Clear Lake 8/17 & 8/18 Update

Had a great vacation in beautiful Clear Lake Iowa, we were there for a family reunion on my Mother’s side of the house. Fishing wasn’t the main objective but I was able to squeeze in a few hours in the morning and evening Wednesday and Thursday between rounds of golf, socializing, eating and swimming. On to the results, I found a very slow crankbait bite and probably stayed with that too long, next was trolling spinner rigs, with minimal success, also tried anchoring with a slipbobber which was slightly better, but by far the best for me was drifting with a slip sinker and phelps floater with a crawler. This yielded a mixed bag of fish including channel cats, yellow bass, walleye and the dreaded yellow bellied bullheads. Plenty of fish to host a fish fry Thursday before we had to head for home. Best locations were community holes, dodges and the island. It’s been 15 years since I was on Clear, that was 15 years too long. Those of you who get to fish, swim and boat on this lake regularly should feel very fortunate.

Any size on the yellows or walleyes? we were up there this spring quite a bit but all we could get were small eyes.

Sounds like yo had the same results I had on my last outing. The yellows were nice size but just not jumping in boat I think it will keep getting better as fall approaches

Had to sort threw the yellows a bit, but had no problem getting a dozen over 10 inches. Caught 4 legal walleye out of 12 total, big was a 19 incher on an ultralight trout pole with 2 pound test. That was a knee knocker because I was missing a net…

The yellows are really starting to pick up. Sun. we brought home 54 betwwen 9-10 inches threw back tons of smaller ones. Alot of boats were west of the Island I take it they were on yellows also. I was North of the Island in 6-9 fow draging the bottom with a minnow on one and a crawler on the other. Minnow was better but caught plenty on clawler also. I did pick up a couple small channels and a 14 inch white and bonus 19 inch eye. It was a gorgeous day to be out on Sunday perfect day.

Todd

Todd,did you get Jake out for some of that action? Sounds like it was a nice day to be on the water.I’ll see you next week-end maybe?
Ryan Hale

Ryan I’m not real sure we are going to come up next weekend. With the gas prices the way they are it would cost Ma & Pa a bundle to drive the motor home up. They were talking about just going up to Clear a heck of alot closer plus the yellows are biting. Jake didn’t go he wouldn’t get out of bed at 4:30 when I was ready to go.

I’ll let you know if we decide to head up your way next weekend.

Todd