Liberty Reservoir Bass Fishing Reports

[MotherNature]

post fishing reports for liberty lake here....

[Creel Limit Zero]

First time fishing Liberty Reservoir on 08/14.

Air temp - 85-95 degrees.
Water temp 84-88
Water clarity - very clear 8 - 10 feet in some areas.

Fished 6:30 AM - 10:00 AM.  Would have fished longer, but the wife came and had to get back. 

Hit several small 10-12"  largemouth bass along rocky shore lines - most hit along points.  Only fished the east shore line, north of the Libery Road bridge.  Hitting on 5" Yum Dingers in green pumpkin with a chartreuse tail.  Also hit a 3" chartreuse grub.  Alot of fish breaking water, but they didn't seem interested in a buzz bait of a baby torpedo.  I intended on throwing a zara spook as well, but never got around to it.  Threw a few shallow running cranks and spinner baits over points too, but same results, only small bass.  If you love catching alot of small bass, this is the place to go, there are alot of rocky points, north of the libery road bridge and to the east shoreline. 

There also seemed to be a tremendous amount of carp in there as well, so all you carp anglers, get on out there.

As for the bass, lots of small ones, but didn't seem to pull anything over 12 inches out.  I did have one real strong hit, but missed the hook set, so I know the big ones are in there.  Just have to find out where they are.     Looking forward to the next time. 

[Mike Cork]

Great Report Creel Limit Zero, thanks for the update. Even catching a bunch of smaller fish is a blast and there is a lot to learn from the patterns you find. Great Job

[Creel Limit Zero]

Fished Liberty Reservoir today 08/21 from 6:30 AM until 12:30 PM.

Air temp 84-92
water temp 82-87
water clarity - 6-8 feet
and wind up to 5-20 MPH was 5 MPH early on, but quickly went up to 20 by about 8:00 AM

Never really had much success fishing in alot of wind, but I read a thread here on Ultimate Bass about some different ways to approach the winds, and it helped me out alot. 

When I got there, I hit the first cove just North of the Liberty Road bridge, directly north from the first boat ramp.  There appears to be an old boat ramp in this cove, at least it is a slow gradual decline in the water that is cemented.  Doesn't appear like it was ever used as a boat ramp, but never the less it provides some structure on both sides of the ramp.  The gravel and rocks fall about 12-18 inches on both sides of the cement.  I positioned my boat in the most shallow past of this ramp and cast a 3.5" green pumpkin tube.  I had it travel just off of this cement and did small 12 inch jerks like a cray fish, hit three nice bass all in about 5 feet of water.  One was a 1.5 pound smallmouth, haven't caught one of those in a while, so I was excited.   

After that the wind picked up dramatically, so I decided to try the few things I remembered from the thread.     One was to look for structure that the fish will be able to get relief from the wind and current caused by this wind.  Well the second cove I went in had several large boulders in 8-10 feet of water.  So I C-rigged a worm to get it down and threw it just past the boulder, and jerked it, then let it settle, right past the side of the boulders I thought the fish would be holding.  Fourth cast, bang, a nice 3 pounder. 

The other thing I remembered was to cast into the wind, and drag it across some wind swept points.  Well there is tiny little rock island north of the libery road bridge.  I went up there with the same carolina rigged worm and cast into the wind, and dragged it past the points, hit another 3 bass there.   

Well, I now am a believer, you can catch nice fish with a strong wind.     Thanks to the Ultimate Bass forum!   

Here is the thread for all interested readers. 

http://ultimatebass.com/bass-fishing-forum/index.php/topic,2073.0.html

[Creel Limit Zero]

Fished Liberty Reservoir 09/03 this past weekend.

6:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Air Temp 66-84
Water temp 79-83
Sunny, relatively no wind in the morning, picking up to 10 MPH around 9:30 AM
Water clarity - 8 feet

Another successful outing at Liberty Reservoir.  My fatherand I started fishing some shallow rocky shore lines.  These went from 2-6 feet of water.  I was throwing a Gambler Lures Ugly Otter in EP's secret (Ultimate Bass Contest winner)   father was throwing a hand poured senko knockoff in green pumpkin and orange tail.  We were catching smallmouth bass like crazy.  In the first 2 hours we boated around 10 smallmouths, and one largemouth.  Smallmouths all ranged from 12-14 inches, but my father caught a 17" and I caught a 19".  My largest smallmouth ever, I'm estimating in the 3.5 pound range.    

We were both throwing our baits weightless, and most of the strikes occured when we threw them up against the rocky shoreline.  The shoreline consisted of mostly large rocky boulders, so the best technique was actually throwing the bait and knocking it off of the boulder.  But keep the cast with a tight line, because they were hitting it as soon as it hit the water.  If you cast the bait with even the slightest splash, nothing, but knocking it right off of these boulders and them falling in with almost no splash seemed to be the ticket.   

Around 9:30 when the  started getting high and the temps increased, the bite stopped, so we started searching for some new patterns.  For the next 2 hours we couldn't seem to develop any pattern.  We were focusing on drop offs in the 15' range and bouncing plastic baits carolina rigged up the surface.  Also cast them over points that went from 25' to 10' back down to 25' but this didn't work.  Around 11:30 I noticed one of the shorelines in the cove was getting smacked pretty good with the wind.  We went over there and my father grabbed the old senko knockoff and skipped into a tree standing in water with some overhanging branches.  Bang, a nice 17" Largemouth.  We kept focusing on this new found pattern for the next 30 minutes or so, and nothing. 

Around noon, we decided we needed to get start heading back.  My father grabbed the deep diver and trolled back.  Used a Rapala DT14 in Fire tiger, and got an extra 13" largemouth trolling over a point described above, going 25-10-25.  I think he got the hit after it bounced off of one of the sunken boulders in about 12 feet of water.     Didn't try that before, may have worked. 

All in all, a very nice day on the water with my father.  It was so enjoyable we decided to do it again tomorrow.  Will post this report shortly!   

[Mike Cork]

Awesome indepth fishing report Creel Limit Zero, thank you for sharing your trip with us

[Creel Limit Zero]

No problem, my pleasure.   

[Lipripper]

Nice report Creel  and another great day with Dad on the water.

[Creel Limit Zero]

Fished Liberty on Sunday from 2:00 PM - 7:00 PM on 09/25

Cloudy and overcast - 77 degrees at 2:00 down to 68 degrees at 7:00.  mostly no wind
Water temp 77-81
Water clarity 4-8 feet  Mostly 8 feet, but a couple of coves in the upper stretches had a little lower clarity

First started throwing spinner baits around rocky shore lines in 5-15 feet of water.  Didn't have much success doing this, so started bouncing a jig with an ugly otter trailer off the same rocks, and wiggling it next to big boulders.  This produced one smallmouth around 11 inches.  As we kept going North on the same shoreline, we found a couple of sunken timber off the shore where it was going from rocky shoreline to sandy shoreline.  Still in 5-15 feet of water.  Switched to a T-rigged Yum Dinger in green pumpkin and chartreuese tail.  Dad had a T-rigged red/orange Senko.  Threw these into the laydown, which had no leaves on it, just branches all over it.  Just let it sink through each gap in the branches, and this proved to do the trick, pulled several nice largemouths from each tree.  Dad had a real lunker on that he had trouble pulling it out of the timber.  The line was really rubbing up against one of the branches, and it ended up doing too much damage.  He was able to pull it from the timber, but as the fish got closer to the boat and did one last ditch effort dive to deeper water, it snapped the line.  He was quite disappointed, but it can happen when you are light lining timber with 6 pound test line.  I also think his reel is getting up there in years, so the drag isn't so good.   

