OutdoorNebraska

Fishing the Sandhills • NEBRASKAland Magazine Home Valley Lake 220 Acres. Cherry County, 30N, 2½E, 1N of Hyannis. Bluegill, Common Carp, Crappie, Largemouth Bass, Walleye, Yellow Perch. Part of Cottonwood-Steverson WMA, there is no road to this lake so access is limited to those wanting to portage from Cottonwood Lake. In the summer, that could mean dragging a kayak or float tube over a narrow ridge. The lake gets much more pressure in the winter, when ice anglers are allowed to take snowmobiles and ATVs across the ice on Cottonwood and Steverson lakes and over the hill to Home Valley. The lake holds a decent perch population and some nice bass, but also has carp and is turbid. Lord Lakes (U.S. Forest Service) 15 Acres. Cherry County, McKelvie National Forest, 9W of Merritt Reservoir. Bluegill, Crappie, Largemouth Bass, Yellow Perch. These three small connected lakes offer quality bass. A primitive boat ramp is found on the east side of the east lake. The other two lakes are accessible by foot and best fished in waders, float tubes and kayaks. USFS Steer Creek Campground and Merritt Reservoir SRA campgrounds nearby. Frye Lake WMA 243 Acres. Grant County, 1N, 1½E of Hyannis. Bluegill, Channel Catfish, Crappie, Largemouth Bass, Walleye, Yellow Perch. Since it was renovated in 2002, this lake has become one of the better panfish lakes in the Sandhills, producing good numbers and size of perch, crappies and bluegills. With abundant vegetation and the food that comes with it, fish are well fed. Fishing can be excellent in May and June. No live baitfish can be used or possessed. Primitive boat ramp, primitive campground, pit toilet. East Hyannis Lake (Avocet WMA) 120 Acres. Grant County, 1E of Hyannis. Yellow Perch. There is no boat ramp on this shallow lake, where aquatic vegetation hampers summer fishing. Primitive camping. DeFair Lake WMA 70 Acres. Grant County, 1E, 2S, ½E of Hyannis. Black Crappie, Yellow Perch. Boat access is difficult on this shallow, weedy lake. Primitive boat ramp, primitive camping. Long Lake SRA 155 Acres. Brown County, 8½W, 21S of Ainsworth. Bullhead, Channel Catfish, Common Carp, Northern Pike, Yellow Perch. Long Lake can be good for catfish, but has plentiful carp and few other gamefish. With little use and limited recreational opportunities, the Commission long ago suspended maintenance at the 80-acre State Recreation Area on the south side of the lake. Access road is accessible by trucks only. While primitive camping is allowed, there are no amenities. Clear Lake 200 Acres. Brown County, 19S, 9W, 1N of Ainsworth. Bluegill, Crappie, Largemouth Bass, Yellow Perch. This private lake has a long history of excellent fishing and has been home to a fishing club for decades. The need to eradicate carp that found their way into the lake in 1999 led to a unique partnership between the Game and Parks Commission, New Clear Lake Club, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), North Central Resource, Conservation D 70 ● 10 L 155 ● 11 O ne of the attributes that makes Sandhills lakes such great fisheries can also make them extremely difficult to fish in the summer: weeds. The shallow depths and excellent water quality of the lakes typically leads to an abundance of aquatic vegetation. Cattails, bulrushes, smartweed, pondweed, coontail and other plants host a myriad of snails, insects and other critters panfish such as bluegills and yellow perch feed upon. Where there are panfish, big predators such as northern pike and largemouth bass can also thrive. Some lakes, however, can have so much vegetation that by mid-summer it can be almost impossible to motor a boat or retrieve a lure through it all. But that doesn't mean they are unfishable. There will almost always be an edge to the weedline, or at least small pockets in the weeds, that you can pull a fish out of. And you can always use weedless topwater lures or a fly rod to fish on top of the vegetation. As for getting to those spots, if your electric motor won't pull you through the weeds, try using a push pole to get around. A kayak or canoe will skim over the top of even the thickest vegetation, and well timed strokes will keep your paddle weed free. And if all that is too much for you, go early or late in the year. The most vegetated lakes don't get overly choked until June or July. And in the fall, when temperatures cool, weeds start to die back. That also happens to be the time when fish are feeding hard to get ready for winter. And many places offer the opportunity to do some grouse or archery deer hunting early in the fall, or waterfowl or pheasant hunting later. Embrace the Weeds H 220 ● 6 L 15 ● 7 F 243 ● 8 E 120 ● 9 PHOTO BY JENNY NGUYEN PHOTO BY ERIC FOWLER Vegetation at Goose Lake near Bartlett. C 200 ● 12

• Cover