Kansas has no wild trout, and the GBIF occurrence records behind our species pages do not show a single trout of any kind recorded in the state. What Kansas does have is a long list of recorded warmwater gamefish: bluegill, largemouth bass, channel catfish, common carp, white and black crappie, flathead catfish, freshwater drum, longnose gar, spotted bass, white bass, walleye, smallmouth bass and blue catfish. If you fish a fly rod in Kansas, that is your quarry, and it is better fishing than most people outside the state assume.
The winter trout program, and what it is not
The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks runs a seasonal trout stocking program in a rotating set of community lakes, state fishing lakes and a few short stream reaches. Fish are put in as the water cools in fall and the program runs through the cold months. These are hatchery rainbows in ponds, fished from the bank with small Woolly Buggers, egg patterns and slow-stripped leeches on a floating or intermediate line. It is a pleasant way to spend a January afternoon, not a destination fishery, and the fish are gone by the time the water warms in spring. The list of stocked waters and any special permit requirement change from year to year, so check KDWP before you go rather than trusting an old forum post.
Flint Hills streams: Cottonwood, Neosho, Verdigris and Fall River
The best moving-water fly fishing in Kansas is in the tallgrass country of the Flint Hills, where the Cottonwood, Neosho, Verdigris and Fall rivers cut limestone ledges and gravel riffles through pasture. All four are USGS-gauged, and the Cottonwood and Neosho gauges also report temperature, which matters in July when the water pushes into the eighties. These streams hold spotted bass and, in the rockier reaches, smallmouth, along with channel catfish, drum and gar. A 6-weight, a floating line and a box of crawfish patterns, Clouser Minnows in chartreuse and white, and foam poppers covers it. Wade the riffle heads at dawn in summer and swing the deeper bends with a sink tip in spring and fall.
Reservoirs: Milford, Tuttle Creek, Wilson and the rest
Kansas fishing revolves around the big Corps of Engineers reservoirs, and the fly angler has a place on them. Milford Lake, the state's largest, is known for blue catfish and walleye; Wilson Lake, on the Saline River, is the clear-water reservoir where striped bass and smallmouth show up in the records; Tuttle Creek, Perry, Clinton, Melvern, Pomona, Hillsdale and Kanopolis round out the list. The fly-rod opportunity on these lakes is mostly on the edges: largemouth and bluegill in the flooded timber and riprap in May and June, white bass busting shad on the surface in late summer and fall, and carp tailing on the wind-blown mud flats. A 7- or 8-weight with a clear intermediate line and a handful of shad-colored streamers is the reservoir rig.
The white bass run
If Kansas has one event worth planning a fly trip around, it is the spring white bass run. When water temperatures climb in March and April, white bass leave the reservoirs and push up the feeder rivers, stacking in the riffles and below low-water crossings. On the Neosho above John Redmond, the Big Blue and Little Blue above Tuttle Creek, and the Republican and Smoky Hill above Milford and Kanopolis, a small white or chartreuse Clouser stripped through a run can produce fish on nearly every cast for a few weeks. Timing follows the water, not the calendar, so watch the temperature gauges and go when the readings hit the upper fifties.
Catfish and carp on the fly
Channel catfish are the most widely recorded gamefish in Kansas after bluegill and largemouth, and they eat flies more readily than their reputation suggests. Dead-drifted San Juan Worms and heavy crawfish patterns along the outside bends of the Kansas River, the Arkansas and the Ninnescah take channel cats and the occasional flathead. Common carp are recorded across the state and are the closest thing Kansas has to a sight-fishing flats species: look for tailing fish on the shallow flats of Cheney, Milford and Perry on calm mornings and present a small Backstabber or hybrid carp fly a foot ahead of the fish.
Before you go
Kansas regulations vary by reservoir and by species, and the trout program in particular has its own rules and its own list of waters. Check the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks for the current season and permit details. USGS gauges on the Kansas, Arkansas, Republican, Smoky Hill, Cottonwood, Neosho and Big Blue rivers give you flow and, in several cases, water temperature, which is the single most useful number for timing warmwater fish. For the full inventory of gauged waters and more on the state's fisheries, see the Kansas fishing hub and the Kansas trout page.