350,000 Est. Whitetail Population

140,000 No. Licenses Sold Annually

$50-$93.50 Resident statewide whitetail buck tag is $73.50; resident gun tag, archery or muzzleloader tag is $30. Must also have a $20 habitat stamp.

Non-resident statewide whitetail buck tag is $521; non-resident gun tag, archery or muzzleloader tag is $209. Must also have $20 habitat stamp.

Records

198 2/8″ Taken by Kevin Petrzilka in Saunders County in 2010.

187 Total B&C Typical Entries

284″ Taken by Wesley A. O’Brien in Richardson County in 2009.

118 Record B&C Non-Typical Entries

The Del Austin buck is one of Nebraska’s most recognized whitetails.

Season Dates (2015):Bow season runs from Sept. 1 to Dec. 31. Gun season is Nov. 14-22.

Muzzleloader season runs the whole month of December.

Nebraska is somewhat of a sleeper state for whitetails but it does have a couple of issues that prevent it from earning a better reputation. For starters, the November firearms season falls during the peak of the rut and that likely has an impact on age structure of antlered bucks. That said, Nebraska kill tallies include higher-than-average percentage of bucks over two years of age. The prevalence of EHD, in 2012, put the state back significantly. The disease hit hard in several areas of the state including the northeastern and southeastern regions.

The state has a fair amount of public land for the Midwest. There’re about 800,000 acres of publicly-owned land in State and Federal systems. About 270,000 acres are available through the state’s excellent Open Fields and Waters program which pays private landowners to allow public hunting access to their land. And the Federal CRP-MAP program adds another substantial chunk of private land acreage that’s open to walk-in hunting access. Visit Powderhook.com, which is out of the Capital City-Lincoln, to find all your hunting opportunities statewide and nationally.

The deer herd is plentiful, with the higher densities located in the Southeastern part of the state and along major river corridors. Some of the bucks in the state get old. And that means big.

Nebraksa is one of the few states that publishes detailed harvest data in its annual regulations book. And that data is worth looking at. You’ll find a breakdown of each region, how many deer were killed, how many bucks per square mile were killed and the age class of the bucks taken. In several regions, more than 80 percent of all bucks taken were two years old or older. Not bad.

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