Iron Horse Trail – Bass Report

Yesterday I headed out to Iron Horse Trail in Southeast Nebraska. It is a NRD Lake that is loaded with nice bass, crappie and walleye.

I had planned to catch some nice bass off of some of the main lake structure. In the middle of the lake is a long ridge. It used to be a old RR line. The top of the ridge is about 9 feet deep and it drops to 14 feet on either side. There also appears to be a big ditch on the west side of it that runs about 14 feet deep. When I arrived I dropped a marker on the north end and then the south end. I worked the ridge for a couple hours with a Norman DD22 and a carolina rig with not takers. Believe it or not I caught 2 crappie on the DD22. They couldn’t even get the bait in their mouth. I don’t know if I need to wait until it heated up to catch ’em deep or what.

I decided to give some of the shallow rock and flooded timber a shot. I threw both a Lucky Craft SKT mini and a Venom Salty Sling with no luck. Next I tried a jig. I like to throw Eakins Jigs tipped with a paca chunk trailer. On my First cast I caught an 12" bass and my second cast I caught a 15" bass. In all I caught about 10 bass off of the timber on the jig. The biggest was 15".

Around 9am I went to the other side of the lake. Near the west end of the dam is a rocky point. I Pulled out the Lucky Craft SKT mini again and went to work. I quickly caught a 15" bass followed by several smaller ones. About 20 feet off of the bank there is a smaller ridge. It tops out in about 2 feet of water and on the bank side is about 4 feet deep on the lake side it drops into 8 feet of water. This is where I was working the crankbait. It wasn’t long before a 22" monster hit it. Initially I thought I was snagged until I saw the line moving to one side. I started to crank, but nothing was happening. I knew something was up. I guess my drag was set for catching 3 pound bass. I tightened the drag a bit and then started to get a feel for the size of the fish. I knew it was going to be decent. Before I knew it the bass jumped out of the water. It was a giant! I ran to the back of the boat and grabbed the net and quickly scooped it up. It measured out at 22 1/4". I put in the livewell and headed back to the truck. I run a small tournament division and wanted to get a weight. I thought it might have been the biggest bass I had ever caught. It ended up 6 pounds even. It was my third largest bass behind a 7 pound largemouth and a 6.5 pound spotted bass. Since I was back at the truck I figured I wouldn’t top that fish so I decided to call it a day.

The bass on Iron Horse were a lot shallower than I had anticipated. On most other lakes they were in their summer haunts already. I guarantee I will have a report for you when they have moved out to the RR tracks. When they move out you can catch multiple large bass.