Podcast #241 - Don’s Target Buck Revealed - Non-Typical Giant!

Published: 2024-09-29
Episode page
Duration: 83 min

In this episode

age-structure

• Terry compares wanting a promising young buck to reach maturity to wanting a talented seventh-grade basketball player to make it to varsity. 37:40

apparel

• Terry announces a new partnership with Moran Creek Outdoors selling Chasing Giants and Lester’s Feet apparel, now live. 15:51

armyworms

• Terry warns that with recent rain making food plots pop, armyworms could become a second major variable threatening deer season this year. 8:03
• Dwayne told Don that armyworms have moved into the area and he’s received multiple reports of them this week. 8:16
• Armyworms won’t affect Don’s corn and soybean plots, but clover, alfalfa, and cereal grain blends like Deadly Dozen and Harvest Salad are vulnerable. 8:37
• Armyworms can strip a lush green food plot down to nothing within about three days. 9:21

body-size

• Terry notes deer body size varies dramatically by region, so a mature buck in Michigan, Pennsylvania, or the Carolinas can look deceptively larger than an equally-aged Midwest buck. 35:22

brent-henderson

• Don says Brent Henderson’s ministry is called Unleashed Man. 27:34
• Don notes Brent Henderson is also a Christian musician and one of his best friends is Christian singer Steven Curtis Chapman. 27:54
• Terry notes Don recently appeared on their friend Brent Henderson’s podcast, Unleashed. 27:10

chasing-giants-tv

• Terry says Chasing Giants TV has posted daily video content for a full week across Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube. 13:47
• This week’s Chasing Giants TV content included financial guy Dan Piper giving advice and Josh Anderson covering food plots and feeders. 14:08
• Don announces the video detailing his target buck’s history will release on Chasing Giants TV on Friday, October 4. 18:58

clover

• Don checked his new clover plot and reports it looking really good after the recent rain. 2:05
• Aaron Gaines sent Don a link to someone promoting 40 pounds of clover per acre, four times what Don’s company recommends, to choke out weeds. 41:07

collared-bucks

• Terry recalls Dr. Strickland posted a map of collared bucks showing how they return to their summer range to check for does, sometimes multiple times. 60:31

coyotes

• Terry is alarmed that coyote pictures on that camera have increased exponentially at the same time deer pictures have dropped off. 4:42

deer-naming

• Don jokes that many hunters reuse the same buck names, like Trump or Monarch, over and over again. 24:56 (light moment)

does

• Jay Tolley, a new Northern Wisconsin listener, asks if he should harvest three mature does that showed up right before his buck pictures stopped, suspecting bullying. 59:25

ehd

• Don says the EHD situation is still a really big concern, with new reports coming in this week. 2:58
• Areas of Michigan have been hit even harder by EHD, with a private Facebook message estimating around 80 percent deer mortality in one spot. 3:04
• Todd Hewing reportedly posted that he found fourteen dead deer from EHD in Illinois. 3:18
• Don has not found any dead deer, smelled any, or seen circling buzzards on his own property despite the EHD outbreak nearby. 3:58
• Don’s friend Tim Heath, a serious land manager in Logan County who also targets mature bucks, has reportedly been hit hard by EHD this year. 5:08
• After the 2012 EHD outbreak, it took Don roughly six to eight years for deer numbers on his property to recover. 5:58
• Terry’s group didn’t resume hunting an EHD-hit area until the 2015 season, taking three seasons off, and age structure still hasn’t fully recovered there. 6:11
• Terry has a nagging suspicion that something, possibly EHD, may have happened to his target buck this season, though there’s nothing he can do about it. 6:45
• Terry hopes the team can pull off a good hunting season despite the EHD concerns affecting many listeners this year. 63:28

faith

• Terry says naming the buck after a biblical figure like Zacchaeus is another subtle way they point to their faith despite criticism for talking about it. 24:25

