Anyone having any luck on the Cedar?

With no bluegills I’m not catching and bigger ones. The smaller ones are finding the shrimp that I’m useing for bait and got another 2 tonight. The biggers ones seem to hone in on the vibrations of a swimming bluegill. I’m going to try the pond at Ellis park by the golf course and see what thats got in it, maybe also the pond at Jones park, I heard theres alot of small bullheads in that one. I don’t expect to catch any big ones until I find some bluegills, for now the smaller panfriers are ok. I’m going to check them again in the morning, I was up at 5:30 this morning to get bait and got none but it was early on the river! Its been a long day but its summer time.

Is there anywhere I can buy chubs or something? I’d like to see if I can catch a couple of flatheads at some point this summer. Is my only option to go seine chub myself?

Just find a deep spot in Indian creek. Use a small hook about a no. 6 and small piece of crawler under a small bobber. The upper end of Thomas park in Marion is a good place.

A while back while I was fishing at the bridge by mohawk park, these guys showed up with a net and were netting bait fish, I’m assuming they were chubs? they didn’t keep the shads they just left it on the road.

btw the we need rain..the cedar is too low.. spent half the day with FB tryin to get the boat off sandbars..

It is very low. And “dirty” as can be.

If they were taking the bait to a lake I think it’s illegal to use live shad on a lake in Iowa.

My “report”… Friday I fished with live bluegills below Cedar Rapids on the river for a few hours. Caught nothing but had a couple bait clicker runs (debris in the current maybe?) I don’t know the river very well and didn’t cover much of it. 4-5 FOW was the best I could do.

When I was leaving there were 4-5 guys standing basically IN the roller dam fishing. Death wish? Couple of them looked to be struggling to stand.

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Caught nothing but had a couple bait clicker runs (debris in the current maybe?)

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Don’t you just hate that
Do you have better luck with bluegills?

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Caught nothing but had a couple bait clicker runs (debris in the current maybe?)

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Don’t you just hate that

Do you have better luck with bluegills?

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I had better luck catching bluegills if that’s what your asking.

If you’re asking if I have better luck with bluegills or chub or shad… I have no clue. I’m new to this kind of fishing entirely. Was more of a bass fisherman back home (Clinton, IA). Then migrated to fishing for walleye on the Mississippi. Now moving to Cedar Rapids I’ve realized that I am going to have to adapt to the fishing available around here to be satisfied. I don’t want to drive more than about 20-30 minutes (if that) to go fishing. So if I’m going to to stay close to home (Cedar River and Pleasant Creek) I’m going to have to adapt. Meaning… I’m going to have to become more of a catfisherman than a walleye fisherman because there just isn’t much happening on the Cedar in this area in regards to walleye.

And I’m being totally serious when I say my next fishing trip will include some homemade doughball when I hit the Cedar. If there’s one thing that is abundant on the Cedar it is carp. And since I don’t really keep any fish (will eat catfish occasionally… walleye is great but I’d rather catch than eat to be honest) I will welcome the chance to catch more than 2-3 fish in an outing. I don’t really care if they’re carp.

Pretty much the best fishing I’ve had in the area this year was catching the bluegills for bait on Friday.

The Cedar is really fickle JW and at times its discourageing. Right now even with dittypoles in good spots all I’m doing is catching panfriers and no big ones. After the big ones start biting again it will be diffrent. The dog days of summer is another time when it can be frustrating when the water warms up and the bite slows. Night fishing is the best then. What I’ve found out through the years is if you fish ofter you can stay on top of the bite. Fishing diffrent parts of the river is another good way to find feeding fish. Creek mouths with cooler water during the dog days is a good spot as well as the main channel at night, anywhere where theres cooler water with more oxygen. Even back up in the creeks will have a better bite then the river itself at times. The Cedar has plenty of fish but its very fickle at times. The good thing is the smaller ones seem to always bite more regularily because of thier rate of growth.

