I am looking for Public land to hunt Merriams on this spring. We drove up to the Black Hills last year (around Custer) and didn't see many birds at all. We thought we would shoot for NW NE. I see on the Nebraska State website, there are a lot of public hunting areas, some up to 4,000 acres or so. But it is hard to tell much beyond acreage.
Any thoughts or suggestions?
Did you just look for birds from the road or something? There are PLENTY of birds in the Black Hills.
Nope. We hunted hard from sunup to sundown. We covered a LOT of ground. Don't get me wrong. We had birds gobbling but they were always in a group complete with hens. They were balled up the whole time. I realize that this can happen anywhere, I am just saying that often when you have groups of henned up birds there are plenty of different groups to work. We only had one group of birds (3-4 gobblers and many hens) the whole time we were there. We tried other spots and never heard a gobble. We hunted hard for 5 days and only shot one bird. We spoke to the game warden and he also stated that there weren't many birds there.
So, back to the Nebraska thing. Any suggestions?
nebraska national forest. just south of chadron. a whole bunch of land. the last 2 years we didnt hear as many gobbing as we did in 07 the first year we went out there.
scott
I hunted the early archery season around Chadron until 2008.The birds were mostly on cattle ranches and it made for hard hunting.Depends on the weather if the flocks break up.Later could be better.
We hunted some NE public 2 years back with great success
Hey Swamprunner, what public area were u hunting and approximately what dates?
Thanks for the replies so far guys. BYW I would consider a reasonably priced non-guided of semi guided outfitter with an option of camping. Trying to keep costs down if possible. Swamprunner could you provide a little more info please as to approximately where you were? You can pm me if you like.
Thanks so much!!!
I like late season in the NF south of Chadron.
:deadhorse:
Sorry Banshee. I don't understand the beating a dead horse reference.
Thanks so much to everybody for your responses. Much appreciated.