Volume 86, Issue 10, 2008
December 2008
- Identifier:
- nela.2008_086_10
- Title:
- Volume 86, Issue 10, 2008
- Issue Name:
- December 2008
- Date Issued:
- 2008-12-01
- year:
- 2008
- month:
- December
- Season:
- Autumn
- PDF filename:
- NL_86.10_2008_Dec_Spreads_Entire.pdf
- Publisher:
- Nebraska Game and Parks Commission
- Format:
- Periodical
- volume:
- 086
- issue:
- 10
- number:
- 086.10
- Decade:
- 2000s
- Type:
- Rights Holder:
- Copyright Nebraskaland Magazine/Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, all rights reserved.
- Extracted Text:
-
Todd Hendricks, of Gretna, watches as his liver-colored Brittany spaniel, Tagg, retrieves a pheasant in
Seward County. Photo by Jeff Kurrus.
NEBRASKAland Magazine
Published by the
Nebraska Game and Parks Commission
NebraskalandMagazine.com
$4.95
Price Comparisons for Lifetime Permits Purchased in 2008 versus 2009
PURCHASED IN
PURCHASED IN
2008
2009
$276
$326
$426
$326
$307.50
$366.50
$446
$366.50
$126
$186
$286
$186
$148.50
$219
$300
$219
$376
$501
$646
$501
$425.50
$573
$699
$573
Lifetime Habitat Stamp
$260
$260
Lifetime Waterfowl Stamp
$100
$100
RESIDENT LIFETIME PERMITS
Lifetime
Lifetime
Lifetime
Lifetime
Fish
Fish
Fish
Fish
(0-5 years old)
(6-15 years old)
(16-45 years old)
(46+ years old)
Lifetime
Lifetime
Lifetime
Lifetime
Hunt
Hunt
Hunt
Hunt
Lifetime
Lifetime
Lifetime
Lifetime
Hunt/Fish
Hunt/Fish
Hunt/Fish
Hunt/Fish
(0-5 years old)
(6-15 years old)
(16-45 years old)
(46+ years old)
(0-5 years old)
(6-15 years old)
(16-45 years old)
(46+ years old)
2 NEBRASKALAND • DECEMBER 2008
PURCHASED IN
PURCHASED IN
2008
2009
Lifetime Fish (0-16 years old)
Lifetime Fish (17+ years old)
$551
$851
$632
$951
Lifetime Hunt (0-16 years old)
Lifetime Hunt (17+ years old)
$626
$1,001
$738.50
$1181
Lifetime Hunt/Fish (0-16 years old)
Lifetime Hunt/Fish (17+ years old)
$1,076
$1,601
$1251.50
$1871
Lifetime Habitat Stamp
$260
$260
Lifetime Waterfowl Stamp
$100
$100
NONRESIDENT LIFETIME PERMITS
Volume 86, Number 10, December 2008
12 Three Days on Ice
Last winter, the Niobrara Ice Jam in Valentine gave
participants a unique activity to Nebraska residents and
visitors – ice climbing in the Cornhusker state.
TEXT AND PHOTOS BY MICHAEL FORSBERG
18 Mother-in-law Mahoney
A recent trip to Eugene T. Mahoney State Park with a new
visitor reveals an entirely new view of this Nebraska treasure.
TEXT AND PHOTOS BY JEFF KURRUS
20 Nebraska Goose Hunting – the early years
Nebraska’s Canada goose hunting success fluctuated during
the first half of the 20th century, yet the North Platte River
Valley remained the state’s premier goose hunting location.
BY JON FARRAR
30 EAB:The Green Plague
The emerald ash borer is a highly invasive insect that has
killed thousands of ash trees in the upper Midwest and is now
heading closer to Nebraska. BY ROCKY HOFFMANN
32 A Cody Christmas
32
●
Buffalo Bill Cody’s home in North Platte is decorated each
Christmas for holiday visitors. TEXT AND PHOTOS BY ROCKY HOFFMANN
38 The Next Hole
Scott and Monte Mares have been fishing together their entire
lives, and Dad has been with them every step of the way.
TEXT BY JEFF KURRUS, PHOTOS BY MICHAEL FORSBERG
10 Mixed Bag
Cooking venison, the praying mantis, and an unusual catch.
46 In the Kitchen
Recipes to make your own Swedish potato sausage.
47 In the Field
18
●
38
●
Doe shooting support groups are forming now.
49 Parks & Places
Maskenthine Lake offers a variety of outdoor activies.
Comment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Outdoor News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Classifieds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Portraits from the Past . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Cover: Ida Lau of Denver, Colorado climbs a ice wall on the south bank of the Niobrara River
near Valentine during the Niobrara Ice Jam last January. See story on page 12. Photo by
Michael Forsberg. Opposite: Following several winter days of dense fog and little wind,
hoarfrost covers a fence in Keith County near Keystone. Photo by Bill Hager.
20
●
DECEMBER 2008 • NEBRASKALAND 5
in the late afternoon. Apparently the
glare from the water was sufficient
enough to cause the cancer. Like
Mr. Fowler, I now nag everyone to
wear a dorky boonie hat.
Louise Witzenburg
Lake Mary, Florida
Published by the
Nebraska Game and
Parks Commission
Director: Rex Amack
Assistant Directors:
Roger Kuhn, Kirk Nelson, Sam Sidner
Information & Education Administrator:
Doug Bauch
Commissioners
Chairman:
James Ziebarth, Wilcox
Vice Chairman:
George E. Hall, Bridgeport
2nd Vice Chairman:
Jerrod Burke, Curtis
Dr. Mark Pinkerton, Wilber
Ron Stave, Waterloo
Dr. Kent Forney, Lincoln
Lynn Berggren, Broken Bow
Mick Jensen, Blair
Future Duck Hunter
My son-in-law, Christopher
McGreer, and my grandson, Logan,
both of Lincoln, are shown during
Logan’s first duck hunt earlier this
fall. Logan is just a little over two
years old and was hunting in Virgil
Johansen’s blind near Osceola.
Coincidentally, Logan’s greatgrandfather, Leonard Coffin, also
hunted ducks out of this blind with
Virgil, who is now 82 years old and
has hunted in the same pond since
he was a young boy. Logan, like
most youngsters, wanted to show
how well he could call ducks.
Calvin Coffin
Osceola, Nebraska
Magazine Staff
Editor: Doug Carroll
Associate Editor: Jeff Kurrus
Art Director: Tim Reigert
Senior Editor: Jon Farrar
Regional Editors:
Eric Fowler, Bob Grier, Rocky Hoffmann
Circulation: Donna Robinson
Photo Librarian: Sarah Johnson
Marketing/Advertising: Jane Gustafson
For advertising information e-mail
advertising@ngpc.ne.gov
or call (402) 471-5481
NEBRASKAland
ISSN: 0028-1964
VOL. 86 / NO. 10
DECEMBER 2008
Published monthly, except for Jan./Feb. and Aug./Sept.
issues, by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, 2200
N. 33rd St., Lincoln, NE. Copyright 2008, all rights reserved.
Please address comments or questions to this address.
Periodicals postage paid at Lincoln, Nebraska, and other
locations. POSTMASTER: Send all address changes to
NEBRASKAland, P.O. Box 30370, Lincoln, NE 68503-0370.
NEBRASKAland is available on audio cassette from the
Nebraska Library Commission Talking Book and Braille
Service, Suite 120, 1200 N St., Lincoln, NE 68508. (800)
742-7691. NEBRASKAland Magazine and the Nebraska
Game and Parks Commission reserve the right to reject
any advertising not in keeping with the agency mission.
Rates: $18 for one year; $33 for two years; $44 for
three years. Nebraska residents must add
appropriate sales tax.
To subscribe call 1-800-NEBLAND (632-5263),
or go online to: NebraskalandMagazine.com.
For address changes and questions about your
subscription, e-mail donna.robinson@ngpc.ne.gov.
6 NEBRASKALAND • DECEMBER 2008
Skin Warning Helpful
I am a native Nebraskan
misplaced in Florida and have
subscribed to NEBRASKAland for
many years.
I specifically wish to thank Eric
Fowler for his article on skin cancer
that appeared in the May 2008 issue.
I go to the pool year-round, and
while I always wore a hat with a
large bill to shade my face, my ears
were exposed. I developed a sore on
the rim of my left ear and didn’t
think too much about it until I read
Mr. Fowler’s article. I saw my doctor,
and he immediately sent me to a
dermatology group. The biopsy
came back as basal cell carcinoma.
Surgery was required to remove the
cancer, followed by plastic surgery. I
now wear a dorky boonie hat. I also
wear a Solar Veil shirt, which has
long sleeves and covers me from my
neck to my knees with material
developed by NASA.
I might add that I never sunbathed
and was only in the pool at 9 a.m. or
Grandpa’s Little Fisherman
Our grandson, Kyle Palky, was four
years old when this photo was taken.
Kyle and his little brother, Rick,
stayed at our house one or two days
each week, and their favorite “prenap” video was “Fishing with
Grandpa,” which we had purchased
from the Nebraska Game and Parks
Commission at their booth at the
Nebraska State Fair. The film was
aimed at teaching young children an
appreciation for fishing and good
sportsmanship. Although we had a
library of
kids’
videos, the
little guys
watched
“the fishin’
movie”
nearly
every day.
Kyle was
able to
put his
knowledge
to a reallife test
when he
and
Grandpa
John Palka spent an afternoon at a
farm pond near the family
homestead in Saline County.
Kyle was fishing with his new
“little green fishin’ pole” for the first
time, catching some little bluegills
using grasshoppers he and Gramps
had caught for bait, when the
two fishermen realized Kyle had
“something bigger” hooked on the
little green pole. With only a drag
adjustment by his grandpa, Kyle
brought this 6 ½ pound catfish to
shore. News of his catch made the
Crete News and Kyle was “hooked
for life.”
Kyle, now 15, has become an avid
trapshooter, hunter and fisherman. He
continues to use the knowledge and
ethics learned from many afternoon
viewings of “Fishing with Grandpa.”
Thanks, Nebraska Game and
Parks!!!
Kathy Palky
Dorchester, Nebraska
Left to right: Keith, Tad and Nolan
Speicher of Omaha pose with the “state
rock” that Keith found at Toadstool Park.
State Rock?
The October NEBRASKAland
article that mentioned hiking in
Toadstool Park reminded me of our
experience there this past August.
My grandson, Keith Speicher,
found a most unusual and interesting
formation there – has anyone else
found “Nebraska” in Toadstool?
Pictured with Keith are his brothers,
Tad and Nolan, from Omaha.
Yes, we do travel from eastern
Nebraska to western Nebraska for
our vacations.
Mary Jane Steenson
Omaha, Nebraska
Send your comments to:
Doug Carroll, Editor
NEBRASKAland Magazine
P.O. Box 30370
Lincoln, NE 68503
or e-mail doug.carroll@ngpc.ne.gov
Please include your postal address
and telephone number.
Letters may be condensed and edited
for clarity. Photographs are
welcome and will be returned.
Under federal and/or state law, discrimination is prohibited on the
basis of race, color, religion, age, gender, marital status, national
origin, disability or political affiliation. If you think you have been
discriminated against in any program, activity or facility by the
Nebraska Game and Parks Commission or want more information,
contact the Commission in Lincoln, NE, at (402) 471-0641 or the
Equal Opportunity Commission, Lincoln, NE, (402) 471-2024,
TTY/TDD (402) 471-4693).
Headquarters
2200 N. 33rd Street
Lincoln, NE 68503
Phone (402) 471-0641
District Office I
East Hwy. 2, Box 725
Alliance, NE 69301
Phone (308) 763-2940
District Office II
524 Panzer St., Box 508
Bassett, NE 68714
Phone (402) 684-2921
District Office III
2201 N. 13th St.
Norfolk, NE 68701
Phone (402) 370-3374
District Office IV
301 E. State Farm Rd.
North Platte, NE 69101
Phone (308) 535-8025
District Office VI
1617 First Ave.
Kearney, NE 68847
Phone (308) 865-5310
Omaha Office
1212 Bob Gibson Blvd.
Omaha, NE 68108
Phone (402) 595-2144
Ak-Sar-Ben Aquarium
21502 W. Highway 31
Gretna, NE 68028
Phone (402) 332-3901
World Wide Web site: www.OutdoorNebraska.org
E-mail: info@ngpc.ne.gov
Administration
Ted Blume (Adm.)
Craig Stover (Asst.)
Wes Loos (Asst.)
Rod Loos (Asst.)
Murray Johnson
Lincoln
471-5531
Lincoln
471-5532
Lincoln
471-5591
Ogallala (308) 284-8056
Lincoln
471-5003
Panhandle
Officer
City
Phone (308)
Jim Zimmerman (Sup.) Gering
436-7561
Walt Meyer
Chadron
432-4398
Scott Brandt
Gering
436-3418
Heath Packett
Gordon
282-2553
Dennis Thompson
Lemoyne
355-2024
Dan Zuehlke
Ogallala
284-4815
Doug Pollard
Oshkosh
772-9950
Frank Miller
Valentine (402) 376-1183
Dan Kling
Whitney
432-8367
Southwest
Officer
City
Phone (308)
Roger Thompson (Sup.) N. Platte
532-9175
Ray Dierking
Brkn. Bow
872-3078
George Sund
Cambridge
697-4629
Michael Thome
Cozad
784-4362
Matt Andrews
Elwood
785-3025
Dirk Greene
Imperial
882-5328
Virgil Gosch
McCook
345-2185
Dudley Sorensen
N. Platte
532-0747
Rich Routh
Rep. City
799-2085
South-central
Officer
Jerry Pecha (Sup.)
Jeff Jones
Terry Brentzel
City
Phone (308)
Kearney
865-5327
Clay Center(402)762-3124
Doniphan (402)845-2021
Randy Pomplun
Darin Gress
Dale Johnson
Mark Reeves
Robert Finke
Richard Seward
Fullerton
536-2987
Hebron (402) 768-2287
Kearney
237-1079
Loup City
745-0662
Milford (402) 761-3537
Ord
728-3115
Northeast
Officer
Tom Zimmer (Sup.)
Dale Davis
Ross Oestmann
Steve Oberg
Daniel Roberts
Jon Reeves
Marion Shafer
Pat George
Eric Wiebe
Tim Williams
Cory Krause
City
Phone (402)
Norfolk
371-6625
Bassett
273-1700
Bloomfield
373-4412
Columbus
564-5937
Fremont
721-7852
Kennard
427-7378
Norfolk
371-2031
O’Neill
336-1588
Ponca
755-2566
Neligh
887-1335
West Point
372-6979
Southeast
Officer
Duane Arp (Sup.)
Sean McKeehan
William Krause
Mike Luben
Douglas Kramer
Dina Barta
Stacey Lewton
Levi Krause
Russell Mort
Dan Evasco
Jeff Clauson
City
Gretna
Ashland
Auburn
Colon
Lincoln
Lincoln
Lincoln
Louisville
Nebr. City
Papillion
Waterloo
Phone (402)
332-2965
944-4174
274-3789
443-4278
466-9001
483-2358
476-0436
234-2212
873-5684
592-6733
359-5301
Nebraska Wildlife Crimestoppers 1-800-742-7627
DECEMBER 2008 • NEBRASKALAND 7
Deer Exchange
Dozens of participants have signed
up for the Deer Exchange, a pilot
program of the Nebraska Game and
Parks Commission that allows for
the transfer of deer meat from hunters
to people who want to receive it.
A record deer harvest is expected
this year. In an effort to thin the
whitetail population, especially in
eastern Nebraska, 87,000 antlerless
whitetail bonus tags have been made
available. Crop damage complaints
and deer-vehicle collisions have
increased along with the deer
population.
The Deer Exchange is designed to
accommodate the additional harvest
of deer. Hunters who have filled their
freezers may still bag another deer and
have somewhere to take the meat.
This program is available through
the Commission’s web site at
OutdoorNebraska.org. From that
site, participants are directed to a
page that allows them to register as
a donor of deer meat or a recipient.
It also links to a page that allows for
searches of registered participants by
county.
Eager participants should note that
it will take some time for a surplus of
deer to accumulate. Last year, 48,000
deer were harvested during the nineday November firearm season. The
8 NEBRASKALAND • DECEMBER 2008
other 20,000 deer were taken between
September 15 and January 15.
For more information on deer
hunting or the Deer Exchange, visit
OutdoorNebraska.org.
Price of Lifetime Permits to
Increase
At their October meeting, the
Nebraska Game and Parks
Commission board of commissioners
approved fee increases for all lifetime permits except for lifetime
Habitat and Waterfowl stamps. These
permit increases range anywhere
from $20 to $270, but the prices won’t
be in effect until January 1, 2009, so
now is a good time to buy lifetime
permits, which are valid even if the
owner later moves out of state.