We targeted several more laydowns like these, all of them appeared to have alot of baitfish in them, so after throwing the plastics through every hole in the timber, I would run a crankbait and bounce it off the timber if possible, this got a few more bites, including one dink that was like 4 inches.  Really cracked me up because I was throwing a crank bait that was bigger than the bass.   

The bite started to slow, but a real productive day for my Dad and I, had around 11 fish between the two of us, well, 11-1/2 if you include the dink.   

[Lipripper]

Creel you were out fishing with your Dad so that was a good day just to start off with  and great report and glad ya'll caught some fish too 

[Creel Limit Zero]

Yup, really excited that they are moving back into town.  Gives me a fishing partner that's will to get up before the  and fish.   

[crawdaddy]

talked to my neighbor mark tonight and he went out yesterday evening to this spot we know, ill try to get directions for you guys. its about 10 minutes form nicodemis bridge. Anyway, he caught 3 bass he said, ranging from 14 to 18 inches. I dont know what he was using but it was probably some crazy looking lures he bought at Doug's. I'll try to get more information

[Creel Limit Zero]

Any information would be helpful, I think I'm going to Liberty tomorrow for a few hours.   

[crawdaddy]

He was using live crayfish, Reisterstown Bait and Tackle should have some of those if your willing to use live bait. He didn't know the street names though. I'll make sure to read the sign snext time we got out, in march its also a great spot for rainbow trout, with them spawning in the pools of the stream that lead into the cove.

[Creel Limit Zero]

Certainly going to have to check that out in the spring, would love to see that!

[crawdaddy]

I went out today and fished around nicodemis bridge from the shore for about an hour before the rain started. I caught two bass, one smallmouth about a foot long and one embarassingly small largemouth, maybe 7 inches. Both were on purple tubes with crawdaddy scented smelly jelly

[crawdaddy]

creel did you have any luck on the 30th?

[Creel Limit Zero]

Been meaning to post a report, just been lazy.   

I did catch a couple of bass.  It appeared to look like one of those days where I was going to pull them in like crazy.  2nd cast of the day I caught a nice 18 inch largemouth on a rapala suspending crank bait in baby bass.  I cast into one of those laydowns and just ran it over the top of it, and out it came to smack it pretty hard.  That was around 4:00 in the afternoon, fished until 7:00, but only got one more 10 inch largemouth.  And I busted the sheer pin off of my trolling motor too.     Going to go get another to fix it tonight, hope it works out okay.   

[crawdaddy]

haha our motor is out of commision to, it's up at Beck's Gunsmithing being fixed now. I'm starting to switch over to saltwater fishing now, My neighbor and I are planning a day trip to Ocean City to fish the surf and OC and Indian River inlets, the big bluefish and rock are really starting to move in now. Theres even a few drum mixed in 

[Creel Limit Zero]

Fished Liberty Reservoir 10/09 6:30 AM-11:30 AM

Cloudy temps 55 to 65 degrees
Water temp 74-77
Water clarity 2-5 feet

Just received about 10 inches of rain between Friday and Saturday from the tropical storm.  It appeared that the reservoir was a good 2 feet higher than the previous weekend. 

We started out by strolling up as far North from the boat docks as possible before the anticipation of fishing made us pull over to a cove and fish. The first cove we fished was on the same shore as the water treatment plant, just south of the plant.  This cove has alot of structure in it, and some good depth changes.  In one corner of the cove there was a nice bush sitting in 2-6 feet of water.  We started out throwing plastics into each piece of structure there was there.  I threw a chartreuse and white Kinami 5" flash.  Dad was throwing a purple 10" Berkley power worm.  I pulled two nice fish out of the bush, one 18".  Dad couldn't seem to get a bite so he switched over to my Kinami 5" flash.  Well that didn't help him either.    

