Having this discussion on Facebook with some friends of mine who are scattered about, but was more curious about it.
I view Kansas as having pretty restrictive deer hunting, though it has eased up a lot in the 16 years or so I've been hunting here. Ours is basically like this;
-Youth Season for a week in early September. 16 years of age or younger, any type of weapon
-Muzzle Loader last two weeks of September. Used to have a restriction of no scopes, but the state lifted that a few years ago.
-Archery starts same day as Muzzle Loader (sounds like a problem, but so far has not been for me on public land) and basically runs through the end of the year. Only stipulation is bow hunters have to wear blaze orange if they want to continue to hunt during the regular firearms season. I heard where Kansas now allows crossbows during the regular archery season, I have mixed feelings about this, but that's the way it is.
-One weekend in early October that is antlerless only but you can use a modern rifle if you wish (this started as a special season that was a week long and only in areas around I-70 and US 24 between KC and Topeka mainly to reduce deer/car collisons and it has morphed into this one weekend state wide)
- Fort Riley has a three-day segment where you can hunt on post if you have the proper credentials during Thanksgiving weekend. This doesn't marry up with any Kansas season and you have to be military, retired military, dependent, guest of one of the above, etc. You also have to have a special tag they issue once you've watched a video about safety regs specific to Fort Riley.
-Kansas general firearms deer season begins the Wednesday after Thanksgiving and runs through the next two weekends for a total of 12 days.
-Fort Riley has their general season which has the same number of days, but doesn't correlate with the Kansas season exactly, this year, there was a two day overlap, most years there is no overlap and sometimes it'll be broken into shorter segments, but has the same number of days as the Kansas season.
-Extended antlerless season varies depending on where you are in the state, but I'm lucky in that the area I hunt has always had a pretty long segment for this one. Starts on January 1st and for my unit runs through the 11th. Basically, any deer tags you had for the Fall season become antlerless tags and highpowered rifles are Ok where legal for any of them.
Tags in Kansas are for sale over the counter now, they used to be by appliation and stae drawing when I first got here. The one thing Kansas hasn't budged on since I've been hunting here is that you are only alowed one antlered deer per year by any method; rifle, bow, muzzle loader.
By comparison where I grew up in central S.C., the deer season opened August 15th and ran through the end of the year. No restrictions on weapon type, most popular seemed to be a 12 gauge with 00 buckshot. All you needed was a hunting license, no tags and there wasn't any kind of check system. My county (Orangeburg) had no bag limit as I recall and the counties that did were something ridiculous like five per day. The only real restrictions I remember is that you could only shoot does on special days. Needless to say, though they have a lot of them, the deer aren't of the same quality as they are in the midwest (and there are other reasons for that too, I understand).
I've done some deer hunting in Texas and Oklahoma over the years, both of which are different still, but I can't recall specifics. I remember Oklahoma had a longer muzzle loader season than Kansas and it happenned in October.
How do these two extremes compare to your state?