Deer sheds

Is their any areas that you guys like focusing in on while out looking? Do you watch where the deer are and then go look or do you just wonder around. Also do any of you use dogs for sheds?

Don't wast time searching in all the wrong areas. There are only a few places I learned while shed hunting that hold sheds. The main area is food sources. I cannot stress this enough! You need to locate the deer's food source in the winter. It's usually one or two plants. Once you locate the food source, you will load up on sheds. Be prepared to walk A LONG WAY. Sometimes I walk as far as 5 miles and do not find anything. Other days I walk 5 miles and find 6 or 7 sheds. BRING FOOD AND WATER. I carry a knapsack with food, water and Advil. Stop and eat and drink. This helps you from getting tired and rundown. WALK SLOW! You'd be surprised how many antlers you walk right by. I found one half of an 8 a few weeks ago that I almost walked right on top of. GRID AN AREA. Grid an area that looks good. This will improve your success rate hugely. DON'T GET DISCOURAGED. You are going to have bad days or bad weeks where you are going to find nothing. It happens. Just keep trying and keep walking. You gotta keep walking. You will be rewarded. Use a GPS to mark your trail. Getting lost sucks. I use an app on my iPhone called EveryTrail. It's free. It uses GPS to track where I've been. You cannot get lost using this. It also lets you take pictures of the sheds you find and superimposes it on the map. DON'T TELL ANYONE WHERE YOU ARE FINDING SHEDS!! This cannot be stressed enough. If someone finds out about your hotspot, they will go in well before you and scoop up all the sheds. Keep your mouth shut even though it's hard not to brag sometimes. A few weeks ago I found footprints in one of my hotspots that I had all to myself last year. Talk about discouraging!!! But I still found 5 sheds in two days there so they can't find them all. Once you find a spot that holds antlers, mark it on a GPS and go back the next year. There will be sheds there again. This year I found a matched set just feet away from where I found an antler last year in the same exact field. I hope this helps anyone just starting out the addiction of shed hunting. Good Luck!

Thanks, it helps allot. It's going to rain allot this weekend so hopefully our snow will be almost gone. Before I was sitting at My Grandpas looking over the ridge and could see tons of deer. Hopefully we get a few nice hours this weekend to go out looking.

Fence crossings and bedding areas can be good.

Are you ever affraid that your going to push the deer out of the bedding area?

Bryce 21 wrote:Are you ever affraid that your going to push the deer out of the bedding area?

This is the only time of the year to go into the sanctuaries. Ever watch the Drury's, in March they set aside a day and get an army together to do a sweep of their land to find sheds and find new spots they should hunt. The deer will come back since there's no hunting pressure.