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Barbs and Backlashes

TV Ice Fishing

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A couple of days ago I told you that last week was a busy week, and I told you about one of the things that made it busy–the MidWest Fish & Widlife Conference.  During that conference I took a break to do an orientation session with a couple of our new commissioners here at the Game & Parks Commission, and then I headed out of town to help with another little project. . . . I have referred to some …

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Fish and Wildlife Conference

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I had a busy week last week; want to give you a quick report on what I was doing.  First. . . . Many times I have been asked why Nebraska fisheries biologists are not doing what biologists in some other state are doing.  The implication behind those questions is that we do not know what biologists in other states are doing.  I suppose a pointy-headed fisheries biologist could live under some rock, but there are no good biologists who …

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Big Fish from the Sky!

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This week has been the week after the Super Bowl.  The game was fantastic, certainly one of the best ever, so there has been a lot of talk about actual football.  In addition to that, and after many Super Bowl games, there is as much talk about the commercials as the actual game.  So, on the topic of TV commercials, it has been awhile since I posted a good fishing commercial.  Here is one I saw recently that I kinda …

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It Is a Fish Eat Frog World!

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Recently I got “tagged” on FaceBook with a picture of a channel catfish that had been caught through the ice. The fish was a little over 5 pounds, a very respectable channel cat, especially through an ice hole, but the big surprise came at the cleaning table when the stomach contents were examined: Look close, it has been digested a bit, but laying just in front of the catfish’s head is a bullfrog that came out of that fish’s stomach! …

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Ice Depth-Finder Modifications

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I have a hard time convincing ice anglers nowadays that there actually was a time when we caught fish through the ice WITHOUT A DEPTH-FINDER!  Certainly, many of the “millennials” or “Generation Z-ers” or whatever, cannot even imagine being on the ice without that technology.  But, as the Sonic commercial jokes, some of us are “perennials”–thought we were dead, but we just keep coming back–and we can remember when we caught fish, lots of fish, through the ice while fishing …

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Outdoor Expo

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The months following the first of the year are what I call “sport show season”.  Even the folks who like to ice-fish will find some time to visit a sport show or “Expo” or two this time of year.  We all like to dream about the open-water fishing and camping to come, maybe make plans to visit one of the hot spots on our “bucket list”, ogle pictures and mounts of big fish and big bucks, and maybe learn a thing …

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Mid-Winter Blues?

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I have still been on the ice every chance I get and again have had a chance to roam the state a bit. . . . Yes, ice conditions are variable.  With the stinkin’ mid-winter rains we have had, ice conditions in southeast Nebraska especially have not been nearly as good as many of us would like.  The run-off has softened the ice around shorelines and in some cases other parts of several waters.  In addition, our pits and interstate …

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State Record Summary, 2016

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At the end of each year I like to look back at the state record fish that were certified; kind of a “state record annual report”.  It is time to do that again. . . . We had 13 different fish certified as state records in 2016. Surface Spear-fishing No fish taken by surface spear-fishing were submitted for state records in 2016. Bow-Fishing The bow-fishing state record category was busy in 2016; six bow-fishing records were awarded.  In chronological order, …

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Big Enough

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At our ice-fishing clinic in Kearney last Saturday, during the classroom session, someone asked a question about the size of ice holes allowed in Nebraska, and what size ice auger a person should have.  Mostly for safety reasons, the largest diameter ice hole allowed on Nebraska public waters is 10 inches. While answering the question about what size of auger an ice angler should invest in, I started with one of my favorite answers, “It depends”.  There are more ice …

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Kearney Ice Clinic

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Just want to post up a few pictures from our ice-fishing clinic at Yanney Park in Kearney last Saturday.  We had a great time! The Kearney ice clinic is a little bit different in that we do a classroom session in the morning.  The Environmental Resource Center Building there right beside the pit makes a great setting for the classroom session and we had 60-some people packed in there.  Don Cox, Andrew Svoboda, Rob Greer and myself rambled about a …

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