In this episode, Don Higgins and Terry discuss the summer solstice and its impact on wildlife, particularly whitetail deer. They also talk about Don's recent experience of hanging a stand using a Quiet Cat bike. The conversation then shifts to the upcoming travel schedule for Don in July. They explore the physiological effects of the summer solstice on soybeans and whitetail deer, including antler growth, shedding velvet, and the timing of the rut. They also address questions about deer injuries and their impact on antler development. The episode concludes with a question about who will take over Chasing Giants when Don retires, to which Don responds that he has no plans to retire anytime soon. In this part of the conversation, Don and Terry discuss their plans for the future of the podcast and their hunting endeavors. They also answer questions from listeners about custom hunting gear, seatbelt warning suppression devices, and concealment for hunting blinds. They emphasize the importance of the hunter community in developing innovative hunting products and share their favorite custom gear. They also discuss the challenges of purchasing land and the importance of conducting thorough research before making a purchase. Finally, they provide updates on the availability of their new lithium batteries and the success of Lester's Feet, a charity organization they support. summer solstice, wildlife, whitetail deer, soybeans, antler growth, rut, deer injuries, retirement, podcast, future plans, hunting gear, custom gear, seatbelt warning suppression devices, concealment, hunting blinds, land purchase, research, lithium batteries, Lester's Feet
Chasing Giants with Don Higgins
Episode #227 - Science Behind Summer Solstice and Whitetail
Chasing Giants with Don Higgins and Terry Pier, brought to you by Oseo Camo, nature's most lethal camel flies. Follow along as Don and Terry discuss the techniques, strategies, and dedication needed to harvest one of God's most amazing creations, world-class whitetails. Well welcome everyone to the Chasing Giants podcast episode 227 with Don Higgins and Terry Pier, brought to you by Oseo Gear. Don, this episode is going to air on June 23rd and we've got an interesting topic to talk about today and that is the summer solstice. I don't think a lot of people understand how that pivotal time through the middle of the summer plays a big effect on wildlife, especially whitetail, and even our crops for that matter. But let's kick off the show talking about what you did this week and you hung a stand pretty creatively. So let's talk about that to kick off the show. Yeah, I had one stand that I didn't get hung this past spring that I wanted to get in while I had a season that just happened. It's not on my property, it's on a new property and I just happened to drive by there this week and I noticed that the cornfield along the road had been planted and the corn was up about 18 inches tall and I have to go through about three quarters of a mile of that cornfield to get back to the woods. Well, it's been so hot, I didn't want to walk. You know, if I waited until that corn got up too tall, I'm going to be walking through standing corn. So I got the bright idea that I'm going to get out of bed at 4.30 in the morning before it gets hot because it's been hot as could be this week. And I was going to hop on the quiet cat bike and with that corn being short, I could ride right down the rows of that corn and not hurt the corn whatsoever and save me walking three quarters of a mile in the heat. So I got up at 4.30 and I packed up everything on that quiet cat bike. I probably looked like a circus clown with everything that I had on there. I had the stand on my back. I had a fanny pack around my waist. I had climbing sticks on the handlebars. And then in the back little cargo basket, I had a folding pruning saw, our telescoping pruning saw. I had another fanny pack with some stuff. I had some bottles of water and I was loaded down. And right at daylight, I got to the property and unloaded the bike and started going back across that corn. And you know what really surprised me was there was a good dew on. I thought it was really dry here. And I was surprised there was so much dew. But I hadn't gone 100 yards through that corn. And I was absolutely soaking wet from about my waist down just from the water flying off those corn leaves as I was driving down the rows on that quiet cat. But I got the stand up and it was so far back, I even put a camera up and I never put cameras up this early. But that area is so hard to get to. And I was already going to be there. I just went ahead and took a cell cam in with me and stuck it up while I was back there. But typically don't see me putting very many stands up in June. That's just one that I wish I would have got up back in March or April, but I didn't get it done. So even though it was hot out, that quiet cat bike was a real lifesaver. And you know something, Terry, I don't know if you've seen the new Apex quiet cat bikes yet. But this is this is the third quiet cat bike I've had. This is hands down the best one by far. Lots of upgrades from the previous models. I stepped through you know, the old bikes had that bar between the seat and basically the handlebars. They had to step over. Well, that bar is no longer there. It's almost like the old girls bicycles, you know, that didn't have that far. And it's a whole lot handier, especially when you've got a stand on your back and a fanny pack on your back and you're trying to get on that bike. That was one of the big things that I liked. It's got a different kind of a throttle now. It's almost got like a motorcycle throttle where you twist the handle on the right hand side. That seemed to be a whole lot easier to use because you could adjust it and hold it a whole lot steadier than the old one. Just it seems like a more solid bike than the old ones too. So really happy with how that Apex worked out. Some of the feedback I gave to the guys over there when I first saw this new design is, you know, as I get older and less flexible and less limber after two major surgeries, especially in the winter when you got layers on, you know, the beauty of that bike is we can drive it to wherever we want and not get sweaty. You know, we can basically dress for how we're going to be in the stand instead of having to put layers on in the stand. But, you know, we can put all those layers on. But when you put all those layers on, and especially if you have your backpack or gear in the back basket and heavy boots on, I had trouble on that big frame bike getting my leg up and over everything, you know, weighted down with with a bunch of layers to close on. So that passed through the older I get, man, I'm telling you, I got to accept the fact I'm not as young as I used to used to be. And I got to look for those little wins. And that's a little win for me. Well, me too, you know, I'm six, three and fairly long legged. And it was difficult for me to get my leg over that thing. And if I was 20, yeah, I would have just kicked my knee clear up to my chin and my foot would have been over my head and I'd have been right over that bike. But those days are long over. And that's that step through feature is huge. Right. And there's a lot of module things that you're going to be able to do with this bike. We're going to be doing some video content for those guys and posting some stuff on social media here soon. But, you know, talking and listening to what you just said about that do is is that an example of what we talked about a couple weeks ago about how these bucks can be out in the middle of those sections with no water in that whole section. And with that much moisture on the plants, they can