Ep. 512: Foundations - Shed Hunting with a Purpose

out is a plan to find them. That's what this show is about, and it closely mirrors my style of finding bucks that I really want to hunt. It's kind of a methodical approach that involves a lot of planning, a little freelancing, and just quite a bit of walking with a purpose. Yea, Before I get too deep into this episode, I just want to highlight a couple examples of times when shed antler's led me to killing bucks.

After all, isn't that maybe the best reason to devote some serious time to shed antler hunting, aside from just kicking the cabin fever that sets in during these long winters. The first time that I turkey hunted Nebraska with a bow in my hand and a bunch of public land to work with I found a solid four point side laying in a patch of sumac on a hillside. It was a cool fine, but it didn't distract me from the task of trying to arrow a gobbler or a jake.

Later on that trip, on that same property, I found another antler, this one a busted up five point side. Got me thinking I had been randomly seeing deer during my turkey sits, so the population seemed decent, But finding antlers from two different bucks on public land made me think the quality and quantity of deer was better than

I originally thought. And it also meant that the place couldn't have been overrun with hunters because both antlers were still laying there in April, and they weren't exactly hidden away. They were pretty easy to find. So I went back that fall with a buddy of mine, and I arrowed a great eight pointer on that property, in a patch of sumac on the very same hillside where I found those two antlers. In fact, I've hunted that spot four times since then, and I've killed three really good bucks there.

But it also has gotten a little bit busier. So we started expanding our turkey hunting to include other parts of the state and other properties. So a few years ago on one of those newer properties, that same buddy and I doubled up on a pair of Jake's out where there shouldn't have been any turkeys at all, way out in the Grassland hills. And that morning, that successful morning, he also eyed up a great antler, and it got me thinking once again, I think you know where this

is going. Fast forward to that fall, and we had two velvet bucks dead in two days on that same parcel of public land. Here at home in Minnesota, I found sheds on public and killed bucks in those spots later in Wisconsin. It's also happened for me, not coincidentally, it has happened in other states as well, from North Dakota all the way on down to Oklahoma. The shed antler connection to filled tags it's real, but it's not as simple as finding an antler and then coming back

later in the fall and shooting a buck there. Sometimes, like in the case of those Nebraska sheds, a couple of antlers can show you the caliber of deer living in an area. That might be a thin connection, but it's better than nothing. And in other cases, like I've had closer to my home. I've found antlers and spots that caused me to really investigate those specific areas, and it turned out that those antler drops, they weren't an accident, just like it was no accident that there were good

bucks using those spots later in the season. So finding antlers it's valuable beyond just having a new cool keepsake. But finding antlers comes in two forms, total accident and intentional. While you can't really make a plan to find accidental antlers, because after all, it wouldn't be much of an accident if you plan for it, they're still valuable, just like my sister and all of you find folks who were accidents as well, because even though you weren't planned, we

are all very happy that you're here with us. If you stumble across a shed, count your blessings and try to divine any useful info it might provide, but also make a plan to find shed antlers so they don't have to rely on the whims of Mother nature to deliver you a shed. How I do this on proper teas I know, is to kind of divide them into rough routes depending on the conditions in the likelihood of

other shed hunting pressure. I might cover the easy food sources and the pounded trails on my first pass through, just go for the low hanging fruit, or if I don't think too many people are gonna come in there, I might save that stuff for later in March when I can take my little girls out and the snow might have already melted. It doesn't really matter, because the point is to know roughly where you'll walk on at

least one day, one little trip. Then it's time to open up your on x app and start looking for the places you didn't cover on your home run stretch. Where are the secondary trail is going to be? Where are the thicker spots that would be easy to walk right past an antler. I start to subdivide properties into those parts and make a plan to walk them. These aren't as fun as walking a cut corn field that is covered in deer tracks, but they also tend to

yield some of the best antlers for me. That's also probably because I tend to shed hunt places that a lot of people shed hunt. The easy stuff will be picked over all winter long, but the nasty thickets and creek bottoms and other areas that aren't as much fun and as easy to walk. Those are the ones that usually yield some antlers for me. Now it might seem crazy, but a lot of the routes I walk differed by only like ten or twenty yards. I view it like

