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Past Issues

How to Raise Big Walleye

New program offers improved survival rates, catch rates for walleye. For years, Game and Parks biologists have stocked walleye fingerlings in popular lakes and reservoirs across the state. Results have been mixed, with some waters yielding major benefits and others seeing poor survival. Southeastern Nebraska reservoirs fall into the latter category, where there has been limited success in building robust walleye populations, especially in waters with established largemouth bass populations. But a new way of raising walleyes for stocking is …

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GoPro Hunt

Preparation exceeds decoy set-ups and camouflage when filming your own hunts By Jake Jadlowski As a high school teacher, I routinely see all things bad about social media. There may be no quicker way to waste one’s time. But as an outdoorsman, social media provides a platform to keep track of what hunters and fishermen are doing all across the country. Hunting and fishing photos and videos dominate my Facebook and Instagram feeds and I’m probably guilty of spending just …

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Horseback Ride to Support 4-H

Fundraising trail ride in Nebraska National Forest at Halsey celebrates 20th anniversary. Head, Heart, Hands and Health – since 1958, the Nebraska 4-H Foundation has been supporting youth through hands-on projects that encourage them to stay active and engaged in their communities, and prepare them for the future. With programs ranging from animal science to business to the arts to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), the foundation’s mission is to help provide the financial backing and manpower needed to …

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Wild Game Cooking Seminar

Hunter Angler Gardener Cook blogger Hank Shaw will visit Nebraska on this latest book tour. By Jenny Nguyen-Wheatley Award-winning Hunter Angler Gardener Cook blogger Hank Shaw will visit the Nebraska Game and Parks Outdoor Education Center in Lincoln to talk about wild game on Oct. 4, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. The seminar will show hunters how to get more out of their wild game and fish through new cooking tips and techniques, with a focus on upland birds. Shaw will …

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Tag a Monarch

Help Uncover a Mystery By Renae Blum, NEBRASKAland Contributor It’s one of the miracles of nature: each fall, millions of insects weighing less than one gram fly to overwintering sites in Mexico from across the United States, some traveling several thousand miles. This is the monarch butterfly, and the details of how this migration occurs are still surrounded by questions. Since 1992, Chip Taylor and his team at the University of Kansas have endeavored to find answers via a monarch …

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Here’s Your Sign

caterpiller

Sometimes nature sends obvious signs about what a person should not touch. Cacti, yucca plants, porcupines and rattlesnakes have signals akin to a flashing billboard. Then there are more devious dangers such rash-inducing urushiol on unassuming poison ivy plants. I am not sure where the subject of the following story fits into that spectrum, but I now know I should have been paying a little closer attention to some signs. “Ohhh, look at the fuzzy caterpillar,” my 10-year-old daughter Kiera …

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Success in the Salt Marsh

The sun sets as shadows fall over a saline wetland and a muskrat hut at the Little Salt Fork Marsh Preserve.

It is just before dawn in Nebraska’s eastern saline wetlands. You sit quietly on the edge of a salt marsh – a nearly level pan of sparse vegetation and mud. Just in front of you water laps in rhythmic beats at the shoreline. On the opposite shore, the growing light gently begins to fill in the dark spaces, giving definition to the dusky shapes that have been murmuring in the distance. They are a mixed flock of shorebirds and waterfowl …

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The Eclipse through the eyes of citizen scientists

Photograph taken during the middle of the day during the eclipse at Verdon State Recreation Area (SRA) in Richardson County. Kurrus, Aug. 15, 2017. Copyright NEBRASKAland Magazine, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.

One year ago, for just a couple of minutes, the sky darkened in the middle of the day. The air cooled, stars and planets appeared, and the sun seemed to transform before our eyes. The 2017 solar eclipse was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. But as fascinating as it was, not everyone had their eyes trained on the skies the whole time. There was a question that needed answering: how would animals and plants react to the eclipse? Life Responds That was …

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Sharpen Your Knife Like a Butcher

sharpening

Just as you ready your firearms for hunting season, you should also ready your knife. Start by purchasing a tri-stone, which is a series of three stone plates that use abrasive particles, called grit, to create an edge on a blade. Hold the knife in your dominant hand and evenly spread the fingers of your other hand across the knife blade. (see image) Angle and pressure are very important. Most people don’t use enough pressure when they start. The wider …

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