Private Land Self Guided Pheasant Hunts in Kansas and Iowa
Self guided pheasants hunts are on private land, on wild pheasant in Iowa and Kansas.
How To Make Self Guided Pheasant Hunts Work
The way it works with Mid-America Hunting Association is a relatively simple system of online maps and telephone conversations.
The online maps cover all of the Association's lands in Missouri, Kansas and Iowa. They are as appears at right. Each has a variable amount of acreage dependent on how many farms can be posted to one sheet of paper before the map is shrunk to the point of the bifocal generation beginning to have trouble reading them. Road names are posted, instructions listed how to get to the general area and the farm themselves are highlighted in black.
With both the hunter and the partners talking by telephone and looking at the same map sheets each hunter will be able to get to the point of where to park his truck, put out his dogs and hunt.
The two Association partners, Jon Nee and John Wenzel, both train and hunt their own bird dogs. They will be able to give their recommendations from year round observations not just limited to that of pheasant hunting.
Jon Nee and Buck.
Each trip will have a Plan A and a Plan B. This means the hunter after talking to the partners about habitat of preference and if he would like to mix in quail into his pheasant hunt of where to hunt. The Plan A may be an eastern or western region while the Plan B will be a southern or northern region. The value of these two plans is the ability to flex to another area should weather turn bad.
The first season or two pheasant hunting Association lands should include a bit of a tour of the various regions of habitat variety and pheasant and quail densities. Doing so the hunter may find one combination of habitat and bird more suited to his dog power and hunting than another. Finding this value typically lends to a more satisfying hunt experience.
Those not recognizing the specialized dog power required of pheasant or quail hunting and for those that persist at chasing one not suited to his dog power report the most dissatisfying experience.
All dogs welcomed to pheasant hunt.
Once the telephone plan discussion is had the hunter finalizes his dates and location calling in his reservations.
The reservations will never deny any one the chance to hunt on their schedule. They are a means of pressure management. The intent is to insure no one locality receives too many hunter days. Hunter pressure in this case are both based on acreage and frequency of hunts.
The reservation are made Monday through Friday from 9 AM to 530 PM to a live person with immediate confirmation. They may be made up to thirty days before the hunt or as late as the day of the hunt. Reservations may be changed or deleted.
Once the telephone reservation is set the hunter travels from home directly to where hunting, steps out of his truck and hunts.
Land is posted on the road side boundary corners with the Association signs. Between the road maps, road signs at intersections and the Association corner signs there is little doubt as to hunting locations.
During the hunt should one area prove good to that hunter he may adjust reservations to continue hunting that location. Conversely if an area is not working out that hunter may change reservations and shift to another locality.
Reasonable Expectations Of Our Self Guided Pheasant Hunts
What is reasonable to expect of Mid-America Hunting Association self guided pheasant hunts is to have access to more private hunting land each day than daylight hours to hunt. Freedom from competing with other hunters. Not mixing your dogs with others. The ability to step onto a different field each time stopping the truck never having to cross your tracks the entire season. Pheasant hunt at your own pace behind your own dogs. A variety of cover. Enough range of land from southern Iowa, through north Missouri out to western Kansas to always have a region of good pheasant hunting regardless of adverse weather effects in another. Hunt any time the hunter's schedule allows.
No Dog Self Guided Pheasant Hunts
Klint and son make part of their annual deer hunt to take a day for a self guided pheasant hunt. They do so without a dog. Father and son each shoot their own birds. They show well those with dogs have little excuse.
No where do we say it is a reasonable expectation that our self guided pheasant hunts means all will get limits each day. This Association is 100% wild pheasant hunting on natural terrain. The pheasants and the land are there to be hunted. The potential for limits does exist. Hunters do have many days of limit hunts. Dog power, willingness to walk and shooting ability will enhance or degrade any hunt quality standard the hunter chooses.
If that hunt quality evaluation is based on the quality of the hunt, the ability to work one's own dogs, the freedom of scheduling and location, then there are reasonable expectations of a good hunt.
If a quality hunt is based solely on "pounding the birds" as one told us he wanted then do not consider this Association as an option.
The one quality indicator that seems to connect the most with those that truly understand a quality pheasant hunt is that we do hunt through the end of the season. The mentality that the best pheasant hunts are the first two weeks of the season are not true. The good hunter with average dog power will find good to great hunts through the last week of the season. That is a pheasant hunter who enjoys the hunt for the hunt and not as a score card of birds bagged. A difference only the true bird dog loving hunter understands. Those reading this article not agreeing with this last statement should end any further research into this Association.
No Drive or Gang Pheasant Hunts
This Association of self guided hunters is for the individual or small family or friendship group. It is not for any type of drive pheasant hunts. A low form of hunting hard on the birds that we loath. It should not need to be made any more clear.
