Fishing

CRAWFORD, Neb. – The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission will close Whitney Lake Wildlife Management Area to boats and other watercraft during a 3½-hour training exercise of the Nebraska Wildland Fire Academy on Sunday, April 22. As part of the exercise, firefighters will use a helicopter with a hanging bucket to pick up water from the lake between 9 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. The Commission is closing the lake during that time to ensure public safety. Although boating will not …

If you are a Nebraska outdoors-person you know that weather trumps everything and this spring has been nothing but a hand of wild cards.  I always say one of the best fishing options for early spring when the water is still cold is to pursue cold-water species like trout.  However, the weather is even having an impact on the trout fishing at the Two Rivers Trout Lake; only thing is it is not the impact you might expect: Trout anglers …

LINCOLN, Neb. – Anglers at the Two Rivers State Recreation Area (SRA) trout lake are facing some stiff competition. Double-crested cormorants recently discovered the lake. As a result, the fish-eating birds have lowered the anglers’ catch rates. A daily trout tag is required to attempt to take and to possess trout on the area March 1 through June 30. Steve Wilhelm, fish production manager at Grove Trout Rearing Station near Royal, said typical catch rates this time of year are …

Many of you in southeast Nebraska have been looking forward to the opening of a new reservoir, Duck Creek, located near Peru.  Specifically the reservoir was labeled as Duck Creek #12, but it looks like the Nemaha Natural Resource District is going to call it Duck Creek Recreation Area. Now a formal “grand opening” is planned for June 2, but a person might just want to take a drive by and see if the gates are open (wink, wink): Duck …

Been a busy week, one in which I was out of the office most of the time!  I helped with our walleye egg collections, worked late nights most of the week catching the female walleyes from which eggs were collected.  We handled hundreds of fish, mostly walleyes, but during the week I handled a few muskies too. There is just something about big predator fish, something awesome about them.  Every time I see one, every time I get my hands …

If you can see them, this is how you catch them. The old fishing adage I grew up with of “If you can see the fish, you can’t catch the fish” followed me most of my fishing life until I found myself on a lake in Minnesota watching gigantic, black blobs swim back and forth through the water. My fishing partner and I made repeated casts toward these blobs, knowing they were smallmouth bass, only to have them ignore every …

You can start some good arguments/discussions in a group of anglers by bringing up the subject of color.  Everyone has an opinion on the importance of color in catching fish, and some guys have several opinions.  What I will tell you is that we know that fish can see colors, that is a scientific fact.  It ain’t rocket science, but it is fisheries science.  We even know that different species of fish have different sensitivities to different colors. When doing …

I have been doing a poor job of giving updates on aquatic habitat and angler access improvement projects.  There are a bunch of them to tell you about, let me try to get ’em all into this one blog post: South Boat Ramp Replacement at Pawnee Reservoir Rock Creek Boat Ramp NORTH PLATTE, Neb. –  A new ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) approved boat ramp, parking area and vault restroom is soon to be constructed at Rock Creek Lake State …

Snowing again this morning; looks like another crummy “spring” weekend.  Folks are getting grumpy and that is proof that they do not fish enough. Saw this making the rounds on the inter-webs, so you may have seen it already.  If you have not, maybe it will brighten your day just a little bit! https://www.facebook.com/uniladmag/videos/4699145376775151/ Man, I gotta have one of those hanging on my office wall!  The only thing is the voice ain’t “Billy Bass”.  Have to call her “Barbara …

I mentioned that our Nebraska Game & Parks fisheries staff hits the ground running every spring and that we have really geared up with our collection of walleye eggs starting this week.  I also want to note that this sure ain’t the first field work we have been doing already this spring.  Our field crews have been on the water in several places sampling, tagging, collecting eggs, etc., etc.  I want to show you a few photos to give you …