Hackberry Lake Fishing in Cherry County, Nebraska

• Overview

  You will find Hackberry Lake in Cherry County, Nebraska. The surroundings are lake country bush. At some 644 acres it is far too large to cover on foot in a day. Some 6.3 miles of bank gives room to move when the wind turns. Size puts it in the front rank of our Cherry County list. Some 22 miles away sits Valentine, the nearest settlement. The big place round here is Sioux Falls, 211 miles distant. Rules here are straightforward: one county, one set of rules.

• Where to Fish on Hackberry Lake

  The charted maximum sits at about 5.9 feet. The productive water is a rod length or two out, not a hundred. A soft bed grows weed late into autumn, which keeps fish shallow. Public occurrence data for Cherry County names white sucker, common carp and green sunfish. It is the county picture; the agency list is water-specific. The near bank of Hackberry Lake is often the one people ignore.

• Seasonal Patterns

  July is the warm end of the year here, averaging about 73°F, while January sits near 22°F. The year splits cleanly: hard water, then open water. Ice fishing carries the winter, and the water opens about late March. The water is typically free of ice between late March and early December. Fish feed hardest at the start and the close of the open season. That is the shape of the year on Hackberry Lake.

• Tackle & Baits

  Who may fish here is not settled in anything we hold. No dam controls it, and the level follows the season. No made access appears within a short radius, so plan to park on a verge and walk. A small crankbait along the drop and a worm in the thick stuff cover the bass. Rules differ from one water to the next round here. Some stretches are reserved and marked as such on the ground. Watts Lake sits 1.2 miles off and takes the overflow. Where Hackberry Lake is concerned, a local answer beats a written one.