A Successful Shed Hunting Season

Well, deer season is over, what to do now. How about starting next season? One of the most effective ways to gauge your next deer season or your overall buck population is to find sheds. After all, these bucks made it through the season and should be present on opening day next season.

I actively seek out sheds each year, and it is an exciting extension of the deer season. I start my searches around Presidents Day weekend and will pronounce it over about mid-March. This 2025 shed season, I retrieved 23 sheds from 21 different surviving bucks! How can this be possible? Lots of walking, and it will do you good, too.

I cover just over 800 acres in my search of rustic Talbot County seeking dropped antlers. Food plots are the most productive areas, followed closely by feeder locations. Following trails that lead to and from plots can be very productive, looking in all directions until you can no longer distinguish the trail. Next in line for productivity are fences that need jumped, ditches that need crossed or any other boundary item, like a big limb, that would jar the buck as he attempts to cross it. Even the ditch beside the public roads have yielded sheds for me as sheds fly off as they jump the ditches in a hurry to reach the woodlands again.

Patterns have evolved over my nearly 20 years of intentional shed hunting. I’ve noticed some bucks will tend to shed their antlers in the same general areas year after year.  I do not know why that tends to happen, but I find that extremely interesting. I have found one buck’s shed, both sides, for three years in a row within the same 5 acres.  Also, I have found sheds as early as Christmas Day and as late as the next year. However, the earlier I find a shed in the search year, the less likely I am to find its other side. If game-cam pictures show a buck is still carrying his headgear in late February, the odds of finding both sides together increase. Be vigilant when you find a shed, as well. Lots of times these antlers are knocked off due to a scuffle with another buck. It is not uncommon to find another shed within a few yards of a pick-up.

We manage our properties in an intense DMAP and are working toward increasing our buck population, as well as its age. There is no better proof that the plan is working than holding more and more sheds in your collection as each year passes. Nothing can be more nostalgic than harvesting a mature buck and having his past two years racks to show his progress. Dogs can be trained to help in the hunt, and it’s an excellent weekend getaway with kids and friends.  It also has a side advantage; the more sheds you pick up, the less you will find in your tractor and UTV tires.