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

lot of factors at work here that together hurt the upland game venue.
the state will have to begin to acquire land in order to provide lasting improvement for upland hunting, the CRP program (WIA)
is dying and is being raped yearly by emergency grazing programs. this has got to stop or forget improvement in habitat.
maybe we can buy back some of the land sold to China?
 
Here's the deal fellow hunters. Nothing in life is all of anything. When criticism is directed at an entire organization, many good folks doing good work are defamed in the process. If you say KDWP or PF or QF, or any entity; you are going to be including those folks that are busting their butt in with those that are there just to benefit their butt. If you have a fault with the commission, point to them or the individuals you have the beef with. If it is a PF leader, why bash the hunters in the local clubs that are putting their hard earned $ in at the banquets and doing habitat projects locally with it? Yeah, it is easier to type PF than the guys name, but it is much more correct to put the blame where it belongs than to bash everyone affiliated with it. That's all we are asking. My first day working for KDWP was in 1981. I started full time in 1985. I have invested my mind and body into making things better for the sportsmen using the areas I have managed. My predecessors were never always right in the management they used and I'm sure I have not been perfect either. But we all used the best knowledge at the time to shape and mold the environment to produce game. If we want things to get better, we need to push positive agendas, help get more people into our sport, and keep the older sportsmen in the field. As for me, I have worked for you when it was sub-zero outside. I have conducted a prescribed burn for you when it was 104 in the shade. I have stood out in the rain for 9 hours when I could see my breath to save a wetland structure from severe damage. I have suffered injuries doing this job. I have had my life threatened doing this job. I have cleaned human brains up doing this job. I have held a 7 year old girls neck while waiting for the ambulance to come. I have pulled someone's deceased grandmother out of the dash of a van doing this job. This list could be a mile long, but it is to help you see that when you insult all of an organization you are denigrating folks that have put their life on a path to keep you in the field, safe, and happy. Every day hunting will not be your best day. But any day hunting is a treasure. Soap box is now vacant!
 
Prairie Drifter said:
Here's the deal fellow hunters. Nothing in life is all of anything. When criticism is directed at an entire organization, many good folks doing good work are defamed in the process. If you say KDWP or PF or QF, or any entity; you are going to be including those folks that are busting their butt in with those that are there just to benefit their butt. If you have a fault with the commission, point to them or the individuals you have the beef with. If it is a PF leader, why bash the hunters in the local clubs that are putting their hard earned $ in at the banquets and doing habitat projects locally with it? Yeah, it is easier to type PF than the guys name, but it is much more correct to put the blame where it belongs than to bash everyone affiliated with it. That's all we are asking. My first day working for KDWP was in 1981. I started full time in 1985. I have invested my mind and body into making things better for the sportsmen using the areas I have managed. My predecessors were never always right in the management they used and I'm sure I have not been perfect either. But we all used the best knowledge at the time to shape and mold the environment to produce game. If we want things to get better, we need to push positive agendas, help get more people into our sport, and keep the older sportsmen in the field. As for me, I have worked for you when it was sub-zero outside. I have conducted a prescribed burn for you when it was 104 in the shade. I have stood out in the rain for 9 hours when I could see my breath to save a wetland structure from severe damage. I have suffered injuries doing this job. I have had my life threatened doing this job. I have cleaned human brains up doing this job. I have held a 7 year old girls neck while waiting for the ambulance to come. I have pulled someone's deceased grandmother out of the dash of a van doing this job. This list could be a mile long, but it is to help you see that when you insult all of an organization you are denigrating folks that have put their life on a path to keep you in the field, safe, and happy. Every day hunting will not be your best day. But any day hunting is a treasure. Soap box is now vacant!
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First let me commend you for your work. I too am a farmer but my conservation and wildlife efforts feel like a band-aid on a gushing wound sometimes when your surrounding farmers won't get on board so I understand the frustration. But if I was PF, KDWPT, QF, etc I would look at this as "this is the perception hunters have, how do we change that?" Not scold them as cry babies. I spend a lot of time across this state and have for 25+ years so I go by what I see happening, not what an ad campaign tells me. Now I'm sure you guys have some great habitat in spots but we are losing huntable land at a far faster rate. You seem like one of the good guys and I wish they all were like you and yes you get the unfortunate deal of guilty by association. I believe if you boil it down we are asking how do we help you guys? But when these orgs are our voice and won't take a stand against the things that are the root of the problem I don't know how things change? I feel a lot of people think like that, right or wrong. We are all on the same team here fellas and again I'm just giving you my opinion and observations.
 
