Best Places to Find Shed Antlers

If you’re a deer hunter or any kind of outdoors-lover, you’re probably racking up some miles on your boots right about now in the pursuit of shed antlers. Why wouldn’t you? It’s a warmer-than-average winter in many parts of the country, the snow has mostly melted, and it’s the perfect time to get out there and check the woods. With everything you can learn about the deer you hunt or the habitat you hunt them in, shed hunting can be a great learning opportunity. But while everyone is consumed with the idea of looking for these magical shed antlers, they often get confused about where to look for shed antlers. It can be really intimidating if you own a very large property or look primarily on vast public lands; where do you even begin to search for something so small in an area so big? It feels like looking for an actual needle in a haystack after a while.

Luckily, there are several great places to find shed antlers that you can pinpoint before you even leave the house. The best places to find shed antlers are areas that hold deer during certain parts of their daily routine, which increases the likelihood of you finding antlers. When you start searching in these high-priority locations first, you can eliminate huge areas that have very little potential. Ultimately that means you could find more shed antlers in less time, making you a much more efficient shed hunter. High efficiency is critical if you’re dealing with huge properties and want to find some deer sheds before the mice, squirrels, and porcupines chew them up or another hunter finds them.

Where to Find Shed Antlers

We’ve listed some of the best places to find shed antlers below. Take a look through and see if any places come to mind on the land you shed hunt. If you can think of a few, prioritize those spots for a trip very soon. Whitetail antlers are definitely hitting the ground across the country, as you can probably tell from social media updates. If it hasn’t happened on your property yet, it’s likely to happen very soon. When to go shed hunting is a tricky question. The most accurate way is to use trail cameras for shed hunting. The Pro-Cam 12 is a great trail camera that you can use throughout the year to keep tabs on the deer herd.

First, let’s start with a recap on white-tailed deer habits and habitats. Deer are adapted to rest during the day and feed throughout the night. They are crepuscular animals, meaning they excel at dawn and dusk (i.e., low-light situations), but their eyes are adapted to see well throughout the night too. Using that knowledge, we know that deer will spend the majority of their day bedded down somewhere and the majority of their night feeding somewhere. It makes sense then that deer are more likely to shed antlers in one of these two areas since that’s simply where they spend most of their time.

Deer Feeding Areas

Let’s start with feeding areas, which many people adamantly claim is the best place to find a shed antler. Since deer would typically drop their antlers in a feeding area during the night, you’d have a great chance at finding a fresh deer antler before anyone else if you’re up against other public land shed hunters.

Agricultural Field/Food Plot

In much of the Midwest, corn and soybean fields are king when it comes to deer nutrition. They make up the majority of a deer’s diet during certain parts of the year, and are full of carbohydrates and protein, respectively. That should be obvious, given how many mature bucks have been taken out of a Muddy Box Blind perched on the edge of a corn field. But when they are harvested each fall, deer need to instead scavenge waste grain on the ground. This is an inefficient way for them to feed, and they will always seek out the easiest feeding method possible. If you can find a standing corn or bean field in the winter, you can be sure the deer will travel for miles around to gorge themselves. More importantly, fields like these are such a powerful magnet for whitetails that you could find shed antlers from deer you’ve never even seen on your property before. Winter food plots with corn, beans, tall brassicas, or cereal grains offer a similar attraction. People often overlook food plots for shed hunting. With all the deer gathering in these fields, you have a much better chance of finding a shed. If you don’t have any fields, you can also try supplemental feeders.

Winter Browse Area

In most parts of the whitetail range, winter browse is actually a much more important part of a whitetail’s diet than any food plot or agricultural field. Deer are adapted to have reduced metabolisms in the winter, and their digestive tracts even adapt to include the microorganisms to efficiently digest fibrous browse. What do we mean by browse? Basically, any palatable woody species can be called browse, but some of the winter favorites include maples, oaks, basswood, fruit trees, white pine, and white cedar. It’s important to note that deer will normally only eat the young and tender new growth from the summer before as that is easier to digest than older, tough, and woody stems. While you might be able to find young growth areas on your property, they will likely be scattered around and hard to pinpoint a specific location. But if you have any recent clear-cut areas from the year before, there is sure to be an abundance of young growth for deer to browse on. Public lands are usually full of these kinds of cuts, which can be part of your overall strategy. Make sure to check out any of these areas for shed antlers.

