WestKyHunt
Well-known member
Finally sitting down after unpacking and drying gear from the inaugural disabled veterans hunt for the Kentucky chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers.
Trying my hand at a short write up explaining the event.
A little background - I took on the position of the district 1 director chair for KYBHA June 2025.
Since then I have been slowly building momentum in my region and spreading the mission of BHA through educational pint nights and stewardship events.
Land Between the Lakes (LBL) is a 170,000 acre national recreational area in Western Kentucky. The USFS reached out to me last year asking if we were interested in hosting a specialty hunt but did so in October, not leaving near enough time to plan a hunt.
I reached back out this August to confirm they were still on board and got to planning.
If anything we came into this hunt over prepared. Months of commitee meetings and pouring over excel sheets and Microsoft word documents proved fruitful. We made it through the whole weekend without much incident or having to run to a store for something forgotten. That leads to more time in camp amd with our hunters.
A small scouting party met up Friday at the hunt area to place blinds, including one of our hunters and my good buddy Matt.
Poor crop and flooding led to the corn not yet being harvested.
That took ~600acre of field and narrowed it down to extremely small sections of limited visibility.
The universe, God, or whichever you like, must have heard our silent pleas as the farmer pulled up to the gate right as we did.
He heard from the Forest Service what we were doing and decided he would spend his personal time and fuel to mow the field edges for us. After 5 minutes of talking he says to tell us where we're hunting and he'll mow shooting lanes through the corn.
What a stellar fella.
We cut up some downed trees laying on the field edge as a sort of return.
After making breakfast and transporting hunters, the camp cook and I went for a stroll through the squirrel woods. He killed 2 but sadly we lost one to a 3 pronged tree fork. He is from the far SE part of the state. Those were his first LBL squirrels. We're already talking about him making a special trip just for it.
Saturday was rather warm all day with rain coming in right at the end of LST.
Matt sat facing a small island of trees ~150 from the field edge, visible only thanks to our new farmer friend.
He saw a couple does and a small bucks. 2 other hunters heard some movement in surrounding woods, but no visible movement.
That evening Matt went back to his spot and this time emptied a whole bottle of Tinks69 through the area. 20min before end of LST a buck comes through absolutely stammering around looking for his new found "girlfriend". He was allowed to walk 2 times before it became 3 strikes, your out.
Rain started right as I pulled up to drop an assistant and some guttin'n'gillin tools.
No other deer were seen by our other hunters.
We all high fived Matt and gave him props for bringing in some camp meat. Tenderloins cooked in cast iron on hot coals is always fantastic.
The rain really started in as we went to bed. I was set up on a cot with a A-frame over me and stayed bone dry. At least 4 out of 6 tent users had leaks and reported wet gear.
Always a good feeling to have a simple setup outperform modern gear.
The time change Sunday was interesting to experience in a group hunt like this.
The rain picked up as everyone awoke and grabbed some breakfast. One hunter decided to call it and sleep in. Another hunter showed up the night before just in time to hunt the evening. We placed him with Matt that morning as he had the most action the prior day. This hunter is still on active duty at Knox and has been trying for several years now to harvest his first deer. Sadly this story does not end with him bringing home some meat.
The story relayed to me was there was action right at first light while Matt was taking a leak. A buck was pushing a doe through some corn and he could not get everything fully together in the moment. Who knows if Matt being cognizant wouldve changed that situation or not.
Meanwhile our last remaing hunter, Brad, let me talk him into sitting a new location for him that was at the very end of this property with a wooded ridge at the back, swamp to the left and field edge out front. He was able to sit with his son and his soon-to-be daughter in law.
At 6:40 a buck walked out at ~270yd.
he made a clean shot, but did not see him fall. Rain was still fallingly quite heavily so they took up the search post-haste.
They found him dead not to far from the shot - a unique 9 point buck. Cell service is terrible back in that corner.
We were told at the shot that Brad had shot a buck. We didnt hear back until 8.
By the time we picked everyone up they were soaked through, but grinning ear-to-ear!
Everyone had a grand old-time. We ate well - big breakfasts, deer spaghetti with homemade sauce, squirrel buffalo dip, squirrel and dumplings, deer chili - all cooked by our esteemed camp cook. Not sure if they all cook that good out in the mountains or he just has the talent.
We were lucky enough to have a trailer and crewcab UTV rental donated for the hunt as well. It made transport so much smoother. Plus I had quite a bit of fun just driving around hunters. Getting to do it in a normally closed area on public ground that doesn't allow it makes it that much sweeter (note - I had full permission to operate that machinery in that capacity)
Bonus pit toilet poetry.
