Rifle season too early?
Kansas
Wish they would move rifle back about 2 weeks to avoid the rut. I am sure it has been discussed here before. Has there been any serious talk about that ever happening?
Seems to work fairly well right where it is. Been in this time frame from day one.
I know it has. Just would be nice if it were pushed back a ways.
Would like to see no rifles with exceptions for youth and over 65, muzzleloader shotgun only for the rest.
I think it is in the perfect spot to keep rifle hunters and bow hunters happy. With the revolving dates it give rifle hunters a chance to kill during the late rut about every 6 years with an early date. This year seemed to be a long rut for us. I would rather keep the date than to move it later and maybe make the 50,000 rifle hunters angry.
Gun season is fine where it is. But I also agree with no rifles. With a road every mile, no need to hunt with a rifle except youth and over 65.
What is more concerning is hunting with a rifle over giant corn piles. Although legal, it will annihilate the trophy buck population in Kansas.
We’ve got it good. All the other plains states opened rifle seasons on either the 10th or 17th of Nov this year. With the exception of E Colorado, which has an early rifle window starting the last few days of October. Throw in large amounts of standing crops, huge snow drifts across many counties Wednesday and terrible first weekend weather, you couldn’t really script a better scenario for us selfish bowhunters! ;)
I have to agree with Matte. Us Bowhunters have it pretty dam good in Kansas.
Been deer hunting since 78 and bow hunting since 84. I am convinced I have a better chance of killing a big buck with a bow. And I don’t feel as much urgency bow hunting as with rifle. The season is fine by me.
I just wish we could go back to managing the herd based on the resource instead of the highest bidder.
I’m betting most breeding age does get bred every year regardless of when firearms season is. I also wonder how many B&C bucks die of diseases, old age, and other natural causes in comparison to any type of hunting? Archers have approximately 3-1/2 months to hunt, firearms 12days. I hunt both, but can only shoot 1 buck per year. What difference does it make whether I shoot it with bow or rifle? I agree with Trebarker as far as going back to letting the biologists manage the resource.
I don’t have any in the record books and probably never will,but I don’t despise anyone else the chance just because of the means at which they take theirs. Now if it honestly affects the deer herd that would be entirely different.
if you lived in Arkansas and saw 3-5 weeks of rifle smack dab in the middle of rut, you'd see the beauty in Kansas structure
Hey at least you guys get to hunt the rut. In Wyoming deer season is the month of September with bows and two weeks in October for rifle. However screaming bulls at the end of September are pretty nice.
Bowhunters get months of prime hunting from early season, to rut, to post rut. I've had great luck in all seasons. Why on earth are you still complaining?
Thornton, I'm not complaining simply having a conversation on a conversation board.
"I wish" comes off as a complaint.
Slate "good" as in comparison to what? You might use the term "good" if you were comparing to other states. Or you could use the term "good" if you have been traveling in from out of state to hunt the last 10 years. But I like to compare to past seasons and how diminished our opportunities have become over the last 53 seasons. Not even in the same league.
Seems everyone I've met who Got to hunt the 70's, 80's, and early 90's all shot Boone and Crockett bucks. Now, 140"s are cream of the crop in most places.
Seriously? Try Missouri rifle season, second saturday in November annually, this year it was the 10th. Top that off with a two buck limit, one archery, one rifle....I'd take 30 days of archery rut action prior to a rifle season.
I wish you a merry Christmas
Ok is nov 17 thru Dec 2nd and it seems out state is producing some big bucks as of late
The seasons could be adjusted but will likely have little effect. We don’t talk much about the elephant in the room, and that is the number of hardcore deer hunters. Archery kills in 1990 we’re about 6000. The latest data I have seen show about 28,000 archery and 5,600 crossbow kills. When I started hunting there was very little leased land and just a handful of bow hunters I knew of. Today it seems everyone hunts with a bow. Much of the best land is leased by individuals or outfitters. Years ago I heard someone say that Kansas is becoming Texas. It has. I lament the days when I had many thousands of acres to myself to hunt at no cost. But, those days are over. To deny others the opportunity to hunt would be selfish on my part. So, we do the best we can under the circumstances. The best I can explain it is ...it’s complicated.
I'm with Orlando on this. I started bowhunting in the 80's and a place to hunt was a handshake away (and maybe offering to fix some fence). There was no internet, no readily available hunting shows, no horn porn. Deer were plentiful and a compound was easy to learn... hunting was cheap and easy. Now it's hard to find private land to hunt without spending a fortune and public land can be good, but to a new young hunter public is probably going to feel crowded and frustrating.
