Tag Archives: Fishing skills

So far this has been a typical early spring in Nebraska.  We have had beautiful warm days that have everyone revved-up and ready to fish, and then we have slap-in-the-face reality as the wind howls, the temperature drops below freezing, and it snows, again!  Welcome to springtime in Nebraska! The wild swings in weather make spring fishing especially frustrating, but fortunately we have a variety of fish that can be found in Nebraska waters including cold- and cool-water species that …

I have still been on the ice every chance I get and again have had a chance to roam the state a bit. . . . Yes, ice conditions are variable.  With the stinkin’ mid-winter rains we have had, ice conditions in southeast Nebraska especially have not been nearly as good as many of us would like.  The run-off has softened the ice around shorelines and in some cases other parts of several waters.  In addition, our pits and interstate …

Just want to post up a few pictures from our ice-fishing clinic at Yanney Park in Kearney last Saturday.  We had a great time! The Kearney ice clinic is a little bit different in that we do a classroom session in the morning.  The Environmental Resource Center Building there right beside the pit makes a great setting for the classroom session and we had 60-some people packed in there.  Don Cox, Andrew Svoboda, Rob Greer and myself rambled about a …

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 …

Just this morning I had a gentleman ask me questions about getting started ice-fishing.  I had an easy answer for him!  Attend one of our Discover Ice Fishing Clinics! The first of those for this winter is scheduled for this coming Saturday, Jan. 14, at Lake Wanahoo just north of the town of Wahoo.  We will “set up shop” there at the main boat ramp on the west side of the reservoir and will be there from 1:00 p.m. to …

The equipment advances on the ice-fishing front in the past decade or two have literally been mind-boggling.  There is so much modern ice-fishing equipment available now that makes it a lot easier to ice-fish and makes us a lot more effective catching fish through the ice.  It all works, they are all different tools for different jobs, the key is using the right tools. A variety of small jigs have been the standard for catching panfish through the ice for …

There is a very interesting story in this month’s issue of NEBRASKAland.  It is a story that Jeff Kurrus wrote.  Let me tell you a little bit about Jeff. . . . Jeff is a Tennessee boy, hard-core fisherman, but he had a whole new world to experience once he moved to Nebraska.  I had done some “stuff” over the phone with Jeff before he moved here and started working for NEBRASKAland.  Naturally, as soon as he got here, he …

You know what they say, “All fishermen are liars except you and me, and sometimes I wonder about you.” Yep, you have to ask the right questions, but even then we can be really vague with our answers: Seriously, the mental approach to fishing fascinates me.  I have found it very interesting that some of the best professional and tournament anglers intentionally avoid getting fishing reports from a body of water they intend to fish.  In fact some of the …

There is nothing worse than losing a big fish: “Sorry Hunny, that fish is gawwn.” Ouch, afraid to say, I know the feeling, so do you. That video advertises good line; equipment failure certainly is one reason you can lose a fish. . . . So is operator error.  But, I would say that other than those excuses, which would be good blogs for another day, the biggest reason fish are lost is because the hooks were not sharp!  Sharp …

One of my favorite themes about fishing in Nebraska is the variety of species and fishing opportunities our great state offers.  There are around a hundred species of fish swimming in Nebraska waters.  More than half of those hundred species are minnows of some kind and a variety of other small fish that typically are not caught on hook and line.  That is unless you are “micro-fishing”.  Micro-fishing?????  What in the world is “micro-fishing”?  Watch this and you will get …