One Minute Too Late… The Giant Buck That Got Away | EP 341

Deer season is officially here, and Chasing Giants is back with plenty to talk about.

Terry kicks off Episode 341 with an update from his first hunts of the 2026 Kentucky season, including a fascinating Western Kentucky property where years of habitat improvement, food plots, bedding cover and disciplined buck management are beginning to show major results.

Don and Terry discuss why buck management can have such a dramatic impact on a property—not because hunters are “changing genetics,” but because they can influence which bucks are allowed to reach older age classes.

They also talk about last-minute food plot work, overseeding standing corn and soybeans, hairy vetch, cereal grains, miscanthus screens and preparing properties for the heart of deer season.

Then the conversation takes a turn.

Don is going old school.

His grandson Walker has developed an interest in trapping, and Don is pulling out knowledge and equipment from a part of his outdoor life that predates his obsession with giant whitetails. Their goal includes catching 50 raccoons and eventually pursuing the different Illinois furbearers together.

From there, Terry brings up a fascinating debate happening in another outdoor industry: forward-facing sonar in fishing.

It raises a much bigger question:

What happens when technology becomes so effective that the younger generation experiences hunting and fishing completely differently than the generation before them?

Trail cameras. Cell cameras. Drones. Forward-facing sonar.

Where is the line between using technology and losing the skills that originally defined the outdoors?