I do fishing docks for bass. While it might be easy to burn a spinner bait or a swimming jig down one side and then the other, as you move to the next dock, you know you're probably missing fish unless they're really on the eat. The best dock fisherman I've ever shared a boat with they always work both those sides like that, but also every potential fish holding

point underneath. Now that means highly methodical approach, maybe with a flipping jig aimed at every dock post and every tire, every corner of a boat lift, every ladder extending into the water to accommodate the kids when they go swimming. Or it might involve the same targeted approach with a waitless stick bait like a Senko skipped way deep under the dock as far as you can get it. Whatever

the presentation, the approach is always thorough, very thorough. The same rules should apply to shed hunting and this building route strategy should work, but it will vary a lot depending on the property size and the habitat on it. And also, as I've mentioned, the likelihood of pressure. If you've got forty acres of open woods at seven other people shed hunt, your route will be their route, and that sucks. That means you've got to think about timing.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, my buddies and I used to do really well on big January sheds when we had the opportunity to grouse hunt in the first month of the year in Wisconsin. This is totally anecdotal, so take it for what it's worth, but big deer seemed to drop in my area in January pretty heavy, and by the third week of February really heavy. But I often see scrappers holding all the way through

March and occasionally into April. The latest I've personally witnessed was a trio of three young bucks walking past my blind on April eleven down in Nebraska, and all three were holding both sides. Now front loading your shed hunting to the beginning of the season and tailoring your routes to the fact that you're looking for trophies is a play that's worth considering. But I would also say that if you live where plenty of snowfalls, you have to

pay attention to that as well. Where I do much of my shed hunting, it's not uncommon to get fresh snow every week for months. The new snow has a great opportunity to cover up the freshly dropped sheds, and that means that you can walk until you're sick of it and still not find an antler if the snow conditions conspire against you, which they often do. This affects my routes because I tend to go where the deer betting or where the hill sides get some extra san

to keep the snow packed down a little bit. The deep swamps and the cooler areas, those just have to wait, and they do during those snow heavy years, which are more common here than not. Are actually a great equalizer to us shed hunters. Even the construction workers I know who are off all season and put on dozens of miles each week, they can't find all the antlers when

they're buried under the snow. They just can't. That means it might be a good idea to go easy on the antler hunts once real winter settles in so that you can really get after it when the snow starts to melt. This time frame, which where I live, tends to happen sometime in March, is the best chance to find a lot of antlers. In my experience. It's not always the best chance to find big antlers, but if you just want the odds in your favor, the first

melt of the year is it. This has produced some of the most fruitful days for me, including a handful of days where I found anywhere from a couple on up to maybe five or six. Now, that might not sound like a ton, but when you're used to finding no antlers on any given shed hunt, that is something. And finding four antlers in one day, which happened to me in northern Wisconsin about six years ago, is a

huge win in some areas. Regardless of the antler's size, whether you plan perfect routes and stick to them or time your hunts perfectly doesn't really matter. If you're not paying attention while you're shed hunting, there's no chance you're gonna find antlers. If you're really not paying attention, or at least very very little chance. Now this might seem like a forehead slapping statement, but allow me to explain.

I spent a lot of years being really terrible at shed hunting because I wasn't methodical and I had a lot of squirrel moments where I'd get distracted by deer sign or something else. I wasn't looking down like I needed to, and the results reflected that. I also shed hunted mostly where I wanted to scout deer, which was a good idea for scouting, but not such a great idea you for shed hunting. Sometimes, if you're not good at finding sheds, it's probably due to that or a

couple other reasons. Your brain probably isn't in the right zone to pick out a piece of antler on the ground a little glimpse of a time or that, you know, seeing the base poking out of the snow. Sheds can blend in amazingly well, especially on days when the sun is high and the shadows are deep and dark. Side note here, the best shed hunting days are overcast with just a tiny bit of spring drizzle. Because having even light to work with and a little moisture sheen on

the antlers, that's an absolute gift to my friends. But back to the task at hand. It takes time to be able to recognize a part of an antler as your eyes are sweeping across the landscape and you're walking just like I don't know, looking for morale mushrooms or site fishing for small mouth in the spring. Rookies are predictably terrible at this stuff. It takes practice to be able to get into the headspace where you're good at

finding things that take a discerning eye. It's also easy to zone out when you haven't found an antler in three weeks and you have no faith that this passed through the woods will finally be the one that produces an antler for you. This might be the hardest part because a lot of us are shed hunting places that aren't very good for shed hunting. But not very good is a long way from impossible. And there is the reality that miles walked equals more sheds found. This is

a point I can't really stress enough. Although I've never kept track of it, my miles walked parantler is probably somewhere between like twenty to forty. Over the course of my life. When I shed hunted a lot I'd go nearly every day somewhere in the winter, and I'd find an antler every couple of weeks in the course of a lot of shed hunting. I'd often end the season with like six. That's a lot of squeeze for a little juice, but it might just be the best you

can do with your situation. And it does get better if you make a plan and you stick to it while paying attention to the conditions and doing a couple of other things. The first is carry your binoculars. If you don't have a chest harness for your binos by one you'll thank me later in the hunting season, but also put it to good use during shut hunting. I don't know how many things I've seen in the woods that were white or suspiciously antler ish, but it's a lot.

