Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, and now your host,
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson. Hey everyone, welcome to the wire to Hunt
Speaker 1: Foundations podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Tony Peterson. In today's episode, it was
Speaker 1: all about why shed antlers are just playing cool. It's
Speaker 1: hard to believe it, my friend, but we're at the
Speaker 1: time of the year where we should probably be thinking
Speaker 1: about looking for some shed antlers. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of reasons to shed hunt, and I'll probably cover like
Speaker 1: ninety nine of them in the next few weeks with
Speaker 1: this podcast, but for now, let's focus on what causes
Speaker 1: antlers to fall off, the timing of the whole thing,
Speaker 1: and why. I don't know. Well, like shed antlers are
Speaker 1: just pretty damn neat. When I was in high school,
Speaker 1: my uncle and cousin showed up for a visit. They
Speaker 1: had driven down from the Iron Range in northeastern Minnesota,
Speaker 1: where most of our remaining wild moose population hangs out,
Speaker 1: and where most of our wolves hang out, and where
Speaker 1: the fishing is still nearly Canada level good without the
Speaker 1: hassle of having to cross the border and where very
Speaker 1: few white tails live compared to most regions of the country.
Speaker 1: They had with them a shed antler that was, to
Speaker 1: put it bluntly, a freaking giant. We measured it for
Speaker 1: the hell of it, and it went somewhere in the eighties.
Speaker 1: I can't remember exactly how much, but big, big, big.
Speaker 1: Suffice it to say that that antler fell off of
Speaker 1: a buck that was a legitimate north Woods booner, the
Speaker 1: kind of buck that makes people want to go hunt
Speaker 1: in the boundary waters or maybe waited out a fresh
Speaker 1: snow in the northeast and try to cut a set
Speaker 1: of huge dragging tracks with the hopes that they can
Speaker 1: catch up to the deer as he traverses miles of timber.
Speaker 1: That antler wasn't just fascinating due to its overall size,
Speaker 1: which included ridiculous mass. It was cool to me personally
Speaker 1: because I couldn't find an antler to save my life
Speaker 1: at that time. I mean I really couldn't. I could
Speaker 1: barely kill a live deer of any shape or size,
Speaker 1: and certainly couldn't do it with any consistency. I knew
Speaker 1: people who did that, just as I knew people who
Speaker 1: found antlers frequently, and they were both a mystery to
Speaker 1: me what I couldn't do. I was just figuring out
Speaker 1: how they were doing it. It wasn't for a lack
Speaker 1: of effort on my part either. I shed hunted quite
Speaker 1: a bit then, and aside from finding deadheads every year,
Speaker 1: which was a guarantee, I never found a shed. In fact,
Speaker 1: I didn't find one till I was in college, and
Speaker 1: that was an accidental fine. While I was turkey hunting
Speaker 1: in May, it felt like a lot of people knew
Speaker 1: something I didn't know, which was true then as it's
Speaker 1: true now. A lot of people had access to spots
Speaker 1: where dear wintered, which is something I didn't really understand
Speaker 1: or have access to back then. I also, i know now,
Speaker 1: focused a lot of my shed hunting a little bit
Speaker 1: too early. This is kind of like right after the
Speaker 1: ice goes out and you get that first really warm
Speaker 1: March or April day where the sun has just got
Speaker 1: a lot of power to it. It's like easy to
Speaker 1: believe then that the croppies will be up in the
Speaker 1: shallows because they want of the first fish to move in,
Speaker 1: But often the water temperature is just way too cold
Speaker 1: at least in my part of the world, this happens
Speaker 1: a lot. Sure, like you might catch a few specks
Speaker 1: in the shallows if the conditions are just right, but
Speaker 1: the good fishing will take a few weeks. A warm
Speaker 1: weather that really gets those temps up, gets the bugs
Speaker 1: and other potential food sources moving, and just positions the
Speaker 1: whole underwater ecosystem to be at the right spot for
Speaker 1: those croppies to be there. That might seem like a
Speaker 1: weird analogy, bear with me. Deer preyed off of photo
Speaker 1: period is um just like most game animals, game birds
Speaker 1: and fish. Hell, I can't prove this because I'm not
Speaker 1: smart enough, but probably every wild creature out there does
Speaker 1: to some extent. Humans probably do too. But we know,
Speaker 1: dear do We know that photo periods M, which is
Speaker 1: the amount of daylight and the given day, plays into
Speaker 1: the timing of the rut and has vast implications on
Speaker 1: a buck's testosterone levels. We know that fawns need to
Speaker 1: hit the ground in a relatively short window in the
Speaker 1: spring in big numbers to achieve a successful drop. We
Speaker 1: know that after the rut is over, a buck has
Speaker 1: a lot of work to do to recover, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't pay to carry around apparel weapons on his head
Speaker 1: that only cause him to burn more calories with each step.
