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September 10, 2010 - Don Johnson

I drove over to Berry Springs this evening hoping to find the pond had recovered enough from the recent floods to be fishable. As I drove across the Berry Creek bridge I could see obvious signs that Berry Creek had been out of its banks and way up into the park. When I got to the park entrance the gates were locked with a sign saying that due to flood damage the park is closed until further notice. I imagine the pond was completely covered by the flood. I hope the budding fish population did not get washed away.

September 5, 2010 - Don Johnson

Begin and End times: 6:15pm - 8:00pm
Air Temperature, weather conditions: 90° or so
Water temperature, water condition: Clear water, lots of weeds
Flies that worked: Number 8 black wooly bugger

It is not a secret that the lake has made a comeback; there were at least five groups, couples and families, fishing when I got there on this Sunday evening. Fortunately, from what I could see, everybody was following the catch-and-release rule.

I caught two bass about twelve inches each and five or six sunfish. Three of the sunfish were about nine inches long, with deep heavy bodies.

August 21, 2010 - Don Johnson

Begin and end times; 7:00am-9:00am
Air Temperature, weather conditions: 70°90°, clear
Flies tht worked: Green and yellow foam spider

I noticed Tim’s report and decided to give Berry Springs a try. I caught two nice sunfish and one small bass. If you fish here bring some heavy tippet because if you hook a fish you will probably have to drag it through some heavy weeds to land it.

August 21, 2010 - Tim Nickels

Begin and end times: 2-2:30
Air Temperature, weather conditions: Hot, clear, windy
Water temperature, water condition: Hot, very clear
Flies that worked: yellow foam popper sz 10, catalpa worm sz 10

I was in the area with my kids and decided to stop by to check it out. 2pm on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and we had the park all to ourselves. The new lake is fantastic, we visited the park 2 years ago when we moved here and it was just a dirt hole in the ground. The water is very clear and nice and deep right up to the banks, the coontail weeks or whatever it is provides nice structure and really looks good. The viewing area for the springs and the springs themselves are really nice, my 6 year old took a dip in the nice cold water to cool off. I caught 2 of the biggest bluegills I've ever seen, and the largest green sunfish I've ever seen, all while my son was splashing around 15 ft away. Caught numerous little bass, and saw several 5-7 pound carp cruising the surface eating. It is all very fishy looking and the park itself is topnotch.

June 27, 2009 - Bruce Wilks

Time: 4:30pm to 8:00pm
Temp: 100 +deg
Conditions: Much lower low water in the pond now with most of it dry bottom except what is left of the main pond section due to no more water flowing from the well…
Group: Me, Lindy & Bryan…

Me, Lindy and our friend Bryan went back out to Berry Springs last Sat afternoon and the water was even lower… We were still seeing single nice fish and a school of 5 medium bass hunting in a pack trying to eat baby bass from the spring spawn… Lindy sight cast to a nice big bass, hooked it, had a good fight with it for a while, but it went to the bottom buried itself in the weeds and eventually she had to break it off…

The bad news is… they had shutdown the pump and capped the well head off… Not sure why but maybe the water from the well head could not keep up with the evaporation rate, along with maybe the water being pumped in is flowing back out through the underground spring holes much faster than the little well could feed it… Most of the water that had flowed in during the last week and a half has evaporated The only pool left will be evaporated and gone in a week, or so if this heat and no rain weather pattern continues to hold on… I guess the water plants, moss and fish will all die again and we will have to wait for regular rains to come again, start the springs flowing again to fill and hold the spring hole pond, before the county, TPW and our club can stock and fish Berry Springs again some time, but may not happen this year. Maybe someone can relocate these nice bass before the pond goes dry again…???

June 24, 2009 - Bruce Wilks

Time: 5:30pm to 9:00pm
Temp: 100 +deg
Conditions: Very low water in the pond with lots of it dry bottom looking to be about 12 to 15ft down, but water still flowing in again from dug well…
Group: Me and Lindy…

There was another really big bass over in the small very low water funnel shaped spring hole, where I tried to catch it last Sunday, but on Monday something or someone had made this very small hole into a mud bath… This one on Sunday was trying to eat at least a 15” bass it kept chasing around when the water was clear in that hole, but it would not take any of the 10 different flies I presented… A conservative guess is this was a 5 lb bass… This hole today was dry, so I hope someone relocated these three bass…

On Wed July 24, Lindy landed another nice bass, then she site cast to another one that was much bigger she had to get on the reel. This bass ran out drag at least 4 times, jumped, then finally went to the bottom and got stuck in the weeds… Finally had to break it off 11lb tippet… Lindy site cast, hooked and landed another really nice bass we did get a picture of… By the way Lindy caught this big bass in the picture with my 5wt XP that I won at the SGFF Christmas party during my first year as a member. See attached pics… Thanks to whoever stocked the big bass in there when it temporarily filled up again from spring flow…!!!

We both took turns site casting to a really big bass for about 30 mins, when I finally convinced it to take an #2 olive wiggler fly I had caught many LM and SM bass on at the Devils River. I fought this fish for a short while then let Lindy feel the power and surge of a really big bass, then I finally landed it… It was 23” and I estimate it to be about 6 to 7 lb. This fish must have been caught this year and put in hear after the springs filled up the pond last month…

Its mouth was big enough to shove my fist and half my forearm down. Girth was at least 19” Big beautiful bass… In all the excitement and switch the rod to share the fight with Lindy, we forgot to set the video camera into record mode, so no video or picture… T his will not happen again… We are going back again on Sat after Chris’s shop 1 year anniversary event to see if we can catch more again…

June 21, 2009 - Bruce Wilks

Time: 4:30pm to 9:30pm
Temp: 98deg
Conditions: Very low water in the pond with lots of it dry bottom looking to be about 10 to 14ft down, but water flowing in again
Group: Me and Lindy…

Lindy wanted to go take some pictures, so we loaded up the camera and of course some fly fishing gear and went to Berry Springs to catch some small sunfish and maybe a bass or two if we got lucky... When we got close to the water we noticed the pond was very low and some spots completely dried up again… The really good news is a well digging contractors truck was unattended and still attached to a brand new well head coming out of the ground and lots of water flowing out of the pipe! The well has been dug and it is flowing water into Berry Springs pond…!!! Once this pond is full again we need to make every effort to get it stoked again.

