Kansas

Kansas pheasant and quail share the same two-part season structure, a youth and disability weekend followed by the regular season, running from mid-November through the end of January. Pheasant holds to the western two-thirds of the state, with the Smoky Hills of north-central Kansas and the Northern High Plains of the northwest as the historic core, the South Central Prairies and Southern High Plains also carrying birds, almost no pheasants on survey routes in the Glaciated Plains of the northeast, and none at all in the Flint Hills and Osage Cuestas of the southeast. Northern bobwhite quail run in the opposite direction: they're more widespread than pheasant across most of the state, with the Flint Hills holding some of the best wild quail hunting in the country, the Smoky Hills and South Central Prairies also carrying strong numbers, and only the Northern High Plains limited to pockets of suitable habitat. Scaled quail are a fringe presence confined to the sand-sagebrush prairie of the extreme southwestern corner, taken under the same general quail season as bobwhite.

Greater prairie-chicken is managed through named hunting units rather than a single statewide season. The Smoky Hills is currently the strongest ecoregion for the species, with the largest tracts and the best access in the state; the Flint Hills, the historic heart of Kansas prairie-chicken hunting, has declined over the past two decades as ranching practices changed. A separate early season opens in mid-September in the Northwest Prairie Chicken Unit, covering Kansas west of U.S. Highway 281 and north of Highway 96, ahead of the regular season that both that unit and the rest of the state's open range share through the end of January.