Speaker 1: He doesn't need to fight his buddies because the competition
Speaker 1: for doze is gone, and the benefit of having some
Speaker 1: stabby things poking out of his forehead in regard to
Speaker 1: fighting off predators, it's juice that just isn't worth the
Speaker 1: old squeeze, So they fall off of his head, and
Speaker 1: then idiots like me spend weeks and weeks looking for them,
Speaker 1: and even train their dogs to look for them. It's
Speaker 1: kind of weird, but it's also cool. The thing about
Speaker 1: antlers is they dropped for a variety of reasons that
Speaker 1: all produce the same result. As testosterone decreases in the
Speaker 1: post rut phase, the tissue in the buck's pedicles begins
Speaker 1: to weaken, eventually causing the connection to break and the
Speaker 1: antlers to fall off. Most folks say this doesn't hurt
Speaker 1: the buck, and I have no reason to believe it does.
Speaker 1: But I also wonder how the hell would we know
Speaker 1: if it's stung a little. I don't think deer would
Speaker 1: give much indication that it hurt at all. This kind
Speaker 1: of reminds me of that off stated fact about domestic
Speaker 1: dogs that says something like, dogs look at us when
Speaker 1: they're pooping because they feel vulnerable and they're looking for
Speaker 1: us to protect them. I mean, that's cute, but couldn't
Speaker 1: it also be that when dogs bowl up to drop
Speaker 1: a deuce in your yard, they also just have a
Speaker 1: very few options as what to look at. And if
Speaker 1: we just happened to be there, they just happen to
Speaker 1: look at us a lot. And since we've got like
Speaker 1: five thousand years at co evolution, some of those looks
Speaker 1: happened to produce eye contact. Maybe they aren't thinking, Man,
Speaker 1: I could be attacked here any second. I sure my owner,
Speaker 1: who's also my hero, protects me. I better make serious
Speaker 1: eye contact with him to make sure that he knows
Speaker 1: I might need him. It could just be damn, he's
Speaker 1: watching me again. What's the deal with this guy? Does
Speaker 1: he like watching me poop? I love him, but he's
Speaker 1: kind of a creep sometimes anyway. I don't know. Maybe
Speaker 1: it hurts the dealer when the antlers fall off, or
Speaker 1: maybe it doesn't. It does scare them. We know, because
Speaker 1: there's a few really cool trill camera videos out there
Speaker 1: of that. It's also something that's not really easy to
Speaker 1: pin down time wise. Of course, we know stressors like
Speaker 1: an injury during the fall or an early super harsh
Speaker 1: bad winner seemed to contribute to deer dropping their antlers early.
