Son of a bitch. That’s typically what runs through my mind when I see a buddy walking towards one of those spots while shed hunting.
Maybe you know what I’m talking about. If you’ve shed hunted long enough, you’ll recognize that those spots almost always hold an antler or two. When this kind of place comes into view, you can feel the energy change in a group of shed hunters. Routes mysteriously converge. The pace picks up. Every shed-savvy...

If you’re thinking this is your year to travel across state lines to hunt whitetails, you’d better start planning right now. It takes months to conduct the necessary due diligence so you don’t end up dropping serious coin on a non-resident license only to have the hunt totally flame out.
Here’s the thing: most people start at the wrong point in the process. They’ll hear about Iowa’s giant bucks or how Kansas has tons of untouched walk-in ground...

Finding shed antlers is fun, but does scooping up a matched set at the end of February mean anything come November? It all depends on the details of a specific antler, whether you have any history with its previous owner, and what you plan to do with the information it gives you.
Mark Kenyon is a devout shed junkie who believes that a cast antler is most valuable when on a multi-season quest for a single deer. “The most important benefit to shed...

This time of year, chasing big whitetails couldn’t possibly feel further away. That doesn’t mean your downtime between deer and turkey season should be wasted though. If you want to capitalize on the long offseason, now is the perfect time to download onX, put your virtual boots on the ground, and start e-scouting. After all, success favors the prepared.
Locating Quality Public Land
When starting from scratch while looking for public land, there...

The best and worst shed hunting advice I ever received was, “just keep walking.” There’s a beautiful simplicity (and truth) to that maxim, but also dangerous deceit.
When I first began searching for shed antlers, I took this approach to heart and simply walked. As most beginning shed hunters do, I blindly traversed every square inch of every property I had access to. On occasion, I’d actually find an antler and it was a great rush. But the...

I still have three buck tags burning a hole in my pocket from last season. For most hunters, unfilled licenses end up in the garbage. These folks curse their bad luck. They wallow in sorrow. They try to move on. But this achieves nothing.
In my mind, the best thing to do with uncut tags is to make tag soup. The trick is a matter of flipping your perspective on the past season and learning from it. Then you’ll be able to turn this winter’s tag...

Public land deer hunting is all the rage lately. It seems as if you can’t swing a tree saddle in a WMA parking lot without hitting at least a couple up-and-coming YouTube stars that hunt “beast” style. This focus on public ground, and the deer that call it home, is not relegated simply to hunting season anymore; it has bled into shed hunting as well.
I see this every year near my home in the Twin Cities and across the river in Wisconsin. It’s a...

I grabbed a shed antler from my coffee table this morning and watched as my black Lab’s tail began to wag. His hopeful eyes asked the same question that all whitetail hunters are wondering right now: Is it time to start shed hunting?
Shed antlers are a hot commodity in the outdoor world and competition for them is getting fiercer every year. If you’re looking to be as successful as possible, you don’t want to start searching for...

With whitetail seasons wrapping up across much of the country, one of the  questions I get most often is when to start the scouting process. This inquiry is most common among newer hunters.
Growing up in a traditional Northern Michigan deer hunting family, I was trained early on that the time for scouting was the weekend before the season opened. Or, sometimes, even the night before.
Scouting back then entailed trekking into the woods with a...

Myths, lies and old wives’ tales loom large in the outdoor pursuits. Here at MeatEater, we’re dedicated to separating facts from bullsh*t, so we created this series to examine suspect yarns. If there’s a belief, rumor or long-held assumption you’d like us to fact check, drop us a note at factchecker@themeateater.com.
Claim
Big box stores like Cabela’s and Bass Pro Shops will pay premium prices for exceptional deer mounts.
Origin
Every time a...