Episode #67 - WATCH OUT FOR FAWNS! Don and Terry both have a close call!

Published: 2021-05-31
Episode page
Duration: 68 min

In this episode

antler-genetics

Travis Peters asks whether he should quickly harvest bucks with small, seemingly deformed racks on his Georgia property. 41:02

back-injury

Terry attributes his current back problem to pushing too hard to come back too quickly from his prior knee surgery. 62:27

back-surgery

Terry is having back surgery this week, eleven months after last year’s knee injury, and says he is sick of being hurt. 1:25
Terry says he’ll be laid up for a week and a half after surgery, so reading and answering listener questions will help pass the time. 61:12

bedding-misconception

Terry presses Don to clarify what people misunderstand when he talks about ‘finding’ doe bedding for stand setups. 52:25

buzzards

A friend who kept captive deer once had buzzards get into his pen and kill several perfectly healthy fawns. 7:17

clover-management

Terry asks why it was important to mow the clover plot before the grasses went to seed. 19:13

community-loss

Nikki Larson, of the Larson Farms agriculture family, lost her battle with cancer this week. 2:30

crp

Terry asks Don for an update on the CRP switchgrass replant project. 21:07

deer-management

Terry says killing off young bucks with small racks without fixing the underlying cause just amounts to killing deer without solving anything. 42:47

drurys-13-phases

CJ Curtis asks whether Don agrees with Drury’s 13 phases of the deer season. 43:51

faith-reflection

Terry shares the lesson that God doesn’t care about a person’s ability, only their availability, tying it to the Lester’s Feet mission. 28:27

family

Terry’s high school girls’ softball team plays the first round of districts at noon the day after his scheduled surgery. 61:45

family-health

Terry’s wife Casey was diagnosed with cancer at a young age, though it was a minor case they were able to overcome. 3:00

fawn-timing

From years running a captive deer herd, Don has seen Memorial weekend as when fawns reliably start hitting the ground in droves. 8:02
Don has noticed more early fawn photos on social media this year than in past years he can recall. 8:55

fetal-programming

Terry recommends the questioner go back and listen to their episode with Dr. Bronson Strickland about fetal programming before addressing nutrition and culling. 43:20

food-plot

Jay Gingerich came and planted Miscanthus strips in Don’s replanted CRP switchgrass patch to add structure. 22:23

food-plot-timing

Terry notes there is still plenty of time to plant beans in early June without losing much pod production. 24:27
Terry says the best bean plot he ever planted was put in the first week of June. 24:45

iowa-hunting

Don advises that chasing truly giant Iowa bucks requires doing homework to confirm a big one is on the property, or the odds of success are very low. 13:06

joey-buck

Terry asks how Don gets a fast-moving cruising buck like Joey to stop, referencing the setup used for the Joey Buck. 16:28

lesters-feet

Terry announces the Lester’s Feet mail-in check deadline will be extended to June 30 since some Amish families’ Busy Beaver Extreme orders arrived late. 27:11
Terry learned this week that a bunch of Amish families just received their Busy Beaver Extreme edition, later than expected. 26:33
Don says Deer and Deer Hunting magazine has an ad coming out for the Lester’s Feet fundraiser as part of a bigger June push. 29:21

listener-questions

Don says he tries to keep listener questions relevant to the current time of year and invites more submissions. 61:09

mark-drury

Mark Drury is a big believer in the philosophy that mature bucks show up at the same time and same place year after year. 46:05

memorial-day

Terry says he feels guilty they didn’t open the episode with Memorial Day respects for those who served. 63:30
Don notes hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of American soldiers have given their lives over the years for the freedom Americans enjoy. 64:09

postseason-scouting

Wesley Lucas asks what sign Don looks for on a new property to find where a mature buck spends daylight hours. 48:19

stand-setup

Terry asks Don to describe the Lone Wolf Treestands setup he mentioned for stopping a cruising buck. 13:20

sunday-school

Terry recounts that Sunday school covered Judges chapter five, about Deborah, the only female judge in the Bible. 27:45

trail-camera

Don got his best trail camera picture of the year of a mature Iowa buck, though at a bad angle early in antler growth. 11:39

trail-camera-gear

Chad Brady asks what gear Don carries in his trail camera toolbox when covering a new 80-acre timber property. 35:16

trail-camera-reveal

Terry says this will be the first time he’s ever posted trail camera pictures of the bucks on his own farm. 29:32
Terry made a collage of bucks from his farm that were seen but not shot last year, to help promote the Lester’s Feet cause. 29:46

wes-delks

Terry jokes they might make a ‘prodigy edition’ of the seed bag featuring Wes instead of Don for the pilot program. 34:31 (light moment)
Don jokes he told Wes that as soon as he shoots a 200 inch buck, he can be on the next seed bag. 34:44 (light moment)
Terry asks why Don has started calling Wes Delks a ‘prodigy.’ 10:26
Don asks Terry what a social media commenter meant about seeing Wes on a billboard. 34:00

youtube

Terry announces Chasing Giants episodes started going up on YouTube this week and will now upload weekly. 67:21

