You would not think I would like this lake. Size = 418 acres! Huge, not
for me? Wrong. This lake is divided up into three sections.
The northern section has 9foot deep sections at the
northern end and it
has a nice commercial boat ramp so I suspect somewhat larger boats. At
the south end of the north lake there is a launch for the middle
sections. The south end of the north lake is to messy for boat
motors so it has mostly jon boats and canoes. It also has prime bedding
for large mouths and confirmed pike.
The middle section is on max of 5 feet deep. It does not
look like
anything but carry on boats can get into it. Look at the DFW
map
and you will see the 5foot sections with nice shallows of sand.
Interesting area. The
google satellite pictures show a number of sand/rock bars up to 100
foot long as structure other than weeds. This middle section shows some
promise.
The south section is where I think the Pike and big Bass
might be. Not
many people want to fish there. To many weeds for comfortable boating.
My kinda place. Lots of shore line, lots of weeds. Can't wait for
spring!
Trip reports:
Several trips here early May late April 2006. Shore fishing at the top
of the bottom lake produced a LOT of good fighting 1lb Sunfish. My
first trip in late April produced several nice sized bass up to 3
lbs. I was also surprised to find a couple of healthly pickerel!
Small platic baits and some light weight spinners did the most
damage. Great early season fun!
NOVEMBER 11, 2006:
Jon wanted to go fishing on November 11th (Yesterday) and I did not
want him going out on his boat in this weather by himself(of course I
wanted to fish also! just not in November!). We got the boat into the
water at Berkshire Pond (southern Cheshire lake chain) around 1:30pm
and the wind was around 10-15knots. Sunny with air temp of 63degrees
water temp was 50degrees (approx). We traveled the west shore trying to
stay out of the wind. I did the trolling motor so Jon could fish. This
is a very shallow lake with lots of weeds so we used mostly small top
water crank baits. We did try a worm but it did not produce much. I did
not even wet my line until Jon hooked a 2 pound Pickerel 30 minutes
into the trip. We saw nothing after that until around 2:30pm when I
thought it would be a good idea to turn around and head back towards
the launch via the eastern shore. We headed across the pond to the east
side and saw some calm coves and stopped in to fish one. In the first
cove Jon hit a 3 pound pickerel in 1 foot of water! I decided to fish
the other side of the boat and on my 3rd cast I hit a 1.5pound LM Bass!
This was cool/cold! It seemed that jerking the top water lure in stick
twitching type fishing was the only thing they were hitting. Suddenly
the wind died down as the clouds moved over the warming sun. We each
hit a few more fish but the most interesting one was just as it was
getting dark (Yep we stayed till dark! 5pm). Jon saw the water bubble
with a mass of fish just ahead of us as we were heading towards the
ramp. Jon wanted me to stop and let him cast ahead. So I casted over
the shallows we just muddied with the trolling motor. On the second
cast I saw the water behind lure swell as the lure hit the water. I let
the lure sit on the top of the water floating when the fish opened its
mouth and took it in. I waited for a second stunned at this top water
sight and then set the hook. Wow! The fish immediately bent my rod
almost in half taking my drag for a spin. I was using a 7foot light
weight rod with 6lb test line. When I regained composure I reeled it
in. It seemed like a big fight of a couple of minutes but Jon said it
was less than a minute. I had hooked what was at least a 4lb LM Bass.
It was large enough that I had a hard time one handed lipping the fish
and at one point I even dropped him into the boat while attempting to
put it on the scale. My scale is hard to use. Jon did manage to get a
couple of pictures of it. Film is yet to be developed. Jon totaled 3
Pickerel and one nice sized Sunfish. I wound up with 4 Bass, all
keepers, in the middle of November! This was one of the most unusual
fishing trips I had ever been on so I had to write it down.
Motto: GET A GOOD SCALE!
May 2008: We had several trips to the center lake with some real good
pike/pickerel days. On one day my son had boated about 25 PIKE up to 4
pounds! This activity lasted about a week. Almost no Bass and the Pike
seemed to like floating stuff or 3/4 oz mepps red/yellow near the
surface running fast. I tried to use all my favorite bass stuff and
nothing worked until I switched to the mepps then I started hitting big
Pike! quite a few pickerel in there as well. These big lures did not
work close to shore but out in the middle was the best.
Side note, apparently the lake was chemicaled for weeds some time
before our trips. Many of the fish had red spots near their output end
and there were some dead fish on the surface.
