Show Notes
Join Brian Krebs and Christopher Rowan as they share their passion for shed hunting in this engaging podcast episode. Hear thrilling stories of finding antlers, family competitions, and the clever role of dogs in the hunt. They explore the impact of farming on shed hunting strategies, the ethics of trespassing, and the unique challenges of hunting in different states. Get inspired by tales of adventure, including a snake-infested house encounter, and learn about personal antler collections and big shed discoveries. The episode wraps up with a discussion on outdoor entrepreneurship, highlighting how sharing knowledge through podcasting brings the shed hunting community together.
Whether you're a seasoned hunter or curious about this growing outdoor hobby, this episode offers insights, laughs, and inspiration for every listener!
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Show Transcript
Brian Krebs (00:00.307)
fuzzy, but it should keep uploading in the background.
Christopher (00:03.607)
Alright, that's fine. Sometimes it tends to do that.
Brian Krebs (00:08.433)
Otherwise, if it does not work, we'll just turn off the video. Let's see, all right, looks good.
Christopher (00:12.214)
Alrighty.
Christopher (00:17.212)
Alrighty.
Brian Krebs (00:19.637)
Welcome back to another Western Rookie podcast brought to you by Go Hunt. I'm your host Brian Krebs and tonight I've got my good buddy Christopher Rowan. That's pronounced that right? I feel like I just asked you and then I automatically forgot. Perfect. So Christopher and I, met, man, five years ago maybe? You were a lot shorter when we met.
Christopher (00:33.026)
No, you got it.
Christopher (00:41.842)
or six years ago.
Brian Krebs (00:43.805)
Yeah, we met at shed camp, which is kind of a weird way to meet somebody, but, both Christopher and I were shed hunting, a pretty cool farm. and we've talked about it in the podcast before, so we're not going to blow any secrets, but we was the Brown farms that we shed hunted down in South Dakota together. Just met up one weekend, started finding antlers. and then we saw each other a few years in a row down there at Browns.
Christopher (01:04.695)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (01:13.701)
And it's been a minute. It's been a minute since we've shed hunted together. Have you guys been going back every year since we first met?
Christopher (01:21.429)
Yep, and we were just out there about two weeks ago or so. were thermal coyote hunting and pheasant hunting.
Brian Krebs (01:30.075)
Wow, at the same kind of area that we shed hunt.
Christopher (01:34.817)
Kinda yeah, yeah. Just everywhere.
Brian Krebs (01:37.233)
Nice. Nice. So would you say that you guys are more deer hunters, shed hunters, or like bird hunters and coyote hunters?
Christopher (01:51.596)
I don't know, personally I'm more of a shed hunter. But I do love late muzzleloader hunting around Iowa. That's fun to me. But it does get a little cold sometimes.
Brian Krebs (02:04.328)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (02:10.235)
Yeah, it's especially can get cold. It's a good season. That's like the end of December. But when I think of you and your brother and your dad and your uncle, I feel like I've met very few people that find more white tail sheds than than your family.
Christopher (02:13.854)
Yeah.
Christopher (02:28.767)
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess I never really thought of it that way. Because, I don't know. I've never really met anybody that found as many horns as us, don't mean because I know there's people out there that find them any, but that last year was a rough year, though. The deer weren't as grouped up and I just don't know what happened. It was it was a rough year last year, but
Brian Krebs (02:43.453)
Yeah.
Christopher (02:59.69)
I don't know, the year previous to that, what was it? think we ended up, cause we did a little in Iowa, well a lot in Iowa, and we found somewhere around 70 or 80 in Iowa, and then we went to South Dakota and I wasn't expecting the amount that we would find, but in one day we ended up coming back with 61 horns
And then we were there for two days. The total trip we found 102 horns in two days. That was the best I've ever done.
Brian Krebs (03:36.873)
That is incredible. does that, that's probably not even including your uncle's sheds, right? Cause doesn't your uncle go out and find a ton.
Christopher (03:44.849)
No, that was just me, my dad and my brothers. And I think my uncle that year was up around, we beat my uncle actually that year. So we kind of do a little competition between the family members and see who can find the most. And that year, my uncle found right on the dot.
Brian Krebs (04:01.149)
Okay.
Christopher (04:13.833)
200 maybe or something like that and we were at like 264 something like that for like the total year but yeah that was a pretty amazing year
Brian Krebs (04:16.849)
Wow.
Brian Krebs (04:28.807)
Yeah, last winter we didn't get any snow, not even up here in Minnesota we didn't hardly get any snow. I shed hunted a little bit, didn't find any sheds, just around home. Yeah, I found more dead heads actually than I found sheds, which sucks. I think one of them was super old, like chalk almost, the other one was a buck that I had on camera. So I don't know if he got shot.
Christopher (04:38.013)
This
Just a mild winter.
Christopher (04:45.82)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (04:56.443)
And he just didn't confound it. was in the wide open though. I don't know how you don't find that buck, but I didn't shed hunt like I usually do, man. Like I, we bought a farm, we bought a 40 acre farmstead and moved last year. And so we've just been busy with projects. I want to get back into shed hunting this year.
Christopher (05:08.048)
Yeah, I seen that.
Christopher (05:14.417)
See, I don't know, any time since I'm 17 now and stuff, just have bit more time whenever I'm not working. yeah, whenever I'm not working, me and my brother, I'll go out and we'll either spot deer, if it's deer season yet, or we'll go out and look for sheds, because I got a window mount for my spot and scope and we can just glass over our whole farm and.
Brian Krebs (05:23.398)
Yeah, now that you can drive.
