How Much Does an Exotic Big Game Hunt Cost in Tennessee?

What counts as "exotic" here

Tennessee doesn't manage these animals as game. Axis deer, fallow deer, aoudad, mouflon rams, water buffalo, Watusi cattle — none of them carry a state season or a required license, because none of them are native wildlife. They're raised on private, high-fenced preserves and sold the way livestock is sold: per head. Goodman Ranch and Wilderness Hunting Lodge, the state's two deepest exotic outfitters, both price every one of these species on a single list, with no "big game" versus "small game" split inside it — that's the reading this page uses too. All 77 packages, all 7 outfitters, count.

That's a different market from Tennessee's native big game — deer, elk, turkey, bear, wild hog — which does carry a state season and a license requirement, and has its own median. If you came here for a whitetail or a turkey hunt, that page is the one you want. And if the word "buffalo" brought you here looking for American bison, that's a different animal too — this page's buffalo is water buffalo.

Why $1,995 buys a ram and $8,000 buys a deer

A trophy fee is priced per animal, so the animal you pick is most of the story. Most packages here price exactly that way — a rate for the one animal, not a flat number for the trip — and that's also why only 20 of the 77 line up cleanly enough to compare head-to-head: a per-animal rate depends on which animal and how many, and doesn't belong in the same table as a flat-rate hunt. Inside that comparable slice, the middle half of the market — the 25th to 75th percentile — runs $1,995 to $5,923. The top of it belongs to deer: Bridgecreek Farms' Fallow Deer Slam Hunt runs $8,000, and Goodman Ranch's Père David's Deer Hunt runs $7,995 — both trophy-grade, both deer. Sheep is the deepest group here, 26 packages across 6 outfitters, and the cheapest corner of the market; antelope, water buffalo and goat sit in between, a handful of outfitters and a few packages apiece. The $4,995 median lands inside deer-and-sheep territory because those two groups are also the two deepest: more than two of every three packages here are one or the other.

What the trophy fee already includes

Most of these prices are closer to the whole trip than they look. Lodging is included on 72 of the 77 packages, a guide on 69, meals on 63 — so a quoted price is usually room, board and a guide bundled with the animal, not a bare trophy fee with everything else billed separately. Meat processing is included on 45 packages and taxidermy on 29; ask about both before you book if you want either, since they're closer to a coin flip than a given.

One more thing the trophy fee usually doesn't need to cover: a state license. Because these are private-preserve, non-native species, Tennessee's hunting license generally doesn't apply to them the way it does to deer or turkey — one outfitter's own price list says outright that a state license is required only for its whitetail and turkey hunts, not for any of its exotic species. Confirm it with whoever you book with, since the exception is the animal, not the property.

What this page skips

This page is Tennessee's ranch-raised exotic species only. It doesn't cover the state's native, TWRA-regulated big game — deer, elk, turkey, bear, wild hog — which runs on a real season and a real license, and which has its own cost page.