Episode #17 - Live from Don Higgins first Master Class of 2020

Published: 2020-03-14
Episode page
Duration: 66 min

In this episode

announcement

• Don announced he has an upcoming article in North American Whitetail on patterning bucks with trail-camera and wind data, part of new assignments he just received. 36:31

box-blinds

• Guy Antonacci asked how important it is to brush in box blinds so they aren’t visible from far away. 14:01

buck-naming

• Ray from Northeast Ohio asked why Don named the buck Trump instead of Nancy Pelosi. 56:07

consulting

• Al Foster asked what Don’s years of consulting travel have taught him about differences across properties and people. 20:57

consulting-trip

• Don recounted visiting a Michigan property in December where the owner built a treestand atop TV towers welded together behind his barn. 23:28

deer-behavior

• Terry observed that deer on the property would look toward Don’s four-wheeler and retreat into switchgrass or blow out of the field whenever it was present. 7:50
• Don said they don’t seem spooked, almost confused, by a person riding a bicycle-like vehicle across a field, unlike their reaction to an ATV. 9:35

deer-trails

• Don recommended spraying a narrow herbicide path through thick cover instead of mowing, since deer will still follow the killed-vegetation trail to a stand. 43:23

ehd

• Terry noted that an early frost is what really kills the midges that spread EHD. 46:46
• Patrick Simpson asked whether a mild winter sets up a bad EHD year for those not prepared for it. 44:57
• Al Foster relayed a DNR contact’s theory that a spring virus or EHD outbreak may explain mature bucks disappearing before summer. 49:37

food-plot

• Terry said he’d rather route deer to a higher-value food plot for a shot opportunity than have edible browse growing inside a thicket bedding area. 17:43

future-of-hunting

• Wes Delks asked Don to forecast, forty years out, what changes hunters will face and what it will take to stay successful. 60:10

ground-blind

• Terry described using a hay bale ground blind and painting the windows backwards so it always showed black instead of changing appearance across the season. 14:40

habitat-management

• Don recalled deciding, after finding a switchgrass field that overwintered deer had browsed bare, to start dropping trees there to create bedding cover. 19:57

hinge-cutting

• Guy Antonacci asked about hinge cutting versus dropping trees and leaving the tops for cover. 15:20
• Ben Sansone’s submitted question asked how thick is too thick after hinge cutting a sanctuary area, since it became hard to walk through. 40:15

hunting-culture

• Terry observed that consumer buying behavior now favors quick-fix products promising instant hunting success rather than developing foundational skills. 62:15

isolated-property

• Don said he has always had his best hunting success on isolated properties rather than ones connected to a lot of surrounding cover. 5:42

joke

• Don joked that his only rule at a speaking event was Terry’s instruction not to say ‘Obama sucks,’ so he promised not to say it that night. 57:12 (light moment)

land-access

• Don recommended that anyone wanting to hunt in the future should buy their own land, given shrinking hunting access. 65:08

mature-bucks

• Don noted that does and young bucks readily follow mowed paths, but many mature bucks won’t use them, preferring tighter cover. 43:39

mentorship

• Don recalled meeting his mentor Alan Foster as an 18-year-old, admiring how Foster was already shooting big bucks consistently. 63:36

misinformation

• Terry relayed an anecdote about a woman teaching her daughter to cut the ends off a roast simply because that’s how her mother had done it, illustrating unquestioned traditions. 12:41
• A new property owner asked about avoiding mistakes, noting there’s plenty of advice online but little about what mistakes to avoid. 9:56

property-oddities

• Terry asked Don what the oddest thing he’s seen this year was. 22:24

property-selection

• Wes Delks asked what aerial-view characteristics make an ideal property to buy or lease. 3:39

running-joke

• Terry joked that the recurring ribbing of Wes Delks began with a fake billboard prank placed on I-70 just east of Terre Haute. 2:33 (light moment)

switchgrass

• Terry joked about ‘internet geniuses’ who claim a switchgrass field can be planted too thick for deer to use. 41:51 (light moment)
• Don dismissed the claim that switchgrass can be too thick for deer as the biggest bunch of garbage he’s ever heard. 41:57
• Don said he sees the switchgrass-too-thick claim online constantly and plans to show attendees the thickest switchgrass stand he’s ever seen the next day. 42:13

trail-cameras

• Terry described a Kentucky project logging trail camera photos of a nocturnal buck against food plot approach and wind direction data. 33:34
• Don said that uniquely for Trump, he built a spreadsheet logging every trail camera photo’s date, time, location and wind conditions. 34:54
• An audience member asked if Don knew Trump was there because of trail camera photos. 25:04
• An audience member asked how Don balances going in enough to learn a big buck’s pattern without going in so much he bumps or changes it. 30:55

truck-blow-out

• Terry recalled that Kyle Heuerman’s buck, nicknamed Kick It In Son, was retrieved by his grandfather driving a truck in rather than Kyle walking out, to avoid alerting deer. 8:23
• Terry asked whether it’s better to spook a deer out of an area with a vehicle than by walking out on foot. 8:14

trump-buck

• Clayton asked whether Don hunted the same stand nine times without seeing the buck Trump. 24:34

vehicle-impact

• Jason Burner asked how much deer are bothered by vehicles driving in and out of fields for access. 6:17

water-sources

• An audience member asked about the pros and cons of natural versus artificial water sources on a property. 53:12

Deer activity

• Kick It In Son (harvest) 8:23
• unnamed buck (harvest) 8:43
• Smokey (harvest) 28:03
• Trump (trail-camera) 29:43
• Trump (harvest) 30:34
• Hillary (history) 56:34

