Well everyone, after what seems like a terribly long winter, spring is right around the corner and my wife & I have scooped up some nice antlers.  It took forever for the snow to melt, but we've been putting in the miles in an attempt to find that whopper antler that's laying out in the grass somewhere.  While shed season isn't anywhere close to finished for us, I have a feeling the largest shed that will be found this year was scooped up by my wife.

I've waited nine months for this.  Nine ....long.....months.  After my final shed hunt of 2012 this past April, I was already looking forward to my next one.  And here we are, it's late January, and "the time" has come.  I plan on taking you with me along my journey and many miles of walking throughout the winter months, and you'll get to experience my triumphs and dejections of shed hunting.  This blog will give you a little glimpse into one of my biggest passions and set the stage for more shed postings as the month of February progresses.

I hope this blog finds you all in good health and hopefully you have just finished up a great hunting season. For most of us hardcore whitetail hunters, we are already wishing season wasn't over and that we could still be in a treestand. If you guys are like me, you're always looking for a way to get back into the woods. With shed season right around the corner for most of us, we may be wanting to locate some of the bucks we watched throughout the season and to find their sheds. This time of year is when I really like to have my cameras out. I like to keep a close eye on the bucks that evaded me during the season, and, to me, there isn't a better way to keep track of those bucks than with a trail camera and a standing crop field.  I will also put out grain or alfalfa bales to draw deer in to an area during the cold winter months.

There's nothing I like more than a deer hunting success story...especially when it involves friends of mine.  For this two-part blog series, I've chosen to write about the amazing season experienced by the Glasgow family.  If you want an inspiring deer hunting adventure that's filled with every twist and turn imaginable, then read on.....

"Mature bucks are nature's ultimate survival machines."  I've used that saying for years, and, other than perhaps a wily old coyote, I think it pretty much holds true and they stand atop the list of nature's wariest animals.  We obsess over them, hunt them, and every once in awhile, we're lucky enough to kill one and drag him to our truck.  But the vast majority of mature bucks are survivalists, and they don't make many mistakes.  But why exactly is that?  I'm going to offer my own insight and, hopefully, answer that question.

If any of you have ever hunted over a late season food source, you know what I mean about it being a hotspot! Three years ago on the farm I hunt, I suggested we plant soybeans and not harvest them so the deer have a place to feed late season when the weather gets tough.  The only problem we faced was where we were going to plant them.  All of our fields were currently being farmed.  After thinking about it, we decided that after the wheat was harvested, we would drill beans into the wheat stubble just as farmers do when they double crop their fields to get more profit, but for us hunters, instead of profit, we have a late season whitetail hotspot.  The beans weren't the greatest and were maybe 20 bushel to the acre, but we had a seven acre field that seemed to be a magnet come late season.  Mid December it turned cold.  It was one of the coldest Decembers I can remember in the last 10 years.  The snow flew several times a week and took a huge toll on the whitetails' health.  The deer that were on our farm seemed to be in great health with all the food that was available to them.