Hunters not only ones welcoming pheasant season opener

    Opening of hunting seasons aren’t anticipated by only the hunters.
    When it’s the first days of hunting such as this weekend’s Nebraska pheasant season opener, local businesses, especially the restaurants, anticipate a surge to their bottom line.
    It’s especially anticipated this year with a lot of the activity, and eating out at restaurants, curtailed last year due to COVID.
    “The hunters are good to us,” said Amanda Keneipp, manager of Imperial’s Pizza Hut at 401 Broadway.    
    While Pizza Hut offers sandwiches and pasta dishes, too, pizza is most popular during hunting seasons, Keneipp said.
    “We get a lot of deliveries to the hotels and motels, but we do get a lot of dine-in customers, too,” she noted.
    Keneipp said she’s happy now that most of her wait staff is back, allowing the dining room to be open.
    As an added incentive this time of year, she offers a 15% off coupon special, which was included in the hunting special issue in last week’s Imperial Republican.
    This will be the first pheasant season opener Cindy Castor and her MorningStar Cafe will experience at its 140 East 12th St. location.
    She opened there in December 2019, and it’s hard to make comparisons with last year’s COVID-affected pheasant season.
    “I’m praying for a good response this year,” she said.
    She has lunch and beer specials planned, “and breakfast is always a big hit because hunters like to eat before they go out,” she said.
    She knows her breakfast burritos are a hit year-round, and expects those to be especially in demand as hunters head out to the field.
    Then after walking the fields awhile, she’s planned hot lunch specials at noon time.
    Jamie Jussel, owner of Sweden Creme, said they see a lot of out-of-town hunters at their establishment at 1134 Broadway.
    She said they see a big uptick in the noon, sit-down crowd at Sweden Creme.
    It depends a lot on the weather, she said.
    “If it’s cold, they’ll want to come in and eat,” she said.
    One of the more popular choices by the hunters, she said, are their Rocky Mountain Oysters.
    While M & M’s Natural JAZ at 617 Broadway won’t be open on the weekend, owner Marcy Nesbitt said she’ll see some additional customers during the week.
    “There were some bow hunters in the other day,” she noted.
    Pheasant hunters generally stop in for lunch a little earlier than the normal noon crowd, she said, probably because they’ve already been up several hours.
    She said in addition to favorites like the French dip beef sandwich, hunters like the breakfast burritos and omelets in the mornings, too.
    Local organizations also benefit from hunting, especially the pheasant opener, being the first of two big ones here—the other being firearm deer season in November.
    Organizations like the Eagles Club have hunter specials, while the Imperial Jaycees will host a Hunter Smoker on Friday night this week, both taking advantage of the influx of hunters to the community.
    With the season’s opening weekend coinciding with Halloween weekend, the Imperial EMS may see some additional camo-clad visitors at its Haunted House Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The weekend’s Halloween events at Enders Lake Recreation Area may also attract some visiting hunters.
Pheasant outlook in
southwest Nebraska
    In the state’s southwest, which includes Chase County, pheasant counts were down during the April and July Rural Mail Carrier Survey, but the region continues to support some of the state’s highest densities, according to a Game & Parks summary of conditions
    In western parts of the SW district, many CRP fields impacted by emergency haying and grazing last fall had limited regrowth this spring as drought conditions persisted through April.
    However, habitat conditions improved dramatically following abundant spring rains.
    Overall, early pheasant nesting conditions were favorable, but similar to last year, dry conditions prevailed during late summer—especially out west.
    Brood reports have been variable even within portions of counties, so hunters will need to be more mobile this fall to find quality cover and better bird concentrations.