Sandhills

I had him on a few months ago talking about hunting off horseback.

And that was super cool to get to see him do that out there in the landscape of the Sandhills in California.

Man, just a spectacular ecosystem and just a ton of diversity and wildlife.

And, you know, the way that I understand it best is that it's windswept sand dunes that are stabilized by vegetation.

And so the whole week that I was out there, I mean, I was just... enamored over and over of just the beauty of the place um and uh definitely tough hunting tough conditions it was hot um you know had to you know get out there right at daylight and hunt early um to try to put up some birds and was fortunate to get into birds every single day and Able to get a few to take home with me, and so going to enjoy that here pretty soon with hopefully a prickly pear cactus sauce that turns out pretty well to pair with the grouse.

But yeah, this week's episode is with me and Matt sitting down once again, but we are live in the Sandhills.

talking about all things sharp tails and prairie chickens and just the beauty of the Sandhills and just how massive and kind of an encompassing feel that you have with this place that I'm not sure if I've quite had it with any other place that I've bird hunted.

So I hope you guys really enjoyed the episode.

Yeah, do it.

So the Sandhills of Nebraska is...

the largest intact grassland in North America.

So it's about roughly one third of the entire state is just these windswept sand dunes that have been stabilized by vegetation.

Smith Falls and the Niobrara River are...

And the Sandhills.

Sandhill region is just top-notch answer from anybody.

Yeah.

It's very interesting, laden with the big rolling type things.

sand hills and and all sand base and but then it's a combination of these giant rolling sand hills and and rather actually rather bland flat ground done at the base of some of these and and the way some of the wetlands you know are intrude from the sides and then interiorly and then the property lines had numerous 90-degree angle property lines.

And you go, wow.

I remember the owners, the Escalante people, they said, Bill, we have 500 acres here to work with.

Send in corrections.

The lake was built on the Nebraska Sand Hills.

It's the largest dune formation in the Western Hemisphere, formed from granite and eroded from the Rocky Mountains.

This huge lake is drawn down each year for irrigation, so we were a little disappointed to find that it only had 25% capacity, but that made a lot of beach area for Scout to run.

Where else have your adventures taken you? What other states have you gone out and bird species have you chased and all that?

Um, we, my son and I, we went out to, we've been to Nebraska and hunted the sand hills, um, for prairie chickens.

Um, uh, my son was, uh, He spent a spring out there guiding for an outfitter turkeys.

And he was sending me pictures of prairie chickens.

Um, you know, I, I would say either South Dakota and Nebraska.

I mean, it was both grasslands and it was prairie birds, which I think is just cool to be able to go out.

And like those sand hills, they haven't been touched for centuries.

And it's just, you know, a native bird.