Texas Hunt, Brutal Cold, Late Rut Behavior & Winter Habitat Decisions | Chasing Giants Podcast #309

Published: 2026-01-25
Episode page
Duration: 79 min

In this episode

aaron-gaines

• Don states Aaron is responsible for developing the company’s Expect Healthy Deer nutrition technology. 21:22
• Terry reveals Aaron was a major undisclosed financial supporter when they were trying to get the Chasing Assurance podcast started. 22:30

antler-shedding

• Don states the extended stretch of extreme cold at the end of January will cause bucks to begin shedding their antlers. 2:40
• If a buck has already shed his antlers, will he still breed does? 54:53

buck-fights

• Is it typical to capture bucks fighting on trail camera in mid-January? 53:23

chasing-assurance

• Don praises Terry’s dad for having a gift with words on the Chasing Assurance podcast, able to make the same points without offending listeners. 69:21

crossbow

• Do crossbow hunters have a bigger advantage than hunters using trail cameras and cell cameras to watch deer movement? 46:44

doubting-thomas-buck

• Don announces the Doubting Thomas Buck video will premiere Friday night, February 20, at the Shipshewana show before eventually going to YouTube. 19:12

events

• Don announces a Real World dealer event in Vermontville, Michigan on February 17, with dinner at 5PM and seminars at 6:30 featuring Mike Mitchell. 17:59
• Don announces the Midwest Sportsman’s Classic runs February 19-21 in Shipshewana, Indiana, with Terry and Don attending all three days. 18:27
• Don announces the Whitetail Management Conference and Real World Dealer event runs February 25-26 in Arthur, Illinois. 19:26
• Don announces his final scheduled event is March 19, speaking at a church in Shelbina, Missouri. 21:05

fae-mulcher

• Don describes using the FAE mulcher on his farm for a habitat project right before leaving for Kansas, while the ground was still frozen. 26:20

fawn-survival

• Terry notes that does currently caring for fawns are potentially raising the bucks that will make a run back to their home range during peak hunting season. 8:25

fetal-programming

• Dr. Strickland’s research pen at Mississippi State proved that a doe’s nutrition during pregnancy sets that fawn’s development up for life. 8:58

food-plots

• Don recommends mowing standing corn only when the ground is frozen so the stalks and cobs bust up easily instead of getting pushed into mud. 7:01
• Don advises serious land managers to expand their food plot program if plots are already empty by late March, since deer need food most right now. 7:48
• Terry says this is the first year he has not run out of food, thanks to strong soybean, corn, alfalfa, and clover production tied to soil health work. 15:02

frost-seeding

• When is the best time to overseed a clover plot given fluctuating temperatures in South Dakota? 55:49

habitat-management

• Don plans to extend his sanctuary thicket by roughly seven to ten acres to the southwest with spruce and oak plantings to redirect deer travel and add thermal cover. 6:29

humor

• Don jokes, relaying another commenter’s rebuttal, that clipping your toenails doesn’t mean you stop having sex with your wife, mocking the shed-antler breeding question. 55:19 (light moment)

kansas-scouting

• Don scouted seven properties in Kansas during the week and set up enough good properties that he expects to soon have a client take a 200-inch buck there. 1:11

land-management-book

• Don announces a nearly 100-page spiral-bound land management notebook covering habitat tips will be given free to dealers attending events. 20:11

mission-whitetail

• Terry recommends listeners check out the Mission Whitetail class with Bobby Worthington produced by Joe Miles and his team. 16:36

podcast-logistics

• Terry explains he forgot his laptop power cord in South Texas, which is why the Chasing Assurance podcast could not be recorded that week. 1:32
• Terry announces a call-in service outage that dropped about five podcast episodes was resolved this week after working with Emtek, with the phone tree back to normal. 16:12

politics

• Don asserts Trump is the best president of his lifetime, even though he disagrees with him on some things. 39:11

prayer-time

• Terry announces Tate Hale hosts the Sunday Night Prayer Time after the show, and plugs his father’s Chasing Assurance podcast series on the disciples running through Easter. 68:49

raffle-hunt

• Terry announces raffle tickets for the 2027 South Texas fundraiser hunt will go on sale this year, with the hunt itself taking place in January 2027. 29:56
• Terry states raffle ticket sales for the South Texas hunt are on hold pending final approval from the Kentucky State Gaming Commission, with the ticket website in standby mode. 33:43

shipshewana

• Terry announces he and Don will each give a one-hour ‘Managing Higgins Land for Giant Bucks’ habitat case study presentation sponsored by title sponsor FAE at the Shipshewana show. 24:57
• Terry announces Chasing Giants is sponsoring a trail camera photo contest with three or four prize categories at the Shipshewana show. 26:42

