You're all full of it.....

G

Gypsum

New member
I've been following this page for a decade since I moved to the west half of the state but every time I open it I find myself regretting it. It's always the same people complaining about the same things. You're spoiled. I grew up in northern Missouri where we could walk a whole day to see 1 or 2 pheasants, but because you can't shoot a limit every time you walk out your door it's suddenly not worth going? You take no time to educate yourself about what is actually being done, rather just throw out accusations about how worthless everyone is that is trying to do anything, and when's the last time you even tried to do anything to make it better. If you spent a little more time researching and a little less complaining maybe you'd know what opportunities there were to actually improve habitat you could use.

According to a report from the wildlife society Bulletin done by Kentucky Fish and Game on state investment in Private land management, "Kansas was the national leader in commitment to private land management" .

https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wsb.997

The KDWP Habitat First! Program spends hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to help private landowners manage habitat largely targeted at birds

https://ksoutdoors.com/Services/Pri...nce/Wildlife-Biologists/Habitat-First-Program

KDWP partners with USDA using wildlife EQIP for larger projects

https://ksoutdoors.com/KDWP-Info/News/News-Archive/2007-Web-News/October-2007/NRCS'-EQIP-HELPS-FARMERS-AND-RANCHERS-CONSERVE-THE-LAND

There has been, and are, many state and federal sponsored habitat initiatives

https://ksoutdoors.com/Services/Pub...-Management/Kansas-Quail-Initiative-2012-2017


https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/porta...antsanimals/fishwildlife/?cid=nrcseprd1299624

https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/ks/programs/financial/eqip/?cid=nrcseprd1763028

There are many things about PF I don't care for, but their build a wildlife program has recently helped the state acquire and expand some wildlife areas

Build a Wildlife Area Program Builds in Kansas

Thousand-acre Kansas Veteran's Wildlife Area opens to public.
pheasantsforever.org pheasantsforever.org

Build a Wildlife Area Week Highlight: Kansas’ Lovewell Area Wildlife Area Expansion

www.pheasantsforever.org www.pheasantsforever.org

When CRP SAFE was shut down due to acreage caps PF partnered with KDWP and others on a Kansas corners program.


PF has a precision ag specialist in ks and the upland game bird CRP Safe submitted by KDWP began in 2008 allowing up to 20% of a field be enrolled in CRP to target the lowest quality acres of a field.

https://kansaspfqf.org/staff

https://www.hpj.com/archives/crp-pr...cle_eb09ceba-eb6a-57ca-8458-d5525df9c18a.html

CRP is a federal program KDWP doesn't control but constantly advocates for. Federal farm bill policies have cut the legs out from under it reducing acreage by 1/2 and shifting remaining acres more towards a working lands program allowing more of these acres to be hayed and grazed. Talk to your legislators

https://www.fsa.usda.gov/programs-and-services/conservation-programs/crp-grasslands/index

https://www.fsa.usda.gov/Assets/USD...s/FactSheets/crp_haying_grazing_factsheet.pdf

KDWP funds research to evaluate new ways to manage for upland birds


There are national tech groups for both pheasant and quail where all states, including ks, work together on national policy to improve habitat


National Bobwhite & Grassland Initiative – NBCI mission: A partnership to restore and maintain wild bobwhite quail, associated species, and their native habitats through science-based research and management to support healthy wildlife, soil, air, an

nbgi.org nbgi.org

The state doesn't control what your county does in the county road easement. Talk to your commissioners. KDOT controls the state highway road ditches and are more concerned with safety then wildlife.

You want the state to spend more money on habitat but don't want NR hunters who provide the majority of funding for states agencies that they would need to do it.

gfp.sd.gov

Wildlife and Parks Budget Information

gfp.sd.gov

While you claim every other state is better, if you pull harvest reports for other upland states everyone is down as bad as us, which means we've maintained top 3 harvest for pheasants and top harvest for bobwhite the last several years. So if you want to be a bird hunter Kansas is still one of the best places to be.

WIHA is worthless and should go away because you expect every acre to have the highest quality bird habitat every year. I'm glad you all have high quality private to hunt, but even many of us residents rely on WIHA. I hunt almost exclusively WIHA and as they say a pictures worth a thousand words so just a few from last year.
20220101_151005.jpg20220106_165035.jpg20211210_162706.jpg20220207_114911 (2).jpg


I'd like to think maybe I'd shock a few of you into action or at least educating you a bit, but I've been on here long enough to know better. West is gonna tell me there's no pheasants, I don't know what good hunting looks like, but he'll still shoot his limit everyday, someone else will say South Dakota or Nebraska or Iowa is much better then Kansas, everyone else will agree with them both and next year it will start all over again with how much rain did you get. Frankly I couldn't care less. I'm done wasting my time reading it, that time will be better spent with a pair of loppers in my had or lighting matches or writing legislators.

