00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the wire to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode today. In the show, we are talking all things shed hunting, including when the best time to shed hunt is, how to become a more efficient shed hunter, and much much more. All Right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Onyx. Today's show we are talking shed hunting, and by that, of course, I mean the search for deer antlers. You know, it's early February as we speak, and that means there are a lot of antlers on the ground or or at least just about to be. So I wanted to devote this episode to getting you ready to hit the woods to find some of that white goal, pick up some of that bone. Now, this is going to be a little bit different episode than usual though, because I've I've admittedly had a little bit different week than usual, I think would be fair to say so rather than having one main guest interview, We're going to first open things up with a little chit chat with my buddy further about some of our favorite shed hunting memories and a few other odds and ends. Uh, then we're gonna share or I'm going to share some of my very best shed hunting advice of my own. And then finally we're gonna go back into the archives and hear from some of our past guests over the last six years were their absolute best shed hunting tips and tactics. So this one's just gonna be jam packed with ideas and insights to help you over the next month or two to just pile up those antlers. But first I've got to explain why my week has been a little bit different than usual. Um. First, you know why, right, I know why. So so you remember this, uh this shed hunting or this this little walk that turned into a shed hunting trip last week. If anyone listened to last week's podcast, you heard that story, Josh, you know that story. Um, I found trans antlers while taking my wife and son for a walk because my wife was very, very very pregnant, very uncomfortable, just wanting for this baby to arrive. Well, we did that walk, I found those antlers, and then like a day and a half later, Uh, Kylie had a doctor's appointment and so we went to the doctor's appointment, and we've been kind of in baby mode ever since the Sunday prior because she described like feeling like that she thought she was having some early labor stuff. So on Sunday, this being like January twenties six, I think with I was like, all right, it's happening today. I got everything packed, We're good to go. And then nothing. And then the next day nothing, the next day nothing, the next day nothing. So then I'd kind of just given up hope, like this is gonna be weeks we've got away to the real do date. Um, I don't know. You you know it. You know it's like just before the baby is born, you're anxious, you just want to happen, right, Oh yeah that those last couple of weeks before the dude day are just are crazy. Yeah, because yeah, it was just just I don't know how to describe it other than it's kind of like I don't know, to build up to like a big presentation and you've got some big meeting or presentation, you kind of get those nerves. You just want to get it over with so you can move on with your life. That's sort of what was going on, so hurry up and wait what it feels like? Yeah. So so we finally we get this doctor's appointment though, and at this point we're like, all right, it's probably not happening for another week week and a half, so I'll drive you to the appointment just to be safe. But I'm not getting too excited about anything. So we go to the appointment and I let Kylie go up to the doctor and I just stay in the truck doing some work. And I get a phone call fifteen minutes later and Kylie's like, markets happening. Now, come on up, Like, holy sh it. Um. I wasn't ready for this, So I go and I started trying to grab bags, bags, do you need? What stuff should I get? How fast I need to get up there? Um? And so then I had going upstairs. So I grab the stuff and I go upstairs, and um, we get we get in. They basically said that when she had her um, you know, appointment, they kind of reviewed stuff, checked out stuff, and what they saw it was just basically it's go time. Somehow my wife had been feeling anything. She didn't think she was going into labor, but it was happening. So we get in they do all this stuff. And um, without going into too much detail, two things. Number One, I had to go back out to the car to get something. So go back out to the car, and I realized that like an hour prior, when I had ran around getting all my stuff, I had forgotten to close the door. So I had the door opened to my truck a whole hour. So I guess I was a little frazzled. Uh. And the number two, when I got back upstairs, it just it happened like thirty minutes, bing bang boom, very tense. All of a sudden, we had a baby. So baby number two has arrived. His name is Colton. And uh, that happened four days ago, five days ago, stuffing like that. So I've been kind of off the grid since that, UM, trying to learn how to have two kids. It's been it's been an adventure. Drash, Are you ready to having another one? Well, we're not having any of those conversations that we're still very happy with just the one right now. So maybe maybe in another year or so we'll start having those conversations. But congratulations to you guys. Happy, excited for you guys. I can't wait to meet the little guy. Yeah, he's he's cool. He's super cute. He you know, Everett came out with very light hair and not a lot of hair and pretty light and he's kind of had varying shades, like at first it was kind of almost reddish or auburn, and then it became super blond and now it's kind of brown. But Colton came out with a great, big head of black hair. So yeah, man, he's he's cutie. I think I think he is your baby for sure. I My mom sent me some baby pictures of me. It's like a doubleganger. He's my twin. Yeah. Kylie sent that to Kelly. I was like, holy cow, that is crazy and really kind of weird. Howiltures we both kind of look like, I don't know, we just look the same, kind of like what I imagine my buddy Jason Tran looking like as a baby. It's what I and my son like. So yeah, man, it's been an adventure. He's he for some reason, when I'm on shift, he won't sleep at night, But whenever my wife's on shift, he sleeps great. So sleeps as sleeps. The work in progress right now, but otherwise stuff is going good. But it has and it is harder to get regular life up and going again. So I appreciate you find some time to to intro this one with me on a short timeframe. Are you getting pumped for sh on again, because that's on the mind for me a lot. I'm starting to see antlers