Home Forums Birds & Dogs Upland Game Kansas public access pheasants or quail

Recently, a hunting trip to Texas fell thru so I am looking to fill a week off. I am hoping to drive to Kansas and find a few public land birds with my springer spaniel. Would anyone be willing to share any advice?

Thank you.

I've got some ground in KS and the drought was really hard on it. This in the Hays area. I noticed very few pheasants but did see a few quail. My only advice would be to try for areas that were typically quail areas as the pheasant numbers have tanked. Always good to take some walks with a dog though and hope you find some.

My advice would be to go to South Dakota. Not sure what the current snow conditions are but their season goes through Jan. You'd probably see more pheasants there. I'm still working on preserve birds with my young Lab. EVERYTHING is a project with that dog. Serves me right for thinking dog training is easy. My last few almost trained themselves. A week in good bird country would do her a lot of good. I just can't get away now.

I have my lifetime Kansas hunting lifetime. I have hunted somewhere 'out west' in Kansas for 35 years. We as a group didn't go this year for the first time in 20+ years due to drought and bird forecast. I'd read everything west of I35 that had anything that could be baled was baled, CRP, corn stalks, milo stalks, everything. Tons of what used to be WIHA's are no longer enrolled. I have a buddy here at work that has access to thousands upon thousands of private ground on what used to be primo pheasant and quail spots. On a recent 3 day weekend, 4 made up his group, they shot 4 pheasants total. 10 years ago they would have shot 48.

Are there still birds out there? Yes. They're few and far between though.

We've switched to predator mode and will be after as many coyotes as we can to help. I was in eastern CO calling coyotes for 2 days. Covered 8.5 miles and flushed one hen pheasant while doing that. Its very concerning.

Ever since The SD blizzard of mid-December, a lot of SD is too deep in snow — you just can’t get to the birds. BKinSD has stated this.

Be sure to check if you are thinking of it. It could be that south of Chamberlain, SD there is less snow but I don’t know that for a fact.

I’m 71 and originally from a farm 40 miles north of Dodge City, Ks. I’ve hunted that area every year (multiple times each year) since the mid 1960s. This year eight of us and two good labs hunted that area. Due to the drought, the cover for pheasants is pretty much non existent. In anticipation of a very poor hunt, we bought 15 pen raised roosters to hunt. We saw zero wild birds, not even a track. My brother is a farmer in that area, he sees no pheasants or quail.
In 2010 and 2011, eight of us limited (32 birds) in about three hours. And saw many dozen more. The summer of 2012 was an extremely hot and dry summer. The pheasant population was devastated, and it had not recovered much, and last summer erased all the gain in population.
If you can find some land to hunt near irrigation in the very SW corner of Ks, that might provide some shooting.

Our group's been hunting down around the sawyer area on private ground for 30+ years, some of the guys were born and raised there. Positively one of the worst seasons anybody can remember.

The sad part is it will take a while to recover, and it's been very dry this winter so far. I've gone to chasing squirrels and will hit the coyotes in another couple weeks.

This country is full up with snow.

How has the Jan typically worked out? Do you normally get some Jan hunts in?