So whoever administers this junk can shut my account down. I don't need it.
 
So
Gypsum said:
I've been following this page for a decade since I moved to the west half of the state but every time I open it I find myself regretting it. It's always the same people complaining about the same things. You're spoiled. I grew up in northern Missouri where we could walk a whole day to see 1 or 2 pheasants, but because you can't shoot a limit every time you walk out your door it's suddenly not worth going? You take no time to educate yourself about what is actually being done, rather just throw out accusations about how worthless everyone is that is trying to do anything, and when's the last time you even tried to do anything to make it better. If you spent a little more time researching and a little less complaining maybe you'd know what opportunities there were to actually improve habitat you could use.

According to a report from the wildlife society Bulletin done by Kentucky Fish and Game on state investment in Private land management, "Kansas was the national leader in commitment to private land management" .

https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wsb.997

The KDWP Habitat First! Program spends hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to help private landowners manage habitat largely targeted at birds

https://ksoutdoors.com/Services/Pri...nce/Wildlife-Biologists/Habitat-First-Program

KDWP partners with USDA using wildlife EQIP for larger projects

https://ksoutdoors.com/KDWP-Info/News/News-Archive/2007-Web-News/October-2007/NRCS'-EQIP-HELPS-FARMERS-AND-RANCHERS-CONSERVE-THE-LAND

There has been, and are, many state and federal sponsored habitat initiatives

https://ksoutdoors.com/Services/Pub...-Management/Kansas-Quail-Initiative-2012-2017


https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/porta...antsanimals/fishwildlife/?cid=nrcseprd1299624

https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/ks/programs/financial/eqip/?cid=nrcseprd1763028

There are many things about PF I don't care for, but their build a wildlife program has recently helped the state acquire and expand some wildlife areas

Build a Wildlife Area Program Builds in Kansas

Thousand-acre Kansas Veteran's Wildlife Area opens to public.
pheasantsforever.org pheasantsforever.org

Build a Wildlife Area Week Highlight: Kansas’ Lovewell Area Wildlife Area Expansion

www.pheasantsforever.org www.pheasantsforever.org

When CRP SAFE was shut down due to acreage caps PF partnered with KDWP and others on a Kansas corners program.


PF has a precision ag specialist in ks and the upland game bird CRP Safe submitted by KDWP began in 2008 allowing up to 20% of a field be enrolled in CRP to target the lowest quality acres of a field.

https://kansaspfqf.org/staff

https://www.hpj.com/archives/crp-pr...cle_eb09ceba-eb6a-57ca-8458-d5525df9c18a.html

CRP is a federal program KDWP doesn't control but constantly advocates for. Federal farm bill policies have cut the legs out from under it reducing acreage by 1/2 and shifting remaining acres more towards a working lands program allowing more of these acres to be hayed and grazed. Talk to your legislators

https://www.fsa.usda.gov/programs-and-services/conservation-programs/crp-grasslands/index

https://www.fsa.usda.gov/Assets/USD...s/FactSheets/crp_haying_grazing_factsheet.pdf

KDWP funds research to evaluate new ways to manage for upland birds


There are national tech groups for both pheasant and quail where all states, including ks, work together on national policy to improve habitat


National Bobwhite & Grassland Initiative – NBCI mission: A partnership to restore and maintain wild bobwhite quail, associated species, and their native habitats through science-based research and management to support healthy wildlife, soil, air, an

nbgi.org nbgi.org

The state doesn't control what your county does in the county road easement. Talk to your commissioners. KDOT controls the state highway road ditches and are more concerned with safety then wildlife.

You want the state to spend more money on habitat but don't want NR hunters who provide the majority of funding for states agencies that they would need to do it.

gfp.sd.gov

Wildlife and Parks Budget Information

gfp.sd.gov

While you claim every other state is better, if you pull harvest reports for other upland states everyone is down as bad as us, which means we've maintained top 3 harvest for pheasants and top harvest for bobwhite the last several years. So if you want to be a bird hunter Kansas is still one of the best places to be.

