Record season expected

Val Zohner started hunting white-tailed deer in Nebraska during the first years the state established a season more than half a century ago.

In those days during the 1950s, he traveled to wooded areas near the Elkhorn or Missouri rivers.

“That’s where you had your best chance to find them,’’ he said. “They were not all over the country as they are today. You really had to hunt.’’

That won’t be the situation when Nebraska’s nine-day firearm deer season opens Saturday.

A record deer population is producing the best big-game hunting in Nebraska history, according to the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. Hunters are expected to bag a record number of antlerless whitetails and older bucks.

Zohner plans to be among an estimated 70,000 deer hunters in the field this weekend when he travels from his Norfolk home in northeast Nebraska to McCook in the southwest in search of mule deer.

Zohner’s focus this weekend — and every week of the year — is far beyond a 150-yard shot at a muley on the prairie.

Zohner, 67 and retired from Goodyear, is president of Elkhorn Valley Whitetails Unlimited, a non-profit conservation organization based in Norfolk. The chapter has received state and national recognition for its annual fundraising banquets, especially its emphasis on encouraging youth hunting.

The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission presented the chapter with a certificate of achievement at a recent meeting in Tekamah for its extraordinary efforts to supply kids 15 and younger with lifetime hunting permits.

Forty children received lifetime hunting permits in a drawing at the chapter’s banquet in September. Last year, 30 permits were awarded. Twenty lifetime permits were awarded in 2007.

Fathers and grandfathers bring their children and grandchildren for a chance at a lifetime permit, regularly valued at more than $300 for Nebraska residents.

“We had one dad bring his 2-year-old to the banquet for the drawing this year,’’ Zohner said.

Zohner said the chapter promotes youth hunting as a way to reverse the national decline in the number of hunters.

“Us older guys will only last so long,’’ he said. “If we can’t get the kids going, it’ll be a dying sport.’’

Zohner said he has been encouraged in seeing more youth who were out pheasant hunting than in past years.

“Kids are out there in their (hunter) orange, proud to walk with their dad,’’ he said. “They might be carrying a BB gun but they’re out there enjoying the outdoors, and that’s what it’s all about.’’

The Whitetails Unlimited chapter’s banquet sells out, attracting more than 600 people.

“The kids love it,’’ Zohner said. “We have bow-and-arrow shooting at life-size targets and indoor laser shooting for them. It keeps them occupied and it’s fun. We want kids the next year to say, ‘Hey, Dad, let’s go back.’”

Contact the writer:

444-1127, david.hendee@owh.com

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