Big-game hunting WITHOUT THE GAME.

Byline: Mike Stahlberg The Register-Guard

It's big-game hunting without the game. It's hunting trophies off the hoof. Best of all, it's bloodless, meaning the biggest branch-antlered bucks and bulls live to produce more - and possibly larger - trophies next spring.

It's shed antler hunting, a hobby sport that's "growing by leaps and bounds" in Oregon and throughout the West, according to Troy Capps, an elementary school teacher and part-time taxidermist who lives in Redmond.

Capps should know. He and a brother-in-law - former University of Oregon wrestler Rob Tanner, now a Forest Service hydrologist in the Redmond area - are co-founders of Oregon Shed Hunters, an Internet-based club made up of people who enjoy searching for, and collecting, the antlers dropped by male members of the deer family each spring.

Since launching their Web site (www.oregonshedhunters.com) last year, Capps said, "we've been meeting so many people across Oregon that have a passion for shed hunting."

The source of that passion?

"There's nothing like finding a big mule deer shed and realizing this magnificent animal was standing in that same exact spot," he said. "It's a really neat feeling."

And you need not be a big-game hunter to experience that feeling.

Liz McCain, a retired P.E. teacher in Florence, has been hunting shed antlers for 20 years. She still remembers the first elk antler she found while volunteering on a state study involving radio-collared elk.

"It was April 5, 1987, my 57th birthday," she said. "A couple years later I found one on April 4, April 5 and April 6 - I felt like the elk had given me the best birthday presents I had ever gotten."

Over the years, McCain says she has found 27 elk antlers - but only two complete pairs - and 11 deer antlers. Capps and Tanner, meanwhile, have collected more than 1,000 antlers of all sizes and shapes.

They launched Oregon Shed Hunters to create a place where shed hunters can share their finds and have them recorded after being scored by an official scorer. A record book of shed antlers is in the works. The club also sponsors photo and "big shed" contests and organized a members' campout last year. In March, about 20 members participated in OSH's first Group Shed Hunt in high desert country where deer herds roam during the winter months.

Capps said OSH was also formed to "promote ethical shed hunting in a way that prevents harassment of wildlife or damage to public resources." Some states have begun to restrict shed hunting because overzealous shed hunters have bothered animals or damaged habitat with reckless use of off-road vehicles, and he and Tanner don't want that to happen in Oregon.

The OSH Web site features a picture of the co-founders surrounded by 48 shed antlers - all picked up in a single day near Christmas Valley.

"That was one of our best days ever," Tanner said. "We put in over 10 hours of hiking that day ... we didn't even want to stop for water or a sandwich because we were having so much fun."

Most members of Oregon Shed Hunters are in the sport for fun, Capps said, even though there is a market for antlers, which craftsmen make into knife handles, lamps, or other craft items.

Good-quality deer and elk antlers that still have their color are worth $6 to $8 a pound, he said. (Antler color, incidentally, varies with the type of tree the animal rubbed its antlers against while removing the "velvet." Shed antlers of any color will turn white after a few months in the sun.)

A high-scoring matched "set" of trophy antlers might go for a couple hundred dollars, Capps said, but "more than 90 percent of the people Rob and I know just find 'em and keep 'em ... I would never sell mine, and most of our people wouldn't."

McCain, the retired Florence school teacher, declared "I wouldn't sell mine for $1,000," even though the only practical use she has for them is to hang hats.

Capps and Tanner hunt shed antlers most of the year - even while they're hunting deer and elk during the fall seasons.

A photo in the OSH newsletter shows the co-founders with four massive elk antlers bleached by the sun, along with a couple of sets of white mule deer antlers. Almost unnoticed in the photo are the freshly-tagged antlers and skull caps of two mule deer taken during the same outing.

Ironically, Capps and Tanner had seen one of those elk antlers - which had a distinctive "Devil's Point" on the right side - on a very large bull spotted during a previous elk season. But, having already filled their tags with smaller bulls, they could only admire the distinctive "trophy."

The men "looked at each other in disbelief" when they picked up a white six-point antler with the same signature Devil's Point while hunting deer in the same area last year. Both agreed "it had to be the shed off the bull we saw in 2003."

While the story of the familiar-looking elk shed illustrates that antlers can be found almost any time of year, now is actually the prime time. The antlers usually drop during March or April.

"Most deer and elk have all dropped their antlers by now," Capps said, and shed hunters are busy combing areas where bulls and bucks have been seen with their racks intact.

Shed antlers "actually get pushed out by new growth starting underneath," he said.

Rarely do both antlers drop at the same time. "You might find both side by side 10 to 15 percent of the time," Capps said. More often, the match to a found shed can be found only following an intensive search of the surrounding area for "a couple hundred yards." If it is found at all.

While the new set of antlers will often be larger than the ones that were shed, Capps said, genetics and available food supply dictate antler size.

"A forked-horn could be a forked-horn its entire life," he said.

"But there are a lot of cases where a forked-horn progresses to a three-point, a four-point, a five-point ... until, eventually, they either start going back down (in antler size) or they maintain that same size rack until they die."

Shed hunting is easier in the open country east of the Cascades - where binoculars can help spot tell-tale shapes and colors from high vantage points. But it can also be productive in the forests of western Oregon.

Tanner got started collecting sheds while working for the Bureau of Land Management in the McKenzie District east of Eugene about 10 years ago.

"There's some good shed hunting up in that country," said Tanner, who wrestled for the UO in the mid-1990s. "You find a few and, if you're fascinated with antlers at all, you get hooked on it. Pretty soon, I wasn't just looking while working, but I was going out on weekends looking for these things."

Searching for shed antlers is an ideal offseason activity for anyone who loves to hike, but especially for big-game hunters, Tanner said.

"We like hunting so much, and this is something we can hunt in the offseason," Tanner said. "And you don't have to put in for a tag."

Antler hunters, however, do need to be aware of the fine points of Oregon game law.

While it is legal to possess naturally shed antlers, state law does - to discourage poaching of trophy animals - prohibit possession of intact sets of deer, elk, bighorn sheep or antelope antlers attached to the skull plate (such as with the remains of a "winterkill" animal).

- Oregon Shed Hunters can be contacted at 985 N.W. 103rd St., Redmond, OR 97756, or [e-mail]