I've long said that weapon choice will not hurt KS deer hunting... and season structure won't change deer number much, but could drastically change age structure. We all like shooting big bucks and this is where a change in rifles season dates would make a difference. Move it up and long range weapons will decimate the trophy segment within 5 years (my opinion). Move it back and you kind of screw over rifle hunters. I don't buy into the need to change seasons and weapons to recruit new hunters. Kids will borrow, buy, or steal a weapon to hunt with... but won't shell out a grand for a week of rifle season.
I know I've gone completely off topic but does anyone have a history of KS resident hunting numbers? I would love to see data on hunter numbers; pre-hunting shows, post hunting shows (being common), pre-open boarder numbers, post open boarder numbers, pre-leasing, and post leasing. Hunter numbers by age would be great too. I would also like to know these number and how they correlate median income. My suspicion is that low income hunters have far fewer opportunities than they use to, and that the KS youth segment is falling.
The Kansas department of tourism, manages NOTHING, only rules and regulates how to make more cash. When was the last time you knew of them managing a deer population by cutting back on anything, especially to do with weapons, but rather they open it up at the whim of a few individuals wants. And with hunters carrying weapons of all kinds at the same time, behind every tree, and then wonder why we have very few trophy deer left, come on,,,,,they mostly get shot way before trophy class. I don't believe these out of state hunters come here spend thousands and go home without shooting something with antlers and be damn the size. I can tell you one thing catscratch, that back 30/40 years ago when hunter numbers were not 1/10 as many as now, there were a lot of trophy class deer taken in comparison to hunter numbers now. I hate what the Department of Tourism has done to the resident deer hunters. AND, I might add that this (bowsite) and all other forms of media hype have been a big contributor to hunter numbers in Kansas, and the Department of Tourism have been licking there lips for 30 years now over it. When bow hunting I did not want to run into anyone else, now you're lucky to find a place to park. Bitching and complaining will do nothing to change anything, MONEY TALKS, and the deer population will only be regulated for optimum money flow.
Jeff I’m talking about the question at hand. 53 years ago was rifle season the same days or did something change? I will make it clear for you Jeff I think the time frame for Muzzy, bow, and rifle is good. And bow hunters I believe have it the best. I know you are trying to make it a resident non resident issue not biting cause I don’t care.
If I remember correctly, rifle season used to be a 9 day season running the first Sat in Dec through the next Sunday. It changed maybe 30 years ago to start on Wednesday as we do today.
There are Alot of great deer in ks. There aren't as many as years past, probably never will be things change unfortunately. I've said before hunting and fishing used to be a rural sport it didn't cost much to hunt and fish when I was a young man but then it turned into a business. Money ruins everything
Chief, I remember those days well! I'm shooting bigger deer now but that is because I'm a better hunter now than I was then at age 14. The opportunity to shoot and see trophy deer was much greater then than it is now. Just look at the meat pole threads... Not saying people aren't shooting great deer but if we had a meat pole from 1986 it would look much different!
I never paid too much attention to rifle season dates. All it's ever meant to me is that I had to wear orange to bowhunt for a couple of weeks. With that said I thought it used to start on the first Wednesday of December, not the last Wednesday of November like it does now.
The first year I was able to draw a firearms permit was 1968. I believe the season started on the first Saturday in December and ran through the following Wednesday (five days). My Dad let me ditch school on that Wednesday. When I got to school on Thursday one of the teachers asked with laugh if my "Deer Fever" was better.
Not to mention that QDMA did a study that showed only a 15% retrieval rate for archery hunters. That shows there are multiple bucks crippled for every one found. Rifle was 55%.
Where are you getting those #'s Jason? I did the Google a bit here, and can find nothing even remotely close?
Those #'s are from another thread on the main forum. However, the wording was confusing, in my opinion, and they meant compounds had an 84 -86% recovery rate....
"A lot can happen from the moment a hunter decides to shoot to the instant the projectile strikes. A study published in the science journal PLOS One in 2014 found that of 2,179 deer shot with a firearm, 97 percent were killed and recovered. It’s a favorable statistic, but no consolation for the hunter who is ethically and legally required to track blood, perhaps for miles.
Among deer shot with modern archery gear, QDMA pins the wounding rate at 14-16 percent, and half of all deer shot with recurve and longbows are wounded and not recovered."
Yea, I saw literature similar to that discussion, but a wounding rate of around 15% is WAY different than a 15% "retrieval" rate. I saw nothing on rifles, at least on the QDMA site, other than a study in the UK when using retrieval hounds.
Ambiguous numbers for sure Jason. No way in the world is there only a 16% archery recovery rate. Even a 55% rifle rate would seem way out of line also. How would anyone come up with those numbers?