get a lot of the water that they need in the morning from that is that is that kind of what you're thinking? Well, that's got to be it. I just I got a perfect example here, not too many miles from my house where the bucks are there every summer in a bachelor group. And yet there's no water source there. And it's I've scratched my head for years trying to figure out where those bucks are getting their water. And it's got to be from those plants in that early morning do. Yeah, it's it's amazing how wet you can get really, really quick riding or walking through went and looked at a property here not too long ago and had rubber boots on. But that tall grass just above your boots, man, it wakes up your bridges as fast as it can be. And all of a sudden before you know it, your old crotch is wet. Yeah. Well, and especially even under dry conditions, we're really dry here. We need a rain in a bad way. And I was not expecting that much to. In fact, I wouldn't expect any really, but the fact that there was that much was really surprising. Yeah, we were really dry. Also, I'm going over and looking at the crops later today. My guess is, is that it's been so dry for the last week and a half. The weeds are growing faster than my soybeans are. So I'm guessing that I'm probably going to have to spray here this weekend. So that's my guess. We'll see when I get there. Well, I got a different problem. I mean, I've got the same problem. I got an additional problem. I'm having just an incredible time with browse pressure on my soybeans this year, like I've never had before. And you know, one of my plots, anyone's been in my masterclass or remember the smoky blind and that plot there. Well, that plots in soybeans this year. And right on the backside of that blind, you know, literally 10 yards from that is 25 acres of ag beans. And typically, those ag beans would pull a lot of pressure off. But I've literally planted that plot three times in soybeans so far. And the deer and the rabbits just keep hammering it off. And the both are bad, but it's the deer as much as anything. And I'm going to try something new later today. It just came to me last night. And I don't know why I didn't take this before because I've done it many, many years ago when I had really tiny soybean plots, you know, like quarter acre plots. But I'm going to go to town. I'm going to buy some my lorganite for those folks who don't know what that is. That's a fertilizer that's made from human sewage. And these sewage plants, they take that human waste and they somehow dry it down and put it into a pellet form. And that is a good deterrent for keeping critters off of your food plots or your garden or whatever. I guess the odor of it drives them away. But I'm going to go buy about 20 bags of that and try it on that one plot. And if it works, I'll be doing it to all my plots. I just can't believe that, you know, I had my plots planted way ahead of the farmer around me. And maybe I should have waited. But I had an opportunity to do it. And it was already getting well into May when that first planting was done. So I went ahead and done it. But yet that farmer's field is looking so much better than mine, just 10 yards through a small tree line. And I think my theory is that something we'll have to keep an eye on is that I've went overboard the last couple of years getting the nutrients in my soil right and building up that nutrient content. You know, we've talked about farming for nutrients. It's great to have a good food plot program in place. But to take it to the next level, you want to get that nutrient content of your plants up as high as possible. And it takes a couple things to do. One is the seed that you're planting, but every bit as important as the soil that it's going into. If that soil has got the correct nutrients and everything then the plant can utilize them. But I almost think that these plants in my food plot are more palatable than the ones in the ag field based on the change in farming practices that I've incorporated in my food plot program in the last couple of years. Do you plan on getting Dwayne to do some tissue analysis from the neighbor in years in the green leaf state once they get up a little bit maybe? I'm definitely going to do that. But also two of my soybean plots were split in half with some of the soil amendments like with the humic acid was only applied to half of the plot. And some of some other things that I'm testing were only applied on that half as well. And there's definitely going to be side-by-side trials going on. And as I learn more, I'll share more. But you know the challenge of getting better never ends, we're always trying to get better than we was the year before. All right, well we're going to move on through the show because I want to spend a lot of time on two different things a little bit later. Number one is the summer solstice. And we're going to both admit we are not astronomers, but there's obviously been a lot of research that Don has done on the physiological side of Whitetail that I think are great things to think about as we just went through this past week. We got a big travel schedule from Don in the northeast. I want to at least put that information back out there. We haven't done it in a couple weeks. And then come back. We got some really personal questions. You sent me the list of questions and I was getting those ready this morning. And people are really starting to put us on the spot a little bit with some personal questions. So this will be interesting how we navigate these because we haven't prepped for it. So stay tuned. We'll be right back. ICO gear has perfected one of the most innovative camo patterns on the market. The unique camo pattern designed to mimic the feather patterns of one of North America's greatest predators, the Great Horn Owl. Combined with intuitive features, superior comfort and ultra high quality fabrics give bow hunters the ultimate advantage. ICO has outfitted over 10,000 bow hunters across the country with over a thousand five-star reviews. Visit asigear.com to check it out for yourself. Use code chasing giants for 15% off. Okay Don, to start the next section why don't we go ahead and get the travel schedule for you in July out of the way. And I don't know how detailed you want to get through this. We haven't done it in a couple weeks. So you might want to just take a couple minutes and read through it for the folks listening on the audio platforms. And if you're watching on YouTube you can just fast forward a couple minutes and get to the next section if you don't. But we want to make sure everybody knows where you're going to be here coming in the month of July. Yeah I'll go down the list real quick and these are only the July stops. So there'll be more coming for August later. But I'm going to give a phone number for each location. If you've got any questions don't reach out to me or Terry. Call the number for the location that you're interested in attending. They will have the details. All I'm going to do is show up and talk. I'm not arranging any of the details. So the first one will be July 18th in Johnson Creek, Wisconsin at the Milford Hills Hunt Club. The phone number there, 920-699-2249. On July 22nd I will be in Panama, New York at Ravelin Hill archery. Number there 716-355-8841. On the 23rd I will be in Medina, New York at Miller's Bulk Foods and Bakery. Number there, 585-409-1478. Next day, July 24th I'm going to be in Pinyan, New York at Northeast Metal Roofing. Number there, 585-554-0200. July 25th. Cana Johari, New York at Hidden Camp Farm. Number there, 518-859-3310. On July 26th I'm going to be in Walden, New York at Deer Creek Farm. Number there, 516-322-4577. And the last one for July will be on July 