March Madness for most people means hours spent filling out final four brackets while wolfing down wings and squatting in front of big screens. While I certainly have been known to follow the annual hardwood classic — at least until North Carolina loses — March is madness in the hunting world as well.
In lieu of a final four bracket, my time is spent analyzing aerial photos and topographical maps. Instead of watching game footage, I study the most recent trail camera pictures. While everyone else is looking for the Cinderella story, I’m looking for Mr. Big.
March is important because the snow is finally starting to melt to a point where relevant scouting can take place.
The first thing I do when approaching this pivotal time in early season scouting is making sure that I lock down my hunting areas for the year — or brown nosing by talking to landowners and working out a deal for access to areas where the big deer live. Sometimes securing permission is as simple as promising some jerky at the end of the season and sometimes it means helping with the annual harvest. Honestly the more you are willing to do for the landowner, the more willing he or she is to allow access. On a few occasions I have been roped into serious farmhand work — pulling fence wire, bucking bails, even fixing an old tractor — but it has almost always been worth it.
The second part of the early scouting season is getting to know the area, which where aerial photos come in. In my experience landowners are the most important resource. I take a large scale aerial photo with me when I’m doing any chores. Then, after I’ve made good on my end of the deal, I ask the landowner to mark up areas that deer tend to frequent. This gives me the perfect scouting report to for the next phase of my routine — the shed hunt.
Shed hunting is a great way to understand the quality and number of deer in the hunting area and a welcome escape from the confines of civilization. After the snow melts to a point where movement can be accomplished, I like to spend at least a week in each of my hunting areas searching for antlers. Finding sheds is not the easiest thing to do. Dozens of hunters have only found a small handful of sheds during years of searching. It sounds obvious, but the key to success is time. Tactics and helpful hints, such as following the snowline and finding travel patterns, boost the chances of success, but time is by far the most important.
Besides simply being in the woods, one piece of equipment has helped me be a more successful shed hunter than most: my shed dog.
Shed dogs are trained to find and retrieve sheds. Before training my dog, my annual shed hunt usually resulted in only a few finds. Since beginning her training, she has out-hunted me on nearly every occasion, even finding small spike and forked horn sheds I would otherwise never find.
Throughout my March madness I use every piece of information I can get my hands on to get a proper perspective on the upcoming year. I work to understand density levels of game, talk to landowners and spend time in the field. This hard work has been the key to making me a successful hunter. If you want a leg-up on a successful hunt next year, March should be your month to start.
Michael French can be reached at [email protected]