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Kansas, Illinois, and Iowa Resident Hunters

3K views 55 replies 36 participants last post by  trs8804 
#1 ·
All the hunting shows and pro hunters seem to stick to a few states and the ones mentioned in the title seem to have the most sex appeal right now. I want to hear from the resident hunters of these states: what has all the attention done for YOUR hunting experience?
 
#2 ·
So far, i really haven't noticed a difference, other than the liscence fees going up AGAIN!!!:mad: :mad: :mad:
but i live in the eastern part of Kansas, about 35 mi SW of Kansas City.
from what i hear from some friends out west, it's getting to the point of not having anyplace to hunt:mad: :mad:
 
#3 ·
SUCKS!!!!!!!! Land is getting leased so fast it aint funny I have lost two of my spotts do to out of state outfitters. In 5 years or less Kansas will be like Texas will have to pay to hunt:mad:
 
G
#4 ·
i agree i live in south central kansas nd every year lisense ad tag prices go up. kansas is like 99 percent privatly owned so if you dont own land you will have to pay and there isnt much for public either but it does produce descent deer
 
#5 ·
I live in west central Illinois.......Dozens of people I know have lost there hunting ground to lease or outfitters. Ground they have hunted for 3 or 4 generations. And the state is trying to come up with a way to tax this ground as RECREATIONAL ground. That would quadruple those taxes. And the quality of bucks isnt whatit used to be. When its all over the only thing left will be the high taxes.
 
#6 ·
I have to agree I live about an hour south of kansas city and if you don't own the land or know the farmer since you were a child you have a pretty hard time finding ground to hunt. I't is real frustrating to watch the deer all year to have people with fat wallets come in and take them by luck. oh well some of that luck is bound to rub off
 
#9 ·
I wish Kansas would do more on deer management.I just dont no how much more the KDWP can screw up the hunting.
 
#10 ·
Here in KS i think the quality of bucks are going down very fast ,and land is getting leased up fast!If the start selling unlimited non-res tags like its rumured,so long to us locals getting to hunt all the land will be lesed or bought by the big money hunters!!
 
#11 ·
B.C. in KS said:
If the start selling unlimited non-res tags like its rumured,
I thought it couldn't get any worse.:pukey: :cry: Surely they aren't that stupid are they?never mind the are poliotitions
 
#12 ·
How do state agencies feel about the publicity?

Wow! Thanks for the candid comments. People rarely ever look into how locals feel about issues that can be national in nature. I guess a follow-up question would be: How do state agencies feel about the publicity?
 
#13 ·
As big buck states already we really dont need the publicity from these so called "Hunting Shows" Everyone already knows where they want to go and most people say Iowa, but do to the limited tags in Iowa most out of staters go elsewhere till they get drawn for a tag.

If you are a business owner in a good hunting community this is where you make 90% of your profit because you raise your prices when you are in town and most of the regulars come in you knock it down to regular prices. They dont have many choices like the big city. Im not talking 400% mark up, maybe a extra couple bucks here and there on stuff.

We are starting to see some leasing happening but most is land buying from out of staters who just want to come back and hunt every couple years and then they lease to Iowans for the years they cant hunt.

Where I am, I am pretty safe because it is a traditional hunting community and isnt leased out for the most part. Just the big companies are buying up the large tracks of ground that farmers are selling off. Like HS Specialties and other hunting companies. Besides that they look at neighbors like family and if you ask to hunt you are good to go. So pretty much out of staters are a no go in my neck of the woods unless you are family or hunt the public ground that no one hunts

They should get rid of the governor tags also. What a waste of tags that could go to someone that has never been here before.
 
#14 ·
It is all about the $$$.That is why the moved up Pheasant season two weeks to get more people that where headed to Neb.and SD.It just so happens that the head of W&P son runs a huge pheasant outfitt in western KS
 
#15 ·
Chris is right. It is all about big $ here.

I like watching the shows but the hunting in Kansas is going to hell because of them. Now everyone wants to hunt here thinking they will kill a monster buck.

They are here but not behind every tree like they show on tv. Now the average guy is losing every place he had permission to go hunting on and will probly have no where to go at all in a few years due to leasing and outfitters.

rick
 
#16 ·
12ptDropTine said:
I live in west central Illinois.......Dozens of people I know have lost there hunting ground to lease or outfitters. Ground they have hunted for 3 or 4 generations. And the state is trying to come up with a way to tax this ground as RECREATIONAL ground. That would quadruple those taxes. And the quality of bucks isnt whatit used to be. When its all over the only thing left will be the high taxes.
So true! :(

Only in the last few seasons do you see more trucks than deer in many areas around here. :cry: Land and lease prices have went through the roof and most locals are left with no ground to hunt. It's totally become a money game these days in my area. :sad:
 
#18 ·
My thoughts exactly. I used to have numerous places to hunt with a lot of high quality deer around. $Money$ has ruined all of those places. I know 16 year old kids that have to lease land just to bowhunt. When I was 16, that was unheard of. Kansas is going to **** very fast and I am not particularly happy about it at all. There are twice as many people at the public hunting areas nowadays due to leasing and non-resident hunter numbers are growing like wildfire. IT IS ALL ABOUT MONEY NOW!:mad:
 
#19 ·
Cornfed said:
So true! :(

Only in the last few seasons do you see more trucks than deer in many areas around here. :cry: Land and lease prices have went through the roof and most locals are left with no ground to hunt. It's totally become a money game these days in my area. :sad:
I have access to about 10% of the ground I used to hunt.

