A month into this year’s legislative session, brand new Gov. Jeff Colyer will tell the House and Senate just what he wants his 11-month governorship to look like at 3 p.m. Wednesday.

Those first days of this election-year session? Well, there were no injuries, so that’s a good thing but about as good as it got. Now-U.S. Ambassador for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback is out of the building, and Colyer has a strong venue this week to talk to the House and Senate about his plans for this fiscal year and next; pre-Wednesday, he has been silent about just what he wants to change, if anything.

He has already harvested a House member, Rep. Larry Campbell, R-Olathe, to be his budget director, and moved Brownback/Colyer budget director Shawn Sullivan to a new more global administrative post.

At the Statehouse? Well, opinion is still split on whether he keeps the massive stuffed buffalo head in the entrance to his office. That buffalo head makes interesting background for photos, but, well, it’s a buffalo head and that’s as good as it gets. Furniture moved in the office, and well, we’re waiting for that new “tone” he talks about.

Legislative leadership? Colyer has met with both Republican and Democratic leaders, and nobody is talking about what, if anything, purposeful was said in those polite talks.

And Colyer himself isn’t talking about anything that Brownback who was his boss for seven years did or didn’t do that Colyer had to just ignore and not criticize because, well, that’s what lieutenant governors do, just be quiet.

It’s not strange that Colyer isn’t well-known to many Kansans, because the sitting governor is the face of the state. Not quite like being lieutenant governor is a witness protection program, but only in the past couple months has Brownback allowed Colyer to put his DNA on much besides appointment of a new Kansas Secretary for Children and Families, Gina Meier-Hummel, to succeed retiring Secretary Phyllis Gilmore.

So, us Statehouse hangers-on are interested in Wednesday and what will change that we can figure out.

How often is it that us insiders don’t know more than Kansans who have regular lives, in which they don’t look for every verb or adjective that might mean a bill or a policy isn’t favored by the guy who has to sign or veto it?

But, we will be watching whether Secretary of State candidate for the GOP nomination for governor this summer will be at the speech. We all noted that Colyer tapped Kansas Supreme Court Chief Justice Lawton Nuss to do the official swearing-in last week. That’s a job that often falls to the Secretary of State but Colyer really didn’t want competitor Kris Kobach in the pictures and demonstrating the power to scooch Colyer into the nicer office.

So, what’s new? We have a Legislature that will have spent a few weeks on the job without a clear vision of just what the new administration wants to accomplish and whether lawmakers—those Colyer fans and those who would like someone else for governor—are willing to give Colyer legislative victories that he can use to win the GOP nomination for governor.

Republican candidates for just about any elected office tend to lean to the far right, to get those diligent Republican primary voters, then after the primary move toward the political middle for the general election in hopes they can pick up moderate votes, maybe a Democrat or two.

We’ll see which way Colyer is going this week…

Syndicated by Hawver News Company LLC of Topeka; Martin Hawver is publisher of Hawver’s Capitol Report—to learn more about this nonpartisan statewide political news service, visit the website at www.hawvernews.com

Recently while pouring over the 2017 fishing forecasts on the Kansas Dept of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism (KDWPT) website, I began to wonder how Kansas lakes and reservoirs are rated on those forecasts, how those forecasts are put together and how to read them. I spoke with the KDWPT Fisheries Biologist in my area, Bryan Sowards and got a crash course in reading and interpreting their fishing forecasts and learned more about how they put them together.

On the website, www.ksoutdoors.com, there are both fishing reports and fishing forecasts. Fishing reports are simply information gathered by biologists from fisherman, marinas etc. at each lake and reservoir about how best to catch each species of fish in that impoundment. Fishing reports are updated weekly from March through October as information is received. Fish sampling occurs on all Federal Reservoirs and State Lakes, and on some community owned lakes and ponds, and annual fishing forecasts are generated from that data.

There are three ways fish in lakes and reservoirs are sampled to obtain information for annual fishing forecasts. In late October large hoop nets are set along shorelines to sample populations of crappies and bluegills. The nets are left for one night and the number of fish trapped are counted and measured for the forecast report. To sample walleye, saugeye, wipers, stripers, white bass and catfish populations, gill nets are placed along shorelines for one night also in late October, and captured fish are counted and measured for the report. To sample largemouth bass, small mouth bass and spotted bass, a method known as electrofishing is used in the spring. Done from a boat, this technique electrifies water around the boat, temporarily stunning fish and allowing biologists to capture, weigh and measure them for the forecast report.

To access fishing REPORTS, go to the website, click on fishing, then on reports. From the list of regions, choose the region that contains the lake or reservoir you want to check, then click on the appropriate lake. To view fishing FORECASTS, click on forecasts, then from the list of fish species shown, click on the species you want to know about, then you will be given a choice of all lakes, ponds and reservoirs sampled for that species will be listed.

