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Kansas spring turkey

Hey guys, I know I am asking on a limb here but some buddies and I are looking for some ground to spring turkey hunt. We have hunted public ground for 4 years now around Lawrence KS and are tired of hunting high pressured birds. Does anyone have any land they don't use for the spring turkey season? Any other suggestions would be much appreciated. Thank you

Drive farther west. Plenty of birds on public that get less pressure than the ground around Lawrence if I had to guess. Never hurts to knock on doors as well. Turkey aren't as sacred of a commodity as deer are:)

Matt

How far would you suggest to go? Hunting in rio territory would be a neat experience.

I would try the melvern wildlife area. It has a huge turkey population and one of the highest success rates for all of ks for public hunting

Melvern ain't been producing the last couple years. I've been having trespasser issues cause folks can't get on birds there so they start driving around.

If you’re wanting pure Rio in Kansas you’re going to have to head quite a ways west.

Ks gobbler it used to be good. I worked there as the assistant manager for 10 yrs and it was awesome. I haven't worked there for 3 yrs now so it must have gone down hill.

Melvern is not nearly as good as it was. Poor hatches last few years. And lots of pressure. Ksgobbler is right I've had some conversations with trespassing turkey hunter's very close to melvern and they always try to give me a sob story of how they aren't seeing much and they didn't think anyone would care it's just a turkey.

The populations around Melvern have dropped considerably over the last 3 years. There are a few locations that regularly hold birds but they will get a great deal of pressure from all the hunters looking for birds. I usually have to deal with people who don't know what a fence means or are color blind and don't see the color purple.

Public land turkey pressure is insane anymore in this area. Flint Hills NWR was thinking about closing to turkey hunting or going to a permit system. A lot of NR hunters are reporting poor success. We also haven't had a good hatch in years. The poachers 2 years ago had started at El Dorado and worked east. Only bird they got on was the closed side of Flint Hills.

Thanks for all the responses. Maybe its time to take a trip and knock on some doors then.

Ksgobbler let me guess they were from Arkansas?

how did you guess. Last spring I caught some road hunting trying to trespass in the morning. They came back that afternoon and shot from the road. I followed them for awhile. They ended up fleeing back to Arkansas where a federal warden and Arkansas state warden interviewed them at their job. One ended up confessing to a bunch of stuff. Plead guilty and only got $607 in fines but swears they are never coming back to Kansas. I am actually thinking about having a 4'x6' purple sign with while letters made for my north gate. It's gonna say "You poach We prosecute" with the operation game thief number on it.

Funny how that state works. I was back at the family farm setting-up when I saw shadows going across my field. I sprinted to them and told them to drop their weapons. They gave me the whole "Ain't this so and so's property?" When I asked his name, he replied, "John Smith from Alabama." I just chuckled, called his BS and snapped his pic and his son's pic with my phone and began communicating with the game warden via text and pics. Game warden later informed me that they were from Arkansas.

Check out Kanapolis and Wilson Lake wildlife areas. If you really want to go west look around Webster. There are also some good WIHA properties, but it will take more exploring to find them. I am sure you can have a good hunt without driving clear to western Kansas, but the pressure will be less the farther west you go imo. Sorry I missed your question earlier.

Matt

Matt

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