00:00:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week, on the show, I’m joined by Ben Dedimanti, also known as shed Crazy on the Internet, to discuss all things shed hunting from east coast to west. All right, welcome back to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on the show, we are talking shed hunting, all things shed hunting from east to west, north to south. We are going to talk shed hunting tactics, philosophies, strategies, habitat, planning trips, and how to do all of this no matter where you live in the country, no matter where you want to shed hunt in the country. We’re talking to somebody today who has a level of shed hunting experience that is broader than maybe anybody else in the country. This is Ben de Damanti, also known as shed Crazy over on Instagram and YouTube. Ben has relatively recently completed a pretty impressive feat which is finding a shed antler in every single state in America. That’s pretty wild. He’s found him in Alaska, Hawaii, Florida, Michigan, Montana, and everywhere in between. And so with that broad suite of experience, with that incredible set of places he’s found antlers, he has this just really interesting perspective and set of experiences to share with us. And so that’s what we’re talking about today. There’s a lot focused on what you know, Midwesterners or Easterners should know if they want to shed hunt out west. But then also some of the things he learned as a Westerner heading east to find whitetail sheds, and sometimes how those ideas kind of cross pollinate, and what we can benefit and learn from a Western perspective or an Eastern perspective. We talk through planning a Western or Alaskan shed hunting trip and a whole bunch of very tactical things that will help you spot more antlers, pick up more antlers, and enjoy shed hunting more than ever, whether you’re doing that, you know, in Mississippi or Minnesota, or Florida or New Hampshire or New Mexico. There’s gonna be some shed hunting advice here for you today that I think will really help. So that’s the plan for today, without any further Ado, let’s get to my chat with mister shed crazy himself. All right with me on the line now is the one and only Ben Deadamante.
00:02:29
Speaker 2: Ben. Welcome to the show. Thanks man, appreciate you having me on.
00:02:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, I’m glad this is happening. It’s been a long time coming. We are in the same circles, we have been at similar events, at the same events together, but we’ve never done a podcast, which is on me. I apologize, I’m stupid, but I’m glad it’s finally happening. So thanks for being here.
00:02:49
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:02:49
Speaker 1: Man, I’m excited to pick your brain. You are admittedly self described as shed crazy, and I am two at times of the year. This is that time. So I’m hoping to pick your brain on all things fine and antlers because you’ve got a regional experience set that I don’t have. I feel like I’ve shed hunted a ton in my neck of the woods. I feel like I know a lot about my region. But put me in Nevada, put me in Alaska, put me in Alabama, and I would be blind. So you relatively recently wrapped up this crazy project fifty sheds in fifty states, and I’m curious about this. To lead us off here, Ben, it crossed all of these places, all of these states. If you were to kind of zoom out and think about what was consistent across all those places, if you could point to maybe I’m gonna say three things that were true about finding sheds in every single state. What might put those three truths be? Or like the three laws of shed hunting, maybe from shed crazy they could apply no matter where you are in the country and putting you on the spot. I didn’t worry about this one.
00:04:16
Speaker 2: But that’s good.
00:04:18
Speaker 1: Would those be?
00:04:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s a good question. I think that food is the universal language of deer in the winter. I mean they’re gonna be I mean every deer, elk, moose, all of them. They primarily concentrate on calorie conservation and on getting those calories in. So feed is always king in the wintertime. I always say about half your antlers are going to be in or near the feed. So whether that’s a cut cornfield that still has some corn in it, whether that’s you know, where we’re at, it’s a lot of cliff rows, bitter brush for the elk, that’s going to hold a good amount of antlers anywhere in the world. So that’s a good place to start. What are they eating next? Is betting, you know, And that’s just kind of where they’re going to spend the bulk of their time while they’re you know, recouping and kind of conserving energy, so there’s always going to be some sheds in the bedding. And then after that it just comes Really it’s just like hunting, and it comes down to the transition areas. It’s where they’re traveling from their feeding to their bedding, and they take the path at least resistance. A lot in the winter, you can look at snow depths, so you can look at things like fence lines, stuff that they like to travel, natural corridors, contours of the earth, and a lot of times will concentrate those antlers into like a very small corridor that they’re traveling. So those three things, I mean, it’s just like hunting deers, Just like hunting everything. It comes down to feed, bedding, and travel.
00:05:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that’s uh.
00:05:46
Speaker 1: If I were to try to put together my list in my region, those three things would certainly be probably right there. So that makes a lot of sense to me. Now I want to put that on its head. What is maybe one thing that you thought was a core truth of shed hunting for you, that you thought was going to be true maybe no matter where you were, and then after you did this project, you realized, oh, actually I was wrong on that that only applies to this spot or this spot, or doesn’t apply anywhere. Now that I know this new thing, is there anything like that that stands out? Yeah, kind of like elk and western big game are very human avoidant, right even in the winter time, So when we’re hunting elks sheds, we’re going as far away as you can be from anything that’s gonna bump those elk and move them. So you know, big faces, backcountry stuff, south slopes, and I kind of assumed all animals did that in the winter. But I also found out that, you know, a lot of white tails, even urban mule, they are way more comfortable, like being in someone’s backyard, Like maybe it’s the time of year. They just choose proximity to food over having to travel, and they don’t care that there’s people around because maybe they’re not being pursued, maybe the people aren’t as active out door during that time of year. But found a lot of white tail and you know urban mule, theer sheds and blacktails actually in semi urban areas that were like way way closer to people than I thought the deer would be comfortable. That’s an interesting point. This is a random aside, But I just randomly thought of this after doing all this, seeing all this learning all this, do you like shed hunting more or less than before you started this? Like, are you burned out yet?
00:07:29
Speaker 2: Yeah? No, I’m totally I’m bum burned out for sure, And like, uh h, I don’t mind saying that. You know when I when I started shed hunting, it was like, this is the only way I got to participate on these like quality ELK units and stuff. I couldn’t draw tags or I didn’t have the money to hunt out of state. Soched hunting was it. It was the ticket. And I love traveling, I love seeing the world, and like it was awesome to go out and meet people from all these different hunting backgrounds. But after I got home and done with like that two year project where I just traveled constantly, I was like, yeah, I’m totally ready for a break. And even now as shed season’s kind of approaching, I find myself being like, I’m going to focus on quality days in the hills instead of saying all I’m gonna go out every single day and try to pick antlers.
00:08:12
Speaker 1: What do you mean by quality day on the hill?
00:08:13
Speaker 2: What does that look like so for me, like if I have a spot that I really want to check off my list for sheds. In the past, a lot of times I would have maybe hiked it a few different times, always being kind of careful to not bump the deer out, but you know, to be the first one there and make sure that if there’s something big there on the ground, I’m the one who gets it. And now I’m a little more willing to just say, let’s let them pile up, you know, let’s let all the deer in the area drop before I do anything in there, or maybe just like glass it instead of hiking it, just to say, like when I do go in there, I’m going to clean it up one day and probably only be in there one day during the year instead of hitting multiple times.
