Yup this is pretty late
Second day of season, buddy loaded his 4 wheeler with out the ramps. Hospital visit a few staples in the head and a large bruise on his back
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Third evening, by myself. Stepped in a ground hog hole covered in corn stalks. Knee got bentleft and right rather than forward and back. Still wearing a brace 3+ months later.
Hunted one more day after that and my kne got so stiff had to take another couple of days off work.
Uh, no deer either. Dunno if I could have even bent the knee to gut, drag and load by myself
I have mixed emotions about the leases through out the state. If managed right rather than "raping" a lease it will profit and grow. I have ived in Kansas all of my life. I have lived at this location for right at 40 years as of today. When I was growing up and stomping the woods, you never ever saw a deer or turkey nor any sign of one.
Now today, just this AM there were 9 deer and 6 turkeys in the garden. Which has actaully became some type of food plot or so they think. The KDWP act all concerned on the over population of deer. Well it AIN'T the bucks causing the problems. I have a big doe that is going on 5 years old that hangs behind my house. I can tell here from otheres pretty easy as she has a white ear. She is as wide across the hind end as a small mule. The first year I saw her she had one fawn with her. The second she had two and raised both of those as far as I could tell. The third,forth and last year she had three and raised all of them but one!
The kicker is there is another doe that has been showing up off and on that has had three fawns also. I highly suspect her to be one of the offspring of tha fore mentioned. A neighbor east and south of me has somthing of the same thing going.
What I am getting at is if the KDWP wants to thin the heard back in certain areas there are a lot of ways to go about it.
Residents get one buck tag and a doe tag, for the price of a buck tag. Or somthing to that effect
Non residents, pretty much the same only make it a combo and they have to pay for the doe tag. Makes folks more inclined to "harvest" one rather than let one walk.
Quit having the "antlerless only" season so dang late. I say this because I have seen some bucks drop their horns unusually early in years past. A friend was managing the better part of a section and had a good bunch of sizeable bucks hanging around. The ratio was way out of whack from what he had been advised though. Sooooooooo come late, antlerless season they are going to cull a few doe's. The first day 4 guys hunted all of them killed what they thought were does only to be young bucks with one 4 year old that had dropped their horns.
Quit having the dang rifle season during a FULL moon phase. This has got to be the stupidst thing that goes on. Call KDWP and talk to some one in the "know" and they tell you it has nothing to do with the habits of deer. Then explain to me why I see deer at normal hours the first day or two, then nothing? Go by a wheat field after dusk and see them everywhere. "OH" that is because of the "hunting pressure". Sorry gents, that dog don't hunt either.
I have coon hunted enough in years past that most full moon phases, one is best to stay home a large percentage of the time. Of course unless you just need to get out of the house and try and round up board dogs.
Rant off.
I have lost roughly 3-5000 acres of hunting land across the state to leases. This is way more than the general population will or would have ever had. I didn't get that much by not making a LOT of friends. Those friends are still my friends leased out or not. I refuse to pay to play for the most part. I will hunt my small plots of 30-80 acres and take what all of the "orange army" pushes to me in mid season
. I would rather show up to hunt and end up fixing fence all day long or working cows, hauling corn or what ever the chore may be, than to think I need to hunt because I paid $XXXX to do so. Some of my best days hunting I went home with out ever pulling a gun out of a case, and, I prefer to stay that way.
I swore I would never hunt with a "stick and string". Well with all of the "meat" walking around in the garden/food plot, that has changed. Not nearly as hard to shoot as I had thought it would be. Actually find it kind of relaxing when one gets their self control under raps.
Jeff