27th in Richland, Pennsylvania at Little Mountain Outfitters. Number there, 717-821-1891. So I hope to see all you folks in the Northeast at one of those events. Well, actually the Northeast Tour will out there'll be a second speaker at those events as well. A new young man that's working with us on the dream team, the consulting dream team. He went with me last winter on several properties, probably more than a dozen properties in four or five different states there to Northeast and we're going to introduce him and he's going to give a presentation as well. So be sure to check those out in the Wisconsin event. Be the only one in Wisconsin this year. That will be a good one with a good prime rib meal. So hope to see you guys at one of those. And then it's not on here, but I'm going to be at the O'Don outdoor and hunting and fishing expo in Indiana. I believe it's the Davis, is it Davies County? I can't remember how to pronounce the county. I think so. Yeah. It's Davies County, but it's on August 3rd, but it's over in O'Don Indiana. So I don't know the details of that yet. That's why we haven't posted it. So we'll relay that as soon as we know. So let's let's talk about the summer solstice a little bit. So as I understand it again, we are not claiming to be astronomers and I'm sure people will correct us if we're wrong, but from a astronomy standpoint, we're in the longest days of the year and we pivot from the longest days of the year and then gradually the day start getting shorter. So as it relates, let's start with the easy one from the agriculture side Don and specifically to soybeans. We know that corn is labeled by how many days it takes to mature, but soybeans are different. They're in group numbers. So how does the soybean work with group numbers based on summer solstice? Well, what beings are listed by group number? The higher the number, the longer the life cycle of that particular soybean. So you get a group zero or one, for example, it's going to have a much shorter life cycle than say a group four or five soybean. And when we say group four, it's a group because it might be 4.1, 4.6, 4.9, whatever, there's just a lot of different varieties that are labeled by those various maturities. But daylight comes into play with soybeans as well. Daylight hours tells that soybean plant that falls coming as the day shortened and it's time to wrap up and start maturing out. Here's something that a lot of people have probably noticed but didn't know why, but if you ever see a soybean field that's like growing next to a bright light, you know, some like a parking lot at Walmart or something. If there's a soybean field next to it and there's some bright lights and the soybeans under that light will remain green a whole lot longer. I've seen many situations, if you're looking for it, I've seen many situations where the entire soybean field is matured and dried down and is brown, but there's a little circular patch underneath a light at the edge of that field that is still green even though the rest of that field is brown. That's because it's still getting light. That plant or those plants under that light do not detect shorter days. They think it's still daylight, you know, basically 24 hours a day in that situation and they don't mature. It takes a frost to kill them in that situation. So be on the lookout for that. If you've got a soybean or know where there's a soybean field with a kind of a bright light on the edge of that field and I can think of two places locally where it happens every single time that soybeans are planted in these two particular fields. So daylight comes into play with the soybeans for sure. Okay, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. So as the days start getting shorter, the plants start recognizing I need to go into the mode of drying down, even though the plant's still growing, it's just telling them that falls coming. Let's go into the physiological side of a white tail specifically with a dough first because we talk about every year this misconception that there's multiple ruts and that, you know, doughs come into season at different times. This is kind of the pivot point that sets all of that. How's that work? Well, a deer in the corner of his eye has a gland called the pineal gland and that pineal gland registers daylight and it basically, you know, sets the cycle for the deer as well. So if they're counting minutes, it's a yeah. So in the spring, you know, when the days are getting longer, that pineal gland detects it. Days are getting longer. Hey, we're at the stage now where it's time to start growing antlers and we get past the solstice and days start getting shorter. I mean, it doesn't happen overnight. It's just not like all of a sudden, today's, you know, one minute shorter than yesterday, all of a sudden, the deer flips a switch. It's a gradual thing, you know, obviously with cloudy days and such, it can't be instant, but it's a gradual thing. So, you know, now we're getting into shorter days and as those keep getting shorter and shorter, it's going to tell those bucks, hey, it's time to wrap up the antler grow cycle. It's start time for those antlers to start hardening it up and time to shed velvet and then we get later into the fall. It's going to tell those those, you know, hey, it's time to come into heat. Yes. So this is kind of the pivot point. And when you really think about it, the 20th, 21st of 2024 is going to set the deer hunter's calendar for the entire year. You know, we can't, we can't make it down to the minute, but when you really think about it, there's a lot that pivots on, you know, whether it's testosterone level on the buck or I believe it's melatonin that's released in the dough that starts a lot of the physiological changes in the in the in the deer. I might be wrong in that, but I'm pretty sure that's what it is. But you start setting all of the timeline for what we want to observe from the deer stand and, you know, not just shedding velvet, but bachelor groups dispersing, then, you know, everything we talk about through the October lull, then the pre-rut, rut, and everything pivots off of what just happened this week. It's pretty cool when you think about it that way. Even the shedding of the hair coat, you know, from the summer coat to the winter coat and vice versa. You know, I'd noticed way back when I had my captive deer that it didn't matter what the weather was. Well, when it started getting into mid to late August, those deer started growing their winter coats. We could be in the midst of the greatest heat wave the planet's ever seen. And those deer would still start growing their winter coats at the same time. And that that's all part of it's their calendar. That was a great description, Terry. It's their calendar. It's telling them it's time. It's not got anything to do with the weather. It's time for certain things to happen. It's amazing when we go around and speak at different places. I use some of this stuff as the analogy, but it's just so amazing how complex God's creation is. How he intertwined all of these little things to work together for their survival of the species. I mean, it's, you know, if this is off just a little bit, you know, the species could suffer because the fawns being born too early or too late. You know, they might not be able to survive. The bucks testosterone does not align with when the when the does come into heat. I mean, there's a lot of things that would just so complex. It's it's amazing the complexity when you really look at God's creation. And I think a lot of times deer hunters try to make it. I shouldn't say more complicated because it is kind of complicated, but they kind of they kind of screw up the whole thought process behind