WIHA is worthless and should go away because you expect every acre to have the highest quality bird habitat every year. I'm glad you all have high quality private to hunt, but even many of us residents rely on WIHA. I hunt almost exclusively WIHA and as they say a pictures worth a thousand words so just a few from last year.
View attachment 3857View attachment 3858View attachment 3859View attachment 3860


I'd like to think maybe I'd shock a few of you into action or at least educating you a bit, but I've been on here long enough to know better. West is gonna tell me there's no pheasants, I don't know what good hunting looks like, but he'll still shoot his limit everyday, someone else will say South Dakota or Nebraska or Iowa is much better then Kansas, everyone else will agree with them both and next year it will start all over again with how much rain did you get. Frankly I couldn't care less. I'm done wasting my time reading it, that time will be better spent with a pair of loppers in my had or lighting matches or writing legislators.

So whoever administers this junk can shut my account down. I don't need it.
Click to expand...
take that all you Debbie-downers
 
And he didn't even touch on what the Public Lands division is doing for upland hunters. I'm waiting to close, hopefully in the next week, on an additional 493 acres to add to the wildlife area I manage. It will bring 150 acres of cropland into my management with management directed toward increasing pheasant harvest. Since I've been here, I have increased grazed acres from 880 acres when I took over to 3075 acres currently with a possible 320 more being added in the next 12 months (https://mdc.mo.gov/magazines/conservationist/2019-08/new-approach-quail). I try to burn 1000 acres a year to keep succession in the bobwhite peak condition with the grazing. Spend 100's of hours battling woody invasives and thousands of dollars in that effort as well. My list could be as long as Gypsum's, but I'll forego that. Thing is, it is pretty easy to sit on your keester and complain about what everybody else is or isn't doing. They make mirrors for self-evaluation. We all need to use that tool more and temper our voice toward beneficial banter rather than blind complaining. Some of us have devoted our entire life toward making things better for the species that give us the greatest satisfaction in life. It is quite an insult for us to hear backseat managers, whose accomplishments in the management of land and habitat might equate to much less should the mirror reflect, talk about how we are anti-upland or doing absolutely nothing for our upland bird hunters. Spend some time with your mirror, then comment on these pages with some measure of modesty!
 
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Prairie Drifter said:
And he didn't even touch on what the Public Lands division is doing for upland hunters. I'm waiting to close, hopefully in the next week, on an additional 493 acres to add to the wildlife area I manage. It will bring 150 acres of cropland into my management with management directed toward increasing pheasant harvest. Since I've been here, I have increased grazed acres from 880 acres when I took over to 3075 acres currently with a possible 632 more being added in the next 12 months (https://mdc.mo.gov/magazines/conservationist/2019-08/new-approach-quail). I try to burn 1000 acres a year to keep succession in the bobwhite peak condition with the grazing. Spend 100's of hours battling woody invasives and thousands of dollars in that effort as well. My list could be as long as Gypsum's, but I'll forego that. Thing is, it is pretty easy to sit on your keester and complain about what everybody else is or isn't doing. They make mirrors for self-evaluation. We all need to use that tool more and temper our voice toward beneficial banter rather than blind complaining. Some of us have devoted our entire life toward making things better for the species that give us the greatest satisfaction in life. It is quite an insult for us to hear backseat managers, whose accomplishments in the management of land and habitat might equate to much less should the mirror reflect, talk about how we are anti-upland or doing absolutely nothing for our upland bird hunters. Spend some time with your mirror, then comment on these pages with some measure of modesty!
Click to expand...

Troy you're an outlier.

I dont know where you fall on PF - I dont like them, not expecting you to voice your opinion - I want to call out their political BS. Same for the upper mgmt of KDWP and our state legislature - It's very likely mostly wasted energy.

Anyways respect what you do and would love to see what you do and your information more championed and talked about by the KDWP. They have some old videos I've seen - who knows - may still be online -

I know myself personally - frustrated with how things have degraded and mad and frustrated my kids will never experience the things I did and there's nothing I can do to change it besides moving or buying my own ranch and managing it how I see fit. None of us like to see a good thing ruined.
 
