Jump Start

All new members to Mid-America Hunting Association will receive assistance their first season by being recommended where to hunt for their hunting interest and habitat preference. Typically, after the first season do it yourself hunters will have gained sufficient experience within the Association and on the land to have confidence at knowing where to hunt for what they are after and will act on their own accord.

Later, when a member decides to hunt a new region or another state than where he has been before that member will also receive recommendations on where to hunt. As in the case of the first season hunter once moving into a new region or state and having gained some experience with the habitat in that area that hunter will be expected to conduct his own scouting and hunt preparation.

When the Association staff recommend a hunting property it is based on first hand experience with that particular piece of land. These recommendations may be accepted or not once the hunter scouts that property. If the hunter likes the recommendation he will be welcome to hunt the ground and if it does not appeal to the hunter he may go to any other land under lease in accordance with our reservation system.

First year members on receiving the Association map online issue frequently begin map scouting and typically highlight the largest contiguous acreage leases or the units with the most acreage. Deer hunters often believe the larger the property the more likely for hunting success. The contrary may occur as several new members using the same approach will pressure the larger acreage properties with additional scouting and hunting trips while smaller farms remain untouched through the season.

This phenomenon is illustrated with the picture below and the farm it was taken on.

This picture were taken by game cameras placed on a small farm with what appears from the road to be limited habitat. This farm holds a spring and fall turkey flock and at least one trophy whitetail. While this farm has been recommended to over a dozen hunters in recent years only two have hunted it. They both harvested spring turkeys and one did deer hunt it without success.

The other hunters rejected this ground for several stated reasons such as no habitat and it being small. While the acreage is limited in comparison to many of our properties the habitat is very good. The difficulty of this property is that from the road all that is visible are crop fields. The two hunters that now hunt it took the time to walk over the ridge and found the "golden nugget" this farm possesses.

The same ridge that shelters the habitat from the road also covers the wildlife from road activity. A key point for anyone wanting to maximize their hunting potential for deer and turkey.

The picture was taken in August. The buck picture was cropped wide to show the time of 2:41 PM. The reason the deer picture is blurred is that this particular game camera charges a capacitor to fire the flash. During the charging period of about one to two seconds before the picture is taken the camera issues a high pitch whine that alerts the wildlife in the immediate area. We have seen this startled deer behavior in other photos with this camera, and after having paid good money for it we decided it was still better to use it than not in spite of its early warning to the deer.

The summary is that deer and turkey hunters often forgo the smaller farms thinking they do not have potential. This is opposed by the upland bird hunter that does walk his dogs on every farm that has even the minimum of a fence row and it is the bird hunter that has harvested some of the largest deer in the Association. These pictures should start to dispel the idea that only large farms hold large deer. If the Association land managers recommend a place to hunt it is based on its habitat quality, its game carrying capacity and first hand scouting experience and never based on its acreage. The hunter's confidence in the Association's recommendations is assured by two points. First and foremost, we gain a great deal of personal satisfaction and appreciation for the hunter every time a trophy or youth photo is sent into us by one of our hunters. Second, our only assurance our hunters will want to renew their memberships each year is if they have good hunting they will want to come back. With a high retention rate the Association's staff remain land/hunting managers and do not have to become salesmen.

Waterfowl hunters were ignored in the above discussion as they have the state conservation agencies scouting for them throughout the season over the entire state wide area. Both Kansas and Missouri offers frequently updated waterfowl reports by region and significant wetlands areas published on their web site. These links are posted on our waterfowl page. Essentially, the duck hunters have it made as the state tracking reports are provided by many conservations officers during the actual migration and they do a far better job at covering vast regions than the Association's three land managers could possibly do during their busiest time of the year.