Residents and non-residents have several options in terms of places to hunt turkeys. Most hunting takes place on private land, and access is still available to those willing to do a little legwork. However, more land is being tied up in leases, primarily for deer, but to a lesser extent for turkeys, too, making it more difficult than it has been in the past.

The KDWP has a program called the Spring Turkey Walk-In Hunting Area (WIHA) Program (check out the details and maps at www.kdwp.state.ks.us). Patterned after the hugely successful fall program that makes hundreds of thousands of acres available for fall hunting opportunities, it easing obtains public access to private land through leasing. The spring turkey WIHA program has grown to more than 150,000 acres statewide and is a viable option, according to Pitman.

Several changes have been

Implemented for the 2008 Kansas spring turkey season, the first of which involved increasing the permit quota in Unit 4 in southwest Kansas.

"About 15 percent of our spring turkey hunters (both resident and non-resident) hunt in Walk-In turkey hunting areas," Pitman said. "So between our (state-owned) public land and our WIHA areas, we provide opportunities for about 30 percent of our turkey hunters in the spring.

"Our public land and WIHA areas only make up about 350,000 to 400,000 acres in the state, so on that small acreage we're providing a lot of opportunity for folks," he added. "And generally, in just talking to people, I've found that it seems they do real well on both those types of areas."

Kansas had its first-ever archery-only season last spring, and the results were impressive from both an interest angle and a success angle. "It went over real well," Pitman said of the archery harvest during the 2007 first-ever 10-day archery-only season, which opened April 1 last year. "Our harvest taken with a bow last year was more than 2,500, which was up from about 1,450 birds taken with archery equipment in 2006."

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Harvesting a gobbler by bow may be the ultimate challenge. Although I'd done it before, I relished the opportunity to participate in the first official season when it opened last year.