The summer sun beats down on the Missouri River on a clear morning as Mike Kelley navigates his 16-foot-long fishing boat into a cove near the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge. The river winds along Nebraska’s eastern border, separating it from South Dakota, Iowa, and Missouri. It’s home to recreation areas, camping sites and docks, where folks launch boats for skiing, tubing and fishing.

But Kelley isn’t a leisure angler. He’s one of 75 commercial fishermen in Nebraska, and he’s catching fish for his own restaurant to continue a livelihood that began with his father 60 years ago. With permits to fish both the Iowa and Nebraska sides of the Missouri River, he’s determined to reach his goal of 300 pounds of carp on this summer morning.

Kelley shuts off the small propeller, and the boat floats along a rocky outlet. His fishing partner Joel Kuhr stands ready at the bow. Kuhr tosses a flat, heavy piece of iron between rocks on the outlet to secure the net.

Kelley turns on the motor again and putters along as Kuhr drops about 30 yards of trammel netting into the calm river. The only movement is the water lazily washing ashore from the boat’s ripples. Once the net is set, Kuhr plunges a pole into the shallow water’s bottom, marking the spot where the duo will return in an hour or so to check their catch.

Summer months challenge them as the Army Corps of Engineers releases more water downriver from Gavins Point Dam near Yankton, South Dakota. The new depth means fish swim deeper in the river. Unfortunately, that makes catching them more difficult.

Nets set, Kelley revs the engine, and the team speeds northbound in search of more coves. The engine churns the placid surface into a choppy wake. 

Growing up on the river is the only life the Blair native has known. He’s connected to it – and the culture of old-fashioned mom-and-pop diners. He owns one.

USING HIS OWN “secret ingredients,” Kelley creates a special breading mix to coat the freshly cleaned and cut carp and buffalo fish before throwing the filets in the deep fryer. Minutes later, it’s ready for serving, alongside fries, tangy coleslaw, and Kelley’s cocktail or tartar sauce.

Open evenings Thursday through Saturday (and 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Friday), tables and booths fill quickly at Kelley’s Fish Market, located on the east side of Blair near the intersection of highways 30 and 75.  The menu is a simple one – breaded fish, featuring carp, boneless catfish, and walleye. Kelley’s Fish Market also serves hamburgers and cheeseburgers, but Kelley may cast a scornful glance for not going with the day’s catch.

Booths and tables fill quickly with couples on dates, families out for a tasty treat, or groups seeking good company and amazing food. While most diners are locals from around Washington County, it’s not unusual to find Omahans and others driving to Blair for dinner. Checkered oilcloths decorate the tables. Fishing and hunting mounts adorn the walls. It’s a casual and rustic feel.

Operating on weekends seems to be the key to the establishment’s success. There’s no restaurant slow time built into the operating hours. Plus, being open only three nights a week gives Kelley time to go fishing, replenish supplies, spend time with family, and take on other jobs, such as leading hunting parties for ducks, deer and more.

When Covid started sweeping across the country, Kelley was initially unsure of his little restaurant’s future. Taking a hit during the pandemic, Kelley scrambled when he had to shut down its dining room. Takeout became routine, and locals overwhelmingly supported the fish market.

“We had 246 dinners ordered in one night,” he said.

TO KEEP THAT fresh fish hopping onto diners’ plates, Kelley hits the river early each fishing day. During the summer, Kelley and his cohorts, Kuhr and Kelley’s teenaged grandson Thomas Bacon, head out early in the morning, beating speed boats racing up and down the river that pull skiers or tubers behind them. Nothing disrupts a fisherman and his catch like folks playing in the water.

Kelley will go as far north as Ponca and as far south as Omaha to set the trammel nets (about 100 yards long and 6 feet wide) in coves near the shoreline. Kelley and Kuhr usually leave them overnight and check them the next day. They’d love for a single net to capture the 250-350 pounds of fish they seek each week.

Even winter doesn’t deter this commercial fisherman from hitting the frigid waters. A cold wind hits Kelley’s face like a champion boxer. The choppy waves make it feel like the boat is being picked up and slammed down on concrete over and over again. But Kelley said it still beats the grind of a corporate environment.

Fishing the Missouri River near Niobrara involves using a hoop net (barrel-shaped), which Kelley and his crew set early in the morning. Then he hauls in his catch later that day.

“A good catch with a hoop net is 100-300 pounds,” Kelley said. “But that’s based on knowing what you’re doing. You may need to set out 10 nets, and three may get fish. The fish may have moved. The water level may have changed. You never know. The reward is there. You just have to know what you’re doing.”

Using two boats, the team pulls trammel nets from the river’s coves. Then, taking turns jumping out of the boats along the shore, the trio pulls them on shore. Now comes time to check the catch. With fish rolling themselves in the netting, the three patiently and carefully pull the netting off the fish, not injuring the catch nor tearing the netting.