Listener questions

Question: Wes Delks asked what aerial-view characteristics make an ideal property to buy or lease. 3:39 — asked by Wes Delks

• Answer: Don said he prefers an isolated property that sits apart from other cover rather than connecting to neighboring land. 3:52

Question: Jason Burner asked how much deer are bothered by vehicles driving in and out of fields for access. 6:17 — asked by Jason Burner

• Answer: Don said a parked vehicle bothers deer far more than a moving one, since they seem to learn to associate a stationary truck with a hunter’s presence. 6:58

Question: Terry asked whether it’s better to spook a deer out of an area with a vehicle than by walking out on foot. 8:14

• Answer: Don said a human on foot is far more pressure than a vehicle, recalling how a friend drove him in by truck to hunt the stand where he killed his 214-inch buck. 8:43

Question: A new property owner asked about avoiding mistakes, noting there’s plenty of advice online but little about what mistakes to avoid. 9:56

• Answer: Don advised evaluating whether an information source has personally accomplished what they’re teaching before trusting their advice, since much online deer-hunting information is misinformation. 11:00

Question: Guy Antonacci asked how important it is to brush in box blinds so they aren’t visible from far away. 14:01 — asked by Guy Antonacci

• Answer: Don said brushing in doesn’t matter; what matters is putting the blind up well before season so deer get used to it, like an old piece of farm machinery. 14:14

Question: Guy Antonacci asked about hinge cutting versus dropping trees and leaving the tops for cover. 15:20 — asked by Guy Antonacci

• Answer: Don said he’s not a fan of hinge cutting because it keeps a worthless tree alive; he’d rather kill it outright to let a better tree take its place. 15:55

Question: Al Foster asked what Don’s years of consulting travel have taught him about differences across properties and people. 20:57 — asked by Al Foster

• Answer: Don said the biggest takeaway is how adaptable whitetails are everywhere, and that the best thing deer hunting has done for him is the great people it’s brought into his life. 21:57

Question: Terry asked Don what the oddest thing he’s seen this year was. 22:24

• Answer: Don described finding an old shack on Guy Antonacci’s property with a huge brick fireplace inside a tiny building, which he’d posted on social media. 22:32

Question: Clayton asked whether Don hunted the same stand nine times without seeing the buck Trump. 24:34 — asked by Clayton

• Answer: Don confirmed he hunted the property nine times from three closely spaced stands for different wind directions before ever seeing Trump. 24:48

Question: An audience member asked if Don knew Trump was there because of trail camera photos. 25:04

• Answer: Don explained he’d tracked the buck the prior year after it exploded in antler growth, gaining roughly thirty to thirty-five inches over its previous size. 25:10

Question: An audience member asked how Don balances going in enough to learn a big buck’s pattern without going in so much he bumps or changes it. 30:55

• Answer: Don said most hunters are a step behind their target buck; he uses prior years’ trail camera data to be a step ahead and wait on the buck instead. 32:00

Question: Ben Sansone’s submitted question asked how thick is too thick after hinge cutting a sanctuary area, since it became hard to walk through. 40:15 — asked by Ben Sansone

• Answer: Don answered that he has never seen an area too thick, as long as you cut clear access trails from the edge into the heart of the cut area. 40:34

Question: Patrick Simpson asked whether a mild winter sets up a bad EHD year for those not prepared for it. 44:57 — asked by Patrick Simpson

• Answer: Don said he wasn’t sure how winter mildness plays into EHD risk, but felt next summer’s weather, especially dryness, matters more than this winter’s conditions. 46:05
• Answer: Don added that EHD is a real and growing issue, steadily pushing farther north into states like Wisconsin and Michigan that hadn’t seen it before. 47:39

Question: Al Foster relayed a DNR contact’s theory that a spring virus or EHD outbreak may explain mature bucks disappearing before summer. 49:37 — asked by Al Foster

• Answer: Don said he doesn’t know the cause but had personally been watching eleven different bucks over 150 inches across five or six counties that vanished. 50:41

Question: An audience member asked about the pros and cons of natural versus artificial water sources on a property. 53:12

• Answer: Don said water is a concern the internet has overblown; in his part of the Midwest he doesn’t consider it a limiting factor. 53:20

Question: Ray from Northeast Ohio asked why Don named the buck Trump instead of Nancy Pelosi. 56:07 — asked by Ray

• Answer: Don explained he was a big Trump supporter during the 2016 election, which is why he named the buck Trump that summer. 57:28

Question: Wes Delks asked Don to forecast, forty years out, what changes hunters will face and what it will take to stay successful. 60:10 — asked by Wes Delks

• Answer: Don predicted hunting will increasingly become a rich man’s sport limited to landowners and high-dollar leaseholders, with everyone else pushed to overcrowded public land. 60:53

Sponsors this episode

• BuyAFarm.com
• 360 Hunting Blinds
• QuietKat
• Real World Wildlife Products
• Vortex Optics
• Lone Wolf Treestands
• Mathews Archery

Don and Terry discussed property selection and pressure management, with Don favoring isolated tracts over ones connected to surrounding cover and noting a parked vehicle spooks deer more than a moving one, since deer seem to learn a stationary truck signals a hunter. They debated online misinformation, dismissing claims that switchgrass can be planted too thick, and Don argued hinge cutting wastes effort keeping a worthless tree alive versus dropping it. Listener questions covered brushing in box blinds (unnecessary if set up early), balancing scouting a mature buck without bumping him, and EHD’s growing spread northward. Don detailed patterning the buck Trump using multi-year trail-camera and wind data for an upcoming North American Whitetail article, and recounted having never seen Trump in daylight until finally killing him after Smokey. Don also predicted hunting would become increasingly restricted to landowners and leaseholders in coming decades.

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