Washing machine

I have a question/problem. Around these parts, in east central Iowa, we have very few lakes. Palo lake, 410 acres, Lake Macbride, about 820 acres, and, of course there’s Coralville Lake a half mile wide at the widest and about 17 miles long. Palo lake is a no wake lake. Run any size engine you want just no wake. Lake Macbride is a 10 horse or smaller after Memorial weekend till September. Otherwise it’s a no wake lake, run what you want. And finally Coralville is wide open to what ever your pocket book will allow. On any given weekend, Lake Macbride and Palo lake are so crowded that you cant make a cast without it landing in someone’s boat. Coralville is, in my opinion, “enter at your own risk” type of place. On a calm day it’s rougher (from other boats) than Pepin with a 40 mph breeze. Here’s my question. Where do these fish go that live in these waters? If you get up at 3 in the morning and put the boat in and fish till about 9 you can actually have, most times, a pleasant outing. However the fishing is good but the catching is not so great. Luckily its not just me that has this problem, I have fished with guys that can fish circles around me and they have the same trouble finding the fish on these waters. Are the fish down by the dam in the 40-50 foot water just layin on the bottom tryin to stay out of the props or what? It’s gotta be like being in a washing machine for the fish. Can someone shed some light on finding Crappies/Walleyes under this kind of pressure?

Thanks for any reply’s

TTRIGGER

maybe all you can do is fish weekday mornings and night fish

You certainly paint a pretty dismal picture and I feel bad for you………….we’re so lucky up here in MN/WI to have multiple choices on a daily basis!

I don’t have any solid info for you but I have noticed that the same problems exist here as well. I’ve seen the presence of too many shore fishermen, too many boats, and too much recreation turn a negative impact on my quest for that given day. I know there are fish in these waters but I too wonder what they do when they “turn off”. The only thing I’ve been able to determine, by talking with other anglers, is that the fish head for cover. Whether it be submerged weeds, special structure, or deeper water, they move. I think everything just gets out of the way and learns to continue on with their business elsewhere. I’ve seen where shorelines are producing early in the morning but by 10am the recreation traffic starts up and before I know it, no more shoreline fish. Maybe they don’t move but just quit all feeding/defense behaviors? I have no way of knowing for sure. I’ve also seen the night fishing pick up in areas of high recreational use. It’s as though they learn the sounds of boats and when it goes away…………….they resume normal activity. Again, I have no way of knowing the facts, but they are observations I’ve made and maybe it’ll help dig up the answers you’re looking for. Good luck!

I grew up in the area your fishing now…. and I have fished all of the places… guess what? you have a tough nut to crack…. for walleyes anyway… Im afraid my experience there is now years old… BUT… somethings never change… on Lake Mac Bride for instance…. I caught my walleyes on the rip rap along the dam, particularly in front of the spillway, casting cranks, at night, and during cloudy, rainy days…. Ive also seen some big eyes sitting in shallow water on the points of the bays down towards the spillway…. in Iowa it USED to be legal to fish with lights at night.. if this is still true… it was a HUGE crappie killer…. just go into an area with Crappies…. (the first bay up from the dam is a good one, there is a pipe that runs underwater suspended about 5-6 foot deep all the way across)… anchor you boat over this about dark.. turn on your crappie light.. and pretty soon your catching them….. but from what Im hearing from your fellow Iowa people, the Cedar River is turing out good numbers of Walleyes… you just gotta go north a bit.. up towards Cedar Falls…. I also used to do well on the Wasipinicon south of Central city….. and sometimes on the Maquokata… down from Delhi….. of course your best bet is to run to the good ol miss and fish the river pools…… its just not a short trip….. but its WORTH it….. I never knew how tough the fishing in Iowa REALLY was until I came up here…. there are so many options its almost baffling… we have some world class fishing up here for almost every freshwater speicies…. and those that were born and raised to it just dont know how lucky they are……

Ah HA!!! All the MN/WI guys were getting tired of hearing ME whine about these lakes!! Misery loves company, I guess.

The worst part about these lakes isn’t even the crowd, it’s the quality of the “real gems” that are out there fishing. The last three times I’ve been to Palo, I was cruising shorelines casting, when I cut out into the lake to go around some shore fishermen, these two guys come up (gas motor) and cut the motor to coast in between me and the shore fisherman.

THEN the guy actually has the nerve to grab the fishermen’s float from the lake-side of his boat and toss it back to the shore! He said, “This looks like yours” with no ‘sorry’ or anything. What a peach.

Don’t even get me started on the [insert explative] that are keeping MacBride 10hp instead of no-wake. I’ve asked the DNR outright why it hasn’t been changed, and the answer I got was: There’s too much big money that lives on the lake and the college professors don’t want noisy motors disrupting them when they’re out kayaking in their enviro-floaters. Hello??? Who pays the license fees that maintain and improve the lake??? If you can’t afford to buy, keep, and maintain two boats, you have no business there, I guess.

Rant over, to answer your question: I don’t think the fish go deep in the summer. Palo will stratify, meaning that the fish have to stay fairly shallow. For the most part, all of the lakes mentioned have reams of baitfish in them and I think a lot of fish are just tight-lipped. Add to that the fact that COE is constantly jiggling with the water levels, and you’ve got a recipe for not catching many fish.

