Choices
Methods
Interest
Administrative | HuntWe are organized and remain focused on what works for the deer hunting experience do it yourself deer hunters desire. A big part of that is not to allow any one to treat our private land leases as public lands playgrounds. This means that ATV and off road vehicle use is highly limited, limited camping restricted to a few select leases in many areas, hunter reservations a must to prevent over pressuring the land and hunter conduct is accountable to that hunter.
No public lands deer hunting mentality.
The shorter answer is that any one of our leases is more important to the Association than any one hunter's membership. The rules of which we clearly advertise as "Conditions of Membership" are immutable. The Conditions of Membership keep life simple. They establish the relationship between the hunter and the Association and any topic is either within the rules or it is not and there is not any discussion. If someone wants to run their ATV for their children's entrainment, pre season dog train, camp with a bonfire, ride horses then they should go to public lands that allow those activities. Our leases are for hunting and that is how they will remain.
3 Year CycleAll to whom we allocate a membership to should have a certain mind set the first year. That mind set is to plan on a scouting trip, talk to us where to scout, plan to adjust deer pattern and habitat perceptions to that of the central mid-west and build flexibility. Consider this one comparison between an individual private deer lease and MAHA's approach to deer hunting any lease we have. The individual private lease holder will seek to find the best habitat he can afford in a part of the state he perceives (typically from record books) has a good trophy deer history. That hunter will then seek to develop the attractiveness of that lease to deer and work/hope that one place will have a trophy whitetail cross it when he is hunting. MAHA's approach is far more permissive in that same deer hunter for typically less money may deer hunt any of our leases and seek out the one or more from a range of several thousand acres of where to hunt. This sounds much better as the effort and cost of food plots, feeders, minerals is avoided as well. There is another cost however that must be paid by all self guided deer hunters. That cost is time. Regardless of how good our deer hunting or scouting recommendations may be as to where to hunt. Regardless of how well that hunter deer scouts his first season, by his third year he will be deer hunting an entirely different set of leases than his first season. The adaptation deer hunters experiences is they initially find a wealth of farms to selects from in any of our three states of Kansas, Iowa or Missouri and spend time processing through those that meet his expectations. Once he settles on a habitat type or other criteria he will assemble a collection of farms that have similar criteria. Over time from scouting trip to scouting trip, fall hunt and spring turkey season he soon finds that half the leases will disappoint him and the other half better than his previous experience. By this time he has first hand knowledge of more ground than he will have time to hunt and will begin to concentrate on 2,000 to 4,000 acres of land to either re-scout or hunt. Once a hunter settles in and starts to concentrate on a small set of acreage his success rate of eyes on deer, shot opportunity and eventually bucks in the truck increases. This process typically takes three seasons. First season success is great. The serious deer hunter will be more patient. We offer that chance at patients as compared to an individual lease as that land may be taken by others from year to year.
ConfidenceThe hunter may also trust our recommendations of where he is likely to gain the best results as our motive is pure. Our motive is all about membership renewals. We are not in competition with our hunters and seek our members to have a tradition of trophy whitetail deer hunting with us for many years rather than just for one hunt or season. As a business and not a hunting club the only reason we recognize why hunters renew their membership to hunt with us is due to their having a good hunt. That does not mean all hunters tag out each season. A good deer hunt is that all hunters have the potential through being able to conduct their own deer scouting, whitetail hunt their own style, in the historically trophy productive regions of Iowa, Missouri and Kansas and on the right kind of habitat. The final aspect of this self guided hunt success equation is that all are able to deer hunt any lease without competition. That is what brings our deer hunters to renew their membership each year and that is how we manage the land we lease. When it comes to trophy whitetail scouting and deer hunting in general we seek everyone the same opportunity and hope for success, and many years of it.
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