Iowa City Fishing

Hi guys, I’m going to be taking my 8 yr niece down to the UOI Hospital Monday, for surgery. She has to have a piece of skin removed inside her ear. I’m going to have some time to kill, so I figured I’d try to see if the eyes are hungery, after I stop into Scheels. Any suggestions on where to go down there? I’ve only fished below the Coralville Res. a couple of times, one time below that and I have no idea where it was. Thanks.

Do you know where the burlington street dam is…
It is really going to depend on the weather, the lakes are probably going to be froze over!! I will keep you updated, send me a PM before you swing down.

Thanks for the quick reply Luke, pm sent your way.

Thats the same place i was going to suggest below the dam there in Iowa City but be prepaired and bring alot of jigs, its very rocky there. The dam below the Coralville reserviour is another bet. Its not as rocky there but the wind has a major influance there. Seems if its a blue bird day and fairly warm they will hit jigging on the bottom, give it a weather change or with any north or east wind and its not as good. From the west shore is the best and get out on the bottom on the breakline that comes out of the dam, they lay right on the breakline on the bottom. Good luck

Thanks for all the help. Looks like it might be a little windy today but we’ll see. Let ya know how I do.

Well had a little bit longer day then expected, 13 hours all together. I fished around the Burlington dam and the 1 ave. dam. Water looked clear, blue skies, little windy. No walleye for a couple hours fishing but found a carp hole. About every cast had 10-15 pound carp nailing my 4″ ringgie on a 1/16 head swept along the bottom, almost couldn’t believe it. That was sort of fun. Well just wanted to tell you guys thanks for the help.
My niece turned out good, just had to wait 5 hours with her before she was ready to come home from being ko. Only the parents were allowed in for the first couple hours so the uncle got to meet some interesting folks in the waiting room.

At least you got some carp. Were they buffalos? I’ve had a lot of them hit on plastics. I always think it’s a walleye too. Hollar at us if you ever come back this way. It’ll get really good soon.

Andy

Thanks Andy, a couple were buffs but most carp, they fought good though, esp. on a med light. If I make my way back down there I will, thanks again. If you guys ever need some help up here, just ask.

Hey eye, i fish smallmouths quite a bit and i wonder if the smallie fishings any good up around waterloo. I know in the upper reaches of the cedar around the minnesota border it is. The shellrock north of you is pretty good too.

Well the river between Waverly and Cedar Falls, I haven’t fished it a whole lot but have done very well when I did and have heard alot of guys doing very well. The Nashua and Waverly dams have been very good for me. In Waterloo which is where I fish the most can be good if you hit them right. I don’t catch the numbers like futher north but the fish I do catch are usally larger fish, although my numbers have really gone down the last about 2 years for some reason, maybe it’s me. A couple of springs ago, I pulled a couple that were well over 5 pounds out, but my spot got ah tore up . Hope this helps, any other questions.

You are not alone with your Cedar River bass numbers being down the last couple of years. I don’t know if its fishing pressure or what, but the numbers are down. Walleye fishing has been good however. Maybe the walleyes are eatin’ all the small bass????

thanks eye-full. we struck out on the iowa tonight going for eyes, but that’ll change!

andy

I don’t think it’s pressure. I fish alot of water up this way that gets little to no pressure and have hardly caught any smallies the last couple of years. I don’t fish for them on purpose, but I used to catch my fare share of them fishing for eyes. Not anymore though!

Thanks for the replies guys, this is one time I wish it was just me. I wonder what is causing this? Last year I was struggling to catch a couple fish in a section I would usually catch 10 .

Andy I’m sure you’ll have a couple pics. of some nice Iowa river eyes posted shortly.

We finally found a couple fish last night. Only a couple but they were decent keeper sized eyes. They were in the back of a hole formed by fast water where the current was much slower than in the front of the hole. shallower water, but probably 4-6 ft. They should start to show up soon.

Awesome Andy, thanks for the report, sounds good . I’m still waiting for the river to thaw up here.

I have not been down to the Iowa River in IC in about six weeks…how many dead or dying shad are around? Last year’s pre-spawn/early spring walleye bite in IC was slow, and I think the very high numbers of shad in the water last February and March were part of the problem. It is hard to get a walleye to bite your bait when they have that many plump tasty meals just floating around. I fished below Burlington Street a couple times this January, and I saw very few shad. There were hordes of them last fall, so I am hoping they all got killed off by the deep freeze in December.

I am waiting to see if the low water levels we have had most of this winter will hurt the early walleye bite. Very high water obviously hurts the migration of walleye upstream in the late winter, but so does low water, and this has been a low water year so far. Last year saw mostly low water levels in February and March, and I think this was a factor in the slow IC area walleye bite as well at that time. Whether that or the plentiful shad was more of a factor, I don’t know. Fishable ice is gone for the year in Johnson County, so I will start checking the Iowa out on a regular basis…

with the muddy water and the cold weather, haven’t been on the river in a while. there was a report somewhere of a 20″ eye caught at burlington st. keep this post up vikefan. you been out since early march at all?

I haven’t tried the Iowa at all in the last couple months. Between the high water, cold fronts, and my busy schedule, I haven’t done any fishing since last Wednesday, when I got out and caught some panfish and a couple bass on a pond.

Next week I will start hitting the Iowa in the mornings. I have lived in IC for six years, and my experience has been that the fishing in the river, save for snagging carp, is very spotty until the end of March. I’ve caught walleye, saugeye, and white bass in January, February, and early March out of the Iowa, but I invested a lot of time to catch them. This March, I decided to spend my fishing time on waters where I had a better chance of catching decent numbers of fish. April and May are way more productive on the Iowa, especially for walleye/saugeye and white bass.

I fished below the Burlington Street dam for an hour this morning. That yielded one snagged sheepshead and a couple of snagged carp. The water is still low, but very dirty from the rain. There are quite a few dead and dying shad in the river, which I believe has a lot to do with the gamefish bite this time of year. Lots of dead and dying shad equals lots of easy meals, which equals well-fed fish that have no good reason to chase your bait.