Mcbride

Have been out twice ice fishing on Mcbride and as some of you have heard the ice is about four inches now but still be carefull and stay out of current areas. You have to work for the keepers 9+ but I have been able to bring home about 25 each time. But their are a lot of little ones [ crappie ] dont overlook the blue gill as there are some nice ones to be caught and they are bigger then most of the crappie being taken.

I fished MacBride yesterday morning from about 9 to 11 with no success whatsoever. We were on the North side of the hill with the beachhouse on it. The entire lake was still frozen in, but I didn’t trust the ice where the sun had a full day to shine on it, and must be not many others did either as there was nobody near the power lines.

Me, my daughter, and about three other guys who were there when we started all sat for two hours without a fish. When they left, one of the fellas gave us a crappie that he had caught earlier, and said that there were some gills down around a treestump off that point to the East, but no crappies. There was about 3″ of solid clear ice, but it was starting to get pretty wet by the time we left at 11, so I don’t know what a whole day of above freezing left us.

We drilled about every 25 yards for a 75 yard stretch of that North shore and didn’t even mark any fish. Don’t know where they’re hiding, but with thin ice and warm temps I wasn’t about to go looking for them.

i looking for some mcbride or coralville ice fishing updates, i know someone around cr and marion and ia city are fishing but aren’t giving out any info or aren’t using this web site. well i have a first timer and me a second timer going either mon or tues. if we see lots of huts we will know the ice is safe. would like to meet some guys from this site if your going to be there. if so, you can email me and we can get together for some fun on the ice. this is our first outing this year, time to put the muzzle loader away and break out the ice augers.

I was in the area today just driving around snooping. Saw lots of people on Mac Bride and several on Corralville. Stopped at Marion Live Bait and a guy came in said he had a dozen nice crappie from Mac Bride. Never saw them tho.

Go off the double boat ramp past the Rangers house which will put you west of the swimming/beach area and walk out about 125 steps from the east boat landing and you should find a sunken tree in about 25-30 foot of water have had good luck on some fair crappie and blue gill. Their should be a lot of holes around this area as it is fished alot but you better have a vexlar or you will have trouble fishing this area.

Good luck and keep us posted how you do~!

Snooping around must’ve been the thing to do on Saturday. Wife still can’t handle the kids on her own, so the lot of us loaded up in the truck and just went looking. With the overcast skies I’d bet it was a banner day.

Looked like only one shack had been drug out at Mowhawk. There were four trucks parked west of the mini-mart in Palo, none at North Cedar Bridge, and the dam at Palo lake was end-to-end with shacks, with about a dozen more sprinkled across the remainder of the lake. Baby woke up before I could turn the truck toward MacBride, but I did sneak through Ellis Harbor on the way home. There were a handful of people fishing the back side of the marina (the inset between the river and the boathouses). Also there were a handful of trucks parked at Seminole Valley, but I didn’t want to drag the whole fam back there to see how many were fishing vs doing other stuff.

After I put the kids to bed, I did go out for about an hour here in town. Didn’t ice a single fish, but then a good day for fishing is usually followed by a night of groaning, burping, overfed fish I suppose. Marked fish on a brushpile in 7 feet of water; some suspended about 3′ down and others hugging bottom, but nothing biting.

The primary purpose of my evening out was accomplished, however, in that I got to test the new homemade adaptor for putting my 6″ hand bit on the power auger head. I was happy with the way it cut when it had the 8″ single-blade bit on it, but it’s easily 2x faster now. Pretty sweet.

You got that right Gianni. I don’t like the look of the ice but cabin fever just keeps getting the best of me. So been out at Mc Bride 3 times. The first time took home 23 fair sized crappie from red man’s spot. The second time caught a few gills on the rocks, a walleye and had a 3 lb walleye comming up through the hole but 2 lb line isn’t very forgiving The third time I broke my record of catfish with six being caught after dark. One 3, one 2.5, two 2’s, & two 1.5 Lbr’s. Also a few gills. Those Catfish were actually pretty tasty. Little Missouri up at PDC was a bit over crowded for me this last Sat with few fish being caught. I reccomend wearing your life jacket at Mc Bride, It just looks rotten John

Cold weather’s a-comin’. I spent last night barfing my guts out, stomach is paying me back for years of abuse I think.