Slate not trying to make it a resident/non resident issue at all. If you reference was that KS bowhunters have it good due to the time frame of rifle season and the rut then I agree. But if you are referring that KS bowhunters have it good in general then I disagree. Many others seasons have been shoved down the the throats of KS bowhunters, some starting before NR hunting began here. You would not have enough past experience of hunting here to make that assumption for someone who has been roaming the woods here for over 50 years.
Slate we used to have a draw for residents to acquire a tag for gun season. You either drew an antlerless or a buck tag but a good number did not draw at all. That is quite a change to now being able to purchase an Any Season Tag with no draw requirements. Then we have crossbows during the archery season and an early muzzle loader season. Big changes from the way it used to be.
KANSAS BOASTS IMPRESSIVE 1984 DEER HARVEST _) ·-· : J -~ : ~.:. L: PRATT--More than 28,500 firearms hunters and 13,200 archery hunters went afield in search of deer during the 1984 season, and their success was the highest in the 20-year history of Kansas deer hunting. The deer harvest was increased last year to stem growth in the state's herd. More than 19,400 firearms hunters were successful in bagging deer, giving a success rate above 68 percent. The highest rate of success for firearms hunters was in the western end of the state, where more than 80 percent of those who went afield bagged a deer. Of the total number of deer harvested by firearms hunters, 17,583 were whitetails, and 1,850 were mule deer. The area with the highest mule deer harvest was Rawlins County, with 141. Chautauqua County had the most hunters, 753, as well as the highest whitetail deer harvest, at 597. The average number of days spent in the field by hunters who used rifles was 3.52. At that rate, more than 100,400 days of recreation were provided by the 1984 Kansas firearms deer season. Archery deer hunting provided more than 243,400 days of recreation during the 1984 season, with the average bow hunters spending almost eighteen and one-half days in the field. Of the 13,281 bowhunters who tried to harvest a deer, 4,167 succeeded, yielding a success rate of 31.38 percent. That compares to just over 27 percent success in 1983. Butler County hosted the most archery deer hunters, with 437: but Ness County had the highest success rate at 60 percent. The most whitetail deer l<.an. Fl. 7 1935/3/13 -2- were in Butler County, with 120 whitetails and no mule deer being harvested there. The top area for mule deer was Sheridan County, where 42 were bagged. "We were successful in achieving a major part of our management strategy," said Bill Hlavachick, species management supervisor, "We nearly doubled the harvest of does and increased the buck harvest as well. That will help to curb growth in deer populations in many areas of Kansas."
Here is the real interesting part from 1985, please read:
The 1985 archery deer season was set to run from October l through December 6; with a break for the firearms season, which is to begin December 7 and end December 15. The archery season 1 s second segment will run from December 16 through December 31. Deer hunting allowed on three major military posts in Kansas will not take place during the same dates as the regular seasons. On the Smoky Hill Bombing Range, deer hunting will be allowed by special permit during three-day segments (Dec. 7-9, 14-16, 21-23). On two other military posts, Fort Riley and Fort Leavenworth, deer hunting will be allowed during 12-day seasons, which will occur sometime between November 20 and January 1. The number of firearms deer permits available statewide was increased 11 percent to 33,885. Game officials estimate this permit increase will result in a harvefJt of about 21,700 deer, of which 55 percent will be anterless. The number of archery deer permits available will, as in past years, be unlimited. More than 15,200 archers hunted in Kansas during the 1984 season, harvesting 4,167 deer. Archery deer permits may be purchased anytime between July 1 and September 30. The firearms application period is from July 1 through 22.
Yes Jeff that’s what I meant the time frame and you’re right I don’t have those years of experience to make those assumptions. I understand what you’re saying.
Clipper, thanks for the 1984 article...takes me back to my first year bow hunting...unsuccessfully I might add.
I’m just glad it’s where it is now
In the mid-80s, bet came out with the first whitetail antlerless-only permits. Since they did not count against you for seeing next year, many got those on the off years they couldn’t draw a firearms “buck” tag. Muzzleloader-only permits were offered for the regular gun season as a way to get more hunters afield, without a huge increase in harvest. First muzzleloader season was in 1989. Yes, in-lines were allowed.
I believe it was Chautauqua County where they first came out and it was something like 2 or 3, or maybe more. At that time those antlerless tags were only good on private ground. Games tags were invalid on any state land.
Can't remember what year but nr doe tags were ten dollars apiece you could buy five per person
Sito,
Simple explanation, no facts needed. Thornton's post just fell victim to bowsite's autocorrect.
