Easier to find their sheds or kill them

This is an interesting thing to ponder, especially when i hear guys say shed hunting is for those who can't. Haha

For me it's been about even except moose. Hunting moose sheds vs hunting them isn't even comparable to the amount of country you cover. A couple square miles compared to hundreds. I doubt I'll ever match my best pair or even my 5th. 220-240 class moose take a lot of super cub time an a subsistence tag to find. Just remeber that if you're paying for information on how to kill big ones in AK. ;)

I have elk that are similar 360-370 class
Muledeer I've killed bigger, but not much 90 in side, and killed a couple 205 class bucks
Whitetails, it's the same 150 class sets and bucks I've killed.

Caribou, bigger set, but not by much. Big caribou are hard to find just like everything else. I think big sheds are way harder to find. They don't last long, and deteriorate really fast unless they are in the rocks.
 
Mule deer and elk I’ve shot a bigger animal than the sheds I’ve found. FB8EBC36-3C16-4465-9CA6-1A2083468DD4.jpeg
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But then again I don’t really ever dedicate time to shed hunting. I really just pick them up as I’m hunting.
As for whitetails, 203FDDED-7804-4FAA-A22B-C435F9630FA0.jpeg
I’ve found some really nice dead heads over the years. But I’ve never shot a buck whitetail. I also rarely find whitetail sheds. Maybe I’ve found 1 or 2?
 
Competition for sheds has gotten to the point, though, that you almost have to be an a@&$ole to be successful on public lands.
That’s pretty much what ruined shed hunting for me. I’ve never been very good at it, but it was a fun way to get out in the spring. Now I go fishing in the spring and occasionally pick up a nice antler while I’m bear hunting.
 
I killed my very first archery bull elk 4 days into my first ever archery hunt... I am going on 4 years of looking for elk sheds and I've never found one hahah!! So for me, it's definitely easier to kill than to find.
 
I have more and bigger elk and deer than sheds I have found. But I hunt a lot harder than I look for horns.
 
Definitely easier to find than kill. I’ve found probably 25-35 elk sheds and a handful of deer, nothing that I have killed has come close to what I’ve found. It does take a lot of miles walking in trophy areas. I found these in extreme SE Montana while deer hunting with my 10 year old boy in 2018. I wish I would have let him find them, but we were walking slightly different paths.
 

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I’ve found a few good mule deer sheds, and one pretty nice whitetail. I’ve only found small bulls, but I’ve never been much of a shed hunter. My luck has been on dead heads. My buddy and I found a monster rams head up Lost Creek back in the day. It was a broomed full curl beast. We tucked him under a boulder 25 years ago…

I have a non-typical mule deer head that I found on the steepest damn ridge in Montana off the Bighole River. He’s chalky and chewed up, but exceptionally massive. He’s missing the ends of his points. I think he’s a 13 by 8 if I remember right. He has multiple inch plus stickers off his bases. I’ll have to take a pic when I’m back in Canooch. I dream about him routinely. I named him Lazarus. He’s on my Mom’s wall. She found some matching 150ish mulie sheds last year. Way better than I’ve ever found!
 
Public land shed hunting for WT antlers where I live, pays to get after it early, b/c of the competition. I prefer to rabbit hunt at that time of year, and I don’t have much to show for. I see far more large antlers on live deer on public than corresponding sheds.

Good private land, and public where antler collection is not allowed is a different story. You can practically trip over sheds, all different sizes.
 
I have ZERO interest in collecting sheds. What do I need with more junk adding weight to my already obese garage?

Putting these sheds on a faux skull a few years ago was an interesting (albeit frustrating) job. Very expensive for the client and then his wife sent them directly to his garage. They're selling their home now and he wondered if we were interested in buying them back. Hah, hah! 20200315_200821.jpg
 
I definitely have found bigger deer sheds than anything I've killed. But I think my largest bull I've killed is bigger than any elk shed I've found. Big elk sheds seem to be few and far between.
 
Newbie question: how do you get started shed hunting? I mean, I get that I can just go walk, but I'm just curious about how you find likely places to hunt. I guess I have the same question about scouting for the coming season. I've done a lot of escouting, and this week I'm heading out to put some miles on the ground, but I feel like a total rube in not really knowing where to walk. I live right on the edge of CO unit 59, and that's where I'll be hunting (I know, crowds, crowds, and more crowds). Any tips would be really appreciated.
 
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