Episode #278 - Are Deer Getting Smaller?

Published: 2025-06-22
Episode page
Duration: 83 min

In this episode

antler-growth

Jason Hesselberg asked whether wildfire-smoke-caused haze and cooler temperatures would hurt antler growth this year like it did two years ago. 44:46
Scott Hesselberg asked whether Don has ever let a buck live to 8-9 years old to see if it reaches a much bigger rack, as some hunting-industry figures claim happens. 58:28

asio

ASIO announced a new camo pattern this past Monday, designed for open, western-style hunting like elk in addition to their existing tree pattern. 13:54
New ASIO products are now available for presale and will ship before hunting season, with a discount for consulting clients. 14:55

bear-hunt

William Miller, who bought Don’s bow in a charity auction at Shipshewana, took it to Manitoba, Canada this week and shot a big black bear with it. 23:30

Terry’s three-sixty ASIO Chasing Giants blind has arrived but is still sitting in the shed because the 360 Blinds team’s planned visit was postponed. 29:21

buck-age

Don says only two bucks on his farm in all his years of managing ever made it past 7.5 years old. 65:38

buck-size

Don says he’s currently shooting as big-bodied bucks as ever on his farm, citing the mounted Zacchaeus buck as one of the biggest in the room. 20:01

bucket-list

Don notes that friend Al Foster just turned 72 this week, prompting his sense of urgency to make the Texas trip happen. 36:09

captive-deer

About thirty years ago Don visited Wilderness Whitetails, a big captive deer breeder owned by the Fleace family near Wisconsin Dells, which had some of the biggest captive deer in North America. 40:55

charity

William Miller purchased Don’s bow at auction for $5,000, with proceeds going to the Lester’s Feet charity segment. 23:49
Proceeds from the charity bow auction went to Kenny at Tag Out, who is battling cancer. 24:17
Terry plans to hunt near Louisville, Kentucky and donate any deer meat he harvests to a homeless shelter there. 80:38

corn

Don applies pre-emergent herbicide and liquid nitrogen the same day he plants corn and never sprays the corn field again after that. 3:02
Don attended a Green Prairie corn meeting this week with an outside corn breeding expert in addition to their regular guy Mike. 5:47

corn-industry

A corn breeder told Don that one dominant seed company’s outsized popularity, despite inferior yields, drags the national corn yield average down about 10 bushels per acre. 7:22
Smaller privately-owned seed companies often win local side-by-side yield comparisons against big seed companies. 8:15
Small seed companies win local trials because their limited varieties are specifically bred for their local region, unlike big companies’ broadly-adapted lineups. 9:16

deer-deterrent

Don sprayed his soybeans this week with glyphosate, Mike’s Mighty Micro, and a new deer deterrent he’s testing on a plot getting heavy browse pressure. 3:26
Terry says he is genuinely interested to see how the deer repellent testing turns out. 5:09

dnr

Terry wishes state DNRs would collect age-structure data so hunters could statistically analyze whether old bucks really get bigger. 65:24

doe-management

Don says he has noticeably less soybean browse pressure this year than in the past and attributes it to shooting a lot of does last fall and winter. 4:54
Based on this year’s reduced browse pressure, Don plans to continue his aggressive doe-shooting program, likely taking several more does again. 5:01

door-knocking

Terry knocked on 42 doors east of Louisville, Kentucky this week seeking hunting permission and got four yeses for September hunting. 78:40
After granting hunting permission, one landowner’s very first follow-up question to Terry was whether he reads the Bible, catching him off guard. 79:18
The landowner Terry met while door-knocking texted him the next morning asking who would pay for processing the deer meat for the shelter. 80:55

dream-hunt

Don’s ultimate bucket-list hunt is gathering about a dozen close friends for a multi-day Texas ranch trip in winter, taking a charter bus together. 31:34
Don envisions the group having big communal meals each evening with a rotating leader hosting a short bible study. 32:03
Don wants the ranch to offer multiple species so each hunter can pursue wild hogs, deer, exotics, or whatever they choose. 32:35
Don once looked into paying for the whole group’s Texas trip himself but backed off after the cost topped fifty to sixty thousand dollars. 33:40
Don names specific longtime friends he’d want on the trip, including Joe, Al, Duane, and Steve Shields. 34:14
Don asks listeners who know of a good Texas ranch that could host his big group trip to send him a message. 35:52
If Don kills anything on the dream Texas trip, he’d most want it to be a black buck, since they’re neat, small antelope common in Texas. 37:01