Deer activity

unnamed buck (sighting) 4:21
unnamed buck (sighting) 5:42
unnamed buck (management) 7:04
unnamed buck (trail-camera) 8:47
unnamed buck (trail-camera) 11:39
Joey (harvest) 16:28

Listener questions

Question: Terry asks why Don has started calling Wes Delks a ‘prodigy.’ 10:26

Answer: Don says Wes got goosebumps at a comment about the killing spot, which struck Don as funny, so he started calling him the prodigy. 18:06

Question: Terry asks Don to describe the Lone Wolf Treestands setup he mentioned for stopping a cruising buck. 13:20

Answer: Don built a mock scrape by bending a sapling and tying it to a nearby tree so its top sticks out for bucks to check. 15:34

Question: Terry asks how Don gets a fast-moving cruising buck like Joey to stop, referencing the setup used for the Joey Buck. 16:28

Answer: How does Don manage to stop a buck moving through at a fast clip? 16:33
Answer: Don says Joey stopped because he’d thrown out smoky scent before climbing in, and the buck absolutely smelled it and locked up. 16:45

Question: Terry asks why it was important to mow the clover plot before the grasses went to seed. 19:13

Answer: Don explains grass naturally invades clover plots, and letting it go to seed just brings on even more grass. 19:25

Question: Terry asks Don for an update on the CRP switchgrass replant project. 21:07

Answer: Don says he sprayed the old CRP grass and then no-till drilled switchgrass right into it. 22:13

Question: Don asks Terry what a social media commenter meant about seeing Wes on a billboard. 34:00

Answer: Terry says a group along a highway near Terre Haute became convinced Wes was a model on a billboard from a past career. 34:08

Question: Chad Brady asks what gear Don carries in his trail camera toolbox when covering a new 80-acre timber property. 35:16 — asked by Chad Brady

Answer: Don says he brought twice as many cameras as needed, plus straps, cable locks, mounts, saws, and his ATV. 35:57
Answer: Don says the one thing he wished he’d brought was flagging tape to mark trees for later. 36:45

Question: Travis Peters asks whether he should quickly harvest bucks with small, seemingly deformed racks on his Georgia property. 41:02 — asked by Travis Peters

Answer: Don advises against getting wrapped up in harvesting the young bucks, suspecting a nutritional rather than genetic cause. 41:42
Answer: Don suggests mineral supplementation might help improve the antler quality if it’s legal in Georgia. 41:57

Question: CJ Curtis asks whether Don agrees with Drury’s 13 phases of the deer season. 43:51 — asked by CJ Curtis

Answer: Don doesn’t believe there are literally 13 phases, but calls it an ingenious idea tied to how TV airtime is sold in 13-week quarters. 45:24
Answer: Don reiterates he just doesn’t see 13 distinct phases in the deer season. 45:38

Question: Wesley Lucas asks what sign Don looks for on a new property to find where a mature buck spends daylight hours. 48:19 — asked by Wesley Lucas

Answer: Don says he assumes the thickest cover on a property is where deer will be bedding. 49:05
Answer: Don says the first thing he looks for on a new property is sign of other hunters, which affects whether he’ll hunt it. 49:51

Question: Terry presses Don to clarify what people misunderstand when he talks about ‘finding’ doe bedding for stand setups. 52:25

Answer: Don says he isn’t literally finding individual beds; he just recognizes the type of cover deer prefer to bed in. 53:05
Answer: Terry clarifies they don’t mean tromping in to find the actual bent-over grass where a deer bedded the night before. 55:16
Answer: Don recalls that decades ago he used to walk properties in winter snow specifically to locate actual deer beds. 55:38

The episode opened with personal updates: Terry faced back surgery days after his daughter’s softball districts, attributing the injury to rushing back from a prior knee surgery, and Don and Terry shared reflections on losses including Nikki Larson’s death and Casey’s past cancer scare, plus Memorial Day respects. Fawn season and early trail camera activity were discussed, including a friend’s captive fawns killed by buzzards. Listener questions covered Georgia buck management, where Don suspected nutrition over genetics and suggested minerals; Drury’s 13 phases of deer season, which Don doubted as literal; scouting for mature buck bedding and hunter sign; and Don’s mock scrape and smoky scent setup that stopped the Joey buck. Don also gave updates on mowing a clover plot and replanting CRP switchgrass with Miscanthus strips. The Lester’s Feet fundraiser deadline was extended to June 30, with new promotion planned including trail camera photos and a magazine ad.

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