pop up on social media and people are starting to scoop them up. So I'm I'm getting anxious to get out there. I'm just crazy with work right now, so I'm trying to figure out when i can get out, but I'm getting anxious for sure. That's a nice thing about sh hunting. Is this one of those things that if you've got a flexible job, or if any kind of flexibility your schedule to get out for long lunch break or something. It's the kind of thing you can kind of do in little bits of time. It's not like regular deer hunting where you gotta take a whole morning or whole afternoon or whole week. Um, you can say, oh, you know, from my lunch break, I'm gonna take an hour lunch break and I'm just gonna go walk this little patch of woods behind the factory here. You're gonna go walk this piece of public land. Um, that's chunka I got a big chunk of public right by me, and I'm planning on it in the dog out for a walk on one of these days during the lunch hour, and just I don't have very high hopes, but fund at least get the get the dog out, set the legs out a little bit, and who knows. Yeah, I mean it's just a good excuse to guess i'd for for me, at least it can be if you're not if you're if it's not time to go scouting yet, or you can't get to your main hunting properties to scout. Um, this is like your best excuse in February or March to get out there doing something. Um, after the cabin fever of January sets in. You just kind of need it. Um. That's a huge thing I like about shed hunting. Um. You know, as far as what you can how you can benefit from it from a hunting perspective, there are a few things. I don't get too caught up in what it does for me from a hunting perspective. I kind of do it for the pure joy of it. But you can, I mean, if nothing else, you can learn a little bit about what deer made it through to the next year, you know, like finding trans antlers the other day. Now I know for sure he's made it into February or January, and uh, you know that's a good feeling. And you can sort of confirm theories about where they might be betted because lots of times betting areas will be the spots you'll find the sheds, so that helps. Um. But man, I just like the fun of it. It's it's just like an Easter egg hunt for adults. Yeah, no, it's it's a blast. And um, I mean you wouldn't think it'd be that fun just walking around looking at the ground, But I don't know, there's something about it. It just draws you in and keeps you focused the whole time you're out there. Just you know, it's really that interaction that you have, you know, similar to hunting when you're when you're out there in the woods. Um, you're not just walking around aimlessly. You've got to you've got a goal that you're looking for. Kind of helps it helps you keep keeping the zone. Yeah. Well it's I think you know, the chemical inside the human body that creates a craving is dopamine, or it's when you get this little dopamine burst because of some kind of reward, it then caused you to crave it more and more. And what we get as a shed hunter when you see that time, or when you see that crown shape, or when you see the curve of an antler beam that bursts of excitement, that little dopamine burst is just the thing. I mean. I love the moment of confirmation, like, oh ship, I got one. That's the best thing. I mean. Do you remember our trip We did our North Dakota, Montana trip and I flipped the canoe in to the river and I'm soaking wet and we're walking through those nasty Russian olive bushes and then you pop onto that little opening. Describe to me what that feeling was like when you popped out of that thicket and you saw that big old triple brown type shed. I just picked up that shed right now. It's sitting right here by my desk. But that was I didn't even know, you know, what I was looking at until I picked it up. Could just the the triple brower, the big brow time is down and kind of the snow and leaves and stuff and I couldn't even see it. I picked up the whole a cow. Um. That was by far my best shot I've ever found. Um, and that just really kicked off. That was a that was a precursor of what was to come that day. That was just an absolutely epic day of shed hunting. Um. There's like two phases two there's two. I don't know how many of there, but there's two things I can think of right now when it comes to like the fun of the shed hunting. There's that moment when you see it like that burst I has talked about. So that's like step one. That's huge. And the second great moment is when you walk up to and you get to finally pick it up, you finally touch it, and you lift it up and you admire it and you look at it and you spin it around and show your buddies Like. That's the next really awesome little moment um. And I don't know, I'm trying to think what what then after that? Then I, at least as I keep going, I love to continue just admiring it. Once you pick it up, you look at it, then you keep walking, and then I love to just keep spinning around my hands feel the weight of it. Even like here in my office, I've got that match set from Tran on the bookshelf behind me, and like at least once a day, if not multiple times, I keep going back to a picking them up, looking at him, thinking about and being like, man, just two months ago, I was even a month ago, even a couple of weeks ago, really what is it to his early February? So yeah, a little over a month ago, Um, I was out there watching this deer with these antlers on his head, obsessing about that, trying to find that deer, and now like I'm holding a part of that creature that is I don't know, it's crazy. Yeah, it's wild. And I think one thing that you missed on, you know, after you pick one up, is there there's that immediate like reaction like okay, you gotta match him up. Where's the other side. It's gotta be around here somewhere, So you get that little again burst of of of adrenaline, you know, keeping your eyes peeling that same general area, hoping you can you can match the other side up. Yeah, I don't know. There's always seems to be that burst of energy right after you find one trying to find the other side keeps you going for a while. New optimism for sure, the huge boost of optimism, even if you're not the one who found it. If even one of the people you're out there with finds one, that always just makes I think everyone feel better and excited. Um, unless you're one of our friends. Just get a little bit more down every time someone finds one. Yes, as long as you help get two worked up about who finds the most sheds, then you can have fun. Getta gotta rejoice in the group's success. Um. Otherwise, yeah, you can get a little thanksgiving depressed on it if h But