some of this, you know, like, moon phases is one thing that jumps out at me. The idea that there's a second RUT, there's not a second RUT. I just think a lot of people don't understand how the RUT plays out. The RUT plays out the same way every year. And it gets started, the pineal gland in the corner of the doze eye is what triggers it in it. It's not like it gets triggered again 28 days later, like some outdoor writers have tried to lead us to believe. But in the grand scheme of things, it's very, very interesting how God has orchestrated this all together, woven it all together to think that the whitetails life cycle is dictated by the sun in the daylight hours is really pretty amazing when you come to think about it. It's very cool. All right. Well, let's move on. We got, we got seven questions that we're going to ask today. And I said some people have kind of poked some personal ones to us. And we're going to have to navigate these. And I'm interested to see how we both answer some of these. Well, when I selected questions this week, I went, I started, I looked at a little bit different. Some of these questions I would have typically just blowed off and not even selected. Yeah, but I tried to look for things that were out of the box. People asking weird stuff or whatever. The listener is going to see here real quick when I'm talking about. All right, let's get the first of them back up here on the screen for you. The first one comes from Justin Kenner from Teotopolis, Illinois. He says, "Hi, Don and Terry. Thanks for the podcast weekend and week out. I have a buck I've been watching since he was a two and a half year old back in 2021. He is now five and a half, I believe. Last year is a four and a half year old. We watched him multiple days during the last week of season and he looked perfectly healthy. This year, I have him on camera already and he went crazy on his left side. I am guessing it was a pedicle issue when he shed his horns earlier this spring. My question is, if we pass him this year, will he go back to a normal typical deer or since he possibly injured his will? Will he have a non-typical side? If he injured his pedicle, he's injured for life and he's going to have a messed up rack for life. If that weird antler is caused by an injury to the antler itself, not to the pedicle, but to that growing antler, then next year he will have. He'll go back to having a typical antler, but if it's into the pedicle, then he's pretty much going to be that way for the rest of his life. Once that pedicle, it's pretty much the root of everything from that point forward. Now, what about the old theory that, say, a buck gets hit by a car and breaks from ribs and bruises the hips real bad, and I think I've heard a theory that if it gets hit on its right side, a lot of energy goes to that right side and the left side's weak. I don't know if that's true or not. I don't know if you've ever heard that, but I've always heard that an injury on one side affects the opposite side. Will a deer recover from that? Well, interestingly enough, the injury has to be to a leg. I mean, if the deer is injured, it could affect his health, which would affect his entire rack, but a leg injury will affect his antlers. What will happen is if the injury is on his front leg, the messed up antler will be on that same side. If the injury is to a rear leg, it will mess up the opposite side of the rack. Seriously? Yeah, I've never heard this. Absolutely. Yeah, I've never heard this. So if it's the rear leg injury, it's the opposite side front leg, it's... If anyone has got a picture of a three-legged buck, and I do, and I'll send you some pictures, Terry, that you can post as we're talking about this, but let's say a deer loses his right rear leg so far down and survives. Well, the next year, it'll be his left side that's messed up. His right side will still be fine and normal, but his opposite side will be the side that's messed up. So will that be just the following year, or will it be for the life? No, forever. Huh. Very interesting. Yeah, I'd never heard. You remember the buck, he's actually featured on a real world Gen 2 soybean ad. Eil Harmon took the photo in my place of that buck in the soybeans in the snow. And remember, he had that hoof that was that lower leg injury down by the hoof that was messed up. The next year, the opposite side of his rack was messed up a little bit. It wasn't a super bad injury. Obviously, you survived, but it did affect the opposite rack. And I've got some, at least two or three different bucks, I'm going to send you pictures of that you can post while we're talking about this. I need to go back and look, because probably four or five years ago, I had, we were scouting a new area, and I got a picture of a younger buck. He was either two or three year old, and he didn't even have anything up by the shoulder. He was a three-legged buck, but I mean, it was gone all the way. I don't know if it was a birth defect or what, but it was, you know, all the way up, he didn't even have a nub up by its front shoulder. But I need to go back and see if I can find that trail camera picture. I promise you, it'll be the same side. If it's a front leg, it'll be the same side, back leg opposite side. That's pretty cool. All right. All right, next one here, we'll get it on screen. Now, this one comes from Clinton Martin from Mentone, Indiana. So say Don and Terry, appreciate the broadcast, just wondering who will take Don's place after he retires, or is too old to take chasing giants on. Thank you for considering my question. Well, Clinton, you just about got vetoed on your question, but you know, I was looking for weird questions, and I thought I'm just going to go ahead and use this one. And I'm going to use it as an opportunity to say that I'm not going anyplace anytime soon. I'm going to, in the next few years, I'm going to slowly slow down, but I can't just walk away from everything. I mean, I'd be bored laying on the couch looking at the ceiling, going absolutely nuts if I didn't have something to do. I don't watch TV. So that's not an option. I've got to be doing something. My wife says I will never retire. I don't know what to, you know, Terry and I kind of have an arrangement that when I am done with chasing giants, he's going to, you know, take over and continue. He pretty much runs the show today. So it's not like he's got to do much more than he's done right now. But, you know, it's hard telling what direction we might go. But but don't look for me to be stepping away anytime soon. We will worry about that when we have to worry about it. But at the end of the day, people are not here to listen to me because I don't have the facts like what you just talked about. So I'm simply here as a, as a management tool and keep you on track and not let you get in legal trouble for the most part. But there is no, there is no chasing giants without dawn. So it's, it'll be a, it'll be a decision we make when we have to make it. But I don't. And it might be done when you're done. I don't know. We'll, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. We're actually growing chasing giants. That's the funny thing. Instead of you setting up for retirement, we're actually growing it. We're very, very close to announcing what that, what that's going to look like. Yeah, we're, we're doubling down versus a retraction mode at this point, aren't we? Well, Terry, yeah, we are. And you're a very important part of the whole process because I'm not much of a talker most of the time. And this whole podcast would probably last about 10 minutes each week. If it wasn't for Terry to prod me with, you know, little, I don't know what you want to call a little prod to keep me. I get