Making Good Tree Stands GREAT | Don Higgins’ Best Habitat Tricks + Doubting Thomas Premiere

Published: 2026-06-28
Episode page
Duration: 64 min

In this episode

announcement

• Terry announces Dr. Aaron Gaines is producing a Chasing Giants TV video educating viewers on reading nutrition value in feed and mineral tags. 43:43
• Terry reminds listeners to get Darren Bailey questions in and confirms the Doubting Thomas premiere is set for July 1. 63:13

boone-brothers

• Terry describes Boone Brothers as a nonprofit that converts donated deer meat into shelf-stable protein sticks distributed to hungry kids through school backpack programs. 14:20
• Terry announces Chasing Giants will be the presenting sponsor for the Boone Brothers golf outing on August 31 in Nicholasville. 15:09

bow-hunting

• Don says the bucks he shoots at this stand are all under 20 yards away thanks to the funneling techniques. 24:26

darren-bailey

• Terry announces Darren Bailey is scheduled to appear on the podcast episode airing July 12. 8:44
• Don says Darren Bailey is the one guy who could turn around and rebuild the Illinois deer herd to greatness if elected. 11:53
• Terry tells listeners to submit questions for Darren Bailey by July 5 so they can be organized before recording. 13:01

dealer-network

• Terry recommends listeners without a local dealer use the Real World website’s dealer locator by zip code to find products. 59:06

doubting-thomas

• Terry announces that the Doubting Thomas hunt video will air on July 1. 0:48
• Terry notes the Doubting Thomas footage was recorded before Robin was diagnosed, adding poignancy to the video. 30:38
• Terry confirms July 1 is the official release date of the Doubting Thomas video. 32:01
• Terry confirms the Doubting Thomas video will premiere at noon eastern time on July 1, which is 11 a.m. central. 63:29
• Don recommends families sit down together to watch the Doubting Thomas video, noting it’s not a typical hunting video. 63:44

equipment

• Don announces he took delivery of a new 60-horsepower cab Kubota tractor with a finish mower for mowing clover plots and access lanes. 6:01
• Don recommends listeners look up Grub Implement in Covington, Indiana for equipment deals and let them bid on what’s needed. 7:35

farm-history

• Don says his 300-acre farm today includes about 100 acres of deer habitat, built up gradually from an original 40 acres. 27:57
• Don recalls there was no deer cover and no deer at all on his farm when he started. 27:11
• Don emphasizes his whitetail paradise was a slow build over roughly forty years, not an overnight transformation. 29:26

feed-quality

• Don advises learning to read feed tags carefully since some pelleted feeds hide cheap byproducts that deer wouldn’t normally choose to eat. 42:46

food-plot

• Land and Martin from Claypool, Indiana ask what to plant on a wet 10-acre weedy patch instead of grass to create better winter bedding cover. 53:52
• Andy Hendrix from Anderson, South Carolina asks whether, lacking a local dealer, he should replant his half-acre plot in clover or trees instead of Dixie Dozen. 56:39

golf-outing

• Don jokes about accidentally driving his truck up a golf cart path instead of the road at a fancy New England golf course. 16:21 (light moment)

health

• Terry says he has not been sick since he got a cab tractor, crediting it to avoiding dust exposure. 7:59

hunting-industry

• Terry recalls his grandfather Lester was skeptical of VHS hunting tapes, sometimes judging kills as legitimate and sometimes as pen-raised. 50:40
• Terry recounts that the hunting industry later moved to finder’s-fee bounty systems where high rollers paid big money for leads on giant bucks. 50:56

hunting-new-areas

• Jerry Sinclair from Chester, Vermont asks how other hunters react when Don hunts a new area given his reputation for killing big bucks. 59:57

illinois-deer-herd

• Don recalls that when he shot his first deer at 16, he only knew of three people who had ever shot a deer. 9:50
• Don states that in the late nineties the Illinois deer herd was far better than any other state’s. 10:18

ivermectin

• Rod Mordhorst asks whether adding ivermectin to deer feed would make wild deer dependent on it the way domesticated animals become dependent on dewormers. 35:07

mature-bucks

• Don explains many mature bucks do not like to be in the open, preferring brush pressed against their sides for cover. 22:40

