We are in the latter part of the season for spring wild turkey hunting in Nebraska. Using a baseball analogy, it is the bottom of the 9th inning, your team is behind, the bases are loaded, there two outs and you are up to bat! I don’t think there is any doubt about it, spring wild turkey hunting late in the season is challenging. However, there are still plenty of gobbles to be heard and birds to be worked plus …

The apple blossoms have emerged. Why is that important? It is a reliable indicator that tells me I now will find one of my most valued vegetables in Nebraska’s rural landscape — wild asparagus. Apple blossoms. Photo by Greg Wagner/Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. Sure enough, I was right! Wild asparagus emerging in early May in eastern Nebraska. Photo by Greg Wagner/Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. Wild asparagus, a hardy plant that comes back from the same root system every …

All of us who love to fish have a story or two about the one that got away, don’t we? Invariably, the tale involves hooking the fish of a lifetime and losing it to unforeseen circumstances or mistakes. Trust me, I have made my share of mistakes when it comes to large, prized game fish. Without question, these stories, however embellished, can be devastating to those who have a passion for wetting lines. For as many wild and crazy occurrences …

Nebraska weather. Don’t like it? Wait a short while. It’ll change, maybe. Reality is rarely so kind. The Cornhusker State’s spring wild turkey hunting seasons are in full swing amid the ever-changing, ever-fluctuating weather patterns here on the Great Plains. Nevertheless, should we wait to turkey hunt until we have those beautiful bluebird-like days with warm sunshine and slight to no wind? If time is not available to do that, we might have to hunt when the weather is dealing …

Topside photo of a dryad’s saddle, a.k.a. pheasant’s back or hawks wing, in Nebraska. Photo by Greg Wagner/Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. Hey, what’s that mushroom? Hmmm … Wonder if it’s edible? Along with finding and picking morel mushrooms, there is another edible wild fungi growing in your moist woodlands that you should know and consider harvesting and making for dinner — the dryad’s saddle. Dryad’s saddle? The dryad’s saddle (Polyporus squamosus) , a.k.a., pheasant’s back mushroom, or hawk’s wing, is …

Turkey calling. “It gets too much credit when a hunt goes right and too much blame when it doesn’t.” That according Dick Turpin of Lincoln, NE who is among Nebraska’s most veteran and legendary turkey hunters. Turpin, who is 84 years of age, will hunt turkeys for his 57th consecutive year this spring. He has hunted every spring season since it opened in 1964! I think he knows a thing or two about these birds. Turpin, originally from Bassett, NE, …

You have just read the title to this blog and you’re thinking ‘Whoa, Wagner is way off base with this one!’ PL-EASE … Allow me to explain. Now that spring has finally sprung, some of the more prolific, more accessible wild edible foods will soon begin to make their initial appearances … in your yard! No kidding! This is the time of year when when edible wild plants emerge and they are their most tender, tastiest stage. Know that your …

Turkey hunter and outdoor writer Tom Kelly once wrote, “I do not hunt turkeys because I want to. I hunt them because I have to. I would, really, rather not. But I am helpless in the grip of my compulsion.” I completely agree! Anyone who has ever spent a gorgeous Nebraska spring morning with their back leaning against the base of a mature hardwood tree or sitting in a camouflaged blind, using a call and decoys to lure a wild …

There are green shoots of grass sprouting in the front yard of my Omaha lawn. The sandhill crane migration is nearing its peak in Nebraska’s central Platte River valley. Wild turkeys are entering their breeding phase on our family farm in southeast Nebraska. Oh, and what about the fish that swim where I fish? Hmmm … Spring. It may or may not be here on the calendar just yet, but the time for early spring fishing is has arrived. If …

Tersh Kepler of Omaha, NE is pumped. Really pumped! You see, Tersh is one of the Midwest’s foremost experts on morel mushroom hunting and he says the conditions are aligning for what could be a spectacular morel mushroom hunting year. Even though Nebraska’s landscape has been dry and is still technically in a drought, he highlights three reasons for predicting what might be a banner year for morels. “First, we’re two years after a major flood on river bottoms when …