In other action, the commissioners
also approved a staff recommendation
to remove the bald eagle from the
list of threatened species; approved
the acquisition of a 120-acre tract of
wildlife land in Johnson County that
will be an addition to Hickory Ridge
Wildlife Management Area (WMA);
reduced the daily bag limit of trout
(rainbow, brown and brook in
combination) in inland waters and
waters of the Missouri River from
seven to four with a possession limit
of eight, and increased the bag limit
from seven to eight and the possession
limit from 14 to 16 trout at designated
lakes and ponds that do not support
trout year-round and are stocked in
the fall, winter and/or spring; deleted
the 12-inch minimum length limits
on smallmouth, spotted bass and
largemouth bass in privately-owned
waters and established a 15-inch
minimum length limits on all black
bass in all inland waters, both public
and private.
PF Chapter Award
Nebraska’s Cornhusker Chapter of
Pheasants Forever was honored by
Field & Stream magazine in its
November issue. The chapter was one
of three conservation organization
chapters highlighted in the Heroes of
Conservation feature.
The Cornhusker Chapter was
formed in Lincoln in 1987, five
years after the national Pheasants
Forever organization was formed. In
2007, the chapter enhanced nearly
20,000 acres of land. “What’s
unique about us is that since we’re
in Lincoln, we have a lot more
people than habitat,” says Joe
Loxtercamp, chapter president.
It was also one of the first PF
chapters to hold a mentored-youth
hunt, and it has introduced more
than 275 children to pheasant
hunting in the past 13 years. ■
The
Complete
Venison
Cookbook
Jeff Kurrus
If there’s
already one
deer in the
freezer from
this year, or
one still left over
from last year, it’s time to open up
The Complete Venison Cookbook by
Harold W. Webster, Jr. At 420 pages
long, “complete” is an understatement.
Included is information about deer
processing, but the majority of the
book focuses on recipes for all edible
parts of deer, along with various side
dishes to accompany the venison.
For newcomers, the number of
recipes could be a bit overwhelming
and there are no accompanying
photographs, eliminating the desire
of many new cooks to match the
picture of what they are about to
serve. The book’s most important
aspect is that it allows the new cook
to realize that there is more than one
way to cook venison.
For the experienced chef, Webster’s
collection displays countless
opportunities for the table. Bottom
line: If you’ve run out of ways to cook
your deer, this cookbook probably has
more than a few you haven’t tried.
A Grasshopper’s Worst
Enemy
10 NEBRASKALAND • DECEMBER 2008
here clean … it says refrigerate … take
that a step farther and freeze them. If
you freeze these waxworms they will
last forever. The dead are eliminated,
you don’t have that trouble. When you
get out on the ice, they’ll be frozen
hard … you can thaw them in your
fingers or what I do is just stick one
in my lip … put a couple behind there
… then you’ve always got one on
hand to put on your hook … spit them
out and they’re going to be thawed.
those risks is that the new species can
become too successful, as in the case
of the introduced Asian multicolored
lady bird beetle, which has done so
well that it is apparently driving out
native lady bug species. The Asian lady
bug has also become a pest in its own
right, congregating in huge numbers
in and around the walls of houses and
other places, and leaving a foulsmelling yellow substance behind.
Praying mantids are amazing
creatures to study. Because they don’t
bite humans and will readily eat most
live insects, they can be kept as pets.
But more importantly, they’re a great
example of the diversity of life on
earth and it’s always fun to get a
periodic glimpse of them. Unless, of
course, you’re a grasshopper.
was hoping it was a bluegill,” he said.
The South American fish, which is
related to the piranha but mostly dines
on vegetation, was likely dumped in
the lake by someone who tired of caring
for it in their aquarium. At least two
other pacus have been caught by
Nebraska anglers this year, one from
Pawnee Lake near Lincoln in July and
the other from Terry’s Pitt near
Scottsbluff in September. While a pacu
wouldn’t be able to survive the winter
in Nebraska, releasing any exotic fish
into Nebraska waters is illegal. If you
have one and don’t want it, don’t
dump it – eat it or feed it to your cat.
Donate Those Hides
An Unusual Catch
Eric Fowler
Jeremiah Penn of Lincoln was a bit
surprised, to put it mildly, when he
caught a pacu while fishing at Holmes
Lake in Lincoln this past August. “I
The Benevolent and Protective
Order of Elks, known as the local
Elks Lodge in most small towns, is
accepting donated deer and elk hides
from the beginning of the rifle deer
season through the end of the January
antlerless deer season.
According to Rodney Nelson of
Winside, approximately 1,750 hides
collected across the state last year
were ultimately turned into soft
leather and made into either gloves
for wheel-chair bound veterans or
craft kits that were distributed to
veterans at VA Medical Centers across
the world.
Not much is required of the hunters
that wish to donate their deer hides,
said Nelson. Before the hides can be
shipped, they have to have all excess
fat, flesh and tails removed, then fine
table salt must be rubbed into all
fleshy surfaces. Volunteers at the
drop-off locations do most of this
work, but hunters are more than
welcome to do this themselves if they
wish, said Nelson. Care must be
taken, however, as even small holes in
a hide can result in it being ruined
during the tanning process.
Nelson said that 12 of the state’s
24 Elks Lodges participated in the
program last year and suggested
hunters call their local lodge to find
out about local drop-off points.
Last year more than 68,000 deer
were harvested in the state, meaning
only a small percentage of their hides
were utilized.
“It’s kind of a shame that all of
those deer hides get thrown away
every year,” said Nelson. “Last year
the West Point Sportsman Club
helped out by collecting 165 hides. If
other sportsmen groups around the
state would help us out, that would
be even better, but even individuals
dropping off the hides from their own
deer would be great.” ■
Turpin Time
Dick Turpin
The next
time you’re
down there
buying your
bait for the
winter and
you’re getting
some of those
waxworms,
try this trick.
Take the
sawdust out of
them … clean
them out of
the sawdust … pick out the dead ones
… you’re always going to have that
… that is always a problem … well,
we’re going to resolve some of that
here … put the waxworms back in
PHOTO BY DOUG CARROLL
Chris Helzer
The unsuspecting grasshopper
munched quietly on a leaf, working
its way slowly toward the stem of the
plant. As it chewed, the grasshopper
watched the triangular head of the
green stem pivot very slightly. Wait a
minute … triangular head? What the
… ZOOOMPH!
The excellent camouflage and
lightning-quick motion of the praying
mantis makes it an excellent predator.
Its long, folded front
legs are adorned
with spikes that
help it catch and
hold prey. The
shape of those legs
and the way it holds
them upright led to
the name “praying
mantis.” Though it
has functional
wings, the mantis
hunts on foot,
usually preferring to ambush its prey
rather than stalk it. Its distinctive
triangular head can pivot at least
180 degrees to watch for both prey
and predators. The mantis actually has
five eyes – the two large compound
eyes on each side of its head and three
small simple eyes arranged in a triangle
between the larger two. With those
eyes the mantis can see movement at
least 60 feet away.
There are more than 1,500 species
of mantids worldwide, but only 20 in
the U.S. Of those, two are common in
Nebraska – the Carolina mantis and
the Chinese mantis. The Chinese
mantis can grow to more than 4 inches
in length while the Carolina mantis is
usually only 2½ inches or less. Both
species eat mainly moths, crickets,
grasshoppers and flies, but will also
eat many other kinds of insects. The
female mantis has also been known to
eat her mate immediately after, or
sometimes during, mating – although
some scientists wonder if that behavior
is more common in laboratory
situations where the mantis may not
be well fed.
Because they are successful
predators, the praying mantis is
marketed as a “natural” way to reduce
the numbers of pest insects in gardens
or on small farms. Unfortunately,
while mantids are excellent predators,
they are unlikely to kill enough
insects to have an impact on pest
numbers, and they eat predators and
other beneficial insects as well as pests.
More importantly, there are a number
of potential risks to introducing
insects to new areas or moving
species from place to place. One of
DECEMBER 2008 • NEBRASKALAND 11
Text and photos by
Michael Forsberg
The advertisement on the Yucca Dune outdoor
recreation shop web site simply read:
“Don’t be a Dorothy! I know five minutes on this section of ice
will have you clicking yer heel spurs and whimpering ‘I wanna
go back to Kansas’... It can do that to ya! So come and get all
shook up on the only climbing in Nebraska that makes sense (or
doesn’t make sense…). Niobrara Ice Jam.
Yes, Valentine, Nebraska.”
The statement was a bonafide throwdown
challenge to the ice-climbing community to come
climb Nebraska. The challenger, Tim Ryschon, a
physician from Valentine as well as an avid climber
and owner of Yucca Dune (an outdoor recreation
shop in Valentine), knew from his own climbing
experience that he lived near first-rate,
ice-climbing opportunities on the Niobrara National
Scenic River and that one of the best ice-climbing
bluffs along the river was on Lee Simmons’ Niobrara
River Ranch, just upstream of Smith Falls State Park.
Here was the idea: Yucca Dune employees and local
volunteers would organize the event, the ranch would
provide access to the bluff, there would be a warming
hut with refreshments, a movie night of climbing and ski
films in town, and those who wished to stay near the ice
bluffs could rent attractive, spacious cabins at the ranch, just
across the river from the climbs.
This would be a low-key event. There would be no opening
ceremony and no set hours. Climbers would simply check in
at Yucca Dune, sign a liability waiver that would make them
responsible for their own safety while on Simmons’ property,
provide their own gear and climb to their heart’s desire. So
over three days in late-January 2008, the first-annual
Niobrara Ice Jam was born.
The only question was, would anybody show up?
Day 1 :
before the park entrance, we turned west onto Niobrara
River Ranch property, crossed the river bridge and followed
a two-track trail through woods and up the canyon before
topping out on the prairie.
As we unpacked our gear, two vehicles with Colorado
plates arrived carrying two couples from Denver: Joe Walker
and Janet Nord, and Fred Seyffert with Ida Lau, along with a
photographer and writer covering the story for the Norfolk
Daily News.
When I first met the Coloradans, I was searching for a
touch of skepticism in the air about whether, parked here in
the pasture between barbed-wire fence and frozen cow pies,
they really thought there was something worthy of climbing
in Nebraska. If there was any skepticism, it disappeared quickly
as Schneider led us down a game trail through the woods
and to the edge of the cliff that suddenly appeared out of the
dark border of trees. Peering over the edge, there was a 150foot vertical wall of ice that merged with the river far below.
These climbers were going to be “top-roping,” which
meant that multiple anchor points would be established on
top of the cliff. One person (the belayer) would stay on top,
anchor into these points and attach themselves into one end
of a rope. The climber would rappel down the face to the
bottom of the climb and tie into their end. Then the belayer
would take in rope as the climber ascends the route. If the
belayer does the job well and keeps slack out of the rope,
then the climber would only travel a short distance in the
event of a fall.
While the Colorado group set up top-ropes for their
climbs, Schneider and I hiked over to the other side of the
face to practice on an easier route, what he called a Water
Ice 2 (WI 2) climb. Climbs are rated 1 through 6. On a WI 1
climb you can walk up it in crampons without any ropes or
gear. A WI 6 climb is a wall that is overhanging vertically,
and is insane. I had rock climbed through college and had
some minor mountaineering experience, but that was years
It was still dark and the temperature had just dropped to
below 0-degrees when I met Stuart Schneider for breakfast
at the Grazin J’s café in Valentine. Schneider, chief ranger
for the National Park Service’s Niobrara National Scenic
River, which stretches 76 miles across north-central
Nebraska, has been a ranger in the National Park Service for
29 years. He’s worked in a diversity of habitats, from the
high desert and canyons of Zion
National Park in Utah to the
alpine tundra of Rocky
Mountain National Park in
Colorado. He also has 36 years
of rock and ice-climbing
experience, and that weekend
he had traded his ranger hat
for a climbing helmet and
volunteered his services to help
out with the event by making
sure, among other things, that
the climbers were getting to
where they needed to go and
journalists didn’t go tumbling
off into the icy river while
trying to cover the story.
As the sun broke the
Sandhills horizon, we headed
east out of Valentine on
Nebraska Highway 12 and
traveled about 15 miles until
we turned south on the road to
Colorado-based ice climbers Ida Lau and Joe Walked inspect top-rope anchors
Smith Falls State Park. Just
they have set up on the canyon rim before beginning a climb.
14 NEBRASKALAND • DECEMBER 2008
getting too old for this and was out of shape, he shimmied
ago. Although
up it like a monkey climbing a tree.
much of the rope
By late afternoon, the temperature had risen to just above
management work
freezing. The river that was full of ice in the morning was
with ice climbing is
now running free. As we sat above the climb and I tried to
the same and some of
the balance techniques rub the cramps out of my forearms and calves, two bald
eagles flew over the river below us and three large bull elk
are similar, that was
sauntered out of the pine-covered slope across the valley on
where my knowledge
the north bank and into the open grassland, catching the last
stopped and the
solar rays of the day.
learning curve began.
When we pulled gear and hiked back out toward the
The rest of the day
prairie, we met the Colorado climbers coming up the trail.
Schneider gave me a
They were grinning ear to ear. One of the climbers, Ida Lau,
crash course in ice
skipped by us as if floating on air, “Look at the sunset” she
climbing, beginning
said to no one in particular as she pointed off to the west at
with learning how to
the sun sinking into the gentle curve of the hills. Then she
“read ice.” There was
stopped, turned to us and said, “I honestly didn’t think it
good ice and bad ice:
would be like this. It’s beautiful.”
Ice that was clear or
blue in color and
smooth and dense was
Janet Nord of Denver swings an ice
firm ice and good to
ax, hoping for a good “stick.”
Overnight the temperature had plunged to -20 degrees.
climb. Ice that was
Rim ice had formed and was floating downriver in trashcan
white and rough, with bubbles in it and where you could
lid-sized chunks shortly after sunrise as we made our way to
hear water running behind, was not. I also learned that the
the ice wall. Up top, where we were setting up a rappel, we
ice surface and structure can change quickly and is never
stopped to watch a Townsend’s solitaire, a robin-sized gray
the same year to year, day to day and even hour to hour,
bird, fly from the crown of a tall cedar to the cliff face to get
particularly here on the Great Plains, where temperature and
a drink, grabbing onto an imperceptible little hold on the
humidity can vary widely from one extreme to the other
cliff face where groundwater was dripping out of the soil just
throughout the winter season. Schneider also explained to
below the lip of the canyon. Then another solitaire came in
me some of the basic ice-climbing mechanics – how you set
to drink; then another.
your feet into the ice, how you set and pull out an ice ax,
An hour later, we had rappelled down and set up anchors
and how you can assume certain resting positions that give
and ropes on a traverse that allowed me to move horizontally
various muscle groups a break while still maintaining a firm
across the ice wall and photograph groups of climbers as
hold on the ice.
they ascended and descended on their climbs. Waiting for
As I rappelled down the face, a lot of muscle memory
the day’s climbers to arrive, I could really study the ice wall
immediately came back from old rock climbing days. But
up close for the first time.
when I began my climb up, I learned quickly this was not
At this spot the Niobrara makes a wide, sweeping,
like climbing rock. In rock climbing, your primary tools are
U-shaped bend along the south bank and forms a tall, nearly
your hands and your feet. The old adage is to be one with
the rock, smearing, jamming or otherwise molding your feet
and hands on the rock’s surface to ensure that you have
enough grip and balance to move your body upward to
your next hand or foothold. More or less it is intuitive, and
your tools (read hands and feet) are pliable, shapeable
and flexible instruments. On ice, however, you are one
more step removed. Instead of hands to grip with, you
use ice axes. Instead of molded flexible climbing shoes,
you use heavy boots with crampons (metal frames with
spikes) bound to your boots much like skis are.
These are not flexible instruments, so you must learn
proper technique to hold and swing the ax to make sure
you get a firm “stick” into the ice, and you must know
how to “kick” a step in firmly with the numerous points
on your crampons. Not only must you see it, but you
must be able to hear and feel it. That takes time, practice
and more practice. It took me well over a half hour to do
the climb. It took Schneider, who spent much of his
climbing years in the mountains of Colorado doing
things on rock and ice that would make most people’s
Stuart Schneider, Ice Jam volunteer and chief ranger for the Niobrara
palms sweat, less than five minutes. Claiming he was
National Scenic River, checks out the scenery during a climb.
Day 2 :
DECEMBER 2008 • NEBRASKALAND 15
vertical bluff that in the summer looks like a weeping wall.
Press your hand on its vertical surface and it is as saturated
with water as a wet towel as it slowly drains down into the
river below.
In the winter, along this canyon wall and others up and
down the river corridor, the groundwater drips out like a
leaky outdoor faucet, slowly building layer after layer of ice
as the long stretches of deep midwinter cold settles into the
valley. Once the ice is formed, it won’t completely melt the
rest of winter, being as it’s well-shaded by the canyon’s
south rim. Much of the ice here is almost sky blue in color, a
sign of dense ice with little air in it. Perfect for climbing.
