Kansas Deer Hunting
Kansas hunting includes more than Eastern and Rio Grande Turkey. Mid-America Hunting Association provides much Mule and Whitetail Deer, pheasant and quail hunting.
The combination of a deer and turkey hunting profile of hunting interests is frequent enough amongst those that apply for membership to create this one web page illustration of how both hunting disciplines may be enjoyed by the single Mid-America Hunting Association hunter.
Many when coming to a deer hunting web page would expect to see nothing but the best of the trophy deer that organization has to offer. We do have plenty of top 10% trophy deer and many more near trophy deer and that is more accurate a description than had we loaded all the best deer pictures up front. part of our approach never to oversell the Association or just how hard fair chase hunting is.
Like most of our members the hunter below hunts Missouri frequently and Kansas and Iowa when tags are drawn.
Our deer hunting approach is to provide private land deer hunting for the hunter that enjoys the quality of the deer hunt first. We have trophy and non trophy hunters and all may hunt to their own level of enjoyment. The reality of a self guided hunter operation is that most that enter into it are trophy hunters and those that are not soon become so as it is easy to see a trophy and hard to harvest one. Those hunters that initially are not trophy hunters soon find that once the public lands hunter mentality is shed it becomes much easier to be more selective at what is being hunted to further enhance the hunt quality aspect.
The first element to agree on is that within a self guided hunting organization there is one price that can only be paid for by the hunter himself and that is boots on the ground time. If we agree it is only through actual experience on any particular hunting lease does full success potential develop then we should also agree that effort may take more than one or two days of observations per spot. To get the process started we do give recommendations of where to hunt and under the best conditions of a good hunting lease listing of starting points, pre-season scouting and hunting both the spring turkey season as well as fall deer season on the same collection of leases will probably take three years of effort to maximize any future single hunt. The rest of this article tells how these three hunting and scouting years are typically spent.
The first issue of when to apply for membership is the best time of the calendar year to start is a mute point. Our membership year is a 365 day year from time of membership allocation until that anniversary the next calendar year. This means that all who become members gain access to the entire year of hunting seasons.
Jumping into any cycle of seasons is further mute as the first year is a break-in year regardless due to that hunter simply must get started at some point and picking that point between spring turkey and fall deer seasons leaves a lot of options. The one option that may appear to be ideal would be to gain membership in January, pre-season turkey and deer scout during February and March, spring turkey hunt and deer scout again during spring turkey season in April or May, return for a fall deer hunt. Repeat the following January. While this may appear to be a logical approach we will now devalue it into reality.
We have observed through the years that regardless of how good our first year Kansas scouting and hunting recommendations are to any one hunter they will not be hunting their first year lease choices by their third year of membership.
What happens is that we will give all a good jump start that first year recommending right where to park the truck step out and scout or hunt. Typically after that first year and once the self guided hunter becomes familiar (breaks-in) to our system of much land availability with limited competition that hunter will expand out from those initial recommendations to find new spots. Half of the places he scouts or hunts will disappoint him, the other half will be better than what he previously seen and after a season or two of exploring different localities that hunter will find between 2,000 and 4,000 acres of leases where he wants to hunt. Typically these leases will be different than the first year's hunting spots as with more time on the ground that hunter finds more spots to his particular liking. Also common at this point is realization that even on the low side of 2,000 acres of hunting spots no one hunter can cover that much ground on a single trip. That hunter will then begin to concentrate on his most favored leases and start to discover those golden nugget spots that most land has and that most of us are blind to until spending a couple of days on that one farm in stand or blind. It is at this point of concentration on a handful of leases that success increases.
The archery deer hunter more than any other illustrates the above description of a member's/hunter's break-in to Mid-America Hunting Association. Many archery deer hunters will spend more time scouting than any other hunting discipline group. Spring turkey hunting is always an excuse for more deer scouting. The archery deer hunter is far more likely than others to travel out for a spring turkey hunt, harvest one tom of any caliber, and spends the rest of the time deer scouting.
Self guided deer hunting means deer hunting to that hunter's desire to include his choice of trophy rack that many find our way means their personal bests.
Jon, John and Shaun,
I had another pretty good season this year. I hunted all three states this year and came away with one decent buck and a smaller one that I probably wouldn't have shot if I had taken a closer look (it was on the run in some high grass and I thought it was bigger). Also helped out the farmers with 5 does and a coyote (missed another one). Had some trouble with trespassers and the weather wasn't good and the hunting hard on a couple of my hunts but overall had a good year with lots of good memories. I met a really nice farmer and wife who took me in like family-they were just great!
