Hunting

Southwest Kansas offers plenty of game for the hunter. Throughout the plains and rolling hills you’ll find ring-necked pheasants, quail, prairie chicken, mule deer, whitetail deer and even some antelope in the far west regions.

This excerpt, courtesy of ksoutdoors.com, explains the hunting variety you’ll find in Western Kansas (for the full article click here):

The High Plains, the western one-third of the state, is the largest and driest region. Originally shortgrass prairie and nearly treeless, most of the High Plains has seen dramatic changes due to settlement and agriculture. Many areas of the High Plains are intensively farmed, and this combination of native grass and agriculture makes this region ideal for ring-necked pheasants. The High Plains are wide open and vast.

Where untilled, native shortgrasses, yucca, sagebrush and other arid-climate vegetation support lesser prairie chickens. Antelope still inhabit the far western reaches of this region and provide limited hunting opportunities. Mule deer thrive in the region, although you also find whitetails. The Conservation Reserve Program has returned thousands of acres in this region to native grasses.

The north-south strip of grassland through the east-central portion of the state is known as the Flint Hills. Much of this region remains in native grass because a layer of rock just beneath the soil’s surface prevents tillage. Vast areas of unbroken tall grass prairie with timbered, brushy draws and stream bottoms make this unique area ideal for quail, deer, and turkey, and it remains the nation’s stronghold for the greater prairie chicken.

In the southwest, the Arkansas River Lowlands follow the river from the Colorado border, east to Wichita, then south to Oklahoma. Sand and sediment carried by the river have formed sandhill grasslands along this corridor, and this area provides ideal lesser prairie chicken habitat. This midgrass prairie is dotted with sandhill plum thickets and eastern red cedars, and provides good quail, pheasant, deer and turkey hunting.

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