Where KDWP manages less than 1% of the state's acreage and more than 97% is in private ownership, you decide where the pressures on our game species occur. You can't blame a landowner for trying to make a decent living on his/her land, and I would never shame them to manage it any other way than their way. It's their income. However, the federal programs have a lot to do with direction within those private acreages and we try to provide some influence where we can. However, Like Gypsum said, we have to work with willing cooperators. They come to us, we don't force ourselves on them. There is a lot of space where agriculture and wildlife can both benefit. But, the flow is outside our control and, as sportsmen, we need to get more involved in the political arena pushing to keep what we have and influence what we don't. Many of my fellow managers work diligently for upland game! Unfortunately, many of the properties we manage are land centered on riparian corridors and those are much harder to keep plant succession in check on compared to upland tracts. We do with what we have. There is plenty of space for private or club (PF) $ to benefit upland management on our wildlife areas. We just don't have those folks knocking us down to spend their limited $ on our areas. We average 7,000 acres per employee in the public land division, so getting everything done isn't realistic at that ratio!
 
Gypsum said:
I've been following this page for a decade since I moved to the west half of the state but every time I open it I find myself regretting it. It's always the same people complaining about the same things. You're spoiled. I grew up in northern Missouri where we could walk a whole day to see 1 or 2 pheasants, but because you can't shoot a limit every time you walk out your door it's suddenly not worth going? You take no time to educate yourself about what is actually being done, rather just throw out accusations about how worthless everyone is that is trying to do anything, and when's the last time you even tried to do anything to make it better. If you spent a little more time researching and a little less complaining maybe you'd know what opportunities there were to actually improve habitat you could use.

According to a report from the wildlife society Bulletin done by Kentucky Fish and Game on state investment in Private land management, "Kansas was the national leader in commitment to private land management" .

https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wsb.997

The KDWP Habitat First! Program spends hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to help private landowners manage habitat largely targeted at birds

https://ksoutdoors.com/Services/Pri...nce/Wildlife-Biologists/Habitat-First-Program

KDWP partners with USDA using wildlife EQIP for larger projects

https://ksoutdoors.com/KDWP-Info/News/News-Archive/2007-Web-News/October-2007/NRCS'-EQIP-HELPS-FARMERS-AND-RANCHERS-CONSERVE-THE-LAND

There has been, and are, many state and federal sponsored habitat initiatives

https://ksoutdoors.com/Services/Pub...-Management/Kansas-Quail-Initiative-2012-2017


https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/porta...antsanimals/fishwildlife/?cid=nrcseprd1299624

https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/ks/programs/financial/eqip/?cid=nrcseprd1763028

There are many things about PF I don't care for, but their build a wildlife program has recently helped the state acquire and expand some wildlife areas

Build a Wildlife Area Program Builds in Kansas

Thousand-acre Kansas Veteran's Wildlife Area opens to public.
pheasantsforever.org pheasantsforever.org

Build a Wildlife Area Week Highlight: Kansas’ Lovewell Area Wildlife Area Expansion

www.pheasantsforever.org www.pheasantsforever.org

When CRP SAFE was shut down due to acreage caps PF partnered with KDWP and others on a Kansas corners program.


PF has a precision ag specialist in ks and the upland game bird CRP Safe submitted by KDWP began in 2008 allowing up to 20% of a field be enrolled in CRP to target the lowest quality acres of a field.

https://kansaspfqf.org/staff

https://www.hpj.com/archives/crp-pr...cle_eb09ceba-eb6a-57ca-8458-d5525df9c18a.html

CRP is a federal program KDWP doesn't control but constantly advocates for. Federal farm bill policies have cut the legs out from under it reducing acreage by 1/2 and shifting remaining acres more towards a working lands program allowing more of these acres to be hayed and grazed. Talk to your legislators

https://www.fsa.usda.gov/programs-and-services/conservation-programs/crp-grasslands/index

https://www.fsa.usda.gov/Assets/USD...s/FactSheets/crp_haying_grazing_factsheet.pdf

KDWP funds research to evaluate new ways to manage for upland birds


There are national tech groups for both pheasant and quail where all states, including ks, work together on national policy to improve habitat


National Bobwhite & Grassland Initiative – NBCI mission: A partnership to restore and maintain wild bobwhite quail, associated species, and their native habitats through science-based research and management to support healthy wildlife, soil, air, an

nbgi.org nbgi.org

The state doesn't control what your county does in the county road easement. Talk to your commissioners. KDOT controls the state highway road ditches and are more concerned with safety then wildlife.