food-plots

• Randall Barr from Blue Bell, Pennsylvania asks whether to drill clover and chicorythis fall, frost seed it, or drill in late winter/spring given he now owns a drill. 38:01
• Terry asks whether it’s a good idea to crosshatch or angle multiple drill passes to fill in the gaps between rows. 40:38

habitat

• Terry says habitat improvements should address the property’s weakest link rather than chasing the internet’s latest fad. 49:09

high-grading

• Scott Peters from Bartelso, Illinois asks Don and Terry’s opinion on what’s driving high grading and how the trend might be turned around. 30:35

joke

• Terry jokes that this week’s video thumbnail should read that Don’s got worms, referencing the armyworm outbreak, unsure if it will help or hurt views. 12:00 (light moment)
• Terry jokes about getting Wes Delks to dress in a white cloak and sandals and shimmy up a tree for b-roll footage tied to the Zacchaeus story. 62:27 (light moment)

lesters-feet

• Proceeds from limited-edition Lester’s Feet apparel sold through Moran Creek Outdoors will go to the Lester’s Feet foundation. 16:57

out-of-way-places

• Drew Wright from Clifton, Illinois asks whether out-of-the-way cover spots typically show big buck sign, or if sign is minimal there. 49:55

podcast-announcement

• Terry announces the episode is brought to listeners by ASIO Gear and will upload at the end of September, right before opening weekend. 0:31

public-land

• Trey Brown from Fair Play, South Carolina asks how much attention to pay to wind direction and scent control when limited to high-pressure public land. 55:35

rain

• Don reports getting 2.3 inches of rain at his place, with more in the forecast. 1:09

randall-barr

• Terry thanks Randall, a fellow machine-tool-industry friend met through the podcast and Wes, for going out of his way to support Terry during a recent job change. 43:31

real-world-wildlife-products

• Terry explains Real World Wildlife Products shifted its sponsorship approach away from influencers and toward investing in ministry partners. 29:12

regulation

• Don says the regulation changes he’d implement aren’t aimed at fixing high grading directly, but at getting more bucks into older age classes overall. 36:45

soft-edge

• Drew Peterson, who has a Michigan property but lives in Del Mar, California, asks Don’s favorite ways to create soft edge along fence lines and field borders. 44:33

sunday-night-prayer

• Terry announces this week’s delayed Sunday Night Prayer Time will feature Devin Hurley, minister from Antioch Church of Christ, at the end of the show. 61:44

target-buck

• Terry has tracked his target buck for two years and built history with him, planning to dedicate a whole month this season to hunting him. 6:40
• Don calls this target buck the best buck he knows of right now, though not a 200-inch deer. 19:11
• Don estimates his target buck will score around 190 inches, definitely over 180. 19:23

trail-camera

• Terry has only gotten trail-camera pictures of fawns over the last three weeks, with no bucks or mature does showing up. 4:34
• Don got a poor-quality trail-camera photo early one morning that was still good enough to confirm it was the buck he wants to target this year. 7:00
• Don says most out-of-the-way spots he checks with trail cameras won’t turn up the caliber of mature buck he’s actually looking for. 54:51

video-content

• Don says short videos perform better since viewers’ attention spans favor a three-minute video over a thirty-minute one. 14:27

youtube

• Don urges listeners who haven’t subscribed to the Chasing Giants with Higgins Outdoors YouTube channel to do so for notifications on new videos. 15:00

Deer activity

• unnamed buck (sighting) 4:07
• unnamed buck (hunt) 6:40
• unnamed buck (trail-camera) 7:00
• unnamed buck (sighting) 12:37
• unnamed buck (history) 22:12
• Zacchaeus (history) 23:25
• Zacchaeus (management) 23:46
• Zacchaeus (history) 26:11
• Zacchaeus (hunt) 62:51

Listener questions

Question: Scott Peters from Bartelso, Illinois asks Don and Terry’s opinion on what’s driving high grading and how the trend might be turned around. 30:35 — asked by Scott Peters

