West Okoboji Iowa Bass Fishing Report for 08.11.06

<!–IMG_MARK–> The smallmouth bass bite continues on West Okoboji this week. I had an opportunity to slip away for a couple hours at a time each day while my wife and daughter hit the beach. In the early morning, the bite was slow on the rocky points, pitching plastics at various depths, trying to find active smallies. The rocky point bite just wasn’t there so I decided to move into the bays. The skies began hazy and foggy in the morning, but began to clear as the clock ticked toward 10am. The bass finally began to hit!

I was anxious to get a top water bite going. I was mainly throwing Pop-Rs and Bass Pro Slim Dogs. Both worked, but the edge went to the Pop-R in fire tiger. Topwaters produced some decent numbers, but nothing of much size with the largest topwater smallie being about 15 inches. I also had some luck pitching 6-inch glow sticks in chartruese pepper and watermelonseed/purple flake. Five-inch Yamasenkos in watermelon with red and green flake also produced some decent fish, but again no bigger smallies.

In the evening hours, I went back to searching for smallies on the rocky points. My favorite technique for fishing smallies on the rocks is the good ol’ tube bait. On this outing, Berkley Power Tubes, Chompers, and Team Supreme Tubes all produced well, with the edge going to the Team Supreme Tournament Tube in Green Pumpkin with Red Flake. But all the tubes in the green color spectrum took bass, including watermelon. The tubes finally got me into some smallies in that 16 to 18 inch range!

Fishing tubes on the rocks, I hit water as shallow as 3 feet and only went as deep as 7-8 feet before I stopped get hits. I tried to get these active bass to hit topwater baits, but on this evening they wanted nothing to do with topwater baits. Senkos, Glow Sticks, and Berkley Sinking Minnows all fished weightless, and generally fished wacky worm style, all produced smallies on the rocks and in the bays as well. In fact, the most productive method for fishing these plastics was wacky style. It makes sense, since these particular bass (in the rocks) also wanted the tubes fished relatively slow.

If you’re in Northwest Iowa or just want to get in on some of this excellent smallie fishing, give Ryan Hale a call. He can set you up with lodging at Harbor View Resort and he can tell you where the fish are biting as well.