soil-health

• With a limited budget, which of pH balancer, humic acid, or biochar should be prioritized, and do Gen-two soybeans need inoculant? 63:29

south-texas-hunt

• Terry and Austin Raisor traveled to South Texas on a short hunt to scout a location for a planned 2027 Lester’s Feet fundraiser hunt. 29:41
• Terry recounts that he, Austin Raisor, Joe Miles, and Miles’s son Jack each shot management bucks in a two-and-a-half-day window on the 10,000-acre Low Finch Ranch. 32:31

supplemental-feed

• Don recommends high-fat NutriCrave corn in late winter because it gives deer more than double the calories of typical ag corn to help them survive the cold. 15:30

thermal-cover

• Terry describes cutting and piling cedars against standing trees on his farm to create wind-break pockets of thermal cover on both sides of a ridge. 11:59
• Don recommends combining thermal cover with low, out-of-the-wind terrain because deer, like the cattle he observed, use both to minimize wind exposure. 13:33

tree-stand-placement

• How far from cover edge is Don’s average tree stand, and what’s the farthest he’d place one before ruling out a spot? 59:43

Deer activity

• unnamed buck (history) 18:48
• Doubting Thomas Buck (harvest) 19:12
• unnamed buck (harvest) 33:26
• unnamed buck (harvest) 34:46
• unnamed buck (trail-camera) 53:23
• King David Buck (history) 60:06

Listener questions

Question: Do crossbow hunters have a bigger advantage than hunters using trail cameras and cell cameras to watch deer movement? 46:44 — asked by Ben Byler

• Answer: Don says legalized crossbows made Illinois bow hunters far more proficient, spiking archery harvest above gun harvest. 47:25
• Answer: Don concludes objectively that crossbows have had a far bigger impact on deer harvest than trail or cell cameras ever have. 49:23
• Answer: Terry admits from personal experience that using a crossbow made hunting easier and would have grown his trophy room. 51:12

Question: Is it typical to capture bucks fighting on trail camera in mid-January? 53:23 — asked by Mike Kelly

• Answer: Don explains real fights still happen in January when a doe fawn comes into heat and draws multiple bucks. 53:36

Question: If a buck has already shed his antlers, will he still breed does? 54:53

• Answer: Don confirms shed antlers have no bearing on a buck’s ability to still breed does. 54:57

Question: When is the best time to overseed a clover plot given fluctuating temperatures in South Dakota? 55:49

• Answer: Don advises waiting until March, once temperatures are rising but still get a few nighttime freezes, rather than frost seeding too early. 56:09

Question: How far from cover edge is Don’s average tree stand, and what’s the farthest he’d place one before ruling out a spot? 59:43 — asked by Russell Morris

• Answer: Don says his average stand is only about 10 feet from the edge of cover. 59:54
• Answer: Don says his furthest stand is about 20 yards from cover, which is roughly his maximum on farm country. 60:15

Question: With a limited budget, which of pH balancer, humic acid, or biochar should be prioritized, and do Gen-two soybeans need inoculant? 63:29 — asked by Brock Van Aslan

• Answer: Don explains the red soybean coating is a fungicide, not an inoculant, protecting seed from rot in cool soil. 63:56
• Answer: Don says a brand-new plot like Brock’s should be inoculated, unlike an established ag field. 64:24
• Answer: Terry adds that inoculant especially helps old pasture or CRP ground. 64:43
• Answer: Don recommends prioritizing a cheap aglime soil test to fix pH before spending on pH balancer, biochar, or humic acid. 65:12

Prayer Time

Scripture: Matthew
Theme: faith to step out of the boat
Tate Hale reflects on Matthew 14’s account of Peter walking on water, urging listeners to have faith to step out of the boat when God calls, keep their eyes fixed on Jesus amid life’s storms, and trust that even when they falter, Jesus will reach out and lift them back up. 71:43

Don and Terry covered late-January winter deer management, noting that extended extreme cold would push bucks toward shedding antlers and that shed antlers don’t affect a buck’s continued breeding activity. Don discussed thermal cover strategies, including his plan to expand his sanctuary thicket with spruce and oak, mowing standing corn only once ground is frozen, and using high-fat NutriCrave corn to help deer through cold stretches. Terry described piling cut cedars for wind-break thermal pockets and reported his best-ever food plot production this year. Listener questions covered stand placement (Don’s stands run about 10 feet from cover, up to 20 yards max), soybean inoculant needs, prioritizing a cheap soil test over pH balancer or biochar, and clover overseeding timing. Don argued crossbows had a bigger impact on Illinois harvest rates than trail cameras. Terry recapped a South Texas scouting trip with Austin Raisor for a planned 2027 fundraiser hunt, and Tate Hale led a prayer on faith from Matthew 14.

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