Hunting in Tennessee: Top Spots for Hunting in the Volunteer State

Tennessee’s borders encompass three distinct corridors of unique ecosystems for hunting. Each presents robust habitats and resources that favor certain game animals. From the Blue Ridge Mountains of the Appalachians in the east to the bottomland hardwood forests in the west, Tennessee offers lucrative opportunities for sport hunters who choose their hunting spots with a bit of research and care.

Here are the top spots for hunting in Tennessee.

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1. If you're hunting black bears:

This big game species is almost exclusively indigenous to mountainous habitats and does not adapt well to human encroachment and coexistence. State agencies throughout the U.S. have determined that black bears fed by or sustained with human interference have a much more stunted lifespan than those that forage exclusively in the wilderness.

This species still has a relatively sparse population, locally restricted to the Blue Ridge Mountains in eastern Tennessee. Any of the easternmost border counties fall within optimal hunting opportunities for game habitat ranges, according to the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.

2. If you're hunting deer:

Tennessee’s largest annual big game harvest comes from this species. Its population resilience with minimal management efforts beyond harvest limits makes it one of the easiest animals for hunters to locate successfully. The region with the largest saturation, and thus the largest harvest allowances, is the western half of the state, to include the Mississippi River Bottomlands and much of the Central Basin region.

The Unit L of the deer management zoning offers sport hunters a chance to take three does each day of open season. The counties with the largest harvest figures in the most recent reports were those bordering the northern and southern state boundaries, in the western portion of the state.

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3. If you're hunting turkeys:

Fall season limits and harvest figures are set and tracked by county, not statewide. Hunters will need to do a bit of tracking prior to open season in order to locate areas that abundant flocks frequent. According to the National Wild Turkey Federation’s report released in 2000, the highest saturation in Tennessee was located in the Great Basin areas in the central region of the state.

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