As Schneider set a final ice screw to create a hook to hold
our gear on the traverse, he explained that in this spot there
was roughly a 160-foot pitch from the river to the top of the
rim, and that this year there were easily 40 to 50 potential
“lines” on this face, most of them never climbed. “In fact, I
can see about 20 lines right where we are standing.”
As soon as he said this, we suddenly heard voices from
above. Then a climber with a white stocking cap peered over
the lip of the wall, hollered “Rope” and tossed one end of a
bright red climbing rope over the edge.
“My God, this is Nebraska?” “Do you see this, Jeff?”
“Look at all those lines – this place is amazing!”
A group of six climbers had shown up from Wyoming and
the Black Hills of South Dakota. Once they got on the wall,
they let the superlatives fly.
“Man, I’m pumped!”
“This is gnarly!”
“Can you believe this?”
“Holy @!&(&**”
Schneider grinned. “When rock climbers swear it’s usually
because they’re hating it. When ice climbers swear, it’s
because they love it.”
The climbing and banter went on the next several hours.
They climbed routes with local names like “Bellino’s Ice
Folly,” “Black Cow Down” and other new routes that have
never been named. To Schneider, however, the whole show is
not just about the ice, but more importantly, where the ice is.
The Niobrara River Valley, often called the biological
crossroads of North America, is where six different ecological
communities meet. “There is no other place in the world I
know of where you can climb a route starting literally at the
bank of a Great Plains river, climb a sheer wall of ice 160
feet high with water that comes out of the ground, top out on
a northern boreal forest among a bog of birch trees and club
Veteran ice climber Joe Walker of Denver, Colorado, encourages friend and novice climber Mike Tortorella of Sutherland.
16 NEBRASKALAND • DECEMBER 2008
moss, then walk out in the middle of a
mixed grass prairie.” He’s right.
Day 3 :
This morning fresh river otter tracks
appeared on the north bank, cutting the
corner of an ice shelf, then disappeared at
the river edge where the otter plunged back
in and headed downstream. Far above
along the ice wall, the Townsend’s solitaires
were back, this time accompanied by
northern flickers, drinking deep from the
seeps below the lip of the canyon in the
same fashion they had yesterday.
The climbers from South Dakota and
Wyoming had left to climb on another ice
bluff upriver, but the Colorado climbers
emerged on the rim of the canyon about
noon for their third and final day, determined
to climb on the less visited far eastern face
before heading back to Colorado.
I rappelled halfway down the face to
photograph them up close and personal on
their ascent, anchoring myself in place
next to the series of narrow, vertical
columns of ice they would be climbing,
shaped like the long, fluted cylinders of a
huge pipe organ in a church sanctuary.
The word sanctuary seems an apt
description of this place. Fred, the first
climber of the day and an experienced
climber, said climbing ice here, particularly
these ice pillars, was as good a climb he
has had since a recent trip to the Canadian
Rockies and rivals a lot of the climbing in
Colorado’s Front Range or Ouray Ice Park.
But he was quick to point out that there
was something special here – solitude. In
Colorado, he said, many of the climbs that
are easily accessible are right at the foot of
a highway, and oftentimes you simply are
setting your feet and ice ax in the same
holes as someone else as you work a
climb.
For the next few hours, the Colorado
climbers and Mike Tortorella, a teenaged friend from
Sutherland who had joined them, picked their way up various
routes. One their final climb of day, Schneider and I left the
ice wall and moved across the river to watch from below.
Ida rappelled down to her position, studied the wall, and
then picked a line. She began working up the center of the
blue ice, organ pipe-shaped pillars, moving deliberately,
gracefully, almost as if doing a dance. Days later after
returning home, she enthusiastically posted this on her blog,
explaining the climb:
“Line 4, is definitely a W15. It’s nearly a 60ft. wall of ice
shaped so that you can stem it too, though not as widely as
#3. Very sustained vertical ice. There’s two small rest ledges
at about 25 ft, and then 40 ft. Thank god for the rests!!
Joe Walker negotiates the last few feet of a climb where
ice turns to soil at the rim of the canyon.
Again lots of awesome hooking. I even got a good knee bar
in near the top of the second section. Even though I was 4th
on the line, I couldn’t see any other pick marks. By the time
I got to the second rest area, I could barely hold my axes!
Very strenuous climb. With a cheering section across the
river, I mustered the last of my strength to climb the final
10+ ft of ice then scale the rooty 5+feet of dirt. Roots rule!
They held well and in the end I simply grabbed them with
my hands to top out…literally crawling. What amazing
climbs! It’s the best I have ever climbed – personally and ice
quality wise. It was the perfect climb to end our wonderful
primer to Nebraska Ice. The reporters and locals all asked
us if we think we liked it enough to come back. Without
hesitation…yes!” ■
DECEMBER 2008 • NEBRASKALAND 17
Mother-in-law Mahoney
Text and photos by Jeff Kurrus
Sometimes the best thing around is right in front of us.
Every once in a while it just takes a new set of eyes to see it.
o you want to go for
a quick ride?” I
asked my mother-inlaw, Peg, after she had just
ridden six hours in a car on
a recent visit to our home.
We crossed the Platte
River going west outside of
Omaha and I pointed to the
U.S. flag overlooking the
river. “That’s where we’re
going,” I told her. When I
exited at 426 and drove
toward Eugene T. Mahoney
State Park, Peg pointed to
another flag in between our
“D
in-law gossip.
“Is that the flag?”
“No, that’s the Air and
Space Museum flag next door
to where we’re going. It’s
supposed to be a pretty neat
place, but I’ve never been.”
We drove into the park
and I waved at the worker at
the gate as we entered. “Do
you not have to pay to get in
here?” she asked.
“All I have to have is a
park sticker, which lets me
get into all the parks and
recreation areas across the
Horse at the John Wayne Stables.
18 NEBRASKALAND • DECEMBER 2008
Sunset at the Riverview Lodge.
state for free the entire year.”
“How much is it?”
“Around $20. They raise it
a little every few years.”
“Inflation,” she said. “Two
dollars today is twenty cents
tomorrow.”
We drove slowly, each
corner garnering a different
sight, and a new point of the
finger from her.
“Miniature golf course,” I
said in response to one point.
“How about that?”
“That’s a pavilion where
outdoor shows and
presentations are held.”
“What are all those people
up there doing now?”
“Ice skating.”
“Horses,” she said, pointing
to our left and reading the
sign. “John Wayne Stables.”
She laughed, then proceeded
to tell me of her love for not
only John Wayne, but Sean
Connery, Clark Gable and
Cary Grant. “And that’s just
a start,” she said.
“They have cabins too,”
she said. “And so close to
the city. John would love it
here,” she added, speaking
of her husband back home.
We drove to the observation
tower overlooking the Platte
River as I swiveled my head
from side to side, looking
for deer and other wildlife.
“We’re going to climb that?”
she asked.
“You’ll like the view,” I
reasoned. “Are you scared of
heights? Laura is.” I knew
the addendum about her
daughter would encourage
her ascent.
“No,” she responded. “I’m
from Philadelphia. We booed
Santa Claus. I’m not scared
of anything.”
From nearly the top of the
tower (I say nearly, for the
wind was picking up
considerably the higher we
went), I pointed out
Mahoney’s sledding course,
the Riverview Lodge, the
Platte River, a group of six
deer feeding in one of the
lower fields, the direction of
Omaha, and, most importantly,
the way back down.
“Back down. Back down
is good,” she said.
After getting back in the
vehicle and continuing our
tour and conversation, she
again pointed to the cabins
and the people going into
them. “It is a three-day
weekend,” she said.
“Looks like there’s still
some places to rent,” I said.
“How much are they?”
“From around $100 to
$400 a night, depending on
how many people you need
one for. There are some that
can accommodate up to 20
people.”
“They’d be great for the
grandkids,” she said. “That’s
a lot of cabins. They’d love
that.”
“There are four different
groups of them. Plus, there’s
a large lodge around the
corner used for meetings,
presentations, or for guests
to stay.”
“What’s that?” she asked a
few moments later,
interrupting herself again in
mid-sentence.
“That’s a water park.”
“You could do everything
here,” she said. “How far are
we from home?”
“We’re about 10 minutes
from Omaha,” I said.
Then we saw our first
wildlife. Three deer stood
near the road, noses buried
into the snow in search of
some leftover morsel of
winter food.
“Why don’t you get out?”
she asked.
“They’re much more wary
when you start getting out,”
I said. “I can probably get
closer just being in the
truck.” After a couple
minutes, they had seen
enough, and slowly
disappeared into the woods.
“What are those people
doing down there?” she
asked.
“They’re ice-fishing.
That’s a lake.”
“Really,” she said. “That’s
grand.”
We drove by Qwest Lake
and continued to the open
campground sites, where we
saw eight more deer moving
between campsites and
underneath rows of pine
trees.
“There are two more,” she
whispered, pointing.
We watched several more
groups of deer for the next
10 minutes, finally completing
our drive through the park.
Then I thought of the
raccoons and possums and
other night critters that I
imagine frequent the area.
When I was young, Dad
used to take me through a
local state park on Sunday
Last moments of daylight at Owen Marina.
nights looking for raccoons
rummaging through trash
cans. It couldn’t have been
the best situation for local
park workers to have to
clean up their mess, but to
watch a raccoon pop its head
from a trashcan with a food
wrapper momentarily on his
head is the only sign of
littering I’ve ever seen that
made me smile.
In a way, Mahoney is just
like the park I remember
growing up. Only it’s cleaner,
closer to the city and offers
many more outdoor
opportunities for visitors.
“It really is grand,” Peg
said when we finally left.
I thought that was the last
time I would hear that
phrase. But months later,
when the low wind chill was
replaced by high humidity,
she was again at Mahoney,
this time visiting the water
park with her grandkids
from Missouri and constantly
repeating how “grand” this
park truly is. ■
A windy, snowy morning at the Peter Kiewit Lodge.
DECEMBER 2008 • NEBRASKALAND 19
n many ways the history of Canada goose
hunting in Nebraska is at about 9 o’clock
from having gone full circle; perhaps as far as
it can go because the Nebraska landscape of
today is not the Nebraska landscape of old. In the
1880s, Canada geese were abundant statewide,
twice each year during migration, wherever there
was water and food; and large Canadas nested in
the Sandhills lake country. By the early-1900s
they had become rare; by the mid-1900s, over
most of the state, any hunter who bagged a
Canada goose or two was assured of seeing his
photo in the local paper. Through the 20th century,
though, the North Platte River Valley continued
to attract geese and goose hunters, albeit probably
a shadow of what once had been. Why did
Canada geese essentially vanish from everywhere in the state except the North Platte Valley?
I
PHOTO COURTESY OF THOMAS G. WEYNAND
During the first half of the 20th century, hunters lucky enough to bag geese,
especially a Canada goose, such as these two men from Kenesaw, often paid a
visit to the local photography studio to have the memory preserved.
When the use of live birds as decoys became illegal in 1935, straw-stuffed
decoys, many made by John Lundgren of Axtell, became popular.
“The bird has been widely distributed over this country and
has furnished great sport in every state lying between the two
oceans,” Sandy Griswold wrote in the Omaha Daily Bee,
January 6, 1895, “but in no locality have they been more
numerous or furnished better or more thrilling or a greater
variety of shooting than the country traversed by this erratic
and legendary [Platte] river. In the spring ten or fifteen years
ago they came up from the south in countless millions—the
lordly Canada, the white and speckled front—and crowded
the sandbars and dotted sloping shores and greening fields
along this wondrous stream from source to mouth, and furnished such sport as could be found in no other part of the
country. In the fall they came down from the north in a veritable
stream of white and gray, and, lingering here until the very climax of wintry weather forced them on toward the temperate
gulf states, made such sport as the modern gunner only
encounters in his dreams or ancient literature. Though fair
shooting is yet to be found at different points along the Platte,
nothing can give an adequate idea of the myriads of geese
which once settled down in its shallow waters and swarmed its
shores.”
Griswold thoroughly chronicled outdoor sports in Nebraska
from the late-1880s nearly through the 1920s. His columns
during the late-1800s clearly reveal that eastern Nebraska
sportsmen had no need to travel far for their goose shooting.
Hunters regularly made good bags of large Canada geese in
fields along the Elkhorn River west of Omaha. The Platte
River between Schuyler and North Bend was legendary hunting grounds for both Canada geese and sandhill cranes, and
shooting for both ducks and geese was good in floodplain
wetlands along the Missouri River north of Omaha. Perhaps
more than anywhere else, though, Omaha sportsmen favored
the sprawling, sandbar-laced shallow waters of the Platte
River near the towns of Silver Creek, Clarks, Central City and
Chapman; only a short train ride away, and awash with geese
and ducks during migration. While goose shooting on the
Platte’s Big Bend west of Grand Island received less mention
in Griswold’s columns, it was probably just as good. “Geese
were reported a week ago along the Platte near Sutherland by
the thousand and tens of thousands,” Griswold reported in the
Omaha Daily Bee November 17, 1895 edition. Almost certainly the North Platte and South Platte rivers attracted Canada
geese in abundance, but the bulk of eastern Nebraska hunters
had no reason to travel to the far end of the state for their
shooting in the decades before 1900.
Vanishing Canadas
“The sport of goose shooting will soon be a thing of the past
unless steps are taken to protect it,” Wm. C. Huffman of
Doniphan wrote in the April 29, 1900 Omaha World-Herald.
“Within the past few years they do not stop in the fall, not
because there are no geese or that there is nothing to eat, but
because the river is generally low and hunters have had easy
access to them, consequently they have been driven out.
Hunters go out in the midstream in a boat, if not possible to
wade, and build a blind on a sand bar. Geese coming into the
river are easily killed in large numbers and are not likely to
remain long with those kinds of neighbors on the bars. Now if
this mode of hunting is allowed to be carried on before three
years will have passed the game will pass on over the river in
spring as they now do in the fall.” Huffman proposed hunters
should allow the river proper be a goose refuge, and should
“be content hunting on bank and bluffs,” and that if they did,
“the amount of game coming in would increase instead of
decreasing as it is now. Unmolested they generally stay two
months on the river, as it is now they are driven out in two
weeks or less.”
A year after Huffman’s letter, the Omaha World-Herald
published a photo of two hunters and 14 “big Canadas” they
shot on the Platte River near Clarks. The caption noted it was
“perhaps the biggest score made during the winter in the
vicinity of Clarks.” A photo of Charles Houghton and son
Everett with 10 large Canadas shot in a field near Blair in the
March 28, 1909 Omaha World-Herald was captioned: “One of
the most remarkable kills on wild geese that has been made in
this region for many years ....” Griswold’s columns and letters
from readers during the first decade of the 1900s paints a clear
picture that Canada geese, and Canada goose hunters, were
becoming no more than memories.
“However, a good day’s sport on geese is a rare thing, for
where in the old days millions of birds visited this region, but
a few scattered flocks is now the rule,” Griswold wrote in the
DECEMBER 2008 • NEBRASKALAND 21
PHOTO COURTESY OF WILLIAM LEMBURG
In the early 1900s, willow-covered blinds, and occasionally pits, on sandbars were popular on the central Platte River.
November 26, 1905 Omaha World-Herald. “Twenty-five
years ago there was no region in the world where the wild
geese congregated in greater numbers than along the fabled
Platte and while it is yet a favorite resort of this noble bird, at
its very best it is but a poor reminder of the days that are forever gone. Canadas, Hutchin’s, white geese and speckled
fronts, it was one and the same thing in the times agone, they
came here, both spring and fall, in countless hordes, and kills
of from fifty to 100 to a single gun were occurrences that
elicited no unique comment or curiosity. But today let a man
bag a pair or two, especially Canadas, and it is an achievement
to be heralded among the sportsmen with exceeding pride.”
The reason for declining numbers of Canada geese on the
Platte during migration can probably be attributed to two factors: Intense hunting, hence no refuge to hold birds in the area;
and the number of geese from populations migrating through
central Nebraska had been greatly diminished. Both factors
probably had the same effect along the Missouri River, compounded by loss of waterfowl habitat. Drainage districts were
formed in the Missouri River Valley to drain wetlands and
increase farmland on the floodplain by the 1880s, and even
before 1900 there were efforts by the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers to contain the river with revetments, although complete channelization of the Missouri along Nebraska’s border
would not be effectively completed until the 1950s.
“Coming back to the subject of ducks and geese,” Fred L.
Heyn wrote in the March 23, 1913 Omaha World-Herald, “it
is true that fewer are seen in the eastern part of the state than
formerly, but that is due to the draining of swamps. A few
years ago the swamps around Tekamah and Herman were
great gathering places for enormous numbers of waterfowl,
but after the swamps had been drained few of the birds
returned. The same is true to a certain extent of the whole
eastern part of the state ....”
