot of different things, different types of advice for actually just being able to see these things. Um, do you have any any advice? Have you found anything to help you ross just in being able to see or spot more sheds? Man? I you know, I don't know. I just over the over the years, you just get get the hang of knowing what to look for. No, I don't know that I have like any advice for spotting them necessarily. UM, maybe Dan has some some are better ideas than I do. I think I would. I can't say in like the best at spotting sheds, you know, because then I kind of have a d D when I'm in the woods and Kendall's I've kind of even been standing next to sheds before when Kendall points them out at my feet, So if that that shows a thing, But I, I, uh, yeah, spotting sheds, I don't, I don't know. You can you can just take an antler with you. Sometimes you can throw it out in front of you and you can just kind of see how lands and get an idea of how it looks and stuff like that. And I know, I know Kendall and I have in the past, you know, even when we train our dogs, we'll put out I'll put up some sheds and Kendall will you know, she'll maybe but waiting with the dog, and then we'll let the work for him, and Kendall kind of has to get the hang of spotting them too. And or we'll throw the the shed out in front of us when we're walking and kind of get an idea of how it looks, and you can practice, you know, you know how ladies and spotting out in front of and stuff like that. But but I don't know. Besides that, I don't nor if I don't really have too many tips as far as spotting them, I would say, I don't know what about you, Dan, I just look for curves, like I don't know. It's hard, you know, it's it's I think it's more difficult when their times up trying to you know, it depends on where they're at, if they're in grass or but if you really look at the surrounding of where a shed falls, and if it's I guess big enough to where the times are sticking up, you'll notice that it doesn't match anything that surrounds it unless it's like a darker chocolate colored rack. I mean the lines of the shed or a little curved or or they got some kind of like smoothness roundness to it where everything else is completely flat or straight, or the grasses. You know, it never really nothing really in the timber grows really like curved or smooth. So for me, it's easier for me to find an antler with times down because that main beam um just really gives it away. But when it's time times up, it gives me, you know, a little bit more problems. But I still really, I still think that if you yeah, and it just takes it's one of those things where it just takes time time in years of experience doing it, that you can't beat. It's kind of like with with actually trying to spot deer. I always say, you know, as a young deer hunter, you know, I was out there trying to spot a whole deer. I'd be out there skanning the woods looking for an entire dear body, and that rarely, rarely ever happens. Many times it's actually you spot an ear, or you spot an eye, or you spot the white patch on a throat or a flick of a tail. It's all about spotting these little pieces of a deer or like the flat horizontal back of the deer that stands out within a forest. Um. And that's kind of how I approached shed hunting, like you kind of alluded to, Dan, It's about spotting the certain unique aspects of an antler that are different than the surroundings. So, like you said, the you know, the smoothness of an antler, or the unique curvature the antlers seem to have. Another thing that always stands out to me is like the parallel. You know, if you've got like a three point side where there's three times sticking up. You know, typically in nature you don't see something that has three things all kind of going at the same angle. Just like that. That kind of stands out for me. Um. So, yeah, that's definitely something I would recommend, is is trying to look for pieces and parts of antlers and uh, not necessarily focus on trying to see an entire antler, because lots of times you're just not gonna see that. It'll be, you know, something poking up over some leaves, or that you know, that little shine in the middle of a pile of brambles or whatever. Um another thing that hasn't well. I'm not sure if it's ever worked for me personally, but I've always tried it, and I know other people has worked. For our friend Peter Ross. One time we were out there shed hunting, the three of us and Corey and Kendall and maybe someone else um, and Peter walks in to a cornfield and hadn't seen anything, and then he said, hey, I'm gonna do that thing where I changed my perspective and he knelt down on the ground to look, and then all of a sudden, just by kneeling, he all of a sudden spotted the shed that he didn't see otherwise. So I think that's actually a good idea, just changing how you're looking at the area, like either getting up high on something or getting down low, or turning around and looking behind you. You know, you scanned the area walking forward and you didn't see anything, but if you turn around and look where you came from, sometimes you'll spot a shed that you wouldn't have seen going the other way. UM. So those are a few things I've seen. Help um