What is wrong with East Tennessee?

[Okatoba]

I don't live there and haven't hunted there except a bear/hog hunt at Tellico last year but just a general feeling from what I read on here and what I saw in the woods last year, why is East Tn. so far behind the rest of the State in deer numbers? I know that Middle and West can support more deer per sq. mile but is it that much worse? Deer were never totally eradicated from there,and remained in pockets on the plateau and mtns. and a lot of stocking when on there in the restoration years. The stocking has been over for..what.. 20 years now? It's like the east is stuck in the 1970's deer number wise. On that bear hunt I was in the woods all day for 4 days in all kinda of places from clear cuts to big wood to laurel and rhododendron thickets on the creeks and never saw one deer track,horn rub or pile of poop,not 1. Every November I see trucks with Blount,Sevier, Louden Hawkins and other east side tags heading west through Wilson Co. Is it really as bad as it seems?

 

[bcartervol98]

Personally I think the deer have more places to get away from humans here and utilize the rugged terrain better than we can. I am from West Tennessee and always hunted the river bottoms on edges and fields. I could see 600-800 yards in many directions. There is more agriculture there so more inadvertent food plots. Here especially on public land all you have is the woods and they are thick. I hung up my gun for the season to small game hunt days off with my son the rest of season but in the spots I hunt I was lucky to have a 50 yard view and even at that not good shooting lanes.

 

[bigtex]

IMO the main reason is a lack of agriculture.
We do have pockets of ag in E Tn and where we do deer numbers are better.
Where I live there is no agriculture and deer rely solely on mast and browse. Last year and the year before we had virtually no mast. No mast = lower fawn recruitment.
This year we have hard mast aplenty.

 

[archer19]

Yes, your observations are correct. It is that bad.

I hunt in historically one of the 5 lowest kill counties in the state.
Sometimes you can go a week or more and never see a deer.
Tough hunting is an understatement.

 

[bcartervol98]

I logged over 80 hours on 11 hunts during gun season and the only deer of any type I saw was hit by the truck in front of me in Scott County. Back on the Miss River I can probably count on one hand how many deerless days I had. They might be does, or 600 yards away but I saw deer. Crazy to go almost an entire season in spots LOADED with signs and not see a deer 1.

 

[catman529]

Personally I think the deer have more places to get away from humans here and utilize the rugged terrain better than we can. I am from West Tennessee and always hunted the river bottoms on edges and fields. I could see 600-800 yards in many directions. There is more agriculture there so more inadvertent food plots. Here especially on public land all you have is the woods and they are thick. I hung up my gun for the season to small game hunt days off with my son the rest of season but in the spots I hunt I was lucky to have a 50 yard view and even at that not good shooting lanes.

it's not the thickets, I hunt tons if thick stuff here in mid tn and there are plenty of deer.

I don't like it when east tn trucks swarm the public land here and then I start finding carcasses with the heads cut off and no or little meat taken.


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[bcartervol98]

Personally I think the deer have more places to get away from humans here and utilize the rugged terrain better than we can. I am from West Tennessee and always hunted the river bottoms on edges and fields. I could see 600-800 yards in many directions. There is more agriculture there so more inadvertent food plots. Here especially on public land all you have is the woods and they are thick. I hung up my gun for the season to small game hunt days off with my son the rest of season but in the spots I hunt I was lucky to have a 50 yard view and even at that not good shooting lanes.

it's not the thickets, I hunt tons if thick stuff here in mid tn and there are plenty of deer.

I don't like it when east tn trucks swarm the public land here and then I start finding carcasses with the heads cut off and no or little meat taken.


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Yea I couldnt agree more. Poachers and those that willfully violate game laws do not understand how hard they make it on the rest of us. I think I am on a lease for next year that is supposed to be pretty good so I am hopeful about next season. As far as the rest of this season the squirrels are in trouble.

 

[TboneD]

I have no idea what's wrong with East TN, but like Catman said, we got all the thickets you can shake a stick at here in middle TN. Where I've been hunting here in Wilson County a whole group of East Tn boys came and hunted Cedar Forest, and there's like zilch in agricultural land and you can't see more than 50 yards in a lot of spots I hunt. What gives? Me and my son have gone days without seeing a deer from a stand, too, and the only reason I hunt here is that it's less than half an hour drive. My son and I have both each found dead 8 pointers last couple of weeks, and I remember the guy from E TN telling me that his buddy had missed three, including an eight. Makes me wonder if he missed.....

