This shed’s unique mass is complemented by unusual tines as well. (Photo courtesy of Rob Kennedy)
February 18, 2022
By Blake Garlock
Rob Kennedy is a die-hard shed hunter. He fixes fences and does other jobs to gain permission on properties so he can spend shed season scouring the landscape for freshly dropped sheds.
“It’s what I love to do,” says Rob. “My brothers and I live for it.”
In January, Rob watched a buck drop its antler in an oat field on a farm that he has permission to shed hunt on. Three days later, he and his daughter strapped on their snowshoes and headed out to try and match up the shed he watched drop. However, they did a lot better than just finding the matching antler.
Rob’s moose-like whitetail shed as it lay in the snow. (Photo courtesy of Rob Kennedy) “We were out in the field for maybe two and a half or three hours,” says Rob. “And we picked up a few. Then I noticed a shed lying about 200 yards away sitting on top of the snow.”
Rob walked toward the shed in the distance, and as he got closer, he thought, this will be the first moose paddle of the year. However, he soon walked up on the antler and saw it had a brow tine. What he thought was a moose shed turned out to be a unique whitetail’s antler!
“I thought, wow, this a unique one,” Rob recalls. “It’s not a huge antler, but it is so unique!”
Although Rob picked up the shed, he was out hunting with his daughter. Here, Rob’s daughter holds the shed, showing off all its unique traits. (Photo courtesy of Rob Kennedy) Rob has never seen the buck that carried the moose-like antler he found. But Rob has a friend who runs trail cameras south of where he picked up the shed; and his friend has trail camera pictures of the buck from this past season. Interestingly enough, Rob found the shed roughly three miles from where his friend received trail camera pictures of the buck.
The palmated shed was Rob and his daughter’s sixth shed of the day. In total, Rob found 21 sheds in January.
For more shed hunting stories, keep following along with North American Whitetail’s Just Dropped campaign through shed season.
