Turkey Hunting Lease
Turkey hunting lease benefits bring more to the turkey hunter through Mid-America Hunting Association than other turkey lease options.
Classic agricultural area wooded creek bottom turkey flock. We are 200 yards away from them in a blind on a thinly treed fence line right after the sun cleared the small ridge pasture behind us. Any one that thinks they can maneuver in on these birds using run and gun or whatever turkey hunting technique that puts the hunter out in the the thin trees makes a mistake. We see each spring the members with the fewest hunting days, scout and set up a blind. Those that spring turkey hunt the longest typically attempt run and gun. We simply do not have the tree cover to hide hunter's daylight movement. All may try their favored turkey hunting technique to include those that want to run and gun.
While we are a collective of do it yourself turkey hunters our approach to paid hunts, in this case self guided turkey hunt opportunities, is the turkey hunter having a choice of when, where and how often to hunt with the ability to fill all available Iowa, Missouri and Kansas tags each spring and fall season while hunting multiple leases. And, do so without of the additional work of running his own lease.
We also offer not just spring season, for one price we offer Mule and Whitetail Deer; pheasant and quail; duck and goose hunts as well. All on private lease land and all on 100% natural game. And, when it comes to our spring season options, we offer two species, the Eastern and the Rio Grande.
MAHA approach is to lease the right habitat within the right region of the state that provides good wild turkey hunts This is opposed to a turkey hunting guide and lodge operation restricted to reasonable driving distance from the outfitter's camp.
We were hunting the south half of a 320 acre farm that is all pasture with a timbered creek running north and south across the property. The creek has a timbered ridge and bottom with a lot of clean oak and hickory timber. The creek system runs for miles in an area with a heavy turkey population, so we knew turkeys could funnel to this farm from adjoining farms at any given time of the day.
This was a late Kansas season hunt, the easy toms were history, but we knew a lot of turkeys were in the area and it was up to us to play the game smart and rely on patients.
While scouting a favorite lease we saw several toms strutting the pasture on the high side of the ridge and watched them go to roost, so we decided to set up on the high side of the ridge between the roost and strutting area.
The morning of our turkey hunt 2 toms flew down low and stayed in the timber gobbling the 1st hour and slowly moved off the property.
Knowing the birds cover a lot of ground in a day's time we decided to wait it out instead of chasing them fearing we would run off the only 2 toms we had to hunt on this lease.
We called about every 20 minutes hoping whatever was around would be able to pinpoint our location and eventually move in to check us out.
We sat from 6 am until about 11:15 and decided to move to the area the tom was gobbling in the morning, which was about 150 yards from our set-up. We had seen some in that area earlier. We snuck very quietly and slowly to the bottom of the ridge to an open green field and called one time. Immediately, we heard a gobble right in front of the area we just left. Apparently, he was coming to us at the same time we were moving to the spot we thought he might return to. Luckily, we didn't spook him when we moved, so we decoded to let him put on a show for our decoy that was sitting by it's lonely self and wait until it meandered off to move back and make an attempt to call him back.
We patiently crawled back to our set-up and waited about 20 minutes to call and made a couple loud calls hoping to make him gobble if he was still in the area. After about the 4th or 5th series of calls we heard him gobble one time, so we called 1 or 2 more times and shut down hoping to arouse his curiosity.
After about 45 minutes we looked out and spotted him at about 150 yards peeking through the brush at our decoy with other turkeys behind him we never knew were there. I was concerned those other turkeys would give us away as it was tough to watch them all. Instead of calling we decided to see what his next move would be rather than spooking him with another call. He never strutted or gobbled, but slowly inched his way closer and closer until he reached the range of 30 yards. Bang at 12:40 pm.
This lease started out cold and went nearly hotter than we could handle.
The primary benefits to the wild turkey hunting within our lease land system is the turkey hunter is not locked into hunting just one lease that may or may not produce turkeys. He has the selection of multiple locations and the ability to change hunt locations over Kansas, Missouri and Iowa. This is not a small feature as flocks change from year to year. That one flock that has been on that one roost for 6 years may the seventh year be absent never to return again.
Another set of turkey hunting members and some of their toms, from one hunt on a farm that has been one great turkey lease. The comments are from the back of the pictures.
Rain day toms.
An especially tough bird to bring in.
Nothing special, just another turkey.
On each return hunt we recommend the hunter return for the first part of his trip to his favorite spot. After filling a tag he should seek out another roost to build flexibility as to where to hunt the next season. This is an advantage if only from the perspective that returning to the same spot each trip is routine and detracts from the overall hunt quality. Having different farms to look at, different roosts, different setups, etc., all add to that special quality of do it yourself hunts.
Another benefit of the MAHA paid hunt approach is that we exist for profit and depend upon the returning hunter. To that end we know what a turkey lease should be and that is one that will provide such a good hunt the hunter will return for years to come. And, should that turkey lease stop being productive we have others in the wings to ensure all have the chance to get on birds each spring regardless of landowner land use changes, bulldozer farm improvements or land sales. A good turkey lease to us means our hunters will be turkey hunting.
And another on a windy day.
Why pay us for the hunter’s choice of where to hunt - is for the convenience of it all.
All a hunter really wants to do is hunt and that is all our hunters must do. We handle the liability insurance, lease contract writing after negotiation and after finding the right habitat in the right part of the state as well as enforcement of our contractual rights. All the hunter does is hunt.
This administrative burden continues with membership collections, landowner payments and satisfaction of internal revenue service requirements. These are the advantages of a our operation in that the hunter avoids all the additional requirements above making his own hunt. And, while a collective or club type approach may not be popular as all hunters want their own special spot, the MAHA approach adds further benefits above that of the administrative requirements. These are the intangible aspects such as not having to have landowner contact and deal with the multiple personalities that exist.
MAHA is one way to self guided spring season turkey hunts in three states on private leases with the advantage of coming back in the fall for deer, duck, upland bird or a fall season hunt.