Speaker 1: The bulk of the drop happens every year between January
Speaker 1: and March. This isn't based on anything but personal experience,
Speaker 1: but I kind of feel like where I tend to
Speaker 1: shed hunt the most. The third week of February is
Speaker 1: when I need to get really serious about pounding the
Speaker 1: snowy trails in search of antlers. From that week until
Speaker 1: it's time to think turkeys, I tend to find most
Speaker 1: of my antlers, but I also find some of my
Speaker 1: biggest antlers. In January. Before Wisconsin shut it down, their
Speaker 1: grouse season in the North Country used to run all
Speaker 1: the way through January. This was awesome for me and
Speaker 1: my buddies because it mostly felt like we were the
Speaker 1: only people out there during that month. I mean, honestly,
Speaker 1: in like ten years of hitting the January grouse pretty hard,
Speaker 1: I never saw a single hunter on public land who
Speaker 1: wasn't a part of my hunting party. That's like probably
Speaker 1: sixty or seventy days total, not another person out there hunting,
Speaker 1: but they shut it down to save the birds, which
Speaker 1: as far as I can tell, didn't really do a thing.
Speaker 1: But I'm also bitter because I don't like losing hunting opportunities,
Speaker 1: especially when I get the impression they're being taken away
Speaker 1: for emotional reasons, not biological, and and I know when
Speaker 1: they take away our hunting opportunities don't give them back
Speaker 1: very easily. Anyway, That's a sore subject with me and
Speaker 1: not germane to this podcast. Except for the fact that
Speaker 1: the January grouse season put an awful lot of really
Speaker 1: big sheds in my trophy room and extended my personal
Speaker 1: bird season by a month, I don't recall ever finding
Speaker 1: a small shed during those hunts, which probably has something
Speaker 1: to do with what dear really drop in January and
Speaker 1: the reality that finding a spike shed in the snow
Speaker 1: is a hell of a lot harder than finding the
Speaker 1: side off of a mature buck. Every single year, while
Speaker 1: we followed our dogs through the north Woods looking for roughs,
Speaker 1: we found big antlers. We find a ton of them,
Speaker 1: because after all, we weren't in the kind of place
Speaker 1: where there are a ton of big bucks, but we
Speaker 1: found them very consistently from every year now. I often
Speaker 1: go back and shed hunt there in March if the
Speaker 1: snow allows, and rarely do I find big ones then,
Speaker 1: although I do tend to get luckier when it comes
Speaker 1: to smaller antlers, the exact hall for each trip doesn't
Speaker 1: really matter. Although finding antlers is fun, what does matter,
Speaker 1: at least to me is getting into the woods to
Speaker 1: walk around and just look at places I either currently
Speaker 1: hunt or might hunt in the future. There will be
Speaker 1: plenty of this on future episodes of this podcast, and
Speaker 1: I should also this should come as no surprise say
Speaker 1: that I just love finding antlers as well. I remember
Speaker 1: a former magazine editor who lives near me. He hit
Speaker 1: me up in February to go shed hunting several years ago.
Speaker 1: I suggested a spot of mine that is usually pretty productive,
Speaker 1: but he said he doesn't like to shed hunt where
Speaker 1: he can't deer hunt, so we went into Carlos Avery,
Speaker 1: a gigantic tract of public land near where I live
Speaker 1: in the Twin Cities. It was a lost cause, mostly
Speaker 1: because the deer population there's pretty low, the shed pressure
Speaker 1: is really high, and it's mostly a game of getting
Speaker 1: super lucky in those conditions. But those miles were a
Speaker 1: good way to look around on some ground that we
Speaker 1: actually could hunt, so it wasn't all bad even if
Speaker 1: the miles per shed found ratio is skewed in a
Speaker 1: not so fun direction. Now here's where I'm going to
Speaker 1: say something that I often say when it comes to
Speaker 1: outdoor opportunities. Shed hunting is actually a lot more difficult
Speaker 1: than it looks. Just like with actually killing big bucks
Speaker 1: or catching thirty inch walleyes or whatever outdoor space you
Speaker 1: pay a close attention to and count as one of
Speaker 1: your addictions, shed hunting for most of us is a
Speaker 1: really low return endeavor, at least in the interest of
Speaker 1: finding actual antlers. It is, but that's not the sole
Speaker 1: reason to shed hunt. Just like we don't bow hunt
Speaker 1: all fall solely for the purpose of killing a big buck.
