By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks' walk-in hunting access program began in 1995 in an effort to enhance the hunting tradition by giving hunters access to private property. More than one million acres in the state are now used for walk-in hunting. Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Manager Jason Wagner reminds the public that those acres have a specific purpose.
"Walk-in hunting is for hunting purposes only," he said. "I've been seeing a lot of posts about people wanting to go shed-antler hunting or mushroom collecting or gathering on walk-in hunting, and neither of those activities are legal activities on walk-in hunting."
Even those legally hunting on the land cannot remove items from the land unless they obtain permission from the landowner. Antlers and mushrooms may be collected on public, state-managed lands, but even those cannot be sold.
"Any of the mushrooms that are collected on public lands, you can't collect those mushrooms and then turn around and sell them," Wagner said. "It's the same rule that you can't guide on public land or you can't have a lemonade stand in the middle of the Bottoms. You can't have any commercial use off of public land."
Four types of edible morel mushrooms grow in Kansas, and also several lookalikes that may be dangerous to consume. Most morel sightings in 2024 have come in the northeast corner of the state.