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Thanksgiving Adventure Report

Will give a quick report today on some of my adventures over the Thanksgiving holiday.  My wife and I ventured west to spend the long weekend with my son, aunt, cousins and their families.  We had a great time, ate a lot of good food, played games, told stories, hunted and fished.

Yes, I said fished. . . .

On ice.

Now, I hesitate to even mention that because there is hardly any ice in the state that is safe to be on now.  We found 7 inches on a small pond in north-central Nebraska.  The pond sat in a valley and was shaded from the afternoon sun.  Let me also say that we tried finding safe ice on other waters to fish, and did not.  We walked away from it.  But, yes, I have been on the ice.  I can only recall one other time when I was ice-fishing on Thanksgiving.

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We did not hunt hard, but spent some time looking for birds.

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Daniel Bauer photo. Thanks, Daniel!

The grouse were skittish, but we watched one small group pitch in just over the crest of a hill.  Knowing where they were we planned a sneak and at the flush my son was in range.  It would have been a bit of a long poke for me, so I passed.  Another bunch of sharpies eluded us.

We found some rascally roosters, but that was late in the day, literally minutes before sunset.  We passed on them, mumbled a few discouraging words their way.  However, we know where they live!

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Photo courtesy of NEBRASKAland Magazine.

We saw wildlife, all kinds of wildlife, everywhere we went.  Let me say this, I saw A LOT of really nice deer that survived rifle deer season!

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No, not the nicest buck we saw, but he was one of many!
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Always a good day when I see pronghorns!
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One warm afternoon, the masked bandits were everywhere. Do not know what they were hunting on the sun-exposed wetland edges? Frogs? Snails? Tadpoles?

It was a great trip, we live in a great state!  Cannot wait to get out again!

About daryl bauer

Daryl is a lifelong resident of Nebraska (except for a couple of years spent going to graduate school in South Dakota). He has been employed as a fisheries biologist for the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission for 25 years, and his current tour of duty is as the fisheries outreach program manager. Daryl loves to share his educational knowledge and is an avid multi-species angler. He holds more than 120 Nebraska Master Angler Awards for 14 different species and holds more than 30 In-Fisherman Master Angler Awards for eight different species. He loves to talk fishing and answer questions about fishing in Nebraska, be sure to check out his blog at outdoornebraska.org.

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