Episode #136 - EHD HITS AGAIN - DON’S FINAL BUCK FORECAST

Published: 2022-09-26
Episode page
Duration: 82 min

In this episode

announcement

• Don announces his new subscription video site, whitetailmasteracademy.com, goes live on October 1st. 16:59
• Terry says the Higgins Outdoors and Dream Team Consulting crew are optimistic about this season and will share exciting updates soon. 81:28

antler-growth

• Don recalls a captive buck fawn born with tiny forked antlers before its first birthday that grew to score in the 170s by age three. 72:01

banter

• Terry jokes that this proves if you put something in writing, Don will read it verbatim off the screen without realizing what he’s saying. 69:32 (light moment)

bedding

• Troy Carper from Memphis, MO asks how many bedding locations a mature buck uses and whether bucks share beds with other deer. 37:53

bedding-area

• Drew Edwards from Irving, IL, owner of a narrow 40-acre tract accessible only from the west, asks about prioritizing bedding vs. food plots. 51:10

buck-forecast

• Don says none of the five or six bachelor groups he tracks this year have a buck over 150 inches, down sharply from prior years. 74:40
• Don predicts a poor buck season overall, saying 140–170 inch bucks that used to be common are becoming increasingly rare. 77:46

buck-mortality

• Don says far more bucks are now getting killed at three and four years old than in the past, so he no longer counts on any buck surviving to maturity. 77:14

buyafarm

• Terry introduces this week’s BuyAFarm segment recorded with Don Bailey. 57:51

clover

• William Knolff from Tarrantum, PA asks why so many ‘experts’ talk down on planting clover when it grows great for him in Pennsylvania. 32:39

conservation

• Don says the deer herd’s wellbeing must always come before a hunter’s personal interests for a true conservationist. 6:04
• Don preaches that hunters should be conservationists first and deer hunters second. 7:39

crossbow

• Don attributes declining buck age structure largely to Illinois legalizing crossbows for the whole archery season, sharply increasing hunting pressure. 75:26

deer-quality

• Don agrees with Terry that buck quality has continued declining even as deer quantity has largely rebounded. 11:50

ehd

• Terry says Kentucky was hit hard by EHD in Eastern KY last year and Western KY a couple years before that, though he hasn’t heard of local hits yet this season. 2:53
• Terry says the only real hope to slow an EHD outbreak is an early frost. 3:32
• Don says Real World’s Expect Healthy Deer technology can help wild deer resist EHD, but can’t save all of them since wild deer don’t consistently get enough of it. 3:45
• Don says people are sending him photos of dead deer nearly every day, showing how hard EHD is hitting his area. 2:29
• Terry says staying out of the woods and simply running trail cameras as usual is the right next step during an EHD scare. 5:16
• Terry criticizes states for not immediately adjusting doe harvest quotas once biologists know EHD is spreading through the herd. 6:09
• Don stopped shooting does on his farm after the 2012 EHD outbreak, going ten full years (2011–2021) without harvesting a single doe. 7:00
• Don says the 2012 EHD-hit deer herd took about five years to bounce back once hunters adjusted their management. 10:37
• Terry counters that ten years after 2012, deer numbers and age structure still haven’t returned to what they were before that outbreak. 11:07
• Don notes EHD outbreaks can be extremely spotty, wiping out deer in one section while leaving a neighboring section untouched. 12:57
• Terry worries the combination of low buck numbers and a heavy EHD outbreak could push the herd toward a 2013-level crash. 78:18
• Aaron Shorter from Chagrin Falls, OH asks whether ivermectin drench on corn piles has research backing as an EHD preventive. 45:17

fawn-development

• A listener asks whether a doe could give birth early enough that her button buck fawns develop actual spikes or forks. 68:03

food-plot

• Terry says combining soybeans and corn together on a property will be a game changer for most hunters. 29:40

harvest

• Terry announces that listener and friend Danny York harvested a giant velvet buck he’d been planning all summer. 14:58

hunting-advice

• Terry says the worst thing a hunter can do is listen to specific instructions from someone who has no perspective on their local area. 12:22

hunting-patterns

• Don observes that hunting tends to even out — a really good day rarely follows another really good day, and the same goes for bad days. 22:25

