Kansas Turkey Habitat
Over the course of several turkey hunting pages we will address turkey habitat in Kansas as well as Missouri and Iowa. In every case the intent is to remove as much of the mystery as is possible with snapshots and text of our turkey hunting for those that have never hunted in Kansas, Iowa or Missouri.
As a do it yourself hunter organization we do emphasize that first we will assist with getting the hunter to the right spot to park his truck to step out and scout or hunt.
Some have expressed concern about insuring they do not cross property lines. This pictures are of a 160 acre Kansas farm and all four property lines are visible as roads on the east and south and fence lines north and west. This is a heavily wooded 1/4 for Kansas with the more common ground having far more crop ground than woody cover.
Through as many such aerial and ground level snap shots as we can illustrate we hope the idea of Kansas turkey habitat comes through.
A Kansas jake strutting for our call. Notice the thin woody cover typical of what we recommend to many for Kansas spring turkey season. No better proof than live turkey pictures such as these to show habitat.
Kansas turkey ground in winter has value for spring turkey hunting by illustrating just how thin and small the wood lots are where Kansas turkey occupy. This wood lot is a good sized one for Kansas at less than 10 acres.
Just two of the toms in the flock found along the wood lot edge shown above in this middle afternoon picture series.
The rest of the flock. This picture also shows just how easy it is to deer and turkey hunt and scout the same spots. And, do notice the turkeys are out in the field, not in the wood lot.
This pictures does well to show how late into the winter a grain field holds waste grain sufficient to bring in both deer and turkey, in this case a soybean field. The second point of value shows the typical winter snow ground cover. It is common to have snow ground cover for as long as up to 2 weeks before melt off.
The second aspect we emphasize is the attitude the hunter must have is that he is setting himself up for years of Kansas hunting to come, for turkey or otherwise. This second aspect of years of Kansas hunting to come does not mean that the first or current Kansas hunt will not be good. It means rather that the Kansas hunts yet to come will get better.
What we have observed is that one price that must be paid and paid for directly by the hunter alone is boots on the ground time both scouting and hunting. This observation continues in regard to our recommendations and the hunter's own scouting.
No matter how good our recommendations to any hunter of where to start hunting or of his own scouting the first season, by his third season he will be on entirely different ground and typically does not hunt the first season properties.
Tracking flocks year round helps to know where they will be in the spring.
When we recommend someone to a lease it is not an accident. If we recommend a turkey hunter to his first farm and he does not get a bird we will call that a bad day. If that same hunter does not get a tom on the second farm then we will suspect something other than a lack of birds.
This picture shows just how bleak the ground cover is at the start of the long Kansas spring turkey hunting season.
By the last week of the Kansas spring season the green up is well along.
What typically happens is that the hunter breaks in his first hunt or season and as he returns for spring turkey or any of the fall seasons he begins to expand out and cover more ground. In general half of the leases he turkey or deer hunts or scouts will disappoint him and the other half will be of habitat that more meets his perspective of what good ground should be.
He soon will have direct knowledge of more leases than time to hunt and begins to prioritize them according to first hunting interest, second habitat quality and third branching out into secondary interests. All of this is of course a generalization. The effect though is the well demonstrated by most. That effect is that soon enough that hunter will have expanded his range of options that allows him more choices to achieve his own level of success or failure. By this time the hunter has become a true self guided hunter planning his own hunts and simply uses the MAHA office to make reservations.
That last point about reservations is often misunderstood. The motivation the turkey hunter has to make a reservation is that is the means by which we know where he is so we do not let anyone else hunt there. Hunting without competition is one aspect that brings many of our hunters back for years to come.
When it comes to turkey hunting we manage hunter pressure through the reservation system to ensure that no one turkey flock gets so much hunter pressure it become difficult to hunt. The reservation system assists with this.
We have a good idea of the leases that have roosts and we have a good idea of the number of hunters that will Kansas turkey hunt each spring. We spread those hunters around. Our system has been tested since 1965 and refined many years ago to work for most and we do not advertise yourself as the right turkey hunting answer for all.
The hunter's ideal would be one to three properties with roosts dedicated to him and him alone for the entire season and that he could hunt at will at any time. If those three properties added up to a half section of 320 acres, a quarter of 160 acres and an 80 acre lease the total acreage would be 560 acres. Say we were lucky and were able to lease all that ground for $2 an acre, or $1,120. That one hunter's annual membership dues would not even cover the cost of that land.
Add to the example above that each of those properties had three roosts and we had three hunters hunt over the course of three weeks. The cost of that land at $1,120 is now paid for by three hunters that if their dues were a $1,000 each means the Association has a budget of $3,000 to pay for that 560 acres plus the insurance liability coverage, plus the miles of road travel to find and manage the lease, plus the secretary and office costs to mange the hunters, plus accounting costs, on and on.
Kansas spring turkey season allows two toms harvested in one day from one setup. The Kansas fall turkey season allows up to four turkeys either sex.
Of all the annual dues paid by our hunters we program a budget of a 30/70 split with 70% going to land costs. Of that $3,000 stated above that gives us $2,100 for the leases and $900 for overhead. In this example we have a surplus of funds for land of $980 that then can be applied to lease additional properties in another state that allows that same hunter hunting the three roosts on the original 560 acres the chance to hunt more turkey per season by crossing state lines.
What is the point to all this discussion is to recognize nothing is for free and to evaluate what is gained by the costs paid. In our case we have been leasing private land for the hunter seeking wild bird hunts since 1965. We have had a long time to refine our system that ensure hunter annual renewal and continuation this business. It is not the right answer for all and for most it is the best opportunity they will find for the hunting they desire.