“Wild geese are not found to any great extent except along
the Missouri and Platte rivers, and are really becoming quite
scarce,” Chief Deputy Warden George L. Carter wrote in the
Biennial Report of the Game and Fish Commission for years
22 NEBRASKALAND • DECEMBER 2008
1907 and 1908. Incredibly, neither the legislature nor the
Commission did anything to protect the few still passing
through the state. The daily limit on geese in Nebraska
remained from eight to 11 birds until the mid-1920s. Until the
federal government assumed responsibility for migratory
birds, each state viewed any duck or goose not killed as a bird
lost to hunters in other states.
Large kills of Canada geese continued to be reported on the
central Platte in the 1910s, but they had become increasingly
rare. In the autumn of 1913, John Kennedy and E. Rasmussen
of Willow Island east of Gothenburg wrote Griswold:
“Enclosed you will find [a] picture of our morning’s shoot of
November 3, consisting of twenty Canada geese and nine mallard ducks, which were killed on the peaceful waters of the
Platte river just south of here. This is one of the largest kills
that has been made here in recent years. Old time wild fowlers
around here will verify our statement ....” “While the Hutchins
geese have about all winged their way to the south,” Griswold
wrote on November 11, 1917, “the Canadas are just coming
in, sparsely, of course, because this grandest of all American
game birds there are left, are rapidly approaching the point of
extinction.”
logical speculation, something of a record of where Canada
geese were hunted, and how, can be constructed.
Most Canada goose hunting in Nebraska during the first
half of the 20th century was on the North Platte River.
Irvining Winterer farmed on the tableland about eight miles
northeast of Lisco and was a well-known goose hunter in
Garden County in the early and mid-1900s. During those
decades, wheat was the principal dryland crop on the tableland both north and south of the river, with only small fields
of corn here and there, and so most of the field shooting was
done in wheat fields. One of the reasons Winterer and his
goose hunting companions had consistently good shooting
was that he did not hunt the same field day after day.
“I didn’t get my pistol out as soon as a bunch of geese lit in
there,” Winterer said in a 1987 interview when he was 92
years old. “I’d let them come in and feed two or three days.
Hell, I just loved to watch ‘em and hear ‘em, but at the same
time I was building me up some darn good hunting. I just
loved to play with them devils. They’d been in there for three,
four days eating and nobody bothered them, and then, god
darn, that’s a good place [to hunt].
“I got the first corn picker that came to this part of the country in 1928,” Winterer continued. “That picker would knock
the corn stalks down and it would also leave a little shelled
corn, knock some shelled corn off, and once in a while there
would be an ear. Geese got to be able to see all the way around
them, see that there is no coyote, or no man or nothing slipping up on them. They like it on the bare ground. Well hell, it
was just like shooting ducks out of the rain barrel. You couldn’t
keep those geese out of there.” Winterer recalled days when
his party of hunters killed 40 Canada geese.
After watching where the geese fed in the evening, Winterer
and his companions went out at night or midday when geese
were not feeding and dug their pits for the morning shoot. “I
just dug a hole in the ground,” Winterer recalled. “It was
enough room for two guys, and you wouldn’t see it. I would
fan the dirt out a little, and then I’d get some [corn] stalks or
something, weeds or something [to] cover that new dirt up,
[and] let some of the stuff hang over the edge of the hole. Hell,
the geese couldn’t see any hole or nothing. And if you sat still,
they couldn’t see you. You had to sit quite still, and talk to
them a little, and they’d make a circle or two, and, oh god,
some of them poor devils, come right in and knock your hat
off. And then when the hunting season was over, I took my
shovel and went out and filled them [holes] back up.”
During his early years of hunting, Winterer had a friend at a
blacksmith shop make tin silhouette goose decoys. “And of
course you had to turn enough of ‘em ... so no matter which
way they was coming in, why they could see figures out
there,” Winterer said. By the 1930s he was also using canvas
field decoys stuffed with wheat straw. “They were more realistic than them old slabs of tin. You couldn’t hardly tell they
wasn’t a goose itself, until you got right up there in front.”
Winterer also used mounted Canada geese as decoys.
“I generally had three or four different pits,” Winterer said.
“When I got ready, why then I would get quite a bunch [of
hunters] in there, the boys around here that liked to hunt. I
never charged anybody a dime and I done all the work myself,
furnished all the decoys and everything, and hell, I enjoyed it,
you know. I’ll tell you, I was at the height of my glory.”
Last Stronghold
Griswold, who never hesitated to travel for wildfowl shooting, hunted ducks in the far western Sandhills a number of
times, only a stone’s throw from the North Platte River.
Surprisingly, he never wrote of hunting waterfowl on either
the North or South Platte rivers, and so fails as a reporter of
goose shooting there in the late-1800s and early 1900s.
Without Griswold’s year-to-year hunting journal, piecing
together a picture of how it was is akin to assembling a 5,000piece jigsaw puzzle with many pieces missing. There were no
state or federal waterfowl surveys until the late-1930s, and
they were rather casually conducted by the standards of today.
Still, by assembling known bits of information, much from
old-time goose hunters now gone, and filling the gaps with
Dedicated wildfowlers came from some distances and established elaborate camps on the North Platte River.
DECEMBER 2008 • NEBRASKALAND 23
“I used to hunt one of the hottest spots on the Lisco table,
Irvie Winterer’s,” Jodi McNeel of North Platte recalled in a
2004 interview. “He would hunt it three days and close it four.
A dollar a gun, guarantee you a goose.... If you could hit it,
you got your goose. I don’t know of anybody that ever come
out of there without their goose, because if they didn’t shoot
it, somebody shot it for them. He was the first place off of the
break, just almost straight north of the Rush Creek roost [on
the river].” McNeel remembered Winterer’s pits as nothing
more than holes dug in wheat fields. Some hunters would
bring “funeral grass,” woven mats of grass or other vegetation
used in those days for graveside services, to partially cover the
pit opening. “The difference between now and then,” McNeel
said, “it was a dollar to hunt up there then. Now these guys
give $10,000, $20,000 for a spot [like that]. It was pretty hard
to get into Irvie’s, because everybody wanted to hunt
Winterer’s.”
Not all goose hunting was done on the tableland, though.
Prior to creation of the Garden County Refuge in 1925, which
initially prohibited hunting within 55 yards of the river,
hunters shot from sandbar blinds in Garden County and continued to do so both upstream and downstream after the refuge
was established.
Earl “Goldie” Haworth of Sidney shot his first two geese on
the North Platte River in 1919 when a sophomore in high
school, and he continued hunting the river valley into the
1990s. During his early years he hunted east of Broadwater.
After the Garden County Refuge was created, he hunted from
a wall tent on the north side of the river immediately upstream
from the Garden-Morrill county line, and later built a small
cabin there. In 1938, after hunting with Haworth for two
years, Omaha brewer Art Storz built his Ducklore Lodge on
the site. Haworth guided for Storz until 1942 and then moved
a cabin to the south side of the river about two miles upstream
24 NEBRASKALAND • DECEMBER 2008
from Ducklore. From the mid-1940s until he quit hunting,
Haworth also had a goose pit on a meadow downstream from
Lisco on the south side of the river.
In a 1987 interview, Haworth described a strikingly different North Platte River than hunters know today; a broad, shallow, treeless river. “We’d have to take one of those river boats
that we’d haul decoys out with,” he said, “and go three or four
miles to get willows to put around the blind. And you could
wade any place you wanted to with hip boots.”
Jack Robinson of Oshkosh killed his first goose pass-shooting from a tumbleweed blind when only eight years old in
1929. For many years Robinson and his brother hunted with
Winterer. Until he had his first blind on the meadows in the
late-1930s he occasionally pass-shot geese from the valley
bluffs, and, like Haworth, recalled the North Platte River as
sprawling and without trees. “You could sit up on the hills out
there where we used to do our pass-shooting, and you could
see the geese sitting in the river, little bunches scattered all up
and down it, only a few trees.”
Although there was little farming on the North Platte River
floodplain prior to World War II, there were small patches of
dryland corn, Robinson said in a 2000 interview. “Of course
corn didn’t get very big then,” he recalled, “but we killed a lot
of geese like that.” Robinson had 12 canvas decoys his mother
sewed and he and hunting companions stuffed with grounded
cork and straw. As the years passed, Robinson’s decoy spread
grew to 165 canvas-stuffed goose decoys and a dozen or more
mounted Canada geese. For good measure he added homemade silhouette decoys.
“We would just go out and kill maybe two or three and then
get out of there and let it sit,” Robinson said. “That’s the way
we hunted. Saturday was goose hunting and Sunday was
pheasant hunting, and then Wednesday…we started goose
hunting again. We would generally get two or three or four
PHOTO COURTESY OF RUDY FICK
PHOTO COURTESY OF EARL HAWORTH
Earl “Goldie” Haworth of Sidney, left, hunted ducks and geese on the North Platte River from 1919 into the 1990s. His cabin on the
south side of the North Platte River, upstream from Ducklore Lodge, was covered with pine slabs from Wyoming.
fields that we could hunt, and then we would change off. be a central place for hunting and the hunters have no respect
Sometimes they would get to going to one and you couldn’t for what laws we do have. It is nearly impossible for a bird to
drive them out, and the next time, one shot and they were all light on the river, at all, during the hunting season, and unless
something is done there will not be any game to hunt at all.
done.”
“We had a game,” Robinson recalled. “We dug a one-man We thought by securing this stretch of river for a sanctuary or
pit apiece a lot of times if it was a good field and we both resting place for the birds where they could get water and be
could call by mouth, and we were always trying to drop a protected, that there would be good shooting in the fields all
goose in the other guy’s blind. That was the number one thing winter. As it is they cannot stop. They start shooting at the
to do, and it happened quite frequently. Then we dug two-man break of day and by starlight at night and it is a disgrace and
blinds generally, and they would be long enough so you could shame to the name of sportsmen.”
Mitchell’s plea was answered by the 1925 Nebraska
turn around in it. We took cobs when we went out in the morning, this was like still dark, and we would light a bushel of Legislature when state senators Bern R. Coulter of Morrill
cobs in the dust in the bottom [of the pit], and we would burn County and Freeman L. Whitney of Deuel County introduced
them while we was putting our decoys out. Then as soon as a bill to set aside the North Platte River and 10 rods (55 yards)
we would get all the decoys out, the cobs would be [mostly] on each side of its banks from the mouth to the Nebraskaburnt and then we would put dried sand in there and that’s Wyoming line as a state game refuge. The bill would have created a statutory refuge, and no land would be condemned or
how we kept our feet warm.”
Before World War II, pass-shooting from the bluffs was acquired by purchase. The bill had widespread support, and
popular. Near Lisco the most prominent bluffs are on the north widespread opposition from hunters who could see no farther
side of the river and on the south side in the
Oshkosh area, so that was where most of the passshooting was done. After studying the movement of
geese between river roosts and fields on the tableland, hunters positioned themselves on the bluffs or
cuts in the bluffs and shot at passing geese. Geese
leaving the river had to work to climb enough to
clear the bluffs and wasted no effort gaining more
altitude than was needed. Robinson remembers as
many as 25 or 30 hunters strung out along a good
pass in the bluffs on the south side of the river.
Hunters also pass-shot geese from haystacks on
meadows near river roosts bordering the Garden
County Refuge.
During the 1920s and 1930s, most goose hunters
in Garden County were local or lived not far away.
Many came from Sidney, and some came from farther away. “The party of Denver hunters who have
been camped on the river the past month hunting
geese returned to their homes last Saturday with a
Former game warden Rudy Fick hunted geese on wheat fields along the
good bag of the elusive birds,” the “Local Mention”
North Platte River in the 1930s. He later hunted at Ducklore Lodge.
column of the Garden County News reported on
November 26, 1920. And the first goose of the season was than the end of their shotgun barrel. The bill passed, but the
often noted, such as the Garden County News item of extent of the refuge was reduced to that portion of the river in
November 4, 1921: “George and Clarence Anderson killed a Garden County. The value of the refuge was evident by the
big goose on the river Sunday. This is the first goose killed following waterfowl hunting season. A December 2, 1925
here this season.” Accounts of exceptional goose shoots occa- North Platte Evening Telegraph article reported that:
sionally found their way to the pages of the Omaha World- “Sportsmen in this section profess to see in the increased
Herald, as a photo of a car draped with about 20 large Canada numbers of ducks and geese a confirmation of the wisdom of
geese shot by Dr. Palmer, Ray Hartman and R.R. Scott on the creating game preserves. There are more ducks and twice as
North Platte River near Bridgeport a week prior to the many geese as in any previous year in the North Platte Valley.”
December 14, 1924 publication. Just how many hunters were In 1947, the legislature extended the boundaries of the Garden
killing how many Canada geese for how many days each County Refuge, and other statutory refuges subsequently creautumn on the North Platte River, though, remains largely ated, from 10 to 20 rods.
“Them poor devils, flying from Canada down to Mexico,
conjectural.
they didn’t have any place to stop, and hell, they finally put
Garden County in the game refuge, and that was the best thing
that they ever done,” Winterer recalled. “They didn’t want
“We want to get a game reserve on the North Platte River, anything more, they’d roost down there on the river and then
say from Bridgeport to Keystone, Neb.,” Ed I. Mitchell of every day they’d go out some place for something to eat. They
Lisco wrote to Griswold in December, 1924. “Lisco seems to would come out and you could shoot the hell out them …. That
Garden County Refuge
DECEMBER 2008 • NEBRASKALAND 25
was sure a blessing that somebody was smart enough to do
that. And after that hunting lasted so much longer out there in
the country because they just loved to stay down on the river.”
Haworth agreed: “Before that refuge went in, see, we’d only
have about a week of goose shooting. When the flight was on,
that was the only time you had shooting because they wouldn’t
stay at all. You’d get to shooting them and they’d leave.”
Robinson said another reason for more geese along the
North Platte River was inadvertent. In the late-1920s, he said,
landowners introduced strawberry clover, a low-growing
perennial with creeping stems, in river bottom pastures to
increase forage. “Now it’s all over,” Robinson said. “That
changed the whole situation. The geese loved it, more started
coming and staying on the river.” Prior to the introduction of
clover, Robinson said the geese would fly five or six miles
south of the river to feed in wheat fields and little patches of
corn. In a 1987 interview, Herb Fecht, a wheat farmer east of
Dalton in nearby Cheyenne County, recalled Canada geese
once flew as far as his family’s farm to feed, about 12 miles
from the closest point on the river. Robinson said a few years
after clover became abundant, the geese “just quit going south
to feed, and would not fly that far north of the river to feed.”
Sugar beets were a popular crop in the North Platte River
Valley from the 1930s into the 1950s, according to Robinson,
and geese would feed on the green tops left in the fields after
the October harvest. During those years, upstream sugar beet
processing factories dumped beet pulp, a processing by-product, in the river. Robinson said the geese fed on the pulp and,
like strawberry clover, it was an enticement for geese to stop
and linger on the river during fall migration. “We called it
noodles,” Haworth said. “About every so often you would
have to go out and clean the string off because it would pull
the decoys under, the floaters. They would dump that all fall
while they were running the mills.”
Canada geese remained abundant on the North Platte River
even during the drought years of the 1930s. C.A. Black of
Kearney, in the April 1933 issue of The Nebraska Bird
Review, reported “large numbers of geese” in Garden County
in mid-November 1932. While hunting there on November
14, he and another hunter took their legal daily limits of 12
ducks and 4 geese “in a few minutes of shooting.” In the
January 1935 issue of the same publication, Black reported: “I
was in Garden County during the open season on ducks early
in November [1934]. In driving down along the south bank of
the North Platte River, from Lisco to Oshkosh, I found the
river packed with ducks, mostly Common Mallards, and with
geese, for the entire eighteen miles. One cannot even estimate
their numbers in this concentration area.”
Also in the January 1935 issue of The Nebraska Bird
Review, University of Nebraska ornithologist Myron H.
Swenk noted that waterfowl hunting had been poor in
Nebraska in the autumn of 1934, but there was goose shooting on the North Platte River and elsewhere in the state.
Swenk reported good shooting on both ducks and geese along
the North Platte River west of Oshkosh, on the Platte River
east of Columbus, and some “fair bags” of small Canada
geese north of Blair and west of Auburn. He noted that the
Platte River from North Platte to Columbus “contained little
or no water, and these ordinarily fine shooting grounds had no
attraction for the migrating ducks and geese, which passed on
southward, late in the season, apparently largely directly to
Oklahoma and Texas.”
Beginning in the 1950s, river blinds on the North Platte River became more elaborate and commodious.
PHOTO COURTESY OF EARL HAWORTH
Haworth, kneeling left, said in 1987 that Canada geese on the North Platte River were larger after 1970. Geese shown in this 1930s
photo were probably in the eight- to 10-pound range. Small, Arctic-nesting Canadas were more common in October or early-November.
26 NEBRASKALAND • DECEMBER 2008
U.S. Game Management Agent Clyde L. Licking reported
in The Nebraska Bird Review, January-June 1940, that a winter survey of waterfowl conducted “by experienced and well
qualified observers throughout Nebraska” for the Bureau of
Biological Survey (precursor of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service) in January 1939 reported a few small flocks of wintering geese in eastern Nebraska, “but their numbers were
negligible when compared with the total for the state. The
largest, and almost only, concentration of geese in Nebraska
during the winter of 1938-39 was on the North Platte River in
Garden County.”
