Two Rivers’ Trout Lake is Nebraska’s most democratic trout fishery. Every spring, Game and Parks dumps 10,500 rainbow trout into Lake No. 5, the lake opens in mid-March, and anyone with a $6 daily trout tag can catch them — four trout per tag, up to three tags a day, one rod, 7 a.m. to sunset. It’s stocked-trout fishing at its most accessible, twenty minutes from Omaha.
This is the lake that introduces kids to fishing: the catch rates are high, the shoreline is easy, and there’s now an accessible fishing pier built in memory of longtime angler Ted Sonderegger. Catch-and-release is allowed with the tag, a change from the old harvest-only days.
The trout tag is required March 1 through May 31; outside that window the lake fishes under normal regulations. The park’s other lakes hold bass, catfish, and panfish, and the ten converted Union Pacific cabooses make for the most unusual overnight stay in the state park system.