[spudman]

My Buddy and I had a 4 day trip to Red Willow Res starting Tues 5/16-Fri5/19. First Day was with guide Steve Lytle, it was a great day we caught lots of Wht Bass,Wipers,Walleye and one 42" Flathead Catfish. Oh yeah also caught Pike and Drum with a couple LG Bass thrown in. Great Day! If that wasnt enough we fished the next 3 days from the shore around the dam corners and some boat ramps. When with the guide we used Gulp minnow grubs and his own tail spinner lure he developed with his brother,we caught lots of fish with those lures. Heres the real surprise,when we started fishing from the shore the next day nothing would work,so we broke out our fly rods and put on a Clouser minnow fly that we actually tied up for Lake Powell about 3 yrs ago. We started killing the Wiper and Wht bass! We caught so many Wht Bass and Wipers that after about 3 hrs we stopped counting! Largest Wiper was caught by my buddy,it was about 20".We caught lots just under that size,most of the Wht Bass were around 10-14". We also caught Walleye and Pike on the flyrod,with a couple of catfish and Drum thrown in. We tried spin fishing over the course of the week but only caught about 4 fish that way,the rest were on flyrod. Its kind of funny because we went to Red Willow hoping to do some Bass fishing with Bass gear,we both brought several bass rods and lots of lures and soft plastics,go figure... glad we brought the Flyrods!
My hand still hurts from casting and my thumbs were so torn up from lipping bass that I had to start grabbing them around the gills. It would be safe to say we caught hundreds of fish. We were going to fish RW res for 2 days then go to WY to do some trout fishing but after the first day of shore fishing we decided to spend the whole week at RW. Thanks to the guy on this site that recommended Red Willow and Steve Lytle,it turned out to be one of my best fishing trips! Will try to get some pictures up if I can figure out how.Thanks!

 

[spudman]

It was FishDR that gave me the info on Red Willow and Steve Lytle,thanks FishDR!

 

[Guest]

Sounds like a great trip! Congrats!

 

[hammer]

Steve is a great guy, I fished some bass tournaments with him. I'm pretty sure he holds several state records for wiper.

 

[mista tuan]

hey spudman .... can i have the directions to red willow res?

 

[spudman]

mista tuan we're from the Springs so we took Hwy 24 to Limon then went west on I 70 to Colby KS. From Colby we went west for a short stretch on hwy 24 to hwy 83 took that north to McCook NE. McCook is the town nearest to RW res,about 12 miles from town. The dam corners were the most productive for us,the north side had bigger Wipers but the south side had more fish.

 

[mista tuan]

thanks ... i might go with da_teacher on the first, and check it out.

 

[Kitchenmonkey]

If you can find one, pick up a copy of this month's edition of Nebraskaland magazine. It has a great article on Red WIllow reservoir. It also has info on all of those little ponds and lakes you see while driving across NE on I-80. Turns out there is some good fishing in those ponds!

 

[FishDr]

Great report Spudman...glad you were able to hook up with Steve Lytle! I knew he was a quality type when he volunteered free, detailed info on Red Willow bass fishing spots when I told him I was going out there to fish a tournament a few years back.

Now I've got to figure out how to get over there, with my fly rods, to get into some of those fish as well!