Episode #115 - Don’s Top Four Properties Visited This Year

Published: 2022-05-02
Episode page
Duration: 79 min

In this episode

bedding-sanctuary

• Mark from Rudolph, Wisconsin asks about using small bedding sanctuaries with evergreen perimeter plantings and brush clumps for thermal cover. 53:40
• Terry asks Don whether having multiple smaller bedding sanctuaries is similar to having smaller micro food plots. 57:01

bow-hunting

• Gene Wensel once described becoming a bow hunter as an apprenticeship, a series of steps deer hunters used to work through. 68:57

buck-age-structure

• Justin Rice from Poynette, Wisconsin asks when Don and Terry first noticed more older age-class bucks and whether their management influenced neighboring bucks. 60:00

buck-behavior

• Don has seen mature bucks that refuse open mowed paths, preferring to keep brush touching their side, making them more likely to move in daylight along tight cover. 7:32

consulting

• Don consulted on roughly 90 properties for about 78 clients this past winter. 21:29
• Don worked in 15 states this year, including four new states he’d never consulted in before: Georgia, Nebraska, South Carolina, and North Carolina. 21:47
• Don ranked a 240-acre Wisconsin parcel his #4 consulting property this year, noting it has access from four directions. 25:09
• Don’s #3 ranked consulting property this year is an 80-acre tract in Minnesota, near the Twin Cities. 30:31
• Don ranked a 320-acre Illinois property as his #2 consulting property this year. 34:33
• Don’s #1 ranked consulting property this year is a 110-acre tract in Northern Indiana, which he called a ‘honey hole.’ 36:40

crossbow-regulations

• Don attributes the recent downward trend in mature buck numbers on his farm partly to state regulations allowing crossbows, which increased archery-season hunting effort. 62:45

day-job

• Terry’s day job involves managing corporate sponsorships for NASCAR and IndyCar through Team Penske, which now owns the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. 12:48

deer-management

• Don states without doubt that his property management influences the number of mature bucks for about a mile around his farm. 60:28
• Don says it took roughly five to seven years of management for him to start seeing noticeably better bucks on his farm. 62:15

family

• Terry’s daughter is graduating college this Saturday. 78:47

fence

• To fix the neighbor pressure, the client plans to build a fence along part of the property boundary. 27:42

fertilizer

• Terry plans to spread fertilizer and lime, then do a final disc before planting NutriCrave corn and soybeans this week. 78:11

food-plot-strategy

• Don says he prefers fewer, larger food plots over many small ones and plans to consolidate plots on this property accordingly. 29:24

food-plots

• Don says food-plot season has arrived and he just needs the ground to dry out a bit before he can start planting. 1:01
• Don plans to work on food plots this week once wet spots dry out enough. 77:17
• Brian Koehler from De Forest, Wisconsin asks whether seven acres of Real World Gen-two soybeans will hold deer on his property through winter. 72:38

gardening

• Terry tilled his garden this week. 1:08

health

• Terry got no farm work done this week and was grounded all weekend by a bad back flare-up. 16:53

herbicide-path

• Don recommends spraying a narrow 12-to-18-inch herbicide path through weeds and brush instead of mowing to funnel cautious mature bucks past a stand. 4:45
• Terry recommends spraying a herbicide path near stands with tall brush or grass in late spring/early summer to pull deer within bow range when trees can’t be dropped or fences built. 6:51
• Terry recalls a property where tree options were too limited near a grassy area, so he and Don sprayed a herbicide corridor through the grass to bring a buck into bow range. 8:44
• Terry asks Don to explain why he uses a sprayed herbicide path to funnel deer instead of a mowed path or another strategy. 3:50

human-intrusion

• Don credits minimizing human intrusion—staying off his property from green-up through fall—as the main reason it outperforms neighboring properties. 65:22

hunting-pressure

• The Wisconsin property’s only drawback was neighbors sitting a fence line and pressuring deer, which is what kept it out of a higher ranking. 27:20

land-buying

• Don recommends buyers evaluate what surrounds a property’s boundary, since they can add food or cover on their own land but cannot influence what happens across the line. 24:05

lesters-feet

• Raffle tickets for Lester’s Feet can be purchased online. 46:03
• Lester’s Feet is now listed on hospital social worker referral databases, connecting more families to help. 45:21
• Lester’s Feet has helped over sixty-five families so far. 45:33
• Checks for the Lester’s Feet raffle can be mailed to Lester’s Feet Foundation, PO Box 250, Dry Ridge, Kentucky 41035. 47:31
• Because Solid Rock Chapel hosts the Lester’s Feet raffle, listeners mailing checks—especially Emtek listeners—should make checks payable to Solid Rock Chapel. 46:52

motivation

• A Thunderbirds fighter pilot keynote speaker said nothing significant is ever accomplished alone in life. 15:55

motorsports

• Terry rode laps around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway track with Penske IndyCar driver Sean McLaughlin, who normally runs 240 mph but drove about 140 mph with Terry aboard. 17:43

natural-buffer

• That Minnesota property’s back corner borders a swamp over 150 acres, which Don says makes it nearly impossible for neighboring hunters to pressure the fence line. 31:30

nfts

• Terry learned about NFTs at the summit, describing them as digital autographs or memorabilia now being adopted in the music and sports industries. 14:25

pinch-points

• Deer moving from the sanctuary toward the food will be funneled through created pinch points, letting the client kill them along that travel corridor. 40:25

property-selection

• Terry summarizes that the common theme across Don’s top four properties is access from multiple directions and being buffered by what’s outside the boundary. 42:12

public-land

• Terry advises hunters to verify whether herbicide use is permitted on public or leased land, noting many properties restrict cutting trees. 9:09
• Terry asks Don what else he accomplished this week besides spraying stand paths, including any public land work. 9:48