just pick out some of those sheds that you might not normally find. But to to your point, Dan, a lot of it just comes down to experience and just developing that eye for it. It's it's becomes kind of, you know, uh, subconscious. You don't even think about it, just your brain instantly connects a certain shape or color to a shed and then before you know it, you you yell shed before you even really process the fact that there's an antler, it just happens. Bingo bengo, Bingo bengo. There's there's nothing better than than hearing someone yell out while you're shed hunting, or hopefully it's you find yelling out and seeing that ship that is that is an awesome feeling. So I don't know, Dan, do you have any other questions for Ross or any other shed hunting tips that we haven't covered yet that we should. It's it's not really I guess it's more of an You said your wife is pregnant right now? Yes, she is doing April okay? Is she? And is she still packing? On the miles with you right now. Oh yeah, she's yep, she's thirty three weeks and and uh, she's still walking with me. So we're gonna still try to get in as much as we can the next couple of weeks, the next few weeks, so she finds I mean, you've got to come over and pick him up for No, she doesn't. She does really well. She's she can't go quite as far as she used to, but she does pretty pretty well. So it's been a lot of fun. I'm glad she got to. She loves shed hunting as much as I do, so un glad she got to enjoy some of it so far this year. And I know that, I know the little one is going to going to be finding some sheds that at a very early age too. They'll be they'll be tagging along. That's gonna be one lucky kid. He or she is being born into a great white tail family. So I'm sure they're gonna enjoy some great shed hunting and deer hunting considering all the spots that you hunt and shed hunt. And I I certainly wouldn't mind being your kid, Ross, Will you adopt me? Yeah? So that's why I moved on over the love Deer. Yeah. And you you you could easily do that too, Mark. You know, I was just gonna say, I was just gonna say you never failed to mind me that I certainly couldn't move out there, which which I think about a lot, that's for sure. Just moved to north northwest Hella right there next to Minnesota, right, okay, yeah, really close, very right on the border. You can have both states perfect. Perfect. So so here's my final question for your Ross and and Youtuo Dan. Do you remember your best day of shed hunting ever? And if so, tell me about that day. Ross? Can you think of that? Do you have your best day top of mind? Yeah? The best day was I say, the best weekend was when you were down. That was awesome. That was an awesome wee can we we did awesome that weekend. The best day was last year, um kind of and I had this spot we called the Glory Hole. That good. It's awesome and uh so so isn't in a truck stop? Was it? But it's good? H So? Yeah, we last year. And I guess one of my tips to since this story has come up would be if people are looking for places to look for sheds. You don't think you have to be by timber. I don't think you have to be by any cover woods because gear travel a long ways at night sometimes and they'll even for some reason, I don't know exactly why, they'll bypass. There might be a timber where they're betting. They'll bet in that timber and they'll walk through, you know, a huge cornfield that has plenty of waste, plenty of corn, fined tafeeda. They'll travel through that cornfield to reach some different destination field. For some reason, they do it year after year after year, and I don't know why they do that. But there's the Glory Hole and it's in the middle of the middle of a couple of rows. There's no timber anywhere nearby. But just from getting to know the area of pretty well and and learning it um a lot of the deer travel proof. I mean they travel like a mile maybe even some of these deer traveling and further than that to get to this this cornfield. It's just like a destination corn field. So last year we walked it in the in the one afternoon. It was a great afternoon. It was sunny, which isn't ideal for fund sheds obviously, but it was it was warm, one of those days where it's in March and you'll still get a sunburned. And we walked and walked and walked, and uh, we just for picking up shed after shed after shed to the point where it got to be mid day. We had to walk back to the truck, dump all our sheds, eat some lunch, and then head back out, so we had some hands that were free and then have to carry as many things because the arms were getting tired, headed back out, picked up more sheds, and uh, that day we ended up finding fifteen in one day, and it was it was an awesome day and we had to put in our work for like we walked. I bet you man, I don't know how many miles we walked. UFI I walked eight miles. I would say it back and forth, all this stuff, but it was it was an awesome day. And uh, hopefully we're gonna walk the glory hole. We're gonna walk the glory hole next this coming Sunday, I think. And then um, it's beans though, but then the next year it's hopefully we'll repeat itself and it will be another good day So that was my That was my best day. How come Ross, how come you