Episode #79 - Bachelor Group Dispersal and Iowa Update

Published: 2021-08-23
Episode page
Duration: 70 min

In this episode

antler-potential

Daryl Nestle from Shreve, Ohio asks how to tell if a young buck has the potential to become a giant. 45:56

bachelor-groups

Don notes that when bachelor groups break up and crops start coming out, farms that looked unpromising in summer camera checks can quickly become good hunting. 4:49

bedding-to-food-patterns

Terry asks whether deer will change their bedding-to-food travel patterns before or after bachelor groups break up in early October. 61:12

buck-forecast

Don is holding off on his buck forecast to check more cameras first, and will announce it next week on the podcast instead of his blog since Facebook now buries his posts. 21:04

buck-movement

Jeremy Skinner asks if new bucks move into an area after another buck has been harvested there. 48:51

culling

Don theorizes the dominant buck that stays on a property is usually the biggest-bodied but poorest-antlered, not the best-antlered deer. 12:38

doe-factory

Don says his farm’s abundant does pull in a lot of bucks once fall rolls around, functioning as a doe factory. 13:53

ehd

Don relays that during a bad EHD outbreak, Rick Dodson’s captive deer herd dropped from about 45 to just 2 animals in roughly thirty days. 29:13

faith

Paralympic swimmer Danielle Kisser said in an interview that she identifies first as a Christian rather than as a little person or a swimmer. 66:14
Terry reflects that relying on identity as a hunter, athlete, or businessperson will eventually let a person down, whereas identity as a Christian will not. 66:30

fall-dispersal

Don believes about half the bucks in his Midwest farm country hold a totally separate fall/winter range from their spring/summer range. 9:53
Matt Gardner asks why the fall buck dispersal happens and whether the majority of bucks make the shift. 37:38

food-plots

Don says he provides year-round, diverse nutrition on his farm through multiple food plots plus natural, soft, and hard mast browse. 13:34

gratitude

Terry closes urging listeners, regardless of faith, to find a way to make a difference in someone else’s life and promises they’ll be blessed for it. 70:02

guest-hunt

Terry plans to hunt aggressively for a three-day guest hunt tied to the Lester’s Feet raffle, accepting he’ll blow deer out on later days to maximize the guest’s odds. 62:35

iowa-dnr

Terry praises Iowa’s DNR for how it manages out-of-state hunters, saying Illinois, Kentucky, and Ohio could learn from it. 14:50

iowa-hunting

John Mulligan told Don that Iowa isn’t what it’s cracked up to be and that great pockets exist but it’s far from a giant buck behind every tree. 6:03

iowa-misconception

Terry pushes back on the idea that Iowa has a giant buck behind every tree, calling it a misconception among out-of-state hunters. 7:20

iowa-permission

Don secured permission on an Iowa farm but had to coordinate with another local hunter and his two teenage sons who were already hunting the property. 2:20
Don also got permission to hunt one corner of an adjacent Iowa property and set trail cameras there, plus moved cameras on public land while on his trip. 3:38

iowa-scouting

Don admits his mistake this year was being too busy consulting nationwide last winter instead of scouting Iowa for shed antlers and buck locations. 6:50

iowa-tag

Don drew an Iowa tag with saved preference points specifically because he lacks a standout big buck to hunt in Illinois this year. 15:56

iowa-tags

Don encourages any listener applying for Iowa tags to scout and know exactly where they’ll be hunting before they draw their tag. 6:37

iowa-trip

Don picked up taxidermy replicas of his bucks Smokey and Mel at Old Barn Taxidermy in Fort Madison, Iowa, and met fellow hunter John Mulligan there. 5:33

iowa-vs-illinois

Don says the deer sign he’s actually seen in Iowa this year isn’t much different from what he sees in Illinois, despite Iowa’s reputation. 6:14

lesters-feet

Don praises Terry for risking his own hunting property for a total stranger, calling the Lester’s Feet cause the driving force keeping Terry in the hunting industry. 63:26
Don predicts next year’s Lester’s Feet rifle raffle could bring in well over $100,000. 63:48

