7/30 Report

Sorry for the late post, but friday evening my dad, 9yr old nephew and I headed to the wapsi. Water cond. were steady and color was good. My dad went to the head of a hole and my nephew and I to the back. All said and done my dad caught a 10# cat on a blade bait, nephew 2 smallmouth on shad rap and I got 6 eyes(3 eaters) and a northern on a black jig.
They were where the hole starts to come up onto a shallow riffle. You had to gently let the jig swep in the current, just ticking the top of the rocks. Anything else they wouldn’t touch, sort of like trout fishing, had to look natural. 1/16 oz jig with a black twister worked best for me. Good Fishing
To bad we had a monsoon this morning.

Picked up a couple more small eyes and a smallmouth the 12th, all released.The walleyes wouldn’t touch nothing but the black jig again the smallie tackled a fat rap.Water color looked good, and seems to be steady again.
I used my belly boat for the first time in moving water, worked pretty good.I am looking forward to using it more this fall in a couple holes.Anyways Good fishing.

Whereabout’s you fishing? No specifics, just maybe the dams you’re between. I used to fish the Wapsi a lot, but haven’t much this year. Of all the rivers here in NE Iowa, my most consistent success has been on the Wapsi, save maybe smallie fishing on the Maquoketa.

This spring was the first time I’ve ever pulled a keeper-sized ‘eye from the wapsi though, hopefully things keep getting better. Lots of good places to catfish on that river too, some bigguns in there if you know where to look.

i was fishing the dam below anamosa today at around 5:30 am and saw 3 walleye caught anywhere from they were around 14inches…i picked up some jig heads at teh local bait shop and heard that a guy had brought in about a 5lber, now i didnt see it. thats what i heard.

A fish that big is believable. I remember reading that a few odd years back they changed their stocking practices and essentially were loading up a lot of the interior rivers with walleyes. The survey results were already showing improved success, which is great news for us Iowans.

After they put the fish ladder in at Quasky, I heard that the intent was to re-introduce saugers to the interior rivers as well. Apparently there is ample evidence that at one time most of the larger interior rivers were teeming with saugs, but poor soil conservation practices and heavy runoff essentially killed them off.

Hopefully those days are behind us now and we can get down to some seroius fishing.

oh, it is definitely believable i caught one last fall that was 25.5 inches long and one this spring that was 26.5 that was at the 26.5 was caught in anamosa, the 25.5 was caught outside of wyoming. both were released.

Sorry been away. I’ve been fishing below the dam in Independence in a couple places. The future looks real good, just have to let some of them grow . There are some nice fish in there like you said. I’ve seen an increase in the walleye pop. in the Cedar also.