I used to walk up to every one of them, only to find out that it was part of a styrofoam cup or just a stick curved in the right direction and caught my attention. Now I carry binos so I don't have to walk directly up on everything that I think might be an antler, and I have found quite a few antlers as well through using binoculars, both while scanning the woods or field and while investigating a distant object that I just have a suspicion about. And another thing that I do is slow down, and I

mean way down, not just kidding. I've never slowed down in my life. I don't even know how to. My natural gait is fast, and it pisces off my hunting partners, my wife, and just about every short legged person who has the misfortune to walk anywhere with me. I know I'm supposed to slow down to find more antlers, but I can't. It is not how I'm wired. So I go fast, and I know that I'm aware of it. This means that some of my routes tend to be just the reverse order of some of my other routes.

Walking one way through the woods gives you a specific view of the woods, while walking the opposite way gives you a different view of the same woods. Think about how many times you've been grid searching for a deer you or your buddy shot and walked right past it going one way and you turn around and holy crap, there's a whole dead deer right there, plain as day.

This happens with antlers. A lot, So if you can't get yourself to slow down, consider running a reverse play and trying to pick them up while approaching from a new direction. Understand that you will miss antlers, and then, while it's not fun to fish, use water. As they say, covering the same ground at different times of the shed season will produce some bone for you. You'll also have the benefit of the deer that hadn't dropped yesterday but

have today. I've found quite a few really fresh antlers in my day that we're in places I shed hunt frequently. I firmly believe that some of them weren't there just days before, and that's enough to give you some hope to keep trekking. This is especially true if you shed hunt places like I do in the suburbs of the Twin Cities, where a lot of people are out there.

You have to kind of live on that hope that there's still box out there carrying that could drop an antler for you tonight that you'll find in the morning and nobody else is going to get to first. And I should also say this, although it's really up to you as an individual, but I don't shed hunt when the conditions are super cold, and nasty. Where I live, we get real arctic level cold fronts that move in and they hang around for days and some times weeks.

These polar vortex type of events might keep the high tempts in the single digits or sometimes below zero for days on end. That puts a lot of the woodland creatures in real survival mode. I don't feel particularly good about pushing a bunch of deer and other animals around when they need every calorie they can muster, so I just try to stay out when the conditions are that bad. This may not be much of a concern for hunters throughout the southern half of the White Tail range, but

it is a consideration if you live farther north. Because of this, I stay glued to my weather apps so I can see not only when the frigid air is coming in how long it's planning to stay, but also so I can keep tabs on the snowfall. This is also why I just tend to shed hunt less at the front of the season and really try to take as much time as I can when we start to roll through February and get into some more favorable weather.

No matter you're hunt timing or your specific locations. Consider developing a real plan for finding antlers if you're interested in actually finding antlers and learning more about the woods and the animals that inhabit them. This doesn't have to be a militaristic approach, because that's not that fun for a lot of us, but it should involve a little planning. So consider your routes, consider the food sources and the

good winter cover. Consider who else is likely to be out there scooping up the antlers before you get to them, Watch the weather, lace up your boots, strap on your binos, and get out there. With enough miles in the rear view mirror, you should have a few antlers to show for your effort. Now next week, just because it comes up so often and it is the season, I'm going to talk about shed antler dogs. While this topic was super hot like a decade ago, it's kind of cooled

off a little bit in recent years. But training a dog to fine antlers it's pretty easy, or it can be, i should say, And it can increase your production, but mostly it just gives you an excuse to spend more time with your four legged best friend, long after most of the bird seasons have closed up. That's it for this week, my dear loving amigoes. I'm Tony Peterson and this has been the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast. If you want more white tail hunting wisdom, check out our

YouTube channel or visit the meat Eator dot com slash wired. Again, that's the meat Eator dot com slash wired, and as always, thank you so much for tuning in and for your support