hunting-strategy

• Terry says he’s practicing hunting fewer times, only sitting when conditions are ideal rather than every day. 20:55

lesters-feet

• Don believes God’s purpose for the podcast, and for bringing him and Terry together, is to reach and help others. 44:08

nutricrave-corn

• Terry says deer and turkeys are hitting his NutriCrave corn harder than he’s ever seen in his other corn varieties. 23:32
• Don recalls a friend’s Ohio field where deer left barely a track in regular corn but tore up the Nutri Crave corn like a herd of hogs. 24:09
• Don says NutriCrave corn can yield around 200 bushels per acre, beating earlier expectations. 26:52

plan

• Don plans to spend opening weekend gathering deer footage for the Whitetail Master Academy video series rather than actively hunting. 80:34

stand-placement

• Terry is figuring out how to get a tree stand into an old fence row of small locusts and cedars on a grown-up dairy farm. 30:08

state-management

• Terry argues that since state agencies treat hunting as revenue, hunters must take deer management into their own hands for future generations. 8:26
• Don says other statewide management decisions are also hurting the deer herd, on top of EHD. 8:36

trail-cameras

• Don avoids walking creeks or checking ponds during an EHD scare, trusting patient trail-camera monitoring since human intrusion does more harm. 13:47

Deer activity

• unnamed buck (sighting) 1:42
• unnamed buck (harvest) 15:08
• unnamed buck (hunt) 21:15
• unnamed buck (trail-camera) 39:37
• unnamed buck (trail-camera) 68:16
• unnamed buck (history) 71:15

Listener questions

Question: William Knolff from Tarrantum, PA asks why so many ‘experts’ talk down on planting clover when it grows great for him in Pennsylvania. 32:39 — asked by William Knolff

• Answer: Don says clover is a great food plot and he has no idea why anyone would bash it. 34:21
• Answer: Terry advises using a clover blend of varieties rather than a single variety, since different varieties are palatable at different times. 35:21

Question: Troy Carper from Memphis, MO asks how many bedding locations a mature buck uses and whether bucks share beds with other deer. 37:53 — asked by Troy Carper

• Answer: Don says a mature buck likely has dozens of bedding locations across his range, using different beds for different wind directions. 38:22
• Answer: Terry recalls drone footage of a bachelor group bedded with their backs to each other, each watching a different direction. 39:37

Question: Aaron Shorter from Chagrin Falls, OH asks whether ivermectin drench on corn piles has research backing as an EHD preventive. 45:17 — asked by Aaron Shorter

• Answer: Don clarifies EHD is a virus, not a bug, carried by the midge gnat. 46:15
• Answer: Don says ivermectin won’t kill the EHD virus, though it may possibly help repel the midges that transmit it. 47:10

Question: Drew Edwards from Irving, IL, owner of a narrow 40-acre tract accessible only from the west, asks about prioritizing bedding vs. food plots. 51:10 — asked by Drew Edwards

• Answer: Don says he’d rather have deer bedding on the property than just feeding there. 52:31
• Answer: Don suggests Drew move his food plots to the accessible west end instead of the harder-to-reach east side. 53:37

Question: A listener asks whether a doe could give birth early enough that her button buck fawns develop actual spikes or forks. 68:03

• Answer: Don believes the listener is seeing late-born fawns from the previous year rather than early spike growth. 71:01

Sponsors this episode

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Terry and Don focused on EHD hitting their areas hard, with Don receiving near-daily photos of dead deer and Terry noting Eastern Kentucky was hit hard last year. They discussed that an early frost is the only real hope to slow an outbreak, and both favored patient trail-camera monitoring over walking creeks or ponds during a scare. Don recalled going ten years without shooting a doe after the 2012 EHD outbreak, which Terry said still hasn’t fully restored age structure a decade later, though Don agreed buck quality keeps declining even as numbers rebounded. Don linked declining buck age structure partly to Illinois allowing crossbows all archery season, and predicted a poor season for 140-170 inch bucks. Terry worried low buck numbers combined with heavy EHD could push toward a crash like 2013. Listener questions covered clover blends, mature buck bedding habits, ivermectin’s lack of effect on the EHD virus, and food plot placement on a narrow 40-acre tract.

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