Hunter numbers

[oldandnew]

Glass half empty

I just wanted to add that I try to survey an area based on habitat, from the road and on the ground. Even in eastern Kansas, I see lots of visible habitat, specifically for quail that is unfilled. I hear and believe the habitat mantra from the wildlife agencies, but it's got to be more than that. I think we can create habitat, and save or add a few isolated coveys, or pheasant populations, but never approach the numbers we used to have. Former years of glorious abundance were happy accidents of circumstances. A fortuitous combination of beneficial agricultural practices, weather, lack of pesticides and herbicides, absence of predators, probably additional factors we have never identified. With land prices where they are, leading the way, and the economic pressure it creates to maximize income,I don't think we will ever see those days again, except in areas where moisture, or some other natural and expensive to overcome feature, procludes intensive use. Pennsylvania, as a pheasant state disappeared in the 1980's. followed by Ohio, Indiana, Illinois. We watched Iowa vanish before our eyes in the last 5 years, taking the eastern edge of south Dakota with it. North Eastern Kansas now a remnant population, as is Eastern Nebraska. My fear is it's not a salvagable situation. DU was successful because the duck nesting area was limited in scope,and highly productive ground could be identified,developed, and protected. Ground was cheap compared to today. Even so, a huge amount of the nesting area is above the till line, and was protected by nature. We have no such luxury. Great Britain is now a put and take hunting proposition after centuries of tradition and wild propagated birds. the AG monster just ate the sport. We aren't far behind, from what I see and read we may already be there! Enjoy what we have where and while we have it.

 

[tomt]

To many Whitetails?

Hi Kansasbrittney;
I know a few of us Colorado boys that would love to get at your fathers whitetails. Even to the point of trading a chance at a some southern Colorado Elk. We'll see what happens next year but we usually have some private land Elk tags available around November when the Elk come down to the ranchland out of the high country. Never a sure thing but usually a good bet.

Ha, don't wanna highjack the thread here, but seeing this post this morning made me laugh. My dad called from W KS and said, "I wish as many of you guys that ask to come pheasant hunting would come and shoot these deer." Well, if I could hunt em' w/ my dogs I would. Either way, I've seen lots of great deer out W, but as you stated, there aren't so many hunters.

 

[M. R. Byrd]

Numbers on whitetail down a little, but maybe one of these years it will rebound.

 

[gsh lover]

Looks like some nice bucks .Happy hunting .

 

[akp]

I hunted in '97 and 2001-2009. Seems way more now than back then. Maybe gsh lover has it. Lack of habitat concentrating hunters. Makes sense.

 

[KsHusker]

Hunting was so much better before they opened up non-resident deer hunting. For both pheasants and deer. I could care less about the economic impact. That is exactly what has led to the demise in our hunting here in the first place. Our deer has not grown in recent years and our mule deer population shrinking. The quality of our deer is dwindling as well. Pretty soon it will all be leased then no one will hunt unless you lease yourself. Just a matter of time.

As a lifelong KS resident that is the truth. I was still young when the WIHA program started in 96 and the non resident goldrush started for deer here but I remember what it was like and was able to hunt with my family before we arrived where we are today.

Im not saying non residents are evil but there are many factors that have contributed to the poor climate we have here today compared to the way it was.


#1 - Habitat - we do not have the habitat we did many years ago. In SE KS I used to go with my family when I was younger with a family group for opening weekend of quail season (notice how I said quail and pheasant was an afterthought) and 10 guys would routinely get 50-100 quail in one day and not even put a dent on the birds they saw. All this was done with no dogs and simply walking weedy hedgerows and old farmsteads.

Now go to SE KS - the farmers needed 10 extra feet of farmable ground so theyd take a bulldozer, tear out the old wooden fence posts and hedge row push it into a pile and burn it all.

Cedar Trees - enough said

Old farmsteads - our states tax code can be blamed for that, since they charge more in property taxes for standing buildings than land with no improvements, thats most of the reason you will see less and less property with an abandoned house or barn on it, the farmer had the incentive to bulldoze all of that stuff into a pile and bury it, not only does it give him more usable ground, it cuts his tax bill

Farming techniques - Please for the love of God Id love to see more literature touting the benefits of no till planting, and rotation of crops, leaving stubble higher, vs hacking it to the ground, spraying the daylights of stuff etc, tilling it behind the combine etc...

