Lane enrolled in Nebraska’s walk-in program, the Conservation Reserve Program-Management Access Program (CRP-MAP), can also hold promise for the archer. “That opens up a lot of other spots that have deer,” Hams said. “Southeast Nebraska has the highest density of deer in the state, and we also have a lot of small wildlife management areas there, too.”

In 2004, Nebraska issued 14,600 archery permits, about 1,700 of which went to non-resident and saw 4,200 deer harvested. Archers in Nebraska have typically averaged 27 to 29 percent success rates over the last decade.

The Cornhusker State continues to monitor its CWD problems, which largely seem localized in the northwest corner of the state. Harvested or sampled deer tested positive for the disease in 13 counties.

KANSAS
“Outstanding” was the word chosen by Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks big-game program coordinator Lloyd Fox to describe Kansas’ deer population. “What a wonderful population to manage!” he said. “We’ve got a great herd.”

Kansas harbors huntable populations of mule deer in its western third; whitetails are present statewide. “Our best mule deer habitat is going to be further west,” remarked Fox. “Whitetail densities are higher in the east than they are in the west.”

Fox noted that the annual fluctuations in any state’s herd are obviously huge. “We probably go from 350,000 down to 190,000 deer during a year,” he said. “We probably have 75,000 deer harvested annually, and about 10,000 reported deer/vehicle related accidents on a consistent basis.”

Kansas recently tallied its first confirmed case of CWD, which presented in a whitetail doe shot in Cheyenne County. Subsequent testing of 51 additional deer within a 15-mile radius of that site revealed no additional positives.

Kansas archery hunters looking to fill a tag with a plus-sized buck often concentrate on the rut, which usually takes place in mid-November -- a great time to kill a buck, Fox acknowledges. But he’s also noticed that other factors are often in play -- for instance, selection of a day or days for hunting.

“You can pick out all the Saturdays and Sundays when people have an opportunity to hunt,” he said. “It increases as the season goes until the end of October, when it dips and then peaks in early or mid-November, and then comes back at a much lower level in December.”

Most archery hunting is a private-land affair -- unsurprising, since Kansas is 97 percent privately owned. “But the public areas get a disproportionate amount of hunting pressure,” Fox noted. “Probably 12 to 15 percent of the hunting occurs on the public areas, and they make up 3 percent of the surface area.”

Fox didn’t single out a particular public area; in his view, they all offer substantial prospects. “I think there are great opportunities to harvest a deer and have a great experience on some of our public ground,” he said. “I wouldn’t discourage anyone from hunting our public lands or walk-in areas -- especially if you can take off during the week.”

In Kansas, roughly 20,000 archery hunters take to the woods each fall, slightly more than 3,000 of whom are non-residents. Most seem to be fairly proficient: The success rate, according to Fox, is near 50 percent. “It’s outstanding!” he enthused.