Deer Hunting on your own vs. Kentucky Deer Outfitters Costs

  Real cost of hunting vs. using Kentucky deer outfitters?   People will bring up and question the costs of say paying $4,000 for a Kentucky trophy deer hunt. I think it’s fair to break down the real costs of hunting yourself and doing all the work vs. paying Kentucky hunting outfitters a lot of hard-earned money. Before you jump to conclusions and say, “This guy is just a Kentucky hunting outfitter and is going to skew the entire story”, I will say this: I’M TAKING THE SIDE AND OPINION THAT YOU SHOULD KENTUCKY DEER HUNT ON YOUR OWN.   

Hands down, it will cost the average person who simply enjoys Kentucky deer hunting more than the $4,000 Kentucky outfitter fee. They will shoot less deer on their own and it will be 100+ hours of more “work”, but that is my point… This outdoor recreational activity should not be considered “work”. I love planning for food plots, killing, spraying, planting, fertilizing, liming, discing, cultipacking, mowing, spraying again, etc. This is fun! Putting out cameras, checking cameras, digging stagnant water ponds, planting and protecting apple trees, putting out auto-feeders, etc. Kentucky outfitters spend $1,000’s of dollars in corn in auto-feeders, but guess what we get out of it? Do you know how much I grunt heaving up 50 pound bags of corn in my car, out of my car on the Ranger, then up 8 foot high into an auto-feeder? It’s exercise!    

Guess how much it costs to buy equipment, break equipment, wasted trips to the farm, etc. Most of us drive a minimum of 3 hours to get to any hunting property, then you need to “work” for 6 hours just to get 2 hours worth of work done. Let’s say you get to hunt…how much time are you spending in the woods when you could be with the family? Working? Doing household chores or working on the latest do-it-yourself home project increasing your home equity?    The reality is hunting is very expensive. Whether you write a nice check to a Kentucky whitetail hunting outfitter or write many many many $70 checks creating the perfect paradise, the very fact we are having this discussion and you are reading this piece tells me you are enjoying life no matter which side of the story you take.