Natural White Tailed HabitatAssociation member article contribution by:
Being from the east we call our deer white tails or white tailed deer and sometimes hyphenated as white-tailed deer. I have noticed that our east coast, strongly religious based grammar school upbringing opposed to the many compound words found in the mid-west with whitetail being just one of many that have come to my attention. Especially, when locals comment on my "accent" that I can't hear at all. Besides, "yenz" is a word, just not one of yours. Just as the language is different in Kansas than here so is the deer hunting and habitat. Hence I wrote this article to help the others from the east like myself adapt to the central mid-west white tailed deer habitat, specifically Kansas, regardless of how white tailed deer is spelled.
Tributaries in the north half of Kansas run from the north to the south into the Kansas River.
South of the Kansas River, Kansas is divided into other river
systems. The point is that Kansas even for being a prairie state has a lot of
rivers and subsequently streams, creeks and other types of tributaries making
for plenty of ground level cover habitat. The term "drainage" was new to me at that time and I believed it meant all types of rivers and streams when it was used in terms of Kansas deer habitat. I later found this not to be true. The "drainages" that produce the best deer habitat and hunting are the upper fringes of the large creeks, major and lesser rivers. The aerials show the Kansas deer habitat to look for. It is the tree lined intermittent and small year round streams, or those that allow cross deer movement that is the productive habitat. What is not included in the discussion is that found along rivers that with the very fine silt of this region, water depth and speed prohibits deer crossing. The wooded areas along these types of water are typically half of the other and farming activity more invasive.
Cattle country has far fewer trophy quality deer than some other areas and correspondingly far fewer hunters. The trophies I later found in this limited Kansas deer habitat far exceeded what is on my wall and I soon selected, after some scouting, several leases to hunt. This ground makes for some hard stand days when nothing is seen and for some very exciting moments when the largest trophies that I have ever seen allowed me a sustained increased heart rate. There are other types of deer habitat out in Kansas to include large stands of woods and various sized crop fields with brush and wooded areas. Those are the ones readily agreed to by many from most other states as being good deer habitat. The two examples above were the ones that required the most adaptation to Kansas deer hunting coming from an eastern to central United States trophy hunter, hence this discussion. The bottom line is the central mid-west has more trophy habitat than is readily perceived by many new to this part of the country. |
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One
of my very first discussions with a very serious Kansas deer hunter was how Kansas is known
as a "drainage" state with the major river being the Kansas River,
oddly enough, running the length of the middle of Kansas from west to east.
It is this habitat created by the rivers that was the focus of this hunter's
discussion.
Another
difference I had to adapt to in terms of deer habitat is cattle. This
aerial is of Kansas cattle country, ground I immediately and initially dismissed as not being productive
habitat my first few years hunting Kansas. What I discovered is that
whitetails are pervasive in Kansas as they are in most other areas and it is a matter
of population density rather than good and bad habitat.