Christopher (05:42.861)
anywhere where we have permission and stuff without having to walk in right away because nobody else really has permission on what we do around here so I guess that's a benefit of it.
Brian Krebs (05:47.177)
Mm-hmm.
Brian Krebs (05:55.345)
Yeah. Do you do you and your family farm like row crop farm? Is that the main thing?
Christopher (06:04.998)
Yeah, so I don't know We have about 310 320 acres in total and We have about 60 or 70 or 80 acres of hay Elf alpha and then we have like 20 acres of grass hay and then the rest of it's all row crop and then We have a renter
Brian Krebs (06:26.578)
Christopher (06:35.107)
that rents out our farm and stuff and he rents quite a bit of land and we always love helping him out and stuff so we're always busy farming and stuff around here and I got plenty of friends to help too so
Brian Krebs (06:45.609)
Mm.
Brian Krebs (06:50.652)
Yeah.
Yeah, and I feel like people, like farmers especially, or anyone that works closely to farmers have like that leg up on finding permission ground. Cause you help people and you get permission. You know everyone. I have a friend that's a dealer, John Deere dealer, and he also finds a ton of shed hunting properties. He's probably the only one that gets close to you guys and he's found a lot back in the day. He had like,
Christopher (07:05.378)
Yeah, because I kind of know everybody too, yeah.
Christopher (07:14.087)
yeah.
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (07:22.653)
when he was, he said he was moving and he put all of his antlers in a storage unit and someone broke into it and stole like thousands of antlers.
Christopher (07:27.499)
god.
Christopher (07:31.209)
That'd suck.
Brian Krebs (07:34.545)
Yeah, luckily he had a he has like two years I think of match sets off a 200 inch buck and then the dead head off of him and he didn't put that in there. He kept that at home so he still has that. He's like that's the only one I care about.
Christopher (07:43.981)
See ya.
Christopher (07:49.636)
About, yeah, yeah, 200 inches, it takes a lot to get there. It does. Yeah. So, about two years back or so we had a neighbor. So we, we have a cabin up in Northern Iowa and we like going up there whenever we can, I guess. And, the neighbor shot this buck in the hind quarters with a bow.
Brian Krebs (07:54.641)
Yeah, especially in Minnesota.
Brian Krebs (08:06.828)
Mm-hmm.
Christopher (08:19.811)
and we had sheds off of him the year before and he scored 189 or something like that and
Brian Krebs (08:30.098)
Wow.
Christopher (08:32.035)
So he shot him in the hindquarters with the bow and then he disappeared the day before first season in shotgun and we ended up finding him dead shed hunting that year and he scored like
Brian Krebs (08:40.968)
Mm-hmm.
Christopher (08:50.658)
209 and three quarters I think and we got him officially scored and he went like second in second or somewhere between four to second in Iowa for that year. Yeah, he was a big one.
Brian Krebs (09:03.824)
Wow.
Brian Krebs (09:07.571)
Do you, did he, did he shed or like is he still as a euro?
Christopher (09:14.957)
so he was he was still as a year old but then we ended up My uncle ended up shooting another pretty decent buck this year or that year and He took the cape off but and ended up getting that as a Yeah shoulder mouth, yeah Then we hung it over
Brian Krebs (09:27.015)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (09:36.147)
putting it on the big one. Yeah, that'd be cool. Man, that's so cool. That's so big. I was, what was it? wow. That's pretty cool. What are some of the, what's the biggest shed you've found so far? And was it in Iowa or was it in South Dakota?
Christopher (09:43.391)
the fireplace in our cabin. We hung it over the...
Christopher (09:55.783)
God, we found so many beghorns throughout the years. think...
Last year might have been the year where I found my biggest personally. Me and my brother were walking. Funny story actually, we walked like nine miles in like two or three hours or so and we were covering some ground but we weren't finding nothing. We hit a pocket of like a couple small bucks wintering together.
Brian Krebs (10:37.097)
Mm-hmm.
Christopher (10:37.256)
in a cedar thicket, then we go to walk back to the truck. 100 yards from the truck there's this guy's pond, landowner's pond and he mows the grass around the pond all year long and stuff and I shouldn't say all year long but
Brian Krebs (10:47.037)
Mm-hmm.
Christopher (11:00.573)
I go to cross the fence and I'm like, is that a tree branch sticking up? And it was just, it was a hundred and eighty inch, a hundred and eighty something inches laying side by side, not even five feet apart in the guy's cut grass around his pond. It was nuts.
Brian Krebs (11:21.981)
That's the craziest like match set find like that big and they're both right there. Like you don't have to go looking for them at all, match them up. That's awesome, dude. Do you find a lot of them like that? Do you find a lot of match sets? Like how often do you match up a shed? Do you feel like, it doesn't have to be perfect. Like do you match up most of them that you guys find? And how often is it like right next to each other?
Christopher (11:28.316)
Yeah.
Christopher (11:33.168)
No kidding. And then...
Christopher (11:45.694)
Depends on the farm we're hunting, know, because like some deer like to travel a ways before they drop their next their other horn but We have found quite a few match sets over the year I'd say it's a little more difficult to find the match side and the biggest problem we have around here is squirrels and they just chew everything to pieces but yeah
Brian Krebs (11:56.104)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (12:06.025)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (12:14.269)
Yeah. That's the nice thing about South Dakota. None of those bones get chewed on. I think I've got, it's on that wall. I don't know if you can see it, but it's, it's like right off the screen is that big eight point busted shed that you have. Yeah.
Christopher (12:17.659)
Yeah, exactly.
