Kansas Deer Hunting
Expanded Deer Hunting
Most of the Association deer hunters hunt two of our three states each year with few having the time to hunt all three.
Each deer hunt story has value. In this case he was able to add one more hunt an it turned out to be his best for the year.
Kansas deer hunting opportunity is earned through the self guided aspect.
Scouting is on the hunter even with Association staff recommendations of where to get started will have different ideas of the farms he would like to hunt. The more scouting done the more spots found that encourages more scouting. That is the good side. Without doubt half the land walked on will be rejected and that time is lost.
Concentration of deer hunting effort in Kansas or elsewhere is the final element common to those with the most trophy success.
While these deer hunters may scout out 2,000+ acres of deer leases is a year between land they have previous knowledge of and new to that hunter farms, most seem to settle on not more than three to five deer hunting spots and rarely hunt more than two (generalizations).
This concentration of deer hunting effort is as a secondary effect.
Once some farms have been settled on to deer hunt that same recurring successful hunter will prepare several trees, hang some stands and then spend time throughout the day remaining motionless and observing.
These deer hunters realize they are not able to have preconceived ideas of deer movement. Deer movement must be observed and then maneuvered on. The common comments have been that each deer lease has a golden nugget and it may take a day or an entire deer season or more to discover that one single setup that works. the next most common comment relative to observe a deer spot all day is that many harvest a trophy they never observed on the lease during a scouting trip.
Deer Scouting/Hunting Recommendations
Our recommendation are based on our year round out on the ground observations and conversation with landowners. That combined with our road maps showing Association deer lease locations the hunter then goes to his own aerial map web site and draws down his own aerial photos. At that point the hunter can develop a priority of work from first to last lease that he wants to spend time on.
Aerials have been a challenge as deer hunters from big woods home states believe that the more woods the better for deer hunting. the better analysis is not the size of the wooded area but rather the degree of isolation of that wooded area from direct line of sight from roads and farm yards. Then add to that of surrounding food sources with soybeans better during early archery, wheat late season and corn better depending on what state being hunted and what region of that state. Finally 
a water source as all deer will drink every day. Putting all of this together is a better concept of analysis than simply bigger woods are better.
Case in point are the two aerials shown.
One is all pasture and one is mostly crop ground. Each has plenty of wooded cover. The terraces, or the difference in terraces that seem to run link contour lines on a topo are a good distinguishing trait Both have water. Both have variable degree of isolation.
The best part remains as a self guided deer hunting organization each deer hunter can employ his own scouting techniques and pick his spots or his own level of success.
The point these self guided deer hunters are making is there is not any shortcut to an easy trophy deer harvest. It takes time on the ground both using traditional deer scouting techniques of aerial photos and walking the ground, to distant glassing, to simply sitting in the deer stand and see first hand what goes on. Any less deer hunting/scouting effort is poking holes in the dark.
What we bring to these self styled do it yourself Kansas deer hunters is the opportunity to maximize their own deer hunting experience. In this case of Kansas we offer such experience statewide over multiple deer management units.
Trophies and Dinks
No value to these motion camera pictures except to show all they show are dinks.
The deer lease these pictures came from and small racks were all the camera captured over six days is a lease with a good history of trophy whitetails, both eyes-on and tag-on. What is more typical is that our game cameras we run around just because we are out on the land as much as we are often show far more trophy deer than we every see when we have a tag in our pocket.
No news is this tidbit. We have found we need to show those that make membership application that we too are hunters and that we too experience more days in stand without trophy opportunity and more seasons without tag-on than with.