it. That's it. That's a phrase. If he wasn't continually teeing me up, it wouldn't last very long. So I hope it's a long time before we have to worry about it. If you guys keep supporting us, we'll keep going. So all right. Next question's up. This one comes from Gabe Shive from Mary in Iowa. I says, Hi, Don and Terry. Been listening to your podcast since my mentor recommended and have always found it insightful as well as enjoyable. I'm a new hunter and a 3D printer. Don's troubles with his new truck and its seat belt warning made me think Don needs one of these seat belt warning suppression devices. And then he gives a link, website link, that got me to thinking even with the vast majority of hunting sales still being turnkey products, more and more custom design products are reaching the market as the technology enables faster and less expensive design to build. Not mention these products are often designed and built by common hunters, not some corporation. My question is, what is your favorite most essential piece of custom hunting gear you've either made or had made for yourself? Well, that's easy for me, Gabe. And I've carried this item for probably pushing 15 years now. And that's a camera arm that I had made. Had a prototype made. Actually, real world was going to market the thing at one time. We even met with the real tree camo way back in the day. And the one that I've got was actually dipped in real tree camo. We were going to sell a camo version and other profit margins and such were just not there. The sales would probably be limited to, you know, at most a few hundred items each year, which didn't make it feasible to invest that kind of money in it. But I'm still using the prototype of that camera arm from about 15 years ago and even custom designed some holders that you screw into the tree that holds that camera arm. So I was using easy climb tree steps as the base that screws into the tree. And I took those easy climb steps to a local welding fabrication shop and had them customized. And then this camera arm slide tried onto that. And I've outfitted it, you know, with the actual head that the camera arm had. And I still use that to this day. And I know there's a lot of good camera arms out there. But I don't know, for whatever reason, I like this one that I designed and came up with, I don't know, 12, 15 years ago, whatever it was now. And I'm still using it to this day. Well, we have a we have a friend. Well, I consider him a friend on easy climb tree steps. If you want to look him up on the internet, he's a podcaster listener. We're not no business affiliation with him. He has this proprietary design of a thread. And if you use screw in tree steps for anything, and I know they're not as popular as what they used to be. But I'm telling you the thread and how this thing feeds into a tree. And he's got steps, hammer mounts for trail cameras. He's got a whole different product line. But this proprietary, I've actually looked at the thread because when with me being in manufacturing, he was looking for a machine to machine the threads. So I've seen, you know, some of the sectional drawings of it, it's genius. But I'm telling you the struggles that you have bear hug in a tree with one arm and trying to screw a step in with these things are they're phenomenal. So a good friend of Don and I, but I met him through you. He's in North Carolina, South Carolina. I think he's North Carolina. Dennis Hartsell. Yeah. He's North Carolina. Yeah, North Carolina. But yeah, you modified those to make it. Yeah, it's, it's funny how all of us kind of hodgepodge together for little things. I mean, that's how Joe Miles even got started with Osseo. He found a gap. That's how we got started with real world. A lot of the products in the hunting industry were exactly what Gabe said. It was a hunter that needed something a little bit different. And then infinitely, unfortunately, what happens is the conglomerates come in and buy it up. And then now they're under Plano synergy or one of these other big companies. So that's how a lot of the products in the outdoor industry came to be to be. Yep. And there'll be a lot more coming that way. It's the guys in the field that come up with the ideas for the best products. I mean, the manufacturers may have ideas and they may have a design team or whatever. But it's the guys in the field that come up with the best ideas. Yep. Next one comes from Jason Hesselberg from Manchester, Michigan. I says, Don and Terry, thank you for the great information and help you give all of us hunters. Last year, you called your shot on Babe. And what a great story and fun it was to follow along on the White Tail Master Academy chasing 200 series as you made your plan of attack. My question is, are you going to make any bold predictions this year and call your shot again? If you don't plan on taking any deer from your farm this year, because they are only four year olds, are you going to make any predictions on scoring the bigger ones on your farm? Jason, right now, everything is so up in the year. I'm not in a position to make any predictions at all. I know of four bucks off of my farm on permission properties that are potentially shooters. I say that potentially I did in the last few days, I did get a glimpse of one of those through a spotting scope. And I'm a little bit disappointed in what I've seen in that one. I think he's going to be a nice buck. Don't get me wrong. I think he'll be in that 170 inch range, just based on what I see at this point. I was hoping that buck would push 180 inches. But and he may, but he's got some things going for him, but he's also got some things working against him. His brows aren't that great. And he's got average brows, but he doesn't gain much through his brow time. So he's got long main beams. He's only a mainframe five by five buck with no stickers whatsoever. And for a 10 pointer to score 180, that's a giant 10. I think he can hit 170. I think he would have been close to it the last two years actually. That buck is at least six years old this year and he's probably seven based on the history that I have with him. The other three, you know, I've not laid eyes on, obviously, and I don't have my cameras out yet. So I have no idea what those three will be. And then I got the oldest buck on my farm is going to be five, five and a half this fall. The oldest good one anyway, there'll be some cold bucks that may be older than that, but the the oldest good buck is going to be five and a half. And I mean, he's going to have to be really, really good for me to target him. I tipped it. I don't go to six. But as Terry and I talked a week or so ago, maybe it was two weeks ago about this great antler growing season we've got, we got to really take that into consideration because we're probably not going to have two of these seasons back to back antler growing seasons. Do you pass a buck that's right there on the verge of being what you want? Knowing that next year he could very easily lose inches. So I got to take that into consideration. If you'd ask this question more towards the end of August 1st of September, I could probably have a better answer. But right now that there's no plans to stick my foot in my mouth and make a prediction. Not on this topic anyway. We'll figure out another way to do that. I'm sure I'll I'd do that on every podcast, but not on a prediction anyway. The good news is is the same topic we cover every summer. So even though he asked a question in this episode, we'll be covering it later in the summer anyway. So it'll definitely be stuff we talk about as we move through the year and document everything. All right. All right. The next one comes from Kendall Yoder from Uniontown, Ohio says, "Dear Don