You want the state to spend more money on habitat but don't want NR hunters who provide the majority of funding for states agencies that they would need to do it.

gfp.sd.gov

Wildlife and Parks Budget Information

gfp.sd.gov

While you claim every other state is better, if you pull harvest reports for other upland states everyone is down as bad as us, which means we've maintained top 3 harvest for pheasants and top harvest for bobwhite the last several years. So if you want to be a bird hunter Kansas is still one of the best places to be.

WIHA is worthless and should go away because you expect every acre to have the highest quality bird habitat every year. I'm glad you all have high quality private to hunt, but even many of us residents rely on WIHA. I hunt almost exclusively WIHA and as they say a pictures worth a thousand words so just a few from last year.
View attachment 3857View attachment 3858View attachment 3859View attachment 3860


I'd like to think maybe I'd shock a few of you into action or at least educating you a bit, but I've been on here long enough to know better. West is gonna tell me there's no pheasants, I don't know what good hunting looks like, but he'll still shoot his limit everyday, someone else will say South Dakota or Nebraska or Iowa is much better then Kansas, everyone else will agree with them both and next year it will start all over again with how much rain did you get. Frankly I couldn't care less. I'm done wasting my time reading it, that time will be better spent with a pair of loppers in my had or lighting matches or writing legislators.

So whoever administers this junk can shut my account down. I don't need it.
Click to expand...

Now THAT is a rant.
 
Gypsum said:
I've been following this page for a decade since I moved to the west half of the state but every time I open it I find myself regretting it. It's always the same people complaining about the same things. You're spoiled. I grew up in northern Missouri where we could walk a whole day to see 1 or 2 pheasants, but because you can't shoot a limit every time you walk out your door it's suddenly not worth going? You take no time to educate yourself about what is actually being done, rather just throw out accusations about how worthless everyone is that is trying to do anything, and when's the last time you even tried to do anything to make it better. If you spent a little more time researching and a little less complaining maybe you'd know what opportunities there were to actually improve habitat you could use.

According to a report from the wildlife society Bulletin done by Kentucky Fish and Game on state investment in Private land management, "Kansas was the national leader in commitment to private land management" .

https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wsb.997

The KDWP Habitat First! Program spends hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to help private landowners manage habitat largely targeted at birds

https://ksoutdoors.com/Services/Pri...nce/Wildlife-Biologists/Habitat-First-Program

KDWP partners with USDA using wildlife EQIP for larger projects

https://ksoutdoors.com/KDWP-Info/News/News-Archive/2007-Web-News/October-2007/NRCS'-EQIP-HELPS-FARMERS-AND-RANCHERS-CONSERVE-THE-LAND

There has been, and are, many state and federal sponsored habitat initiatives

https://ksoutdoors.com/Services/Pub...-Management/Kansas-Quail-Initiative-2012-2017


https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/porta...antsanimals/fishwildlife/?cid=nrcseprd1299624

https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/ks/programs/financial/eqip/?cid=nrcseprd1763028

There are many things about PF I don't care for, but their build a wildlife program has recently helped the state acquire and expand some wildlife areas

Build a Wildlife Area Program Builds in Kansas

Thousand-acre Kansas Veteran's Wildlife Area opens to public.
pheasantsforever.org pheasantsforever.org

Build a Wildlife Area Week Highlight: Kansas’ Lovewell Area Wildlife Area Expansion

www.pheasantsforever.org www.pheasantsforever.org

When CRP SAFE was shut down due to acreage caps PF partnered with KDWP and others on a Kansas corners program.


PF has a precision ag specialist in ks and the upland game bird CRP Safe submitted by KDWP began in 2008 allowing up to 20% of a field be enrolled in CRP to target the lowest quality acres of a field.

https://kansaspfqf.org/staff

https://www.hpj.com/archives/crp-pr...cle_eb09ceba-eb6a-57ca-8458-d5525df9c18a.html

CRP is a federal program KDWP doesn't control but constantly advocates for. Federal farm bill policies have cut the legs out from under it reducing acreage by 1/2 and shifting remaining acres more towards a working lands program allowing more of these acres to be hayed and grazed. Talk to your legislators

https://www.fsa.usda.gov/programs-and-services/conservation-programs/crp-grasslands/index

https://www.fsa.usda.gov/Assets/USD...s/FactSheets/crp_haying_grazing_factsheet.pdf

KDWP funds research to evaluate new ways to manage for upland birds


There are national tech groups for both pheasant and quail where all states, including ks, work together on national policy to improve habitat


National Bobwhite & Grassland Initiative – NBCI mission: A partnership to restore and maintain wild bobwhite quail, associated species, and their native habitats through science-based research and management to support healthy wildlife, soil, air, an

nbgi.org nbgi.org

The state doesn't control what your county does in the county road easement. Talk to your commissioners. KDOT controls the state highway road ditches and are more concerned with safety then wildlife.