#2- out of staters and outfitters leasing land for deer. They require large plots of land specifically in bird rich lands in SC, SW and NC KS to chase after the trophys. We got rid of T-Tags but in exchange we now have unlimited over the counter non resident white tail tags.

#3 - people trespassing for deer and poaching deer have also created problems...I believe this is partly due to #2 cutting off access to people and the media saying theres a huge mulie or white tail buck behind every bush -- simply not true

#4 - with the problem of trespassing you have peoples blatant disrespect for others property - driving through fences, driving across planted wheat fields, driving across CRP catching it on fire, etc. Ive witnessed it many times - and its not from people that live in KS - a Pennsylvania guy 2 years ago was chasing a nice 12 point buck I wanted to shoot and had permission on land all around him. I never did see the buck running but heard him shooting and then hed fire up the truck drive another 200 yards and shoot again, the guy nearly was having a stroke and hyperventilating when I asked him why he was driving across the field and if he had permission or not. Unfortunatley I was still a little new to the area and didnt know if I should call him in or not so I didnt. I couldnt prove that his story didnt check out. Never the less not sure why the hell he was driving across the farmers newly planted wheat. Ive got countless other stories but it'd take too long to relate them. All from 3-4 years of experience deer hunting in western KS. I used to hunt closer to home but good luck finding a good deer spot unless you have lots of dough or are related to someone.

#5 - Limited access concentrating the hunters in limited areas


I could probably write a book on the subject, though as you can tell sentence structure and writing style have never been my forte. Thats my short blurb for now.

But as others have said, Ive seen more hunters out this year than previous years. Im not sure why, Im glad theres more people out, but it sure doesnt seem like a good thing.

 

[KsHusker]

Its always amazing to me to think that water feature used to be the border of Mexico back in the day.

Numbers on whitetail down a little, but maybe one of these years it will rebound.

 

[Fenway]

As a lifelong KS resident that is the truth. I was still young when the WIHA program started in 96 and the non resident goldrush started for deer here but I remember what it was like and was able to hunt with my family before we arrived where we are today.

Im not saying non residents are evil but there are many factors that have contributed to the poor climate we have here today compared to the way it was.


#1 - Habitat - we do not have the habitat we did many years ago. In SE KS I used to go with my family when I was younger with a family group for opening weekend of quail season (notice how I said quail and pheasant was an afterthought) and 10 guys would routinely get 50-100 quail in one day and not even put a dent on the birds they saw. All this was done with no dogs and simply walking weedy hedgerows and old farmsteads.

Now go to SE KS - the farmers needed 10 extra feet of farmable ground so theyd take a bulldozer, tear out the old wooden fence posts and hedge row push it into a pile and burn it all.

Cedar Trees - enough said

Old farmsteads - our states tax code can be blamed for that, since they charge more in property taxes for standing buildings than land with no improvements, thats most of the reason you will see less and less property with an abandoned house or barn on it, the farmer had the incentive to bulldoze all of that stuff into a pile and bury it, not only does it give him more usable ground, it cuts his tax bill

Farming techniques - Please for the love of God Id love to see more literature touting the benefits of no till planting, and rotation of crops, leaving stubble higher, vs hacking it to the ground, spraying the daylights of stuff etc, tilling it behind the combine etc...

#2- out of staters and outfitters leasing land for deer. They require large plots of land specifically in bird rich lands in SC, SW and NC KS to chase after the trophys. We got rid of T-Tags but in exchange we now have unlimited over the counter non resident white tail tags.

