Question for you shed hunters

[Canus latrans]

This weekend I spent nearly two days carefully walking over a deer wintering grounds, near Yosemite. I have many pictures of nice bucks, from previous years. There has never been any problem with finding sheds in this area. This year I only found two sheds, one was a very nice 4 point with a good brow tine. During these two days, I didn't see any deer at all. No sightings in this area is very rare. My question for you is this:
Because we have had such a nice warm February, do you think those deer have already migrated back into the park area?
The deer signs show plenty of rut activity. Previous wet soil is covered with tracks, deer pellets were everywhere, and the young pines and manzanita were shredded from rubbing. One very nice buck was taken down and eaten, either from a cat or a bear.
I spent many hours looking in remote areas and not just in the easy open spots that others would have picked clean. The sheds I found were very fresh, brown sheds.
I'll get busy with some pictures for those who are interested in muledeer/hybred sheds.

 

[Canus latrans]

Bucksnort, I hope you respond to this post. I have been following your posts and pictures and waiting to make this trip based on the fact that you have recorded several pictures with deer still in hard-horn.
I am very interested to find if you are seeing plenty of deer in your area. My particular spot has really changed.

 

[deershed]

I don't know if this will help you,but I saw a dozen plus buck in one of my areas just before we got pounded with 20 some inches of snow.We don't usually get nearly that much snow.
This week was the first chance you could make an attempt to get out and look.I looked for hours in that area and didn't find a shed.There was still snow in some places and you could see in alot of the other areas that the snow had just melted.Wet ground and the leaves were still matted down flat.I don't think the competetion beat me in there.
I figured the deer relocated to a more sheltered area while we had all the snow and dropped there.I saw over 200 deer all day and didn't see one still carrying.
Then again,if you've looked for sheds for any lenght of time at all.You already know how sheds have a way of disappearing.

 

[Shag]

You might be right that they relocated some due to an open winter or not dropped yet. I really think Deershed's last sentence pretty well sums it up.

 

[BuckSnort]

Canus,

I have noticed that the bucks are shedding a little late this year. We found a few fresh browns today but just last week I saw more bucks with antlers than without. I have seen some of the bucks in my area hang on to them till early/mid April. Last year I had kinda the same problem.Right when they were starting to shed a big storm came through and dumped alot of snow in the lower elevations.This pushed the deer out of thier normal wintering areas and made the sheds harder to find.

Usually most of the deer in my area don't start migrating back to summer range untill late april. But I do think that the bucks that summer in the high country (timberline and above) follow the snowline back up so they can feed off of the fresh growth from the run-off.

You might try shed hunting a little lower elevations even 200-500' can make a big difference. If that doesn't work try some higher ground. Good luck and let me know if you start to find them.

P.S. I would like to see youe shed pics if you could post them