History of Deer and Turkey in Tennessee

[Harold Money jr]

The thread on the Tennessee Archery record buck reminded me of the story the old gentleman told me. He said it was like the year after the game and fish commission brought in a bunch of deer from Wisconsin.
This was basically a northern deer just in Tennessee for a short while.
I can't wrap my mind around there not being any deer to speak of at all in Tennessee. My question is, was there a lot of deer here and settlers killed em all out or were there really not as many as today. It seems to me several states including ours has tried to really eliminate large numbers of deer and we're not too successful as hunters at the elimination part. It just puzzles me that the lack of good transportation and quality firearms would lead to several large pockets where deer and turkeys could have survived. Is there a good book on the story? I'd love to hear what y'all know.

 

[BSK]

Deer existed in isolated pockets across TN, but by and large, deer had been eradicated from TN. However, it was not settlers/subsistence hunters who did that. It was market hunters, and most importantly, the invention of the refrigerated boxcar. At the time, almost all meat sold in stores was wild game. It was perfectly legal to sell wild deer, fish, bird meat in stores, and market hunters made their living killing/catching wild game and selling it to the resellers. This greatly harmed the wild game populations, but what really wiped them out was the invention of the refrigerated boxcar. Once these were available, deer from the Midwest and Southeast could be shipped to the big cities of the East Coast. THAT is what destroyed the wildlife populations of the Eastern U.S.

I have seen copies of the rail shipping manifests where MILLIONS of deer carcasses are being shipped from the Midwest to New York, Boston, Philadelphia, etc. via refrigerated boxcar.

Now where deer populations are compared to the past is a tricky situation. Before Europeans first arrived in North America, the native people did a lot of habitat enhancement through fire that would have allowed a very high deer density. However, after De Soto's visit to the Southeast, smallpox swept the entire Americas, possibly killing 95% of the native populations. The societal breakdown and lack of population allowed the Southeastern U.S. to revert back to climax hardwood forests instead of the oak/pine savannahs they had been before De Soto, and climax hardwood forests support very, very few deer.

 

[BSK]

What saved the deer populations was the development of sport hunting. It was sport hunters who demanded the end to market hunting (making it illegal to sell wild game meat), and their demand for seasons and bag limits that helped bring back wildlife. That and the demand by sport hunters for states to develop and implement state wildlife agencies tasked with restoring wild game populations.

 

[Iglow]

I can't wrap my mind around there not being any deer to speak of at all in Tennessee.

Boy, I sure can!
Tomorrow will be my 49th consecutive opening day. My dad started taking me and my brother in 1974, I didn't see a deer till 1975 and killed my first buck on Thanksgiving morning 1977 and it was the only deer I saw that season. It was a big deal at school that I had got one. That was in Cheatham Co. which was one of the better counties in that time.
Friends my age are just astounded at the places and numbers of deer these days. We've said many times that if someone said back then that one day deer would be living in subdivisions in Davidson Co and you would be able to legally shoot a doe we would have thought they were nuts or just making a joke.

As for turkeys, they were some exotic animal that lived far away like elephants or tigers, the thought of turkey hunting was nothing more than some story in Outdoor Life or Field and Stream.

 

[BSK]

As for turkeys, they were some exotic animal that lived far away like elephants or tigers, the thought of turkey hunting was nothing more than some story in Outdoor Life or Field and Stream.

I grew up hunting in southern KY, and we didn't have turkey. But the first time I hunted my current TN property (1987), I was bow-hunting and suddenly a whole group of the biggest birds I had ever seen came ambling through. For the life of me I couldn't figure out why buzzards were walking in a big group through the woods. Took me a while to realize they were turkey. I had never seen one before.

 

[knightrider]

The thread on the Tennessee Archery record buck reminded me of the story the old gentleman told me. He said it was like the year after the game and fish commission brought in a bunch of deer from Wisconsin.
This was basically a northern deer just in Tennessee for a short while.
I can't wrap my mind around there not being any deer to speak of at all in Tennessee. My question is, was there a lot of deer here and settlers killed em all out or were there really not as many as today. It seems to me several states including ours has tried to really eliminate large numbers of deer and we're not too successful as hunters at the elimination part. It just puzzles me that the lack of good transportation and quality firearms would lead to several large pockets where deer and turkeys could have survived. Is there a good book on the story? I'd love to hear what y'all know.

Take away rules, regulation, game laws, grocery stores and hand outs and see how fast the current population is shot out!

 

[BSK]

Take away rules, regulation, game laws, grocery stores and hand outs and see how fast the current population is shot out!

With our current human population, that is guaranteed. Even the Native Americans quickly knocked out local deer populations. That's why they were nomadic. They quickly depleted the local resources and had to constantly move on to new areas while their current location rebuilt its wildlife population.

 

[Iglow]

It's not special like it was back then, we all hunted small game cause there wasn't any big game. Deer and hunting them were new, the seasons were short and the population low. It had a rarity surrounding it, not like today.
I've heard it said that if you saw one or sign like tracks , horn rubs etc it was something, it may sound corny now but it was true then. The first horn rub I ever saw in 1980 on a tree about big around as a golf ball, I went all the way back to the house and got a saw and cut it down to take it home for a keepsake.

 

[Biggun4214]

In the mid fifties estimated deer population of Tennessee was 5-6000 deer. Catoosa, Tellico, and Andrew Johnson were the main areas of population. It wasn't until the late sixties/early seventies that deer were stocked in the western half of the state. Biologists didn't think deer would do well in the agricultural areas.

