Hunter group enjoys another opening day
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BY JOE DUGGAN / Lincoln Journal Star
PALMYRA — The officers of the Rudy Posse called their annual meeting to order Saturday morning over plates of eggs, sausage and cheesy potatoes.
The group of nine friends has hunted pheasants together for close to 15 years, thus the name. Rudy, in case you’re at a loss, is a hunter’s abbreviation for “rooster.”
They sport little logos of pheasants on their vehicles, but they don’t bother with T-shirts, membership cards or even Robert’s Rules of Order.
But they never miss an opening day.
That’s why, well before sunrise Saturday, they gathered at the Fifth Quarter, a restaurant/bar in Palmyra. As each member shuffled in, there was much handshaking, back slapping and laughter.
There was Jon Marco, Jeff Wolgamott and Bill Wright, all of Lincoln. There was John Jarosh of Beatrice and Scott VanWie of Grand Island, who brought along his son, Luke.
Joining the group was Tom Hamilton of Omaha, who brought his sons, Garrett and Cole. And there was Greg Sander of Lincoln.
If the Rudy Posse actually had officers, Joe Dowding of Lincoln would be president. After breakfast, Dowding called everyone close for a round-table discussion.
“First thing, as always, is safety,” he said. “Let’s be safe.”
A strategy session followed, with lots of talk about directions, where to block and where to walk. Dowding’s brother, Steve, who lives in Grand Island, had to chuckle during a debate over the finer points of how to attack the field.
“The first bird gets up and everyone’s going to be all over,” he said with a laugh. “Go! Go! Go!”
They piled into trucks and SUVs and headed out of town. As he drove, Joe Dowding said, “We all appreciate the natural heritage we have here with hunting in Nebraska. We’ve also grown to understand the importance of habitat.”
He explained how they were going to hunt land that had been in his family since the 1940s. In the 1990s, he used to help manage the property with his grandmother, who rented it out.
Every so often, she would call to say how the farm management company was advising her to tear out trees and plow up grass from the draws.
“I would say, ‘Don’t do that Grandma, don’t do it,’” Dowding recalled. “She said, ‘You’re just like your Grandpa Joe. He always said leave those draws for the quail.”
After his grandmother’s death, it became Dowding’s goal to get the quarter-section of hilly ground into the federal Conservation Reserve Program. He knew the land was marginal for farming and would be better off producing grassland habitat for birds and wildlife.
It took him two tries, but he got the land into the program in 2006. He had it planted with a diverse mixture of native grasses, forbs, legumes and wildflowers.
The Posse hunted the field each of the past two seasons. Last year, they killed about a dozen pheasants on the opener, but Dowding feared a wet spring during the pheasant hatch might have hurt reproduction for this year.
Maybe so, but the rain also boosted habitat production. Dowding was delighted with the condition of the field, which included stands of Canadian wild rye, Indiangrass and big bluestem taller than the hunters.
Just as the sun crested the horizon, they started. Dowding instructed his 11-year-old daughter, Brooke, to stay behind them as they walked.
The basic plan called for six or seven hunters to walk a section of the field, pushing to blockers who tried to seal off pheasant escape routes.
The first push produced no flushes. On the second, a half-dozen pheasants got up, but most of the gunners couldn’t identify the lone rooster in the low light.
After repositioning the blockers, the walkers followed the contours of the field to the north, encouraging their dogs to seek birds while staying close.
At last, a single rooster flushed and was brought to the bag with a combo shot by Dowding and Wolgamott.
As they pushed further down the hill, several ringnecks flushed between them and the blockers. The blockers, however, missed in an age-old demonstration of how fast-flying roosters can lay waste to the best plans.
After several minutes of joking about missed shots, they repositioned for a final push through unwalked grass.
With the blockers in position, the walkers and their dogs sprang multiple roosters. VanWie converted on a double and Wolgamott brought down another bird. The dogs retrieved their prizes.
Before anyone knew it, three hours had passed. The Posse had seen a couple of dozen pheasants, a covey of quail and had put five roosters in the bag.
Yes, they could have shot better, everyone agreed, but no one was griping.
Some of the guys started talking about catching the football game. As nice as the day was turning out, the pheasants would likely spend the afternoon in standing corn anyway.
No one had to say it.
Meeting adjourned.
Reach Joe Duggan at 473-7239 or jduggan@journalstar.com.
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