Deer Hunting
KY Muzzleloader, 2026
At our camp, we’ve mostly treated the Kentucky Early Muzzleloader Season as a dry run for the Big Show in November. It is still warm. It gives a chance to enjoy ourselves at deer camp without any pressure. It helps us get the equipment figured out. To be truthful, taking a deer is the last thing on our minds– usually. This one pretty much stuck to that plan. When I got down to camp on Friday, they were starting to apply the exterior siding to the house. That’s a big step forward. I expect major work completed by the next … More . . .
Hunting in a Hurricane — Yute Season, 2026
It turned out not to be as bad as it could have been. Mooselette and I went out for Yute Season yesterday. Hurricane Isaias, pushed north out of the Gulf yesterday, and the outer bands started licking the farm. However, we were able to get in a perfect morning hunt at Hollywood– perfect in every way, including completely free of deer. Just a couple of days before, the forecast had seemed dire. A wind front would hit late afternoon on Saturday, followed by a band of rain. Thunderstorms would move in overnight followed by steady rain all day Sunday. Our … More . . .
Food Plots 2026
Moose, Mooselette, and I have been working on food plots these past few weekends. It all culminated in two days of seeding and harrowing over the past couple of days. I would like to summarize our work for you. The Setup We’ve got 200 acres in SW Bracken County, KY. About 40 acres are pasture. I started last year converting 8 acres into foodplots. Since most Buck-on-Bag seed bags are meant to cover a quarter acre, I subdivided the larger plots into 1/4 acre sub-plots. Last year’s attempt was hampered considerably by drought. The clover in 6 of 8 plots … More . . .
What do you think of Crossbow?
Originally Posted by Farmboy1 on 24hourcampire.com My neighbor who has been very lucky for years did not draw his deer tag this year.I am from ND and numbers and tags are down again this year. So he may get a bowlicense across the counter, so he can still hunt. I offered him my compound bow buthe said he is going to try to get a Drs. excuse so he can use a crossbow. I don’t like it one bit, I call BS. What do you think ? I screwed up my shoulder in 2007, getting ready for bow season. It … More . . .
History of KY Deer Management
There is a good story on the KDFWR website on the history of Kentucky Deer Management. It has some bits and pieces I had not heard before. https://fw.ky.gov/Hunt/Pages/History-of-KY-Deer-Management.aspx If that link doesn’t work, try here: This post has already been read 780 times!Views: 10 Related posts: Deer Hunter receives largest fine in Ohio history Local History Poacher dragged off from Deer Expo Is the USDA Trying to Kill Deer Hunting? Deer Opener Updated KY Deer Regs are Posted KY: Record Harvest for Modern Gun Deer Season KY Deer Harvest Totals
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2026 Fall Rules are Out
The Fall 2026 Kentucky Hunting and Trapping Guide got posted to the KYDFWR website this week. Click on the image to get the whole thing. Be sure to read the rules cover-to-cover every year. You never know what you might miss. Here’s the blue stuff (stuff that’s changed): The big thing this year is zone changes. A lot of counties changed deer harvest zone– The biggest number of changes since the system was set up. All of them that changed moved up a notch (2 became 1, 3 became 2, etc.) . Overall, it means that deer populations continue to … More . . .
The Complete American . . . Sportsman’s Encyclopedia
I was browsing Archive.Org this morning and found this from 1913. Click on the images to go to the links: I especially got a chuckle out of the section on deer hunting. Believe it or not, I relied on a similar book when I first got into hunting. This probably contributed to the number of years I ate tag soup. Still, this stuff is fun to read. This post has already been read 1005 times!Views: 7 Related posts: Dawn of American Deer Hunting Stress Shopping yields new bag The shaman in Print — D&DH Escanaba in Da Moonlight More On … More . . .
Trail Cam Review
My trailcams needed updating. The old ones had started to wear out. I was looking on Amazon a while back and saw a 2-fer offer that looked too good to be true– 2 for $99. MAXDONE Solar Trail Camera 2 Pack Turkey Season came and went, and I still had not put them out– hadn’t even opened the box. However, a few years ago, I decided to test them out. I set up one by the salt lick at Campground. The other went to the south field at Midway. This latter one, I set up for the timelapse mode. It … More . . .
