Help me understand this phenomenon?

Help me understand this phenomenon. I just got back from Missouri and during that drive I ventured through Eastern Iowa in which I stopped to check out some really great looking Rivers that really intrigued me. The Cedar River in particular from the places I checked it out appears to have many of the great characteristics for holding good numbers Smallmouth very much similar to the Upper Croix and Upper Miss. Yes it may not be as wide but it still has good looking boulder/rock structure is nasty shallow with good wintering holes. This river looks great IMHO.

With the lack of Lakes in the region I was quite baffled to not see any signs of jet boats or really any boat for all that matters on some of these rivers. Yes I realize that some of these areas can be covered from the shore. But the way I see it there are miles and miles of untapped water that can’t be discovered on foot or a typical propped boat. Anyone ever see jets running the Cedar or Des Moines Rivers?

Mack,

I am from eastern Iowa Cedar Rapids to be exact. I have seen some jet outboards on jon boats on the cedar. They are usually smaller boats. There are alot of dams on our rivers so people will generally fish above the dams in the deeper areas where you can run a regular smaller boat. 14 foot jons with regular small outboards are very common.

I do not know where you were looking exactly but there are not great numbers of large smallies in most areas. There are some to be found here and there but nothing like the upper miss or the croix. The northern part of the cedar has some big smallies but they are generally tough to find.

The wapsie river on the other hand would be awsome for a river pro and holds a ton of dandy fish. Big smallies, pike and walleyes.

AlvinMack there is no season on bass, it’s open year round, some of the smaller streams in NE Iowa have good populations of Smallies, like the Upper Iowa, Turkey, and Volga river, but they are wading or floating streams, not big enough for much of a boat.

Ed

Here in Iowa we dont believe much in seasons, and we seem to be very liberal on our limits as well. No bass season, 5 walleye limit, any size, no season for them either. Lots of good streams like you are talking about though, I fish the Iowa River a lot, and it is more accessible with a canoe or kayak than anything else, especially during the low water in the fall.

I live in Vinton–right on the Cedar. There are some nice smallies in this section of the river if you want to chase them.

–Whitey

Nick there are seasons and lower limits on a few Iowa lakes for Walleyes. Up here its a 3 fish limit with a 14″ min.

Never fished Eastern Iowa I know living along the Raccon in Central IA for 30 some odd years you dont see many boats on the river. Living in the Iowa Great Lakes area now few dont have a boat of some sort.

All the years fishing the Des Moines river below Saylorvill majority of the boats you see were flatbottom cat rigs. Us poor farmer folk cant afford those fancy Jet boats

Iowa does have a 12″ minimum size limit on black bass, i.e. largemouth, smallmouth, and spotted bass, in interior rivers and streams. (There is an introduced population of spotted bass in Lake Macbride in Johnson County, and the Iowa River below it.) There is a 14″ minimum size limit on black bass in the Mississippi. Lake regulations on black bass vary. I have lived in Iowa for six years, and love to complain about the IDNR’s fishing “regulations”, or lack thereof. On smallmouth, and walleye in the Mississippi (I could care less about green sewer trout:p), they do a better job, IMO, than on fisheries management in general.

There are smallmouth in the Cedar River in Linn and Iowa counties, but not in the numbers you find in the upper Mississippi, or other great smallmouth waters. I catch a few “accidental” smallies each year in the Iowa River around Iowa City as well.

Iowa does have a lot of streams with potentially great smallmouth habitat, but the key word there is “potentially.” Iowa has some serious water quality problems, with soil runoff from intensive agriculture being chief among them. Heavy silt loads in most Iowa rivers reduce the amount of clean rock and gravel habitat smallies need to really thrive. If you take a trip down an Iowa interior river, look at how much clean rock bottoms you see, versus mud and silt bottom.

If you were to come down now looking for the right river to fish late season smallies the wapsi would be the one. Most of the other small rivers in this section of iowa are going to be too shallow from now until spring to run a jet boat in unless you have waders. What did you think of the timbers around here for deer and how many did you count, just curious because thier right in the middle of picking corn and beans where alot of the deer are until thier done, im curious what route you took and came back through on.

Did ya ever think that Minnesota’s regulations have something to do with the size of the fish you all have? We in Iowa also have just recently started to comply with the clean water act with the state legislators resisting all the way (wanna guess what party those legislators are from?). We have great rivers and I know there are a lot of smallies in the Waterloo Cedar Falls area. Rivers with small watersheds and clean bottoms are best — Shell Rock, Wapsi and parts of the Cedar. Iowa DNR needs to regulate more, but they are convinced more regs mean fewer license sales so they don’t regulate because their budget comes from license fees. Go figure.