It has been awhile since I have been but I will give you my take. There is a-lot of nice land and they used to plant some decent food plots. There is plenty of old growth oaks and good browse. But like any other public land in KY it gets a large amount of pressure. This means deer movement is sketchy until late in the evening. If you can locate and hunt close to bedding areas you could see deer and even quality deer. Each time I have hunted there in late October I have seen plenty of buck sign. If I was going to make a trip I would plan to have two weeks to hunt. It seems that I do not get deer found and patterned until the end of a week's hunt and then I have to leave. You may get lucky though. Locals are tight lipped on the deer and understandably so. One plus is that you can easily drive through the management area since there are roads everywhere. You can scout several areas in a day. I will say that the best buck hunting usually occurs on the TN side of the management area. Best of luck!

 

Some good advice. And one reason the TN side produces decent Bucks is because it gets much less pressure. The National Hunting Media has publicized Kentucky a lot in the last 10 years. So most Non Resident hunters choose to hunt the Kentucky side of LBL based on the reputation of the overall state of Kentucky.

The truth is the Tennessee portion of LBL probably has more mature Bucks than the Kentucky portion of LBL has. And since Kentucky increased it's price for Non Resident Licenses this year, Non Resident hunters can hunt the TN side of LBL for a cheaper price.

 

Thanks man Ill definetley have to ride up there one day and check it out. Probably wouldnt be able to hunt for a two week period due to work and family but I could definetley get a long weekend

 

LBL gets insane hunting pressure. Luckily, it's a very big place. So, those FEW hunters willing to do what it takes to penetrate into the sanctuaries are successful every year. Many people make the drive to hunt 100 yards from the road and I never understood that. If you plan on making the trip, then do yourself a favor and make the choice to venture deep into the woods. Hunt farther, hunt harder - this should be your motto. It isn't like hunting on private property... some of these deer are literally pressured every day for the first few weeks of season.

 

Look on their website and plan around the gun weekends (they have 3 on the TN side I believe). If you can get there before then, not a lot pf pressure on the TN side. If you can't, wait 2-3 weeks after the last gun hunt!!

 

LBL is 170,000 acres of mostly big Hardwood Ridges. Around 90% of LBL is forest. The other 10% of land is crops, pastures, and wetlands.

Most of LBL looks the same for the most part. This can make Deer hunting difficult for many people. Since most of LBL looks the same the Deer do not have to move much. This is because in most places everything looks and offers the same thing to the Deer in their home range. So they don't really need to move much to find what they need. This often leads to few deer sightings while hunting.

The LBL Deer population is down significantly from what it was many years ago. There are still deer around, but they are just more scattered across a huge amount of land. This can make Deer hard to pattern and see.

On a side note, the Kentucky Non Resident License is now $260 plus you must buy an LBL Permit. With that said, you can hunt the Tennessee portion of LBL for about the same price as the KY portion. The Tennessee portion of LBL is very large, I believe over 60,000 acres of land. The TN side of LBL receives less hunting pressure compared with the KY side of LBL.

 

Actually I believe Tennessee has a 7 Day Non Resident License that's available. So you can probably hunt the Tennessee side of LBL cheaper than you can the Kentucky side.