There’s something about September in Kansas that tells you deer season is getting close. The mornings start feeling a little cooler, trail cameras get checked more often, food plots are coming along, and stands that haven’t been thought about since last winter suddenly need some attention.
For a lot of us, this is one of our favorite times of year. But before we get too focused on the bucks we’ve been watching all summer, Kansas youth deer season gives us a good reminder of what hunting is really about.
It’s about passing it on.
Do You Remember Who Took You Hunting?
Most lifelong hunters can probably remember their first deer hunt. You might not remember every detail, but chances are you remember the person who took you.
Maybe it was your dad or grandpa. Maybe it was an uncle, neighbor, family friend, or someone else who took the time to introduce you to hunting.
You remember getting up before daylight and probably being too excited to sleep the night before. You remember sitting there waiting for the woods to wake up and how exciting it was when that first deer finally appeared.
Whether you killed a big buck, a doe, or didn’t get anything at all probably isn’t what matters most today. What sticks with you is the experience and the person sitting beside you.
That’s what makes youth season so important.
For those of us who have hunted for years, it’s easy to get caught up in trail camera pictures, antler scores, wind direction, age structure, and chasing a particular mature buck. A young hunter sees things differently. A couple of does walking into a field can be the most exciting thing they’ve seen all week.
Sometimes we need that reminder, too.
Hunting Has Deep Roots in Kansas
Hunting and rural land have always gone together in Kansas. Generations of families have hunted the same farms, creek bottoms, pastures, timbered draws, and crop fields.
That’s one reason land means so much more than a number of acres.
A family farm might be where someone shot their first deer, caught their first fish, learned to drive an old farm truck, or spent November mornings sitting beside Grandpa. A piece of hunting ground can hold decades of memories that you’d never know about just by looking at a property map.
Those traditions don’t continue on their own, though. Somebody has to make the effort to pass them down.
That means getting a kid up early, helping them practice, answering a hundred questions in the blind, and sometimes giving up one of your own hunting days so they can have their chance.
It also means remembering that a successful youth hunt doesn’t have to end with a deer on the ground.
The real success is getting that young hunter excited enough to want to go again.
We’re Teaching More Than Hunting
Taking a young person hunting gives us an opportunity to teach lessons that go well beyond how to shoot a deer.
We can teach them why the wind matters and how deer use the landscape. We can show them tracks, rubs, scrapes, bedding areas, and travel corridors. We can explain why certain areas of a farm are left alone and why habitat management matters.
More importantly, we can teach them how to respect the resource.
Leave the gate the way you found it. Pick up your trash. Know where the property lines are. Make ethical shots. Respect the animal after the harvest. Thank the landowner who gave you permission.
Those might seem like little things, but they’re how we create the next generation of hunters and land stewards.
At L2 Realty, we spend a lot of time walking farms and recreational properties throughout Kansas, particularly in Southeast Kansas and Central Kansas. When you spend that much time on the land, you quickly realize that good hunting and good land stewardship go hand in hand.
Great deer habitat usually has a combination of food, water, bedding cover, security, and travel corridors. Sometimes a smaller property can be an outstanding hunting tract simply because of where it sits within the surrounding landscape. Other farms have tremendous potential that can be unlocked through better habitat or land management.
These are things we enjoy teaching our kids, too.
Take them along when you check trail cameras. Let them help with a food plot. Show them why you leave a certain patch of cover alone. Point out a rub along a creek crossing and ask them why they think that buck traveled through there.
When a kid becomes involved with the land itself, hunting starts becoming about much more than pulling the trigger.
They begin to understand why we care so much about these places.
Make the Time This Deer Season
Life moves pretty fast these days, especially for kids. There aren’t many opportunities left to spend several uninterrupted hours sitting beside your son, daughter, grandson, granddaughter, niece, nephew, or another young person with nothing but the Kansas outdoors around you.
A deer blind is still one of those places.
Sometimes you’ll talk. Sometimes you’ll laugh. Sometimes you’ll spend two hours whispering about everything except deer. And sometimes you’ll sit quietly and watch a Kansas sunrise together.
Those moments matter.
If we want hunting to remain part of Kansas culture for another generation, experienced hunters have to make an effort to bring young people along. Not every kid has a parent who hunts, either. If you know a young person who’s interested in the outdoors but doesn’t have someone to teach them, consider being that person.
Twenty years from now, they probably won’t remember what they were doing on their phone that weekend.
But there’s a good chance they’ll remember who took them deer hunting.
The Land Becomes Part of the Story
This is one of the reasons we believe rural property is about so much more than a real estate transaction.
Land can produce crops, provide income, grow timber, support wildlife, and build wealth. But it also gives families a place to spend time together and create traditions.
A property that looks like 80 acres on paper may be the place where three generations of a family learned to hunt.
That’s something we understand at L2 Realty because our agents don’t just sell the rural lifestyle. We live it. We hunt, spend time outdoors, manage land, watch wildlife, and understand why recreational property means so much to the people who own it.
When we’re helping someone sell a longtime Kansas farm or helping another family find the hunting property they’ve always wanted, we know there’s usually a bigger story behind it.
That’s what our mission, “Change a life, fulfill a dream,” means to us.
Sometimes the dream is finally owning your own piece of Kansas ground. Sometimes it’s improving a farm and watching the deer herd respond. And sometimes it’s sitting in a blind and watching your son or daughter harvest their first deer.
So as another Kansas deer season begins, enjoy chasing that mature buck you’ve been watching all summer.
But don’t forget about the next generation.
Take a kid hunting. Teach them why we do it. Teach them to respect the land and the wildlife. Give them the chance to fall in love with the outdoors the same way somebody once did for you.
That’s how we keep the tradition alive.
