Barbs and Backlashes

Have you ever been in a place that left you speechless?  A place where you almost literally stood there with your jaw on the floor?  A place that took your breath away? Several examples come to my mind:  Memorial Stadium on a home football Saturday is certainly one of those places.  Yes, I am a huge Husker fan, and recently had the same reaction when I walked into the new Husker volleyball arena in the remodeled Devaney Sports Center.  My …

Last week our fisheries personnel along with help from a bunch of other folks applied rotenone to Willow Lake (the Willow Lake in Brown County).  Willow Lake has been an excellent largemouth bass and panfish fishery over the years, but recently has been dominated by black bullheads and common carp.  Those species not only are less desirable to anglers, they also degrade water quality and habitat and are a detriment to all other fish species.  When that happens the quickest …

I have often joked that all of my best hunting, fishing and trapping spots are guarded by ticks, mosquitoes, itch-mites, owls, wild hogs, rattlesnakes, sasquatch and mountain loins.  Those critters are stocked in strategic locations to keep the competition away. Don’t believe me?  Well, there have been some curious reports in the news lately: Bigfoot Sighting Bigger, badder rattlesnake at Burchard Lake I have blogged frequently about the fishing at Lake Wanahoo and now a sasquatch is roaming nearby. Since …

You all know that I love to travel Nebraska, fish a variety of waters, catch a variety of fish, hopefully big ones, and tell you all about it.  Yep, I am going to do that again here, but this time with a little different twist. In spite of what you may think, I am not traveling the state all the time.  Like most folks, much of the time I am working out of the office, at Game & Parks headquarters …

I have made the statement before, will make it again right now. . . . WATER will be THE issue of this century for western states including Nebraska.  Some of us are accused of being “chicken littles” because when we have a wet year, like we had in 2011, everyone forgets that many of our water resources are already being tapped at a maximum sustainable rate or more!  When we get a dry year, like 2012, everyone remembers that we …

My Grandpa Bauer could pick up several instruments and play them, by ear.  I am told he and his brothers had a little band and played some barn dances and gigs like that in western Nebraska.  Man, what I wouldn’t give to hop in a time machine and travel back to listen to them play.  My Gramps Roth played the harmonica. Apparently, that music vein did not branch out into either limbs of my Bauer or Roth family trees.  I …

I am thrilled whenever I hear about folks taking ownership in our natural resources.  Yes, I work as a fisheries biologist for the Nebraska Game & Parks Commission and we are responsible for the stewardship of the state’s fisheries resources, but I will always tell you that those resources belong to you!  They belong to the people, they are your resources, my resources.  I have said before that I do not care how big or how little the project or …

Let me highlight this news release that went out last week.  Maybe it will give you an idea of something to do with the kids this Labor Day–GO FISH. Black Bullheads Stocked in Four Eastern Lakes LINCOLN, Neb. – Catchable-size black bullheads are being stocked in four eastern Nebraska lakes just in time for Labor Day weekend, according to the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. The Valentine State Fish Hatchery is stocking 9- to 10-inch bullheads in the following lakes: …

Our video productions guy, Ralph Wall was sorting through some old tapes the other day when he found this gem, a “Fishing Forecast” for 1984! [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEFT2m01wsY[/youtube] Hey, wait a minute.  I was catching fish in Nebraska in 1983 and I don’t remember nothing like that!  And it weren’t in black & white neither! Actually if you listen to the audio, it is a legitimate Nebraska fishing forecast for that year.  But some “comedian”, and we do have a few of …

Got a fishing report to give you, but let me give a little background to the story.  Back in the mid-1990’s I worked for a couple of years in our newly-established fisheries management office in south-central Nebraska.  That region included much of the the Tri-County canal and reservoirs on that canal.  In the years I was there we were not able to spend much time on the canal reservoirs, but from what we knew of the high flow-through rates and …