“To do any goose shooting in the 20’s and 30’s,” McNeel
said, “you had to go at least west of Sarben [about midway
between North Platte and Kingsley Dam], and the farther west
you went the more Canada geese you’d run into, and then you
got to the Garden County Refuge.” McNeel was born in 1914
and started hunting the North Platte and South Platte rivers as
a boy in the 1920s. “They always had geese up in that
Broadwater, Bridgeport, Lisco, Oshkosh and Lewellen area,”
McNeel said.
“They claim that when that [Garden County] reserve went
in, we gained 5,000 to 10,000 geese but we lost 80,000
ducks,” Haworth said. Haworth attributed the loss of mallards
to hunters building small dams to dry up side channels so they
could move their blinds closer to the main channel and the
refuge boundaries. Haworth said once side channels were
eliminated, the main channel cut deeper, many bare sandbars
vanished, and so did the best duck habitat. Lower flows
because of upstream impoundments increased irrigation from
the river, and the encroachment of trees on the river’s banks
and sandbars also were likely beginning to bring changes to
the North Platte River during the 1930s. In 1987, Haworth
said that he had the best of the mallard shooting on the North
Platte River when he was young, but the goose hunting had
been “getting better all the time.”
Because of the drought and a continent-wide decline in
waterfowl abundance, stringent regulations were imposed on
waterfowl hunters in the 1930s by the federal government. In
addition to reduced bag limits, a prohibition on the use of live
decoys was imposed. In 1935, the legislature established a
“forenoon-only” shooting time for waterfowl on the entire
Platte, North Platte and South Platte rivers to provide migration waterfowl some refuge. The restriction was not repealed
until 1941. Along most of the Platte rivers, that regulation
probably benefited ducks more than geese because outside of
Garden County few geese paused anywhere in the state during
migration.
Ducklore
Apparently there were few, if any, noteworthy pay-to-hunt
operations along the North Platte River during the first three
decades of the 20th century. Most arrangements for shooting
grounds were probably informal, and payment for the privilege was in the form of a gratuity at the end of the hunt. By
the 1940s that was probably beginning to change. Haworth
recalls the cost of an annual lease for his goose-hunting pit in
Garden County was $60 per year in the mid-1940s. Nor were
sportsmen from outside of the area acquiring land specifically for goose hunting as today. If there was a turning point in
that, it was probably when Omaha beer brewer Art Storz built
his Ducklore Lodge on the north side of the North Platte River
west of Lisco in 1938.
Through a mutual friend, Haworth agreed to take Storz
hunting in the autumn of 1936. Haworth had chosen the site
for his modest 10-by-12-foot cabin well, on the treeless, sandbar-studded section of the North Platte River west of Lisco
just upstream from the Garden County Refuge. “There was a
direct flyway down through the Sandhills north of the river,”
Haworth said, “a big rift, a draw that goes back up in the hills
and a second one just a couple of miles upstream from the
first. Geese would come down through the hills, hit the river
right west of us, turn and come down. We’d be the first ones
who had a chance at them.”
Storz returned to hunt with Haworth in 1937. But Storz had
bigger plans, and the wherewithal to carry them out. At end of
DECEMBER 2008 • NEBRASKALAND 27
PHOTO COURTESY OF EARL HAWORTH
meadow pits in 1940, and 128 the second year. Apparently the
novelty of shooting geese on the meadows was short-lived for
the Ducklore hunters. “They really didn’t use that too much
because there was pretty fair goose hunting on the river,”
Chichester said of the late-1940s and 1950s. He said the reasons were there was no opportunity to shoot mallards from the
meadow pits, and it was farther to go in the early morning.
“We’d kill all the geese we’d want up there on the river,”
Haworth said of his years at Ducklore.
Hunting geese from pits on Garden County meadows
became more common during the 1940s. Robinson said that
by the end of that decade there were two or three pit blinds per
mile on meadows south of the river between Lisco and
Oshkosh. Robinson was perhaps one of the first to have a
metal pit blind as he owned and operated his own machine and
repair shop and had the skills to build them for himself and
others. Fuel tanks were often converted into sunken goose
hunting pits. Mike Dutko, a long-time Lisco goose hunter,
fashioned his meadow pit by welding a cattle tank and part of
a culvert tube together. Such pits were difficult to keep buried,
as the water table on the meadows was high and hydraulic
pressure would pop them out of the ground. Haworth used
four engine blocks, one buried deep in the sand on each corner of the blind and secured with cables. Robinson’s best solution was 8-feet long “REA screws,” the sort used to anchor
guylines supporting transmission towers, twisted into the
ground and attached to the pit with chain.
Up and down the river, hunters were expending evermore
effort and money to make their shooting grounds
attractive to geese. During the 1940s and 1950s,
when manipulation of river channels was still legal,
or illegal but overlooked, sandbars were created or
washed away by Storz’s men to improve decoy
waters. Chichester recalled: “Usually in August I’d
go out there, when the river was down quite a little
bit from irrigation, and I’d take the old horse and a
boat, and 1-by-8 stakes and make a retard in the
middle of the river. I put it so the water wouldn’t go
over the top but would go underneath and built me a
place for decoys with water just about six inches
deep. By the 1950s, because of narrowing and deepening of the channel, Chichester said there was
water 10 to 12 feet deep, and creating shallow water
areas and sandbars was essential to have good decoy
Storz’s meadow pits on the North Platte River were no more than holes in
the ground with 2-by-4s around the top and covered with hay.
waters around each blind. He recalled Storz bringing in a bulldozer to take out unwanted sandbars.
at Ducklore, the goose decoys were papier-mâché floaters, sil- “They come out there and just scraped it off and let it float
houettes, oval-backs (shell decoys) and some stuffed canvas away, see. And they sprayed a lot of those trees to kill them.”
Haworth said that during the early-1940s Storz hired an
decoys placed on sandbars.
Ducklore’s river blinds were metal horse tanks partially “expert dynamiter from Cheyenne” to come out and blow out
sunk in the sandbar with a wooden frame above and covered unwanted sandbars. “We went up on Sunday, 4th of July, and
with either willows or slough grass, and were pulled to shore we had a case of dynamite and we blew three islands out.
at the end of the hunting season. Storz also had two pit blinds There was a big island out there, and we blew it out.” Haworth
on a meadow on the south side of the river between Lisco and said three or four of Storz’s men helped, and when they startOshkosh. Storz’s meadow pits were no more than holes dug in ed they were carrying one stick of dynamite in each hand,
the meadow sand, 2-by-4s around the top to which burlap was arms fully extended, fully expecting them to explode at any
nailed to cover the walls, a wooden floor and the opening cov- moment. “Before we was done we was just carrying it around
ered with hay. The pits were entirely open on top. Canvas- like cord wood.” Haworth also remembers Storz having a
local man come out with a team and brush mower to cut wilstuffed decoys and silhouettes were the only decoys used.
Haworth said Ducklore hunters killed 111 Canadas from the lows and “thick grass” off the islands.
28 NEBRASKALAND • DECEMBER 2008
PHOTO COURTESY OF EARL HAWORTH
that hunt, Haworth recalled Storz saying: “Earl, why don’t
you let me build a cabin here. You take care of it just like it
was your own and look after things and we’ll build a nice
cabin.” The next summer Storz had building materials shipped
from Omaha, a local carpenter was hired, and by the 1938
waterfowl season Ducklore Lodge was complete. For the next
20 years Storz hunted there, hiring guides, kitchen help and
full-time caretakers. He entertained military brass, governors
from several states, national outdoor writers, movie stars and
wealthy industrialists until he grew too old to hunt the river
and sold it in 1958. Haworth guided at Ducklore for several
years before growing weary of the people.
While Storz’s Ducklore was an exception on the North
Platte River in the 1940s and 1950s, how, where and when
Storz and his guests hunted geese probably represents the
period, albeit on a grander scale. Because Ducklore was just
upstream from the western boundary of the Garden County
Refuge, Storz could hunt on the river, and so hunters had the
opportunity to shoot ducks as well as geese. Fecht began guiding for Storz in 1945 when he was only 17 years old.
“I got $5 a day and thought, man I can’t imagine getting
paid for doing something I like,” he recalled. Fecht said Storz
had six blinds on the river, two each over a spread of about
100 to 130 papier-mâché duck decoys, eight to a chain. Lynn
Chichester guided at Ducklore in the late-1940s and in the
1950s. He recalls there being a few wooden and cork-bodied
duck decoys. Each set-up also had 15 to 20 metal duck silhouette decoys on long stakes. Chichester said during his time
Lee Hudleson, left, and Jack Shelton both worked for the Storz Brewing Company in Omaha, but during the waterfowl season guided at
Art Storz’s Ducklore Lodge. Both large and smaller Canada geese where shot there in the 1940s and 1950s.
It is difficult to determine just how good goose hunting was
in the 1940s and 1950s on the North Platte River. Most
hunters describe it in subjective language, like: “We had good
goose and mallard shooting there.” There are Ducklore photos
of from two to 11 hunters with 15 to 20 Canada geese, but no
indication how many hunters where shooting, or if it was an
exceptional day or average day. Robinson said that in the
years just before and just after World War II, he and his hunting partner would shoot from 100 to 120 geese each season.
Both duck and goose numbers were down after the war. Fecht
said in the 1950s, “the hunting just wasn’t very good at all.”
What is interesting to see in photos from the 1920s into the
1950s is the size of the Canada geese. Almost without exception they are large geese, probably in the eight- to 10-pound
range. While small Canadas were surely shot during migration, they rarely appear in photos. Haworth said that while the
birds were big geese, they were not as heavy as those commonly killed after 1970. McNeel, who occasionally hunted
from pits on the tableland in Garden County in the mid-1900s,
said: “Once in a while somebody would snag a big goose, but
most geese shot were specks or Hutchies. We never shot no
great big geese like they do today.” Occasionally a snow goose
appears in hunting bag photos from the mid-1900s.
The best goose shooting, according to hunters interviewed
from the Oshkosh-Lisco area, came with the November
migration push. “Armistice Day, November 11, give or take
two weeks before or two weeks after, is when our geese come
in,” Robinson said in a 2000 interview. “Back when I used to
keep records, we killed more geese on the 17th of November
than we ever did any other day, but now we go up to
Christmas, even between Christmas and New Year’s.”
Robinson said the best shooting in fields was when the river
was carrying slush ice, forcing the geese to leave the river to
feed. “Geese don’t go out of that river if they don’t have to,”
he said. If the river freezes and stays frozen, though, the geese
migrate south. Haworth said that during the 1940s “the geese
wouldn’t stay too long, and the shooting was typically over by
the end of November.” Typically Storz closed Ducklore Lodge
for the season just after Thanksgiving. Today, with more geese
and more wintering geese, hunting remains good until the season
closes in January, and most years could be good all winter.
Goose hunting was changing on the North Platte River during the 1940s. Tom Olson of Lisco said that in the 1930s and
1940s, probably 90 percent of the goose hunters were locals.
But as Nebraska’s premier goose shooting region received
more attention, hunters came from farther away. Improved
roads and automobiles made traveling farther to hunt –
especially from Omaha, Lincoln and Denver – easier and
faster. And commercial hunting finally entered the picture.
“It is the intention of the Nebraska [Game, Forestation and
Parks] Commission, as well as the Federal authorities, to
tighten up considerably on the professional hunters and
guides who have been operating on the North Platte River,”
the Summer 1940 issue of Outdoor Nebraska stated. “In many
cases last year, and also in 1938, birds were sold or bartered,
and hunters were charged exorbitant rates for blinds where
they never had a chance to get a goose and, in other cases,
favored guests were allowed and helped to get too many birds.
Unless the situation can be better controlled this fall, it is very
likely that the Nebraska Commission will ask the
legislature for authority to license all such guides and see that
they treat the hunters fairly, impartially, and follow the letter
of the law.” ■
Continued in the January/February issue.
DECEMBER 2008 • NEBRASKALAND 29
Text by Rocky Hoffmann
30 NEBRASKALAND • DECEMBER 2008
PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION AND NATURAL
RESOURCES – FORESTRY ARCHIVE, BUGWOOD.ORG
DAVID CAPPAERT, MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY, BUGWOOD.ORG
I
ronically, when Dutch elm disease destroyed the urban
forests and treelined streets of thousands of American
towns in the 1950s, the primary species of reforestation
consisted of varieties of ash trees. Now, more than
half a century later, all species of ash are threatened
with total destruction from another highly invasive, exotic
problem: The emerald ash borer (EAB) is relentlessly
attacking and killing North American ash trees as it slowly
and methodically spreads destruction outward from the
upper Midwest.
It’s likely that the borer arrived in the Detroit area via
infested wooden shipping crates from China. Once on U.S.
soil, it found the urban tree of choice very much to its liking.
The EAB is now responsible for killing millions of shadegiving ash trees in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Maryland,
Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana, Virginia, Wisconsin
and Ontario, and as its range continues to expand, it has the
potential to threaten an estimated 10 billion ash trees in
North America.
Although the emerald ash borer has not yet been found in
Nebraska, it has reached Missouri. Should it migrate into the
northern Great Plains states of Nebraska, South Dakota and
North Dakota, where 20 to 60 percent of the total tree
resource is ash, the
effect would be
powerful. Ash
concentrations are
higher in Nebraska
than anywhere else in
the United States, and
estimates indicate
that more than half
of all windbreaks or
farmsteads here
contain green ash.
The cost of removing
and replanting
community trees alone
may average $700 per
tree, and add that to
increased energy
demands (due to less
shade and windbreaks)
When adult beetles leave the cambium
and ecosystem benefit
layer of an infected tree, they leave a
losses, it is estimated
D-shaped exit hole in the bark.
Emerald ash borers are flying, bright-green beetles for about
three weeks as adults, but spend most of their lives as larvae.
that each state would suffer a $1 billion loss.
The emerald ash borer is a flying, bright-green beetle that
has only a three-week adult lifespan in early summer. During
that narrow window of opportunity, it breeds and the female
lays eggs in the crevasses of ash bark. When the larvae hatch,
they tunnel beneath the bark into the cambium layer, where
they feed and continue to tunnel until they emerge the
following summer as adult beetles. Their disruption and
destruction of the cambium layer interrupts the flow of
nutrients and water from the roots to the upper branches
and leaves of the ash tree. If enough larvae are present, the
tree dies. If the tree lives, emerging adults again lay eggs
in the bark, and larvae infest the tree again. The cycle
continues until the tree dies, all the while infesting other
trees in the area.
Entomologists are convinced that new areas of infestation
are created through human transfer of the insect’s larval
form. Much like the original infestation probably came to
America in a shipping crate, regional infestations most likely
occur from the transportation of infested firewood.
Although chemical treatments are being developed, they
currently are appropriate only for high-value trees in
residential and urban landscapes – the cost of the treatments
and need to repeat them every couple of years will make
them too expensive to use in windbreaks and native ash
stands. The only other approach that can be used to slow the
spread of the pest is to identify an infested area and cut,
chip or burn the infested wood. Ash wood should also
DANIEL HERMS, THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY, BUGWOOD.ORG
This highly invasive, exotic bug has killed thousands
of ash trees in the upper Midwest, and now it’s creeping
closer and closer to Nebraska.
Symptoms of EAB infestation include leaf loss in the upper
portions of ash trees and the dying out of periphery limbs.
Tree Diversity Tree Diversity Tree Diversity
Choosing a tree for your yard or
acreage can be fun and interesting
but should involve more than just
picking one that looks good and fits
your planting space. It is wise to consider what else has been planted
and what trees occur naturally in
your area. The overplanting of a
small number of tree species is a
common problem throughout our
communities and rural areas.
Overuse of a single tree species minimizes diversity, a key component of
long-term stability, and greatly
increases the vulnerability of the tree
itself, and the planted forest as a
whole, to pests and disease. As a
prime example, Dutch elm disease,
caused by a fungus imported to our
country in 1930, quickly spread
through American towns and devastated native elm populations by the
1950s. The spread of this disease
was greatly amplified due to the
abundance of elms in many urban
environments, where they had been
planted for their beautiful, shadeproducing canopy.
The destruction caused by Dutch
elm disease should have taught us a
lesson, but we weren’t observant.
Generally speaking, we replanted
with one of the most plentiful trees
available – green ash, which is highly
adaptable statewide and filled the
void left by the lost elms. However,
overplanting of this species has set
us up for another potential disaster.
If the emerald ash borer invades
our state and decimates our ash
trees, will we again fail to diversify
our landscapes? Diversity can be
successfully achieved by planting no
more than 10 percent of one species
in a given area. Native species or
introduced species adapted to your
area are the best choices. Plant
hardiness zones can be found at
www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone.
