Kentucky Game

The Kentucky whitetail deer are not the small body size thin racked deer found in other states like Texas. These deer are much larger with body weight up to and over 250 pounds. These deer have large massive racks and more closely resembling the whitetail deer found in the northern states and more closely to the deer in the Canadian providences. The State of Kentucky as a whole has a buck to does ratio around 3.9 to 1 (one of the highest in the United States). Each year hunters in Kentucky record many B&C bucks. The 2000 season ended with the top 20 bucks scoring 166 or better with some over 200, including monsters like a non-typical scoring 237 1/8 and a typical scoring 204 2/8 which is now the number 4 B&C buck of all time. Kentucky has large bucks because of the number of deer who reach and exceed the 3 1/2 years to fully mature. The average 2 1/2 year old buck will score around 115 to 130 and some even higher. These are also reasons why Kentucky is number 2 in the nation for B&C bucks per square mile.

The Turkey population in Kentucky is very high and with limited numbers of hunters, the population just keeps growing. We have a two bird limit during each of the season to help maintain a steady population but with only a few hunters, the turkey populations keeps growing. It's not uncommon to see large flocks of turkey in an area with 25-50% toms. Kentucky has two shotgun seasons, one in the spring and in late fall and a very long fall archery season which runs from early September through late January. Most hunters with a little patients will harvest a tom with beards of 9 inches or in many cases much longer.