Iowa River Action

With a few hours to kill after work this week I went bank-fishing a couple times on the Iowa in Johnson County. The river has come up a couple feet from its normal low summer level, and that usually means good fishing. Both days I caught a pretty good mixed-bag of fish–lots of sheepshead and bluegills, some channel cat, a couple of largemouth and white bass, a smallmouth (yes, there are some of those around Iowa City), and two saugeye. The fish are still in summer patterns, but that will change in a couple weeks. I was only using live bait, but I think I will toss some cranks and plastic around next time I go out…

did the dnr release some saugeyes into the iowa river?
the last couple of years we’ve been picking up some nice keeper saugeyes on pool 18 on the mississippi, which is where the iowa dumps in past toolsboro, iowa.
i know its a pretty good swim from iowa city to the mississippi, but just wondering if maybe there was a release of saugeyes or if they are just a naturally occurring cross between wallys and saugers.

The IDNR stocks saugeye fingerlings (around 80,000 per year) in Coralville reservoir (upstream of Iowa City) since saugeye handle reservoir conditions better than walleye. From there, they make their way downstream. A lot of the “walleye” caught in the Iowa River are actually saugeye, although the IDNR stocks “straight” walleye fingerlings in the Iowa as well. The saugeye I catch around Iowa City are almost certainly stocked fish from the res.

Walleye and sauger will cross-breed fairly often in the Mississippi (I am not aware of any saugeye stocking in the Mississippi itself), and the saugeye caught there are probably wild fish. The wild cross-breeding occurs because walleye females drop their eggs a bit earlier than female saugers, so impatient male saugers will sometimes fertilize walleye eggs. The resulting saugeye are fertile, unlike most hybrids, and can breed with walleye, sauger, or other saugeye, producing more saugeye or 3/4 walleye/sauger mixes, who in turn can mingle their genes with other walleye or sauger. This is why it is not unusual to catch fish in the Mississippi that look like walleye but have noticeable dark blotches on their body, or sauger with fairly large white patches on their tail.