Have you still been running bank lines, Dan? If so have you done any good? Maybe you’re just neck deep in catfish to clean so you can’t give us an update.

I went home last weekend and fished the Mississippi with my dad and brother. Caught some walleyes. Nothing huge but several decent fish. Was good to see a walleye again.

No JW I haven’t baited my poles since about 10 days ago. At that time I was going to wait to see if the bigger ones would be coming to the bait, here soon I’m going to start again. When I start I’ll post the results and the only alternative if I don’t start hooking them where I’m at now is go too deeper water, the Cedars fickle sometimes.

Today after work I’m going to rebait my dittypoles and set my 15 hook trot line. I’m hopeing with the recent rains in the last week and the spawn being over that the bigger catfish will be biting again. If the temps aren’t real bad while my baits on the poles, I’m going to pole fish down river a ways near a big tree in the water with a big hole underneath it for flatheads and bigger channels. I’ll post any results later tonight or in the morning what thier doing. If things aren’t that good I’m thinking about going down to the Iowa river and see whats up there.

There can’t be a whole heck of a lot of water down south of the C Street dam. There wasn’t much when I was down there last and the river has gone down since then.

Walked down to the mouth of Indian Creek a couple weeks ago and fished a bit… there’s no water anywhere.

I didn’t go the other afternoon after work because its just too darned hot, even after dark. I was down there a couple weeks ago JW, was that you sitting a couple hundred yards up river from the mouth of indian creek. The guy I talked to said he had just gotten there and I got stuck on a sandbar and had to pole off to deeper water and ya it was very low then and probably lower now like you say.

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I didn’t go the other afternoon after work because its just too darned hot, even after dark. I was down there a couple weeks ago JW, was that you sitting a couple hundred yards up river from the mouth of indian creek. The guy I talked to said he had just gotten there and I got stuck on a sandbar and had to pole off to deeper water and ya it was very low then and probably lower now like you say.

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Nope, not me. I walked in from the road by the nature center. Real early in the morning, didn’t see anyone else. Wish I could hunt rabbits out there. Never seen so many of them in Iowa!

Saturday evening my brother and I put in at Ellis and ran upstream, fished the rocks just past where the river takes a 90* turn away from Ellis Blvd and back into that pond on the other side of the river a ways. Tons of bait fish… no fish to eat them.

Pulled out of there and went down below the C St dam and fished from shore with bluegill and stinkbait. Had a couple hits on the stinkbait (very light no takers) and nothing on the bluegills. There was one boat that put in and had trouble getting away from the ramp. Another boat backed in and ended up leaving. It’s so shallow down there… much lower than the last time I put in down there, probably almost a foot lower.

With this DROUGHT it’s bad everywhere for the fishes and water level is at its lowest. The Cedar smells like dead fish..Sad to see baby cats floating in the water.

I’ve been working alot trying to keep pace with this miserable heat or I’d have been on the river. If the small catfish are dying thats pretty bad. I know where theres usually 2 feet of water theres now rocks out of the water a foot, this is one of the lowest river levels I’ve ever seen since I was a kid 50 years ago and I’m 61. Heard on NPR today from a government weather forcaster that the month of August is supposed to be just like this one, not good at all. In some peoples areas some of the wells have half the water in them that they were drilled at, and held reserve water for. Also heard it might take up to 5 years to bring back the underground water table to normal if we don’t get decent rains here pretty soon. Everybodys lawns are dead and dried to a crunch here, the only things green are weeds and the plants around where the water drips out of window air conditioners. Trees of all sorts are dropping leaves and turning brown, it looks like it does in fall under some trees. We live by a small creek that drains the hillside a few blocks away and it has water in it but its down to a trickle. We need an inch rain 3 times a week really bad for the next 3 months. Somewhere in Iowa lately there was a 2″ rainfall. The next day the farmer went out and dug down to see how far the moisture got down, It only got to 1-3/8ths inch in the soil, thats how dry it is.