Visiting the local check station is the best place to get the lowdown on the opening day of the firearm deer season.
JOE DUGGAN / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Sunday, November 16, 2008 6:00 pm
NEBRASKA CITY — In recent years, Paap’s Sport Shop has checked about 100 deer on the opening day of the firearm season.
Someone has to be the first.
In the early hours of the 2008 season, Pat Chaney was the first to walk through the doors of the longtime Nebraska City hunting and fishing retailer.
The veteran deer hunter had killed a young doe, and he arrived at Paap’s at about 8:30 a.m.
In so doing, he set in motion a Nebraska deer hunting ritual — going to the check station.
The check station is where stories are swapped, photos are shot and rack size is serious business. Sometimes it’s easy to forget the check station really has a scientific purpose.
Rick Schneider, a wildlife biologist with the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, collected information about Chaney’s deer — sex, where it was shot, private or public land, etc. The information will will go into a database that will help the commission manage future seasons.
A few minutes later, 21-year-old Kenny Scharp walked in. After the biologist aged Scharp’s buck and fastened a metal tag around the base of its antlers, the hunter said he’ll definite use his bonus tag in an attempt to get a doe during the rest of the nine-day season.
“It’s the adrenaline,” he said as a smile appears beneath his AC/DC cap. “It’s just fun.”
At about 8:45 a.m., Ted Vasko of Papillion and his 12-year-old daughter, Anna, arrived with a young doe in the pickup bed.
“Are we first?” the father asked. “We wanted to be first.”
He wasn’t too disappointed to learn they were third. Anna wasn’t disappointed at all.
She told how they got up at 4 a.m. Saturday to hunt property her family owns in Otoe County. She dozed after they slipped into ground blind.
Not long after sunrise they saw their first deer. When the doe provided a clear shot at about 75 yards, she raised her .357 Rossi lever-action rifle — with open sights — and fired.
“It took me only one shot,” she said with a grin.
Her dad was happy, too. Anna is his youngest. Now all four of his children have gotten their first deer with the same rifle.
A little while later, hunters started buzzing about a nice 4x4 that had arrived at the station.
Trevor Chaney, 13, held up the beautiful rack — wide and of near perfect symmetry.
How did such a young kid shoot such a nice deer? Trevor pulled a bleat call from his pocket.
“I called and about three minutes later, he came running.”
At Hogie’s Gun & Sport in Auburn, they’ve been checking deer for the nearly three decades.
It’s good for business, said Glen Hogue, the store owner.
Since 1981, he has also organized a big-buck contest for the firearm season. On Saturday, easily more than 100 people had signed up and thrown in $5 for a chance to win a new .22-rifle.
A couple of decades ago, quail and pheasants generated the most hunters in Nebraska. Now, with about 80,000 hunters going after deer for nine days in November, the rifle season matches, if not exceeds, the upland bird season, Hogue said.
“Actually, it’s more,” he said. “There’s more excitement.”
Outside the shop, Game and Parks biologists Mark Vrtiska and Brad Goracke braved a biting north wind as they waited for hunters to arrive. Two vacuum bottles of coffee sat on a card table that also held an assortment of forms, latex gloves and filet knives.
In addition to aging the deer, Vrtiska and Goracke were collecting lymph nodes to be tested for chronic-wasting disease. So far, the fatal deer disease hasn’t been detected east of Grand Island, but the agency continues to watch for it.
Things had been pretty slow at the Auburn station — they had checked fewer than 10 deer by 10 a.m.
But Vrtiska said he knows it will pick up.
“They’re like fire ants,” he said. “They’ll mill about for a while and all of a sudden, they’re on you. That’s deer check.”
A few minutes later, a flatbed farm truck pulled up carrying a buck and a doe. James Whittlesey, 14, of Waller, Texas, was one proud hunter.
He got them both.
At about lunchtime at B&B Pump N Go in Syracuse, you would have felt a bit out of place without a fluorescent orange hat or coat.
A line of hunters stood in line to check their deer. Biologists Randy Stutheit and Jeff Hoffman had their hands full.
Ray Parolek, 66, of Lincoln, checked in a 3x3 buck. Although he’s hunted deer with a muzzleloader before, this was his first time hunting with a high-caliber rifle.
“It’s great,” he said.
What’s great about it?
“The outdoors,” he said. “And all of a sudden how they just appear.”
Reach Joe Duggan at 473-7239 or jduggan@journalstar.com.