Early Start on Food Plots
We got a late start on food plots last year. I didn’t buy the tractor until way after Turkey Season, so we started with fall plots planted in September. This year, I ordered seed early. Moose started prepping the one new plot in early April, taking advantage of the dry weather. Review of Last Year First off, I want to review what happened last year. All told, we put in 8.5 acres of plots. A complete discussion of what went in where is here: We had mixed success. The problem was the drought. We had germination. We had growth, but … More . . .
Deer Vanishing
From 24hourcampfire.com My answer: I don’t know if this applies, but here is what I’m experiencing in SW Bracken County, KY. First off, investigate the harvest numbers published by the state. I started tracking KY’s deer harvest numbers for my county and the surrounding area 25 years ago. What I see is steady growth peaking in 2015. This pretty well matches the numbers in my county and the county directly to my west. The counties elsewhere in my region peaked out much later and overall my county’s numbers have not kept up with the growth to others in my region. … More . . .
KY Deer Hunting Totals 2025
From Facebook This post has already been read 3769 times!Views: 8 Related posts: KY Deer Harvest Totals Is the USDA Trying to Kill Deer Hunting? Kentucky Deer Hunting Stats New 2012-13 Kentucky Hunting and Trapping Guide Hunting the Full Moon Poacher dragged off from Deer Expo Deer Opener KY: Record Harvest for Modern Gun Deer Season
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PA Considering Moving Deer Opener
The Pennsylvania Game Commission is considering moving the Deer Opener back to before Thanksgiving. Here’s the press release. I expect there will be a furor over this almost as big as when they moved the Deer Opener to Saturday from Monday. The believe was that this was such an ingrained part of the culture that it could not be altered. Families had spent generations having wives and kids out to camp the weekend before season. BOARD OF GAME COMMISSIONERS TO CONSIDER 2026-27 HUNTING SEASONS AND MORE AT JANUARY MEETING January 15, 2026 HARRISBURG, PA — The Pennsylvania Board of Game … More . . .
KYDFWR Announces November Deer Results
Kentucky Dept. of Fish and Wildlife Resources post the following on Facebook This post has already been read 3878 times!Views: 10 Related posts: KYDFWR Proposed Changes ODNR Announces Proposed 2022 Turkey Season Changes Poacher dragged off from Deer Expo Is the USDA Trying to Kill Deer Hunting? Deer Opener KY: Record Harvest for Modern Gun Deer Season KY Deer Harvest Totals New KY Deer Stats
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Deer Season Post-Mortem, 2025
Overall, I’d say this was not such a bad deer season– not great by any stretch. Moose and Foxtrot Charlie both had no luck. We missed out on a truly great day. Monday of Opening Week, we had snow at the farm. Everyone had their excuses for not being there. For my part, I’d realized that hunting alone was no longer a viable idea and went home to rest. Looking at the telecheck numbers, Monday was a monster. Lots of big bucks were taken in Bracken and the surrounding counties. Ooof! It makes sense: peak of the rut, big front … More . . .
Report from Deer Camp — The End
If I had to give you the ideal Rifle Season. It would include a buck on Opening Weekend, two weeks of enjoying a prolonged autumn, and a doe taken on the last Saturday, sized just right to fit in the freezer. The rest of the camp has mostly the same thing happen. Enough goes on the pole on The Opener that everyone feels relaxed about the approach of the end. That was everything this season wasn’t. Moose walked out with nothing. Folically Challenged got zilched as well for three days’ effort. His only success was the 10 lbs of pork … More . . .
SuperCore Bags a Buck
Sometimes, deer hunting is not about getting the biggest rack. Sometimes it isn’t about anything more than making it out and making it back. If you can buy that, then SuperCore was my hero yesterday. I was hunting Midway. The food plots out there have finally filled out a bit. The deer are liking whatever it is I planted out in the Garden of Stone. There are five different mixes out there, but they all look the same. I’d hunted since first light and seen absolutely nothing. I heard one shot that sounded fairly close about 0815. That turned out … More . . .
Angus Scores Buck Opening Weekend
When I committed to building the additions to deer camp, I knew there would be at least one Deer Opener that would deeply impacted. This was the one. This was the Thoughtful Spot just before we convened on Opening Eve, 2024: Here is what The Thoughtful Spot looked like coming into the 2025 Opener: Notice the dark clouds. Pouring rain and thunder rolled in at Noon on Opening Eve. We had to move the festivities to the front porch under cover. It was only SuperCore and me in attendance. Everyone else came down after dark. Angus’ Buck Angus came into … More . . .
