Ep. 628: Foundations - Long Game Shed Hunting

you a better deer hunter. I'm convinced a lot of us look at hunting kind of I don't know, all wrong. Maybe that's too harsh, but lately it has occurred to me that most things that are difficult, they're just also worth it, but they require a long game approach. This is because we want to be successful at these tacks and that means we need to get better at them. And that holds true for deer hunting in so many ways. One way that we don't really often talk about involves

shed hunting. And even if you don't I don't care about putting on the miles in February to find a match set, you should listen. I might be able to change your perspective on this offseason pursuit. I don't like super independent dogs. You know what scratch that I like most dogs as a general rule. What I mean when I say I don't like super independent dogs is that I want my dogs to team up with me and

to know it. If that's super unclear, I apologize. The thing is, you know there are dog breeds out there, and certainly individual dogs that work for themselves. This is pretty common in the pointer world. And you know before you fire off angry emails about how do English pointers or gsps are the best dogs ever and flushing dogs are stupid for losers, hear me out. I'm not saying what you should look for in a dog. I'm saying what I like in dogs, and you and I sometimes

the listeners forget this. We have different tastes, different standards. I live in grouse and pheasant country. You might live in quail country, or you might live out west where the prairie birds dominate. You might need a dog that ranges four yards out and points cuveies for you. I don't. I like dogs that stay close, dogs that check back often and learn to understand that teamwork, dynamic It's honestly

one of my favorite things in the world. And it's easy to think that dogs like well bred labs just know how to do that. They don't. They learn. It starts with pups and socialization. It starts with encouraging eye contact through little training sessions, starts with developing verbal commands and then hand signals. Eventually, it takes so many small lessons in the parks, you know, in the CRP fields,

in varying environments. It takes a young lab running off to sniff pheasants a hundred yards from the shotgun and then figuring out it's all alone and that its owner has turned degrees is walking away. It takes patience, a constant eye to the wind direction. Honestly, it just takes a lot of work, but it's so worth it. It's worth it, especially when you have a prime age dog that you don't have to use an e color on, one that you don't need to command hardly at all

in the field. When you have that dog, one that understands you're working together and understands what needs to happen for that to occur, it's a beautiful thing. But as I said, it takes a lot of time. You know, actually it really doesn't. Instead, it takes a daily commitment of small amounts of time for like two years, and then after that it's often pretty easy, pretty damn fun. At the start, with a little eight week old pop, it doesn't even seem possible yet that it can certainly

come to be where this relationship happens. But over time and through those dreadful teenage years, the positives will develop and you'll start to see so many reasons to be excited for that October pheasant opener. It's just a matter of sticking to it and seeing the whole thing through until it comes together. And you know what else is

like that golf? Just kidding, it's deer hunting. Well, actually it's probably golf too, but my experience in that realm is limited, almost entirely too mini golf, and not even very good at that anyway. Getting better at deer hunting takes a long game approach. This is something I've harped on a million times, but that's honestly kind of a

throwaway statement. Like no ship, it takes time and energy and dedication, but we often look at that as something that is sol lee tied to scouting or specific hunting techniques, and I think this is really a many armed thing, and one of those arms should involve shed hunting. Now here's the thing, this topic kind of sucks. We know all the rules for shed hunting. You go out, check the food sources, check every fence crossing, and walk the

pounded trails and blah blah blah. I shouldn't say that good advice on finding sheds is worth paying attention to because it's pretty fun to find some antlers. They can provide valuable insights into dear behavior too. The thing about information around a pursuit like shed hunting is that our attention spans requires straight to the bullet point types of content. You know, those top three spots to find a shed, the one shed hunting method no one is talking about,

but they will be why you suck at finding sheds? Hell, I've written every one of those articles twelve times in my life. If your goal is to walk into the woods without antlers and come back to your truck with antlers, then those articles that information. It's relevant. But we should maybe be looking at shed hunting in a different way if we want to use it to become better as deer hunters. For starters, there really is no such thing as a shed hunt that isn't at least partially a

winter scouting session. I believe that even if you shed hunt a place where you could never actually deer hunt. Now, there might seem to be a little disconnect there, but I'm going to dive deep, deep, deep into that topic in the next couple of weeks. So I'll just say this, If you're out there learning about the land, you're winning as a deer hunter. I don't care if that land is land you can hunt all day long or land

