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!
