Nebraska Urban Fishing Program

Authors: Rick Eades, Don Gablehouse, and Larry Pape

Nebraska’s Urban Fisheries Program was created in 1999 with the goal of improving angler recruitment and retention in urban areas. Efforts focused on city park ponds, which were focal points of many communities. These parks typically offered a variety of amenities to park visitors, but too often their ponds did not provide quality fishing opportunities. Fish stocking and fishing clinics are key components of most state urban fisheries programs, but in Nebraska, habitat restoration was seen as an important first step. Program staff partnered with federal and state agencies and local communities to improve water quality, habitat, and management practices to ensure fish populations could be established and naturally maintained, rather than just creating put-and-take fisheries. There are 50 ponds in 39 communities across Nebraska included in the program. Special restrictive fishing regulations have been put in place on almost all of them. Twenty of these ponds have undergone major habitat restoration projects, so they can now support self-sustaining largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides and bluegill Lepomis macrochirus populations (at least where the special regulations are obeyed). Fisherman access has been improved where possible, with fishing decks or piers built at several locations. Channel catfish Ictalurus punctatus (10-12”) are stocked annually in each pond at a rate of 100/acre and 19 ponds are stocked with rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss up to three times between October and March at a rate of 300/acre. The program also provides fishing clinics in Omaha and Lincoln each summer and a fishing tackle loaner program at more than 20 locations.