 

[Biggun4214]

It's not special like it was back then, we all hunted small game cause there wasn't any big game. Deer and hunting them were new, the seasons were short and the population low. It had a rarity surrounding it, not like today.
I've heard it said that if you saw one or sign like tracks , horn rubs etc it was something, it may sound corny now but it was true then. The first horn rub I ever saw in 1980 on a tree about big around as a golf ball, I went all the way back to the house and got a saw and cut it down to take it home for a keepsake.

In the mid seventies I came home and told my Dad I saw some deer tracks. He said someone's calf must have gotten out.

 

[killingtime 41]

for many years doe's we're off limits. Nobody would even consider shooting doe's years ago. We all thought of you want a bigger deer population can't kill the doe's. Not anymore with current populations. And with changes in management practices.

 

[Lost Lake]

I tagged along on my first deer hunt at age 9 in 1978 in Stewart county IIRC.

Seeing tracks was something to behold, much less seeing a deer. I remember the first one I saw hanging in my uncles barn in 1979, again, IIRC, as he butchered it, and I was so mesmerized that I couldn't move.

That's when my lifelong obsession/affliction started.

 

[DoubleRidge]

My best friends dad slowed down one day as we were driving in northern middle TN and he pointed to this small field and proceeded to tell us about the first deer he ever saw in his life...it was a big deal.

In my lifetime we've always had deer on our property...but I clearly remember the first two longbeards I ever saw on our place...I was deer hunting and it was before cell phones...couldnt wait to get home and call my friends.

 

[scn]

When I started working for the agency in 1977, the statewide deer kill was around 20,000. During our agency orientation, we spent a day with the wildlife division going over various biological programs. Larry Marcum was the deer project leader at the time (he later served for many years as the BEST Chief of Game the agency has had). Larry talked to us about the new-fangled computer model of the state's deer herd. He said the model showed that sometime in the coming years, the TN deer kill would peak at 75,000. My immediate thought was that guy must be smoking dope. I thought there was no way that we would ever kill that many deer.

In the next few years it was an all hands on deck with both biologists and officers to trap, dart, lasso (yes), etc deer in any way possible and relocate them across to state to restoration areas closed to legal hunting. A major part of officers jobs was to babysit them day or night. It seemed that a legal deer kill of 100 in a county represented the tipping point where the deer were there to stay. The "legal" kill in my county was 16 the year I started working. They normally kill 700-800 a year now.

The deer did not naturally recover in this state. It was a lot of very hard work by a bunch of folks that gave us what we sort of take for granted today.

 

[Snake]

I remember the very first place I leased in Giles Co . guy told me he remembered when they first stocked deer in Giles Co. in the 60's . He said the wasn't any deer there to speak of . Now the place is literally over run with deer. Great job .

 

[Iglow]

Opening day 1975 we went to Big Sandy and stayed in a fleabag room behind a diner there, that morning hunters were eating and drinking coffee, the cigarette smoke was thick from the brown ceiling to about shoulder level in there. Billy Swan and Freddie Fender was on the radio.
My dad left me on a low ridge top with a silver rayovac flashlight, some pop tarts and a marlin 30/30 and told me "don't shoot a doe and stay here till I come back to get you".
The sun came up and man it sounded like the battle for Berlin!!! I hunkered down after I heard a bullet make that fluttering sound as it ricocheted by. About 8 3 does came running up to within 30 yards and froze, then bolted off the ridge, those were the first deer I ever saw.

 

[DoubleRidge]

Opening day 1975 we went to Big Sandy and stayed in a fleabag room behind a diner there, that morning hunters were eating and drinking coffee, the cigarette smoke was thick from the brown ceiling to about shoulder level in there. Billy Swan and Freddie Fender was on the radio.
My dad left me on a low ridge top with a silver rayovac flashlight, some pop tarts and a marlin 30/30 and told me "don't shoot a doe and stay here till I come back to get you".
The sun came up and man it sounded like the battle for Berlin!!! I hunkered down after I heard a bullet make that fluttering sound as it ricocheted by. About 8 3 does came running up to within 30 yards and froze, then bolted off the ridge, those were the first deer I ever saw.

I absolutely love reading old hunting stories like that....thanks for sharing.

 

[DoubleRidge]

The deer did not naturally recover in this state. It was a lot of very hard work by a bunch of folks that gave us what we sort of take for granted today.

Thanks for the reminder of all the hard work that went into the restoration efforts....as I sit in my treestand "opening morning" I can truly say that I am thankful for all those that worked so hard to restore the deer and turkey in this state...I love to deer and turkey hunt and I appreciate the opportunity to do so.

 

[Biggun4214]

The first deer I saw was about 1963. It was an illegal doe that my Dad's youngest brother and another man killed in Pickett State Park. The second deer was a buck in January of 1966. My Dad and I were on our way to get my Mom and my new sister from the hospital. It crossed the road just after we had crossed Dale Hollow on what was once Hwy 42.

 

[Iglow]

The first deer I saw was about 1963. It was an illegal doe that my Dad's youngest brother and another man killed in Pickett State Park. The second deer was a buck in January of 1966. My Dad and I were on our way to get my Mom and my new sister from the hospital. It crossed the road just after we had crossed Dale Hollow on what was once Hwy 42.

Lotsa headless deer took truck rides back then.