TN Deer Hunting in the 50's

[Hawk]

The counties bordering the Tenn. river had the first public huntable populations. The first deer hunt I ever went on was @ the state refuge at Reelfoot Lake. This was 1960/61. No draw just show up. This was before hunter orange was required but they make you pin on some red material. This was when you got a booklet with all the hunting tags. I was 15/16 old.
Fast forward to Fall of 1965 the first deer season opened in Weakly county. Some student rode around campus with what was thought to be big buck on opening weekend.
This was also the time frame where the Big Sandy Peninsula hunt was. No draw just show up and line up at the entrance until they let you in. The line of cars stretched also back to Big Sandy. I never did kill a deer on those early hunts and the first deer I killed in West Tenn. was in Miss. River bottoms if memory serves November 1972.

Where were the first huntable deer populations in West TN?

 

[Rockhound]

My grandmother seen some deer and didn't know what they were in my great grandpa's cornfield in southern Lawrence county in the 30s but didn't know what they were. As she got older and people knew what deer were she said it was a buck and 2 does. Deer were released on our place (before it was ours) in the 60s. The deer restoration signs hung on the trees up until the 80s. My dad wishes he had of got a couple of them but didn't because it wasn't our land at the time.

 

[double browtine]

My grandfather told me he hunted on Cheatham the first year they allowed it. I don't remember the year as I was really young. He said a lot of the hunters were gathering at a nearby store where you were supposed to check the deer in. He said it was buck only. So everyone is standing around telling their stories and a guy pulled up. He gets out and has blood on him. They all asked did you get one? My grandfather said everyone ran over to his truck to see it and the guy was so excited that no one had the heart to tell him that he killed someone's Billy goat.

 

[Doskil]

I was told by son of the first commissioned GW for Tellico that his area had the original herd for our State, and maybe another place or two near there. Meaning that region held what was left after they were almost wiped out.

The deer in Tellico were reintroduced from the Pisgah National Forest which had deer released by Mr George Vanderbilt who got them from New York or somewhere around the turn of the 20th Century for restocking his property in North Carolina which became part of today's Pisgah National Forest

The only deer that survived in east Tennessee were in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The deer in Cades Cove are native Tennessee deer and I understand the TWRA did get deer from Cades Cove for stocking various counties in east TN

 

[348Winchester]

The deer in Tellico were reintroduced from the Pisgah National Forest which had deer released by Mr George Vanderbilt who got them from New York or somewhere around the turn of the 20th Century for restocking his property in North Carolina which became part of today's Pisgah National Forest

The only deer that survived in east Tennessee were in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The deer in Cades Cove are native Tennessee deer and I understand the TWRA did get deer from Cades Cove for stocking various counties in east TN

I once read somewhere that there was a remnant population on the northern plateau in the Cumberland Mountains of Scott and Morgan Counties.