Episode #30 - Don prepares for season - Terry has a mishap and misses a target buck PLUS A BIG ANOUNCEMENT

Published: 2020-09-21
Episode page
Duration: 66 min

In this episode

amish-outreach

• Don announces Chasing Giants is now available via an Amish phone-in service, letting listeners without internet access call in to listen. 57:05

audience-engagement

• Terry asks listeners to leave a review, comment, subscribe, and share the podcast and YouTube channel with friends to help it grow. 32:53
• Terry asks listeners to leave a comment and rating on whatever platform they use, whether YouTube, iHeartRadio, or Apple Podcasts. 64:52

bedding-location

• Terry says he personally believes it’s tough to consistently kill a buck outside the rut without knowing exactly where it beds. 50:13
• Don agrees the single most important piece of information about a buck you’re hunting is where it beds. 50:30

bow-shop-recommendation

• Terry recommends Dustin at Broken Rack Archery in Batavia, Ohio for anyone near Northern Kentucky or Cincinnati needing a bow shop, calling him a lifesaver after his crossbow malfunction. 16:20

credit

• Don says he believes in giving credit where it’s due and it bothers him when others claim ideas he originated. 27:10

equipment-failure

• Terry describes his crossbow string breaking during a shot at his target buck, sounding like a bomb near his face, and says he’s grateful he wasn’t seriously hurt. 14:22

fetal-programming

• Don says the upcoming guest episode will cover fetal programming and whether mineral supplementation can really grow bigger bucks. 60:20

food-plots

• Don reports a very dry September that has hurt his fall food plots. 4:04
• Don says his spring food plots are the best he’s had in some time despite the dry fall. 4:14
• Don has about three acres of corn planted and more soybeans than he’s ever had, meaning deer will eat well this winter. 4:19
• Terry says this is probably the worst food plot year he’s ever had on his Kentucky home farm. 5:26

ground-hunting

• Terry says he has shot several big bucks, including some bruisers, from the ground, though he finds ground hunting tougher than treestand hunting. 12:48

guest-announcement

• Don introduces Bronson Strickland as a deer biologist with the Mississippi State Deer Lab and one of his favorite deer biologists. 59:40

hunting-philosophy

• Don says he never considers himself an expert on whitetails, only a lifelong student who is always still trying to learn more. 26:20

late-harvest

• Don says he used to like late corn harvests because it hides deer from other hunters and helps bucks reach older age classes, though it makes hunting them tougher. 10:14

listener-questions

• Don says listeners can submit questions for guest Bronson Strickland, but must hurry since he and Terry are interviewing him Tuesday afternoon. 60:33

mindset

• Don shares his own quote, ‘You can make excuses or you can find solutions,’ describing it as his long-standing approach to deer hunting. 29:44

muzzleloader

• Terry mentions his cell camera testing and long-range muzzleloader shooting has become a hobby that Vortex has been supporting, followed on his personal social media. 63:53

off-season-scouting

• Terry realizes he uses more vacation time each year on off-season scouting and prep than he does actually taking vacation to hunt. 44:31

pre-season-scouting

• Don says September is his deadest hunting month because his gear is ready and he avoids pressuring his hunting spots right before season, letting others push deer his way. 2:33

preparation

• Don agrees he spends far more time preparing than hunting, and says the older he gets, the fewer hours he hunts yet the more deer he sees per hour. 45:33

public-land

• Don clarifies he doesn’t own thousands or hundreds of acres — his home farm is 120 acres, and most of his hunting success comes from knocking on doors or public land. 31:41

public-perception

• Wes Delks observed that people are happy for others’ success only until it reaches a certain level, after which they turn against them. 24:42
• Wes Delks used Michael Jordan as his example for how public sentiment turns against very successful people. 24:52
• By his sixth championship, according to Wes Delks, every basketball fan except Chicago Bulls fans was rooting against Jordan. 25:13
• Wes Delks said the same dynamic applies to deer hunters: people are happy for a buck kill until someone does it too often, then support fades. 25:27
• Terry compares the phenomenon to Tom Brady and NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon, who were loved early on but drew resentment once they won too much. 25:50

saddle-hunting

• Don jokes that when he and Terry try hoisting Terry into a tree with a saddle and winch this fall, they should film it since it would go viral. 28:05 (light moment)

scent-control

• Don says the best hunters he knows use very little scent, calls, or gimmicky products. 23:31

schedule-change

• Terry announces they won’t wait the usual two weeks between episodes — a special guest episode will release next Sunday instead. 58:29

