I hunted in NE this past week and the birds were just starting to gobble. The first morning of the hunt I shot the first Merriams at 10 yds. Within a couple hours I pulled off a double on 2 more birds at about 50 yds. Had a really good time my first time in NE.. Here is a picture.

Oh.. Bird one was 19.5 lbs with 9-1/2 in beard and 3/4 and 7/8 inch spurs
Bird two was 18 lbs with 8 in beard and 5/8 inch spurs
Bird three was 18.5 lbs with 8-1/4 in beard and 7/8 inch spurs

Nice work, and that is why I love hunting Nebraska too. I hunted in the north central NE 2 weeks ago. What part were you hunting in??

Holt county in the sandhills.. Lots of Birds!

Did you hunt private or public land?? We hunted Rock Co and I can't remember the other county name. I do remember seeing Holt Co on the atlas though. Are those birds rio or merriams, or both???

Thats getting it done!

Wow! Well done

Private Ground and they are Merriams.. I'm not too sure that there are any Rio's up there.. There are Hybrid Birds in the area also.

They place we hunted was supposed to be merriams too but we had one that looked like an eastern, 4 that looked like rios, and 1 that was really whitelike the merriams. It was still a fun hunt.

They do kind of look like a hybrid between a Rio and Merriams. BTW, congrats demo on an awesome day. Those are some beautiful birds.

Here is a differnt pic. One of them could be a hybrid but by looking at the feathers the other two are for sure Merriams imo.. They have pretty white tips, not tan or bronze.. Plus the color of the rest of the bird, with the purples and blues when the sun hit them the right way.

They did have an Eastern out there too, this bird was huge but I didn't take him due to his color. Going back for Mulie in the fall, was funny to watch the mule deer and turkey chase each other around.. Awesome land!