Special landowner deer season on Game and Parks meeting agenda

    The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission will consider wildlife regulation changes that include a proposal to enact a Special Landowner Deer Season and allow the purchase of a bonus or a preference point with regard to big game hunting when it meets this week in Lincoln.
    The Special Landowner Deer Season and purchase of a bonus or a preference point were created by the passage of LB 126 and LB 287, respectively, in the Nebraska Legislature’s 2020 session.
    Sen. Dan Hughes of Venango, who represents Dist. #44, sponsored LB 126, creating the special landowner season.
    The landowner season would allow a qualifying landowner as many as four permits to designate for themselves or immediate family to hunt on his or her property on the Saturday, Sunday and Monday before the opening of the November firearm deer season.
    No more than two permits will be issued to persons older than age 19 and two permits to persons younger than 19.
    Points are awarded when hunters are unsuccessful in several of Nebraska’s big game drawings. Preference point based drawings allow hunters with the most points the best chance at drawing permits, which was the subject of LB 287.
    Bonus point drawings, on the other hand, give hunters an additional entry in the drawing for each point or year that they were unsuccessful in drawing. Allowing the purchase of a bonus or a preference point will allow hunters to accumulate points in years that they do not want to draw.
    Additional proposed wildlife regulation changes on the commission’s meeting agenda would clarify draw units, how forfeited permits may be handled, staggering the sale of over-the-counter permits, and altering the residency qualifications for one auction elk permit.