00:08:51
Speaker 1: Okay, so let’s talk a little bit more about that the western side of things, because I think I get white tail shed hunting. Western shed hunting appeals to me. I’m sure there’s a lot of people who have the same thought appeals to me, but it seems a little bit foreign. I know whitetail habitat, I know whitetail food sources, I know whitetail betting, on the elk front, it’s a lot more fuzzy on the mule deer front, a lot more fuzzy on the moose side, a lot more fuzzy. If I were going to do a first time like western shed hunting trip, not for white tails, but trying to look for some of these other species, what are a few things that you would say that a Easterner should should know about, should think about, and should be aware of. That’s different than you know, what I’m used to in Michigan or Ohio or Iowa or Pennsylvania.
00:09:42
Speaker 2: It’s a lot more physically demanding. You know, where we shed hunt. Typically it’s not always like that, but it definitely can be. And especially in these states that allow you know, the early hiking, you’re going to be battling some deep snow, so the physical exertion is a lot. And then also I think that you can save yourself a lot of hiking by just doing a little bit of pre scouting. Just by spending a full day maybe cruising around, even glassing from the road and finding where these animals are hanging out, you can increase your chances by so much because a lot of people assume, oh, there’s elk and deer everywhere, and there are you know, and there may be a few here and a few there, but especially the elk really tend to concentrate in the winter, and if you can find those areas that are holding a lot of elk, you’re just going to have a lot more success. So pre scouting is huge. E scouting is huge. You know, Like I spend a ton of time on on ITX just picking through south facing slopes and trying to find areas that I feel like are going to be you know, good for the elk in the winter, where they’re going to be able to get away from the snow and have a little bit of feed and then also catch a little bit of sun. But I mean there really is just like a few things to look for. And then you know, also figuring out the elevation that the elk are at. Even if you you find elk and maybe you can’t go hike them, maybe they’re on private or something, And if you see what elevation they’re hanging out at, you can take that data and transferred over to public land where you can go hike and find sheds with that same elevation.
00:11:08
Speaker 1: So elevation that’s an interesting point. You mentioned south facing slopes. That’s something that translates from my world too. And earlier you mentioned the importance of understanding what the food sources are. What are some of those key winter food sources? Now, I know this depends on where you are, right, I know Montana food source would be different than New Mexico food source. But can you give me a handful things to think about when I’m trying to find that quality bedding or quality food And could you share with me your thoughts both for elk and muelder.
00:11:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Elk I understand kind of the desert the best because most of my shed hunting experience has been in southern Utah, eastern Nevada, northern Arizona, northern New Mexico. And those elk really favor cliff rows and bitter brush, which are just too kind of brushy, you know, plants, uh. And it seems like, I mean, they’ll kind of eat anything. As soon as that june grass comes up, that cheat grass in the spring, the first green up that you see, they’ll chase that a little bit, and that’s usually pretty close to the snow line. But they just kind of like buckbrush, which is like bitter brush and mule, they are the same. They kind of share that browse, and I feel like they chase the green as soon as it comes on as well. So where we are elka mule, they are kind of eating the same thing, and they’re going to be roughly in the same areas. The bulls kind of like to go a little higher than the deer. But I mean, buck brush is king around here. It’s what the division plants when they need winter feed sources. And like when you go out and do seating for like a hunter project with the state, that’s what you’re always seating is that bitter brush buck brush.
00:12:54
Speaker 1: Okay, and then what about like security cover, betting that kind of stuff, or like the what does that look like?
00:13:01
Speaker 2: Mostly around here it’s pinion juniper, and so they’re hiding in like a sea of you know, it could be cedars, pinion pines, junipers. The elk like the high elevation mahogany, and they’ll usually bed somewhere close to an open face so they can catch sunlight throughout the day. I’ve noticed elk or way more inclined to seek, you know, that solar so they’ll get up during the day and move to catch the sun when it’s when it’s warming up in the first of the morning. So it seems like small stands of mahogany or even pine, they’ll go on the timber if the snow depth isn’t bad, but they just anything that’ll hide them. But they can kind of get out quick to feed and catch some sun.
00:13:48
Speaker 1: Okay, And what about timing for all of this, You know, it seems there’s a whole bunch of different variables. I’m sure they could impact the but what all are you thinking about when choosing like the ideal time to go looking for these antlers in your especially if you’re going to travel to go do this for one weekend or one week or something like that. What’s that sweet spot of timing and what should I be looking at to determine like, yeah, this is the right time. No, we got to reschedule or something that’s got to change. Yeah, it’s a really wide window. It’s very broad, and a lot of people go at the very very beginning. A lot of people feel like the biggest bulls drop first, and I think generally that can be true, but there’s a lot of big bulls that hold onto their antlers later but for ELK, they really start early March where we are, but I think maybe ten to fifteen percent will drop during that first month, and then it gets more and more into April and then even some holding into May.
00:14:48
Speaker 2: So May’s pretty rare, I guess, but April is probably the prime, the prime month where the majority of them are dropping. So in my opinion, it’s best to go when there’s the most antler on the ground. And yeah, guys are going to get out and snag a few early, but the majority antler is going to be on the ground in April. So as long as your state’s open in April, I think that’s a good month to go hit it.
00:15:08
Speaker 1: So on that, like on this whole front of timing, and also the idea of like people maybe traveling to shed hunt. I’m sure you’ve experienced there’s more and more people shed hunting every year. It’s seemingly increasing more pressure on the resource, on the landscape, on the animals. Some states are instituting seasons. What what’s your take on responsible shed hunting, Like, how do we do this in a way that’s as responsible as possible that reduces stress on the animals. What have you learned about that what should people would be thinking about if they want to do this more, how do we do it the right way? Especially if we’re traveling west like this, where you know they’re seemingly more and more pressure from folks.
