It wasn’t easy for Aiden Helms to achieve the Nebraska upland slam.
He walked almost 11 hilly miles in the Sandhills to bag the sharp-tailed grouse. He and his dad camped out in a snowstorm in Halsey National Forest. He was rattled a few times when pheasants burst from cover.
But when the 13-year-old, who attends Holdrege Middle School, summed up the experience, he said it was all good.
“It was just fun to get the birds,” he said.
Helms was the first youngster to complete the slam, which includes bagging a pheasant, quail, grouse and prairie chicken.
He’s one of the 123 hunters overall to accomplish the slam. The second youngster to finish was Tyler Douglass.
Helms was accompanied by his dad, Chris, and 8-year-old
Brittany, Molly. She gets the lion’s share of credit for the slam, dad says.
“Without a dog you wouldn’t be able to do any of that. It would be impossible,” he said. “For a bird dog 8 years old, that’s probably their best year.”
Aiden accomplished the task before older brother Alex, who has some time constraints because of his school obligations at Northeast Community College. He’s short a prairie chicken.
Aiden also got a little bit of a history lesson when he bagged his quail on land north and west of Arapahoe that was once homesteaded by his great -great -great-grandparents.
“His quail was about 50 yards from where I got my first pheasant in 1982, and probably where my dad got his,” Chris Helms said. “It’s sort of been a family tradition.”
The prairie chicken was from a federal wetland near Holdrege, the sharp-tailed grouse came from Halsey and the pheasant was from ground enrolled in the Game and Parks walk-in hunting program.
The grouse took several attempts. Aiden nabbed it on the third camping trip.
Chris Helms thinks the slam is a good idea.
“Kids that age like challenges,” he said. “This was kind of a good thing for a kid that age.”