man, that's funny you bring that up, because I think the final thing I love about shed hunting is so much of the time it's like a communal thing. It's a thing you can go out and do with friends. I mean, all my best shed hunting memories are when I'm with people. Sure, I love get out there and just walking by myself and finding some but the best times they're like the trips where you go out with buddies or going out with my family or you know, like our Iowah shed camp. Um, just the fun times you can have because you're out there together your bs and you're talking. It's it's yeah, it's not nearly a solitary of sitting in a tree by yourself, and I love that, of course, but it's also fun to be able to do these things, just like turkey hunting is where it can be like just having a good time with your buddies. Um And if I think about my favorite shed hunting memories, I'm thinking our Iowah shed trips with the crew, just just stupid stuff going on, laughing all the time. I'm thinking about that North Dakota Motan trip that you and I took together. Just unreal scenery, unreal sheds, just like the camped out in the tents and the snow, our trips down to Ohio. Yes, our trips to Ohio. Those are great times. Yeah. So you know, and I'm mostly with the exception of like the North Dakota Montana trip. I mean, we haven't on like a ton of sheds as a group, but they're always just so fun just because they're just so laid back and you know, hanging around camp. You know, we're usually camping or doing something. Um, so it's just a great time. Even if we're not finding at Yeah. Okay, So speaking of that favorite shed camp or shed shrip memories, I've got, Oh, well, what's yours, I've probably one of yours first similar uh Andy burn That was exactly I don't know how that's not number one. It's the most ridiculous thing ever. Oh God, from a borrowed tent. It wasn't even his own tent. Yeah. So he's borrowing our friends sister's tent and he starts to break down the tent to go pack it up, and he forgot that he had a Mr Buddy heater in there on and so when he collapsed the tent down, it just burst into flace well in our and our buddy who Dustin Who's and it was he had left the day before. Yeah, and he's like, hey, we just leave that tent for I feel I feel like I feel like Andy even said that, He's like, although, maybe this isn't such a good idea because I tend to screw things up. Oh man, I know that heater was necessary. That that was a cold, cold weekend. That was cold. Speaking of cold weekends of shed hunting, that brings me to another favorite moment, which was at the end of our shed hunting trip in Montana. You and me. We were camped out in our little backpacking tents off the side of the road on some state land or blm land or something. And we go into town to go to a bar to kiss some food. And as we're walking in, some girl walks by and just are you this guy's camped out off that road down there, and like, yeah, that's us. Just you guys are pretty badass, pretty bad. I was a little disappointed that didn't make it into the book mark. I know, you know that the first and only time will ever be called badasses. I know, but I'm gonna take it and run with it. So those are those are two top ones? Uh? What about this one with Andy? So Andy Bradley were out there shed hunting in Iowa and he he comes walking along his grassy patch and he sees a shed, his first shed of the trip, right, and maybe his first shed ever, I can't remember if that's true enough. But he grabs the sheds I got one, and then Ross looks over he says, oh, I found that one last year and throw it back because it was all chewed up, is not good shape, And oh man, that's pretty funny that killed she hunting for Andy after that, he's has he's ever gone since? I don't know if he's ever since Ross ruined him. Oh god, I don't know. Those are those are three top ones for me? Yeah, I think another. I think another one you already mentioned It was you flipping the canoe. Yeah, that's a that's a that's a given. Um. I've got one that sticks out as not being very happy with you. This is our same trip North Dakota. We were in North Dakota at the time, and we had just taken a long hike to get around to this other side of this little section that we wanted to hiking. We're going and had we found any shots at this point yet? Had we hit the other side yet? Would you had just found the match set? Those are the found that match set out in the middle of that stage brush Bield just sitting there in the open, which is awesome, but that you know, we hadn't found much before that, and gosh, you're just walking along and the spot looks sweet and I'm I'm standing in my lane. You know, the unwritten rules of shed hunting. You're wandering eyes and cut into someone else's path and up ahead of me. There's this uh three or four point side Out of the corner of my eyes, he marked, just sprinting in front of me. I saw I called it before, or you saw it for sure? I don't know. This is your word against mine. I seem to be more trustworthy than you typically, So, um yeah, man, shed poached. May Well, we'll have to get out here soon and uh get after it, and you have an opportunity to try to return the favor. I guess well, we've got a We've got a spot that we could go together. I think would be pretty prime for sheds here in in a couple of weeks, that eight or ten acres, a bunch of conifers right and right by a little creek bottom. I think might be dynamite for sheds. Why do I not know about this? Where is this? Dude? You know about this? We're a hum all year. Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that. You're right, yeah, So if there's any bucks that didn't get killed out there, there's a lot of them that got killed around me, but I totally forgot about man. I don't think there's a better area in that block than than right there for those duds to spend time during the winter, so it has got to be, oh, we should, we need to make a plan. I totally forget that. That's got me all excited. Yeah, I think that's I'm looking forward to getting my dog out there and running him around a little bit because I've never had him and he's quote unquote trained d dog that's very uh, very loose quotes there, but he's never been in a spot he could really find any So it'd be fun to get him out there and boom and see if they could eat a lot of deer ship and running, so yeah, exactly, and then puke everywhere and they get home. That's probably the reality of But yeah, man, all right, well let's get on. Let's make it happen. If I can find some little nugget of free time now between Chase and two kids around, I might bring every but every really evers enjoying the hikes. I took him