January 2009 Updates page 10
16 January
Upland Birds
"...the bird hunting was excellent..."
From two days of hunting.
This hunter has two mature dogs at age 11 and 12 and a young one at 5 years of age that carry's most of the dog work. He has been a member for a good number of years having developed a range of ground knowledge that always allows for a good hunt regardless of what the weather may bring within any one region.
He is also a trusted hunter in terms of providing honest assessments of upland bird hunting quality.
Thank you Mike for keeping us up on the bird counts.
Kansas Deer
We have had more than a couple inquiries about the secondary effects resulting from the 2008-2009 increased availability of non-resident Kansas deer tags as an outlook for the 2009-2010 season. For those that have been following this issue the discussions below are part of the concerns that have been addressed and will make sense. Those not familiar with this issue will find gaps in understanding what is posted. Others of course, will find controversy in the statements.
Kansas deer tag plus basic license prices seems to be the limiting factor for total number of hunters and the price is scheduled to increase next year. Add to that the remote nature of Kansas in terms of traveling hunters further promotes trophy rather than scrap rack hunters. That combined with rifle season outside of peak rut and recognizing bow hunters range from 8 to 12% success nationwide leads us to believe the quality of Kansas deer racks will sustain itself.
In terms of hunter pressure on the ground, the challenge for MAHA self guided approach continues to be the open lands deer hunter that can't keep himself stationary to glass and scout rather than walk about and push deer. For the more bow huntable regions of Kansas, we can sustain more bow deer hunters as they are less likely to move about in that terrain, spread themselves out across a wider range of season dates and simply we have plenty of bow huntable cover.
What we believe will increase are the small acreage guided outfitters that have a side benefit of running feeders and more minerals across a wide area that deer beyond the guide outfits acreage range will benefit from. Guide hunters also seem to have a higher expectation of rack quality and may let more medium sized deer pass. Another effect we have observed is guide greed at increasing to the maximum extent they can the number of hunters they process through their land. That will push available deer elsewhere. Few guides in Kansas advertise they limit hunter numbers within one season as a means of hunt quality enhancement.
In terms of when to hunt we continue to see increasing rate of success in terms of hunter to tags filled ratio in October by the more senior deer hunters. The majority of the November tag-on success that also has a lower ratio of deer hunters to tags filled are more of the younger deer hunter within the MAHA hunter age structure. Muzzleloader hunters in September, December and January continue to have the most "failed" hunts largely due to failing to understand the different movement pattern during these non-rut or, food/shelter motivated behavior periods.
If considering changing seasonal hunting times we have seen over the years the traveling hunter that most enjoys his hunts are those that hunt out our way the portion of the rut they have the most experience within their home state, that is their comfort zone. To hunt a deer behavior outside of that knowledge base typically results in frustration of not seeing deer. All the more so in a deer hunter group that will have a tendency to commiserate amongst themselves as opposed to a solitary hunter that is more likely to conduct self-analysis seeking change to enhance his success potential.
Those hunters that can adapt their hunting techniques to fit the reproduction or survival (food/shelter) motivated behavior as it changes from September to January seem to have the most eyes-on and subsequently tag-on success. Illustrative of this are those that tell about the successful techniques employed to attract bucks such as rattling, grunting, scenting, decoying, seem to have some consensus that different techniques have different levels of success during different portions of the season. Conversely, we have seen hunters select when to hunt out our way for reasons other than a well experienced portion of the rut such as work scheduling, fitting in another hunt elsewhere and such express the most adverse hunt results. These hunters seem to continue to employ techniques they often employ in their home state during their favored portion of the season without consideration of changes brought by different movement patterns of the shifting food/shelter through reproduction back to survival behaviors.
The last point to consider is the bow hunter is a far more cautious hunter compared to a gun hunter and less pressure impacting on the land. Bow hunters hunt fewer properties and are more likely to stay in a single stand or two for the entire day. Finally, bow hunting being as hard as it is, we anticipate to continue to be a limiting factor as we continue to see no need for a waiting list for bow deer primary hunting interests. Conversely, we turned away more than a dozen rifle deer primary hunting interest applicants last year many of which had Kansas tags.
Overall, we anticipate an increase in Kansas rifle deer hunters and we will assume a limiting roll in that regard similar to our Missouri rifle deer approach. Our concern is that not only do rifle hunters have a tendency to harvest smaller rack bucks than most successful and seasoned archery hunters, we are also concerned that even though we have more gross acreage in Kansas than Missouri it is that we have less deer habitat in Kansas than what Missouri has. This is part of the membership hunting interest profile that cannot be a direct correlation in that for Kansas the number of rifle deer hunter memberships allocated will be less per total acreage than what Missouri can sustain. Even with our higher Missouri rifle deer hunter pressure numbers and less Missouri acreage than Kansas we stopped counting at 50 the number of Missouri deer spots left unreserved the Friday before opening weekend of the Missouri rifle season, the highest use 36 hour period within the Association. Kansas on the other hand even with the Association having 30,000+ more acres than in Missouri cannot sustain the same rifle deer hunter numbers as Missouri.
End Dump Field Terrace
The original erosion control design had this end dump field terrace seen in the upper left carrying water off the field into a grassed waterway seen in the lower left that at one time extended further to the right. Aggressive farming went beyond the end dump into the waterway replacing the sod building, water filtering grass with tilled and planted crop field, winter wheat in this picture. The result is the erosion shown at the end of the terrace. The erosion is likely to continue.
Farm Lobby Chips Away At CRP
"...American Farm Bureau business session on Tuesday, delegates approved an amendment to the CRP program rules. The policy amendment-brought forward by Iowa Farm Bureau-is to allow dirt work to take place the year prior to ground coming out of the ten-year CRP..."
Iowa Farm Bureau successful with CRP amendment Wednesday, January 14, 2009, by Ken Anderson, Brownfield Ag News For America.
Once again the farm lobby gets the government to take away from what citizen tax dollars pay for.
Quail Hunters
Michael Pearce, an outdoor writer for the Wichita Eagle newspaper and web based news reporter, would like to write an article on quail hunting and seeks quail hunters to interview. Michael Pearce may be contacted through his email address: mpearce@wichitaeagle.com.
