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Ranch recreation

Sandhusker

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NORTH PLATTE, Neb. - Penny Persson says she's proof that Nebraska has what people around the world desire - the opportunity to experience wide, open spaces.

Farm-based recreation
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• This nature-based agritourism includes hunting, fishing, horseback riding, bird watching, hiking, camping, wine tasting, pumpkin patches, corn mazes, harvest festivals, barn dances, roadside stands and overnight farm and ranch stays and tours.

• About 52,000 U.S. farms received income totaling $955 million from farm-based recreation in 2004.

• Customers value rural scenery, especially woodlands, orchards and grazing animals.

• Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture

Colorado Cattle Co. & Guest Ranch's top markets are Europe, the upper Midwest and the U.S. coasts. Guests learn to ride horses and help care for cattle and bison. "People come here to share the West's unique history," owner Penny Persson said. "It releases their inner cowboy.""To ride or travel in some manner across open land basically untouched since time began is huge to many people - and Nebraska's ripe for that," she said.

Landowners and rural communities in Nebraska and across the Great Plains are diversifying, increasing returns from farm investments and stimulating local economies by branching into farm-based recreation.

That means opening up private land for fee-based hunting, fishing, horseback riding, viewing wildlife or simply watching the sun rise and set.

In Persson's case, it means giving travelers a week-long opportunity to be a cowboy - with days ending in a sauna, swimming pool, on the bank of a fishing pond or on the porch of a cabin.

Persson owns Colorado Cattle Co. & Guest Ranch, a working cattle outfit on 10,000 acres of grassland just across the Nebraska state line near New Raymer, Colo. The operation is 17 miles south of Kimball, Neb., where she's on the board of the co-op grocery store.

Persson and about 150 others gathered last week in North Platte at a state-sponsored workshop on nature-based tourism and outdoor recreation. Among them were Nebraska farm-based recreation entrepreneurs Scott and Billie Kay Bodie of Burchard, Louise Kinnaman of Bayard and Jay Longacre of Sutherland.

The Bodies operate Big Blue Ranch & Lodge in southeast Nebraska on a cattle ranch started after World War II by Scott Bodie's father.

They started the new business last year to add enough value to their ranch to bring their daughter and son-in-law, Anna and Rob Ferguson, into the operation. They built a log-cabin lodge and offer hunting and fishing packages, bird watching and ranch adventures.

Scott Bodie said there is a demand for farm-based recreation.

"We're already attracting people from Florida and Pennsylvania," he said. "People want to see the beautiful fauna and blue sky of Nebraska, get out of the city and get in touch with reality, themselves and nature again."

Louise and Conrad Kinnaman opened their 4,000-acre cattle ranch to visitors shortly after buying it in 1997.

The Kinnamans' Flying Bee Ranch is in the Wildcat Hills, west of Chimney Rock on the Oregon Trail in western Nebraska.

"I thought people would give their eye teeth to ride on this place," Louise Kinnaman said.

They remodeled a secluded cabin, set up a campground with electricity and water hookups, set aside stalls for guests' horses and created two bed-and-breakfast rooms in their house. They offer tours of the ranch with its rugged hills and deep canyons.

The Kinnamans focus on wildlife watching, hiking, mountain biking and trail riding. They have guests from Europe. Motor coaches stop for tours and lunch.

Longacre is the hunting coordinator for Prairie Sands, a 640-acre upland game bird hunting preserve carved from a 13,000-acre ranch north of Sutherland in west-central Nebraska. It opened in 2001 and will make its first profit this season, Longacre said.

Longacre said operations such as Prairie Sands meet a need for urban-dwellers who don't have easy access to hunting land.

"Finding a place to hunt can be a challenge," he said. "If you do find a spot to hunt - and if you're taking your kid - you better hunt where you'll find birds and pull the trigger, or the kid won't want to do that anymore," Longacre said. "People have less free time, so when they hunt, they want to find a place that offers them that opportunity."

Persson said most queries to her ranch come from people attracted to the word "Colorado" in the name.

"They want the mountains," she said. "They don't want the plains, but I'm very honest with them that we're not running a resort. We're running cattle in the wide, open spaces like they see in the John Wayne movies."

It's an easy sell, she said.

"You have to love it and believe in it," she said. "You can't say, well, it's flat. You describe the miles of rolling hills, valleys and ridges where they'll not see another light for 10 miles. You tell them to picture the ocean covered with grass of quiet, phenomenal colors. People are just blown away by that."

Persson said it's part of human nature to connect with land.

"It's not just a vacation," she said. "It's a soul-expanding experience. It fills that emptiness that nobody knows they have."
 
Tourism was an important revenue earner for us when we were in Africa, packages varied from high priced hunting safaries, to renting out basic accomodation with fishing and boating available.
 
Among them were Nebraska farm-based recreation entrepreneurs Scott and Billie Kay Bodie of Burchard, Louise Kinnaman of Bayard and Jay Longacre of Sutherland.

The Bodies operate Big Blue Ranch & Lodge in southeast Nebraska on a cattle ranch started after World War II by Scott Bodie's father.

They started the new business last year to add enough value to their ranch to bring their daughter and son-in-law, Anna and Rob Ferguson, into the operation. They built a log-cabin lodge and offer hunting and fishing packages, bird watching and ranch adventures.

Scott Bodie said there is a demand for farm-based recreation.

"We're already attracting people from Florida and Pennsylvania," he said. "People want to see the beautiful fauna and blue sky of Nebraska, get out of the city and get in touch with reality, themselves and nature again."

I was at a Tall grass prarie seminar at Beatrice a couple weeks back and Mr Bode spoke and showed stuff about his ranch/tourism operation and I can tell you one thing I would hate to pay the bill for the guest house... :shock: It was nice but it sure looked spendy to me. Here is their web site http://www.bigblueranch.com/ . I don't see anything wrong with such deals it is just sad that the state spends so much money on other ventures that don't net the response that this type of venture does. So much for government money being well spent... :roll: I guess I am really kind of glad to see such education type business ventures to the ag sector. Seems people have such a poor idea of how good we are to the land and the aniamals that are on it we need to show them how good things really are..
 

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