Naming counties

C

Campbell76

New member
Why don't they name the counties of any of the so called regions. Can't they just say Cloud county in the Smoky hills region so forth and so on. It's bad enough the don't name and thing in the WIHA maps but the roads. Can't the name or put a symbol that tells you what the land is your going to hunt. Like a G for grass or Cr for crop land or change the color for the certain ground. I mean u get to a spot and nothing there. What a waste of freaking time. Anyway that's my rant for they say.
 
info

Colorado does, big deal for that state. if you get a hold of some of the older atlas, kan., you will find that in the back of it, the state would try and tell you what kind of specie you are likely to find in any particular piece of property. they have stopped doing that but al least they now have the roads on the map.

cheers
 
I am so glad they put road numbers on the map. They dont really have them all correctly with the new numerical system for the 911 system but they are halfway close on many. The species list was a joke anyway. They would have tons of stuff listed for some and youd get there and it would be dry rocky pasture that grass wont even grow on. Lol.
 
Campbell, I guess I don't really understand where you want the counties named. I'll go out on a limb here and guess it is in the forecast. If that is the case, the reason they don't get down to the county level is that there isn't a route in every county and the statistics wouldn't be valid at that narrow of a level as there has to be enough data to make the statistics work. They do it by region as the sample is big enough to make the statistical formula valid.

As for listing habitat type for each WIHA, I can't tell you from any inside knowledge, but logic would indicate that with only about 20-25 biologists and biotechs covering 105 counties and several thousand WIHA properties, that would be a tall order. Some properties are cropland and the farmer's rotation changes each year. What is there in the spring may not be what you find in the fall. These are often multi-year contracts and some are also just properties that are thrown in with the primary tracts of the lease. Some are put in for upland, some for deer, some for dove, and some for waterfowl, etc. I guess it still comes down to "it's hunting" not shooting, so some of the responsibility to finding what is there is on the hunter's shoulder. It's hard to compare the Kansas's largest private ground program in the nation with smaller programs in other states where they may have more personnel per acre. Many of the western Kansas biologists have over 6 counties to cover and hundreds of plots to manage. It's a big job and only part of their total responsibility. I do miss the numbers for each tract. It's harder to tell someone where to meet you when you have to tell them X miles west and X miles north of some landmark. It's not perfect, but my dogs give it the dew claws up!!!

Most of us mark our maps and cross out spots that don't have habitat in the given year. Driving there once is necessary to know what to expect. It's no bigger disappointment for me to drive to one and find it green wheat than it is to drive there and find 5 groups on it already. If a guy has the time and gas money, it would be nice to make those drives before the season opens.
 
Man Troy what is wrong with you guy's. I would like my map with color, type of crop, how to hunt it, where birds have been harvested in the past, and what my prospects will be this year and 5 years into the future.:D Maybe you guy's could run out and take several photos of each property and e-mail them to me. Only send me the good ones( you seem like a guy that might know what is good) after all I Ndon't have time to look at a bunch of worthless photos.:D
 
It is frustrating to drive miles to a walk-in patch and find it unhuntable. But it would take tremendous and costly manpower for the KDWPT to check visually or by phone a million acres every year to see what crops have been rotated in or are fallow, etc. The KDWPT does encourage hunters to report walk-ins that are unhuntable, for example, by being totally grazed off or due to the presence of livestock on stalks. If a farmer is getting walk-in money and then does something to render the walk-in valueless for hunting, the KDWPT wants to know.

The walk-in maps were better when each county had its own map instead of the current rectangular maps that consist of parts of several counties. If you know the counties you're going to hunt, you can print the walk-in maps that include those counties' parts and then cut and tape up your own county map. It's much easier to navigate that way because you have the county seats in the middle, one of which is probably where your motel is.

Good luck this coming season.
 
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cover

surely some of the walk-in properties are just about barren and when you get there, the gas has been wasted, plus the time. however, how many times have you gone to your favorite farm to hunt and because he didn't know you were coming went and rotated his damn crop and you now had not place that would hold a bird. last year was the exception for me but I had three farms in a row that did that too me, that was a large block of pheasant turf. it happens. be lucky you even have a place to go check out

cheers
 
I would like them to put wind direction on the maps so I know which end to park on. Lol. :cheers:
You guys dont so too harsh all the time as it comes across very rude. There is alot of that on most websites these days.
 
Even though Google earth is not always current in the rural areas -- Make it your friend. In case you were not aware you can load the WIHA map into Google earth and perform lots of scouting that way. It's not perfect, but timewise, moneywise etc it will help narrow your focus and eliminate driving to places that are a complete waste of time.

It will give you lots of valuable information.


90% of WIHA is crap for birds -- just go in with that mindset and spend your time on google earth trying to find the good 10%


In all reality if you can get the locations of where Sam Brownback and his pack of brown nosing weasels hunt, you'll have your limit every time :D :thumbsup: (disclaimer - in no way shape or form is this a political statement of any kind - merely a sarcastic comedic view of yearly events that happen and are reported in the local papers and on the KDWP website on a yearly basis)

(disclaimer - my 90% figure and 10% figure are arbitrary numbers but if you've spent time here you know what I mean)

:cheers:
 
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walk- in properties

it is true that some walk-in properties are less than ideal, sometimes always and sometimes just this year. the same can be said of nearly every farm and ranch out there these days. as far as I am concerned the walk-in idea is just about the best thing that has happened to us bird hunters. as more and more land is leased to guided outfits, farmers having their own ideas as to hunter's and even if they did like us, many are getting old, don't live on the farm or otherwise nearly impossible to locate, we now have a place to get started on our hunt. what might me interesting is for a few of you guy's out there to come up with a workable plan that would be better than what we have

cheers
 
WIHA vs CRP

The WIHA maps I feel are pretty good overall. I do miss the numbered areas for reference, and I personal would prefer it in a standard Road MAP format by region as opposed to a booklet.

