How do you know you’re really, really lucky? When you’re one of 15 people to have your name drawn from among 8,664 entries to get an elk tag. That’s exactly what happened in Tennessee.
Fourteen of the successful hunters, including the lone youth, are from Tennessee. The other is from an out-of-state man who won an auction with a bid of $13,000. The funds from the auctioned tag go toward Tennessee’s elk restoration program.
The Tennessee Fish and Wildlife Commission voted earlier this spring to increase the number of tags from 11 to 15 and increase the three different hunt segments to seven days each.
Since the first managed hunt in 2009, hunters legally killed 33 elk. There were two elk taken during the 2016 Tennessee elk hunts at the North Cumberland WMA and surrounding private lands that were held in October.
Find more details on the Tennessee draw here.