It's kind of SAD:(
 
#20 ·
What sucks the most about all this publicity is that people don't realize every state could be this way if people would take the time and efforts to manage the herds and sex ratios as well as the big 5 states have. Just take a look at Illinois, Iowa, Montana, Kansas, etc. all the big name states. Ten to fifteen years ago you could talk to locals who had land and managed it great, producing awesome deer with great genes. The farmers that use to let you hunt their land started getting all these phone calls and email from out of staters who has seen and read many stories about the monsters of the mid way and started leasing their land because these people are paying top dollar. Now us locals can't find a spot to hunt because most of us in the mid way don't have six digit salaries like most of the people who are leasing and buying land from underneath of us. It really sucks and hurts knowing that I may never be able to teach my kids about the great outdoors and the thrill of being one with nature. But hey, I guess its my fault for leaving in the middle of cornfields with only a four digit paying job.
 
#21 · (Edited)
I hate to say this guys but people that are residents of the so called "big 5" states are mostly to blame for most of the coverage we see about whitetails. I don't know how many times I have read in magazines of some personal hunting story that the in state hunter wrote to furthur his ego in hopes of making some big money on a deer he had the chance to harvest. whoa, you got paid 35 bucks for your story but now cause of it you can't hunt in your area for the next 20 years cause ole doc NY pays your landowner 2000 bucks a years to have sole hunting rights, shame shame.

for instance, in republic county in kansas there was a guy that shot a 196" buck, unbelievably huge. that picture ended up going into the 2004 hoyt catalog and ever since then it seems that none of my friends in that area can find any land to hunt.

alot of what causes the major influx of tags to out of state hunters is mainly numbers. take a look at missouri's numbers compared to kansas' and you will see what i mean. If i remember right archery tags were sold to 5 times as many people in missouri compared to kansas and wouldn't you as a state want to get into some of that cash? another thing that we have to worry about is people that have the power in state government upping the harvest quota so that they won't hit another deer near topeka with the SUV they have that has never seen a speck of dirt in it's life.

I have done several things for my landowner to basically keep my land. I have helped him haul irrigation pipe, setup old live traps my dad had lying around in my landowner's personal sweet corn patch to get rid of a few *****, and even offered to drive wheat truck for him at no charge but maybe a meal to keep my land.

Farmers are seeing a way to make extra money off their land that doesn't cost them a dime, tax free that uncle sam will probably never see a dime of, and in fact helps them get rid of a major crop destroyer. most landowners i know that leased their ground when asked said they did it for the fact that it never seemed the fact they were letting people on their ground to hunt was never appreciated.

I buy my landowner a 30 dollar gift certificate every year to the town restaurant along with all the other things I have offered, does anyone else do anything like that or do you just take and never give back?

and the great comments about the KDWP, there would be things done if the state goverment would allot the funds, it's not totally their fault. I have had this conversation with the game warden in my hunting ground and you wouldn't believe some of the crap they personally go through just to keep a job they thought would be "the greatest job they would ever love"

in the end, money is money and greed is greed, it's whoever holds the keys gets the final say.
 
#22 ·
Ia

Personally I hate all the publicity IA is getting. not even 10 years ago I used to go knock on a farmers door and ask to bowhunt and they would almost laughh at me and say go try because no one did it. Now you go ask and family or some other excuse happens to be hunting there. We used to see so many more giants back then roaming around as well. Im not talking big deer I'm talking the Big Big deer. Now most of the prime ground is getting sought out and being hunted hard by whoever can get access whether it be locals,NR's or outfitters.

Fortunately I live in IA and we restrict the # of NR tags. If we didn't we would be just like IL with outfitters and NR landowners literally overnight. I can still hunt some great ground but I have to try harder to do it now a days. I truly despise the day we open those NR tags for the resident hunting will go rihgt down the tubes unless you have money.

Is hunting shows good for my state? Not if my kids want to have great hunting in there home state someday as the hunting is closing in.
 
#24 ·
Our fault

As Hunters we brung this on ourselves when we made the SIZE of the Deer more important than the Hunting itself .. If we didn't have the WEll MY Buck is Bigger than Yours Mentality we wouldn't have these problems.. Thier would be no need for Outfitters and Tv shows Bragging about how many and how Big thier bucks are.... Its All about P@Y or B@C >>>:mad: Thats my .02 cents anyways
 
#25 ·
I hate to say it but Kansas is on the way down. The "Kansas Deer Working Group" is supposed to be taking public opinion on the new regulations for 2007. You can bet that they already have made their decisions and are just letting the public vent. I cant even imagine the impact unlimited NR rifle tags would bring. They already opened unlimited archery antelope tags and we only have 2000 antelope in the whole state (according to KDWP). Anyone who has hunted them in the western part of the state knows its not even close to that number. The deer herd here has been slowly getting thinned. The only reason you are seeing some big ones going down this archery season is due to the huge ice storm that happened last year right at the begining of rifle season. It let some of the bucks live into this year. We have fought these changes in the Kansas Bowhunters Association but I think we are fighting a losing battle. The land here is scarce and public places are teaming with bird hunters which now starts the first saturday in November. Also with people losing land to leasing there are more hunters on public land every day. I dont know what we are going to do in the future. I guess our kids will have to be rich enough to buy land so they can hunt.
 
#26 ·
land is getting leased up and soon locals will have no place to hunt. i wish they'd tripple the price of non-res. tags. all our state is after is the money anyway. they let the insuance companies regulate the number of deer tags to be sold instead of solid game management deceisions. as far as the hunting shows go they are doing locals way more harm than good...
 
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