Fall in my neck of the woods can only mean one thing, small water, small boats, and the potential for excellent fishing wihtout fighting the crowd. I was fortunate enough to spend a day on the water with each of my two best friends this past week.
On Monday I shared the boat with my good friend Joe Behounek. Our program for this day was pretty simple. We targeted a sand/boulder transition in about eight feet of water, anchoring above the hole and pitching jigs/plastics to the bank and out to the channel. One critical thing to note in finding fish is that our fish were definitely relating to slacker current areas, I didn’t get bit if I couldn’t hold the bottom with a 1/4 oz. jig. Day one yielded several nice walleyes, but the real story of the day was a pod of wintering smallies that we stumbled upon! These gals were fat, sassy, and willing to eat just about anything that got in their way. All of the fish this day were taken pitching BFT ringworms and paddle tails, with the best colors being firecracker chartreuse and purple chartreuse.
Tuesday I got to spend the afternoon with fellow IDA’er Nick Harrison to give his new river boat a workout. We followed pretty well the same method as the day before, and again the fish didn’t disappoint. The only difference to note, is that Nick caught most of his fish pitching jigs and minnows. The smallies were present again in several of the spots we fished, and the walleyes really put on a show at dark! What a great way to spend the last day of a three day weekend!
I think that the best part of my two days fishing this week was that I never saw another boat, Iowa guys, these fish are out there for the takin’ with very little competition, so get after them, the bite will only improve through the winter months! As mentioned before, these fish were really willing to bite, and the afternoon low light period was definitely the best, so it should be perfect for those guys who have a couple hours after work. Get out and make that rod bend!
Here’s a couple more smallmouth pics!
Great report Sean.
Those are some thick fish! 
Way to pin em down Sean! Nice report
Good to see you getting out down that way
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Nice report
Nice fish Sean. Thanks for the report.
Thanks, Bill
Great first report as IDA’s newest Staffer Sean!!!
Nice report Sean!
Reminds me of days gone by when I was much younger and could only afford a canoe.
Boog
Sean,
Great report and dandy smallies.
I don’t know anything about the Ceder River. Sounds like it’s small but how about it’s depth structure and flow?
John
John, the depth in my stretch of the river is minimal, we don’t see much deeper than about ten feet. Structure is also pretty minimal, occasional rock bars and boulder fields, otherwise it’s all sand. Flow, on the other hand is plentiful, the Cedar is a chute style river, which makes the very few slack water areas available very important, I really think that’s why the smallies are so stacked up, we caught about a dozen 16 plus inch bronzebacks in two days, and this isn’t a premier smallmouth fishery, also reminding me, I know IA has no closed season, but please practice selective harvest this time of year, this is the first year in the last five that we’ve seen good bass populations again, let ’em go and let ’em grow guys, it’s too easy to pillage a resource this time of year, and then we have to deal with years like those previous when we struggled to find a smallie over 12″
Love the smallies!! Great report!
Sean,
Sounds like a challenging fishery. Your success points to how diverse our fisheries are, and how well rounded In-depth’s staff is. Well done!
Great Report Sean!
Nice report Sean!
…now…what about the Cats!
Great report, Sean
Very nice looking smallies and eyes. Is the Cedar running at a normal level for this time of year or is it still a bit high? The Iowa is still high but coming down and getting close to normal.
Nice job Sean
Glad your wetting a line….ice is coming.