Raise out of state fees!!
- Thread starter AteUp
- Start date
twoodrow12
New member
I'm assuming one reason for increased hunting pressure, specifically on bobwhites, this season is the lower populations in Texas and much of Oklahoma. A lot of Texas quail hunters either gave up their lease or weren't allowed to quail hunt on their leases this year... little public land there so where do a bunch of them head? Kansas. Texas, OK, and KS are the three biggest destination states for quail hunting... when two of them are down, pressure from out-of-state hunters is heavier in the state with better numbers.
Troy what in the world do us resident KS hunters have to do to get you nominated for Secretary of the KDWPT or head biologist or some sort of head honcho in Topeka? If you wouldn't accept who thinks like you that we could stand behind. As much as it gags me to say this the Kansas Bowhunters Association is the only dominant force I've seen here or am aware of for hunters in KS...is there an alternative activist group at the state level that doesnt have it's blinders on as far as their special interest and could help get someone in office (you or if not you someone with common sense)?
I'm a proponent of working with the ag industry and helping them sign up for habitat and administer habitat programs/incentives such as the buffer strips programs, easements, burns, removing trees etc etc. Frustrating all around but as you and others have preached until we fix the habitat problem and in our state put management and limitations back into our deer herd we will not solve any problems. (Fort those of you not up with your history - another history lesson Troy alluded to - Deer leasing took off and deer greed/selfishness grew exponentially once KS opened the state to out of state deer hunting first with transferrable landowner tags, then once that went away virtually unlimited out of state tags and near zero restrictions on resident deer hunters. We opened the floodgates there and it led to hurting other species and access for other game imo. I've no studies to back this up - only a hypothesis and 1st hand experience over the years.)
Thanks Troy for your input - hoping the new governor may put someone good in charge and kill off some of the politics that's being played at the state level with the KDWPT and specifically the deer herd.
Ditto the comments about Troy. His input is very valuable.
My memory is a little fuzzy and a quick internet search could not confirm it, but I think Kansas was forced to offer NR deer hunting through the courts in the mid-90s.
Regardless, IMO we are back to what I've been saying for a couple of years now. Producers are business-people trying to make a living just like the rest of us. Until pheasants and quail have meaningful commercial value to producers, they will not modify their farming practices to favor them. This statement is very broad and obviously doesn't apply to some producers, including many who post here. But I think it's broadly true enough to be a major limiting factor to wild populations. None of us like it, but meaningful commercial value means pay-to-play. Maybe it's leasing. Maybe it's trespass fees. Maybe it's the U-Guide model in Kansas. Maybe it's less WIHA acres, but higher payments to landowners that bring management requirements along.
My family owns some ground in central Kansas. One year I convinced our tenant not to spray the wheat stubble. About August he called me and was apoplectic about the kochia, pigweed, tumbleweed, and sunflower that had grown up in the wheat stubble. I thought "that sounds great! that's exactly what I want!" He thought "my neighbors think I'm lazy or incompetent." I bought some signs from Pheasants Forever that said "habitat management project". He put them up quickly. There were doves all over those fields in September and I was really looking forward to hunting them in November. I called him a week or two before the season. He couldn't stand it any more. He was worried about the weeds breaking off in the wind and blowing across his neighbors' fields depositing seed the whole way. So he mowed it. To about 6"-8". Of course his concern about spreading seed is valid, but I think we proved that there's plenty of seed bank in the soil anyway.
My memory is a little fuzzy and a quick internet search could not confirm it, but I think Kansas was forced to offer NR deer hunting through the courts in the mid-90s.
Regardless, IMO we are back to what I've been saying for a couple of years now. Producers are business-people trying to make a living just like the rest of us. Until pheasants and quail have meaningful commercial value to producers, they will not modify their farming practices to favor them. This statement is very broad and obviously doesn't apply to some producers, including many who post here. But I think it's broadly true enough to be a major limiting factor to wild populations. None of us like it, but meaningful commercial value means pay-to-play. Maybe it's leasing. Maybe it's trespass fees. Maybe it's the U-Guide model in Kansas. Maybe it's less WIHA acres, but higher payments to landowners that bring management requirements along.