Christopher (12:26.885)
Nope. I know what you're talking about. I got mine right here. Yup.
Brian Krebs (12:32.007)
That's the other side. Yeah, I think that was the year after. Like mine's an old, mine's a hard white and then you found the fresh. And you guys have the match set for that one, right? Yeah.
Christopher (12:41.294)
Yeah, yeah we get them. Well, you have the matching side to it.
Brian Krebs (12:46.652)
you have a like you have a hard white and a fresh.
Christopher (12:47.74)
I have a hard white and a fresh and I think you have the other side of the fresh one.
Brian Krebs (12:57.033)
No, I don't think mine's fresh. Here, I'll go grab it quick. I'm pretty sure this one was hard white. Maybe it is fresh. I don't know.
yeah, it was fresh. It's fresh, just busted.
Christopher (13:07.044)
Yeah. Yeah. See, mine's busted too, but mine would have been bigger because it was a 5 point. Yours was a 4 point.
Brian Krebs (13:16.135)
Yeah, I don't know. It depends on how long this would have gone. Because yours is busted up too. But this is like the longest. This I think this is probably the longest G2 or the longest time I've ever found a shed off of.
Christopher (13:29.67)
See, either this one is the biggest one that I've found in South Dakota, or I'd say,
Brian Krebs (13:36.777)
Mm-hmm.
Christopher (13:41.593)
The first year we were out there, you were there that year, and it was in the Derby. Me and Dad found like a 60-something inch four-point side or a 70-something inch four-point side. That I have laying up in my room, but my gosh, it was a big one, especially for a four-point.
Brian Krebs (13:49.096)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (14:03.977)
Yeah, that's a big shed. I was trying to find a soft tape. I usually have a soft tape in here, but it must be in the other room. I was gonna measure this. With a hard tape, I got 13 and a half. 13 and a half inch G2.
Christopher (14:18.842)
See, I don't... Mine might be like 11 or 12 maybe. I don't know.
Brian Krebs (14:25.417)
Yeah, it's a big buck. I mean, it's 150 for sure. Maybe you want 60 depending on how it busted all up. Were you guys there the year that that guy found the 88 and a half? The day I think it was the day before the Derby.
Christopher (14:29.973)
yeah.
He might go on 60.
Christopher (14:40.12)
Yeah, yeah that was... Yeah that was nuts, the dog ended up picking that up. my...
Brian Krebs (14:47.653)
Yeah, that's a good one for a dog to find too. You guys don't use dogs, right? No.
Christopher (14:50.648)
Yeah. No, we see around here, Coon are getting so bad. We just run Coon dogs and stuff, but we don't own our own personally. And then we got some friends with pheasant dogs. So we run pheasant dogs every now and then too.
Brian Krebs (15:00.606)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (15:09.565)
I'm surprised you don't have like a dog training company. You would have so many antlers to train shed dogs and then you would have like a lot of opportunity to like test them out because you're always finding sheds too.
Christopher (15:15.233)
That, that'd be cool. Yep.
Christopher (15:26.531)
See, now you're throwing me on ideas here.
Brian Krebs (15:29.735)
Yeah. Cause I have a shed dog, but I find, I'd probably say I find 80 % of them first and then he picks them up. Yeah. But every now and then he'll find a, he's found a giant eight that I would have never found. He found, he dove into a snowbank one year and pulled the shed out.
Christopher (15:35.947)
Old Grizz.
Christopher (15:48.758)
I think the one year we were in South Dakota, he found one I think too.
Brian Krebs (15:55.901)
Yeah, he found a couple that year. He usually finds a couple every year. It's just, I still see most of them first, but that's because we hunt like out West. I find most of my sheds in the Dakotas where I can see more. If I was hunting more timber, it probably find like he'd find more. So.
Christopher (16:02.559)
Ahem.
Christopher (16:13.12)
Yeah. See, out in South Dakota, because they had world champion Shed Dogs there the one year.
Brian Krebs (16:21.511)
Yeah, those guys were like, they were NASHDA guys.
Christopher (16:25.192)
Yeah, they were hardcore into that stuff, but the only reason why we won against them is because out in South Dakota there's so many sense between the porcupines and all the pheasants that just throws those dogs off in that wind. We got so lucky. I think that's what did it to the dogs.
Brian Krebs (16:46.609)
Yeah. Well, that property is kind of goofy. It's so big. Like, people don't realize how big that property really is. And it's very seasonal.
Christopher (16:51.255)
Yeah. Well, it's what? Yeah, it's 8700 acres. yeah. And he said it took like, what, 32 or 34 hours to make one pass all the way around the farm.
Brian Krebs (17:00.979)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (17:11.465)
Yeah, the headland lap, you said took like 37 hours, going five miles an hour. It's crazy because there's so many draws, but it, it, the crop rotation can make things really different. And I think the year, like I won, I just got lucky and went on like a good crop rotation. And I found, I think I took 19 sheds. And then the year you guys won, you went to a whole different place where I had never been actually before.
Christopher (17:20.407)
You
Christopher (17:25.557)
Yeah.
Christopher (17:31.498)
Yeah.
Christopher (17:38.646)
And I found like 27 sheds.
Brian Krebs (17:41.809)
Yeah, I think you guys just had a really good food source on that side, but all the guys with the dogs were with me. Like I was constantly running into these guys with three like world champion dogs a piece. Like this isn't fun.
Christopher (17:45.354)
Well, yeah.
Christopher (17:52.79)
Well, I think the year we won, that was in corn.
Brian Krebs (17:58.961)
Yeah, and winter wheat, right? Didn't you guys have a lot in winter wheat?
