Cedar backwater ice update

No, I didn’t ruin my perfect record of having never fished the Cedar backwaters here in town. The baby fell asleep in the back seat of the pickup so I went for a drive and stopped to talk to a pair of fellas coming off the ice at Mowhawk park. They said at best there were three inches of ice but all the fish they found were dinks. By the end of tomorrow I wouldn’t trust it anymore if the temps hold like they are today.

They also said they crossed the lake and tried the smaller pond to the South of mowhawk lake there and the ice was too thin, started flexing underneath their feet so they got the heck off. I don’t suppose any ice can take two weeks of 40 degree weather.

Cold snap is predicted this weekend, but forecasts are always a total wag that far out. We’ll see what she brings us and hopefully be out fishing again soon.

Ice is back. Drove down there yesterday morning for a drive-by and it looked plenty solid once more, but only a single set of sled-trax heading out on the ice from the back access parking lot (they removed the barricade).

So how about it, NE Iowans. Where in the Cedar around CR do people ice fish? I haven’t seen anyone on Robins in years, and I’ve been looking. Do people fish over in Ellis Marina?

Places I’ve seen people ice fishing on the Cedar include:

Mowhawk Park
Under the bridge just East of Palo mini-mart
Near the North Cedar bridge (West of Center Point)

…and that’s about it. There’s gotta be some good water out there, so where is it?

Hey John, i know they get them through the ice by the bridge where you said by palo. In past years ive heard of very nice crappies there. In the spring i heard its pretty good around the deeper water with alot of big deadfall next to deeper water, thats where i’d be searching, thier in there.

I’ve fished that spot twice now, and was really surprised the first time at the depth in there. Flasher was showing around 12′ near the deadfalls, and there’s a lot of old timber sticking up through the ice. Cought a couple of decent crappies, but couldn’t believe the size of the gills people were wrenching out of there. Saw a guy pull about a 2lb cat through the ice once also.

Wonder if the pike make their way in there as well?

hey john, get ahold of me and i’ll tell you a sleeper on where to catch pike that go 20 pounds right on the cedar and its in town!