Counties with WIHA Walk-In Areas shown in yellow.

Snap your fingers. There you go--you now have access to roughly 1 million acres of prime pheasant hunting land in Kansas. You didn't have to second-mortgage your home, promise your first-born son nor hit the lottery. You didn't knock on a door, shake a hand or sign a lease agreement. Just snap your fingers. This is your ground, and if you happen to be a fanatical rooster hunter, well, pardner, you've obviously been living right.

Since 1995, the state of Kansas has offered hunters what the Department of Wildlife & Parks (KDWP) refers to as WIHA, its Walk-In Hunting Area program. By combining hunting license dollars with Federal Aid to Wildlife Conservation funds, the department "leases," for a nominal fee, acreage from private individuals, and then subsequently, with some restrictions, provides those acres to the general hunting public. Essentially, you're leasing exceptional hunting land without spending a nickel above and beyond what you'd ordinarily pay for your hunting license. I'm no Donald Trump, but that sounds like a heck of a deal to me.

Show Me The Money, Er, Roosters
Currently, the department holds title to 1 million WIHA acres available during the fall contract period (September 1 or November 1 through January 31), and almost 150,000 acres during the spring (April 1 through May 31). Walk-in parcels are scattered across the entire state and can range from a handful of acres to several hundred.

"Over the past three or four years, the north-central and south-central portions of the state have provided good pheasant hunting," said Brad Simpson, Kansas DWP private lands coordinator and general over-seer of the WIHA program.

"Western Kansas has been under drought conditions, but during normal years," he said, "that part of the state can provide exceptional hunting."

The north-central part of Kansas falls into the eastern portion of the department's Region 1, with headquarters in Hays. This area is commonly referred to as the Smoky Hills, courtesy of the Smoky Hills River, and encompasses expanses of native grasslands tailor-made for roosters and upland gunners alike. Thirteen south-central counties make up Region 4; an operations center is located in Wichita, with some of the best upland opportunities found in the western third of the region.