Kansas First-timer

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RangerRegan19

New member
Hey yall. Ill be coming to Kansas to hunt quail and pheasant this coming week with my GSP. Itll be our first time hunting Kansas, or any of the midwest for that matter. We will be hunting mainly WIHA, but also Texas lake wildlife area (i know this is a non-toxic load only zone).

Is there anything i should know about? dos and donts? anything that out of staters do to piss yall residents off? What are the rules on parking at WIHAs?

Any tips on identifying birdy habitat are appreciated, as i have zero experience with the mid-west.

Thanks
 
RangerRegan19 said:
Is there anything i should know about? dos and donts? anything that out of staters do to piss yall residents off? What are the rules on parking at WIHAs?
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I think most of this is pretty well documented here. If you pull up to WIHA and there's a truck there, drive on. There are more. In fact, I would check all the road frontage of the tract for vehicles. That's the biggest thing. You might see some other hunters, but this is the 3rd weekend of the season and every weekend there's less pressure.

There are no designated parking areas on WIHAs. I just park on the side of the road, being sure to leave as much room as possible for other traffic to get by and also not blocking any field entrances.

Around Texas Lake it's pretty sandy. I wouldn't worry about the roads much in that immediate area. However, you're certainly within range of some areas where that isn't the case. The roads can definitely get greasy in some parts of the state.
 
matto said:
I think most of this is pretty well documented here. If you pull up to WIHA and there's a truck there, drive on. There are more. In fact, I would check all the road frontage of the tract for vehicles. That's the biggest thing. You might see some other hunters, but this is the 3rd weekend of the season and every weekend there's less pressure.

There are no designated parking areas on WIHAs. I just park on the side of the road, being sure to leave as much room as possible for other traffic to get by and also not blocking any field entrances.

Around Texas Lake it's pretty sandy. I wouldn't worry about the roads much in that immediate area. However, you're certainly within range of some areas where that isn't the case. The roads can definitely get greasy in some parts of the state.
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will my dog need boots around there?
 
I don't boot my dogs, but they hunt sandy stuff all the time. I also apply tuf-foot nearly daily for about 2 weeks before the season starts. They're also vizslas so there's not a lot of hair around their feet to pick up stuff. Even so I still pull out sand burs once in a while. My buddy has a WPG; sometimes he boots the dog's front feet.

There will be sand burs, occasional small prickly pear, and plenty of other stuff to get caught up in the hair and paws of any longer-haired breed. Every once in a while I get tired of looking at "racing stripes" from barbed wire on my dogs' backs. Then I see my buddy with some kind of brush in his hand, red-faced as he's bent over his dog pulling crap out of his dog's paws, face, armpits, etc. Another buddy had a setter and he had pretty good luck just by trimming the feathering on the dog's ears, tail, and legs.
 
I don’t know the rotations this year , but you’ll probably see some cotton and beans If possible Id hunt fields closer to milo, wheat stubble, corn. Texas lake you can get wet pretty easy. Bring extra socks and boots if have them. Check the plum thickets, wild sunflower weed patches and the little islands of tall grass out in the smart weed.. If there are more than 2 or 3 of you I’d split up and try to figure out ways to pinch some birds. Texas lake roosters are going to run on you. Should be some quail around. Good luck.
 
BrownDogsCan2 said:
I don’t know the rotations this year , but you’ll probably see some cotton and beans If possible Id hunt fields closer to milo, wheat stubble, corn. Texas lake you can get wet pretty easy. Bring extra socks and boots if have them. Check the plum thickets, wild sunflower weed patches and the little islands of tall grass out in the smart weed.. If there are more than 2 or 3 of you I’d split up and try to figure out ways to pinch some birds. Texas lake roosters are going to run on you. Should be some quail around. Good luck.
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hunt where crp meets milo etc? or anywhere in the crp field? depends? i expect to find the majority of quail within 100 yards of edges, as we do down here, but have no idea what to expect of the pheasants
 
