Kansas access program, wildlife areas offer options for Kansas pheasant hunters

Looking for a place to hunt pheasants in Kansas? You don’t have to knock on doors to get access to private land.

There is plenty of public land that has the potential for producing good hunting. Here are a few options:

▪ 1. WIHA (WALK-IN HUNTING ACCESS) LANDS: The Wildlife, Parks and Tourism land-access program has been a huge success. The state leases land from willing landowners, then opens it up to the public. The great news for hunter is that there are plenty of tracts of WIHA land in western Kansas, where pheasants are most plentiful. For example, the northwest region has 341,005 acres of WIHA land, the north-central has 294,037 acres and the southwest has 185,298 acres. Do your scouting to look for the best land for pheasants. Mike Miller of the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism advises finding CRP lands butting up against cut corn or milo fields.

▪ 2. GLEN ELDER WILDLIFE AREA (13,200 acres in north-central Kansas, 13 miles west of Beloit): Glen Elder traditionally is one of the most-popular public-hunting areas in Kansas. Wildlife, Parks and Tourism manages for pheasants and for hunters, providing good tracts of land with easy access. Be forewarned, though: You’ll be in a crowd if you go there early in the season.

▪ 3. CHEYENNE BOTTOMS WILDLIFE AREA (located near the town of Great Bend in central Kansas): Cheyenne Bottoms is best known as a waterfowl area, but it can produce surprisingly good pheasant hunting. It has large fields along the marshes that can easily be worked by small parties of hunters. As at most public areas, hunting is better the farther you get from the crowds. Do some scouting.

▪ 4. NORTON WILDLIFE AREA (6,500 land acres, located near the town of Norton in northwest Kansas): Roughly half of this wildlife area is in grass and often holds pheasants. The bird population is up this year, according to area manager Blake Klema. The wildlife area gets moderate hunting pressure, especially early in the season, but it drops off as the season progresses.

▪ 5. JAMESTOWN WILDLIFE AREA: (6,000 acres, located 20 miles west of Concordia in north-central Kansas): Like Cheyenne Bottoms, Jamestown is better known for its waterfowl hunting. But it too can provide some surprisingly good pheasant hunting. With almost 4,000 acres of dry land, the wildlife area has good habitat for pheasants, and bird numbers are up this year. But Jamestown’s pheasant hunting isn’t exactly a secret. It gets fairly heavy hunting pressure early in the season.

This story was originally published November 12, 2015 at 12:22 PM with the headline "Kansas access program, wildlife areas offer options for Kansas pheasant hunters."