Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Michigan UP vs. Eastern Kentucky for Deer?

The road was called Milford Road. right off 22. I noticed there was a place called B&B Deer Processing just down a bit from it. Not sure I'll make it down again anytime soon, but I am going to focus more on the area north west of Falmouth between there and Alexandria. Maybe I'll be a neighbor in the near future.

Eastern Ky is clannish and territorial. Don’t mess with bubba in bubbas back yard.

Some thoughts for you to consider. I’ve deer hunted on our family farm in Whitley Co (Zone #4) for the last 25 years when my Grandfather Fred deemed there were enough deer to do so.

E-KY is a really varied terrain, from very steep wooded to some nice rolling hills and everything in between. Where strip mining has been reclaimed properly it’s great habitat and where it’s been done poorly it’s a mess. Ours was done in the early 70’s and was done very well. The lake in my pic below was dug for the mining operation.

The deer population has really decreased. Two significant episodes of Hemorrhagic Disease (blue tongue) in a short period (<5 years) and a huge increase in coyotes killing fawns has been the key drivers in our area to decreased deer. 10 years ago, seeing several bucks a day and herds of 4-8 does were common. Not anymore. That being said, there are bucks and hard hunting will get you good ones.

In zone #4 you’re restricted to one buck and then one additional doe the last week of late muzzleloader. For that pleasure the state will extract $335 from you. Perhaps worth it in W-KY with more generous limits but IMO they have gone off to absurd in this and paying taxes on land in KY doesn’t matter. You still get to buy a non-resident license (or not). As comparison, it looks like a non-resident MI license will set you back $171. Is this a massive expense in comparison to others? No. But it shows a significant ass-raping of non-residents that irks me as someone paying property taxes.

There are some really great people in Eastern Kentucky. Then there are a significant set of the population who believe “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine if I can get my hands on it”. My cousin lives in the house on our place and we believe, despite his denials, that he lends the key to the front and lake gates to non-family, they then they feel free to make copies and pass around. They have stolen every piece of metal, including the tractor rim we used as a fire ring, heck they even stole our stacked and covered firewood in October for we had set up for deer camp.

With this in mind, if you build a camp it will get burglarized, it will get squatted in, it will get vandalized, it will get meth cooked in it and eventually it will get burned down either accidently or on purpose and no one, public official or not, will care because you’re not from there. If you decided to buy, I’d go with a small piece of property abutting Daniel Boone National Forest, put in an outhouse and go with a wall tent. The weather during deer season is rarely bad enough that even a nylon wall tent with a wood stove isn’t just fine and usually darn pleasant. Storage units are plentiful and cheap. We pay $300 a year for a 6’x10’ that holds all our camping gear. We used to store it in the barn next to the house but the locals decided they wanted that stuff too.

Some pics from our place.

We own to the top of the hill (right at 1000 acres to hunt between our 680 and my Uncle and Aunt's landlocked places)





CF member Roof



Picture I took just east of our place a couple years ago flying down.

This is what mining reclaimed done right looks like



This is close to the the same place in 1971 looking a little to the north.

That seems to be the way in areas with low numbers in a lot of states. Antler restrictions don't apply in a lot of the big woods areas and the hunters shoot young bucks because they are unlikely to get a chance at anything else. I can understand that but a few years with antler restrictions might change the number of mature bucks around. Still, I have managed to shoot a couple of mature bucks in areas without antler restrictions (an a bunch of younger ones too, I'm no hero).

As for the difficulty, anyone can got to a Texas ranch and shoot a buck. I like the challenge of hunting difficult areas.

What about poaching and hunter trespass? Is that a problem?

Yeah, that's what I am gathering. I see there is a nice 150 acre plot of woods at the top of a hollow but that has several homesteads in the hollow. I suspect I would have issues with the neighbors if I were to buy it because they'd see me go by when I was there and they probably have been hunting it for generations. If I posted it, I am sure I would be considered an enemy. I might be either way with my Yankee accent. I'm not ready to buy yet but neighbor disputes will be a concern if I do buy land. I have 130 acres in New England and have had some neighbor issues but not too many.

Very cool, Pugs, and thanks for the info. Our family a property in the Pennsylvania Appalachians. My parents (city folk) bought it over 50 years ago. For the first couple decades the locals were pretty standoffish and we had burglaries and tree thefts. We lost a washer, a dryer, a tractor and other items. In the past 25 years, we haven't really had any problems. I think the locals know who we are and the territorial ones have aged out. We are on friendly terms with some of the old timers. Also, we get up there much more often these days (some family member is there almost every weekend) since I have a number of siblings and the road improvements have made the ride a lot shorter.