out just the other day again and he's enjoying there. So Wade might be a little young for that, but we'll see soon. I try to get him out there, all right, man, Well this is this is perfect. I just want to kind of fluff fluff up the audience with some shed hunting excitement before we dined into the TIFFs and tactics and all that. So I am thoroughly excited. I am looking right now at the shed from holy Field, the shed from six Shooter, and the shed from Frank, all across the wall in front of me. All these bucks that um that I've been fortunate enough to see in hunt and a couple I've killed. And uh, I'm waiting to see what the next one of those might be. So let's let's get after it and pick up some bone here soon. Dude, can't wait looking forward to it. All right, let's say a quick break and then we're gonna get back with some of my very best shed hunting advice. I want to give you guys a heads up about an event coming up March. Oh gosh, I think it's March thirteen through the fourteen. Those are in March twelve through fourteen. It is the Quality Dear Management Association's Whitetail Weekend. It's down in Athens, Georgia. This is like their national convention for two thousand twenty and I'm one of the keynote speakers. I will be speaking on the fourteenth. That's March fourteen. It's a Saturday, and I would love to see you guys. They're all sorts of great events, educational, social events, demonstrations, and lots lots more. Head over to QDMA dot com to register. Like I said, it's down in Athens, Georgia, March twelve through fourt but I will be speaking on the fourteen. I hope to see you guys there alright. So now it's just me and I want to share with you guys a couple key pointers. I guess when it comes to shed hunting. We've talked about shed hunting a lot in past episodes. We're gonna share a few more of those best of moments here in a minute. But I want to share a few of my best of pieces of shed hunting advice. Over the last decade, I have spent a ton of time in the woods trying to become a good shed hunter and figuring it out, and a few of the things that have been most important to me I want I want to share with you next. And the first thing is all about timing the importance of knowing the right time to go shed hunting, because if you go shed hunting too early, there's some downsides, And if you go hunting too late, there are some downsides. So how do you figure that out? Well, here's what I want to tell you, and this is from an article I wrote for The Mediator. If you go to the meat Eator dot com you can find a whole bunch of my writing. But I wrote a little bit here on this topic, and I want to talk to you about that. So, if you go hunting shed hunting too early, think about this. The more frequently you walk through an area, the more likely you are to stress local wildlife. If you're shed hunting in an area where deer or elk struggle through tough winters, your presence could be detrimental to their survival. For this reason, an increasing number of Western states have put shed hunting seasons in place, delaying pressure until most of the winners passed. Antler collectors in the Northeast or Upper Grade Lakes might consider self imposed shed hunting delay for these same reasons. Early shed hunting by way of increased hunting pressure can also push bucks out of your area before they've even dropped their antlers. You know, if you're out there hiking around looking for antlers, that are still on top of a deer's head. You're wasting your time and you're reducing the chances of those antlers ever ending up in an area you can search. So, in an ideal situation, you want bucks feeling comfortable and spending large amounts of time on your property, and then only after the majority of those antlers have dropped do you want to go in there looking for him. So another thing to keep in mind though, is that snow is a factor when planning your shed hunts. It goes without saying that shed hunting in very snowy conditions is more difficult and usually a waste of time. So those are some things about going to early. On the flip side, if you wait too long, if you shed hunt too late, especially in areas with high squirrel or rodent populations, you then risk significant damage being done to those falling aislers. You know, the longer nailers is on the ground, the more likely another animal is going to come over and start chewing on it. Another thing to keep in mind is human competition that is rising every year more and more shed hunters are heading out there. So if you are shed hunting shared ground or public land and you show up late, there might not be any antlers left to find at all. So keeping all of that in mind, it's important to keep track of several different factors that should also help you to turn when the timing is right. The most obvious of these is the actual calendar date. The shedding of antlers is primarily driven by dropping two stosterol levels, and that's tied to changes in daylight. Since the change in photo period over the course of winter happens at a predictable rate, the timing of antler drop is also relatively consistent. For the Midwest, the peak of white tail antler drop tends to occur from early February through early March. It's also important to consider how other factors might shift the timing of antler drop earlier later kind of localized things, so variables such as how severe the winter was, what the available in nutrition is, or eading the health of individual bucks can all slide the timing of antler drop one way or another. So the best way I've found to keep tabs on these regional factors is to monitor the local deer heard with your trail cameras. So I like to check my trail cams I like to place them near the best winter food sources, checking them about weekly. When I see that more than fifty of the box of shed, I know it's go time. So with all that said, on most years, between February fifteenth and March fifteenth is usually the best time to start shed hunting, at least in my neck of the woods. So I would consider or at least recommend taking a look at those dates and then adjusting your starting point in either direction based on those things I just mentioned it save area of winter, available nutrition, and the results of your trail cameras. Now, once you know when to start shed hunting, the next thing is how do you become a better shed hunter? And we're gonna cover a few more different tips, but I think one of the most important things I've learned is the importance of being an efficient shed hunter. So here's a little bit of insight. I wrote up again for the Mediator website. The best and worst shed hunting advice I ever received was just