USA: RIFLE: BOWHUNT: Great Western Kentucky Whitetail Hunt

[firehuntfish]

We hunted the second week of November with our good friend Dan Kendall of Pennyrile Outfitters in western Kentucky. Dan and his wife Nancy run a first-class operation that is small and personable, yet high on quality. I highly recommend them to anyone looking for a great outfitted whitetail hunt at a very reasonable price. Dan only hunts 6 hunters per week over 7 weeks on over 1,500 acres of private leased farms located in Todd and Christian counties. This is Amish country where soy beans and corn fields grow in some of the most mineral-rich soil in the region. Dan's management program, coupled with 80% repeat hunters invested in passing young deer, pays off with many older class quality bucks taken each season with both bow and rifle.

Dan's hunts are semi-guided and fully outfitted. He uses Millennium bow stands, very comfortable custom built shooting houses, and ground blinds to accommodate all types of hunters in any kind of weather. Dan is also one of the best when it comes to stand placement and concealment. Every factor is taken into account with emphasis placed on the predominant sun and wind directions, bedding areas, and travel corridors. I've never had a bad sit hunting at Pennyrile.

Each hunter is assigned their own very comfortable, well-appointed private cabin so you don't have to hear the snoring of the other guests. Nancy ensures that the cabins are spotless, and every detail is provided right own to the electric boot dryers... The food is hearty and plentiful country style cooking. Nobody goes hungry at Pennyrile...

This year, my wife & I both shot bucks about 30 minutes apart. I regrettably shot a buck that I wish I had passed. It is not the caliber of deer that I was hunting, nor was it representative of the quality deer that are taken at Pennyrile each season. Excuses aside, it's hard to accurately judge a buck running at full speed chasing a doe, get drawn, stop him, and make a shot all within a 3-5 second period. This buck fooled me with great tine length, but he really needed another year or two to grow.... Three other hunters in camp with us also took bucks in the 150-160" range. Of, course, I had a great 10 point that would have gone 150-ish at 30 yards the next evening while I was doe hunting.

My wife was given the green light to shoot a wide, short 10 that Dan had classed as a management buck should she decide to just fill her tag on the last day or two... My wife likes back straps and venison jerky more than antlers, so she shot her buck the minute she spotted him, and got to sleep in the last couple of mornings...

Dan also offers highly successful Spring Turkey hunts. This part of Kentucky holds a tremendous amount of birds, and Dan has plenty of big long beards on his farms. I saw dozens of turkeys each day with lots of long beards and jakes...Our sincere thanks to Dan & Nancy at Pennyrile for hosting us on another memorable hunt. We will be back next year and that big 10 will be high on my list...

 

[jeff]

Congrats on a successful hunt! It seems that if he has 6 hunters per week for 7 weeks and only hunts on about 1500 acres, the property is hunted extremely hard.

 

[firehuntfish]

It seems that if he has 6 hunters per week for 7 weeks and only hunts on about 1500 acres, the property is hunted extremely hard.

Really Jeff?? I was thinking the exact opposite.... They offer a velvet hunt the first week of September, and then no other hunts until the 3rd week of October. Then a 2-day muzzle loader hunt, 2 bow hunts, 2 modern rifle hunts and that's it... 1,500 acres divided by 6 hunters is 250 acres per hunter.... Not sure how much you have hunted the Midwest, but 1,500 acres mostly in ag-fields is a lot of property to hunt.... With at least 40 stands that I know of, and half of them bow stands, I would say any "pressure" is pretty evenly divided. With about a 75% shot opportunity for bow hunters and nearly 100% for rifle hunters, I guess the management plan and deer population support the operation quite well...

 

[jeff]

Didn't mean to insult you, it still seems
that 42 hunter on 1500 acres in 7 weeks is a lot to me, but you can't argue with results. How many mature bucks can he expect to have on less than 2 1/2 square miles?

 

[firehuntfish]

Didn't mean to insult you, it still seems
that 42 hunter on 1500 acres in 7 weeks is a lot to me, but you can't argue with results. How many mature bucks can he expect to have on less than 2 1/2 square miles?

Absolutely didn't take the comment as an insult... I know you are a knowledgeable guy and an experienced hunter... I also realize that 1,500 acres doesn't seem like much to someone who hunts elk, deer, and moose out West... I guess I am making the comparison to many other Midwestern outfitters of similar size that I have hunted with or know of who churn lots more hunters through per season than 40, and 7 weeks is only 35 hunting days... Actually 32 days if you consider that early muzzloader is a 2 day season....

Also keep in mind that the 1,500 hundred acres isn't contiguous, so it hunts much bigger than it is. Most Midwestern outfitters leasing ag-farms are set up this way... Pennyrile leases 3 bigger farms and a half dozen or so smaller farms between 2 different counties.... One hunter in camp with us killed a beautiful 160-class 12 point on opening morning on Dan's smallest lease which is a tiny 30 acre farm . The geographical features of a property have much more to do with success than the overall size in this part of the country. Also, when you add up the border acreage of neighboring farms, and the several thousand acres of adjacent CPR fields, I think you can have opportunity a lot of mature bucks over the course of a season on well-managed managed farms.

 

[jeff]

It makes more sense to me now as the properties also get the over flow from the adjacent properties and they are not just one large farm.

 

[Lee M]

I was thinking the same as Jeff, but I think your explanation of multiple spread out properties adds to the overall size. Some bucks likely move around on other properties but sometime cross into the leases. I think both deer in your picture are pretty good. Thanks for the post.

 

[firehuntfish]

To use that 30 acre farm as an example, it is a long, narrow, T-shaped strip of hardwoods that divides 2 different 400-plus acre crop fields, and has at least 500 acres of CRP on it's bottom edge.... That strip of hardwoods is maybe 75 yards wide at its widest point... It's a natural funnel that pulls deer from all the adjacent properties, so that little piece by itself hunts like 1,300 acres. There are several farms that Pennyrile has leased with similar features. A rifle hunter killed another stud on that 30 acre farm last week. This deer was one of 3 shooters chasing a doe.

Congrats Dana! I'm a little jealous....

 

[Lee M]

Nice one. Looking at other pics seems like there are genes around with high racks.

 

[Von S.]

So far I have only noticed the hot babe!

Yea baby!

 

[enysse]

Congrats, the pricing for the hunts is not that bad either!