What is passion? Passion is a feeling of intense enthusiasm towards or compelling desire for someone or something. Passion can range from eager interest in or admiration for an idea, proposal, or cause; to enthusiastic enjoyment of an interest or activity; to strong attraction, excitement, or emotion towards a person. (Taken from Wikipedia)

I am very thankful for the passion that our guides and staff display toward their duties. That passion may not be “hunting” or “shooting” but it might be meeting new people and entertaining. It may be culinary and filling the bellies of our customers. It may be the dogs, watching them work or training them to do what they were bred to do. Whatever that passion is, it makes work enjoyable! Many of us are where we are today because of passion and that is definitely my story.  

I love the advice, “Find something you love and get paid to do it.” That is what I did when I took the job at Pheasant Bonanza (PB). This is the history of how I got to Burt County and started managing PB. In 2001, I came from the small, rural town of Harvard, NE and went to Dana College in Blair, NE. I went to college to wrestle and major in Elementary Education & Special Education with an endorsement in coaching. In August 2005, I married my wife Katie and we moved to an inexpensive rental farm house on the outskirts of Fort Calhoun, NE. We both worked as much as we could so I could finish college. Choosing to red-shirt my freshman year so I could maximize my college wrestling career, I graduated in 2006. 

After spending five years in all of the education courses and then student-teaching, I chose to work for Ditch Witch of Omaha selling equipment. I worked for Ditch Witch for 15 months and during this time I started guiding and training dogs as much as I possibly could while still fulfilling my duties at Ditch Witch. I have a strong passion for training dogs and I had two labs of my own named Duece and Benelli, who some of our customers will remember. Duece was one of those “once in a lifetime dogs” and I will tell you more about him another time.  I have always said, he is the one that got me the job at PB.

During the last few months of my tenure at Ditch Witch I started training dogs up at PB as they were short a trainer. I was able to meet James Murray (owner at that time) and interact with him a few times up at the club. My issue was I was working from 6pm-dark 5-6 nights a week and my wife Katie was pregnant with our first child, Jager. The owner asked me to come to his office in Omaha and he offered me a job the first week of August in 2007. I was 24 years old, prepping the rental house for a baby, working sun up to sun down and I knew I had to make a change. I didn’t want to give up the dog training so I asked my wife if she would consider moving up to Tekamah. My wife has always been supportive but I asked her the day before we were scheduled to deliver Jager. Her response to me was; “I just want to have our baby!!!” We moved to a house on-site of PB just 2.5 weeks after Jager was born. I will give some advice to newly-married men: I would NOT recommend putting this stress on a new mother.

It was a very difficult challenge and I screwed up a lot (still do) and there were more downs than ups but we’ve been up here almost 13 years and I could not think of a better place for me to work or a better environment to raise our 3 children, Jager (12), Kruze (10), Bryx (8). God is good- we have a lot of memories, and we are blessed!  Passion is what got me here and when you are passionate about something it makes is easy to work hard at it. In the past 13 years, we have made a lot of changes and updates to Pheasant Bonanza.

Here are some of the updates:

1.) We are closing in on the end of our season (April 15) and we have some openings still left to fill. Please call Sheri at the office if you would like to get in a late season hunt. The birds are still performing very well and we have still have pheasant, Hungarian partridge, and chukar available. Don’t wait until the end as we need to make sure there will be enough birds so please book sooner than later if interested.

2.) The Gun Dog Series (GDS) dog trials are wrapping up. If you have a hunting dog that will retrieve to hand, this is a great way to extend your season and shoot birds over your dog. Next season we are planning to divide the flushing and pointing division if we have enough entries. For $75/run you can hunt with 1 or 2 hunters and have some fun! At our last competition, we had a father and son new to the game take second place and they couldn’t say enough positive about the experience they shared together.

3.) The Upland Challenge is open until April 15 and it includes 25 mixed bag upland birds, a 3-hour hunt, 25 shells, and it’s only $600/team with $100 going toward a top three place payout. You can have up to 5 hunters and up to 5 dogs (on ground at one time). Even if you only have a few hunters you can still compete and you’d get more shells per person. Don’t miss this opportunity, this is a very reasonable price for a 25 bird hunt.  

4.) We still have a few European hunts left. This is a great way to shoot a few boxes of shells in less than two hours. A private Euro hunt can be as little as $100/person depending on number of birds and shooters. We have made positive changes to our Euro and have multiple locations now. Please contact us for more information.

5.) There are a lot of events that we are offering this summer (calendar below) and remember that you can book a group in our lodge for meals with a social membership (Only $100/year). You only have to have 4 guests to book a meal with us and Chef Joey has been “on point” with his meals. Let us serve you! 

6.) We are full on dog training right now but we will have some openings toward the middle of March, please don’t wait to reserve your spot for dog training. Chris & Chuck are doing an awesome job of training and making customers happy with their results. 

Words of wisdom:  

“Your past doesn’t disqualify you, it prepares you.” Craig Groeschel

Don’t be a victim of your own circumstances! If you don’t like your story, change it. 

Sincerely,

Trent Leichleiter
Managing Partner at Pheasant Bonanza