keep walking. You know, there's a beautiful simplicity to that idea, but also this dangerous oversimplification. When I first began shed hunting, I took this approach to heart and I simply walked, walked and walked, and walked and walked and walked. In the most beginning shed hunters d I blindly traversed every square inch of every property I had access to, and yes, on occasion, I'd actually find an antler. It was great rush. But the more years I spent scouring the forest floors of the Midwest, the more I came to realize my approach was flawed. More precisely, it was inefficient. I found that the key to picking up more sheds is not just endless determined walking, it's actually more efficient walking. So why does efficiency matter? I found more than fifty white tail antlers last year across Michigan, Ohio, and Montana, and when studying the location of each of these antlers, a pattern emerged that was consistent with my own observations in the past decade. The vast majority of the antlers I found were located in the most predictable locations, and this pattern seemed to adhere to something I learned about an economics called the Parado principle, or more commonly, the twenty rule. This rule states of a given outcome generally results from of the input. When this is applied to shed hunting. It matches the pattern I observed almost perfectly. Somewhere around eighty percent of the sheds I found were located and only about of the area had access to And I've seen this now time and time again. Sheds are not spread randomly across the landscape. Instead, they're most commonly found in concentrated areas for very specific reasons. But this being the case, the most effective shed hunters are the most efficient shed hunters. It's those who spend the majority of their time focus on searching these key areas that have the most success. Rather than spreading your shed hunting time equally across the entire property. You want to apply a higher degree of thoroughness to the highest potential areas. So then how do you identify that top When looking at my fifty antlers from last year and the dozens of others from previous years, it's clear that the majority of sheds were found in one of two types of locations, either food sources or betting areas. When it comes to food sources, focus on those that are highly attracted to deer during the winter months. These food sources of the hub of the wheel that a winter white tails world revolves around this quality food at this time is hard to come by. For this reason, winter white tails will frequently relocate from the typical summer fall ranges to be close to the best food. Depending on your location, this quality winter food might come in the form of corn or beans, alfalfa, turnips, radishes, winter wheat, or any other number of quality agriculture or native forage options. The key to locating the best late season food sources in your area is to identify the fields or location with the highest amount of recent deer sign In particular, I'm seeking out fresh tracks and fresh droppings, rubs, scrapes, trails, all that stuff from last fault. They don't help you at this point because what matters is where deer have been through January up to March. Once you found those best food sources, you're halfway to you. But the second half of your high priority area comes in the form of betting areas near those food sources. Winter bedding can come in the form of sunny, southern facing hillsides, cedar or pine thickets, native grasses or crp, or any other kind of thick cover that's adjacent to that high quality late season food. Again, you want to confirm this by looking at these winter bedding areas and seeking out the fresh tracks, droppings, and oval depressions formed by bedded animals. So now you've got your focus area, how do you now use your eight percent of thoroughness in that? Once you've identified your top, it's time to apply your shed hunting time to these sections in earnest, placing a disproportionate amountitor focus in these high priority regions. Now, before my whole efficiency revelation, I would spend days grid searching an entire property. I'd walk a straight line down a border and then shift forty yards down and do the same thing going back to the other direction. The issue wasn't just that I was spending time on the low odds locations, but when I did actually arrive at the high odd spot, I was either too short on time to properly search them where I was so burnt out that my focus dipped. So rather than spending ten hours walking entire property, I'll now spend the first eight scouring the bedding and feeding areas. And when I do that, I'm fully engaged and I've got high hopes my time spent there is higher quality, more focused and ultimately more productive. With more time to spend in these small areas, I can make the extra effort to change my perspective, which means sometimes standing on top of logs for a different view, or looking back behind me in an area that might otherwise have been blocked by brush. I moved slowly, and I scan with more attention to detail. I pick up part of landscape for any telltale flash of white or curve of a beam. I carefully look behind down trees, underneath lone cedars, and in tall grass boarding food picking apart each particularly promising piece of habitat. In a perfect world, by focusing your shed hunting time on the top of a property, you'll have more time to spend on additional shed hunting area is and focus on the top there as well. The end result should be a hundred percent of your time or close to it spent in high probability locations rather than wasting on the low probability sections that comprise most areas. Now, of course, all rules are made to be broken, and yes I find sheds every year in random locations not associated with betting or feeding, but the general trend almost always applies. Efficiency is the name of the game when it comes to smart and productive shed hunting, and the twenty rule can help you achieve it. So those are two of the biggest ideas that I keep in mind when I go out shed hunting. Number one, timing my shed hunting to make sure I'm not going into early and I'm not going in too late. And then number two, when I do start hitting my spots, I'm efficient. I really focus on the highest probability locations now when it comes to how to spot sheds, how to pick the perfect little locations where there might be one, like underneath the cedar tree. All of us have been covered in DTA on past episodes and articles, but I want to share with you a few more pieces of advice from some of our past guests. First off, we've got Dan Perez from White Tail Properties, and I want to share the