You want the state to spend more money on habitat but don't want NR hunters who provide the majority of funding for states agencies that they would need to do it.

gfp.sd.gov

Wildlife and Parks Budget Information

gfp.sd.gov

While you claim every other state is better, if you pull harvest reports for other upland states everyone is down as bad as us, which means we've maintained top 3 harvest for pheasants and top harvest for bobwhite the last several years. So if you want to be a bird hunter Kansas is still one of the best places to be.

WIHA is worthless and should go away because you expect every acre to have the highest quality bird habitat every year. I'm glad you all have high quality private to hunt, but even many of us residents rely on WIHA. I hunt almost exclusively WIHA and as they say a pictures worth a thousand words so just a few from last year.
View attachment 3857View attachment 3858View attachment 3859View attachment 3860


I'd like to think maybe I'd shock a few of you into action or at least educating you a bit, but I've been on here long enough to know better. West is gonna tell me there's no pheasants, I don't know what good hunting looks like, but he'll still shoot his limit everyday, someone else will say South Dakota or Nebraska or Iowa is much better then Kansas, everyone else will agree with them both and next year it will start all over again with how much rain did you get. Frankly I couldn't care less. I'm done wasting my time reading it, that time will be better spent with a pair of loppers in my had or lighting matches or writing legislators.

So whoever administers this junk can shut my account down. I don't need it.
Click to expand...
Some of you had a busy day. West is not going to tell you there are no pheasants. But what he will tell you is that pheasant harvest numbers are about half of what they were from 2003-2011. Then you moved here. So your sample size is small and can only compare down years to down years. WIHA is not worthless, and I hunt a lot of it. I could post dozen of pictures of limits that I have shot on WIHA. But much of the WIHA is unhuntable. It isn't a bad program if done correctly and flaws corrected. Matter of fact, I have always been a supporter of WIHA but recently I have changed my opinion. There is no good reason whatsoever to let a landowner cash in on a barren cattle pasture. CRP is vanishing, so the WIHA program needs to be re-evaluated. Times change and programs have to change with it. I will applaud the KDWP and KS legislature for having the absolute best deer management system in the nation prior to 1995. Then hunting became less about residents and more about NR's. I attended several meetings back then and attended some recently. But to no avail. As far as mowing ditches, others states have times of the year that mowing is prohibited so why not KS? You listed a lot of programs, great, but they aren't working. Bottom line, KS is losing resident hunters, at a fast rate. There is a reason why. Decade after decade of decline in game and hunting opportunities. I am quite sure had you lived here for the last 50's years, your post would read different. I am not going to compare KS to MO. I am going to compare the last several decades in KS to the decade we live in now. Pheasant numbers are declining, pheasant hunters are declining, and access is declining. Not a winning recipe.

As for Troy, it is disheartening when you do something you love and listen to people complain. I feel your pain, I am a school teacher. We hear more complaints in a school year about the job we do than you will ever hear in a lifetime of working for the KDWP. But I would never tell a parent to spend more time in the mirror. Instead, I would listen them and try an understand their frustration. Maybe there are things that I could do differently or better. You spend 100's of hours doing this and that. I do to, its my job and I get paid to do it and accept everything that comes along with it, good or bad. I thank you for what you do but it doesn't change the way I feel about the KS Legislature and, as a whole, the KDWP. This a public forum and place to discuss, and to complain, about things we feel are wrong in the state we live and hunt.

I am with KS Husker, it is frustrating to see the decline and how things that were so good went so far south so fast. We knew it was coming and knew what 1995 might lead to. We made our plea to commissioners and the KDWP and knew what the trickle down effect would be to upland hunting, however, I don't think we imagined it would be like this.
 
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Gypsum said:
I've been following this page for a decade since I moved to the west half of the state but every time I open it I find myself regretting it. It's always the same people complaining about the same things. You're spoiled. I grew up in northern Missouri where we could walk a whole day to see 1 or 2 pheasants, but because you can't shoot a limit every time you walk out your door it's suddenly not worth going? You take no time to educate yourself about what is actually being done, rather just throw out accusations about how worthless everyone is that is trying to do anything, and when's the last time you even tried to do anything to make it better. If you spent a little more time researching and a little less complaining maybe you'd know what opportunities there were to actually improve habitat you could use.

