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Possible Move to Tennessee

lightsareout

Private
Full Member
Minuteman
May 12, 2011
76
0
Clarksville, TN
Due to work my wife and I are talking about moving to Nashville for a larger job market and to enjoy the culter, life style, and scenery. Everything about the area is appealing to us. I work in IT and all my research boasts that Nashville is experiencing huge growth in this industry.

I am looking for input and experiences, How is white tail hunting in TN? Is there lots of public land for use in vicinity of Nashville? I bow and rifle hunt. Also looking for advice on wild boar hunting, is TN a good location for this? And lastly are there options for shooting ranges (indoor handgun, outdoor handgun, long range rifle, and archery?)

Thanks for any insight.
 
Nashville is nice. If you were considering Memphis, I would say, "Stay away."
 
Both Cookeville and Murfreesboro (1hr & 1/2hr drive) have indoor pistol and I am sure Nashville would have at least 1 or 2 indoor facilities. Lots of deer within a short drive down I 24 or I40. Boar hunting in Crossville, but lots of coyotes EVERYWHERE.

Couple of 100-300yd ranges in Manchester vicinity- about an hour drive. For more yardage, might have to go to private property owners.

Let me know if I can help. Lots of good people from TN on this site. We will be glad to have you.
 
Both Cookeville and Murfreesboro (1hr & 1/2hr drive) have indoor pistol and I am sure Nashville would have at least 1 or 2 indoor facilities. Lots of deer within a short drive down I 24 or I40. Boar hunting in Crossville, but lots of coyotes EVERYWHERE.

Couple of 100-300yd ranges in Manchester vicinity- about an hour drive. For more yardage, might have to go to private property owners.

Let me know if I can help. Lots of good people from TN on this site. We will be glad to have you.

I appreciate the information. I could get into coyote hunting... TN seems like a great place to live from when we've visited and everything we've read in deciding where we would like to relocate.
 
I'm pretty convinced that Nashville is the greatest city on earth. As for hunting, I can't help you out much, but in Clarksville (45 min North) there is Montgomery County Shooting complex that has rifle out to 400 yds as well as pistol and archery ranges.
 
I've "lived" (while working overseas) in TN for the last seven years, over Knoxville side of the state. Nashville is ok if you can do BIG city living. Knoxville is a bit too big for my tastes even (I'm moving to SD), but it's not bad and definitely better than Nashville. Then again, I understand chasing the job market and Nashville has that. Welcome to no state income taxes but the highest sales tax in the nation.

While I can't speak of shooting ranges specifically in the Nashville area, you have a couple excellent long range shooting options in the vicinity if you wish:
ORSA .::. Oak Ridge Sportsmens's Association
Rockcastle Shooting Center

Huntable public land is rare in TN, but there's options. Cherokee NF in the east is one. Coyote and hog hunting is best done in agreement with a land owner who wants them out.

On a side note, my old sniper partner (RIP) was from Wausau... Told me many stories of the place.
 
It gets hot with all of the pavement/humidity in the summertime. If you move there get a boat or a pool.
 
Possible Move to Tennessee

I live in clarksville. Nashville is a pretty nice city lots of stuff to do. There is a huge public land area about two hours from Nashville. Check out land between the lakes. Montgomery shooting complex is a real nice range also. Do a Quick google search on it. I go there about every two weeks. You also have rock castle within driving distance and countless indoor ranges close by.
 
Rockcastle is around a two hour drive. Do a google search on the Mammoth Sniper Challenge. I also believe they are doing more long range stuff this year such as instructional and fun shoots. They shoot over 1000 there.

I live near Bowling Green, KY and love the Nashville area. Nice people.
 
+1, but I think you need to be a member to shoot the 1000 yd range. Be sure to try the Pancake Pantry in Nashville. It's a must!
 
For whitetail hunting, join us on:
Tennessee Deer Talk: Viewing list of forums

Plenty of public land to hunt in TN. The closer to the KY border, the better the soil conditions, so bigger the deer. Ft Campbell is close to Nashville as are Wildlife Management Areas.

As for TN, no state income tax. Best gun laws in the country. Fairly low cost of living, very good housing prices.
Nashville has a new indoor range on I-65, just south of town. Montgomery Co Shooting Complex is pretty nice.

Lots to do in Nashville. The airport is easy to manage and the interstates put Nashville centrally located to a lot of the southeast.

And don't forget: After the weather we've had this winter, you'll feel right at home coming from WI!!
 
Hickok45 lives just outside of Nashville. If it's good enough for him...
 
If everyone is as nice in TN as the posters in this thread its going to be an easy move for my family and me!