segment from our chat with him on episode forty six, in which he discusses how he starts his shut hunting process each year and the most important places he searches. And then finally Dan shares some very unique advice for a a special spot you might be able to find an aniler too concerning the the timing um I worked the edges the fields of stuff again, because I don't want to push him out. Uh So so when it's time, when when the majority the deer have dropped their antlers, then I'll answer the timber as well. This way I won't push him out by work in the fields. But now I'm looking for him in their antlers and their bedding areas, and and uh and a lot of other places. I look at bedding areas. And I'll tell you the best way that I look at is if I'm a deer and i'm I'm I'm out all night, okay, and now sun the sun is starting to come out, and and I catch those first warm rays that are coming from the south and from the east. Well, I'm just gonna I'm on a bed somewhere where I'm nice and comfortable, and that sun hits me because it's been cold all night. It's it's winter. Um. So, two places that I key on, I like to two key on edge uh. Edge and edges is very dominant here because of the the agriculture. You know edge um that is on the on the south and the southeast side of the edge. I look for that quite a bit. I slopes um the side of hogbacks or or hills or or or gullies the sides where it does two things. It Uh, You've got the the south facing slope if there's not if it's not heavily timbered, you'll get plenty of sun and it's warm and it's comfortable. That's where they bed and that the back side of that slope is it breaks the wind. It's important for them not to have that north wind on them. So it serves as two purposes. That's when I go into the timber when I'm when I'm in the field first, I'm looking at the at the south southeast edge is quite a bit. I don't. I don't hardly look at the shade side of of stuff very much, although I oh I will when I'm driving around. But most of the antlers I find will be where the where the deer finally bedded after a long night and they want to bed somewhere warm, you know, if that makes sense to you guys. So so the south facing slopes and the south facing edge is a big deal for me, and and and and and the other thing to go along with I think you mentioned something about I think about dry bedding. I'm not. I'm not sure the context of what you said, but dry bedding is really important also because when the snow falls, everything's wet and you would think that uh uh oak leaves would be good, but the oak leaves get pretty muddy out out in the timber. I like, I like cedar, think it's cride a bit. And maybe that's what you mentioned. Maybe it was cedars. I'm not sure cedars, pines, anything that provides really dry bedding. UM. A lot of people plant the warm season grasses on their properties. When those grasses fall over, they provide really dry bedding as well. Those deer, you know, it's cold and then they don't really like to lay in a mud puddle. So so I I I key on those areas. I try to What I try to do is knock out the areas that are the hottest spots first. That's that's where I'm going. First, of course, the hottest areas UM, and it changes with time, is is the the post season food sources, the best post season food sources, because you know there's food sources that were hot, really hot during hunting season that at the end of this, at the post of the season, their cold. Maybe that's that was clover, for example, it turns dormant as soon as the freeze is there. It's dormite, you know. So some of the hotter, hotter food sources obviously look for antlers in those food sources and around those food sources. So now I could venture into the timber around those really hot food sources. That's a that's probably my number one um, you know, And I don't on this particular topic of timing. I don't know if you want me to get into some other stuff, but I got some stuff that people don't even think of when when hunting antlers. And I could say it if it's the wrong timing, well, I hate to. I hate to have a cliffhanger here. Now I'm really intrigued for let's let's hear that now, and then I've got a million other questions now that I'm thinking of as you're touch on some of these things. But let's hear the uh, the not so commonly thought of antler tips. I have found probably more antlers doing this than especially farms, were not too many people mess around the ponds. There's years where it's not so wet and there's not so much snow like there is right now so so water even in the winter is not very available. And some of the southern regions also it's it's never available. And if you have a year of drought um ponds, there's antlers laying in ponds. If those ponds have never been dry, they've never gone dry, and no one's ever done this, you may have a wealth of antlers in your pond. And what I what I do is I take a long pole, very long pole depending on the size of the pond, with a rake head on the end of it, and UH dragged. In other words, I reached as far as I could reach into the pond, and then I dragged back towards the shore. And when you feel on the end of that rake you feel it a little bink bink. You know you have an antler on the other end. And I and I drag them out, and it's kind of cool because you know, like I I've bought, I bought a new farm. Let's see, it's it's been three seasons now. And the first thing I did was dragged the ponds. And I didn't find that many these ponds, some of them dried up, but I found fifteen antlers by dragging ponds um. And the cool thing about it, there's nothing eating those antlers. There's nothing eating them, and the water actually preserves them. They'll there'll be a different color. There'll be a little little shade of an arm of a brownish like not a dark brown, but but kind of a medium brown color from being underwater. They've been there for a long time. But the antlers still perfectly intact. Nothing they don't unlike an antler that's been laying out, you know, like here and in the South, squirrels eat antlers, Mice eat antlers, they eat them very quickly. In the West, where they don't have so many squirrels, in some cases no squirrels, and antler may lay there for years without being touched. But the antler will it will dry out, you know, it will kind of bleach out, and and and and when you pick it up, there won't weigh anything. But the ones that you pull out of the ponds, they they'll be perfect, you know, I mean that they'll they'll they're they're still have the same amount of maryl they're solid, you know. So that that's something that I know a lot of people haven't have have not done. I mean, I'm probably