Hunting Updates October 2008

This website is made possible by the courtesy of the Association's great hunter/members. Thank you to all.

3 October

More on Land

An occasional compliant from deer hunters is that their Association lost a particularly good piece of land with that land their entire focus of their hunt plans. The motivation for this complaint is not the loss of any one piece of land it is that leasing land is highly competitive even with the aspects we can control and often a losing proposition when aspects are out of our control. Two examples will illustrate these conditions.

The competitive nature of leasing land is well shown by a recent landowner of over a 1,000 acres that had a half section of very good deer habitat and the remaining largely well suited for quail in a historically good quail region. This entire acreage was a good fit for MAHA as the deer hunters on that half section were pleased as were the quail hunters on the remaining tracts. Then came along a group of non-residents that approached the landowner offering more money to deer hunt that half section than we paid for the entire acreage. There were a total of six in that group with as many as four at any one time hunting. That half section that was also in agriculture and the deer acreage comparable to the surrounding area at 45-55% of that available 320 acres. The landowner focused on the dollar amount at that time leased to the deer hunters at the end of our MAHA lease agreement. The deer hunters hunted that one season and did not return. The landowner then contacted us to lease again all his acreage at the inflated rate per acre of the previous deer hunters paid per acre for the 320. We declined.

A second condition that occurs every couple of years is that landowners die, go bankrupt or retire from farming. These conditions often result in the land resource becoming unavailable due to sales.

The bottom line is that any deer hunter that puts all his eggs into one basket of having but one spot to deer hunt has failed to take advantage of the range of possibilities offered through his membership. Those that find the occasional land lost by MAHA a problem typically are those that have not tried to lease and hold onto their own private lease. Those members that have been down that road fully appreciate the workload involved and rarely return to their own private lease.

Bird Hunters

80 acres of contiguous CRP (tall) grass adjoining milo with a small patch of brush on the back side. A part of a recently acquired NC Kansas lease.

There is still good bird cover in the form of tall grass CRP in spite of the all the press about the decline of tall grass and pheasant hunting. Add to that the brushy draws existent in Kansas and the fact that farmers pushing crop ground will increase erosion and wildlife areas more for quail and bird hunting will continue to be good. All need to remember that Kansas had pheasants before there was CRP.

A secondary farming effect and the genesis of CRP was that farmers years ago pushed land into production that should not have been due to being highly erodible. Those farms now have more wildlife areas than before. CRP was introduced in most of our lifetimes and hunting careers and did greatly benefit hunt quality. The decline of CRP will return to land abusing farming that will again erode and make for more wildlife areas. As water quality continues to decline and soil erosion increases due to increased farming, less runoff controls and increasing human development we will probably see a return to CRP. The point is nothing here is new, just recycled.

160 acres of milo with a tree line and a couple of ditches to bird hunt on an existing lease in NC Kansas.

Grain and edge cover all that quail require and what exists with farming without government intervention. Make that grain milo makes that field a must quail hunt spot.

Those bird hunters concentrating on tall grass pheasant hunting will see a decline in tall grass acres no doubt. Pheasant numbers will drop correspondingly. Those that do not quail hunt will miss out on what most find that hunt both pheasant and quail to be true. Those that also hunt quail find an occasional pheasant hunt good to break things up and return soon to quail for its action, that is for those that can shoot quail that fly nothing like the easy to shoot long straight blue-sky flight of a pheasant.

A filter strip next to a creek bottom on a new lease in NC Kansas.

Pheasant hunters do not lose all hope. While filter strips do not produce the 30 bird pheasant flocks they do hold pheasants especially those filter strips that run for miles along grain fields. Remember the best tall grass contiguous CRP field hunting is that along the edge of a grain field.

More than the hunt...

Those interested in only tags and bags have missed out on all else that is available for that better experience. Some understand, some never will.

Thanks for the picture Mike.

October 2008 page 1