Christopher (18:01.366)
Corn and winter wheat the second year. There was some winter wheat that year but I don't know we didn't really pay attention to that because we didn't figure anything but everything that we noticed out there was the deer were always after that corn.
Brian Krebs (18:05.271)
that was the second ear.
Brian Krebs (18:14.472)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (18:18.075)
Mm-hmm. It's just no-till corn. It's not like it's standing corn. Yeah. Yeah, we've done good on corn. I haven't been for the last couple years busy with a bunch of different things. The year with all the four-wheelers though, that kind of made me mad.
Christopher (18:22.026)
Yeah.
Christopher (18:31.785)
Well yeah, you got that really me too. We watched a guy go full bore through the field and roll a coyote. was something we've never seen before, but sure.
Brian Krebs (18:47.817)
Hebrew and over a coyote.
Christopher (18:49.394)
Yeah, you rolled a coyote in the middle of the field going wide open. That was nuts.
Brian Krebs (18:54.589)
That's hilarious. Yeah. I had a guy that cut me off and I was so mad about it. And then I took like 10 steps and I, there's a big 10 point or a five by five, five point shed that he just drove right past. like, well, I guess it doesn't matter if they're that bad at shed hunting anyway. I would love to use a Ranger to shed hunt that property, but imagine if you had like private access and you could spend like a week covering it.
Christopher (18:59.156)
Thank you.
Cough Cough
Christopher (19:09.352)
Yeah, exactly.
Christopher (19:18.228)
See that's the thing, the new outfitters, they don't really want to mess with the shed hunting. So we were talking, we got talking to the owner of the whole farm ordeal and he just said come on out.
Brian Krebs (19:22.332)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (19:33.886)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (19:39.357)
Yeah, because they don't want them in their tires.
Christopher (19:41.007)
No, exactly. He said thank you for all you guys do because you save them. We save them lot of hard times and stuff. actually I'm talking to him about possibly going out and working for him this spring.
Brian Krebs (19:57.523)
doing some custom stuff or just hired hand for the farm. Yeah, it's really easy when you're that big to be a driver because you just turn on auto track.
Christopher (19:58.791)
Yep. Hired to hand, yep.
Christopher (20:07.714)
Mm-hmm. I don't know about the Derby place though. They were saying that there's so many ravines down that place that It's just a pain
Brian Krebs (20:16.849)
Yeah. Yeah. I remember the first year, the year before I met you guys, it was a really crappy rainy day and it was a super wet spring. And so he said like, Hey, you guys can't really drive anywhere. And me and another guy that I kind of knew from North Dakota had like not crazy trucks, like high, taller trucks, bigger tires. And he's like, if you two guys want it, like you've been here before, you've both been here before.
Christopher (20:35.026)
Eugh.
Christopher (20:40.794)
Yeah.
Christopher (20:45.581)
Exactly.
Brian Krebs (20:45.723)
If you guys want to get back in there, go for it. And so we went back in there and it was like driving sideways the whole way in mud. It was pretty bad. And so I had to walk and then we could, we couldn't go off road at all. Absolutely. Like couldn't drive through any fields because it was, you'd sink. And so I walked across like two miles of a mud cornfield to just get to the ravines. And I did 18 miles total. But when I got done, I was like late.
Christopher (20:52.55)
Mm-hmm.
Christopher (21:13.968)
Mm-hmm.
Brian Krebs (21:14.023)
It was like, you know how they say like, Hey, we'll meet back at three o'clock or whatever. Cause they have to, they just have to draw time. So everyone knows when to come back. So it's fair. And so I'm like, man, I'm running out of kind of going late and my phone died. And so I don't know what time it is, but I know I'm running out of time. And so I get back and I finally come out of this ravine and I'm standing in this huge field that it's the same field is on every skyline. And I'm like, I think my truck's over there.
Christopher (21:17.765)
or seven.
Yeah.
Amen.
Christopher (21:30.693)
that.
Christopher (21:39.344)
Yeah.
Christopher (21:43.226)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (21:44.009)
And I'm looking and I'm like scanning the horizon with my binoculars and I see like a little glimmer and I'm like, nah, that can't be it. That's way too far away. And I keep looking and I'm like, man, I can't see my truck. And all of a I like look at them like, damn, that is my truck. And it was like, it was small in the binos even. I mean, it was like two miles away and I had a pack full of antlers and like every step just sank in the mud. It was awful.
Christopher (22:00.654)
Uh-huh.
Christopher (22:08.24)
It's never good when you're that far away from the truck.
Brian Krebs (22:11.611)
No, I was so late. I had to turn my phone on and they're like, yeah, we're already back at camp. I was about ready to come back and try to find you.
Christopher (22:18.497)
You know what was bad? The year, because you stopped going eventually because you went to, you started going to Arizona and stuff. yeah, for elk sheds. that year it was all in winter wheat and stuff. So we found out where the deer were. They were all out in the winter wheat bedding and stuff. Because they had cover crop there all winter, so they were eating out of there.
Brian Krebs (22:28.616)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (22:45.736)
Yeah.
Christopher (22:45.752)
So we were just driving down through the winter wheat fields finding all kinds of horns. think we had... We were at... 19 horns was the most and I think it was my... my dad. No, it was my brother who had 19. And Then it started downpouring and hailing. And someone ended up getting stuck but we barely made it out of there.
We started spinning and it was bad.
Brian Krebs (23:17.915)
Yeah, that is kind of bad. Yeah, that's so that's the only downside is if it's wet out there, it's almost impossible to drive around. But yeah, I like it. I want to go back. I'd have to get in with you guys and just talk to the owner of the ranch and and go out. Yeah, meet back up with you guys and because there's so many farms that I think it could just be so much fun to just take like three, four days and.
