Kansas deer rifle or archery

[squirrel]

Do NOT assume the rut will be over for rifle, though you should treat each day as a precious gift as it can turn off at a moments notice and go from 5-10 bucks /day to 1 every few days! Public land can be incredible and un crowded, it can also be poor and very crowded. You can have square miles of walk in to yourself, if you are smart you WILL NOT "drive" it as that pushes the deer onto the private where they just stay for a week or two. Way too many NR nimrods bring all their "tricks". with them from where they are trying to get away from.

Go archery if you want to hunt and see big deer, take a rifle if you want to kill one, the Indians lost for a reason, after all...

re-calibrate your eyes to Kansas standards, Ive seen lots of guys whack a 14" 4x4 on day one or two and start strutting and gobbling like a blue headed Tom. Nothing inherently wrong with that but you only get one... and you paid a lot to do it.

I was camped on public once and going elsewhere to hunt "saving" that spot for later, some knuckleheads from MI were finishing their hunt by skinning a 120" 5x5 when I got back to camp. Figured I had better hunt by camp while it still held deer and next morning at daylight got my best public buck to date at 174'ish". Sure glad they shot that 2 year old. Ive never had to learn that lesson again either.

 

[PrairieHunter]

Don't forget muzzleloader. You can hunt Muzzleloader season in Sept and in Rifle season. But if I had a choice it would be Archery right before rifle season. I've been there for the pheasant opener during the rut and it was a lot of fun since the fields are cut the deer are really concentrated and moving.

If you are looking for a mule deer tag check the odds as I believe Archery gets to go first on those so few end up in the rifle draw for NR's.

Also don't forget the youth season in Sept, If your son is young that is 100% the way to go. Plan for the last few days of youth for him and then a muzzleloader or archery hunt the first few days of the season for you. Hunting the deer in the summer pattern is easy and its' nice letting the kids have a shot before all the adults.

 

[TN VOL]

Do NOT assume the rut will be over for rifle, though you should treat each day as a precious gift as it can turn off at a moments notice and go from 5-10 bucks /day to 1 every few days! Public land can be incredible and un crowded, it can also be poor and very crowded. You can have square miles of walk in to yourself, if you are smart you WILL NOT "drive" it as that pushes the deer onto the private where they just stay for a week or two. Way too many NR nimrods bring all their "tricks". with them from where they are trying to get away from.

Go archery if you want to hunt and see big deer, take a rifle if you want to kill one, the Indians lost for a reason, after all...

re-calibrate your eyes to Kansas standards, Ive seen lots of guys whack a 14" 4x4 on day one or two and start strutting and gobbling like a blue headed Tom. Nothing inherently wrong with that but you only get one... and you paid a lot to do it.

I was camped on public once and going elsewhere to hunt "saving" that spot for later, some knuckleheads from MI were finishing their hunt by skinning a 120" 5x5 when I got back to camp. Figured I had better hunt by camp while it still held deer and next morning at daylight got my best public buck to date at 174'ish". Sure glad they shot that 2 year old. Ive never had to learn that lesson again either.View attachment 222767

That’s a giant!! Thanks for sharing and the info!

 

[3855WIN]

I prefer archery. I also prefer the first week of November.

 

[nhenry]

I hunted a couple years ago in unit 3 and I had no hunters around me. Just pick what you enjoy most and go for it. Kansas is great.

 

[F250]

I rifle hunted eastern Kansas the past two years (and hopefully this year). I saw bucks fighting, bucks chasing does, I watched bucks make scrapes, and the bucks responded to a grunt call. While not the peak of the rut I have seen during early November in Kansas when archery hunting, there are still some excited bucks running around during the rifle season.

 

[jlmatthew]

Anyone here hunt Area 10? Put in to hunt with a buddy stationed at Leavenworth, thinking I should draw this year

 

[mossyoak300mag]

Don't count out rifle season. I have a farm in Northern Kansas and have hunted deer there for over 35 years and have shot alot of nice bucks. Yes there is alot more pressure during rifle but I've still seen a ton of activity most of it with in 50 yards during rifle season.

 

[shb]

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[KSBorn]

We also get blessed on the occasion with a post season rut for a couple days near the third week of December. (Resident Archery still going on) After they 'cool' off from the first round. If the bucks haven't been seen, sometimes they pop out around then.

I've never sat with my bow on pub land though. Always had private access for bow in east central region of the state. So I'm not sure what it looks like outside rifle season. But early and often always pays off. I've seen plenty of big ones get taken from Oct.-Dec.

To continue to parrot for future readers. First week of rifle season can often overlap with the tail end of rut. The hunting pressure on pub land in KS during the ~2 weeks of rifle season is nearly unbearable. This always reinforced my youthful decision of teen - young adult years sticking to strings. I've since been cured of that and will carry my 30-06 if the occasion presents itself. Will be out this week for the last few hunts of the season to salvage an un harvested buck tag.

@squirrel that is a healthy looking buck. I would agree, I'll pass on anything less than a 5×5 until those final good days in December then standards start to ease up.