Select species that are adapted to
Zone 4, northern Nebraska, and
Zone 5, southern Nebraska, for
best survival and longevity. Unusual
exotics are interesting and some
are worth a try, but research your
selections, as some are invasive
and problematic.
Tree selection could be an article
in itself, so who can help with
recommendations? Try contacting:
●
●
●
●
Local Extension Agents
Master Gardeners
Certified Arborists
Community Foresters with the
Nebraska Forest Service
● ReTree Nebraska Initiative
● Nebraska Statewide Arboretum
● The National Arbor Day Foundation
DECEMBER 2008 • NEBRASKALAND 31
PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION AND
NATURAL RESOURCES – FORESTRY ARCHIVE,
BUGWOOD.ORG
EAB: The Green Plague
not be transported from the area to use in campfires, home
heating stoves or fireplaces.
Beetle trapping programs have not resulted in the capture of
any emerald ash borer in Nebraska, and to date there have been
no affected trees discovered. Symptoms of EAB infestation
include leaf loss in the upper portions of ash trees and the
dying out of periphery limbs. Increased woodpecker use and
the scarring of bark where woodpeckers attempt to feed on
larvae is quite visible. After one year of infestation, the
emergence of adult
beetles from the
cambium layer leaves a
D-shaped exit hole in
the bark. When the bark
is removed, tunneling
patterns by the larvae
are obvious indicators
of infestation.
Anyone suspecting
an EAB infestation in
Nebraska is encouraged
to contact the Nebraska
Department of
EAB larvae and feeding tunnels.
Agriculture at (402)
471-2394. Information in
the national EAB web site, www.emeraldashborer.info,
suggests we can all do our part in stopping the spread of
EAB. The transportation of firewood poses the main pathway
for the movement of EAB and other plant pests. Protect the
shade-giving ash trees in your favorite campground or
neighborhood by not transporting firewood for campfires or
fireplaces, purchasing or gathering firewood locally, and
burning it before you leave. ■
32 NEBRASKALAND • DECEMBER 2008
DECEMBER 2008 • NEBRASKALAND 33
MANY DECORATIONS ARE CONTRIBUTED BY LOCAL BUSINESSMEN.
ABOVE: THE DINING ROOM WITH ITS ELEGANT CHINA AND GOLD FESTOONS.
B
IN THE KITCHEN, TEA CUP TREE ORNAMENTS AND FRESH GINGERBREAD MEN.
34 NEBRASKALAND • DECEMBER 2008
had come and that Christmas was only
a few weeks off. For Will had been
deputized by the soldiers and officers
to be the official messenger who should
go to Cheyenne and return with the
necessities of the Christmas season,”
wrote Mrs. Cody.
Perhaps the lonely life as a frontier
scout away from home on a particularly
forlorn Christmas past, sparked a special
warmth in Cody’s heart for this joyous
occasion, and nothing could possibly
demonstrate his enthusiasm for Christmas
more than his 550-mile round-trip on
horseback in midwinter to bring back
holiday enhancements for the troops and
toys for the three children that were
living with their parents at the fort, one
PHOTO COURTESY OF BUFFALO BILL RANCH STATE HISTORICAL PARK
orn William Frederick Cody, Colonel
“Buffalo Bill” Cody truly reveled in
the Christmas season, especially when
it involved children. Some surviving
old photographs capture the Colonel
decked out as Santa Claus and surrounded by
youngsters. A Christmas essay written by his
wife, Louisa Frederici Cody, in 1869 while
stationed with her husband at Fort McPherson
indicates the profound fondness that Cody
held for the holiday. Mrs. Cody’s tale was
reprinted in A Frontier Army Christmas,
compiled and annotated by Lori A. Cox-Paul
and Dr. James W. Wengert and published by
the Nebraska State Historical Society.
“However, right then there were things to
take Will’s mind off the loss of his favorite
pony. One of them was the fact that midwinter
BILL CODY DRESSED AS SANTA AT THE ORACLE MINE SITE IN ARIZONA.
DECEMBER 2008 • NEBRASKALAND 35
looks like a triple-decker cake,” said
old place, today’s decorations
Kemper. “We string an incredible
go far beyond what the frontier showman and his wife
number of lights for this event, and that
ever lavished upon the estate.
doesn’t even consider what are used on
Today, Buffalo Bill State
the Christmas trees in the house.”
Volunteer groups annually sponsor
Historical Park is owned and
a Christmas tree for every room and
operated by the Nebraska
hallway in the mansion. Last Christmas
Game and Parks Commission.
local organizations, including the
“Christmas at the Codys” is
Lincoln County Tourism Advisory
an agency-sponsored event,
inviting the public to celebrate Council, the Nebraskaland Home
the holiday season at the ranch. Economists, the Buffalo Bill Rodeo
The Mid-Nebraska Community Committee, the Opportunity Center, Xi
Alpha Sigma Sorority and the Lincoln
Foundation initiated the event
County Boys and Girls Club, uniquely
in 1997 as a fundraiser for the
decorated trees and other features of
organization’s community
adopted rooms in the mansion.
involvement and eventually
One of the foremost attractions last
turned the celebration over to
year was Louisa Cody’s bedroom, which
the Commission in 2006. Park
had a more contemporary look of multisuperintendent Steve Kemper
colored globes and lights but blended
and assistant superintendent
well with the past by highlighting the
Aric Riggins tackle most of
modern ornaments with an antique
the lighting chores that define
the unique lines of the mansion, yo-yo quilt on Mrs. Cody’s bed.
Irene Walz, who has been the office
including gables, windows,
coordinator at the State Historical Park
balconies and porches. Even
THIS OLD CHRISTMAS CARD SUMS UP THE OVERALL
and who assists volunteer groups
exterior bushes and picket
THEME OF “CHRISTMAS AT THE CODYS.”
throughout the pre-celebration process,
fences are lighted, along with
decorated Mrs. Cody’s room.
antique wagons and, of course, the big
of them Arta Cody.
The great table in the dining room
barn. Without doubt, the house and
“…it was with glowing eyes that I
has traditionally been the focus of the
yard present a magnificent spectacle to
greeted Will when he came back from
decorative eye. Last year, the Lincoln
those arriving for “Christmas at the
Cheyenne, loaded down with packages
County Tourism Advisory Council
Codys.”
to say nothing of the wagon which
decorated the holiday dinner setting in
“When all the lights are turned on,
followed him. It was two days before
Christmas. Up at the fort the soldiers had and especially after a snowfall, the house gala Christmas colors of red and gold,
been working, sending out details into
the plains to find the prettiest little pine
trees possible, to be placed about the
big assembly hall – and I knew that the
whole setting would be wonderful ….”
Wonderful settings were likely
arranged by the hands of Louisa, not
her rough frontier husband, but certainly
Bill was responsible for seeing that the
best of trimmings were available for
Louisa to work her decorative magic.
After Bill and Louisa retired from
military circles and built their
appropriately named “Scouts Rest
Ranch” in North Platte, the Codys
welcomed scores of Christmas guests.
More than a century has now passed
since Louisa and Bill hosted their final
Christmas in North Platte, but during
recent Decembers the entire mansion,
barn, cob house and springhouse glow
in remembrance of those celebrated
days. Although Cody certainly would
have approved of the modern extravaGUESTS ARE INVITED TO TOUR THE HOUSE AND STOP IN THE PARLOR ROOM FOR A VIOLIN,
gance in Christmas décor bestowed the
CLARINET OR PIANO SOLO OF A FAVORITE CHRISTMAS MELODY.
36 NEBRASKALAND • DECEMBER 2008
A HITCH OF HORSES AND A HAY WAGON GIVE VISITORS A GREAT VIEW OF THE EXTERIOR LIGHTS THAT DECORATE SCOUT’S RANCH.
while placements of fine china and
imported crystal symbolically awaited
the dinner guests of Christmas past.
Although today’s guests do not sit
down to a traditional Cody Christmas
feast, they are invited to tour the house
or stop in the parlor room for a violin,
clarinet or piano solo of a favorite
Christmas melody. They may also
visit with Buffalo Bill look-alike and
re-enactor, Bruce Richmond, and little
ones may sit on Santa’s lap and tell him
their Christmas wishes.
Outside the mansion, visitors may stop
by the cob house and the springhouse for
apple cider and fresh-roasted chestnuts.
A hitch of horses and hay wagon await
those wanting a rhythmic clompity,
clomp, clomp tour of the grounds that
features a spectacular view of the lighted
mansion. Local ranchers volunteer their
time, teams and tack for this popular
event.
The veterans’ tree is across the spring
bridge in the massive 1887 horse barn.
A traditional cedar tree stands inside
the stable doors, and visitors are
encouraged to hang messages on the
branches to service personnel away
from home. Those messages serve as
the tree’s only ornaments, except for
flags and red, white and blue lights.
The veteran’s tree in the barn and all
the handmade Christmas tree
ornaments in the house reflect back
to the Cody’s first Christmas at Fort
McPherson.
Louisa wrote, “I went to the fort
to help the other women with the
decorations for our first really big
Christmas on the plains. How we
worked! How we schemed and
contrived to make that big hall look
like a Christmas back home! All in one
day, there was everything to do – and
very little to do it with. This was different
from the land of civilization. There was
no store to run to for an armful of tinsel,
no decorator’s shops to furnish holly
and mistletoe and Christmas wreaths.
The wreaths that hung upon the walls
we made ourselves. The bright red
berries that spotted them here and there
were hard-rolled bits of red paper; the
greenery everywhere had come fresh
from the buttes and knolls of the
plains, with here and there a few cactus
spines thrown in to make things more
difficult.”
Décor innovation continues to be the
premise on which a modern day
Christmas at the Cody’s is presented to
the public. From tanned-hide Christmas
tree skirts and hand-folded parchment
ornaments to feather globes, native
grass bundles and gingerbread men
ornaments, visitors inside the house
feel they are truly experiencing a
frontier Christmas.
This year, “Christmas at the Codys”
is open to the public from December
19 – 22 from 5:30 p.m. until 8 p.m.
Admission is $5.00, but children 12 years
of age and under, as well as military
personnel with current service
identification cards, are admitted free. ■
HAND-MADE FEATHER GLOBES DECORATE
ONE OF MANY CHRISTMAS TREES.
DECEMBER 2008 • NEBRASKALAND 37
n a conversation that morning at
his home where he and his wife,
Joanne, had lived for more than
50 years, his eyes lowered as he
spoke of lost days on the water
that spring. “Not too much fishing this
year,” he said, “I must be lazy or old.”
A pause, our eyes only making temporary
contact. “I go when they go usually,”
he said, referring to his two sons, and I
wondered if he knew that I knew that
was no longer true.
There was a time in life it had been
true though, when weekend days and
nights with Monte and Scott were the
lake. Life was water in the spring,
summer and fall. But in the winter, life
was a waiting game until the water
became hard enough to walk across.
Then it became life again. Nowadays,
however, past times were current times
– he was slowing down, relying on
yesteryear stories of his own as well as
stories from his sons. In a sense, he
was now waiting for that perfect day on
the lake. Yet those who knew him best
also knew there was once a time when
he never would have waited at all.
I
PHOTO BY DOUG CARROLL
A little while later, Dad sat with his
two boys at the kitchen table, flipping
pages of a photo album absent of
creativity. A fisherman’s album can be
the most boring, repetitive collection of
photographs ever assembled. Boring,
mind you, to the layman or casual
angler. They remind one of Norman
Maclean’s narrator in the story “A
River Runs Through It” when he says,
“So we emptied our baskets and
arranged them [the fish] by size and
took turns photographing each other
admiring them and ourselves. The
photographs turned out to be like most
amateur snapshots of fishing catches –
the fish were white from overexposure
and didn’t look as big as they actually
were ....”
Place that album in front of a
fisherman who has one of their own,
however, or amongst fathers and sons,
and each picture deserves a story, about
how the fish fought, where it was caught,
and ribbing giggles about the hair and
clothing ensembles of days past.
The boys pointed to pictures in the
album, each photo of the grab-and-grin
variety that included the angler, fish
and faded background. In the brothers’
minds, however, the background was
far from faded. “That was at Sherman,” body fought between boy and man.
Scott was no longer wearing those
Monte said.
rubber boots at Merritt Reservoir, long
“That’s Medicine Creek,” added
since discarded for a warmer pair of
Scott about the next.
ice-fishing apparel. And Dad was no
“Olive Creek,” said Monte.
longer taking his boys to the water,
“Willow Creek,” said Scott, the
backdrops as clear as the ice they stood coercing them from their beds. They
had their own lives now, lives that
on those days.
included divorce, job layoffs and kids
“Right after they married, Dad went
13 weekends in a row, from Friday night who didn’t fish.
“I think I ruined mine when they
until Sunday night,” said Monte, the
younger of the two Mares brothers. “We were young,” Scott said.
“Mine will go some,” Monte said,
asked Mom how she ever dealt with that.”
“but not like me and Scott.”
“After a while, I didn’t,” she said,
The two have fished together since
walking into the kitchen, a cup of coffee
they were little boys, long before being
in hand. “He only married me because
interrupted by life. But fishing was life,
my dad was such a great hunter and
fisherman. But after all those weekends an ever-growing appendage of how
alone, I got tired of
it. As time went on,
everywhere I
looked it seemed as
if there was a
mouth wanting to
be fed. I had to have
a life of my own.
So one day I was
sitting on the porch
and thought, ‘I’ve
had enough of this.’
I went and applied
for a job. Told him
when he got home
that I had to go to
work in the
morning.” She
laughed as her
husband listened
and her boys
smiled, firmly
bringing Woody
Allen’s “time plus
tragedy equals
Scott (left) and Monte Mares cut holes at Calamus Reservoir.
comedy” full circle.
The stories
continued with each page turn. More
each day would always be, introduced
than 100 years of fishing experience
by a man who failed to remember how
saved in faded, yellowing photographs.
he ever introduced it to them or how he
Yet still a much better alternative than
started himself.
the 21st century photo album held
“They’re getting into it too big, I
conveniently, if ever so briefly, on the
think,” Dad said. “Tournaments every
world’s cell phone cameras.
weekend. Painted fish on their trailers.
Each photograph was different than
I just don’t know what to think of that.”
the one before, everyone getting older
pitting snow welcomed Monte
from the front of the album to the back.
and Scott at Calamus Reservoir.
Snapshots of life on the water and of
It was January, the temperature in
people they no longer were. There
the low teens. They were the postwould be no more shirtless Monte next
apocalyptic ice anglers, visiting a
to Olive Creek Lake in the summer,
wasteland on frozen water. They talked
hair in front of his face as his teenage
S
DECEMBER 2008 • NEBRASKALAND 39
e 1969.
at Medicine Creek, Jun
Monte (left) and Scott
little as they piled on clothes,
topping the last layer with
matching coveralls, each back
monogrammed with “The 2pounder Club.” Then they
unloaded their 4-wheeler and
its accompanying sled carrying
a portable shanty, underwater
camera, depth finder and a
pile of fishing gear: the
oranges, blues and greens of
various tackle combinations,
each the perfect fishing lure
for a particular fish, during a
particular time, on a particular
day – the fisherman’s excuse
for all additional tackle
purchases. They drove their
ATV to the middle of the
Early morning preparation for the Mares brothers at Calamus Reservoir.
One of many holes for Scott and Monte during a hard-water morning.
40 NEBRASKALAND • DECEMBER 2008
lake, then turned its engine off.
“Is this about where it was?” Scott
asked.
“We’re close,” replied Monte.
“I can’t believe we didn’t GPS this
brush pile,” said Scott with a shake of
the head. “I’ll drill.”
Scott zig-zagged across the lake with
his gas-powered auger, drilling holes
through two feet of ice while Monte
dropped a transducer into each,
evaluating depth in search of fish and
structure. Scott continued augering, his
ice-laden prairie dog community growing
larger by the minute. This was not the
Grumpy Old Men version of shanty
fishing on ice. Nor was it the
stereotypical view comparing ice-fishing
to cane pole angling through a hole in the
living room floor, just a TV guide and
koozie away from any other day of
Saturday afternoon football.
“Sometimes you go single tail, or
double tail,” started Scott, talking about
lure selection. “Or just wax worms. Or
hit your jigs with a glow in the dark
taser at night. Sometimes that will
work a bite. I like chartreuse myself, as
well as black tails. I was just
experimenting last week with two tails.
Always have a wax worm on there, and
you want something heavy enough to
feel the end of the line, but not too
heavy. I’ll use lures less than a 1/16 of an
ounce with 4- or 6-pound test. If you
get too stiff a line you can lose
sensitivity. If you get too light of line,
then the ice might pop it off. All
anchored by a standard 7-loop knot.”
They dipped their lures into each of
the holes that morning, constantly
jigging in search of fish. Sweat beaded,
the wind chill lowered. They made
small talk about families and fishing.
Each person listened intently to the
others’ stories, smiling or laughing at
the pauses, depending on the worth of
the punch line. But always waiting for
the last line so the group could
momentarily absorb the tale, then
reciprocate with a slightly different one
that could start with a plethora of
introductions, some better than others.
