Posted: 3/24/2012 12:58:17 AM EDT
| My brother and I are looking to head to Kansas this year to hunt whitetail. He lives in Indiana and I live in Vegas so we re going to spit the distance and spend a week or ten days chasing deer. This will be our first out of state trip DIY style so I'm hoping for pointers from the locals to steer us in the right direction? Are there any good public land area s I should check or avoid? We ll be bow hunting if that matters. Thanks in advance. |
| Look up the walk in hunting program in Kansas. Farmers lease their ground to the state for public hunting for whatever season(s) they desire, and in return the state pays them based on size, location etc. They have a fair amount of land across the state in the program, my family has a fair amount in walk in hunting in north central Kansas where there are plenty of whitetails for ya. |
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What area of kansas? Pretty open. Like I said we re just getting started planning so were open to any suggestions. My brother got me into bow hunting two years ago. I've been hunting with him in Indiana. His biggest to date is about a 130. All I've been able to connect with are does. (5 this year...but no horns yet). So we aren't supper hard to please. We d like to find someplace with decent numbers, decent size, and that don't look like a pumpkin patch with other hunters. |
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Look up the walk in hunting program in Kansas. Farmers lease their ground to the state for public hunting for whatever season(s) they desire, and in return the state pays them based on size, location etc. They have a fair amount of land across the state in the program, my family has a fair amount in walk in hunting in north central Kansas where there are plenty of whitetails for ya. That's awesome. Can I pick your brain? How many acres? How many hunters do you guys have on a given day/week? (bow season). I'm trying to get an idea if we d get away from other hunter s more on"public hunting areas" or in the "walk in hunting" areas. Thanks guys for any help. |
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http://www.kdwpt.state.ks.us/news/Hunting/Where-to-Hunt-in-Kansas hit the public wildlife areas or search for the WIHA maps that are by county. How up to date are the maps. I would assume people drop or add the WiHA program every year. Anyone with any experience good or bad with the WiHA. Seems like a great program to add tons of land. |
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Look up the walk in hunting program in Kansas. Farmers lease their ground to the state for public hunting for whatever season(s) they desire, and in return the state pays them based on size, location etc. They have a fair amount of land across the state in the program, my family has a fair amount in walk in hunting in north central Kansas where there are plenty of whitetails for ya. That's awesome. Can I pick your brain? How many acres? How many hunters do you guys have on a given day/week? (bow season). I'm trying to get an idea if we d get away from other hunter s more on"public hunting areas" or in the "walk in hunting" areas. Thanks guys for any help. Within a 10 mile radius of back home(SE corner of area 4) there is probably 1500-2k acres in the walk in program, link to the most current listing is below in this post. I have no idea how many people we get as there is no tracking of usage by the landowner, basically we judge it on how many times we see trucks parked along the side of the road when out driving around/farming. Some fields are better then others, some are also easier to get to but the state reviews each of them prior to signing them up so they saw something that they liked, whether its water, cover, food, contiguous to other fields already in the program etc. Personally I think you would be more likely to run into other hunters on the "public land" vs the walk in though in terms of legal access they're the same. Its just that you often have to drive farther and more scouting is going to be required for the walk in as to what exactly you're looking for. You will be able to do some scouting via google maps or other satellite imagery, but those are generally 2-5 years old and some things do change so I would suggest planning to go a couple days early to drive around to the various fields you mark as possibles and scout them out. Besides.....a bad day of vacation in the field is still better then a good day at work right? As for the most current maps showing fields in the program, use the link below, shows last updated Nov 1 so should be current. There are also printed booklets available at many gas stations/small town motels catering to hunters and places that sell tags/permits so you can pick up the dead tree version there as well. They also sign the fields in the program with white signs at the corners of the fields trying to help identify the boundaries, these have in the past been removed by those who don't realize there are plenty of deer/turkey/ringnecks to go around but they should be there. http://kdwpt.state.ks.us/news/KDWPT-Info/Locations/Hunting-Fishing-Maps-by-County/Fall-Hunting-Atlas |
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http://www.kdwpt.state.ks.us/news/Hunting/Where-to-Hunt-in-Kansas hit the public wildlife areas or search for the WIHA maps that are by county. How up to date are the maps. I would assume people drop or add the WiHA program every year. Anyone with any experience good or bad with the WiHA. Seems like a great program to add tons of land. Follow the link I put up and there is a listing of recently added/dropped fields, often this is due to a change of ownership. It's not technically "officially dropped" until they mark the sign out in the field, but I haven't heard of them actually writing any tickets due to people hunting in fields that were listed on the maps but had been dropped. Not saying it hasn't happened, but IMO most of those responsible for enforcement are pretty reasonable. |