Christopher (23:24.991)
Yeah.
Christopher (23:33.708)
yeah, that'd be fun.
Christopher (23:41.229)
Exactly, see that's what dad was thinking we can take one day and do all the farms on the east side and then we take two or three days and do Derby and snake pit and then and I found out why it's called the snake pit
Brian Krebs (23:49.234)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (23:55.965)
Mm-hmm.
Brian Krebs (24:00.873)
Is there a bunch of snakes? Did you find the snakes?
Christopher (24:03.895)
So we were sitting there talking to the owner and he gives Cody a $100 bill and says, I've only given one of these types of $100 bills to three or two people, my daughter and my son. And I'm giving this to you because I think you have a lot of potential and you're a good kid and have a good future ahead of you. And then we ask about the snake pit.
and he goes the reason why it's called the snake pit is because I was just a teenager and I was starting to get in to the farm with dad and he wanted me to go live there because that was one of our main setups back in the day and
Brian Krebs (24:42.536)
Yeah.
Christopher (24:53.1)
He goes to the house, opens the door, and the whole house is just filled with gardener snakes. In the plumbing everywhere. He couldn't take a shower, and his dad actually made him sleep there that night.
Brian Krebs (25:02.505)
Ugh.
Brian Krebs (25:10.621)
This is dad newt. His dad knew it was full of snakes.
Christopher (25:13.373)
Just a house full of dead snakes. Just-
Brian Krebs (25:17.395)
they're all dead or they're alive. gross.
Christopher (25:18.837)
They're all dead, but they're all through the plumbing and everything. And he never stayed there again, he said. He said, that house needs to get pushed in a pile.
Brian Krebs (25:25.533)
That's disgusting.
Brian Krebs (25:30.205)
Did they ever do it?
Christopher (25:31.463)
No, not yet. They're got... No, I didn't. I don't even want to try, because there's raccoons, feces everywhere, and...
Brian Krebs (25:33.449)
Did you go in there to see if there's any more snakes?
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (25:44.273)
Yeah, that house is pretty rough shape. I remember we ate lunch in front of it one day. Yeah.
Christopher (25:49.01)
So here's the thing. No, it wasn't last year. Yeah, it was last year actually. I went with my best friend, my dad, and my brother, and we went all the way down through where you did, all the way down to the highway.
Brian Krebs (26:04.2)
Mm-hmm.
Brian Krebs (26:12.547)
on the south side of the property.
Christopher (26:14.843)
I- We were- We were like 10 miles down in.
Brian Krebs (26:21.384)
Okay.
Christopher (26:22.417)
and we had to get 10 miles out. did that the year before too. But yeah, the owner knows where they're wintering this year. So he let us in on that. So now we know exactly where the Elkhorns are going to be. hopefully I can get on my first Elkhorn. That'd be cool. But the year before that we were
Brian Krebs (26:26.865)
Is that where you're trying to find elk sheds? Yeah. Okay. I know what you're talking.
Brian Krebs (26:39.12)
Nice, nice.
Brian Krebs (26:45.309)
Yeah.
Christopher (26:50.761)
10 miles down in there and like crap I forgot my backpack and all my shed lanyards and we were 10 miles down in and I had 27 horns this was the day where we found 61 horns in a day or whatever we found like 40 horns down in there
and we all forgot our backpacks and shedline yards. We had to carry them out in a pile in our arms.
Brian Krebs (27:24.133)
that's disgusting because it's like, it's not steep, steep, but it's a long uphill.
Christopher (27:25.221)
Yeah, it-
Yeah, it was a long ways out.
Brian Krebs (27:33.511)
Wow, yeah. So that was a good question. So when do you put on a pack versus when do you just run around with like a little paracord lanyard?
Christopher (27:48.719)
I'd say around Iowa our walks are just a couple miles, like four or five, so I just wear a pack for that. Bring some snacks and toilet paper and whatnot. South Dakota, that's a little easier walking, more wide open. Sometimes I carry a lanyard, sometimes I carry a backpack. Depends on where we're going. If we go down in a ranch land,
Brian Krebs (27:55.752)
Mm-hm.
Christopher (28:17.998)
Normally I'll carry my pack with me. I like to sit back and glass and take my time through that stuff, but I don't know if we're normally walking I'll definitely be just carrying a lane. You're just take off some weight.
Brian Krebs (28:21.598)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (28:35.377)
Yeah, just to basically just to hold them because you can't hold that many in one hand. Yeah, I'm kind of the same way out in South Dakota. Like if you can, if I'm like doing crop stuff where I could drive a truck, I usually don't get too concerned because as far as it's like a mile and you've you can just make a pile and drive your truck across the field and go pick them up if you have to. But yeah, I've always kind of debated that. I quit bringing my pack like in Minnesota because all the font that's just so small and it's like
Christopher (28:39.79)
Yeah, exactly.
Christopher (28:50.086)
Mm-hmm.
Christopher (28:55.216)
Yeah.
Christopher (29:02.426)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (29:04.733)
You know, our family farms, we don't find a lot of sheds.
Christopher (29:07.246)
Yeah, well it's like little groups of them like four or five here and there and you know.
Brian Krebs (29:13.671)
Yeah, well here on our farms, think most years we don't find a shed on our farms. Like they just don't winter on our farms.
Christopher (29:19.045)
really?
gotcha.
Brian Krebs (29:23.591)
So if we do, it's like I've never not found, I've never found too many to carry.