the only one crazy enough to try it. You know, you take the cake for the craziest most unique shed hunting tip I've ever heard. Yeah. Now, now, probably now when we when we acquire a farm, I won't be able to find anilers because I'll let it out of the bag because and continuing on, we've got Joe Shed, an outdoor writer and shed hunting expert. He actually wrote a book on shed hunting, and we had him on episode one of the podcast. We pulled a couple of excerpts from that, and I want to first start with Joe tackling the same question that I talked a little about earlier and the Dan mentioned too, which is where do you find the most sheds? But Joe has got some specific details which I think are very helpful. So here's what he had to stay on that. Well, you know, in the simplest terms, I mean, you're going to be either betting, feeding, or traveling between those two areas in the kind of wintertime. So you can kind of narrowed down to those three types of things. You know, it might be farm fields, it might be uh, haystacks, it could be you know, just um, forest brows could be the feeding areas, UM, betting areas. UM. It could be a good thick cover. It could be some conifers, you know, some pine trees or something that provides some shelter from the wind catches the snow holds it up in the branches. UM. But a lot of people don't realize too, is that sometimes the best bedding cover is a lack of cover. UM. And that's where the south facing hillsides come into play. UM. That's always a really good spot to look for, said, because that's the area that gets the most direct sunlight in the winter. And you'll find if if you're in a snowy region like I live, UM, the north slope will have a lot more snow than the south side because the sun's beaten down and melting it. And a deer is a lot like a cat. Like there's you know, like a cat in a window soaking up that sunlight. A deer is going to do the same thing. It's it's trying to survive. It's you know, it's trying to conserve body heat. And a lot of times a little bit on that self slope sometimes east slope as well, trying to take advantage of that morning sound too. UM. So those are things that looked for. I guess in general, UM, you know good feeding, good food sources, UM, south slope of hills, UM. You know betting areas that might be you know, thick cover like pine trees like I said, or thick brush. It just kinda depends you focus ever on, like fence crossings or creep crossings or I guess where do you typically find a majority of your sheds? Yeah, well the fence and creek thing as you mentioned, I'm sure you know is um they're jumping that obstacle of fence or the creek and and on impact they can lose on the antler UM. And I have found sheds lane right and creeks before. Um. Everybody talks about the fence crossing have actually when they found very few sheds of fence crossings, but they do occur. Um. I guess I don't look a lot of along a lot of fence lines the fence lines either, but you know most of my sheds um. And it comes down to the areas I searched to where I live, we don't have agricultural fields, so everything is looking for us. UM. So then you know your your food source really can be pretty much anywhere it's not a really defined area. So as a shed hunter, I kind of am a bed oriented, UM person. I look for dear beds. I look for areas where they're you know, either defined bed in one particular spot or maybe like a ridge line where they're going to bed all along that ridge. That's kind of how I look. And I know I've shed hunter with other people and we have we have different styles, and it's kind of comes down to what we're used to. Guys are more agricultural areas are going to be more likely to you know, look those field edges or whatever. And you know, you kind of start with what you know, but you should be willing to adapt to different situations as well. Right, yes, speak like locations. One um on the on the bedding area side of things. One kind of randomly popped on my head that UM, And I gotta say, Joe, UM taking a step back here. When I first got into shed hunting, UM, I don't know, eight years ago or nine years ago or whatever it was. Now, Um, I did pick up your book and I read it and it definitely helped me. And I think I read this in your book originally, and now I've seen it play out in my own lifetime and time again. When you're on a hillside or in a forest or something and you have like an individual conifer tree, an evergreen tree by itself. I've seen so many times that those are the spots where a buckle bed and you find a shed there, you know, that little cedar tree or something by itself in some tall grass or something. I always zoom over to those locations if ever I see one, because that seems to be like one of those little wild card spots kind of where um, you know, it's like the spot within the spot, like it's a betting area, but then that specific spot within the bedding are tends to be that isolated bedding tree or something. Um, do you find that kind of thing still too? Yeah? You you definitely nail it right on the head. Um, if I could pick out like my ideal spot to find a ship, it would be like a one lone conifer tree and a hardwood forest on a south slope of a hill. You know it's and if you think about it, um, if you know trappers are really good at reading the landscape, do you think about your own hunting situation? How many times have you been walking through the woods where it's maybe hardwoods or something. There's one big tall white pine in that hardwoods, and I guess what somebody's gonna stand hanging in that tree. You know, it stands out. I mean people relate to it, animals relate to it. You know, he'll find uh bones underneath these trees where a fox or a coyote is sat there and just chew down a bone. I mean, it's something that sticks out from the landscape, and it's it's not just dear that pick up on. But yeah, you're absolutely right. Those those bucks have a out of their way to better than beneath that lone tree or or just a few scattered pines here in the area in an otherwise hardwood forest. Continuing on, here's Joe talking about out his advice for how to better spot sheds, So not just where to look for him, but how to look for them and the best conditions when you're out there looking for anlers. What kind of advice do you have for people to actually help you see more sheds and actually spot more sheds, Because it's one thing to know where you should be looking, it's another thing to actually find them. How do you how do you get better at that? Okay, that's a good question. Uh. Well, the first thing, and it sounds simple, but I always tell people to keep their eyes on the ground