Where to find elk sheds

Shed antlers means any antlers which have been naturally shed by any big game mammal in this State. Learn more here. In Utah, you can gather sheds statewide with no permit any time of the year except from Feb. During this time of the year, you must have an antler-gathering certificate on your person while collecting shed antlers or horns.

You can obtain this free certificate by completing the online Antler Gathering Ethics Course, but you must complete the course every year. Take the course here. Do not harass them. Keep in mind that most states do have wildlife areas that are closed to protect big game winter range and shed hunting is can be prohibited until certain dates. When searching for specific spots to walk or glass, concentrate on south-facing open slopes for higher success.

If possible, go to your shed hunting spots earlier in the year before the animals drop their antlers to glass from afar for bull elk.

It is way easier to find lb elk than it is to find an antler, so defining their home range or winter sanctuaries is half the battle when shed hunting. Use this information to get where elk were wintering during the first week in April, if possible. I always say a day walking around the woods with or without finding sheds feels better than a day on the couch.

This winter, plan on beating that winter lull and plan an elk shed hunt with your family. Get out and enjoy the great outdoors and, if you find a shed, you will be truly happy with your decision. He accelerates, then brakes, accelerates, then brakes, pushing his truck within inches of the rear bumper ahead.

Want to talk about competition? The road opens about ten minutes from now, and the sooner we get to the trailhead, the sooner we can start searching for the very thing these hordes of visitors have traveled here to find. Some folks use them for art purposes—to make furniture or knives with antler handles.

Others have massive collections and keep their sheds in large piles in a garage or mount them on taxidermy. But many are looking to sell. A brown shed is the freshest and most valuable type of antler, still streaked with a coating from when the animal rubbed its horns on bark, sap, and dirt but not yet bleached by a summer of sun and rain. An average six-point antler weighs eight pounds, which is why browns have earned a nickname from those who seek them: brown gold. His crew of buddies is a mishmash of collectors and sellers who travel to hunts like this around the Mountain West.

Paulsonmorgan, an elementary school PE teacher, keeps most of the sheds he finds, especially the big ones. A couple years ago in Jackson, he found eight browns in one night. The next year he found nothing. Fetherston, a middle school social-studies teacher, keeps most of his, too, and he writes a journal entry about where he discovered each one.

Dahl lives on a ranch and sells some of his sheds so his family can buy appliances. These Montana guys graciously offered to give me a ride to the trailhead. The clock strikes midnight, and the gates open. However, we don't spend much time focusing on these smaller bulls. Mady with the " matched set she found.

Standing in front of her Ford F There is a lot of competition for the resident herd antler drops due to the fairly easy mountain terrain.

Our favorite areas are much more difficult. It's our opinion that if you want the big bulls, trophy bucks, and moose sheds, you need to be higher, in difficult terrain, and prepared to put down some dangerous miles. My daughter Mady is a mountain goat. She was born and raised in the high country. There is nothing easy about shed hunting. As Mady and I always say: "You gotta go miles for piles" and sometimes, you come up with nothing. However, nothing is never really nothing.

There is always something to nothing, LOL. Evidence is worth the trip. If there's recent sign during drop season Feb - April, you'll know where to go in May when the season opens. Sometimes we'll put down 7 or 8 hard miles climbing - feet up and down nasty slopes, just tracking big bull movement. This is a video of one of our routes up to where the big bulls winter.

This is the easy way up believe it or not. The payday comes when you find that awesome shed where thought it might be. For me and her, the excitement of seeing that "shape" protruding from the ground is the best thing in the world. We call it "shape" because that's what you look for. Actually, you look for two things. Color white for old chalky sheds.

Or, brown for newly dropped sheds. She calls it "Brown Town" or Chalk City" when we find multiples. We are actually looking for sticks in the that have a symmetrical shape. Sticks are bent in all kinds of funky ways. We are looking for symmetrical shapes. Browns are difficult to find in the distance depending on the terrain. Many of the key principles that apply to whitetail, and mule deer shed antler hunting are also important when looking for elk sheds. In order to find shed elk antlers there must be elk in the areas you are looking in, specifically bull elk that have dropped their antlers.

This time of year elk are keying on forage and feed, consuming calories this time of year is critical for the elk. Identifying the food source the elk are utilizing will greatly improve your odds of finding sheds.

Elk often feed both morning and evening and it is not uncommon for antlers to drop, or even be knocked off while they feed through timber, in fields, or forage under light snow.

Glassing feeding areas looking for the rise of a tine and the shine of an antler is oftentimes productive. Sometimes letting your eyes do the walking in elk country is the best way to cover country.

When elk are not feeding, they spend a lot of their time resting in bedding areas in or around cover. In the cold snowy spring months in the mountains and highland plains, elk frequent the sunny side of ridges and slopes soaking up the spring sun. Glassing south facing slopes and parks looking for bedding and browsing elk is a great way to locate spring time bulls.

Being able to identify the bedding area and the feeding area makes an ideal situation that can help you narrow down the travel route the elk are using in between the bedding and feeding areas. Elk sheds are often times dropped along these travel routes as the bulls move back and forth between bedding and feeding. If you put in miles in this travel area, keep your eyes on the ground scanning for the shine of an antler, and the angular tines along the ground, rocks and timber. Training your eye to look for the angles and points of an antler is an actual skill that takes time to develop.

Searching for shed antlers on known travel routes can be very productive. When looking for elk sheds along these routes keying on terrain crossings and choke points is often a great strategy. Elk antlers are wide and require a lot of room to move around, searching for sheds in congested areas where elk are naturally funneled can be productive.

Large numbers of elk through one area create good probabilities of finding an elk shed. No matter where you look for shed antlers, if you find one, be on the lookout for its mate. Many times elk will drop both antlers within one hundred feet of each other.