What We Do in the Off-Season

I am very sorry I missed the email last week. My family had an unexpected issue come up that caught all of us by surprise. Many of our Kansas and Nebraska customers already know what I am talking about. My little brother, Tanner, had an amber alert go out as he took his two step-grandkids on a trip to Kansas. There are a lot of details to the story and it’s very complicated. I believe my brother’s intentions were good but the decision in how he went about it was not good. As many of you know, my brother Tanner worked for us part time for many years and came on full time in 2018-2019. In October 2019, Tanner took a different career path and is also owner and manager of the Tekamah motel in Tekamah, NE. I would like to ask that you all pray for Tanner and his wife Nora as they are both in custody.

Let’s lighten it up a little now. We get asked all the time, “Hunting season is over so what do you do now?” Our team, along with my family, celebrated the last day of the season with a little take-out and we recapped the season together. I prepped the team by telling them, “Yes, season is over but the real work now begins…” So what do we do now? Shur Shot Gamebirds and Pheasant Bonanza team up and do food plot management, waterfowl lake management, and habitat management for other customers. We will be working sun up to sun down every day it’s dry until the middle of June on projects. If we had the resources, we could keep one guy on a sprayer 10 hours a day 7 days a week just to stay ahead on spraying. It’s one of my favorite times because my boys help a lot and it allows me to bring back my farmer roots and tinker in the farming business. So far, we  have burned a lot of our ground and we’ve helped quite a few land owners burn this year too. Our burn team was very busy burning over 1,500 acres. Let us know if you have any projects that you’d like us to look at. We will travel up to 1.5 hours away with our equipment but we will also travel anywhere in the world for consulting. This year we have had consulting jobs in Wyoming and Kansas and have taken our equipment as far as 15 miles south of Yutan, NE. Our partnered team also raises over 20,000 pheasants for other clubs, private stocking, or private hunts. We have 5,500 chicks in right now and the rest will be coming throughout the summer in 5 week increments.

Pheasant Bonanza offers so much in the off-season. Our lodge does not shut down and we keep our guides, trainers, chef and lodge staff on year-round. One of our focus areas in the non-peak or off-season is our open dining and lodge gatherings. Gatherings may consist of family reunions, birthday parties, bachelor parties, friend gatherings, or corporate meetings and team building events. We offer significant discounts during our non peak season. Another big part of our off-season is dog training. Our dog trainers are very busy throughout the spring and summer prepping client dogs for the fall and to be well mannered. Our guide dogs get walked by Chuck and they get to go out on birds a couple times during the week to keep them fresh. Closer to the season, we will start running them with an ATV/UTV for exercise. As I mentioned in my last email, as a member, you can train in the off-season, use our grounds, get a couple birds, and enjoy fresh air with your hunting companion. Lastly, we offer sporting clays, trap shooting, 5-stand, skeet, and this year we are going to run a short sporting clay league with a flurry integrated into the score. We didn’t do a league for quite a few years due to lack of interest but we thought with the COVID19 keeping everyone in, by the end of the summer we’d have more interest in a league. Leagues are a lot of fun and they include a free dinner to encourage camaraderie. We will be sending out reminders as we get closer.

Don’t forget we are open by appointment so if you’d like to schedule something give Sheri a call (402-374-1765). We have a lot of things we want to accomplish this year to make our services and facility better for this fall. Again, if you have any suggestions please let us know.

Here are a couple things I want to leave you with: Don’t celebrate the “busyness” and don’t compare your schedule to others. As my friend Wade Johannes always says, “Busy is NOT the end goal.”

COVID-19 has taught me that we need to step back, appreciate the important things in life, and enjoy life.