There’s no place in Kansas like Crawford County. The area was once primarily rolling fields of prairie grasses with wooded areas only along creeks, sitting on the edge of the Ozark Plateau, but it was the search for coal that created a unique man made habitat that now attracts outdoor enthusiasts.
Decades ago, electric shovels pushed topsoil aside to get to the underground bed of coal, leaving behind steep rocky hill ranges surrounding deep pits. Known locally as “strip pit lakes”, some were left to naturally become woodlands with dense vegetation, others were planted with warm season native grasses, and low laying areas were designed to create wetland type habitats.
Stocked with a variety of fish, the unusual contrasting natural environments in a close proximity attracts a diverse range of upland birds, waterfowl, wildlife, and outdoor enthusiasts.
Birds
- bald eagles
- barred owl
- bobwhite quail
- Canada goose
- cranes
- eastern turkey
- egret
- great-horned owl
- hawks
- herons
- mourning dove
- northern harrier
- western osprey
- wood duck
Fish
- bluegill
- brown trout
- channel catfish
- crappie
- largemouth bass
- rainbow trout
- redear sunfish
- walley
- warmouth bass
- wiper (striped bass/white bass hybrid)
Vegetation
- native grasses
- cool-season grasses
- bur oak
- hackberry
- hickory
- pin oak
- walnut
- blackberry
- dogwood
- greenbriar
- honeysuckle
- poison ivy