Around this time every year, there is a lot of anticipation to get the boat in the water and start a new fishing season. More open water is popping up every day if you want to wet a line.
But for those of you who are happy to simply spend time being outside, now is prime time to hit the woods in search of shed deer antlers–one of my favourite springtime activities.
Deer, moose, elk, and caribou all drop their antlers each winter, then grow new ones again through the spring and summer. These fallen antlers create a treasure hunt for those of us who like to be outside and are interested in finding them.
While larger, fresh shed antlers can be worth a lot of money, my friends and I never sell them. They are too much work to find!
Shed hunting is fun because there is a challenge in finding them and there are never two antlers that are exactly the same. We always want to find the biggest ones we can, as well, to have bragging rights with our buddies.
If you are a hunter, spending time looking around in the areas that you hunt in the fall is a great way to scout the area and see deer sign from the previous fall before it’s all covered up once the new foliage starts to grow.
Finding fresh sheds also gives you an indication of the animals living in that area.
When you find a large shed from a deer that you believe to still be alive creates a lot of anticipation for the upcoming hunting season, and makes it much easier to put in the long hours sitting in a blind waiting for a big buck to show itself.
Shed hunting was introduced to me back around 2005, when our deer population across Northwestern Ontario was really at its peak. A friend from Minnesota, Mike Christopher, used to come up and spend a few weekends every year around the Lake of the Woods area in April and May–he literally was finding hundreds of shed antlers.
It was an activity that not many local people were interested in. Yet he would find hundreds of sheds in a weekend, many of them old but always a few fresh ones, as well.
He brought me with him one day, we had a great time, and I was hooked. It is such a great activity for exercise and it’s a nice time of year to be outside before it gets to hot and the bugs get bad.
When it comes to looking for sheds, there is a pattern to finding them. I like to look for the biggest hills and longest ridges running from east to west. Most deer will drop their antlers on the south-facing sides of these hills and ridges where they spend a lot of their time in the winter.
They like to bed down on the south sides of these hills, where they are can get some warmth from the sun, be protected from harsh north winds, and where the snow is less of a hindrance to their movements and is not covering up their food as bad as it does in low spots.
If you can find some good hills that are a kilometre from the road or water, those are the best ones because hunters seldom will get that far in a day if they are trying to be quiet. You want to look for sheds in remote areas where hunters and other hikers are not going to incidentally find many of the sheds.
Once you get up on the hills, look for flat, benchy spots in front of trees and bushes where a deer might bed down–that is where you’ll find the most antlers. As you go, you’ll get an eye for finding them.
I don’t get out as much as I used to over the past few years because of my bass tournament fishing activities in the U.S., but I go every chance I get once the snow melts and before the new spring foliage starts to sprout up.
I have found a few thousand sheds and have hundreds decorating my yard, as well as a few of the nicer ones inside my home.
It is a fun spring activity and once you go a few times, you’ll get an eye for finding these little treasures.
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