KDWPT Website Information

The Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism website is a great resource for finding information about fishing in Kansas.  This section is to provide a sample of some of the information available on that site.

Link to the site Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism

Did you know that you can find some urban fishing lakes right here in Wichita that allow you to put your float tube on them?  Look through the urban fishing lakes and read the descriptions.

Link to fishing places in South Central Kansas

Example South Lake in Wichita

Also if you look at some of the different reservoirs and state fishing lakes you can find information like a depth chart for the lake or thinks like Kingman State Fishing lake shows water temperature so you can see where the springs are.  Look for links on the page that are normally labeled bathymetric map.  So also have live lake information that will show current levels and a few even have temperatures.

Kingman State Fishing Lake

McPherson State Fishing Lake

One thing we found on the site that is very helpful information is the ability to download files that can be imported into Google maps to see all the areas in Kansas you can go fishing including the walk-in F.I.S.H. locations.  There is also files you can download to see the locations of all the fish attractors that have been installed including brush piles and artificial habitats.  Now they have these available to also put into a Garmin GPS, but here we are just going to explain how to use Google since everyone has the ability to do this.

The one thing I do want to point out that you do need a Google email account to do this.  They are free and easy to setup.  So if you think you would use this information, it is worth doing this.

Create gmail account if you don’t have one.

  • Go to Google
  • There should be a link in the upper right that says gmail.  Click that link.
  • In the upper right there is a link create an account
  • Then just follow the instructions on creating your gmail account.

Downloading the files to use on google maps

  • Go to the KDWPT site to download the files
  • We are using the Google Earth Files
  • There are three different files
    • Google Earth KML File – 2015 KS Fishing Access
      • This will create a map that shows all the places in Kansas you can fishing including the walk-in F.I.S.H. locations.  Keep in mind this says it is the 2015 file so you might want to verify the place you want to go is in the current atlas
    • Google KMZ file of Fish Attractors GPS’
      • This will map all the brush piles
    • Google KMZ file of Artificial Habitat Fish Attractors GPS’
      • This will map all the artificial habitats
  • So click the link to the information you would like to pull into google maps and download to your computer.  Pay attention to where you download load it, you will need to know where the file is to import it later on.  A good place is just download it to your desktop.  Most browsers by default will put it in your download folder if it does it without giving you an option.

Importing the information into Google Maps

  • Open a Google window
  • Sign in to your Google account.  Should be a link in the upper right called Sign In, unless you are already signed in.
  • Once you have signed in you now need to go to Google maps.  In the upper right of the window there should be an icon that looks like a small box with a bunch of other small boxes inside it.  If you click that it will open a menu with a list of Google applications.  Click on Maps
  • In the upper left of the page there is a place to search for locations.  Click on the menu to the left of this that looks like three lines.
  • Go down and click on Your places
  • Then click on the link that says Maps
  • Now at the bottom you should see Create Map.  Click on that.
  • Now you should see an option to import a file.  Click the import link.
  • Click select file from your computer
  • Go to the location you previously downloaded the file you want to import.  Select the file you want to import and click open.
  • Once the import is down you should be able to move around on Google Maps and zoom into to see the information better.

This map will be saved to your Google account.  So in the future you can just log into your account and go to maps to view it.  You just do the same steps above and go to your places and you will see the map.  You don’t have to do the import any more.  You can also use the add layer option to add the other files to the same map if you want.

Good luck and hope you find this useful.