One thing I would like to see is whether or not a piece of land is participating in the CRP program. With so many farmers Leaving CRP these last few years much of the land that was CRP is now just crop land, but is still in WHIA. 4-5 years ago it seemed that most of the WIHA I hunted was in CRP, and now it's probably 40% at best.

Does anyone know if there is an affiliation with CRP and WIHA? Also does anyone know if there is CRP participant map anywhere?
 
mustistuff said:
it is true that some walk-in properties are less than ideal, sometimes always and sometimes just this year. the same can be said of nearly every farm and ranch out there these days. as far as I am concerned the walk-in idea is just about the best thing that has happened to us bird hunters. as more and more land is leased to guided outfits, farmers having their own ideas as to hunter's and even if they did like us, many are getting old, don't live on the farm or otherwise nearly impossible to locate, we now have a place to get started on our hunt. what might me interesting is for a few of you guy's out there to come up with a workable plan that would be better than what we have

cheers
Click to expand...


This is another topic and one we have hashed over a time or two here - but regarding land access -- the rules should be changed so that if you do not take any subsidies/govt subsidized crop insurance, etc then you can have full say who can hunt on your property. If you take any govt assistance then hunting is allowed provided the hunters abide by a strict set of rules in place to govern the same.

Sad thing is that "A" --- it will never happen and "B" there's too many slob hunters that would ruin it for the vast majority who want to play by the rules much as the slob hunters piss off land owners in our current setup.


I know that's not a popular statement and I'm going off topic but something I'd like to see enforced -- there's lots of nice landowners out there and lots of butt heads. I also empathize with the fact the landowner near any decent hunting area is probably harassed night/day with permission requests -- that being said, with landownership belonging to so few people that's kind of a self created problem.

WIHA is an OK Solution i guess - but as a lifelong resident save for 2 years spent in FL - if you think about it, WIHA is what has ruined hunting here. I honestly wish the program would go away. Spend the Pittman funds working on habitat improvements and purchasing more public tracts of land/hiring more Enforcement officers. (not sure if that's possible - but it'd be a better use of funds)


:thumbsup:
 
Radar said:
Ks husker how do you do the google earth wiha overlay? I didnt know that at all.
Click to expand...


I was going to type up instructions but found these instructions on the KDWP website -- they do a better job than I could in explaining it...ha :)


This is the link for the instructions

http://kdwpt.state.ks.us/content/do...e/Instructions for adding 2014 WIHA to GE.pdf


Here's a link to the page where you can find the instruction download and the Google Earth File.
http://kdwpt.state.ks.us/KDWPT-Info...unty/Fall-Hunting-Atlas/GPS-Information-Files

Of course you'll need to have Google Earth installed on your computer as well.


Neat thing is you can keep each years files on your computer and see what WIHA's are added/subtracted from year to year -- Just remember if you download 2014 on your computer, and then next year download 2015's files -- you'll need to "deselect" the 2014 overlay in google earth so you are actually looking at the 2015 overlay --- hope that makes sense --- After reading the instructions you should see what I mean. They have screen shots in there that should help explain it better.


I think on my computer I have all the way back to 2010, I of course keep all the paper copies as well -- one weird thing I keep around I guess.
 
I don't know how many accountants might be on this board, but if you weigh WIHA acres that cost about $2.50 per year per acre to public owned land that costs $2000-$3000 per acre up front, it is no surprise that we have a million acres of WIHA and only 300,000 or so acres of public land. Much of that is federal land under lease to KDWPT. For our group, the down side is that so many of the state owned or managed acres are centered on riparian corridors. That increases the rate and level of plant succession and also functions as predator habitat once succession has moved along past a certain point. If you look at CRP, many of the plantings were planted with livestock as the main end. Later contracts often centered on upland birds, but the greatest benefits were realized in the first 3-7 years. Once the NWSG dominated the site, game bird numbers slid quickly. The "maintenance" requirements were and are still designed to "protect" the grass all too often and that is usually the "problem" species.

Now the tough part. Much of the problem is that WE, as hunters, are rarely organized and all too often we're more apt to gripe here than we are to call our legislators and make our desires known. We can't just let PF/QF/DU/etc do our bidding for us. We need to be involved in ag legislation, environmental legislation, wildlife legislation, and we also need to "pass it on"!!! Look in the mirror, what have YOU done?? Have you taken youth to the field? Have you bought a kid his 5 year hunting license? Are you planning hunts for them? Every buy a kid a bird dog, gun, boots, fishing pole, subscription to an outdoor magazine??? Maybe we should be begging for more youth only hunts, areas, seasons! Maybe we just need to make better use of the ones we have. I used to put on a youth dove hunt here, nobody came. We put the entire 7th grade class through hunter's education here in town. Maybe we need to carry that over into an opportunity to hunt the species of their choice. Some will bow out, but others might get their only opportunity to start a life long habit that you and I already share. Kick this around in your head while making tracks in the field this fall, then act on it! Mike Christenson can give us plenty of ideas in this realm!
 
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