actions speak louder than words, unfortunately words are easier to use.
if the state wants to use hunting and fishing revenue as their cash cow,
they need to change the program, it's been 6-10 years with a steady decline in quality
or even adequate habitat and the hunter decline should be obvious, with the exception of deer hunting.
KDWP has the ball in their court, the current program is going to continue the decline in hunting interest
unless there are major changes. they should be assigning a task force to evaluate the situation.
the longer they wait, the slower any recovery plan will begin. the policy makers are the issue.
a lot of NR license money is going to disappear. sad. my hunting dollars will continue to go elsewhere.
 
hunter94 said:
actions speak louder than words, unfortunately words are easier to use.
if the state wants to use hunting and fishing revenue as their cash cow,
they need to change the program, it's been 6-10 years with a steady decline in quality
or even adequate habitat and the hunter decline should be obvious, with the exception of deer hunting.
KDWP has the ball in their court, the current program is going to continue the decline in hunting interest
unless there are major changes. they should be assigning a task force to evaluate the situation.
the longer they wait, the slower any recovery plan will begin. the policy makers are the issue.
a lot of NR license money is going to disappear. sad. my hunting dollars will continue to go elsewhere.
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6-10 years is being generous. I’ve heard, straight out of KDWP mouths, we have to rent the subpar to get the little dab of good land they have. That’s BS. Tell them no and move on. Pay more for the good stuff and people will learn. I realize this will lead to a loss of the total acres KDWP likes to tout all over every media source. No one’s hunting that crap land for the most part anyway……. KDWPs shell game as it pertains to WIHA is certainly being exposed as the farce that it is. I see it on social media almost daily anymore.
 
Kansascutter said:
6-10 years is being generous. I’ve heard, straight out of KDWP mouths, we have to rent the subpar to get the little dab of good land they have. That’s BS. Tell them no and move on. Pay more for the good stuff and people will learn. I realize this will lead to a loss of the total acres KDWP likes to tout all over every media source. No one’s hunting that crap land for the most part anyway……. KDWPs shell game as it pertains to WIHA is certainly being exposed as the farce that it is. I see it on social media almost daily anymore.Wh
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I have never hunted a piece of IHAP ground in Iowa that did not look promising. While they don't have near the amount of acres in IHAP that KS has in WIHA, the ground that they do have is quality. I drove around Cedar Bluff Reservoir last weekend, and it is hard to tell what is public land and what is private. There are remnants of yellow signs with no letters left on on them. Just no updating at all. Iowa has new signs all around their public land clearly marking public from private. Many of the IHAP has cards to fill out before and after hunting. This is the feedback I would hope KS would want on the ground they enroll in WIHA. I just don't know where the money goes. This is not a knock against the hardworking working biologists or area managers but to the KDWP as a whole. As a resident hunter, I feel there is no voice to represent us and that is what I look to the KDWP for.
 
I'll try to rationalize a bit on the previous few comments. They are all largely good comments and most of us IN KDWP feel the same way. However, CRP had it's birth in 1985 and WIHA a few years later. Most of us with any grey on our muzzle got to enjoy those peak years of a lot of newly planted CRP that was early successional habitat and was way out-producing the CRP we have been hunting lately. Then, the farm economy was excruciatingly bad and the enticement to take poor producing ground out of production made sense. Today, commodity prices are much higher as is the price of the land itself, so production has the enticement.

As for deer hunting, the lawsuits against Kansas that were being built when we didn't allow NR deer licenses forced the State to bow to the trend and legislative decisions made that happen. We all have seen what that has done to the availability of land due to leasing and outfitters. What KDWP can pay for a million acres of land is a lot lower per acre than what some wealthy folks can pay so many WIHA tracts get leased away from WIHA. Yes, the good ole days have passed of late. However, many things come and go and a like system of federal programs may well come again and allow additional WIHA expansion and improved quality. We're not there right now. I know we have every level of experience and habitat knowledge on this platform. That being said, there are going to be folks that can see what management has been used and what is the affect of that management and there will be those that can't. I run into this quite often and hope to educate those that need it. There are tracts that are posted and not paid for and their value may well be questionable, but often that is part of the deal with the owner and having something can be better than having nothing.