 

[shoningram]

There are deer here in east TN. They are just hard to come by. Lots of places that people are unwilling to go. The population is greater around the lakes as well. Its taken me three years to bag a deer here. But they are there. Plus the WMA and TVA properties are smaller here, thus getting more pressure and pushing the deer out. Its a waiting game. I figure that in the coming years it will continue to improve.

 

[Treestand Troubadour]

I love how the rest of the state looks down on east Tennessee. Guess we will have to judge the rest of Tennessee on how ppl in downtown Nashville act

 

[rukiddin]

Lack of cutovers and early successional habitat and browse. Lack of agriculture. I'm not talking 10, 20 or 30 acre cutovers. I'm talking big cutovers. Find those in east tn and you will find deer.

 

[smalljawbasser]

Can white tails adapt and live in mature forests? Yes. Is that the habitat best suited to host high population densities? No.

What is the whitetail carrying capacity of CNF, something like 15/sqmi?

It's all about habitat.

 

[Jmed]

I know a lot of E.TN giants don't get their picture posted up here. I don't think there is anything wrong with E.TN. I am 2 counties over from NC and I know of lots of pope and youngster taken this year alone. It will never have the numbers that the west has but I think some areas in the East hold just as many mature deer

 

[Treestand Troubadour]

I love how the rest of the state looks down on east Tennessee. Guess we will have to judge the rest of Tennessee on how ppl in downtown Nashville act

We'll try to do a better job of not judging ya'll because your lack of teeth or extra toes

ouch sucker punch

 

[Ladys man]

East side has its Giants to just harder to get to/find and lack of them because of lack of crops, but there's deer here just have to do your homework, unlike mid/west side boys do find a field and wait lol

 

[cecil30-30]

I hunt In morgan and scott co and don't ever have any problems seeing deer. Last year I killed 9 deer. All legal split between the two counties listed above. I've killed 4 this year. I will say this, deer numbers don't do so well in big mature forests and mountainous terrain. That's just my observation of course. Your mileage may vary.

 

[Doskil]

Go to ,say, Unicoi County and tell me how many agricultural fields you see.

Now there are good places like Cades Cove in the Smokies Park but they are few.

 

[TheLBLman]

There is no single answer to the question of why are deer densities so relatively low in East TN vs. the rest of TN.

But the reasons include ("generalizing" here, as localized exceptions abound) in order of significance:

1) Poorer habitat that cannot support as many deer

2) More deer hunters

3) More poachers (my opinion, may not be fact)

4) Different attitudes among East TN hunters vs other hunters (not saying this is good or bad, just part of why there are fewer deer).

5) Greater predation from bears and household dogs. Assume the coyotes are widespread west to east, but there are more roaming dogs in most of East TN simply because rural houses are more numerous, i.e. the rural human population is denser in East TN.

6) "Simplified" Statewide Regs that allow for the same number of deer hunting days in East TN as in all of TN. While the "antlerless" deer limits are considerably less, we still have the same annual 3-buck limit in Unicoi County as we have in Henry County. Certainly not an "apples-to-apples" comparison, but for the sake of comparison, East Kentucky has less than half as many gun-hunting days as East TN, and those East KY hunters have an annual buck limit of one, compared to our three.

 

[stringtalker]

It all depends on what counties in east tennessee you are talking about. Im in monroe county and i usually kill anywhere from 2-4 deer a year, sometimes 7-8 depending on what they have to eat. But your best counties in east tennessee are like meigs, mcminn, rhea, and counties around them hold decent amounts of deer. You just have to put in the time to find them. I love it here myself

 

[FARMTOFIELD]

I don't know about everybody, but the guys I know from that side of the state that own land, complain about not seeing deer, but on the other hand they won't even speak of cutting trees, making food plots, cutover or overall improving habitat

 

[stringtalker]

There is way to much tree cutting here anyway, they destroy the property and leave it basically an obstical course

 

[Huntaholic]

Its something in the water up there! That, or those east TN hunters are so blood thirsty they kill everything they see. Take your pick.