00:15:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, if it’s a deep snow area, I’m just not going to pressure them. I’m not going to push them. I’m gonna wait until they either move out to go in there and shed hunt it, or I’m just gonna wait until the snow is pretty much gone. A lot of the stuff we shed hunt there’s no significant snowpack. It’s desert country. And so if I’m like, I’m never just gonna There’s kind of this idea that shed hunters pursue animals to make them drop their antlers, and I’ve never seen that happen. I don’t think it’s an effective thing. I’ve never done it, but like it doesn’t seem like it would make sense. But the biggest thing is just keep the four wheelers on the road. Like there’s so many people that go a buzz around in the brush. There’s some gray areas and some states where it’s kind of allowed, you don’t know if it’s legal or not. Then some states it’s very illegal. But everywhere I shed hunt, I’m running into four wheeler tracks where people are just driving their their quads just wherever they want. And that’s the biggest frustration. I feel like that’s the thing that gets the most riled up. If I’m just hiking through the cedars and through the pinions, and you might jump elk, you know, and they might stand up out of their bed, they might run one hundred two hundred yards, but they’ll just settle back down. And if I’m to where I’m jumping elk, I just try to move around them and just kind of be quiet like you were hunting, and you don’t want to spook them out of the area. And in that way, I don’t feel like they get run run too much, you know in some of these areas where there’s a season opener and everybody hits it at once. Yeah, they’re just they’re gonna get run and they’re going to get depleted, and and that’s not ideal. So just do what you can to stop that from happening and stay on the roads on the bike. That’s the biggest thing.
00:17:21
Speaker 1: Does it feel like it’s getting over pressured in all your experiences out there, is it feeling like it’s becoming a problem.
00:17:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don’t know. Like it’s definitely more popular. There’s there’s more boot tracks on the ground, there’s more people doing it, for sure. I feel like it peaked during COVID when so many people were at home and had time on their hands, and you know, maybe just were dying to get out of the house to go do something, and that’s something you could go do. That year, twenty twenty even twenty twenty one were really really chaotic. Way more boot tracks in the hill, way more people out there doing it. But I feel like now it’s kind of tapered a little, kind of back to what it was. And yeah, they’re I mean, you’re going to see people. But when these these states put openers in, I feel like that concentrates all the people, like into a couple of weeks. For example, Nevada never had an opener until a few years ago, and now it opens May first, and so May first, it’s just going to be crowded as can be out there, and it’ll be crowded for about a week and then it’ll get hot and that pressure will fade off. And that’s just the way it is.
00:18:23
Speaker 1: So do you like the idea of having those seasons and making people wait longer, or do you feel like that makes I guess what’s your take on that.
00:18:32
Speaker 2: I don’t like them because I like freedom, but I think that we as hunters can be responsible on our own and I feel like we can make choices, you know, to not cause problems for the wildlife. Most people shed hunting or hunters as well. The last thing they want to do is damage the resource, and in my experience, most of the people out there genuinely care about the animals. There are a few bad examples, but to me, the guys that are willing to harass animals anyway or willing to maybe chase them or off road. Therefore, they’re not going to follow a shed season, So in my opinion, it just penalizes the law abiders.
00:19:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you think about some of the concerns around, like how sheds have become commoditized and folks selling them and that whole money side of it.
00:19:23
Speaker 2: I’ve bought and sold antler for years. It was a part of my income when I quit my job to do this full time, So I don’t really I mean, like, the only real issue I have with it is like if you’re going to take from the resource in a state, right, then I think that you know that you should be paying into that resource. Like I’m buying hunting licenses and pretty much all the Western states that I shed hunt, I’m applying for tags there. So I feel like if I’m participating in the big picture of conservation, then I don’t feel like taking a few hundred dollars worth of antler out of the resource changes anything, especially where it’s a resource that’s just going to waste away on the ground otherwise or maybe get picked up, you know, Like Nevada is a good example. I’ve picked up a lot of sheds in Nevada. I’ve never had an ELK tag in Nevada. I’ve put in for many years. I’ll put thousands of dollars into buying tags and applying in that state before I ever hunt one. So I don’t feel bad about taking some antlers and selling them.
00:20:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like the idea of the fact that, you know, buying that hunting license, that’s a great way to give back. Would you ever, I’m guessing I know, but what would you think if a state ever came out with a shed hunting license?
00:20:41
Speaker 2: So that’s happening right now in New Mexico. So they’re putting a two hundred dollars shed license in and it’s on non residence only, which I think is a little wacky. I guess they’re operating under the assumption that residents are already paying and buying their licenses or funding it through other ways. But you know, I’ll complain about it, but I’ll buy it.
00:21:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right. So one of their western species we haven’t talked a lot about yet when it comes like food and covering stuff is moose.
00:21:11
Speaker 2: How much have you ever searched for moose sheds? Very little? So I’ve hunted Yukon moose sheds in Alaska, I’ve hunted Canadian moose in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, and then I’ve looked for Shiris moose here in Utah as well as Colorado. But I’m very unsuccessful when it comes to those type of moose.
00:21:31
Speaker 1: So how in those other places where you did have some success, how was that experience? What did you think about that?
00:21:36
Speaker 2: Oh? Man, Like, Alaska was the coolest thing ever. I don’t know how else to put it. Like me and my buddy, I went with Adam Grenda. He’s a super cub pilot up there and big time hunter, and we uh Man, I think we found somewhere around one hundred paddles in three days four days, and we would just fly him and mark them on on X out of the super Cub and then land and go gather them up. And it was an unreal experience, one of the coolest things that everyone wow.
00:22:06
Speaker 1: For folks wanting to try to do an Alaskan shed hunt. Now, I know, like getting a super cub and all that maybe is outside of possible for most people. But anything you tell anyone who was thinking about trying to do some cool diy Alaska trip and find some sheds, would you learn that could be applied for other folks.
00:22:23
Speaker 2: It’s just like anything you know. They’re in the winter feed, I mean, that’s what all comes down to, Especially in a climate that’s as harsh as as Alaska. They live and die by what they’re able to eat. So we were just focused the same way. We would hear they were eating mostly alders, and we would just try to find those all their patches where a group of moose had spent the winter. They’re typically snowbound and then they dropped their antlers really early up there, moose across the board dropped quite a bit earlier, and they would just get buried in the snow. So we were just there on the tail end of the snow melting off, trying to find them as they emerged from the from the snow. So if somebody wanted to go do that, I have had some buddies that have figured it out, but it’s not I mean, I don’t know how you do it on the cheap because the guys that I know that have done it have hired pilots to fly them out and then they go out and hike, and it’s not it’s very expensive. So if there’s a cheap way to do it, I haven’t figured it out yet.
00:23:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, I’m sure, just like anything, if if you want to do on the cheap, you got to burn a lot of boot leather, that’s for sure.
00:23:26
Speaker 2: I’m sure.
00:23:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, don’t tell me the specific state because I don’t want to spop burn any one place. But if you were gonna pick the best kind of shed hunting adventure, like your favorite shed hunting adventure for the for your money, you know, for your time, if you’re gonna go out and do like an epic week long shed adventure. Is there like a general region or species where you’d be like, man, this is the coolest thing, or this is the most fun I had. Of all the places you went, of all the states you hit, of all all the different antlers you found, does anything stick out as like if you could just have one for you fun trip, this would be it.
