Episode #256 - Hard Winter and Early Buck Shed? Illinois CWD Announcement

Published: 2025-01-12
Episode page
Duration: 71 min

In this episode

buck-behavior

• Don says some mature bucks have unique personalities and only move in daylight when extreme cold weather combines with a strong food source. 26:52

crp

• What’s the best process to terminate switchgrass on CRP ground for row crop or a food plot? 52:24

cwd-management

• Illinois DNR is ending its sharpshooter program for CWD-positive areas and will rely only on hunters to remove extra deer in CWD zones going forward. 7:10
• Dr. James Crowell was among those who repeatedly criticized Illinois DNR’s sharpshooter-based CWD policy, reflecting a divided scientific community on the approach. 6:52
• Don guesses Illinois DNR dropped its CWD sharpshooter program because federal funding paying for it dried up, not because of a management decision. 9:33

deer-breeding

• Does lactation prevent a doe from coming into heat and being bred, explaining late breeding cycles? 48:17

deer-harvest

• Don plans to possibly shoot one or two more cull bucks on his property if the right ones show up, though he’s done shooting does for the season. 39:43

doe-fawns

• Don says doe fawns typically need to reach about 80 pounds in the Midwest to enter their first estrous cycle, driving late breeding into January. 50:22

doe-harvest

• Don wants to harvest a consistent number of does each year, such as six or eight, rather than swinging between heavy harvests and years of almost none. 41:05
• Did you meet your doe harvest goals, and when did you focus on thinning the herd? 38:15

drone-ethics

• Don says a drone is a good tool in ethical hands but a disaster in unethical hands, comparing it to thermal scopes used for coyote hunting. 47:06

ethics

• Don argues hunters must act as ethical stewards and shouldn’t shoot every deer without limit just because DNR opens an unrestricted CWD season. 7:35
• Don says that even if a neighbor breaks a pact to pass a buck, he’ll still pass it himself rather than shoot just because the neighbor might. 13:47

habitat-management

• Mike Gruber reports that after following Don’s logging advice, his property went from having no deer tracks to holding over a dozen bucks and 150-inch-plus bucks yearly. 24:33
• After heavy TSI cutting opened up a five-acre woodlot, Don found eight shed antlers there the following ice-storm winter, more than one per acre. 31:11
• Don told a logger to take every tree from a five-acre woodlot, then followed up cutting or girdling remaining trees to open it up for growth. 30:32

hunting-rituals

• What superstitions or rituals does Don have when he goes hunting? 16:10

late-season-bucks

• Have you ever had a late-season buck you thought was unkillable due to a mild winter’s lack of stress? 25:09

lesters-feet

• The Mount Hope event will include a donation meal with proceeds going to Lester’s Feet. 19:22
• All proceeds from the Shipshewana auction will go to Lester’s Feet. 59:34

midwest-land-group

• Midwest Land Group is looking to hire real estate agents and managing partners in states it is expanding into. 22:41

midwest-sportsmans-classic

• The Chasing Giants aisle at the Midwest Sportsman’s Classic has grown from a small corner last year to spanning the entire width of the show floor. 60:11

mount-hope-event

• Don plans to share personal, testimony-style content he’s never discussed publicly before at the Mount Hope event, calling it more of a sermon than a seminar. 19:42
• The Mount Hope, Ohio event draws attendees from Central/Northern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania and will be held at JB’s Feed’s Mount Hope Event Center. 21:13

neighbor-agreements

• A friend’s neighbor in Indiana killed a buck both had agreed to pass, breaking their mutual agreement to let the deer walk. 12:07

real-world

• Real World is releasing a new sorghum blend this year featuring three different sorghum varieties that have been tested. 56:08

retirement-joke

• Don jokes that he’ll retire from consulting to hunt late season more “next year,” a running joke he and Terry repeat every year. 2:39 (light moment)

shed-antlers

• Don believes a severe ice storm around 2010 caused most bucks on his farm to shed their antlers within about a week. 29:06
• Will the current brutal cold and snow contribute to stress and cause early shedding? 27:42

shed-hunting

• Don calls that ice-storm spring his best-ever shed hunting day, finding 17 antlers concentrated in two distinct bedding areas. 29:52

shipshewana-show

• The Wensel brothers, Bobby Worthington, Al Foster, and Joe Miles are among those scheduled to appear at the Shipshewana/Midwest Sportsman’s Classic show. 21:57
• At the Shipshewana show, Don and Terry will auction their bows, new Mathews bows, and a set of Don’s long-sold-out books. 59:13
• A big, secret new product unveiling is planned to happen at the Shipshewana show. 59:48

sorghum

• If someone can’t plant corn, would sorghum be a good substitute every other year? 55:27

switchgrass

• Would it be good or bad to mix Egyptian wheat with newly planted switchgrass? 50:49

thermal-drones

• Don is fully against using thermal drones to track deer during hunting season, believing it should be outlawed and considers it criminal trespassing on others’ land. 44:29

