What is a do-it-yourself (diy) deer hunt? If roughing it or relying upon your own hunting skills is something you’d like to do, then a do-it-yourself (diy) Kentucky hunting lease may be for you. Let’s premise this that most free-range fair chase deer hunting in Kentucky does not consist of a professional hunter (ph) taking you to a stand and telling you to look in a certain direction. Any hunt you go on will require skill and knowledge to improve your chances of success.
For example, you can take a smart buck and fence him in 40 acres. Give someone a bow and all the equipment they need, and without a sound grasp of hunting, that person will have pretty much a zero chance of shooting that fenced in buck. So with the disclaimers out of the way, so we don’t offend those who offer a full service outfit, we can continue. Deer hunting in Kentucky has several options. A do-it-yourself hunt is when a passionate deer manager put in all the work throughout the year managing his land for deer. From the smallest of details of getting his PH soil readings perfect so his food plots taste like a 5 star restaurant vs. poor PH soil readings that makes the food plots taste like gas station food to feeding the deer corn year round, etc. This is not where a person leases land, dumps a truck load of corn on it and takes photos. This is not deer management (well, not to the extent you want for a good deer her population or if you’re competing against high-end deer managers).
There are different levels of a do it yourself hunt.
- Like I said above. A person has some land and they just let you hunt it for a fee. Now, with insurances, taxes, mortgage payments, etc., this isn’t always cheap. The property owners of the past no longer exist. Land of today has to be bought with hard-earned money because the population and the advertising of land for sale has grown substantially. Property owners of today offering Kentucky hunting leases know the value of their land and require cash for you to use that land.
- Some properties have a owner that feeds the deer corn regularly. They may or may not have ladder stands out there.
- Some properties have an owner that puts in food plots, feeds the deer, has ladder stands and tower blinds on the property. They will often time offer lodging or a cabin. I’d say they never offer “food service” because then that requires an owner to be around or pay someone to be around…which means the owner can’t work a “real life job” that is needed to support the mortgage payments on the hunting land. Whatever the type if do-it-yourself hunt you plan on doing, it’s almost always relative to the quality of hunting you can expect compared to how much it costs. If there are very few ladders stands or no cabin on the property, then you can assume the owner hasn’t invested too much money or too much time on this endeavor. You can evaluate do-it-yourself hunts based upon the fixed assets that are on certain properties. Again though, this is all relative to price. If there is no cabin, no stands, no feeding program, no farm equipment, no food plots, then likely hunting that property will be cheaper as well. If I was writing a buck about hunting in Kentucky, I’d continue on with the probability that the where you hunt has more to do with your age than anything. The younger you are, the more time you have to sit in the woods. The older you get, you acquire more responsibilities and your time is more spoken for…as well as you income goes up as well. It’s all relative.