Down the left side of the forecast report is displayed a list of all lakes or reservoirs sampled for the species you chose. The first category will be “Density Rating” and is the number or fish over 8 inches found in each net or trap. The next two categories are “Preferred Rating “ and “Lunker Rating,” and display the number of fish over 10 inches and over 12 inches respectively found in each trap or net. The next category called “Biggest Fish” is simply the weight of the largest fish caught in the sample. The next category called “Biologists Rating” rates the impoundment as Excellent, Good, Fair or Poor according to information available to the biologist, and it may not reflect all the other categories if information is known about the fish populations there that weren’t necessarily reflected in the samples captured. The last category is “3 Year Average,” and is the average number of fish over 8 inches captured over the last 3 years of sampling. The lakes are listed by the density rating; the more fish over 8 inches captured in sampling, the higher that lake is ranked.

Fishing reports and forecasts are obviously not infallible, but are both good tools to help fishermen decide where and how they might want to spend their time and efforts. Devout Kansas fishermen are already gearing up to catch hungry catfish when the ice thaws, and the opportunities will only grow from there, so grab a kid, a spouse or a friend and take someone fishing this year as you continue to Explore Kansas Outdoors!

Steve Gilliland, Inman, can be contacted by email at [email protected].

Growing up, I heard story after story about the Dust Bowl from my parents and grandparents. Dad described his mother shoveling rather than sweeping post-storm drifts. Grandma told how she placed wet sheets over her children’s beds to protect their lungs as they slept. She’d launder filthy linens day after day.

My mother’s family lived in Southwest Kansas and shared similar tales when family gathered. What made these epics unique was that I grew up in Southern California among verdant citrus orchards and strawberry fields. Dust blacking out the sun seemed outlandish to a little girl who played outside on green grass year-round.

When we moved to Oklahoma in 1972, I listened to more first-person accounts of the Dirty Thirties, tales that-seemed movie or book-like to me. Even though I ‘d seen dramatic photos in history books, I couldn’t imagine air that held more dirt than breathable oxygen.

As a college junior in Weatherford, Oklahoma, I got my first taste of dust storms. As my relatives once described, daylight disappeared. Aeolian soil, probably from Nebraska, found its way through every crevice in my ancient dorm room. Mucus coughed up in response to this invasion was muddy, which explained why my taste buds screamed, “What are you doing, eating dirt?”

Just as in the stories relatives relayed, the day turned so dark I flicked on overhead lights to see. I also skipped the trek to the cafeteria for supper. My tongue thanked me as it already had plenty of foreign matter to process. I hadn’t devoured that much soil since I was three.

Over decades, I’ve seen dust storms enough that those old tales now ring true. Recently, I drove between Ellis and Logan during marathon winds. As I traveled toward my destination, air-borne loam muted all horizon lines. Beyond those fuzzy edges, I could see distant elevators.

By the time I finished my chores and began the return trip, I couldn’t see from one section line to another. Wind speeds had increased considerably, stirring air to the color of milky coffee. What had been bluster early was now gale that pressed ditch weeds flat to the earth.

Hordes of tumbleweeds large and small raced east. It was like watching a movie or news report where throngs of people broke out of prison and scurried helter skelter to get away–only these were various sized herbaceous orbs rolling at top speed across the prairie. I didn’t clock them, but if I’d had a radar gun, I suspect sleeker plants sailed by at over 55 miles per hour.

Thankfully, they were plants and not people or animals dashing in front of my grille. I know I whacked over 200 unmoored Russian thistles that day. At times, it seemed as if 2,000,000 sped my way. If I could’ve seen more than a couple hundred feet, I’d have parked to count the masses. Tumbleweeds that day compared in number to the millions of migrating buffalo that once stopped trains crossing these grasslands for up to three days.

I no longer have trouble understanding family Dust Bowl accounts. In fact, after that nasty storm, I’ve a saga of my own to pass on to grandchildren. As Kansas kids, they won’t have the trouble Grandma did picturing a landscape erased by blowing dirt.

Native Kansan Karen Madorin is a local writer and retired teacher who loves sharing stories about places, people, critters, plants, food, and history of the High Plains.

What is happening in our country is pathetic, especially on one end of the political spectrum. Another theme in my letter to the editor will be winners and losers. Look for that also.

I have a question, and whenever I ask it, the silence is deafening and speaks volumes in my opinion. The question is “what agendas coming from the Democrat Party as we speak will appeal to voters in the next election?” I get no takers on that question, and that’s why I also write that there are winners and losers.