thermal-survey

• How do thermal deer surveys help a land manager assess their property? 41:52

travel

• Terry plans to travel to Japan for about ten or eleven days beginning two days after the Mount Hope event, into early February. 57:24

trust

• Don’s friend in Indiana vowed never to trust or converse with the neighbor again after the neighbor broke their agreement despite sharing trail camera photos. 14:12

wildlife-observation

• Sitting in his blind during the snow, Don watched coyotes and a hawk catch a small bird, among other wildlife. 2:09

winter-feeding

• A hunter in Northern Indiana reported 93 deer in one unharvested double-crop bean field in a single evening this week amid deep snow. 5:07

winter-weather

• Don estimates his area got roughly six to eight inches of snow during the recent Midwest winter storm, with ice packed beneath additional snowfall. 2:45
• After spending four hours clearing snow with his skid loader, Don ordered a snowblower attachment for it. 3:19

Deer activity

• unnamed buck (harvest) 11:58
• unnamed buck (trail-camera) 24:58
• unnamed buck (harvest) 25:28

Listener questions

Question: What superstitions or rituals does Don have when he goes hunting? 16:10

• Answer: Don says his only ritual is checking wind direction before ever leaving the house, and he’ll never hunt a stand when the wind is wrong. 16:39
• Answer: Don always pulls the same arrow — the first one at the back of the quiver — rather than rotating. 17:09

Question: Have you ever had a late-season buck you thought was unkillable due to a mild winter’s lack of stress? 25:09 — asked by Mike Gruber

• Answer: Don recalls a buck he shot in 2010 that reminded him of this exact situation. 25:28
• Answer: That buck stayed almost stationary until a brutal cold spell hit, after which Don killed it in its bed on the third afternoon hunt. 26:24

Question: Will the current brutal cold and snow contribute to stress and cause early shedding? 27:42 — asked by Heath

• Answer: Don doesn’t think current conditions have stressed deer enough yet to cause significantly early shedding. 31:42

Question: Did you meet your doe harvest goals, and when did you focus on thinning the herd? 38:15 — asked by Beckham Pearson

• Answer: Don and his guests shot eight does and four bucks — 12 deer total, more than double any previous year on this farm. 38:35
• Answer: Don stopped shooting does at eight because he noticed the larger herds he’d seen earlier in the year had thinned out. 38:57

Question: How do thermal deer surveys help a land manager assess their property? 41:52

• Answer: Don cites a 600-acre Eastern Kentucky property where a thermal survey found 119 total deer, only 13 of them bucks. 42:11
• Answer: Don recommends winter thermal surveys because they reveal more about overall property management than surveys at any other time of year. 44:17

Question: Does lactation prevent a doe from coming into heat and being bred, explaining late breeding cycles? 48:17 — asked by Brandon g

• Answer: No — a doe will come into heat regardless of lactation, driven by daylight hours rather than nursing status. 48:33
• Answer: Don says the vast majority of late breeding activity is doe fawns coming into heat, unrelated to any 28-day cycle. 49:46

Question: Would it be good or bad to mix Egyptian wheat with newly planted switchgrass? 50:49 — asked by John Taber

• Answer: Don says never plant Egyptian wheat or any other crop with switchgrass, since it will outcompete and choke out the slow-establishing switchgrass. 51:12

Question: What’s the best process to terminate switchgrass on CRP ground for row crop or a food plot? 52:24

• Answer: Don recommends burning the switchgrass in early spring and letting it green up to about a foot of growth before spraying. 52:37
• Answer: He then advises spraying a heavy dose of glyphosate mixed with the maximum labeled dose of clethodim and a surfactant to kill the roots. 53:13

Question: If someone can’t plant corn, would sorghum be a good substitute every other year? 55:27 — asked by Paul

• Answer: Don says grain sorghum is a fantastic option if you don’t want to plant corn. 55:37

Prayer Time

Scripture: Luke
Theme: stewardship and generosity
Don shares how Matt McPherson’s guiding principle — ‘to whom much is given, much is also expected’ — shaped his approach to tithing and blessing others, then prays for listeners’ needs and families. 67:14

The episode opened on Illinois DNR ending its sharpshooter program for CWD-positive areas, leaving removal to hunters; Don guessed federal funding drying up was the real reason, noted Dr. James Crowell had criticized the sharpshooter approach, and argued hunters should still self-regulate rather than shoot without limit. He recounted deep snow and cold across the Midwest, a neighbor breaking a pact to pass a buck, and his own doe management, finishing the season at eight does and four bucks — a farm record. Listener questions covered thermal deer surveys (citing a 600-acre Kentucky property with 119 deer), late breeding tied to doe fawns and daylight rather than lactation, switchgrass termination and establishment, and sorghum as a corn substitute. He closed discussing upcoming Mount Hope and Shipshewana appearances, an auction benefiting Lester’s Feet, and a prayer on stewardship inspired by Matt McPherson.

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