Both sides of the MacBride spillway are usually pretty good for crappies, especially early in the spring. Catfish all over both lakes, but best at the North end of Coralville and in the shallow bays at MacBride, again early in the year. I fished Palo a bunch when the lake was first made, and again during high-school with limited success, but haven’t had much luck there for several years – not that I’ve tried too hard.

My best bet is to explore the rivers some, especially the Wapsi, Cedar, and Maquoketa. Of course, Guttenberg is only an hour and a half!

Gianni, I know exactly what you mean. Last spring when I lived in Independence, Ia I was fishing the second damn at Quasqueton. I had just caught a few nice walleye in front of 15 or so people whom were all fishing up above at the first damn. I tried hiding the fact that I was catching some fish by unhooking the fish in or right near the water. It didn’t work. They asked how the fishing was down here and I said fine. The next thing I knew was that there were two guys standing 2 feet away from me fishing the same spot I was. Then one of the guys even had the guts to wade out into the water right where I had just caught my last fish. That was enough for me. I packed up my gear and poles and headed for another spot.

I have had excellent luck on the Wapsi and the Cedar. Anywhere from Waverly to Cedar Falls on the Cedar and anywhere from Littleton to Troy Mills on the Wapsi. Right after ice out in the spring (if it ever does ice up this year) is when you want to start. Something I learned form fishing the Wapsi though is when the Buffalo Carp start showing up all over the place (you’ll know when they do) mainly at the damns, the walleye will no longer be there. This usually occurs within the first 5 weeks after ice out. You will however start catching some nice bass and pike.

Hope this helps

Jim L

I really wonder how much the boat wakes bother the fish, though. If that were really the case, you would think that fish would move off the main channel of the Miss during the summer, but typically they just find cover in wingdams and current breaks. I would guess that Coralville is much the same.

If deep water were the answer, then the 60′ hole by Mehaffey bridge should be stacked with fish; especially considering that there’s a no-wake zone through there. I always see two or three boats fishing right in there, but I think it’s more to keep THEM from being pounded by power-boats than the fish.

I was once told that a lot of the fish will move West of the 965 bridge, and that you can navigate the old channel all the way up to the old iron bridge. I haven’t had the guts to try this, and likely will not. I think the water west of the bridge is probably 1-2 feet at most until you get to the narrows by the old bridge, where there’s another decent hole. If I had a flat-bottom or an airboat, there are a lot of places I could get to that my current boat just won’t go.

TTRIGGER, I posted some IA. lake stuff over on FTL. Good Luck…….B

Gianni,

Just to throw a clarification out here to what I meant by “deeper water”…………………..When I’m hitting shorelines and hitting fish in 2-4 feet of water, once the cruiser wakes start tumbling in, I’ve still found fish along the shorelines, just not that shallow. All my fish after the cruisers “woke up” were at 7-10 feet. That is what I meant by deeper water. I wasn’t thinking anything near 60 feet……………..unless that’s a river depth, I think that’s well below the thermalcline of most of the lakes I fish. Just wanted to share what my vision of deeper was in this case. :O)

Well, it’s all very confusing, you see….

Coralville is a COE impoundment on the Iowa river. Mehaffey bridge runs right across the middle of it in a narrows that can’t be but 60 yards wide. It is one of only two or three “deep” (20+ ft) spots on the whole resevoir. It is narrow enough there that I would think the flow should keep the water sufficiently mixed during most of the summer.

I’ve wondered if during the day the fish move in close to the rock walls. There are several on outside bends that drop straight into 20′ or more of water. If I could troll or drift them without being pushed into one by the rec boaters, it might be a worthwhile effort.

I have to agree that it is tough to fish Coralville Res.and the small lakes we have around here, with the rec boaters to all the fisherman. Thats why like to fish them early or late season,cooler weather. To answer the question I’ve heard that when the traffic gets to be to much the baitfish move deeper and the game fish follow.

I don’t fish McBride, but have been out on Coralville and Palo quite a bit. I don’t even bother fishing Coralville once it gets past 10 or 11 a.m., unless I duck into a cove or two and dig up some bass.

I’ve pounded Palo hard for walleyes, with very limited success. I’ve had the best luck at sunrise on that lake pulling rigs (spinner or lindy) on mid depth flats that have access to deeper water. I tend to think that the eyes in Palo suspend much of the summer and chase shad around the main lake. This summer I might put together a better trolling system and try to find some that way.

You might check with McBride Biologist, Paul Sleeper. Paul directed a telemetry study of the walleye on Lake McBride in the mid-90s. It makes for interesting reading. The readers digest version is this…stay shallow, 6ft or less. With all the work done on this lake in the last two years the fishing should improve. As for why this lake is the only state-managed lake in Iowa with horse power restrictions-ask state rep. Bob Dvorsky where all his campaign money comes from. He is the problem. Good luck and good fishing.,

I fished a local tourney at Coralville with theHawkeye Hooksetters a couple of years ago. It was held in July and you know what its like then. We ended up winning the Walleye catagory with 3 fish totalling over 10 lbs. Caught them throwing bobber and minnow into wave beaten rocks in about six ft. of water. It seems that when the chop was up we caught bass, cat and walleye in the same area! Food for thought. fish-on