How can the Democrat Party be a winner without a good agenda? They are losing on their many pathetic attempts to destroy Trump. Our president is still standing strong. Not only that, his accomplishments are great. Sadly, mainstream never goes there, nor even local newspapers.

The ridiculous behavior of Democrats during Trump’s State of the Union is another nail in their coffin. They wouldn’t acknowledge good news about anything, not even historical lows in unemployment among minorities.

The hate by liberals of President Donald J. Trump is unprecedented in American history. In most of my letters to the editor the word “unprecedented” is used more than any other word probably. Surely, one can see what is occurring in our politics and government for the past year is unmatched in American history, and what seems a hundred different ways.

I’m amazed at what is said about Trump when discussing the state of affairs with a liberal. It’s all criticism on silly “personal” levels. In other words it might be Trumps hair, the way he talks or walks or dresses, and every little word he utters. Liberals don’t even want to know what Trump is actually doing in the way of accomplishments – and there are many great ones. I call that pathetic politics.

I met recently with three co-workers at the college the four of us are retired from and “oh brother” was that an experience. The attacks by the three on Trump were all about silly personal stuff and they had no clue what he is doing actually – nor any clue about massive corruption coming from their political party, nor did they even want to know. My friends were teachers of science and math courses. So much for any kind of analytic thinking versus emotion.

I’ve come to the conclusion that liberals, especially when it comes to our president, have tunnel vision and refuse to look at the big picture. For example, the “crappy” word Trump supposedly used about Haiti consumed every minute for days by liberal media and Democrats. I could give lots of illustrations of narrow mindedness with no interest at all in looking at the big picture.

I’ve also come to the conclusion that many arguments can boil down to just simple common sense explanations. For example, how can an agenda be a winning effort when politicians put foreigners, who broke the law coming here, ahead of the needs of Americans? Add to that, the scheme is to have foreigners come here to swing elections. There’s not one iota of common sense in those Democrat agendas and I could give a dozen illustrations where common sense alone explains the whole thing.

Is Trump a miracle, or his accomplishments, perhaps both? Liberals control 90% of our media and 90% of their reporting is negative toward our president. The words “against all odds” comes to mind. Even some members of his own party are against him. Most of Hollywood, higher education, minorities, even milleianals are against him. Facebook, Google and Twitter admitted Hillary bias. Most, in and around Washington, D.C. voted for Hillary.

Worst of all, our own government was anti Trump when it came to voting and even engaged in corruption to prevent a Trump presidency. God help us, that includes thousands of Obama holdovers in virtually every agency including our FBI, CIA, DOJ, etc. Even the Democrat Party became corrupted trying to destroy Trump. Our own FBI actually collaborated with Obama and Hillary to destroy Trump.

That collaboration is the height of pathetic politics with our justice and intelligence agencies playing politics to determine who gets to be our president – rather than the American people. Maybe the height of pathetic politics is our past president Obama lurking in the shadows organizing to destroy Trump!

The corruption is not conspiracy as mainstream media leads us to believe. There is undeniable evidence to prove it. Trust me when I say the many bombshells are coming soon in the way of a showdown. Guess who will be losers in all of this if justice prevails.

Yup, nothing short of a miracle Trump is still standing, and making America great again as we speak. His SOTU speech was historical. He’s making history with his many accomplishments. He’s a winner. Google WMD’s 177 Trump accomplishments put together months ago and when bringing us up to date there are even more.

Some could argue I go overboard on Trump. The whole world has been against him and, if I speak out as a minority, so be it. On Facebook I saw “Obama lied to us eloquently and Trump tells us the truth crudely. Which do you prefer?” The truth on matters that count.

Anybody that disagrees with my analysis of Trump, is clearly watching the many liberal media TV outlets, and not the one conservative outlet, It’s like living on two different planets. Liberal media is still dwelling on Trump collusion with Russia after a year of no evidence. Fox News is the most watched cable news source 16 years running and dwells on what Trump is accomplishing and the massive corruption in our government. A first grader would know which is more important.

I suppose one could say liberal Democrat mainstream media is a winner on one score. They are successful in propagandizing and indoctrinating millions to hundreds of things that are not true. Is that a pathetic way to improve ratings or what? MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow is the worst. Her entire show is insinuation, innuendos and speculation while she throws up on the screen all kinds of Trump Russia connections, most of which can’t be followed by the average viewer, and in 370 some days yet to have anything stick.

Let me leave readers with these two thoughts. Number one, how pathetic is it when Trump, a winner, is criticized by the left for using the word “America” too often in his famous speech? Secondly, the massive government corruption has shaken the very foundation of our democratic republic and somebody needs to pay a price.

Les Knoll lives in Victoria and Gilbert, Ariz.