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2022 Shed Hunting Thread

Gator said:
Good day today. All three in a small buck bedding area within 15 feet of each other. One was actually in his bed so not sure why he hadn’t moved it out of the way

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You’re my hero
 
7.5 miles today, no luck. It was a beautiful day though. I saw a fair amount of deer sign but did not bump the first deer. Sometimes I wonder where these dumb things go.
 
TreeCreep said:
how are you New England fellas finding these consistently?
I have had no problem finding sheds in NJ/ PA but rarely find any since moving to NH with the lower density.
I scout a healthy amount in the off season
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Good luck to you is all I can say, I hunt and scout hard in the Adks and have never found a single shed in my life, not one, my brother has found a couple, I kill good bucks pretty consistently… but sheds no bueno, low deer numbers and mice are what I blame.
 
And rhyme or reason to finding a shed? Places to look more than others. Walk fast and cover ground or slow and scan a ton? Fields, roads, trails, rub lines, bedding etc?
 
gcr0003 said:
And rhyme or reason to finding a shed? Places to look more than others. Walk fast and cover ground or slow and scan a ton? Fields, roads, trails, rub lines, bedding etc?
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I find my most on food and open areas. Ditch/creek crossing do ok. I'm guilty of walking right up on them in the woods before I see em and a constantly scan with Binos.
 
Mitchellfarmer1982 said:
I find my most on food and open areas. Ditch/creek crossing do ok. I'm guilty of walking right up on them in the woods before I see em and a constantly scan with Binos.
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Interesting, I wonder if that would work well at all for me in areas in the south which is a lot of wetlands but has corn and other fields planted throughout. I walked open woods yesterday and it seems impossible.
 
gcr0003 said:
And rhyme or reason to finding a shed? Places to look more than others. Walk fast and cover ground or slow and scan a ton? Fields, roads, trails, rub lines, bedding etc?
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If you have fields that's an good place to start. I'll fast walk or even jog the field edges staying about 30-40 yards out where I can see to the edge and way out into the field. Check all the ditches, low spots, drainages, any lone trees or patches of cover within in the field. Then walk the edges again just inside the wood line this time. Thick thermal cover where they can get some shelter from the cold/wind, brushy CRP type cover, south facing slopes, south facing edges of thickets (thick stuff blocking the cold northerly winds and sun warming them from the south), lone evergreen trees in CRP or hardwoods. When I find a bed that I think a buck may have used recently I walk all the visible exit trails and basically grid search a 100 yard radius around it. Its like still hunting, gotta know when to cover some ground and when to slow way down. I might do 4 miles in an hour burning field edges or jog down a hiking trail to get somewhere, then spend an hour picking apart a half acre piece of cover.
 
Went out today with the young dog. We had a nice 3 hour walk in the woods but no sheds. There's still an average of 8" of snow out where I was wandering around so I'm probably a bit early. I had a few questionable moments getting through the snow banks to get the truck off the road but we did okay.

The areas they've been pawing around under the oaks are pretty bare though. We started back in the bedding areas but I'm sure the snow is still deep enough to hide them there. We moved to the oak flats where they've been feeding at night and walked the open scrapped up patches and trails between them to no avail. Even so it was really good to get out and wander around in the woods again.
 
gcr0003 said:
Interesting, I wonder if that would work well at all for me in areas in the south which is a lot of wetlands but has corn and other fields planted throughout. I walked open woods yesterday and it seems impossible.
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I'm in Arkansas but I'm speaking more of some food plots and fresh growth on levees and such.
 
Topdog said:
Good luck to you is all I can say, I hunt and scout hard in the Adks and have never found a single shed in my life, not one, my brother has found a couple, I kill good bucks pretty consistently… but sheds no bueno, low deer numbers and mice are what I blame.
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Thanks, I’ve got enough to practice on with the whole not missing deer thing.
the only sheds I’ve found in NH have been pretty gnawed up. As someone posted earlier - there is alot more varmint to carry them away
 
gcr0003 said:
And rhyme or reason to finding a shed? Places to look more than others. Walk fast and cover ground or slow and scan a ton? Fields, roads, trails, rub lines, bedding etc?
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Slow will always win IMO. The three I found the other day I was within 3 feet of one of them for probably a minute (had knelt down to take a breathe). Once I saw the first I scanned every single object around me. Took probably 5 minutes to find all three even though they were within 20 feet of the others. Those were bedding area thick as hell with blowdowns everywhere. With that said, I find most of mine in feeding areas (just easier to find in those places)


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I did about 8 miles today. No sheds. I have good luck in winter buck bedding and food areas. Stream crossings and swamps are great too. I’ve also had good luck by checking porcupine trees (they get them to the tree but can’t get ‘em up) porcupine dens, wolf and coyote dens, but best of all, under bear trees and near beaver huts and damns. I go real fast along game trails and slow down to a crawl when I get into high probability areas - i treat she’s hunting a lot like still hunting and tracking. I focus my effort on big mature bucks and don’t spend as much time wintering areas or family bedding areas. Deer density in my areas is pretty low but I find a few mature buck sheds every year.
I picked up a few hundred ticks today. It’s way too early for them to be so bad.
 
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