The first step was the math. At the
end of each season, I looked at the time
I spent on stand compared to scouting,
and I realized there was an imbalance.
It was almost a 3:1 ratio. The hours were
being logged on stand, but when I actu-
ally thought about the quality-versus-
quantity aspect, it was reversed. There
needed to be a shift in my efforts. A new
approach was in my future, even as life
had me hunting less. With a demand-
ing career in aviation, along with my re-
sponsibilities at home to a young family,
my hunting time was becoming more
limited. As a result, I needed to focus
more effort on the offseason work, so
that the actual days spent hunting each
fall could be planned around optimum
weather patterns and moon phases.
Starting in early February (which is
when our bow season closes in Ohio),
I would locate food sources and start
putting the pieces together for the up-
coming fall season. Concentrating on
mature buck tracks, I started back-
tracking bucks to their beds. After
spending time sitting down in those
beds, it finally occurred to me why they
were being used. Out of all the mature
buck beds I evaluated, there was one
common denominator — location! It
made perfect sense why certain bucks
were so hard to ambush. At a certain
point in their lives, bucks figure out
how to bed in a specific location where
they’d use the wind and terrain to their
advantage. This gives them the upper
hand when entering and exiting a cho-
sen “sanctuary,” and also gives them a
full spectrum of situational awareness
while occupying a particular bed.
Asmypassionforshedhuntingde-
veloped, I found myself hiking 50-plus
miles each year in search of bucks that
had made it through the season, as well
as younger deer I had future interest
in. While there are times when finding
sheds may not play a role in evaluating
your deer herd’s movements and hab-
its, there are situations when a buck will
winter in a particular area due to a food
source, and then move out when spring
arrives. This can be an invaluable obser-
vation in determining likely genetics in
an area.
Sometimes, paying attention to
farms that use old combines during
harvest can help you find good sheds
and big tracks. Older combines leave
the most waste grain after they come
through, because they’re less efficient.
Certain machines simply leave a higher
percentage of product on the ground
compared to modern equipment. Find-
ing sheds, which can be tough until the
eye is trained, is still a great way to learn
about the bucks that frequent your hunt-
ing area throughout the year.
Another key element I pay close at-
tention to are scrapes. More impor-
tantly, how they’re used in relation to
STUDENT OF THE GAME
Shed hunting is still a great way to learn about
the bucks in your hunting area.
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