Having the ability to judge habitat helps those folks. Having the proximity to the habitat to judge it preseason helps residents not waste time looking at tracts on days that they are able to hunt. You have a lot of professional folks working diligently to try to turn this tide, but the balance of negative pressures outweigh the positive pressures right now and that environment needs to change for those professionals to get willing participants to join WIHA. Just like most things in life, there are going to be highs and lows. It is unfortunate that we have to live through the lows, but it happens in every walk of life and beating down the folks who are trying to provide a quality program when they have little ability to change that balance is counter productive. I invite you all to contact your local private or public land biologist and learn what is being done in the field for you. We deserve that chance.
GetTothePoint said:
First let me commend you for your work. I too am a farmer but my conservation and wildlife efforts feel like a band-aid on a gushing wound sometimes when your surrounding farmers won't get on board so I understand the frustration. But if I was PF, KDWPT, QF, etc I would look at this as "this is the perception hunters have, how do we change that?" Not scold them as cry babies. I spend a lot of time across this state and have for 25+ years so I go by what I see happening, not what an ad campaign tells me. Now I'm sure you guys have some great habitat in spots but we are losing huntable land at a far faster rate. You seem like one of the good guys and I wish they all were like you and yes you get the unfortunate deal of guilty by association. I believe if you boil it down we are asking how do we help you guys? But when these orgs are our voice and won't take a stand against the things that are the root of the problem I don't know how things change? I feel a lot of people think like that, right or wrong. We are all on the same team here fellas and again I'm just giving you my opinion and observations.
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I know what you mean on my efforts sticking out when compared to the neighbors. When I get college classes, range camps, or conduct habitat field days I always have the participants compare the grassland quality on our side of the road versus the grass on the other side. Several neighbors are out-of-area owners and rent to cattlemen with no restrictions or directions. Those cattlemen stock those tracts to the max and overgraze them until it is no longer profitable. They move on and the next guy does the same. If I blindfolded you and put you in a helicopter for a couple of hours then set down and led you to a tent before taking the blindfold off before asking you to judge where you were based on the grass community you could see in the tent, you would probably site the grassland as somewhere close to Colorado. It is heavy in Buffalo grass and Blue Gramma, short grass species. How this affects me is that not only are those acres uninhabitable by bobwhite, they are also a barrier to ingress and egress of bobwhite. If I could influence management on those acres to resemble those on ours, the local population of bobwhite would be much higher and much more stable over time.
 
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westksbowhunter said:
I have never hunted a piece of IHAP ground in Iowa that did not look promising. While they don't have near the amount of acres in IHAP that KS has in WIHA, the ground that they do have is quality. I drove around Cedar Bluff Reservoir last weekend, and it is hard to tell what is public land and what is private. There are remnants of yellow signs with no letters left on on them. Just no updating at all. Iowa has new signs all around their public land clearly marking public from private. Many of the IHAP has cards to fill out before and after hunting. This is the feedback I would hope KS would want on the ground they enroll in WIHA. I just don't know where the money goes. This is not a knock against the hardworking working biologists or area managers but to the KDWP as a whole. As a resident hunter, I feel there is no voice to represent us and that is what I look to the KDWP for.
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West, in 2014 KDOT completed the 4 lane project through my area. I bought new signs from KDOC (corrections) as required and posted over 10 miles of new fence. KDOC had changed from painted signs to vinyl coated signs prior. Many of the south-facing signs are now unreadable. I ordered new signs again last week and brought that fact up to them. I have 50 year old painted signs that are like new and 8 year old vinyl coated signs that are blank. They are looking into that and I bought some clear spray paint with UV protection that I am going to try to coat them with to see if that helps.
 
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Quite a thread here.

I don't have much to add, except to say that Prairie Drifter is the finest property manager that I have ever met. It is amazing what he plans and does for Kingman Wildlife Area. Keep it up Drifter.
 
westksbowhunter said:
I have never hunted a piece of IHAP ground in Iowa that did not look promising. While they don't have near the amount of acres in IHAP that KS has in WIHA, the ground that they do have is quality. I drove around Cedar Bluff Reservoir last weekend, and it is hard to tell what is public land and what is private. There are remnants of yellow signs with no letters left on on them. Just no updating at all. Iowa has new signs all around their public land clearly marking public from private. Many of the IHAP has cards to fill out before and after hunting. This is the feedback I would hope KS would want on the ground they enroll in WIHA. I just don't know where the money goes. This is not a knock against the hardworking working biologists or area managers but to the KDWP as a whole. As a resident hunter, I feel there is no voice to represent us and that is what I look to the KDWP for.
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Iowa is steadily taking hunters away from Kansas. they run a quality program.
 
Kingman has changed over the years for sure and ole Troy deserves a lot of credit. The largest obstacle resident hunters face is access. This problem has not been correctly addressed by the state from a legislative level to the commission level. If you are going to make money off it, use basic supply and demand price principles. Raise NR fees until there is a reduction of hunter apps. Change the criteria to get a resident big game tag to a resident who has filed an tax return in the state of Kansas and or substantial state property taxes on ag ground. Permit outfitter areas and make them collect a sales tax on the hunt services and leased grounds. Why they have an exemption clause is ludicrous.
 
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