Shed Hunting 101: Find More Sheds Using HuntWise
The early spring pastime of choice for hunters across the country, shed hunting gives thousands of whitetail hunters a new excuse to get outdoors. For many, exercising and experiencing the whitetail woods in the spring opens up new insights into the whitetail life cycle and familiarizes hunters with cold-weather deer habitats. For non-hunters, shed hunting is a beautiful way to explore new terrain with a goal in mind.
Over the past decade, shed hunting has exploded in popularity. While whitetail management has become more than a hobby for most hunters, private landowners see antlers as hope and anticipation for the upcoming fall hunting seasons. Hunters can learn a lot about the habits of bucks based on where they find sheds. For some of us, there’s a subtle kind of magic to antlers. However, shed hunting, at its core, is simply a great way to get your hands on antlers and take inventory of what is alive.
What is shed hunting?
The fastest-growing bone in the natural world, deer antlers may grow up to an inch per day. Beginning from a small swelling on a male deer’s head called a pedicle, or antler bud, antlers materialize and harden as summer turns to fall, eventually morphing into the impressive racks cherished by hunters everywhere. “Shed hunting” most basically means searching for deer antlers that naturally fall off after the rut in late winter, around February and March in most places. Several states across the U.S. have regulations on shed hunting.
Antlers are a renewable source. Made up of a honeycomb, bone-like tissue, each spring, male members of North America’s deer family annually drop their antlers as the post-rut dip in testosterone levels leave antlers weak.
Shed antlers are a hot commodity in the outdoor world. While bucks no longer need their rack as the season shifts, hunters can piece together a hunting strategy for next season and acquire valuable information about animal behavior and moving patterns throughout the cold-weather season.
Why do hunters shed hunt?
The desire to find shed antlers from deer and elk has created a die-hard passion within the tight-knit community of hunters. Shed hunting is one of the best ways to open the door to a new world of adventure for someone interested in hunting. Because antlers are a quintessential symbol of the wild, it is easy to introduce new people and kids to the hunting community through shed antler hunting. The emblem of the hunting lifestyle, deer antlers spark curiosity and intrigue. Also, found antlers make great wilderness-inspired decor and can also be sold or used to make crafty home goods and healthy chew toys for dogs.
For whitetail hunters, shed hunting brings whitetail strategy 365. Most basically, scanning the woods for sheds continues the whitetail pursuit through the winter and spring months and teaches hunters about the game that frequents certain areas. Shed hunting allows hunters to uncover whitetail movement via trails and gives the opportunity to change whitetail patterns with land management techniques, or keep them the same for the fall season. Understanding where bucks are moving on trails and how bucks travel further for food aids in determining where to create food plots and implement other aspects of whitetail land management strategy.
Can shed hunting help uncover a target whitetail for next fall?
Shed hunting centers around finding antlers. However, more specifically, sheds give an inventory of what is alive. The correlation between great shed hunting and great fall whitetail hunting is not always constant. For the dedicated whitetail hunter, shed hunting introduces a low-pressure environment for practicing how to scout whitetail patterns based on the sources of their movement such as food and cover.
Understanding what fuels whitetail movement rather than where whitetails are moving will pay dividends in the fall season. Throughout winter, spring, summer, and fall, whitetail food and bedding locations shift along with patterns. Shed hunting uncovers whitetail trails and patterns that can be manipulated by land management strategies such as food plots.
Much learned through shed hunting may transfer to fall hunting season, but shed hunting should not be the be-all-end-all of scouting since whitetail winter patterns are incredibly different than fall patterns due to diminished cover in the whitetail woods. Deer change their patterns throughout the entire year based on factors such as caloric needs, cover, and breeding during the rut.
Whitetail guru and HuntWise PRO Staff Jeff Sturgis of Whitetail Habitat Solutions further outlines 5 hot tips for shed hunting as it relates to land management and fall whitetail hunting. Sturgis has spent the last 30 years perfecting his whitetail algorithm and is behind the power of the HuntWise whitetail algorithm.
Using HuntWise to Shed Hunt
If you want to level up as a shed hunter, and general hunter, get the HuntWise App for access to landowner info, property boundaries, and aerial and topographic imagery. This will open up more private and public land for your quest. There are numerous ways HuntWise can help you reap the most benefits from shed season.
Private & Public Land Layers: Map layers are One of the most useful tools in the HuntWise app. Various map layers outline landowner names, wildlife management zones, acreage, and parcel boundaries. At a glance, HuntWise uncovers who owns a piece of property, aerial imagery of that property, and how to acquire permissions for private land use. Also, use HuntWise to find public land.
Walking Paths: In the field, record a path to backtrack and establish where you have and have not been
Markers: Perhaps the most valuable tool while shed hunting, use markers to identify potential movement areas and trails, mark old sign, bedding areas, or feeding areas. Also, drop a marker where you pick up sheds.
Topography Maps: Where there is high topography, there is little whitetail movement. Use the topographic maps to seek out flat areas and benches.
Shape Tool: Outline reasonable-sized areas to search by using the Shape Tool to quickly tap parcels or manually draw boundaries.
Shed hunting is a great excuse to log some miles in the offseason, keeping fit and ready for the hunting seasons to come The spring shed season can also be the most productive time of year for scouting and land management. Whitetails are creatures of habit, so finding well-used trails, bedding areas, and food sources will be useful in the fall. In the end, shed hunting should not be the sole component of your winter and spring whitetail strategy.