Nebraska Bowhunting

[dragonheart]

We are looking at going to Nebraska to bowhunt deer.  Does anyone know information about the Bessey Recreation campground or hunting the National Forest there?

Never hunted there, was there with the motorcycle. Lots of small linear hills. On the bike I was either going up or down on the area gravel roads. Much of Nebraska is not flat.  The Iowa guys use to go to the reservation lands south of Sioux City along the Missouri.  That has gotten to be very expensive.  If you are into stalking and going for turkeys, the Valentine sand hill country can be fun.

[Steve H.]

A neat area but deer densities are pretty low and lower age structure since it gets gun hunted heavily.

[shbne]

You might luck into a deer if your good at recognizing the escape routes to the bordering private lands.


But, the place you'll have the most success is meeting and talking to other hunters from across the usa.


The NE G&P advertises all over the country that we have unlimited permits, and "Lots of Public Land". It works but is pretty disingenuous. There isn't a public parcel in NE that doesn't get pounded.


Used to be it only got over run during rifle season, but now it starts sept 1 and goes till black powder season is over.


The Chamber of commerce types will be happy to take your money, but they can't grasp the irreplaceable value of your "Time Off".

[Cyclic-Rivers]

I hunted pronghorn in Nebraska afew years ago in the grasslands in the NW corner of the state.  There was a good number of mule deer but not many big ones. We all were within bowrange of does multiple times.  Saw a few white tails also but not many. I am not familiar with the area you mentioned.

[yaderehey]

I had plans to hunt based from the Bessey Recreation campground last fall with a couple of buddies from WI.  None of us was familiar with the area, just wanted to try something different and it was an alternative option since they hadn't drawn WY tags.  Work priorities kept me from being able to join them.  They said the campground was great and cheap.  They covered a lot of ground on foot and on fat tire bikes.  They saw very few deer and antelope over the course of a week. But they also had some ungodly hot weather for Sept.  They said there was not any other bowhunters in the campground that they saw, but there were several large groups of recreational ATV riders. Their final verdict was they'd try other areas before going back to the Bessey.

[Jackrhendricks]

I'm unfamiliar with the area you mentioned but I'm very familiar with a lot of the public land on the western half of the state. Feel free to Pm me if interested.

[kennym]

Is that Bessey at Halsey, NE?

[dragonheart]

Yes it is.

[kennym]

We hunted rhere a couple times for mulies . Wasn't a lot of deer, but lots of cows. If you're after whitetails down by the river it might be better. Also lots of horse folks camping and riding. We did see a couple respectable mulies but couldn't make it happen.

That was a couple years back so it may be quite different. Ow too. Good luck wherever you end up going.

[mwosborn]

Jeff - I sent you a personal message.

[Gehrke145]

I've been hunting NE pretty hard the last few years.  Muledeer are small (140s is about all we found). Whitetails have come back a bunch,  we saw 8-20+ whities on most sits.   We stay on the western side and scout with optics.  A lot of fun