348Winchester
Well-Known Member
Tell me about your 1895 Winchester. Is it a carbine?
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TN Deer Hunting in the 50's
- Thread starter 348Winchester
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peytoncreekhunter
Well-Known Member
From Google
The oldest known deer harvest records in Tennessee are from 1949, when 113 deer were harvested in the Cherokee National Forest's Ocoee and Tellico Units. The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA), then known as the Tennessee Game and Fish Commission, had been stocking deer for 12 years at the time.
TN.gov
The oldest known deer harvest records in Tennessee are from 1949, when 113 deer were harvested in the Cherokee National Forest's Ocoee and Tellico Units. The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA), then known as the Tennessee Game and Fish Commission, had been stocking deer for 12 years at the time.
TN.gov
348Winchester
Well-Known Member
Dad hunted on land owned by the Cockrum Lumber Company. He was 16 or 17 when they started going so that would have been 1952-53. He never killed anything but did see deer and bear.
He did not kill anything in the 60's either. That's probably why he quit in 69.
When I expressed interest in the early 80's, he took me to a friend of his that had a cabin in Morgan County. We did not kill anything for the first four seasons we hunted there. In 1988, when I was 18 he quit going with me. I killed my first deer on Grassy Mountain the day after Thanksgiving that year and another about a week later.
After a lot of coaxing, Dad started hunting with me again in 2006. He killed a beautiful 9 point with his 30-30 very close to the house I lived in at the time. He was 70 years old. He was hooked! He hunted every season until he died. He killed a lot of deer over those last 16 years of his life. Most were with that Winchester but some were with a muzzleloader and one with his Champion single shot 16 gauge and another with my Smith model 57 41 magnum.
The kill with the 16 gauge is an interesting story. In the last few years of his life he became a bit quirky. He got it in his craw to kill a deer with that shotgun since he had owned it since th 50's. He even had some true Pumpkin Ball loads in cardboard hulls that were probably made in the 30's or 40's. On opening day of muzzleloader he went to the food plot by my house. Dad was the luckiest hunter there was. He would sit in a reclining lawn chair just off the plot. He would not even go out until 8 or 9 o'clock. His routine was to sit and swill Cokes, eat those orange crackers he called Nabs, and gorge on Debbie Cakes. I think he had the deer conditioned to come to the crack of opening a coke can and the rattle of celophane wrappers. Anyhoo, he plugged a nice little six point with the ol' punkin' ball after sitting for only a short while. When I came home during mid-day he had dragged the deer into my back yard. I noticed his shotgun leaned by the back door. After being informed that it was muzzlloader season he just grinned and said "Don't tell your mother'. That's what he always said when he did things on the sly.
He did not kill anything in the 60's either. That's probably why he quit in 69.
When I expressed interest in the early 80's, he took me to a friend of his that had a cabin in Morgan County. We did not kill anything for the first four seasons we hunted there. In 1988, when I was 18 he quit going with me. I killed my first deer on Grassy Mountain the day after Thanksgiving that year and another about a week later.
After a lot of coaxing, Dad started hunting with me again in 2006. He killed a beautiful 9 point with his 30-30 very close to the house I lived in at the time. He was 70 years old. He was hooked! He hunted every season until he died. He killed a lot of deer over those last 16 years of his life. Most were with that Winchester but some were with a muzzleloader and one with his Champion single shot 16 gauge and another with my Smith model 57 41 magnum.
The kill with the 16 gauge is an interesting story. In the last few years of his life he became a bit quirky. He got it in his craw to kill a deer with that shotgun since he had owned it since th 50's. He even had some true Pumpkin Ball loads in cardboard hulls that were probably made in the 30's or 40's. On opening day of muzzleloader he went to the food plot by my house. Dad was the luckiest hunter there was. He would sit in a reclining lawn chair just off the plot. He would not even go out until 8 or 9 o'clock. His routine was to sit and swill Cokes, eat those orange crackers he called Nabs, and gorge on Debbie Cakes. I think he had the deer conditioned to come to the crack of opening a coke can and the rattle of celophane wrappers. Anyhoo, he plugged a nice little six point with the ol' punkin' ball after sitting for only a short while. When I came home during mid-day he had dragged the deer into my back yard. I noticed his shotgun leaned by the back door. After being informed that it was muzzlloader season he just grinned and said "Don't tell your mother'. That's what he always said when he did things on the sly.
From what I remember, original non stocked populations were around Tellico and along the Mississippi River. Stocked reintroductions were at military bases like Ft. Campbell and AEDC. Chuck Swan and Cheatham had reintroduced deer in the 60's plus along some of the Tennessee River counties.
BSK
Well-Known Member
When I first became interested in hunting in TN (I was living in KY at the time). it was the mid 80s, and if I remember correctly, Hickman County was the #1 county in the state for deer kill - somewhere around 4,600.
BSK
Well-Known Member
Looked through my collection of printed annual reports, and found I have a report from the 1988-89 season. In it is a historic list of deer kill totals by county by year. In 1962, Cumberland County lead the state in deer kills with 128. Although if you go all the way back to 1952, hunters killed 122 deer from Chuck Swan, 115 from Tellico, and 77 from Ocoee.
Biggun4214
Well-Known Member
Actually I saw those on a welfare check in 2019. Those were just part of the old gentleman's collection. When he died his nephew sold the collection for $10K.
When I walked in and saw the guns I felt like a teenager in a strip club.
He had Spencers, Winchesters, Sharps, Colts, there were probably 40-50 rifles.
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.
BSK
Well-Known Member
Market hunting wiped out the white-tailed deer anywhere they could easily be hunted. The only remaining populations were in very difficult situations, such as very rugged mountainous country or the worst, most extensive swamps.
buckbstr_1
Well-Known Member
One of my hunting mentors was one of the first to be drawn for Natchez Trace in Benton County. If my memory serves me correctly, I think he drew a permit in 1961 or 1963. He of course killed a massive nine pointer and to my knowledge was the first buck to come off Natchez Trace. He told me the first whitetail deer released in Benton County was at Grannys Branch Refuge. He knew these deer came from West Virginia. The biologist released 25 deer on the reserve. He told me Grannys Branch became overpopulated in the 70s and the National Guard came in and wiped them out. The deer finally repopulated by mid nineties and Grannys Branch opened up a bow only season. I used to hunt the bow season and there were some really nice bucks on the reserve. The last two weeks of bow season were magical. Did not stay a secret very long and those days have passed.
BSK
Well-Known Member
The deer populations of TN spread and reproduced very rapidly in the 1960s. By 1970, instead of the eastern mountain counties, the top counties for deer kill were Benton (179), Hardeman (131), Henry (170), Hickman (176), and Weakly (132). Kill numbers really started to explode around 1975, with some counties at or above 600.
GUNNERX2
Well-Known Member
The 1st deer track I saw in middle TN was on what was called the Motlow Property in the late 50s. The property consisted of thousands of acres between Tullahoma and Lynchburg along Hwy 55 and later became Cumberland Springs WMA. I believe the Motlows twice released deer on their land in the mid and late 50s. In 1960 or 1961, they released deer on AEDC WMA. My dad was Chief of Security and was present for the photo op when they made the release and I have some of the photos somewhere. Kinda funny, one of the does didn't head straight for the woods and dad made a couple of quick side steps to get her headed in the right direction. 6 months or so later, one of his brothers sent him a newspaper clipping from the local paper in Minnesota that had dad running through back yards and jumping a clothes line to chase down the deer. Yea, newspapers didn't get things exactly right even back then. IIRC the released deer were from Virginia and weren't very big. Generally speaking, the deer on AEDC are still on the small side.
