Tag Archives: channel catfish

You may have heard me say before that my calendar is a little different.  Most folks recognize January 1 as New Year’s Day.  My “New Year” starts the first day I walk onto the ice for the season.  “New Year” can start some time in December, or maybe later than that.  This year, unfortunately, it has been later, too much later. I was hopeful “New Year’s Day” was going to be around the end of December.  At that time, I …

A few weeks ago I posted a few photos of fish our field biologists have sampled around the state this fall.  I have all the data now and am putting together next year’s Fishing Forecast.  Wait for it, it is coming, should be sometime shortly after the first of the year. Until then, let me tease you with some more photos of fish that were sampled, and released.  These from eastern Nebraska: OK, for the sake of accuracy, this one …

There was a meeting of the Nebraska Game & Parks Commission last week in Omaha.  Here is the fish part of the news release that dropped after that meeting: Commission adopts changes to sport fishing orders LINCOLN, Neb. – The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission amended sport fishing orders at its meeting Oct. 18 in Omaha. The amendments, which pertain to daily bag limits, possession limits, length limits and open areas and take effect Jan. 1, 2020, are: — The …

Some of you may have noticed a subtle difference in our Family Fishing program this summer.  We have had a full list of events again this summer, actually starting to wind down now, but you may have noticed we have been calling them “Community Fishing Nights” instead of “Family Fishing Nights”.  It is a minor name change made because we did not want folks to think that they could not come out if they did not have family to come …

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 …

My lighthearted blog post last Friday was about catching largemouth bass through the ice.  Some of  us “northern” boys really know how that is done, and in fact the bite for largemouth bass through the ice can at times be very good and is a lot of fun. I know our ice conditions in some parts of Nebraska are very much “iffy” right now, and let’s just say if you are getting on the ice, you better be very careful …

I have already suggested some things to do during this “‘tweener time” while we wait for safe ice.  Naturally, one thing we like to do as anglers is reminisce about past trips, past successes, big ones caught.  That reminiscing could include years past or just the current year, but for me, this time of year, I like to look back over the fall fishing that I just finished. I fish hard in the fall, as much as possible.  It is …

Our Nebraska Game & Parks Commission fisheries biologists are finishing up their fall fish sampling around the state.  I am starting to hear a few stories about what they sampled, will be getting data summaries and starting to put together next year’s Fishing Forecast in the coming weeks. Once again let me post a disclaimer before I show you the pictures:  When pointy-headed fisheries biologists sample fish populations they are NOT trying to capture the biggest fish in a population.  …

LINCOLN, Neb. – The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission is giving young anglers in eastern Nebraska an opportunity to catch some “bonus-sized” channel catfish. Game and Parks on Aug. 14 stocked catfish ranging from 2 to 10 pounds in three lakes. There were 270 stocked in Omaha’s Wehrspann Lake, 50 in Lincoln’s Bowling Lake, and 50 in Papillion’s Lake Halleck. “There are very limited numbers of fish this large that can be produced in Nebraska state fish hatcheries, not nearly …

I got outta the office this week to help stock some fish.  Stocking fish is nothing unusual, we will stock over 30 million fish in over 250 Nebraska waterbodies again this year, and once in a while I lend a hand. The species of fish I helped stock was nothing unusual either, channel catfish.  We will stock over 200 thousand channel catfish in over 160 different Nebraska waterbodies just this year.  No, what made this unusual was the size of …