Who We Are

Brian hails from the shortgrass prairie of Eastern Colorado. As a boy, he fished the Republican River, and his first fisheries job was right in his hometown at the Wray State Fish Hatchery. First getting a bachelor’s in Fisheries Science from Colorado State University, he went on to earn his Master’s from the University of Illinois and then his Doctoral Degree in Wildlife and Fisheries Science at South Dakota State University.

As a professor, Brian became a trusted resource for state and federal biologists and managers, and his habitat research created a renaissance in fisheries science that has changed the landscape of lake and pond management. Teaching and research were just the beginning for Brian, who believes that science has to produce results.

Science-based fisheries management is what he calls it, and you’ll never hear him say, “because this is the way we’ve always done it.”

Click to visit Brian’s Google Scholar page.

Katie has fishing in her DNA as a native of the big north woods and waters in Northern Minnesota. Family vacations were almost exclusively fishing trips, and Katie knew she had found her calling when she took a winter aquatic ecology course as a freshman at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, MN.

She went on to earn her doctoral degree from Kansas State University, and as a fisheries professor at South Dakota State University, she re-wrote the map on stream fisheries resources in South Dakota.

Katie loves figuring out how the food web is functioning on a client’s property so that she can maximize the transfer of energy into top species, and optimize water quality for recreational enjoyment.

Click to visit Katie’s Google Scholar page.

Our Promise

At Blue Wing Outdoors, science-based management is the backbone of our business. We will uphold the traditions of stewardship and conservation, and leave an ecosystem better than we found it. We strive to make our business model and management system unique to every client, so that our ability to provide quality service and a quality outcome is never in doubt.

Learn About Our Work Here

About Us

Drs. Brian and Katie Graeb

Created by Drs. Katie and Brian Graeb, Blue Wing Outdoors is a fisheries and wildlife management business that takes the next step in applied fisheries science. Their specializations illustrate their comprehensive process, with Brian’s expertise in population level sport-fish and lake management being the perfect complement to Katie’s community and ecosystem non-game conservation knowledge.

Blue Wing Outdoors Blog Posts and Fisheries Science 101

Where We Go

With lakes large and small under our management from South Dakota all the way to Texas, you can be sure Blue Wing Outdoors can provide high-quality services to clients up and down the central United States. Our job as fisheries managers is to travel the Midwest, pickup bed full of research equipment and electrofishing boat in tow, making sure our clients beloved waters are meeting our goals. Our job is to use our experience and knowledge to stay ahead of Mother Nature and the 0-2 curveball she’s hiding in her mitt.

What We Do

Our process is all about knowing as many pieces of the puzzle as we can. The electrofishing boat, water and algae sampling, aging by otoliths; these are all just tools in the chest for how we can build a picture of what’s under the waves. The picture becomes a lot clearer as we analyze that data, add habitat, control populations, and follow the information the lake is giving us.

With lakes in our care from South Dakota all the way to Texas, we manage and see it all, from flooding to drought, record heat to record ice, and even just the important differences from northern species to southern species.

Our Services

Applied Fisheries Science

Quality fisheries management is more than just putting fish in a pond and hoping something sticks. It’s a delicate balance of the entire ecosystem: maintaining healthy water, encouraging beneficial aquatic plants, creating habitat mosaics for prey and predator alike, even managing fish health, reproduction, survival, and growth. All this plays its part in creating your own dream lake, whether it’s a half-acre pond or a 6,000 acre reservoir.

Lake Assessment

Fish Stocking

Stocking big fish is of course a part of what we do at Blue Wing Outdoors, but we also make sure there are plenty of prey for those fish to eat. Fish are incredible hunters, and a lot of our clientele are surprised by how little food there actually is in their lake. Behind every trophy is a lake teeming with food and diversity.

Clean and Healthy Water

Water quality is one of the most overlooked components of a healthy lake, and it’s also what can ruin a lot of good work. We could bore you with pages and pages of all the elements of good water conditions, but that’s what our YouTube educational series is for. If that’s too much watching and learning for today, maybe water quality and its importance is best summed up by “don’t drink downstream from the herd.”

Aeration and De-Stratification

During the dog days of summer and the just as brutal gray days of winter, Oxygen can get scarce, and all your hard-earned big fish can get stressed. Aeration and de-stratification is important to maximizing the livable space in your lake, and it’s also great for keeping your lake beautiful during the stagnant summer algae blooms.

Fish Habitat

While prey stocking is a very responsive and quick way to get the food population in line with the predators, it’s important to have a good base of prey species, and just as important for them to have places to hide. Most of the reservoirs in the United States are over 50 years old. They follow a predictable aging process of sedimentation, loss of habitat, and nutrient accumulation. We continue to develop cutting-edge tools to rehabilitate aging ponds and lakes, and we map your lake to identify needs and develop strategies to put habitat back to work for you. Your lake needs the fountain of youth, and we know just where to find it.

Lake Design

The human mind likes clean, orderly, and perfect. Unfortunately, there isn’t much benefit to that when it comes to the designing of a lake for fish and recreation. The easiest time to create the lake you dream of is before it’s full of water, and Blue Wing Outdoors will make sure there’s no shortage of habitat packed into it’s shorelines. As Brian would say, “the bottom of a lake needs to look like a bomb went off”, with jagged rock outcroppings, cedar trees, weedbeds, Mossback Fish Habitat, and whatever other places a bluegill or shad would love to hide. In addition to a place to hide, it’s important these fish have regular access to food, so our designs set the stage for ongoing management to meet client goals.

If you still want to learn more about our process…

click the button below for our video series.

“Doing Work”

BWO KANSAS

BWO Kansas

BWO Fisheries Science, under the guidance of Drs. Katie and Brian Graeb, revolutionize fisheries and wildlife management in the areas surrounding Kansas City. BWO offers holistic pond and lake management services that extend beyond mere fish stocking. Utilizing microbial analysis as a foundational tool, BWO ensures environmentally responsible practices, while watershed-level management tackles issues at their source. Through comprehensive, research-driven services, BWO redefines fisheries management in the central United States, exceeding client expectations and fostering sustainable fisheries in Kansas, Missouri, and neighboring regions.