Watching Kelley’s grandson Bacon work at clearing a flat shell turtle caught in the net, it seems fitting to see Kelley’s love of fishing being passed down to another generation. Who knows, maybe in a few years, Bacon will be running Kelley’s Fish Market.

Kelley reflects on his own childhood, learning about the fishing business from his dad, Jim Kelley.

Jim, a former Marine who served during World War II and the Korean Conflict, later worked for more than 45 years as a towboat captain along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Young Mike Kelley – whose actual first name is James, as in James Junior – tagged along with his dad on the Missouri River.

The elder Kelley loved fishing. He set up a little tar shack along the banks of the Missouri River and opened for business. Selling raw fish to restaurants and service clubs, he also did drive-up sales. Elderly women drove up in their Fords, Chevys or Chryslers to holler their orders to Jim.

“My dad would go down the steps, where the boat was on the dock, and he’d have a live box. He’d grab a couple carp, clean ’em in that old shack,” Kelley said.

Helping his dad fill orders, Kelley would grab an old copy of a newspaper, paying no mind to the news of the day. Whether it was the Omaha World-Herald or the local Blair Enterprise, yesterday’s news became today’s fish wrap.

They’d hand him a couple of bucks, and off they went. Fresh fish would be served for dinner that evening, maybe with a side of boiled corn on the cob and a baked potato soaked in butter.

“You can’t get much fresher than that,” Kelley said.

As a child, Kelley never dreamed about running his own business, but his earliest memories involve the river. Water continued to be a theme in the younger Kelley’s life when he captained a shrimp boat in the Gulf of Mexico. Between the time he spent with his father on boats as a kid and his shrimping adventure, Kelley mastered marine vessels. 

Kelley returned to Blair and the Missouri River to work on towboats. As a young captain, he found himself challenged by crewmembers much older than him who were determined to be difficult. Watching his dad handle his crews as a tadpole and learning from an equally tough crew in the Gulf of  Mexico prepared him to lead.

“They were surprised when I told them what they needed to do and how to do it,” he said. Respect earned.

Turning to run his own fishing business, Kelley, now in his seventh decade of life, has spent the past 35 years growing it from his shack and adding on through the years.

Navigating the river, Kelley watches out for obstacles, such as floating tree branches, speed boats cruising up and down the river. And there’s an even more menacing challenge lurking below the surface.

Invasive fish, such as flying carp, leap out of the water without warning, often landing in the boat. Getting slapped a time or two in the face by a 5- or 10-pounder is enough to knock a person out of the boat and into the river, he said.

“They can sink a boat with as many as you can catch in five minutes,” Kelley said.

Through the years, Kelley has learned where they like to hang out and does his best to avoid them. Unsure, he may test the river by sticking a metal rod into the water and tapping the side of the boat. If only one or two leap out of the river, Kelley knows the area is safe to fish.

Still, Kelley and Kuhr must plan on using a chunk of their time on the river to pull off to the shore and clear nets of the invasive fish, along with gar – a fish with a long jaw and sharp teeth.

Catfish once dominated Kelley’s and other fishermen’s ventures on the Missouri River. Kelley routinely caught 15,000-20,000 pounds of catfish a year.

Then, in the early 1990s, wildlife officials believed different species of catfish were becoming endangered because of over-fishing. Nebraska implemented a ban on commercial fishing of catfish to rebuild the population.

The ban paid off. Catfish rebounded. Today, with some restrictions, the state allows recreational anglers to catch them.

Still, the state’s initial decision to ban catfish fishing shocked Kelley. For the fisherman, it was a real snag.

“With a 50-pound catfish, I got 25 dinners. I used to get $10 a dinner,” Kelley said. “When they took them away, I thought I was going to go broke.”

Kelley regrouped rather than docking his boat or returning to captaining a towboat again. He set his traps for carp and other acceptable fish – and it’s worked out pretty well, even if there are times when he walks away with only one or two fish he can keep. No matter how much work and effort goes into commercial fishing, there’s no guarantee of success.

“You can lose a trammel net in a day if you don’t know what you’re doing. You’d lose a week’s worth of profit.”

While most fishermen tend to have their “fish stories,” such as the big one that got away, Kelley sticks to the facts as he sees them. There’s plenty of fish in the Missouri River to catch. No need to talk about the imaginary elusive ones.

“You can take a couple of nets north of Omaha and be busier than heck. You’d get a ton of fish. Or, run south to Plattsmouth or north to Sioux City and get a bunch.”

Kelley won’t be just dreaming about big catches. He’ll be out on the boat slicing through the water and anticipating the evening’s fish dinner.