“That reminds me…” is a poor start,
and must be supported with a story of
intrigue and espionage on the water to
regain its footing. “We were fishing on
Holmes Lake one day, not unlike the
day you just described, when …” A
proper transition from the previous tale.
It is the give-and-take that is fishing
stories, whether shared on a drive to the
lake or near a multitude of holes in the ice.
But the stories also take on a slightly
different tone with a new person along,
for there is the question that always
accompanies these conversations, and
each person, regardless of their
DECEMBER 2008 • NEBRASKALAND 41
“
Ice-fishing gear for the Mares brothers includes jigging rigs, tackleboxes, ice shanties and sleds to carry all of their equipment.
storytelling prowess or ineptitude, has a
version: “When did you start fishing?”
The inquiry itself is loaded, not to be
easily answered by stating an age.
Once age is introduced, it is the who,
then the how, then why. A pause, then
the question is silently returned and the
stories compared. The conversation
goes on, time passing quickly.
“We were always at the lake,” started
Monte. “Every weekend we’d get the
camper and set up 45 tip-ups that night
back when that many were legal. Dad
would drill all those holes by hand.
Scott would set the depth of the tip-up
and I would set the bait. Man, I tell
42 NEBRASKALAND • DECEMBER 2008
you, flags were popping. It was exciting.
If we got bored, we’d wrestle.”
“‘Why don’t you guys make a
round,’ Dad would say,” said Scott.
“And me and Monte would take an iron
bar and beat it against the ice while we
skated around the lake. ‘It gets bait
moving,’ he told us. And me, Monte
and Mom and Dad were always going
somewhere. We’d come back home
after two weeks at Merritt and the grass
was a foot tall. People just don’t do
that anymore.”
“On days we were staying close to
the house, Dad would come in and
whisper, ‘Let’s go fishing,’” said
Monte.
“‘Dad, I’m really tired. I don’t want
to talk,’ I’d say. But that didn’t stop
him from talking. He did until we
would get up. Then we would fall
asleep in the boat. We did that since we
were little,” Scott added.
In a young angler’s life, fishing will
often take, if only for a moment, a
backseat to everything else. Talks
between fathers and sons turn from
one-sentence dialogues, to one-word
responses, to inaudible mumbles to
post-sleep groans. It is past the time in
life when a father expects his son to
fall asleep to and from the lake. He now
seeks a conversation from a colleague
on the water, a give-and-take between
parts of himself and parts of a complete
stranger. Too often, however, he
receives neither. Ironically, nowadays
Dad would be able to listen to all the
stories he could handle, even though he
might not be able to relay them to his
wife once he got back home.
“Dad doesn’t remember last year or
the year before,” said Monte. “But you
get him talking about back in the day,
and he’s as sharp as a tack.”
of his tip-ups,” said Scott.
“Yeah,” Monte replied,
his eyes growing bigger.
“I-I’ll do it,” Dad said,
walking outside while
Monte and Scott went
back to the table.
“Lots of memories in
there,” Monte said.
Faded artifacts there
were, brightening each
spot on the wall they
filled.
hat Monte, he sure was fast,”
Dad said, as he thumbed through
the album pages, not one of
which ever sticked together. A true sign
of an album used.
Both of the boys laughed. “That fish
right there,” said Scott, pointing to
what seemed to be the same walleye as
the page before. “He beat me to that
fish that day. ‘Please, Scott. Please
Scott, let me check that tip-up,’ he said,
and I said okay. Little shit – that was
the biggest fish of the day.”
Another page turned, then another.
Monte stood up. “Come look at this.”
We walked into a side room of the
house. “We call this Thingsville,” he
said.
A mounted pike greeted us, as did a
pile of Master Angler certificates.
Antique lures were strung up in bundles,
as well as framed, faded pictures of
past glories. “Dad made these,” Scott
said in one direction.
Monte copied him in another. “He
also made these canes.”
“It keeps me out of the bars,” Dad
said. “But I don’t make canes anymore.
Can’t go fishing if you’re making
canes.”
“He also mounted this pike,” Scott
said.
“I wasn’t very good at it,” Dad said,
but his boys knew different.
“He used to make all kinds of
things,” Monte said. “He’d see someone
at the lake one weekend and like
their contraption, whether it was storebought or not. Then he’d go home and
make it.”
“These were my mother’s teeth,” Dad
said, pointing to a set of teeth in the
mouth of a fish. The group laughed.
“He made the tip-ups we used,”
Monte said.
“Monte, we ought to go and get one
hat do you
think
Monte?” said
Scott, his muffled voice
Young Monte with a
now hidden in the
largemouth bass in “Th
ingsville.”
makeshift shanty.
policing them, though. Guys would
“What do you think, Scott?” Monte
drop gunny sacks of fish down holes
replied, constantly jigging his bait in
before the tournament started. But it
the hole at his feet. “If you don’t jig
was better by the time we were fishing.
those tip-ups, that bait won’t move.
Keep your bait moving. A lot of guys
The organizers arrange them in twothat ice-fish will put minnow poles out
man teams. One member of the team is
and never move them. We’re always
given a five-minute head start, while the
raising and lowering.” A pause, then:
other can leave five minutes later from
“But this isn’t how we fish our
a 4-wheeler. Monte’s our runner.”
tournaments. Very little sitting during
“It’s 0-degrees and I’m hardly wearing
any clothes when I do that,” said Monte.
those times.”
“He sprints across the lake, going
“Dad fished ice tournaments,” said
toward his spot. When the first flag goes
Scott. “Back then there was very little
T
“
W
Inside an ice-fishing shanty at Calamus Reservoir.
DECEMBER 2008 • NEBRASKALAND 43
PHOTO BY DOUG CARROLL
One of Dad’s homemade tip-ups.
on the ice, people around you have to
give you a 20-yard cushion,” said Scott.
“When they shoot that gun, you got
guys in golf shoes, ice skates and track
shoes. People are falling, sliding across
the ice. I’ve seen minnow buckets fly
through the air, bait rolling across the
ice as I ran to my spot,” said Monte.
“Once you’re where you want to fish,
you have a rod in one hand, a stake in
the other and you’re claiming holes.
One of the times we did this, I already
had three fish on the ice by the time
that Scott got there. Since we had
pre-fished the area the day before, our
holes were essentially still there. I put a
boot through the hole that had glazed
over a bit and started
fishing. Nowadays,
though, those young
guys beat me all over
the lake. The
tournament we won at
Merritt, I wore some
lighter boots because I
had to run about a
mile.”
“We caught 60
crappies that day, and
won the tournament by
10 pounds,” said Scott.
“We won about $1,000
that weekend.”
“We’ll mark our
areas with GPS so we
know how to get back
to them,” said Monte.
Scott, even more
muffled than usual, “Today, we forgot
the GPS.” A pause. “Think I should
drill some more holes?”
“No, Scott, I think we’re okay,”
Monte said.
The thought of adding another
handful of holes to the multitude might
sound absurd, yet neither of the brothers
ever broke a smile. Why should they?
No one had said anything funny.
ad walked back into the house
with two of his homemade tipups. “There’s not much to
them, but …”
“These things are great,” Scott said.
“Can I see one, Dad?” Monte said.
D
Dad handed one over and took a seat.
Monte began to demonstrate while
Scott looked on and Dad buried his
head back in the album. “That Monte,
he sure was fast,” Dad said.
“Yeah he was, Dad,” said Scott
again, turning back to Monte.
“Let me find a picture where those
little farts are sitting on buckets,” Dad
said, searching for the one image that
he could still see so clearly in his mind.
Monte finished his description of
Dad’s homemade contraptions, then the
albums were slid aside but the
conversations were not. Topics were
continually thrown out between
brothers: the best small-town locale to
eat fish in Nebraska; the geographical
differences when naming beers either
draws or drafts, or naming deer a 7pointer or a 4-by-3; raising kids in a
country school versus a city school; or
the difference between pinging, clear
ice and unsafe black ice.
Monte finished by telling about the
fish once described to him as the “the
two-boot long bass” that he eventually
caught, then warned the group never to
take a long hike wearing cowboy boots.
The group’s conversations continually
rolled, Monte and Scott trading off as
Dad continued to sit, listening.
Does a father think: “Is this what I
created?” in instances such as these? Is
he secretly smiling? Or is he trying to
add his own story to the collection?
Trying to remember stories about the
Dennis Sebeks, Ron Corneliuses, Don
Kurtzers, Harold Kennedys, and Eddie
Alberts of past years on the water,
long-ago friends who are both
described as “good fishermen” as well
as those who have “passed on.”
heir wrists were programmed to
repeatedly jig that day, and their
efforts pulled a few crappies
from the water. They debated on more
strategy, and told more stories. Before
the end, both Scott and Monte were
fishing right beside each other, still the
only two anglers on a field of ice.
“A lot of time they’ll come to your
bait and just look at it. In March they’ll
nail it,” said Scott.
“Yeah,” said Monte.
“But you need to catch as many as
you can then because they’ll leave.”
“Yeah.”
“But they’ll be back.”
T
Scott (left) and Monte Mares have been fishing together since they could walk.
44 NEBRASKALAND • DECEMBER 2008
With an ice auger in the background, a small crappie is pulled from beneath the ice.
“Yeah.”
They never argued on the ice, and it
wasn’t because they had company –
they just didn’t fight. Not when they
talked every night during the week
about their ice-fishing plans, nor when
they were on the ice four, six or eight
straight weekends during a good winter.
This was what they did, and would
always do. “This was life, and life was
good,” was once written, and no
simpler, or more defining, words could
be used to describe this family of
anglers. Those still on the ice, and
those whose days were now numbered.
There was frequent talk of Dad that
day. How could there be a conversation
about fishing that didn’t include him?
Because when it was all said and done,
Monte and Scott would know
everything the other one knew, plus
everything their father knew.
So in the end, did Dad really need to
be there at all, or even remember
anything
anymore? No,
his work was
done, had been
for some time,
and he had
given everything
he had to them.
For his boys,
for their entire
lives, would
never have to
fish alone. He
would be there
with them,
whether in
body or in
memory, ready
to dig the next
hole. ■
Dad holding a
catch of
largemouth
bass, May 1971.
Potatis Korv
Recipes to make your own Swedish potato sausage.
By Rocky Hoffmann
PHOTO BY ROCKY HOFFMANN
M
46 NEBRASKALAND • DECEMBER 2008
often incorporated into fall family
celebrations that have become holiday
traditions.
Traditional recipes always call for
two types of meat – beef and pork.
However, with hunting as popular as it
is in the Gothenburg area and the
abundance of deer and deer permits,
venison is becoming the substitution
of choice for the beef portion of the
equation. More and more hunters
statewide are turning to home sausagemaking of all kinds, and potato
sausage is an excellent candidate for
the home grinder and stuffer.
The history of sausage making can
be traced to dates well before the
Swedes began tossing a few spuds into
the mix. In fact, King Nebuchadnezzar
and the Babylonians were making
hard sausages, while Homer considered
sausage a fairly convenient food on
his ninth century B.C. Odyssey.
Sausage is a derivative of the Latin word
salsicia, which refers to anything salted,
and if there has been one ingredient
that has remained consistent with
sausage recipes, it’s been salt.
Salt not only provides an important
boost over blandness, it also serves as
a preservative – to some degree.
Sausage makers, however, should
always adhere to strict measures of
sanitation and depend totally on
refrigeration for longevity. Swedish
potato sausage in particular is highly
perishable and, once thawed, must be
utilized quickly and cooked
thoroughly when prepared.
There are probably as many
variations of Swedish potato
sausage as there are Swedes,
but a mix of beef, pork,
potatoes and salt are the basic
ingredients found in all
recipes. Just across the river
in neighboring Iowa, folks in
Odebolt have been buying
Swedish potato sausage from
the Odebolt locker and the
local market since 1962. The
recipe comes from Leo
Cooper, a long time Odebolt
resident. Leo’s recipe was very
traditional and very basic. To the beef,
pork, potatoes and salt, Leo added
onions and pepper, and instead of
messing with the chore of peeling
potatoes, he used canned Irish whole
potatoes. In preparing this recipe, all
the ingredients are mixed, leaving the
potatoes whole, and then everything is
run through the grinder together. Of
course, measuring exact quantities
of each ingredient is critical to the
outcome of the sausage.
Leo Cooper’s Odebolt Locker
Swedish Sausage
6 pounds beef
5 pounds potatoes (No. 10 can Irish
whole potatoes with liquid drained)
4 ½ pounds pork (not too lean)
2 large onions, chopped
2 ½ ounces of salt (or 5 tablespoons)
½ ounce black pepper (or 1
tablespoon)
A game warden’s version of
Swedish potato sausage comes
from Roger Thompson, District IV
supervisor in North Platte, whose
hometown is Oakland … remember,
Swedish Game Warden
Sausage
1 onion, chopped
1 tablespoon salt
1 ½ teaspoons allspice
1 cup non-fat dairy milk
½ cup water (or add more for
consistency)
6 cups potatoes, peeled, pared
and cut up
1½ pounds lean elk or deer
1 pound lean pork
To make sausage, the home
butcher doesn’t really need to
be a home butcher. What is
needed is a simple grinder
(hand or electric) with an
assortment of grinding plates
of varying sizes, a basic
sausage press and casings.
Natural edible casings are
traditional and may be obtained
through most butcher shops.
Synthetic edible casings are
good substitutes and can also
be found locally. Books and
recipes that feature sausage
making are available online,
and there are some excellent
mail-order sausage-supply
houses. The most recognized
butcher-supply house is a
mail-order company called
LEM. One other important
ingredient for Swedish Game
Warden Potato Sausage is a
deer permit. ■
Doe Shooter
Support groups are forming now.
By Eric Fowler
ot long ago, I wondered if
there should be a support
group for people like me.
Call it Doe Shooters
Anonymous. We probably
would’ve met around
a campfire in some
secluded woodlot.
“Hi, my name is
Eric, and I shoot does.”
“Hi Eric,” the others
would reply.
It was a small group,
partly because for
years most Nebraska hunters were
only allowed to shoot bucks, and
partly because that early management strategy, designed to build the
herd, evolved into a social trend. No
one wanted to shoot a doe.
I’m sure my younger brother, Mike,
would’ve joined my little group after
taking a doe on his first deer hunt, for
which I happily served as his guide.
My nephew, Sam, then just six years
old, was thrilled when we returned to
my sister Pam’s home … until he saw
the deer: “Aw, it’s just a doe,” he said.
My brother-in-law, Tim, is a horn
hunter and took me deer hunting for
the first time when I was 16. His
penchant for big deer rubbed off on
me and, more recently, his son.
Tim and I have harvested a few
trophies, but we’ve also taken quite a
few young bucks, which Sammy likes
to call “pencil horns.” One year we
made a long stalk on a herd of mulies.
When a forkhorn and a doe stood up,
I shot the buck. After I did, it hit me
– why didn’t I shoot the doe and let
the buck grow up? I’d read about the
Quality Deer Management craze that
was sweeping the south – let the little
ones walk, shoot some does to keep
the herd in check and you will be
rewarded with more trophy bucks.
My approach to the rifle season had
been to hunt hard all week hoping to
find a trophy, and at season’s end I
N
would take any deer. But after the
state’s deer herd grew to the point that
I was able to get two permits, my
strategy changed. My first priority
was to shoot a whitetail doe for the
freezer. My second
permit was reserved
for a trophy. If I didn’t
fill it, I didn’t care.
These days, I’ll
usually shoot a doe or
two every year. One
of my favorite hunts
each year is a two-day
muzzleloader doe hunt at DeSoto
National Wildlife Refuge. Go figure.
For some hunters, it’s a trophy or
nothing, and I have no problem with
that. They are in it for recreation and
the challenge. But I don’t shoot pencil
horns anymore, and I don’t understand
the hunters checking in deer at 9 a.m.
on opening day with forkhorn or
basket-rack bucks stacked like
cordwood in the back of their truck
and saying, “Man, we’re just not
seeing any big deer.”
I wonder why? Could it be: (A) That
young buck you shot three years ago
didn’t have a chance to grow up;
(B) You didn’t hunt long and hard
enough; or (C) All of the above?
Some hunters justify their actions by
saying, “If I don’t shoot it, someone
else will.” I tell them that since they
did, we’ll never know.
Season Choice and bonus tags are
making it easier for hunters to shoot
does, and with whitetail numbers as
they are in some parts of Nebraska,
more doe shooters are needed. If
hunters don’t step up to the plate, they
may someday be forced to shoot a doe
before they shoot a buck, a strategy
that has been deployed in other states.
So go shoot a doe. They taste the
same as bucks. And I, for one,
won’t make fun of you. If someone
does, you can make fun of them for
shooting a pencil horn. ■
DECEMBER 2008 • NEBRASKALAND 47
PHOTO BY ERIC FOWLER
y last name, Hoffmann,
is about as Swedish as
Martinez is Irish, but I’m
certain there are a few
Swensons who
enjoy a crock of homemade
sauerkraut and bratwurst as
much as I enjoy a couple links
of Potatis Korv.