My family owns some ground in central Kansas. One year I convinced our tenant not to spray the wheat stubble. About August he called me and was apoplectic about the kochia, pigweed, tumbleweed, and sunflower that had grown up in the wheat stubble. I thought "that sounds great! that's exactly what I want!" He thought "my neighbors think I'm lazy or incompetent." I bought some signs from Pheasants Forever that said "habitat management project". He put them up quickly. There were doves all over those fields in September and I was really looking forward to hunting them in November. I called him a week or two before the season. He couldn't stand it any more. He was worried about the weeds breaking off in the wind and blowing across his neighbors' fields depositing seed the whole way. So he mowed it. To about 6"-8". Of course his concern about spreading seed is valid, but I think we proved that there's plenty of seed bank in the soil anyway.
On thing, I noticed as I was out hunting this past week, and weeks prior. More and more land in Kansas is being leased. Folks, this is a problem. I don't begrudge the landowner for leasing out his ground, but at this rate, it won't matter much about "out of state hunters" or in state hunters, as we may end up like Texas. Hunting may turn into a rich man's sport, which, is a damn shame.
Deer are the cause. As much as I like white tails I'd be glad to poison every last one of them in our state. Again - love seeing them and hunting them but tv shows, deer antler mania and selfishness over this animal is what has caused this.
The state can help alleviate the leasing pressure by confining residents back to units, not giving nearly every person that applies a tag, creating more deer management units and breaking up the seasons - IE someone should not be able to bow hunt from nearly part of Sept to end of Dec - into January in some parts. Create a crossbow season or if leaving it as is have an early archery, rut archery and late archery - make folks draw or buy those tags for those particular seasons - no any season, any weapon tag, no statewide tags, no non residents allowed to hunt in 2 or 3 units, and in fact create more units - the ones we have are too big. Completely and utterly asinine and ZERO management is taking place. Lack of deer management is what has taken us down this path.
Stop the guaranteed tags and confine folks to units to better manage the deer herd and have more control and you wont see some of the issues we are having. Maybe certain hot spots for deer will have lots of leased ground but they had it before and will still have it going into the future.
That's my diatribe.
Last edited:
Nick
Active member
I'm 51 years old. Been hunting quail since I was a kid. Don't remember the limit ever being anything other than 8.
I'm 40 and I don't remember the limit ever being different either. My point, is the limit was set in a vastly different time, with vastly different numbers, environmental issues (both habitat and weatherwise) and maybe, just maybe, this is something that needs to be addressed. I'm not saying it will help (my personal opinion is that it would, but that, is my opinion) but really maybe the law/limit is a bit outdated.
Nick
Active member
I'm not sure either, but I don't see how lowering the limit could hurt.
This is where it’s headed and in 10 years if you don’t live near a lot of federal and state public lands with bird you won’t be hunting.
Leasing is really a form of market hunting although land owners will vehemently argue otherwise they don’t own the game animals on their property and shouldn’t be able to sell them to the highest bidder.
We are headed to the European model where only the elite hunt and eventually when hunter numbers fall low enough this will allow the government to eliminate the second amendment.
When WIHA was started there were many good properties most of them have already been grabbed by outfitters. The public gets the crumbs.
westksbowhunter
Well-known member
I believe in the 50's and into the 60's that there was no limit on quail. I started hunting in the early 70's but I can remember my grandad saying that there used to be no limit on them.
s.davis
Well-known member
We are definitely headed toward a leased access hunting model that is mostly affordable to people of means. It has absolutely nothing to do with the second amendment, which would already be gone if it was somehow reliant on hunter numbers (to say nothing of the fact that gun control measures rarely impact actual hunting weapons in any meaningful way). It also isn’t really the European model. It’s the natural endgame of a “free market” model in a country with nearly no sense of community, ecological responsibility, common good, or shared public ownership.
Last edited:
My grandad hunted SE Kansas in the 60s. I asked him once how many coveys a day. He had no idea. Said you’d generally get up another covey before you worked singles. His best guess was 25 to 30 coveys where they hunted. Wasn’t worth the drive unless there were at least two or three people.
westksbowhunter
Well-known member
Rusty Trigger
Member
Kansas, don't become Texas. Only the well to do have the ground to hunt. I too have seen many of the WIHA's become leased for the few.
Perhaps Texans to Kansas are the Hondurans to the US.
K2
BTW, I get it about ya'll being pissed about OSH's. Seems to be a problem when bird numbers suck.
Perhaps Texans to Kansas are the Hondurans to the US.
K2
BTW, I get it about ya'll being pissed about OSH's. Seems to be a problem when bird numbers suck.