How To

LINCOLN, Neb. – The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission has published a guide designed to assist communities in creating, upgrading, promoting, funding, permitting and maintaining successful water trails. This guide, Floating the Good Life, a Guide to Developing Water Trails in Nebraska, provides information about the types of streams in Nebraska and how they behave differently, creating unique challenges for water trail operation. The guide details the launch site design process, and it discusses universal access and how a launch …

Here in Nebraska, beauty surrounds us constantly. It tends to announce itself most clearly in uninterrupted moments of quiet: a long morning in a deer blind, a lazy tubing trip down the Niobrara, an evening of calm after an afternoon of hiking. Seeking out that beauty can be its own goal and reward, driving us into the outdoors with the need to capture it forever. Photography is a common method, both accessible and familiar. Less well known, but growing in …

If you have lived in the great state of Nebraska for any length of time, you know that spring is a frustrating time.  It comes in “fits and starts”.  I laugh at the wild swings in weather, and the wild swings in the mental health of those hoping for warm, sunny days.  Ha.  We are going to live with this schizophrenia for several weeks yet, might as well make the most of it! For example, in this past week I …

Nebraska’s spring wild turkey hunting is tough to beat. It really is. Trust me, I know from many years of firsthand experience hunting throughout the state! And, I continue to hunt wild turkeys in the springtime from the Missouri River bottom woodlands of Washington County all the way to Platte River bottom woodlands of Dawson County. We Nebraskans as well as our nonresident visitors have plenty of reasons,15 at least, to enjoy the state and take to the woods to call in a bearded bird this year. An adult …

As the saying goes “Roosted ain’t Roasted” but following this plan should tilt the opening days odds in your favor.  You’ve got the gobblers located and even know the spot you want to start your season from.  Let’s make sure things go smoothly from here. Pop the Blind Early If you will be working out of a ground blind for an early morning hunt get it set out and ready the day before. Ideally in the early afternoon.  This avoids …

I got a reminder from our Boating Law Administrator that this week is the National Association of State Boating Law Administrator’s Spring Aboard Campaign to remind folks to complete a boating safety course! Yes, somewhere in my wallet is a boater safety card. . . . If you check the 2018 Boating Guide, right up front, you will find the requirements for operating a motorboat in Nebraska and the boater safety requirements: Many of you will be required to take …

We’ve come along way in bow hunting for spring gobblers.  Used to be you would hit the woods using the same methods as the shotgun hunters. Hoping you had enough camouflage or distraction that the gobbler would let you get to full at the moment of truth.  Your broadhead was simply whatever you used on deer last fall. Trouble is that deer and turkeys are quite different.  A broadhead that works well for securing venison steaks isn’t necessarily much good …

I have seen some reports already this early spring of sturgeon being caught, mostly from Nebraska’s Missouri River.  I am confident a lot of the anglers catching those fish, especially the old “river rats” are very aware of what they are catching and their sturgeon identification.  On the other hand, I realize there are new folks learning about new fishing opportunities all the time, and sometimes I worry they may not know what they are catching. There are three species …

There are a couple of workshops coming up on managing small waters, pits and ponds: Lake and pond management workshops scheduled in Omaha, Lincoln LINCOLN, Neb. – Free workshops are scheduled in Omaha and Lincoln this spring for anyone who makes decisions about lakes and ponds or wants to learn more about protecting them. The two-hour workshops begin at 6 p.m. Reservations are required. The first workshop will be in Omaha on March 21 at the Douglas-Sarpy County Extension Office, …

Let me tell you from the phone calls, e-mails, messages, and “chatter” I have heard this week, I have come to the conclusion that there are a darned lot more people that need to learn how to ice fish!  It happens every year, the ice starts melting, we get some open water and warm afternoons, everybody thinks it is time to fish, and then they discover the water is still cold, the fish are hard to catch, and then the …