that you'll never ever hunt. Learning the land it's possibly the biggest step to becoming a stone cold big buck killer. That's a huge bonus, but not the only good reason to shed hunt. I think we need to condition our elves to the long game approach, and shed hunting provides a unique opportunity for that. That might sound crazy, think about it this way. How are any of us ever going to develop the skills to be patient and disciplined over long term unless we commit ourselves to being patient

and disciplined over something. And while there are plenty of things in life that are worth it that require boatloads of patients, and I don't know the discipline of a monk. Those things aren't much fun. Right now, I'm trying not to eat sugar, well not right now because I'm recording a podcast, but in my life I'm trying to get rid of most of the junk food. On paper, this should be a breeze for a fellow like me. I'm

actually pretty disciplined in a lot of things in life. Hunting, fishing, exercise, stuff like that. Diet should be easy for me, but it's not. It's easier for me to run a thousand miles in a year than it is to give up Reese's peanut butter cups for a few weeks. How is that from messed up? And where I'm really going with this is that we need to commit to real sacrifice to change for the better. One way to do that is to take something that is a mix of fun

and work and start there. Something like, oh, I don't know, golf, just kidding, it's shed hunting. I promise that's the last time I'll make that golf joke. Here's how I think looking at shed hunting and going through the winter months as an active shed hunter can help you master long game approaches to other aspects of life and deer hunting. But first I kind of just want to break it down. You have your surface level goal, which is not surprisingly

go find smantlers. Without that, it's just a winner scouting mission or just a hike. And that's great, but not what we're talking about. You have shed hunts right now and might be dealing with I don't know, thirty or forty inches of snow. You might be dealing with laid off construction workers walking every trail in the best spot to shed hunt. You might not be serious about shed hunting, so you think maybe you'll go up for a few

hours on a Saturday, and that's good enough. What I like to do instead is find as many spots as possible to shed hunt that might have a shed. Now. I have low standards for shed hunting because I just don't have any banging spots where it'll be easy. I know it's gonna average me probably a couple of weeks per shed, but I'm okay with that. I like the idea that as long as I put in the work, I'll find a few. But it's not about just finding antlers.

It's about thinking about how you'll put yourself in the best position to find antlers every time you go from now until the time the turkeys are gobbling and the moral start popping. I do this by first just thinking about the conditions where I live here. You know, just south of what feels like the Arctic. Snow is a huge factor, and we've had a lot of snow for months now, and I know there are a ton of antlers out there that are waiting patiently under a foot

of power or for me to find them. I also know that my efforts now won't be as productive as March will be, but that my less successful shed hunts now will produce more successful shed hunts when the snow starts to melt. This is where it starts to get a little more like actual hunting. My friends, now, it's different. If you live down south, you don't have to deal

with snow, so I want to acknowledge that. But the truth is, in either case, you're kind of teasing your way up to the big drop, which often happens in February, often late February. At some point. If you walk out right now to shed hunt, the goal is to look for sheds, but start to key in on deer concentrations, those spots where you might find an antler now, but we'll probably find one later. This is kind of like hunting during the October lull and spotting a good buck

staging deep in a creek bottom. He might be pretty tough to get close to now, but you have some intel to work with when Halloween gets a little close, sir, and he might grow a little more careless or moving a little earlier. So you didn't shoot him, but you saw him. That's a huge wind walking through I don't know, five or six miles of winter woods to find a

shed that you don't find. That's a win too if you're paying attention, because you can ask yourself where are the deer concentrations and you're gonna start to find them, But then you can say, why are the deer concentrations where they are now? This is something that I love about shed hunting. It shows me where deer are right now. Then I get to decide the why behind it, and I get it. Sometimes it's simple. Sometimes they are betted right off of the pitcorn field and they're in survival

mode on private ground. But sometimes they are tucked away in a cattail slu on public where the north wind can't really reach them. Finding that concentration, whether there's a pile of antlers there or not, is a win. Sometimes when you're shed hunting, you find a pounded trail that a low spot in the CRP field. Now ask yourself why they are and not right up on top that should be obvious. But if it's not, they're staying out of view. They do this a lot, and it's a

