Tag Archives: black crappie

A few weeks ago I blogged about my adventures on the ice and according to the calendar I titled it a “mid-winter ice report”.  Well, you all know what the weather has been like since then, and even though the calendar says it is the end of February, all the snow and slush on the ice tells me we now are in mid-winter. Certainly our weather and ice conditions have been what we usually see in mid-winter, but I still …

Looks doubtful that I will get on the ice this weekend.  Stinkin’ weather!  I guess I will just continue to dream about it. . . . While day-dreaming, I have stumbled onto these “Sixty Seconds Underwater” videos by Engbretson Underwater Photography.  These fuel my dreaming and even though they are only sixty seconds at a time, if you watch you will learn some things about your favorite fish! Some things I notice in those videos:  Cruising fish are active fish, …

There is no doubt that crappies are a popular fish in the spring.  They can be relatively easy to catch, accessible to every angler, even those fishing from the shore, and tasty on the table.  Given some warm spring weather, which we have finally seen the past few days, and folks are out to catch crappies.  But, there are a lot of misconceptions about crappies in the spring, and clearing some of those up might help you catch even more …

I have been blessed to have opportunities to fish with some really good anglers.  Had another couple days on the ice deep in the Nebraska sandhills doing that again this winter. It all started when a buddy let me know he had a legendary ice angler coming down to spend some time chasing big Nebraska bluegills.  He invited me to come out and fish with them.  It took some shuffling of my schedule, but I jumped at the chance.  Who …

Last winter I told you about a little trip I took to the beautiful Nebraska sandhills; a trip to assist with some filming for a TV fishing show, TV Ice Fishing. Obviously, that filming was done for a couple of ice-fishing episodes for Jason Mitchell Outdoors.  The filming last winter was done for ice-fishing episodes that will be airing this ice season.  Well, they started airing ice-fishing episodes on Jason Mitchell Outdoors a couple of weeks ago, and the second …

You all know that big fish turn my crank!  The biggest, baddest predator fish swimming in a body of water, “GET ON MY LINE”!  I spend A LOT of time on the water each year trying to do just that.  The thing is when pursuing those biggest, baddest, top-of-the-food-chain, apex predators, there never are a lot of them and there are a lot of hours of effort for each one hooked.  Yep, sometimes a lot of hard fishing in miserable …

Spring is a very busy time for Nebraska Game & Parks Commission fisheries workers; fish to be stocked, fish to be spawned, sampling to be done, eggs to be hatched, etc., etc.  I will always tell you that in our field work we do NOT necessarily see the biggest fish that are present in our waters.  If you want to see that, anglers as a group target big fish and are most likely to encounter the biggest fish in any …

A couple of days ago I told you that last week was a busy week, and I told you about one of the things that made it busy–the MidWest Fish & Widlife Conference.  During that conference I took a break to do an orientation session with a couple of our new commissioners here at the Game & Parks Commission, and then I headed out of town to help with another little project. . . . I have referred to some …

I have a few state record applications laying on my desk; time for the first state record update of 2016! So far all of the applications have been for fish caught by rod & reel.  Let me tell you about them in the order in which they came in: Tiger Trout If you have not heard about the Tiger Trout being stocked in Nebraska waters by now, take a minute and review, Tigers.  We started recognizing state record Tiger Trout back …

You all know that I love to travel Nebraska, fish the variety of waters we have, catch a variety of species of fish, and share that here on my blog.  I will continue to do that every chance I get.  However, life is usually a lot more routine than that.  I am not always traveling, am not always able to get away to one of the several waters I wish I could be fishing at the time.  No, just like …