Shed Hunting Tips and Tricks
If you are looking for find more sheds this year, check out these Shed Hunting Tips and Tricks from Oak Creek.
Gear to Bring
A good pair of hiking boots will be one of the most important must have pieces of a successful shed hunt. If you have ever been there before, the fastest way to end a hike or walk is getting painful blisters on your feet. That is why I use Kenetrek boots, which in my opinion are some of the best hiking/hunting boots out there. Having good boots allows me to put on more miles.
A good comfortable backpack is also essential on my gear list. I use a Badlands Superday pack which is the most comfortable and durable backpack that I have found. Badlands also has a lifetime warranty, no questions asked, and if you are as hard on gear as I am, then you realize how important that is.
Before going on your shed hunt, don’t forget to bring plenty of water and snacks to keep you looking for antlers longer. The last piece of gear that is essential when looking for sheds are a good pair of binoculars. I use the Zeiss Conquests 10×42, which work well for me but a good set of binoculars can save you a lot of walking especially when glassing big fields or draws.
Where to Look:
Food plots are where we find most of our sheds at Oak Creek Whitetail Ranch. After the Rut and the winter is over the bucks and does spend much of their time feeding and browsing on different vegetation. There most frequently visited places are the first places I check when looking for sheds. Be careful to not only look in the field but also on the edges because we often find sheds on the wood-lines where they hangout just before entering a food plot checking for predators.
Tines showing through the grass.
Bedding areas are also a great spot when looking for sheds. Don’t be afraid to look in some of the thicker spots bucks have been known to bed in some very thick areas. In fact, I once witnessed a buck back his rear end into a thicket because he couldn’t get in antlers first. If you’re lucky you might even find both his sheds in the same bed.
Travel corridors or fence crossings is the third area that I look for sheds. If you know where a buck has been hanging out it’s always good to check those main travel paths from bedding to food plot or along the edges of creeks. Fence crossings are also a great place to look because sometimes the bucks will lose their antlers from the impact of landing after jumping a fence. Don’t forget sometimes you can find more by just slowing down and not rushing through trying to run through the woods.
When to look:
Here in the midwest our bucks generally start losing their antlers around February and some will keep their antlers until April. But where we find the most sheds is the middle of March to the end of March. If we wait until April sheds start getting more difficult to find because of the animals eating the antlers, or from spring time vegetation growing up and making the sheds more difficult to find.
We hope these tips and tricks will help you have more success when getting out in the woods and looking for sheds. Remember don’t get discouraged, much of shed hunting is putting in the times and the miles, so get out there and hopefully you will find that giant matching set we all wish to find.
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