Hopefully I’m back in shape for the weekend @ Prarie.

I’ve been building my tollerance for alcohol as the Prairie Du Chien get to gether might be tough fishing wise, so might as well catch a buzz Hopefully I will not be pukeing my guts out too Seriously I think the fishing is going to be tough up there. So I’m going for the fun of it

is anyone still fishing mcbride through today? i was out there monday, just checking the ice. went to coralville first, checked out the mchaffy bridge, not hard to see why no one is using that area. then went to the spillway, there was two guys there, one had already pulled out, the other was at the ramp and he was leaving. said he caught a few small crappies. still 5 inches of ice there. checked out mcbride, there were around a dozen or so around. mostly rather close to shore. no one near the power lines, don’t blame them, didn’t look very solid. was going back out this friday, but the ice thawing everyday. don’ t think there is a fish worth testing the ice. if anyone can give me anything positive, willing to try the close to shore ice. life jackets and long rope with me.

I don’t like testing thin ice myself. There’s a lot of places on the Cedar around CR here where there is pretty solid ice if you think that’s worth a try. MacBride wasn’t very good to me this spring, and I spent most of my summer probing Palo for bruiser gills and a few decent perch.

Might try out there, but it gets hit pretty hard. I’ve been looking for a decent place that doesn’t get much pressure. Think I’ve got a few leads, but nothing has really panned out for me yet… only a matter of time, though (hopefully before I’m dead).

thanks for the comeback, maybe i should keep the ice rods in the bucket and go party at pdc on sat. just to meet all the guys would be a blast. i’ve seen the map but never having been there, i would need about a 2hr head start to find it. i hope no one lost their life on lake shetek, bad enough to lose your truck and ice house.

looks like someone hid mcbride and coralville, sometimes no news is good news. maybe there red hot too. . hope we can find them this coming week..

Fished MacBride yesterday for a while, things were pretty slow. Drilled about 15 holes, marked only one fish, so we set up there and didn’t mark another for over an hour. I decided that I’d had about enough, so I started turning the lake into swiss cheese while my buddy followed with the flasher. We finally marked some fish in about 13 feet of water on a submerged log and set up again, this time with the heater going.

Fished there for about another hour. Ant jig and a spike was getting bit reliably, but they were biting so light that it was difficult to tell when to set the hook. I ended up nabbing two McBride Bruisers (3″ bluegills hahaha). Also dead sticked a minnow in the other hole, and had several fish that just nailed it hard enough to almost pull the rod in, but only one caught the hook; a 7″ bass that was apparently too stupid for his own good. I suppose the predators were coming in to feed on the little gills that were hanging around.

Given a little more time, I think we could’ve put together a decent minnow bite, but we both had to get home so it didn’t really happen.

There was a heckuva crowd out there yesterday. I suppose everyone was sick of getting cooped up by the cold, although I’m not sure yesterday was too much better as my beer was a constant mix of slush. Some people sure give you strange looks (dirty looks) when you’re walking randomly around the lake punching a hole every 15 feet, but to them I can at least say we ended up on fish.

I did not have any luck at Mcbride so I packed it up and went to Kent Park. Could not keep the 6″ cat off my line.

Fished Mc Bride yesterday from 2:00 to 4:30 PM. I kept a 3lb walleye, 18 bluegills, and only kept one decent Crappie. The next trip down to Mc Bride will probably find me leaning toward deep water trees, I think that’s where the Crappie probably are going to be. I think 2lb test has probably increased my catch 5x, only wish I would have figured that out yrs ago.
Gianni, you might try walking around with a plastic mug filled with water and your vex. Put a little water on the ice, place your transducer on the ice and turn up the gain, It’l save you from becoming hole happy
Redman, you’ve probably got the best bite going at Mc Bride. Hav’nt heard from you lately, are they still going like they were?

I’m hole-happy and proud of it

I need to entertain myself somehow, after all!

Hi everbody my name is eye-full,I have been hole happy for 4 years.Drilling not only mine but also my dads holes.But so far this ice season I have used the shoot through the ice tatic,w/succes.Now I find my self out fishing w/no hole in the ice but well rested to drill more holes for my dad.