Speaker 1: That result is a powerful motivator, but it sells the
Speaker 1: pursuit way short. The same goes for shed hunting. After all,
Speaker 1: what else do you gotta do in the winter. Granted,
Speaker 1: there's plenty of white tail work to get accomplished, but
Speaker 1: we've got time for that for now. Looking for antlers
Speaker 1: is a great reason to spend time in the woods
Speaker 1: and time in the woods. Lots and lots of time
Speaker 1: in the woods is one of the best ways to
Speaker 1: become a better deer hunter. It puts you where deer eat, obviously,
Speaker 1: but also where they walk, where they bed, where they stage.
Speaker 1: It puts you where they live. And that's not nothing,
Speaker 1: my friends, and yes, I get the argument for spending
Speaker 1: time in the woods where you can hunt. After all,
Speaker 1: what good does it do you to find a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of rubs or pick up a side in a
Speaker 1: park that you won't ever be able to hunt, or
Speaker 1: at least until I don't know, the zombie apocalypse rages
Speaker 1: through and re arranges us into small tribes of gritty survivors,
Speaker 1: and we don't have to follow the laws anymore. Well,
Speaker 1: for starters, these kind of finds in places you can't
Speaker 1: hunt tend to dispel or at least nullify, the notion
Speaker 1: of quote unquote our dear. We love to say things
Speaker 1: like my dear, do this or my dear never do that,
Speaker 1: which refers, of course, to the deer that live on
Speaker 1: the places we hunt, and more importantly, what we believe
Speaker 1: about them. Those statements are shortcuts to thinking, which is
Speaker 1: why we love them so much. If we know one
Speaker 1: are harder. Hearts that are dear, do not visit scrapes
Speaker 1: in daylight, or never travel through a certain swamp. We
Speaker 1: can dilute the whole process of hunt planning down, but
Speaker 1: exposure to new ground other dear and exactly what they do,
Speaker 1: tends to reinforce the opposite mindset that dear dear no
Speaker 1: matter where you live or where you hunt them. A
Speaker 1: lot of folks don't like that thought, because they believe
Speaker 1: that their dear are smarter and their dear are harder
Speaker 1: to hunt than the other guys. Dear, And of course
Speaker 1: that may be true in a micro level, but it's
Speaker 1: not as true generally as we love to believe. And
Speaker 1: if you get over that, you start to understand that
Speaker 1: it will make you a better hunter everywhere. I promise you,
Speaker 1: when you're shed hunting a tract of public land to
Speaker 1: get some exercise in a late January day, you might
Speaker 1: get rewarded with a shed, or you might find some
Speaker 1: buck beds in a swamp that show you an overlooked
Speaker 1: tidy hole, or maybe just gets you thinking a little
Speaker 1: bit more about where the bucks actually bet on the
Speaker 1: farm that you actually hunt. I've said it a million
Speaker 1: times but I believe this so much woodsmanship doesn't come
Speaker 1: solely from the single minded pursuit of big bucks. It
Speaker 1: comes from time in the woods, learning about all critters
Speaker 1: and often not really caring about what you're doing. I
Speaker 1: can't tell you how many times grouse or pheasant hunting,
Speaker 1: or squirrel hunting, or rabbit hunting, or turkey hunting, or
Speaker 1: just during a cabin fever induced February shed hunt with
Speaker 1: my little girls that something has clued me in to
Speaker 1: something about deer. It happens all the time, and the
Speaker 1: benefit is partially that shed hunting and all of those
Speaker 1: other pursuits take me into the wild places that I
Speaker 1: wouldn't go if I was just hunting deer or just
Speaker 1: solely scouting for deer. Shed hunting specifically also ties into
Speaker 1: something else that will make you a better deer hunter.