Thank you everyone for the advice. You are really putting my few concerns to rest, sounds like TN has much more to offer than central WI. Sounds like some very good hunting opportunities and some very nice shooting facilities.

The weather is sure appealing as well, this morning I had -20 degrees on my drive to work and the snow banks are higher than my jeep driving down some of the city streets. Think its time for this midwest family to make a move.
 
I second the LBL reply. Great place to hunt, both quota and some open season stuff. Don't forget to check out Strategic Edge Gun club's website. Fairly new place, growing and my son and I just became members there a few weeks ago. Probably about an hour or so south of town. You will love Nashville if you're into city life and there's plenty to do, see and shop for.
 
TWRA estimates there presently are 900,000 whitetails in the state. After WWII, the state only had a total deer population of about 2000 (two thousand!!!). Somewhere along the way, TWRA figured out what a goldmine deer licenses were and got serious about stocking and herd management efforts. The last time they imported deer was 1985. And it all paid off for them because the state today averages a bit more than 200,000 ($28) deer tags sold every year, in a state with a human population of less than 7 million. In good years, more than 40% of deer hunters fill their tag (>80,000 deer). Now deer hunting brings in on the order of a few hundred millions of dollars each year, from all deer-hunting related sources, to the state's economy. Some of the credit also goes to the extent to which farmers and hunters have embraced the notion of raising food plots specifically to promote deer growth, some of which is motivated by the possibility of selling hunting leases.

The herd is so large in middle and western Tennessee that they're trying to thin the population. So they're plentiful but, unfortunately, they're not especially big. The biggest typical ever taken in Tennessee was only 184", and there only have been a handful of non-typicals over 200" ever taken. The reason they're no threat to the B&C record book is the genetics of all the deer the TWRA have imported over the years. Especially back in the 1940s and 50s, a deer was just a deer. The trophy craze wasn't so intense as it is now. And commercial deer farming is against the law in Tennessee. No individual may own or keep a (living) deer, so Joe Sixpack can't go to one of the commercial farms where their yearling bucks are 200"-plus and introduce those genes into the local population. And so long as 200,000+ Tennessee hunters are willing to pay $28 every year for for the chance to harvest an 80" buck, I don't see TWRA getting all fired up about turning loose of the cash to bring in better genes.

There is a large concentration of public lands around the BNAshville basin, mostly adjacent the area's many bodies of water, but your best bet usually is private land where they're growing a deer-specific food plot.

Now for the bad news. In 2011, TWRA decided it needed to act against all the morons who were releasing domestic swine into the wild to go feral so they could come back in a couple of years to hunt them. So they took swine off the list of sporting game and declared it a destructive species.

The only way for non-farmers to legally hunt feral hogs in Tennessee is either to get in on one of the public land culls, or to be appointed as a "wild hog control designee" by a landowner. Landowners, their family and the farm's tenants still may hunt the wild hogs. And if the farm is more than 1000 acres, the owner may designate one hunter (of his choosing) per each 100 acres in excess of 1000.

But otherwise, you can't hog hunt in Tennessee. Sucks, don't it?

Tennessee was nearly coyote-free for close to a hundred years, but now they've come back strong. Coyotes are classified as a fur-bearing game animal. They require only a regular H&F license. There is no limit and no season, but there are restrictions on when centerfires can be used because the state is paranoid about protecting its deer hunting "cash cow" and fears poachers posing as coyote hunters otherwise could skate on a technicality.

And of course now they have elk in the east end of the state. From 2000-2008, TWRA released ~200 elk into the Smoky Mountains. The herd now is ~400 animals, and the number of tags per season has increased to whopping six (yes, 6), but that number will continue to grow as the herd's population does the same.

As for gun ranges in/around BNAshville, Gun City on Mufreesboro Road AFAIK is the only indoor public pistol range in the city. Gun City's staff also has a long-standing and well-deserved reputation for being the most disagreeable and most abrasive in the state, so consider yourself forewarned.

TWRA runs a public outdoor range about 20 minutes SE of BNAshville, near Mt Juliet, the Stones River Hunter Education Center. They have archery and 50-foot pistol and 100-yard rifle ranges. Used to have two 200-yard lanes, but too many hillbillies who thought they were Sergeant York turned out to be Mr. Magoo. Another 15 minutes to the east of there, in the city of Lebanon, The Gun Room has a public indoor pistol range.