Thanks to all of you for the opportunity to hunt on some really good places.
Sincerely RW
While the archery deer hunter may scout more than any other hunter, he is one that actually hunts the fewest farms.
It is very common for an archery deer hunter to hunt two different farms even if having covered a couple of thousand acres while scouting. Those hunting leases he does hunt he also frequently waits until the last read of the weather forecast before deciding where to go hunting. That same bow hunter should he break from the pattern of hunting one or two farms, it is after that trophy he was after failed to come to fruition or did, and it did not go well.
The above bow hunter stereotype is just that, an averaging of those that spend the most time in the field during spring turkey season and fall deer hunting. The challenge with Kansas deer hunting is the competitive draw tag system that will prevent all deer hunters from their choice of Kansas deer tag each season. This then results in a secondary approach to Kansas deer hunting in spite of a continuation of the spring turkey hunts.
What most deer hunters plan for each deer hunting season is to hunt Missouri as well as either Kansas or Iowa as determined by tag draw success rates. As it is most deer hunters will fall deer hunt two our our three states on most years. The previous spring turkey hunts are the means to keep tabs on those states most likely to be deer hunted that fall dependent on previous deer tag draw success history as a predictor of where the next draw deer tag will result from.
As it stands over the recent several years is that most deer hunters will draw a Kansas deer tag before that of Iowa and more Kansas deer tags than Iowa. Iowa's non draw year point preference system is strictly enforced by Iowa State and it is that as long as any deer hunter continues to apply for an Iowa deer tag he will eventually get his hunting tag of choice.
A future Kansas trophy whitetail, pictured in January by the MAHA owner/operator Jon Nee while on a land run in southern Kansas.
Given the increased likelihood of Kansas deer tags, the preference point system in Iowa and that Missouri deer tags may be purchased over the counter most spring turkey hunters find it easy where to spend a spring turkey hunting and combination deer scouting effort. That result is that most deer/turkey hunters always spring turkey hunt in Missouri, very frequently in Kansas and least of all in Iowa. An Iowa deer tag is typically every second to third year for archery, two years for shotgun and every year for the muzzleloader deer hunter. That is the current frequency of expectations for the respective (hunt method) Iowa deer tags.
For those going on a Kansas deer hunt there does exist more potential adventure not just for trophy deer hunting, but also that Kansas offers a range of habitat and hunting skills distinction greater than that of Iowa or Missouri.
Kansas deer hunting includes Mule Deer as well as Whitetail Deer, habitat ranging from tree stand capable wood lots to the big open where individual trees can be landmarks. And uniquely, large acreage of tall prairie grass that will confound the woods only deer hunter and frustrate may with much eyes on trophy deer without chance for shot. It is the case of the grasslands deer hunting that the upland bird hunter has more success at finding and harvesting this open ground deer than many experienced deer only hunters.
Perhaps what Kansas deer hunting does best is give the deer hunter the opportunity for variety to his deer hunts. Two examples would be first the early muzzleloader season in September giving the chance to hunt pre-rut bachelor group bucks with behavior patterns completely devoid of any breeding behavior. The second example would be a western Kansas deer hunt where putting on a good pair of walking boots, carry good binoculars and a capability to shoot 300 yards plus brings great variety to Kansas' archery peak rut hunt in mid November.
In this latter example the archery deer hunter could peak rut hunt in Iowa in November before the gun season spending endless hours over the entire trip in deer stand and then later return for the Kansas firearms season walking the big open of western Kansas for an entirely different type of deer hunt. What this deer hunting variety may do best is recharge interest in the total deer hunt experience not limited to a specific method. How many of us after the fifth day in stand could use a recharge of the mental stamina battery that looking forward to a different lease or hunt method/technique provides? Even the most dedicated deer stand hunter, if honest, will admit that even by the third continuous day in stand a break to regroup some motivation is often a better idea that pushing through for a contiguous seven day, 12 hour day stand hunt.
When it comes to do it yourself hunts this article does not train anyone on wildlife regulations or techniques, it simply offers a picture into some of the options available to the Mid-America Hunting Association members. For a more detailed discussion advance to our Kansas deer hunting section.