He originally wrote....."Not to mention that I only have a 15% retrieval rate for archery hunts. Which shows I wound multiple bucks crippled for every one found. Rifle I was 55%.
Quinn the queer failed to connect on a buck this fall despite having "50,000 acres of corn" which explains a lot on his hunting abilities. Next year his son might get a crack at it with a rifle as long as it doesn't break off half it's rack again. Back to my statement: I saw it on the internets so it has to be right .... right?
Clip, we had unit specific wa/o permits, first. As you stated, per special season, it was CQ county. As soon as the complaining landowners got the season, many announced how much they’d be charging for such hunts.
Writer we have seen a lot of changes over the years. Things I never would have dreamed of happening.
Writer, I approached the two brothers at one of the meetings ( Pittsburg mtg?) who lobbied for those extra tags, the guys who claimed they were going to go bankrupt due to all the deer damage to their crops. I offered to bring several responsible ethical deer hunters along with me to help reduce the antlerless deer on their land. He told me, without hesitation, they were not interested in my help with their deer herd unless we were willing to pay $$$$ per day trespass fees, and that they were looking to sell buck hunts not antlerless hunts.
A year like this, with extended cold and the earlier than normal transition to the need to feed, has been deadly. I don't even like to or want to open the can of worms but it's the truth. I can't even begin to count the number of mature bucks shot over piles this rifle season. It is legal and I can't complain about that. Its just tough to swallow after the countless hours of habitat improvement projects all year only to lose bucks to neighboring grounds without a stitch of cover or water, just a Thanksgiving addition of a pile and a blind.
This has been a season for sure that shows the deadly effect it can have and I think rifle in the middle of the rut this year wouldn't have been any worse. Obviously it's not the same every year but the dates are fine to me. Move it forward and more rutting activity will average out to a decrease in the upper age class. Move it back and that second rut and feeding pattern will be even more deadly. Kaleb and others have it right, we are pretty selfish bowhunters, but I would like to think that all of us have a vested interest in the overall herd and preserving what we know it can be. Just my opinion.
Treebarker, I also talked to these brothers and most of the damage was on farm ground they leased, AND in no uncertain words, the out of state landowners did not want anyone hunting on their land.
Yes Marvin, those guys. I was told my time was up when I had my turn at the mic and all but called them liars.
So...who are "those guys" fellas? It's been years now, are they still pushing legislation?
I don't remember their names sitO, but there were others just like them at about every KDWP and legislative hearing at the time. They told the same gloom and doom story, how they were suffering deer crop damage, had too many deer on their land, the only solution to their problems according to them was more NR buck tags or specifically t-tags. They refused depredation tags, hunter referral program, other sound biological ways to deal with their supposed issues. I asked one landowner during a meeting how many hunters he allowed on his land, if he had turkeys, raccoons, opossums, migratory birds, coyotes and other wildlife, and if he had sought help from the biologists before appearing at the meeting? He said he didn't allow anyone to hunt unless they paid him, of course he had other wildlife, he said he did not have to follow KDWP's ways of dealing with the deer. I asked him how much crop damage the other wildlife was responsible for? He didn't know he said, and asked me why? I said because other wildlife eat farmer's grain as well, but they didn't tend to attract people willing to pay $5000 a week to come hunt the other species.
I don’t think you guys realize how good you have it up there in Kansas. Try Oklahoma with a 9 Day muzzleloader season during the pre rut (October 24-November 5) and the 16 day rifle smack in the middle of the rut (November 17- December 3)
Then consider the 2 buck limit along with that!
You have it good my friends
Not as good as it was or could be Michael, and you have it better...now that it's only two bucks as opposed to the three a few years back ;?)
Two bucks eh? Maybe I'll get me a place down there
I grew up hunting about a mile from OK. Hearing the rifle shots all through the rut made me feel very fortunate that our rifle season was later in the year. The amount of poaching was disheartening though. Lots of trucks with OK plates cruising the gravel roads at 10mph with the crack of a rifle shot shortly after they left being common.
Try hunting along the Nebraska line it gets pretty bad. Seems alot of Nebraska hunters do not know the state boundary line.
Matte, that is my observation. NE’s season starts before KS and it was not uncommon to see a wayward rifle hunter or two.
Michael I don't know that you really have the background of KS hunting regulations to tell us how good we have it here. I posted a clip from a 1985 article. Read it, then consider where we are at now, then figure out how good we really have it. The changes we have been through are really unimaginable.
Orlando yes it generally begins during our Pheasant season opener.
And I suppose we have some KS guys sneak across the OK and NE lines too. But, I doubt it is rampant either way.