trait that you can exploit. While you're shed hunting and maybe finding sheds, you should also be thinking about these concentrations and how that might tie into your fall hunting, but also how's it going to tie into your later shed hunts. I kind of think of this in terms of routes. If I walked a certain spot or a ridge top, a trail and a swamp today, I'm probably not gonna walk it next week. I'm going to alter

my travels to cover new ground. But that short term thinking, if the beds are there, or the sign of some sort is there, I'll put it in the later pile. I know I'm coming back because even though certain spots should have some antlers now they might not. But I'm betting they will later, and I want to know if I'm right or if I'm wrong. It's also important to

pay attentions to the patterns of behavior. What if you have a few spots you like to shed hunt, and while they are pretty different on paper, when you're out there you realize that the deer seemed to I'll be betting on certain hillsides that catch some real mid day sun. That means when the shed hunting should be really good, you have an entire pattern to work with, regardless of

the individual spots you shed hunt. Recognizing patterns to dear behavior that transcends specific locations is one of the things that separates the deer killers from the deer watchers. It is so important, and you can work that muscle right now while looking for a few antlers, and you should or another way to look at this to say, you have about I don't know, two months of shed hunting left. If you shed hunt once a week, that's eight times to get in the woods and learn about where the

deer are and the antler should be. That's also a good amount of time to learn that any given shed hunt isn't as important as what you put in for the whole shed season. So you go out and you blank today, big deal. Maybe you found a spot where a bunch of here betting and a bunch of shed hunters aren't walking. That's a win. It'll pay off at some point, even if it's way after St. Patty's Day, before you see that sweet sweet sight of times poking

up through the snow or last falls leaf litter. Maybe you'll blank the first five times you go, but then you find one. Sounds a little bit like actual hunting, doesn't it. And what makes it even more so is if you develop a plan to make the season worthwhile in a cumulative way, where every trip into the woods is a learning experience that should feed the greater task of picking up some extra decorations for the old man cave or the she shed. Are you starting to see

the implications of a long game approach here? I don't know. I'm sure it's fun to go into some killer property and find a bunch of antlers, but does that really make you a better deer hunter? Maybe? But I know that shed hunting for several weeks, while paying attention to the conditions and factoring in what should be good today or what should be good in a month is a better bet for leveling up at the whole white tail thing.

Of course, you have to be aware of that overarching goal, you know, because it's pretty easy to walk the same trails and glass the same fields and fall into predictable routines that yield predictable results, which again sounds a little like the funk a lot of us deal with in

our regular deer season. Break out of those habits. Condition yourself to break out of those habits and think about this stuff not as an immediate return on your investment today, but an attempt to build the real wealth that is a lot of deer knowledge over a longer time frame, and also find as men places is possible to shed hunt. Like I said in the beginning, doesn't matter if you

can actually deer hunt there or not. The effort to find spots will sharpen that a bit, which doesn't hurt in the fall, and it will expose you to different environments, different places to think about your approach and to plan around what the deer doing now and what they'll be doing for several weeks. Lastly, there's one more thing that you should try to become a better deer hunter that is still possible in shed season Gulf. I know, I'm sorry.

I can't help myself. If you feel bad for my wife and the limited amount of friends I have, I get it. Those feelings are definitely grounded in reality. Play the long game, my friends, think about shed hunting not solely as an act to find some antlers, but as a pursuit that can take you through a couple of months of the off season, which can help you hone

your skills when it comes to life's tasks. That might include everything from arrowing a public land but uck to not eating an entire bag of Twizzlers in a single sitting just because you have the appetite and self control of a toddler. That's it for this week, my friends.

The next two weeks I'm going to cover the topic of learning the land, I mean really learning the land and how that is the best skill you can develop to being a good deer hunter, no matter whether you carry a bow or a rifle or a crossboard or whatever into the woods. So tune in for those I'm Tony Peterson. This spend a Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast

which has brought to you by First Light. As always, thank you so much for listening and if you want more white tail content, feel free to head over to the metator dot com slash wired for plenty of deer hunting articles, and you can visit our wire to Hunt YouTube channel to view our latest how to videos