 

[WORM82]

I think our problem is all the middle and west TN guys keep saying they found a dead deer or seen a couple deer piled up in a truck with east TN tags and started accusing us of poaching and the brown and down mindset. If were going to be accused of doing it then we might as well do it lol. In reality the only chance we have to kill doe's in certain county's is during bow and muzzleloader season and we are lucky to have a chance at 1 buck per season. If I went to west Tn and had the chance to fill my freezer in a weekend then I would come back with a truck load also because there is a really good chance of only being able to kill 1 or 2 deer per year around here.

 

[PickettSFHunter]

A lot of the reasons mentioned. Less deer lead people to shoot the first thing they see and increases poaching so it's very counterproductive, a lot of people shoot themselves in the foot per se. Like Wes said as well, same limit on bucks, same season length but less deer. There's a reason I hunt the north side of my county....it is close enough to KY that their regs help us.


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[smalljawbasser]

I don't know about everybody, but the guys I know from that side of the state that own land, complain about not seeing deer, but on the other hand they won't even speak of cutting trees, making food plots, cutover or overall improving habitat

one of the things I found surprising when looking for potential properties to lease was the number of "large" tracts. Having grown up in carter co, I thought from looking around with my eyes, 200 acre tracts of mountain land would be everywhere.

Nope. I bet there isn't 20 tracts of land over 200 acres in all of johnson, carter, Sullivan and Washington counties.

Lots of small 30-50 acre tracts. Hard to put your 28 acres into a cutover rotation.

on top of that, with beef prices being what they are, anything that will grow a blade of grass or a stalk of silage corn is leased and in production, aka no hunting.

If the Feds would put 50ac/year of NCNF into timber rotation sold to the highest bidder, I bet the benefit to wildlife (and the taxpayer) would be enormous.

 

[lungpuncher1]

Nope. I bet there isn't 20 tracts of land over 200 acres in all of johnson, carter, Sullivan and Washington counties.

That's not true. I lease two pieces of ground that are 200+ acres myself. There are several in Sullivan and Washington county.

 

[lungpuncher1]

Nope. I bet there isn't 20 tracts of land over 200 acres in all of johnson, carter, Sullivan and Washington counties.

That's not true. I lease two pieces of ground that are 200+ acres myself. There are several in Sullivan and Washington county.[/quote]

 

[Okatoba]

I can see why the land might be in smaller tracts,people have lived in East Tn. a long time,the land has been being divided by generations into smaller tracts for longer.The big tracts in the mountains were bought up by the timber companies,stripped, and sold in mass to uncle sam?

 

[7mminatree]

You have to realize that east Tn. has the most diverse habitat in the state. Not a lot of agriculture. Small farms, foothills up 2500 ft. elevation and mountains up to 6000 ft.+ elevation. So in places the deer numbers are very good and in the high mountains it tough for a deer to make a living. I lived in Greene Co. from the early 80's to the early 90's. We had a small farm in Baileyton. I could easily fill my tags every year with no problem. I considered myself a competent, above average deer hunter. We sold the farm and moved to Unicoi in 1993. I had to hunt the CNF public land and boy was I humbled. Not near the deer numbers, the terrain is nothing but a butt kicker, it's always bone chilling cold or snowing. It was a huge learning curve. I'd have to say I was a shooter of deer and not a hunter. I couldn't believe a person with my hunting experience was getting skunked! :bash:. Lucky for me I meet a great mentor. A friend of my dad's, he used to hunt the upper peninsula of Michigan during the depression. What a great hunter he was. I was blessed to have known him. One of the things he always said when I would complain about not seeing any deer was, "remember that in the big forests 90 percent of the deer will on 10 percent of the land." So that means putting your boots all over these mountains. Five, seven, ten miles of scouting going from 1500 ft. to 5000 ft. elevation will separate the hunters from the shooters. You central and west guys for the most part, have it easy and I'm envious, but it is what it is. You east guys, you just gotta keep searching. I don't think the east is still stuck in the seventies, I do remember the seventies, lots more deer now than then.

 

[Okatoba]

I bet it's a young man's game there. A while back I went over to the MTSU wma near the duck river and looked around a while and when I looked off those big ridges and down in those hollers and though "at my age if I shoot a deer and he runs down there,he's staying down there" so I never went back.