Some shed hunters that roam the woods from now till early spring will find “deadheads,” or the skulls and antlers of bucks that died months earlier. A deadhead might have perished of any number of causes: hit by a car, lost by a bowhunter the previous season, winterkill, predators or natural causes.

Most deadhead finds are small to medium-size, but each year a few people stumble upon massive skulls, like these 5.

ohio deadhead 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This first picture popped up on my Twitter feed yesterday and is the first mega-deadhead of the 2019 shed season. It was found in southwest Ohio.

iowa deadhead 205

 

 

 

 

 

 

The top skull of 2018 also showed up on Twitter last winter. @Tylerknott4 posted:Never know what you will find in the woods of Iowa! Found this giant shed hunting. Gross scored 205.

ohio-double-drop-deadhead

 

 

 

 

 

 

I never got many details about the 190-class double-drop skull that was found in 2016, but what a monster!

Ohio moose found dead.jpg compressed

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In early 2014, a hunter named Drew sent this picture of a tremendous buck he had been hunting for 3 years. “A truly remarkable animal that we called Moose,” Drew wrote. “Unfortunately, Moose died due to another bowhunter’s mistake (not mine) and we recovered his body and antlers this spring. Drew says the rack was scored at 252 1/8″ and that “was after squirrels had chewed off 20 inches during the winter.” Scorers think it might have been the 6th overall biggest buck to be harvested by any means in Ohio.

KS 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 2011 some guys were bird hunting in southeastern Kansas and came upon a mud pit, where they saw just a little piece of the left beam sticking up in the mud. After a closer look they realized it was a whole deer buried in the pit.

They dug out the skull and it was in good shape; they figured the mud had protected the rack from the weather and animals. They rough-scored it at 164 gross with only a 10” inside spread…6 points on the right beam, 9 on the left and the spike in the middle with a fork on it!

Remember if you stumble across a skull and antlers (any size) this spring and want to take it home, chances are you’ll need to get a salvage permit.

Good hunting!