Once you've found shed antler, try to find its mate by searching inside a 50-yard radius.
Many times I've written that a serious whitetail hunter never quits hunting--he just quits carrying a gun or bow. There's not a month of the year that he can't find some useful activity relating to a current or upcoming deer-hunting season.
In April--in my part of the Southwest--it's shed hunting. If you live up north, conditions may not get right for another month. "Right" is after most of the snow melts and before the new grass and weeds grow high enough to hide an antler lying on the ground and also, hopefully, before sundry rodents have too much time to recycle the calcium, phosphorus and other minerals frozen into the latest antler crop.
There is also a surprising amount of useful information locked into those castoff antlers along with the mineral elements. First, since a buck that lived to shed his antlers obviously survived the hunting season, they tell us something about the surviving bucks. Of course, surviving the season and surviving the winter are two different things, but a shed antler is, if not a guarantee, at least an encouraging sign of the probable continued presence of the former wearer. Savvy hunters can interpret these signs in light of last winter's known severity.
Next, a pile of current sheds offers us data on the age distribution of the local buck herd. True, antlers do not contain absolute proof of age, but they certainly convey strong hints. A spindly three-point side was probably not grown by a 61/2-year-old dominant sire, and a five- or six-point side with a five-inch base and 11-inch G-2s was no yearling! A relatively high percentage of massive, gnarly sheds points to a good population of mature bucks--always a good sign for the trophy hunter.
It is not impossible to identify an antler dropped by a specific buck, especially with photos or video footage of the antlers on the buck's brow, which is something more and more hunters of my acquaintance are trying to get these days. If by a great stroke of luck you happen to find both antlers from a big buck you tried all season to shoot, it's like shaking hands with an old friend, the next best thing to having actually taken him.
Caring For Your Sheds
A striking shed antler is a prize in the eyes of any hunter, but many successful shed seekers have been disappointed to find their prizes deteriorating even when they thought they were protected from weather and/or rodents
The easiest shed to preserve is fresh. Ideally it has lost little of its natural brown color and is as hard and strong as an antler sawn off a deer's pedicle. Even one as fresh as this will fade, soften and go chalky if left outdoors, even when sheltered. The only place to keep a valuable shed antler is indoors, preferably in an environment where temperature and humidity are controlled year-round.
If the antler retains it's normal coloration, a couple of coats of paste floor wax buffed to a hard shine is all that's needed to preserve it indefinitely. If chalking has begun, soaking the antler in warm linseed oil until it stops absorbing the oil will keep it as sound as possible, but do not use antlers so treated for rattling--the oil makes them brittle and they'll shatter on a cold morning. I speak from sad experience.
I've not tried clear, nonyellowing urethane spar varnish, but it should preserve antlers as well as it does gunstocks. It's expensive, but one-in-a-lifetime shed deserves the best.
When I find an impressive shed, I make a point of searching thoroughly for the other side within a 50-yard radius. It doesn't take long, and it will reward you with a matched pair often enough to be worth the trouble.
Any place a traveling whitetail has to jump an obstacle--a fence, narrow creek or a steep cutbank, for example--is a promising spot to look for sheds. Conversely, finding sheds anywhere along a fence or other barrier suggests that the spot is on one of a buck's regular routes. Most antlers seem to drop while the buck is moving, not bedded, and I locate a great many in draws, swamps, sloughs and other low spots where an animal might hole up during winter storms.
I frequently find them in areas containing a lot of scrapes, rubs and other rutting sign, too. Therefore, a good place to hunt when the rut gets started next season will be in creek bottoms, where I find a lot of shed antlers from year to year. Since antler-casting occurs after the rut is over in most regions, I can only speculate that an active, breeding buck might go back and run his old rub lines just to maintain his personal signposts even when the rut is over. I've seen bucks use licking limbs over old scrapes in spring and summer, and I speculate that some scent marking may occur year-round. No other explanation for concentrations of dropped antlers in known breeding arenas comes to mind, but, whatever the explanation, these are infallibly prime hunting areas when the rut gets cranked up next season.
There's romance in a shed whitetail antler and a thrill of discovery to spotting one on the forest floor. It's a tangible piece of the body of the world's most exciting big game animal, and every real hunter feels its tug. Best of all, sheds are best hunted during the nicest weather and the most productive scouting period of the whole year. And who knows? One may point you toward a fine buck next season.
