My 10 year old got his first deer, a unicorn spike My 8 year old got his first last year, a 9 pointer My daughter told me she's not getting up early, she'll go in the afternoon
I’ve killed quite a few bucks and only one was right at daybreak. I rarely go in super early anymore myself.
I'm about to take my three and my wife duck hunting this morning, it's either going to be an awesome memory or I'll want to drown myself
Driving in Arkansas 2 days ago we must’ve seen 1000s of ducks. Bunch of geese coming back yesterday with so many groups of formations. Coulda been ducks too I guess.
Just curious as someone who has never dabbled in hunting, how many deer a season can a person in Tennessee legally kill? Does the gender of the deer factor into how many an individual can kill? For example can you only kill say one buck a season and two does? Also is it different with bow season? Or is the deer population thriving here to where there are no current TWRA restrictions on how many deer each licensed hunter can bag during a particular season?
Depends somewhat on which unit you’re in, though each unit is fairly similar.There are 6 units in Tennessee. In all but one unit you’re limited to two bucks, and in the other (SW TN) you can take 3. It varies a little more for does but for example where I hunt (north of Crossville) I could kill up to 7, but that is spread across the archery (4), muzzleloader (2) and rifle (1) seasons. The vast majority of hunters are not taking several does though. For me personally I like to take at least one deer each year to fill the freezer. If I kill a buck I may kill another doe. I haven’t gotten a buck this year so I’ll probably try to harvest a doe sometime in the next week. I didn’t get around to it this year but next year I’m going to buy what I need to butcher deer myself and not take them to a processor. Once I can do that I probably will harvest more does and just eat deer a little more frequently and also give some to friends.
You can kill two antlered deer a year. Does, it gets a little complicated, some parts of the state you can kill 3 a day everyday of the season. I live in an area where I can kill 3 deer a day
I used to kill the everloving shit out of does, my buddy had a walk in cooler and we had a hell of a set up to butcher deer
Thanks for the info. Did not realize it’s not necessarily a universal state policy regarding hunting rules. But that makes sense when you think it about for second and consider how different parts of a state will always differ ecologically. Also jw-and might be a dumb question- but outside of desiring venison meat, why would anyone actually wanna kill a female deer for sport? The allure of the trophy hunting aspect with bucks I totally get. But do some legal and licensed hunters actually like to kill does for pleasure only? You never see a doe mounted on a wall anywhere, just wonder what if anything happens to dead doe not used for meat purposes
Only time a doe gets mounted is if it's a little kid's first. A big, old doe that's several years old can be very hard to outsmart. I killed a 9 year old doe once, it was a fun cat and mouse game
I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m ever killing a deer for pleasure per se, whether male or female. The sport (at least for me) is mostly in being out in the woods and watching the sun come up and seeing the woods come alive. With coyotes, bobcats, raccoons, wild boar, fox squirrels, foxes, woodpeckers, turkeys, owls, hawks, etc. A good morning for me is just getting the chance to see and watch a lot of wildlife. When it comes to killing bucks, the pleasure for me comes in the challenge of trying to read a landscape and trying to outsmart a deer. Where I hunt is mountainous and incredibly steep in places. I don’t have any fixed (like stays in one spot) tree stands. I climb a different tree in a different place every time I go. So I’m trying to scout sign from deer in the woods (bucks rub trees with their antlers and scrape bare spots on the ground too). So I try to find that sign and then try to put myself in a position to see that deer, which can be hard because the sign you’re scouting (if a mature deer) is probably made at night. For example, two years ago I spent a whole month trying to find one deer. I didn’t have trail cams or anything so I didn’t know how big he was exactly based on the sign he left in the woods, only that he was a mature deer. Well after a month I found some fresh sign one day but in a place I didn’t think he’d ever be during daylight hours, old bucks are smart and generally stay in thick brush and don’t move around all that much unless they’re in heat (or “rut”) and trying to find does to breed. So I slipped in to a spot nearby that was really thick and steep and climbed up high in a tree thinking maybe I’d found a spot he might bed down in. Whether by luck or skill I was right and I got him. Not the biggest deer I’ve ever killed but definitely the oldest, and probably the most rewarding hunting experience I’ve had just in terms of the effort I put in. Or just a few weeks ago, I’d found sign made by a deer that I thought was really big. Based on the wind direction one morning (deer have very good sense of smell and if they smell you they’ll run away) I climbed a tree in a place nearby where I thought this deer may feed. Shortly after daylight I was right and here comes this buck through the woods. As it turns out though he’s not quite as big as I thought, a 10 pointer and a good deer no doubt, but probably only 2-3 years old and definitely gonna be a monster one day. So I didn’t shoot him, I just watched him feed for 20 minutes in this really steep hollow as the sun came over the mountaintop lighting up the woods. That, for me, is just as much of a pleasure as killing a deer.
Duck hunting was fun, they put on a show for us Sunday. We didn't kill much but my wife shot one and my kids had fun.