Christopher (29:25.625)
cough cough
See, I don't know. Our farm's getting to the point where it's kind of the glory land for the deer. Where,
Brian Krebs (29:35.89)
Yeah.
Christopher (29:40.537)
So one lady paid two million, two or three million dollars for 87 acres because it was her, her grandparents' farm or her ancestors' farm or this or that. And she planted it in sunflowers or wild flowers or whatever and it grew up in weeds. So it's like 10 year now basically. So all the deer are getting ginormous and
Brian Krebs (29:59.528)
Yeah.
Christopher (30:08.32)
Nobody hunts around us besides two neighbors and we throw out food plots and stuff for our deer and stuff and we have deer feeders most year round whenever we're not hunting. And they kind of tend to like to hunt on our fence lines and stuff sometimes so we kind of have a problem with that sometimes or like some years we have trespassers even so it gets...
Brian Krebs (30:15.527)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (30:31.389)
Yeah.
Christopher (30:36.577)
Which that's the nice part about having cameras and neighbors that can tell you what's going on and this and that. Like, we're reasonable about people going in and dragging a deer out and stuff, but... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it does.
Brian Krebs (30:40.467)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (30:50.513)
Right. The shed trespassing gets me really upset.
You could almost count that like if you're trespassing on private land, I feel like you should be able to prosecute based on the value of the antlers they took. Because there's like if like so magic, like if I beat you to your farm and I went through and scooped up every 60, 70 and 80 inch antler, that's hundreds or thousands of dollars. Like it could be a thousands of dollars of value. And like that's a felony.
Christopher (31:06.558)
Yeah. Yeah.
Christopher (31:15.276)
Yeah.
Christopher (31:21.207)
Well, well what?
Just think, one 80 inch antler could go for what, $100 something?
Brian Krebs (31:32.937)
Probably more, honestly. I've gotten offered $100 bills for like good looking 70 inch antlers.
Christopher (31:40.479)
You know what my uncle found last year? That just put all of us in awe. We thought this deer was dead. Because we have some farms that we have permission on in southern Iowa too.
Brian Krebs (31:45.106)
What's that?
Brian Krebs (31:52.605)
Yeah.
Christopher (31:56.223)
He found like a 90 inch horn on this property. He walked non-stop just to try and find the other side. Never did, but my gosh.
Brian Krebs (32:09.681)
Yeah, that would be a lot of money. Hasn't your uncle found a couple 90 inch sheds?
Christopher (32:13.567)
Yeah, Canada and stuff, Dad and my uncle both have. Canada was always kind of a cool place for them to go. Canada was like their South Dakota, well, their South Dakota, well, South Dakota is my Canada. You know, no, they can't. See, Canada passed the law on
Brian Krebs (32:16.786)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (32:23.08)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (32:33.819)
Yeah, yeah, then they don't go there anymore.
Christopher (32:43.209)
Like, cause like back in the day you could walk anywhere you wanted up there and not get in trouble. Now they like actually have like the private land rules and all that. So like, and not only that, but their guy that they always went up and went with, he's going blind. So I kind of feel bad for that. This whole garage is stacked full.
Brian Krebs (32:50.59)
on the crown land? Yeah.
Mmm.
Brian Krebs (33:03.881)
yeah
Yeah, so it just kind of fell apart. Wow.
Christopher (33:12.38)
all the way to the door to the ceiling. Yeah, it's nuts.
Brian Krebs (33:18.419)
Do you guys keep all the antlers that you and your family find or do you have to start selling them because the pile is getting too big?
Christopher (33:24.816)
so, I don't know, I had a pretty good six foot tall Christmas tree not too long ago, but, Mom wasn't getting too happy about it, so, any of the old ones or smaller ones we just kinda got rid of. Anything special like that, I mean, we just kept, so, I just keep all my nice ones.
Brian Krebs (33:33.075)
You
Brian Krebs (33:44.754)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (33:49.703)
Yeah, so far I've kept them all. A couple times people have asked me like, I have one for my dog or something? And I just like, I have a hard time. Like, first of all, they don't like, I,
Christopher (33:53.312)
Yeah
Christopher (33:58.739)
giving them away because they feel yeah they just feel special exactly
Brian Krebs (34:03.465)
Yeah, it's like I worked a long time to find some of these sheds. But they don't get it, right? They don't know. They're like, you just have a pile of antlers. Can I have one? And it's like, I don't know. So I've given a couple away. I've never actually sold one. I had a buddy give me those two elk sheds. He just showed up to elk camp and he's like, hey, I know you bought a new place and you're looking for a set of elk sheds to hang up so you can. Here's a set for you. And I've actually got a rack hub RH2.
Christopher (34:10.853)
Yeah.
Christopher (34:19.24)
Yeah.
Christopher (34:26.462)
No, have... No, that's cool.
Brian Krebs (34:32.52)
I don't know if you've seen that, the rack hub brackets that you can hang like a set of sheds off the wall. Like it's a kind of like a Euro. yeah. So I'm going to do it for that for those elk sheds. Yeah. So if you ever found a big match set, you could, it basically holds them kind of like this without the skull plate. So to just be on the wall kind of like that. Yeah.
Christopher (34:45.278)
See if we've.
Christopher (34:54.227)
Yeah.
That's cool. I'll have to look into that. See, we found a new way to do Euro mounts. It's kinda cheaper. It's like where it just sticks into the back of the skull cap or whatever. Like, you know what I'm talking-
Brian Krebs (35:10.825)
Yeah, like a skull. Yeah, like the skull hookers or the. Yeah.