About 30 minutes to the SE of BNAshville, in the city of Murfreesboro, On-Target has a public indoor pistol range. Half an hour to the north in Greenbrier, Guns and Leather has a public indoor pistol range. And about an hour to the NW, in the community of Southside (midway between Clarksville and Ashland City) is the Montgomery County Shooting Complex. They have archery, 50-foot pistol, tactical pistol, 100-yard rifle, 400-yard rifle, as well as skeet, trap, sporting clays and (sometimes) wobble ranges.

Tennessee probably is as pro-gun and pro-hunting as any state in the country. They might not be the innovator, but the state legislature does not hesitate to act when they see a good idea developed elsewhere. The Tennessee State Constitution says in plain language that firearm ownership is an individual right. Hunting is a constitutionally protected right as well. And there is a bill pending in the legislature (which I have little doubt will pass) to criminalize the use of drones to harass hunters or their game.

Tennessee is one of seven states to have followed in Montana's steps to pass its own version of the Firearms Freedom Act which, as a test of the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution, asserts that Federal gun laws have no standing on firearms manufactured within the state, sold to a citizen of the state, and maintained within the state. In my estimation, this has been done in preparation for a test of federal constitutional limits, at some future date when the court is suitably staffed, to give the state standing to be heard before SCOTUS.

Tennessee is a "Shall Issue" state, and issues a generalized handgun carry permit, not a concealed carry permit. Open carry is legal to HCP holders. Tennessee has full reciprocity will all other HCP/CCW-issuing states.

One may go about armed on one's own property, concealed or otherwise, without a handgun carry permit. Doing so might attract unwanted LEO attention, but it is entirely within the law. Non-permit holders traveling by car must store either ammunition or weapon (or both) out of reach of all non-HCP-bearing occupants. Tennesseans who possess an HCP also may travel with a long gun accessible in the car, loaded, provided the chamber is empty. In spite of this, HCP-holding motorists are not required to "announce" when stopped by an LEO. Juveniles traveling to a shooting range or place of hunting may travel with a firearm in the car, provided they follow the same access precautions as non-permit holders.

Tennessee not only has a "Castle Doctrine" law, the law stipulates that those protections also extend to your automobile and, in the case of a business-owner, to the place of business. The law states there is no obligation to retreat and that breaking into someone's home is sufficient demonstration of intent to do harm to warrant response with lethal force.

Tennessee does not encumber ownership of NFAs, and about the only restriction on their use is you may not hunt with an automatic weapon. State law makes absolutely no distinction between use of a suppressed weapon versus unsuppressed, to include allowing hunting with a suppressed weapon.

From the (pissed-off) east Tennessee hillbilly militia that slaughtered a column of British regulars at the Battle of King's Mountain (because their commander had insulted them), to earning the title "the Volunteer State" by its massive contribution of manpower to the War of 1812, to the legendary sharpshooter, frontiersman, and hero of the Alamo, Col. David Crockett, to the most audacious cavalry officer this hemisphere ever produced, Nathan Bedford Forrest, to the sharpshooting hillbilly conscientious objector-turned killing machine, who earned the MoH by near single-handedly killing 28 German soldiers and capturing 132 more in the battle of the Argonne forest, Alvin C. York, to the man who designed and manufactures (in his home town) the only new rifle formally adopted by any US military service in the last 50 years, Ronnie Barrett, Tennessee is rich in gun history and lore. I'll wager a month's beer money that no one at Beretta Arms knows this but Jonathan Browning, father to John Moses Browning, and a gun designer and maker in his own right, was born not 10 miles from the site where their new factory will be built, in Gallatin, Tennessee.

The opening days of deer and dove seasons are high holy days in Tennessee, and employers know to expect mass absenteeism on those dates. The state's largest and eponymous university even has one mascot that is a blue tick hound coon dog, and another that attends games armed with a flintlock rifle (to complement his buckskins and cookskin cap).

I'll close this post with the only unforgettable line delivered by Marky-Mark in that imminently forgettable movie (Shooter), "Welcome to Tennessee, patron state of shootin' stuff."

Welcome to Tennessee!
 
I moved from WI to outside Nashville 9 years ago and wish I had done it 29 years ago.

Strategic Edge is great, just shot 1,000 there last weekend but think membership is closed until he makes it larger. I think he said they would be accepting more applications around July.
 
I am relocating to Nashville in May for a few months... Looking forward to it tremendously, seems like a real nice place and from the few times I've visited the people have been friendly, pancakes tasty and there's freedom....
 
I lived in Nashville for three years, although I left a few decades ago. Only one of 2 cities I ever lived that I would happily move back to and I'm reminded of this on the rare occasion I visit. As Fred pointed out there are lots of hunting opportunities but I prefer the private club route for several reasons, not the least of which is safety. Best of luck to you. I think you are making a good move.