Shed Hunting Tips & Tricks

Shed hunting is addicting. Over the last 4 years, I have spent at least a few days each spring in the PA big woods in search of shed antlers. While the world was on lockdown from COVID, I decided to give shed hunting a go. I thought they would be nearly impossible to find, especially where we hunt. Food sources everywhere and there’s not one central location where finding an antler would be “easy”. I soon learned they certainly weren’t impossible to find, but it took a lot of work. From the moment I laid eyes on the first one that spring, I was hooked.

I have to admit that my typical “shed hunt” is spent hiking trails and looking closely in areas where there is fresh sign, but I hadn’t really come up with a true method to the madness. I recently started thinking about some of the things I have learned, and listening to a podcast on shed hunting tips on my way to camp at 5:30 AM a few Saturdays ago got me thinking about sharing them.

Friday night before deciding to go, I saw that the forecast for Saturday was sunny. Typically, I have found that the conditions most conducive of finding sheds is an overcast day with wet ground (right after or while it’s raining). That’s not to say you can’t find them when it is sunny, you just have to know how to look.

I arrived at camp around 7:00 AM and hit the woods behind camp. I was planning on spending the bulk of my time in the area I found the big one two weeks prior, hoping to find its match. I slowly worked my way there, looking on trails along the way. As I drew nearer to where I found it, I started to “grid search” back and forth in the area. As I was working along the same elevation that the big shed was on, I looked down on the trail I was walking and found my first shed of the day.

While it wasn’t the match I was hoping for, it was certainly a nice antler with a lot of character. After taking some pictures “as it lays” I picked up the shed to find a cool sticker off of the G2.

After a short time admiring my 3rd shed of the season, I continued on. I scoured the area, and the sun was starting to peak out. I decided to push further out the ridge, planning on looping back through on my way out. I worked all the way out the ridge to where Uncle Rob was when Robert and I shot our 2023 bucks. The sun was in my face the whole way out the ridge, so I had to constantly turn around to check behind me for anything I may have missed. Finally, I got to the end of the ridge and turned back the direction I came.

With the sun finally at my back, the ground was much easier to see. I was getting close to where I found my second shed two weeks ago when I looked up and way off in the distance saw a shed – clear as day. I did a double take because I have never seen one that far off. Sure enough, I pulled up the binoculars and saw white tines sticking up from the ground. I looked down to make a mark on OnX so could walk off the total distance. When I looked back up, I couldn’t find it! And this was even after I knew where it was. That just goes to show how difficult they are to find. After re-locating the antler, I walked to the shed – 94 yards from where I spotted it.

As I was walking up to the shed, I realized this was nearly the same spot I found my second shed in 2 weeks ago. This wasn’t a match to that one, as it was also a left side and nearly identical to that one.

I continued to look with sun at back. I did a quick loop through that area before heading for one last push through where I was looking earlier. The added sunlight didn’t help this time, so I headed for camp with two antlers in hand. Not a bad 7.7 mile day in the Alleghenies!