and Terry, thanks for sharing your knowledge of deer hunting in your faith. Recently I tried your real world NutriCrave mineral block and the first night it was out the coons pounded it. So I was wondering how you guys put it out without coons eating it." Well Kendall, you know the coon issue is going to be an issue no matter what. I mean you could have you're talking NutriCrave deer blocks, but you could have a feeder. You could have a feeder with corn in it and you're going to have the coon problem. You got to address the problem. Not to not look for some solution that's not there. The problem is the coons, you're going to have to control the coon population. There's a dozen ways to do that. I'm not going to get into each one of them. I'll let you handle that so I don't stick my foot in my mouth there. But you got to deal with the coons because no matter what you try, you can plant a field of NutriCrave corn and the coons can destroy it. You can put corn in a feeder. The coons are going to destroy. You got to address the problem. The problem is the coons. One thing that I would point out though is you know when we started the NutriCrave deer block earlier this year in January, the manufacture, I don't know if I told this story on here before or not. But I'm going to tell it again if I did. I was copied on an an email, an interior in the company email that I should not have been copied on by this company that makes our blocks. And one person said to the other, are these people even going to buy any deer blocks? This is back when we was working on the formulation for this block. And the one guy says the other we are these people even going to buy any deer blocks. And the other guy says, well, I know they're going to buy at least one semi load. And so they continued working with us. Well, we are already on our sixth semi load. We sold two semi loads the first 30 days. We are on our sixth semi load right now in basically the sixth month of the year. Those blocks we have yet to have one negative comment about those deer blocks, not one negative comment. In fact, we heard at a show last winter, one guy said that his deer like him so well, he's got him, he puts him out in his backyard. He's in a state where it's legal to do that. But he said the other day I went out and I put another block out. I'm like, I don't know if he has a long stump or something in his backyard. He says, I walked out in the yard, I put this block out. And he says, I walked back in the house, took my coat off, came into the house and looked out the window and the deer were already on that block as soon as I within minutes of me putting it out. And we've got all kinds of comments like that. So appreciate your comment and you and those blocks of try. But you're on your own with those tunes. You got to get rid of the coos. I got a couple comments to make. We have gotten a couple negative comments. People have made them negatives, but they're really not. They say the deer eat them too fast. And that's what we want. We want consumption. This isn't a mineral block that like a salt block that you lick. Part of this is an easy way to get nutrition into a deer's body. So yes, we want consumption. We want attraction. There was a there was a kind of a twist to this. My buddy Brandon Epperson took one up to Ohio and he said that he actually had two coons carry one off out of frame of the camera. And I was like, that's crazy. I don't believe you. And sure enough, he showed me the picture of it. And then I have seen to where people have said that we had so much rain earlier in the year, that you know, it dissolved some of the feeds since it's a feed-based product. So our good friend Jeremy Schluter out at Phillip Seed Farm out in Kansas. I'm not sure the name Brandon, but while we're talking, but I'm going to put a picture up when I put this in post-production. He has a box that he reps with one of his products and I ordered one, but I'm not allowed to feed yet in Kentucky. So I haven't tried it yet. But you put it on a fence post or a tree. It's metal box and it has access to it. And it would keep anything from carrying it off, but it's covered on the top. But Don, the cool thing about it is, it's like the toilet paper dispenser at the restaurants or whatever where it's got the double stacked roll. You can put two blocks in it and they eat out of the bottom. And when that one's gone, another block falls down. So it keeps you from going in as often, but it keeps a lot of water off of it. So I'll put that link up here. I have not tried the product. I called Jeremy or emailed Jeremy the day after I saw them post this with a NutriCrave block and said, "I got to try this." And it's sitting in my garage. I think Brandon's going to take one up to Ohio the next time he's up there, but I'll put that up there with a link to it. Try it. I have an experiment with it yet. The idiots in my DNR in the state of Kentucky still don't let us feed until a little bit later out in the year. So we'll know soon enough whether I like to use some or not. Well, I can't feed it all in my liberal state of Illinois, but to reiterate something you said Terry, these blocks are not like a mineral block. So when a deer consumes mineral, a lot of times they don't consume it every day. They consume and they consume just a tiny bit at a time. With these blocks, yeah, it's got mineral in it and it's got to expect healthy deer technology in it. But they're designed to draw deer in front of a trail camera or into a stand site in a bait state. They're designed to make that deer come back day after day after day, maybe multiple times a day so that you can get a picture of them or if you're hunting, you know, get them in front of your stand. If that's the only complaint that we have is the deer eat them too fast. We're doing a pretty good job in my opinion. But yeah, check out that box and I'll leave Phillip seed farms contact. I'm sure that you can buy. It's just they wrap the product. That's the only people I knew that that sell them, but they they FedExed one or UPS one to me the next day. So I'm excited to try and get it up off the ground and and hopefully not have the water dissolve it quite as much. So, yep, we'll see how it works as we go through later in the year. The next one comes from Ben Sweeney from Walk on Iowa. It says, "Hey, Don, a few episodes ago, you mentioned the potted trees that you had to remove that you planted on a property that you purchased and the deal fell through or something changed. You elaborate on what happened since maybe it would help us a lot to take from it." Thanks. Yeah, an interesting story, actually, so I bought a 40 acre property, went on on X. I was in the market for a property at the time. I went on on X and I was looking for various properties that I think could set up well, you know, could be developed and hold mature bucks with that buck having a good chance of surviving to older age classes. And that's the key to any property is it's got to be, it's got to lay out in such a way that you can move your bucks to older age classes. If you got people sitting in the fence on all four sides, you might as well forget it. It doesn't matter if it's 500 acres. If you got people sitting on all sides, you're going to have a very difficult time getting a lot of bucks to older age classes. So I found some properties and I reached out to a number of landowners and there was one property that was on the on-ax it showed that the address is being an elderly lady in another state. And so I sent her a letter, asked her about buying the property and they made her an offer in that first letter, so much per acre. As she agreed, she accepted. I sent her a contract, a sales contract, just a sign on the purchase. Part