The next place Terry took us was to a cornfield down the road from his house. Sheds are hard to see in cornfields because the remaining stalks of the harvest camouflage the field with antler-like shapes and colors. Terry found one shed, and all of a sudden Roger and the dogs started finding sheds like crazy. I was still searching hard for my first find. After two to three hours of searching, the only thing that turned up was an extra-large jackrabbit. As we headed back to the truck, I still had not found one shed in that field.

The wind was blowing about 30 mph, making the temperature feel like it was below zero.

The dogs seem to love the cold, though, and they came in with another 10 sheds. Terry spotted some hay bales that looked as though they might have provided a good windbreak for wintering deer, so we hunted that area and came up with another seven sheds. After dinner we took the dogs out for their evening free roam, and they brought Roger two more sheds. That brought our total for the day up to 27.

Marc's Diary -- April 3, 2007:

Second day's hunt, 10 degrees

Terry pointed us towards an abandoned farm where we found six sheds. It was amazing -- the dogs worked in this cold weather with so much excitement that it gave us the drive to continue on. We then headed to an old apple orchard where Ayla dug up a nice skull and rack in a windrow. Unfortunately, we could not touch the prize that Ayla found; it's against Canadian law to take anything with a skull attached.

There was an abundance of thick cover and brush that would have made it very difficult at best to find any sheds without the dog's skill at being able to locate them. After lunch we headed to a very large area with even more brush and forest. Roger's pit bull Porter came back with two. Then a matched set was spotted, and the dogs quickly retrieved them as well.

Our next location was in a farmer's cornfield. Between the humans and the dogs, we found five more sheds in short order. On the way back to the truck, I stepped right over another antler, and I realized how easy it would be to miss others if not for the keen noses of the dogs. By the time we reached the truck, the dogs brought in a couple more, and we had a grand total of 19 for the day. But the best was yet to come!

Marc's Diary -- April 4, 2007:

Third day's hunt, minus 5 degrees

By now, word had gotten out about what we were doing, and many of the local farmers wanted us to rid their fields of antlers because those sharp tines have a sneaky way of ending up in $800 to $3,000 tractor tires. Roger had talked to one of the farmers during breakfast, and he learned about some more grain piles and fields where the deer had been feeding and wintering.

We stopped for a quick peek into a hollow just east of the co-op to check it out. I found one antler next to a tree and one in the grass. It was just the way we liked to start our day!

Next we went to an old farm with a 5-acre field surrounded by aspen trees. Roger and Ayla found one antler in the bush and another in the tall grass.

From there we were directed to another farm where a number of deer had wintered because of the excellent food, water and shelter it had provided. I found two sheds in the woods where the deer had bedded next to some grain bins and farm equipment. Terry found one while riding on his three-wheeler.

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