Outdoor advocates push new ideas to promote state

Kansas in hunt for more tourist dollars

Mike Nickels has been a Jefferson County hunting guide for five years, but he’s still trying to get used to at least one part of the job: calls from people on the East and West coasts wanting to come to Kansas to shoot deer or wild turkeys.

“The first thing we’ve got to understand is that Kansas is a place that people want to come to,” Nickels said. “Obviously there is something here.”

In 2001, travelers spent about $3.5 billion in Kansas, according to the Travel Industry Association of America. But that was good enough for only a 38th place ranking among the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Also in 2001, the overall economic impact from the hunting industry was $488 million in the state, according to the International Association of Fish and Wildlife.

Kansas could do much better, Nickels said.

“If I’ve been able to get people to come here with my own self-service individual promotion, it would seem that there is a better way to promote Kansas overall than what we are doing,” he said.

State Sen. Robert Tyson, R-Parker, thinks so, too. He and Nickels said there were thousands of people across the country looking for an opportunity to spend several days in Kansas hunting and fishing.

“Whenever I go elk hunting in Wyoming, someone asks me how they can get into Kansas to go deer hunting,” said Tyson, a retired airline pilot and rancher.

A call for change

Hunting Guide Mike Nickels helps tourists from out of state hunt for deer, turkey and pheasant in northeastern Kansas. State officials hope to attract more tourists to Kansas for hunting. Nickels is pictured last week at his farm in Jefferson County behind sets of deer antlers he's collected over time.

Tyson introduced a bill to improve state promotion of wildlife and parks. The measure calls for renaming the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks the Kansas Department of Fish and Game. It also would move the parks division to the Kansas Department of Commerce.

That would allow fish and game officials to concentrate specifically on improving the quality of and promoting the state’s hunting and fishing, Tyson said. The agency would be responsible for the law enforcement duties it has now, but would end its involvement in the environment and parks management, he said.

Parks officials could concentrate on improving and maintaining those facilities, Tyson said.

The state also could work more closely with private landowners to make more land available for public hunting. Currently, the state has a little less than a million acres for public hunting, with much of it leased from private landowners.

In addition to the public hunting acreage, there are numerous private hunting lodges, guides and farmers who charge their own fees for hunters who want to hunt on their land.

“A person coming here from out of state wants a place to stay and they need to know where to go to hunt,” Tyson said. “They don’t want to come in and spend their time in a place where there isn’t anything to hunt.”

‘Impossible’

Mike Hayden, secretary of wildlife and parks, lauded Tyson’s intentions but said making a separate fish and game department wasn’t the answer. In fact, it was under Hayden’s direction as governor in the late 1980s that fish, game and parks were merged.

“It’s impossible to separate the land, the water and the parks,” Hayden said. “They are integral to each other.”

In many cases, he noted, wildlife lands are next to parks and sometimes in parks.

But Hayden said he would love to see the state obtain more leased land for public hunting. All the Legislature needs to do is pay for it.

Kansas deer hunting season begins with the muzzleloader-only season in the middle of September, which runs through late September. Muzzleloader and rifle hunting season is in December.Archery season is from the beginning of October through the end of December.A two-week season in January is for antlerless deer only.

“It’s the Legislature that has cut the funding,” Hayden said. “We’ve asked for more.”

Nickels also isn’t sure wildlife and parks should be split, but he said there were other things that could be done to lure more hunters to Kansas. One would be targeted marketing to hunters instead of the scattershot approach to all interests the state has relied on in the past, he said.

“Promote hunting to the hunters,” Nickels said.

The state is conducting a two-year study to see whether targeted marketing efforts have any effect on hunting and fishing license sales in a select group of counties, Hayden said. He declined to identify the counties because he didn’t want to prejudice the results.

The marketing techniques include the use of newspapers, radio, store displays and direct mail, Hayden said.

“Some of it looks encouraging,” he said. “We’ll know the results by this time next year.”

Hayden also noted Kansas has to make do with one of the smallest promotional advertising budgets of all the states.

Process a hindrance

The most attractive hunting to non-Kansas residents now is deer hunting, Nickels said. Yet the state’s deer licensing process hinders nonresidents, he said.

The deadline for applying for deer hunting licenses is May 31. At the end of June or first of July hunters find out whether they are getting licenses.

“July 1st is a little bit late to put your life on hold to decide whether you’re going to be able to take 10 days off to go to Kansas and hunt deer,” Nickels said.

Most deer hunting states have license application deadlines in February or March.

The problem, according to Hayden, is that Kansas still processes its license applications manually. If the process can be automated to allow hunters to apply via computer at home, the deadlines could probably be moved up, he said.

Becoming automated also requires more money from the Legislature, Hayden said.

Tyson said passing his bill would require more spending, but it would be worth it, he said.

“In the long run it’s going to bring Kansas many billions of dollars,” he said.

The bill is currently in the Senate Natural Resources Committee, which Tyson chairs. He said he didn’t expect it to leave the committee this year.