of the agreement was I was going to handle the title work paying for that and everything and I would do the leg work on getting that done. And then I sent her a earnest money check or deposit on that property in the state of Illinois for a real estate contract to be binding. There has to be some consideration given to the seller. In other words, you have to put some money down for that contract to be binding. This is just some advice for anyone out there trying to purchase a property, a contract in itself without you putting money down is worthless in the state of Illinois. I don't know how other states are, but just something to keep in mind. So anyway, I did all that. Then I took the information to the local title company to get the title work done so we could close on the sale and I later received a message from the title company that the elderly lady who I had the contract with was not able, not in a position to be selling the property. Now the property was in her name, had her address and everything for the taxes and whatever, but that property had been left by her father to her kids. So her father left it to his grandkids, which was her kids. She got the proceeds from the farm for as long as she's alive, actually her kids are the owners. Well, either one or both of her kids did not want to sell. And in order for the sale to happen, the title company says you're going to need to get both of her kids to sign off on this. So they didn't want to do that. And I totally understand. Time to find out. Actually, I ended up talking to her daughter a time or two and shared some emails. Our daughter was just a fantastic person to deal with. They explained to me that her mother was up in years and had a little bit of dementia and such and they didn't really want to sell the property, said if they ever did in the future, they would definitely keep me in mind and give me a chance. But that's how it fell apart. The land was in some sort of a trust to her kids, and she was not in a position to sell that. And there was no way for me to know that as the buyer until the title company started doing their search. Basically, when I had the signed contract in hand, you started flying and doing work. Yeah, it got into the fall and it was time that it was a perfect time for planting trees. And so I went ahead and I started some fall work. Actually, I put a lot of hours in on that farm, getting a rolling, but then it fell through. So the following spring, I had to come back in and dig up all those trees that I had just planted the fall before. So that's kind of how it went down. It's nothing that I could have foreseen. This elderly lady, you know, she just wasn't of the mind to basically know the details of the of the trust that that land was in. And there's no hard feelings towards that family whatsoever. Again, her daughter that I talked with and dealt with was absolutely fantastic person. And you wouldn't totally work with me. You got my deposit back and no problem whatsoever there. And you wouldn't have wanted to take advantage of her or the situation anyway. I mean, it was right. A lot of times, some of the properties that we look at and go after aren't even on the market. I know West deluxe the Higgins 2.0 property in Indiana. That was not on the market. It was, you know, you study and you look for the type of property you were looking for. It's so specific that it's sometimes not on the market. But I think this is a good time to remind people that our new partner of the podcast Mid West Land Group and Brian Kraft, real estate questions, we need to get him on the show. But we want to do it on the time where specific questions for real estate or straights, anything. This guy has been a very, very successful business person and real estate agent for a lot of years. So submit those questions. We want to make an episode where we have Brian on to talk deer hunting because this guy kills some giants to talk about deer hunting. But then also talk a little bit about real estate and what Mid West Land Group can probably offer you. So please submit those questions on the Higgins Outdoors Chasing Giants podcast website. With that, Don, I think that's, do we have one more? Yeah, we got one more question. We'll get that done. We'll wrap up the show. The last one comes from Jason Yoder from Hutchinson, Kansas. Says, "I enjoy listening to your podcast and all you do for the Whitetail Hunter. Question on concealment for access or visual barriers alum. Barricades I currently have Miscanthus planted and I have a barricade fence that splits two foot food plots with a blind at the end of the barricade. And I am either going to plant Miscanthus along the fence or I am pondering about fast growing arborvida trees. I like the idea of an evergreen row, but I never recall hearing you all talk about an arborvida trees. Am I missing something on a reason you wouldn't recommend arborvida for screening? God bless." Yeah, Jason, there's a reason you never heard me talk about arborvidas and they're basically a, I've seen them use on multiple properties by lots of different people and most of the time they are planted in a situation where they are not conducive to doing well. So an arborvida is basically a white cedar. They use them a lot in landscape. They've got them in different shapes. There's the globe arborvida which is perfectly round and there's just all kinds of different shapes. The arborvida grows in like the cedar swamps in Upper Michigan. That's the native area for an arborvida or the white cedar. It's the one that the deer, when they yard up up north and they go to the cedar swamps and yard up for the winter, they live on the needles which are really not even a needle. It's kind of hard to describe but if you know what an arborvida is you totally understand but they live on those trees in the wintertime up there in the cedar swamps. Well, when you plant those in a situation where white cedars or arborvidas are not native, the deer just devour them. They'll eat them down to the trunk. There's nothing left. And if you waste your money on trying to plant an arborvida screen, what you're going to find is you're going to have no screening whatsoever up as high as the deer can reach because they're going to eat every needle off of that tree up to about five, six feet. I know of several instances where I've drove through like divisions that have wooded surroundings where there's deer basically in the subdivisions and people have planted arborvidas in their landscape or their yard and there's no needles on the bottom half of that tree because the deer come and they eat them right up even in the people's landscaping right next to their house. You never want to plant arborvidas for deer habitat. The deer are going to just devour them. That's one to stay away from. You would have absolutely no screen whatsoever if you planted arborvidas. And especially you're in Kansas. That's the last place that an arborvida is going to do good. I mean, that's the big difference between a red cedar and a white cedar. Now a red cedar is going to do as you know, it's going to do fantastic in Kansas, but a white cedar is just totally out of its element. Yeah, if he wanted something quick, I think Hutchinson is northwest of which it's all, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, I believe I might be wrong with that. But if he wanted something quick along along that barrier, get you a tree spade and go around across the pastures and find you a bunch of cedars and transplant a bunch of cedars real close together and let them grow up. Otherwise, I would use mosquitoes. But I don't, I like using mosquitoes right next to the barrier on a food source for for one specific reason. It's that all of these trees, they