What to think about Nebraska

I was born and raised in Nebraska.....moved away 6 years ago. I came back before Thanksgiving to hunt with the same expectation in mind that "Nebraska Upland Hunting has died." I was wrong. We hunted central Nebraska. York to the Kansas border. 4 guys had their limit with 2.5 hours. We saw 150+ hens and 75+ Roosters in that time frame. The biggest wild flush included 50 birds. There are birds there, trust me. Are there as many as there were 10+ years ago.....probably not and like many of you said, there are a lot of people to point fingers at.

(Some of the tail feathers were already taken off a few of these birds)

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Cornhusker said:
I was born and raised in Nebraska.....moved away 6 years ago. I came back before Thanksgiving to hunt with the same expectation in mind that "Nebraska Upland Hunting has died." I was wrong. We hunted central Nebraska. York to the Kansas border. 4 guys had their limit with 2.5 hours. We saw 150+ hens and 75+ Roosters in that time frame. The biggest wild flush included 50 birds. There are birds there, trust me. Are there as many as there were 10+ years ago.....probably not and like many of you said, there are a lot of people to point fingers at.
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Many years ago, I remember on Sunday morning after opening Saturday, seeing the World Herald game warden reports from all over. These were years where you could raise pheasant darn near anywhere! Almost all had pheasant harvest of one or one and fraction, per hunter, with 30-40 surveyed. We were done in two hours on both days, go figure?
 
Cornhusker said:
I was born and raised in Nebraska.....moved away 6 years ago. I came back before Thanksgiving to hunt with the same expectation in mind that "Nebraska Upland Hunting has died." I was wrong. We hunted central Nebraska. York to the Kansas border. 4 guys had their limit with 2.5 hours. We saw 150+ hens and 75+ Roosters in that time frame. The biggest wild flush included 50 birds. There are birds there, trust me. Are there as many as there were 10+ years ago.....probably not and like many of you said, there are a lot of people to point fingers at.

(Some of the tail feathers were already taken off a few of these birds)

image2.jpg
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Nice job, curious guessing you were on private land with good habitat obviously :10sign:
 
My dad and I headed to southwest Nebraska for a long weekend over the mlk holiday. We started out Saturday morning and decided to check out walk in areas along highway 34. It was a nice day but the wind was howling. Luckily for the dogs there was still leftover moisture on the ground from the snow a couple of weeks ago. We hunted three different fields and my dad and I both connected with roosters in two of the three fields.

The next day we woke up to a frosty morning but less wind which was a good thing. Hopefully the birds wouldn't be so spooky and let the dogs work them. We decided to head a little further east and check out some public areas we had hunted earlier in the season. It was a perfect day and I had two roosters that held for my gwp and I connected on both of them.

We hunted hard for 2.5 days! We saw quite a few birds, most of them were flushing wild but it was encouraging to see that many birds this late in the season. I hope we continue to have a mild winter and get good moisture come spring and summer. My dad and I killed a few pheasants and quail and more importantly we spent time enjoying good dog work and spending time in the beautiful Nebraska countryside.
 
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Bigj said:
My dad and I headed to southwest Nebraska for a long weekend over the mlk holiday. We started out Saturday morning and decided to check out walk in areas along highway 34. It was a nice day but the wind was howling. Luckily for the dogs there was still leftover moisture on the ground from the snow a couple of weeks ago. We hunted three different fields and my dad and I both connected with roosters in two of the three fields.

The next day we woke up to a frosty morning but less wind which was a good thing. Hopefully the birds wouldn't be so spooky and let the dogs work them. We decided to head a little further east and check out some public areas we had hunted earlier in the season. It was a perfect day and I had two roosters that held for my gwp and I connected on both of them.

We hunted hard for 2.5 days! We saw quite a few birds, most of them were flushing wild but it was encouraging to see that many birds this late in the season. I hope we continue to have a mild winter and get good moisture come spring and summer. My dad and I killed a few pheasants and quail and more importantly we spent time enjoying good dog work and spending time in the beautiful Nebraska countryside.
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Always good to hear success stories when talking about Nebraska Upland. Congrats and well done!!!!
 
Congrats to those who posted these success stories, and I have a bit of one myself. Decided to get out over the MLK holiday in the NE Panhandle. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of birds seen and I bagged 3 roosters in 1.5 days of hunting. With a little better shooting I easily could have bagged 2-3 more - but that's hunting. Saw lots of hens. All on public land.

There are areas with great cover, and other areas that are barren. Overall with favorable weather this spring/summer the stage could be set for a very good season this fall and beyond.

It is easy to get caught up in the negativity about the poor conditions but I came back from this hunt with some renewed hope. We all know it is all about quality habitat. If we don't own land ourselves that we can control the best we can do is support the organizations that are fighting on our behalf for better habitat, and get out there and enjoy the scenery and the hunt...
 
My buddy and I just got back from a trip to Nebraska and I have to say that , from my perspective, there was a lot of great cover and quite a few birds. We were able to get into several coveys of quail, some roosters and even a group of prairie chickens. We didn't find huge numbers of birds but that was probably due to the fact that we were mostly hunting behind a 7 month old Setter. We did find enough birds to keep it interesting and worth the trip from Virginia(land of no birds). I've always said that what may be bad hunting to someone that lives out there could be great hunting for a couple of guys from Virginia. I can tell you that we will be back, for sure.
Below is my setter, Jack. He had a ball. We didn't get a lot of good pics because our hands were shaking because of the cold.
http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u160/jch255/P1150376_zps15df3b8c.jpg
 
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