Christopher (35:15.11)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (35:18.887)
Yeah, Rack Hub is coming out with some pretty cool products. I think they should do that too, but, but yeah, that's what I've, that's an option there. So I'm going to do that with those two elk sheds. When I redo the studio here. Yeah, they'll be right. I think they'll be over on this side. Actually. I'm to move the camera a little bit. So yeah, no, but those are like, he gave me one shed, an elk shed. That was a Brown that weighed like 10 pounds. And it's like, you can look it up. It's like $20 a pound that you could sell.
Christopher (35:31.661)
that'd be cool.
Christopher (35:37.649)
Go.
Christopher (35:48.805)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (35:49.095)
sheds or like, can't remember. No, it's like $12 a pound right now. So it's like 120 bucks. She's just like, here, you can have it.
Christopher (35:53.5)
Yeah, like 12 or 13, somewhere around there.
Brian Krebs (35:57.769)
Yeah, he just gave it to him. Like, that's like real money. He finds a lot.
Christopher (36:00.058)
Yeah, and Elkshed, I think Elkshed you can probably sell for even more than just that normal price.
Brian Krebs (36:08.105)
Maybe, yeah, he sells a lot. finds, I think one year he found 750, him and his friends together.
Christopher (36:09.969)
Yeah
Christopher (36:14.308)
Like our buyer, he said if we ever find any elk sheds or anything like that, he'd pay extra for that. And he also pays extra for dead heads too.
Brian Krebs (36:25.746)
really? wonder if he just sells him as a deadhead then.
Christopher (36:27.548)
I think he does for like just normal hero mounts and stuff like that for people decorations or Sometimes yeah me too
Brian Krebs (36:33.352)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (36:37.915)
I keep all my deadheads in the shop. I got them on the wall.
Brian Krebs (36:46.269)
That's cool. So what do you prefer shed hunting like? Because there's a difference, right? Iowa, you shed hunting a lot of like shelter belts, drainages, CRP, maybe some CRP, maybe some woods. South Dakota, it's pretty much all open. Which one do you prefer?
Christopher (37:00.195)
Personally, I prefer South Dakota because it's all open and After winter the grass just gets laid down flat and the horns just glow white on top the grass So it's a lot easier to find them than here and you'd actually be surprised around here. It's a lot harder It's really It's not walking drainage ditches because there ain't much drainage ditches around here. It's mostly walking timber or
Brian Krebs (37:10.183)
Yeah.
Christopher (37:35.93)
Hayfields.
Brian Krebs (37:37.685)
yeah, I suppose if you're in that part of Iowa, I was thinking more like, like central Iowa where I've seen it's like there is no timber. Yeah.
Christopher (37:47.469)
No, yeah, I know what you're talking about. further west you go in Iowa, the more open it is. There's a lot of timber on the east side of
Brian Krebs (37:56.509)
Where you guys are. Yeah. Yeah, I saw about going to like the Dakotas is like you never really know what you're going to find, even though they're not known for like giant deer. There's still some big sheds out there. Yeah.
Christopher (38:08.235)
You'd be surprised. Follow South Dakota Big Bucks on Facebook. There is some giants.
Brian Krebs (38:14.225)
Yeah, well that 88 and a half. There's all kinds of 80 inch antlers in that lodge that they found. Which I can't believe this is crazy. Out of all the antlers I've ever found, I've never found a 70 inch shed.
Christopher (38:20.96)
Yeah. So.
Christopher (38:30.698)
You just wait till you do find one. It's...
Brian Krebs (38:33.149)
Well this one would have been if he's not broken. mean if this was...
Christopher (38:35.434)
Yeah, you just wait until you do find one, because it just feels like amazing.
Brian Krebs (38:43.943)
hold your other one up, hold the other side up. he have a two? he broke his two off on that side too. That's a different one. No, that's a different one. You got the one with the giant bass. Yeah. No, you have the other side to this one too.
Christopher (38:55.595)
Yeah.
Christopher (38:59.373)
Yeah.
Brian Krebs (39:01.127)
So this is the one, that's the one you're talking about.
Christopher (39:05.516)
Yeah, yeah. I know what you're talking about there. Can I go grab that one quick?
Brian Krebs (39:06.589)
This is, that's the one you got in your hand. Cause this one's got like the, yeah, that one's got like the big bass. This is the one from the Derby property. And it's got this like goofy bottom.
Christopher (39:16.769)
Yeah.
Christopher (39:20.236)
Here, let me go grab that quick. That's one of my biggest sheds I found.
Brian Krebs (39:22.601)
Yeah. Yeah. I want to see how the over the two, the two he's growing to grab it folks, but for anyone listening to the podcast and not seeing the video, it's a monster eight pointer or four by four if you're out West. And I found, I found this hard white, I think it's hard white might be fresh, but then Christopher and his family found like two years worth of sides off of them. So we actually have two split.
sheds. So the one that he thought it was, this was a different property. and that shed that I'm showing here right now, huge base. This is the biggest, this is the heaviest antler I've ever found. Heaviest whitetail antler. I found elk sheds that have a smaller pedicle than this. So this one's also a giant, what Christopher's going to grab is this other shed. We didn't even know we had matched up, until he got home. He started taking pictures of it, but it's got like a real oval shaped
pedicle on the bottom. And so the it was easy to identify because this pedicle is so messed up. But I'm hoping that the other side is not busted on his two. And so I could get a sense of how long he was so I could score him because I'm pretty sure this would have been this probably would have been the first 70 and shed that I found. need to find my soft tape. I don't know where my soft tape went, but I can probably
measure him the beam with my
Brian Krebs (41:01.929)
For anyone listening, I'm measuring the beam of this deer with my podcast cable. Boom. Hold on, I'm measuring this buck or this shed. I guess I can't measure them. So you have the other side. You have two years off of this one, right?
