|
Free-roaming trophy whitetail bucks on private ranch along the Niobrara River in northwestern Nebraska |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
If you're like me, you've been on a hunt, looking over a barbed wire fence at perfect deer habitat, wishing you could hunt where the "grass is greener." Well, this hunt offers you that chance because this ranch not only is beautiful with ideal whitetail habitat, but it also is well-managed by the ranch owner, who takes just eight to 10 hunters a year. The result? Almost every year all of his customers take mature bucsk. These are typically in the 130 to 150 class, but some of them get bigger, and he has produced several in the high 160s and has seen some even bigger. Recently he found a set of shed antlers that net-scored approximately 176 Boone and Crockett points, and he had them mounted. A neighbor got a buck in the 180s one year, and that buck surely spent a great deal of his life on our rancher's property. This has been one of the best whitetail hunts we've booked. The rancher himself conducts the hunt out of a bunkhouse on his property, which covers several thousand acres along the Niobrara River in northwestern Nebraska. In this part of Nebraska, the deer spread out over many miles during the summer, feeding not only along the river bottom and the pastures in the bottomland but also in the various cropfields and pastures up above the bottoms. By the time fall comes most of the crops are harvested, and the deer concentrate in the remaining cover. This ranch is ideal with small canyons holding beautiful ponderosa pines and brush patches, and the river bottoms down below features mostly cottonwood trees, brush and pastures. The land is private and not far from the South Dakota Border..
Sheds found on the property in 2006 score 176 B&C net. The rancher/outfitter runs some cattle and owns a bed and breakfast on the property. Over the past 20 years bucks have averaged between 140 to 150 Boone and Crockett points. Hunter success was 100% the past two years with seven hunters taking a buck each year. The biggest bucks taken on the property have gross-scored more than 175 B&C, and there have been several that have netted between 165 and 170. In the past few years the rancher has added some neighbor's property to his exclusive hunting territory, and he has dramatically reduced the number of deer that used to be killed in his area. He decided to add a couple of muzzleloader hunters per year. If you ever want to get in on the rifle hunt, book this blackpowder hunt, and you'll move to the top of the waiting list. The blackpowder season opens the first Saturday of December. In-line muzzleloaders and 1X scopes are legal. The outfitter has a little honey hole in the head of a canyon that leads to a neighboring alfalfa field, where no hunting is allowed by the owner. This spot has produced several big bucks the past few years. The bucks cross there coming off the field in the morning and the hunter on watch can see them coming for 15 minutes, giving him plenty of time to make the 70 yard shot as they pass by. You can hunt from tree stands and ground blinds along the river. There are some good canyons for still-hunting during the day. In the evening sometimes you might hunt a sub-irrigated meadow near a clover field or hunters take watch in one of the many canyons on the property. Some of the biggest bucks get away each year. The rancher each winter sees some great bucks scoring up to 180 B&C after the seasons. The rancher keeps a map that pinpoints where every buck has been killed on the property since 1973. He takes his whitetail hunting seriously.
|
Click on the photos for larger images
Update from the rancher: "There are a lot of deer right now. Down where you went turkey hunting along the river we found 79 sheds. We didn't have any blackpowder hunters in 2007. We had one bowhunter, and he got a 135 P&Y. All our hunters have filled their tags the past two years, 2006 and 2007. We would like a couple of bowhunters in late October. We prefer just one bowhunter a year, but if two come together, that's OK. The bow hunt is pre-rut when you can still program the bucks a little. The size of our bucks has been pretty standard all these years. A couple of matched sheds we found were great bucks in the 160s, and they'll be around this year, too. There are at least two monsters because I've seen them. One of them I saw on Thanksgiving. He's a really nice buck. He has big, old, bladed G2 tines that are 12 or 13 inches tall. They looked 1 1/2" wide. Another thing: We had a guy stay in our bunkhouse, and he saw a mountain lion right by our house. That's the first one we've had around here. The hunters can pick either week. I have four hunters booked for the first week and two for the last week, and I would like to have four hunters the last week. I run a one-man show, and that's about all I can handle. My son, Grant, got a nice muley this past season. It scored about 165 Boone and Crockett. We're starting to see some very nice muleys now. I always tell the guys they can maybe kill a heckuva mule deer here. The tag is good for either whitetail or mule deer. You have to buy a tag in July still. I send the applications, they fill them out, and we take them to the office and make sure they're here when they get here. As for turkey people can book for 2009 at $1,000."
|
||||||||||||||||||||