Early Muzzleloader Season, 2025
This is the obligatory KY ML Season post. I notice that there are several already on this date over the years. I won’t bore you with anything but the essentials. First off, per usual, no wildlife was harmed. That nearly goes without saying. I can’t tell you the exact year where we stopped taking ML season seriously. I can tell you why: I could go on with the reasons. However, we’ve leaned into it. SuperCore, Moose, Angus, and I showed up. We went out. We loaded our front-stuffers. We went out to our blinds. We enjoyed the good weather and … More . . .
Mooselette Bags Her 1st Deer
A guy like me has passed some milestones in his life: marriages, births, your son’s first deer. Mooselette and I passed a big one yesterday together. She killed her first deer. Yesterday was the Yute Opener in KY. They’ve extended the early season so it runs for a whole week, clear into Muzzleloader Season next weekend. Mooselette is fortunately off school for a couple of days this week. We figured we’d press hard and get her a deer for sure. We did not have to press too far. Saturday morning, we were out at Hollywood. Mooslette carried her new 25-06. … More . . .
Trip to the farm
Moose, Mooselette, and I went to the farm over the weekend. There was lots happening. When I pulled up Friday noon, there were more truck parked along the road than I’ve ever seen. It looked like an auction or something. It was the concrete contractor making maximum effort to get ready for the basement floor pour. That’s coming this week. I did not spend a whole lot of time hanging about. My focus was out in the fields. The food plots had finally gotten rain–2 inches over 4 days. I hopped on the ATV and rode out to see. I … More . . .
Food Plot PIX
After I got done documenting the basement pour with the drone, I had a chance to fly it out and take pictures of all the food plots. So far, there has been no germination, but there’s more rain coming. This post has already been read 5270 times!Views: 22 Related posts: Food Plot 2009 Developments– Food Plots and Jagende Hutte II More on UV-Killers– The plot continues Strategies for Turkeys on a Small Plot Scout Your Way to Success on a Small Plot To Bait, Or Not to Bait Pre-Season Scouting with Google Earth Who Comes to Deer Camp?
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Food Plots 2025
I don’t know if y’all have caught on, but we have been seeing an overall reduction in deer numbers during the past several seasons. I was talking with my neighbor last year and blamed him fully for it– but in the nicest way possible. You see, he moved in a few years ago and occupies most of my western and northwestern boundaries. Almost immediately, the deer started responding. In previous years, his was the land of the Orange Army, a bunch of ATV-riding hunters that would crank up their engines 15 minutes before The Opener. By 0900, all the deer … More . . .
Catching up on Food Plots
We’ve been down at the farm quite a bit recently. It’s time to get caught up with y’all. We’re chugging along getting the food plots in order. We have a target of 32 1/4-acre plots to get done. 24 are mowed. 21 are tilled. 11 are fertilized. I’ll be letting you know more as the project progresses. So what are we planting? Click on pics for links What I decided to do was order a bunch of Buck-on-the-Bag seed mixes from Amazon and https://www.sportsmansguide.com , taking advantage of big sales in May. I’ve divvied up 8 acres of the 40 … More . . .
New KY Deer Stats
I was looking on the KDFWR site to see if the fall rules had come out and happened upon this page. Check it out. Deer Hunting Stats It has all sorts of charts and maps and such about deer hunting in KY. One chart that caught my eye: Bracken County has the 3rd highest buck harvest per sq mile of habitat. Whodathunk? This post has already been read 11698 times!Views: 11 Related posts: Kentucky Deer Hunting Stats Rifle Season Stats Thanks– October stats: best month ever Poacher dragged off from Deer Expo Is the USDA Trying to Kill Deer Hunting? … More . . .
Which Way the Wind Rose?
I found a cool tool. Ever wonder which way the wind blows at your stand? No, I don’t mean sticking your finger up. I mean, statistical historical data on exactly how often the wind blows from a given direction near your hunting location. I’m talking wind roses. Here are the steps: Here is the result for picking my nearest airport, LUK, and a date range of 11/8 to 12/1, the limits of the Kentucky Rifle Season and 0600 to 1900. I think it’s easy to see most of the wind comes from the South-Southwest. It almost never comes from the … More . . .
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