If you don’t have any on your own private land, you can create that habitat right now to increase your chances of finding a few sheds this winter and for many to come. Simply grab your chainsaw and cut down several trees in a small pocket (anywhere from a tenth of an acre to an acre or more). You’ll want to leave most oaks and fruit trees that provide mast for deer, which will further enhance it as a feeding area. But all the other undesirable trees can be fully cut down or hinge-cut. The freshly felled trees will provide lots of young tender browse that was inaccessible to the deer, but the sudden infusion of sunlight will also produce lots of stump sprouts next summer. If you hinge-cut the trees, it will become a thick area that can act as both a bedding and feeding area. That’s a great way to really increase your odds of finding a shed antler!

Deer Bedding Areas

Now we’ll talk about the other main area you’re likely to find most of your shed antlers. Deer will bed down in the same general area for the majority of the day. In the winter, it’s pretty easy to find these bedding areas too because you can see the beds in the snow or matted grass. That being said, you’ll want to wait to check out any bedding areas for shed antlers until you know that bucks have dropped them, simply because you can chase them to a neighboring property before they’re ready.

CRP Fields or Cattail Swamps

In the winter, deer need thick thermal cover to protect them from the cold temperatures and winds. Some habitat types to accomplish this goal include tall grass plantings or frozen, thick cattail swamps. Most Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) fields are perfect for this purpose. They are often planted with switchgrass, big bluestem, or Indian grass, which are very tall, upright, and clump-forming. These tall grasses shield deer from icy winds and stay upright through ice accumulation and heavy snows. Since they are usually located in close proximity to agricultural fields and make for a convenient bedding area, it’s always worth checking out one of these fields. Frozen cattail swamps offer a similar level of protection as they will grow extremely densely to protect deer from any cold winds. Just make sure it’s still frozen before you venture out into the swamp. Finding shed antlers in the tangled thick grasses or cattails isn’t easy though. You need to pretty much stick to trails and beds to find them.

Dense Conifer Stands

In more northern regions outside of the farm belt, dense conifer stands offer a similar level of protection from winter, with some additional benefits. Pine forests with a tall canopy help filter out snow, which keeps the snow levels in the understory very shallow. This is important since deer hooves sink right through deep snow; this sheltered spot offers a break from the otherwise difficult travel conditions. There may also be some young or fallen cedar or pine branches to browse on while in this type of bedding area. Deer may occasionally shift to bed on the southern edges of spruce plantations so they can soak up the sun’s warmth while being protected from the north’s icy winds.

Thick Brushy Areas

As we mentioned above, recently clear-cut areas provide tons of downed trees and limbs to offer a lot of concealment for whitetails. If they were cut a few years ago, there should be lots of additional growth too. Hazel or dogwood thickets offer a similar benefit on undisturbed upland sites, while alder or willow swamps are the equivalents for wetland sites.

Travel Corridors

Now that we’ve covered the two dominant sites to find shed antlers, let’s look at the last place you can find them. Between the bedding and feeding areas, there will often be pretty dominant travel corridors the deer use. These trails are very easy to notice in the winter, whether there is snow on the ground or not. Simply walk these corridors from one end to the other, paying particular attention to areas with obstacles across the trail.

Post Season Scouting

This shed antler hunting season, don’t take the scatter gun approach by looking everywhere. Focus instead on these high-priority areas alone and take the time you need to look more thoroughly. Don’t just casually walk through the area; you need to almost stalk and use your eyes to really scan the ground for any part of an antler. If you focus on the areas above, you should come out ahead when it comes to the search for shed antlers.

How Supplemental Feeders Can Help With Shed Hunting

We’re sure you’re aware of it at this point, but shed hunting season is definitely here again. You’ve likely been getting text messages or social media updates from friends or coworkers who have found a couple shed antlers already. You’re also probably itching to get out in the woods and start looking yourself. Shed hunting can make for a really great day in the woods, but it’s always a little better when you actually find something. If you have snuck out a few times already but haven’t found anything, your luck is about to change by using these shed hunting tips. Using supplemental feeders, where legal, is a great way to provide a calorie boost for deer in your area, but it’s also a great way to concentrate your shed antler hunt. The best time for finding sheds is rapidly approaching across the country, so it’s time to consider this strategy if you’re not already.