Christopher (41:02.197)
Alrighty, I'm back.
you
Christopher (41:16.082)
I think mine was bigger.
Christopher (41:20.865)
Okay.
Brian Krebs (41:24.977)
Yeah, that's the one.
Christopher (41:25.14)
I have two years off the other one.
Brian Krebs (41:29.231)
Okay, yeah, because he is his route time goes curls hooks back like that.
Christopher (41:34.036)
This is like a 70 inch four point horn
Brian Krebs (41:37.447)
How long is his two?
Christopher (41:39.925)
I don't know, I'm gonna have to measure that.
Brian Krebs (41:44.605)
Well, do you know, like if you just go like this, because that's usually like seven inches.
Brian Krebs (41:54.695)
Or sorry, it's three. I messed up. I'm looking at it three. Because, you know, my third is broken, but yours isn't.
So he's probably what? Eight, nine inch three? Nine? Yeah, so 13, probably plus five and a half, 18 and a half, 27 and a half.
Christopher (42:07.43)
Nine.
Christopher (42:15.7)
and then 14 seconds.
Brian Krebs (42:19.817)
Yours was 14, was 13. So 27 and a half, and then he's probably got seven, 14, 21, probably a 22 to 23 inch beam. So that's, that's like 50 right there. I don't know, I'd have to really tape him. He might not quite hit 70, but he's huge. Because I have this one's a 67 inch four point, or this one's actually a 68 inch four point.
Christopher (42:26.152)
Seven
Christopher (42:31.636)
Six and.
Christopher (42:41.459)
Cheers.
Brian Krebs (42:51.475)
that I found in North Dakota. So, yeah. It takes us so much to get to 70 as a four pointer.
Christopher (42:54.47)
That's a big horn.
Christopher (43:00.388)
Yeah, it does. I was looking for my 180-incher that I was talking about up there by the pond, but I couldn't find it at the time. Yeah, no kidding, I got a pile of them sitting in my room of just my favorites.
Brian Krebs (43:11.207)
Got too many antlers.
Brian Krebs (43:17.673)
Yeah, so that's the thing. Like I've found hundreds of antlers, but I keep finding, I've got like four 67 or 68 inch four points.
Christopher (43:28.892)
Here's a cool deer that we have on camera at our farm. He's gonna go, yeah, actually we have him this year, but he changed a lot. He's like a real tall, narrow deer and he's got like a 14 inch brow tine and it just shoots straight out of his head. He had like a two foot long spear the first year we had him on camera, but we were never able to find the spear.
Brian Krebs (43:33.384)
right now.
Brian Krebs (43:53.288)
Wow.
Christopher (43:57.296)
Then this is the second year. We call him Forky. He looks like a dang mule deer, kinda. But you can still tell that he's a whitetail. And
Brian Krebs (44:01.608)
Wow.
Brian Krebs (44:05.319)
Yeah, he does.
Christopher (44:12.059)
So basically, this one my dad found and then me and my brother were going up in the tractor through the field. We found this right on the side of the field. In like the middle of summer too, because we walked our butts off just to try and find the other side. Never were able to find it.
Brian Krebs (44:12.295)
That's cool, there.
Brian Krebs (44:32.883)
That's awesome. No, it makes me want to go keep going out in South Dakota. Picking up some of these antlers again that we found in South Dakota. There's some monster bucks. And just the number of antlers, I feel like that's probably the best chance to find a 70.
Christopher (44:41.52)
Yeah. Here's the thing, Dan. We made the owner of Brown's fall over backwards after we showed him this one. Cody found an 87 inch muley horn.
Brian Krebs (44:57.643)
wow.
Christopher (44:59.448)
It don't, the pictures and stuff don't really do it justice, but it is giant.
Brian Krebs (45:05.373)
That is a big one. So she has such deep forks.
Christopher (45:09.346)
Yeah, I know. And I- Yeah.
Brian Krebs (45:11.719)
Was that down in the ranch land? Yeah, I want to find a big meal deer shit too. I have like a
Christopher (45:18.788)
That's my dream. And now I found a couple match sets that have been going back and stuff and I kind of figure out where they're at.
Brian Krebs (45:27.505)
Yeah, you guys have to let me know when you go down there this year. I'm going to try to I'll try to tag up with you guys if you guys are headed down there.
Christopher (45:29.676)
Thank
So I'll have to see because now I don't think they're doing a derby so I won't know. Usually we do it over spring break which we might still do that which I'll have to let you know on the dates and stuff.
Brian Krebs (45:42.727)
Right. Yeah.
Brian Krebs (45:52.125)
Yeah, we'll definitely have to get tagged up on that. let's switch gears a little bit. So Christopher has a project that we're doing with school. And we're going to split this podcast right down the middle. It's going to be a two part podcast. So this first part was on the Western Rookie. And for all of you guys listening to the Western Rookie podcast, this next part we're going to actually put on our outdoor entrepreneurship channel, the Two Bucks podcast. And we're actually going to switch gears and talk about
starting your own podcast. So if you're interested in all, head over to the two bucks podcast and listen to part two. We're going to take a quick break right here in the middle. And then we're going to fire up a two bucks podcast and talk podcast. How's that sound?
Christopher (46:35.511)
Sounds good.
Brian Krebs (46:37.349)
Awesome. Well, we'll see you over on the other channel, folks. Thanks for being here. Peace out.
