With the country’s population recently surpassing the 300 million mark, Kansans in the hunting and outdoor recreation business say the state is sitting on a gold mine.

“I do know that Americans want to be outdoors some. We fight our way to keep doing it. We are building bike paths – anything to get out of the concrete jungle and get out in the outdoors,” said Pete Laughlin, general manager for Flint Oak, a hunting preserve and resort in Fall River.

With Kansas offering so much rural land and decent hunting for upland birds and deer, those in the business say outdoor enthusiasts from out of state have and will continue to see the state as a prime destination.

“Farmers and ranchers are looking at this as another asset they can jump into as the economy for them worsens,” said Cindy Baldwin, executive director of the Kansas Sport Hunting Assn.

Small town boon

Pheasant season, which runs Nov. 4 through Jan. 31 this year, is the traditional boon for small towns in western Kansas.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services studies outdoor activities in the 50 states every five years. The latest study in 2001 found that 189,000 Kansas residents hunted here that year compared to 103,000 out-of-state residents.

The agency in a 2004 study estimated upland bird season generated $155 million in retail sales in Kansas. The department is conducting another study this year, to be published in 2007.

The numbers surprised some.

“I didn’t believe it was as large as those numbers in the survey report suggests,” said John Leatherman, a Kansas State University agricultural economist. “Some of my colleagues more familiar with agricultural land indicate that, in various areas of the state, that’s a pretty large activity as far as people traveling in.”

The state offers a mixture of private and public land for hunters. The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks operates 1.6 million acres of public land or “Walk-In Public Areas” that allow public access.

“Access is always one of the issues, and that’s why we’ve worked so hard with this walk-in program,” said Mark Shoup with the state’s wildlife and parks office in Pratt.

Variety of options

Baldwin, with the Kansas Sport Hunting Assn., said public hunting land generally draws in-state residents, while many private landowners tend to open up their property to guests from out of state.

The association has close to 80 members across the state with some from other states. Some run smaller operations, such as a bed and breakfast that grants access to their land. Others have a full-scale ranch with hunting and other outdoor activities.

Those operations can generate a lot of revenue for a rural economy, she said.

Most of the time, the guests are usually more affluent and fly in as a way to get access to the state’s hunting climate, Baldwin said.

“These people also have some additional income to spend when they get here,” she said.

Outdoor country club

At Flint Oak, about 75 miles east of Wichita, Ray Walton bought the first 699 acres in 1979, and he spent about $10 million developing 2,800 acres of farmland and forest in the hunting preserve.

Walton started Pennypower Shopping News and sold the business in 1980. He built Flint Oak because he saw the size of land dwindling where urban dwellers could enjoy the outdoors.

Today, the preserve plays host to guests from all over the country, and it features luxury lodging, an upscale dining room, shooting sports, hunting, fishing and outdoor activities.

“At our level, we are a little bit like a country club that uses the outdoors instead of golf,” said Laughlin, a longtime friend of Walton’s.

The resort features a corporate board room for meetings. Guests can have meetings at one point in the day and spend the rest hunting.

Flint Oak staffs between 60 to 90 people, depending on the season. It is one of Elk County’s major employers, in a rural county with 3,075 people.

The business brings in outside money, and it generates income and job opportunities, Laughlin said. With hunting preserves becoming more popular across the state, it has created a need for bird breeders to keep fields stocked, he said.

Laughlin says until recently Kansas has taken its best natural resource for granted for several years: the outdoors.

“We are not going to outsource our wildlife. That ain’t going overseas for production,” he said.