because the first couple of times that I go out for the year, I'll be seeing deer. You know, I'll be I'll be in deer hunting moment. I'll be looking, you know, three ft off the ground trying to see a deer when I need to keep my eyes on the ground. And it's something you really have to consciously tell yourself. I'll go with a budding and he'll be like, did you see that rub? And I'll be like, what rubbed? Because I wasn't looking at you know. Um, it's not that extreme all the time. I mean I certainly rubbed and stuff, but you really need to be looking at the ground. Um, and that's where they're gonna be. Um. And it sounds simple, but until you you know what people always talk about throwing an antler out and uh and looking for or if you're with a buddy and he finds a shed, maybe he doesn't touch it and you come and find it. And until you kind of get in that situation, it's it's kind of like catching a fish until you feel that how a wall I bite, then you kind of understand it. And once you find that first shed, then something seemed to click, and all of a sudden, after that it becomes easier. You know, the same thing the first set of the years, It always seems to be hard because you're just not in that zone. And once, once you see it, it clicks in your mind and then you start realizing he's like, Okay, I'm looking for times sticking up out of the grass, and you know, it might not be a whole antler, it might be something behind the log or burying grass or something, and maybe just looking for a couple of inches of that time sticking out, and you start to kind of train your eyes to see it and develop a feel for what you you should really be looking for. Do you have there a weather condition that you really like to hunt in to shed hunting? Well, you know, but everybody else says the cloudy days are best because you're not squinting, and and after a rain because the match down the grass and the leaves and and uh makes a little bit of a shine on the amp or everybody talks about that, but it is hard to look into a in the sunshine. You certainly want to keep your the sun at your back if you can. Um, I guess I I go whenever I can. But ideally, you know, a cloudy day after a rain would be the best conditions. You know. Another thing I've I've sometimes done and heard other people suggest is trying to find like different perspectives. Like even if you've walked through an area once and it seems like you saw everything, Like sometimes it's a good idea to stand on top of a stump or kneel down and look around. Do you ever do that kind of thing, just to try to see things at a different angle or anything? Um? Yeah, you know a lot of guys talk about walking behind or looking the ad them once in a while as well. And and sometimes you'll see a shed that you walk right by them. Maybe the sun was in your eyes, or there's a branch in your way or something that caused you to not be able to see it. Um. But sometimes you know, I've certainly found sheds that I've walked within feet of and uh, I came back you know, on another path through there, just you know, by chance or whatever, And and here that antlers laying right there it was, you know, and it is maybe you know, behind a fallen log or something like that. Um, or maybe sometimes you just were looking left when you should have been looking right, you know. Um, that's another consideration. It's how fast you walk. Um, I was trying to not walk faster than my eyes can see. You know, if you're sweeping back and forth left and right with your eyes, if you're looking left, you got to make sure that you're you're not walking so fast that you haven't had a time to bring that vision back to the right before you keep moving. And again, if it's you know, real open terrain, you can walk a little faster, and if it's tight woods you cover, then you can need to walk a little slower. Yeah, that's a good point. Do you ever do you ever walk a whole property or a whole section twice or like come back a week later, specifically because of this fact that you know you're inevitably probably going to miss some definitely, um, you know, especially if you're really looking for a particular shed. Um. You know, sometimes you just flat out miss him, and and you'll find a shed that you know, we were within a few feet of it before, and somehow you just missed it or I mean I've even you know, people, it sounds ridiculous, but I'm out there looking for sheds. I've stepped on sheds, I've kicked sheds and you'd think you'd see it. But yeah, I'll definitely come back, especially if there's something I'm really looking for. Um, you know, and like you were saying earlier, sometimes it's it's a good idea to come from a different angle and see things from a different perspective too, So um or you know, bring a buddy along and maybe they'll see something in a different way that you, you know, something that you missed. All right, So we've talked about shed hunting memories and stories with further You heard from me on the importance of timing when you start and end shedding. We talked about the importance of being efficient, and we heard from Dan and Joe in regards to the best spots to look for them, the best ways to find them, how raking ponds might help you find antlers. That's all we've covered here today in my shed hunting master class. I hope this has been helpful, just a little bit of a kickstart for shed hunting season. But I want to leave you one last thought. Um, I love finding antlers right getting out there and seeing that time taking out of the grass. Like we talked about earlier, that is a rush. But it's important to go into shed season with the right attitude, and we talked about we talked about this for years. This applies to hunting too. But if you go into it just determined to have a good time, to have a good walk with your buddies, to laugh, to enjoy each other's company, to enjoy nature and a beautiful day. If you go into it those types of expectations, you're going to enjoy shed hunting. But if you head out there saying to yourself, I better find five antlers today, are better find fifteen antlers today, or better find an antler, And if you don't, you get really disappointed and upset and frustrated and stressed. Well, you're just setting yourself up for failure. You gotta just have that positivity and stick with it, but enjoy it for what it is. Some days you'll find some some days you won't. But you're outside and that's pretty damn cool. So that's all I got to say today and shed hunting, I wish you all luck the The good time should be picking up any day now, so enjoy yourselves. Be safe out there. I hope you find some antlers, and until next time, stay wired to hunt.