According to a report from the wildlife society Bulletin done by Kentucky Fish and Game on state investment in Private land management, "Kansas was the national leader in commitment to private land management" .

https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wsb.997

The KDWP Habitat First! Program spends hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to help private landowners manage habitat largely targeted at birds

https://ksoutdoors.com/Services/Pri...nce/Wildlife-Biologists/Habitat-First-Program

KDWP partners with USDA using wildlife EQIP for larger projects

https://ksoutdoors.com/KDWP-Info/News/News-Archive/2007-Web-News/October-2007/NRCS'-EQIP-HELPS-FARMERS-AND-RANCHERS-CONSERVE-THE-LAND

There has been, and are, many state and federal sponsored habitat initiatives

https://ksoutdoors.com/Services/Pub...-Management/Kansas-Quail-Initiative-2012-2017


https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/porta...antsanimals/fishwildlife/?cid=nrcseprd1299624

https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/ks/programs/financial/eqip/?cid=nrcseprd1763028

There are many things about PF I don't care for, but their build a wildlife program has recently helped the state acquire and expand some wildlife areas

Build a Wildlife Area Program Builds in Kansas

Thousand-acre Kansas Veteran's Wildlife Area opens to public.
pheasantsforever.org pheasantsforever.org

Build a Wildlife Area Week Highlight: Kansas’ Lovewell Area Wildlife Area Expansion

www.pheasantsforever.org www.pheasantsforever.org

When CRP SAFE was shut down due to acreage caps PF partnered with KDWP and others on a Kansas corners program.


PF has a precision ag specialist in ks and the upland game bird CRP Safe submitted by KDWP began in 2008 allowing up to 20% of a field be enrolled in CRP to target the lowest quality acres of a field.

https://kansaspfqf.org/staff

https://www.hpj.com/archives/crp-pr...cle_eb09ceba-eb6a-57ca-8458-d5525df9c18a.html

CRP is a federal program KDWP doesn't control but constantly advocates for. Federal farm bill policies have cut the legs out from under it reducing acreage by 1/2 and shifting remaining acres more towards a working lands program allowing more of these acres to be hayed and grazed. Talk to your legislators

https://www.fsa.usda.gov/programs-and-services/conservation-programs/crp-grasslands/index

https://www.fsa.usda.gov/Assets/USD...s/FactSheets/crp_haying_grazing_factsheet.pdf

KDWP funds research to evaluate new ways to manage for upland birds


There are national tech groups for both pheasant and quail where all states, including ks, work together on national policy to improve habitat


National Bobwhite & Grassland Initiative – NBCI mission: A partnership to restore and maintain wild bobwhite quail, associated species, and their native habitats through science-based research and management to support healthy wildlife, soil, air, an

nbgi.org nbgi.org

The state doesn't control what your county does in the county road easement. Talk to your commissioners. KDOT controls the state highway road ditches and are more concerned with safety then wildlife.

You want the state to spend more money on habitat but don't want NR hunters who provide the majority of funding for states agencies that they would need to do it.

gfp.sd.gov

Wildlife and Parks Budget Information

gfp.sd.gov

While you claim every other state is better, if you pull harvest reports for other upland states everyone is down as bad as us, which means we've maintained top 3 harvest for pheasants and top harvest for bobwhite the last several years. So if you want to be a bird hunter Kansas is still one of the best places to be.

WIHA is worthless and should go away because you expect every acre to have the highest quality bird habitat every year. I'm glad you all have high quality private to hunt, but even many of us residents rely on WIHA. I hunt almost exclusively WIHA and as they say a pictures worth a thousand words so just a few from last year.
View attachment 3857View attachment 3858View attachment 3859View attachment 3860


I'd like to think maybe I'd shock a few of you into action or at least educating you a bit, but I've been on here long enough to know better. West is gonna tell me there's no pheasants, I don't know what good hunting looks like, but he'll still shoot his limit everyday, someone else will say South Dakota or Nebraska or Iowa is much better then Kansas, everyone else will agree with them both and next year it will start all over again with how much rain did you get. Frankly I couldn't care less. I'm done wasting my time reading it, that time will be better spent with a pair of loppers in my had or lighting matches or writing legislators.

