TN Deer Population

[TN G.O.A.T Hunter]

Your experience is not unusual.
The simple reason is simply because there aren't that many bucks in TN with 140-plus class antlers.

However, sometimes it may appear there's more than there's actually not.
Let's say you see a 140-class buck periodically on your property.
There may be a dozen other property owners within a couple miles of you, also seeing that same buck on their property.

There are typically two (or more) "seasonal" range shifts where the deer move their core areas commonly 1/2 to 2 miles. Then, during the rut, the bucks frequently roam nightly or daily over 2 linear miles, maybe making a large circle (encompassing thousands of acres) about every 48 hours.

We as landowners & hunters may "like" to think "our" bucks spend most their time just on "our" property. I've found this to be the opposite of reality, even on some very large tracts of land.

But as BSK will tell you, it's always site specific, and unique factors can & do exist. I'm mainly talking about free-ranging rural farmland & wilderness type area deer. Urban deer may have much smaller ranges and do much less range shifting.

By the way, Ft. Campbell is mostly in Kentucky, the "Fort" being surrounded mostly on 3 sides by a statewide 1-buck limit. Then, Ft. Campbell itself has a 1-buck limit coupled with more limited buck hunting than the surrounding areas in either TN or KY. We "should" see more larger antlered bucks within Ft. Campbell than on most private properties in TN. Ft. Campbell also contains some of the best soils in KY or TN along with great deer habitat.

LBL seems to old alot of mature

Depends on your definition of "improvements".


The short answer (in Tennessee) is nothing.
For nearly all of TN, no matter what you do (with free range deer herds here) you are not going to have many bucks gross over 150 no matter how long they live.

Look at the 18,000 acre Ames Plantation.
After decades of really good deer & trophy buck management,
how many bucks over 150 were killed?
Can they be counted on one hand or two hands?


Whether TN hunters want to believe this or not, this remains the reality of free-roaming TN deer herds. Again, look at the Ames Plantation, where there is lots of agricultural fields, great habitat overall, and above average soils for TN.

Personally, I've been involved with deer management now on thousands of acres for decades (most particularly in Stewart Co., TN). No matter how much someone may want to convince you otherwise, you cannot get blood from a turnip. And you need, imo, at least 5,000 contiguous acres under "trophy" buck management to prevent mostly your neighbors from reaping the benefits of your intense management. Rutting bucks are going to roam, and even with 5,000 contiguous acres, "your" bucks may spend more of their time (during the rut) on other people's properties.


While I agree areas containing big agricultural fields may increase antler scores by 5 to 15 points (that's might turn an average 120-class MATURE buck into a 130-class one), your single best way to grow larger antlered older bucks is simply do not kill your largest antlered 2 1/2 & 3 1/2-yr-old bucks!

What we're talking about is letting a 115-130-class 2 1/2 to 3 1/2-yr-old buck "walk". While a few hunters can & do regularly do this, it's a very tall order for most hunters. This is in part because these young bucks (with above average antler genetics) have antler APPEARING much larger than their reality. This is due to the bucks not being old enough to have completely grown their skeletal systems (i.e. small bodies make average antlers appear larger).

Consequently, hunters' antler high grading becomes the #1 obstacle to producing more larger antlered mature bucks. You may personally stop shooting your best stock, but it's usually unreasonable to expect all the other hunters within 5 miles of your hunting area to do this as well. And it only takes one other hunter a couple or 3 miles away to kill a particular promising young buck you and your friends may have let walk.

Cades Cove holds a lot of mature bucks in East TN

 

[backyardtndeer]

what do you think we could do to have bigger bucks or see bucks like 160 class more

Age helps a lot, but some places just don't have the soil and genetics for "big" bucks.

Would help me out a lot, if there weren't so many different people hunting on top of my small farm. Sucks when a neighboring landowner has close to 100 acres of ag crops, but rather than hunt a mile away by those crops, they come to within feet of my line where i have small plots.

