One Box, pheasants and friends in Broken Bow

BROKEN BOW, Neb. — Pat Keslar called a predawn huddle before sending the team into the field Saturday.

His playbook was simple.

Don't shoot the dog. Keep a straight line. Walk slowly. Pay attention to where a pheasant falls when shot.

“When you knock a bird down, everyone mark the spot. We don't need to lose any,” Keslar said.

About 90 minutes later, he backed up his pep talk with a highlight reel 50-yard chase down a hillside into a grassy canyon to make a diving tackle of a wounded, running pheasant.

Keslar's heroics put one more ringneck into the bag for the Wiechman Pig Co. Team competing in the Nebraska One Box Pheasant Hunt. The team finished third. A team of Nebraska Game and Parks commissioners won.

The annual hunt is a team competition. Each year — this being the 49th — seven teams of five hunters compete and are allowed to shoot only one box of 25 shells. The winner is determined by what time a team checks in with the fewest shells fired and the most birds bagged.

State game laws apply, so a team is limited to no more than 15 birds, if each hunter shoots his three-pheasant limit.

Hunters came from across the U.S. The seven teams are comprised of a veteran One Box hunter and four first-timers. About 60 past shooters also returned to hunt.

The hunt raises thousands of dollars for college scholarships and for pheasant habitat.

Dick Phillips of Kenesaw, Ga., participated in this first One Box in 1991.

“I've made so many friends here it's unbelievable,'' he said. “This is the heartland of America. The people are salt of the earth.''

Phillips hunted on a low-key team of past shooters that took its time getting into the field Saturday. Daylight was burning.

“Years ago, my goodness, you had to get out there; you wanted to kill them all,'' he said. “Now I don't care if I kill any. It's just the camaraderie with all the people I know and the new people I meet. I'll always come back until I can't do it anymore.''

Todd Anderson of Broken Bow, the hunt chairman, said the community rallies around the hunt.

“And we're seeing more birds all the time, and that's a good thing,'' he said.

Teams scattered across Custer County and into neighboring Valley County under a canopy of stars and a bright moon to start the hunt. Hunters shed their jackets as the temperature climbed into the 60s.

Kevin Janata of Howells, Neb., who hunted with the Wiechman team, was impressed with the habitat central Nebraska landowners are creating and preserving for wildlife.

“I've hunted for 30 years around my house in the sloughs and little draws, but this is great country to hunt,'' he said. “Most of our acres are farmed.''

The Wiechman Pig hunters started their day on land owned by Dr. John Ford south of Oconto. He opened his farm to the One Box Hunt about six years ago.

“I just have a passion for creating habitat,'' Ford said. “Good habitat is a hard thing to get anymore. Farming is so intensive. I'm trying to show my neighbors you can have a viable agribusiness operation and still leave some ground to hunt and have some wildlife habitat and a place for pheasants, deer and turkey.''

Ford said it doesn't take much land to make a big difference for wildlife.

“It means so much to these birds to just have a little place where they can get born and where they can get out of the wind and storms,'' he said. “You give these birds half a chance and they'll be there.''

Keslar, a retired bank president and longtime One Box supporter, was the dog handler for the Wiechman team. It was after his English pointer, Gypsy, missed grabbing the wounded rooster that Keslar chased down the bird.

He said the charm of the hunt is the friendships it spawns. He has hunted with Army Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, Iditarod winner Jeff King, Indianapolis 500 winner Johnny Rutherford and many others at the One Box.

“And they're just people,'' Keslar said. “That's the way they're treated. That's why they like it here.''

Contact the writer:

444-1127, david.hendee@owh.com

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