As publishedSept. 1, 2026-Jan. 31, 2027
Regulated jointly with greater prairie-chicken as one 'Prairie Grouse' category — same zone structure: West Zone 3/12 aggregate no permit; East Zone 3/3 aggregate with required free special permit (limited to 400). See greater-prairie-chicken entry for full detail; same confidence caveat applies to exact bag figures.
Tracked via the same NGPC Upland Game Bird Hunting Outlook PDF as greater prairie-chicken (prairie grouse lek/RMCS data, folded into one combined release). A fresh check this pass caught a stale-attribution trap: a WebSearch summary and a syndicated Outdoor Wire mirror of NGPC's press release both initially read as describing the current 2026 season, but a direct fetch of the Outdoor Wire release confirmed its actual publish date is August 26, 2025, describing the 2025-26 season (comparing spring/summer 2025 survey results to 2024) — not a 2026 finding. outdoornebraska.gov itself returns HTTP 403 to every direct fetch attempt. No genuine 2026 edition found; expected late August 2026 (within about a week) per the 2025 precedent (Aug 26, 2025 publish date).