 

[BSK]

That's what I have seen in my area, but on occasion I will see older deer down along yellow creek that never seem to venture out during the day. When I purchased my small plot, I seen a few large antlered deer crossing onto my property, but never captured one on camera so they must have traveled along the gasline between properties. Fort Campbell will sometimes get large deer, but as you said, it's the exception not the rule.

Fort Campbell is venturing into KY-type soils. Different world.

 

[TN G.O.A.T Hunter]

Fort Campbell is venturing into KY-type soils. Different world.

What's so different

 

[BSK]

What about mature, not score wise could anything change or be done to have more mature deer on landscape. 4-6 yr olds

After having conducted camera censuses in a lot of areas across the Southeast, I can tell you that around 10% of all bucks being mature (4 1/2+) is about as good as is realistically possible. The only time I see it higher is on very large, well-managed properties, but even then we're only talking about 12-13%. The unfortunate truth is that you cannot stockpile mature bucks. They just don't live long enough in many environments (too much fighting and stress around the rut).

 

[BSK]

What's so different

Quality of the soil (nutrient content, acidity, etc.), and what plants are growing in that soil.

 

[TN G.O.A.T Hunter]

Quality of the soil (nutrient content, acidity, etc.), and what plants are growing in that soil.

After having conducted camera censuses in a lot of areas across the Southeast, I can tell you that around 10% of all bucks being mature (4 1/2+) is about as good as is realistically possible. The only time I see it higher is on very large, well-managed properties, but even then we're only talking about 12-13%. The unfortunate truth is that you cannot stockpile mature bucks. They just don't live long enough in many environments (too much fighting and stress around the rut).

do you think amount of hunters plays a role as well, or TN having really long gun season? Seems like yrs ago when season in TN was mostly bow season there was a lot more older class deer killed in my area, don't have any data on that just from memory seemed that way.

 

[TheLBLman]

Quality of the soil (nutrient content, acidity, etc.), and what plants are growing in that soil.

And much of central & western Kentucky goes well beyond just their soils being better than Tennessee's. I believe they have more of the acreage in agricultural crops, and the crop yields in KY are higher per acre (i.e. more deer food).

I also believe there is less hunter antler high-grading in KY vs TN. This might be more due to a short gun season with a 1-buck limit than any difference in the deer hunters themselves.

 

[TN G.O.A.T Hunter]

And much of central & western Kentucky goes well beyond just their soils being better than Tennessee's. I believe they have more of the acreage in agricultural crops, and the crop yields in KY are higher per acre (i.e. more deer food).

I also believe there is less hunter antler high-grading in KY vs TN. This might be more due to a short gun season with a 1-buck limit than any difference in the deer hunters themselves.

LBL seems to hold fair amount of mature deer. Its mostly mature timber wonder what helps that area

 

[BSK]

do you think amount of hunters plays a role as well, or TN having really long gun season?

Absolutely. Especially if some of the hunters are shooting anything decent, which often means the top-end 2 1/2 and 3 1/2-year-old bucks. THAT is the death knell of having big bucks in an area. You wouldn't believe how many high-dollar clubs I've worked with that don't have any top-scoring mature bucks. Why? The club members have gotten VERY good at picking off most of the good 10-point 3 1/2 year-old bucks - the very bucks that will be your top-end mature bucks.

Seems like yrs ago when season in TN was mostly bow season there was a lot more older class deer killed in my area, don't have any data on that just from memory seemed that way.

In the areas where I have the most data (from Nashville west to just beyond KY Lake), the buck age structure is the highest it's ever been.

 

[BSK]

LBL seems to hold fair amount of mature deer. Its mostly mature timber wonder what helps that area

Limited hunting. Anywhere where access and/or hunting days are limited is going to be an advantage. Quota hunts, as much of a pain as they are, help.