So whoever administers this junk can shut my account down. I don't need it.
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hallelujah-holy-shit.gif

Gypsum,
I appreciate guys like you who believe that the grass isn't always greener on the other side. I am that guy as well. As I read your post it made me smile wider and wider as I read it thinking you forgot the "Hallelujah! Holy Shit! Where's the tylenol?" Let the non-believers stay home while make bank with the rudy's left out there. Have a spectacular fall Gypsum!
 
westksbowhunter said:
As for Troy, it is disheartening when you do something you love and listen to people complain. I feel your pain, I am a school teacher. We hear more complaints in a school year about the job we do than you will ever hear in a lifetime of working for the KDWP.
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Again, you speak as if you had knowledge when you have none. You have no way to know what I receive for complaints, but are sure you get an exaggerated difference. This is what we are talking about. I can do a perfect job preparing habitat and a July and August with 20+ days of over 100 degrees with wind and almost no rain and it will look as if I did nothing all year. We can sign a contract with a WIHA landowner and be required to take additional acres that he/she doesn't get paid for due to the lack of value to our constituents, but you will rail about the worthless piece though it came for free. Nothing in life is perfect and painting everything with a broad brush is almost always wrong. Just as you are bound by school boards, administrators, the legislature, and even parents we have to bow to supervisors, funding constraints, commission direction, and legislative controls that we can't manage away at the local level. To kick those of us that are putting in 200+ days working expressly trying to provide exactly what you would want, only to be grouped with the folks that make that impossible for us to do so, is the reason we take exception to your mis-directed assumptions and accusations. I listen to the complaints about out-of-state hunters though I frequently speak with folks from other states and quite often find that they understand and can see the work I have put on the ground for them better than many of those that live close by and can see the work being done. We put up with survey results that show a hunter took 7 quail in a day but rate their hunt as unacceptible because it didn't happen on one covey. Just understand that we deal with folks on their vacation and frequently they expect more than we could ever provide. Understand that we have as many complaints about the things we cannot control, same as you, but like you we try to work ways around them.

Want an example. In 2012-2014 KDOT upgraded the highway 54 through my area from a 2 lane to a divided 4 lane. They were going to tear out my fences on both sides of the highway and essentially stop my management for those 3 years. I worked with them and got them to not only pay for what I would have lost from grazing income, but also got them to salvage all the gates and steel posts they took out for us to have. Then I found out that they were paying my neighbors to take the broken asphalt and concrete. I couldn't use the asphalt, but needed rip rap to armor the lake's dam. I met with them and they agreed to bring me broken concrete for free. I had budgeted for a dam rip rap project for 15 years and never got it funded due to it's $250,000 price tag. With the free concrete I completed that project for about $35,000. Thought I had done a good turn and it was done, but found out that the $250,000 project I had just completed could be used as 2:1 match for a North American Wetland Conservation Act (NAWCA) project. Worked with DU to write and submit a project to upgrade, expand, and rebuild my 4 marsh system west of the lake and 2 marsh system south of the lake, and got funded for about 160,000 and completed the west project in 2017 and the south project in 2019. This added 50% more acres to the west project and made the south project capable of catching more water that was being missed before. Thought I had done a good thing and it was done, but DU showed off what we had accomplished to potential funding cooperators and Phillips 66 donated $100,000 for more work on my area. This donation and some local matching funds from projects that NRCS had completed to the tune of $116,000, put us into another NAWCA project and we are about to build 3-4 additional wetlands for our constituents. I do the same work for upland game projects, deer projects, turkey projects, fishing projects and the list goes on. This is just a peek of the things we do when you say we are worthless and lazy. This is why we take exception. We work in every condition out there to try to push the land we have the privilege to manage for a time toward what we believe would be it's maximum productivity and we get blamed for what the entities listed above forced us to work under. Temper your criticism to what you actually have knowledge of and we will all work together to improve what we can. One of my biggest sources of depression is the fact that I am staring retirement in the face and can't fathom not doing what I do even further down life's road.
 
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As a ranter, yellow lab lover, and 870 fan, I enjoyed that rant, the pictures of that fine-looking yellow lab, and the properly worn 870...

(also liked the Boykin/Chessie combo)
 
I can respect the rant, and the fact that some old timers on here are 100% negative if their expectations of now being equal to "the good old days" are not met. But really, wearing a mask outside, next to a tailgate? That's a pretty strong indicator your thinking is a little skewed.
 
And I thought I got wound-up on the PF haters here! It is good to be passionate about what you love.
 
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