Tag Archives: catch & release

I heard a radio talk show driving to work this week that brought this story to my attention.  Of course they had not a clue about the fish or fishing, so I looked into it more and found that this is really cool! This comes from Men’s Journal online: Eric Clapton Just Caught the Year’s Biggest Salmon in Iceland Rock & roll legend. World-class guitarist. Record-setting angler? Turns out that Eric Clapton, one of the greatest musicians of all time, …

I am a huge fan of selective harvest and catch & release fishing.  Of course releasing a fish does no good if that fish does not survive.  So, one “soap box” I often crawl up on is the one about proper fish handling. One debate when it comes to proper handling of released fish, is what chances a deeply-hooked fish has to survive.  Now, I do not have the publication on this research that is being done on Northern Pike …

I was going to blog about something different today, but I just heard some talk about hot Walleye bites on Nebraska reservoirs and folks having problems releasing fish that they by regulation have to release.  I do not know why this is any kind of a problem any more–we have had a variety of length limit regulations for a variety of species for a lot of years now and catch and release is a routine part of fishing!  Either by regulation …

I am all fishing, all the time, except when the turkeys are gobbling in the spring.  I just cannot get enough of hunting those big, beautiful Toms.  So, the past few weeks I have to admit to you that I have been fishing very little.  But, Nebraska’s spring turkey season 2016 is now in the rear-view mirror, and it is time to get back on the water!  This past weekend, a holiday weekend, was a great one to do that, …

I have a few state record applications laying on my desk; time for the first state record update of 2016! So far all of the applications have been for fish caught by rod & reel.  Let me tell you about them in the order in which they came in: Tiger Trout If you have not heard about the Tiger Trout being stocked in Nebraska waters by now, take a minute and review, Tigers.  We started recognizing state record Tiger Trout back …

Big fish fascinate me, especially big, bad, top-of-the-food-chain, apex predator fish!  So, I hope you do not mind my sharing news about another one that was caught in another state again this past week.  A couple weeks ago I blogged about a big muskie caught from Mille Lacs in Minnesota, on a fly rod,  World Records! Well, if you thought that was a big fish. . . ain’t nothing.  Check out this one caught from the same water! Here is …

I was browsing the Omaha World Herald yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to see a full-color picture of an ice angler holding a nice northern pike.  What was really surprising about this was that this picture and the accompanying story were not in the outdoor section or even sports section of the newspaper.  They were on the back page of the front section!  Here is the story, Report details killing tendencies of nature’s most lethal predator. As you can imagine, …

A couple of days ago I teased you with an opportunity that will be available to catch some quality-size channel catfish from a select few bodies of urban and parks waters, Bonus Fish.  So, to understand what I am referring to in this blog post, why and how there is this opportunity right now, and why it is so limited, you must go back and read that blog post too.  Take a couple of minutes, go back and read it, …

When I initially wrote this blog post it looked like we were going to have a long and prosperous ice-fishing season.  Now, not so much. . . . However, this is something I still want to mention, something I want some ice anglers to think about; with some cold weather, you might be able to put this into practice yet this ice season.  If not, there is always next year. Gaffs are a tool that can be used to land …

As I have said before, my “New Year” starts the first day I am on the ice.  The beginning of each new ice-fishing season is my “New Year’s Day”.  This year was a little unusual in that my “New Year’s Day” occurred on the actual New Year’s Day 2015.  There had been some ice-fishing in Nebraska clear back at Thanksgiving time, but all of that ice melted and we had to wait. Our first day on the ice, my son …