• Answer: Don says he’d rather a neighbor shoot the first legal buck and stop hunting, since neighbors who promise to let deer walk often break the agreement and shoot the best one anyway. 31:57
• Answer: Don illustrates high grading with an analogy: given two equally aged bucks, an 8-point scoring 120 and a 10-point scoring 150, hunters almost always shoot the bigger-scoring one. 33:12

Question: Randall Barr from Blue Bell, Pennsylvania asks whether to drill clover and chicorythis fall, frost seed it, or drill in late winter/spring given he now owns a drill. 38:01 — asked by Randall Barr

• Answer: Don says if you own a drill, you should absolutely use it since drilled seed gets much better soil contact than broadcasting. 38:42
• Answer: Don recommends drilling clover in the fall as early as possible rather than waiting until October or November. 38:50

Question: Terry asks whether it’s a good idea to crosshatch or angle multiple drill passes to fill in the gaps between rows. 40:38

• Answer: Don says he does both, overseeding in opposite directions and going back over with his extreme blower, since that gets seed between every row. 40:51

Question: Drew Peterson, who has a Michigan property but lives in Del Mar, California, asks Don’s favorite ways to create soft edge along fence lines and field borders. 44:33 — asked by Drew Peterson

• Answer: Don’s favorite method is to go about 50 feet along the edge and plant a native mix of shorter grasses like little bluestem and side oats grama, mixed with forbs such as partridge pea. 46:21
• Answer: Don emphasizes there’s a big difference between great whitetail habitat and a great whitetail hunting property, and you don’t need soft edges to have a good hunting farm. 47:44

Question: Drew Wright from Clifton, Illinois asks whether out-of-the-way cover spots typically show big buck sign, or if sign is minimal there. 49:55 — asked by Drew Wright

• Answer: Don says most out-of-the-way spots that actually hold a mature buck don’t have much sign at all, since the buck rarely moves in daylight there. 50:42
• Answer: Don’s approach is to find these spots and put a trail camera there, letting it soak, sometimes adding a mock scrape to concentrate the buck’s movement. 52:14

Question: Trey Brown from Fair Play, South Carolina asks how much attention to pay to wind direction and scent control when limited to high-pressure public land. 55:35 — asked by Trey Brown

• Answer: Don says he’s not big on scent control since playing the wind matters far more; wind direction is way more critical on high-pressure public land than on private ground. 56:28

Question: Jay Tolley, a new Northern Wisconsin listener, asks if he should harvest three mature does that showed up right before his buck pictures stopped, suspecting bullying. 59:25

• Answer: Don doesn’t think three mature does would bully a hard-horned buck away; he guesses the bucks’ bachelor group simply dispersed, which is normal this time of year. 59:43
• Answer: Don says not to worry about shooting the does at all, and that the listener is misguided in thinking the does ran the bucks off. 60:17

Prayer Time

Scripture: John
Theme: expecting the world’s hatred as Christians
Devin Hurley reads from John 15-16, explaining that Christians should expect the world’s hatred just as Jesus was hated, but the Holy Spirit gives truth and peace, empowering believers to proclaim Christ despite persecution. 64:19

Theme: closing prayer for boldness amid persecution
Devin Hurley closes in prayer, asking God for boldness, strength, and courage to proclaim truth in unprecedented, evil times, acknowledging that preaching the gospel will bring hostility but also draw people to saving faith. 81:17

Don and Terry opened discussing EHD’s continued spread, with new reports including an estimated 80 percent mortality in one Michigan spot and Todd Hewing reportedly finding fourteen dead deer in Illinois, though Don had seen no dead deer on his own property. Terry worried his target buck might have fallen to EHD, while Don confirmed via a poor trail-camera photo that his own target buck, named Zacchaeus after the biblical figure, was still alive; he planned to hunt it only from a tree stand and would feature the hunt on a new web show starting October 4. They also warned armyworms could strip clover and alfalfa plots within days after recent rain. Listener questions covered high grading and buck-scoring analogies, clover drilling with a new drill, creating soft edges along field borders, scouting out-of-the-way cover, and wind versus scent control on public land. The episode closed with Devin Hurley’s prayer segment on expecting persecution as Christians.

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