 

[TheLBLman]

LBL seems to hold fair amount of mature deer. Its mostly mature timber wonder what helps that area

"Helps" the LBL area in what way?
LBL has very little agricultural crops, and poor habitat compared to Ft. Campbell.
Yes, there are a few mature bucks there, but on average, antlers scoring less than 120 (my guess).
The deer population at LBL is also relatively low (at least currently).

That said, yes, LBL has produced several bucks over the years with antlers scoring 150-plus. They are the "outliers". But on a per acre basis, LBL doesn't even come close to what Ft. Campbell has produced over the years.

By the way, as my name may imply, I love LBL.
But my love for it has as much to do with history, heritage, and several other things.
Most accustomed to farmland & urban deer hunting may find LBL a tougher nut to crack,
as these deer are very "free roaming" and all the habitat (most any square mile) is more similar than different.

Except that the mountains are hills, LBL deer hunting is now somewhat akin to deer hunting in the Cherokee National Forest, i.e., relatively tough hunting, but more of a wilderness type experience than typical WMA's. You go for the totality of the experience, not just to kill a deer.

 

[Wrangler95]

Would you mind dropping off a few 160 class bucks?

I will take some also!!

 

[knightrider]

When you kill of score instead of age you get low end old bucks

 

[Omega]

Fort Campbell is venturing into KY-type soils. Different world.

Most of it is in TN, but it's close enough. I think much of it stems from the controlled access and areas where hunting is strictly prohibited, but that's just a WAG.

 

[MickThompson]

What's so different

Amount of agriculture, early successional habitat (summer forbs that grow antlers), and refuge, besides soil quality. 1/3 of Ft Campbell's 90,000 acres is in impact areas that are not hunted.

 

[Henry]

To answer the op's question on how the deer pop is doing: The 200 acres we bought had not been hunted for 6 years and the guy who passed away spent 15 years developing it for deer. My wife and I took two 8 point, 1 button buck, and 1 fork buck along with 2 mature doe. While mowing Thursday for about 3 hours, I saw two watching me when I mowed the path around the pond and 1 crossed from hay field to hay field in front of me while I was mowing the edges of the lane. My wife said she saw another deer watching me mowing from another area. There was a mom and twins and a mom with triplets from last summer survive hunting season so we were happy to see that.

I don't see it as an issue, but there is one change I've been told about and that is that the son of the farmer at the back of our property plans to do food plots. He asked to be on our property because "we want to know where the deer go and...". I said no because I was tired of being shot at. Quite frankly, I do not want to have people walking my property and messing up a good thing...I live here. So, now the cameras will need to monitor the property line back there. Hopefully they won't decide to go messing around in the buck living room out past the beaver dam in the lowlands.

One issue I do need to figure out is how to fix where the creek washed out land beside the culvert. We cannot drive to that field and would not be able to get a deer out. Hopefully this doesn't change how the deer move through the area, but it used to have a lot of deer prints there.

If I could figure out how to attach a video, any help would be appreciated (it's currently in VCL format), I would share what one of the trail cams took from one of our blinds on Jan 8. I think the herd is doing well here even while it's missing the 6 we took. This Fall we plan to watch a lot and shoot very little...plan to switch to bow.

You might be able to download the video?

 

[Henry]

It looks like you can download the video from my last post...it's entertaining when the middle one dances around a little when the one on the right walks into the picture.
I took a screen shot in case it can't be downloaded:

here's the same field in the daylight. It hasn't been planted for 2 years now. The previous owner put the clover band all the way around the field and we had it hayed after turkey eggs were supposed to have hatched.

mom and triplets that live on the property:

 

[mike243]

About the only thing we can do in eTn is close it to open hunts set a quota thats low , draw a hunt every 2-3 years and ya might get lucky to get 110" lol

 

[MickThompson]

what do you think we could do to have bigger bucks or see bucks like 160 class more

You could go to a 1 buck limit, statewide week long gun hunt, and move Tennessee to Illinois and the vast majority of hunters still would never see a 160" deer from the stand