3 REASONS YOU’RE NOT FINDING SHEDS
February 23, 2023
By: Alex Comstock (@whitetail_dna)
One of the most common complaints I hear about shed hunting goes something like this, “I get so excited to go look for sheds, but then never find anything.” It’s more common than you think. Often, I’ll get comments on videos or Instagram posts that are highly sarcastic, making it pretty obvious whoever is leaving the comment hasn’t had much recent success. It’s important to remember shed hunting isn’t very easy. There aren’t many Brennen Nadings out there scooping antlers on seemingly every walk. If you fall into the “lack of success” category, there are most likely numerous things you could be doing wrong, but hopefully after you read this, your odds of success can go up. As you read on, I’m going to highlight three reasons you may not be finding sheds. These things are common and trust me when I say if these apply to you, you’re not alone. But if you can learn from them, your shed hunting can only go up.
You Don’t Scout Ahead of Time
A big part of any shed hunting success I have is knowing where bucks are during the time of year that they actually shed their antlers. If you want to find sheds, you need to know where bucks are spending their time in January, February, and March primarily. Waiting until the snow has melted if you have any, and just going shed hunting either where you spend most of your time hunting or a chunk of timber you want to check out isn’t necessarily going to lead you to finding antlers.
What I like to do is a mix of a couple things. I’ll run trail cameras in areas throughout the winter and into early spring so I can get a bead on where bucks are and when they drop their antlers. Another thing I like to do is scouting missions in early January attempting to locate where deer are spending time. I’ll check out possible food sources, bedding areas etc. I may not return to that area until later in spring, but if I do I’ll at least have an idea where deer where spending time over the winter. By scouting ahead of time, you’ll have a better idea of where you need to be walking.
You Don’t Walk Enough
This reason is probably the most widely committed one as it pertains to those not finding sheds. In order to scoop antlers, in most cases you’ve got to walk a ton! If you walk what I consider “normal” ground and not mega good properties that receive no shed hunting pressure, odds are you’ll have to put on miles and miles in between each shed find. In my best years of shed hunting, I’ve put on 100+ miles of walking to find in the range of 20-30 antlers.
It’s no doubt easy to give up after a few miles of walking and not finding any antlers, but you’ve got to just keep the feet moving and eventually you’ll start finding some bone. There’s a lot of other factors that go into it, but simply put, if you’re not walking very much, you won’t find many antlers.
You Get Distracted Easily
The best shed hunters I know have an acute ability to focus on one thing and one thing only-antlers. Put it this way, sheds lay on the ground. If your eyes aren’t on the ground, you won’t find antlers. What happens more often than not is you’ll notice a rub. Then maybe another one. Next thing you know, you’re looking for a perfect tree to hang a stand in next year. If your eyes are up off the ground and your shed hunting walk turns into a scouting trip, you’re not going to have as much luck finding sheds. Those eyes need to stay hyper trained on the ground in order to have more success.
Conclusion
Shed hunting is something I love to do this time of year. There’s nothing quite like that feeling of your eyes coming across an antler. When you’re not having success, it could be for a variety of reasons, but the three I talked about here are some of the most common and if you can avoid making those mistakes, it will only help you in your shed hunting pursuits.