The Sandhills Experience

Nebraska’s rolling hills and spring fed lakes are abundant throughout the state. But if you take the by way through the sandhills toward Valentine you will soon discover that there is more to it than the grassy plains. Wildlife is abundant, aquifer lakes abound in every direction with a few of them being public fishing spots. The scenery mesmerizes you to the point that you forget you are fishing at times.

Early in the week I departed with my Nissan truck and 19’ camper toward Merritt Lake just south of Valentine, Nebraska. It was about a six and half hour drive. It’s a drive I like to take during the day due to the scenery that is breathtaking and the wildlife that crosses the roads during the evening hours. You go by a lot of cornfields but soon dwelve right into the rolling grassland hills that are dotted with cattle or fresh cut hay is being rolled up into giant bales to feed the livestock.

I camped at the Boardman area where my son and I had previously visited many years ago. The Boardman creek is right next to it and the scenery there is really neat with the sand lined shoreline. The first day I headed southwest toward Hyannis to check out Frye and Avocet lakes. They both have new concrete boat ramps and are easily accessible. Frye was simply loaded with bass! A lot of 14-16 inch and an occasional 17 inch bass could be caught. After fishing this area for a few hours I traveled over to Avocet where I found the water to be about 1-2 feet if that in most of the lake. It had a ton of vegetation so I looked for hard spots in the clear water and found bass in each of these areas. I don’t know how these fish survive the winter and there are some big bass here! I landed a nice 19.25 inch bass and another 18. As I fished, several pickups hauling horse trailers were headed to the Tuesday night jackpot roping arena just down the road. It brought back so many memories of my many years spent teaching just south of this area. It’s so wide open and the pace is much slower than eastern Nebraska.

On Day 2 I fished the Snake River section of Merritt. I scouted around and looked for vegetation that might hold bass. Not much luck there until I got up into some current and much cooler water in the 63 degree range. It was pike infested and it didn’t take long to hook into a few of them. A couple of them snipped my line right off. There were patches of hydrilla which I thought would be perfect for bass to stage in but they all held pike. I did land a 12 inch bass just outside of this area. I headed back to the launch about 1.5 miles away, loaded up and headed for the Powder Horn arm.

I drove down the treacherous trail in my truck and at first didn’t think it was a good idea. But I found a nice launch spot close to the farm pond area. I launced and headed there to find that the water had receded enough that only the first part of the channel leading to the pond had water. It was a bit tanic and cooler and I caught a 14 inch largie and 13 inch smallie there. I headed back and then launched on the main lake to check out the rocks for smallies. I checked some previous fishing spots from former trips there and found that the smallies were still on the rocks. I also found an area that held largemouth and developed a plan for the Saturday derby with The Sticks. I landed a nice 17.25 inch smallie off the rocks that day.

The fourth day I traveled up to Keller State Park to check out the trout ponds. There were a lot of little bass there. I caught a good number of them and then headed back to Merritt. I drove around looking at ramps and the water levels that were dropping drastically. Each day I figured the lake had dropped about six inches.

On tournament day I decided to start out on the smallies. This turned out to be a bad decision as I only caught six that were 8-10 inches long and some big crappie. There were two other anglers there as well and I think one of them caught a keeper smallie. I then headed across the lake to an area I knew would hold largemouth. Sure enough, I hooked into three of them to get me on the board. They weren’t big but they would get me some valuable AOY points down the road. I found a smallie there as well and had four fish at this point. Then, I got a big hit on the smartweed edge with my reel screaming and line dragging out. It was a giant channel cat! Another one! They just love that Neko rig! I ended having my rod break into three pieces by this fish. I did land it and I would say it was around 32-33 inches long.

With no other bites I headed back to the rocks and tried for smallies. Caught a couple little ones but nothing to get me a fifth fish in my bag. I ended up 9th of 19 in this derby on one of the hottest days experienced fishing I’ve ever known. The high reached 110 without the heat index. I believe the heat index showed 118. I went through four bottles of ice water and one Celcius.

I was proud of my efforts that day but just didn’t get it done for the derby. There were very few limits as well. I stayed one more night and a frontal system came through to slow the heat down. The next morning I drove to a couple more lakes to the east, one being Willow Lake. It was very shallow and I only hooked into one bass that got away.

The trip home was very scenic and it was another hot day! I made it home safe and enjoyed my time in the Sandhills. If you are looking to stay there just look up the Merritt Trading Post who have several cabins to use while you stay and fish. Merritt has a very good population of pike, walleye, crappie, catfish, and you might even hook into a giant muskie! I caught seven species of fish during my stay there.

Tournament Results: The Sticks: Merritt