The short version: All eight Purchase counties now sit inside Kentucky's Chronic Wasting Disease Surveillance Zone. That changes some real things before deer season: how you can bait, what parts of an out-of-state deer you can bring home, and what leaves the zone. Here is the plain version, county by county and rule by rule.
Chronic wasting disease is a fatal, contagious disease of deer, and the state manages it by drawing a zone around the counties it is watching. As of this summer, every county in the Purchase is inside that line: Ballard, Calloway, Carlisle, Fulton, Graves, Hickman, Marshall, and McCracken. All eight. That is our count off the state's current 23-county list, and it means the rules below apply to your deer woods no matter which Purchase county you hunt.
Most of the zone's other counties, over in the Pulaski County area, were added last December after a positive test there. The Purchase counties were already in. If you have hunted here a while, the zone is not new to you, but it is worth knowing the whole region is under the same rulebook now.
What actually changes
Three things matter to a hunter here, and none of them stop you from hunting.
Baiting. Inside the zone, you can still put out bait, but not with the contact-style feeders that pack deer nose-to-nose, the troughs, funnels, and gravity feeders. That restriction was set for the deer season just past under the commissioner's authority, so confirm it is carried forward for 2026-27 before you set anything out. On public wildlife management areas, baiting is banned outright, zone or no zone. Scent attractants and deer urine are still legal.
Bringing a deer home from out of state. You cannot bring a whole carcass or the high-risk parts, the head, the brain, the spine, back into Kentucky from another state's deer, elk, or moose. What you can bring is deboned meat, antlers, a clean skull, clean teeth, hides, and finished taxidermy mounts. Same idea applies to what leaves the zone.
Rehab. Rehabilitating deer and other cervids is not allowed inside the zone.
The rule | Inside the zone |
|---|---|
Baiting (private land) | Allowed, but no contact-style feeders (troughs, funnels, gravity feeders); confirm the current-season order |
Baiting (public WMAs) | Banned, always |
Scent / deer urine | Still legal |
Out-of-state carcass | No whole carcasses or high-risk parts; deboned meat, antlers, clean skull, hides, mounts only |
Cervid rehab | Not allowed |
One thing the state's own pages disagree on
Fair warning while you plan: two of the agency's own pages currently list the special antlerless season differently, one shows a date without a year and the other appears to carry a stale year. Before you build a hunt around that specific late-September window, confirm the date directly with the state. We are chasing the clean answer.
Kentucky's archery deer season opens in early September, so these rules are live within weeks, not months.
Quick questions
Is my Purchase county in the CWD zone? Yes. All eight Purchase counties are inside Kentucky's Surveillance Zone.
Can I still bait deer on my own land? Yes, but not with contact-style feeders like troughs and gravity feeders; confirm the current season's order first. Baiting is banned on public WMAs.
Can I bring a deer back from another state? Only deboned meat, antlers, a clean skull, hides, and finished mounts. No whole carcasses or high-risk parts.
