Barbs and Backlashes

School is starting up again.  I often have students ask about my education and what I did to end up being a pointy-headed fisheries biologist.  I have blogged about that before ( http://magazine.outdoornebraska.gov/2010/09/go-big-red-and-blue/ ), but let me mention something even better that my fellow Nebraska Game & Parks Commission employees have produced: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VBV1vnMqlM[/youtube] By the way, I have been “around” for quite awhile now.  It is refreshing to have a number of younger, newer, enthusiastic pointy-headed fisheries biologists like Jordan …

I know I have already blogged about frogs once this week, but I have to share this with you. In my job I talk to a lot of people.  As is true with most Nebraskans, those people are by far, really great people.  “There is NO PLACE like Nebraska.”  But, I do hear some b-i-itching and complaining from time to time, and a little bit of that gets O-L-D in a hurry. But then I get letters like this one: …

Bullfrog season opened last week.  For some of us that opener is anticipated as much as any other opening day for a variety of other game.  Frog legs are just so good. I blogged about froggin’ last year, and you might want to go back and review that information, http://magazine.outdoornebraska.gov/2012/09/skinny-legs-skinny-legs/ .  Let me add a video that Ralph Wall put together for us.  It has already been posted on our Game & Parks FaceBook page, but in case you did …

It has been going on three years since the rotenone renovation of Carter Lake just across the road from the Omaha’s Eppley Airfield.  That was done as part of a major Aquatic Habitat Rehabilitation project.  If you want to review the amount of work done, how extensive the project was at Carter Lake, here are some links that provide more details, http://magazine.outdoornebraska.gov/2010/10/carter-lake-renovation-update/ , http://www.iowadnr.gov/Portals/idnr/uploads/water/lakerestoration/12report.pdf .  Yes, that last link is to a document published by the Iowa Department of Natural …

I found this picture on the internet someplace and stole it.  I like cats and I really like this picture. It is the weekend, find a kid and take ’em fishing.  Some of the kids have started back to school this week; they are going to need to go on a fishing trip!  GO FISH! Hey, take the cat with you too.  Ha. Have a great weekend.

We are well into summer now, and most anglers will tell you that the fishing gets tougher during the summer.  As a pointy-headed fish biologist I will tell you that is true, but it has nothing to due with the fish feeling uncomfortable in “hot” water.  Yes, we have some cold-water and cool-water species of fish in Nebraska that do not prefer the maximum temperatures of summer and for some of those species, trout for example, they simply cannot survive …

This week has been “shark week”, http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/shark-week .  You know this pointy-headed fish biologist has been watching whenever I can.  I love fish, I love apex predators, shark week combines the two!  I will reserve my comments about the stupid “Megalodon” show, however. I blogged about the demise of poor Snuffy the seal a couple of weeks ago, http://magazine.outdoornebraska.gov/2013/07/shark-week/ .   In memory of poor ole Snuff’, here is another tribute: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TN6xZjmxUM[/youtube] That kills me.  I might even have to …

I am often asked how much we communicate with pointy-headed fisheries biologists in other states.  Come to think of it, sometimes I am not asked that question so much as am told that “you guys need to do what they do in _________________________ (fill in blank with your favorite non-Nebraska state).  Actually we are very aware of what fisheries biologists in other states are doing, communicate with them frequently, and by they way, they know very much what we are …

By now many Nebraska anglers may have seen the photos of a big blue catfish that was recently caught.  I fired up my computer this morning and saw this. I have said before that there have been darned few verified catches of triple-digit fish from Nebraska waters, so any catch like that is a notable catch!  I have spent some time today trying to run down more details, and so far have not been able to find out much more. …