00:24:08
Speaker 2: Yeah. Man, that’s I’m always been addicted to el cantlers and elk shed’s, so you know, the most thing was insane. I would do that again in all the states that I that I did that in. But if you could have a truly killer elk shed day, there’s no I mean, there’s nothing like loading a heavy, heavy pack full of l cantlers, and specifically like some of these backcountry trips we’ve done where you’ll find too many antlers to carry out and you go in there for a couple of days in camp and leave them behind and haul them out. It’s kind of like miserable, but it’s so fun. Like I think any backcountry elk shed thing is probably what I would pick.
00:24:48
Speaker 1: Anything unique about planning a trip like that that’s different than planning a backcountry elk hunting trip.
00:24:57
Speaker 2: I feel like it’s a little easier not having to worry about me ca. You don’t have to take with you quite as many tools as far as that goes, You’re not packing a rifle or a bow. The time of year, you’re cold weather camping a lot, and then you get some nice afternoons, so it can be kind of like the fall. I guess it’s fairly similar. You know, hunting gear, camping gear, overnight gear, and then the potential of a heavy packout.
00:25:23
Speaker 1: How much does that kind of thing help your hunt? Like I understand the white tail side, but with something like elk, I don’t know if, like where I find the sheds and where I see them in the winter, does that translate in any way and help you if you were going to go hunt that same region that year or is it so different?
00:25:39
Speaker 2: I can yeah, like it gives me good general information, like to see when I’m trying to select maybe a limited entry ELK unit in Utah that I have a potential to draw, I always look at what gets picked up on the sheds or what I can find there or where I can find the bowls in the winter to know what the quality is like for the unit. But it also is just kind of a general idea because these elk, especially in Utah, though, pull to different units, so you don’t know. You might find a bull shed on a unit and he’s living on the unit next door. And so they’re migratory, they wander a lot, they’ll move somewhere to rut, they’ll stay through the winter and go back. So it narrows it down, but it’s just kind of general information.
00:26:18
Speaker 1: So on these western shed trips, elk, mule, deer, whatever you talked earlier about glassing, tell me about how to glass for sheds, Like, what does that look like? How do you do that?
00:26:31
Speaker 3: Well?
00:26:33
Speaker 1: How much of your shed hunting is spent sitting somewhere and looking around versus walking around?
00:26:38
Speaker 2: Walk me through all that. Yeah, glassing is huge. I mean I probably find as many antlers through the binoculars as I do walking. And to me, it’s just anytime I walk out on a point where I have a decent view, I’m gonna sit down in glass, throw your glass on a tripod, get super stable and just pick it apart. And I will honestly set a time on my phone for like twenty minutes and say I’m not going to move from this spot until that timer goes off, because I’ll get bored with it and I’ll want to walk away. But I found so many antlers, Like after twenty minutes or a half hour of glassing a hillside, the light will shift, the clouds will change, the sun will change, and all of a sudden, an antler that looked I mean that you couldn’t see before is just totally obvious to you. So I spend a lot of a lot of time glassing. But it’s also not sufficiently covering an area. So like if you just glass a hillside and think, oh I got it, No, it’s I mean, it’s so easy to miss antlers in the glass too, so you still got to go grid it out and go hike it. But I spend a lot of time.
00:27:41
Speaker 1: So when you’re actually walking, are there any things you do to help find those hard to see sheds when you’re walking? Like, I love the fact that you mentioned like you’ve set a timer, you wait for light to change, all that kind of stuff. I’ve seen. Those same kinds of things apply to like my walking, and there’s certain things that I do and I’m looking for white tail sheds to try to you know. For example, as I’m walking through a spot, if I see like a down tree or something, I’ll stand up on the down tree to get a different perspective, and I’ll make sure to look behind me and all around me, because sometimes you’ll walk right past them and never see them. Are there any other things like along those lines that when you’re walking that you found little things that help you.
00:28:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like getting a different angle is huge, like in glassing and in hiking both. I mean seeing it from a different perspective where the sun setting it differently can change the whole game. Tight grid lines, especially for white tail sheds, you know, so you’ll walk through maybe east to west, then turn around to come back west to east, and even if it’s the same ground you just walk, that perspective can be the difference in finding them. I always look behind me too. That’s one thing that I found a ton of antlers where maybe the angle was just wrong when you came through this way. But I look back over my shoulders as I’m walking, and I found a ton of antlers looking back behind me.
00:28:52
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:28:54
Speaker 1: Back to glassroom real quick. I forgot to ask you this. Everyone seems to have a different way that to glass. What’s your style up and down, left or right grid? Like, how what’s the shed hunting glassing technique that works best.
00:29:08
Speaker 2: I always start with the places where I think there’s gonna be sheds first, So like, if I sit down, I would be like, Okay, that patch of trees looks like a place of bowl would bed down, maybe he could catch a little sun. So I’ll pick that apart first, and then I kind of moved the least likely places from there. But then I do try to do like a big left right grid over the whole thing before I move on. So I think it’s just the excitement factor when you sit down, like, I bet there’s a shed there, so I look there first, and you know, sometimes they are, but sometimes there’s nothing. Yeah.
00:29:40
Speaker 1: So when you headed east on this huge adventure viewers over the couple of year period, it was and you started really tackling the white tail side of things. And I think you’ve done some before that too, But what was the what were the biggest challenges for you or like epiphanies when you shifted towards all these whitetail states, Like what was really different going that direction.
00:30:01
Speaker 2: That you were like a lack of snow to concentrate anything was one thing. And a lot of the West, it’s easy to target areas they’ll be in just simply by snow depth, and a lot of the places I went first in the Midwest hadn’t had significant snow that year, so the deer were just wandering everywhere. I was also surprised by the amount of competition on public land. I figured that there would be people hiking, you know, like there is everywhere, but I mean I was the state that, you know, I think of the most with this was Kansas, which is obviously a legendary whitetail state, so I’m sure a lot of people hike there because the quality of the deer. But I was running into people hiking like the whole time I was there, like other people shed hunting, And I was really surprised by that. Lots of boot tracks and and lots of trucks at uh, you know, the walking areas and stuff, so competition, And then also surprised by how well a whitetail shed can hide because they just I mean the way that they’re built, you know, they can lay times down and be basically invisible in any type of vegetation. And a lot of cases you got to step right on and even see them.
00:31:11
Speaker 1: Have you found any little things that help you spot antlers better? And the only way I can describe this is like an example, in my world, I’ve learned to spot like the gleam of that shine on an antler, right, Like, little things like that will help, but pop and once your head kind of starts to look for that, then all of a sudden they show up. Is there anything like that for you in your world that you’ve found helps.
