Kansas publishes limits rather than seasons, with one detail that rewards reading the small print: the fifteen-inch minimums that govern the lakes do not apply once you are standing in a river.
Every season we have verified in Kansas
One block per rule, because a single species can be on two calendars in the same state depending on the water. The band under each heading is the legal season; the row under it is what our own data says the fish are doing.
Bass — Statewide
No statewide closed season. Individual reservoirs run their own slot limits, and several of the best bass waters in the state are managed tighter than the statewide default.
- Size
- 15 inches.
- Limit
- 5 a day for largemouth, smallmouth and spotted combined.
Walleye — Statewide
That river exemption is the Kansas rule worth carrying: the same fish, the same day, legal below a dam and undersized in the lake above it. Tailwater walleye fishing here is a winter and early-spring game and the exemption exists to make it workable.
- Size
- 15 inches, except in rivers, streams and tailwaters where it does not apply.
- Limit
- 5 a day for walleye, sauger and saugeye combined.
Trout — Designated trout waters
Kansas stocks trout into a set of designated waters over the colder months, and Type 1 waters require a trout permit on top of a licence. It is a put-and-take fishery built around the stocking truck rather than a season in the northern sense.
- Limit
- 5 a day for rainbow and brown combined.
Read on 2026-09-14 from Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. Read in the eRegulations edition of the official Kansas fishing regulations summary, the designated publisher for KDWP. Legal dates were read on the agency’s own page on the date shown beside each entry. Seasons change: the agency link is always the last word.
What the water is doing while the season is open
This is the part an agency page will not tell you. The temperature row above is the seasonal curve we use for the 12 of 15 Kansas waters we track on a prairie walleye profile, and it is why an opening date and a fishable date are not the same thing. A season that opens while the water is still in the forties is a legal invitation, not a biological one: the fish are there, they are just not eating on your schedule yet. Cross the legal band against the activity row before you book the day off.
Where to fish it
We publish a daily report for 15 Kansas waters, each with live flow or tide and today's conditions.
- Milford Lake — Clay County
- Clinton Lake — Douglas County
- Hillsdale Lake — Miami County
- Melvern Lake — Osage County
- Perry Lake — Jefferson County
- Marion Reservoir — Marion County
- Pomona Lake — Osage County
- El Dorado Lake — Butler County
- Kanopolis Lake — Ellsworth County
- Wilson Lake — Russell County
The licence is a separate question
An open season is not permission to fish. Kansas requires a licence from age 16, and residents pay from $27.50 against $77.50 for visitors. What a Kansas licence costs and where to buy it →
Questions
When does fishing season open in Kansas?
It depends on the species: bass no closed season published; walleye no closed season published; trout no closed season published. Every date on this page was read off KDWP on 2026-09-14.
Do I need a licence to fish in Kansas?
Yes. Kansas requires a fishing licence from age 16, from $27.50 for residents. A season being open is not permission to fish: the licence is separate and so are the size and bag limits.
Are these Kansas dates going to change?
Some of them, and the page says which. Dates written as a rule in the regulations are calculated here for 2026, so they follow the rule rather than going stale. Dates the agency sets each year are shown as exactly that, with no calendar band, because inventing one would be worse than leaving it empty.