Out Of State Bowhunt

[bishs]

Hello, I am considering an out of state bowhunt this fall. I am considering going to Kansas but several others have gotten my attention.

I plan on doing my homework this winter/spring. I plan on doing a do-it yourself hunt with no guide. I will seek out less populated areas and make an attempt to get permission. If this fails I will have game areas located that are not crowded with hunters,

Has anyone tried this before, if so what states did you hunt?

Scott - Couple of friends did several "out of states" to South Dakota. They went a week a year for several years. They did very well. The first year was not the best, the second was better, the third better yet and so on. They did a lot of preliminary work with topo's & aerials.
One interesting, kind of cute story: One day the 4 of them stopped at an old farmers homestead to ask permission to hunt his ranch. The old timer just kind of looked at them for a moment with a little South Dakota smirk and said, "You boys want to hunt deer with bow and arrows?" He smiled as though they were some kind of freak show and said, "Go ahead boys, give it a try." It was as though he had never even heard of hunting deer with a bow and arrow.
These guys quit going when some disease hit the deer population in SD. I forgot what it was but the last year they went they saw hundreds of carcasses. From what I read later about it, it nearly wiped out the herd. (it wasn't bovine tb)I think things have improved greatly since then. This was several years ago.
I saw some statistics one time about the # of resident bowhunting licenses sold in S.D. I think it was something like 4000. Little different than MI where every other tree on state or fed land has a stand in it?
Chuck

[bishs]

Thanks, I have hunted North Dakota several years ago. I know out there the whitetatils sometimes get Blue Tongue, it really can wipe them out. I have heard that permission is pretty obtainable in many other less populated states. I wil keep looking around and make a decision in a couple months.
Thanks Scott Bishop

Now that you mention it, that was the disease. Blue Tongue.

[Airoh]

Kansas sounds like a great place for a chance at a bruiser. Do you know if they started allowing over the counter sales for
non-residents?

[bishs]

Airoh, their Non resident deer licenses are through the mail, and they use a lottery system.

[gundog]

Scott,

I did a 'do it yourself' pheasant and deer hunt in Iowa two years ago. I can tell you that it can be done with success. I started with the IBA conference on the Bowsite and got a lot of good contacts incuding local DNR officers and biologists.

Many folks told me that most farmers are more willing to let you deer hunt their farms than bird hunt. I never really asked anyone about deer hunting and was able to find plenty of great habitat on state land. The best part was there was virtually no one else bow hunting the public land I went to. I saw the biggest buck I've ever seen in the woods with only about 1/2 day of scouting ground I had only seen on a topo map. Had some great river-bottom land surrounded by crop fields.

Non-Resident licsenses are a long shot because I believe they only offer around 10K. I believe you can apply on line via the Iowa DNR website, which I don't know the URL of off the top of my head. They split the NR tags by geography and season (bow, gun, muzzle loader) so the actual number of bow liscenses in any given area is small.

I'm sure I still have a lot of the contact info somewhere at home. If you are interested let me know.

Howard Sheridan