I agree Nebraska G&P has limited resources. My ex's family is from Hastings, but we drove all over the state. I drove up there twice a year for 7 years to hunt in the Winter, and fish in the Summer. The only Game Warden I ever saw checked us catfishing one time at a place called Guide Rock (loved that place). We had free access to several spreads of private land for deer hunting (muzzle loader only), so I bought a muzzle loader and got into that. That sure was a lot of fun. I really wanted to rifle hunt whitetails in Nebraska, but yall's rifle season is nuts. Not sure about now, but back then the season was only 7 days long if I remember correctly, which meant everybody and their neighbor's brother's cousin's were out there hunting on top of each other. Muzzle loading later was good enough for me!

Yup. Still 9 days and thats it for firearm. Big game seasons for up here haven’t been finalized yet for this year. I think all of the western states are being inundated with Eastern hunters wanting to hunt out west. They are certainly welcome here but G&P is trying to manage the situation properly. The MZ season is usually the whole month of December but it gets darn cold here by then. Hastings isn’t far from where I live. Maybe one day our paths will cross but like most hunting conversations go, the first liar won’t have a chance.

Man you've got the cold part right in late December. First time I hunted Nebraska it was 3 degrees with a wind chill of -17. That was quite the culture shock for this South Texas boy!

heck I hunted in Ks. and the wind chill was 29 below

Nuts.

I'm a guy that learns from his mistakes and doesn't care about telling the story to others so that they don't follow in my footsteps. About 4 years ago, Opening day of deer season here was an almost constant windchill of minus 20. I was sitting in a ground blind from about an hour before sunrise until 1/2 hour after sunset. The day before I had purchase a Mr. Buddy Heater. Took it still in the box to the groundblind. Yes, I did take the small bottles of propane. It was so frigging cold in that groundblind that I couldn't convince myself to open box and read instructions so at the end of the day, it was still in the box. I figured it was so cold I didn't want to move from my warmest position and read the instructions. I should mention that that particular day, it was so cold that even the deer were smart enough not to come out. All I saw was one coyote as I sat there and shivered all day. Next day was about 30 degrees warmer. Buck came through shortly after dark thirty. Shot him and went home.

Got home and opened box. Read instructions. Attach propane. Hit On/Off switch. Couldn't believe it. Now there is a genuine case of the Dumba$$! Bad preparation. Bad execution.

I have never hunted Nebraska, but when hunting in northern Kansas, several times when I talked to locals about where to hunt, they would give me local advice, but then often follow it with "but we do most of our hunting up in Nebraska".

There are some huntable populations but they are spotty. In the old days they were all over. Now in some areas there are none. Local knowledge would be a huge plus to avoid those areas where there are no birds at all. NE and SW are the two sections I would start my search.

Never Nebraska for me - only Missouri

what parts of Missouri do you hunt Biscuit?
general area.......not gps coordinates.

Prairie grouse opens on Sept. 1. Sand hills are interesting. You can get a estimate of how good the hatch was by calling Valentine National Wildlife Refuge in the late summer and talking to a biologist. You can hunt on the refuge but you need non-toxic shot. (Refuge is a must see anyway--it is easy to see why the Cheyene and Souix loved that spot. Sand hills, springs everywhere, good grass, pretty chain lakes full of wildlife ). Ranchers up there will sometimes still let you hunt their place if you ask. If you go, take dog boots. There are sand spurs everywhere in the sand hills if the ground is disturbed. Once away from the road, usually not a problem. If hunting is slow, it is an easy drive up to Pierre, SD. I wouldn't botther with flatland Nebraska (south and east) Kansas has more walkins and a better chance at quail tho the season opens later. Western SD can be quite good for prairie grouse, tho the Pierre National Grasslands are a zoo opening week.

im from Missouri (southeast) is only reason i ask

I've had the pleasure of hunting Western NE since 2014 with a group that has hunted there since the 60's. (my contact only missed 4 years, 3 being when he was in Vietnam) We hunt a combo of private and public.

Upland has been plentiful - we definitely have some days where we shoot significantly less than others, but we also have several opportunities to double digits in a single push. We bring dogs from TX, as I have been lucky with my last two chocolate labs being upland hunting fools. The labs don't have the endurance as the pointers, but the more dogs the merrier - they truly make it a FUN hunt. Our hunting party consist of 4-25 guys depending on the day and year, with 6-10 being from Texas and the others being family from NE.

We see lots of quail, lots of pheasant, and the occasional prairie chickens.


I absolutely love the trip. Last year was a first for this itinerary, as it was hard hunting, but it was successful. We headed north from Waco about 6:30 pm, and strolled in NE around 4:30, not getting in much of a hurry on the way up. We changed in the first truck stop parking lot we found and were sitting at a public spot at first light. We hunted most of our way west, with just the TX group, and got settled into the motel Thurs evening. Friday morning we were up and hunting early and hunted most of the day, waiting on our NE family to make it across the state. We hunt hard sat and sun, and leave sunday around 5pm for home, driving through the night.

It takes it toll on us for sure, but it always a fun and eventful trip. I recommend it!