00:31:39
Speaker 2: You, Yeah, definitely shine like I mean, that’s if there’s some on an antler, it’ll pop even a distance. With elk, it’s the parallel lines, like you’ll see a lot of time on an elk, the parallel line of the sword and the fifth and like that’s a dead giveaway because there’s very little in nature that’s like perfectly parallel like that and straight. That’s one thing we look for white birds and white bases. Surprisingly, that’s one of the I mean very often, that’s one of the main things we see. Is just you’ll see it looks like a bright white spot and that’s all you can see. Maybe that’s a dark antler or something, but you can just see that that white bird out there. I was surprised when I started white tail shed hunting too, how many people wait for overcast and rainy days because they say the visibility is so much easier on sheds. I didn’t know that was a thing, but a lot of different whitetail guys brought that up.
00:32:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you have a really interesting insight on the white tail side that even though you’re more of a Western guy, there aren’t many whitetail guys who’ve shed hunted in the Northeast, in the Midwest, in the South, and the West. So I’m curious if anything stood out to you regionally, Like if I were to say, all right, Southern States, only tell me something unique about finding sheds in Southern States. Does anything come to mind?
00:32:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were all like in the thorns. They were all in the greenbriers like and I don’t know if that’s just the safety of it. They like to be in there. But pretty much everything I found in like Mississippi, Alabama, it was very very thick, like the deer. I mean they would drop a few in the food as well, Like we were mostly hunting, like in Alabama, it was mostly cotton fields and We did find a few in the food, but most of them were just like tucked clear back in the greenbriers or the palmettos and the thicker stuff. And I think, I don’t know, it didn’t seem to me like a deer would want to be in that thorny stuff. But they must be a little more impervious to it than I thought.
00:33:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, it’s amazing what they can just dig themselves into sometimes to feel safe, the thickest, nastiest, thorniest stuff.
00:33:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, ugly.
00:33:46
Speaker 1: I heard you talking somewhere about how you couldn’t believe how pokey and briary and stuff a lot of these places were too. Just how shut it up you got?
00:33:55
Speaker 2: Oh man, I got just ripped up, like I would come home from these road trips just with like thorns bedding in my arms and hands and just tore up on my arms, like I couldn’t believe I got hit in the lip with the thorn like flipped me in the mouth, and like there was a few different times like I bought some cheap rain gear at Walmart for Mississippi, and it was literally just like rags and tatters hanging off of me. When I got out of there and it was not good.
00:34:20
Speaker 1: I’ve had some years where I’ve worn the wrong pants where I’ll forget to wear like a really good pant, like a canvas pant or like a chatpant, and I’ll just come home in my thighs will just be just like as if cats had scratched at the fronts of my legs all the way up and down, because you’re walking through so many of those like multi floor rows, patches, and just the lads everywhere. That’s that is the sign of a long day of shd hunting and hopefully a good one, but a painful one, yeah for sure. Okay, So continuing the regional idea, uh So, now let’s go up to the northeast, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, and you like anything up there? Does anything stand out about shed hunting in that part.
00:35:03
Speaker 3: Of the country.
00:35:05
Speaker 2: So a few of those states I was targeting moose, and I learned a little bit about you know, what those moose do. They are typically snow bound up there, and they’re navigating deep and heavy snow, so that plays a lot into it what they’re able to eat when there’s you know, four or five feet of snow on the ground, and then I was just I guess the whole Northeast just in general. I was just blown away. I didn’t know it was so mountainous, Like I hadn’t visited it much or spend any time out there, and it’s like many I mean, New Hampshire’s like mini Colorado, and it’s just beautiful. Like I was blown away, there’s not I mean, there’s not that many deer up in those states. Massachusetts had some good deer we shed hunted kind of in the suburbs of Boston and that was cool. But you know, those are fairly urban deer. They’re coming in and out of people’s yards quite a bit, and you know, there’s public land, there’s some parks and things, and they all get hunted quite a bit. So, but not any really ag up there where we were. New York was mostly agricultural stuff. We got permission to hike some farms and found a shed on a power line through through ag and same with Pennsylvania. We found in and around ag fields. So I mean it kind of runs the gamut really of all types of white tail habitat all through those states. But just beautiful, man. I love the northeast.
00:36:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, we’ll hit two more big regions the Midwest white tail hunting sheds. That’s core white tail shed dream zone? Was it everything that all the white tail hunters say first and then secondly what stood out to you as far as like tactics are finding sheds? There are they just behind every single tree and it’s easy pickens?
00:36:58
Speaker 2: Or what did you I struggled my way through the Midwest, man, I had a hard time. I had a hard time in Iowa. I hiked for two days in Iowa before I found an antler, and it was a small brown that was tucked in a willow patch that just got missed. But we were hitting public land and it was public land that had been hiked a ton. We found a couple of dead bucks. But yeah, it took me two days to find a shed. I found at the end of the second day, and then the people that we were with found a couple small antlers, but everything by the time I got there had been well picked over and then there was deep snow, so we were just trying to figure it out. We were in the northern part of the state Ohio. The same story. I hunted public land, I found chewed up antler at the end of day one that was just like a real garbage antler found a dead buck there too, but there was boot tracks all over through the piece that we were hiking. So I was surprised at the competition in the hole Midwest. It was just there’s just they’re getting after it, and there’s the already exists this idea that that’s where all the big bucks are and that’s where all the deer are, and people go there, and there’s a lot of states that have a lot of white tail that are a lot less pressure than the Midwest.
00:38:15
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:38:17
Speaker 1: Do you feel like anything that you’ve said already would be different for western white tail shed hunting?
00:38:27
Speaker 2: I don’t. Yeah, I think that the little that I know about western white tails like would be like Montana and Idaho, and I don’t know that people target them as much for sheds. I know there’s some diehard guys out there getting them. But I killed the white tail buck in Montana this year, and every one of its sheds was on the ridge that I killed it on.
00:38:49
Speaker 1: I saw that that was insane.
00:38:52
Speaker 2: So even since that video I posted, my buddy went back and found another set. So his year prior to the year that I killed him, So literally every antler he ever grew we found within five hundred yards of where I killed him. Is that?
00:39:04
Speaker 1: So? I saw that on your social or somewhere, and that made me wonder, you know, if if deer in some of these western regions that was kind of like mountainous like forest and stuff, right, just like the fidelity to a single small zone for betting year after year after year. That seems crazy to me. But you know, talking to other people out there or in your experience, have you seen like is that relatively common? Is there going to be like a small small zone where this buck is going to be like every winter that you could you know, almost count on like that.
00:39:35
Speaker 2: I think that that is fairly common with those deer. I mean, I don’t think they exclusively do that. But the feedback I got when I posted that video was a lot of people being like, oh, yeah, you know this Idaho mountain buck I killed. We found all the sheds right there in that same ridge or you know, several several years off of them. And the reason we were there hunting that deer was because my buddy had seen him on that same ridge about three weeks earlier. And so we were just went in there hoping he might be around somewhere, and I mean we rattled him in down the exact same ridge that he was on and he lived and died, I mean right there. So just a good ridge, good feed, a lot of brows, and a good timber pocket on the back to hide, and that’s where he lived his whole life.
