Attention: All Nebraska TBF Members

All Nebraska TBF Members:

Effective immediately the following procedures will be in effect for the remainder of 2020 at all tournaments.

REQUIRED PRACTICES
• All participants must pre-register prior to the event.
• All boaters and non-boaters are informed before the tournament as to their boat position and drawing of partners.
• All personnel (anglers and tournament staff) at check-in and weigh-in will be required to wear face masks.
• Upon arrival all boaters are to stay with their boats and not mingle in any type of group setting. Check-in will occur one boat at a time, and with only one representative per boat.
• Tournament take-off sequence will be directed by the last boater.
• Upon arrival at the end of the tournament, at the takeoff dock, all participants will remain in their boats until their name is called by the weigh-in official at which time they would be allowed to dock their boat and get their vehicle to load their boat.
• Tournament directors will issue only 4 weigh-in bags (maximum) at a time, to control congestion at the time of weigh in.
• Once the boat is loaded and parked, only one participant at a time, would unload the fish and bring them to the scales for weighing. Fish should either be released immediately by the angler at the dock. The weigh-in bag will then be returned to tournament officials.
• All participants and officials must use disposable gloves to handle weigh-in bags.
• The weigh-in process would continue and tournament sponsors would keep announcing weights (or broadcasting on social media) so that anglers no longer in contention would be asked to leave. Anglers still in contention must stay with their vehicles, away from weigh-in, until the process is completed.
• At the conclusion of the weigh-in, a minimal number people (4-6 tournament officials and participants combined) will gather for presentations of awards and payouts along with photographs.
• Social distancing to be enforced so that no than 2 people would be next to each other for the award process.
• Weigh-in and award photos will only be taken of individuals ……………….. no group photos.

State Presidents Newsletter

December 6, 2019

From your State Presidents Desk

Hello to all Nebraska TBF members. Well another season has successfully passed and we are gearing up for the 2020 season with another solid tournament schedule with some modifications.

First, I would like to announce that the tournament schedule and all the necessary information has been posted to our state website.

Secondly, You will find that we are going to go to a 3 qualifying tournament venue for 2020. Since the qualifier locations are scattered it was decided that you can fish all three if you desire but it is not necessary since  only your best 2 finishes will count towards the placement to the 2020 National Semi-final Tournament (NSF) that we will be hosting for 2020. Please refer to the tournament page for full details.

Concerning the 2020 NSF and since we are the hosting state we will be going to Lake McConaughy in September of next year. Many of you may be scratching your heads about the choice of Big Mac. This place has turned into a solid fishery for both largemouth and smallmouth the last few years. It has the potential to produce some good stringers but that means that you will need to figure it out to do it.

Since the holidays are coming up fast I would like to extend “best wishes” to you from your state officers. Be safe this winter and see you in the spring.

Happy Holidays!!!

2019 TBF National Semi Final

December 6, 2019

This is a late report to all of the Nebraska federation members for the 2019 NSF hosted by the South Dakota Federation. This tournament was held at Big Stone Lake on September 14 & 15, 2019.

In a nutshell this lake produces fish in both numbers and size. Fishing for the Nebraska Federation and qualifying for the 2020 TBF National Finals at Grand Lake is Zane Ridpath and Rick Schwerzler. Zane will be fishing in the boaters division and Rick will be fishing in the co-angler division at the nationals next spring. Both finished in 3rd place in their divisions. Zane finished with 39-02 and Rick had 28-10.

Congratulations to Zane and Rick on their great finishes and good luck at Nationals.

NE TBF Qualifier #3

Nebraska TBF Semi-finals Qualifier #3 was held June 15th at Lake McConaughy in western Nebraska. As with any Midwest lake in the middle of June the fishing is sporadic and tough at times but finding the fish is always the name of the game.

With smallmouth being the dominant bass in the lake system it was going to be challenging with changing water levels, post spawn smallmouth coupled with having heavy tournament pressure for 3 weeks prior.

Our top angler was Zane Ridpath (from the Omaha metro area). Zane managed to figure out where they moved by bringing in a winning weight of 14.04 narrowing out local angler Cameron Armstrong with 13.80. The thing to note is that Zane’s limit was all smallmouth and Cameron’s was all largemouth.

The winner of the non-boater division was Brent Jeppson. Brent brought in 3 smallmouth for 6.77 lbs.

Congratulations to our top 2 boaters (Zane and Cameron)  along with our 2 non-boaters (Brent and Kaito Ajiro) for qualifying for the 2019 District 8 Semifinal to be held at Big Stone in South Dakota/Minnesota.

Our next stop will be at Mozingo Lake in Missouri. We will be assisting Aksarben Bass in hosting the annual Travis Ferguson Memorial Tournament which is a fund raiser to combat Cystic Fibrosis on August 17th. Then on August 18th TBF Nebraska will be holding our annual TBF Open Team Tournament.