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Good Sticks

In my work I meet a lot of people (many of you will have to forgive me, because I cannot remember everyone; never hesitate to remind me if you have met me before).  Most of the folks I interact with are Nebraskans and of course are fishermen and fisherwomen.  I was talking to one last weekend.  He started showing me fish pictures, and then commented that I probably get tired of seeing fish pictures.  Are you kidding?  I love seeing fish pictures!  I love showing fish pictures!

Anyway, I digress.  I meet a lot of anglers and have come to find that there are some really good anglers in Nebraska.  It has been my privilege to meet several of them, an even bigger privilege to fish with many of them.  I cannot list them all, but I do want to mention a couple in this blog post because they recently have been mentioned in newspaper stories and have been “floating” around on the internet.  I know some of you have already seen these items, but I want to mention it again here for those of you that have not!

Last fall I got to spend some time on the Missouri River in northeast Nebraska fishing with Brad Huston.  If you want to go back to my adventure report on that trip, you can see it here, “It’s Our River Too!” .  Recently, Brad was featured in the Omaha World Herald, Vet’s love of fishing is rekindled .  Take some time to read that story, it is a good one.  I talked to Mark Davis, the World-Herald writer who did the story; you can read and detect his excitement about his experience on the Big Mo with Brad.  You should have heard Mark on the phone!

If you are interested, you can find more information here, Fish Eagle Guide Service .

This has been a year of BIG catfish, big channel cats, big flatheads and big blues.  I believe I have seen more pictures of truly HUGE catfish caught from Nebraska waters this year than any other time I remember.  Recently, a couple of anglers who wrestled some of those big cats have posted a video of their adventures.  You have to take the time to watch this video, it is very well done and the fish are mind-boggling!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAWSrzCUMlo[/youtube]

Can you believe that??????  Wow!  Kevin Workman and his brother not only caught one, but two HUGE blue catfish and they did it from their kayaks!!!!!!  That is getting it done, no complaining about the fishing, no excuses, just GO FISH!  Truly impressive, well done!

I will always tell you that some of our neighboring states have more water than we do and yes, there are a lot of excellent fishing opportunities outside of Nebraska’s borders.  I have a list of waters I want to fish and yes, many of those fantastic fisheries are located out of state.  But, I learned a long time ago that we have a lot of good opportunities in Nebraska too, and most of the time it is not so much a matter of how good the fishing is rather than how good of an angler you might be.  If you look around, there are some Nebraska anglers out there who just plain catch fish.  They catch a lot of fish, and they catch big fish.  They just plain are “good sticks”!

About daryl bauer

Daryl is a lifelong resident of Nebraska (except for a couple of years spent going to graduate school in South Dakota). He has been employed as a fisheries biologist for the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission for 25 years, and his current tour of duty is as the fisheries outreach program manager. Daryl loves to share his educational knowledge and is an avid multi-species angler. He holds more than 120 Nebraska Master Angler Awards for 14 different species and holds more than 30 In-Fisherman Master Angler Awards for eight different species. He loves to talk fishing and answer questions about fishing in Nebraska, be sure to check out his blog at outdoornebraska.org.

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