personal-life

• Don says he had so much negativity in his life recently that he needed to get outdoors and deploy cameras early for enjoyment. 1:32

real-world

• Don says the Real World team he relies on could compete with anybody in the hunting industry. 44:25

sponsors

• Terry says without sponsor investment the show couldn’t put money into ministries like Boone Brothers. 16:47

stand-technique

• Don recommends spraying narrow herbicide paths through weeds in early spring rather than mowing, to funnel deer right past the stand. 24:03

thermal-drones

• An anonymous listener from Nashville asks whether a certain big-name hunter who consistently kills giant urban bucks is using a thermal drone to find them. 45:58

trail-cameras

• Don explains they promote July 1 for trail cameras because bucks put out earlier aren’t developed enough to judge accurately. 1:05
• Don notes mature bucks often avoid cameras once they detect them, so he only gets one photo before they stop returning. 1:59
• Terry says he expects to run 57 trail cameras this year across three states. 18:36

weather

• Don reports roughly nine and a half inches of rain fell on his property over the past two weeks. 3:05
• Don forecasts temperatures in the nineties for the entire week starting Monday after the podcast releases. 3:36
• Terry reports his soybeans are only about six inches tall while his corn is thigh-high in some fields. 4:53

Deer activity

• Smokey (history) 21:04
• Old Hickory (hunt) 21:36
• Smokey (harvest) 32:43
• Doubting Thomas (sighting) 33:05
• Joey Buck (trail-camera) 47:38

Listener questions

Question: Rod Mordhorst asks whether adding ivermectin to deer feed would make wild deer dependent on it the way domesticated animals become dependent on dewormers. 35:07 — asked by Rod Mordhorst

• Answer: Don says wild deer won’t become dependent on chemical wormers like ivermectin to survive, unlike domesticated animals raised in dense, repeatedly-parasitized conditions. 39:20
• Answer: Don believes natural selection likely causes deer weakest to parasites to die off over time, similar to disease-resistant cattle breeding, strengthening herd resistance. 37:41

Question: An anonymous listener from Nashville asks whether a certain big-name hunter who consistently kills giant urban bucks is using a thermal drone to find them. 45:58

• Answer: Don says he believes the hunter is likely using thermal drones to locate and pattern these bucks, calling it the only explanation that makes sense. 48:39
• Answer: Don reports he checked with his local conservation police officer and confirmed hunting drones are illegal in Illinois. 49:14

Question: Land and Martin from Claypool, Indiana ask what to plant on a wet 10-acre weedy patch instead of grass to create better winter bedding cover. 53:52 — asked by Land and Martin

• Answer: Don recommends planting the wet area in about 75% pin oaks and 25% swamp white oaks, both of which thrive in wet ground and give conifer-level winter cover. 54:03

Question: Andy Hendrix from Anderson, South Carolina asks whether, lacking a local dealer, he should replant his half-acre plot in clover or trees instead of Dixie Dozen. 56:39 — asked by Andy Hendrix

• Answer: Don tells Andy to stick with Dixie Dozen since it’s proven effective, and suggests asking a local business to become a Real World dealer to avoid shipping costs. 56:58

Question: Jerry Sinclair from Chester, Vermont asks how other hunters react when Don hunts a new area given his reputation for killing big bucks. 59:57 — asked by Jerry Sinclair

• Answer: Don says he’s rarely welcomed when entering a new hunting area — usually the opposite — so he keeps a low profile to avoid drawing attention to himself. 60:16

The episode covered updates and habitat advice ahead of the Doubting Thomas video’s July 1 premiere, footage Terry noted was filmed before Robin’s diagnosis. Don discussed early trail camera deployment strategy, heavy recent rain, and a new cab Kubota tractor for plot maintenance. He explained his decades-long habitat build from 40 to about 100 acres of cover on his 300-acre farm, plus funneling techniques using narrow sprayed paths to bring bucks within 20 yards. Terry announced Darren Bailey’s upcoming appearance and the Boone Brothers golf outing sponsorship. Listener questions addressed whether ivermectin in feed creates dependency (Don said no, citing natural selection), suspicion that a well-known urban buck hunter uses illegal thermal drones, wet-ground bedding cover recommendations of pin oaks and swamp white oaks, plot seed choices absent a local dealer, and how other hunters react to Don entering new hunting areas.

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