Choices
States | ChoicesIn terms of Kansas bird hunting the hunter will have choices of where to bird hunt based on habitat preference of tall grass, brushy draw and crop edge as well as choice of upland bird of choice between wild Bobwhite Quail and pheasant hunting. PlansThe best starting advice has been split between two thoughts. The first is a tour for the first trip and the second is a concentrated approach. The tour approach is to try several different regions of Kansas habitat that does vary by location with in the state. Some localities offer quail only, others a mixed bag hunt and still others will be pheasant predominate. The idea is for the new member to try all of these three basic regions on his first trip to see which if any more suits his dog power and habitat preferences. Once that preference is established subsequent trips start within that locality and remain their or expand out later for variety. The second approach of concentrating all available time on a specific habitat type or bird of preference seems to be more suited for the seasoned upland bird hunter that more seeks dog work specific to a bird rather than variety of different habitat. The concentrated approach is to secure from us recommendations specific to bird and habitat preference, travel to hunt that locality and continue to hunt that locality for the reminder of the season slowly growing from the base area outward to the reaches of those specifications.
Hunter ConservationA word of caution is due at this point that MAHA does manage hunter pressure to ensure no one area receives an inordinate amount of hunter days. The hunter on the concentrated bird hunt approach most likely will begin each trip on familiar ground and add to his knowledge of the local bird hunting through exploring new ground during the latter half of any hunt. Public vice PrivateIt is no small thing that we manage our upland bird hunting in Kansas and elsewhere to prohibit public hunting lands mentality. Hunters come to our organization to avoid the public lands hunter seeking specifically un-pressured private land bird hunts. We understand that and manage hunter pressure by assigning "upland bird hunting units" per hunter per day and the units separate hunters as well as prevent too many consecutive hunting days per unit. We further prevent pre season dog work, commercial training, camping, off road access and on and on as what we offer are hunts of wild quail and pheasant for the do it yourself hunter that has the wherewithal, equipment and dogs to execute his own hunts. It is that simple and we do not allow any other freelancing on the leases. If what we have described here is what the hunter seeks then we should talk some more. If not do not waste our time. Excess acreageA recurring request from applicants is to seek a lower upland bird hunting cost though limiting hunts to one state or locality or bird stating we offer more acreage than they can hunt and they do not believe they should pay for what they will not use. Let us be realistic. take the cost of the annual membership and apply that to just a single hunting week and to the land that will be covered and break that cost down. An illustration will be one hunter with two dogs will hunt about 400 acres in a full day. To have that 400 acres of habitat within the great plains where agriculture is king probably requires leasing anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 gross acres. For sake of this example lets keep the numbers easy and say each hunter will walk on 400 acres of leases that include a total of a 1,000 acre lease. That same hunter will travel out one day, typically a Saturday, hunt that first Sunday through the week to the subsequent Saturday and travel home the second Sunday. Under our system that one hunter hunted 2,800 acres (400/day for 7 days) that was part of 7,000 acres of leases. Now take a cost of $1 per acre for lease and that hunter hunted $7,000 worth of lease land on one trip. Compare that cost to our annual membership and it is clearly cheaper to pay our membership fee than pay for the lease land. And, have that lease land within several upland bird regions allowing hunting variety of quail and pheasant as well as habitat. The rest of the story of having only one type of season long membership covering all states and all leases is that it keeps our administration much simpler and less costly to maintain. DetailsFor Kansas upland bird hunting details the links below will take the hunter to specific pages of increasingly deeper information. Good hunting to all!
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