ehd

Don theorizes the shrinking buck head sizes could be linked to EHD killing off northern deer and more resistant southern deer moving farther north. 17:56

gratitude

Terry says it’s a blessing that most of his daily conversations, despite being overwhelming at times, get to be about deer hunting. 23:14

marketing

Don argues Angus beef marketing convinced people black cattle are superior, even though after processing nobody can actually tell the meat apart from other breeds. 10:59
Don now believes farmers are influenced by marketing just as much as deer hunters, having previously assumed farmers were more immune to hype. 12:15
Terry says consumers should research products themselves rather than simply believing advertising, whatever they’re buying. 12:24

novix

Terry announces Novix’s new ownership was revealed last week with a video introducing the new owner, and former owner Jeff Weaver was excited about the news. 67:15

overseeding

Terry is asking listeners for a drone overseeding contact in Central or Northern Kentucky to oversee his food plots this fall. 43:49

podcast-collab

Don recorded another podcast that day with Jake Hofer for the Exodus/Eyes with the Whitetail podcast. 66:57

politics

Don jokes that ‘loony’ liberals have been spraying jet stream chemicals to cloud the earth and block the sun to fight global warming. 45:23 (light moment)
Don jokes that the same people pushing solar panels everywhere are hypocritically blocking the sun, calling them ‘loony nuts.’ 45:45 (light moment)
Terry jokes that the U.S. should tax Canada for wildfire smoke drifting across the border and use it to pay down the national debt. 46:02 (light moment)
Terry jokingly suggests liberals are lighting Canadian forests on fire to blow haze across the border and fight global warming, calling it a conspiracy. 46:56 (light moment)
Don jokes that it’s not a conspiracy when it comes true and that these ‘nutty’ people don’t actually care about the environment. 47:04 (light moment)
Don jokes that the same people championing electric vehicles turned around and burned them up once Elon started cutting government waste. 47:10 (light moment)

rut-timing

Sean Pearson asked why mature buck sightings drop off during the traditional November 5-12 peak window and whether hunting pressure or his more-northern location is the cause. 48:10

soybeans

Three days after spraying, Don’s soybean plants appeared to have doubled in size, which he credits partly to Mike’s Mighty Micro and partly to deer being kept off. 3:57

Terry plugs Midwest Land Group for listeners looking for a career or property. 38:17

sunflowers

Don recommends planting sunflowers and later overseeding the patch with a fall food plot, calling it a great way to make a property stand out and something deer love. 40:09
Don warns that deer destroy sunflower heads while still soft, so a large patch is needed to actually harvest sunflower seeds. 39:30
Terry planted four rows of sunflowers around the perimeter of all his corn patches this year, partly so an elderly family member on the porch could see color instead of a wall of corn. 43:01

taxidermy

A taxidermist told Don that mount forms have shrunk over the years and that typical mature Midwest bucks aren’t as big as they were about thirty years ago. 17:12
The taxidermist clarified he wasn’t attributing the shrinkage to age structure, but specifically said mature bucks 5.5 years and older aren’t as big as they used to be. 17:31
Terry publicly challenges Aaron Gaines to weigh in on whether the taxidermist’s buck-head-shrinkage observation is plausible and to come back on the podcast to discuss it. 19:02
Terry recalls the 10-year-old buck he shot on Don’s farm was so large the taxidermist had to buy two different forms and mix and match them to fit. 20:19

tractor

Nate from Byron, Minnesota asked whether to buy a tractor or a Ranger Can Am for his 40-acre property. 54:34

trophy-hunting

Terry reflects that trophy hunting can be lonely compared to hunt camp, since often only two or three people ever see the deer being pursued. 34:43

trophy-room

Don’s trophy room includes a mounted moose, several giant whitetails, a beaver, and an antelope. 30:06

weather

Don reported getting about three tenths of an inch of rain from a recent front passing through his area. 1:00
The recent rain came with strong winds that blew Don’s corn over, but it stood back up on its own within a couple of days. 1:20

wisdom

Terry teaches that true wisdom can only be gained through determined effort, comparing wanting wisdom to wanting air while drowning. 69:14

