One of the joys of harvesting a mature gobbler, besides the thrill of the hunt and the delicious meal that follows, is the opportunity to obtain a trophy tail fan and beard mount. Follow these simple steps to create your own mount that will be a treasured memento for many years. First, cut off the tail fan slightly below the tail bone and the beard from the breast. It’s better to have too many feathers initially than not enough, as …

Nebraska Through The Lens, an online community of photographers started by Steve Evans and Jonathan Wagner Jr., was formed in 2016 and has become the go-to for Nebraska-based photographers showcasing their work. The Facebook group, who can be found by searching “Nebraska through the lens,” features thousands of images of Nebraska and has more than 132,000 members. Images range from landscapes and wildlife to trail cam images and Americana. As long as the photograph was taken in Nebraska, it can find …

For Holly Green, her peace of mind during finals in college could reliably be found in one place: between the pages of a black composition notebook. The formula was pretty straight-forward: head to one of the bridges at Fort Kearny State Recreation Area, notebook in hand, and just observe: the morning fog over the water, chunks of ice floating down the river, brown bats silhouetted against the moon, the croaking of the bullfrog she dubbed “Romeo” for his incessant singing. …

There are three main types of turkey calls: box, pan, and diaphragm. Turkey hunters should be proficient with the following three main turkey calls to maximize their chances of success. Let’s take a look at each type: Box Boxes are the easiest to master. Simply run the paddle-like lid across the lip of the box’s rectangular sound chamber.  Traditionally, chalk is applied to the lid’s underside to create the friction that produces turkey sounds, although some newer models use a …

Creating a New Legacy Ropes courses and water playgrounds… state-of-the-art aquariums and touch tanks… these are just a few of the exciting attractions coming soon as part of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission’s Venture Parks complex. Yet excitement isn’t the Commission’s only goal. After the opening of Platte River State Park’s Crawdad Creek in the fall of 2016, Owen Roberts-Day visited with his daughter, Hattie. Owen watched his daughter happily playing in the water, where children are encouraged to …

Zach’s Night Photo Tips Learn how to take photos at night like a pro with these tips from Zach Equipment essentials You don’t need expensive equipment to make pictures you’re proud of. For night photos on a budget try a basic DLSR, kit lens & tripod. One of my first shots at night that I really loved was taken with a basic DSLR, a kit lens, and a tripod from Costco – so a $400 camera and a $49 tripod. And it’s …

Renovations planned for many Sandhills lakes Invasive Carp Native to Europe, bottom-feeding carp stir up sediments and cloud the water, hampering the growth of the aquatic vegetation that is the base of the food web, and the growth and productivity of sight-feeding gamefish, including the bluegill, yellow perch, black crappie, largemouth bass and northern pike that thrive in Sandhills lakes. Carp found their way onto the refuge in the 1930s when a ditch was dug from Gordon Creek northwest of …

Rare Eastern spotted skunk found at the Valentine National Wildlife Refuge The Decline of the Spotted Skunk Biologists surmise that populations of spotted skunks – like many other species – declined when white settlers moved into the Great Plains and began hunting and trapping them. Their numbers rebounded some in the 1930s and 1940s when the landscape was dotted with small farmsteads that provided good habitat for the species. Spotted skunks, which eat grubs, grasshoppers and small mammals, often lived …

Canada Goose Hunting in Nebraska and “the Leopold tingle” In his classic 1949 book A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold, the father of wildlife conservation, asked: “What is a wild goose worth? I have a ticket to the symphony. It was not cheap … but I would forego the experience for the sight of the big gander that sailed honking into my decoys at daybreak this morning. I saw him, I heard the wind whistle through his set wings, as …

Last year I was hunting from my blind when the doe pictured above walked in front of me about 35 yards away. At first I didn’t see that she was missing a front right leg through the phragmites. After snapping a few photos and checking my settings I saw that she only had three legs. I impatiently waited to see if she would turn the other direction so I could see her other side. My curiosity was running rampant as …