Even as good as it tastes,
finding an authentic Swedish
potato sausage in the market is
a rare discovery at best, except,
of course, if you live in or
visit one of Nebraska’s several
Swedish communities. Oakland
claims the Swedish capitol of
Nebraska, while Stromsburg,
not to be outdone, is the
Swede capitol of Nebraska.
There is even a Swedeburg,
which is not much more than a church
and a farming community along
U.S. Highway 77 that hasn’t made the
Nebraska road map for several years.
Gothenburg is so Swedish that the
high school football team is known as
the Swedes, and their grocery market
is (what else?) – Peterson’s Market.
In the fall when the holidays
approach, Peterson’s meat department
manager Patty Streweler is busy stuffing
natural casings with a concoction of the
timeworn Peterson recipe for Potatis
Korv. Patty stuffs a lot of Swedish
potato sausage from Thanksgiving to
Christmas. At a market-demand price
of more than $4.50 per pound, she
can’t seem to make enough to keep
the cooler stocked, and it’s not just
locals who stock up on Peterson’s
sausage. Patty ships potato sausage all
over the country (308 537-2048), and
she keeps the recipe under hat.
Not all the Swedish folks in the
community, however, are buying
Patty’s sausage. Instead, many opt to
make their own recipe. Sausage making
is a heritage handed down from
generation to generation, which is
the Swedish capitol of
Nebraska. Roger, of
course, uses venison for a beef
substitute and introduces a few
more ingredients to the mix.
Because venison is so lean, the
addition of dairy milk and
water helps to provide a proper
consistency to the sausage. He
uses a 3/8-inch grinder plate and
grinds the meat, potatoes and
onions. He then adds the other
ingredients and mixes well. He
either stuffs the sausage or
packages it in bulk to be used
as breakfast patties.
ATTRACTIONS/EVENTS
GOT PRAIRIE? We do! Prairie Plains Resource
Institute is Nebraska born and dedicated to the people
and landscape of the Great Plains. Since 1980 we’ve
been planting prairies, getting kids outside and spending time with people on the land. For beautiful photos,
calendar of events or to become a member, visit
www.prairieplains.org or call (402) 694-5535.
WILDERNESS SURVIVAL CLASS - Start a fire
with the bow-drill method, build a survival shelter,
be introduced to primitive traps, cordage, flint
knapping, edible and medicinal plants, water
location and purification, and much more! Go to
www.greatplainstracker.com.
BOOKS/PUBLICATIONS/VIDEOS
losis test on females. Chilled semen available. Stud
Fee $600. Contact owner Tom Phillips at (785) 6355776 or trainer/handler - Chris Jobman at (308) 2490707, www.flatlanderkennels.com.
PREMIER GUNDOGS TRAINING KENNEL:
Gundog training for all pointing breeds and hunting
retrievers. GSP and Labrador retriever puppies and
started dogs with 30-month hip and eye guarantees.
References gladly given. Dale and Kris Taylor (402)
787-2048, www.premiergundogs.com.
FLATLANDER KENNELS INC. Bayard, NE
Full-time retriever training facility for the serious
hunter or AKC and HRC hunt tester. Trainer of
Nebraska's first and only GRHRCH's! Super Retriever
Series competitor and a member of Avery's Team
Waterdog. Training available for all levels of hunt
tests and gundogs. Chris Jobman: (308) 249-0707,
www.flatlanderkennels.com
Sparks, Nebraska. Your Niobrara River Specialist.
(800)
337-3119.
www.drylandaquatics.com,
info@drylandaquatics.com.
Maskenthine Lake
GUNS/SHOOTING/ARCHERY
This NRD area offers a variety of outdoor opportunities.
GUNS – Browning, Benelli, Winchester, Ruger, etc.
1700 guns, buy-sell-trade (402) 729-6112, Bedlan’s,
Fairbury, NE 68352. www.bedlans.com.
By Katie Berger
OUTDOOR EQUIPMENT
IS PERFORMANCE IMPORTANT? For the finest
canoes and accessories look to Great Plains Canoe Co.,
205 Main, Springfield, NE 68059. Phone (402) 253-2000.
PHOTOGRAPHY
CHRISTMAS GIFT BOOKS: New 2nd Edition,
“Ju-Ju Swallowed a Penny.” Hardcover - $23:
Softcover - $13. Nebraska novels, “In the Shadow of
the Bluff” and “The Courthouse.” Available
bookstores or Betty Dunn, 410 CR 324, Navasota, TX
77868; bdunn@mssblue.net.
TGK’s NEBRASKA POINTING LABS: AKC/APLA
hunt-tested. Puppies & started dogs available all year.
Written health guarantee. Waverly NE (402) 5800323 www.tgksptlabs.com
WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHIC PRINTS. Matted,
framed and signed. Go to inplainssight.homestead.com,
hathfotofreak@hotmail.com, (402) 848-2358. “The
more you buy, the quicker my wife can retire!”
FISH/FISHING
REAL ESTATE
DOGS
FISH FOR SALE. Catfish, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, perch, crappie, bluegill, walleye, rainbow
trout, grass carp, minnows. Pleasant Valley Fish Farm,
27851 U.S. Highway 83, McCook, NE 69001. (308)
345-6599.
260 ACRES OF LAND close to Sherman Lake, 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 2040-square-foot, 2005 mobile home.
Good hunting, close to good fishing, Loop Realty,
PO Box 567, Loup City, NE (308) 745-1097,
www.looprealty.com.
NEBRASKA LAKE MANAGEMENT. Biological
lake surveys, fish stocking, rough fish control, lake
aeration, algae control, shorewall construction. Rob
Hofpar, Aquatic Biologist, licensed, insured and qualified. (402) 784-6005 Valparaiso - 1(888) 850-2460.
VACATIONS/RESORTS
PLUM CREEK KENNEL. German shorthairs, stud
service, puppies and started dogs. Training for all
pointing breeds. Specialize in training the handler as
well as the dog. Wayne Clark, Percival, Iowa (near
Omaha) (712) 529-4238, clarks1@iowatelecom.net.
WILDERNESS KENNELS. Since 1968 – over 60
years combined experience. Gun dog training, all
sporting breeds – retrievers, flushing and pointing.
All dogs worked on pen-raised birds and wild game.
Obedience training includes heel, sit, stay, down and
come when called. Pups, started dogs and fully
trained dogs for sale. Hunting dogs trained by hunters.
Henry Sader, Roca, NE
(402) 423-4212.
www.wildernesskennels.com.
DUCKDAWG RETRIEVERS – Raising exceptional
hunting/field-bred yellow and black Labradors.
Hunting, family and competition companions.
Puppies raised in our home. Written health guarantee.
Stud services available.
Home of GRHRCH
DuckDawg’s Eba Roll The Dice – (Ylw) and
GRHRCH McMac Magic Eyes A’Smilin MH-(Blk).
The only two Grand Hunting Retriever Champions in
Nebraska. www.duckdawg.com. Ron Green DVM
and Libby Milroy, North Platte NE (308) 534-3659.
AT STUD: GRHRCH UH Platte's TNT Duckdawg
Dozer MH. First yellow Labrador in the State of
Kansas to earn his Grand, Upland and Master titles.
Seventy pounds of muscle, exceptional marker and
blind runner Dozer is available for breeding to
approved females. Natural breeding requires a brucel-
FOOD/GIFTS/HOME
HOMEBREWING/BEER AND WINEMAKING.
Fermenter’s Supply, 8410 K Plaza, Suite #10, Omaha,
NE 68127. Phone orders only, (888) 655-2739.
Advice line (402) 593-9171. www.fermenters
supply.com.
CABIN/BUILDING/HOME
Design
and
Construction. Full-line building materials. Schreier’s
Lumber Company - Verdigre, NE. “Over 100 years
experience” schrlmbr@gpcom.net (402) 668-2624.
NEW POSTER! 22” x 30” Nebraska State Capitol
poster featuring a dramatic photograph of the Sower.
Printed on glossy, heavy 100 lb. coverstock. Visit
www.lightstruckpress.com to order.
GUIDES/OUTFITTERS
CANOE - KAYAK - TUBE RENTALS on the
beautiful Niobrara River with Dryland Aquatics at
NEBRASKAland Now Offers
Display Advertising...
Enhance your advertisement with photos,
graphics and color!
48 NEBRASKALAND • DECEMBER 2008
THE OLDE MAIN STREET INN. A historic bed and
breakfast listed in the National Register of Historic
Places. Beautiful dining room with fireplace.
Featuring prime rib, buffalo, seafood, homemade
soups, chilis and desserts. 115 Main Street, Chadron
NE 69337 (308) 432-3380. www.chadron.com/oldemain.
DIAMOND B TROUT RESORT, Orchard, Nebraska.
Lodge, cabins, spring-fed lakes, playground equipment, paddleboats. Great for families, groups,
hunters. Book your cabin now! Call for brochure
(800) 974-3002. www.diamondbtroutresort.com.
MILL IRON V LODGING has modern cabins for
your vacation pleasure. We are located near Verdigre,
NE in turkey country. Each cabin offers privacy, view
and a birdwatcher’s paradise. Stay with us for a COUNTRY
EXPERIENCE. (402) 668-7488. www.milliron-vlodging.com, jpeinrem@gpcom.net.
BIG BLUE RANCH & LODGE - Enjoy fishing,
hunting, hiking, birdwatching and ranch adventures
on 2000+ acre cattle ranch in southeastern Nebraska.
Beautiful log cabin, with fireplaces, kitchens & big
covered porches, overlooks 20-acre lake.
www.bigblueranch.com (402) 730-3643.
DUCKLORE LODGE - OUTSTANDING WATERFOWL HUNTING on North Platte River, Lisco,
Nebraska. Historic facility, including fireplace,
kitchen, bedrooms and bar. Accommodates six
hunters. Excellent blinds adjacent to Garden County
Game Refuge. Contact Tom at (308) 772-3226 or
tolsonsr@fnbancs.com.
ASPINWALL LODGING: Rural farmhouse located
near Nemaha among the rolling hills of southeastern
Nebraska. Three bedrooms, full kitchen, washer &
dryer, TV. Situated close to Indian Cave State Park,
historic Brownville, Game and Parks wildlife
management areas, Missouri and Nemaha rivers, and
much more. Open all year, accepting reservations,
brochure available. (402) 883-2788.
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P.O. Box 30370, Lincoln, NE 68503-0370.
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I
DECEMBER 2008 • NEBRASKALAND 49
PHOTO BY ERIC FOWLER
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FOR FISHING AND HUNTING accommodations.
Guided pheasant hunts. Jefco Inn, South Cornell St.,
Gordon, NE 69343 (308) 282-2935.
anglers, Maskenthine offers a variety
Norfolk, said the lake is named for
t may be hard to pronounce, but
of outdoor activities, both on and off
one of the original homesteaders in
northeastern Nebraska’s
the water. A 25-pad camping area
the area, and “Mask-en-tyne”
Maskenthine Lake Recreation
with a showerhouse, electrical
(rhyming with “mine”) is probably
Area is a familiar name among
hookups and small swimming beach
the most accurate pronunciation.
local outdoor enthusiasts.
sit on the western shore, while a disc
Maskenthine is a favorite fishing
The 100-acre reservoir was created
golf course and hiking trail sit farther
spot in the region, often seen as a
in 1976 when the Lower Elkhorn
back. A large map at the park’s
Natural Resources District (LENRD) closer-to-home alternative to Lewis
entrance indicates
built a 1,500-foot
where hunting is
earthen dam on
permitted, with
Maskenthine Creek to
pheasant, waterfowl
provide flood control
and deer being popular
to the town of Stanton,
game. Maskenthine
11/2 miles to the south.
also hosts a number of
Opened to the general
area events, including
public in 1979,
fishing contests and a
Maskenthine was the
race in the state’s
first NRD reservoir in
“Psycowpath”
northeastern Nebraska
Mountain Bike Series.
to be made available
“Most people we’re
for public fishing.
happy to work with,”
LENRD purchased an
said Berney.
additional 160 acres ten
While Maskenthine
years later to develop
is dotted with mature
wildlife habitat and
cottonwoods at its
construct a sediment
Anglers fish from the bank of Maskenthine Lake near Stanton.
shore, LENRD also
trap, and today the
maintains a 20-acre arboretum on the
and Clark or the Fremont lakes.
recreation area totals 740 acres.
eastern side of the lake. Created in
The Nebraska Game and Parks
Located about 10 miles east of
Commission monitors fish populations 1976, the arboretum is planted with
Norfolk and three miles south of
at Maskenthine and stocks it annually a variety of trees in a natural
U.S. Highway 275, Maskenthine is
arrangement, and a display of native
nestled in a landscape of gentle hills, with channel catfish and walleye,
plants and grasses was added in 1988.
while bluegill, largemouth bass and
big farmhouses and horizons dotted
I’m not sure I’ll ever learn to
northern pike are also present.
with corn. As I pulled into the north
entrance with a crunch of my tires on Boating is allowed in most areas, but pronounce Maskenthine correctly,
gravel, a large turkey greeted me with a 5-mph, no-wake rule is enforced to but I do know northeastern Nebraska
would be a little less interesting
prevent shoreline erosion.
a silent stare and ruffle of feathers.
A few years ago, Maskenthine was without the lake’s strange name and
He then turned around to peck the
dredged and deepened several feet in excellent recreation opportunities. ■
ground, probably knowing I was
the northern section. Berney said
headed straight for the long, skinny
lake in the heart of the recreation area. severe storms in the ‘80s and ‘90s
filled the lake’s upper end with silt
Being native to the region, my
family always referred to the lake as where Maskenthine Creek drains into it.
★
A series of jetties were installed to
“Musk-uh-teen,” yet our next door
neighbor insisted on calling it “Musk- create a winding, serpentine channel
for the stream that prevents the
en-thyne.” This always resulted in
buildup of sediment, and Berney said
long arguments, but strangely
these jetties now provide a decent
enough, neither one of us was right.
Located about 13 miles southeast of
spot for bank fishing.
Ken Berney, assistant general
Norfolk, Maskenthine Lake offers
fishing, camping, hiking and hunting.
Although mainly a destination for
manager of the LENRD office in
▲
This picture was taken in 1933. My dad, Dan
Vaughan, is on the right. Maybe your readers could
identify the other men in the photo. They were
probably hunting in the Huntley area where my
mom (Blanche Maret Vaughan) had relatives living.
Even though I have lived in the Mid-Atlantic area
my roots remain in good old Nebraska. Thanks for
all of the wonderful articles. I always go to the photo
section first to see if I know anyone from the past.
– Marlene (Mimi) Vaughan Minarik, Alexandria,
Virginia
▲
Pictured is my brother,
Bob Dush (left), and our
cousin Mike (Al)
Riskowski, after a hunt
in December of 1960 on
the farm north of Clarks.
At the time Mike grew
up in Omaha and
coming out to the farm
for hunting and fishing
really excited him, as
you can tell by the
expression on his face.
– Joe Dush, Worms,
Nebraska
▲ This picture was taken in August of 1964 at Willow
Lake north of Brewster. You can see some of the cabins in the background that used to be there. It seemed
like half of Burwell would be up there on the weekends.
The fish we caught were mostly crappies, a few
bass, perch and bluegills. The three guys in this
picture are (from left to right) Sam Johnson, myself
and Smokey Triplett.
– Dann Wagner, Burwell, Nebraska
▲ A good day in 1942 hunting pheasants in the St. Edward
area. Notice that there were no hens and no dogs. The three in
the photo are (from left to right) my two cousins, Cliff Lisko and
Hank Boruch, and myself.
– Frank Lisko, Osceola, Nebraska
▲
This photo was taken by my uncle, Jack Pesek. I am the little girl (Valerie
Nolda) and my brother, Steve Nolda, is next to me. Our cousin, Brad Pesek,
is on the right. The photo was taken near Ravenna, circa 1959. I suppose
my cousin shot the rabbit but I don’t think my brother and I shot the quail.
The three of us love reminiscing about our childhood days when Brad would
come up from Lincoln.
These little hunters are now 56, 57 and 56 years old. My brother and I live
in Ravenna and Brad lives in Everett, Washington. Jack Pesek, wrestler and
football player for the Cornhuskers in 1946 and 1947, died in 1990.
– Valerie Vierk, Ravenna, Nebraska
Send contributions to: Portraits from the Past, NEBRASKAland Magazine, P.O. Box 30370, Lincoln, NE 68503-0370.
Photos should show people enjoying Nebraska outdoor activities, such as camping, boating, hunting or fishing, and must
have been taken before 1970. We will give priority to unusual photos or activities. When possible, please include a story
about the photograph and identify the people, places and approximate date it was taken. Photos will be returned.
50 NEBRASKALAND • DECEMBER 2008
Position: 341 (35 views)