The middle section of the pond Lindy caught a LM bass on a olive internally weighted #10 wooly bugger that was about 18” and 3 pounds. She had it to hand and had it lipped, while I was trying to get her camera to work by resetting the battery, so on my advise she put it back in the water still hooked to the fly and it got off... So it was my fault we have no picture of her fish. It was a nice fish for sure, Lindy’s biggest bass and biggest fish she ever caught…!!! Lindy also caught another smaller

I went off to fish a small hole trying to catch a big bass and a couple of smaller ones, but was not able to get them to take top water or sub surface using 10 different flies, along with variations of strips and pauses… I gave up on this group of fish and decided to go find Lindy to see what else she had caught

Lindy had been site casting and trying to catch a much bigger 20” plus LM bass for a while, but could not get it to take a #6 olive bead head woolly bugger, so she said for me to try… I had tied on a #2 olive wobble fly that I had caught a lot of bass on at the Devils River last year, cast it to this big Lm, strip and pause, when a smaller bass took it away just as the big bass was flaring its jaws to attack my fly…!!! Landed this fish, cast again to the big base and on the second cast, pause and strip the big bass went after my fly again, but another small bass took the fly just before the big bass could inhale it… Bass #2 landed…

I am having lots of fun fishing with Lindy and she is getting really good and fly fishing now… It was a good Fathers Day…!

September 1 - Bruce Wilks

Went fishing at Berry Springs on Sat morning from 9:30am to 12:00pm, caught 4 large sunfish and two small bass in the 13" range... Hot and sunny....

May 20, 2007 - Bruce Wilks

BEGIN AND END TIMES: 1:30 PM to 3:30 PM

AIR TEMPERATURE, WEATHER CONDITIONS: 85 deg and sunny partly cloudy

WATER TEMPERATURE, WATER CONDITION: Lots of moss matte cover and clear water

FLIES THAT WORKED: Sportsman's Warehouse Crazy Charlie 89 cent Pink with a little silver flash and silver wrapped hook shank, bead chain eyes #10 short shank hook

DESCRIPTION OF THE OUTING: Caught four small LMB up to 13" and three nice sunfish all on the same Pink Crazy Charlie by the back foot bridge hole using my 3wt/4wt rod with 4wt floating line and 9ft leader/tippet. Cast, sink, and strip slow with pauses. Most fish hit on the drop or just as I started striping again... They would not hit poppers or anything else I tried...

April 19, 2007 - Don Johnson

I fished in Berry Creek along the boundary of the park; fished from about 1:00 PM till about 3:00 PM. I caught about 15 small (4 inches to 5 inches) sunfish and two fiesty ones in the 9 inch range. Some of the small sunfish were very pretty, with colors that looked almost neon. I saw a few small bass but couldn't get them to bite. An olive micro jig, a grey clouser, and a hare's ear all worked pretty well. The water was very clear and varied in depth from knee high to a little above waist high. With the current water conditions this is a good place to fish if you want to catch a lot of little fish in a very pretty place.

November 26, 2006 - Don Johnson

The sky was overcast, and we hadn't had any strong weather fronts in the past few days, so I had high hopes. However I only caught one fish; at least it was a pretty nice sunfish - between eight and nine inches long. I arrived at the park at about 7:00a.m. and started fishing with a size eight yellow gurgle pop with which I missed two tentative hits and hooked no fish. I switched to a size ten (or maybe a twelve) hare's ear, and landed my only fish at about 8:15 a.m. I continued with the hare's ear for about another half hour and called it a day.

The lake was down about a twelve to eighteen inches from the top of the overflow grate. I caught a glimpse of the tail of one of the grass carp, but otherwise I didn't see any fish at all. Usually, at Berry Sprigs you see some fish even if you can't catch them, but not this morning. I did get to see one of the pond's beavers; that was pretty cool.

November 5, 2006 - Don Johnson

Fished from about 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. and caught 4 sunfish, including one red ear of about 9 inches. All four of the fish were caught on a small (size 10 or 12) gold ribbed hare's ear. The standard choices, like a yellow gurgle pop or a bead head nymph, didn't work; today, at least, they wanted the small hare's ear. One fish even took it while I was reeling it in while preparing to move to a new location.

November 3, 2006 - Don Johnson

I fished from about 2:30 p.m. to about 4:00 p.m. I caught 2 sunfish (about 7 inches each) in the first half hour, then nothing. I met Bob Brooks and Bob Bruner who had been there since a little after noon and had caught, respectively, 5 and 7 sunfish. We saw quite a few fish and had several follow flies, but the fish were very spooky.

October 26, 2006 - Don Johnson

I fished from about 7:30 a.m. to about 10:30 a.m. Shortly after I arrived I caught a good sunfish (about 8 inches) and a small bass (about 9 inches), both on a yellow mini-gurgler. After that I had a few misses and long distance releases (all of which seemd like small fish), but landed nothing else.

October 24, 2006 - Don Johnson

I fished from about 8:00 a.m. to about 10:00 a.m. I caught three decent sunfish (all three in the 7 to 8 inch range). All were caught subsurface on a yellow and black bead head nymph with yellow legs.