get. So you take up valuable space of food and most of the places that I do plans that is not out in the Midwest where you got unlimited space for food plots. You know, we're trying to shoehorn as much every square foot of food is important in a plan. And I just don't want to give up the real estate of a tree when it comes to a screen with with cedars or pine trees. I want as narrow of a footprint as I can so I can put food right next to it. There is absolutely, positively, no better screen than mosquitoes. I see on the on social media people trying to promote other stuff has great screen and better screen. There is no better screen than mosquitoes. There's nothing no annual you can plant. It's going to fall down. It's not going to do near the screen. There's no tree you can plant. I don't care what kind of tree you plant. There's going to be a holes through that vegetation and that tree that you can see right through. There is absolutely no better screen than mosquitoes. Period. Yeah, it's just, you know, even even the people that say you switchgrass, you would have to have such a wide block of switchgrass for it to be sustainable. You know, a three, four yard strip of switchgrass is not going to stand. It needs a lot of it to stand, you know, in a big block. So I just anytime I have a barricade that needs a screen on it. Yeah, I mean, you could go transplant cedars. You could stack cedars. You could stack logs. You could do a lot of things, but Miskantus is just a way to go as long as you got sunlight. If you can grow corn there, you can grow Miskantus. That's your best shot. Well, when you start comparing Miskantus to switchgrass, here's two big advantages. Number one, your Miskantus is going to be twice as tall. Well, actually, I can take three. Miskantus is going to be twice as tall. Miskantus is going to have way better standability and you can get better screening in a fraction of the width, as you mentioned, Terry. So there's three big advantages that Miskantus has over switchgrass. Yep, absolutely. All right. Well, we got work to do. You're going to go work on a food plot. I'm probably going to go spray a couple acres of food plot. I got a feeling that this dry weather has the weeds popping hard and the soybeans a little bit stagnant. So I don't want those hog weeds taking control and getting mature. So even at the risk of having to spray twice, I'm probably going to spray this weekend and then get ready for we're getting close to the end of July and preparing. We had a lot of good feedback about the release of our batteries. We've started the preliminary process of getting those on the website. Watch our social media. Make sure that you sign up for the mailing list on real world's website. We'll do email blasts when we have all of that done and hopefully you can get in time to get that trail camera deployment out and save some money on your lithium batteries this summer. Yeah, those batteries that we're going to have available, we're hoping to have them by July 1st. Not sure that's going to happen, but that's the plan. I can tell you though that that first order that we've got, we've already placed our second order and the second order is twice as big as our first order. The feedback we've gotten has been fantastic. So if you're wanting to buy those batteries, be looking for our social media posts and you better order the day that it goes up because they're going to sell out first batch, it's going to sell out in a hurry. It's one of those things that we're very thankful that we have inventory control systems on our website because this is one of those products that will hit and we could sell more than what we have inventory for. So if the website says that we are out, we're waiting on our second shipment. So your best thing to do is watch our social media, real world social media. Don and I will for sure share everything on the podcast and on our social media. But you can also sign up for a real world newsletter where we do an email blast and we'll keep everybody updated as we go and know more about this. But we saw the pricing this week and it's it's very aggressive pricing. It's going to save people a lot of money and and have the same capability. So I'm really excited to offer that for people. Real world will have the best prices for lithium batteries that I could find on the internet anywhere. And I've searched about three different times in extensive search. I'd sit there for an hour and a half looking for double a lithium batteries. We will have the best price on the internet. Hopefully that's a blessing to all of you all to help save a little bit of money, invest in something else or do something good with it. But yeah, we appreciate everybody's help. Thanks for the positive feedback. My my first week on my new job was last week. I start my second week the day after this airs and I appreciate the support of everybody so much. It means means a lot. God has opened up and blessed us more than I could have ever imagined. And I think the same way about real world and chasing giants. It's everything's blowing up, man. It's it's exciting. Yeah, and before Terry and I started the recording, we was talking about Lester's feet. And you know, Lester's feet has not had any advertising done whatsoever other than this podcast. It started on this podcast. And that's all we've done is mentioned on the podcast. And it is unbelievable how much you guys have contributed. And 100% of that has gone back to folks who needed to help. It's in the millions of dollars now. I don't know the figure Terry probably doesn't want to say, but it's literally in the millions of dollars that you guys have helped other families in need when we sure appreciate that. It's it's pretty cool. We even got a church in Indiana that's having a vacation Bible school in July. And the the kids vacation Bible school were the mission for the kids vacation Bible school. So we got I think I think maybe Austin and maybe Dan two of the board members are going to go down and talk to the kids about what we do at Lester's feet. And hang out with the kids for for an evening of vacation Bible school. But yeah, I mean, it's it's pretty cool that we can teach our kids servant leadership with lessons like this and just be an extension to connect folks that need help. It's quite humbling, quite an honor. But yeah, I mean, we don't actually believe it or not, our website is down right now. So we have no media presence out there at all. It's not my intention. We got a problem with it. But the only extension of this is word of mouth through all of you listeners. So if you know of a family that needs help in your community and your church, just remember kind of the criteria. The general fund is if there is a child that is sick or injured or the parents have a reduced income or no income while they're taking care of them, we step in and help cover those bills for the family. And there is also the Andrea Hamilton fund, which is for families who are navigating the Battle of breast cancer. And we come in and help those families as well through that fund. And if you have any suggestions or people in your community or church that are in those two situations, three chats us, we'd love to talk to them. We have a great group of volunteers that that work with families very well. We're quite honored. So anyway, help you guys all have a great week. God bless. Take care. Chasing Giants have been brought to you by Osceo Camo by a farm real estate company. 360 hunting blinds, Victory Chevrolet, real world wildlife products, Matthews Archery, Novik's Tree Stales, Gingrich Tree Farm, Wildlife Farming.com, Quiet Cat and Vortex Optics. Thanks for listening and tune in next week for another episode of Chasing Giants.