I'll be deer hunting just outside of Crossville, TN Many of us here have gone to Loshbough's for their hog hunts but this will be my second season going down for whitetail deer. They manage 15,000 acres for their deer hunts and I believe Daniel and his staff can get me close to the elusive 140-class buck...
As for our goals locally for our hunting property we are limited to controlling our 160++ acres of an area approaching 1000++ acres. Corn, beans, winter wheat, and CRP ground everywhere. Thick woodlots, like ours, and a large creek running through the middle of everything. Unfortunately, we cannot control the other hunters in the area. I believe most would look at a nice 2 ? year old 120-class buck as a shooter. Our area, considered by many to be a quality buck area, has harvested many bucks meeting the criteria for the Indiana record book, which just happens to be 140 pts of better. Our current deer per square mile estimate is 15 to 30 deer per square mile, as found on the QDMA web site. I feel that to be a bit low as we can have that many in our food plots when we drive up to the gate.
We feel, as does our DNR that our county as well as state has a disproportionate number of does, as we are able to harvest 8 does and 1 buck with over the counter tags and several more with special draw hunts? Now that might not seem like a lot compared to some of the stories I hear from the Carolina?s, Alabama and other states. However, if you take into consideration with the exception of a few parts of Southern Indiana we are a very densely populated area with millions of people in relatively small area you can see our herd is very large by comparison? We legally harvest over 125,000 deer per year and have a reported 15,000 deer / car accidents annually.