"I landed what I believed to be a Master Angler largemouth (5 pounds or better) and took off for town to get in weighed and measured. It was 21 inches long and weighed 6 pounds -- not bad for four casts!"

The southeast has scores of farm ponds or watershed lakes, and a good many of them are public waters. Keith Hurley of Lincoln is a district fisheries biologist who monitors many of them. According to him, the smaller ones vary in size from 2 to 75 acres.

"The small ponds are very important to the fishery in the southeast," he said. "The public waters do, of course, get quite a bit of fishing pressure, but they produce good numbers of bass as well as some trophies.

"Some of the more productive ones, under 100 acres, include Prairie View lake near Bennington, Wolf-Wildcat No. 12 near Virginia, Killdeer near Martell, Merganser near Kramer, Mayberry near Burchard, Iron Horse Trail Lake near Dubois, Verdon Lake near Verdon and Swan Creek 5A near Tobias.

"Czechland Lake, northwest of Prague, is a fairly large watershed lake (85 acres). It's owned by the Lower Platte North Natural Resources District. It's popular and productive for bass as well as bluegill, catfish and crappie."

David Walker Jr. of Yutan fishes Czechland on a regular basis for bass as well as catfish. He scored well on both back in June of 2003 on the lake.

"I caught a 24-inch bass one evening while fishing for catfish with cut bait," he said. "I use the bait regularly for channel cats, so I was surprised when a big bass took it. The best part of that story is that I caught a 33-inch channel that weighed 15 pounds the same night on the bait.

"I've had the best luck on bass on that lake from April to mid-June," Walker said. "There are several spots on the lake where there are sunken trees and other structure that hold fish. I know where at least a half-dozen of them are and locating them has paid off -- both for bass and crappie.

"I would have to say my favorite bass bait is the crawler fished with a slip-sinker and a Size 6 hook. I also have pretty good luck on spinnerbaits, Rapalas and Rat-L-Traps."

Gerald Jonas of Wahoo fishes Czechland and agrees that it's a good bass lake. "My biggest bass to date came from nearby Timberpoint Lake near Brainard however," he said. "It's a 28-acre lake owned by the Lower Platte South NRD. I don't look for the fishing to be much for the next couple of years, however because the lake was renovated last fall and will be restocked this year."

Hurley said that the small lakes have varying regulations. "A couple lakes, such as Redtail near Dwight, have good bass fishing, and we think it is partially due to the fact that it is a walk-in lake, as is Mayberry northeast of Burchard and Pawnee Prairie.