stand-placement

• Terry once said that if your treestand is in the right spot, you don’t need gimmicks like scents and calls, as Don recalls. 22:48
• Seth asks if it’s too risky to hunt a stand where wind blows across a 40-50 yard wide river into another block of timber. 52:13

standing-corn

• Don recalls a roughly 200-acre cornfield near him standing until late November last year, hiding a lot of deer inside it. 10:02

trail-camera-analysis

• Adam Smith asks how to analyze nighttime trail camera photos and what can be learned from repeated nighttime pictures of the same buck. 46:08

trail-camera-issue

• Terry recounts that his WiseEye trail camera had a connectivity problem, and the company proactively contacted him about it. 20:37

trail-camera-review

• Terry says his cell-cam test confirms WiseEye, Exodus, and Browning are the three best trail cameras, given their higher price points. 20:06

trail-cameras

• Don plans to slip out and check most of his trail cameras during the last two or three days of September for a last-minute read on buck locations. 3:12

weeds

• Don says soybean fields around him are weedier this year than he’s ever seen them. 5:36

whitetail-cribs

• Terry recounts the Whitetail Cribs crew visiting his house to film in his man cave and recording a podcast episode with him. 44:02
• Terry says the Whitetail Cribs episode he recorded may be released this coming week, featuring stories about bucks he’s shot. 64:18

wind-analogy

• William Hanks asks whether comparing wind flow to how water moves across terrain is a good analogy for predicting scent dispersal, or if there’s a better approach. 38:21

youtube-branding

• Terry announces the Higgins Outdoors YouTube channel will feature more Chasing Giants branding and has been renamed to include both names. 32:29

youtube-criticism

• Don says as his YouTube channel gains traction he’s also attracting critics, including being called a derogatory name in the comments. 29:12

youtube-growth

• Don reports the Higgins Outdoors YouTube channel’s most recent video, released about a week earlier, reached nearly 20,000 views. 28:35
• Don notes the channel’s views roughly tripled between the two most recent videos, jumping from about 6,400 views to 20,000. 29:00

youtube-video

• Don announces his latest YouTube video covers what he calls the single biggest mistake deer hunters make, which has drawn positive comments. 62:58

Deer activity

• unnamed buck (hunt) 13:26
• unnamed buck (hunt) 39:38
• unnamed buck (harvest) 40:11
• unnamed buck (trail-camera) 48:06
• the deadly dozen (trail-camera) 49:42
• unnamed buck (trail-camera) 50:44

Listener questions

Question: William Hanks asks whether comparing wind flow to how water moves across terrain is a good analogy for predicting scent dispersal, or if there’s a better approach. 38:21

• Answer: Don confirms wind behaves like water, flowing and swirling across the landscape similar to eddies in a river. 38:43
• Answer: Terry adds that disciplined wind management let him hunt his target buck’s spot five times without spooking it, though hunting nightly would ruin the spot. 41:41

Question: Adam Smith asks how to analyze nighttime trail camera photos and what can be learned from repeated nighttime pictures of the same buck. 46:08 — asked by Adam Smith

• Answer: Don explains photos near sunrise or sunset suggest the buck beds close by, while a 2am photo reveals little about bedding location. 46:53
• Answer: Don adds that consistently killing big bucks requires hunting the property where they spend daylight hours, meaning where they bed. 47:29

Question: Seth asks if it’s too risky to hunt a stand where wind blows across a 40-50 yard wide river into another block of timber. 52:13 — asked by Seth

• Answer: Don advises against it if you also hunt that far block of timber, but says it’s not a big deal if you don’t hunt that side. 52:46
• Answer: Terry says he treats a similar river as a boundary fence and doesn’t worry about scent blowing across it since he never hunts the other side. 53:39

Sponsors this episode

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

Don and Terry covered September prep and food-plot conditions, with Don noting a dry fall that hurt his fall plots though his spring plots were strong, while Terry called this his worst food plot year on his Kentucky farm. Terry described his crossbow string breaking during a shot and recommended Broken Rack Archery’s Dustin for repairs. Both discussed hunting philosophy: relying little on scents or calls, valuing bedding-location knowledge over rut timing, and citing Wes Delks’ comparison of hunter backlash to how fans turned on Michael Jordan and, per Terry, Tom Brady and Jeff Gordon. Don clarified he hunts a 120-acre home farm plus public and permission land rather than large acreage. They announced YouTube growth, a Chasing Giants rebrand, an Amish phone-in listening option, and an early guest episode with deer biologist Bronson Strickland on fetal programming and mineral supplementation. Listener questions addressed wind-scent behavior, interpreting nighttime trail-cam photos, and hunting near a river boundary.

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