Northcentral Nebraska deer numbers?

[bigbob]

I had been looking at a deer hunt in Northcentral NE and was wondering if there were any NE beasts that could shine some light on the deer numbers since the "outbreak" this past year. Thanks

[JakeJD]

The deaths due to EHD were very localized, some areas were hit extremely hard while other areas were not touched. Here is a map from the NGPC detailing the confirmed deaths:

http://outdoornebraska.ne.gov/hunting/EHD.asp

Nebraska has many deer, so I would not worry too much about EHD or low numbers. The top end quality is pretty sparce, but there are a lot of deer and many 2 y/o for the taking. If you are interested, the fall turkey season pretty much runs with the deer season and there are a ton of turkeys in Nebraska.

[phade]

NE has been on my radar for a long time.

What are your thoughts on the public ground? Coming from the NE, its a bit hard to get away from work to scout in Spring, so I'd have to go there, scout/hunt hot sign/glass, etc.

There are so many various forms of public ground in the midwest vs. what we have here in NY.

[JakeJD]

Here is the NGPC website on where to hunt:

http://outdoornebraska.ne.gov/hunting/where_2_hunt.asp

The eastern third of the state contains the vast majority of the habitat (spring-fed creeks, wooded drainages, rivers, etc.). There is quite a bit of public ground, but the habitat is fairly sparce and only isolated pockets actually hold deer and have daytime movement. Nebraska is a prairie state and there were not many trees around before the white man settled the area.

The vast majority of the Nebraska's deer herd live in the river bottoms (Missouri, Platte, Loup, Niobrara, etc.). If you have an area in mind, just browse through the atlas in order to find the public tracts. Anything with easy access (road nearby, less than 1/2 of walking access, etc.) will have hunters.

[phade]

Thanks for the info.

It's definitely hard to gamble the time come fall with distance that far. Not like Ohio for me, where I can burn down there for the weekend, scout it before greenup and be ready to rock when I go hunt it. basecamp seems to have a decent number of leases in the state - I'm not much of a leaser for out of state stuff, but curious if they just pitch places with mediocre ground as more than it really is. Hard to tell since I can't go visit it.