Just got my new issue of The Prairie Naturalist. Recent study showed remarkably high nest success rates and stable populations for Greater Prairie Chicken and Sharp-tailed Grouse in the Nebraska Sandhills.

That’s because I wasn’t allowed across the border to hunt them last fall.

You Canadiens shoot them off the nest?



I know one thing, I'll be there next fall.

Do you have a citation for that article by chance?

I am intending to lay myself off this week, so that I can be there next week, to finish the season.

Thanks for the hotspotting, as I pursue yet another Nebraska slam.

I will be there Tuesday myself. What region are you headed too? I won't be pursuing a "Nebraska Slam", but a few quail to go with a few pheasants would be just fine and dandy. Will be in the Alma/Orleans area.

North Central (see how you do that)
I’m waiting for the release of a new set of drawings for phase 2 of this project, so I can slip away for a few days, and somebody else gets to stick around while I’m gone. Rather than lay them off.

Well good luck up there. Any we miss we will push north

My Nebraska buddy has been telling me that the weekends are hideously crowded with hunters, even this late in the season and in bad weather. Lots of out of staters as well as distant in-staters.

Here is is Brent.


Greater prairie-chickens and sharp-tailed grouse have similarly high nest survival in the Nebraska Sandhills. Multiple authors. The Prairie Naturalist 52 (2) pp 76-79. December 2020. Corresponding author email honkerharmony@gvtel.com

good luck guys!

Late season Prairie birds are about as tough a quarry as there is.
They are flocked up, and very wary.
Ideally, you identify their currently preferred food, and then catch them when they come in to feed.

Or, you catch some sunning themselves over a hill crest.
Pheasants and quail are more predictable.

In my one time deliberately hunting sharpies in Nebraska, I finally bumped into them. 150 of them. And they all left at once, flying to the east at least 4 miles before I could no longer see the dark smudge of the flock against the sky. They are VERY tough in late season. I'll try in the heat of September next fall. This coming week, we will take the easy road and go after quail and pheasant. I shot approximate 0.2 quail per year. I would like to raise my average...

Hal, thanks much for the citation. I shall track it down momentarily.

For sure and they always post sentries, especially after the coveys consolidate later in the fall. They and prairie chickens were considered semi-migratory as huge flocks would move hundreds of miles south during extreme winters, at least in North Dakota. An old friend saw a mass movement of prairie chickens into the Jamestown area back in the '30's. I saw a flock of sharptails on a winter hunt one time that I estimated at 300; all came out of a single large wetland where they were feeding on big snails that died as bottom soils were exposed. A nice piece of protein with grit to go with it! They flew as a group out of sight to the SE.