Your family's property looks awesome. I like the wall tent idea. I used a tent the first couple years that I owned my property out of state (not the one in Pennsylvania that was burglarized 3 times). I had a very small cabin built but nothing fancy. In the 16 years since it was built I haven't had a problem but that could certainly happen. I am on pretty good term with my neighbor whom I allow to hunt on my land. He lives on the adjoining 100+ acres and keeps an eye on things. If I buy another property, I will probably build a basic little stick-building without electric or water. I'll leave it unlocked (rather than have break ins) and bring a tent as backup. I'm talking about something about on par with a storage shed.

Less than it used to be. Perhaps associated with the decrease in deer but there was an old cemetery over one ridge that people used to come in over and they have built some houses there. My cousin went over just to see if there were any cars there this year and someone came out and fired a pistol into the air to scare him off... A LOT of chickens, suspect its a cock fighting outfit.

I did find two kick feeders up on the hill but no evidence that they had been used. Cut them down. The camera my cousin has up showed no one unexpected up the road for a month prior to season.

Neighbor issues are common. The older people assume right to hunt simply because that’s the way they grew up and Kentucky was much more sparely populated back then. I’m thinking of my dads generation. He was born in 38. People put food on the table small game hinting back then.

There is a general mentality of entitlement in the younger generations. Your Ginseng is my ginseng. Some of this is held over from the older guys but a lot of it now is just a defiant attitude that people are just gonna do what they want to do no matter what. I’m sure that some areas of the state offer a little more recourse but it’s not likely to addressed by law enforcement in the mountains. Like Theek said, a lot of petty thievery that goes on unchecked.

Then there are the guys brewing and growing things that they need to protect. A friend works for the state and as to go into the mountains to maintain state equipment. He’s been pushed off the mountain before by locals hot on his tail.

If you’re “from off” you won’t find any friends and very little sympathy.

The MI DNR dang near closed deer season in the U.P. in 2016. Wish they would have for a couple years. Some areas are worse off now than they were in 2016. It would have most likely increased our age structure and actually put deer sign back in our woods.

nice photos

good thing you have the enclosure and big wood stove, it must drop to 50-60 deg at night down there...LOL

nights during deer season usually get to the 30s but you’re right days are often the 60s. Rare for it to be too bad for more than a day or two.

If you were on Milford Road, you were headed in the general direction of Shaman's place and in prime deer territory. You probably passed within a couple miles of the deer camp I referred to earlier. I'm on the South West side of the county, near Morgan.

If you are looking at proximity to SW Ohio, like possibly commuting, northern Pendleton County would definitely be better. Demossville, Grassy Creek, Piner have access up 17 to Walton to get on I-75N. Gardnersville and Knoxville have easy access to Dry Ridge. Southern Kenton County: Morning View, Kenton Station, Visalia have easy access up 177 to 27 or 275. KY 177 in Southern Kenton County follows the river, so, should have some decent hunting as well. Good luck with your search !

It has happened to me several times while living there. It depends greatly on where you are at and where the deer winter as to how far they go, but you can be certain that a big storm will drive them into their winter range.

High wolf numbers, high bear numbers, mountain lions, long winters and extreme hunting pressure for three months straight. Got the picture?
On top of that logging practices have changed from mostly clear cutting to more select cutting which hurts deer. The winter yards are browsed out in most places and nothing is being done to correct that.

Yeah, you're right, so stay away, we have very few deer and the ones we have are diseased and scrawny. If you go into the woods you might get anal raped by somebody with a banjo. All of the stereotypes are true, so don't come here to hunt or our cousin/brother/uncle will think your mouth is purdy.

Old School deer hunting. This guy lived 20 minutes from me.

I used to hunt near Watersmeet and Berglund in MI. Finding food was always the key and we did not bait like many, we did however hunt travel routes from bedding areas to remote lakes where the owners of cabins were feeding. Overall numbers of deer would not warrant us returning compared to other States. I think Kentucky would be a more enjoyable hunt if it was not significantly expensive. I did shoot a buck with bow one year and he died on the road leaning on the snowbank, we found him right before the snowplow came through.

Sounds like the hillbilly hell I envision when talking about Kentucky.