neighbor-relations

Grant Watson asks whether Don would tell neighboring landowners to pass on a promising 2.5-year-old buck or stay quiet about it. 55:11

patience

Terry advises listeners not to panic about a missing target buck since patterns can shift dramatically before an October 1 opener, unless hunting an early-opening state like Kentucky. 9:38

perspective

Don shares his perspective-shifting thought that no matter how bad your day is, somewhere parents are in a hospital room with a child living its last hours. 69:08

podcast-philosophy

Terry states the podcast’s purpose is to share unbiased opinions, never to tell listeners what to do, whether about calling bucks or vaccination choices. 32:44

scouting-strategy

Don keeps trail cameras running for years on some permission properties without ever hunting them, waiting until a giant buck shows up. 19:00

trail-camera

The best buck Don has a photo of so far this summer on his Iowa property is roughly a 150-inch deer. 4:22
Terry found via trail camera that with a field switched from alfalfa to tobacco, every mature buck now walks the central equipment road near daylight instead of cutting through the crop. 60:57

Deer activity

unnamed buck (trail-camera) 4:22
Smokey (history) 5:33
Mel (history) 5:33
unnamed buck (history) 16:27
Trump buck (harvest) 42:14
Smokey (harvest) 50:34
unnamed buck (management) 54:41

Listener questions

Question: Matt Gardner asks why the fall buck dispersal happens and whether the majority of bucks make the shift. 37:38 — asked by Matt Gardner

Answer: Don clarifies the bucks he watches in summer aren’t photographed on his farm; he’s learned where his fall bucks spend their summers in nearby bachelor groups. 39:18
Answer: Don estimates roughly 50% of bucks in his ag-heavy Midwest farm country make a definite range shift away from their summer range each fall. 40:37

Question: Daryl Nestle from Shreve, Ohio asks how to tell if a young buck has the potential to become a giant. 45:56 — asked by Daryl Nestle

Answer: Don says generally the more points a deer carries when young, the more points he’ll carry as he ages. 46:10
Answer: Don explains he removes smooth-rack eight-pointers from his property since most never develop into giants. 46:41

Question: Jeremy Skinner asks if new bucks move into an area after another buck has been harvested there. 48:51 — asked by Jeremy Skinner

Answer: Don doesn’t believe new bucks move in; he thinks any ‘new’ buck was already living there, just suppressed by the dominant deer. 49:22
Answer: Terry adds that after Don shot Smokey, another buck simply became more visible since it was no longer being suppressed, not because it newly arrived. 50:34

Question: Grant Watson asks whether Don would tell neighboring landowners to pass on a promising 2.5-year-old buck or stay quiet about it. 55:11 — asked by Grant Watson

Answer: Don says he would not tell the neighbors about the buck. 55:29
Answer: Don explains he holds intel on a live target buck close to his chest because of the effort he invests finding it. 56:16
Answer: Terry agrees he never shares intel with neighbors, even though he acknowledges he’ll still lose some deer to them regardless. 57:00

Question: Terry asks whether deer will change their bedding-to-food travel patterns before or after bachelor groups break up in early October. 61:12 — asked by Terry

Answer: Don says any change is definitely tied to hunting pressure. 61:28
Answer: Don adds a hunter might get away with crossing the field once, but not twice—the second bust ends the pattern. 62:21

Don recounted an Iowa trip where he coordinated hunting permission around another local hunter’s family, added a corner of an adjacent property, and moved public-land cameras. His best photo so far was roughly a 150-inch buck. He argued Iowa’s sign wasn’t much different from Illinois, echoing a fellow hunter’s view that great pockets exist but the state isn’t a giant behind every tree; Terry called that a common misconception. Don urged tag applicants to scout beforehand, admitting he’d neglected shed hunting there himself. Both discussed roughly half of local bucks shifting to separate fall ranges, Terry’s Lester’s Feet guest-hunt raffle plans, and an EHD outbreak that devastated a captive herd. Listener questions covered buck dispersal causes, spotting future giants by antler point count, whether new bucks fill vacated territory, and keeping strong young bucks secret from neighbors. The episode closed with reflections on faith and identity.

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