Trying my hand at a short write up explaining the event.
A little background - I took on the position of the district 1 director chair for KYBHA June 2025.
Since then I have been slowly building momentum in my region and spreading the mission of BHA through educational pint nights and stewardship events.
Land Between the Lakes (LBL) is a 170,000 acre national recreational area in Western Kentucky. The USFS reached out to me last year asking if we were interested in hosting a specialty hunt but did so in October, not leaving near enough time to plan a hunt.
I reached back out this August to confirm they were still on board and got to planning.
If anything we came into this hunt over prepared. Months of commitee meetings and pouring over excel sheets and Microsoft word documents proved fruitful. We made it through the whole weekend without much incident or having to run to a store for something forgotten. That leads to more time in camp amd with our hunters.
A small scouting party met up Friday at the hunt area to place blinds, including one of our hunters and my good buddy Matt.
Poor crop and flooding led to the corn not yet being harvested.
That took ~600acre of field and narrowed it down to extremely small sections of limited visibility.
The universe, God, or whichever you like, must have heard our silent pleas as the farmer pulled up to the gate right as we did.
He heard from the Forest Service what we were doing and decided he would spend his personal time and fuel to mow the field edges for us. After 5 minutes of talking he says to tell us where we're hunting and he'll mow shooting lanes through the corn.
What a stellar fella.
We cut up some downed trees laying on the field edge as a sort of return.
After making breakfast and transporting hunters, the camp cook and I went for a stroll through the squirrel woods. He killed 2 but sadly we lost one to a 3 pronged tree fork. He is from the far SE part of the state. Those were his first LBL squirrels. We're already talking about him making a special trip just for it.
Saturday was rather warm all day with rain coming in right at the end of LST.
Matt sat facing a small island of trees ~150 from the field edge, visible only thanks to our new farmer friend.
He saw a couple does and a small bucks. 2 other hunters heard some movement in surrounding woods, but no visible movement.
That evening Matt went back to his spot and this time emptied a whole bottle of Tinks69 through the area. 20min before end of LST a buck comes through absolutely stammering around looking for his new found "girlfriend". He was allowed to walk 2 times before it became 3 strikes, your out.
Rain started right as I pulled up to drop an assistant and some guttin'n'gillin tools.
No other deer were seen by our other hunters.
We all high fived Matt and gave him props for bringing in some camp meat. Tenderloins cooked in cast iron on hot coals is always fantastic.
The rain really started in as we went to bed. I was set up on a cot with a A-frame over me and stayed bone dry. At least 4 out of 6 tent users had leaks and reported wet gear.
Always a good feeling to have a simple setup outperform modern gear.
The time change Sunday was interesting to experience in a group hunt like this.
The rain picked up as everyone awoke and grabbed some breakfast. One hunter decided to call it and sleep in. Another hunter showed up the night before just in time to hunt the evening. We placed him with Matt that morning as he had the most action the prior day. This hunter is still on active duty at Knox and has been trying for several years now to harvest his first deer. Sadly this story does not end with him bringing home some meat.
The story relayed to me was there was action right at first light while Matt was taking a leak. A buck was pushing a doe through some corn and he could not get everything fully together in the moment. Who knows if Matt being cognizant wouldve changed that situation or not.
Meanwhile our last remaing hunter, Brad, let me talk him into sitting a new location for him that was at the very end of this property with a wooded ridge at the back, swamp to the left and field edge out front. He was able to sit with his son and his soon-to-be daughter in law.
At 6:40 a buck walked out at ~270yd.
he made a clean shot, but did not see him fall. Rain was still fallingly quite heavily so they took up the search post-haste.
They found him dead not to far from the shot - a unique 9 point buck. Cell service is terrible back in that corner.
We were told at the shot that Brad had shot a buck. We didnt hear back until 8.
By the time we picked everyone up they were soaked through, but grinning ear-to-ear!
Everyone had a grand old-time. We ate well - big breakfasts, deer spaghetti with homemade sauce, squirrel buffalo dip, squirrel and dumplings, deer chili - all cooked by our esteemed camp cook. Not sure if they all cook that good out in the mountains or he just has the talent.
We were lucky enough to have a trailer and crewcab UTV rental donated for the hunt as well. It made transport so much smoother. Plus I had quite a bit of fun just driving around hunters. Getting to do it in a normally closed area on public ground that doesn't allow it makes it that much sweeter (note - I had full permission to operate that machinery in that capacity)
Bonus pit toilet poetry.
