My first year deer hunting was '79, in KY (Logan County). At that time, gun season was two 3-day weekends (Sat-Mon)- first weekend of November and first weekend of December.
Although I was taken deer hunting in earlier years, it was 1971 when I killed my first deer. The next year, I killed my first one with a bow. There was no muzzleloader season segment, around half TN's counties had no deer season at all, and we had a 1-buck limit in TN in the counties allowing deer hunting. There was also no "juvenile" season segment.
I think it was at about this time (1971) we went to a 2-buck limit, for a while, then it was crazily jacked up to as many as 11 bucks annually if you did archery, muzzleloader, and rifle. The muzzleloader season segment began sometime around the early 1980's. I didn't start participating until 1985.
Also, the archery season segment flat ended on October 31st, and deer season was simply "closed" in between archery & muzzleloader. We also had no deer season during much of December, until what was then called the "2nd segment" gun season became an option the week of Christmas, with the season then closing for good on January 1st. Kinda made Christmas week a more magical time. For me, each day began with deer hunting, then the middle of the day was for quail hunting over some really good "bird" dogs. Fun times.
In 1998, the 11-buck limit ended, and we went back to a 2-buck limit.
Later 3, and now back to 2, which seems a reasonable compromise between quantity & quality.
One thing I do miss about my younger days of hunting:
More people were
HUNTERS, who enjoyed more hunting of a variety of game.
THIS is what I believe contributed more people becoming lifetime hunters.
Expanding deer seasons, with the unintended consequence of reducing small-game hunting,
may have done more harm than good to the future of hunting.