ZippyDuck and myself ventured off on Saturday to a new lake that neither of us had fished before. We were told this was a smallmouth lake and we were eager to catch some brown bass.
Berlin Lake
June 13, 2020
Air - Very windy, sunny, mid 60's
Water - Lower 70's, stained, 1 foot or less of visibility
We launched at the northern end of the lake by 6am and saw lots of surface activity as we were prepping the boat. We were hoping for a topwater bite, so we worked topwaters and spinnerbaits to try to figure these fish out in the shallow spawning flats near the ramp. After no luck for a little while, we finally both got a pair of fish by slowing down with our topwater baits. Slowing down was definitely the key.
We then went through the same area again much slower. I switched to a big colorado bladed Spinnerbait and caught a decent one. We then made a run down the lake and fished some similar areas with no luck. So we decided to fish some deeper, rocky dropoffs by the lower bridge. Zippy hooked into a good 19-20" fish but it broke him off at the boat. After we worked over to the other side of the bridge, I caught our biggest fish of the day by jigging a texas rigged Rage Bug off the bottom.
We stuck with the deeper, rockier water pattern for a while and caught a few more little one's, but nothing worth bragging about. To our surprise, we only caught largemouth and the structure on the lake all leads itself to making us think its a largemouth lake. All in all, I liked what this lake offered even though the fish weren't biting well. I'm hoping we can do some more Ohio bassin' again some time.
.. (https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200615/83088c4b7927f9008d9768eebc3b6300.jpg)(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200615/2e6fabfbaafdeec0ee1e8a16e7adc387.jpg)
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Thanks for the report and glad you and zippy were able to get out and catch a few bass and enjoy each others company. ~beer~
It was a really nice looking lake. Lots of cover everywhere.
Guys congrats on the catching and tks for sharing the trip and pictures with us also ~c~ ;)
Quote from: zippyduck on June 15, 2020, 09:35:42 PM
It was a really nice looking lake. Lots of cover everywhere.
Tons of structure everywhere. Both natural and man made. I really wish our Pennsylvania lakes offered cover like this.
Thanks for the report, sounds like you might have found a gem. Gonna take time to learn it but with all the structure and a mixed bag of species, could get to be a lot of fun...
That's a tough lake. There's smallmouth there.
Very cool man! Berlin is one of the lakes I have fished since I was a kid, very tough lake! Still figuring it out since I now have a boat.