Deer activity

Zacchaeus (history) 20:01
unnamed buck (harvest) 20:19
unnamed buck (history) 30:21
unnamed buck (trail-camera) 40:17
unnamed buck (harvest) 49:48
Wes (harvest) 53:58
unnamed buck (harvest) 57:49
unnamed buck (harvest) 58:05
unnamed buck (history) 59:40
Trump (history) 60:32
Smokey (history) 60:49
unnamed buck (history) 61:24

Listener questions

Question: Jason Hesselberg asked whether wildfire-smoke-caused haze and cooler temperatures would hurt antler growth this year like it did two years ago. 44:46 — asked by Jason Hesselberg

Answer: Don says it’s still too early in the season to judge the smoke and haze’s effect on antler growth. 44:58

Question: Sean Pearson asked why mature buck sightings drop off during the traditional November 5-12 peak window and whether hunting pressure or his more-northern location is the cause. 48:10 — asked by Sean Pearson

Answer: Don still believes November 5-12 is generally peak time in an average year, but says cold fronts now matter more than the calendar. 49:20
Answer: Don cites shooting his buck on October 30 during a cold front as proof that fronts, not dates, drive daytime buck movement. 49:48
Answer: Terry says trail camera data can’t reveal true movement trends; only firsthand time in the woods on the downwind side of bedding areas can. 51:49

Question: Nate from Byron, Minnesota asked whether to buy a tractor or a Ranger Can Am for his 40-acre property. 54:34 — asked by Nate

Answer: Don says without hesitation he would buy a tractor over a side-by-side. 55:09
Answer: Don recommends buying the biggest tractor affordable, at minimum a 50-horsepower model. 56:12
Answer: Terry agrees a 50-horsepower tractor is the sweet spot for doing real work while staying towable. 56:33
Answer: Don reiterates he would not buy anything smaller than a 50-horsepower tractor as a sole tractor. 57:43

Question: Scott Hesselberg asked whether Don has ever let a buck live to 8-9 years old to see if it reaches a much bigger rack, as some hunting-industry figures claim happens. 58:28 — asked by Scott Hesselberg

Answer: Don describes letting a neighbor’s promising buck live to see how far its rack developed. 59:40
Answer: That buck’s rack stayed essentially unchanged from age four until it was shot at nine and a half. 60:00
Answer: Don’s buck Trump added about 35 inches of antler between 5.5 and 6.5 years old. 60:32
Answer: Don’s buck Smokey added 20 inches of antler between 5.5 and 6.5 years old. 60:49
Answer: Don knows of an Illinois buck that scored 214 inches, its biggest rack, when shot at nine and a half years old. 61:24
Answer: Terry cautions that claims about bucks peaking at 8-9 years old lack real statistical sample sizes and are often written just to drive engagement. 62:35

Don and Terry covered farm and hunting notes for the week. Don described light rain and wind on his corn, his soybean spray mix including a new deer deterrent, and reduced browse pressure he credited to heavy doe harvests, planning to keep shooting does. He relayed a corn breeder’s claim that a dominant seed company drags down national yield averages, and compared marketing hype in cattle branding to deer hunting. A taxidermist’s observation that mature bucks aren’t as large as decades ago led to speculation about EHD and southern deer migrating north; Don said his own farm still produces big-bodied bucks. Other topics included ASIO’s new open-country camo, a charity-auctioned bow used to take a bear in Manitoba, Don’s bucket-list Texas ranch trip idea, and sunflower food-plot tips. Listener questions addressed smoke’s effect on antlers, buck movement tied to cold fronts, tractor size for a 40-acre property, and whether bucks keep growing past 8-9 years old.

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