00:40:16
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:40:16
Speaker 1: Well, so basic shed hunting ideas and strategies we’ve covered talked about pants being an important thing for shed hunting, and thorny spots, any other gear clothing stuff you throw in your pack when you’re going out for a full day of shed hunting. Like this kind of sounds silly, but I know from spending a lot of days out there myself that there are some things that, man, it’s really really important to make sure you’ve got with you. What’s in your shed pack. What are some of the key things that you’re wearing or bringing with you that help you do this? Well?
00:41:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, optics obviously you’re huge, like the basic your western hunting stuff that you’re not going to be without probably anyway. Food, Like if you want to consistently put down miles from sun up till sundown, which a lot of Western shed hunting is like you got to just fuel as you’re out there doing it. So I’m usually packing a lot of different Like I like to carry jerky and cheese. That’s my go to and I’ll just eat that all through the day so I don’t ever crash out and then electrolytes, you know something, maybe some candy to keep your blood sugar going, but just whatever you need to be able to push through a whole day. And because the most common thing is to like run out of energy after five or six miles and be like, oh this sucks on, must sit you know. That’s huge. Yeah, brushpants are important. Brush shirt Like I have a shirt that I wear that’s actually for like loggers that is saved my life. And the thorns many times we get those burn thorns in Arizona too, and those new burns that grow up and they’re just lethal. So good clothing is huge. Boots, I mean boots. I use different boots to shed hunt than I do to hunt. I like more of a cushioned boot to shed hunt. When you’re going to do like twelve or a fifteen mile day, something with a lot more cushion in the soul. I feel like I can go longer on them, like an Ultra or a trail runner or something. Okay, Yeah, and like I listen to audio books on my phone, Well I’m shed hunting. That’s huge for me too, Even if it’s like just a small distraction, I feel like it helps me lock in more. Maybe that’s just my brain interesting, but yeah, like just kind of basic stuff. Gloves can be huge if you’re dealing with thorns.
00:42:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was going to say that one.
00:42:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, a pair of leather gloves just to be able to fight through burn thorns or whatever.
00:42:46
Speaker 1: What do you think about sunglasses. I’ve gone back and forth in sunglasses.
00:42:51
Speaker 2: I think they’re for people with weak eyes. No, no, like I don’t know. There’s some new ones out that are supposed to help you find mushrooms and antlers and golf balls whatever, and some people swear by them, and like I have buddies that just use like blue que glasses. They say they make antlers stand out more. But I’ve never gotten into that.
00:43:17
Speaker 1: M Yeah, I’ve always I’ve always debated, like lots of times. I want to put them on because just will feel better on the eyes because I have weak eyes. But then I do wonder like, is this somehow hurting my ability to make them pop? And then also it’s you know, more cumbersome when I want to throw the glass up and use my binox. You know, I don’t want to use my sunglasses and then throw off the binocular, So I oftentimes take them off because of that. But I’ve wondered because it’s kind of like, you know, cloudy days tend to be better for seeing antlers, So do your glasses kind of act like putting a cloud cover on?
00:43:51
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:43:51
Speaker 3: I don’t know.
00:43:51
Speaker 2: I’ve had maybe people message me to sell them for finding antlers and offer to send me some, but I haven’t never tried them. Interesting, all right, So boots, Buyino’s good pants, shirt, gloves, bring your food, water, electro lights. I’ll throw one more in there, which is always bring TP Yeah. Oh yeah, I mean never roll without the wives. Man ruin a day of shed hunt real quick.
00:44:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, that’s the truth.
00:44:24
Speaker 1: What about getting access when you don’t have public land?
00:44:28
Speaker 2: You did?
00:44:29
Speaker 1: You have to go down that road very often getting you know, knock on door permission from folks throughout your adventures, either on this fifty state trip or anything else. Do you have any advice on getting shed hunting permission.
00:44:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like a lot of people are more willing to give shed hunting permission because like, they don’t care you’re not going to be shooting guns, you know, to them, somebody walking around their property isn’t that big of a deal. One angle that we’ve used many times in the past is that you know, it saves tires on the farm equipment if you can get antlers out of the field, and that’s been something that’s or a few times where the farmer will be like, I’m always running over those things. One situation, we ran into a guy in South Dakota and we walked into like a little teeny store and we asked the lady at the desk if she knew this landowner, because there was a landowner that had these farms that just looked amazing right outside of town. And she said, Oh, that’s my brother. He’s pretty crazy. We’re like, oh, cool, Like can we talk to him? She’s like, I’ll give you his phone number, and they’re like cool. So as we were walking out of the store, the lady comes following us out. She’s like, this is him. He just walked in the store and it’s like, oh cool. So we started talking to this guy and I told him what I was doing. I’m like, can I, you know, come shed hunt your property and he’s like no, no, no, no, absolutely not. I can’t have anybody out there, you know, and you know, plus my grandkids find him. I’m like, oh, that’s a cool, no big deal. He’s like, but but I’ll give you a shed so you’ll have one for your thing. And I’m like, well, I mean, I got to find it or it doesn’t really count, you know. And then he started talking to us a lot about a pipeline that was coming through their neck of the woods that he was really concerned about. And so we made a deal that if I would share his position or his petition on Instagram about stopping this pipeline, that he would let me shed on his place. And I’m like, oh cool. So I shared it for him, and we ended up going out to his farm and I remember pulling into like his grain bins where he parked his equipment and looking over and there’s like a smoke and big whitetail shed right underneath the grain bin, and I’m like, we’re in it, Like this is going to be so good. So he let us go hike and I picked up I think like five or six brown antlers in his grain bins in the parking lot where the deer were coming and eating his milo that he had in these bins. And then I walked down the main road to his corrals where he was feeding cows and he had hey and I could just see antlers just littered all the way through these corrals and I went out there. I was just picking them off as fast as I could go, Like there was a spot where a buck could jump the fence and drop both sides. And I can’t remember how many we picked up, but thirty plus antlers between me and my buddy in about a half hour. And then it snowed two feet like it just started pounding. But that was like the best success I’ve ever had. We’d just loaded up. We were there like for a half hour. It snowed us out and we left, but it was so wow.
00:47:18
Speaker 1: What do you take away from that as far as like how the access came together? I mean, I know that was like a random thing, but when I hear your story, there’s some things that stand out to me. But what do you take from that that could be applied elsewhere.
