Took today off work to spend a day with my 9-yo daughter who’s on spring break from school. We ran some errands in the AM and then hit the road for a quick tour of NE Iowa bank fishing spots.
Central City Looked promising at first, with Tyler landing a nice smallie within the first 5 casts. We were downstream of the main street bridge on the East side rip-rap along with about a half dozen other guys who were spread out for the entire (roughly) 1 mile stretch from the dam to the RR bridge. After Mr Smallie swam away, we didn’t see another fish caught by anyone for about a half hour, so it was time to leave.
Manchester looked promising, so we gave it a shot. Started above the dam in the weed pocket hoping to find a pike hanging in the weeds, but no such luck. Fan casted the area above the dam with jigs and then spinners with nothing to show for our efforts, so we moved down by the RR bridge (anyone noticing a theme with dams and RR bridges here?) where we covered the pool above the rock dam that leads the river bend. Spent probably about an hour covering this area pretty well, since I’d done well there previously, but nothing to show for it today.
Independence ended up being the winner today. In about an hour of fishing we brought in three male ‘eyes, all solid eaters (16-18) and a pike that was probably about 2 1/2 pounds or so.
Everywhere the water was normal to slightly high. Still lots of flow, but both the Maquoketa and Wapsi are as clear as I’ve ever seen them this late in the spring and with this much rain. All fish hit 1/8th jigs with 3″ grubs. Colors that brought fish today were silver/glitter and silver/pepperflake grubs on various colored heads.
