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Talk the Talk, Walk the Walk

With reference to my job as a conservation agency public information officer and participating in outdoor activities, I’ve always held myself to this motto: “If you’re gonna talk about it, you darn well better do it or have done it!” It should be noted though, if the truth be told, that I thoroughly enjoy a myriad of outdoor activities here in the Cornhusker State (you regular readers of my blog posts know this!). Time spent outdoors in the field is truly “priceless,” in my view, and it is the absolute best overall learning experience one could have in the conservation world regarding nature and the outdoor activities associated with nature! Time spent outdoors goes far beyond all of your Internet (Google) searches for specific pieces of information about the environment in which you and I live, trust me! Time spent outdoors enables me to identify with and better answer questions from you – the outdoor enthusiast! I guess you could say that I’m pretty ‘old school’ when it comes to gaining knowledge about what happens outside in different ecosystems as my fur trapper and pioneer relatives did! That being stated, I spent some time going ‘old school’ this week in the field late season firearm deer hunting for antlerless deer in western Douglas County, NE along the Platte River.

I was curious to check on the amount of whitetailed-deer sign in the area.

deertracksinsnow

deertrail

buckrub

deerdroppings

What wildlife would I see and hear on the walk to the deer hunting blind?

Strings of Canada geese and a small bunch of trumpeter swans overhead.

stringofCanadageese

swans

What beautiful scenes of nature would I experience and capture on camera?

A flowing tributary of the Platte River.

tributaryofPlatteRiver

A nice grassland stand of edge cover adjacent to woodlands and a flood control dike.

grasslandstand

Would I see any antlerless deer from the box blind window and if so, how many? If I harvest one, how healthy would it look?

boxblindwindow

Fast forward. Success! I harvested a healthy, big white-tailed doe – a definite gift from Mother Nature! Here I am notching my tag and cancelling my permit.

cancellingpermit

hunterwithdoe

Look for me, I’ll be out there … “Walking the walk” so I can “talk the talk” to assist you in your outdoor pursuits and because I love Nebraska’s great outdoors!

walkinginthedeerwoods

About greg wagner

A native of Gretna, NE, a graduate of Gretna High School and Bellevue University, Greg Wagner currently serves as the Communications and Marketing Specialist and Manager for the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission's Service Center in Omaha. On a weekly basis, Wagner can be heard on a number of radio stations, seen on local television in Omaha, and on social media channels, creatively conveying natural resource conservation messages as well as promoting outdoor activities and destinations in Nebraska. Wagner, whose career at Game and Parks began in 1979, walks, talks, lives, breathes and blogs about Nebraska’s outdoors. He grew up in rural Gretna, building forts in the woods, hunting, fishing, collecting leaves, and generally thriving on constant outdoor activity. One of the primary goals of his blog is to get people, especially young ones, to have fun and spend time outside!

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