Speaker 1: Work effort, physical effort. If you're shed hunting in the
Speaker 1: real world, we're finding a bunch of cast antlers is
Speaker 1: far from a guarantee. Then you're going to have to
Speaker 1: put on the miles. In my world, in years where
Speaker 1: I shed hunted a ton, and in years where I
Speaker 1: shed hunted not a ton, but a decent amount I'd
Speaker 1: average one antler every couple of weeks. That's piss pour
Speaker 1: from a specific results standpoint, but that also might mean
Speaker 1: thirty or forty hours spent walking through the places dear live.
Speaker 1: The learning curve from time spending woods doesn't only bend
Speaker 1: in your favor with dear habits and behaviors either. I
Speaker 1: shed hunt mostly on public land, just like I hunt
Speaker 1: all critters mostly on public land. There's nothing more obvious
Speaker 1: during winter shed hunts than spots where people like to hunt.
Speaker 1: There's still going to be stands in the woods, whether
Speaker 1: they are supposed to be there or not. You're gonna
Speaker 1: find cameras that are left up. You're gonna see tax
Speaker 1: trails that are super obvious. Flagging on trails that's real obvious.
Speaker 1: The spots hunters frequent, they're easy to find. They just
Speaker 1: like the places deer frequent, start to become obvious. Pattern wise,
Speaker 1: If you think that filling your brains database with the
Speaker 1: most likely spots for your competition to set up in
Speaker 1: isn't valuable, I've got some news for you. If you
Speaker 1: hunt pressure deer, that is a huge component of being
Speaker 1: successful and a constant reminder to do things differently. Which
Speaker 1: not coincidentally contributes to success. This is one of the
Speaker 1: things that justifies the work and the miles walked. You
Speaker 1: become a better woodsman because of it, and it will
Speaker 1: condition you to think about where the deer live, where
Speaker 1: the other hunters usually try to kill them, and how
Speaker 1: much work you're going to have to do to be
Speaker 1: successful from season to season and year to year. Now,
Speaker 1: while you're doing that, you might just spot a wall
Speaker 1: of times poking out of a snowpack or the yellows
Speaker 1: all grass. That's pretty damn sweet, and it's kind of
Speaker 1: like muskie fishing, and that one bit of success in
Speaker 1: a long day and mostly failing can carry you a
Speaker 1: long ways. It lifts your spirits, keeps the fire burning.
Speaker 1: It prompts you to make another ten thousand casts or
Speaker 1: put on another thirty miles of shed walks next month.
Speaker 1: So to wrap a nice bow around this, I'll say
Speaker 1: what we all know, shed antlers are cool. Shed antler
Speaker 1: hunting can be a hell of a lot of fun,
Speaker 1: and even if it's not, it can be a great
Speaker 1: way to go from a white belt to a purple
Speaker 1: belt and deer knowledge or something like that. Of course,
Speaker 1: it's not all about walking through the woods like a
Speaker 1: Disney princess while bluebirds land on your shoulder and all
Speaker 1: is right with the world. There are tucked into those
Speaker 1: shed hunts, and better yet, those sheds you actually find
Speaker 1: plenty of lessons on how to kill the bucks that
Speaker 1: live out there in the woods where you'll hunt them
Speaker 1: in about nine months. What shed antlers teach us is
Speaker 1: what next week show is all about. And you're gonna
Speaker 1: want to give it a listen because every antler you
Speaker 1: find tells you a story that you want to hear,
Speaker 1: even if you've got to fill in a few of
Speaker 1: the details through just sheer imagination. That's it for this show,
Speaker 1: My white tail loving brothers and sisters. I'm Tony Peterson
Speaker 1: and this has been the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast,
Speaker 1: which is brought to you by First Light. As I always,
Speaker 1: thank you so so so much for listening, and if
Speaker 1: you want more white tail advice, head on over to
Speaker 1: them Eat eater dot com, slash wired and check out
Speaker 1: our Wired to Hunt YouTube chat.