September 2008 Updates page 8
16 September
Land
This is one of those updates written for the first year member as well as general update to long time members.
We've been on the road quite a bit lately working the land and anticipate the same the next 3 to 4 weeks. If it takes a couple days to return messages, please understand it might take a day or two to get caught up after a road trip.
It's been an unseasonably cool and wet Mid West summer, so water and cover will be more than abundant this fall. It looks like the fall harvest will be behind schedule, so early bird and archery season might be difficult in certain regions.
If you are planning to print a complete set of maps, it would be best to wait until the end of October. Even then, it’s a good idea to double check each map before each hunt, in case of a last minute change.
Many of our land leases are in remote areas with mud roads that are not maintained. With or without 4 wheel drive, it is in everyone's best interest not to use them. The locals frown on being left with ruts from hunters.
A NC Kansas farm with a combination of crop timber and grassland for quail, pheasant, deer and turkey. A lot of milo in Kansas this year the deer and bird hunters should benefit from.
Kansas "The Sunflower State". Sunflowers compared to milo or corn offer minimal during season hunt value due to early harvest. Sunflower heads produce little waste grain as they are efficiently combined. Any seed that makes it to the ground is quickly consumed as there is little stem/leaf residue to conceal the seed on the ground. What is left in the field has little cover value.
A narrow NW Kansas mostly dry through the year creek line that holds both whitetail, mule deer and in this area a strong quail population. That strip of weeds/brush is not filter strip, just naturally occurring volunteer growth. It marks where in previous years, lifetimes, the creek line eroded the higher ground. The wheat (winter only in our region) field, foreground, being let go at this time of year means next spring this field will be planted in a different crop. In this part of Kansas with a June wheat harvest means this land has not seen landowner activity since June and will not until April 2009. A long period for deer to find and stick with this loafing spot of low to the ground cover.
While in a county looking over potential lease land we did check up on an existing lease and found more milo on a spot anyone that pheasant hunts this area probably knows. The milo only makes it better for this fall on top of last year's good bird count, mild winter and good spring hatch/brood conditions during this spring for this region.
Wheat stubble bordering crp grass with a drainage on the back side. NW KS. Most landowners we meet with have reasonable expectations on hunting land value, some do not believing in coffee house hype of exceptional prices paid by non-residents. We do not get caught up in that cycle. We spend Association hunter money as if it was our own never paying for more than any land is worth in terms of habitat. That does not mean all acreage we have is good habitat remembering that the best hunting in our area is in 45-55% farming land use. A reasonable expectation of wildlife land at best is 50% of all leased acreage. Of that remaining wildlife land not all will be suited for all interests. The pictures in this update alone show well the ratio of crop to habitat acreage. Another example would be one of your Association staff's personal farm where he lives is a 160 acre 1/4 section. Of that 160 there is 68 acres in crop, 20 in pasture with the remaining 72 is in noncontiguous wildlife land or ground where the tractor cannot travel.
A spot becoming more rare with increasing grain crop prices, an alfalfa field. An early archery must scout spot. This is a picture from an existing NW Kansas lease.
Conservation
For those that want to make CRP a quail hunter issue.
"...Iowa's rivers, lakes and streams are under increasing pressure from urban development and an agricultural sector driven by high corn and soybean prices to move more Iowa acres out of conservation into production. Land taken out of conservation can lead to greater soil erosion, meaning soil runs off land along with rainwater into waterways, reducing water quality...The list of Iowa's impaired waters has grown to 279..."
List of Iowa's impaired waterways growing, by Charlotte Eby, Journal Des Moines bureau.
