This past week we traveled to Lake McConaughy for the Colorado Bassmasters kayak bass fishing tournament to be held on Saturday. After arriving on Wednesday evening and exploring the ramps at Big Mac we fished in the morning before the wind really picked up and gusts were over 30 miles per hour. That brought me back to shore in a hurry and decided to explore the canal system just east of there and travel to the Hershey WMA on the south side of I-80 for some largemouth bass fishing. If you are out in western Nebraska and looking to find some dandy public sand pit fishing this Hershey fishery is loaded with bass!
This 53 acre sand pit lake has been known to produce some sizeable bass and I hadn’t fished it in many years when we lived out in this part of the country. Upon a midday arrival there was an older couple fishing from a small two man boat. There is easy access from a concrete ramp on the west end. The wind wasn’t as big of a factor on this fishery as Big Mac and had subsided a bit. In fact, the west end of this rectangular sand pit was like glass with 4-5 foot of visibility in the water. The skies were mostly overcast with an air temperature of around 64 degrees. The water temperature was around 68 degrees.
It didn’t take long to catch a bass along the northern side of the lake. The west end is fairly shallow with some vegetation but tapers down to around 10 foot as you head to the east. I was using a Neko rig with a green pumpkin ZMan Big TRD on a Trokar TK150 Drop Shot hook and one of our “Snyder Sleeves” to keep the bait on the hook. The KJ’s 1/16th Neko button head was of a dragonfly color. On just about every drop I would get bit. Most of the bass were in the 10-14 inch range and put up a pretty good fight. It seemed like they were staged a bit deeper from the edge but upon further exploration I found a few bass cruising the edges along with bluegill and a few channel cats. There were numerous bare spots and they had a strange looking blue hue color on them. At one point while fishing on the west end a big osprey dove down into the water right in front of me and just missed grabbing a fish with it’s talons. That was pretty amazing to watch!
As I worked my way to the east end the water became much shallower and over the years it looks to have silted in there. With the shallower water and it being mid September there weren’t any fish present there. As I worked back to the deeper water I got more bites. The other anglers were on the south side of the lake and I pretty much stayed on the northern perimeter. After consulting with them afterward they let me know about their fishing experience. They caught numerous bass as well and a couple larger ones. They reported recently catching a five pounder as well.
There is quite a bit of vegetation in the lake, especially in the water that was 3-8 feet. The Neko Rig worked great along with a Z-Man Shroomz Micro Finesse Jig, a ZMan Mini Max in bluegill, and a Hook Up baits soft plastic tube. I used my Little Miami Outfitters “Kayakjak's” Finesse Stick paired with a Shimano Vanford 2500 spinning reel spooled with 15 lb. Suffix 832 Neon braid and an 8 pound Seaguar leader.
In all, I caught 24 bass in about 90 minutes. And had even more on the hook. If you are looking for a small lake that holds a ton of bass and are eager to bite this Hershey sand pit is for you! I didn’t see any place to camp but some of these sand pit lakes allow primitive style camping.
These I-80 lakes are perfect for kayak fishing and usually the wind is not a factor but you may need to get used to the traffic noise in the distance.
I have heard these I80 lakes are excellent little bass lakes. I need to get out and try them