#3 - people trespassing for deer and poaching deer have also created problems...I believe this is partly due to #2 cutting off access to people and the media saying theres a huge mulie or white tail buck behind every bush -- simply not true

#4 - with the problem of trespassing you have peoples blatant disrespect for others property - driving through fences, driving across planted wheat fields, driving across CRP catching it on fire, etc. Ive witnessed it many times - and its not from people that live in KS - a Pennsylvania guy 2 years ago was chasing a nice 12 point buck I wanted to shoot and had permission on land all around him. I never did see the buck running but heard him shooting and then hed fire up the truck drive another 200 yards and shoot again, the guy nearly was having a stroke and hyperventilating when I asked him why he was driving across the field and if he had permission or not. Unfortunatley I was still a little new to the area and didnt know if I should call him in or not so I didnt. I couldnt prove that his story didnt check out. Never the less not sure why the hell he was driving across the farmers newly planted wheat. Ive got countless other stories but it'd take too long to relate them. All from 3-4 years of experience deer hunting in western KS. I used to hunt closer to home but good luck finding a good deer spot unless you have lots of dough or are related to someone.

#5 - Limited access concentrating the hunters in limited areas


I could probably write a book on the subject, though as you can tell sentence structure and writing style have never been my forte. Thats my short blurb for now.

But as others have said, Ive seen more hunters out this year than previous years. Im not sure why, Im glad theres more people out, but it sure doesnt seem like a good thing.

None of these problems are new or exclusive to KS, maybe your just lucky it has taken longer to get to you.

 

[hunter94]

i can't imagine paying for a deer lease, when most walk-in ground in SC, SW and NW Kansas have deer all over the place, maybe because hunters aren't smart enough to hunt deer in CRP, just amazing no one or very few folks hunt it.

 

[KsHusker]

i can't imagine paying for a deer lease, when most walk-in ground in SC, SW and NW Kansas have deer all over the place, maybe because hunters aren't smart enough to hunt deer in CRP, just amazing no one or very few folks hunt it.

Our piece of mule deer heaven was supposed to be leased out this year for $10k by some doctors from Wichita. The first time I hunted it, the property looked like something out of a hunting show. I also got my biggest mulie buck to date.

Cant blame the farmer for wanting to take the money, however I guess thankfully or not, none of them drew mulie tags so the deal is not on this year and we were told we could hunt, however my buddies grandpa was scouting the area the past week and found 3 big bodied mulie bucks with their heads cut off. Needless to say others have found our honey hole and we are not hunting it this year and going elsewhere. Poachers were down there last year as well shooting near dark on opening day...the landowner thought it was us so didnt investigate. Oh well, sad that a good population of mulies on the property with good genetics seems to have been hurt in the past couple of years. We have not been seeing the big ones we saw 3-4 years ago. And we certainly havent been killing them.

KDWP started off the grand experiment by pimping out the deer herd. I place a lot of the blame on Mike Hayden. How a politician with vested family interests in recreational real estate brokerage, outfitting etc is allowed to run the KDWP is beyond me. A wildlife biologist should be running it, not a crook.

 

[M. R. Byrd]

Cant blame the farmer for wanting to take the money, however I guess thankfully or not, none of them drew mulie tags so the deal is not on this year and we were told we could hunt, however my buddies grandpa was scouting the area the past week and found 3 big bodied mulie bucks with their heads cut off. Needless to say others have found our honey hole and we are not hunting it this year and going elsewhere. Poachers were down there last year as well shooting near dark on opening day...the landowner thought it was us so didnt investigate. Oh well, sad that a good population of mulies on the property with good genetics seems to have been hurt in the past couple of years. We have not been seeing the big ones we saw 3-4 years ago. And we certainly havent been killing them.

.

Would sure be nice if there were some pictures either from a digital camera or a trail camera that could someday link the poachers to a trophy hanging on a wall somewhere and they could be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

 

[KsHusker]

Would sure be nice if there were some pictures either from a digital camera or a trail camera that could someday link the poachers to a trophy hanging on a wall somewhere and they could be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Well our fav game warden is responsible for patrolling the area but I dont think he cares. I know my buddy's grandpa called and talked to him but we doubt he patrols over there. He didnt seem to care when I told him of the out of staters driving across WIHA and private CRP about 5 miles away but wanted to accuse me of doing so Oh well, he must be tired and ready for retirement in a few years.

As for a trail cam, the only thing we'd be able to hang a trail cam on is a fence post and it'd need to have 20x zoom .... ha pretty wide open area. Can see for many miles on top of a rise.