April 30 & May 1

Fished Rathbun this weekend for the first time ever. Fella at the bait shop in Rathbun said “Yeah, they’re catching fish, just look for the boats.”

Of course, we were the only boat on the entire lake as far as I could tell. We did see one other boat on Sunday, which led to a lot of “Hey, we found ‘THE boat'” talk. Near as we can tell, there are exactly three fish in the entire lake (two crappies and one sheepshead). Ran into the DNR when we got off the lake and were driving below the spillway, he said it’s usually lousy until about Memorial day, which explains a lot.

We fished that lake in June/July about 3 years ago and caught a bunch of eyes. I heard the same thing, memorial day or so is when the eyes move to their summer grounds and start suspending.

John, depends on what you were fishing for and where you were fishing.
I’m betting this coming weekend will be the start, if it hasn’t already, of the crappie males heading to the banks.
I haven’t been over there for a few years now but that lake never changes other than filling in and losing the trees that were once at the west end.

We’ve fished Coralville twice since then also – still no crappie bite. I’m convinced they’re in there, just not so much on the aggressive bite.

Water temp @ Coralville is starting to get into the upper 60’s and low 70’s – should be a crappie beat-down any day now, but it seems I may have lost the ability to catch ’em.

Since I’m not in your boat I won’t/can’t say what you’re doing wrong John. With water temps like that and the time of year we are at, I’d definately hit the banks for crappie. If they aren’t on the banks, look farther out. With the weather we’ve been getting, this could be a year of dragged out spawn. In one day doing their thing, and back out the next suspending over a ledge waiting for the weather to change.

I’m heading down next weekend, bet I’ll see more than one boat! Hope to get into some shoreline crappie and a few eyes out on the flats.

Well, the Coralville bite never really materialized. I caught a few, though the ones I picked up were very nice – 13″ plus – but no ‘fish every cast’ like we usually get during the spawn.

I blame the fact that I’m fishing when I can, instead of skipping out on work. I mean really, where are my priorities at???