The sun had just started to peek through a screen of clouds when we pulled into Pelican Lake in the Valentine Wildlife Refuge. The entire shoreline was choked with tall grass, weed beds and the occasional beaver hut.
Local angler Doug Jacobs led the way to the northern pike. They were eager and aggressive, especially when using a chartreuse spinner bait. We’d cast into the middle or edge of a weed bed and slowly retrieve. These fish would often hit the lure, miss and turn around to keep hitting it until they were caught. We lost count of how many pike we caught – best estimates were 70 fish each. Every two or three casts resulted in an aggressive pike on the line.
I caught two largemouth bass that were hanging close to shore in the tall grass. One of which was a five pound bass, qualifying again for Nebraska’s Master Angler certificate.
After driving four hours southwest we arrived in Alliance, Nebraska. Anglers Greg Brown and Steve Frederick took us out on Box Butte Reservoir to catch more northern pike; both largemouth and smallmouth bass and walleye.
A storm had moved in close to the lake and high winds were making fishing conditions tough. Lightning made things even worse, so we waited for it to pass before going after walleye.
Dragging jigs rigged with plastic grubs across structure and pockets along a shelf, Greg and I each hooked into two walleye. The minimum length is 15 inches in Nebraska. One of Greg’s was under but the other was 18 inches.
My fish measured 15 ½ and 23 inches long. Unfortunately, while trying to take a photograph of the bigger fish, it somersaulted out of my hands and right back into the water.
The storm cell from earlier circled back around and forced us to call it quits after near-by lightning strikes. It started to rain as we drove away from the lake and thunder crashed around the cars. We took shelter at Jaly’s Steakhouse for some prime cuts of Nebraska beef.
Stay tuned for the rest of my trip around Western Nebraska. Future posts include another trip to Box Butte Reservoir and Lake McCaunghy.