never take me in court of the glory hole? I don't know? Yeah, the only Yeah, okay, and I know you got your sponse. Oh yeah, you guys are more than what I'm gonna walk it Sunday, but you're more than We'll all welcome to walk it the second time. Okay, Okay? What about what about you? Dan? Do you have? Do you have a day that stands out above all the rest? Yeah? I tell you one of my best days I've ever pad was I left work at about two o'clock and it was probably in hour and a half shed hunt and it was this like a peninsula that sticks out into a corn field where the the deer come out of this this bigger chunk of timber and this peninsula kind of jets into a corn field. And I I only walked for probably an hour and a half and you know, got down there, got an hour and a half walk in before um I had to head back home because I was gonna shed hunt the entire next day. But I walked in and I found like my second or big second or third biggest shed I've ever found, and my biggest match shed, my biggest match set that I've ever found, both in the same same walk, within forty minutes of each other. And then I found one other smaller shed, but as far as most amount of inches and one walk that by far, I was like two thousand and thirteen. I think, nice, that's that's pretty good find some big ones like that. Yeah, so it was. It was a fun It was a fun day just because it was such a short walk. It was like boom, you know, ten fifty minutes later, boom, ten fifty minutes later. That that's awesome. Yeah, So I gotta gotta appreciate those days because they don't come too often for most of us at least, that's right. Yeah. I still haven't had any like crazy awesome day. Um. I think the most I've ever found in a day was one of those. Maybe that year two years ago with you Ross again, I think I think maybe I pulled like four or five that day. Um, that's probably my best day. But my my day with you Dan where I well, the day before I fell through the ice into a river, and then the next day I found my biggest show. That was a pretty good trip. That one stands out for me too, so yeah, good times, that's for sure. Well, uh, I'm thinking I'm thinking we should wrap this up so Ross, we appreciate you joining us here on the show to share your shed hunting expertise and all that. And uh, I hope one of these days that the three of us can get together and do a shed hunt at some point. Wouln't that be a good good idea? Sounds good to me? Oh yeah, of course, looking forward to to Uh, you guys coming down to here soon and get not walking and be a good time. Absolutely, I'm I'm looking for you know, but more more more for the rest of us. You never know, stuff up, Yeah, definitely, all right, Ross, Well, thanks so much. We'll we'll hopefully bring on next time after we all found a whole bunch of sheds on one of these trips in the future. Have a good one, Ross, alright, sounds good, I guess. All right. Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that conversation as much as we did. It was just a lot of fun talking sheds with Ross, and I gotta be honest, it's got me pretty fired up to start walking. So I'll actually be heading out this Saturday and I'm pretty pumped now. Before we do wrap things up, though, we need to pause very briefly for a word from our sponsors of this episode, Trophy Ridge, and I wanted to specifically mention a Trophy Ridge product, the static stabilizer, that I switched to a number of years ago and found to make a big difference. And really it's this idea of a stabilizer and what it can do for you that I wanted to mention here today. Now, if you're not already using some kind of stabilizer for your bow, this is something you really need to try, is it. It's a tool that can immediately improve your accuracy, and stabilizer does this by adding weight to certain sections of your bow that will result in holding your bow steadier and that will reduce the chances of you actually torking your bow to one side or the other. Now, I actually used a six inch stabilizer for a long time, but several years ago, while doing some reading, I learned about the benefits of a longer stabilizer. In particular, there was a study or a kind of field test by Field and Stream that showed that moving from a six inch stabilizer to a longer tenant stabilizer cut their long range groups in half. So with that in mind, I switched from a six inch to a nine inch static stabilizer by trophy Ridge, and I too, immediately saw improvements. So if you're looking for a very real way to improve your accuracy this year, try longer stabilizer. And if you're specifically interested in learning about the options from trophy Ridge, you can visit trophy ridge dot com. Now, with that, I think we will shut this whole thing down, So thank you everyone for tuning in, and of course we do need to thank the rest of our sponsors who helped make this podcast possible. So big thank you too, sick A Gear Bear Archery, Redneck Blinds, huntera Maps, Mosonic's Lacrosse Boots, and the White Tail Institute of North America. And finally, again, thank you all for joining us today. I wish you all the luck in the world on your next shedhouting trip, and until next time, stay Wired to Hunt.

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