sanctuary-management

• For the Indiana sanctuary-bordered property, Don plans to place food sources as far from the no-hunting sanctuary as possible, forcing deer to travel the property’s length to feed. 39:11
• Terry cautions that regularly walking through the rest of a property outside a small designated sanctuary can ruin the sanctuary’s effectiveness. 57:53

social-media

• Terry received 182 private messages and emails this week, mostly criticizing his decision to plow a field, after betting a friend he’d get over 100 such messages. 11:41
• Don jokes that no matter what you post online, even that the earth is round, somebody on the internet will disagree with you. 12:09 (light moment)

sponsorship-summit

• Terry attended a sponsor summit this week with over 200 marketing and branding executives from companies around the world. 13:01

stand-prep

• Terry cleared a stand entrance through a briar patch about 25 feet from an old pole barn to lay groundwork for chasing a specific urban buck this season. 2:11
• Don spent several days spraying herbicide ‘pads’ past his stands this week, not for his own entry but to direct deer to pass within shooting range. 2:26
• Don says preparing stands ahead of time preserves the element of surprise, which he considers huge for successfully hunting mature bucks. 3:18

stewardship

• Terry advises that hunters with permission to hunt owe landowners more than a thank-you gift—they owe long-term stewardship of the whitetail resource on that land. 66:46

storm

• Terry and Austin Razor sped up trying to outrun a tornado in Western Kentucky last year while driving back from a speaking engagement in Guthrie. 19:21

switchgrass

• Don planted switchgrass and Miscanthus this past week, though his food plots are still too wet to work. 1:27
• Don plans to plant switchgrass and Miscanthus across the Indiana property’s open ag ground to create structure and pinch points. 40:16

trophy-buck

• On Don’s #2 Illinois property, the client shot a buck scoring around 190 inches within about two weeks of Don’s consulting visit. 36:09

trucks

• Terry jokes that his new Duramax truck from Victory Chevrolet is limited to 100 mph and asks sponsor Chris Yates to fix it. 18:50 (light moment)

Deer activity

• unnamed buck (hunt) 1:55
• Smokey (history) 4:04
• unnamed buck (sighting) 37:14
• Smokey (harvest) 62:23
• Mel (harvest) 62:23

Listener questions

Question: Terry asks Don to explain why he uses a sprayed herbicide path to funnel deer instead of a mowed path or another strategy. 3:50

• Answer: Don says several mature bucks, including one named Smokey, refused to follow mowed paths in daylight, prompting him to switch to sprayed herbicide paths. 4:04

Question: Terry asks Don what else he accomplished this week besides spraying stand paths, including any public land work. 9:48

• Answer: Don scouted a new public land parcel and found a ravine that creates a great funnel right behind someone’s house, with no sign of other hunters. 10:06

Question: Mark from Rudolph, Wisconsin asks about using small bedding sanctuaries with evergreen perimeter plantings and brush clumps for thermal cover. 53:40 — asked by Mark

• Answer: Don recommends making the entire woods a sanctuary instead of small one- or five-acre areas, since deer struggle to recognize small sanctuary boundaries. 54:56
• Answer: Don also advises leaving felled treetops from logging in place, since they provide ground cover and help regeneration. 55:34
• Answer: For plantings, Don favors oak species that hold their leaves through winter for cover. 58:50
• Answer: Don also prefers red cedars over white pines for perimeter plantings, since deer damage young pines but leave cedars alone. 59:18

Question: Terry asks Don whether having multiple smaller bedding sanctuaries is similar to having smaller micro food plots. 57:01

• Answer: Don answers that deer have a hard time figuring out when they’re within a small sanctuary, regardless of its exact size. 57:26

Question: Justin Rice from Poynette, Wisconsin asks when Don and Terry first noticed more older age-class bucks and whether their management influenced neighboring bucks. 60:00 — asked by Justin Rice

• Answer: Don says his property management undoubtedly influences mature buck numbers for about a mile around his farm. 60:28
• Answer: Terry adds that after minimizing pressure and maximizing food and cover on his small Kentucky properties, he began getting shots at bucks five or six years old or older. 64:01
• Answer: Terry emphasizes that hunters must establish age structure before focusing on antler size, or their chances of a giant buck are much smaller. 64:37

Question: Brian Koehler from De Forest, Wisconsin asks whether seven acres of Real World Gen-two soybeans will hold deer on his property through winter. 72:38 — asked by Brian Koehler

• Answer: Don recommends planting three acres of Nutri-Crave corn, three acres of Gen-two soybeans, and one acre of Deadly Dozen to hold deer through winter. 74:11
• Answer: Don says the higher oil content and palatability of these varieties will pull and hold deer on the property until the food is consumed. 76:46

Sponsors this episode

• QuietKat

Don and Terry covered spring food-plot prep, with Don planting switchgrass and Miscanthus while plots stayed too wet and Terry tilling his garden. Both described spraying narrow herbicide paths near stands instead of mowing, since mature bucks like Smokey avoided open mowed corridors, and Terry noted checking permission rules before spraying on public or leased land. Terry recapped a NASCAR sponsor summit, a lap around Indianapolis Motor Speedway with driver Sean McLaughlin, and a back flare-up that stalled his farm work. Don ranked his top four consulting properties from this past winter—in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and a Northern Indiana “honey hole”—emphasizing multi-directional access and buffering from neighboring pressure. Listener questions addressed bedding sanctuary size, with Don favoring whole-woods sanctuaries over small plots, and food-plot acreage for holding deer through winter, where Don recommended a corn, soybean, and Deadly Dozen mix. The Lester’s Feet raffle and fundraising progress were also mentioned.

Unofficial fan project. AI-synthesized from public episodes; may contain errors.