Best Time for Shed Hunting

As we mentioned, this is just about prime time for shed hunting. People across the country have been heading afield and returning with brag-worthy deer sheds for a couple weeks now, but the action is about to really step up in most places. When to start shed hunting can be a tricky question to answer since it varies so much, but most people believe that February is the best month to find them. Technically, you could find them from December through March, but February is right in the average, sweet spot time frame for ideal shed hunting times. These trips also work well as far as post season scouting goes.

When to Shed Hunt

When To Shed Hunt

If you start shed hunting too aggressively and too early in the season, there is the possibility of spooking deer to other properties where they could shed their antlers instead. But if you wait too long to look, on the other hand, squirrels and mice will chew them up before you find them. If you primarily look on public land, other shed hunters could also beat you to it. When to shed hunt is a balancing act and it always has its risks. One way to mitigate these risks is to only check out feeding areas early in the deer shed season and to be extremely stealthy while doing it. Deer will likely be bedded away from food sources, so you should be able to sneak in and check for sheds without disturbing them too much. As prime time comes, you can start pushing your search into bedding areas lightly, as most bucks should have shed their antlers at that point.

Best Places to Shed Hunt

Whitetails spend most of their time either resting in a bedding area or feeding in a feeding area. It makes sense then that you have the best chance at finding a shed antler in one of these two areas. Sometimes you can get lucky by finding one alongside a trail, but usually that only happens if a buck glances an antler off of a branch in the process.

But if you don’t have a winter food source available on your land, this can be a bit of a problem. That should be a goal to address this summer by producing some late-season food plots for the deer. But for now, there’s a way to feed and attract the deer to your property, and that’s where supplemental feeders for deer come in. Muddy Outdoors® has a 200 pound gravity deer feeder that will feed deer securely on your land. It has a waterproof lid with a locking mechanism and the spring-loaded pan system helps distribute supplemental feed only if an animal disturbs it.Supplemental feeders are attractive to deer because they offer a high-quality food source at a time when natural browse may be the only thing available to them. In addition, you get to choose what type of feed to use, whether you stick to simple cracked corn or high-protein feed specific for deer.

This concentration of deer feeding increases the chance that a buck would shed his antlers in the general vicinity. As he feeds off the pan system, he also might bump his antlers, separating them from his head in the process. While the Muddy Outdoors® feeder is not designed to be an antler trap, the support bars can act like one. In addition, you can hang a trail camera near the supplemental feeder and keep a watchful eye on the deer that come to it. When you notice the majority of bucks missing their head gear, you’ll know exactly when you should start really shed hunting hard and pushing into bedding areas.

Caution with Supplemental Feeding

While the option above seems like a golden solution to your shed hunting woes, there are some cautions you should take before doing it. First, feeding deer may or may not be legal where you hunt. Check your state’s hunting regulations or call a game warden to see whether you can or cannot feed them. The concern that some agencies have is that it can concentrate deer activity into such a small area and increases the chances of deer making nose to nose contact. This might not sound like a big deal, but it can increase the chance of spreading transmissible diseases like Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) or others in prone areas.

Deer are curious animals in that their digestive system gets really good at digesting certain foods as the seasons change. For example, since woody browse is often the only food source in winter for many deer, their guts get really good at extracting everything it can from a mostly fibrous, low-nutrient food. When they rapidly switch over to eating mostly corn from a feeder, however, it can create confusion in the guts. The microorganisms aren’t there to really digest the corn, causing it to flow right through the system without giving any benefits. This essentially starves them. That being said, deer are adapted to different conditions across the country. Midwest whitetails near an abundance of corn fields will still probably eat enough corn that it won’t harm them to suddenly experience a feeder. But it’s a different story for big woods bucks that never see a kernel of corn. The key is to slowly introduce supplemental feeding so they don’t have the opportunity to essentially starve themselves. If you haven’t fed deer before and especially if you live in a primarily forested area, start introducing very small amounts in your feeder at first (e.g., 10 to 20 pounds) each week. If you slowly increase the amount you feed them each week, they should have time to develop their gut flora enough to digest the corn. Of course, time and cost are both considerations with supplemental feeding for deer. It takes time to fill a feeder each week, and the cost of keeping it stocked can be on the pricey side.

Is Supplemental Feeding Right for You?

This shed hunting season, consider whether supplemental feeding could be used on your property. For those it works for, it can be a really useful tool to pick up some extra deer antlers, and it can be a great way to concentrate those monster whitetail sheds you’ve been looking for.

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Top 6 Best Places to Find Shed Antlers