The Best Places to Hunt for Shed Antlers
Filed under: Hunting Blog
It’s that time of the year! Antlers are hitting the ground but where should you start looking?
A great place to start searching is near food and cover.
Here at The Proving Grounds, the Fall Buffalo Blend is providing great late season forage for deer and we have found several sheds in food plots. Intern Nigel Waring recently found this nice shed in a plot while working in the field.
Clay recently found a shed in northwest Kansas while touring a property. There was no quality food for deer on this property. Clay found this shed near cover. Deer on this property were spending more time in cover and surviving on native forage.
Tracy frequently has success hunting along known travel corridors and deer trails – especially when the trail is marked by a rub line! The antler below was found in just this scenario.
Deer trails marked with rubs leading to or in bedding areas are an especially good spot to slow down to search for antlers. The same trail where the above antler was found leads to a power line right-of-way. There were deer beds throughout that area in the native grass. The antler below was found along a trail cutting through that area.
When in the searching in the timber for antlers, Tracy gives special attention when she finds an area where the deer have been bedding. The below video shares one of the first finds for the 2020 shed hunting season that was near where deer had been bedding in the timber.
No matter where you shed hunt, identify the best resource in the area this time of the year and start hunting there. It maybe food, cover or both. These are the first places to start and can yield “easy” finds. The next place to look would be travel corridors between food and cover.