We fished several other lay downs in the cove, but none of them seemed to hold the fish like the bush did.  Unfortunately, we couldn't seem to find any other piece of structure that was similar.  So we decided to head up North further in the reservoir in search of those migrating shad.  I started throwing a 5-1/4" Yo-zuri suspending crank in tennessee shad.  Dad was still throwing those 5" Flash.  Neither of us were finding any fish.    

We finally made it up to where Morgan Run dumps into the reservoir,  that was a long stroll.  We fished a couple of points and got one more bite, a 12 incher on a chartreuse and white 1/2 ounce spinner bait, with 4 willow leafs.  We couldn't seem to develop a good pattern except for that nice bush in the one cove.  This weekend I plan on venturing as far North into the reservoir as possible.  I want to fish the shore lines and trees up North of the route 140 bridge.  I figure I'll find the shad there, and hopefully the bass too.   

[Lipripper]

Good report Creel and like you said find the shad and you will find the Bass 

[crawdaddy]

anyone hear about the rockfishing this fall?

[Creel Limit Zero]

I'm hearing good things about the rockfish this fall in the Chesapeake.  I have yet to get out there and do some fishing for some rocks.    

Fished Liberty 10/16 from 6:30 AM - 1:30 PM
Water clarity 2-5 feet, The further up in the reservoir we got the less clarity it was.
Water temp 66-69
Air temp 55-70
Party cloudy
Windy - 15 MPH with 25 MPH gusts

Fishing was tough this past Sunday.  We got out there with great ambitions.  Had crank baits and spinner baits rigged up to do some searching.  We went out over points and laydowns.  The water levels were about as high as last weekend, still up from the lows of the summer but still about 5-6 feet lower from the high levels it was at in Spring.  Tried throwing to shallows with some jerk baits and shallow cranks.  Tried over points in 6-15 feet of water.  Carolina rigged some drop shot worms, split tail grubs, and ugly otters.  Tried bouncing a deep diving crank bait over rocky points.  Finally tried to dead stick a tiki flash and a jig and pig over several different types of structure and points.  No matter what we tried, we were not able to get a bite from anything.  We didn't even have any blue gill or sun fish pull on any of our worms, just nothing. 

After trying different methods of fishing over all different kinds of structure, we decided to give it up around noon and at least catch some fish.  We tied on a small #8 hook and an 1/8 ounce split shot on a couple of rods.  Opened up a can of corn, and threw out half of the can over a small section of a cove.  Threw the corn next to a lay down in the back of the cove, in 2 - 8 feet of water.  There were alot of carp swarming the area.  We set up about thirty feet from where we "chummed" with the corn, and ate a sandwich.  15 minutes later there were a good 10-12 good sized carp in clear view feasting on the corn.  We cast right into the middle of them and "bang" got some nice carp.  We caught 5 good sized carp, all around 3-6 pounds a piece, and had our line break 3 times when we couldn't pull that carp from the laydown before it got wrapped up in it.     At least we caught something.

After that we headed back to the dock.  We talked to about 10 other anglers at the dock when we were leaving, and all of them were as frustrated as we were.  Of the 10 anglers, all of us were fishing for bass, and only one smallmouth was pulled from all of us.  That was an 9 incher the angler said. 

I think the lake was in the fall turnover stage after all the other anglers complained of the lockjaw.  May not be the case, but to not even get any bites from some blue gill makes you wonder where all the fish went.  We tried many different methods, so maybe it was in the turnover stage.  Well, I'll be back this coming weekend to check it out again, if it was in turnover on the 16th, that means the 23rd they'll be back into the fall feeding frenzy.   

[pettr0oo]

I hope so....i will be up there this weekend....but ofcourse fishing from the shore.  But thats ok i like walking around out there very nice place.  I know its going to be a rainy weekend so i'll probably start under the Nicademas bridge.

[Creel Limit Zero]

All right PettrOoo.  I would think the bite is going to get real hot this weekend!  Good luck to you, and let us know how you did!  I'll probably be there on Sunday, so hope you don't catch them all.   

Nice fish in the avator too.