Golden field days for those that enjoy their dogs more than other hunters.
We further separate ourselves from public lands hunters and that of drive hunters by having dog on the ground limits. Only dogs owned by the hunter permitted. No guest dogs. No off season dog access allowed. This returns to the principle this Association is a hunt execution organization. Not a dog club, not a hunter trainer group.
Hunting Lease Land Rather Than Owned Land
This Association of private land hunters acquires land as a hunting lease rather than owning the land. For pheasant hunting we can see well the advantage of this approach. We lease hunting land where there is an existing history of production. This means we go where the pheasants are, that is, where wild pheasants self propagate.
Don, who trained a deaf dog to hunt.
Contrast this approach with a small acreage operation, anything under 35,000 acres of land in driving proximity to a lodge. There pheasants need be released birds to have enough hunt to handle a routine schedule of weekly hunters.
This then distinguishes our operation and the hunters we work with. Those that make their own hunt with their own dogs. Not the hunter that needs be led by the hand with guns, dogs, vest provided. Association hunters make their own hunt selecting the cover of choice and taking breaks on their schedule.
Iowa and Kansas Pheasant Hunting Difference
Iowa pheasant hunts are largely along non-croped margins of waterways, edges and fallow ground. Kansas pheasant hunts are along the same terrain as Iowa with the additional advantages of buffer strips and large acreage contiguous tall grass CRP land. The difference lies in soil and rainfall in Iowa making land more valuable in grain farming than CRP. Kansas the soil is lower quality making fewer bushel per acre grain production and the rainfall less making more of the same lower gain production. It is this Kansas lower gain production that makes CRP payment comparable to grain farming profits per acre of land. In the end Kansas will always have more tall grass than Iowa and always more pheasants.
Large contiguous tall grass acreage that seems all the same to the human eye. Pheasants will be particular where they occupy.
Iowa pheasant hunts are more the realm of those traveling to Kansas from the east or north. These hunter stop over in Iowa to shorten their drive, work their dogs and resume travel that night to Kansas.
The Down Side
Life is not perfect. Neither are our self guided pheasant hunts approach to all upland bird hunters. Each season there will be a handful of first time central mid-west pheasant hunters. Of these the majority will have less satisfying hunts than desired. It is the first season will be a break-in season. The first season will be the least productive in terms of dog on pheasant action. That is the way it is and there is not any short cut.
A price that must be paid by effort and time is that of walking the land. An illustration:
A field may be 320 acres. The first time central mid-west hunter will hunt the entire field taking about four hours. He will get into pheasants. Maybe even bag one.
The same field hunted by a central mid-west hunter with at least three seasons of hunts will be hunted in two hours or less. He will have more dog on pheasant action. More than one pheasant will be bagged.
The difference is not all of any one field is equal in terms of pheasant holding power regardless how uniform that field may appear to the hunter. The experienced hunter does not hunt the entire field. He will make a quick assessment of the golden nugget spots, hunt them then move on.
The Land Is large
Getting the first time central mid-west hunter to agree he will not have as good of a hunt his first year as he will later is a challenge. All the more so that believe they have one of the best bird dogs ever. As soon as any upland bird hunter says he has the "best dog" of any description we know we are in trouble with that hunter. Experienced upland bird hunters know full well they have many average dogs between the one or few in his life long pheasant hunting career that is in the top 25% of all dogs.
Another failing idea is that paid hunts mean better hunts. Yes, in general concept of private land in the right region having the right protective cover and food source. This is what Mid-America Hunting Association provides the pheasant hunter. However, no is the answer, in terms of attitude. If that attitude is I paid for a good hunt therefore I should expect one then that is a sign of failure to come.
From the handful of first time central mid-west hunters that are allocated membership there will be some that we will advise we are not the right fit for them. It will be shortly after that we will appear in hunting forums as the worst possible self guided pheasant hunts option that exists.
One aspect of our hunts that we cannot overcome that will eventually affect every hunter is weather.
The number one detraction to be suffered is wind. The best pheasant country is wide open with little to no wind blocking cover. Winds that exceed beyond 15 MPH degrade the scent cone that even the best dogs have terrible time with birds.
The most reliable wind prediction source we have found is http://www.accuweather.com. For those that have the flexibility in their hunts to schedule around wind doing so will make a better hunt.
For the majority of us that must hunt on a schedule regardless of wind forecasts it is possible to change plans. The common response for those with the right dog power is to give up the open pheasant lands for the wind protected tree lines of quail country.
Quail are not solely the realm of the pointing dog.
During the hunt to know when to pheasant hunt or go after quail is to watch the local cable weather channel. They will have current and forecasted wind conditions. It is a matter of daily life in this part of the world with aerial and ground grain field spraying and such that wind is a daily concern.
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