00:47:33
Speaker 2: Even if they tell you no, Like, even if their first instinct is no, you can’t do that, Like just talk to them a little bit and get to know them a little bit. It might just be their initial response and they might be cold to begin with. But even if they tell you no, I mean, I like that guy for example, if he would have just said no, we’re never going to do that, I still had his phone number. I still might have called him in a month and been like, hey, and just wondering if this may be something changed. But just be friendly with them, and if they tell you no, like you don’t have to go cold, and and you know, be upset about it, because a lot of people may take a little bit longer to warm up to the idea yeah.
00:48:06
Speaker 1: Or also just the fact that you talked to, you know, the lady behind the counter to you know, just just asking her about thoughts on that, and just talking to anyone in these local areas I think is such a great start. And so many people probably just are either too antisocial to want to do that, or you know, just don’t think anyone would say yes. But the answer is always no before you ask, right, So it’s never going to get worse than that. You might as well ask and talk to some people.
00:48:32
Speaker 2: You know.
00:48:33
Speaker 1: Another thing that’s worked well for me, and I’ve used this well for regular hunting and shad hunting. If somebody says no, I’ll always follow up, you know with you know, is there anyone else in the neighborhood who you think might be willing? You know, just get a reference, and then you know, now you can go to this other person and say, hey, Bob down the road mentioned and then now you’ve got kind of like a personal connection like, oh, this guy knows Bob down the road. Maybe Mark’s not such a bad guy. Maybe I’ll let them go out there. And that’s helped me too. Yeah, that’s a good tip. Yeah, what about and this is this is something you kind of just reference there a second ago. But I want to circle back on one more tactical thing. You talked about how you would seen I think can’t er if you say, as a match setter, it just a single but at a spot where a buck jumped over I think you said a fence or a creek or something that’s like an example that I’ve seen too, like a very specific kind of feature that can sometimes lead to antlers, So hopping over a creek, hopping over a fence. I can think of a handful of other things in the white tail world where that are like very specific things. But when I see this very specific thing, I’m like, oh, yeah, I gotta at least check that out. Are there any other like specific little things kind of like that that you can think of, either out west or across the country that you’ve learned, Like, if I see that, you gotta check it because there might be an antler. Do anything stand out like that?
00:49:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I Mean, fences are an obvious one, right because they can live their antlers when they jump it, and they also travel up and down fences quite a bit. So I’m always going to walk a fence line. Most of the time on public land, they’ve been walked. But even I mean, if you’re the first one there and it’s earlier in the morning, just go check it again because anything could be there. YEA one thing with elk that I always look for is isolated low hills of the right kind of feed. So if there’s like say, a huge valley and there’s only these few hills for a few miles and they face the right way, and they have that feed on them. Like odds are some bowl laid down and shed as antlers there. So I always just like there’s a lot of times I’ll be driving down the highway, I’m like, oh, that’s a shed hill for sure, and I’ll pull over and go hike it, and a lot of the time there will be an antler on it. But yeah, crete crossings and even highway crossings too. I a lot of times, especially in the desert estates where the elk are very dispersed, I’ll cruise the highway and look for elk tracks crossing the road. And there’s been many times where you’ll cut a fresh track of bowls and then you go backtrack them and find an antler.
00:50:59
Speaker 1: Nice one one more that I’ve thrown there from like kind of the Midwest country, I’ve seen it, and probably some of the Western stuff too. Is like an isolated evergreen tree or cedar or something like that. If you see like an isolated evergreen in some grassy brushy stuff always seems to be the kind of thing that you know. I think deer and probably all ungulates are kind of like bass and they want to find structure, like if they’re in an open area, if there’s some piece of structure that’s different that attracts game and attracts deer that are gonna bet up and hang out by that, they just feel that safety. And so I always check isolated cedars evergreens of any kind, especially if it’s on a south facing grassy hill or slope or anything like that. That’s a that’s a sweet spot. And then like you said, edges of fields, edges of fences, those can be pretty pretty dynamite too. You mentioned like grain bins and hay and all that kind of stuff. I’ve heard stories of like that, but I’ve never had it happen for me. Is that a one off for you or is that something that you’ve actually seen in other places? Like it’s not like a once in a lifetime lucky find. But can that happen elsewhere? Never?
00:52:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, I’m sure it can. I’ve never really seen it like that, Like that place had I mean a big hate like a hay bale that was busted open where there was I think three or four antlers in that one pile of hay from a big bail, and I think it had been a really really heavy snow year, and I think it had those deer just ultra concentrated. So I think on that kind of a year, it could definitely happen if you find a food source. And also it wasn’t this guy’s main farm, like he wasn’t in and out of there all the time, so it was actually really secluded for those deer back in there. And it’s the right combination of circumstances. I guess.
00:52:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, jealous, that sounds like a great half hour or whatever it was.
00:52:54
Speaker 2: I need to go back there. It was crazy, that’s insane.
00:52:58
Speaker 1: I saw that you take your boys out shed hunting your kids. Got any advice for shed hunting with kids?
00:53:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean fake them out, like I don’t have any shame about that at all. Like I don’t usually take antlers out and throw them, like I know guys will do that. But what I’ll do with my boys is just walk until I see one, and then I make sure that they’re the one to go up there and find it. And sometimes you got to walk them by it three times, you know, tell them, got to get a little specific, like go check over here. But you know that feeling that they get from finding it is so much better than you picking one up anyway.
00:53:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, that’s the truth.
00:53:38
Speaker 1: I’ve even gotten to the point where sometimes I’ll do I’ll do the same thing and I’ll even find them, mark them on on X and then go back and like get my kids or come back the next day or something and go find them like that, because like you said, it’s so it’s so much better for them to find them, and you know, it’s a hard thing to have happened, like to be in a place where you can have the kids out there and find it that if there’s a chance, you know, to get him out there, As far as I’m concerned, it’s worth it because when trying to do it in the real world with the kids out there, you know, just odds are it’s going to be a lot of hours without actually finding one. So when you have one found, it seems like it’s worth a little bit of extra effort to somehow get him out there and see that.
00:54:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. My youngest seven and he found a set of brown elk sheds this year that was like, I mean, it’s like a three hundred bowl, maybe a little less, but I spotted him. He was like thirty yards ahead of me, and I could see him side by side on the fence line, and I was I was way more excited than he was watching him because he genuinely found him on his own. He was headed over there anyway, you know, So I just stood back and let him walk up on him. And that’s the greatest to me. That’s what it’s all about.
00:54:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that’s so cool.
00:54:52
Speaker 1: I guess one one last kind of actually finding Antler’s kind of question here for you? Is there? I mean, I just you’ve got this really interesting experience. But maybe I mean, have you, as you’ve talked to people about this project, have you found anybody else who’s done who’ve done this?
00:55:09
Speaker 3: Or are you the guy?
