Two Brothers' Shed Hunting Strategy Yields Non-Typical Match Set in Missouri

Mike Cherry leases land for whitetail hunting in Western Missouri. For the last four years, Mike has been hunting a buck that he and his brother, Tim, named “Stickers,” because of his unique antler characteristics. However, Mike has never received any trail camera pictures of the elusive buck in the daylight.

“He’s been pretty much nocturnal,” says Mike. “I found half of his rack last year, and it seems like his antlers get more unique each year. This past season he added a tine coming off the back of his antler.”

During the first weekend of February, Mike and Tim headed out to their lease to do some shed hunting. When the brothers shed hunt together, they like to use a simple strategy to ensure they don’t miss many sheds.

“It’s just like rabbit hunting,” says Mike. “We take three or four guys and fan out about 15 feet from each other. Then we walk the property like it’s a grid. If someone finds a shed, we search around where that shed was to try and find the other side.”

Mike and Tim were hunting this way during their trip to the lease. While they were grid searching, Mike heard his brother call out: “Mike, I found him!”

Tim had found Stickers’ shed, and after celebrating with his brother, Mike turned to begin looking for the matching side.

“Not even 15 yards away I found the other side,” Mike recalls. “That’s happened a few times with Tim and I.”

Mike and Tim have applied their grid strategy with success in other areas, too. On one particular hunt, they were grid searching on public ground and picked up a 200-inch match set.

For more shed hunting stories, keep following along with North American Whitetail’s Just Dropped campaign through shed season.

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