Don Higgins Breaks Down His Favorite Properties of 2026 - Chasing Giants #320

Published: 2026-04-12
Episode page
Duration: 67 min

In this episode

biochar

• Mike’s Mighty Micros’ website lets users select biochar application settings for garden beds, food plots, row crops, pastures, orchards, and livestock feed. 35:47

career

• Don didn’t become a full-time hunting industry professional until his mid-fifties, with far less competition than young consultants face today. 46:25

chasing-assurance

• Terry announces a new second YouTube channel, Chasing Assurance, since many churches use their dad’s material for small groups and Sunday school. 60:03

client-education

• Terry notes clients now often preemptively admit a stand puts too much pressure on the core and expect the consultants to reject it. 28:18

clients

• Don observes that many consulting clients now have listened to Chasing Giants for years and already implement the show’s strategies. 27:28

consulting

• Don’s 2025 consulting properties ranged as far east as Maryland, west to Central Kansas, and south to Kentucky. 20:12
• Don’s two favorite 2025 properties, in Illinois and Ohio, were small (40 and about 62 acres) but bordered huge no-hunting sanctuaries offering food potential. 20:57
• The largest property Don consulted on this year was over 1,400 acres. 27:03
• Terry recalls thinking for the podcast’s first two years he wasn’t ready to start consulting, until Don convinced him he was ready. 47:57

consulting-career

• David Mathews asks if Don plans to add more consultants to his team and how a young guy could be considered for such a position. 44:04

corn

• Terry credits lucky, well-timed rain—not his skill—for an exceptional food plot corn yield this past year. 13:36
• Don explains that corn largely determines its yield very early, around the V2–V3 growth stage. 13:54

coyotes

• Don believes trapping coyotes is harder than shooting big deer, since coyotes are just as smart as mature bucks. 39:37

dealers

• Many Real World dealers have started carrying Mike’s Mighty Micros, Gingerich Tree Farms, Novix, or Hawk products. 4:12

deer-behavior

• Don says deer near his cattle pasture accept his routine presence as non-threatening, but would react very differently if he intruded into their bedding area. 59:05
• Someone once told Terry that a deer will pattern hunters long before hunters ever pattern a deer. 59:39

deer-intelligence

• Justin Sheer asks how smart deer really are. 52:10

deer-memory

• Don cites red deer at the former Berlin Wall, which for twenty years after it fell still wouldn’t cross where the wall once stood. 55:23

drought

• In the 2012 drought, a well-timed rain during pod fill produced a fantastic soybean crop despite the worst drought of Don’s life. 9:43

elk

• Terry saw 14 elk while touring a reclaimed strip-mine property in Kentucky near an original elk reintroduction release site. 22:53

farming

• Big farmers typically hedge their bets by planting multiple corn and soybean varieties rather than a single variety. 15:46

fruit-orchards

• Don has about seven fruit orchards ranging from 6 to 40 trees each — apples, pears, chestnuts, and persimmons — for diversity against crop failure. 32:16

fruit-trees

• Jay’s apple trees were selected for late bloom and late drop, avoiding frost damage and timing fruit drop to hunting season. 17:21

gene-wensel

• Gene Wensel used to say you can read all the books you want on riding a bicycle, but until you start pedaling, you won’t know how to ride. 45:44

kentucky

• Terry describes a Kentucky property with black bear, turkey, and elk, where whitetail have been harvested since the mid-1970s despite poor nutrition. 23:26

land-management

• Rich Eddington asks what impact it would have if someone with a lot of money bought adjoining land and used Don’s management practices. 41:43

logging

• Don recommends telling loggers they can only work the property when the ground is frozen in winter or hard and dry in summer, not muddy. 51:51

master-class

• Terry announces they’re developing a new master class concept unlike anything done before in the hunting industry. 19:05
• Terry says their goal is to potentially roll out the new master class events this coming winter. 19:18
• Don confirms the new master class format is something nobody has done before, calling it a new spin on the concept. 19:41

mentorship

• An old Amish man from Pennsylvania told Don that ‘knowledge without mileage is worthless,’ meaning experience matters more than book knowledge. 45:20

mikes-mighty-micros

• Terry announces Mike’s Mighty Micros launched a new website, mikesmightymicros.com, with detailed application tools. 33:27

nutrition

• Terry credits Doctor Shipley and Duane Hopkins for helping design the elk and whitetail nutrition program on the Kentucky property. 24:17
• Don wants his deer to have the best possible nutrition year-round, not just a summer food source to create a doe factory. 33:02

ohio

• Terry’s top whitetail property this year is in Ohio, for a repeat client he’s now designed six properties for who recently acquired a new tract. 24:36

planting-timing

• Duane Hopkins says to watch ground conditions, not the calendar, when deciding when to plant. 5:43

podcast-milestone

• Terry notes that after 320 episodes, the core themes remain diversity and lack of intrusion. 17:47

prayer-time

• Terry announces Wes Delks, ‘the prodigy,’ is hosting the Sunday Night Prayer Time this week. 60:43

sanctuary

• Don says a small property bordering huge food-less hunting sanctuaries is a recipe for killing big mature deer. 27:52
• Don advises clients creating a new sanctuary to stay out completely for the first five years, not even for shed hunting, to build the deer’s sense of safety. 56:02

