Burchard Lake Nebraska Bass Fishing Report

Saturday a group of us got together at Burchard Lake for a local club tournament. I drew BJ Miller owner of Sportsman’s Haircut as my Co-angler for the Tournament. At about 6am we headed out into the fog.

We started out near the dam. I started with a Lucky Craft SKT Mini deep Diving crankbait. BJ began with a buzzbait, but he quickly switched to a Texas rigged green stick work. I was targeting the deeper bass. I felt that the streak of hot weather might have pushed the deeper so that should be where the action was at. Well the bite started pretty slow. We fish nearly half of the dam before the first bite. My first fish of the day was a 3lb-2oz bass. We caught a couple short bass, but before leaving the dam I hooked up with another keeper weighing 1lb-6oz on the same crankbait.

Next we fished a nearby cove that is littered with a bunch of brush piles in 8 to 14 feet of water. I tried a Carolina Rigged Venom Hollow Hog with no takers. It wasn’t too long before BJ hooked up with a good 2lb bass. I then switched to a Lucky Craft SKT Mini shallow running crankbait. In the past tossing a crankbait above the brush where the bait just nicks the top few branches was key to getting bit. Shortly after the switch I caught my 3rd keeper of the day. We fished about half way back into the cove then hit a nearby point. We fished around the point. I believe BJ Stuck with his stick worm while I altered between the Carolina rig and my shallow running crankbait. As we rounded the point it seemed like the fog really rolled in. We didn’t find much action on that point.

Remembering the weather report I knew the wind was going to pick up later in the day. I wanted to go back to the dam and do some shaky head fishing while we still could. We picked up a few smaller bass when I hooked up with a decent bass on a Venom Hot Rod rigged on a Chompers standup jig head. This bass weighed 2lb-15oz. There is nothing I love more that catching bass on spinning tackle. There seems to be more fight and challenge to it. Shortly after I hooked up with another bass. It hit and headed for deep water. I never got the chance to set the hook. It was all I could do to crank as fast as I could to catch up to the bass. When I finally caught up with it, it felt like a very nice bass. I got it more than half way back to the boat before it shook the bait. Shortly after losing that bass BJ decided to put on a demonstration of his own. Sticking with his Texas rigged stick worm he was working it down the dam face to deeper water went a bass in the 2-3 pound range hit. It was his second keeper of the day. Several cast later he hooked up with another keeper then just minutes later he hooked up with yet another. In a matter of 20 minutes he was had a 3 more fish all around the 2-3 pound range. While BJ was putting on a show I didn’t get any more bites on the dam.

Next we moved to an area where there were brush piles about 50 yards off of the bank in about 8-10 feet of water. Both of us started with the Carolina rig, but I quickly switched to an Eakins Jig with a Paca Chunk Craw for a trailer. The bass just didn’t seem to want a slow Carolina rig presentation. On my very first cast with the jig a 2-3 pound bass hammered it as I pulled it over a couple branches of the brush pile. BJ switched back to his stick worm and had several solid hits, but they were all misses. We suspected the bluegill were messing with his worm. We worked all the brush piles down the bank. We caught several smaller fish, but I managed to land another 2.5lb bass. We began to notice how the fishing would get hot for about 20 minutes then it was like someone flipped a light switch and they would just shut off for about an hour. As you might have guess after the last keeper I caught it just shut off. We fished the dam again and tried a couple other areas of the lake with no keepers.

I around 11 we went back to the cove we had fished earlier in the morning and hit the deep brush again. I was throwing my jig while BJ was tossing his stick worm. It took a while to find a keeper, but finally I caught my biggest fish of the day. No sooner did I grab the net from BJ when he was setting the hook on a fish of his own. I was fumbling around trying to quickly unhook my bass to net his fish. I managed to get my fish unhooked and get my jig tangled in the net along with a crankbait tied to another rod. BJ said he had a decent fish so I finally released the spool on my rods with lures caught in the net to help land his big bass of the day. We put his fish on the scale and it went 4lbs-4oz. while mine went 3lb-6oz . Just as quickly as the action picked up, it shut off. We fished another hour and a half as we were due back at the ramp at 1pm. Those were our last two keepers of the day.

This fishing was decent, but not as good as it typically is on Burchard Lake. The bite was off and on, but both of us had a good time. To my surprise I ended up winning our tournament with a weight of 14lbs-5oz. BJ didn’t do too bad either. He finished 3rd with 13lbs-9oz as well as big bass.