Spring is coming fast now. Turkey hunting is almost here and before you know it, we will be catching trout and eating morel mushrooms. With all of that waiting in the wings, I need to tie up one last loose end and that is my last white-tailed shed antler hunt of the year.

First off, I view shed antler hunting as a free outdoor workout gym. Every year I log triple digits for the amount of miles hiked. It is a great simple pleasure. I always hit the woods with the attitude that if I find just one antler the day will be a success. In truth, logging miles in the fields and woods is a pretty dang good consolation prize.

The photo above is a pretty typical shed antler hunt for me. It was a new piece of ground that I had never been on before and I jumped at the chance to hike it.  The land was a little shy of 500 acres, so I packed a lunch anticipating spending the entire day there.  

Before I continue with the actual shed hunt, I’ll break down the numbers for you.  In a little less than three hours I traveled almost five miles. That calculates out to an average of 1.7 mph. It’s a little misleading because I did stop to eat my sandwich. In reality my pace was closer to 2.5 mph. Regardless, I covered a lot of ground that day. The elevation change was literally the difference between starting off my walk in a swamp and eventually making my way up to an oak and pine ridge. I don’t stare at my hunting app when I’m walking but it is pretty interesting to see how much and what ground I covered.

After I pretty much circumnavigated the property, it was obvious that the deer really didn’t winter in this area. It’s a little ironic but the telltale sign that deer didn’t hang around here was the lack of dead deer found. I didn’t run into a single one. The winter months always thin the weak from the herd to the benefit of other critters but I didn’t find a single bone. That also dovetails with the fact that I didn’t see much for deer tracks either. When I find sheds, I’m walking deer highways and in this case a lot of the field edges were void of any tracks.

As the hours and miles passed, I was beginning to come to grips with the fact that it wasn’t going to be my day. It was a bummer because this was likely going to be my last outing of the year. It would have been nice to finish off the shed hunting season with a win. It was about that time when I noticed what I thought was a bone 50 yards away. Usually this is where my binoculars rule out any false antlers but this time the bone looked like a legit antler with a couple of points somewhat intact and deserving of a closer look.

I hiked down to what indeed was a white-tailed antler. The only thing wrong was that I was probably three years too late. But I did finish the year with a win.

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