00:55:10
Speaker 2: I don’t. I don’t know. I’ve never found anybody. I’ve followed a couple of leads, people like, oh this guy did or this guy did, and I’ve chased him down and it’s no, I don’t think. I don’t think anybody’s ever done it before.
00:55:22
Speaker 1: So, with this very unique perspective, what is the single greatest mistake related to shad hunting first that you’ve made? And then secondly, what do you think the most common mistake that most people make when it comes to shad hunting? And that could either be you know, like a tactical thing like actually, what will help you make, you know, find more antlers, or maybe something like a larger question, a larger thing related to SHD hunting. But I’m curious, what’s the biggest mistake you’ve made, and what do you think is the largest mistake or most common mistake that most hunters make.
00:56:02
Speaker 2: They’re probably the same thing. It’s probably the same answer, and that is ignoring areas that you assume are hiked. I think that most people will do that. Like I have some spots that I’ve hit now for years where they’re the dumbest spots. You would not necessarily expect them to be holding anything. We have a spot in Nevada that is literally right next to the highway. It’s in between the highway and another main road, and it’s right in the gap and it’s only five hundred yards between these two roads. It’s just one little set of hills. And I drove by it for so long and before one day hiking it and like just absolutely loading up on antlers. And I’m like everybody else is doing the same thing. They’re driving by this little teeny set of hills and they’re like that gets hit that’s hiked. It’s too close to the road. I’m not gonna I’m not going to hit that. But on that one specific spot I’m talking about now, we’ve pulled a three hundred and ninety six inch set of elk sheds out of it. Whoa, we pulled three hundred and sixty five inches set out sheds out of it, pull the two hundred and five and shed of mule deer sheds out of it, and then on top of that, just like I don’t know, fifty or sixty other quality antlers, And it’s just like I was talking before, it’s isolated hills in the middle of a big flat, but it’s right off the highway. I mean that biggest set of elk sheds. My buddy Troy actually picked them up when we were hearing cars go by on the highway, sitting there looking at the biggest set of elk sheds we’ve ever found. So it’s just like, don’t overlook those dumb spots that you can hike in ten minutes. Like if something looks good, I don’t care if it’s next to the highway, I don’t care if it’s between the interstate lanes. Just go look at it, so.
00:57:40
Speaker 1: Kind of a natural file to that question. Then you know, you talked about one big mistake, and that being ignoring those kind of two obvious places. When I was asking that question, an idea came into my mind about what I thought one of the biggest mistakes that other people make, And it wasn’t so much related to you know, finding sheds, as it is related to having fun while shed hunting, which brought to mind the fact that like oftentimes me and my buddies will go out there for a weekend of shed hunting somewhere and sometimes as a friend or two who within like the first four hours will get super negative and and all of a sudden they are like miserable, We’re never gonna find any sheds, or this place sucks or whatever it wants. You know, so long you haven’t find anything. Do you have any thoughts on how to keep shed hunting fun? Yeah, Like, if it quits being fun, quit doing it. Like that’s what I tell people all the time.
00:58:33
Speaker 2: If it’s if you’re not having a good time, go back to the truck and kick it and have a drink and eat a sandwich and then go hit it again in the afternoon. Like, if you’re not having fun, you’re not gonna be that effective at it either. And don’t get me wrong, like a moment will come or you’re like, all right, I’m tired. This sucks. And if it’s just that push through. But if you’re getting burned out on it, as like a hobby as a whole, there’s nothing wrong with taking a day and just chilling a camp like it’s supposed to be fun. That’s the whole purpose of it. And I’ve been guilty of taking it too seriously. I mean, there was a time in my life where I shut hunting five days a week and like it after a while, it’s like it felt like a job. It’s like I gotta go grind it out. I got to get this many miles per day, or I’m not trying hard enough. I got to find this many antlers if I want to sell them for this much and do and like it just takes the takes the fun out of it. It truly does. So if you’re burned out on it, if you feel like you know you’re not having the success you want to have, like drink a monster, chill out, hang out under a tree, you take a nap and then go get back after it when it feels fun again, like there’s nothing wrong. You don’t have to be that die hard.
00:59:35
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, that’s that’s really good advice.
00:59:38
Speaker 1: Another suggestion I’ll throughout there is like deal with friends, Like shed hunting is so much more fun. I mean, it’s fun as a solo thing, don’t get me wrong. I enjoy that. But then also it’s always more fun when you’ve got a group of buddies and you can get back together after you’re walking or you meet up halfway through or whatever it is. That’s that’s a great It’s a great way to you know, get some exercise, have good times with your friends, be outside and a part of the year that maybe you’re not usually going to be out there doing something. It’s a pretty darn good thing. I can’t I can’t find too much negative to say about shed hunting. It’s a great way to spend an early spring day. So tell me this, Ben. If folks want to follow more of your stuff, see your video, see any of your content, where can they find it and what should they be looking forward to in the coming year.
01:00:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, all my socials are shed crazy solid one word. I think my YouTube’s under Shed Crazy Official, but if you search Shed Crazy, I’ll pop up there. I have a couple of videos coming up from an early higke I did this year. We went out and looked for some dead desert big horn rams, so that’s coming before too long. And then I did a project this year, try to do the Native North American deer Slam with a thirty thirty. I just finished that project, so we’re going to be dropping a film that probably the summer, but it’ll be like a step above in quality what I usually do on the YouTube channel. I’m stoked for that. So that’s all coming down the pike. And yeah, just getting into shed season now, so you can look for some some shed videos to be popping on the YouTube before too long.
01:01:15
Speaker 1: Awesome, Well, I’m looking forward following along. You know what we didn’t get into in this conversation really at all, but that seems to be a big part of what you bring to the table is just like a much needed sense of fun and irreverence.
01:01:32
Speaker 2: You know.
01:01:32
Speaker 1: I love the fact that you can, you know, the fun that you bring to your social media, the crazy things you do and say and you know, crack jokes on I think is a much needed A little bit of positivity in the social media world can compared to a lot of the negativity out there, So keep that up too, man. I appreciate that.
01:01:50
Speaker 2: Well, thanks dude, I appreciate it.
01:01:52
Speaker 3: I will, and thanks for this chat.
01:01:54
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it. It’s got me amped up for shed season, gave me some good ideas, and I’m looking forward to putting it into action.
01:02:01
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, good man. Hope you have a good shed season.
01:02:07
Speaker 1: All right, And that’s going to wrap it up for us here today. Thanks for tuning in. Hope you enjoyed these shed hunting tips, tricks, and philosophies you might call them. I certainly am excited to get out there and start walking here soon. Usually like mid February is my start date for shed hunting here in the Midwest, and that is knocking on the door here. So best of luck out there. Until next time, stay wired to hunt.
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