Anyone with experience or suggestions
For this 2024 season maybe Nebraska
Please step up. Wanna hunt for 2 birds and ma nice
Experience and for my wife to have a vaca at the same time.
What you got brethren?

BGH
Do you have a good recommendation!
?

Bucket list hunt.

He used to have a good one. The guide was half Billy goat I'm pretty sure but he put me on the birds. I was young and in decent shape back then so I could hang with him. He'd be dragging my arse up the mountains today

Western NE was a beautiful place to hunt last year. There’s lots of historic sites to see and places to visit. My son and I gained access to private ground and we killed our birds in two days. Almost all of the outfitters out that way said bird numbers are way down from previous seasons. Some of them were not even booking hunts. Nonetheless, we found a few birds and got it done on pure white tipped merriams.

It has been 10.years since I hunted western nebraska. Public land birds were tough, but we killed a couple in 2 days. Private land birds were about as easy as any place Ive ever been. In fact, my buddy I went with wanted to go back and I said Id only hunt the public because while it was a good story the private was like shooting tame birds.

Very pretty out there but they had some big fires and lost some mature pines since then. I went through on a camping trip about 3 years ago and some of the nice pine ridges we huntes are now just brushy and kind of ugly.

Ft Robinson State Park, an old US ARMY Calvery Post. They have cabins and a big old Hotel. I like the hotel better. Lots of public land around there close by. Cool place.

I killed mine in northern Wyoming. Flew into Billings Montana and drove down to Sheridan Wyoming and hunted with an outfitter there. Plenty of sight seeing around with the Bighorn National park there. Beautiful country. Lots of elk, huge whitetail, pheasants, antelope. We even saw a cougar. The battle field were Custard last stand occurred is in the area too. We visited it.

Those are some pretty places. On our family vacation out that way a couple of years ago my wife thought we were always taking the scenic route. Truth is I spent days scouting and she still thinks we were out for pretty drives.

I hunted them around Sundance last May. Got close every day, but couldn’t close the deal. Then the weather ran us out of there!

I found the secret to killing Merriams as opposed to Easterns is to get as close as possible before they fly down. They usually gobble in the dark allowing you to do this. They are much harder to kill if you set up 100-150 yards away. Last one my wife killed there we sat down maybe 10 yards from him. Quite a show, he flew over our heads maybe 6 feet and landed 20 yards behind us. Wife stood and killed him right there.

I took a guy to Nebraska for his first time and he fooled with a flock of gobblers for 3 days. I finally asked him what was taking so long and he said he'd set up 150 yards from them and they would fly down and go the other way. I had told him to just walk under them in the dark and put the tree they were in to his back. He said he thought I was just messing with him or didn't want him to kill any birds. We went in there the next morning and sat up against the tree they were in and did work when they flew down lol.

I found the secret to killing then was to yelp at them.

Seriously the ones I hunted would flat out come. No bull crapping around. You might wanna jog a few miles if you go to Wyoming too. Someone deflated all the air there.
I was on a semi guided hunt. The guide didn’t know much about turkey hunting. Couldn’t call a lick, but he knew the area like the back of his hand. Rolling prairie in most spots with big trees in the canyons. The Bighorn mountains in the background everywhere. We heard some turkeys a long ways off. He said they were a couple hills over let’s go. We cut out walking at a fast pace. By the time we got to where we needed to be I was down a jacket, a vest, 2 decoys and a gobbler chair. I couldn’t breathe after climbing 2 mountains in 15 minutes. He said, “call to them”… I said “… no air… forget turkey… I need oxygen!” He laughed a little and pulled out an 8 foot long box call. Made a series of terrible sounding yelps and they answered. He said they are on the next hill. I said nope we gonna call them here lol. I caught my breath and yelped pretty loud to them. They flew off the ridge and flew across the canyon. Landed about 100 yards from us. We were tucked up inside some kinda bush. No trees around. They strutted on that mountain for 20 minutes. 3 jakes and a long beard. I couldn’t get a shot. They got within range several times but the gobbler was always in the back covered up by Jake fans. The guide wanted me to shoot a Jake. Heck no I just climbed 2 mountains I’m killing a gobbler. They probably gobbled 200 times. They finally wandered off gobbling. Got tired of the hen not coming out of the bush I guess.

Later that day we were riding around glassing for the next morning. We get to a huge alfalfa field. Probably 500 acres. I get out to open the gate and there are 2 gobblers out in the middle strutting. We glass them. The guide wants me to shoot one with a 22-250. Heck no of course. I talk him into driving down the fence line and out another gate and leaving me at the gate by myself. I was gonna crawl as close as I could using a little roll in the terrain and try to call them to me. While still at the gate, I cupped my hands and yelped as loud as I could just seeing what they would do. I saw them stick out their heads and shake… 4 seconds later I heard them gobble. Long ways to an Alabama boy. Next thing I know they take off trotting towards me. They keep coming. Well crap I better sit down so I lean against the gate post. They come all the way to me. I never yelped again. They strutted the last 150 yards. Mountains in the background, white rump feathers. I mean the most beautiful thing you have ever seen. All that beauty made me look right over the bead on my gun barrel. Boom! Clean miss at 35 yards. They both gobble at the gun shot. I shucked a shell into my nova and they gobbled at that too. Second shot killed him though. It literally looked like something out of a magazine when they strutted up. I just sat there for the next hour leaning on that gate post. Thanking the Lord and admiring such a beautiful bird.

So yeah the ones I hunted were easy to call and there were plenty of em. But heck that’s been 15 years ago.

I found merriams to be easier to call than easterns.

No kidding?

lol

everything is easier to call than Easterns....

Preach brother!

I hunted north central Nebraska last spring. When I found birds they would
Play but it took me a day or 2 to get into birds. The one I killed would be considered a Merriam I don’t believe. At least I don’t call him that. Hybrid maybe, but looked a lot like a rio.