What’s it like to hunt in Kansas? Find out through our new Open Season newsletter

Eagle reporters and avid bowhunters Chance Swaim and Michael Stavola want you to join them on a journey through the 2023 Kansas white-tailed deer season.

When they’re not in a tree, they’ll report on other hunting seasons, too.

In a new free newsletter emailed straight to your inbox, the two will provide Kansas-based deer scouting reports, tips and tricks, tales from the woods, hot takes, wild game recipes, DIY projects, myth busting, photo showcases and more.

Interested in receiving the newsletter? You can sign up for it here.

About the writers:

Chance Swaim is an investigative reporter for The Wichita Eagle. He was born and raised in Wichita, Kansas. When he’s not chasing big stories, he’s tracking big bucks in Kansas. He has years of success hunting doves, upland game, turkey and waterfowl on public land. He fell in love with bowhunting white-tailed deer about 15 years ago and hasn’t looked back.

Michael Stavola covers breaking news and crime for The Wichita Eagle. A longtime lover of the outdoors, he is relatively new to bowhunting but has already tagged some impressive bucks. He lives in the Wichita area and hunts white-tailed deer in central Kansas.

Why a newsletter?

Swaim: If you are rich, Kansas has some of the best deer hunting money can buy. For the rest of us, Kansas deer hunting can be a real challenge.

That’s why I wanted to start this newsletter — to share ideas and start discussions about hunting in Kansas for the average hunter.

I’m a bowhunter. But not the fancy kind you see on obnoxious horn-porn hunting shows — you know the type. Designer camouflage. Heated ground blinds. A $2,000, 40# bow with 90% let-off taking aim at some dude’s pet 180-class whitetail eating brunch at the corn trough. Lots of “we’ll give him some time.”

I bow hunt on a journalist’s salary, and I’m a cheapskate. My bow is over 10 years old. I buy my broadheads on Amazon, $20 for a three-pack. My truck has 250,000 miles on it. I don’t bait wildlife. I rarely use trail cameras. And, somehow, I manage to fill my tag each year.

Join us on our 2023 Kansas white-tailed deer adventure, where we test DIY projects, share our hare-brained strategies and attempt to debunk popular myths. We also plan to review public land to find the best one-day hunts in Kansas. In addition, we’ll offer some commentary on proposed regulations by the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks.

If our white-tail season goes well, we might expand our coverage in the future to other outdoors activities.

Send tips, suggestions and comments to cswaim@wichitaeagle.com.

Stavola: I am a Kansas transplant who fell in love with hunting in the Sunflower State.

Hunting was never on my radar growing up, though I did do a lot of fishing when I was younger living in Connecticut and Florida.

It wasn’t until after college, when I got a job at a family-owned newspaper in Michigan, that I started hunting. My uncle, who is an avid hunter, got me the job.

I wanted to follow in his footsteps so I started to hunt.

That first season, and many seasons to follow, and probably more to come, did not go well.

For one, as he said, I have orange-juice blood and the year I moved to Michigan and started hunting was the coldest winter in decades. That first hunt I think I made it 45 minutes in the stand with hunting clothes I purchased at a grocery store.

He held my hand and I eventually shot a doe. It was fun but I wasn’t hooked.

Then I moved to Kansas. I married a local girl and we now have a beautiful daughter. I also married into some great hunting property.

Up until then, it would be normal to see zero to three deer on my hunts and often at a distance. On the property I hunt now it’s common to see much more.

I’ll never forget the first time I actually saw rutty action.

I was walking out to the stand, bow in hand, and a doe followed by a mature buck sprinted right by me like I didn’t even exist. She then turned around and ran back by, with him on her heels, even closer!

I remember thinking: “What the heck is going on?”

I texted my father-in-law about the chaos. He texted something back to the effect of: “Welcome to the rut.”

I was hooked.

What I saw in the stand that day was incredible: fighting, chasing, all kinds of noises, little bucks wondering how they could get in on the action.

And the more I learn about whitetail, the more incredible of an animal I realize they are.

I’ve also done some pheasant hunting, with zero success so far, and turkey hunting, with very little success — I’ve gotten one jake.

This will be my fourth year of bow hunting. Looking forward to including you in on my adventures: the bad but also, with some luck, the good.

Let’s see what happens!

Send tips, suggestions and comments to mstavola@wichitaeagle.com.

In other hunting news around the state ...

⛺ Need to check a Kansas hunting regulation? This new app will make it easier

⛺ Interested in being a bison owner? Kansas is having a public auction

⛺ Kansas lawmaker threatens wildlife department over deer baiting; ethics concerns raised