It's only the beginning of March and already we're thinking about Whitetail Season. This past weekend I drove up to Mills River where I met up with Joe and my two favorite nephews, Ben and Jake the Snake. We all woke up early around 5AM on Friday morning and along with Dad headed up to Kentucky to look at some new hunting land prospects. We lost our lease from the past three years due to a hunting rights dispute with the owner. So we were in the market for a new piece of land.
After seven hours of driving we finally arrived in the small town of Burma, Kentucky. Actually to call Burma a town is being very generous. To quote Chris Knight, it's more like a "wide spot in the road that they call a town." We looked at three different pieces of land and in the end we settled on a place that was about a five minute drive from where Ray and Junior hunt. We met with the landowner and after a brief chat we got out and walked the property. To say it was prime deer territory would be a major understatement. The property in total was about 380 + acres. 200 of those acres are corn and soy bean fields. There was also plenty of hardwoods on the land which is my personal favorite to hunt. But most importantly we found a ton of deer sign. Tracks, trails and horned trees were everywhere. The place was literally eat up with deer. Jake and Ben even found a couple of sheds.
After walking the perimeter of the property, we got back to the truck and found the owner waiting for us. He wanted to show us a couple of examples of some of the bucks that have been harvested on the property. We followed him back to his home and on his front porch he had several huge mounts laid out for us. They were massive bucks with high, wide spreads and thick antlers.
The landowner, named Paul, turned out to be a pretty good fellow and after we got back to NC, Dad called him up and made him an offer on the property. Good news is that he accepted our offer of 5K for the lease. We would need two other hunters to go in on the lease with us to bring the price down to $1,000 dollars a hunter. After talking to Dad last night it sounds like Ray and Mikey may be interested in going in with us. That's even better news, since both of them are responsible hunters (Ray may be borderline) and they're family, which in my opinion makes the hunting experience that much more enjoyable.
So it looks like we were once again, "Lucky in Kentucky" and may have found us a nice, long-tern piece of hunting property. September can't get here fast enough, so I can get after 'em with my 'stick and string.'
