Tag Archives: Fish handling

You would think as long as I have been ice-fishing, some lessons would have been learned a long time ago.  Yes, that should be true, but sometimes I am a little dense.  How many fish have you lost at the hole?  If you have been on the ice for awhile, I am betting more than one. It happened to me already this ice season; hooked a nice largemouth bass, I am guessing 18-inches plus, spent some time playing it, finally got …

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 …

A week ago I blogged about some fish handling issues that needed to be addressed according to recent reports from the water.  Actually, I do not know that folks really need another lesson on proper handling of fish that by law must be released, as much as they need an attitude adjustment.  I never know who reads my “stuff”, hopefully it made someone stop and think. This week I want to return to the same topic, but I want to take …

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 …

Buried deep in the volumes of Nebraska State Statutes, Chapter 37, you can find this: 37-542. Fish unlawfully taken; duty of angler. All fish which cannot lawfully be taken shall be returned to the water at once with as little injury as possible, if taken, and before removing or attempting to remove such fish from the hook it shall be the duty of the angler to first wet his or her hands. Now, some will immediately throw up a red …

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 …

I realize Nebraska does not spring to mind when anglers think of the top fishing destinations on the continent.  I realize even more that it does not rank high on the list of places to go catch the “king of North American freshwater sport fish”, the muskie. Maybe that is a big mistake????? Yep, now you are thinking that “homer” Daryl has really lost it–suggesting that Nebraska has good muskie fishing.  Well, Nebraska is home, and I will always tell …