seed

• Terry drove a Duramax 3500 to Illinois for meetings and brought back a pallet of seed mineral to prepare for planting season. 1:43

soil-health

• Don describes a clover food plot treated with biochar and humic as a lush, uniform, bright-green carpet with no bare dirt. 30:51
• What does Don need to do this year before planting season, if anything, for soil health? 30:11

soybeans

• Don had his first year in 18 years of selling Real World soybeans where deer did not devour every bean, due to weather conditions. 6:36
• An Iowa customer shared video of deer hammering an Ag soybean plot while ignoring an adjacent Real World plot they weren’t touching. 10:56
• Don notes Real World soybean sales have grown every year for 18 years, which wouldn’t happen if the beans themselves had a problem. 11:41

stand-placement

• Don’s approach to a poorly placed stand is to ask the client how they access it and what wind they use, letting them realize the problem themselves. 28:55

trapping

• Don says trapping teaches you to read sign and terrain features to predict where animals will travel across the countryside. 40:08
• Don plans to do some trapping this winter with his grandson Walker. 41:09
• Terry says he’s never trapped because he can’t check traps every day, not being home consistently enough. 41:18
• Why has trapping become a lost art, and what has Don learned from his years as a trapper? 37:18

tree-farm

• Terry recommends contacting Jay Gingerich early, whether for spring or fall, so he can plan tree production accordingly. 3:00
• Jay Gingerich was delivering a big load of trees to Ohio, with about 60 people expected to pick up trees Saturday at JB’s Feed. 3:34

tree-planting

• Don and Robin planted about 75 trees — 25 persimmon, 25 chestnut, and 25 red cedars — at the Gingerich project. 2:12

tsi

• An anonymous listener asks whether logging-created stagnant water holes that drew away his mature bucks are creating a self-inflicted disaster for his buck herd. 50:30

weather

• In Don’s area, heavy early-season rain gave soybeans a fast start, but rain stopped from mid-July until early November, hurting pod development. 7:17

Deer activity

• unnamed buck (trail-camera) 10:56
• unnamed buck (trail-camera) 50:30
• unnamed buck (hunt) 54:23
• unnamed buck (sighting) 58:42

Listener questions

Question: What does Don need to do this year before planting season, if anything, for soil health? 30:11

• Answer: Don says he doesn’t need to do much this year since he’s already applied biochar and humic to his soil in past seasons. 30:20

Question: Why has trapping become a lost art, and what has Don learned from his years as a trapper? 37:18 — asked by Daniel Byler

• Answer: Don says animal-rights activism destroyed the fur market, crashing raccoon prices from $30-40 to about $5, which is the main reason trapping declined in popularity. 38:38

Question: Rich Eddington asks what impact it would have if someone with a lot of money bought adjoining land and used Don’s management practices. 41:43 — asked by Rich Eddington

• Answer: Don believes high-grading would occur since most people wouldn’t manage bucks as strictly as he does; the biggest impact on his farm is how he manages which bucks he lets walk. 43:17

Question: David Mathews asks if Don plans to add more consultants to his team and how a young guy could be considered for such a position. 44:04 — asked by David Mathews

• Answer: Don says he’s not currently looking to add anyone since his six consultants — Terry West, Derek Burkholder, Bobby Worthington, David Elliott, and Caleb Gehman — can handle the workload. 47:13

Question: An anonymous listener asks whether logging-created stagnant water holes that drew away his mature bucks are creating a self-inflicted disaster for his buck herd. 50:30

• Answer: Don says if EHD is going to hit an area it will, and while controlling water sources may help some, it likely can’t be fully stopped. 50:58

Question: Justin Sheer asks how smart deer really are. 52:10 — asked by Justin Sheer

• Answer: Don says deer adapt to danger quickly, describing a four-year-old buck that spotted his parked four-wheeler, locked up, and stared at it before altering his path to stay covered. 54:23

Prayer Time

Scripture: Daniel
Theme: resurrection apologetics via the Shroud of Turin
Wes reflects on the Shroud of Turin as scientific evidence for Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, citing Daniel’s prophecy that end-times knowledge will increase, and thanks God for a risen Savior and this tool for sharing the gospel. 66:15

Terry and Don covered spring planting logistics and soybean performance, with Don noting his first year in 18 seasons where deer didn’t devour every Real World soybean, crediting weather rather than a change in the beans, and citing an Iowa customer’s video of deer hammering an Ag plot while leaving an adjacent Real World plot untouched. They discussed food plot corn, tree orders through Jay Gingerich, and Mike’s Mighty Micros’ new website. Don reviewed his 2025 consulting season across several states, favoring small properties bordering food-less sanctuaries, and described sanctuary-building advice like staying out for five years. He discussed trapping’s decline due to collapsed fur prices and plans to trap with his grandson Walker this winter. Listener questions covered soil prep, adding consultants, stagnant water holes possibly drawing bucks toward disease risk, and deer intelligence. Wes Delks led a Sunday prayer segment reflecting on the Shroud of Turin as evidence for the resurrection.

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