Prairie grouse for newbie

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bumpnbtm
Rank: Just A Pup
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Jul 05, 2016 12:28 pm

Prairie grouse for newbie

Post by bumpnbtm » Thu Jul 26, 2018 8:51 am

Last year I did some internet research & headed to KS on a blind hunt. I had my dog, 2 shot guns, a 30 box of busch light, bottle of woodford. I was prepared to sleep in the back of the truck and hunt public land. I ran into a couple of guys from OK & had a great 4 day hunt tagging along with them for 1/2 of my trip. I learned a lot about pheasant hunting from these guys - most importantly that I needed more than 1 box of beer & 2 boxes of shells for four days.

I'm going to try my luck at a "blind" hunt again this year. Me & a buddy are going to leave from Chicago area on the 25th of Sept with a destination of Valentine Nebraska driving back on Sept 30th. With my lessons learned from last year we are going to have 4 dogs this time (3 veteran hunters & a pup) with a campsite reserved at Merritt reservoir. My buddy is a water fowl hunter & I hunt in WI primarily for grouse & woodcock, so my teams skill set (to include the dogs) are not in prairie hunting. There is much less information on hunting prairie grouse in Nebraska than roosters in KS available on line. I have a call out for the regional biologist & reached out for a couple of hunters that had hunts posted on social media, but haven't gotten a lot of information back. I'm not asking for GPS coordinates but I sure could use pointed in the right direction. There are 3 large national forests/refuges in the general area we are planning on staying. The public hunting atlas that I downloaded isn't very helpful as it does not have any detail on roads/trails. Does anyone have a resource for a map of the area that has roads, landmarks(windmills & ponds), & elevation? I would love to hook up with a local to show us the ropes for a day or get some local knowlege.

The things that I have read/learned through research:
Bring lots of water
plan to walk a lot
prairie grouse don't use "normal bird" cover - if the grass is over knee high its too high
Chickens are around crops more than sharp-tail
snakes may or may not be an issue - avoid prairie dog towns

JONOV
Rank: 2X Champion
Posts: 408
Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2016 9:26 am
Location: Raleigh, NC

Re: Prairie grouse for newbie

Post by JONOV » Fri Jul 27, 2018 8:30 am

During cold-ish weather, look on the south facing hill sides. On Windy days, the side out of the wind.

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