Method
State
Interest | PlanLong before any deer hunter leaves home for his first MAHA deer hunting trip we will have talked in detail about his choice to hunt Kansas, Missouri or Iowa. That first year deer hunter will have access to all Association lease land maps through the members' map website. The map website is the only means we have to ensure all members receive the same access to all maps as they are updated through the year when land contracts are renewed, added or deleted. The fact of deer hunting lease operations is the need to stay current with the land habitat quality and landowner usage. All land will change over time and so must we we react when land is sold, farming practices change or crop ground improved by bulldozer activity. In all cases we maintain a keep and delete list through the year and add better quality acreage and drop less productive leases. What we, Jon Nee and John Wenzel the Association land mangers, will do is recommend to the first year member the state, unit and property numbers that most well fit his deer hunting method (archery, rifle, muzzleloader) and habitat preference. That recommendation will be a listing of property numbers. In most cases that listing will be of far more acreage than anyone hunter will be able to cover in a single scout or hunt trip. The hunter is then asked to secure from his favorite aerial photo website his own photos of those properties. Each hunter must secure his own aerials as deer hunters are far too particular in their photo specifications than we are willing to try and satisfy through the office. The aerials are secured through using our provided lease maps and matching them to the aerials. That first year hunter at this point has the basic information to start planning where to hunt. He is asked to take all the aerials from our numbered property recommendations and rank order from first to last those properties that he most wants to hunt or scout first to last. That develops the priority of work list once he gets boots on the ground for the first time. On subsequent scouting or hunts that same hunter is encouraged to pick up where he left off and re-scout previously visited land to update himself on movement patterns as well as to better define those movement patterns.
Most self guided deer hunters will agree it takes a good bit of time on any one farm to fully realize the better stand locations. It has been demonstrated over many years the deer hunters with the most success scout in excess of 2,000 acres each year and typically deer hunt three or less farms through the season. After that first hunt or scouting trip most do it yourself hunters soon develop favorite areas and return to those while continuing to develop future options. Those future options are to hunt or scout at least one new to that hunter farm each trip. For that first year members when looking at aerial photos and working up his priority of work list for his first scouting of deer hunting trip we offer a time tested technique to enhance success. That technique is to identify all the isolated wood patches out of direct line of sight from roads and farm yards. These wood patches are evaluated by their degree of remoteness from human activity and not by size. Identify all such wood patches and list by degree of remoteness and that would be a good starting point for a priority listing of which properties to scout or hunt first.
|
