Iowa Bass Fishing Report

Andy Craig and I decided to do some leisure bass fishing this evening. Both of us have been really busy with work these past couple of weeks. We haven’t been able to pattern much of anything with very limited fishing time, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.

The water temp was hovering around 78-80 degrees. Usually for me, this means a top water bite. We both threw top water buzz baits, Mann’s hard nose frogs, Reaction Innovations frogs, poppers, all with very limited success. Andy and I both switched over to plastics, and concentrated on weed edges. Some weeds held fish, but they were spread out. We moved around quite a bit, and finally found a nice drop off, with a ton of weeds, with a nice weed less pocket nearby. The fish were stacked in this area. The most consistent baits were tubes, power-worms, brush hogs, and creature style baits. The best colors were anything in a bluegill pattern. I believe the bass are exclusively feeding on the bluegills right now. We did catch fish, on other color presentations, but the bluegill pattern held the most consistent.

To be honest, we almost struck out this evening. It is times like these, when you have to really pick your brain, and go against memories, and find a way to catch fish. A lot of fisherman, myself included, like to fish memories. Such as last June, with this water temp, I caught the majority of my fish on top waters. That wasn’t working tonight, so we had to adjust. We really had to adjust with our presentations. Normally, I like to fish plastics Texas rigged with weight. Tonight, that was not working. Why? My guess would be it was falling to fast. We took off the weights, and let the baits fall slowly. That was the key, and fish started reacting. We had to go against two "normal givens". One, fishing on top, and second, fishing plastics with weight.

We managed to catch many nice fish, but no big fish. We each had a few that felt like big fish, but were lost in the weeds.

From the weather, it looks like Iowa, will be receiving a very mild temperature week. This will make for excellent time spent on the water. If you get the chance take a kid, or family member fishing! All fish were released to be caught another day!

Good Luck! Stay safe, and we’ll see you on the water!