RangerRegan19 said:
hunt where crp meets milo etc? or anywhere in the crp field? depends? i expect to find the majority of quail within 100 yards of edges, as we do down here, but have no idea what to expect of the pheasants
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Really not much different. If your group is small focus on field edges near cut crops, this should be more productive than just wandering out in the middle as some of the fields are very large. Your dog should tell you where to go. Pheasant relate to cover, food and water and usually the areas that have that are best
 
RangerRegan19 said:
hunt where crp meets milo etc? or anywhere in the crp field? depends? i expect to find the majority of quail within 100 yards of edges, as we do down here, but have no idea what to expect of the pheasants
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First couple hrs of day or last hour before dark. Where crp meets crop. During the middle of the day on public land like that pheasants will walk into the core and find someplace. safe The tall grass is probably the hardest thing to hunt at Texas lake. It’s over your head tall and clumpy and pheasants can run forever in it. But there are smaller patches that but up to water that you can pin them down in. There are plum thickets and weed patches and hedge rows , shrub plantings, short grass, crp grass, and the tall stuff. All of it’s out there. I’d get out in it and and hunt the breaks and the draws. Follow your dog and hit the weeds and the thickets.
 
One of my many frustrations from hunting in bigger groups has to do with plum thickets or small areas of something different--kochia, smartweed, sunflower, ragweed, illinois bundleflower, horsetail, tumbleweed, etc. I have a compulsion to walk around them or through them if they are anywhere near my intended path. It drives me nuts when a guy somewhere else on the line won't slide over just a little to check out those areas. It's like they don't even see them.
 
matto said:
One of my many frustrations from hunting in bigger groups has to do with plum thickets or small areas of something different--kochia, smartweed, sunflower, ragweed, illinois bundleflower, horsetail, tumbleweed, etc. I have a compulsion to walk around them or through them if they are anywhere near my intended path. It drives me nuts when a guy somewhere else on the line won't slide over just a little to check out those areas. It's like they don't even see them.
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I like to think it’s due to inexperience and not just plain laziness.

A few years ago I took a few guys up to South Dakota to hunt that were fairly inexperienced. I would try to put them into position to be successful and inevitably they would still just wander aimlessly.
 
carptom1 said:
I like to think it’s due to inexperience and not just plain laziness.

A few years ago I took a few guys up to South Dakota to hunt that were fairly inexperienced. I would try to put them into position to be successful and inevitably they would still just wander aimlessly.
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It's dogless hunters for the most part. Inexperience and lack of engagement (can't think of a better word for it). They're just walking... One foot in front of the other... Mind wandering... It's the sound of a flush, or a word from someone about a dog acting "birdy" or going on point, that snaps them out of day-dreaming mode. Having a dog on the ground forces you to stay a little more engaged and be a little more aware of the differences in the habitat.
 
Lots of times everybody says 'just walk the edges near food' when talking about a big section of CRP. I agree with that, mostly.

But like some others are hitting on above, there are spots in the middle of a big CRP patch that are often totally different 'habitat' than just a desert of grass. Might be a little draw or swell of terrain change that results in the grass being thinner, or a higher density of weeds, or maybe a little bit of brush mixed in. These little changes I've often found would have birds in/near them.

I haven't done a ton of solo hunting, but the times I had I'd often just drop my dogs and follow them to see where they'd go. It often worked out in my favor.
 
matto said:
It's dogless hunters for the most part. Inexperience and lack of engagement (can't think of a better word for it). They're just walking... One foot in front of the other... Mind wandering... It's the sound of a flush, or a word from someone about a dog acting "birdy" or going on point, that snaps them out of day-dreaming mode. Having a dog on the ground forces you to stay a little more engaged and be a little more aware of the differences in the habitat.
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It’s that exact thing. I have always had decent dogs, meat hunters. They were not winning any ribbons but if you followed them they would take you to birds. Often times during those trips I would limit early and continue to work the dogs for them and try to tell them how to read them so they could get some birds. It was frustrating at times because they always seemed distracted and not paying attention.
 
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