Milford is the biggest water in Kansas and its official fishing capital: wipers that school like freight trains, dependable walleye on the dam rocks, spring white bass runs up the Republican, and blue catfish that hit 60-plus pounds.
Reports current for Friday, September 4
Live verdicts from this morning's reports.
Kansas' biggest lake: 16,000 acres of Republican River water famous for wipers, walleye and springtime white bass.
Lawrence's walleye-and-crappie standby with a healthy dose of wiper.
Kansas City's crappie campus: a timber-rich Corps lake where brush-pile culture, walleye stockings and metro convenience meet.
The Osage cedar bank: clear-for-Kansas water with smallmouth on the riprap, crappie in planted forests and walleye off the points.
Kansas' crappie college: timber-lined Delaware River water where the state learns to spider-rig, plus white bass runs and heavyweight flatheads.
The Flint Hills' walleye bowl: a windswept Kansas Corps lake where the hedge rows drowned and the gold learned to ride the mud lines.
The Osage twin: Pomona's timber and flats mirror Melvern across the valley with crappie towns and wiper mornings of its own.
The Flint Hills’ walleye classroom: El Dorado’s flooded timber and windswept points teach every Kansas pattern that matters.
Kansas prairie water with a wiper problem: Kanopolis puts hard-pulling hybrids, walleye and cats under Smoky Hills bluffs.
The clearest lake in Kansas: Wilson’s rock and bluff water grows striped bass and walleye in the Smoky Hills.
High plains clear water: Cedar Bluff’s chalk bluffs hold walleye, wipers and white bass in western Kansas.
Waconda Lake: Kansas’s big walleye water, where 12,000 acres of prairie reservoir grow fish and wind in equal measure.
Southeast Kansas’ river: the Neosho runs flathead catfish, smallmouth and the state’s rarest fish.
Flint Hills water: the Cottonwood runs smallmouth and channel catfish through Kansas prairie.
A southeast Kansas river: the Verdigris runs catfish, white bass and crappie past Independence and Coffeyville.
Species activity across the state's covered waters. Peak of the year: April.
1 = slow, 5 = peak. Current month highlighted.
Seasonal surface curve for this state's dominant water type (estimated).
| Water | Type | County | Live gauge | Peak month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Milford Lake | Reservoir | Clay | USGS | Apr |
| Clinton Lake | Reservoir | Douglas | USGS | Apr |
| Hillsdale Lake | Reservoir | Miami | modeled | Apr |
| Melvern Lake | Reservoir | Osage | modeled | Apr |
| Perry Lake | Reservoir | Jefferson | modeled | Apr |
| Marion Reservoir | Reservoir | Marion | modeled | Apr |
| Pomona Lake | Reservoir | Osage | modeled | Apr |
| El Dorado Lake | Reservoir | Butler | USGS | Apr |
| Kanopolis Lake | Reservoir | Ellsworth | USGS | Apr |
| Wilson Lake | Reservoir | Russell | USGS | Apr |
| Cedar Bluff Reservoir | Reservoir | Trego | USGS | Apr |
| Glen Elder Reservoir | Reservoir | Mitchell | USGS | Apr |
| Neosho River | River | Labette | USGS | May |
| Cottonwood River | River | Chase | USGS | May |
| Verdigris River | River | Montgomery | modeled | Mar |
Kansas fishing lives on its big Corps reservoirs: Milford's wipers and walleye, Glen Elder's crappie, El Dorado, Wilson's smallmouth in surprisingly clear water. The state supplements nature aggressively: stocked wipers grow fast on gizzard shad, walleye programs sustain harvest, and community lakes put fishing within reach of every town. Spring river runs (white bass up every tributary) are the prairie's annual festival.
April-May: white bass runs and walleye on the dam faces: the classic Kansas double. Summer: dawn wiper blitzes, then deep crankbaits and live bait rigs; catfishing takes over the nights. Fall: everything follows shad to the creeks. Winter: below-dam tailraces concentrate fish and the state's blue cat fisheries (Milford, Tuttle) produce their giants.
A white bass x striper hybrid: stocked, fast-growing and violent on the strike. Milford's program is the state benchmark: 8-12 lb fish that fight like double their weight.